Verdict with Ted Cruz - BONUS： Daily Review with Clay and Buck - Apr 14 2026

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00:00:19.960 Welcome in.

00:00:21.320 Tuesday edition, Clay Travis, Buck Sexton Show.

00:00:24.540 I am filled with optimism as we begin the show.

00:00:28.840 uh we're gonna have some fun we got a great show coming your way but let's start with some news

00:00:35.340 off the top eric swalwell looked like he was going to be potentially elected the next governor of

00:00:41.880 california then revelations began about him uh and his inappropriate behavior allegations of

00:00:49.500 criminal behavior and now not only has he dropped out of the governor's race but he is dropping

00:00:55.340 his congressional seat as well also another republican is dropping uh his congressional

00:01:02.300 seat as well down on the border in texas over similar allegations of impropriety relating to

00:01:10.100 women uh we will discuss that i'm sure as the program proceeds the iran blockade seems to have

00:01:18.820 been quite effective uh the uh crude oil price continues to decline um and stock market as you

00:01:28.420 all know i love watching the stock markets uh the s p 500 is approaching an all-time high and the

00:01:36.620 dow is also approaching an all-time high uh both of these markets moving near record high so if you

00:01:44.100 just didn't panic as we always say to you don't panic uh and you just held on to your stocks

00:01:50.820 during all of the iran uh situation during all of the big tariff uh implosions if you just held

00:01:58.780 on to your stocks and said i trust that trump is going to get the economy roaring uh you are in a

00:02:05.520 good spot congratulations your stocks your 401k your retirement is near an all-time record high

00:02:13.880 if you are holding on to those stocks.

00:02:20.300 Also, we have Buck Sexton with an all-time take on pants,

00:02:25.560 which we can have some fun with because I've got to take,

00:02:28.940 and I actually think there's tons of people out there

00:02:30.980 who will have interesting takes on this.

00:02:32.880 Let me just put it out there as an idea,

00:02:34.560 and we'll come back to it a bit later.

00:02:36.040 What still exists and should not exist

00:02:40.520 because it has been technologically replaced, i.e. there is something better than it.

00:02:48.300 Buck says drawstring pants infinitely better than zipper and button pants.

00:02:54.600 Really, I read it this morning, and actually, Jesse Kelly, our friend, was responding,

00:03:00.420 but it also got me fired up.

00:03:02.260 I've been making this argument for a long time.

00:03:04.720 Chopsticks shouldn't exist. 1.00

00:03:06.360 Every time I go to an Asian restaurant, they bring me out chopsticks, 1.00

00:03:09.660 and I just say, can I have a fork?

00:03:11.780 The fork is a far better implement than chopsticks.

00:03:15.360 This is not some cultural attack on Asia,

00:03:17.580 but the fork is better than the chopsticks. 0.69

00:03:20.540 And so what are good, do you sign off?

00:03:23.140 I understand people show off and they're like,

00:03:24.980 oh, I can do my chopsticks, but the fork is better.

00:03:27.940 It's better to use, it's reusable.

00:03:31.700 It's just a far better way to eat than the chopsticks.

00:03:34.960 how did we go from my very important drawstring pants announcement to chopsticks though this is

00:03:41.800 just well i was thinking that i saw your drawstring pants argument that they're superior i wanted i

00:03:48.500 was thinking i bet this audience has things that they believe are superior for instance i'll give

00:03:53.740 you another one buck here as we have some fun starting off the show very optimistic mood i don't

00:03:59.120 think we failed when it comes to the dash on heating and air in cars right blue to make it

00:04:08.560 cooler red to make it warmer was perfection i get in cars now and many times it's incredibly

00:04:16.260 difficult to figure out how do i turn on the heater the air we had it solved and we've continued

00:04:22.160 to technologically change it but it's not as good as it was when you just twisted to the blue

00:04:28.700 or to the red and everybody knew how to work that we've talked about this before and i think it's a

00:04:34.420 nate bargazzi bit but hotel room lights yeah how about a switch how about a switch by the door

00:04:41.260 light on dimmer light off maybe maybe if we want to be spicy we put a light by the bedside for

00:04:50.840 reading and bedtime that is it i i stayed in a hotel recently and i i basically count about my

00:04:57.960 on the show i i can't figure out different light switches in this place and like some of them are

00:05:03.180 like partial and some i'm like who i don't want to have to read a manual to turn the lights off

00:05:08.840 at night yeah i agree and so anyway out there you can give us talk backs what has been better

00:05:15.580 and could be fixed going forward but buck as we start uh it appears that the situation in iran

00:05:23.620 is there are reports that there could be talks again on thursday okay i feel bad for jared

00:05:30.660 kushner steve whitkoff and jd vance if they have to get back on a plane and fly all the way back

00:05:37.040 to pakistan for more talks after they were there for 21 hours of talks and then turned around and

00:05:43.540 came back there are reports out there that the united states is saying we want 20 years of you

00:05:50.760 guys ceasing to pursue nuclear weapons and that iran has offered five years now the challenge

00:05:57.980 with this buck as you can well imagine and i'm sure all of you out there are going to recognize

00:06:03.020 as well is iran has been lying for decades about everything so whatever they agree to is unlikely

00:06:12.860 in my opinion to be upheld and so whether they say they're going to do it for five years or 10 years

00:06:19.000 or 15 or 20 years i am quite confident they are lying which is why my uh solution here is we have

00:06:27.080 to in some way grab what trump called the nuclear dust the uranium deposits that they have uh in

00:06:33.800 order to push them back further i imagine buck even based on your time when you were with the

00:06:39.840 cia 20 some odd years ago iran has been lying to us for the entirety of the time that they have had

00:06:46.920 uh the ayatollah is in charge and so nothing that they say to us now do i remotely believe is honest

00:06:53.600 so them saying anything is not good enough uh we either have to get the uranium if that's our goal

00:07:00.560 and on the straight of hormuz we have to just see everybody coming through uh and uh the oil and gas

00:07:07.660 tankers being able to traverse we have to actually verify in my opinion that they're saying anything

00:07:14.820 honest is that a fair assessment in your mind yeah look this reminds me of the whole iraq situation

00:07:21.540 and so far as uh the the policy or or the uh strategy of saddam hussein was essentially i

00:07:30.620 don't know maybe it got nukes maybe i don't maybe i got chemical weapons maybe i don't because he

00:07:35.140 found value in that strategic ambiguity and then when it came time for us to make decisions about

00:07:42.780 what he had and didn't have it was really obviously we got it wrong uh but it was really

00:07:48.600 hard to sift through what was a bluff and what was reality uh because he thought that was

00:07:54.120 particularly after after the iran iraq war which is probably the most devastating war of the 20th

00:07:59.860 century that nobody ever talks about right yes i mean obviously there are much bigger more

00:08:04.460 devastating wars but i mean for a war that is completely wiped from the uh from the memory

00:08:10.540 banks of certainly people in the west it went on for eight years uh nine years actually and it was

00:08:17.860 hundreds and hundreds of thousands of casualties and this changed the dynamic in the middle east

00:08:24.700 dramatically in the security calculations specifically for iraq and iran as well as

00:08:30.320 other regional players so yes the notion of of an here's the problem with an iranian deal there's

00:08:36.400 no deal that you can have that you can trust that does not in some way have us with our

00:08:43.760 boot heel on the on the side of their face really i mean we we have to be in a position to say all

00:08:49.620 right we don't we don't believe you so now we're going to go check the stuff this is the intrusive

00:08:54.340 inspections component of this which we went through with iraq too by the way and sovereign

00:08:58.280 nations good guys bad guys doesn't really matter generally don't really want people to be able to

00:09:04.760 just show up and look at all of their stuff right if there's something uh that they think is

00:09:09.360 degrading about this and certainly the iranians would find it degrading degrading to have america

00:09:15.080 and so really they view it as israel's proxy able to just show up and look at all their nuke stuff

00:09:19.320 whenever we want so clay this is where we come down to there's not really a deal to be had here

00:09:25.660 folks there's not really a deal because even if we do get to and remember you can pull that clip

00:09:31.980 later if we do get to a deal even if we have some deal with the current regime that they will break

00:09:36.980 it yes and this is this is the problem with the with the whole obama approach to all of this too

00:09:42.100 this is why i want the tangible to the extent that we can seize it the tangible uranium deposits in

00:09:48.940 our hands right in in the control of the united states and some people out there uh aren't happy

00:09:54.720 about that take but to me i don't see any form of resolution that you can rely on other than that

00:10:02.580 as a way to conclude this if the goal is to try to ensure that iran doesn't continue to pursue

00:10:09.600 nuclear weapons now again the area that we struck in june we have optics we have eyes on we have

00:10:16.080 recognition if iran tries to go reclaim those materials so i suppose the argument can be we

00:10:22.960 know what we've got there and it's secure but if we want to have a full-throated victory one that

00:10:30.400 everyone recognizes even the new york times editorial page and even msnbc and cnn commentators

00:10:37.360 if trump brings the uranium out of iran and says we have seized it they cannot use this anymore

00:10:44.700 i think it will be very hard to argue that this was anything other than a supreme success right

00:10:51.100 If we leave it, then the people who don't like Trump are going to argue, oh, we didn't accomplish anything.

00:10:56.980 I do think, and I've been saying this for some time, you know the stock market is doing well when it's not shown on MSNBC or CNN.

00:11:05.940 We're near record highs.

00:11:07.920 The markets are judging the Trump economic situation as a very positive one.

00:11:13.640 And I do think that is significant overall as to the likelihood of where we are headed.

00:11:21.100 What do you think? Do you care if we actually have the uranium in possession or in your mind, if we say, hey, we've got eyes on it, we're going to watch it and we just pull back and this thing ends and the traffic returns to some form of normalcy in the Strait of Hormuz?

00:11:37.580 Is that satisfactory in your mind or do you also want to see the tangible asset of Iranian nuclear pursuit in the control of the United States?

00:11:49.360 this thing is not over until we have iranians uh winning an election with people who are willing

00:11:59.600 to sit down with the leadership of the united states and israel with smiles on their faces

00:12:05.900 and talk about how to make iran a regional ally and a peaceful and prosperous place without all

00:12:12.180 this lunacy that's the real truth this thing doesn't really end until that day and i don't

00:12:16.960 know where that day is but it may not be in the life of anybody living today yeah to be fair yeah

00:12:22.120 in in the meantime uh you have a situation where we're just trump has done a lot more than anybody

00:12:30.400 before him but to truly end this threat when trump says iran will never have a nuclear weapon and

00:12:36.600 that's his goal think about what that really means it does not mean we sign a piece of paper with

00:12:43.100 iran they still have some enriched uranium or even the technical know-how to enrich uranium in the

00:12:49.520 future and the people what happens in two years everybody what happens i know we can't even think

00:12:55.760 this stuff right now what happens if a democrat wins the next election yeah the iranians will

00:12:59.640 run circles around the next democrat administration because all they're going to want to do

00:13:03.140 is play the big peacemaker and say big bad mean trump did all these bad things to you

00:13:07.780 so we'll bend over backwards we'll give you taxpayer cash we'll show up with pallets full

00:13:13.220 of dollar dollar bills everybody anything to make it seem like the democrats are the peacemakers with

00:13:20.160 iran so these are all the layers of complexity that come to bear i'm really just thinking about

00:13:24.940 this in a six month well i guess more like eight in front of the math nine month timeline here

00:13:28.920 of what how does this play out between now until the midterms okay because if you try to think

00:13:34.560 about what this really means long term you'll drive yourself crazy because nobody can really

00:13:38.820 know and there's too many variables for anyone to uh to be able to properly assess it but really

00:13:44.420 this is can trump win this round against iran and substantially delay their nuclear program and

00:13:50.880 nuclear progress through it all regime change is not on the table it's not happening so that's

00:13:57.900 where we are uh we will take back we will take your calls we will take your interactions senator

00:14:03.980 Rand Paul of Kentucky will join us at the bottom of the at the bottom of the second hour.

00:14:10.740 And Sarah Isger, who's got a book about the Supreme Court, is going to be in studio and

00:14:16.440 we'll see what she thinks about increasing speculation that Justice Alito might decide

00:14:22.000 to step down and that Trump could have another Supreme Court vacancy to fill that story out

00:14:28.820 there and starting to get more attention as we come up on the end of the June recess.

00:14:34.920 I was reading over the weekend that Alito has not hired his clerks fully.

00:14:41.940 Sometimes that's a little bit of a sign.

00:14:44.140 Again, the Supreme Court comes back in session in October.

00:14:47.280 So from June to October, we could have a window there where President Trump could have a Supreme

00:14:52.120 Court seat to fill.

00:14:54.180 and given the senate is uh unclear exactly what might happen there worth paying attention to so

00:15:00.080 we will discuss that and more with her about her new book surrounding the supreme court in the

00:15:04.760 meantime work being done throughout israel by the international fellowship of christians and jews is

00:15:10.220 remarkable uh this is an incredibly caring non-profit organization they've worked for

00:15:16.060 decades in many towns on so many kibbutzes paying attention to the people out there uh to try to

00:15:21.620 help social services they don't get caught up in the bureaucracy no red tape when they see someone

00:15:26.800 in need or something amiss they're on it uh it could be as simple and sympathetic as caring for

00:15:31.800 a single elderly person could be rebuilding a uh hospital underground so that the attacks from

00:15:40.460 missiles don't rain down on people inside of hospitals the international fellowship of christians

00:15:46.440 and jews they've built a bridge between charitable christians and others in this country and the

00:15:52.140 jewish population in israel selfless work excellent results your donations can make a life-changing

00:15:58.460 result uh and you can join us right now give 45 to rush life-saving essentials to the vulnerable

00:16:05.900 under fire 888-488-IFCJ that's 888-488-IFCJ you can also go online at

00:16:15.800 ifcj.org that's ifcj.org laugh learn and hang with the guys clay and buck preset on the iheart app

00:16:27.480 a little too relaxed during yoga that's embarrassing you know what's not debt

00:16:32.940 consolidate your debt with a loan from fig no early repayment fees and low interest rates so

00:16:37.980 you can pay off your debt faster borrow better with fig visit fig.ca all right welcome back in

00:16:43.900 Here to Clay Anbach, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul joins us now.

00:16:48.560 Senator, appreciate you making the time for us, sir.

00:16:51.360 Glad to be with you.

00:16:52.060 Thanks for having me.

00:16:53.320 All right.

00:16:54.020 You would not have, I think this is fair to say, if not, by all means, correct me.

00:16:58.800 You would not have called for the bombing campaign in Iran and did not agree with it from the start. 0.55

00:17:06.960 It has been going on.

00:17:07.880 It is now at a ceasefire moment.

00:17:09.500 if you can take us just fast forward us in this process to how you think this is going now how do

00:17:17.500 you assess the status of this ceasefire the current negotiations basically how do we end this thing

00:17:24.420 and get out of this thing as you see it i think the one thing we can all agree with is that we'd

00:17:28.700 love to see freedom for the iranian people we'd like to see the regime fall there are other

00:17:33.140 questions though about the advisability of the war how you go to war the constitution and our

00:17:38.560 founding fathers were pretty clear that when you go to war, Congress needs to vote. They said that

00:17:43.120 to declare war or to initiate war, it would be the Congress that declares this. Now, some have said,

00:17:49.500 well, there are exceptions to that. And one of the exceptions is that if we're imminently to be

00:17:54.420 attacked, you know, someone's shooting at one of our ships or we're imminently under attack,

00:17:58.960 the president can make some immediate decisions. Even under that circumstance, though, the founding

00:18:03.560 fathers wanted the president then to ask for permission from Congress, even if he responded

00:18:07.720 or she responded immediately. In this case, though, the adversary nation, the country that

00:18:13.100 we've been at odds with is 47 years in the making. It's a little hard to make the eminence argument.

00:18:18.560 The other argument is, well, we have to stop them from having a nuclear weapon.

00:18:22.300 Well, I think all of us want that, but our intelligence reports really showed no evidence

00:18:27.780 that they were changing or getting closer to a nuclear weapon. We have 18 different parts of

00:18:33.240 intelligence agency, all telling us about the same thing, that there really hadn't been a

00:18:38.060 reconstitution of a nuclear program. There was essentially where they were when we blew them up

00:18:42.940 six months ago. And the president said at that time, the nuclear program was obliterated.

00:18:48.300 So there are many arguments for why we should do it constitutionally. Then there's also another

00:18:54.060 argument about practically whether or not we'll be better off. Right now, economically, the price

00:18:59.120 of oil has gone up tremendously people are noticing at the gas pump i think it's going to be

00:19:03.620 bad electorally for the party the party already faces a very difficult election and really frankly

00:19:10.120 i think the soldiers that put their lives on the line deserve uh to have a full a fulsome debate

00:19:15.800 and a vote on the floor of the senate and the house before we go to warm no doubt we're talking

00:19:22.060 to senator ran paul uh from kentucky there's a big decision that's going to be made soon

00:19:28.260 in terms of who's replacing Mitch McConnell in your state, a big primary decision.

00:19:33.500 There's also a big battle.

00:19:35.640 Thomas Massey has also got to see what's going to happen in the primary there.

00:19:42.020 What are you seeing and hearing from Kentucky voters?

00:19:45.520 You just mentioned the midterm.

00:19:46.900 What are you seeing as the primary driver for the primary?

00:19:50.460 It's going to happen in about a month there.

00:19:52.100 I think people understand in Kentucky that you can be supportive of Donald Trump, as I am, and also supportive of Thomas Massey.

00:20:01.740 I think Thomas Massey is the most conservative, most constitutionally oriented person in the House.

00:20:07.020 He's fearless. He's the head of the Liberty Caucus. He's also the head of the Second Amendment Caucus.

00:20:12.360 And so I am all in for Thomas Massey. I've campaigned for him several times. We'll continue to do so.

00:20:17.980 And I think it's important to have independent voices. You know, if people want a rubber stamp and they say, will you support the president 100 percent of the time? And then the other candidate says, no, I'll support him 150 percent of the time. No, I'll support him 200 percent of the time. You leave yourself wondering, are they conservative? Do they support a balanced budget? Do they support the Constitution? Do they support the Second Amendment?

00:20:39.940 But so to me, it's not so much about fidelity or faithfulness to one person.

00:20:44.400 It's about fidelity and faithfulness to the Constitution, to conservative values, to limited government, to balanced budgets.

00:20:50.920 And I think Thomas Massey is unparalleled in being the best defender of the Constitution currently in the Congress.

00:20:59.760 Speaking of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, Senator, I appreciated the if I could circle back on this for a second, your feelings about the overall Iran conflict.

00:21:07.940 but right now there's a negotiation happening are you hopeful for this negotiation actually

00:21:14.380 ending the conflict what would you advise trump vance the others who are making decisions on this

00:21:20.140 to do to stop this because i know you want this war over i think that's very i would have known

00:21:25.460 that before you said it you don't want us to be continuing to bomb them you don't want the

00:21:29.240 straighter form moves to be under threat do you see a way forward or are we just looking at months

00:21:34.020 of instability here? I don't know that anybody knows the answer yet. I think the sticking point

00:21:40.080 really is the Straits of Hormuz. Will the Iranians give in? Will the Iranians say that we won't 1.00

00:21:45.100 develop a nuclear weapon? I think actually they will negotiate on that. They've been willing to

00:21:49.040 negotiate on it before. It's whether or not they're believable in the negotiations. As far

00:21:53.780 as the Straits go, our decision to blockade it will now be something that militarily will be

00:22:01.360 decided whether or not we can do that. I think we probably can. We've removed mines from it. We 0.74

00:22:06.420 have the capability to do that. The missiles they shoot are very, very close to us. So the way we

00:22:12.020 intercept missiles is I think we're better the farther away they shoot the missiles from. The

00:22:16.660 closer they are, the more difficult it is to intercept missiles. So militarily, we'll see what

00:22:21.440 happens. I hope for the best. I hope that they will negotiate over the Straits and that we will

00:22:26.400 will move forward. I don't like the idea of us continuing forever to control the Straits of

00:22:31.500 Ramos and charging a fee, as some have indicated, or controlling it jointly with Iran and charging

00:22:37.140 a fee. I think it's unknown what will happen. The big sticking point really now is what will

00:22:42.820 happen with the Straits. While the Iranians are completely defeated, their military is completely 0.97

00:22:47.700 defeated. I don't know that the people are necessarily defeated. And in some ways,

00:22:52.000 the new regime there's a question whether or not they're going to be more compliant or less whether

00:22:59.000 it'll be more radical or less radical some say that the radicals that were killed off may be

00:23:03.640 well replaced with even people more radical we're talking to Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky I know

00:23:08.900 you've got a big hearing on the second amendment that's coming up you're in Washington DC I know

00:23:14.160 we got listeners all over the country that have weapons have guns and when they drive from one

00:23:19.820 state to another they're worried about what the rules are what the laws are um and i do think this

00:23:26.460 fact point should get more attention than it has thankfully we set an all-time record low for

00:23:32.660 murders in 2025 i think you probably could speak to this because i'm pretty sure it's factually

00:23:38.680 connected but there hasn't been much discussion about it we also have record numbers of firearms

00:23:44.760 in the hands of American citizens that is never before have there been more guns in the hands of

00:23:51.120 American citizens yet in 2025 we set what may well be the lowest murder rate in the history of the

00:23:56.620 country what can you tell us about the second amendment what does that say about lawful guns

00:24:01.180 in the hands of gun owners and how frustrating is it to you that you're in Kentucky I'm in Tennessee

00:24:07.220 we drive to Florida quite a lot the rules are different depending on what states we go through

00:24:12.880 to get to florida from where i live in nashville that seems crazy to me well the statistics are

00:24:19.660 pretty clear that uh lawful uh gun owners and people who carry weapons actually commit crimes

00:24:25.280 at a much lower rate than the general public most of the people who are lawfully owning guns are

00:24:30.220 actually some of the most law-abiding people you'll meet most people carry weapons for self-defense

00:24:35.160 and are actually some of the best citizens we have the second amendment of the right to own guns to

00:24:40.460 me is a natural right. It's God given. It's the right to self-defense. It's codified in the Bill

00:24:46.120 of Rights. And really, you should have a constitutional right to carry. In Kentucky,

00:24:50.500 you do. We no longer have a concealed carry law. We have a constitutional carry, which means

00:24:55.580 the Constitution protects it. So I'm for a national constitutional carry such that if you go from

00:25:02.020 Tennessee and you drive up to D.C., you may well want self-defense in D.C., but right now it's

00:25:07.520 difficult because dc basically bans people from having guns it's difficult to own a gun or to

00:25:12.880 bring a gun into dc but i see guns as self-defense everywhere i go the people with me are armed

00:25:18.580 i'm often armed and i think that uh it's a it's it's something that is uh the idea of self-defense

00:25:25.840 to me is a god-given right that shouldn't be infringed senator paul obviously everyone knows

00:25:31.840 as well uh that you were on that baseball diamond when a a bad guy had a gun who was trying to shoot

00:25:40.020 you and other members of congress did shoot steve scalise who had to fight for his life

00:25:44.000 so your thoughts on the second amendment i mean there were fortunately i believe it was actually

00:25:48.900 a woman a female member of capital police right but there were the proverbial good guys with guns

00:25:54.360 there to handle the situation but uh to your point about dc versus virginia you really can't go into

00:26:00.600 the district with a gun and so people who are law-abiding are disarmed and people who want to

00:26:05.400 harm others like that maniacal shooter on that day they enter into situations knowing that they're

00:26:11.100 effectively dealing with what is either a gun-free or a very limited gun zone yeah and i think when

00:26:17.460 you look at crime john lott's written several books on this but when you look at crime most

00:26:22.160 of the crime that is caught that is uh committed with weapons is committed with weapons that are

00:26:26.580 not legally bought. These are guns with the identification mark scratched off and they're

00:26:32.220 solded and traded hands in the black market. So of legally owned guns, very, very little crime is

00:26:38.180 committed with that. Almost all the crime in the U.S. is with illegally traded guns. So making more

00:26:43.780 gun laws and making more guns illegal doesn't necessarily affect the crime rate. What it does

00:26:48.520 is it just affects those of us who are law abiding and buy guns for self-defense.

00:26:52.760 um we get asked about this all the time the save act uh what's going to happen what should happen

00:27:00.500 is anything going to uh progress in any way there in terms of a resolution we're talking

00:27:07.660 with senator rand paul of kentucky i'm a co-sponsor of it i think it should be a minimum

00:27:13.500 to vote in our country that you have to present an id another problem we have besides the idea is

00:27:19.520 also this idea of voting by mail. In our state, we went ahead and got rid of voting by mail for

00:27:25.680 the most part. 97% of Kentuckians vote in person. We still have about five Republican or battleground

00:27:31.860 states that haven't done it. So while I'm for a national ID to be shown for voting and national

00:27:37.840 elections, I think we should also have a push because we may not get enough votes to pass it

00:27:42.460 the Senate, we should also be pushing at the state level. So Utah, Arizona, Alaska, Iowa,

00:27:49.140 West Virginia, all Republican leaning states, maybe except for Arizona, still don't have

00:27:54.180 sufficient voter ID laws. And they also mail ballots to everyone and keep mailing them and

00:27:59.140 mailing them and mailing them and soliciting voters who normally don't have the energy to

00:28:04.160 get off their couch. And so I think we need to keep addressing it national level. If we're not

00:28:08.920 successful there i think the next step is to go to the five remaining republican or battleground

00:28:14.340 states and let's change the laws in those states to have better uh voter id laws tomorrow is tax

00:28:20.960 day a day that many of us hate uh i've got some data here that i thought was interesting irs top

00:28:28.000 one percent of income tax filers uh contribute about 40 percent of the overall revenue top 10

00:28:34.880 percent pay 72 percent of all the revenue top quarter 87.2 percent bottom half pays no federal

00:28:43.680 income tax yet democrats are going to be all up in arms and continue to be that tax rates need to be

00:28:50.220 raised your thoughts i was on the view one time and i don't recommend it but i was on the view

00:28:57.440 and i told the ladies that people under fifty thousand dollars don't pay any income tax and

00:29:02.840 they all started squawking and yelling at me back and forth, and they wouldn't listen to it.

00:29:07.400 But it is a fact. Under $50,000, you don't pay income tax. Particularly husband and wife and

00:29:13.340 two kids, the standard deduction is $50,000. So you don't pay under $50,000 the income tax.

00:29:19.240 When people say on the left, when Bernie and other people on the left say,

00:29:23.340 oh, the rich are not paying their fair share, it's the opposite. The rich are not only paying

00:29:27.900 their fair share, they're paying most of the income tax. You're exactly right. Top 1% paying

00:29:33.140 40%, almost half of the income tax. Top 10%, 70%. So yes, the wealthy, we have a more progressive

00:29:40.960 tax code in our country than they do in Sweden. So we have plenty of taxes. We have too much,

00:29:46.760 but we also have a spending problem. So even with all the taxes we pay, we have this massive

00:29:51.220 deficit. But what we don't need is more revenue. I don't want more taxes, but we do need to cut

00:29:56.860 spending and cut it dramatically senator rand paul senator rand paul thanks so much for being

00:30:02.560 with us appreciate you sir thank you look uh i want to tell you business owners talking about

00:30:08.800 taxes business owners know the line item on the profit and loss statement in addition to taxes

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00:30:26.640 have to use it but you also question am i getting the best deal paying so much insurance across so

00:30:33.080 many different properties it's really frustrating uh you got multiple insurance policies multiple

00:30:38.560 brokers multiple applications and sometimes you don't know how it all is fitting together

00:30:43.380 super sure changes that one broker for all your business insurance backed by a team that works

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00:31:31.240 agency llc a licensed insurance agency miss the show while you're on the go wind down your day

00:31:38.540 with the daily review podcast find it on the iheart radio app or wherever you get your podcast

00:31:44.540 welcome back in hour number three clay travis buck sexton show uh we i've got a bunch of different

00:31:52.780 news stories that we are tracking for all of you uh reports that there may be yet another round

00:32:00.220 of discussions in pakistan between iran and the united states uh as we are talking with all of you

00:32:08.660 s&p 500 uh up substantially only about one half of a percent away about 38 points in the s&p 500

00:32:20.620 from an all-time record high for stocks.

00:32:24.720 The price of gas continuing to decline as I am looking at it right now.

00:32:32.040 Crude oil futures down to $88 a barrel in real time, down about 5% today.

00:32:40.060 The expectation of the blockade having a negative impact seems to have largely vanished.

00:32:49.200 There are possible, like I just said, additional talks coming.

00:32:53.880 And that is the latest as it pertains to Iran.

00:32:58.140 Buck, anything that you would add on the Iran news?

00:33:02.320 Again, stock market near record high.

00:33:04.920 Price of oil and gas down substantially today.

00:33:08.140 Now, to be fair, it's up about $20-ish from before the war started in Iran.

00:33:16.080 I think oil and gas prices, $66, $67 a barrel-ish, and they are at $88 right now,

00:33:23.200 but down pretty substantially from the early days of the war.

00:33:28.720 The reason why I mention markets in this respect is there seems to be a sense that things are calming down fairly substantially in the Gulf region.

00:33:39.860 And if you're out there and you're thinking, okay, what does that mean for oil and gas prices to me, Clay?

00:33:44.060 They they got up to about one hundred and twenty bucks and now they're back down to eighty eight.

00:33:49.560 So they have fallen pretty precipitously from their peak during the course of of this of this war.

00:33:58.700 Yes, I think that we are seeing the Trump administration tallying what the Iranians have in terms of leverage and weaknesses and what we have or what Trump has on his side.

00:34:13.720 bring to bear the full force and weight of the united states military and saying 0.67

00:34:16.900 if you guys want to turn this into a version of medieval siege warfare we can do that

00:34:22.720 and that just turns into who has more who has better preparations who has more stuff who can

00:34:29.380 outlast the other right so that's where we are i think it's it's a bit of a waiting game with the

00:34:35.180 pressures that are there the things that could shake it up dramatically would be if we went in

00:34:40.300 to take the uranium that would be a big that would be a big uh gamble but that's something

00:34:45.580 that may happen or if uh the iranians decided you know what we're just going to blow up a tanker and

00:34:52.040 see what happens i don't see them doing that uh because it would cause such problems for them

00:34:57.540 too but when someone is cornered you never know what they're willing to do and if we really have

00:35:04.320 our foot on the jugular of the malacracy they may react in a way that is uh hard to hard to foresee

00:35:11.820 and and could be very drastic so that's that's how i see it i mean jd vance is saying that you

00:35:19.980 see this here this is cut 13 he's talking about economic terrorism that iran has engaged in and

00:35:25.100 he's like we can play this game play 13 here's the very interesting thing about all this is that

00:35:30.660 the only thing the Iranians have been able to do, they haven't, of course, beaten us militarily.

00:35:35.240 They've had their military been decimated. They haven't been able to prosecute the case when it 0.72

00:35:40.620 comes to weapons of war. What they have done is engage in this act of economic terrorism against

00:35:45.940 the entire world. They basically threatened any ship that's moving through the Straits of Hormuz.

00:35:50.620 Well, as the president of the United States showed, two can play at that game. And if the

00:35:53.600 Iranians are going to try to engage in economic terrorism, we're going to abide by a simple 0.83

00:35:58.100 principle that no iranian ships are getting out either this is what i mean by who can wait this 0.97

00:36:05.280 out more who can handle the pressure better um now i think that the thing that the iranians

00:36:10.900 have going for them or the regime has going forward is they view this as existential

00:36:14.160 and they're used to a lot of suffering and inflicting a lot of suffering as well as taking

00:36:19.460 it themselves uh we have a democracy we have a republic i know but we have democratic elections

00:36:25.080 and therefore we have to think about the political pressures but economically and militarily clay

00:36:30.760 it's checkmate on it wrong it is and uh for those of you out there and i get it because i filled up

00:36:38.540 my uh car over the weekend um and price of oil and gas is up to around on average i always like

00:36:46.040 to have fun with this on average about four dollars a gallon um and the overall price increases

00:36:53.640 have effectively stopped and again i think you're going to start to see a dial back pretty

00:37:01.620 significantly uh between now and memorial day when prices are likely to go up again it's just

00:37:09.120 me analyzing the larger marketplace because a lot more people go on the road they switch out

00:37:13.800 the uh the type of oil and gas that is primarily sold uh so if you're out there and you are using

00:37:21.080 the price of oil and gas as a proxy for how the economy is going um then i think you're going to

00:37:27.820 start to see those prices come back down um based on what we are uh what we are seeing in the larger

00:37:35.080 marketplace um okay so again stock market near record highs about one half of a percent off all

00:37:43.400 time highs if you had just not paid attention at all the stock prices and not paid attention at all

00:37:49.620 to what's going on with Iran and just done nothing at all different,

00:37:54.360 you would be in a good shape.

00:37:57.100 And we will see what exactly ends up happening going forward,

00:38:03.720 but definitely the trend lines are positive.

00:38:05.740 I did want to play this, Buck.

00:38:08.240 Do we know, Producer Ali, let me know,

00:38:10.580 is the audio good enough now to play of the accuser at the press conference?

00:38:16.120 We played this earlier, and some of you had a little bit of difficulty of hearing it.

00:38:21.100 I don't know what happened.

00:38:22.120 It was somewhat garbled.

00:38:24.180 Let's see if that's true or not.

00:38:26.440 This is cut 33.

00:38:29.980 This is the accuser, Lana Drews, of Eric Swalwell. 0.50

00:38:33.800 Pause for a sec before we play that.

00:38:35.860 If you are just getting in your car, there is a new accuser of Eric Swalwell,

00:38:42.120 and she has gone public.

00:38:43.540 She just had a press conference in Beverly Hills. 0.96

00:38:47.000 She alleges that he drugged and raped her.

00:38:49.940 This is a new allegation helps to explain why Eric Swalwell not only has dropped out of the governor's race, as we discussed yesterday with Steve Hilton, but also why he has decided to give up his congressional seat.

00:39:03.160 Listen to that.

00:39:04.200 My delay in taking action against Eric was driven by fear, not doubt, fear of his political power.

00:39:11.240 his background as an attorney and his family law enforcement ties all right so that was part of it

00:39:21.140 here is a little bit longer version this is her saying i was drugged and raped uh in his hotel

00:39:28.700 room cut 32 i had contact with eric swalwell on three separate occasions after meeting him socially

00:39:36.460 he offered me connections to further my software company and i also had an interest in local

00:39:43.740 politics he invited me to two public events i knew he was married at the time and that his

00:39:51.260 wife was pregnant he was my friend on the third occasion i believe he drugged my drink

00:39:57.940 i only had one glass of wine he we were supposed to go to a political event and he said he needed

00:40:05.920 to get paperwork from his hotel room when i arrived at his hotel room i was already incapacitated 0.61

00:40:13.860 and i couldn't move my arms or my body he raped me and he choked me and while he was choking me

00:40:23.800 i lost consciousness and i thought i died i did not consent to any sexual activity 0.74

00:40:30.400 okay uh buck now the fallout swalwell is done he may well face criminal charges again that is a

00:40:38.640 new accuser different than what the san francisco chronicle reported and different than what cnn

00:40:44.220 had previously reported um there is a video that is circulating of eric swalwell what appears to

00:40:51.960 be making out with hooker with a hooker in uh it looks like a hotel room of some sort uh and

00:40:58.840 senator ruben gallego from arizona who was best buds with eric swalwell uh and just endorsed him 0.98

00:41:07.660 as recently as a couple of weeks ago to be the next governor of california now says that he had

00:41:14.000 heard rumors but he's been misled there are people alleging that swalwell is actually accompanied by

00:41:22.120 gallego in some of these videos including the one that has now gone viral well gallego was asked

00:41:29.240 about this uh and uh greg producer greg pulled this he says he was not in the same room it's

00:41:36.280 not not not not an accusation you want to be responding to buck says he was not in the same 0.67

00:41:41.440 room as swalwell making out with hookers this is cut 36 was that you sitting next to him this

00:41:48.140 an example of the lies no i was not sitting next to him i was not in the room i was nowhere i don't 0.93

00:41:53.220 know where it happened this is exactly i'm talking about chris la savita and a bunch of other right

00:41:58.660 wing political operatives are pushing this narrative that somehow i was in that room

00:42:02.340 with uh eric swell and that is an absolute lie um okay so buck i think one of these uh conversations

00:42:10.560 that is going to spread rapidly is a lot of people are now what we talked about before that

00:42:17.520 journalists are okay doing propaganda until it starts to humiliate them until it starts to look

00:42:24.120 bad for them to be the propagandist in the same way that everybody turned on joe biden almost

00:42:29.980 immediately and said oh well you know it turns out he was no after the debate i do wonder whether

00:42:35.720 there's a little bit of running for cover now starting to happen on capitol hill because as

00:42:40.860 we've discussed swalwell's behavior was not a very well-kept secret and a lot of people were

00:42:47.300 endorsing and encouraging others to support him and now you're starting to see the heat get shifted

00:42:52.960 from swalwell to sort of the uh you know the the downrange aspects of how did you allow this guy

00:43:00.200 to stay in power and how did you protect him all the democrats care about his power the democrat

00:43:06.480 party cares about one thing and one thing only that has to be in power there is no ethical

00:43:10.200 constraint there is nothing that they view as more important than that and you see this from

00:43:16.120 the fact that people were even comfortable effectively coming forward to say,

00:43:19.920 oh, I've known that Swalwell has been doing bad things,

00:43:24.180 not as bad as the recent stuff necessarily,

00:43:26.680 but that he was a, what's the, kind of a lascivious.

00:43:33.320 You're breaking out a lot of good vocabulary here today.

00:43:36.100 Thank you.

00:43:37.020 You know, that he was, what's the word that people will use for like an old man? 1.00

00:43:41.440 A lecherous. 1.00

00:43:42.340 There we go.

00:43:42.960 That's another good one. 0.97

00:43:43.740 And he was like a lecherous, gross member of Congress.

00:43:49.000 They were fine to come out and say, yeah, we all knew this, but we needed him. 0.81

00:43:53.940 And he was really good on being...

00:43:55.180 I'll notice something else about this.

00:43:56.760 Notice how some of the people who are the most vocally anti-Trump,

00:44:01.140 Avenatti, Swalwell, you see these people who are held up as heroes.

00:44:05.920 And there are other names that I'm sure you're shouting out right now.

00:44:08.160 Held up as heroes for their anti-Trump-ness. 1.00

00:44:09.720 and then it comes out that they're degenerate scumbags 0.99

00:44:12.460 and in no position to be calling out anybody 1.00

00:44:14.720 for the behavior that they are so offended by.

00:44:19.460 Democrats are perfectly fine with this.

00:44:21.540 They're fine with elevating.

00:44:22.760 Oh, Anthony Weiner, by the way,

00:44:24.100 huge attack dog for the Democrats against any Republican.

00:44:27.840 That was his job, to go on MSNBC

00:44:29.420 and be kind of smug and snarky and attack, attack, attack.

00:44:34.040 Can you imagine? 1.00

00:44:35.100 This guy, you're sending photos of your genitalia 0.99

00:44:39.680 to strangers on the internet and you think you should be lecturing republicans on how bad they 0.99

00:44:45.220 are on tv but sure enough you see this over and over again with these democrats where they get

00:44:50.720 absolutely but by the way joe biden joe biden hunter biden the whole thing these people are

00:44:57.020 attacking republicans all the time you're hunter biden you think you're in a position to attack

00:45:00.400 anyone for anything or joe biden for that matter i agree with that how about swalwell was one of

00:45:05.280 the foremost accusers on the Epstein files like if you yeah but I mean if you were engaged in

00:45:14.940 behavior like of like this um as as he has been alleged to be involved in are you going to be

00:45:21.760 the guy running around saying can you believe Jeffrey Epstein was trading on relationships

00:45:27.260 and being involved with lots of women and I just it is to your point Buck either he is a

00:45:34.380 uh he's got a mental illness of a incredibly high level or in his mind he was he had convinced

00:45:43.800 himself that all of these acts were consensual and he was uh just a paragon of virtue at least

00:45:52.280 in his relationships with women even though obviously he's married he's got multiple kids

00:45:57.060 And I just this story is is really kind of staggering.

00:46:02.580 I don't know that we've ever seen a political collapse happen this quickly.

00:46:07.500 And again, we've talked about it. Democrats, to me, at some point basically ordered the code red on this guy and he ran for president.

00:46:16.740 Nobody came after him. Right. I mean, usually when you run for president, if there's dirty laundry.

00:46:21.180 Now, maybe he was just such a far down the list of presidential candidates that nobody took him seriously.

00:46:28.020 And maybe it's just that he was now the favorite in California.

00:46:30.880 And that explains the code red suddenly happening.

00:46:33.660 The guy's been in Congress for a long time to suddenly have all of this happen.

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00:47:46.020 Buck for 20% off. Level up your brain. Mental mugging with Clay and Buck. Sending a spicy

00:47:54.040 picture to your work chat instead of your significant other? That's so embarrassing.

00:47:58.880 You know what's not? Debt. Consolidate your debt with a loan from Fig. No hassle,

00:48:03.480 no judgment. Borrow better with Fig. Visit fig.ca. Welcome back in here to Clay and Buck. 0.97

00:48:10.800 We're joined by Sarah Isger, host of the Advisory Opinions Podcast, editor of SCOTUS Blog,

00:48:17.820 plays excited, author of the new book, Last Branch Standing, a potentially surprising,

00:48:24.500 occasionally witty journey inside today's Supreme Court.

00:48:28.220 She is in our New York studio.

00:48:30.180 Sarah, great to have you on the program.

00:48:32.540 Thanks for having me here, guys.

00:48:34.800 Let's just get to, if I could, this court.

00:48:38.980 what is so interesting about it to you right now why'd you write the book tell us some things about

00:48:44.680 the supreme court you write for scotus blog that's where everyone goes to get their crib notes about

00:48:48.760 what's happening that's exactly right we do live blogs for the oral arguments for the opinion

00:48:53.480 hand downs and i wrote the book because basically every narrative we have about the supreme court

00:48:59.340 is wrong this idea that it's a six three partisan court the idea that the court is you know the one

00:49:06.780 that's left to decide all of our most important issues. I mean, let's just start with that one

00:49:10.860 for a second. We are at the end of a hundred year failed experiment from the progressive era

00:49:16.920 where like, let's not have Congress do anything because those, you know, dumb, dumb representatives 1.00

00:49:22.320 and the voters who put them there can't be trusted. We should instead have experts decide 0.99

00:49:27.280 everything. Fast forward, Congress doesn't legislate anymore. The president is doing

00:49:32.300 everything by executive power, regardless of which party they belong to. And so the Supreme Court

00:49:37.620 is forced to play this role, you know, deciding what Congress meant by some old statute that the

00:49:44.160 president cites. And instead of the headline saying, you know, Supreme Court strikes down

00:49:49.500 Trump's tariffs or Supreme Court strikes down Biden's student loan debt forgiveness,

00:49:54.240 the correct headline should say Supreme Court says only Congress can do worldwide tariffs.

00:50:00.040 Supreme Court says only Congress can do student loan debt forgiveness, but we're letting Congress off the hook and we're blaming the court.

00:50:08.520 Sarah, I got a bunch. I love this. The Supreme Court behind the scenes, everything else.

00:50:14.500 Let me start with this one, because I actually read The New York Times is now covering it.

00:50:19.340 But the poly market says right now that Justice Alito is favored to step down this year, which would mean that we would have a Supreme Court vacancy sometimes at sometime after this term ends in June.

00:50:35.660 Do you buy it? Do you think it is likely? Do you think that President Trump will get an appointment?

00:50:42.020 How would you read the tea leaves behind the scenes right now?

00:50:45.320 So, I mean, it's it's basically 50 50 at this point.

00:50:48.980 the big thing that we have to go on is one, Supreme Court justices tend to retire July 2nd,

00:50:55.520 right before a midterm election, if they're sort of of that age. On the other hand, Samuel Alito

00:51:01.520 is actually relatively young for a Supreme Court justice who's considering retiring. He's got a

00:51:07.080 book coming out in October, you know, books sell better if you're an active Supreme Court justice.

00:51:11.880 So I don't know, I can argue it either way. What's fun is to look at who Trump would potentially

00:51:16.900 appoint and whether they might be trying behind the scenes to make sure Justice Alito knows that

00:51:22.660 if he retires, they will appoint, for instance, one of his former clerks like Fifth Circuit Judge

00:51:28.540 Andy Oldham to take his spot. So, you know, don't worry, Your Honor, if you leave, your legacy will

00:51:34.900 continue because we're going to pick someone from your clerk family. And in fact, three of the

00:51:39.140 current justices are replaced to their bosses. The chief replaced the old chief, Justice Kavanaugh

00:51:44.960 replace Justice Kennedy and Justice Jackson replaced Justice Breyer. So that would be kind

00:51:50.240 of in line with what we've seen recently. Okay. Drama. You were talking about the Supreme Court

00:51:56.840 relationships. Does it buy, do you buy into the fact that Ketanji Brown Jackson is the least

00:52:03.820 liked justice by her colleagues on the Supreme Court right now? And the reason why I would ask

00:52:09.280 is you've seen Kagan really kind of take aim at her.

00:52:13.580 Amy Coney Barrett, that's on the left.

00:52:15.580 Amy Coney Barrett seems very, very nice. 0.98

00:52:18.460 She seems like a mom in a pickup line very much of the time. 0.96

00:52:23.160 And she has, I don't know, 15 kids or whatever the heck she has. 1.00

00:52:26.400 So she's used to putting up with frustrations, I would imagine, as a mom. 0.86

00:52:31.280 She just took a 2x4 to Ketanji Brown-Jackson recently in her opinions.

00:52:36.620 What's going on there?

00:52:37.820 what do you think about the interpersonal dynamics? Yeah, I have little mini biographies

00:52:43.460 of each of the justices in the book, what they like to binge watch, what shows they're into

00:52:47.900 right now, Justice Kagan's poker game. And, you know, a way to think about the justices,

00:52:54.020 there's no question, is ideology, right? Some justices are conservative, some are liberal,

00:52:58.060 they're doing sort of different projects along that, you know, spectrum. But it doesn't really

00:53:03.060 help you understand why, for instance, Justice Kavanaugh was more likely to agree with every

00:53:09.040 other justice on the court, except Jackson, other than Justice Gorsuch, right? They're the same

00:53:13.880 amount of conservatives. So why are they only together 50% of the time last term? And the

00:53:19.100 answer, and don't worry, I'm getting to the Justice Jackson part, is there's this other,

00:53:23.560 you know, spectrum to think about the justices on. I like to think of it as institutionalism.

00:53:29.480 And, you know, Justice Gorsuch is like, it's just me.

00:53:32.440 All I do is tell you what I think of the case.

00:53:34.460 That's my only job here.

00:53:36.020 He writes a lot of concurrences because of that.

00:53:38.460 Like, ah, here's my take.

00:53:40.220 Justice Kavanaugh thinks of this as more of a middle school group project.

00:53:43.700 We're all in this together.

00:53:45.100 We speak with a single voice when possible.

00:53:47.600 It's not about me.

00:53:49.260 Justice Jackson and Justice Gorsuch are very similar in terms of being low institutionalists

00:53:55.800 who see that, like, this is about what they think about the case.

00:54:01.020 They don't have to think that much about what previous courts thought,

00:54:03.900 about precedent, for instance.

00:54:05.960 So when Justice Jackson joins the court,

00:54:09.660 she does a lot of things that are unusual.

00:54:13.560 Like, I forget exactly how many years it took for the chief justice,

00:54:17.640 for instance, to write a solo dissent.

00:54:19.480 About a decade.

00:54:20.980 She wrote three her first year on the court.

00:54:24.180 She's just not like a dues paying type of girl. And yeah, I think that can rub your colleagues the wrong way. But there's only nine of them. They take collegiality very seriously. As Justice Barrett has said, it's kind of like an arranged marriage for life. And so, you know, she talks, Justice Jackson talks the most adoral argument. She's writing these solo dissents. She's, you know, in these 8-1 cases, like in the conversion therapy case, you know, Kagan and Sotomayor are with the conservatives. 1.00

00:54:53.160 Nope, Jackson's off on her own.

00:54:55.040 Yeah, I think that can tweak people.

00:54:58.840 Speaking to Sarah Isger, and she has a book out, which you should all check out,

00:55:04.940 Last Branch Standing, a potentially surprising, occasionally witty journey

00:55:08.060 into just Last Branch Standing.

00:55:09.540 Go find that on Amazon.

00:55:10.460 Go buy it.

00:55:10.880 You can get the rest of the title when you buy the book.

00:55:14.000 So I'm glad you and Clay are having fun with all the legal nerd stuff,

00:55:17.500 nerding it out on the legal stuff.

00:55:19.220 Clay wants to talk to you about previous Supreme Courts.

00:55:21.520 You guys can do a whole podcast on that.

00:55:23.160 I have to ask you something, which is, I heard you were on The View today.

00:55:28.360 What was that like?

00:55:30.220 And what is the similarity between explaining the Supreme Court and being on The View to explaining the Supreme Court to a kindergarten class?

00:55:38.380 So I will just tell you guys, I was so nervous about it.

00:55:42.100 I've never been on The View before.

00:55:44.720 Obviously, you know, I worked in the first Trump administration.

00:55:47.240 I worked in you know on a gazillion Republican campaigns during my career and I was just like oh

00:55:53.400 this could go really really poorly but I have to say I actually had a great time because I like

00:56:00.840 introducing people to the Supreme Court and the audience was like nodding along and they were

00:56:05.940 like oh yeah Congress isn't doing its job it's like the one thing that unites Americans is that

00:56:11.580 nobody like approves of Congress they have like a nine percent approval rating and I am dying to

00:56:16.900 meet one of those nine percent. If you know any, send them my way. So it's fun to explain to people

00:56:21.820 that like, hey, you're being told this lie about the Supreme Court. Let me explain to you why that's

00:56:27.460 not true and like who you should blame. And we all have control over that because Congress is

00:56:32.060 the most representative branch. We get to vote on these guys every two years. So if they're not

00:56:35.700 doing their job, blame them, vote them out. The Supreme Court is supposed to be counter

00:56:40.680 majoritarian. They're supposed to be a lagging indicator of our politics. They're actually doing 0.99

00:56:45.540 their job. Okay, so we mentioned what the possibility might be going forward in terms

00:56:51.840 of is Alito going to step down, Ketanji Brown-Jackson. We have a massive number, I would

00:56:57.600 say, of significant cases still to be resolved between now and the end of the year. Birthright

00:57:02.720 citizenship, the Voting Rights Act in particular, gerrymandering, whether it is allowed on a racial

00:57:09.060 basis. What do you think in terms of super significant decisions that we will see? Will

00:57:16.220 anything upset the proverbial apple cart in terms of between now and when the final opinions are

00:57:23.740 released near the end of June? There's no question that that Voting Rights Act case that you're

00:57:29.260 talking about just has loomed over this whole term. You know, we've had tariffs and we've had

00:57:34.400 birthright citizenship. But for the justices themselves, the Voting Rights Act has kind of

00:57:40.460 plagued them for years at this point. They keep having these cases come back.

00:57:44.500 In this case, it's sort of funny isn't the right word. It's not like haha funny. But Louisiana

00:57:49.160 draws their district and they get sued because they only have one majority minority district. 0.58

00:57:54.600 So they're like, fine. So they draw a second majority minority district. Then they get sued

00:57:59.780 by white voters who are like, you racially gerrymandered that second district.

00:58:03.680 And Louisiana is like, so what are we supposed to do?

00:58:06.580 Have one or have two?

00:58:07.760 Because we get sued and we get found liable either way.

00:58:10.640 So that's what the Supreme Court is having to decide.

00:58:13.300 I personally am into sort of the some of the other statutory cases, if you will.

00:58:20.720 So can Mississippi receive ballots five days after Election Day?

00:58:25.040 Or did Congress say no to that?

00:58:26.880 Because they said there's an Election Day.

00:58:29.220 As they send the oral argument, do you have to consummate the election on Election Day?

00:58:34.920 That was people giggled in the courtroom, if you're curious.

00:58:38.120 That is very much of a nerdy law joke that I would imagine would be very appealing to your average lawyer.

00:58:45.140 Consummate.

00:58:46.380 There's this other case about the Remain in Mexico policy and the question of whether Congress allows the administration to prevent someone from getting to the southern border to ask for asylum.

00:58:55.880 But to put this in bigger context, all the court is being asked to do in those cases is to say what Congress said in their statute.

00:59:04.100 So what's supposed to happen in our system, if it were functioning correctly based on the Constitution, after the Supreme Court says one way or the other, it shouldn't actually matter because Congress the next day could amend their laws to fix it to whichever way they wanted it to say or what the people wanted it to be.

00:59:22.800 but none of us believe that Congress will actually do that. So the Supreme Court becomes the last

00:59:28.480 word. Then we blame the Supreme Court and then the Supreme Court becomes really important. It

00:59:34.080 becomes the focus of our politics, but it's not responsive to us. It's supposed to be against

00:59:39.340 these majorities. And as I said, like a lagging indicator of our politics. And so we've really

00:59:45.260 got to put that pressure back on Congress and stop saying like, well, the Supreme Court said

00:59:49.300 so toss our hands up nothing we can do like no no whether mississippi can accept ballots is not a

00:59:54.500 constitutional question it's just up to congress that's it all right go get the book last branch

01:00:02.880 standing sarah great to have you on the program thanks for being here with us thank you guys for

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