Verdict with Ted Cruz - BONUS： Daily Review with Clay and Buck - Aug 7 2025

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.400 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.440 Welcome in Thursday edition.

00:00:07.280 Clay Travis, Buck Sexton Show.

00:00:09.580 Appreciate all of you hanging out with us.

00:00:13.020 Buck is out traveling with his family on a summer vacation.

00:00:17.820 He will be back on Monday with me.

00:00:20.680 I've got you today and tomorrow solo.

00:00:23.440 We have an absolutely locked and loaded program.

00:00:27.020 Senator Marsha Blackburn has announced that she is going to be running for governor of Tennessee.

00:00:33.100 She will be on with us at the bottom of this hour.

00:00:36.620 In the second hour, big battle in North Carolina coming to replace Tom Tillis.

00:00:43.760 Michael Watley, who ran the RNC, did a great job in 2024, North Carolina native.

00:00:49.460 He is going to be the Republican nominee to run against former Governor Roy Cooper of the state of North Carolina.

00:00:57.520 This is going to be an epic battle next year.

00:01:00.100 We will talk with Michael Watley, who hopefully will be the next senator from North Carolina.

00:01:05.280 And then at 2.30, we will speak with Tim Scott, who is the current senator from South Carolina,

00:01:12.820 about all of the ongoing shenanigans in Washington, D.C. and beyond.

00:01:19.760 So there is the roadmap of where we are going.

00:01:22.700 Bottom of the hour, we've got a bunch of guests, two senators and one who hopes to be a senator,

00:01:26.560 as well as one who hopes to be a governor.

00:01:28.840 All of that coming your direction.

00:01:31.460 Now, within that construct, we have got a lot of stuff going on right now that I want to dive into.

00:01:39.140 I think in an incredibly consequential manner, Trump has demanded that we have a new census.

00:01:46.380 I'm going to explain why that could be so incredibly consequential, not only right now,

00:01:52.740 because there were a lot of errors in the 2020 census, and he believes they need to be rectified,

00:01:57.640 but also because in 2030, there are going to be seismic differences in the overall census tallies.

00:02:04.800 And I think this is a battle that you should be paying a lot of attention to,

00:02:08.320 because it could be incredibly important, not only for the midterms,

00:02:12.300 but also in the 2028 presidential race, and beyond that, in the 2030 interplay as it pertains to the census.

00:02:20.680 But I wanted to start with what I would say is a genuine acknowledgement that our cities have become too violent,

00:02:30.400 and it's time to actually put bad guys behind jail, behind bars in jail.

00:02:36.340 And we are getting these questions and these viral stories from all over the country,

00:02:41.240 but I wanted to start with one that we talked with Bernie Marino about.

00:02:45.740 A violent attack on an innocent woman, Holly, who Bernie Marino came on with us last week and talked all about it.

00:02:56.940 She has now had a public appearance.

00:02:59.920 Many of you saw her awfully bruised and battered face,

00:03:04.100 and she now has spoken out about what happened to her.

00:03:07.820 She appeared with our friend, Senator Bernie Marino of Ohio.

00:03:13.480 Cut 11, this is what it sounded like.

00:03:15.620 We need more police officers, but like he said, you know, the judges who are just letting people out with a slap.

00:03:22.520 The man who attacked me and might have permanently damaged me forever should never have been on the streets, ever.

00:03:31.420 And the fact that he had just gotten out of jail previously for something,

00:03:36.080 he should have been in there for years.

00:03:39.200 It's really sad to me because I can't even fathom how many other people who have been attacked

00:03:45.780 by the same type of man over and over and over.

00:03:49.020 In Toledo, in Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, our streets are being taken over and nobody is doing anything.

00:03:55.880 I am so sad, and I need to be the voice to help all of the victims that never got their justice.

00:04:05.720 Well said.

00:04:07.380 Well said by her.

00:04:08.720 Again, if you heard Bernie Marino tell her story, she is a mom of a young special needs child.

00:04:15.320 She went out on a date in Cincinnati, and she got knocked out.

00:04:19.980 Now, she got in an Uber after she got knocked out. 0.66

00:04:27.020 Think about that for a minute.

00:04:29.140 It's an innocent mom, could have been any mom in America, out for a night out in a big city, Cincinnati.

00:04:37.680 She got slugged, knocked out on video.

00:04:41.660 Police came, they didn't do anything.

00:04:43.440 And she got in an Uber and drove home.

00:04:48.460 How does this happen?

00:04:51.880 And I know that a lot of you out there are cops, and you're listening to me all over the country,

00:04:57.460 and you are just nodding your head because you're saying, we arrest these bad guys.

00:05:02.160 This guy got out for a $400 bail.

00:05:05.480 Arrested all the time.

00:05:07.120 It's the same dudes, almost always dudes.

00:05:09.500 Same bad guys, time after time after time.

00:05:14.940 What in the world is going on here?

00:05:18.780 And I think they're finally, we're at a tipping point, and we finally got a president,

00:05:23.480 and we got enough senators and governors who are standing up and saying, no, we're not going to let this happen.

00:05:29.920 Yesterday, I was talking with you about, look, I love Washington, D.C.

00:05:33.260 I went to college there.

00:05:34.940 I'm a history nerd.

00:05:36.560 It is a beautiful city.

00:05:38.300 There is way too much crime there.

00:05:41.660 And what you hear people say is, oh, crime's coming down.

00:05:45.760 Yeah, from all-time highs.

00:05:48.800 How about we actually address the fact that any significant rate of violent crime is unacceptable in this country?

00:05:57.660 How about we have a real conversation about that?

00:06:00.480 And I give credit to Janine Pirro.

00:06:02.280 I'm going to play some of these audio clips.

00:06:03.900 New D.C. attorney, formerly at Fox News.

00:06:07.440 And I give credit to President Trump for raising this as an issue.

00:06:12.280 Here is Judge Janine Pirro, cut two, saying, hey, I'm in charge now, and this is not going to be acceptable.

00:06:20.320 Violence against anyone in this district will not be tolerated, especially violence, which has hate at its core and is the genesis of violence.

00:06:32.560 The president put me here to do a job, to clean up the district, to make sure that crime doesn't overshadow this phenomenal city, our nation's capital.

00:06:43.940 And I have, throughout my career, fought anti-Semitism for 32 years as a prosecutor and a judge.

00:06:50.560 I do so.

00:06:51.620 I fight hate crimes with a vengeance.

00:06:54.780 So don't even think about targeting people in this district because of who they are or because of where they're from.

00:07:01.440 I promise you, justice will be swift and it will be certain.

00:07:06.360 I love her.

00:07:07.840 Let's get, Allie, let's get a request in for Judge Pirro.

00:07:11.680 I think we've had her on the program in the past, and certainly we overlap quite a lot at Fox News.

00:07:16.880 So I know her from the green room at Fox News.

00:07:20.240 And I think it's important, okay, you might be sitting around out there and you might be saying, hey, okay, what's the counterargument to this?

00:07:28.440 Trump said, in fact, cut three, hey, maybe we just need to take over the D.C. police force and actually make something happen here.

00:07:37.620 Here's cut three.

00:07:38.640 President Trump, I'm federalizing D.C., are you considering taking over the D.C. police?

00:07:43.480 Is that an option on the table? 0.95

00:07:44.380 We're considering it, yeah, because the crime is ridiculous.

00:07:48.260 I could show you a chart comparing D.C. to other locations, and you're not going to want to see what it looks like.

00:07:55.140 It was just up on television, actually, that we're showing it.

00:07:58.580 Now, we want to have a great, safe capital, and we're going to have it.

00:08:02.720 And that includes cleanliness and includes other things.

00:08:05.420 We have a capital that's very unsafe.

00:08:08.380 Do you want Congress to look at overturning the D.C. Home Rule Act?

00:08:12.280 And we're going to look at that.

00:08:13.840 In fact, the lawyers are already studying it.

00:08:16.460 We have to run D.C.

00:08:17.900 This has to be the best run place in the country, not the worst run place in the country.

00:08:24.000 I mean, he's right on all of this.

00:08:26.320 And I give him credit for coming in and trying to solve this problem instead of just kind of hiding behind the security detail, as many presidents have done in the past.

00:08:36.960 They don't actually solve issues when it comes to violence.

00:08:39.940 And what the president's referring to is, I ran through this yesterday.

00:08:44.020 I think maybe it was the day before yesterday.

00:08:45.800 We have one of the highest violent crime rates of any capital city in the world.

00:08:54.280 Most people, and I ran through countries.

00:08:56.620 I mean, Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, which I'm probably mispronouncing, has a lower rate of violent crime in its capital city than the United States does.

00:09:05.760 Why does that happen?

00:09:06.700 And most people, most countries, consider their capital to be a jewel that should represent the best of their country and not be a place that is filled with violent crime.

00:09:19.520 And so the rest of the country may not be as safe, and that's unfortunate.

00:09:23.580 But they say, hey, the capital city is going to be safe.

00:09:27.480 We're going to put the resources in to ensure that this isn't happening.

00:09:31.280 And I give a lot of credit to Trump and Judge Jeanine Pirro for shining a light on this.

00:09:37.100 And what's the counter argument?

00:09:39.580 This is really funny to me because Trump is basically saying, hey, rates of violent crime are way too high.

00:09:45.640 And I want to do whatever it takes to get those rates of violent crime down.

00:09:50.180 D.C. is far higher than a city like New York City, for instance, when it comes to rates of violent crime.

00:09:57.260 New York City is far safer than Washington, D.C.

00:10:00.380 What's the response?

00:10:01.860 Okay, it seems like a good thing.

00:10:03.200 Something that you could be in favor of, no matter what your politics are.

00:10:07.820 Well, Jessica Tarlov, who's also at Fox News, in fact, used to sit next to Judge Jeanine Pirro on The Five, a show that many of you would watch on a regular basis. 0.99

00:10:17.400 She says, actually, crime's down.

00:10:20.700 What are we worried about in D.C.?

00:10:22.880 Here's cut four.

00:10:23.880 What are Democrats thinking when it comes to the nationalization of D.C.?

00:10:27.440 They're thinking hard no.

00:10:29.740 Why not?

00:10:30.740 Because there's no reason to have Donald Trump be in charge of D.C.

00:10:34.860 But is it about Trump or is it about crime?

00:10:36.680 Well, it actually is about crime.

00:10:38.560 And the good news is, is that crime is down dramatically.

00:10:41.280 So year over year, 2024, had a violent crime drop to a 30-year low, 35% down.

00:10:47.640 And carjackings cut in half.

00:10:49.440 Robberies down 24%.

00:10:50.820 Homicides down 17%.

00:10:52.500 Assaults with a dangerous weapon down 14%.

00:10:55.060 Just because big balls did a terrible job at D.C. does not mean that he deserved this. 0.82

00:10:59.640 Any incident is terrible. 0.95

00:11:02.060 But we have to follow.

00:11:03.160 They're running out of cars to Jack.

00:11:05.540 Okay, so how do you argue against this?

00:11:10.440 How do you argue against a very basic fact that should be supported by everyone?

00:11:19.520 We need violent crime rates way down.

00:11:21.840 Moms all over this country need to be able to go out to dinner in a city without worrying that they're going to get knocked flat out on the street by a mob of violent thugs that accost them. 1.00

00:11:35.620 I've said for a long time that one of the ways to know whether your neighborhood is safe or not is, are you okay with your wife, your girlfriend, your daughter going for a jog around 6 o'clock p.m.

00:11:52.820 in the afternoon, evening in your neighborhood?

00:11:55.620 Far too many American cities and neighborhoods, the answer is no.

00:12:02.360 And I know there's a ton of you listening to me right now that if you see your wife get in your tennis shoes, you're like, hey, I hope you're going to the gym because it's a little bit late, might start to get dark.

00:12:12.960 I don't feel comfortable with you out on the streets.

00:12:15.300 You got a daughter, you got a granddaughter trying to stay in shape.

00:12:19.360 How many different parts of America do we not feel comfortable with women going for jogs or walks or workouts in the neighborhood because we've just come to accept that violent crime is a real threat and we don't even want the women in our lives to be out. 1.00

00:12:37.380 Now, some men, probably like me, you don't worry about it that much, but every woman thinks about it all the time.

00:12:44.720 And that mom, Holly, in Cincinnati getting knocked out, I'm sorry, it's unacceptable.

00:12:50.800 And what's further unacceptable is when we point out this violence, young intern gets killed randomly in the streets of Washington, D.C.

00:12:59.400 And people say, okay, well, but, you know, in real life, the rate of violent crime is actually declining.

00:13:05.280 Okay, let's decline it faster.

00:13:07.520 That's what Trump's saying.

00:13:09.080 And I think Trump deserves credit, by the way, for the rates of violent crime beginning to decline in 2025 fairly significantly because I think a lot of you out there nodding right now, police officers, you can finally do your jobs again.

00:13:24.900 You can put some bad guys behind bars.

00:13:27.500 But here in my home state, Memphis, I talked about this the other day.

00:13:32.100 I was out in March.

00:13:34.120 I'll tell you the story a little bit more when we come back, but because we're going to talk with Senator Blackburn, who wants to run for governor.

00:13:39.360 I took my son.

00:13:40.540 He had a sporting event in Memphis.

00:13:42.160 I know a lot of y'all are listening in Memphis right now.

00:13:44.240 I forgot my charger, and it was March.

00:13:48.460 It was the night Tennessee and Kentucky played a basketball game, needed to charge my phone, and I went downstairs.

00:13:54.460 Maybe they had a charger there, and I said, well, I'll just go to the grocery store.

00:13:57.620 And the lady at the counter said, hey, be careful.

00:14:02.500 It's 8.30 at night?

00:14:05.380 It's not like it was 2.30 in the morning.

00:14:07.720 She said to me, be careful if you're going out to buy a charger after dark.

00:14:11.720 What are we talking about that going to a grocery store or a convenience store or a gas station after dark in a city like Memphis at 8 o'clock?

00:14:25.140 We're not talking about 3 a.m.

00:14:27.420 That the front desk ladies are like, hey, be careful. 0.99

00:14:30.500 Buck talked about this.

00:14:31.320 He went to St. Louis.

00:14:32.320 He was like, hey, is there anywhere to walk to go get something to eat?

00:14:35.920 They were like, well, you can't walk anywhere.

00:14:37.860 What are we talking about that this is just considered to be a normal part of discourse?

00:14:44.080 This is something that is significant.

00:14:46.180 Let's let cops do the job. 0.99

00:14:47.780 Let's put bad guys behind bars.

00:14:49.620 Let's make everyone, women in particular, safe in every big city in America. 1.00

00:14:53.700 That seems like a very reasonable goal, and I think it's an important conversation that we need to be having.

00:14:58.720 Speaking of being safe, right now the IFCJ is doing a lot of work to try to make people in Israel safe

00:15:04.320 because there are missiles that might come flying in at any moment.

00:15:07.860 I saw it for myself on my trip to Israel with a couple of the crew on this show.

00:15:12.520 You never know when you're going to get an alert on your phone.

00:15:14.540 You're going to have to run to a bomb shelter, and when that happens,

00:15:20.360 you want to make sure that you're close to one and that you're safe, and that's what the IFCJ does.

00:15:24.640 You can go online, check out the work they do.

00:15:26.640 It's phenomenal at ifcj.org.

00:15:29.500 That's ifcj.org.

00:15:31.300 You can also give them a call, find out how you can help everyone be safe from a missile attack in Israel.

00:15:37.900 888-488-IFCJ.

00:15:40.820 That's 888-488-IFCJ.

00:15:44.000 Check them out online at ifcj.org.

00:15:46.980 Making America great again isn't just one man.

00:15:51.280 It's many.

00:15:52.280 The Team 47 podcast, Sundays at noon Eastern in the Clay and Buck podcast feed.

00:15:58.280 Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:16:02.640 Canadian women are looking for more. 1.00

00:16:04.740 More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.

00:16:08.900 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:16:12.640 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:16:13.820 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:16:15.040 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

00:16:18.820 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers.

00:16:22.360 All at different stages of their journey.

00:16:24.540 So, if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:16:27.740 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:16:33.400 Appreciate all of you hanging out with us.

00:16:35.280 We just got through talking with Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.

00:16:40.440 Michael Watley will be with us at the bottom of the hour.

00:16:43.400 He is going to be running for Senate in North Carolina to try to replace Tom Tillis.

00:16:48.140 Senator Tim Scott will be with us in the third hour.

00:16:50.480 It's just me, you, and all of us having a good time here on the rest of today and tomorrow

00:16:56.040 as we are rolling through so many different stories that are out there.

00:17:00.540 We went to break.

00:17:01.200 First hour, we talked about the out-of-control violence and how President Trump is trying

00:17:09.760 to get Washington, D.C. back to some form of safety.

00:17:15.040 And I mentioned looking at capital cities as a proxy for the excellence of a nation at large.

00:17:23.900 If you're a history nerd like I am, Washington, D.C. was a planned capital city.

00:17:29.640 And one of the things that's really amazing when you walk around Washington, D.C. is they

00:17:36.280 designed so many of these massive roads.

00:17:41.520 And when they designed it, there was almost nothing there.

00:17:46.160 And if you read the history of, say, Washington, D.C. from the 19th century and even the early

00:17:54.940 parts of the 1900s, people would talk about how the city was designed for a country to be

00:18:04.740 the greatest in the history of the world, but it wasn't there yet.

00:18:09.220 And so, as a result, it was just these massive, massive roads, planned city, with almost nothing

00:18:18.760 on either side.

00:18:20.300 And I always love, if you study history, the metaphor of the Capitol Dome.

00:18:27.980 During the Civil War, Lincoln insisted that the construction of the Capitol Dome continue.

00:18:35.480 And if you look at old photos in the 1860s of Washington, D.C., you can see them working

00:18:42.920 on that majestic Capitol Dome.

00:18:45.440 And it was very expensive, and it required a great deal of steel.

00:18:49.460 And some people criticized Lincoln.

00:18:52.280 But his explanation was, the nation is still being built and preserved.

00:18:59.420 I'm not going to stop work on the nation's Capitol, because this is an important symbol of what

00:19:07.680 this nation represents, and eventually of the nation coming together and healing anew.

00:19:15.340 And it's such a profound idea.

00:19:18.340 And I give credit, I don't know how many of you saw this.

00:19:21.400 And Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, they just announced that they were going to bring

00:19:30.120 back a reconciliation monument at Arlington Cemetery that was created by a Confederate veteran.

00:19:38.940 And the idea is to bring the nation together again and sort of bind the wounds of the nation.

00:19:46.080 And I think one of the greatest speeches ever given in the history of the United States was

00:19:53.620 Lincoln's second inaugural address.

00:19:56.820 And the nation as a whole being brought together, even with his killing in Ford's Theater.

00:20:04.820 If you visit D.C. today, you'll come across the bridge that connects Virginia and Washington, D.C.

00:20:11.940 And a lot of people don't talk about it now, but at the time that bridge was created, it

00:20:16.960 was seen as a symbolic union of north and south.

00:20:21.600 In particular, Robert E. Lee's Arlington, which is on the bluff overlooking the Potomac River

00:20:28.460 in Washington, D.C.

00:20:30.320 You can stand on the porch at Arlington or on the steps on the backside of the Lincoln Memorial

00:20:37.560 and see those two places.

00:20:39.240 So you have the leader of the Confederate Army, Robert E. Lee, looking directly at Lincoln's

00:20:46.960 memorial and the Lincoln Memorial reflecting in some way Arlington as well.

00:20:53.240 And that union of the bridge bringing the two sides of the country back together again 0.91

00:20:59.500 was seen at the time that it was made as a profoundly symbolic statement.

00:21:02.700 And I think President Trump gets symbol, and he understands that things are more important

00:21:14.800 than maybe what they appear to be.

00:21:17.900 And that is what symbol is, right?

00:21:20.920 And so people get mad when he says, well, I want Alcatraz to exist as a prison.

00:21:25.980 He sees that as a symbol for a message that he wants to have out there, alligator Alcatraz.

00:21:33.140 He grips the public imagination.

00:21:36.400 And I think what President Trump sees with Washington, D.C.

00:21:39.740 is we can't say that we are a fabulous, undisputed champion of the global economy and world

00:21:49.640 if kids are getting mowed down in the streets of Washington, D.C. every day.

00:21:56.640 Our capital city needs to be a jewel.

00:22:01.780 It needs to be the best of what America can represent, particularly Washington, D.C.,

00:22:07.000 which I said historically has existed for that reason throughout time.

00:22:12.080 They took that location, as opposed to Philadelphia, which had been a capital,

00:22:19.160 as opposed to New York City, to create something new as a symbol for a country

00:22:24.820 that was going to be a global beacon of freedom and opportunity.

00:22:31.040 And how can you allow violent crime to take it over

00:22:34.500 and not see that as a direct attack upon American exceptionalism itself?

00:22:39.780 And think about this.

00:22:41.140 I mentioned this earlier and before, but capital homicide rates.

00:22:47.220 This is most recent homicide rates, 41 per 100,000, Washington, D.C.

00:22:55.640 That's a huge number, 41 per 100,000.

00:23:00.040 Listen to some of these other capital cities.

00:23:03.380 These other countries don't stand for that.

00:23:05.620 I think because their leaders understand the symbolic importance of having a safe

00:23:10.860 and secure and vibrant and objectively beautiful capital city.

00:23:17.160 Lima, Peru.

00:23:18.200 I don't think most of you out there say, you know what country,

00:23:20.760 but let me just give you a bunch of these different countries.

00:23:23.220 Lima, Peru, Havana, Cuba, Nairobi, Kenya.

00:23:28.440 I think I might write about that.

00:23:29.740 By the way, this is going to expose my own lack of geographical knowledge.

00:23:35.720 Brazilia, Brazil.

00:23:37.120 I believe Brazilia, Brazil is also a planned capital.

00:23:44.160 Lagos, Nigeria.

00:23:46.060 Bogota, Colombia.

00:23:47.420 I think I'm going to pass the test here.

00:23:49.380 Mexico City, Mexico.

00:23:51.600 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

00:23:55.040 Okay?

00:23:55.660 Those are other big capital cities.

00:23:57.680 D.C., 41 murders per 100,000.

00:24:01.360 Lima, Peru, 7 per 100,000.

00:24:05.980 Havana, Cuba, 4 per 100,000.

00:24:11.280 Nairobi, Kenya, 5 per 100,000.

00:24:16.100 Brazilia.

00:24:16.840 People talk about how violent and dangerous Brazil is all the time.

00:24:20.820 Brazilia, 13 per 100,000.

00:24:24.040 Lagos, Nigeria, 15 per 100,000.

00:24:29.120 Bogota, Colombia, 11 per 100,000.

00:24:33.020 Mexico City, 8 per 100,000.

00:24:36.940 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 6 per 100,000.

00:24:40.900 It should be a dark stain on America that our capital city of Washington, D.C.

00:24:50.000 has five times the murder rate of Mexico's capital city.

00:24:56.360 What are we doing?

00:24:58.060 That's a national embarrassment.

00:25:03.880 Ethiopia, Colombia, Nigeria, Brazil, Kenya, Cuba, Peru, all of them infinitely safer in

00:25:13.680 their capital cities than you and me and everybody is going around in Washington, D.C.

00:25:18.340 That is a national embarrassment.

00:25:21.980 Now, we just finished the hour.

00:25:23.700 We had an emailer who said, hey, maybe we have to go after parents for some of this violent

00:25:28.840 crime.

00:25:29.300 And I said, I'm a little bit, I accept it on some level, but I don't accept it on another

00:25:35.480 level because I think what you would see is that many of the kids that are engaging in

00:25:42.080 violent behavior are actually not living at home.

00:25:45.800 So, grandma and grandpa might be raising them, aunts, uncles, foster parents.

00:25:53.640 I think really when you look at violent crime, what you see almost overwhelmingly is the absence

00:25:59.040 of father figures in the household.

00:26:03.140 This is really the root cause.

00:26:06.840 If you have a dad and a mom in your house, the odds of you engaging in violent behavior plummet

00:26:14.580 by a massive amount.

00:26:18.800 Most kids still have moms. 0.89

00:26:21.540 Dads are failing.

00:26:23.240 So, my concern here is you got a 16-year-old who takes a gun out and shoots somebody and

00:26:31.140 then you decide to prosecute mom who is the only one that was trying to raise that kid. 0.99

00:26:36.420 And dad, who hasn't shown up for 16 years, may not even be on the birth certificate, he doesn't

00:26:45.760 have any consequences at all.

00:26:47.720 Well, it's him that made it happen.

00:26:51.320 So, my concern when Bo writes in, and I think it's an interesting comment, is that what would

00:26:56.060 end up happening is the moms, and the grandmas, and the aunts, and all the women who are very

00:27:02.960 often doing their darndest to try to raise that kid who's got an absent dad, and may have an

00:27:09.280 absent grandpa too, because a lot of what you find out is when dad's not there, it's often the case that

00:27:16.180 grandpa wasn't there, and unfortunately that great grandpa wasn't there either, because it's hard to

00:27:21.720 break that cycle, and some of you out there listening know what I'm talking about, because

00:27:26.440 you're trying to break the cycle, you're the dad that's present, you know what it was like to not

00:27:33.080 have a dad better than anybody.

00:27:34.840 So, my concern is when you say, well, let's prosecute the parents, you got poor mom who's 0.75

00:27:41.420 working three jobs and doing her darndest to take care of a kid that dad had no interest in, 0.97

00:27:48.400 and dad doesn't have any culpability at all, even though he's actually the cause.

00:27:54.240 So, I think if you go back up the chain of causation, oftentimes gun violence and violent

00:28:02.520 teenagers actually started when dad didn't show up at the birth at the hospital, and dad hasn't been

00:28:09.520 around for 16 years or 17 years to that point.

00:28:13.460 In many ways, these are young men who have not been raised to be men, and they are angry

00:28:21.420 at the world, and they take out their anger on the world, and all that anger starts because

00:28:27.660 dad's not home.

00:28:29.800 So, when I think through holding mom accountable, mom's doing her best to raise that kid by herself, 0.66

00:28:37.240 and she's got three jobs, and the kid, as a result, doesn't have somebody at home whipping

00:28:43.700 him into shape like a dad hopefully would, and he falls in with the wrong guys in the

00:28:48.680 neighborhood, and next thing you know, he's dealing drugs, or he's trying to carjack, and

00:28:53.720 mom's out there trying to do her best, and then you come home and you charge her with a

00:28:57.740 crime, and then she may have two younger kids that she's also trying to raise. 1.00

00:29:01.340 And how does that benefit society?

00:29:03.800 So, that's when I work through it.

00:29:05.900 I like to go to what caused the problem, not to just what's connected to the problem.

00:29:11.620 And to me, what caused the problem is dad's not there.

00:29:16.220 And I think the number, this is my big, you know, get on a preacher box argument.

00:29:22.300 I think the number one issue that unites much of what is going on in the country today of

00:29:28.200 a negative level is dad's not there.

00:29:31.720 I think it connects on everything.

00:29:34.520 Families not having enough money to feed the kids, dad's not there.

00:29:39.300 Families that are dealing with incredible violence, dad's not there.

00:29:44.440 If you go to the, this is my personal opinion, if I could change one thing, every kid that's

00:29:50.820 born has a dad at home, I think our national rates of violence would drop by 90%.

00:29:56.260 I think poverty would drop by 90%.

00:29:59.220 I think if dad is home, the overall collapse of much of what we see going wrong in American

00:30:07.240 society, it doesn't exist.

00:30:10.040 So, my concern responding to Bo is, you're actually going to hold accountable the mom,

00:30:16.360 the grandma, the aunt, the foster family that's trying to take it, to take this responsibility

00:30:23.900 of dad that he didn't fulfill, and then they get blamed because everything doesn't go perfect.

00:30:30.540 That's my concern.

00:30:31.820 And that's why I get a little bit nervous about holding parents responsible criminally, because

00:30:37.140 so many people are doing everything they can to help to try to fill the void that is there

00:30:43.800 because dad's not home.

00:30:46.240 That's it, right?

00:30:47.460 You go look at rates of crime, it collapses in every household where dad is there raising

00:30:54.820 a son.

00:30:55.820 And by the way, it's almost all boys, and the data actually reflects, meaning committing

00:31:00.080 the crimes, the data actually reflects that young girls have far less negative consequences

00:31:06.720 from an absent male figure in a household than young boys do.

00:31:10.780 Moms do their best. 0.99

00:31:12.100 They can't be dad and mom.

00:31:13.520 I think young girls see mom, and that's an aspirational figure for them, and it's still

00:31:18.940 better for young girls if dad is home, but what the data shows is boys' outcomes collapse

00:31:24.540 when dad's not home.

00:31:26.180 That's the reality.

00:31:27.700 That's a tough conversation.

00:31:29.660 That's a real conversation that we should be having, but too many people are afraid to

00:31:33.680 talk about it.

00:31:34.280 Look, years ago, new legislation created opportunity for 401ks and IRAs.

00:31:40.560 These retirement accounts shift the responsibility from employers saving money to you, meant to

00:31:46.240 empower you to control your own financial future.

00:31:49.520 And look, gold has been a part of everybody's portfolio basically throughout all of time.

00:31:55.220 Gold has been a method to buy and sell so many different objects throughout time.

00:32:00.760 Gold is at record highs because it's seen as a hedge against inflation.

00:32:04.280 Have you thought about including gold in your own portfolios, in your 401ks, in your savings?

00:32:11.780 Maybe you're nervous about the devaluation of the overall American currency because inflation's

00:32:17.280 been so high because the Fed's printing so much money.

00:32:19.840 Gold is that hedge.

00:32:21.880 Maybe it's the right decision for you.

00:32:23.160 Maybe it's not.

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00:32:41.380 Why not check it out?

00:32:42.380 Gold's a part of my portfolio.

00:32:44.220 I bet it could make sense as a part of your portfolio.

00:32:46.540 But do the research for yourself.

00:32:48.420 Go to 90...

00:32:49.780 Text Clay.

00:32:50.800 That's my name.

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00:33:16.360 Stories of freedom.

00:33:17.960 Stories of America.

00:33:20.140 Inspirational stories that unite us all.

00:33:22.480 Each day, spend time with Clay and Buck.

00:33:25.700 Find them on the free iHeartRadio app.

00:33:28.000 Or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:33:30.180 Right before the show started, to thank you for taking us over 100,000 subscribers on the

00:33:37.640 Clay and Buck YouTube channel, I did a book review segment that is only going to be up

00:33:46.720 on YouTube.

00:33:48.100 And I'll give you a little bit of a preview of that.

00:33:50.320 But so many of you are interested in good American history, good books to read.

00:33:57.040 So I gave two book reviews, and I'm just going to mention them here.

00:34:00.960 You guys know I love reading about history, American history in particular.

00:34:05.560 I am reading The Fate of the Day, which is volume two of the American Revolution trilogy.

00:34:13.380 I'm holding it up just so you can see the cover.

00:34:16.680 It's incredible.

00:34:19.000 I'm about halfway through it.

00:34:20.760 If you want to hear me talk about it more, you can go to the YouTube channel.

00:34:24.900 That video will be up.

00:34:26.560 I'm going to try to do fun things there that are not airing on the radio program.

00:34:31.640 I also told you, hey, if you're a mystery, thriller kind of person, which I am, I usually

00:34:38.460 have a nonfiction book going at the same time as a fiction book, and I read whichever I'm

00:34:43.800 in the mood for.

00:34:45.000 I've mentioned this on the show before, but I just finished Mick Heron, who is a London-based

00:34:51.560 thriller, spy, espionage writer.

00:34:54.800 Eight of them.

00:34:56.340 The Slow Horses television version.

00:34:59.700 Maybe some of you have seen this on Apple TV.

00:35:03.020 I am told it is really good.

00:35:04.540 I have never watched it, but I can tell you these books are great.

00:35:08.080 There are eight of them.

00:35:09.120 I love mysteries, thrillers.

00:35:11.240 I grew up reading initially The Hardy Boys, and then it led into Sue Grafton and Robert Parker

00:35:19.100 and James Lee Burke.

00:35:22.080 Anyway, if you are a thriller reader, Patricia Cornwell, you name, you guys know all of the

00:35:29.680 movies, Alex Cross series.

00:35:31.840 All of these, you know.

00:35:33.000 I gave you good reviews for those, and we're going to do some fun things on YouTube, so

00:35:37.640 you will be able to dive in there.

00:35:40.600 Okay.

00:35:41.200 We got people who want to react.

00:35:42.800 And for those of you who want to get your popcorn out, we led into a discussion about

00:35:48.140 how almost all issues in America today, in my opinion, if you had to go to one root cause,

00:35:54.080 absent fathers.

00:35:55.640 White, black, Asian, Hispanic, absent fathers, I think, lead to violent crime. 1.00

00:35:59.980 And this actually wasn't planned, but it came out of an email that Bo, one of our VIP readers,

00:36:06.360 wrote in saying, hey, if we really want to go after violent crime rates, let's prosecute

00:36:11.040 parents more often.

00:36:12.500 And I said my concern there is that actually dads are absent, and you would end up going

00:36:17.680 after mom or grandma or maybe even grandpa, who were trying to fill in for the absent dad

00:36:23.220 and the person who's the most responsible for everything that is going on will not be

00:36:29.020 held accountable.

00:36:30.040 And so that was my concern.

00:36:31.440 And let me hit you with this, because I mentioned that I was going to discuss it earlier, right

00:36:35.000 before I take your calls.

00:36:36.240 President Trump has demanded that there be a new census done.

00:36:41.400 And I've talked about this a lot on the program.

00:36:43.640 Maybe we'll dive into this a bit more tomorrow.

00:36:46.340 But basically, red states would be on tap to add 10 House seats if the census had been 0.82

00:36:54.660 done correctly.

00:36:56.560 And Republicans would add 10.

00:36:59.120 Democrats would lose 10.

00:37:01.000 Florida would add four seats.

00:37:02.820 Texas would add four seats. 0.96

00:37:04.280 California would lose three.

00:37:06.480 New York would lose two overall.

00:37:10.100 And that's going to play in big in the Electoral College by the time we get to 2032.

00:37:16.140 But they screwed up 2020, so they really should redo the census.

00:37:20.540 And that is what President Trump has called for.

00:37:23.240 And we will dive into some of that tomorrow.

00:37:26.360 But again, go subscribe to the YouTube.

00:37:28.560 You can check out all original content that is going up there.

00:37:32.560 VIP email from Eric, black dad out there.

00:37:38.180 Let me start with this.

00:37:39.160 I was fortunate to have my dad in the home as a kid, and my kids have the same good fortune.

00:37:44.620 You are spot on about LBJ and the Great Society.

00:37:49.300 The government dictates on the programs essentially force dads out in order to access the so-called 0.86

00:37:55.900 benefits.

00:37:56.520 Never have a people paid such a high price for a block of cheese.

00:38:01.020 Larry Elder, DeRoy Murdoch, and Jason Reilly have written and spoken extensively on this subject.

00:38:07.260 They challenge the black people out there who've been brainwashed by the liberal culture to wake up, grow up, and man up. 0.53

00:38:13.980 It's a good email from Eric, and I appreciate it. 0.89

00:38:15.520 I'm glad he's being a good dad.

00:38:16.840 Look, it's easy to try to racialize this, and I try to avoid doing that.

00:38:21.760 I got an email, and I'll read the email.

00:38:24.120 I'm not going to tell you who wrote it because I'm not going to put him on blast.

00:38:29.820 But he said, why are you not talking about the fact that this is a huge problem for black men,

00:38:39.340 and nobody will talk about it for black men and black families, 0.98

00:38:43.300 and you're being a coward because you're not focusing enough on race as it pertains to this issue. 0.98

00:38:48.660 And I'm looking at that email from him right now. 0.95

00:38:52.240 I don't think that's helpful, honestly.

00:38:55.080 It wouldn't make me feel better as a white dad if the white crime rate was zero and the black crime rate was 100. 0.89

00:39:05.020 I wouldn't take glee in that. 0.84

00:39:07.320 I wouldn't take enjoyment in that.

00:39:09.240 But if the Hispanic crime rate was zero and the white crime rate was 100, 0.71

00:39:15.080 I wouldn't be like, man, that's great.

00:39:17.440 Go Hispanic people. 1.00

00:39:19.360 White people, man, you're the problem. 1.00

00:39:21.660 I don't think you racialize a problem. 1.00

00:39:24.720 I think you actually then divide people.

00:39:28.520 What I would argue is kids without dads is a huge American issue.

00:39:35.160 White, black, Asian, Hispanic.

00:39:36.920 Now, I do think that there is a socioeconomic component to this in this larger context.

00:39:44.440 I think the government tried to replace poor dads with the government.

00:39:51.940 And there's a line, and I think there's some truth to it.

00:39:56.080 You can racialize the line, but the way I would put it is when rich people get a cold, poor people get pneumonia. 0.94

00:40:01.900 If you're black, you probably heard before, when white people get a cold, black people get pneumonia. 0.77

00:40:08.060 It is true when rich people have small problems, poor people get big problems. 0.97

00:40:16.260 And so I think you have to be careful when you put government policies in place.

00:40:22.360 This is, to me, the essence of Democrat politics.

00:40:24.920 They sit around from their gated mansions, and they think, oh, my goodness.

00:40:32.560 You know, the real problem with crime in America is the police.

00:40:36.820 We should take them away.

00:40:38.680 This is Zoran Mondani, right?

00:40:41.420 All the people with money, they've got protection.

00:40:46.600 Mondani goes down to Uganda.

00:40:48.200 Uganda, he's got a security detail following him everywhere.

00:40:53.320 He's not worried about crime happening to him because he's rich enough to have his own security.

00:41:00.780 You ever notice that none of those politicians who called to defund the police ever gave up their own personal security details?

00:41:11.400 Well, wait a minute.

00:41:13.040 If you think all of us should give up police, how come you need them?

00:41:18.200 That's a really good question, isn't it?

00:41:21.960 So many people in America, they talk left and they live right.

00:41:30.900 All those media that write at the New York Times, they're married, raising their kids.

00:41:36.500 Their kids oftentimes go to private schools.

00:41:38.940 They live in gated communities.

00:41:41.380 Everybody lecturing you on MSNBC, nuclear families. 0.98

00:41:46.040 They want a mom at home. 1.00

00:41:48.340 They want a dad at home.

00:41:50.360 They want to have security for their kids. 0.93

00:41:52.840 They want private school choice for their kids.

00:41:55.480 Why do they lecture you from a left perspective and then live like the most conservative person on the planet in their own life?

00:42:05.680 Because the best way to raise a family is a nuclear family.

00:42:10.680 Mom, dad, both at home with kids.

00:42:12.720 This is what the data says.

00:42:13.980 They all know it.

00:42:14.740 They want it for their own families.

00:42:16.460 But if you try to say, hey, we should do this more.

00:42:19.940 Hey, maybe we should put policies in place that actually make dads more likely to be at home.

00:42:24.460 As soon as you raise that issue, oh, suddenly they don't want to have that conversation.

00:42:29.940 So a lot of you want to weigh in.

00:42:31.380 Let me hit some of these calls.

00:42:32.540 I appreciate that VIP email.

00:42:36.360 And let's see here.

00:42:38.560 Who should we go to first, guys?

00:42:40.820 It's Ralph in Cincinnati.

00:42:42.160 Ralph, what you got for us?

00:42:44.500 Hey, brother.

00:42:45.200 How are you, man?

00:42:46.360 I'm fantastic.

00:42:47.080 So I think we're looking beyond the obvious, and it's not a black or white thing, Hispanic, Asian, or even a money thing, because there's a lot of very wealthy people who've divorced, and the mother automatically gets the kids, and then we hear the stories about their kids driving very expensive cars and killing their friends. 0.52

00:43:08.120 So let's just avoid the monetary thing.

00:43:11.220 I'm going to ask you a question.

00:43:12.420 You're a lawyer, and you have a lot of colleagues that went into family law.

00:43:15.840 I think the perpetuation of divorce lines their pockets.

00:43:20.780 The thing is, I'm dealing with it myself.

00:43:23.500 I want 50-50 time with my kid.

00:43:25.580 I don't want more than 50-50. 0.96

00:43:27.240 That would be unfair.

00:43:29.080 Automatically, the mothers always get custody regardless. 1.00

00:43:33.280 So if we're going to talk about fatherless homes, we need to dig deeper.

00:43:40.580 Some of us fathers want to be involved.

00:43:43.100 Some of us fathers want to take care of our boys.

00:43:47.000 We're not allowed to.

00:43:49.300 So in Ohio, twice, the senators of the Republican, of the Congress, whoever, pitched this concept, and both times, it was the Ohio Bar Association that shot it down.

00:44:02.840 Why?

00:44:03.840 Because that's their income.

00:44:05.480 How many of your colleagues went directly to family practice?

00:44:09.600 Some of them were criminals.

00:44:12.160 But then they went through their divorce and saw how much they paid an attorney and said, well, I've got to get my money back.

00:44:17.280 So I just want to give a shout-out to dads out there that want to be in their kids' lives.

00:44:22.420 Don't give up.

00:44:23.460 Keep fighting.

00:44:24.460 There's a huge movement happening right now.

00:44:27.120 It's kind of underground.

00:44:28.220 Even in Britain, this is a global thing.

00:44:31.920 There's a movement called People Against Parental Alienation.

00:44:35.860 There's a young man in the United States who started a website called TUF, the Unmarried Father.

00:44:41.740 Those guys suffer the worst.

00:44:44.360 Are there guys out there that don't want to be in the family?

00:44:47.400 Sure.

00:44:47.940 Were they baby trapped?

00:44:49.060 Maybe.

00:44:49.660 Did they hook up one night and get a girl pregnant?

00:44:51.760 Maybe.

00:44:52.200 We don't know.

00:44:53.420 But there's a lot more of us out there that want to be in our kids' lives, but we're already labeled deadbeats just because we're not in the house.

00:45:02.420 Thank you for the call.

00:45:03.900 No, it's a great call.

00:45:04.840 Look, I don't – this is why, in general, I think any dad that is fighting to be involved in his kid's life should be involved in his kid's life.

00:45:16.840 Right?

00:45:17.580 His or her kid's life.

00:45:18.740 And I think that there are tons of things in the divorce universe that we have created that incentivizes divorce and often alienates parents in both directions.

00:45:34.000 Right?

00:45:35.540 I think there is a religious component to this.

00:45:38.840 I mentioned that the great society happens.

00:45:41.180 I think also a decline in religion has led to less men as heads of households and less men who are expecting to take on the responsibility.

00:45:53.180 But I think in a divorce context, in an ideal situation, kids would get 50% of time with their dad and 50% of times with their mom.

00:46:02.980 General rule.

00:46:03.660 Now, I don't want to dive into everybody's individual divorce story, but I do think that one of the – let me just say this as a lawyer.

00:46:15.440 One of the consequences of no-fault divorce, right, which is this idea of, hey, there's nobody at fault.

00:46:22.600 We just don't want to be married anymore, is that sometimes fault matters.

00:46:27.080 We typically don't have no-fault car accidents, right?

00:46:34.200 Just think about it.

00:46:35.440 Most people don't want to get into a car accident.

00:46:39.000 But if you had a cheap car and you could just run into a Jaguar and you got rewarded because you intentionally caused some sort of an issue,

00:46:50.980 the courts would look at you askance.

00:46:54.100 They would say, well, you're more responsible for this, and that's the whole point of, like, traffic law, right?

00:47:01.620 Hey, who did the – when you say nobody's at fault, a part of me is of the opinion that fault does matter.

00:47:10.420 It's very rare that 50% male, 50% female is the reason for the divorce.

00:47:16.320 And I'm talking about the financial side, not so much the child and the parenting side.

00:47:21.120 But I do think there should be substantial family court processes that would actually go to making things better.

00:47:29.140 I'll take some more of your calls when I come back, but I do have empathy and sympathy for dads out there that are trying to be involved in their kids' lives

00:47:37.660 that feel like the entire apparatus of the court system is slanted in favor of the moms and they can't actually do anything to help raise their kids. 1.00

00:47:47.360 That is very frustrating, and I have a great deal of empathy for anybody involved in that process.

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00:48:39.380 News and politics, but also a little comic relief.

00:48:43.300 Clay Travis and Buck Sexton.

00:48:45.620 Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:48:50.580 Canadian women are looking for more. 1.00

00:48:52.640 More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.

00:48:56.800 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:48:59.920 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:49:01.760 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:49:03.040 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

00:49:06.720 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers.

00:49:10.280 All at different stages of their journey.

00:49:12.480 So, if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:49:15.700 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:49:21.360 Welcome back in.

00:49:22.520 Clay Travis, Buck Sexton's show.

00:49:24.780 Joined now by Senator Tim Scott.

00:49:27.500 He's got a new book, One Nation Always Under God, Profiles in Christian Courage.

00:49:33.900 And, Senator, I appreciate you coming on with me.

00:49:37.160 Absolutely.

00:49:37.720 I believe that part of the motivation for this book, according to my team,

00:49:42.140 was you seeing Harrison Butker, who is a field goal kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs,

00:49:49.120 speaking out about faith and his family relationships.

00:49:52.920 Why did that strike you to such a degree, and did that help to motivate you to write this book?

00:49:59.400 You know, certainly, I see the attack on Christianity in our country, all over the place.

00:50:04.120 And certainly, his story got so much press, I just kept thinking to myself,

00:50:08.480 why is it okay to attack the very foundation of the greatest nation on earth and what we were founded upon? 0.80

00:50:15.100 And I find it to be just utterly ridiculous, Clay, on the attacks that Christianity has to endure.

00:50:23.120 And I wanted to do something that highlighted and celebrated strong profiles in Christian courage.

00:50:29.620 Why our country is the greatest country on the planet is because of men and women who responded to a call in their heart

00:50:37.300 to make something and someone better outside of themselves.

00:50:42.600 And I am so thankful that we have professional athletes, rare these days, who take a strong stand for faith,

00:50:49.500 not just at the microphone after a game, but literally giving a speech that they wanted to literally take tiny pieces out of that speech

00:50:57.200 and find a way to make fun of him and condemn his faith. 0.95

00:51:01.220 Utterly ridiculous to me. 0.81

00:51:03.440 I don't know if you've heard any of the program. 0.88

00:51:05.320 I'm probably not, you're kind of a busy guy, but we've ended up talking quite a lot today about the decline of fathers.

00:51:10.600 And I think it, in the family household, and I think it ties in with the book that you were writing,

00:51:15.800 because one reason that might be happening is an absence of religion.

00:51:19.420 And a lot of young men are honestly going back to church now.

00:51:22.860 I don't think you're a dad yet, but I've got three boys.

00:51:26.440 I think all the time about how to raise them to be strong, good parents.

00:51:30.340 Why do you think we're struggling to such an extent with young men?

00:51:33.680 And how do we get black, white, Asian, Hispanic dads back in the family raising strong young men?

00:51:40.100 Well, Clay, I think one of the reasons why President Trump has endorsed the book,

00:51:45.200 One Nation Always Under God, is because I focus really on that subject matter by telling my own story of growing up in a single-parent household.

00:51:53.540 And what you just said, Clay, is so important.

00:51:55.560 It was so casual when you said it, but it was powerful in my ears.

00:51:59.820 One of the scriptures I'm really excited about is Proverbs 27, 17, that says,

00:52:04.780 Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens the other.

00:52:07.980 The best way to do that, Clay, is to have a father in the household.

00:52:13.200 You just said very casually that you are there for your three sons.

00:52:17.400 Seventy-two to seventy-four percent, the numbers escape me, of African-American boys do not have their father in the household.

00:52:25.280 Forty percent of white working-class families do not have a father in the household.

00:52:30.300 That does not tell about the future we want in this nation.

00:52:34.480 And so you covering fatherhood and the importance of a male role model in the house

00:52:39.600 is undeniably the most important thing we can do to get this nation back on track, except for faith.

00:52:47.480 Faith is the foundation.

00:52:48.760 Family is the most powerful single unit in the nation.

00:52:53.900 Upon those two, you build an objective standard.

00:52:57.240 You apply it fairly to everyone.

00:52:59.020 You get a flourishing country called America.

00:53:01.500 Without that very important building block called the family, we as a nation, we don't work.

00:53:07.940 And we don't work without a faith-filled foundation upon which all things stand.

00:53:13.440 So I can spend as much time as you want to on the importance that a father plays in the household.

00:53:21.300 I just became a honest dad, Clay, just a year ago.

00:53:25.120 I have three kids that I've inherited by getting married.

00:53:29.340 And I've got to tell you, it changes your focus to the future.

00:53:32.980 It reminds you of the importance of a value system.

00:53:36.040 And it underscores why one nation always under God and these profiles in Christian courage

00:53:42.600 is something that has as much to do about the future as it illuminates the past.

00:53:48.420 One of the things that we talked about is you think about things only getting better in the country, right?

00:53:54.520 That's the goal.

00:53:55.220 We want everybody's generation to be better than it was before.

00:53:58.240 But you and I, if we went back to 1950, you just ran through some of those statistics.

00:54:04.020 White, black, Asian, Hispanic.

00:54:05.520 I know there would have been fewer Asian and Hispanic households,

00:54:08.320 but certainly a lot of white and black households.

00:54:10.960 Dad would have been home, right?

00:54:13.480 1950s America.

00:54:14.560 Dad was home raising his kids in general.

00:54:17.160 I know there were exceptions.

00:54:18.200 There's people out there listening.

00:54:19.500 You yourself just said you didn't have a father in the household.

00:54:22.020 This has been an issue that's gone on for a long time.

00:54:24.620 How do you think we change it, right?

00:54:26.840 It's one thing if we were getting a little bit better every year,

00:54:30.240 but this is one of those things where you look back and you say,

00:54:32.660 boy, you know what?

00:54:33.280 70 years ago, kids growing up in America were more likely to have a dad in the household.

00:54:39.000 What could we do?

00:54:40.120 What should we do?

00:54:41.140 I don't even see this as remotely political because I think every kid is way better off

00:54:45.620 with a dad in the household.

00:54:47.080 What should we be doing to encourage that?

00:54:49.200 Well, number one, we need to remind men of their responsibility and not in fathering a child, 0.81

00:54:54.980 but by raising that child.

00:54:56.520 It's such an important part of it.

00:54:58.300 You know, if you think about what a father provides, for me, the lack of a father made me very disillusioned

00:55:05.140 about who I would be growing up, what I could become, someone to teach me how to drive,

00:55:10.800 how to shave, that person was absent, and it makes everything more difficult.

00:55:16.840 I'm thankful that I became a Christian at a very young age, and I found the father figure

00:55:22.320 needed in understanding my heavenly father.

00:55:25.680 And as a result, I could go to Ephesians 2 and read about certain attributes or characteristics

00:55:30.540 I would have.

00:55:31.340 I could go to Galatians 3, 28, and see that I was adopted into this whole family called

00:55:36.700 the Lord's family.

00:55:38.020 But to make it practical in everyday American households, number one, the man needs to understand 0.97

00:55:44.580 his responsibility.

00:55:45.620 Number two, he needs to be present.

00:55:47.780 The way that we encourage both, I think, is by reminding men of that importance.

00:55:52.820 I spoke at a men's group about two Saturdays ago with a couple hundred men in the room,

00:55:57.580 and I talked about you can be a male without being a man.

00:56:00.900 A male just tells you who you are from a DNA perspective. 0.98

00:56:06.560 Being a man, there are attributes and characteristics that come with being a man.

00:56:12.620 Being responsible, being accountable, being self-sacrificing, serving, not just leading.

00:56:20.980 These are characteristics of being a man.

00:56:23.480 Being a male may be reproductive.

00:56:25.520 It may be having a good time on Saturday nights but not showing up on Sunday mornings.

00:56:30.900 Being a man says you show up Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

00:56:35.280 It's 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365.

00:56:39.000 That's how a man becomes a father.

00:56:40.840 A male does not necessarily do so.

00:56:43.100 The book is One Nation, Always Under God, Profiles in Christian Courage.

00:56:47.740 We're talking to Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.

00:56:50.300 All right, these are big issues.

00:56:51.620 These are important issues.

00:56:52.720 But I'm about to put you on the real hot seat.

00:56:56.280 Who's going to be better this year, South Carolina or Clemson?

00:57:00.560 Listen, I know that the polls...

00:57:02.320 I can already tell that's a good politician answer to start with.

00:57:06.380 Listen, for those of you who don't know, let me tell people.

00:57:10.240 South Carolina Gamecocks expect to be very good.

00:57:13.120 Clemson Tigers also expect to be very good.

00:57:15.660 The biggest rivalry in the state of South Carolina.

00:57:18.380 Okay, that's the backlog.

00:57:19.680 Now you can dive in.

00:57:21.500 Thank you, brother.

00:57:22.560 I know the polls suggest that Clemson's going to be better.

00:57:26.000 One poll has them at number six.

00:57:27.480 They have South Carolina at 19.

00:57:29.200 As a lifelong Gamecocks fan, yes, I'm a crazy politician.

00:57:33.740 I'm just going to tell you the truth and where I stand.

00:57:36.340 The Gamecocks are going to have a better season.

00:57:39.360 I know it because Shane Beamer, he's the man, the myth, and he will be the legend.

00:57:43.900 And as a result of that, he will coach his team to a 9-3 record.

00:57:48.960 And the Clemson Tigers, they're going to stumble a couple times, and they will end up around 8-4, 8-3.

00:57:57.140 The difference, of course, is we play in the SEC, they play in the ACC.

00:58:01.860 We're not talking basketball.

00:58:03.280 We're talking football.

00:58:05.220 That's actually, I thought you would dodge it.

00:58:07.840 I didn't think you would pick a side, so I'm impressed.

00:58:09.820 Yes, but I love Shane Beamer, really good dude, the head coach at South Carolina.

00:58:14.700 I also like Dabo, but I know Shane Beamer.

00:58:17.140 I love Dabo.

00:58:18.660 Lenora Sellers, for those of you out there who do not know, fabulous quarterback for South Carolina.

00:58:24.500 What should people know about him getting ready for about three weeks from now when Tomey's leather?

00:58:30.560 You know, interestingly enough, he turned down more NIL money this day at Carolina than he could have gotten,

00:58:39.560 like $3 to $4 million more someplace else.

00:58:42.260 That tells me, number one, he's a South Carolina boy born in Brad.

00:58:44.860 Number two, he's committed, which is an unusual characteristic we'd like to see in fathers as well, by the way.

00:58:51.520 And number three, he has a strong run game, but he's been improving his pass game.

00:58:58.300 And that, to me, is a quintessential quarterback, can scramble, but thread the needle.

00:59:03.920 I don't want him to run too much because that's how you get injured.

00:59:06.860 I want him to stay in the pocket, scramble a little bit, and hit the receiver who's running a 10 and out or a goal post.

00:59:13.240 And when that happens, I think we'll have a good season.

00:59:16.040 I know I was critical of my Clemson Tigers, and I'm going to have some emails coming in about that.

00:59:21.140 But I've got to just tell you, I love Dabo, and Jim Clemson is the best president,

00:59:25.100 and a university president in all of America, Clemson's president.

00:59:28.840 But at the end of the day, a man's got to be where a man has been his whole life,

00:59:33.860 and that's the Carolina Gamecocks.

00:59:35.860 You know, I actually think, and I know there's a lot of politicians,

00:59:38.720 and I'm sure you've seen it in your career for sure,

00:59:40.920 who try to thread the needle and avoid picking a side.

00:59:43.880 I actually think sports fans appreciate someone who picks a side more

00:59:48.480 because the traditional politician tries to avoid it.

00:59:52.000 Hey, I hope the book does really well.

00:59:53.700 I appreciate you coming on with us.

00:59:54.900 You've got an open invite anytime you want to come on and keep up the fighting.

00:59:59.520 Thank you, Clay.

01:00:00.400 One Nation Always Under God, available right now at Amazon.

01:00:05.020 Amen.

01:00:05.560 Go check it out.

01:00:06.200 That is Senator Tim Scott.

01:00:07.720 I'll take some of your calls.

01:00:08.780 We'll react.

01:00:09.520 Really good feedback so far during the course of the program.

01:00:13.080 And I want to tell you, I mentioned it, dog days of summer are here.

01:00:17.200 Do you want to have Joe Biden energy?

01:00:19.700 That means, you know, they never let Biden walk on the roof of the White House.

01:00:23.080 You know why?

01:00:24.120 Because they were afraid that he might just tumble off.

01:00:26.560 Maybe the Secret Service wouldn't have let him walk on the roof of the White House like Trump was.

01:00:30.420 You guys know at any moment, he could have tripped all over himself.

01:00:33.300 Next thing you know, he's dead, all falling off the roof of the White House.

01:00:36.020 Guy can't even walk.

01:00:37.020 Do you want Biden energy?

01:00:38.240 Do you want people watching you thinking, oh my goodness, is this guy going to make it from one side of the room to another?

01:00:45.720 Or do you want Trump energy?

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01:01:02.560 What's the cost to you?

01:01:03.960 You might as well try it as you move into the summer.

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01:01:32.800 The Team 47 Podcast.

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