On today's show, Clay and Buck discuss the pullback from the ICE operation in Minneapolis, the tragic shooting of a transgender man claiming to be a woman in Canada, and the controversy surrounding the transgender issue in Canada. They also discuss whether or not a mustache is a good or bad thing.
00:19:57.100Secretary, how are you going to fix education in America under the Trump administration?
00:20:02.880Well, you know, the president's executive order is to return education to the states
00:20:08.920and take bureaucracy that exists in Washington out of our education process.
00:20:14.780So, in other words, instead of, you know, all of the money that is appropriated by Congress flowing through the Department of Education
00:20:23.740and then to the states, which does create more regulation, more red tape, et cetera,
00:20:29.400it is my goal to move the different agencies or departments, if you will, within the Department of Education to other agencies of the United States government,
00:20:40.820which is where they existed before there was a department.
00:20:44.460You know, if you guys, and I know you guys know this fact, but the Department of Education was not established until 1980,
00:20:51.680and since that time, we've spent $3 trillion on education, just throwing more money at the problem,
00:20:57.660and watched our national scores continue to decline.
00:21:01.880So we're clearly doing something wrong, and the president believes, and I agree with him,
00:21:05.820that the best education is that that's closest to the child, that it is controlled by the state superintendents and district superintendents and teachers,
00:21:15.140and most importantly, parents, who have then insight into what is being taught to their children.
00:21:21.320So this dismantling, if you will, of the department and moving it to other agencies will make it more efficient,
00:21:28.980and I do believe that there will be greater satisfaction with what's going to be happening with education once this job is completed.
00:21:38.440One of the things that I think is most interesting and maybe extraordinary when it comes to educational accomplishment is what the state of Mississippi has done.
00:21:49.320They, and I know you probably have studied it quite a lot, I don't think most of the audience out there has gotten, become aware of it,
00:21:57.620but basically they went back to committing, and you can maybe explain better than me,
00:22:01.960but to old school style teaching, and abandoned many of the quote unquote newfangled methods of instruction for children.
00:22:11.180And as a result, the kids in Mississippi, many of whom are drastically underprivileged, you know,
00:22:18.420relative to socioeconomic status in the rest of the country, have seen their results skyrocket.
00:22:24.560And now other southern states in particular are copying them.
00:22:28.360What are they doing? Are you encouraged by what you've seen there?
00:22:32.500And is this a good example of the laboratory of state education giving us things that could work, for instance,
00:22:38.120in California where the results are not good?
00:22:41.860You're exactly right in that this does prove the point about states being laboratories
00:22:47.500because this is innovation that occurred at the state level, not at the federal level.
00:22:52.060This was not mandated by the federal government.
00:22:54.400And what the state of Mississippi did, and it's actually called the Mississippi Miracle,
00:23:04.500It was going back to the way reading was, you know, originally taught.
00:23:09.340Now, of course, there are some updates to the process, et cetera, but it's based on phonics.
00:23:14.320It's based on sounding out words and sounding out combinations of letters so that kids can learn to read.
00:23:20.660They're not just doing sight reading of whole words or concepts, which is what's really been, I think,
00:23:26.260the downfall of our literacy numbers throughout the country.
00:23:30.980And if children cannot read by the time they finish the third grade,
00:23:36.100then they are never going to be able to be successful because they'll just get farther and farther behind.
00:23:42.860So the science of reading, as it has been adopted, has proven to be so successful.
00:23:48.540And sometimes this is done in connection with what are called classical schools that are doing exactly what you just –
00:23:56.420Clay, I think it was you, what you were describing is going back to sort of the way schools were taught, you know, before.
00:24:03.120Now, that's working in many communities.
00:24:04.960Some communities, you know, have different kinds of schools, you know, there are charter schools, magnet schools,
00:24:12.840there are religious schools, there's homeschooling, and so – and micro schools.
00:24:16.660And what I'm doing is touring all 50 states.
00:24:20.300I've been to about 30 now, and I have visited all of these many kinds of schools.
00:24:25.740I've even been to the Alpha School in Austin, Texas, which has its first two hours of instruction in the morning through AI.
00:24:34.960Which is really like an individual tutoring session, and then the rest of the day are spent on applying the applications of what they learn.
00:24:43.080So my goal at the end of this term, or as we are turning education back over to the states,
00:24:51.420is to develop a toolkit of what has worked in most of these states and to just hand it over to the different states and say,
00:24:59.920look, these are the things that I've seen that work, this is how they work, this is who's doing it.
00:25:05.240Please be in contact with them if you so choose.
00:25:09.560Governors and state superintendents, they're pretty competitive.
00:25:13.600No governor likes to see another state get ahead of them, you know, in terms of the success, especially, you know, with kids and education.
00:25:20.180So I think we're going to have a good impact.
00:25:22.900The beneficiaries of what we're doing will be our children and schools, you know, in general.
00:25:30.620And I'm very excited about what we're doing.
00:25:34.360Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon with us now.
00:25:36.700And, Mr. Secretary, when we saw the Minneapolis ICE protests, there was all this school closures, administrative and teaching staff going out to protest.
00:25:51.380Why is it that this just happens and there seems to be some acceptance that the school system is like the protest shock troops of the far left in this country?
00:26:02.140Well, I can tell you, you know, if you just look at those protests from a common sense standpoint, and I as a parent, if I was there, now I can't stand in the shoes of the parents who were there.
00:26:15.180But I would think, why is my child not in school that day?
00:26:19.160And if we look at what the scores are, you know, in Minnesota, they're not sterling at all, if you will.
00:26:27.300I would want my children to be in school learning how to read, how to do math, how to solve their science problems, and not out on the street in the bitter cold protesting and objecting to something that they might not even fully understand.
00:26:43.580And if that were to continue, I can tell you that there would be investigation by us, and those schools could be, you know, in jeopardy of having lost federal funding.
00:26:55.240Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, one more time, I'm going to try, maybe you can have somebody on your team reach out.
00:27:02.560I would like to take this test and see how I would do, but we encourage so many people out there with kids and grandkids that are committed to history and want to learn more on the 250th anniversary of this country to compete.
00:27:16.420That competition has an incredible award, as you just told us.
00:27:40.180And then shortly thereafter, they'll be taking the test, and it will be a 90-minute test to see how many 4,000 questions they can answer correctly.
00:27:51.300And these are just historical fact questions.
00:27:54.620You know, this is, if anybody has any concerns that they're partisan politics, they are not at all.
00:28:00.280This is just based on facts and history.
00:49:21.940I just remember you coming after me for Brussels sprouts.
00:49:25.820And I think if you were trying to assess masculinity, Brussels sprouts for the table versus cucumber wedged ice water at a Super Bowl party.
00:49:34.200I just think that I'm the more masculine choice here.
00:49:37.400Well, if I have to be honest, I didn't advertise it was ice water because I had one of those big, big, I forget what brand it was, one of the big insulated mugs with the lid on it.
00:49:49.500So if you looked and I walked in with it, you probably would have thought, wow.
00:49:53.220You're just carrying around your own water now?
00:51:41.380So I would encourage people to potentially check this out if you're into gay authors, which, you know, it's an important moment to honor you.
00:51:54.780I know it's Black History Month, but, you know, Gay Author Month is coming up soon, I'm sure.
00:52:49.020If you are a victim, if somebody assaulted you and yet that person is still alive and maybe they're still out there assaulting other people,
00:52:59.560don't you have an actual obligation if you are doing all these press conferences to actually make the public allegation,
00:53:06.760file lawsuits, get investigations to occur.
00:53:53.000And he took me out on a bad day and he ordered Brussels sprouts.
00:53:55.720And now I'm mad at him, that kind of a thing.
00:53:58.000And so I think the exact same thing is taking place with Epstein, who was clearly a creep and a monster, was surrounded by creeps and monstered, did all kinds of creepy, monstrous things.
00:54:07.880And I hope every one of them gets thrown into prison.
00:54:10.500However, as soon as people start getting paid on this stuff, start getting famous on this stuff, that is inevitably going to invite scammers and scummy people, too, who love to give press conferences every other day and have their name in 60 minutes.
00:54:26.120But at some point, if you're going to if you're going to come out publicly and say I was abused, you have to deliver the goods.
00:54:34.060Now, if you want to stay quiet, I get that.
00:54:35.640I know a bunch of women who have sadly gone through this kind of thing, and they don't want to talk about it.
00:54:39.220They don't feel comfortable talking about it.
00:54:40.620And that's not my place to tell anyone to talk about it.
00:54:43.120But if you're if you're on your 20th press conference talking about the powerful men who've abused you and it's the 20th time you haven't named a single name.
00:56:37.740They better be feeling it by election time or we're in trouble.
00:56:39.980So, Jesse, putting you back on the hot seat here for a second, what would you say to a full grown man with a mustache who lives in the Nashville area who makes the claim that Taylor Swift is on her way to being the 21st century version of the Beatles?
00:57:57.400You didn't drink ice water after you ran a half marathon.
00:58:00.400You drank ice water at a Super Bowl party while, I might mention, hanging out with guys and pounding meats on the patio, I think, in your phrasing.
00:58:12.220He's going to be voting for Mayor Pete in every election for the rest of his life.
00:58:26.580Through the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, you can honor the courage and sacrifice of our nation's greatest heroes, first responders, and military heroes, like United States Army Lieutenant Colonel Christy Rabitz.
00:58:38.760Christy served our country with unwavering dedication for 20 years.
00:58:42.520As a combat nurse, she provided life-saving care to wounded soldiers, including at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center during the height of the global war on terror.
00:58:51.900Christy was also a devoted wife, mother, and mentor whose life was rooted in compassion and integrity.
00:58:58.460After six years of courageously battling service-related cancer, Christy's life was tragically cut short.
00:59:05.120She leaves behind her husband, Stephen, and their two kids.
00:59:08.580Tunnel to Towers honored Christy's service and sacrifice by paying off the mortgage on her family's home.