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Dutch Pet Care
Time is precious and so are our pets. So time with our pets is extra precious. That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 24,7 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow ups for up to five pets. You can message a vet at any time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments and shipping is always free. With Dutch, you'll get more time with your pets and year round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care.
Clay Travis
I had to go do a quick refresh, get Clay some Crockett coffee. That's right, making it, brewing it right here at home. He's even got a Crockett mug for it. Go to crockettcoffee.com please subscribe and you've got amazing products there and you will love this coffee. Plus 10% of the profits goes to Tunnel the Towers foundation, which Clay was just with them yesterday. Tunnel Towers and Frank Siller doing amazing work. We love that partnership in all respects with this show and also with Crockett Coffee. So please check out Crockett Coffee subscribe. And it's how we get through the show because it keeps us fired up and ready to go. We have now a lot of, a lot of stress being put on us from the media about, oh my gosh, the tariffs and what's going on here. First of all, here's a reminder from our buddy Stephen Miller, who's the deputy White House chief of staff, that what's going on right now is not a typical presidency. It is fixing and setting right big parts of what this country, America is all about. Not just for this week or this month, but for future years and even generations to come. Play nine.
Buck Sexton
This is the great healing and rejuvenation of the American economy after half a century of rampant offshoring, outsourcing and deindustrialization. There was once a time in which Motor City in Michigan, Detroit automakers powered the entire globe. There was once a time when you could drive through Pennsylvania and all you would see were humming steel mills, humming coal plants, manufacturing facilities again that were supplying the entire world, supplying Americans and all of planet earth. Foreign countries, countries like China, Canada, Mexico, Cambodia, Vietnam and the European Union took advantage of our country and our leaders.
Clay Travis
So we know that the tariffs are a major focus with the economy right now from the Trump administration and there's going to be. Here you go. Trump's Liberation Day tariffs will go into effect immediately. According to the White House. Just eight minutes ago, Clay President Donald Trump's promised tariffs are a day away and they'll go into effect sooner than some had expected, as in immediately, according to the White House Liberation Day trade policy announcement is expected to be the most aggressive tariff move yet by President Trump. And he has vowed to slap tariffs on U.S. imports for a whole range of different solutions. Now, Clay, they're saying this is going to be costly. They're saying this is going to create a lot of economic dislocation. And to be fair, even here's Senator Tuberville, who is a big Trump guy, big Trump supporter. We've had him on the show many times and he is the one to which to whom I'm supposed to say war Eagle.
Jimmy Petronas
That is correct. By the way, Roll Tide probably celebrating over the weekend as the Auburn Tigers rolled into the Final Four for their second time ever, playing against your wife's alma mater, the Florida Gators, on Saturday.
Clay Travis
Big game, my beloved Florida Gators because they are my wife's beloved. So whatever the Florida Gators, whatever I could do for them, I love doing. But here we go. Here's Senator Tuberville on the tariff situation. You say, look, it's not going to be without a little bit of, a little bit of pain before we get to the gain play it.
Senator Tuberville
This is one thing that President Trump has got to sell, but it's also going to work. But it's going to be a slow pain first before we get the gain. We have to get jobs back in this country. We have to get manufacturing to come back. We can't control that as a Senate. The one thing that we can control, as you said, we can control the tax cuts. We have to get those done and we have to get it done this week. And we let President Trump do the tariffs, we do the tax cuts, get the debt limit put in with this reconciliation fund, the border wall fund, all the immigration processes going on. We have to get back to business up here. We've been dragging our feet. But I think with the tariffs this week and also the budget, budget reconciliation that we'll do for the tax cuts, I think it's all going to come together.
Clay Travis
So, Clay, I think at some level what we're seeing here is Trump is right on the immigration has been and continues to be right on the immigration issue has proven the case. The numbers speak for themselves. The border is the most secure it has been in truly decades. A lot of interior enforcement still has to happen. We can get into some of those numbers. DHS Kristi Noem talking about that. We can get into that In a little bit. But on the economic side of things, what Doge is doing is important. But the tariff issue might even have more short term political impact if things get rough between now and really next summer. All right. Or not this coming summer, it'd be the following summer before the midterms. Right. So really, you've got 15 months or so if this starts to look like it's blowing up in Trump's face, even if the media is able to make that case, and that's not a fair assessment of it. The problem here is what happens if the midterms go against the Republicans because of the tariffs. It slows the whole agenda down. So it feels like it's a gamble, but it's one that Trump is all in on.
Jimmy Petronas
Yeah. And I don't know about you, but economic geniuses have gotten so much wrong. My trust level in experts is at an all time low, personally, because everything they have told us for the past several years, it feels like the experts are batting zero on pretty much every major issue that has occurred. Now until tomorrow, we won't know exactly what Trump has planned, but I do think it's significant that Israel just announced that they were ending all tariffs on American goods in the last few hours.
Clay Travis
What is your. Let me ask you this because I think we've talked about this a little bit, but I haven't. I asked this question, I asked this honestly, if tariffs are so self evidently self defeating, why do so many countries have tariffs against the United States on different issues? Why does Canada have a 200% dairy tariff for U.S. dairy imports if it's so stupid and it does nothing good for them? And that's just one of hundreds that we could talk about here, never mind China and the policies that they have vis a vis the rest of the world.
Jimmy Petronas
I think where Trump is right is we have a lot less to lose on tariffs than other countries do. And what I mean by that is this is what happens when you are a net importer of goods, when we have the massive trade deficit that we do. Now, the arguments out there, for those of you that are paying attention, the economic gurus of the world who are opposed to tariffs would say, well, yes, the United States is a net importer of goods. That is, we spend more money than we, than than we make off of our products. But the result is that our products that we purchase are incredibly affordable. And I would just use as an example, Buck, I'm sure you remember this. Back in the day, one of the most expensive things I bought when Laura And I first got married was a flat screen television. Do you remember when flat screen televisions were like five, six thousand dollars? They were really expensive.
Clay Travis
I remember pooling money with my colle to get for our common room. Yes, that, you know, because we all, we all lived in like the shared housing to get for a common room. And we carried, it was, it was like when they find the ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark. We carried that thing with reverence up the stairs.
Jimmy Petronas
Yes, that flat screen television. Many of you out there are going to remember when you were able to first buy one. Speaking of Costco, which your wife Carrie loves and one of the few.
Clay Travis
We're working on the wokeness. We're working on the wokeness over there.
Jimmy Petronas
One of the few places that I actually walk into, you can get a 70 inch flat screen television for like 700 bucks. Now. Now these things are manufactured almost entirely outside the United States. The reason why I use flat screen television as an example is that is something where you would say the average American consumer is getting a really good deal because flat screen televisions can be made more affordably elsewhere. I mean, almost everybody, I'm holding mine up for video. Almost everybody has an iPhone now. IPhones are almost exclusively manufactured in China and the Philippines. I think now, now they're starting. Apple has said we're going to invest more money in them. But the reason why Apple has the profit margins it does is because of the manufacturer, their sneakers, all sorts of products.
Clay Travis
Okay, so they used to make them all at Foxconn where they had to put up nets to prevent people from jumping out and committing suicide the hours they were working. So rough stuff.
Jimmy Petronas
Well, this is also why I got so fired up over the Nike products. You know, the NBA players saying, oh, America's an awful place and we're, you know, our people are being taken advantage of. And then they never mentioned that their tennis shoes are being made basically oftentimes for slave labor overseas. And they make hundreds of millions of dollars off of those deals. The most ridiculous of them actually had deals with Chinese sneaker companies. Buck that bragged about the fact that they used slave labor in Xinjiang province, cotton produced there. So the modern day NBA star athlete with a Chinese sneaker deal, and there were many of them was actually making money off slave labor. And meanwhile they're lecturing all of us about how America is an awful country and taking these during the national anthem. The hypocrisy was too much. So the argument is, okay, yes, we are Net X, our money is leaving the country, but we're getting better value than we would if that was produced here. I don't know that that is 100% true. In other words, what would it look like? I've made this argument for a long time. LeBron James. What if LeBron James had said, hey, I'm asking all these people to make pay $200 for sneakers. What if he had gone to Nike and said, I want my sneakers produced in Akron, Ohio, a industrial Midwest city that is struggling, and I understand the profit margins will be lower, but we'll be able to employ a lot of Americans to make my shoes. That would have actually been a really interesting argument. Of course, LeBron's never gonna say it because all he cares about the money that he's making, not about the larger society. But my point on this is some guys that have the economic power to relocate to resource actual goods here and create American jobs that are high paying, that people who otherwise wouldn't get them deserve them. This is the argument that Trump's making. He basically is doing the anti LeBron. He's saying we should be making goods that Americans buy here and we're going to level the playing field to help make that happen.
Clay Travis
This is one of the areas where Trump is going the most against the consensus, even on the Republican side, longstanding Republican institutions, think tanks, GOP apparatus, you name it. Free trade has been a, almost a religious mantra on the right for as long as you and I have been alive and really going back to Milton Friedman. And free trade has been a thing that you just say and everyone has to assume it's the best possible way. Now, theoretically, I can see why. And when I hear the arguments about this, I go, yeah, of course. It seems like everybody, everybody benefits. You know, when, when you have a free trade system challenge, though, is we don't have free trade globally.
Jimmy Petronas
That's right.
Clay Travis
So this is where. And this is when Trump came in with China in the first term, they said he's going to start a trade war. And the people who really knew what was going on specifically with China said, we're already in a trade war with China. We're just not doing anything.
Jimmy Petronas
And Biden didn't change anything.
Clay Travis
But that's exactly the point that he won on that one, right. That he went against the consensus, so much so that even Biden's like, look, I'm not going to mess right this stuff. He's so was this another one of those moments? And I bring this to the, it's really, to me, to me it's more almost a question of logic or common sense. If this is so bad and self defeating, which you are hearing not just from Democrats who hate Trump, forget about them. We don't care. They don't know anything about the economy. They want to ruin Western civilization. A lot of Republicans are saying, ah, I don't know about this, ah, it's going to be rough for the markets. They're telling you to kind of brace for impact. Okay, but if there aren't any benefits to this, why do other countries do them? Same way that I clay I always knew that they're lying. The media was lying to us about illegal immigration because you could never get somebody in the media to admit that illegal immigration had a downside. Well, if it has no downside, why do we want to stop it?
Kristi Noem
Right?
Jimmy Petronas
Yes.
Clay Travis
It makes no sense. Same thing I feel like with tariffs. If tariffs are only downside, why are other people doing it? I mean other countries doing it for decades and very aggressive about it. So I think it's about things that you want and things that you can get and there's a negotiation to be had here.
Jimmy Petronas
I also think, and we'll know more tomorrow afternoon, 4:00 Eastern. This is scheduled. Markets really hate uncertainty. Whatever you think of any particular economic decision, as soon as business can understand what the cost structure is going to be and adjust accordingly, oftentimes we see the markets adjust and to me Buck, part of the biggest challenge here in general has been we don't really know what the implementation of these policy is going to look like. Come tomorrow afternoon, in theory, we will have an idea of exactly what Trump trade policy looks like. And if you watch the stock market on a regular basis, typically when the stock market moves is when something hasn't been priced. There is a surprise, there is an uncertainty, there is an expectation that is upset relative to the existing marketplace. I would say in general, this is what I've said for a long time. Buy S&P 500 index funds don't overreact to any day to day market manipulation or movement. And if you believe that the future of America is bright, and I do, every 10 years or so your index fund should double. And most of the time people get in trouble when they respond emotionally to stock market prices. You look at prices going down, people sell. You look at prices going up, people think they're always going to go up. Most people are emotional, not as much rational. Which is why the best thing to do with your 401ks is not pay that much attention to it. On a day to day basis. I get that it's hard, but that is my best advice. And tomorrow at 4:00, I'm sure we'll be talking about this on Thursday's show. Hey, what do we expect the actual impact's gonna be? And what will the stock market do? Will get that first kind of read on that Thursday when you switch your.
Clay Travis
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Team 47
Want to be in the know when you're on the go? The Team 47 podcast drop highlights from the week Sundays at noon Eastern in the Clay and Buck podcast feed. Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Dutch Pet Care
Time is precious and so are our pets. So time with our pets is extra precious. That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 24. 7 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow ups for up to five pets. You can message a vet at any time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments and shipping is always free. With Dutch, you'll get more time with your pets and year round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care.
Jimmy Petronas
Welcome back. In two different races in the state of Florida. I'm down in Miami with Buck right now from his studio up in the northern part of Florida. Florida one, the Panhandle. Also Daytona and St. Augustine area, Florida six. Jimmy Patronus joins us now. The next Congressman. If you guys keep showing up and voting like you are in the Florida first District. Jimmy, good to talk with you. Appreciate you coming on. What can you tell us about what you're seeing in Florida 1 and if people are listening both in your district and in the 6th district of Florida, what is the importance of getting out and voting here?
Kristi Noem
Yeah, so we're. It's a beautiful day for getting out to vote, so there's no weather. It's going to slow anybody down. It's 77, 77 degrees here in the Panhandle. So, so grateful for everybody that has showed up and voted early. But today's the last day to let your vote count. And the Republicans have been out, out tracking the, the Democrats. So we feel good, but you can't take anything for granted. I tell people all the time, if you don't hold your elected accountable, you get the government you deserve. And, you know, just really, it's an honor to be on the air with y'all.
Clay Travis
Hey, Jimmy, we appreciate you and, and we hope you run up the scoreboard in a big way. Who are they even. Who are they even running against you there? I mean, you know, I know we all feel pretty good about it. Clay consistently refers to the Panhandle as God's country, although he doesn't want more people buying beachfront on the Gulf of America.
Jimmy Petronas
There's not any left.
Clay Travis
He says it's getting very crowded. But who are they running against you in God's country, so to speak. What do we need to know about this Democrat that they're throwing, throwing into the mix?
Kristi Noem
Yeah, so the same woman who ran against Matt Gaetz last time in November, her name's Gabe Alamont. And look, I'm sure she's, she's a fine person, but her, her policies are flawed. You know what she is advocating for? She's trying to run as a moderate. And look, she's got $7 million. And I'm looking forward to tonight at about 7:30, you're looking into the camera and acknowledging that there's about 7 million reasons why their, their effort is not the right message for northwest Florida. The amount of money that we've been outspent, probably 5 to 1. But the Democrats are seeing 6 and 1 as a way to flip, flip the balance of power in Congress and try to do a referendum on Trump. But, you know, the people in these two districts are just too educated for.
Jimmy Petronas
People who don't know what is Florida one, where is it located? I just want to make sure because there's lots of people driving around. You know as well as anybody, people get fired up for November elections. But a lot of times these special elections, we've been talking about, the two in Florida that, the one in Wisconsin that's going today, they can slip under the radar where right now in Florida one can people go vote for you. Sometimes, you know this, people don't even know exactly what congressional district they're in. I'll, I'll put myself on blast here. When they redid the redrew the lines in Tennessee, where I live, the difference between one congressman and another came into my neighborhood. One streets represented by one congressman, the other is another one. I didn't know, I didn't know who was my congressman until I actually went in and, and had the opportunity to vote. So just for people who may not know where in Florida one can people go vote today? Where do they need to show up?
Kristi Noem
Yeah, so Florida one goes from, from Pensacola and the Alabama state line over between Pensacola Mobile and it goes all the way to the edge of Panama City. So it stops at Highway 331. So that's Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and parts of Walton County. You can go to joinjimmy.com at the top of the page there's a link. You tap it and it says, where do I vote? Where's my precinct? And then we will go through and direct you to where you can vote. So it's again, today's the day that you would actually go to your regular precinct that you would vote on in a November election. And you were spot on. People are. Everything's got seasons to it. And the seasons for elections are in November. People know to vote November. They don't know to vote in April. Oh, by the way, it's April Fool's Day.
Jimmy Petronas
Yeah, no kidding. And Trump won your district, I think, by 37 or 38 points. So this, that sounds good. By the way, people honking in the back background. If you're listening to Clay and Buck, that's a good problem. If you're listening to Clay and Buck in Florida one right now and you see the congressman driving by the next congressman, you can honk at him and let us know, let us know that you got his back. But this is a dyed rock ribbed Trump district. But it's important for everybody to get out. Don't just rely on the fact, again, it's April Fools. A lot of people may not be aware that this is going on.
Kristi Noem
Yeah. And again, with the amount of money that they've spent running as a moderate, destroying and trying to trash my reputation. I was born and raised in the central time zone. I've been part of this community the whole time. Matter of fact, I think, Clay, I think you and I shared the same studio at one time. I used to be on the radio there in Panama City for a while, and I think y'all used to come in and do the show.
Jimmy Petronas
Jimmy, that's a story I've shared with Buck when I did early morning sports talk radio in that Panama City studio. Love the guys there, but I was on at 5am there, and sometimes. This won't shock you, there weren't people there to let me in the building. So I have started my show before from the parking lot of that Panama City, Florida studio. It's a great signal. We love all of you down on the Gulf coast that are listening right now, but there is. It's not far to the Eastern time zone. And so sometimes people would get all crossed up as to what time things started. And yeah, my boy DJ K Dub, who was in charge of letting me in back in the day, Buck was sometimes late. But, yeah, Jimmy, that's a. That's a fabulous station. I know there's a lot of people listening to us right now as you're driving there on Highway 98, headed, I think, to Pensacola.
Kristi Noem
Yep, yep. And I tell you, it's just a radio is so amazing. It's intimate. You know, people get your family, you know, and that's what I love about what y'all are doing. I mean, you're connecting with folks and. And they really. They feel like they know you and know everything about you because they spend so much time and you build their day out. So, I mean, it's. It's. This is such an amazing way to get news out, to communicate and to make people informed.
Clay Travis
Totally, totally. Right, Jimmy? And we're talking to Jimmy Petronis. He's running for that important congressional seat, the first in Florida, beautiful part of the country up in the panhandle. We got that. We've also got the sixth congressional seat formerly held by Michael Waltz. It is in the mix with Randy Fine today. Make sure we have a huge Florida audience. Make sure for those of you who live in those districts, you get out and vote. Gotta. Gotta run up the scoreboard high, because otherwise you're gonna be reading in the New York Times front page tomorrow. Oh, Trump agenda stalling. They, you know, they went from 30 points to 25 points winning, you know, so gotta run up those scoreboards. And to that end, Jimmy, first of all, totally agree with what you said about radio Clint I always joke about how when people know you from the radio show, they just come up and talk to you because they're your friends. There's no, like, oh, there's, there's no trepidation or is it okay? Or am I in? Or they, they come up to me, they're like, how's Ginger? How's Kerry? And I love it. I mean, those are our radio people. And same thing with Clay. They know his wife and his kids names. But tell me about what you want to get at the top of the agenda. Working with fellow members of Congress on the Republican side for the Trump agenda. Once you are seated.
Kristi Noem
Sure. So northwest Florida in the first Congressional district, it's got five military installations. So not only the military economy important to northwest Florida, there's so many vital missions to our national security, but because of the military presence and how beautiful this place is, we've got the largest per capita retired veterans population anywhere in the nation. So, you know, those VA services are critically important at the same time making sure that the missions continue to be enhanced in northwest Florida. We've got a welcome mat in front of every one of our households here because we love our military. So, you know, I'm really, I'm looking at hustling to make sure that we, we continue to support them, especially those that are needing extra assistance, guidance with the da. You know what I tell people? Jimmy's not a show horse. Jimmy's a workhorse. I look forward to helping, you know, break through the bureaucracy, helping people get their questions answered. Pete Hegseth's a good buddy. So proud of what he's doing to bring the image of the war fighter back in a way where, where men and women are proud to serve our country. So, yeah, this is pinch me. I'm really can't believe it's real.
Jimmy Petronas
Jimmy, you've been fighting for the state of Florida for a long time. Buck is one of the new residents of the state of Florida. What is the impact? I mean, I think it's an awesome kind of test case for what good governance can do. The number of people that are saying, hey, I'm going to move to a state like Florida. What do the numbers look like over the last five or six years?
Kristi Noem
Yeah, so we're in the best fiscal health we've ever been in the history of the state of Florida. And so, look, I've been the CFO for the last eight years. I'm proud how much debt we've paid down. But here's the twisted thing about it. Even in the jacked up Biden administration where we had double digit inflation. What people don't realize in Florida, the state of Florida made more money than ever before because if things cost more, we're only a sales tax environment. You all know that because now you're not paying income tax from wherever you once were living. We made more money as a state, so we aggressively paid down debt at a breakneck speed. We have also created a culture to tell people it's not a sprint, it's a march. You got to work on it every day. We have 400,000 new net Floridians come to the state of Florida and we've got 1.3 million more registered Republicans than Democrats. The trend we're going is to give people their personal freedom and keep their tax money.
Jimmy Petronas
All right, get out and vote for him. Jimmy Petronas. Jimmy, I'll see you down on the beach here in the near future. I'm going to spend a bunch of time down there this spring and summer. So keep up the good work and look forward to you doing a fantastic job for everybody on the panhandle.
Kristi Noem
Thanks, guys. God bless you. Thanks for having me.
Jimmy Petronas
For sure. That's Jimmy Petronas again. We want to keep echoing at Randy Fine, Florida 6, Jimmy Petronas, Florida 1 and get out and vote for Brad Schimmel in the entire state of Wisconsin. Three different storylines going on right now that will be covered, as Buck mentioned to a great degree as an early test of the momentum for Trump some 75 days ish into his second term. If your family carried around a video camera back in the day, chances are you still got the videotape cassettes to prove it. Memory stored on them, valuable when you recorded them and have only become more valuable as time's gone on. How about digitizing what's on those video cassettes? Legacy Box can do that right now for you at a great price. And digitizing those tapes means moving the content to the cloud. That means you can easily log on from a phone, smart tv, a laptop or an iPad. And that way you can watch and share those restored family memories on easy to use digital files. Because the Legacy Box will make digitizing your memories easy. You ship off your old tapes, film and photos. Legacy Box takes care of the rest. They'll digitally transfer your family movies by hand, one videotape at a time. Then you'll get them back on the cloud ready to watch and share from anywhere. And right now, Legacy Box running that special spring cleaning sale, you can digitize your old home movies for just $9 a tape, 65% off regular prices. 90 days of free Legacy Box cloud access. Don't wait until it's too late. Visit LegacyBox.com Clay to shop that $9 per tape sale. Claim your cloud access. That's a LegacyBox.com Clay Patriots radio hosts.
Team 47
A couple of regular guys, Clay Travis and Buck Sexton. Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Clay Travis
Welcome back into Clay and Buck. A couple of things to take a quick look at here. One is the reductions in the federal workforce just as of as of April 1st is in the New York Times. I'm assuming this is not April Fools. There are impending layoffs of 10,000 CDC and other health federal health workers confirmed cuts, according to the New York Times here at least 49,000 so far. Many of these employees, though, have been temporarily reinstated after court orders have come down. As we've discussed after the hashtag resistance judges employees who took buyouts 75,000. I can't do the math on that. But what is that as a percentage of the overall where there's about 2 mil, is it 2 million federal employees? So, you know, you're looking at what they think it might get up to 5%. Maybe it'll get up to 5%. We'll see. And then planned reductions at least 171,000. There's a lot of efficiency stuff that is going on right now. USAID basically gutted and gone more than 99%. Voice of America gutted and gone more than 99%. Education Department of Education, 46% down. And then HHS Energy, IRS, CFPB all down in the teens. You know, the numbers are 12, 13, 16 around there. So this is they think it could affect a total clay of 12% of the 2.4 million civilian federal workers. So that's the total affected. Maybe the buyouts could be 5 to 10%. They've thought maybe more like 5%. But I think you have a particular perspective here. The Secret Service, which had a very bad year in 2024, let's just be frank about that. A very bad year for this. I mean it could have been worse, God forbid, but it was pretty bad as it was. You were at the golf course. Tell everybody where the second assassination attempt against Trump occurred and what did you learn from seeing that environment yourself up close.
Jimmy Petronas
So first of all, I encourage you guys, go donate tunnel to towers T2T dot the reason I was there playing was Frank Siller the work that they do the last time I played with them was New York. They're now doing a major fundraiser down in Florida and they're going to do it multiple years at Trump International Golf Course. So if you are in Florida and you would be interested in playing in that event, which I hope I'll be able to do next year with them as well, they raise millions of dollars at these events and they go to help people who were either killed or catastrophically wounded. Military first responders. You guys know their, their work. 95% of every dollar goes to help those in need. They do phenomenal work. So that's where I was. That's why I was playing there. I had not been to this Trump International Course in West Palm beach before. I'm an awful golfer. I love playing golf. I don't get to do it very often. But as we're going around the course yesterday and thank you for holding down the fort on the show, I got to see and my caddy was there explaining to me exactly the locations of this would be second assassin. And having seen it on the ground now for myself, it is unbelievable to me that we have not gotten more details about this because this guy was going to come insanely close to Trump at an area where you could not miss. And what I was told by people who were there was that it was the glinting of the sunlight off of the barrel of his gun that made him noticeable. Trump was only one hole away from this guy being able to murder Trump right after the July 13 terrorist had come within would be assassin had come within a quarter of an inch of killing Trump on live television at that Butler, Pennsylvania rally. Buck this area, the fact that it was not swept, the fact that the Secret Service didn't have people in those Bush lines, the fact that they allowed this guy to get there at dawn and be there for hours and have Trump one hole away from him walking up and being killed right there is indefensible. And we have not gotten. I don't think the full story on either of these would be killers. This guy after Butler, Pennsylvania, I would argue it's even more indefensible than what happened at Butler because it wasn't like the guy was on the roof of that building in Butler for eight hours in advance. I can't believe that this happened.
Clay Travis
I, I totally see what you mean about the second one. The first one, I do think the very first place that anybody would have wanted to clear would have been the roof where the guy set off.
Jimmy Petronas
This is what I'm saying about this. If you went to that golf course with me. Buck, you would look at this and you would say, how in the world do they not have this parking lot managed? Like have agents walking along inside of this Bush line? The fact that they allowed this to happen, it feels intentional to me. It feels like there was, first of all, some sort of inside knowledge that this guy knew that Trump was likely to be playing that course on this day. But of all the places that you would be on this course, this is really the only place you need to secure.
Clay Travis
So really what you're saying is there were two assassination attempts against Trump that both relied on the most obvious possible platform for the shooter, Positioning for the shooter of all?
Jimmy Petronas
Yes.
Clay Travis
I don't know.
Jimmy Petronas
I mean, this is, we're not, we haven't talked about. I mean, I'm saying the collective media as a whole, for this to happen after the failures of Butler, Buck, we're talking. It's one thing Butler, you know, it comes out of nowhere. And I'm with you. It was utterly indefensible. But the most predictable places that you would expect someone to try to kill the President were unsecured. After Butler, they let it happen again. And we still don't know anything about these guys. Right? I mean, compared what we know about these guys to the average mass shooter who they have front page articles about. We know everything about them. And when I, when I played this course yesterday, it just, I stood there and I looked at that Bush line and I said, how is it possible that they let a guy sit there all day and nobody was securing that area? Again, the course is not particularly complicated to secure.
Clay Travis
Again, I don't like to take us into a really dark and macabre direction, but imagine the feeling in the country if after that first assassination attempt, a second assassin, just as blatant and honestly, tactically lacking in proficiency, was successful even just in wounding Trump a second time. Never mind, God forbid something else could have happened. Who would have believed that that was just grotesque incompetence twice over by a, you know, multi billion dollar federal agency that's supposed to be able to protect the President of the United States?
Jimmy Petronas
Buck, he got away too.
Clay Travis
It.
Jimmy Petronas
He got into a car and drove away. And the only reason we caught him like 50 minutes down the road was because a woman in the parking lot saw him fleeing and wrote down his license plate. In other words, if this guy had been able to get shots on Trump, which he nearly did, he might have been able to get away.
Clay Travis
Yeah.
Jimmy Petronas
So it's not even, I think at a minimum, most People think, well, if you get a shot at the President, you're giving up your life. This guy got away. And the only reason we knew who he was was because a random woman, thank the Lord she was there, took down the license plate. And again, I understand people say, well, he's okay now, he's been elected President. I understand that that is thank the Lord happened. But I don't think we can let July and August and what nearly happened just vanish and not be having a bigger question about who knew what. How did these guys end up in the position that they did. And are we just supposed to expect and, and, and believe that these were totally lone wolf would be assassins? It just feels unlikely to.
Clay Travis
Didn't. Didn't see it. Service also fire a bunch of, Someone fired a bunch of rounds at him from pretty close and didn't hit. And didn't hit him, right?
Jimmy Petronas
Yes. And he got away again. He got into his car, drove off.
Clay Travis
My understanding was it was I should check and see, but it was a number of rounds from a pretty close distance. Well, that's why I bring up that the guy was able to get away so you can, you can set up a sniper position against the President. And Secret Service doesn't figure it out until you almost were able to get the shots off again the second time, never mind the first time when he did get a shot off and hit the President in the ear, which is still something I feel like our national psyche is processing, you know, how close we came as a country to the abyss. I don't even like to think about it or go there because heaven forbid, just, you know, God was on Trump's shoulder that day and we got lucky as a nation. I don't care what somebody thinks about Trump. We got lucky as a nation because that didn't, you know, the worst didn't happen. That's right. But that the Secret Service, I don't know what needs to be done to, to fix it so that their procedures are more, you know, it's a, I think it's a $3 billion a year agency and they really have one job. I know they protect a bunch of people, but, you know, the Hunter Biden protection detail is different than the Trump protection detail. I think we all understand that. Right. And they had one job and they almost couldn't do that. It's pretty, pretty terrifying when you think about the incompetence. You know, we talk about the incompetence at USAID and these other places. Secret Service got incredibly lucky in 2024 that the worst didn't happen.
Jimmy Petronas
Trump would be dead. If they had had a truly competent, trained assassin, oh, definitely trying to kill him at either of those times, yeah, he would be dead. And the fact that we allowed that to happen in July and we allowed it to happen again in August, to me, is utterly indefensible. And again, being on the ground and seeing that, if all of you walked that golf course with me and you said, okay, where is the most dangerous place that's going to be on this golf course? We would all flag that exact location. And the fact that the Secret Service allowed that guy to be there all day for hours, it's not like he pulled up 10 minutes beforehand. He was there since dawn and came within a few hundred yards of the president being right in front of him and it being almost impossible for him to miss. I just, it's not talked about enough. And it makes me nervous because it makes me worry about Trump safety going forward, even though he's now the president and even though he now has a better protective detail. If they failed that bad twice, why would they not fail that bad a third time?
Clay Travis
Well, I think Trump is putting some of the people in positions now.
Jimmy Petronas
You would hope.
Clay Travis
You would hope, but I think he is. I mean, you see, you know, cash at FBI. Dan Bongino, former Secret SERVICE as deputy FBI director, I know that's not Secret Service, but these guys understand what's at play here and are going to fix it. I think so. But, yeah, it is. It is incredibly important that these issues are addressed from the whole gamut of a bloated federal government with way too many people doing nothing, to the parts of the federal government that we need.
Jimmy Petronas
To be good and need to be perfect.
Clay Travis
Secretary Hegset that at the dod, for example, this is. This is his mission. The parts of our government that have to be absolutely a game need to be a game. It cannot be. And Secret Service, dod, these places cannot make the biggest mistakes and make them repeatedly. If you're one to donate to a worthy cause, look no further than Preborn. You'd be amazed at what $28 can do when you donate to support their mission. Put that money aside to make a donation to Preborn and their networks of clinics in cities nationwide. And in doing so, you'll be helping to save the life of, of an unborn child. For the better part of two decades now, Preborn has welcomed pregnant women at their clinics in an effort to convince them there's a better plan for their unborn baby than the contemplated abortion. Preborn operates clinics and communities across our nation where abortion rates are the highest. They do this on purpose because they want to meet and welcome pregnant women who are in a crisis pregnancy, meaning it was unplanned or they're getting pressure, they don't know what to do. They want to help those moms decide between life or abortion for their unborn child. The resources and services they offer, including an ultrasound so mom can meet that unborn baby, most often lead that mom down the path of choosing life. That ultrasound experience is so important and powerful in making that emotional connection between mother and child so solid. In 20 years time they have saved 300,000 plus lives doing this. When you make a donation to Preborn, your gift provides for that ultrasound. $28 is the cost of a single ultrasound, a dollar figure that you can choose to donate every month. Some of you are incredibly fortunate, have been very successful in your business and in life and you can afford to do 280 or $2,800. Whatever you can spare goes directly to this mission and it is 100% tax deductible. To donate securely dial pound250 say the keyword baby. That's pound250 say baby or visit preborn.com buck that's preborn.com buck sponsored by Preborn.
Team 47
News you can count on and some laughs too. Clay, Travis and Buck Sexton. Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.
Jimmy Petronas
Right off the top, echoing what we have told you many times during the course of today's program. It is is an election day for many of you in Florida and in Wisconsin and I know it can sneak up on you and you think, hey, it was just six months ago in the first District of Florida, go vote in our opinion, for Jimmy Petronas who is going to do an amazing job representing the Panhandle. That is the northernmost district in the state of Florida by and large. And then Randy Fine, if you are living in the 6th congressional district of Florida, Florida, and that is the area, Daytona, St. Augustine, both very strong Trump territory. Two different congressmen there, Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz, both being replaced in these special elections. Democrats, you heard Jimmy Petronas at the top of the midway through the first hour tell us that he's been outspent five to one. Buck, yesterday you had Randy Fine on and Randy Fine has been outspent nearly 10 to 1 were the dollar figures that I saw. So we want you to go send a message. Randy Fine, Jimmy Petronas for the Floridians out there. I'm down in Miami with Buck. Thank you to him for holding down the fort yesterday while I was helping Frank Siller and all the guys and gals at Tunnel to Towers raise money for the fabulous event that they do t2t.org they had a Florida golf event going on there. And also Wisconsin. Wisconsin is, I think it's fair to say, Buck, the number one battleground state in America right now in that every race comes down to just a few thousand votes. It feels like our buddy Ron Johnson got reelected in 2022 by about 25,000 votes. For those of you who remember, Trump won Wisconsin by 30,000 votes in this most recent election in November. Unfortunately, Eric Hovdi lost Wisconsin by a few thousand votes, by and large. I mean, this is every single election in Wisconsin is right there on the margin of going one way or the other. So if Wisconsin voters who voted for Trump come out, they will win that Supreme Court race and all three of those races will be used in many ways as a referendum on the first 70 some odd days of the Trump White House. So that is out there right now. Several other stories underway, Trump reportedly, as we were just discussing, going to give his full tariff decision on April 2, 4:00 Eastern. We will figure out exactly what that is tomorrow. I would imagine more and more of it will leak out. We've got the 80th anniversary, by the way, of Okinawa. For those of you out there that are World War II history buffs, today is the 80th anniversary, I believe, of the initial attack at Okinawa. Am I correct in that?
Clay Travis
Sure. I think, I mean that that's quite a stat to pull out of thin air. You're putting me on the hot seat.
Jimmy Petronas
Team team in New York, make sure that I didn't screw that up. I think that is correct that I know we just had the 80th anniversary of D Day last year. I think the invasion of Okinawa, I believe this is the 80th anniversary of that occurring back in 1945. Luigi Mangione, a report that we are going to be seeking through Attorney General Pam Bondi the death penalty. And there are a bunch of other stories out there.
Clay Travis
You are right on the beginning of the Battle of Okinawa. And we have something special for everybody on the battle that is known as Hacksaw Ridge. We'll play that a little later for everybody.
Jimmy Petronas
All right, so I want to get your take on this. There has been a lot of drama in the past few days over Trump potentially wanting a third term. Oh, boy, this is this is echoing everywhere, and I want to hit this for you. I believe we have Trump talking about he'd like to run against Obama. Now, Trump has an ability to get attention for things that, frankly, nobody else can get attention for. And we all know that he likes to gig the media a decent amount. Now, this initially started, I believe, Buck with Kristen Welker at NBC's Meet the Press. Trump gave quotes there. But here is cut three. Trump says he would welcome a challenge from Obama and he thinks it would be a good one. This is again, cut three.
Clay Travis
If you were allowed for some reason to run for a third term, is there a thought that the Democrats could try to run Barack Obama against you?
H
I'd love that.
Clay Travis
For his third term.
H
Boy, that would, that would be a good one. I'd like that. No, people are asking me to run and there's a whole story about running for a third term. I don't know. I never looked into it. They do say there's a way you can do it, but I don't know about that. But I have not looked into it. I want to do a fantastic job. We have four years, just about, almost close to four years. It's time is flying, but it's still close to four years. And we're getting a lot of credit for having done a great job the first almost 100 days.
Jimmy Petronas
Okay, Peter Doocy, great question. As he tied in Barack Obama versus Donald Trump, let their guy go for a third term against our guy. That would be an epic battle. What do you think's going on here? What is all the third term talk about from your perspective?
Clay Travis
Okay, well, for one thing, it reminds me of Gladiator, which is a fantastic movie, as we all know, we've discussed here. It's your wife's favorite movie. It's a top all time. Five, maybe top three for me. I mean, so I, I'm a huge Gladiator fan as well. Not Gladiator 2. That would be for peasants. Some people are saying. Some people are saying Gladiator 2 for peasants. But anyway, Gladiator 1. Amazing. And remember when they, they bring out of retirement to face Maximus, they bring like the greatest gladiator of all time. I think it was Titus of Gaul. Wow. I've seen that movie a lot. Titus of Gaul. And he's the guy with the, the metal, the sort of gold mask on and the tigers and all that stuff. Trump is a showman, and for him, the ultimate political opponent of this era would be Barack Obama.
Jimmy Petronas
Yes.
Clay Travis
That is the only Democrat who won Majorities twice. You know, even look back at Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton won with the first time.
Jimmy Petronas
What, 40 something percent, 3%, something like that. Now he was running with Ross Perot who got nearly 20% of the vote. I mean, so that's.
Clay Travis
But Bill did not have any kind of a mandate.
Jimmy Petronas
You know, Clinton never won a majority of, never got over 50% of the election, which a lot of people don't realize.
Clay Travis
Right. That's a stunning statistic when you think about it in retrospect. So Barack Obama would be the Democrats great champion. Right? That's. So Trump just leaning into that I think is very Trump not surprising at all. The third term talk. I see this entirely as Trump doing what he does, which is he's going to get all of this focus from anti Trump media on this. Everybody who likes Trump and voted for Trump kind of just smiles and looks at this. They're like, yeah, whatever, you know, calm down. Like no one really gets worried about it from our side or worried about it. Just no one pays much attention to it. I think they like the, they are amused by how much it upsets Democrats. But here's what it does do. Tomorrow Trump's talking about tariffs. Last hour we were discussing tariffs. There are a lot of people that want to create a narrative that what Trump is doing with the economy is destabilizing, et cetera, et cetera. This takes some of the heat off. I view it as a little bit of a smokescreen or a distraction technique for the media because they're going to spend a lot of time talking about something that is completely irrelevant right now other than for the amusement factor. And it takes some of the heat off of the. Look, they're starting to see that there's. They've got to do these cuts and they've got to do these changes in these tariffs in a way that doesn't just feed narratives to the opposition. Right. It's the right thing to do, but you have to handle it a certain way.
Jimmy Petronas
I think what it really represents is Trump's awareness that fixing the country is going to take more than four years. And this is why we have said you've got to string together a series of wins, no matter how successful of a term Trump has. And I believe he's going to have a very successful term in office here. He's going to have to leave, I believe in 2029. And certainly the other crazy thing about this is the process to select Trump's replacement as the Republican nominee for 2028 will actually get underway by March of 2027. And that sounds crazy. And honestly, the shadow primary will begin before then because people will be out raising money. But basically, the day after the midterms happen next year, the official running start date of the 2028 presidential calendar will begin. And that's going to happen in a hurry. And one thing that we have talked about is how will Trump handle. We've never seen this in his entire political career. How will Trump handle the possibility of there being a successor to him, which means that he isn't necessarily the straw that stirs the drink. That is the pursuit of who the new Republican nominee would be matters now. I think his selection. You nailed this. Well called by you before anybody else was saying it to me. JD Vance actually is a selection that Trump made because he wants there to be another generation continuing the work that he started. He could have picked a guy like Doug Burgum, for instance.
Clay Travis
Nonsense.
Jimmy Petronas
Nothing against Doug Burgum, who's in the Cabinet, but Doug Burgum is an older guy. There are a lot of 40 somethings that Trump has surrounded himself with, whether it's Pete Hegseth, whether it's Tulsi Gabbard, whether it's J.D. vance. These are guys and gals that are, relatively speaking, youthful in the political context. And I think that was a conscious decision to try to prolong the movement that Trump is trying to put in place.
Clay Travis
So you see this as pure 4D chess from Trump. Just to be clear, you think that him talking about a third term, you're going really? This is like Marcus Aurelius level philosophical future of the Republic stuff you're going with here.
Jimmy Petronas
I think that Trump will. This is my take. I think that Trump in 2027 will say at some point, J.D. vance is my guy. And I think he will endorse J.D. vance. Interesting, because I think he wants J.D. vance to be seen as the heir to Trump.
Clay Travis
I think that. We'll see. We'll see. We can mark this one down. I feel, I feel like Trump is going to view the successor as a, as a version of the Apprentice for the leader of the free world. And I'm not sure that he's going to. He certainly hasn't already. And he's given, given opportunities to say it is J.D. he's sort of deferred on that a little.
Jimmy Petronas
Yeah, he was asked that question directly.
Clay Travis
Yeah, directly. So maybe in time. But I could see Trump wanting to be kingmaker toward the end here. And he's a guy who likes to be in the center of the Game. The second that you pick your, your V, I can't believe we're talking about, you know, we're just a couple months into Trump's term. We'll get back onto that in a second. But the second that you say who your successor is, in this political environment, the successor is going to be the person who is driving a lot of the party agenda. So whereas if you say, hey, guys, I got a lot of work to do until the very end, I'm running through the tape and we'll see what happens with a successor. Changes the game a little bit.
Jimmy Petronas
I do think it's interesting as well, though, there are two, two pathways to follow. Barack Obama anointed Hillary Clinton. His successor kicked Joe Biden to the curb.
Clay Travis
Barack Obama, he was right to do so.
Jimmy Petronas
Correct?
Clay Travis
He actually made the right move because he was like dementia. Joe should not be.
Jimmy Petronas
He doesn't have the ability to do this. And now we unfortunately have all figured that out. But remember, he never endorsed Biden. Everybody forgets in 2020, Barack Obama set out the race. So to your point, it may be that Trump likes the competition of people trying to get his endorsement and doesn't decide to do it. I will say this. You know what? He moved a bust into the White House recently.
Clay Travis
Fdr.
Jimmy Petronas
I don't know that it's been talked about or reported on, but Trump took a bust of FDR and had it moved into the White House. Now, Google team back in New York. Google and see whether this has been written about. I was told about this when I was traveling on Air Force One to go to the NCAA wrestling championships recently. Trump has been saying recently that his favorite Democrat is fdr. And if you ask him why his favorite Democrat is FDR, he says because he served multiple terms.
Clay Travis
Well, four. Right.
Jimmy Petronas
He got elected 32, 36, 40. 44.
Clay Travis
Four.
Jimmy Petronas
Yeah.
Clay Travis
Just four terms.
Jimmy Petronas
Yeah. Four terms in office.
Clay Travis
They had to have a whole constitutional amendment because of him. What was it, 1951? I think the Constitution came down, which.
Jimmy Petronas
Is interesting, that we have term limits for president and not term limits for any other elected.
Clay Travis
How many people do you think if you walk on the street and you ask them to name any and they don't have to. I'm not saying memorized, but to say any amendment beyond the first 10 that they would be able to do so.
Jimmy Petronas
I don't think you're. I think most people know the First Amendment. I think a lot of people know the Second Amendment. By the time you get into Fourth Amendment, which is unreasonable search and seizure, I think 5% of Americans could tell you what the Fourth Amendment is. And by the way, when you get into.
Clay Travis
Once you get into the 20s, you're really.
Jimmy Petronas
I think. Well, I think some people would know the 19th Amendment because they would popular culture when they get the rights to.
Clay Travis
Vote and they would know ending slavery. They would probably. When I say they 5% of people would know.
Jimmy Petronas
I ish.
Clay Travis
Yeah, I think 5%. You know, it's funny too is the most recent constitutional amendment is probably the most boring. I think it has to do with 1992. Congressional salary changes can't take effect. I can't believe they.
Jimmy Petronas
I don't even remember. I don't even know that.
Clay Travis
Check, check me, team. Am I right on this one? This is really. I've been doing trivia night with Kerry recently, so I try to be on my game. We are reigning champ two nights in a row at our local, local club here, by the way. So just throwing that there. But we had. I think it's 90, 91 or 92.
Jimmy Petronas
It was.
Clay Travis
You can't have a congressional salary change that takes effect until the next Congress. I can't believe that that was actually a constant. Like you needed a constitutional amendment for that. But they did one, I guess because everybody who makes the amendments was affected by it. So some of them are very. Almost arcane or very procedure specific. Right. Anyway. But no three terms is one of them. That's what got me on this whole rant in the first place. So I don't know what, what do you actually think Trump is serious? You're talking about this like you think Trump is considering this in some way. Do you think he's really. I don't think he's really considering this.
Jimmy Petronas
I think he's having fun with it. The problem is in order to change the law and allow him to run again would be very difficult. But he did say to NBC, oh, I could run as the vice president and then basically serve as the functional president again. I think Trump is having fun because he knows to a large extent that his continued viability as a politician drives his critics bonkers. And the fact that they want to call him a king and an authoritarian and everything else. I think ultimately he's going to endorse J.D. vance. That's what I would predict as we sit here in the April 1st of 2025. But I do think, look, we've looked at the Trump cabinet over the years. We don't know how all of this is going to shake out. But if I were setting odds, I would I would bet right now that he's going to endorse J.D. vance in 2028. Major League Baseball season. Off to a great start. Unless you're an Atlanta Braves fan like me. Braves managed to go oh and five. If you're a Yankee fan, it can't be much better. Prize picks allows you to pick more or less. Got these torpedo bats, home runs flying out of the stadium like crazy. And also we've got Auburn, we got Florida, we got Houston, and we got Duke in the final four. You can pick more or less. You get 50 bucks right now when you use my name Clay as the code. $50 instantly after you play your first five dollar lineup. It's easy. You'll love it. Why not do it again? Code clay for $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks run your game. Mastercard, Visa, Discovery. You can play in California. You can play in Texas. You can play in Florida, where I am with Buck right now. And you can play in Georgia if you're feeling left out. 40 states 13 million players sign up today. Prizepix.com code Clay that's prizepix.com code clay.
Team 47
Clay Travis and Buck Sexton. Mic drops that never sounded so good. Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Verdict with Ted Cruz – BONUS Episode: The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show Daily Review – April 1, 2025
Release Date: April 1, 2025
In this bonus episode of "Verdict with Ted Cruz," hosts Clay Travis and Buck Sexton delve into a comprehensive analysis of the day’s most pressing political and economic issues. The discussion spans President Donald Trump's aggressive tariff strategies, the state of federal workforce reductions, and the critical special elections in Florida and Wisconsin. Additionally, the hosts explore the security lapses surrounding recent assassination attempts on Trump and contemplate the implications of his potential third-term aspirations.
The episode opens with a deep dive into President Trump's latest economic maneuvers, particularly his implementation of immediate tariffs under the "Liberation Day" trade policy announcement.
Key Points:
Tariffs as an Economic Rejuvenation Tool: Buck Sexton highlights the historical context of American manufacturing decline due to offshoring and outsourcing. He argues that Trump's tariffs aim to reverse this trend by incentivizing domestic production.
[01:39] Buck Sexton: "This is the great healing and rejuvenation of the American economy after half a century of rampant offshoring, outsourcing and deindustrialization."
Immediate Implementation Concerns: Clay Travis raises concerns about the short-term economic dislocation that these tariffs might cause, citing skepticism from various quarters, including within the Republican party.
[02:20] Clay Travis: "Trump's Liberation Day tariffs will go into effect immediately... it's going to be costly. They're saying this is going to create a lot of economic dislocation."
Senator Tuberville's Perspective: Senator Tuberville, a staunch Trump supporter, acknowledges the pain associated with the tariffs but remains optimistic about long-term gains.
[03:53] Senator Tuberville: "This is going to be a slow pain first before we get the gain."
Economic Expert Skepticism: Jimmy Petronas expresses his distrust in economic experts, pointing out past inaccuracies in their predictions.
[05:38] Jimmy Petronas: "Economic geniuses have gotten so much wrong. My trust level in experts is at an all-time low."
Global Tariff Practices: The hosts question the rationale behind other countries maintaining tariffs, challenging the notion that tariffs are inherently detrimental.
[06:22] Clay Travis: "If tariffs are so self-evidently self-defeating, why do so many countries have tariffs against the United States?"
Notable Quotes:
Transitioning to electoral politics, the hosts focus on the critical special elections in Florida’s 1st and 6th congressional districts, alongside significant races in Wisconsin.
Key Points:
Florida 1st District Insights: Kristi Noem joins the discussion to emphasize the importance of voter turnout in Florida’s special elections, highlighting her district's strong Republican leanings.
[17:51] Kristi Noem: "If you don't hold your elected accountable, you get the government you deserve."
Challenges Against Moderates: Noem critiques her Democratic opponents for running as moderates despite significant financial disparities, arguing that her well-funded campaign can effectively counteract their efforts.
[19:50] Kristi Noem: "She's trying to run as a moderate. And look, she's got $7 million... the Democrats are seeing 6 to 1 as a way to flip the balance of power in Congress."
Wisconsin's Battleground Status: The hosts underscore Wisconsin as a pivotal battleground state where every vote counts, potentially serving as a referendum on Trump’s administration.
[22:09] Jimmy Petronas: "Wisconsin is the number one battleground state in America right now... every race comes down to just a few thousand votes."
Notable Quotes:
Clay Travis brings attention to significant reductions in the federal workforce, referencing a New York Times report on impending layoffs affecting various departments.
Key Points:
Extent of Cutbacks: The discussion highlights potential layoffs totaling up to 171,000 federal employees, affecting departments like USAID, NOAA, and the Department of Education.
[29:34] Clay Travis: "Reductions in the federal workforce as of April 1st... planned reductions could affect up to 12% of the 2.4 million civilian federal workers."
Implications for Government Operations: Travis critiques the inefficiency within federal agencies, emphasizing the need for a streamlined and effective government apparatus.
[42:07] Clay Travis: "These places cannot make mistakes and fail repeatedly. If you're one to donate to a worthy cause, look no further than Preborn."
A critical segment examines the recent assassination attempts on President Trump, focusing on the apparent lapses in Secret Service protocols.
Key Points:
Detailed Account of Failures: Jimmy Petronas recounts his visit to the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, where he observed firsthand the security oversights that allowed an assassin to come perilously close to Trump.
[37:31] Jimmy Petronas: "He was sitting there within a quarter of an inch of killing Trump on live television... it is unbelievable."
Secret Service Accountability: Both hosts express deep concern over the repeated security failures, questioning the competence of the Secret Service in safeguarding the president.
[38:44] Clay Travis: "It's terrifying when you think about the incompetence... Secret Service got incredibly lucky in 2024 that the worst didn't happen."
Notable Quotes:
The conversation shifts to speculations about President Trump considering a third term and his strategies for ensuring the longevity of his political movement.
Key Points:
Third-Term Speculation: The hosts debate the feasibility and seriousness of Trump's potential bid for a third term, drawing parallels to historical figures and fictional narratives.
[48:55] Clay Travis: "If you were allowed for some reason to run for a third term... is there a thought that the Democrats could try to run Barack Obama against you?"
Succession Strategy: Jimmy Petronas opines that Trump is likely positioning a successor, such as J.D. Vance, to carry forward his political agenda.
[54:09] Jimmy Petronas: "I would bet right now that he's going to endorse J.D. Vance in 2028."
Endorsement Dynamics: The discussion touches on how Trump’s endorsements and relationships within the GOP could shape the party’s future leadership.
[55:29] Jimmy Petronas: "Trump took a bust of FDR and had it moved into the White House. Trump has been saying recently that his favorite Democrat is FDR because he served multiple terms."
Notable Quotes:
As the episode wraps up, Travis and Sexton reiterate the significance of the discussed topics, emphasizing the interplay between economic policies, electoral outcomes, and national security.
Key Points:
Upcoming Tariff Decisions: The hosts anticipate President Trump's forthcoming detailed tariff decisions, projecting their potential impact on the economy and political landscape.
[56:22] Jimmy Petronas: "Trump is going to give his full tariff decision on April 2, 4:00 Eastern."
Historical Reflections: They briefly touch upon the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Okinawa, segueing into historical discussions.
[47:17] Clay Travis: "Today is the 80th anniversary of the initial attack at Okinawa."
Listener Engagement: The episode concludes with reminders for listeners to vote in ongoing elections and stay informed about critical national issues.
[58:30] Clay Travis: "There are a lot of things you want and things you can get and there’s a negotiation to be had here."
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Conclusion
This episode of "Verdict with Ted Cruz" provides a multifaceted exploration of current political and economic dynamics. From scrutinizing President Trump's aggressive tariff policies and their implications for American manufacturing to highlighting critical electoral battles in key states, Travis and Sexton offer listeners a thorough analysis of events shaping the nation's future. The discussion on security lapses surrounding assassination attempts on Trump underscores the ongoing challenges in national security. Furthermore, the speculative conversation about Trump's potential third term and succession plans offers a glimpse into the strategic maneuvers within the GOP. Overall, the episode serves as a valuable resource for understanding the complex interplay of policies, elections, and leadership within the contemporary American political landscape.
Notable Quotes Highlight:
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