Weekly Review With Clay and Buck H3 - If They Could Do This to You...

Summary

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

Episode: Weekly Review With Clay and Buck H3 – "If They Could Do This to You..."

Date: November 15, 2025
Podcast Host: iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the abuse and dangers of advanced AI systems spreading misinformation, especially when targeted at conservatives or public figures, and their potentially devastating impact on ordinary citizens. The key segment features a revealing interview with Robby Starbuck, who shares his personal experience of defamation at the hands of Google’s AI. The discussion addresses broader implications of AI-driven reputational attacks, governmental priorities in foreign relations and national security—particularly in the Indo-Pacific and on the China-Taiwan front—plus the ongoing crisis of fentanyl trafficking with direct ties to China.

The tone throughout is urgent, skeptical of Big Tech and bureaucracy, and supportive of proactive conservative leadership.

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Key Segments & Insights

1. AI Defamation and the Robby Starbuck Case

Timestamps: 06:42 – 18:29

Key Points:

• Robby Starbuck’s Ordeal:
  Robby describes how Google’s AI (first Bard, later Gemini and Gemma) fabricated salacious, criminal, and defamatory content about him, including invented allegations of sexual assault, fake court and therapy records, and imaginary media stories, affecting not only his reputation but also his access to things like insurance and potentially even future employment.
• Scope and Threat:
  The scale is not limited to high-profile individuals but could "happen to anyone," threatening livelihoods and reputations through algorithmic bias or targeted defamation.
• Barriers to Redress:
  Starbuck highlights the Kafkaesque nature of confronting a tech giant like Google—emails go unanswered, even employees willing to help are ineffective or resign, and many AI models in the wild (offline or in development tools) can never be remotely updated to fix such issues.
• Intent vs. Negligence:
  While legally the repeated refusal to fix known lies suffices for "gross negligence" and "malice," Starbuck suspects deliberate poisoning of the AI models against conservatives, based on technical conversations and pattern repetition.
• Broader Consequences:
  Emergence of fake articles, videos, or audio generated by AI means that in coming years people may be unable to distinguish truth from slander, with devastating social, personal, and political implications.

Notable Quotes:

• On the personal impact:
  “It can't be stressed enough how hard we tried to get Google to stop this… The lies got so intense, so elaborate that you almost can't believe it.”
  — Robby Starbuck (06:42)

• On risk to ordinary Americans:
  “If they could do this to you... why couldn't they do this to anyone in America, where Google... is probably the number one most important thing on the internet?”
  — Clay Travis (08:59)

• On the systemic danger:
  “You're either going to grow poison fruit, and it's going to be to the detriment of humanity. What you bake in that root [of AI] is very important.”
  — Robby Starbuck (10:33)

• AI’s stubborn repetition:
  “It would double and triple down that it did happen... It went so far as to actually create a fake article in a real journalist's name.”
  — Robby Starbuck (16:36)

Action Points:

• Robby Starbuck’s resources:
  “YouTube, X @robbystarbuck or robbystarbuck.com“ for more info or to read the lawsuit.
  — Robby Starbuck (17:59)

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2. Global Affairs: The Trump Doctrine in Asia and China-Taiwan Policy

Timestamps: 25:55 – 36:05

Guests:

• Stephen Yates (Heritage Foundation, former Bush admin official, Mandarin speaker)

Key Points:

• Rebuttal to ‘Isolationism’ Claims:
  Contrary to conventional narratives, Trump administration officials are deeply engaged across the Indo-Pacific—Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Korea.
• Security Partnerships:
  Major moves and strengthened alliances, especially with Japan’s assertive new prime minister, build deterrence against China.
• Importance of Taiwan:
  Taiwan isn’t just a local issue; it underpins the economic and security architecture of the whole region. Disruptions to its freedom would upend global shipping and the tech supply chain, setting off catastrophic economic and social domino effects worldwide.
• Defense Readiness:
  US allies are increasing defense spending and purchases from America, strengthening deterrents against Chinese aggression.
• Leadership Consistency:
  Secretary Pete Hegseth is praised for “consistency, clarity, conviction” in addressing the China challenge, even in direct talks with Chinese officials.

Notable Quotes:

• “This is opposite of isolationism. The President had a very widespread tour through the Indo-Pacific region. Major meetings and decisions made in that region.”
  — Stephen Yates (26:41)

• “Japan has a fundamental national interest in... Taiwan continuing to be a free and democratic territory.”
  — Stephen Yates (29:55)

• “If you imagine an economy that is rocked by 50% of those containers... going kaput for a time, then this matters.”
  — Stephen Yates (30:29)

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3. Fentanyl Crisis and China’s Role

Timestamps: 31:27 – 34:17

Key Points:

• FBI Director Cash Patel’s Announcement (via audio clip):
  China has agreed to list and crack down on all 13 fentanyl precursor chemicals, shutting off the primary supply chain for Mexican drug cartels and significantly disrupting the flow of fentanyl into the US—credited to "direct engagement" from President Trump.
• Personal Tragedy:
  Yates shares his daughter's death by fentanyl poisoning, underlining the personal and national stakes.
• Policy Aspirations:
  There is a call to classify fentanyl precursors as weapons of mass destruction, and to treat trafficking as an act of war/terrorism.

Notable Quote:

• “I have no forgiveness for that [Chinese] regime in the slow and methodical murder of hundreds of thousands of Americans.”
  — Stephen Yates (33:18)

• “This is 10 years too late by China.”
  — Stephen Yates (33:11)

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4. Trump’s Prospects, China’s Intentions, and Policy Uncertainties

Timestamps: 34:46 – 36:05

Key Points:

• What if China Invades Taiwan?
  Likely catastrophic economic impact; US credibility and alliances would be at stake. Importance of “improving deterrence” rather than responding after the fact.
• Optimism about Deterrence:
  Positive strides in both US and allied defense postures suggest China may think twice before provoking conflict.

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Memorable & Lighter Moments

• Coins, Cash, and Laundry:
  The show closes with a humorous exchange on Clay owing Sean Hannity money and the decline of coins (pennies being phased out). There's playful banter about the value of silver coins and coin-operated laundromats.
  Timestamps: 43:01 – 45:35

• Preview Teasers:
  Tomorrow’s discussions will tackle H1B visas, 50-year mortgages, and the OpenTable app’s user-judging algorithm.
  Timestamps: 41:13 – 46:39

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Notable Quotes: Quick Access

• “If they could do this to you... they could do it to anyone in America.”
  — Clay Travis (08:59)

• “There's too many similar threads and too many commonalities... for it to fit a hallucination pattern. I think this was deliberately poisoned.”
  — Robby Starbuck (15:33)

• “If you've seen the AI outputs… imagine our sons and our daughters facing accusations with fake AI videos and audio. We need guardrails.”
  — Robby Starbuck (17:17)

• “Taiwan is not just a Taiwan-only situation... If they're all doing more to protect themselves... we're keeping our partnerships vital... that's a pretty profound deterrent.”
  — Stephen Yates (31:07)

• “Essentially, President Trump has shut off the pipeline that creates fentanyl.”
  — FBI Director Cash Patel (33:02)

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Summary Table of Important Segments

| Timestamp | Topic / Segment | Speakers | |------------------ |---------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------| | 06:42 – 18:29 | Robby Starbuck on AI Defamation | Clay Travis, Buck Sexton, Robby Starbuck | | 25:55 – 36:05 | US-Asia Policy, Taiwan, China, with Stephen Yates | Buck Sexton, Stephen Yates, Clay Travis | | 31:27 – 34:17 | Fentanyl Crisis Announcement & Reaction | FBI Director Cash Patel (audio), Stephen Yates | | 43:01 – 45:35 | Banter: Coins, Cash, and Coins’ Value | Clay Travis, Buck Sexton |

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Final Thoughts

This episode underscores the growing threats of unchecked AI in information warfare, the failings and dangers of Big Tech’s response to legitimate grievances, and the need for legal and technological safeguards to protect reputation and the democratic process. Meanwhile, it rebuffs “isolationism” claims in conservative foreign policy, detailing active US engagement to deter adversaries and protect allies. The fentanyl crisis is cast as a hybrid threat requiring unflinching response domestically and internationally.

For listeners, the episode is a clarion call to pay attention to AI’s power, the importance of alliances, and the ongoing asymmetric threats to American society.

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Listen to the full episode for in-depth interviews, updates on upcoming discussions, and insights into breaking political stories.

Transcript

[Announcer]

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[Clay Travis]

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[Robby Starbuck]

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[Robby Starbuck]

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[Robby Starbuck]

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[Clay Travis]

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[Buck Sexton]

Third hour of clay and Buck kicks off now. Thanks for being here, everybody. Appreciate all of you. So our friend Laura Ingram over at Fox News had a sit down with President Trump and they got into a whole range of issues. Very good interview and there's a couple of moments, a couple of takeaways from it that I think it's important for us to have a little discussion about. One of them is this, it gets to H1B visas and the government, the administration approach to these H1B visas, which this was a discussion that right around a year ago, actually, there was a pretty intense online exchange about this involving Elon Musk who went completely scorched earth in favor of H1BS until people provided him with the data and information to show that the H1B visa program is actually really abused and it can be very exploitative and it's unfair to the American people. It needs dramatic reform. And Vivek Ramaswamy also weighed in on this one and it was a moment where MAGA was saying, hold on a second, I don't think that we have to celebrate other cultures over American culture when it comes to excellence. I think America is the culture of global excellence. It was not a good moment for Mr. Vivek and there was a lot of back and forth and it was all over this H1B situation. Now, Laura Ingraham pressed Trump on this and here is how the Exchange went. Play cut one.

[Clay Travis]

Does that mean the H1B visa thing will not be a big priority for your administration? Because if you want to raise wages for American workers, you can't flood the.

[Buck Sexton]

Country with tens of thousands or hundreds.

[Clay Travis]

Of thousands of foreign workers.

[Laura Ingraham]

Also do have to bring in talent.

[Robby Starbuck]

When, oh, we have plenty of talented people here.

[Stephen Yates]

No, you don't.

[Laura Ingraham]

No, you don't.

[Clay Travis]

We don't have talented people here.

[Laura Ingraham]

No, you don't have, you don't have certain talents and you have to, people have to learn. You can't take people off an unemployment, like an unemployment line and say, I'm going to put you into a factory. We're going to make missiles. Or I'm going to put.

[Buck Sexton]

How do we ever do it before?

[Laura Ingraham]

Well, let me.

[Clay Travis]

When you and I were giving you.

[Laura Ingraham]

An example in Georgia, they raided because they wanted illegal immigrants out. They had people from, from South Korea that made batteries all their lives. You know, making batteries are very complicated. It's not an easy thing, and very dangerous. A lot of explosions, a lot of problems. They had like five or six hundred people, early stages to make batteries and to teach people how to do it. Well, they wanted them to get out of the country. You're going to need that, Laura. I mean, I know you and I disagree on this. You can't just say a country's coming in, going to invest $10 billion to build a plant and get a. Take people off an unemployment line who haven't worked in five years and they're going to start making missiles. It doesn't work.

[Buck Sexton]

Well, this is a very important discussion. But Clay, we're sorry, guys. We, we got to put a pin in it because we were going to have Robby Starbuck on. We had a little tech issue, but we can get him on now. The phone line situation got squared away. So Robby Starbuck joins us now. He's a conservative activist. Many of you are familiar with his work. Robby, thanks for being here. Tell us your story, man, because you wanted to come on and I think people need to know about what's been going on.

[Robby Starbuck]

Yeah, thanks for having me on. Yeah, it's been wild what has happened. So essentially two years ago, I found out that Google's AI, which then was called Bard, was saying all kinds of crazy stuff about me that just wasn't true. From saying that I was a supporter of the KKK to even making arguments for the death penalty, because I guess some of my takes offend people on the left. But then it got much worse when they introduced Gemini and Gemma. Gemini and Gemma went so far as to make accusations that I was accused of sexual assault, of raping people, including people who are PG as possible for the audience in case there's kids in the car. But, you know, it can't be stressed enough how hard we tried to get Google to stop this. I notified them starting two years ago that this was going on, and my lawyers at Dylan Law Firm have been repeatedly letting them know and sending cease and desist letters throughout this year. And Google just continued to allow this stuff to go on. The lies got so intense, so elaborate that you almost can't believe it. And it came from prompts as simple as telling about Robbie Starbuck or somebody looking me up, right? So this wasn't somebody saying, hey, invent the story. It was as simple as tell me about this guy, right? And it got so detailed that invented fake court records, fake police records, fake victims, fake therapy records. And it would get so detailed that if you said, hey, what are your sources for this? It would invent fake court records and also fake media articles, okay? So it would say fox news.com Robbie Starbucks sexual assault allegations, or something along those lines. And it did that with all of the major media outlets, essentially, and some of the biggest figures. It even invented fake statements from J.D. vance and President Trump about the situation. So this is obviously incredibly dangerous. And you have to wonder why this is happening, right? Because something is feeding this information to the AI and that we intend to find out in discovery. But if you think about, like the, the long side of this, right, like, look, 10 years down the line, control of our country is decided by a very small number of swing seats. And it's very easy to envision a future where this type of, you know, malicious AI is deployed against every right wing candidate in those swing seats. And you're able to shift 5 to 6% of the vote based on telling lies about the candidates to voters who reach out saying, hey, tell me there's a difference between these two candidates.

[Clay Travis]

This is a hugely important story and I appreciate you coming on. We're talking to Robbie Starbuck. You just heard him lay out what happened with Google AI. There's a lawsuit pending. But if they could do this to you, and this is where I think this becomes so important and you just hit on it. I mean, they could do it to, yes, Republican Senate candidates, Republican presidential candidates, Republican congressional candidates. But I think a lot of people out there also know that arguably, at least those guys can punch back. Why couldn't they do this to anyone in America where Google, what happens when your name is Googled is probably the number one most important thing on the Internet. I would say for most people in most professions, this seems hugely important, not just for what happened to you, but for the message that it's sending. It could happen to anyone. What are you trying to do to remedy it, Clay?

[Robby Starbuck]

I was hoping you would bring that up because you're exactly right. The biggest problem is not that even this is happening to me. Obviously, I'm concerned to damage my reputation and all those things, but I'm Thinking about my kids, like, this can happen to your son, your daughter, your wife, your husband, and it could eliminate your ability to get jobs. I mean, I want people to think about this, how far AI is reaching into our lives. It's already being used in reputation scoring for insurance, which, by the way, crazy story. I was actually denied insurance by, I think it was five insurers this last year. I've never been denied my life. I'm an autopay person, never been in a car accident. Like, there is no reason I should be denied for insurance. It took until the sixth insurer for us to even get an offer from a major insurance company. Every other one said risky, wouldn't tell us why. And we're going to have to figure out through discovery if it was because it was pulling that information from AI. But you can get debanked. You can have. What do job interviewers often do? They Google the people who are applying for jobs, right? And so you get Googled on Gemini and they tell this potential job that you're actually accused of some heinous crime, you know, and this could be as simple as getting back at you for your politics that Google doesn't share, right? So it's very easy to see where this can get very dangerous, very fast. And so I think, you know, part of the remedy here isn't just making me whole and, you know, fixing the situation, it's fixing the problem for good and setting a standard and setting precedent that AI cannot harm humans. That needs to be the first principle of AI because if you allow it on this level where it's defamatory, right, you're baking that in at the root level of a tree that is either going to bear fruit that helps humanity grow into abundance, or you're going to grow poison fruit, and it's going to be to the detriment of humanity. What you bake in that root is very important. So we're teaching AI now what is going to later be very important. It's deployment across all platforms in law enforcement, medicine, everything else. And so that's why I feel like this is a critically important fight. I'm thinking 10 years out, 15 years out, how deeply this is going to affect all of us and our kids.

[Buck Sexton]

What was it like when you were trying to get answers in the early stage and then throughout from a company like Google that is so vastly powerful, influential, connected and resourced? Yet I can only imagine, Robby, like, if this happened to me, I wouldn't even know. Who do you call or email? Who can you get to actually sit down or speak to you as a human to try to address this. Feels like you were probably in a very Kafka esque, like, where do I go for justice situation.

[Robby Starbuck]

Yeah, it was very confusing, honestly, even with me where I'm able to get in front of the media, I'm able to, you know, pay lawyers to be able to do this stuff. But back then, initially I raised the red flag about this publicly. Just adding the and direct messaging people at Google like, hey, can you get this fixed? And eventually a Google employee reached out to me and this lady seemed like she wanted to help. So I laid out the whole story and sent screenshots from the people who had sent them to me and that we were able to recreate these. She's okay, I want to help. And I check in over time and it was about three months later she lets me know, I'm so sorry I wasn't able to fix this. And this is in the lawsuit. We put this like we put all the receipts. Okay. She said, I'm so sorry I wasn't able to help. I am resigning today. And she resigned. And then things got much worse with Gemma and Gemini. And here's the other thing that's really scary, right, is that you'd think a company like this could fix all this, right? Well, it took until last week to finally get them to fix some of this stuff in the actual app and the google.com website. But here's what's crazy. There are over 150 million wild downloads of Gemma. Gemma is also used by developers beyond just being a chat bot, to help develop apps that power the future. Right? And then Gemini, same thing. Gemini has a bunch uncountable digital downloads. We don't even know what that number is. In many of these, they can never be connected to the Internet or won't be connected to the Internet and cannot be fixed remotely by Google. So these things, which will be used in many different contexts over God knows how long, can never be changed. And that's pretty wild. And I think that's something that also has to change in this process.

[Clay Travis]

You're in the process of going through discovery and finding all this stuff out. Buck, you mentioned, how do you even get a person to be able to address. We found out when we sold Outkick to Fox. Fox went through the deep dive and they said, hey, you're not indexed on Google. And I knew that was true because we would break news on Outkick and then we would never show up at the top of Google. Search results. And we had gone through this four or five different times with them, and they had said, everything's fine. Somebody had just taken us out of the Google search results. Robby, that had to be an individual, right? Somebody just decided they don't like me. They're one of, you know, thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of Google employees. They hide your site over in the refuse so that you can't be found. Do you feel like. And again, I know the discovery is underway. Do you feel like ultimately this is malice driven by an individual or individuals inside of the company to have set up or. And I know I'm asking you to speculate a little bit. Do you think this is just a. I run amok and for some reason you happen to get dragged through the cycle like this?

[Robby Starbuck]

So there's two different things here. One is, you know, does it meet the legal standard of malice no matter what? Absolutely. It doesn't matter what the intent was. The fact was they were notified so many times over the course of two years to fix this, and they didn't fix it. And they continually, repeatedly told the same lies, inventing the same situations with similar victims and evidence and all these fake news articles and everything. That's gross negligence. That equals malice. Right? But then there's my personal view, right? My personal view is one where I can't. I can't get myself to a place where I think this is just AI run amok. Right? Because Google's response publicly has been to essentially excuse this as hallucinations, is what they say. Well, you deep dive into hallucinations. And I've talked to AI experts. They're typically kind of disjointed and kind of like, weird, right? They're pulling things from different places and kind of mixing them all together. There's too many similar threads and too many commonalities in what it continually repeated about me for it to fit a hallucination pattern by my estimation, from talking to these experts. And I think lawyers agree with this. And so when you look at it from that context, it's very hard for me to get anywhere except for thinking this was deliberately poisoned. So that's. That's how I view it, right? Is it seems deliberate when you get as detailed as these things did and you repeatedly refused to own up to the fact that it's a lie. And this is what's crazy. Like, you can literally answer back to this AI. And we had people saying things like, hey, these news stories are totally false. Nothing like this ever happened. And it would double and Triple down that it did happen. And it went so far on one occasion to actually create a fake article in a real journalist's name when somebody pressed the AI and saying the link didn't work to the story it was sending them. So it literally invented a fake news story. I want people to think about this, right? We're at this precipice where we have all these image generators and voice generators and video generators, but they're not all quite interconnected. Connected to the chat bots as well as they will be a year or two from now. Maybe even less had this continued to happen for another year or two. It would have literally been inventing fake videos and audio of me doing these crimes. I want people to think about that because if you've seen the AI outputs that we're seeing in video and audio, there's currently a top charting music artist. I think it's called Breaking Rust. That is AI, right? Like, and you can't distinguish it from a human being. It sounds like a real human musician. That is so incredibly dangerous. And again, I imagine our sons and our daughters facing accusations with fake AI videos and audio. And it's very clear when you think about that, that we need guardrails.

[Clay Travis]

No doubt. Robbie, this is fantastic. If people want to know more about this story, where would you tell them to go?

[Robby Starbuck]

Follow me on social media. YouTube x@robbie starbuck rlbby starbuck or go to robbie starbuck.com if you want to read the actual lawsuit. We've put it up there in case anybody wants to read the full thing. Even lawyers who don't like me me have said like, dang, they have absolutely an incredible case. So I think it's a seminal case in the fight for fairness and getting rid of bias.

[Clay Travis]

And I appreciate the time. It is an important story. Keep us updated. We want to continue to share this story as we move along.

[Robby Starbuck]

Thank you gentlemen for shining a light on it.

[Clay Travis]

That's Robbie Starbuck. All right, Buck. I'm going to try to make sure that we win. We've had a couple of different losing weeks here in a row on prize picks. So tomorrow, Thursday Night Football returns. This is simple. There's only three people involved. Drake may more than one and a half touchdown passes. Bo Nix more than one half touchdown pass. And Sam Darnold more than one and a half touchdown Passes. If all three of those hit three to one, five dollars turns into 15, 20 turns into 60, a hundred turns into 300. You can play along with [e-mail] Code Clay you can play in California, Texas, Georgia. If you're feeling left out, that is prizepix.com code clay Drake May more than one and a half touchdown passes, Sam Darnold more than one and a half and then Bonix more than one half. If all three of those quarterbacks hit three to one, that's prizepix.com code Clay for $50 in your account when you play. $5 cents prizepix.com code Clayton. You know them as conservative radio hosts. Now just get to know them as guys on the Sunday Hang podcast with Clay and Buck. Find it in their podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Start your 7 day free trial today. Offers are subject to change. Go to Fox one for complete terms and conditions. Fox one, we live for live streaming now.

[Clay Travis]

Welcome back in Clay, Travis, Buck Sexton show. That Robbie Starbuck discussion, I think put a pin in that because it should be alarming to anyone out there that is in any way intrigued by the direction that that is headed. By the way, President Trump has weighed in the Democrats on the Epstein thing saying basically the exact same thing we told you. Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein hoax because they'll do anything to deflect on how badly they've done on the shutdown. Only a very bad or stupid Republican would fall into that trap. We'll hit that a bit more when we come back. But this is exactly what we said.

[Buck Sexton]

Buck, I gotta just say you don't.

[Clay Travis]

Got a couple of bad, stupid Republicans.

[Buck Sexton]

Here on this show. That's all I can tell you. We saw this one a mile away. A mile away. Very obvious. Oh, there's a, there's an email that, that we just found. That's the really bad one. Please, please, not on our watch. All right? Nonsense. They can't escape the absolute, the ignominious end of this shutdown.

[Clay Travis]

Very nice word.

[Buck Sexton]

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[Stephen Yates]

It's wonderful to join and thanks very much for the kind intro.

[Buck Sexton]

Please give us a sense as to you just went. I mean it was quite a world tour. You were traveling with the press pool of the Secretary of War. Now I have to keep reminding myself, Secretary of War Hegseth. But President Trump was over there in Asia. Where did you go? What were the meetings? What were the big policy takeaways and your most important observations?

[Stephen Yates]

Well, thank you, Buck. There's a few things that really stand out. I mean, really, the first thing was we did go to Japan, Malaysia for the Southeast Asian ASEAN Defense Ministerial meetings that allowed for bilateral meetings with the nine countries of asean, but also with India, Australia, Japan and Korea there. And then we went up from Malaysia through Vietnam to Korea and then from Korea all the way home. I'll just remind the audience this is on the doomsday plane from which nuclear retaliation can be called. After the apocalypse begins. Kind of a fun ride. But that plane, I think is older than the secretary. And I pray that the secretary gets new planes soon. Just as an aside, but that 14 hour flight home to Andrews was quite an adventure. Going through the aerial refueling, some cool helicopter rides. Very fun stuff in some sense, but serious policy, I think first, number one, it put the lie to the notion that somehow the Trump administration is isolationist. This is opposite of isolationism. The president had a very widespread tour through the Indo Pacific region. Major meetings and decisions made in that region. The first stop with Secretary Hegseth was Japan. The new Prime Minister there is a gangbusters. Iron lady of East Asia. Loves America, loves Japan, is good for the alliance. She paid deep respect for our troops. The president, the prime minister were there. Secretary Hegseth were there. I think the troops loved it. I thought it was a really wonderful message to the alliances. So first, the Trump administration is engaging the world. It's just engaging differently. And the establishment doesn't know what to do about that. But it's not isolationism. And alliances are largely happy and improving. A lot of the defense spending increases are happening. They need to move further, faster, but it's directionally correct. And I think that was attested to when the defense minister from the Philippines just spoke so positively and effusively about America's engagement with them as they're challenged by the communist Chinese. And just the final point, Buck, I'd say just watching Secretary Pete Hexess in action. You and I have known him from our younger days and commentary. It was great to see him in action in this regard. I mean, he spoke clearly, decisively and without wavering about the China challenge to the United States, but also the region. And he did it with the Chinese in the room. And the message was the same whether it was public, private, no matter who was there. And I just thought that kind of consistency, clarity, conviction to purpose, it was good to see and I would expect no less out of Pete.

[Clay Travis]

Steve Buck just came back from Taiwan. He's talked a lot about it. If you were telling Steve was my.

[Buck Sexton]

My Sherpa in Taiwan. So he was, he was there every step of the way. He was translating in the meetings.

[Clay Travis]

If you were telling us out there, hey, this is what I would be concerned about. This is what you should be concerned about. I'm presuming Taiwan and what happens with China would probably be number one on your list. Is that true? And how much higher is that on your list of concern than other things? How, how should we calibrate concerns in Trump 2.0 in that respect.

[Stephen Yates]

Okay, I think there's a couple of things first, and Buck has had to listen to me say this over and over, but basically what happens in Taiwan is not a Taiwan only situation. Japan has a fundamental national interest in the status quo being maintained and that Taiwan continue to be a free and democratic territory, and that China is not able to dominate those air and sea lanes around it through which 50% of the world's container traffic go. So if you imagine an economy that is rocked by 50% of those containers carrying all your cheap goods to your doorstep by way of Amazon or elsewhere going kaput for a time, then this matters. And it matters for more than just the transactional notion of are we buying things? But Taiwan is also part of the value chain. They have major companies that are helping us have a shot at winning the AI race and finding ways to adapt their military capabilities. They also buy assistance from us, not ask for assistance be given to them from us. And so in many ways, they are a value add. But the most important thing is to understand that it's that first island chain that goes from Japan, through Taiwan, through the Philippines, down into Southeast Asia that have common cause. And if they're all doing more to protect themselves, they're all buying more from America to defend themselves. And we're keeping our partnerships vital with them, economically and otherwise. That's a pretty profound deterrent, and it makes the chances of war go way down.

[Buck Sexton]

Stephen Yates with us now, a senior fellow at the Heritage foundation and just got back from travel with the Secretary of War all over Asia and on the China front, Stephen, there was actually a pretty big announcement today. This came from FBI Director Cash Patel speaking about China and their role in the fentanyl crisis. Let's play this clip. And then, Stephen, I wanted to have you react to it. Play the audio.

[FBI Director Cash Patel]

While we, the interagency, the Department of Justice, have been fighting hard to seize and stop drug traffickers, we must attack fentanyl precursors, the ingredients necessary to make this lethal drug. That was the sole purpose of my trip to China to eliminate these precursors. And if successful, we would suffocate the drug trafficking organization's ability to manufacture fentanyl in places like Mexico. This was the first time an FBI director has been to China in over a decade and received the audience with his counterpart to address this matter directly. And again, thanks to President Trump's direct engagement, President Xi, the government of China committed fully to my engagement there on the ground in Beijing at a level Never seen before. While at Ministry of Public Security headquarters, I met with my counterpart at mps, where the Chinese government agreed on a plan to stop fentanyl precursors. What does that mean? The People's Republic of China has fully designated and listed all 13 precursors utilized to make fentanyl, effective immediately. Essentially, President Trump has shut off the pipeline that creates fentanyl that kills tens of thousands of Americans.

[Buck Sexton]

Stephen, wanted you to react to this. Big news today from the White House, from the FBI director.

[Stephen Yates]

Well, first and foremost, I just am very, very grateful for President Trump and the team making this a very real priority. As you know, Buck, my daughter was killed by fentanyl poisoning two years ago. And so I'm not unbiased in trying to assess who's to blame and what needs to be done about this. So I think what Cash is saying is incred. I would also just add that this is 10 years too late by China. I have no forgiveness for that regime in the slow and methodical murder of hundreds of thousands of Americans. And I don't think we should have to negotiate people to stop murdering our 18 to 35 year old demographic in America. That said, we live in a world of bad people and the President, his team are serious about trying to enforce this. I would like to see them go further and designate these illicit precursors as a weapon of mass destruction. So just like the cartels are terrorist organizations, if you engage in this business, you're at war. And I would be happy to see you get lit up the way those boats have been getting lit up at the Caribbean.

[Clay Travis]

Last question for you. And we appreciate that you sharing that story about your daughter. And I know there's many people out there that have had similar experiences because unfortunately we've been losing 100,000 people a year to fentanyl poisoning. What do you think President Trump would do if China invaded Taiwan? And how would you assess the probability or likelihood of something like that happening in the next three years of his term in office?

[Stephen Yates]

Well, I certainly hope that President Trump sees it as a potential catastrophic development, not because of just the well being of the people of Taiwan, but it would lead to such a severe market reaction that it would be cataclysmic for our own gross domestic product for a sustained period of time. It would call into question alliances if we didn't rally to find a way to push back against this kind of encroachment. And it would be crippling in this race for AI and other things that are unfortunately a very, very important part of our future. Economic and social way of life. So I hope that he's improving deterrence. I think that's what Secret Hegseth was all about. I think the reform of the manufacturing supply chain and making sure that those are safe and clean supply chains are necessary down payment on getting that right. Having new allies or new leaders among our allies that are serious about it. Like in Japan, all of this is to the good. So I'm hoping that directionally we've got the right team and we're starting to do the right policies. And if there's rationality left in Beijing, they would say, you know what, this would be a bad day to test Uncle Sam.

[Buck Sexton]

Stephen Yates of the Heritage Foundation. Stephen, we'll have you back again soon. A lot of important things happening in the area of the world that you know best. Thanks for being with us.

[Stephen Yates]

Thank you, Buck.

[Clay Travis]

Thank you, Blake, for sure. Look, speaking of areas of the world that are always cultural flashpoints, unfortunately anti Semitism's on the rise, targeting Jewish businesses, schools, even synagogues. Some communities are hiring armed security to protect themselves. Sad that two years after October 7th, we find ourselves facing this degree of hate. If you want to support your Jewish brothers and sisters, stand with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. The ICJ is on the front lines providing real help where it's needed most. They're giving food and shelter to Jewish families that feel under threat and they're helping survivors of hate rebuild their lives. And they don't just respond to crisis, they work every day to help prevent it. Your gift of 45 will help support their life saving work. I've seen it for myself by helping provide food, shelter and much more. Supporting the IFCJ is a spiritual stand you can take as well. So please call 888-488-IFCJ. That's 888488-4325. You can also go online to ifcj.org every dollar helps. Don't wait. Be the difference. Visit ifcj.org you can also call 888-488-Ifcj. Now keep up with the biggest political comeback in world history on the Team 47 podcast. Clay and Buck highlight Trump replays from the week, Sundays at noon Eastern. Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Clay Travis]

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[Buck Sexton]

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[Clay Travis]

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[Clay Travis]

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[Buck Sexton]

Start your 7 day free trial today. Offers are subject to change. Go to Fox one for complete terms and conditions. Fox one we live for live streaming now.

[Clay Travis]

Welcome back in play Travis Buck Sexton show Closing up the Wednesday edition of the program. Encourage you to go subscribe to the podcast. Make sure you don't miss it everywhere. Also encourage you we're signing up people so fast with Crockett Coffee because we're up on Amazon now. We'd obviously prefer that you go direct to crockettcoffee.com but you can find us now everywhere. Coffee is fantastic. I am drinking it right now. Crockettcoffee.com and we are giving away on Instagram to a deserving veteran. If you want to tag someone, nominate someone. You can find Crockett Coffee on Instagram. Fun event there. We started to talk about H1B1 at the top of this hour. Robbie Starbuck was a little bit delayed and so we didn't know if he was going to be there.

[Buck Sexton]

Can I, can I jump in? Clay, I'm sorry. I know we, I want to talk. That's actually important. We want to talk about this. Talk back though, because we're not going to remember this one tomorrow. Can we just hit this one real quick? It's a short one. Can we hit this one? Because the H1B discussion should be longer than a couple of minutes.

[Clay Travis]

We are going to do it tomorrow. That's what I was going to say. We're going to dive into it in earnest. If you want to hear our takes on it, there you go.

[Buck Sexton]

It's very important because I really want to hear Darryl's take on why you don't carry cash.

[Robby Starbuck]

Play ll I think this whole conversation.

[Buck Sexton]

About Clay not carrying cash is his.

[Stephen Yates]

Justification for not paying his sports bets to Sean Hannity.

[Buck Sexton]

Clay, you owe Hannity money. You owe Hannity sports bet money.

[Clay Travis]

I've lost every bet to Hannity and he's been talking about it lately. And I saw him in person on Thursday and I was just like, man, I didn't get a chance. I haven't been to the atm. So you know, Sean left, left your.

[Buck Sexton]

Wallet in your other suit jacket.

[Clay Travis]

Is that where we are?

[Buck Sexton]

Clay?

[Clay Travis]

I had the tux, I had the tux on at the Patriot Awards. I'm not usually having the wallet in the tux pants. And so it's just tough timing for me. And yeah, that is, that is very, very funny. A lot of great reactions, by the way, pouring in on many different topics out there, including all of you people who love change, pocket change, all of you men out there with £10 of pocket change in one of your pockets, pulling down your pants. That's why you have to wear a belt buckle because the change is just overloading your, your pants otherwise dragging you down. And let's see, I want to catch up with all of these. You know, I will say I was reading an article. The original silver buck in the, in the coins I believe stopped around 1960. And so an average quarter and half dollar I think is now worth if it's pre1960 because we've seen precious metals prices go up to such an extent. I think if you find a half dollar or a, a quarter that is full silver, they're now actually worth over $3 each. And I don't want you to look to me to be your precious metals expert so you can do your own research. But they stopped making 100 silver coins. I believe it was sometime around 1960. And if you find them from before, they're actually worth way more than the face value of the coin. To try to win back coin aficionados out there.

[Buck Sexton]

Well, you know, in ancient Rome they did this. They had initially in their coinage. Early Roman coins had silver. They were silver, they were made of silver and almost entirely. And then over time they started the debasement of their own coinage by putting less and less silver in the coins.

[Clay Travis]

Didn't that also contribute to insane rates of lead poisoning the way that they made the coins back in the day? I think I'm correct about that in terms of the impact of coinage. But yes, that is typically what happens is you're debasing on a face value level the substance under which your currency is based. Michigan. Tim, he says he's got a coin operated laundromat. Imagine the amount of coins he's collecting on a daily basis. GG I own a coin operated laundromat.

[Buck Sexton]

I sure hope they don't get rid of quarters.

[Clay Travis]

Well, look, they're not going to get rid of them. The question is, and this topic came up because they are finishing the production of pennies so pennies will continue to circulate. There just won't be new ones coming into the the overall coin release. And the reality is most people are still going to keep losing pennies in their couch cushions and eventually, eventually they will all vanish. But that's where they will be. When we come back Tomorrow, we'll talk H1B1 buck have that real discussion. We didn't talk about this, the 50 year mortgage. Maybe we can have a discussion about affordability of homes because I think a lot of people out there, young people thinking about how do you buy that first home? I think that's intriguing as well.

[Buck Sexton]

Also, does the app Open Table spy on your behavior when it comes to I really want to have this discussion because I have a I'm going to tell you this right now everybody. So team, hold me to this. We got to discuss this tomorrow. I think I have a scorching hot take on whether OpenTable should be able to judge you as the user.

[Robby Starbuck]

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 the same for everyone.

[Announcer]

I feel like sometimes being broke is a cycle and that we might have.

[Robby Starbuck]

To revisit that and we're not stopping at success stories.

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What happens when it doesn't go right? How do you cope with it?

[Robby Starbuck]

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.

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[Buck Sexton]

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[Clay Travis]

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[Buck Sexton]

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