Buck Sexton (2:12)

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Clay and Buck (2:41)

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Clay and Buck (2:49)

Team 47 with Clay and Buck starts now. Wanted to give credit to Bill Maher for being willing to go actually meet with President Trump in person. He had a dinner with Kid Rock at the Oval in the White House after, I believe they went into the Oval Office as well. And I want to play some of the cuts. This is from Bill Maher's HBO show, and I think what Bill Maher is saying here is what many of you have found in your experiences either listening to Trump on this program or other programs over the last decade. I believe the number is that I have been involved in interviewing Trump either by myself or with Buck now 11 times. And so I feel like I know Trump fairly well at this point. We've talked to him for hours on this program during the course of the last four years. And what Bill Maher is saying is what I have found to be true of Trump. In private. He's an incredibly likable, charismatic guy who frankly feels kind of like a grandpa when I have been around him. And let's listen to a couple of these cuts. He also has, and I think this is important, a pretty good sense of humor. He's actually very, very funny. And most of his critics don't get it. Here's Bill Maher saying he showed up with a list of insults that Trump had called him and Trump autographed it for him, which is incredible. Listen to cut 15.

Bill Maher (4:26)

Before I left for the Capitol, I had my staff collect and print out this list of almost 60 different insulting epithets that the President has said about me. Things like stupid, dummy, low life, dummy, sleazebag, sick, sad, stone cold crazy. Really a dumb guy, fired like a dog. His show is dead. I brought this to the White House because I wanted him to sign it, which he did. Which he did with good humor.

Clay and Buck (5:04)

All right. I mean, this is how it should be. I talked about the Taylor Lorenzo. He's a morally good man. That's not how it should be. How it should be is people can disagree sometimes they might even say mean things. But when they meet face to face, they behave like adults. And most of the time, I have found when you meet someone face to face, you are more likely to like them, particularly when it's someone like Donald Trump that is actually very likable. We've said on this program for a long time, like you can disagree with his policies. I, I am a hundred percent of the opinion that you can look at Trump's policies and you can say, I hate the tariff ideas. You can say, hey, I think we should have free and wide open borders. You can say, police are too empowered or he's taking too much executive authority. I don't agree with those arguments, but I think you can make those arguments and be a rational, normal human being. What you can't say is he's Hitler. He is not in any way remotely similar to Adolf Hitler. Disagree with his policies. Attacking him personally is absurd. And what I have said for some time is, and I bet what Bill Maher now recognizes, Trump is an energy person. Whatever energy you give to him, he gives back to you 10x. So if you are favorable and kind, he's going to be 10 times as favorable and 10 times as kind to you. If you are unfavorable, uncharitable, cruel, mean, he's going to give that back to you 10x. Whatever you give, Trump gives back 10x. That's the lesson that everybody should have learned by now. And actually face to face, he tends to be really good. I've said this before I met Trump for the first time in person in October of 2020. I took my wife and my, at the time, oldest son, who was, I believe, in seventh grade. Trump was unbelievable with him, unbelievable with my seventh grader in the Oval Office, the time he spent with him, he was just a fabulous, grandfatherly like figure. My wife, like a lot of women, was not a huge fan of Donald Trump before she met him, after meeting him in the Oval Office. And she's met him a couple of times since. She loves him. He is really incredible face to face, one on one, not only with the people there, but with kids. Really, really good with kids. He's met my, all of my sons, by the way. They were more interested in meeting Mr. Beast than the President. No offense to the President, but he's met all of my kids. He's fabulous with all of them, just like a good grandpa would be. And I bet if you had the good fortune to get to meet the President and you got to meet him with your kids or with your grandkids, he would be phenomenal with him. And this is what Bill Maher is saying. Bill Maher, like, kind of built this mountain of Trump as an Awful person based on public Persona. And then he had to go out and tell his audience. On Friday, actually, we had a phenomenal dinner and Trump was incredible. Here is Bill Maher on meeting Trump cut 16. He laughs.

Bill Maher (8:32)

Just for starters, he laughs. I'd never seen him laugh in public, but he does, including in himself. And it's not fake. Believe me, as a comedian of 40 years, I know a fake laugh when I hear it. Okay, example in the Oval Office, he was showing me the portraits of presidents and he pointed to Reagan and said in all seriousness, you know the best thing about him? His hair. I said, well, there was also that whole bringing down communism thing, waiting for the button next to the Diet Coke button to get pushed and I go through the trap door. But no, he laughed. He got it.

Clay and Buck (9:17)

He has a really good sense of humor. He's also insanely self aware. Some of you may have seen me on Fox and Friends over the weekend. I'll take feedback, by the way. 800-282-28A2. I'll tell you what my mom said in a moment. But I said this because we were playing some of the cuts. From the moment Jimmy Fallon allowed himself to get bullied for humanizing Trump, every comedian by and large was terrified of the general public and they refused to treat Trump like a normal human being. It's actually incredibly unfortunate because if you go back and watch Trump on Saturday Night Live, he has a great sense of humor. I think Trump would have been really good on Jimmy Kimmel. I think he would have been really good with Fallon. I think he would have been really good with Stephen Colbert and on Saturday Night Live because unlike a lot of politicians, he actually has a good sense of humor about himself. And I have made this argument for a long time. On the dictator front, dictators don't have good senses of humor because humor requires a knowledge and nuance of how you are seen in the world that is at large. And that's why dictators require complete obsequiousness. They require that you basically bend the knee to them all the time, that you genuflect at their photo that's hanging on the wall at their portrait, because they have to be seen as larger than you, more important than you. And comedy cuts everybody down to size. This is why having kids, important in many ways. I think kids tell you exactly what they think. Kids and old people, super old people, they're like, I don't give a heck anymore. Super young kids, they don't have the filters built in to say what they think. I Remember, I mean, there's tons of things that kids will say, but I remember my three year old got me, got me good about seven years ago, the youngest. At that time we were playing, he said, dad, I said, yeah, said, you have old hands. I never thought about my hands in my entire life. Holding them up now for you on video, I was like, what do you mean? He's like, they're wrinkly. They're like old man hands. And I was like, I never even thought about what my hands look like before. I didn't think I was George Costanza hand model. But my 3 year old is like, you know, like, hey, dad, you know, you're not a super young guy anymore. You got old guy hands and it's that puncturing, Right? And I'll play you a cut in a little bit of Trump on Air Force One after he was at the UFC 314 with Kai Trump, his granddaughter. The grandkids make fun of him. That's healthy. Yeah, he's the President of the United States, but he's also grandpa and grandma and he and Melania. And so they have normal human interactions. I don't imagine that Kim Jong Un has very many normal interactions. I frankly don't imagine that Vladimir Putin has very many normal human interactions. Maybe I'm wrong, but this is what Bill Maher was getting at here also. He says Trump was gracious and measured and his audience is hearing what is the truth. But much like when I was talking about earlier with George Clooney and the play, they aren't able to see the larger perspective because many of them have bought into the idea that he's Hitler. Listen to cut 14.

Bill Maher (12:59)

He said, you know, I've heard from a lot of people who really, who really like that we're having this dinner. Not all, but a lot. And I said same. A lot of people told me they loved it, but not all. And we agreed. The people who don't even want us to talk, we don't like. You don't talk. As opposed to what? Writing the same editorial for the millionth time and making 25 hour speeches into the wind? Okay, that's my report. You can hate me for it, but I'm not a liar. Trump was gracious and measured, and why he isn't that in other settings, I don't know and I can't answer and it's not my place to answer. I'm just telling you what I saw. And I wasn't high.

Clay and Buck (13:43)

That's great. And that audience, again, I encourage as many of These outreaches as Trump can do. I think if you meet him face to face, the caricature that you have built in your mind on the left is not represented by the man that you will meet. I guarantee you that. And we have a tendency in this world, and I try to be conscious of it in the way that I talk to, to build 20 foot tall caricatures of people that are just a few inches deep. In other words, when you walk up to it, it's like you can punch through it and it's paper mache. It looks like this huge statue. Oh, my goodness, look at this. This is 20ft tall. You can't miss it. And then when you're actually confronted with it, you realize there's no depth to it. You can punch right through it and you see the real person on the other side. Now, some people are fake. Many politicians, I would say, are fake because they're desperate to make you like them. They feel like if they pretend to be something, that you will like them. Trump is not that. It's why. He wasn't a professional politician. He is just himself, for better or worse. And I think the reason why he had so much More support by 2024 is a lot of people saw what Bill Maher did, which is that 20 foot caricature that the legacy media were telling you that he's Adolf Hitler, that he's got the Hitler mustache that he's going to. It's not real. It wasn't in any way accurate. And meanwhile, the 20 foot caricature that they tried to create of Joe Biden, which was incredibly beneficial, when you got up close to it, you saw that that was all fake too. And I've said in my new book that I'm writing, I think this gets to the essence of it. Authentic authenticity ends. Cancel culture. When you are the authentic version of yourself, for better or worse, you can't be canceled in public anymore because people are over it. Now, if you lie, if you are fake, if you are not honest with your audience, then you can be canceled. And I'll give you an example that just is historic. Why did Bill Clinton keep his job after he had an affair with an intern in the Oval Office? Bill Clinton slept with an internal. Now you can say, oh, okay, well, that was 1996, 1997. It's a different era, and I think that's true. But the reason why I think he kept his job was because deep down, a lot of people kind of thought that that was something that Bill Clinton might do. You didn't really think, oh, this is a guy who's completely committed to his wife. You didn't think Bill and Hillary Clinton, this is the greatest couple of our lives. You kind of thought Bill Clinton, not really that much into Hillary Clinton. He's probably going to sleep with somebody else while he's president. I think if George W. Bush had done it, might have cost him his job. I think if Barack Obama had done it, might have cost him his job. But Bill Clinton, it actually reflected in some way what we anticipated and believed about him. I think Clinton was authentically himself. I think Al Gore, who tried to replace him, wasn't. I think George W. Bush was. Trump is what you would think he is if you are honest and have been seeing all of the coverage surrounding him. I think what Bill Maher experienced, it's what I've experienced. It's what Buck experienced. It's what most of you would experience if you had the opportunity to meet Trump and if you took your kids or grandkids to meet Trump, too. I'm telling you, you would really like him, and he would be fabulous with you. That, I believe, is one reason that he's been so successful as a politician. He's actually just kind of a likable guy. And if you remember, before he got into politics, that was his reputation. A little bit of a braggart, a little bit in love with himself. Yeah, you can say that about Trump. I was just playing with West Palm beach, and he had framed that he was one of the richest people in the world in the, in the locker room, all the different paintings and pictures hanging on the wall. I think a lot of rich people probably wouldn't frame the magazine cover that called them one of the richest people in the world and hang it up in their locker room. But that's Trump. And I think the reason why he's having so much more success in the second term is more and more people are like Bill Maher finding out what the truth is. Look, tax filing deadline for the irs. Good for him for meeting. Good for Trump for meeting. Thank you to Kid Rock, Dana White for setting it up. I think we need way more of this. You're listening to Team 47 with clay and Buck.

Ken Paxton (18:55)

Attorney General Ken Paxton of the state of Texas. He joins us now from Dallas. And Mr. Attorney General Paxton, appreciate you calling in, sir.

Mike Gallagher (19:05)

Hey, glad to be on. I appreciate you having me on. Going to be a fun, fun, fun year coming up.

Ken Paxton (19:10)

Can I. We know you've announced your Senate run, and so that's, That's a Very, you know, very, very exciting for, for you and your team that you're going to be. You've thrown your hat on the ring for that. Want to talk to you more about that. In the meantime, though, I thought perhaps you could just give us your perspective. If an attorney, if a state attorney general is involved in multiple mortgage frauds, if that is found to be true, shouldn't that State attorney general, I'm sure you're familiar with what's going on in New York and Attorney General Letitia James and the allegations that are out there right now. Aren't you Attorney General Paxton held to a higher standard as a chief law enforcement officer in your state? And shouldn't that be the case in New York as well?

Mike Gallagher (19:53)

Well, certainly not necessarily a higher standard, but she had to be held to the standard that everybody else is, which is if she's violating the law, she should be held accountable for that. And if she's committed a crime, she should be prosecuted for that. And obviously that would affect her ability to continue as attorney General of New York.

Clay and Buck (20:14)

Lot of discussion. Well, first of all, let's allow you to tell our audience who may not have heard otherwise, you have had a lot of success in Texas electoral politics already. You've won a lot of battles. You fought a lot of battles. People have coming after you aggressively. And you are going to be running now for the Senate from Texas. That is next year, but the process is underway. When's the primary? What do you expect it to look like? And for people out there that may not have been familiar with you in the past, why are you the right choice?

Mike Gallagher (20:45)

So the primary is the first Tuesday of March. So we're, you know, approximately ten and a half months away from the primary. And obviously John Corn is our current senator, been there for 23 years, going on 24. He'd like to stay 30. For one, I think that's too long. And for two, I don't feel like he's done a good job representing our people. I don't think he's done a good job. And I think there is. It's time for a change. So that's why I'm running. There's a lot of issues that I'm frustrated. I think our voters are frustrated with. And it takes a lot of effort to win a statewide race in Texas. You need name id. You need money. And there just aren't that many people that have the name ID or the ability to raise funds that can go against a sitting incumbent, especially in the state of Texas, which.

Clay and Buck (21:39)

We may have just lost him there for a sec. If we want to make sure he get his cell phone. He's in Dallas right now. He's begun the campaign and he was just laying out Buck. What is going to be probably, I think it's fair to say, the biggest Republican primary battle in 2026 anywhere in the country. John Cornyn, who has been in office for some time, current sitting Texas senator, and Ken Paxton, who is the attorney general right now of Texas, very well known. But I wanted you guys to hear from him. Exactly. The choice that he was making is going to be a big, expensive, huge battle. He just laid it out March of next year.

Ken Paxton (22:15)

So let me ask you just Attorney General Paxton, because this is going to be, this is going to be a primary a lot of people spend time thinking about and involved in. It'll be a lot of dollars. And for anyone who's listening, I just want to be clear. We will, because we don't endorse in primaries, we will have an invite out to Senator Cornyn as well, so he can make his case. But Attorney General Paxton, where have you broken with Cornyn on, on a major issue? I mean, what you said that you're not, you don't agree with some of the positions he's taken and some of what he's done to represent the state of Texas. Can you, can you give us some examples so we can just start to understand what the differences are between the two of you?

Mike Gallagher (22:53)

Sure. I'll give you a couple of examples. First was his, his push for the gun restrictions that he was able to pass with the encouragement of Joe Biden. And he was able to do that. Restricting gun ownership rights, very unpopular position in Texas, particularly in the primary, as you might imagine. And I remember after it was done that Donald Trump came out and called him a rino and President Biden congratulated him on doing a great job. That will never happen with me. You will never see me congratulated by a president like Joe Biden. Another issue that he's been a very, very bad on is the border. He's criticized Trump's building of the wall over and over. He said negative things about it not wanting to do it. He's insinuated that he would be for amnesty. Those are both very unpopular positions in Texas. We're a border state. We need all the protection we can get, not less. And then, of course, he's not been a fan of President Trump. In 2016, he called President Trump an albatross around our neck. And in 2024, he said he was not endorsing President Trump, that we should go, we should move on and that he also insinu President Trump had committed crimes and potentially should be held accountable for those crimes. So those are three of the issues that I think are important to our voters and I think those are distinguished. Very much distinguish me from him.

Clay and Buck (24:16)

So let's dive into this in particular. You just mentioned President Trump. I think he won the state of Texas by 1214 points. You probably know the exact margin, but it wasn't close. I'm assuming that if he hasn't already, that he is going to be endorsing you pretty wholeheartedly for this office. Given that you have worked quite a lot with Trump when it comes to the border, when it comes to legal related issues, how effective do you think you would be working with Trump in 2027 if you're able to hold that right hand up and become the next senator from Texas?

Mike Gallagher (24:50)

Yeah, certainly the endorsement is up to him. I don't presume anything. But I will say this. I've had a great working relationship with President Trump from almost the day he got into office. I didn't know him, but we went back and forth on many, many issues while he was in his first term. I've kept in touch with him since then during the times he was out of office and have been a big support. As a matter of fact, I was one of two elected officials that showed up at Mar a Lago. The other was Troy Nells. Congressman Troy Nels that actually showed up when he announced because if you'll remember, when he announced, there was a lot of issues swirling about his legal issues. A lot of Republicans were keeping their distance because DeSantis was, was on the move. And I was there with Troy knows because one, I knew, I knew that President Trump would do a great job and two, you know, I'm loyal to people that I trust and I believe.

Ken Paxton (25:37)

In speaking to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, he is going to be running for a Senate seat against the incumbent there, John Cornyn and A.G. paxton. I wanted to lean on your legal expertise if I could for a second. How do you assess this, this back and forth, right. The media is completely drilled into now this Mr. Abrego Garcia, who is being currently held in El Salvador. Just, I wanted to just hear what you think about all of the objections that are coming from some people about the process, the judge that's involved, what you think should happen. You know, you handle these kinds of decisions as an attorney general for our second biggest state. What do you think about what's going on here?

Mike Gallagher (26:28)

Well, I think this judge has crossed the line. This is a. This is the executive branch that he's. This judge has crossed. We're all about separation of powers. The judiciary is supposed to be the weakest branch, and they are supposed to stay out of the legislative side and they're supposed to stay out of the executive side. This judge has clearly stepped into the shoes of the executive role and taking control of the situation. I think that's wrong, and I think that needs to stop. I think Congress needs to act and stop these nationwide injunctions that aren't based in any fact or law. We certainly, I think there are narrow cases that we used against Joe Biden when it was a nationwide issue, but this one is clearly in the purview of the executive, and this judge just needs to be stopped.

Clay and Buck (27:14)

How has life in Texas changed since Joe Biden left office? Trump came in in particular. When it comes to the border, we talk about it on the program because basically the border has ceased to be an issue at all. It is now secure. What does that look like? What does it feel like in Texas?

Mike Gallagher (27:34)

I mean, I think people are excited. They feel safer. The costliness of it has gone down. Obviously, for us, it meant a lot of expense from law enforcement, health insurance, all kinds of different issues. Education. That's our cost. And the federal government never stepped in. Even though they were inviting these people in and working with the cartels to get them across the border, they were not helping us financially. And so it's a huge relief to us. And obviously, our legislature spent billions of dollars trying to protect the border in lieu of the Biden administration doing just the opposite. So it has a tremendous financial impact. But it's also, I think people just feel safer knowing that we have a president that's protecting our order.

Clay and Buck (28:15)

We're number one in Austin, off and on. We're number one in San Antonio, off and on. We are number one in Houston, off and on. I say off and on because on a weekly monthly basis, things can evolve. But we have monster audience across the entire state of Texas, and we appreciate all of you listening right now. We're also newly on in Dallas, which is where I think you are right now. When you look at this March primary that is coming up next year, I know the answer is everywhere in terms of where will this race be decided, but in particular, what areas? What does turnout look like? A lot of times people don't show up necessarily in big numbers for primaries. What does it take for you to Beat an incumbent senator who certainly is going to have a lot of money as well.

Mike Gallagher (29:01)

Well, I mean, we've already done three polls with three different pollsters. I did one with Trump's pollster that had me up by 25. I did one with Ted Cruz's pollster that has nearby 25, and we did a third one just to make sure if 27. So the voters, I mean, a lot of it's already baked in. They know John Corn. He's been in office for over 40 years. They know me. I've been in office for, in the Attorney general's office for 11 years now. And so I think the primary voters are really educated. I feel very strongly that we are going to do well everywhere. And it's, it's all based on record. And he's going to have to spend, since his record is not what the voters want. He's not going to be talking about his record, he's not going to be talking about mine, because my record is a record that the voters like. He's going to be going negative personally. That's, that's his line of attack. And he's got to pray that somehow Trump does not, that he endorses him, because that would be his only way of getting into the game and he's still going to lose.

Clay and Buck (29:59)

Do you think it's possible he drops out, decides not to run?

Mike Gallagher (30:03)

Look, I don't presume anything he said he's running. I'm playing, I'm playing this for, you know, I'm going to run against John Corn. So that would be a great question for him. Sure. No matter what he's thinking in his head, it's got to cross his mind if he's that far down, he's pulled it. He knows that he's behind by double digits. And look, I've been to the Republican convention. The last time he spoke that he dared to speak to the Republican voters, that was three years ago. He got booed for 30 straight minutes. And I'm not talking the quiet booze, I'm talking loudly. Booed for 30 minutes. And that was all based on what he did with the restrictions on gun ownership in our state.

Ken Paxton (30:38)

Attorney General Paxton, appreciate you being with us, sir. Best of luck to you. We'll talk to you again soon.

Mike Gallagher (30:43)

Hey, have a great day. Thanks for having me on.

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Clay and Buck (35:19)

You're listening to Team 47 with Clay and Buck.

Ken Paxton (35:23)

We are joined now by Mike Gallagher. He is head of defense at Palantir. He's got a really interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal. Time for accountability on the COVID lab leak. Cover up Mike, appreciate you making the time for us.

Clay Travis (35:38)

It's an honor to be with you.

Ken Paxton (35:40)

So let's just jump into it. You got into this in your piece. What does accountability look like? What does the public need to know? What steps have to be taken now when it comes to the lab leak, cover up. I see. I love that there's a picture of Foushee touching a little fake virus in your op ed. He's the absolute worst. What needs to happen?

Clay Travis (36:02)

Well, I can't claim credit for the artwork that comes with these op eds. I just do the words. But it was. It was quite nice to me. It just starts with the basic step of complete declassification of relevant intelligence. If you remember, we actually passed a law when I was in Congress requiring that the Biden administration do just that, but they didn't comply with the law. When they finally did an investigation into the origins of COVID it was not serious. What came out was heavily redacted. It was a regurgitation of the prevailing consensus. And so there's been no accountability for our own scientific establishment, which was profoundly corrupted. Our own intelligence community was parroting the corrupted consensus of the scientists. And even the authors of the Proximal Origins article, which spread a lot of this misinformation, have not been held accountable. The opposite has happened. They continue to get awards. Foushee continues to be lauded, and we have centers named after Foushee. And without that basic step of accountability, people just aren't going to trust the government. They're not going to trust the health institutions, the scientific institutions, and therefore, we're less prepared to prevent a future pandemic. So I think accountability starts with getting the information out there, even if it's super embarrassing to the government agencies that allow taxpayer dollars to be funneled through corrupt nonprofits like the Ecohealth alliance and wind their way into the hands of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. There's been no accountability thus far.

Clay and Buck (37:36)

That's why I read your piece and I appreciate you coming on with us. I know how busy you are in your new job, and we'll talk about that maybe in a moment. But, Trump, for people who do not know, I encourage you to go to Covid.gov today and look at everything that's being laid out there. We're five years after Covid and Buck, and I focus on this a lot because we're kind of history nerds. And one of the good things about time passing is over time, history, I like to think, becomes more honest about what really transpired. Are you optimistic that 20, 40 years from now we'll get A more honest version of what happened and the failures of this nation when it comes to responding to Covid in generations ahead. Or do you think the same people that are trying to stop us now will continue to fight for generations into the future to avoid acknowledging how wrong they were?

Clay Travis (38:33)

Well, I would only say I don't think we have 20, let alone 40 years. Right. We had a report a few months ago that in February, researchers at the Institute of Virology had experimented with a new bat coronavirus that looked a lot similar to COVID 19. What you learn as you sort of dig into the nature of what happened in Wuhan, but lab accidents more broadly, is that these are actually more common than we realize. And so part of the push for accountability is based on the idea that the risks of a pandemic like the one we went through with COVID 19 or with one that could be far worse if a future virus were just as pathogenic or more lethal, rather, those risks have not gone down. We haven't learned any lessons. And so we need accountability on a year timeline, not a 20 year time. Which is why I was very glad to see that President Trump launched his website. I would encourage all Americans to go to the website right now and really lays out five basic common sense truths that the government heretofore has not acknowledged. One, the virus possessed biological characteristics that you couldn't find in nature. Two, all the data suggests it stems from a single introduction into humans, not multiple spillovers like previous pandemics. Three, that the Wuhan Institute had conducted gain of function research at inadequate safety levels. Or that the researchers at the Wuhan Institute fell ill with COVID months before the virus was allegedly discovered at a. At a wet market. And finally, after all these years, there's no scientific evidence of a natural origin that has surfaced. That alone has done more to advance the case of accountability than under four years of President Joe Biden. So we need to press the gas, we need to hold our own agencies accountable, and again, we need to declassify all the relevant information.

Ken Paxton (40:21)

Mike, I wanted to pivot a little bit here and lean into another area of expertise, something you're dealing with day in and day out. Now, as head of defense at Palantir Technologies, I think one of the lessons that anybody paying attention to what's going on over in Ukraine, with Russia, and especially if they're looking ahead at the possibility at some point in the future of some kind of hot conflict with China, is technology is going to be absolutely critical. Uh, we're looking at drones. We're looking at a future of telecommunications and high speed computing. Making decisions on the battlefield. That is truly the stuff of sci fi from not long ago. And it's, it's becoming reality now every day. With that said, I know Palantir is involved in the high tech edge of things with, with defense. It wasn't long ago where Google was upset. There were, there was like an uprising at Google over the prospect of doing anything that helped the United States Pentagon. Right. Like as if Silicon Valley was its own little fiefdom that did not actually become or was not actually a part of the United States. Do you feel like that is changing now? Do you feel like there's an understanding that companies that are US Based, that employ Americans have a role in defense and that means that they should take a patriotic position on. Yeah, we will work with the United States Pentagon.

Clay Travis (41:45)

I think it is changing. I mean Google has actually recently changed its position. And if you remember at the time, the reason so many of us got upset when Google abandoned Project Maven is they were simultaneously trying working with China. Exactly. An AI center in Beijing. It was subsequently revealed there was a project that they did abandon, but a project they were exploring to censor Internet search in China. So the message was, well, we're cool working with a genocidal communist regiment, but not with the American military. Because the American military occasionally has to do things like kill Salafi jihadists in order to keep America safe. And so into the breach stepped Palantir, which was unapologetic in its belief that America is the greatest country in the history of the world, that we should have the most lethal military in the world, and that some folks, be they terrorists or other bad guys, need to be killed occasionally. And I do think what we're seeing on the battlefield in Ukraine is forcing people to re examine their previously held assumptions. There's a lot of capital in the venture capital community that is trying to flow into defense technology companies. And finally, I would say not to talk my own book, but when you have a company like Palantir that spent two decades trying to survive the so called Valley of Death because it isn't easy for a defense technology company to succeed because the Pentagon can be a difficult customer, it proves to other companies that are trying to do the same that it's possible to survive, it's possible to go public, it's possible to have a mission focused company and that also is successful financially. Which is why we founded something called the First Breakfast Initiative, which is designed to make it easier for non traditional defense technology companies to survive and thrive because we need more, right? We can't just have five primes that control everything. We need the primes to survive. They're always going to be there. But we need a more diverse ecosystem of defense technology companies if we are going to have a hope of deterring China from invading Taiwan as well as simultaneously going after terrorists in the Middle east and the other threat actors we have to deal with.

Clay and Buck (43:46)

What you just said, I think is important. It also to me connects with your editorial in the Wall Street Journal, which is about the importance of truth and the commitment to fact. When you see so much of what's going on in America today and around the world, whether it's celebrating the United Health Care CEOs killer, whether it is down in Frisco, Texas, Carmelo Anthony stabs a 17 year old in the heart and raises $400,000. As you just mentioned, so many of these elite institutions out there had people marching in favor of the perpetrators of October 7th. Why are we having such a difference? This is a big philosophical question, but why do you think we're having such a challenge, especially going into the holy week of good and evil, recognizing them and being willing to stand on the side of good?

Clay Travis (44:39)

Well, I do think, you know, to really take it, make it biblical and maybe betray my Catholic perspective. I do think as religion has retreated in terms of its role in American life, people have sought out other gods and in some ways politics or, you know, a political tribe can become a cult and fill kind of a God shaped hole in people's hearts. And I think correspondingly, there's also this epistemological crisis that we have in America where people no longer trust any source of information, right? Like we have this very balkanized media landscape where nobody really knows where to go to get truth. And the risk of that is people can kind of opt in to whatever reality they just want to live in. And it's very hard to have a coherent conversation based on facts, based on logic as a result. That being said, you know, as a product of representing Northeast Wisconsin, where we're going to host the NFL draft here shortly, by the way, everybody, I will be watching.

Clay and Buck (45:39)

I will be watching.

Ken Paxton (45:40)

Trust me, I'm very excited.

Clay Travis (45:43)

It's a huge, huge thing for Green Bay, Wisconsin. Huge thing. You know, I think most people are just common sense, right? There was this revolution of common sense that President Trump talked about. I mean, people were afraid initially to speak their minds, you know, particularly in Covid, but people started to see what was happening to our kids with schools being shut down was being happened to our loved ones who were being locked up, and they thought, this doesn't make any sense. So I do have this abiding faith in the common sense of the American people. Right now, they're demanding change and reform in the basic institutions of government. I think Trump is an instrument for that, that change. It can be very disruptive at times. That's what the American people want. And so we have to get back to that. And at the end of the day, like, we have to realize, of course, America's not perfect, but we're the good guys, right? We are the greatest country in human history. That comes with a great responsibility. But the rest of the world is looking to us for leadership, to lead with courage. If you remember when China took over Hong Kong and hundreds of thousands of people came out into the streets to protest, what were they waving? They were waving American flags. Right. They were looking to us as an example for a free society. And that's something we all have a duty to maintain.

Clay and Buck (46:55)

Well said. Have a good holy week and weekend and we'll talk to you again hopefully soon. Encourage people to go check out that editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

Clay Travis (47:03)

Thanks, guys.

Buck Sexton (47:06)

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Clay and Buck (47:38)

All kind of hooked on our phones. It's full of shiny apps designed to keep your attention captive forever. But there's real life stuff to do other than scrolling, and I'm here to help. I'm Christina Quinn, the host of Try this, a podcast from the Washington Post. The show explores solutions for life's common problems. And this season, we're learning to tame the dopamine beast and reclaim our attention in this noisy and distracting world. So let's tame the beast together. Find Try this from the Washington Post.

Ken Paxton (48:06)

Wherever you listen.

Clay Travis (48:07)

I'm Rodney Williams. And I'm Travis Holloway. Welcome to the wealthbreak Podcast, a real conversation about finance. Let's be honest, building Weft doesn't look.

Ken Paxton (48:17)

The same for everyone.

Clay and Buck (48:19)

I feel like sometimes being broke is.

Bill Maher (48:21)

A cycle and that we might have.

Clay and Buck (48:23)

To revisit that and we're not stopping at success stories. What happens when it doesn't go right? How do you cope with it?

Clay Travis (48:30)

Because wealth isn't just about money, it's about creating a life where you thrive and help others do the same. Listen to the Wealth Break podcast on the iHeartRadio app.

Buck Sexton (48:41)

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Clay and Buck (49:11)

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