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Clay Travis (2:41)

Clay and Buck starts now. We are joined now by James Blair, White House deputy chief of staff, AKA the Oracle, joining us now. All right, so that's a pretty cool nickname. And and I imagine that doesn't stink to be the White House chief of staff deputy. That is the known as the or. So let me ask you for your predictions Oracle on how the big beautiful bill is going to go and what should this audience know about it from your perspective?

Colby Ekowitz (3:15)

Appreciate that. Good to be with you guys. I think that the big beautiful bill will get out of the House this week. I think that obviously if it gets out of the House this week, then it will go over to the Senate. They'll work on it for a few weeks and the goal is to get it on the president's decks by July 4th, which I think will happen. Look, we've got to get this done. This bill has so much to love, guys. First of all, let's talk about the border first and foremost, which nobody's talking about anymore because the president has driven illegal border crossings to zero since he came into office. But this bill funds Border enforcement, adds 10,000 new ICE officers, gives them pay raises, gives us everything we need logistically to not only keep the border secure for the president's entire term in office so we don't have to come back and do this again, but also to deport people and get millions of illegal immigrants out of this country, which is something that a majority of the American people support. Secondarily, it gives us the funding we need for our military. You know that the president is involved in complex negotiations across the globe to bring peace that's backed up through strength and it gives us the funding to modernize our military and make sure it's the most lethal fighting force in the world for the foreseeable future. But then the big thing that it does that everyone's talking about is the tax cuts. This renews the president's historic tax cut from 2017 that was the biggest in history and then adds more taxes on top everything he campaigned on. No tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime pay. It will be the single largest tax cut for middle and working class Americans in the history of the country. And it will do that while still generating more than a trillion dollars right now, $1.7 trillion in savings for the American taxpayer, which is twice as much savings that has ever been delivered by Congress in the last 30 years. And that was almost 30 years ago under Bill Cl. So we're getting the country's fiscal house in order, we're giving people money back in their pocket that they earned. We're deregulating, we're unleashing energy, we're securing the border, we're rebuilding the military. We're doing what President Trump campaigned on, plain and simple. So there's still some little issues being worked out with a few guys at the edges. But in the big picture, I think we're right on track and I think we'll get everybody there.

Buck Sexton (5:31)

James, appreciate you being with us and certainly a lot to be excited about that is in this bill. For those who are concerned about the debt, who want the spirit and action of Doge to be enshrined in some way in this bill, what do you say to them and what can we point to that deals with getting that fiscal house in order, not just for this year, but in the longer term?

Colby Ekowitz (5:59)

Yeah, great question. Well, first of all, it's important to note that this is by far the biggest savings, which I mentioned a minute ago. But let's put some points on it. Back in, back when Bill Clinton was president, Congress passed a package that saved like $800 billion in spending cuts. Okay. This one's looking like 1.6, 1.7 currently. No, still be, you know, iterated on a little bit as it goes through the Senate and everything, but more than double, okay? Congress literally has not done anything like that in over 30 years. So right there, those are the biggest savings that we've ever seen. We're doing something called rescissions, which is the stuff that Doge just found, this bad stuff. We go out, the Congress votes on it, and what's called a rescissions package, that's actually separate from this bill, but then it permanently pulls out that stuff out of the budget. Okay? There's savings. And then in that. And then, you know, what's not counted in this bill, and it's just a stupid quirk of how legislative scoring works, is tariff revenue. The President is bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars of tariff revenue right now. And that money's not being spent, okay? That money's not being spent in the big beautiful bill or anything else. That's just money. In the treasury that goes straigh to deficit reduction. So sometimes, you know, when they call it the Congressional Budget Office, which kind of puts out the charge, they're not being honest because they don't add in the tariff revenue and some of the rescissions and the different things that are happening. So you're not really seeing the full picture. But the fact is this is a huge step in the right direction for getting the country on a better fiscal footing and we're unlocking growth. You know, there's three things we have to do really to get to a balanced budget, which the president hopes to achieve at some point before he leaves office. But you know, at least in the foreseeable future, we've got to grow, okay? We've got to unleash our economy. We do that through tax cuts. We do that through deregulation. We do that through getting government out of the way. We're doing that right. That's partly the President, partly Congress, partly Doge, all of those things combined. Second, we got to do spending reductions. I already told you the historic nature of those spending reductions that we're doing. And then the third thing is we've just got to deregulate and we've got to bring more jobs in. And ultimately, you know, in 2017, we actually collected more money in taxes, which improved the fiscal picture as a result of the tax cuts than we would have if we didn't have the tax cuts. That's because more jobs were created, more people were paying taxes. So we've got to add revenue, the tariffs are doing that. We've got to cut taxes, we've got to cut regulation, unlock the economy through growth. We're doing that. And then we've got to do spending reductions. It's going to take all three of those things, concerted effort over a period of time. But if we just stick through it here and we are able to do it for four years instead of two, which means we have to win the House majority back in the midterms, then we'll be able to really be on a great sustainable fiscal path. So I think we're on the path, but you know, it's not all going to be done in one bill. We're going to have to do a couple. And this is a monumental first step, way bigger than anyone expected months ago. So we're really proud of that and we just got to get it done.

Clay Travis (9:04)

We're talking to James Blair, White House Deputy Chief of Staff. You mentioned the border. I also think this is important. And the tax Cuts expire. So for people out there who don't realize this, what happens if the bill doesn't pass?

Colby Ekowitz (9:18)

Well, if this bill doesn't pass, first of all, economic forecasters are said we're going into a recession because taxes are going to go through the roof. All of these tax cuts we passed in 2017 will go away at the end of this year, okay? So the average family is going to pay thousands more in taxes. If the bill doesn't pass next year, businesses are going to pay thousands more in taxes. We're not going to have the money to secure our border. Okay? All of these terrible things are going to happen. It'll be the largest tax hike in history if this bill doesn't. So that's just not an option. Right. If we don't extend the debt ceiling, the country is going to default on its debt, which could drive us into a global depression.

Jay Feely (9:57)

Right?

Colby Ekowitz (9:57)

This is not our fault. This is Joe Biden's fault. We're just here cleaning up the mess and that's what we have to do. It's not anything anybody wants to do. It's something that we have to do. The country can't default on its debt or people would pay the price in a massive way I don't think any of us can even fathom. And then on the border, look, we've got to ultimately have money to pay for planes and law enforcement to get people out of the country. And that money is coming in this bill, and that is such a critical piece. Everyone needs to understand that illegal immigrants in this country level that Joe Biden brought in are a huge drain on our system. When you talk about the spending, I mean, hundreds of billions of dollars being caused by illegal immigrants being in this country and being on public programs are in place for American citizens when we get them out of the country, that's actually going to lower our spending levels massively without doing a single thing. One of the changes in the big beautiful bill will be getting millions of illegal immigrants off of Medicaid. Okay? They're costing Medicaid billions of dollars a year. So these open borders that we have, we have to not only have the border secure, but we got to get these people out so they stop draining our public resources. All of this stuff has to work together to get our country on the right fiscal path forward.

Buck Sexton (11:17)

Appreciate you being with us. Thank you so much for giving us some of the details on the big beautiful bill. What can you give us a sense as to what you what this announcement is supposed to be about? The golden Dome.

Colby Ekowitz (11:31)

I'm going to let the President break that news, but it's very exciting stuff. Look, the President and something he's talked about for a long time. The President wants to make make sure the homeland is secure. He wants to make sure that other countries are deterred from ever thinking about even even remotely thinking about attacking our country. So it's all part of his vision of having the most lethal fighting force in the world. And that is what really gives us the leverage to sit at the table and demand peace not only for ourselves and our allies, but everywhere across the globe. And the world has been better off when America has been strong in the world. And that is part and parcel. Having a strong military is part and parcel of that effort. Peace through strength.

Clay Travis (12:12)

Thank you so much for the time. Keep up the good work and we'll talk to you again soon.

Colby Ekowitz (12:17)

Thank you guys.

Clay Travis (12:19)

That's James Blair, White House Deputy Chief of Staff.

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Clay Travis (16:51)

You're listening to team 47 with Clay and Buck. We head up to Capitol Hill now to be joined by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Senator, we saw the big beautiful bill passed by one vote in the House, 215 to 214. I believe it is now on to the United States Senate. What happens there now? What should we know about what the process is in the Senate? What you want to see.

Rand Paul (17:20)

You know, there's some good and some bad to the bill. The good is the tax cuts. You know, I supported these in 2017. Some of them will be making permanent and some of them will be adding to. I'm very supportive of that. I'm supportive of spending cuts. I think the spending cuts are wimpy, anemic and unfortunately won't do much to change the course of the country towards a more fiscal, fiscally responsible path. The thing I really object to, though, and that prevents me from supporting it at this point, is that it adds either 4 or 5 trillion, depending on which version you look at, to the debt ceiling. This will be an historic increase in the debt ceiling. We've never added this much at one time and frankly, conservatives have never voted for these things. Typically, they've been passed by Democrats and sort of the big government Republicans are forced to get together. I always called it a day of shame. They had to go down in the well and admit that their big spending plans had caused the debt to rise alarmingly. But now it's conservatives voting for it. And my fear is that this will be the end of fiscal conservatism here and in the country because there's very few, I mean, there were one or two in the House that opposed this because the debt grows too much. Right now, it's just me in the Senate. And it's not because I oppose Donald Trump or not because I oppose the tax cuts or any of the spending cuts. But I just don't think we should be the party that raises the debt ceiling $5 trillion. You know, come, come September, the deficit this year is going to be about 2.2 trillion. That's all Republican. Now, because Republicans have voted for these spending levels, they're anticipating 2.8 to 3 trillion. That's just not conservative. And somebody's got to be left in the country who will speak truth to power that will say, basically, we are supposed to be the Conservative Party.

Buck Sexton (19:07)

Senator Paul, are we at a point where we just need to be honest as a country that if there is no political will to change, alter whatever somebody wants to say about it? Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, maybe really just Medicare in that, in that equation. And defense spending's not going to get cut. If anything, it's going to go up. We're not going to tackle the debt, right? I mean, is that mathematically what we are stuck with? Is there some other way? I just worry that this is. You know, I remember when you came in on the Tea Party wave. We've been talking about this issue for a long time. There's a bit of fatigue over, guys, the debt bomb is ticking. The debt bomb is ticking. And everyone goes, oh, my gosh, let's do something about it. You go, okay, maybe we need to reform entitlements. They go, you're out of office.

Rand Paul (19:57)

Yeah, well, you know, I've been pretty honest with it, you know, since I was elected. When I was running for office the first time I said, Social Security's running out of money, so is Medicare, and we're living longer. We're gonna have to gradually raise the age of eligibility. And I would laughingly say, you know, people would say, do you hate old people? And I say, no, I aspire to be an old person. You know, I'm on my way. I, you know, want to collect my Social Security, my Medicare. And so in order to save these systems, they have to be reformed. But when we take them off the table and we present deficits as big as the Biden deficits are bigger, we're just as guilty. We no longer can point to them and say, oh, these are the Biden deficits or the Biden placement that came from the deficits. We'll be looking in the mirror because we'll have the responsibility now. And I just. I think there still needs to be a conservative resistance against big spending and against debt. And it is important. Our interest rates, about a trillion dollars. Our interest payments, about a trillion dollars a year. But interest rates are still edging up, you know, the interest rate for 30 years at 5%. So we are gradually turning over into a higher interest rate, and it's going to crowd out all spending. At some point in time. The deficit for this year will equal the budget. Congress votes on a discretionary budget of about 1.8 to $2 trillion. That's equal to the deficit, which means 100% of the budget we vote on will be borrowed this year. So this should not be about allegiance to Donald Trump. I like the president, I voted for him, I support him and I'm with him on so many things. His cabinet, maha movement, all that stuff. But it doesn't mean we should quit being fiscally conservative and asking the difficult questions about are we for big debt or are we not for it? Are we, are we different than the Democrats when it comes to deficit spending? And right now we're looking kind of like the Democrats as far as a result.

Clay Travis (21:44)

We're talking to Senator Rand Paul. I want to build on what Buck said, cuz I do think it's interesting the Tea Party movement started. You can correct me if I'm wrong because I may be a little bit off, but I think I'm right. When under Obama, the national debt approached 10 trillion. Since that time we have nearly quadrupled the national debt because it's rapidly approaching 40 trillion. And as you just laid out, you know, we're headed for 50 trillion, 60 trillion. And it just feels like Buck and I talk about this sometimes on the program because we see the responses when we bring it up, you say, hey, this is unsustainable. People say, well, you should just cut cost. The problem is if you look at the basic math of what Medicare cost, of what Social Security cost, what the debt cost, and I don't think most people want to replace national defense even though now we're spending more money servicing the debt on interest than we are in national defense. That eliminates about 86% ish of the overall budget. Even if you cut every other part of the budget, you're still going to, as you just laid out, end up in a deficit situation. To me, the only possible solution is you have to address entitlement spending in a significant way. And you know this better than anybody. It seems like 95% of politicians just say, hey, I got to get elected in two years. Hey, I got to get elected in four years, six years, whatever it is, we'll just kick the can down the road and pretend that the looming debt crisis doesn't actually exist.

Rand Paul (23:21)

We know one of the reasons we put forward the penny plan budget to balance the budget is to illustrate that it can be done and it can be done by cutting only a few percentage points, but you have to cut a few percentage points of everything. So when I started proposing this 10 years ago, spending wasn't nearly as bad. But it was headed in the wrong direction 10 years ago. You could freeze spending, just don't increase spending. Spend the same amount each year for five years and the budget would balance. Then a couple years later, we called it the penny plan. You had to cut 1% across the board of everything on budget to balance the budget, to balance the annual budget. Then it became the two penny plan. Then Covid hit and it became the six penny plan. And so that's about where we are right now. You'd have to cover 6% across the board. But I tell people, look way, if you still had 94%, let's say your big deal is your mother and grandmother had Alzheimer's disease. You want the government to do research. So they come into me, they all wear purple ribbons and I have great deal of sympathy. I have family members who have had this and I say to them, well, you know, we're short of money and you got 100 million last year. Could you, could you live with 94 million this year? And every one of them, they're, they're tearful, thinking about their loved ones or talking about something very personal to them. And they look at me and they say, well, sure, if the country's short of money, we could do with 94 million. And see, that would be the same truth of everybody. Everybody would just have to deal with $94 out of 100. And it would be less about eliminating anything to anyone but cutting everybody to 6% and just saying, we've got to do it. You do it for a couple years, we balance. The country begins to grow, receipts grow again, and actually government spending could gradually go up after a while. But I don't know, I'm not afraid to do it. And I don't know that I'm any less popular than I was when I ran. You know, I got 62% of the vote last time in a state that has a significant population that's dependent on government. And I have great sympathy for them and I want them all to do better. And I say, I don't want to cut you off Medicaid. I want to get you private health insurance with a private job and better payment. And so, I don't know, I think people do understand it, if you're sincere. I think a lot of the people that are weasely and waffley and never really commit one way or the other and then go home and tell everybody there for a balanced budget. This is a problem with Republicans. It's going to, they're going to lose face and they're going to lose any semblance of sincerity because they're going to go home to the Chamber of Commerce and to the Rotary and talk about balanced budgets next year or this summer. And yet the deficit is going to be 2.2 trillion and all of it is responsible to Republicans. Now. This is no longer the Biden deficit. This will be the GOP deficit. And in the next two years they're going to borrow $5 trillion. Somebody's got to stand up and shout no.

Buck Sexton (26:00)

Well, Senator Paul, at least down the line, if this doesn't stop, you'll be able to look at all of us when we're facing a true financial crisis and say, I did tell you guys this was coming. So I know that won't. That will be cold comfort. But you're very much on the record with this one. I worry that American politics have unfortunately gotten on this unstoppable amusement park ride and we're going to run out of track. But anyway, I also wanted to ask you something. Well, actually, no, this is very serious too. I was, I was gonna say go to a lighter direction, but no, not really. What you're finding about, or what we're all finding out about, really, the, the new version of how the Democrats viewed Biden during the election, this book that's come out, all of this stuff, where do you come, I mean, as a doctor as well as somebody who's in politics at a high level. I mean, nobody's really supposed to believe that your Democrat colleagues in the Senate didn't know Biden wasn't all there. Right?

Clay Travis (26:56)

Or what?

Rand Paul (26:58)

No. This is really shocking. You're going to discover, can you believe it? That Biden was actually mentally impaired and no one knew about it until wrote his book. This is just shocking. I mean, what great reporting. Tapper has revealed that President Biden was missing a step or two. No, I mean, everybody saw it from miles away. The shuffling gate, the absent stare, the, you know, looking one way, looking for people, never really certain of where he was, then the rambling, incoherent sentences. So, you know, if it were just someone you knew, you'd feel sorry for them. But if it were my loved one, I would be mad at the family for putting something like that out. I think actually one of the most insulting things was Jimmy Carter's family. As Jimmy Carter was dying and really not conscious, they rolled him out for display of the cameras after having just voted. And it's a sad time. Look, Jimmy Carter wasn't a great president. He was a great humanitarian. I think and not a bad person after the presidency, he should have been remembered for that. And instead I can't shake the image of, you know, his mouth open, unconscious, and his idiot family parading him out there in front of cameras to say, just voted. You know, that's kind of what they did to Biden for four years. And it would have been much better. And, you know, he could have been remembered, you know, I guess, at least just for being a crook, you know, as a vice president instead of, you know, being a bumbling president.

Clay Travis (28:23)

Do you believe that they found out on Friday that he had stage four cancer?

Rand Paul (28:30)

You know, maybe. And I don't really fault people as much for this. If you've looked into prostate cancer and a lot of men have looked into the pros and cons of the blood testing, it really has evolved and changed a lot. So they used to have everybody at 40 start taking a PSA, but then they started finding elevated PSAs and people having their prostates removed, which is not a benign receiver procedure. And it's sort of unclear whether they were early cancers. It might have stayed hidden for dozens of years. And so the numbers of surgeries have skyrocketed. Then they decided after 70, you're more likely to die from something else. They say, don't take the PSA at all. And so it's weird because we all have this mortality and we like, I'm 71, feel pretty healthy. I think I should get a PSA or I'm 82 and feel healthy. Maybe I'll get a PSA or maybe I'll just roll the dice. I'm getting older, I'm going to die from something. So these are, they're difficult and personal decisions. So I don't fault him for any of that. And I think there is a chance he didn't know. They said he got a PSA that was probably normal back when he was 71. And it's a slow going cancer. And there's, you know, he's 82 or 83. And, you know, the downside to the surgeries are a lot of different side effects from the surgery. The surgery is not a perfect surgery by any means. And so, I don't know, I guess I don't fault him because I think the decision making process is a very personal one that a lot of men are having to go through. And really it's not an easy one because it's not.

Buck Sexton (29:53)

Can I ask you really quickly about Dr. Paul or Senator Paul? Dr. Paul, my own father, by the way, had to go through this. So a lot of us listening, it's very personal and exactly what you're talking about. But why is this happening to so many? This is. We're now at a point where men are being told something like, what, 70% or 80% of them will have some form of prostate cancer. This can't be normal. Do you have any working theory as to what's going on?

Rand Paul (30:19)

It actually is kind of normal. They've done a natural study of the natural course of the disease. And when they do autopsies of men in their 70s who die for other reasons, you just die. And they take 100 people who died, and they look at the prostates. It is like 70% of them have cancer in the prostate, but never had any symptoms. It didn't spread anywhere in their body, and they died from something else. That's why it's a difficult decision. If it were just a breast biopsy or a lumpectomy that they did to the prostate, you didn't have to worry about all the other possible problems. It wouldn't be such a big deal. But since the surgery is a pretty dramatic thing, you obviously don't want to do the surgery on people who don't need to have it.

Buck Sexton (30:57)

So 100 years ago, we think as many men were having this issue as today. I'm asking. Honestly, I have no idea.

Rand Paul (31:03)

Yeah, probably. But 100 years ago, you know, the average life expectancy was 45. And so as we live longer, there's going to be a lot more people with it. But it's even worse than that. They apparently have done autopsy studies of men who die in their 20s, and I've seen at least one report saying 8% of men in their 20s already have a form of prostate cancer. So that makes you wonder if it's more hyperplasia or something that's not quite cancer, and that maybe our grading system needs to be better refined to figure out when we need to do surgery and when we don't. So it is a complicated subject. And I guess I don't fault him for it because, look, he's 82 and he's had 12 years without having to deal with any of the symptoms of having the surgery. And I don't know. I don't know what would have been better, and nobody really. I don't know. There's a lot of ifs, ands, or buts about how to make the decision. The guy that invented the PSA was a test, was a chairman of the department at Stanford for many years, and he finally came to the conclusion at the end that PSA is also related to a benign enlargement of the prostate as well as cancer. And it's difficult to distinguish because men's prostate gets bigger over time. And that's why most older men have trouble with urinary symptoms. But it's not all cancer. A lot of it's benign. And because the surgery is involved, you gotta decide, do I want to, you know, do I want to watch it? Do I want to do surgery? And it's. It's a difficult decision for a lot of men.

Buck Sexton (32:26)

Senator Paul, Dr. Paul wearing both hats today for us. Thank you so much for coming on the show, sir.

Rand Paul (32:32)

Thank you.

Clay Travis (32:33)

This is team 47 with Clay and Buck. We head out to the state of Arizona. What's going to be a major battleground, as it always has been the past several cycles, but certainly in 2026, opportunity to replace the governor there. A big battle going on over who the representative will be and wanting to go to D.C. friend of the show, Jay Feely, Arizona's 5th congressional district. Jay Feely, many of you know, played in the NFL 14 years, has been also 10 years as an NFL analyst with CBS. And what's this stat? It's pretty cool stats. Pat Summerall is the only kicker to be in the broadcast booth more than you doing NFL games. Is that. I mean, everybody knows Pat Summerall is the legendary co host of John Madden back in the day, but also a lot of people don't realize this. Pat Summerall, father of Susie Wiles, who is now the chief of staff in Trump Administration 2.0. Tying it all together there for you, Jay.

Jay Feely (33:39)

Yeah, just an honor to be even mentioned with Pat Summerall because he is such a legend and, you know, very cool to see what Susie is doing with, with President Trump and how respected she is. You know, we've gotten to know each other a couple times with St. Jude because I've done a lot with St. Jude. I had a niece of mine who has gone twice to St. Jude Hospital to have surgery on her cancer, and they were amazing to her. And so I've supported them and Susie has as well. So they give away the Pat Summerall award every year. But excited for my opportunity to run for office, I just felt like this was the time I had said no for a few years. And to be honest and candid, I love my job. I love doing NFL games and calling games and being in the booth and getting to do all the production meetings and sit down with coaches and players and work for five months and Then having seven months off, but really felt called my wife and I did that this was the time for us to serve our country.

Buck Sexton (34:36)

Jay, thank you for being on the show and appreciate that you've decided that you are, or you have been called, perhaps a better way of putting it, to put your hat in the ring to be a member of our illustrious, well, Congress. Some days it's illustrious, some days we feel like it's letting us down a little bit. But we know you'll do a great job if you get there, and it's all looking good for you in that respect so far. How do you feel? Where do you fit in? Or what's your put it? I'll put it this way. What is your relationship to Maga, Jay, and the movement that has become really the leadership, the tip of the spear for the Republican Party?

Jay Feely (35:14)

Well, I've supported President Trump for a long time, ever since he first ran for office. We got to know each other when I was with the jets, playing for the jets, and he, he wasn't running for office yet himself. We were just doing some charity events together with his foundation. And, you know, I really was impressed with just who he was and his willingness to serve. He didn't have to run for office. You know, he's wealthy and rich and famous and doing his TV shows. And he decided that he wanted to try to make this country better, similar to what I feel. And I think, you know, the things that we believe in economically, free markets and less taxes and equal opportunity and limited government, the need to balance the budget, you know, those are all things that I want to try to do and be an advocate for in Congress.

Clay Travis (36:01)

Jay, I'm curious, in your experience, Trump 1.0, you said you were a Trump guy. It was the case that if you were in sports media, people wanted you to keep your head down and not acknowledge that you were a Trump guy. Trump 2.0 now Politico's got a huge story about it today. The sports world loves Trump. What do you think has changed? Do you think it's just a function of people are being more honest now? Do you think it was the Biden term was so bad? You've been a Trump guy for a while. What's different as it pertains to the culture? Whether it's Christian Pulisic, Jon Jones, the cheering at the Super bowl, what is going on that sports fans and Trump are now in love with each other?

Jay Feely (36:45)

I think you kind of hit the nail on the head there. I think part of it was he was labeled A racist when he was running, you know, in 2016. But I think when you look at his administration and Biden's administration and the differences and what happened to our country, I think people got frustrated with COVID when we lost our. Our liberties. I think they saw the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party when you had the BLM riots and the response to destruction of people's property and their businesses and murders. I think when you look at the DEI policies and the transgender policies and guys playing and girls sports, I think people have rejected that. And I.

Clay Travis (37:26)

Let me. Let me cut you off there for a sec, because I think as a locker room guy, I had this. We had this conversation with the HUD secretary last week, and I think it's important. What percentage of NFL players, current and past, do you think believe that men should be able to compete against women?

Jay Feely (37:46)

I would say it's under 5%. I think it's a very, very low number. I think anybody who has a sister and watch their sisters play sports or myself with my daughters. The reason I got into coaching, like, there was not a girls soccer team at the high school that my daughter was going to go to. And I said, well, that's ridiculous. We have to have a girls soccer team. And they were like, well, we need a coach. And I said, well, I'll coach the team, you know, and to provide that opportunity, I love what sports does to develop discipline and toughness and camaraderie and fighting for something that's greater than yourself. Those are all lessons that you learn in sports to carry on the rest of your lives. And. And I never want to see a girl not have an opportunity because some guy decides I want to take my physical and biological advantages and go play a sport that I know that physically I'm better. Or, you know, I'll give you another example. Like, we would play because I wanted our girls to win a state championship. So we're going to practice against our guys team. That was really good. But I would sit down beforehand with the guys coach and all the players on the guys team and be like, listen, you can't go in for tackle. Full speed against our growth. I don't want somebody getting hurt in this practice. I want your speed and your power to stretch them and to push them, but I don't want them getting injured. And that's the kind of situation they create when you have girls competing again or guys competing against girls in a physical sport.

Buck Sexton (39:08)

Yeah, no, absolutely. Jay, I'm wondering. I've never actually. I don't think I've ever gotten to talk to an NFL kicker before. Certainly not one of your, of your stature. I'm, I'm sort of. And I, I'm a very casual observer of professional sports. I'm not at clay level where it is a life's passion. Not, not, not by a long shot. But I do wonder and knowing what I know about this and having actually beaten most of the Amherst College men's football team at Madden, because I was good at video games and we would have tournaments when I was in college and you were a fantastic kicker, that's what I remember. I probably won some money off some of my friends thanks to your legs. Like, is being a kicker in the NFL the greatest job in the NFL or the most stressful job in the NFL? Cause on the one hand I think you get to make great money, right? And this stuff is all pretty well known. You make great money as a professional athlete and you get to put points on the board and the team has to love you. But also like if you hit the upright and you don't get. Might be a lonely ride back on the bus. Like how, how should one think about that?

Jay Feely (40:11)

Well, I would say punter is a better job than kicker because if you have four out of five good punts in a game, you're going to have a good game. It's okay if you didn't have one great punt as long as they don't return it for a touchdown. Whereas kicking, you know, you can only miss three or four kicks in a year to have a good year where they're not going to look at replacing you. And those kicks be game winning kicks. Like you can't come in and miss a couple game winners and a team and a fan base not think about replacing you. And that's kind of the reality of kicking. You have to be able to handle pressure and you have to be able to handle failure, you know, and that was probably my greatest attribute. I wasn't, I couldn't kick it the farthest. I wasn't the best, I wasn't the most accurate, but I could handle failure. And it didn't defeat me, didn't break me going forward, you know. And when I got to the point in my career where I was like, okay, I failed as bad as I could fail, Saturday Live did a spoof about me called the Jay Feely Story, the Long Ride Home and it didn't break me, that allowed me to be a lot better because I started losing some of that fear of failure and just having fun out there. And then the next nine years after that skit, I didn't miss another game winner.

Clay Travis (41:19)

What is it like as a kicker to be mocked on Saturday Night Live?

Buck Sexton (41:23)

I didn't know about that.

Clay Travis (41:24)

I had no idea about any either.

Jay Feely (41:26)

Yeah, so I missed three game winners with the. With the Giants out of Seattle late in the season, one at the end of the game, two in overtime. Obviously the worst game of my career. And, you know, the next. Next week I'm getting ready to. We're going to play Philadelphia. It's Saturday night. I'm trying to go to sleep. I'm trying not to lose my job the next day. And I get a bunch of text messages and they're like, dude, they're killing you on Saturday Night Live right now. And of course, I didn't look at it or watch it. I go play the game the next day at Philadelphia. We go to overtime again. I got a game winner again. And they call timeout to ice me. And they play a montage of my misses on the Jumbotron in the stadium from the. From the game where I missed all the game winners. And you're sitting there. And that's where mental discipline comes in because you can't let your mind wander. You know, if you miss this kick, you're probably going to lose your job, your kids are going to have to change schools, you're going to have to sell the house and move. You don't know if you'll ever have a job in the NFL again. But you can't let your mind think about those things. You have to discipline it.

Buck Sexton (42:25)

It.

Jay Feely (42:26)

To not allow it to wander, to either think about the positive implications or the negative implications. And I think that's the challenge with kicking. It's why you see guys that are really good one year and then have a really bad miss and then can never do it again.

Clay Travis (42:39)

Did you make the kick?

Jay Feely (42:41)

Of course. And I played for nine more years if I missed it.

Clay Travis (42:44)

Yeah, but you made that now. Is that still allowed? This is a great. I didn't know this backstory. This is. Is it still. Is it allowed in the NFL to show negative highlights still on the Jumbotron? Like, I don't remember seeing a montage of kicker misses. I'm a season ticket holder. Is that still allowed today or has that been this. I've never even heard of that.

Jay Feely (43:05)

So the mayor family was not happy after that game. I know they went to the NFL and complained about it because you kind of. You take that and you extrapolate, say, think of all the things you could put up on a jumbotron during a game.

Clay Travis (43:16)

Oh, yeah, totally.

Jay Feely (43:17)

The opposing players, you know, mind, you know, you can put.

Buck Sexton (43:19)

Yeah, I would. I would say that falls into a category of actually bad sportsmanship. I don't even. I don't think that's all in good fun. I think it's bad sportsmanship.

Jay Feely (43:26)

It's a city of brotherly love. So what expect.

Buck Sexton (43:29)

Oh, it was Philly. Yeah. Okay. Well, you know, they do have that courthouse under the stadium, right?

Clay Travis (43:35)

So I bet that made the winning kick after they did that. Unbelievably joyful for you in that celebration.

Buck Sexton (43:44)

Would you always know, Jay, when you kicked? Would you always know, like, the second you made contact? You know, obviously there's like a couple seconds where it's. Where it's airborne. Right. Would, you know, every time you hit it, I got it or I didn't.

Jay Feely (43:57)

Pretty much as soon as you make contact, you know, if that ball starting where you want there were. You know, there's a couple of times with win, like the first kick in that game, I was talking about where I missed the game winner, I hit it exactly where I wanted in Seattle. I thought the wind was going to bring it back, right. And it shifted and it brought it left, and you missed by, you know, a little bit. But for the most part, you know, when you hit, it's like a golfer. You kind of know the ball comes off, you know, okay, I hit that one.

Buck Sexton (44:19)

Well, what's the best kick you ever made?

Jay Feely (44:24)

The most important kick I ever made was probably in high school, in the state semifinals. I had a game winner at the end of the game, and I make that kick and we go on to the state finals. And for me, that was when I first started thinking about doing kicking as a career. I hadn't. I was a soccer player. I kind of played everything. Growing up until that moment, you know, I never really looked at kicking as something I wanted to do, you know, and then that kick led to me going to college at Michigan and then getting into the NFL and then broadcasting for 10 years and now running for office. I kind of feel like that kick started the journey for me over the next quarter of a century.

Buck Sexton (45:04)

Very cool. All right.

Clay Travis (45:05)

How do people, if they want to support you in Arizona's fifth, what should they know and what should they do?

Jay Feely (45:12)

Well, they should know that, first of all, I'm a fighter and I'm not afraid to stand up for my beliefs. You know, working in broadcast media for a major network like cbs, like, people didn't like that you would talk about your support of Republicans, conservatives, and especially Trump. And I was never afraid to do that. I would post pictures when he and I would get together and play golf, and I would get called into the principal's office all the time for doing that. And my perspective always was, listen, you're not going to do that if I'm posting something that's liberal. So don't do it if I post something that's conservative. But, but I think people should know that I'm going to stand up and be an advocate for conservative Principles and America First Policy. You can go to Jay feelyforcongress.com, sign my petition if you live in the district or you can support us financially. But more than anything, I just want to be somebody who is willing to talk about their beliefs and do it in a compassionate way and be able to advocate for Republicans and conservative causes. And, you know, we're going to have a fight in 2026 to keep the House and the Senate, and I want to be part of that fight.

Clay Travis (46:14)

Jay, one thing people may not know about you, Tom Brady, teammate at the University of Michigan. Quickly, on your way out, what's Brady like?

Jay Feely (46:22)

He is the most compassionate dude. You know, I mean, I never knew he was going to be as good as he was. You know, we were at college for four years together and room together in some of the summers and worked at the University of Michigan golf course together. And, and I just never knew he would be as good as he was. But I knew he was a great leader. I think that's the thing that stands out the most, is his willingness to, to be humble and to take all the stuff that Belichick gave to him and to use him as an example for everyone else. That's what led to the greatness because he had those leadership qualities to bring everybody together and then the, the insatiable desire to be the best ever.

Clay Travis (47:02)

Awesome stuff. Well, we hope the, the voters of Arizona's 5th congressional district are listening. And I love that you were willing to take the slings and arrows for being a Trump guy when it wasn't popular to be a Trump guy.

Jay Feely (47:15)

Thanks for having me on. Thanks for you guys. Everything you guys do love listening.

Clay Travis (47:19)

Appreciate that. That's Jay Feely. Awesome dude. Encourage you guys if you're in Arizona again, 2026. Once again, Arizona is going to be a focal point, one of the big battlegrounds. Trump won by a lot, but they're going to have the governor's race, the congressional races. A lot going on there. Thanks for listening to Team 47 with Clay and Buck.

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