Verdict with Ted Cruz - BONUS： Daily Review with Clay and Buck - Apr 8 2025

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.560 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.800 Welcome in.

00:00:06.880 Tuesday edition.

00:00:08.360 Clay Travis, Buck Sexton show.

00:00:11.140 Congratulations to the Florida Gators.

00:00:13.840 Buck Sexton and I both nailed it.

00:00:16.720 Said the Florida Gators are going to win the NCAA tournament.

00:00:19.860 They did in a really fun game last night.

00:00:23.160 We'll maybe have a little bit of fun with that.

00:00:24.560 Buck's wife, Carrie, is a Florida Gator alum.

00:00:27.060 And I know many of you out there listening across the country are Gator fans as well.

00:00:32.720 Houston Cougar fans, probably great season.

00:00:35.080 Probably not going to be as angry at me today in the talkbacks as they were yesterday.

00:00:39.440 Since Florida won covered as I told you they were going to do.

00:00:43.140 We'll have some fun with that.

00:00:44.940 We also will continue to be CNBC and Fox Business.

00:00:50.100 Since everybody is suddenly obsessed with what the day-to-day movement of the stock market is.

00:00:55.160 Let me go ahead and tell you right off the top.

00:00:58.140 It is the Dow is up roughly a thousand points today.

00:01:03.620 For those of you who have been obsessively following the stock market during the Trump battle.

00:01:09.260 S&P 500 up about two and a half points.

00:01:12.820 Two and a half percent, that is.

00:01:15.200 And the NASDAQ up about two and a half percent.

00:01:18.020 So I am your business, a business beat writer here, giving you the absolute latest on the stock market in all seriousness.

00:01:27.020 Stock market is bouncing back quite a lot, as we told you it was likely to do.

00:01:32.060 And I saw, Buck, something that I thought kind of perfectly epitomized the way the market is being used to attack Trump right now.

00:01:42.100 CNN yesterday, when the stock market was down, had the stock market ticker on their screen constantly, all day long.

00:01:51.720 Hey, it's down this, it's down that.

00:01:53.920 Today, the stock market is surging, going to have one of its best days in probably months, maybe years.

00:02:00.500 And CNN, at the time that I was watching it, did not have the ticker showing that it was back up substantially.

00:02:07.740 But, again, general lesson here, they are going to use whatever they can to attack Trump.

00:02:14.960 The stock market is going to go up and it's going to go down.

00:02:17.540 I told you if it's below where it is today, 18 months from now, and if the inflation is up,

00:02:23.540 I'll come on and I'll wear a clown costume and I'll tell you, hey, you know what, I was totally wrong.

00:02:28.840 I think it's going to resolve itself.

00:02:31.200 I think by the summer, many of these trade disputes will be decided.

00:02:35.620 The battle with China is going to be longer lasting because China has been for decades now

00:02:41.020 taking advantage of the global free trade marketplace to rig it game in its favor.

00:02:46.660 And it will take a long time, I think, to potentially get a resolution there.

00:02:51.200 But we told you at some point water is going to find its level.

00:02:55.600 The markets have seemingly adjusted to this trade war that is now underway.

00:03:00.720 Big drops Thursday, Friday, big bounce back today.

00:03:05.080 And we will see kind of how this plays out.

00:03:08.240 But I think you should know that the main attack here is just find anything that is negative

00:03:13.580 and decide to use it as a cudgel against Trump.

00:03:17.660 Other news today, Buck's last radio show as tomorrow.

00:03:25.080 You're going to be on tomorrow, too.

00:03:26.560 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:03:27.320 Oh, okay.

00:03:28.000 I thought you were out.

00:03:28.800 I thought you were out tomorrow.

00:03:29.660 No, it's my last full day.

00:03:31.620 And for those of you who are saying, like, how do you know it could happen?

00:03:35.140 Yes, it could happen like in five minutes.

00:03:37.440 Let's hope not because I'm in the middle of a show.

00:03:39.240 But I would go with my wife to the hospital.

00:03:40.560 But because the baby's gotten a little big, the doctors would like us to induce.

00:03:45.740 So that's why we have a set date.

00:03:46.660 So you are inducing tomorrow.

00:03:47.700 But you're going to be on the show tomorrow.

00:03:50.040 I'm going to be on the show tomorrow.

00:03:51.360 I'm finishing the show tomorrow, grabbing my go bag with the wifey, going to the hospital.

00:03:56.240 Okay.

00:03:56.700 I thought you were at the hospital tomorrow.

00:03:58.500 Okay.

00:03:58.740 So Buck has one more show.

00:04:00.380 I'm actually going to do a live segment from the hospital during the –

00:04:03.560 They'll be like, Clay, here I am, seventh floor of the Miami Presbyterian.

00:04:08.040 You're going to be the sideline reporter of the baby delivery.

00:04:11.340 Okay.

00:04:11.720 I thought today was the last day.

00:04:12.900 You'll be in tomorrow.

00:04:14.020 And then the baby is scheduled to arrive.

00:04:15.780 So Buck, in his final moments of getting ready for a baby to arrive.

00:04:20.600 All right.

00:04:21.160 What's your take as we sit here and the stock market does, as the stock market does, bounce back?

00:04:26.780 How many days in a row do you think it would need to bounce back for the latest,

00:04:30.780 Oh, my goodness, the world is burning down?

00:04:33.980 Remember when it was the first term, everything Trump did, World War III would trend.

00:04:39.280 You know, he would – when he killed Soleimani, it was immediately every decision that he made

00:04:45.800 was in some way going to lead to imminent catastrophe.

00:04:49.800 And then by and large, none of that occurred.

00:04:52.060 And the one thing that actually caused the biggest calamity was something he was not responsible for at all,

00:04:58.120 which was COVID escaping from a Chinese lab in, you know, January of 2020.

00:05:03.760 And that sort of set the whole world on fire.

00:05:06.500 But Trump had nothing at all to do with having caused it in any way unless you want to say,

00:05:10.800 hey, Fauci had something to do with it from years and years ago,

00:05:14.240 which I think is fair based on gain-of-function research.

00:05:16.880 But you would think that people would have learned their lesson,

00:05:21.100 but they just have to run around, these left-wingers and many of their legacy media allies,

00:05:26.520 as if we are in the midst of an unprecedented catastrophe over and over again.

00:05:33.680 And the catastrophe is constantly shifting.

00:05:36.320 The Signal leaked Jeffrey Goldberg Atlantic story was going to burn everything down.

00:05:42.360 Now that's completely gone.

00:05:43.880 And the new thing is, oh, Trump's tariff battle is going to destroy the world.

00:05:48.640 That's the new calamity.

00:05:50.240 Well, they've had to come to grips with something in the anti-Trump media,

00:05:54.180 which is that their credibility in the public's mind, and I mean that broadly.

00:05:58.740 I mean that even for Trump voters, right?

00:06:03.360 It's just evaporated.

00:06:05.780 We're in a totally different world now.

00:06:07.400 Just the front page of the New York Times is not enough to convince someone of anything's truth anymore broadly.

00:06:15.360 Everyone recognizes, I think, much more clearly than ever before,

00:06:19.840 that the media is running anti-Trump ops on a regular basis, choosing what to cover, how they cover it, everything.

00:06:27.460 And so, Clay, they no longer have the ability.

00:06:30.000 They no longer have the ability to induce, there's that word again, to induce panic across the country the same way.

00:06:39.020 Now, their audience still demands it and wants it at some level,

00:06:42.020 but even they, I think, have become a little bit numb to Trump panic syndrome.

00:06:48.140 The synapses are kind of fried for the libs.

00:06:51.700 They can't get themselves quite as freaked out now,

00:06:54.200 because we were told, even a matter of, what, six months ago, that he would be Hitler.

00:06:59.380 And now we're seeing, no, it's actually fine.

00:07:01.420 It's all fine, libs.

00:07:02.580 You know, this was the one thing when I was with Bill Maher on his show,

00:07:06.140 and, you know, he just had dinner with Trump recently.

00:07:08.180 Yes.

00:07:08.560 I tried, the one thing that I tried to convince him of that I thought I might make a little ground is,

00:07:12.380 I said, I promise you Trump is not Hitler and it's all going to be fine.

00:07:14.860 And he refused.

00:07:16.240 He said, I disagree.

00:07:16.960 I think the country's over if he wins.

00:07:19.400 Well, now we just went and had dinner with him.

00:07:20.940 So, put that one, put one in the column for the Buckster was speaking truth to Mr. Bill Maher on that, obviously.

00:07:28.420 So, Clay, this is the administration continuing to keep promises

00:07:33.720 and also, I think, to be very focused on what the agenda is, irrespective of whatever the media says.

00:07:40.720 And that's the Trump doesn't give a you-know-what about what they say

00:07:45.160 is actually a powerful political tool right now, or it's a powerful political reality.

00:07:50.940 And I think he should continue to do this.

00:07:53.040 They also, we haven't mentioned it, we'll get into it more later,

00:07:55.860 Supreme Court just came down 5-4 on the Alien Enemies Act deportations,

00:08:01.940 and the White House is going to be able to continue to do that.

00:08:05.700 Yes.

00:08:05.840 And I know there's a change of venue.

00:08:06.980 We can get into some of those specifics,

00:08:08.680 but it is not, in fact, the case that this was open and shut, Trump can't do this.

00:08:12.820 No, actually, Trump can't.

00:08:14.080 So we should continue to look at that as well.

00:08:17.900 But I think on the economic side of things, they're really running out of stuff to tell us

00:08:23.840 is going to cause the depression because of Trump, right?

00:08:28.620 They're running out of levers to pull here on this one,

00:08:31.240 because if this was supposed to be Black Monday, as they were saying,

00:08:35.000 as Kramer said, to whatever degree anyone thinks that guy should be listened to,

00:08:39.040 I think the answer should be almost not at all.

00:08:42.000 But what, are they going to keep saying this?

00:08:43.780 Is this going to be the walls that are closing in with the impeachments all over again?

00:08:47.520 You know, I think that they still are completely ineffectual at their efforts

00:08:52.620 to derail this administration, which is to the benefit of the American people.

00:08:58.400 Yeah, I think that's totally true, and I think it's important.

00:09:01.660 Again, I'm pulling up, since I'm the stock market reporter right now,

00:09:05.800 you know, your stocks are basically the exact same price as they were in May of last year.

00:09:15.280 So 11 months ago, if you did not feel, as I would imagine most of you did not,

00:09:21.780 11 months ago, if you did not feel like you were on the verge of imploding,

00:09:29.440 then stocks go up, they go down, and I believe that we will soon,

00:09:35.520 you know, continue that upswing in the Trump era over the next couple of years.

00:09:42.200 But you don't know when the average stock market price, you know,

00:09:45.140 every year on average goes up 8% or 9%, but there's a wide range of how that can go.

00:09:50.920 And I would just say, look at prices back in May of last year.

00:09:54.660 If you weren't panicked, if you weren't sitting around staring at the walls,

00:09:58.960 thinking to yourself, oh my goodness, how am I going to live?

00:10:02.480 Probably take a breath and realize that you're okay.

00:10:07.480 Yeah.

00:10:08.060 Well, Clay, beyond that, though, you know, the stock market is just an indicator.

00:10:12.200 Let's talk about America and the economy as well here.

00:10:15.360 They said, meaning the people that are freaked out about Trump as a profession,

00:10:20.300 they said that he was going to crash the stock market with this.

00:10:22.660 He didn't.

00:10:23.300 Okay?

00:10:23.500 It didn't happen.

00:10:24.680 And this is probably the moment of maximum disruption as it relates to market perception.

00:10:32.180 Because we'll get into some of these specifics.

00:10:34.640 There's negotiations ongoing.

00:10:36.600 This country's come forward and said, hey, let's figure this out.

00:10:38.820 50 countries plus already have said, all right, let's get a deal going here.

00:10:42.840 So there will be a greater degree of market certainty and a greater degree of the economy

00:10:49.420 is okay, right?

00:10:50.480 The perception of stability will create additional stability with this, which I think also, Clay,

00:10:55.880 goes to Trump and his team understand these fundamental currents within the economy, not just the stock

00:11:03.720 market, about manufacturing, about trade, about employment, about the price of gas, the price

00:11:10.440 of eggs, the price of mortgages.

00:11:12.360 All of these things are in consideration.

00:11:14.920 And this team knows what they are doing and is trying to achieve something.

00:11:21.240 You know, you can just tell the Democrats were hoping they were hoping for the stock market

00:11:25.260 to go down 40 percent yesterday.

00:11:27.400 Yes, because that would in their minds, that would be okay.

00:11:29.740 We're back, baby.

00:11:30.560 The end of the Trump presidency.

00:11:31.880 It didn't happen, and now we're going to see who's right and who's wrong.

00:11:37.240 And I definitely think, again, for all of you out there, just trust, to the extent you

00:11:46.040 trust us on anything, eight or nine percent a year, every 10 years, the S&P 500 is going

00:11:52.120 to double.

00:11:53.140 If you really significantly get sick to your stomach watching the stock market, then don't

00:12:00.580 pay a lot of attention to the stock market and recognize that whatever is not going

00:12:05.780 a little bit perfectly, they are going to immediately weaponize against Trump.

00:12:10.940 And you don't make decisions, typically in your own life, on a day-to-day basis.

00:12:15.060 You would never.

00:12:15.800 I think this analogy is so good.

00:12:17.940 You would never look at what Zillow says the value of your house is and be like, oh, my

00:12:23.940 goodness, I've got to sell my house right now.

00:12:26.260 Your house is constantly fluctuating in price.

00:12:29.300 You have no idea what it's going to be worth.

00:12:31.220 Most people do well on their houses because there is a significant cost associated with

00:12:36.940 selling a home, with moving.

00:12:38.960 Most people move into a house and they stay there for years.

00:12:42.240 And if you do that, if you make a solid decision, the best financial decision most people make

00:12:47.440 is buying a house and holding on to it.

00:12:49.720 Same thing's true also of stocks.

00:12:52.300 We'll take some of your calls, by the way.

00:12:53.560 We're also scheduled to be joined by Selena Zito, who does a good job of reporting from

00:12:58.220 out in the Midwest, kind of the middle part of the country, about what she's seeing on

00:13:02.780 the road and what she's seeing in all these different communities.

00:13:05.900 Well, her her calling card for a lot of us who remember the 2016 election is she was the

00:13:10.260 one who said that people in the media and the Democrats took Trump literally, but not

00:13:15.500 seriously when they should have taken him seriously, but not literally.

00:13:18.580 And also was reporting from Rust Belt flyover or whatever you want to call them, you know,

00:13:25.100 deindustrialized areas of the country and said, no, this I'm talking about 2016 now, right?

00:13:30.960 When this was still a shock to a lot of people, she was doing that reporting saying, no, people

00:13:35.340 are really it.

00:13:35.980 This is a movement.

00:13:36.580 This is real.

00:13:37.100 So she's got an update now, eight years later on that for us that I think, Clay, will be

00:13:41.860 really interesting to hear.

00:13:43.100 No doubt.

00:13:43.940 In the meantime, if you're feeling a little bit draggy right now, maybe you're sitting

00:13:47.460 around and coming out of a little bit late night with the Houston and Florida game, maybe

00:13:52.580 coming out of the weekend with a lot of March madness going on.

00:13:56.140 A lot of kids hitting the fields for little league baseball, soccer.

00:14:00.100 I know my kids are running around like crazy.

00:14:02.220 Maybe you need a little bit more energy.

00:14:03.680 I got a lacrosse game to get to this afternoon.

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00:15:00.040 Saving America.

00:15:01.720 One thought at a time.

00:15:03.700 Clay Travis and Buck Sexton.

00:15:06.340 Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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00:15:36.340 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:15:42.080 Welcome back in.

00:15:43.280 Clay Travis, Buck Sexton show.

00:15:45.480 Okay, I understand, and it feels like getting a law degree was actually a good decision solely based on being in media.

00:15:56.560 Because there are so many court decisions that are constantly coming down.

00:16:01.680 Not only when Trump was running for office, but now as a part of the Trump era.

00:16:07.680 So, let me hit you with the latest ruling that just came down in the last, what am I looking at this?

00:16:12.620 In the last 20 minutes or so, the Supreme Court headline at the Wall Street Journal.

00:16:18.420 Supreme Court lets Trump fire federal employees.

00:16:22.500 The Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a lower court order that blocked the Trump administration from firing 16,000 federal employees.

00:16:33.040 Saying that these organizations that claim they were harmed lack legal standing to challenge the layoffs.

00:16:40.380 Order was unsigned.

00:16:42.620 But two liberal justices opposed it, suggesting that it would have otherwise been a 7-2 decision.

00:16:51.880 This was to overturn an injunction put in place by the U.S. District Court Judge Alsup in San Francisco,

00:17:02.040 requiring the reinstatement of all of these employees that the Trump administration was seeking to dismiss.

00:17:08.420 Okay, so what's going on there also was the decision that came down relating to Trump's executive power

00:17:15.520 to deport individuals from this Trindaragua gang.

00:17:20.600 Basically, the Supreme Court is coming in and slapping down these federal nationwide injunctions

00:17:28.240 that are being put in place by these district court judges.

00:17:31.200 So, Trump's executive authority and power is being reinforced by the Supreme Court,

00:17:38.240 which is telling these federal district court judges, you have to lift these injunctions.

00:17:44.300 Now, we talked about this.

00:17:46.540 The Trump 2.0 resistance is not coming from the legacy media.

00:17:51.080 It's not even coming from the Democrat Party.

00:17:52.920 It's coming from left-wing judges at the district court level that are deciding to try to enjoin,

00:18:01.060 that is, stop, basically, Trump from undertaking his executive authority.

00:18:05.460 And we talked about it within the context historically.

00:18:08.920 Trump has more nationwide injunctions than Biden had in four years already,

00:18:14.660 than Obama had in four years already.

00:18:17.380 These judges are trying to throw themselves to thwart the Trump agenda

00:18:21.660 and forcing the Supreme Court to come in and say, hey, you can't do this.

00:18:25.600 Well, I think it's also important context that not only the number that you laid out

00:18:30.720 shows that something is clearly amiss here, right?

00:18:34.480 Four years versus 60 days.

00:18:37.360 And he already has more injunctions.

00:18:38.760 But also, Clay, in both cases of Obama and Biden,

00:18:42.140 those were presidents who said openly, I don't have the authority to do this thing,

00:18:49.040 and then did the thing.

00:18:51.020 So those are presidents who were reckless about the use of executive power,

00:18:57.100 just flagrantly making stuff up.

00:18:59.360 You know, when you're talking about, oh, is it the administration?

00:19:02.600 Look at what they use against Trump.

00:19:04.900 It's the Administrative Procedures Act.

00:19:06.780 It was all due notice given and all the forms checked before you can fire a single federal employee.

00:19:12.840 With Obama or with Biden, it was, yeah, you don't owe money to the student loans anymore.

00:19:18.840 You know, we're just going to make that go away for you, right?

00:19:21.300 We're talking about big things that they had clearly no authority to do whatsoever.

00:19:25.820 So I just think that when you keep it in, when you have it in that context,

00:19:29.680 clearly, you know, right-leaning judges are like, look, you know,

00:19:33.880 I may not like what's going on here, but unless they violate the law,

00:19:37.220 clearly, I'm not going to try to step in.

00:19:39.960 Left-wing judges are, I don't like Trump.

00:19:42.180 I'm going to find a way to stop him.

00:19:43.640 Perfect example of this, Judge Boasberg,

00:19:46.020 who has really become the pinnacle of the resistance.

00:19:49.400 You know that he wasn't supposed to get the case?

00:19:52.260 I just heard this the other day.

00:19:53.560 It was amazing.

00:19:54.560 He wasn't the judge on duty for the flight leaving.

00:19:59.560 You know, remember, first of all, this is in D.C.

00:20:01.100 and why is this falling under the D.C. jurisdiction?

00:20:04.400 There's all these questions.

00:20:05.300 But, Clay, he stepped in and was like, oh, no, I want this one.

00:20:09.860 That's not how that's supposed to work.

00:20:12.860 The judge that hates the president isn't supposed to shove aside other judges in the rotation.

00:20:17.860 Think about this, Clay.

00:20:19.140 You know, if somebody was charged with murder and some judge shoved another judge out of the way,

00:20:23.680 oh, no, I want this case because everybody knows I hate this defendant.

00:20:27.280 Nobody would think that was okay.

00:20:28.600 It's exactly what Boasberg did.

00:20:30.360 And also, all these federal district court judges really do think that if they oppose Trump,

00:20:37.560 they're also setting themselves up for promotion.

00:20:40.840 Because, again, for those of you out there, and I understand sometimes your head rolls back into your head over this,

00:20:46.460 there's the federal district court judge level, which is the lowest level of the district court judges.

00:20:52.320 Then there's the circuit court.

00:20:54.220 And then there's the Supreme Court.

00:20:55.900 So these lowest level judges are trying to put in place, like this guy from San Francisco,

00:21:03.020 is trying to put in place a ruling that applies nationwide,

00:21:07.260 and eventually it works its way into the Supreme Court, and they say no.

00:21:12.140 And remember, the precedent that they're putting in place about executive power and executive authority

00:21:16.880 applies for all future presidents.

00:21:19.440 So what they're trying to do is Trump resistance 2.0 is almost exclusively the province so far of the judiciary.

00:21:28.080 And to your point, Buck, it certainly is interesting that all these judges claiming that they are trying to defend the Constitution

00:21:36.200 from an authoritarian dictator, actually the Supreme Court is saying time after time,

00:21:42.100 Trump has the right to be able to do what he's doing.

00:21:45.380 And I think it's important to point out that Biden knew many times when he was taking action,

00:21:51.960 for instance, when it came to the extension of the lack of evictions under FEMA authority,

00:22:01.400 that he didn't have the ability to do that.

00:22:03.940 And he even said, this will just buy a few more months for us to be able to keep this policy in place.

00:22:09.280 He defied what he knew the law was.

00:22:11.360 Because Trump, on so many of these legal issues, when he gets up against these resistance judges,

00:22:18.740 Clay, how many times have we been told?

00:22:20.880 And all these people are like, I'm so, especially the former conservatives or former Republicans out there,

00:22:25.860 you know who they are.

00:22:26.720 I'm so principled.

00:22:29.040 What Trump is doing is flagrantly violating the Constitution.

00:22:32.580 And then it turns out when real judges look at it, they go, no, this is, he has the power to do this.

00:22:37.700 Time and again, remember the so-called Muslim ban that wasn't a Muslim ban? 0.61

00:22:42.020 It was a countries that can't vet and have a lot of terrorists coming out of them ban?

00:22:46.980 You know, they said he couldn't do that.

00:22:49.080 He ended up being correct on that.

00:22:51.340 The courts eventually upheld it, right?

00:22:53.040 They made some kind of a modification to the first order to clarify.

00:22:56.300 But it wasn't some crazy idea.

00:22:58.680 It was based on Obama administration designations of terror-supporting countries.

00:23:05.440 But they just, they have no ability.

00:23:08.740 Trump derangement syndrome, it's so tiring, isn't it?

00:23:11.940 Clay, they keep telling you they're objective.

00:23:13.880 They can't be objective when it comes to this guy.

00:23:16.320 What about crazily?

00:23:18.840 Remember when the Colorado Supreme, I know everybody just tries to forget all this stuff happened.

00:23:23.540 You don't hear it talked about very often.

00:23:25.000 But the Colorado Supreme Court said Trump couldn't be on the ballot.

00:23:29.560 Yeah.

00:23:29.920 And it went all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

00:23:34.140 And all these people out there were saying, well, under the Confederate clause of the, whatever it was, the 14th, 15th, 16th Amendment.

00:23:42.420 I don't even remember what the specific battle was, but it was one of those.

00:23:45.760 They said, well, this is a really difficult legal issue.

00:23:48.780 I think there's a very strong case that he shouldn't be able to be on the ballots at all.

00:23:53.660 I remember reading all these editorials in the New York Times.

00:23:57.560 And then the Supreme Court said, no, no, no, you can't do this.

00:24:01.540 And when you get slapped down, no, by the United States Supreme Court and trying to argue, actually, they have the right to do this.

00:24:09.800 I think a lot of people, it was Lucy and Charlie Brown.

00:24:13.640 You know, are you really, is the football going to get pulled?

00:24:15.940 Football going to get pulled?

00:24:16.840 New York Times is saying, no, this is a really legitimate legal argument that they've made.

00:24:20.760 And then the Supreme Court says, no, I know you can't do this, Colorado.

00:24:23.940 Clay, it was the Democrat apparatus that was telling us just a year ago that you can prosecute a president criminally for decisions that he makes as president.

00:24:38.720 Right.

00:24:39.540 Think about that.

00:24:41.120 I don't like the airstrike he did.

00:24:43.120 Throw him in.

00:24:43.980 Yeah, that was effectively the argument that they were making.

00:24:47.120 The Supreme Court had to clarify, no, if he's acting within presidential capacity, you can't say that's a criminal matter.

00:24:56.300 It's a his discretion matter.

00:24:58.360 But they needed that to be clarified.

00:25:00.620 Right.

00:25:00.820 I mean, yeah.

00:25:01.720 Think if we could run a tape play, the whole show of CNN legal experts and New York Times legal experts.

00:25:07.720 They're just wrong over and over.

00:25:10.140 And to your point, in some of these cases, they're wrong.

00:25:12.640 I know.

00:25:13.360 Yeah. 0.99

00:25:13.800 Even Sotomayor has to be like, you guys are insane. 1.00

00:25:16.980 Even Sotomayor, who is herself insane. 0.91

00:25:19.680 Well, even this with the San Francisco district judge, everybody's telling us, oh, we don't know whether the president has authority.

00:25:26.640 We told you on this show.

00:25:27.660 Yeah, this is the very province of presidential authority.

00:25:30.080 Even this was seven to, you know, even this order striking down what the San Francisco judge did was very clearly telling him this is not within the province of your powers.

00:25:41.820 The president has the ability to do this.

00:25:44.540 And again, this is why so many of these rulings are not designed to win.

00:25:50.660 They're designed to delay.

00:25:52.740 It's like if you're putting, you know, back in the day, somebody's on the train tracks and you're trying to just put a bunch of burning logs on them.

00:26:01.560 Your goal is not to end the ability of the train track to exist.

00:26:06.100 It's just to slow everything down.

00:26:08.280 It's all dilatory tactics.

00:26:09.700 That's all that's going on here.

00:26:11.140 And, you know, in this order about the, this is the one that just came down, that is, it's essentially saying, hey, you can't, the judge that said you have to rehire everybody needs to, needs to slow his, slow his role here, or slow the role here.

00:26:27.920 Because the people that brought the suit to get them reinstated don't even have standing.

00:26:32.420 Right.

00:26:33.180 Correct.

00:26:33.380 So they have no right to be in court on this issue.

00:26:36.080 And, you know, you can't just, you can't just go to a federal judge and say, hey, some federal employees somewhere else got fired and I don't like that.

00:26:44.480 So, hey, judge, I know you hate Trump.

00:26:47.160 Can you make them hire them back? 0.98

00:26:49.320 And the fact that a lower court judge, Clay, went along with this sham, it just shows you how insane these people are. 0.71

00:26:56.040 I mean, they don't care. 0.88

00:26:57.100 They simply don't care.

00:26:58.000 This is the federal judge in Baltimore that ordered the administration to reinstate thousands of fired probationary workers.

00:27:04.020 One federal judge can say that you have to rehire thousands of people in the federal government because some nonprofit has brought a lawsuit in his court.

00:27:11.980 Get out of here.

00:27:12.680 I mean, a judge tried to tell the president that he had to turn a plane around and return a ton.

00:27:18.660 I mean, that's a pretty crazy.

00:27:19.500 I'm actually glad.

00:27:20.380 I'm glad that he did that because that really, that was, he overplayed his hand big time and everyone saw that for what it was.

00:27:28.240 By the way, news on the.

00:27:29.280 Because if he can do that, he can say, hey, turn the F-18 around, not allowed to bomb the nuclear reactor.

00:27:35.200 Turn it around.

00:27:36.520 By the way, breaking news on the tariffs.

00:27:39.160 Because the White House has now imposed a hundred and four percent tariffs on China, effective immediately in response to China's response to us.

00:27:52.320 So we are.

00:27:53.440 This is now this is a trade war.

00:27:55.160 Just to be clear, this with China, we are entering trade war territory.

00:27:58.160 The other countries are allies.

00:27:59.900 We're going to figure out a nice deal.

00:28:01.400 But China, Clay, wouldn't you agree?

00:28:02.780 I mean, that's this is trade war now.

00:28:04.900 Oh, yeah.

00:28:05.420 It's the gloves are off with China right now. 0.98

00:28:07.480 So we'll break into that in a little bit more details.

00:28:10.360 In the meantime, we talked about you.

00:28:11.640 Maybe I bet a lot of you last night stayed up and watched Houston, stayed up and watched the Florida Gators.

00:28:17.140 And I hope you had some fun with the Prize Picks app during the NCAA tournament.

00:28:21.060 But you can continue to have fun with the Prize Picks app because Major League Baseball is going on basically every day.

00:28:27.120 NBA playoffs are starting in the next 10 days or so.

00:28:31.200 Whatever sport you're into, the Masters are going on this weekend.

00:28:34.880 If you like to watch the Masters, which for many people is like a, hey, spring is back.

00:28:40.260 Let's get ready for summer.

00:28:41.740 It's an opportunity to celebrate everything.

00:28:45.200 Get hooked up right now with Prize Picks.

00:28:48.300 You can put in a $5 pick.

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00:29:00.880 If you're feeling left out, 40 states, get hooked up right now.

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00:29:06.120 Code Clay.

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00:29:24.200 Code Clay.

00:29:25.140 Patriots, radio hosts, a couple of regular guys.

00:29:30.820 Clay Travis and Buck Sexton.

00:29:33.280 Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:29:37.880 Now we're going to go talk with journalist Selena Zito, who did a great job covering Trump in the Midwest.

00:29:43.860 We'll talk to her at the bottom half of this hour.

00:29:47.520 We've been giving you the absolute latest on everything that's taking place in the markets.

00:29:53.740 Markets have come back down, but they are still in the green.

00:29:56.600 That is, they are still positive for the day.

00:29:59.380 Trump versus China has accelerated with the tariff on Chinese goods going to over 100%.

00:30:06.360 I think it's important for many of you out there to realize that we're really not talking about one policy fits all.

00:30:13.600 It's going to be very different, but ultimately, this trade battle is really about the United States versus China.

00:30:20.200 Yes, there's going to be some tension with the European Union, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Japan, whoever else you want to toss out there.

00:30:27.600 But really, this is about the United States versus China.

00:30:31.220 This is the big battle to be fought.

00:30:33.260 It's going to resolve itself in the weeks and months ahead.

00:30:36.100 But right now, Trump is retaliating for China's retaliation to us.

00:30:42.200 And I guess the next question, Buck, is will China retaliate again?

00:30:46.580 Or is this move by Trump to put 100% tariff on all Chinese goods going to actually provoke China to say,

00:30:56.560 OK, let's sit down.

00:30:58.320 Let's talk about a way to figure this out.

00:31:00.940 So we will see exactly how that pans out.

00:31:04.800 Bridge Colby confirmed, not committed.

00:31:08.440 We probably need to commit some Democrats, but not Bridge Colby. 1.00

00:31:12.800 And so he has confirmed.

00:31:15.140 And we have been talking about the liberal judges and what they have been doing.

00:31:21.360 Supreme Court in back-to-back rulings has given Trump the ability to continue to maintain his overall executive authority.

00:31:32.260 Florida Gators get the win over the Houston Cougars.

00:31:35.000 Both Buck and I had the right champions in our brackets.

00:31:39.520 I managed to get a very narrow victory over Buck based on being better in the Sweet 16.

00:31:45.180 We both had three-fourths of the Final Four and also one-half of the championship game.

00:31:53.780 By the way, we're going to be joined by Dr. Art Laffer.

00:31:56.700 We're trying to get you a wide variety of perspectives on the trade dispute.

00:32:01.240 Dr. Laffer had a really interesting Wall Street Journal piece that was up yesterday online.

00:32:09.960 I believe it's in today's newspaper about how to resolve the trade disputes.

00:32:13.860 One of the most brilliant economists in the entire world.

00:32:17.680 And so we will talk with him about this tomorrow.

00:32:20.820 OK.

00:32:22.480 Something fun, Buck.

00:32:24.240 There's lots of chaos going on.

00:32:26.200 Lots of craziness on a day-to-day basis.

00:32:28.320 I bet there are strong opinions on this.

00:32:32.260 There are reports.

00:32:33.920 This was the Time Magazine cover that we have brought back.

00:32:38.760 A company has.

00:32:39.940 I read all about this yesterday.

00:32:41.360 I was fascinated by it yesterday afternoon.

00:32:44.100 The dire wolf, which is a bigger wolf than the traditional wolf, has been, thanks to using DNA code,

00:32:53.660 a company is saying they have brought the dire wolf back from extinction after 10,000 years.

00:33:00.800 Now, many of you are going to be familiar with the idea of the dire wolf because you watched Game of Thrones

00:33:08.020 and the wolves in that Game of Thrones multi-year saga grew into gigantic killing machines from small puppies.

00:33:20.080 So I wanted to dive into this, Buck.

00:33:23.260 Back in the day when you and I were young, the book before they made the movie, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton,

00:33:31.280 the entire concept is that they're able to take the DNA of the dinosaurs from these, if I remember correctly,

00:33:38.280 mosquitoes frozen in amber, and that they are then able to extract that DNA to create new dinosaurs.

00:33:45.540 And obviously, the Jurassic Park franchise, in terms of movies, has remained incredibly durable and powerful for 30-some-odd years

00:33:54.420 because lots of people remain fascinated by dinosaurs.

00:33:57.900 In general, lots of little boys, although not lots of little girls, too.

00:34:02.440 I remember, I think you said your nephew knows everything about dinosaurs.

00:34:05.660 When I was a little kid, I knew everything about dinosaurs.

00:34:08.760 There is a great deal of interest still, obviously, in the Jurassic universe.

00:34:14.040 Yes, and there are other species that could already be brought back.

00:34:20.240 I think, aren't they working on mastodons?

00:34:23.560 The woolly mammoth, for sure.

00:34:25.300 Maybe the mastodon.

00:34:26.740 The woolly mammoth, I think, is basically going to happen.

00:34:29.380 In the article that I read, they are going to bring back the saber-toothed tiger.

00:34:34.860 That's a little scary.

00:34:36.160 They're going to bring back.

00:34:37.280 So, my question, I'm fascinated by the reaction of this audience, too.

00:34:43.140 Good or bad?

00:34:44.440 And let me give you a question to think about this, Buck.

00:34:47.100 I was just out in Colorado over spring break, and I bet we have a lot of people listening in Colorado right now,

00:34:52.340 and I know this has turned into a major issue all over the West.

00:34:55.400 They have reintroduced wolves in lots of states and communities where the wolf had basically been eradicated.

00:35:02.320 And if you have a ranch, ranchers are furious about this because suddenly, when I was told, I was in Colorado,

00:35:09.660 they're like, yeah, everybody in Boulder and Denver decided they wanted to vote to bring back wolves, 0.99

00:35:16.320 and all the people who live in rural Colorado were like, thanks, jerks. 0.99

00:35:20.860 Like, we have no interest in bringing back wolves, and suddenly our livestock are getting killed, 0.99

00:35:24.880 and we're having to worry about something that we had eradicated.

00:35:28.400 My thought is, now, these dire wolves, there are three of them that they say they have brought back,

00:35:34.360 two boys that they named Romulus and Remus, and one girl pup.

00:35:40.280 Will they, like in Jurassic Park, eventually find their way out,

00:35:45.520 and then they're suddenly circulating in the community?

00:35:48.820 They say that the dire wolf basically covered all of North America back in the day.

00:35:53.420 Like, 10,000 years ago, if you were out, this thing was from Canada all the way down into South America.

00:36:00.580 They basically roamed free.

00:36:02.980 They were wiped out about 10,000 years ago.

00:36:05.860 What is your take on the idea, not only of the dire wolf, saber-toothed tiger, woolly mammoth,

00:36:11.360 bringing back extinct animals, good or bad move?

00:36:15.520 What's your take?

00:36:16.260 Well, I love the book Jurassic Park, as all of you know, and so I find this a fascinating entry into the scientific annals

00:36:26.320 that is going on right now.

00:36:28.360 I think that, man, the truth is, the same way that, you know, I've never been to Africa,

00:36:36.620 but I love knowing that there's all these incredible, I'm sorry, I have been to Africa, that's not true,

00:36:40.140 but I've never been on safari in Africa, but I've been to places where there are no safaris.

00:36:45.020 I've been to some rough parts of Africa, but I've never done safari,

00:36:49.420 but I love knowing that there are lions and hippopotami and all that stuff.

00:36:54.020 So I think that it's tough for us to separate out the concept of it.

00:36:59.020 This is why, when you brought up the ranchers, I think that's very apropos,

00:37:02.800 the concept of it versus the reality of it.

00:37:06.180 You know, a saber-toothed tiger is fine until a saber-toothed tiger eats your grandma. 0.84

00:37:10.140 And then you're pretty in.

00:37:11.420 This actually came up.

00:37:12.880 Do you remember when, I think it was Cecil the lion was the big story,

00:37:18.560 and Jimmy Kimmel.

00:37:19.240 Oh, they killed him, yes.

00:37:20.500 And it was like a huge.

00:37:21.340 Jimmy Kimmel was crying on TV about Cecil the lion in Africa,

00:37:25.840 who on a lawful hunt was shot.

00:37:29.380 Yes, I remember this.

00:37:30.760 Yeah, it's like Cecil the lion is crying.

00:37:32.700 And look, I love animals, so I get that.

00:37:34.380 And there's something that's, you know, like, I love my little dog, Ginger, so much,

00:37:38.880 and yet I'm going to eat lamb chops tonight for dinner.

00:37:41.440 Like, I understand.

00:37:42.160 Some of this stuff we get a little, it's about sentimentality over pure logic, okay?

00:37:47.360 But that all said, there was a really interesting Wall Street Journal article

00:37:50.900 that I remember from that time written by, I think he was a student at Harvard or Princeton,

00:37:54.600 who was like, you know what lions mean in my village?

00:37:58.140 Yeah, I read this piece.

00:37:58.960 People get eaten.

00:37:59.860 Yeah.

00:38:00.040 Like, this isn't a game to us.

00:38:02.660 Like, we actually have to control the population because they'll eat your dad.

00:38:06.560 They'll eat your sister. 1.00

00:38:08.240 Like, you know, this is a real thing that happens to real people,

00:38:10.880 which reminds me of that movie, Ghost in the Darkness, based on a true story,

00:38:15.320 and I know you all know this, and you can go see the stuffed carcasses of those lions

00:38:19.940 in a museum in Chicago.

00:38:22.680 Wasn't Val Kilmer in that movie that just died?

00:38:25.240 Yeah, yeah.

00:38:26.280 It was a Val Kilmer movie with Michael Douglas, kind of a weird casting of Michael Douglas.

00:38:30.140 But anyway, Val Kilmer was good in it, and that's based on a true story.

00:38:34.700 I mean, these lions became habituated to eating people, and they're like,

00:38:38.680 wow, people are slow and kind of weak.

00:38:40.540 Like, let's just eat them instead.

00:38:42.240 So this is all a way to say, I think for, you know, should we bring back dodo birds?

00:38:48.060 Yeah, totally.

00:38:49.040 Like, should we bring back species that, but, you know, this is where you also get into clay.

00:38:53.900 I'm here in South Florida, and you have the boa constrictors, and also, what do you call them?

00:39:03.560 The big, they look like little dragons.

00:39:05.520 Anacondas.

00:39:06.100 Iguanas.

00:39:06.680 Yeah.

00:39:07.060 Oh, yeah.

00:39:08.600 Yeah.

00:39:09.140 And they are invasive.

00:39:11.720 Well, boas are definitely an invasive species.

00:39:13.620 I think iguanas are, too.

00:39:14.740 I don't think they're native to here.

00:39:15.760 They're basically pets that have escaped, and now they're killing all the native, you know, ecosystem animals off.

00:39:23.280 So you have to go hunt them and deal with them.

00:39:25.740 True thing also, you know that little brown bird that you guys all think of?

00:39:29.280 The European house sparrow?

00:39:30.860 Probably the most common bird in the entire United States.

00:39:33.900 It's everywhere.

00:39:34.720 A little kind of brown squat bird.

00:39:37.280 They're an invasive species from Europe, and they have killed off a lot of native bird species

00:39:42.360 because they will break into another bird's nest and break their eggs.

00:39:46.740 They're mean.

00:39:47.760 They're mean little birds.

00:39:49.080 Because the honeybee is an invasive species.

00:39:53.440 Well, but we like honeybees.

00:39:54.640 This is the point, right?

00:39:55.780 We like the honeybees.

00:39:56.940 So we've got to make sure.

00:39:57.800 People don't realize this.

00:39:58.680 North America, until colonization, had no honeybees anywhere.

00:40:03.980 And then they slowly spread across the entirety of the North American continent.

00:40:08.700 But they were an invasive species that otherwise didn't exist here.

00:40:13.120 Some of you will remember this, too.

00:40:14.600 There was a fear about fire ants and how they're going to keep spreading up and spreading up.

00:40:18.700 And, you know, they're dangerous to people if you step on one of their anthills.

00:40:21.900 And there was a briefly discussed proposal that I remember reading about.

00:40:25.720 The only real natural predators for the fire ants, they were thinking maybe we should introduce.

00:40:32.640 It's a South American anteater, which has like six inch long claws and weighs like 200 pounds.

00:40:39.620 And then they're like, well, if we introduce that, what's its natural predator?

00:40:42.520 Yeah, right.

00:40:43.040 Jaguars.

00:40:43.900 So you create all these problems.

00:40:45.820 The food chain gets dangerous.

00:40:47.100 Okay, so I am in favor of this.

00:40:52.680 Here is my thing.

00:40:54.120 Can you have a guy wolf as a pet, yes or no, once they introduce these?

00:40:57.200 No, no, no, no, no, no.

00:40:58.060 I'm in favor of it only for keeping them in captivity.

00:41:01.780 And I understand some of you are going to say, yeah, that's the whole point of Jurassic Park.

00:41:05.680 But I like it also for endangered species now.

00:41:09.840 Because in theory, it would mean there should be no animal that actually vanishes.

00:41:15.360 Right?

00:41:15.600 You should be able to get the existing DNA of all animals that are alive on Earth today.

00:41:22.300 And we should be able to create a genetic Noah's Ark of all living animals here today and be able to create them.

00:41:31.460 Now, I don't want...

00:41:34.420 I think about this in terms of the farmers out there and the ranchers.

00:41:38.240 The idea that you would reintroduce grizzly bears or wolves that are going to attack my livestock is, I think, different than this.

00:41:49.620 I would not reintroduce these animals.

00:41:51.720 Something else that would be on the docket here.

00:41:55.440 I believe it's called a short-faced bear.

00:41:58.400 Go look up the short-faced bear.

00:42:01.380 It's like a grizzly bear times three.

00:42:04.220 It's a massive land predator that they could also, along with the saber...

00:42:10.180 It's from the same era as a saber-toothed tiger.

00:42:12.480 They could also bring that one back.

00:42:14.380 And I think that you're starting to see.

00:42:16.300 We definitely don't want that, right?

00:42:17.740 I mean, that's going to be the same way that polar bears hunt people.

00:42:21.400 It's really the only North American land animal.

00:42:25.220 Yeah, I know grizzlies can.

00:42:27.280 Wolf has never actually attacked...

00:42:28.980 Healthy wolves have never attacked a human being in the history of North America is at least what you...

00:42:34.080 That's what they...

00:42:34.660 Now, some of you are going to say no, but that's what they say.

00:42:37.340 Okay, that's what the official statistics are.

00:42:38.900 That wolves won't attack people if they're healthy.

00:42:40.840 If they're rabid, that's different.

00:42:43.080 Polar bears see you and they're like, food.

00:42:45.820 Food.

00:42:46.900 There's no ifs, ands, or buts.

00:42:48.340 And the same thing would be true of a short-faced bear.

00:42:50.520 So, you know, something to think about.

00:42:52.800 Let me hit you with this one, Buck. 0.99

00:42:54.040 My boys are obsessed with the Megalodon, which is just a giant shark.

00:42:58.980 In theory, the dire wolf can be kept inside of a fenced enclosure and everything else.

00:43:06.740 My concern on this would be that we would start to create big, massive animals that are in the water.

00:43:15.000 And those are a lot harder to control.

00:43:17.060 Have you ever been to, say, for instance, the Atlanta Aquarium where they have the whale sharks?

00:43:22.540 You know, they've never been able to, for instance, keep, I believe this is still true, a great white shark in captivity.

00:43:29.040 Yes.

00:43:29.240 They just, they're impossible to keep inside of museums or aquariums, anything like that.

00:43:33.580 My concern is that some of these that we will create will get out.

00:43:38.680 And can you imagine a world where suddenly you have, instead of a great white shark, you've got the Megalodon suddenly, like, rolling around in the ocean deep?

00:43:48.360 That starts to get a little bit scarier to me, but I think it's the reality of where we are going.

00:43:53.340 I think you're going to see all of these extinct animals genetically us able to bring them back.

00:44:00.080 Now, one more thing as we go to break.

00:44:01.700 Some people are saying this is not the real animal because of the way they're doing the DNA coding.

00:44:07.360 And that gets way more complicated and above my pay grade.

00:44:10.440 But I have read some of those critiques as well.

00:44:12.880 There's an organization we want to tell you about.

00:44:16.260 Clay and I are both members of it.

00:44:18.080 The United States Concealed Carry Association.

00:44:21.080 I conceal carry down here in Florida.

00:44:23.480 And let me tell you, friends, if you're going to do that, you know this.

00:44:27.720 You have a big responsibility.

00:44:29.000 And even if you are exercising that responsibility with the utmost care and lawful authority as a citizen, heaven forbid, you could find yourself facing huge court fees.

00:44:40.400 Okay.

00:44:40.640 That's just reality.

00:44:41.680 So you want to have someone to have your back.

00:44:45.240 That's where USCCA comes in handy.

00:44:48.100 They're the newest sponsor on this program.

00:44:50.260 And they do something that is critical for any of you who own a firearm.

00:44:54.940 Honestly, download USCCA's free guide.

00:44:57.860 You can do that even before you become a member if you'd like.

00:45:00.320 This isn't a gimmick.

00:45:01.120 It's tangible, practical information about protecting yourself, your rights to defend yourself, and how to look after yourself legally if that becomes an issue.

00:45:10.760 And that's where USCCA can really step in to help you.

00:45:15.160 Because otherwise, people who defend themselves in a firearms-related incident, they can go bankrupt.

00:45:21.000 You need to have USCCA.

00:45:23.460 Go to USCCA.com slash buck to get your free guide today from the United States Concealed Carry Association.

00:45:31.300 That's USCCA.com slash buck.

00:45:36.480 Clay Travis and Buck Sexton.

00:45:40.040 Mic drops that never sounded so good.

00:45:43.860 Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:45:49.060 Canadian women are looking for more. 1.00

00:45:51.120 More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.

00:45:55.300 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:45:58.600 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:46:00.220 And I'm Katherine Clark.

00:46:01.520 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

00:46:05.160 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers.

00:46:08.740 All at different stages of their journey.

00:46:10.940 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:46:14.160 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:46:19.580 Welcome back in.

00:46:20.880 Clay Travis, Buck Sexton Show.

00:46:23.160 Appreciate everybody hanging out with us.

00:46:25.200 We got a lot of you weighing in with a variety of questions.

00:46:29.320 And let's hit some of these.

00:46:30.860 Selena Zito is scheduled to join us.

00:46:35.260 She's got a Washington Post op-ed about the manufacturing universe right now in the Midwest.

00:46:40.380 She's done a great job covering that area for some time and the era of the Trump Midwest surge.

00:46:47.820 So we'll talk about that when she reaches out to us.

00:46:50.320 And she is now with us now.

00:46:51.880 So we bring in Selena Zito. 1.00

00:46:53.660 She has got an op-ed in the Washington Post where she has been spending time with Midwestern workers.

00:47:00.220 Selena, I'm curious what you're hearing from people in the Midwest,

00:47:04.000 an area that used to be the manufacturing hub of America that has certainly dried up in many different ways.

00:47:10.680 J.D. Vance has been a huge part of his political career.

00:47:13.360 He's talking about the jobs that no longer exist in the Midwest.

00:47:17.500 What are you hearing from voters in the Midwest?

00:47:19.820 How do you think this tariff war plays for them?

00:47:23.580 And how would you assess the politics of what's going on right now?

00:47:29.260 Well, first of all, thanks for having me on.

00:47:31.800 You know, I cover a different world, very different than, you know, sort of the very online world.

00:47:37.480 And where I'm at in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, you know, the heart of the Great Lakes Midwest and Appalachia.

00:47:46.420 These people here are very happy with the tariffs.

00:47:51.000 They have spent the past 40 years, whether it was themselves or their parents or their grandparents,

00:47:56.700 watching these communities, these churches, the tax base in their communities being decimated.

00:48:02.440 And nobody even wrote a story.

00:48:05.220 I mean, I'm obviously being a little exaggerating here.

00:48:08.020 But there wasn't this big, overt worry about their lives, right, when all their jobs were lost, when everything was taken away from them.

00:48:20.080 And so they look at it two ways.

00:48:21.920 They look at it as being patriotic, bringing back American manufacturing, sacrificing in their 401K for the betterment of the country.

00:48:34.940 But they also look at it as leveling the playing field.

00:48:39.360 And it's not just manufacturing.

00:48:41.480 Talk to a ranter.

00:48:42.960 They're happy, right?

00:48:45.060 Talk to a manufacturer, a small businessman like Tyler Merritt down in Savannah, Georgia, the guy who owns Nine Line.

00:48:52.940 He's thrilled.

00:48:54.540 You know, these guys are thrilled.

00:48:56.260 And these are the people that placed Donald Trump into office.

00:49:00.560 It was the working class that was at the heart of this election.

00:49:05.540 What did you learn, Selena, specifically from, and thanks for being here with us, when you went to a, in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, a steel mill, and you talked to the folks at the mill.

00:49:18.820 I mean, just what were your biggest takeaways, both from seeing that operation?

00:49:22.980 I think very few people who don't work in a steel mill have ever really been inside one.

00:49:27.520 And also their sense of what would they say to people who claim, well, but we can never make steel the way they do as cheaply as they do in China. 0.98

00:49:37.060 So why even try?

00:49:39.400 Right.

00:49:40.080 So if people go and check my Twitter feed out, Zito Selena, I put the story up for free.

00:49:45.660 It's a Washington Post story.

00:49:46.860 It is a very detailed, long read.

00:49:50.340 And it really puts you into the heart of why people feel the way they do.

00:49:55.060 This isn't just a steel mill.

00:49:57.120 This is the first steel mill.

00:50:00.120 This is the granddaddy of them all.

00:50:02.400 That was an 86-year-old hot rolling mill that I spent the day watching work and watching the men and women work around it.

00:50:11.540 And these workers who would traditionally be born Democrats, right, in Western PA, you're usually born Catholic and Democrat.

00:50:23.420 It just, like, goes together.

00:50:25.260 They are the perfect example of how the coalitions in American politics have dramatically changed.

00:50:34.820 And now that the Republican Party or the conservative populist party is now the party that embraces the working man and woman.

00:50:45.060 And so they're very happy.

00:50:48.060 And they're willing to take a bite out of their 401ks if it means that this will be better for the future generations.

00:51:00.300 And that's the way these union guys talk.

00:51:03.620 Like, a lot of those union workers that you'll meet in the story, they're towards the end of their career, right?

00:51:09.760 They're in their 50s.

00:51:12.300 They said, this isn't about me.

00:51:14.040 This is about the guy that just started at the plant two weeks ago.

00:51:18.080 Guys before me did this and took sacrifices, and I'm to pay it forward and make sure that they are able to retire when they turn 60.

00:51:31.020 Selena, one of the real challenges, and we played a cut from Trump talking about this, is investment and business management, building a factory, those sorts of things take years.

00:51:42.080 In other words, as you just laid out, it's taken a couple of generations for all of these jobs to dry up.

00:51:49.300 This is not something where a light switch got flipped and things changed.

00:51:52.880 What is the trajectory of changing this culture that we created where the jobs don't exist?

00:51:59.740 How long does it take?

00:52:00.980 And to be fair, is this anything that one president can do?

00:52:06.080 Or do we have to string together a lot of presidents that see this as an issue in order to reverse what's happened?

00:52:13.020 So I'm so glad you asked that.

00:52:14.780 Last week, I reported out a story.

00:52:18.140 There was the tallest coal stack, smoke stack in the country, was blasted and fell.

00:52:27.060 It was very traumatic.

00:52:28.000 It was very sad for a coal-fired power plant.

00:52:30.720 Ten days later, because this site is shovel-ready, they announced they've already started to turn this plant into a natural gas plant to facilitate not just the electricity in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and parts of New York.

00:52:51.160 It's going to be the largest electric power plant in the country.

00:52:54.660 It is also going to power a data center, an AI data center.

00:53:00.280 There are going to be 10,000 new jobs, and it is a $10 billion investment.

00:53:07.640 And that's not even before the AI data center is built.

00:53:13.160 You know, Bergman was there.

00:53:14.740 I was at a fracking well, and he said, look, our job right now is to build, build, build.

00:53:22.480 It's more than drill, drill, drill, because we – this is like the arms race.

00:53:29.380 AI is like the arms race, and we have to win in this country.

00:53:33.740 And he pointed to the fact that there are places like that coal-fired power plant in Homer City all over the industrial Midwest that are ready and capable to be built.

00:53:46.220 So I think that is where the new construction, the new jobs – and these aren't just working-class jobs.

00:53:52.600 These aren't just welders.

00:53:54.160 These aren't just artisans that work with their hands.

00:53:57.460 There are geologists there, chemists, engineers, men and women with degrees in AI and technology.

00:54:06.180 So it is a broad reconstruction of how the American economy and how the American worker approaches the next generation.

00:54:17.060 It's fascinating, Selena.

00:54:18.460 You know, you're giving us this other perspective than what you'd get.

00:54:21.500 If you were to flip on CNBC, it's the sky is falling.

00:54:24.940 And yet if you go into some of these places like you have where people have seen what happens with the offshoring of American jobs and deindustrialization of certain industries, they're excited about the future.

00:54:40.120 I just wonder, you know, what you think the hopes are and the plans are in these areas.

00:54:45.440 If Trump is able to continue on this path, what does that start to look like?

00:54:48.820 What towns are affected?

00:54:50.280 What industries do you think can boom?

00:54:52.780 Well, energy is at the top of the list, but also artificial intelligence, right?

00:54:59.640 Those are the two big booms.

00:55:02.120 If energy is going well, then that means farming is going well because, you know, energy and farming go really hand in hand together.

00:55:10.920 And I think one of the big things as part of these tariffs is to give a boost to our American farmer and rancher.

00:55:20.460 So those are industries you see right then and there.

00:55:24.420 And then we can talk about our universities, right?

00:55:27.300 Our universities will have a bit of a turnaround in what they focus on.

00:55:32.680 You know, maybe it's not your kid.

00:55:34.080 You send your kid off for French literature.

00:55:37.000 You know, maybe they go to school for things that are going to recreate these communities.

00:55:43.240 The footprint is already there in places like Indiana, Pennsylvania or West Mifflin, Pennsylvania or Claysville, Pennsylvania and all across and not just in Pennsylvania.

00:55:57.340 It's in Ohio, it's in Michigan, it's in Wisconsin.

00:56:01.500 These places are already there.

00:56:04.980 And these universities already have sort of the grain to begin these kinds of new degrees that young people can go for.

00:56:17.800 But also the trades, like you guys, I'm sure you've talked or listened to Mike Rowe, you know, the trades are also where we are going to see a growth and jobs that create real prosperity.

00:56:31.200 Where people can live in the same hometown that their parents grew up in, if they want to, right?

00:56:39.200 And that generational investment in a community, that's worth more than money in a lot of ways.

00:56:49.000 Selena, how optimistic are you?

00:56:51.320 You know, we hear a lot of, hey, everything is burning down, the world's on fire.

00:56:56.580 Based on what you have seen and the reporting that you have done, how would you assess your overall optimism?

00:57:04.780 I think the optimism is great.

00:57:07.700 You know, I straddle two different, very different worlds.

00:57:12.560 When I step on social media, I see a very different attitude in the world than what I see and feel and hear out here in the middle of the country.

00:57:22.800 And it's always remarkable to me.

00:57:25.160 And it's sort of like when I said to President Trump in 2016, when I was covering him, I said, you know, voters take you seriously, but they don't take you literally.

00:57:34.440 And my profession takes everything you say literally and not so seriously.

00:57:41.140 And it's that same sort of dichotomy, right?

00:57:44.840 It's very different in the middle of the country, and in particular among young people.

00:57:53.080 You know, you see all these protests out there, and they got a lot of play on social media and the national news.

00:58:01.660 However, I would argue American politics is all about addition.

00:58:07.140 If you go to any of these rallies, try to find someone that's changed their mind.

00:58:12.540 You likely can't because they're the same people that voted for who lost last November.

00:58:20.000 So they're not adding anything new.

00:58:23.280 And I think that's the challenge right now for anything that is against what President Trump and the Republicans are trying to accomplish.

00:58:32.900 I was four feet away from President Trump and Butler in July 13th of last year.

00:58:40.520 In fact, I have a book coming out about it.

00:58:42.680 But one thing I can tell you in the day after I talked to him and the days after I talked to him, he had this fundamental understanding that there was a reason that he did not die that day.

00:58:55.640 Because there are so many reasons why he shouldn't have survived what happened.

00:59:02.180 But because of that, he will be forever changed and feels this urgency to do something because he was given that moment to be saved.

00:59:14.200 Selena Zito.

00:59:15.820 Yeah, great, great work as always.

00:59:17.620 Thanks for your piece, The Washington Post, and everything you do to cover this.

00:59:20.840 And up at clayandbuck.com, guys, we've got her op-ed link there if you just want to go and grab it quickly, give it a read.

00:59:26.940 You absolutely should.

00:59:28.460 Selena, thank you so much.

00:59:29.520 We'll talk to you again soon.

00:59:31.200 Sounds great.

00:59:31.920 Thanks so much, guys.

00:59:34.040 She does great work.

00:59:35.980 And we'll have some fun.

00:59:37.340 A lot of great talkbacks.

00:59:38.460 We'll play them for you when we come back to close out the Tuesday edition of the program.

00:59:42.840 But a lot of you out there, NHL fans, NBA fans, Major League Baseball fans, Florida Gators, NCAA champions, as we have talked about during the course of the show a couple of times.

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00:59:55.340 The Masters coming up this weekend.

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01:01:00.340 Keep up with the biggest political comeback in world history on the Team 47 Podcast.

01:01:08.160 Clay and Buck highlight Trump replays from the week, Sundays at noon Eastern.

01:01:12.460 Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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01:01:20.260 We'll see you next time.

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