Verdict with Ted Cruz - Bonus： Daily Review with Clay and Buck - Jul 16 2026

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.460 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.300 Welcome, everybody, to the Thursday edition

00:00:08.120 of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.

00:00:12.220 Congrats to you, Argentina fans out there.

00:00:16.180 Very sad day for those of us who were

00:00:18.560 on the jolly old England train.

00:00:22.120 Very sad for us.

00:00:23.520 They were defeated right after the show yesterday.

00:00:27.080 And so I think there'll be a lot less World Cup talk

00:00:28.980 on the show because I no longer am going to be in a position

00:00:34.740 where I can say that I have picked an amazing team

00:00:38.320 to win the whole thing.

00:00:39.480 So we can just forget all about my prediction,

00:00:42.160 which was, Clay, you were at the game.

00:00:44.620 I was at the game.

00:00:45.840 Your boys, Jolly Old England, 0.86

00:00:49.520 that's one of the weakest, most cowardly conclusions

00:00:54.480 to a game that I have seen in a very, very long time

00:00:58.460 across all sports, England, for those of you who didn't watch,

00:01:00.980 and it was an amazing game, England got a 1-0 lead

00:01:04.200 and basically went into a fetal position

00:01:08.220 and just tried to protect that lead.

00:01:11.780 They're playing against the greatest soccer player of all time,

00:01:16.060 and they just had, what, 12?

00:01:17.940 And probably the best offense, the best offense of all time.

00:01:20.980 This would be, to put it in football terms for everybody,

00:01:23.820 this would be you're up one touchdown, not five touchdowns,

00:01:27.180 you're up one touchdown and for the second half of the entire football game you're like i have this

00:01:32.560 amazing idea let's just run a prevent defense the entire time and not try to score ourselves

00:01:39.020 we're gonna just run the ball every we're gonna punch it to them on every play and we're gonna

00:01:45.060 run prevent on defense though it was clay the fact that that coach makes eight million dollars a year

00:01:50.440 it was the single most it was the worst malpractice from a coaching perspective in sports i've ever

00:01:56.320 seen but a lot of you don't care so we're not going to spend much time on this today we will

00:02:00.700 just say the world cup is pretty much over as far as i'm concerned spain's playing argentina

00:02:05.880 iran iraq war for me i wish they could both lose and uh there you go i i it was an amazing scene

00:02:13.400 great event atlanta has done a fantastic job i do think uh president trump's going to be

00:02:19.460 interviewed before the world cup for the conclusion on sunday and i do think you have to give a

00:02:26.440 tremendous amount of credit to andrew giuliani who we've had on this program quite a lot

00:02:30.220 there are two games left they play a third place game which is like the that's that's absurd that's

00:02:36.140 absurd no one cares the saddest game they should put us they should put us in there just for the

00:02:40.040 lols uh and uh but the championship the the game in new york is going to be awesome and i do think

00:02:47.480 this summer we have used soccer to establish american exceptionalism in the eyes of many

00:02:54.700 people around the world everybody has come and visited it has been very safe uh we're uh on

00:03:00.740 track to have the greatest attendance and the television viewership for those who haven't been

00:03:05.980 able to go to a game has been outstanding uh so all that is good but buck's beloved england

00:03:10.900 has gone down it was like i said the battle of yorktown um in uh in many ways for uh for the uh

00:03:17.720 for the british boys um yes it turns out well it turns out refusing to fight back is not a

00:03:24.720 brilliant strategy when you are in a fight so i i could not you'll appreciate this historical

00:03:30.840 analogy i have pierce morgan is in hiding i think uh as uh one of the foremost english soccer fans

00:03:36.260 on the planet i texted tweeted him that basically the second half for england was like dunkirk if

00:03:43.020 no one had come to rescue the british army which i think is a pretty good historical analogy yeah

00:03:48.560 yeah no that that that is it was rough okay i know you some of you you're gonna be so happy

00:03:53.780 because we're done i don't care about the world cup now anymore a lot of you didn't care the whole

00:03:56.860 time there you go i was just going to do a victory dance if england won the whole thing because that

00:04:00.940 would have been an incredible prediction that i would have made from the very start of the tournament

00:04:04.320 Nonetheless, they ripped my heart out.

00:04:05.700 I'm very sad.

00:04:06.520 Let's talk about America.

00:04:09.500 Okay?

00:04:10.000 Let's dive into what we got going on here.

00:04:11.540 First of all, I love this new policy in progress from the DOD.

00:04:18.300 It's going to be the TRT-DOD, testosterone replacement therapy.

00:04:23.360 We were texting about this.

00:04:25.300 This is amazing.

00:04:26.140 This is incredible.

00:04:27.040 Secretary of War Hegseth, who I'm going to tell you, when I met Pete 15 years ago,

00:04:31.680 there was zero chance he could bench 315 pounds just gonna tell you this zero chance he benched

00:04:37.860 15 years ago i mean i would have get i would have bet money that i could have benched more

00:04:43.260 than him 15 years ago so that should tell you something so he's benching 315 now he is i can

00:04:49.180 tell you a fan of hormone replacement therapy all right that's very obvious um and those who

00:04:56.180 have gone down this pathway have an understanding of this um it is well we'll we'll be joined do we

00:05:03.500 have rut guys later on with us on this one uh he's on vac i think he's on he's he's actually

00:05:09.260 literally on safari right now i think he's uh he's chasing lions hopefully not actually wrestling

00:05:14.640 them with his bare hands although with rut you never know um but he is uh he's overseas the

00:05:19.440 point here being guys they're they're looking at doing a testosterone check as part of the annual

00:05:25.200 medical eval for men in the military and they're going to change the approach to hrt we will talk

00:05:33.660 more about that later i absolutely uh love this though as an idea it makes a lot of sense it's

00:05:41.100 not a mandate for anybody and if your testosterone is healthy there's no one's no doctor is going to

00:05:45.600 say you know oh you're 30 years old you're 25 years old your testosterone level is 750 or 800

00:05:51.620 nanograms a deciliter i think that's what the uh you know ngl yeah uh no one's gonna say oh my

00:05:59.020 gosh we need to start doing more but if you're a guy in the military and you're 40 or 45 and you

00:06:04.160 want to be uh operating at your best makes a lot of sense okay there is that part of it but clay

00:06:09.600 one thing yesterday uh i talked a bit about first of all do you hear the discussion on the squatting

00:06:14.880 i got a lot of response on that one the squatting show well i i saw that you were tweeting about

00:06:20.540 this in the context of this is you being in a hotel room and just scrolling through on the guide

00:06:26.940 and you just picked a random show to watch and you've been you've been obsessed with this show

00:06:31.100 now i love this i love this i'm not the only one we've invited this guy on we can get to that later

00:06:35.980 but uh the squatting thing is is really taken off something else that i talked about uh we talked

00:06:41.520 about the top of the show which was they can't back off of this policy on immigration let's get

00:06:46.900 into immigration let's get into some some top line items here clay we were discussing immigration

00:06:51.780 yesterday and the first hour of the program and i was saying and you agreed and saying look you

00:06:56.420 can't give in to these communists and say we're not going to do vehicle stops anymore because

00:07:01.820 there's been two incidents where people allegedly tried to ram ice officers with their cars and they

00:07:06.780 got shot by the way if you tried to ram your local sheriff with your car you were likely to get shot

00:07:12.400 and that is a lawful shooting right i mean this is not a complicated matter assuming the facts

00:07:17.780 line up in that way some people were saying why are you being so hard i don't know if you saw some

00:07:22.240 of this there was a little bit of chirping why are you why are you complaining about about this

00:07:26.540 it's fine it's fine it's fine it's not fine and we know that because trump himself has come out

00:07:33.180 with the following clay the men and women of ice this was on uh on truth are doing a great job

00:07:39.120 crime is way down the open border policy of sleepy joe allowed 25 million whoa people to

00:07:45.520 pour into our country many were criminals we have to get them tough etc uh the traffic stop

00:07:51.440 we cannot give up on one of isis most important and effective crime fighting tools the traffic

00:07:56.640 stop he's saying here i won't read the whole thing because it's pretty long but clay

00:08:01.000 trump came back overruled this decision that was an internal memo within dhs the traffic stops are

00:08:07.360 back i just want to say clay and buck get results the president agrees with us you can't i mean this

00:08:15.100 to me is just very basic you cannot tell bad guys what they can do to avoid consequences for being

00:08:22.040 bad guys because some people are going to be surprised by this many of you who worked in

00:08:27.180 law enforcement or not the bad guys often know exactly what the law is and will use the law to

00:08:33.960 their advantage when it comes to how are they how much drugs are they carrying they'll know

00:08:39.040 mandatory minimum laws they'll know uh they'll sometimes have people who are underage be doing

00:08:44.500 things uh for them because those guys have less significant consequences if they're caught

00:08:49.720 you can't tell people hey if you get in a car and flee we're no longer going to be pursuing you

00:08:57.360 because the worst thing you could do is actually create more of these situations buck which is

00:09:02.920 exactly what this will do because it encourages people to know exactly what they have to do to

00:09:08.660 avoid being taken into custody by ICE. So I think this was a this was a mishap. I do think the

00:09:16.760 design, Buck, the fact that this happened in Maine, I do think politically there was a concern

00:09:23.540 that this was going to be difficult for Susan Collins to reconcile. And if this had happened

00:09:29.700 in like we saw happen in texas i don't think there was any rapid try to address that situation

00:09:34.620 i think the fact that this happened in a battleground location where a senate race is

00:09:39.580 ongoing made the politics of it particularly fraught and i think that's the underlying basis

00:09:45.540 upon which this decision was made but i think they got to the right result after 24 hours a

00:09:50.860 bit of confusion right i would just note though that for anyone who was who was emailing in

00:09:56.300 shut up it's fine well no actually was that actually happening were people upset that we

00:10:01.740 were calling this out there were there were some who're saying we're being don't be critical of 0.85

00:10:06.140 the administration on this no we absolutely should be critical of the administration on this

00:10:10.300 trump knew i mean when i see the administration that's not just trump he has all these people

00:10:14.980 who have to do things this was a decision made below you know the trump level and he as soon as

00:10:21.420 it was brought to his attention obviously he was like guys what are you doing we got to keep doing

00:10:25.840 this so cause and effect right you know you gotta bring these things up to get people to uh see

00:10:32.520 what's happening because the deportation issue is absolutely essential by the way do we have

00:10:36.760 tommy laren on later because she wants to uh weigh in on this we got her at one o'clock we got tommy

00:10:41.600 laren joining us at one o'clock we've also got another blonde who will be on at one o'clock 0.96

00:10:46.620 caroline levitt back from uh that's what we call a transition back to a uh white house press 0.97

00:10:52.900 secretary role yes she's back from maternity leave for baby number two so uh she will be having a

00:10:58.780 press availability and i would say the biggest news that is out there is president trump is

00:11:03.860 going to have a prime time address tonight where reports are that he is going to address

00:11:09.000 chinese interference in our election particularly 2020 and how it might have impacted the overall

00:11:16.700 results of the 2020 election so are the networks going to cover it uh that is one question there's

00:11:24.160 been a lot of pushback i haven't seen the official determination but this morning as i was doing my

00:11:28.840 prep there was pushback against the idea that they were going to cover it um and what is the

00:11:34.340 fallout going to be of these uh of these comments and how detailed are they going to be from the

00:11:40.840 president as it pertains to the election i i hope that this well we'll see we'll i'll just i'll

00:11:50.040 wait and see how about that let's see what is presented here but it will be china collusion

00:11:53.880 instead of russia collusion it sounds like so uh we'll be entering a new phase of that discussion

00:11:59.740 um and here's by the way tom holman has waited on this uh is specifically on the ice shootings

00:12:07.260 And you guys all know, and I say it just so I'm on the record.

00:12:10.160 I'm a Tom Homan fan.

00:12:11.340 The guy is the real deal and is totally dedicated to the mission.

00:12:15.540 This is cut 24.

00:12:16.660 Listen to what he had to say about the shooting.

00:12:18.160 I'm scared to death because assaults with vehicles are sky high.

00:12:22.300 There's been a lot of shootings.

00:12:23.780 I'm scared to death that one of these days, our IRS officers aren't going to be quick enough.

00:12:28.920 The bad guys are going to be quicker.

00:12:30.280 And I'm going to hand another folded flag to a spouse or a child.

00:12:33.560 So, you know, President Trump is clear.

00:12:35.320 This policy is not going away.

00:12:36.980 But it all goes back to the Dems who want to continually attack ICE and tell people to evade them,

00:12:41.940 tell people don't comply, tell people to resist, and tell people ICE doesn't ruin law enforcement agency.

00:12:46.960 You and I talked about this year and a half ago, Laura.

00:12:49.200 I said if the hateful rhetoric didn't stop, there will be bloodshed.

00:12:52.300 And I'm saying it right now. 0.95

00:12:53.620 There's still going to be more bloodshed unless they shut their mouth.

00:12:58.000 Clay, this is the critical point of many things that Hohman said there.

00:13:02.460 But Democrats encouraging people to resist so they can get some political issues, they can maybe get something on video or or even just news reports in the preliminary for their own political purposes.

00:13:15.600 They're sending people into lethal force situations on purpose.

00:13:20.540 Yes. Yes. The goal is to create more Renee Goods, more Alex Preddies.

00:13:26.260 They want there to be deaths. They want there to be violence because if that occurs, they get their viral video, which to them is representative of why what ICE is doing is abhorrent.

00:13:39.960 i do think this kind of ties in with your manufacturing delusion book it is worth

00:13:44.520 constantly reinforcing that democrats have come to the position that they must risk life and limb

00:13:54.260 to keep people who are illegally here from being removed from our country and that that is a

00:14:01.420 position that virtually no democrat in america would have had as recently as what 2000 i mean

00:14:07.660 obama ran on deportations in 2008 and even 2012 this is a radical change in the democrat party

00:14:15.140 that orthodoxy now of their entire left-wing uh guys here is that they have to stand up and

00:14:23.180 prevent people illegally here from being taken out of the country it's it's really radical that

00:14:28.460 this has become mainstream in any way all right secretary of war pete hegseth as you know announced

00:14:34.480 this new screening program for testosterone deficiency for service members he talks about

00:14:39.020 the science in this that as we age our t levels naturally decline it's just a fact you can do

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00:15:48.540 Clay and Buck, just preset them on the iHeart app. 1.00

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00:16:22.160 Welcome back in.

00:16:23.240 Clay and Buck, hour number two.

00:16:25.120 We're rolling through the program.

00:16:26.460 Appreciate all of you.

00:16:27.760 hanging out with us we are scheduled to be joined by tommy lahren of outkick and also the big fox

00:16:34.020 weekend show where she's on six hours every weekend she does a lot want to encourage all of

00:16:41.280 you to go check out our youtube page where you can watch now all three hours of the program

00:16:48.180 including tommy who's about to be on with us right now and you can comment and if you go to

00:16:54.940 the live tab you can find us there we're continuing to refine and experiment it experiment with that

00:17:01.400 but buck already we're getting thousands of people watching live every single day which is a nice way

00:17:08.200 to continue to grow this audience we love everybody on amfm we love all of you watching right now uh

00:17:14.500 on youtube sirius satellite radio everybody out there and tommy lahren joins us now um and tommy

00:17:21.720 i just check it in my mentions i was uh making fun of the savannah bananas sb opening act and

00:17:29.780 the savannah bananas community has has come after me in all their glory in the comments which is

00:17:37.340 actually very very funny uh your husband is a major league baseball former player and a coach

00:17:44.940 so you had the savannah bananas back uh in this uh in this great imbroglio that has uh has broken

00:17:51.340 out online so anybody who wants to be entertained by the comments the savannah banana community is

00:17:56.640 coming after me uh but tommy there's a lot to get into let's start off with you i feel like i'm

00:18:03.140 teeing you up very well here um pete hegseth says that there are going to be testosterone level

00:18:09.540 checks now for troops um what do you think the testosterone level is of the average democrat

00:18:17.460 voting male in america right now well listen clay i don't know like the hormonal imbalances right

00:18:25.260 you know that's not really my my wheelhouse so i just go off of you know my observations right

00:18:30.600 but you said it before and i wholeheartedly agree with you uh the democrat men you know they don't

00:18:36.280 really scream manly and then they try to find one that they think reads manly because you know he

00:18:41.760 He has a beard and he wears overalls and Plattner is the best they could do because for them, it's like if we just have somebody who looks a little bit less meek and feminine, then people will think that we are the masculine party.

00:18:55.480 And then they pick Graham Plattner, who fantasizes about port-a-potties.

00:18:59.900 So I don't think they have any understanding on the left about what masculinity is.

00:19:05.040 I don't think they know what it looks like, what it sounds like.

00:19:07.800 I certainly think they don't understand the hormonal imbalances.

00:19:10.960 if if that's part of the problem here but and they still struggle to do that so i don't think

00:19:15.600 there's any hope they're going to find it before 2026 or 2028 i haven't seen any convincing evidence

00:19:21.040 that they know what it even is so tommy one thing i want to talk to you about other than

00:19:26.300 the the sadness that uh brian stelter and so many other men of the left-wing media are going to have

00:19:33.200 now that we have a high trt dod situation playing out um but but seriously on on the issue of uh

00:19:40.800 deportations and immigration i saw and i agreed with your with your sense i saw your frustration 0.94

00:19:46.740 that that we were making a concession to the lunatic left uh you know attack ice maniacs

00:19:55.620 by not doing i'm sure you've seen now trump has flipped that around yeah that's a step in the

00:20:01.240 right direction but how are you feeling you've been on the border issue very closely for a long

00:20:05.920 time and i know you've been down there a bunch of times how are you feeling about the promises made

00:20:10.300 promises kept aspect of trump 2.0 on deportation specifically well listen i don't think this is

00:20:16.720 actually president trump right i think he's got some folks that perhaps maybe are in his ear or

00:20:21.980 maybe you're just doing what they want to do i don't know the intricacies of all of that i'm not

00:20:25.880 in these rooms. But I firmly believe that President Trump won in 2016 and in 2024 based

00:20:31.780 almost entirely on his immigration stance and on mass deportations. These people that are trying

00:20:37.240 to revise history saying that he was only going to deport the so-called worst of the worst were

00:20:42.400 not paying attention. I watched every single rally. I was promised the largest mass deportation effort

00:20:47.920 in history. And I believe that that's what it started out as. And then the left, they issued

00:20:54.040 their heckler's veto. They sent their green hair septum piercing mafia out to harass agents in 0.99

00:21:00.260 Minneapolis, in Chicago, in New Jersey and everywhere else, Los Angeles. And then every 0.99

00:21:07.480 time they do that, some debacle happens, shocker, and then we back off. And it seems to me like

00:21:14.260 maybe some folks in DHS are more worried about how it's going to play to CNN and MSNBC and the

00:21:21.760 tricking liberals who are never going to vote Republican anyway than they are about the promise

00:21:26.200 of mass deportation. So, yeah, very fired up about it. I think President Trump stepped in,

00:21:31.400 thank goodness, because he understands these things. He knows what his base voted on. And

00:21:35.980 even the ones that won't admit it, you guys both know there are people that won't admit that they

00:21:40.580 want mass deportation because it doesn't sound nice in their liberal mommy circles. But quietly,

00:21:46.320 they want mass deportations. So I think the president was right to reverse it. I don't know

00:21:51.660 about the leadership of Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen. I don't know if he's got the stones

00:21:55.780 to carry out mass deportations, but I hope the message was sent loud and clear that this is what 0.93

00:22:00.660 we want. What do you think the president should say tonight? The address is going to get a lot

00:22:07.320 of attention. There are reports that much of it has to do with 2020 and the election fraud related

00:22:15.160 to 2020 how is that going to play out midterms does it matter what do you expect my my general

00:22:21.800 take tommy would be and i bet buck would sign off on this too that it's almost even if trump showed

00:22:28.060 up with dead to rights evidence of explicit cheating that is impossible to ignore the new

00:22:35.040 york times cnn msnbc all of these outlets would just choose not to cover it right we'd all be

00:22:41.580 screaming on the side over here hey hey here's all the evidence they still wouldn't cover it

00:22:46.580 or they'd still say he's lying what do you think the impact of tonight's going to be what would

00:22:50.880 you tell the president well i would say this i'm just as upset about you know any type of

00:22:57.080 voter fraud election fraud interference as the next person obviously that's why the safe america

00:23:02.480 act is so important to me i'm not so sure relitigating 2020 is the way to go if we want

00:23:08.520 to relitigate 2020, why doesn't someone go to prison for the COVID scandemic? I mean, I guess 0.97

00:23:14.280 for me, I'm a little bit more fired up about that one. You know, President Trump won in 2024.

00:23:19.620 And also, let's look ahead. You know, let's pass the Save America Act, or at the very least,

00:23:24.020 let's get some voter ID, right? That would be great. Even if we have just voter ID, something

00:23:28.660 simple, incremental, you know, wins there, I'd be happy with that. So I don't know what the speech

00:23:34.000 is going to be tonight if it's just going to be hey i should have won in 2020 i don't know how

00:23:38.860 that lands i don't know how that fixes anything but if it's you know something to this is why we

00:23:43.920 need to pass save america act then you know we're in the right vein but i just think looking towards

00:23:49.720 the future is probably more helpful especially as we go into the midterms

00:23:53.920 tommy how are you feeling about the iran situation right now with uh gas prices and everything else

00:24:00.320 in flux well i'll tell you this i don't think that we went into iran because we wanted to or

00:24:08.940 because it was just for fun or it was for president trump's legacy i believe that we

00:24:14.080 went into iran because we had to for some you know extreme purpose that we had to prevent

00:24:19.340 something massive from happening that being said i'm glad that we're resuming strikes because i

00:24:24.260 think the worst thing that was happening was the couple of months where nothing was happening and

00:24:28.720 we just had the promises of a deal, the promises of a memorandum. I mean, we reported on it every

00:24:33.780 single weekend. And I think that that left a lot of people with false hope. And now it's kind of

00:24:38.780 like the boy who cried wolf. Like, do we have an understanding? Do we have a ceasefire? Are we

00:24:43.600 going to have diplomatic talks? Is the street going to be open? So when you go back and forth

00:24:48.320 with people and people are, you know, especially those that a lot of their family budget is reliant

00:24:53.780 on what the gas prices are, I think you just got to play it straight with people and don't give

00:24:58.340 them false hope that you know somehow the straight is going to magically be open and it's going to

00:25:02.300 stay open we haven't seen any evidence that it is so just play it straight with people so they know

00:25:07.860 what to expect so they don't get their hopes up i think that would be my take on it we're talking

00:25:12.620 to tommy lauren big weekend show on fox news outkick show as well uh our friend are you going

00:25:19.560 to go see the odyssey and what has been your take on the elliott ellen page revelations uh we were

00:25:28.200 talking about this a little bit earlier uh of him playing her playing however you want to classify

00:25:35.260 it a soldier and running around in armor at five feet tall what's going on here well i think that's

00:25:43.960 embarrassing and i think that there's you know definitely some capitulation to the woke mob on

00:25:48.580 some aspects of it you know the way they're depicting helen of troy i'm not sure that's so

00:25:53.400 accurate to the actual time period or the epic itself that I grew up reading in school. I'd

00:25:59.600 probably still go see it because I love the Odyssey, just what it represents. And as part

00:26:04.440 of my childhood, we all had to read it many times and watch the old movies. So I'll probably go and

00:26:09.640 see it. I'm hoping The Woke doesn't creep into the storyline. If it doesn't creep into the

00:26:14.300 storyline, I'm okay. If it's just they have the woman who thinks she's a man, I can get beyond 0.91

00:26:19.480 that i'm just hoping they didn't try to alter the actual storyline of the odyssey that is my big

00:26:26.580 hope um and if they do they'll pay for it tommy clay might have convinced the massive company

00:26:33.160 paramount to move to your shared hometown of nashville that is in progress right now what do

00:26:38.300 you think about nash vegas going from being just the country music capital of the country

00:26:42.500 to also the possibility here of it being a major movie TV production hub?

00:26:49.580 And would there be a Tommy Lahren starring drama at some point

00:26:54.220 if Clay can make that happen?

00:26:56.320 Listen, I love when companies come to Tennessee

00:26:59.260 because I love the investment.

00:27:00.800 But as Clay knows, we have already a lot of Californians here.

00:27:04.620 I don't know how many Californians we can absorb at this point.

00:27:08.080 I think we're kind of saturated.

00:27:09.400 I love the idea of entertainment coming here, though, because I think it's just a natural transition.

00:27:15.140 Austin has become a comedy hub, and I think that Nashville could be the next Hollywood.

00:27:20.540 Georgia had it for a while.

00:27:21.820 I think it's much better in Nashville.

00:27:23.900 I think Nashville serves that purpose.

00:27:26.020 But, you know, as Clay knows, you drive around Tennessee and there's a lot of Californians here.

00:27:30.620 So let's see what it brings, right?

00:27:32.680 I don't know what Starbucks is going to bring.

00:27:35.160 Are they going to bring more liberals here?

00:27:37.120 That's my concern.

00:27:38.100 I guess it's growing pains, but I don't know how many more, you know, Californians, liberal minded folks we can absorb.

00:27:46.400 And I want to say this, too. A lot of people say, well, they're fleeing because they understand that their state is run horribly.

00:27:52.620 Yes, a lot of them are. But I will say, and I don't know if Clay has the same experience, I can say just from my neighborhood.

00:27:58.400 There are a lot of people who are conservative, maybe fiscally.

00:28:01.920 They don't want to pay the taxes in California. They don't want to have the regulations on their businesses.

00:28:06.620 so in that mindset they are conservative but like in my neighborhood i have a i live in a gated

00:28:12.060 community there are californians that live in my community who say they're conservative they don't

00:28:17.420 want security to carry a gun that makes them nervous okay so those are the things that i have

00:28:23.480 a little bit of trepidation about i i want all my security with guns uh tommy you know i had to move

00:28:30.220 behind the gate because of some of the craziness that's been going on and i want everybody around

00:28:36.480 me with guns uh so uh yeah if that that we don't want the californians that are nervous about

00:28:42.780 people having guns if that's you you can stay in california or you can move to new york instead

00:28:48.300 what do you expect uh tommy here in tennessee the voting early voting starts tomorrow uh marcia 0.70

00:28:55.540 blackburn was on with us tuesday i think she's expected to win as the next governor she fought

00:29:01.000 the state income tax um it feels to me we're going to have nine republicans representing the

00:29:06.700 whole state that in much of the state there is really good leadership i know i would say floridians

00:29:12.540 would say the same thing i think texans largely would too where we have no state income tax

00:29:17.620 what do you expect from these uh elections that are starting here in tennessee on friday

00:29:23.160 well i've always liked senator marshall blackburn you know she's been a friend of mine for a long

00:29:29.600 time, even before I moved to Tennessee. So, you know, she has my support. I think what the sleeper

00:29:34.580 issue might be, and I still think Republicans are going to take everything. This is Tennessee.

00:29:38.700 I think the sleeper issue on some of it, though, might be the data center stuff. I think that

00:29:43.580 that's going to have a bigger impact than people understand. It's an area where the left has found

00:29:49.720 they can pull some from the right, because a lot of folks that are rural, if they're Tennesseans or

00:29:55.300 wherever they might be in this country they're a little bit anxious about the data centers and

00:30:00.720 they keep putting them you know usually obviously where the land is in the rural areas and people

00:30:05.660 in georgia and maybe in tennessee and some other places are a little nervous about that people that

00:30:10.080 are very conservative so the data center issue i think is going to be bigger than people think

00:30:16.920 interesting i i can definitely see that drama starting uh to build as well by the way caroline

00:30:23.580 levitt at the rostrum returning from having her second baby press conference underway right now

00:30:29.740 starting uh tommy keep up the good work uh people watching on the weekend and they can subscribe to

00:30:35.800 your youtube channel for your outkick show which is doing fantastically well as well what else

00:30:40.820 should they know from your perspective how do they find you well we're gonna be uh i'll be

00:30:45.880 heading to new york i have to leave tennessee as i always do heading to new york doing a little

00:30:50.240 outnumbered tomorrow and then of course we'll be on the big weekend show so we got the world cup

00:30:54.460 final on sunday that'll be interesting clay i think i'm on with you yeah i think i'm on to

00:31:00.300 world cup tommy i i feel like you're you're gonna nail this who's gonna win i i i promise you i i

00:31:08.520 care not one bit about soccer so i couldn't even don't even answer bananas i'd rather watch the

00:31:14.560 savannah bananas play tommy loves america too much to weigh in on argentina versus spain

00:31:20.420 this surprises nobody tommy thank you for being with us thank you guys talk to you soon i'll be

00:31:26.300 on with tommy on sunday so the big new uh the big uh big weekend show if you want to watch that i'm

00:31:31.680 also on big noon on fox sports uh which is not too far away now we got college football coming

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00:32:54.480 all the time preset clay and buck on the iheart app all right third hour clay and buck kicks off

00:33:01.300 right now thanks for being here with us everybody and uh we just had caroline levitt back from

00:33:06.400 maternity leave uh talking to the nation from the west wing of the white house and we have some

00:33:11.580 updates from that for you uh we've pulled all the most uh newsworthy and relevant clips and we're

00:33:18.200 gonna make sure you're up to speed as you know we are live we are in real time and we are on youtube

00:33:23.400 also in real time so go subscribe to the clay and buck youtube if you're a youtube uh you were out

00:33:29.420 there and in the meantime we've got this clay um a few things by the way uh we have some funny

00:33:37.340 stuff to get to at the back of this hour involving a license plate that's all i can say that will be

00:33:43.400 the only tease i have for this one we will have to get there though clay so remind me but first

00:33:49.140 the uh the serious business of the republic and what's going on with caroline levitt's uh

00:33:56.060 preview of the speech tonight that president trump will give at nine o'clock on is nine

00:34:02.280 eastern is that right i'm talking about i think that's right yes yeah talking about the time

00:34:05.960 changes uh on well here's what caroline this is cut 30 guys here's caroline levitt previewing

00:34:11.840 trump's speech tonight let's hear it part of the problem is that the media has refused to

00:34:16.260 acknowledge that tens of millions of americans across the country share the concerns of this

00:34:20.900 president about the sanctity of our elections and your premise of your question you're jumping

00:34:25.220 ahead to a conclusion in this speech before even hearing it yourself. I think that everyone

00:34:29.440 should tune in tonight, including the people in this room, and you should report on the

00:34:33.500 president's speech and the findings that he is going to reveal in this speech with a little

00:34:37.140 bit of honesty and a little bit of integrity, because it does, it will shock you if you

00:34:41.360 have an honest eye listening to the president tonight and everything he is saying will be

00:34:45.120 backed by facts and by evidence that will be provided this evening. And again, Garrett,

00:34:49.440 again, I think all Americans, Democrat, Republican should agree that we are the greatest country

00:34:54.100 in the history of the world we should have the safest and most secure elections in the history

00:34:58.120 of the world and what the president will be speaking about tonight will show you that perhaps

00:35:01.760 that is not the case and we need to make some adjustments moving forward including the save

00:35:05.880 america act as rachel pointed out is a key legislative priority for this president on

00:35:10.620 capitol hill clay i don't know what the president's going to say tonight and i'm very curious to see

00:35:18.260 it. I will watch it tonight. But I do know, and I would put money on this one, that the

00:35:24.440 people in the press corps who are Trump haters, it doesn't matter what he says. It doesn't

00:35:31.820 matter. So I can appreciate Caroline Levitt asking them to please just once try to be

00:35:36.600 honest. Spoiler alert, everybody. The Trump hating media will not be honest about whatever

00:35:42.700 it is that he says. So we should at least all be prepared for that as we wait to see

00:35:46.440 what the president has to say yeah that's what i was saying earlier is even if president trump

00:35:52.060 came out and provided the most dyed in the wool beyond self-doubt beyond criticism beyond

00:35:59.820 reasonable doubt evidence that our elections are insecure and that they have been influenced in a

00:36:07.200 way that uh that makes them unsafe msnbc cnn new york times they're not going to cover it

00:36:15.220 they're just not and i they have decided that president trump is uh they they cared drastically

00:36:22.940 it is kind of funny in 2016 all of them bought the russia collusion hoax and covered the idea

00:36:30.140 that russia had rigged our election as if it were the biggest story in the history of the united

00:36:36.720 States. In 2020, Trump said our election was rigged and none of them would cover it. And now 0.66

00:36:44.320 in 2024, I think Trump won so comfortably that everybody's just kind of said, yeah, Kamala was

00:36:49.620 an awful candidate. Trump won. I do think, Buck, one of the big lasting questions that is still

00:36:57.360 out there, you and I talked about it yesterday. I'll be honest. In 2020, I didn't believe

00:37:04.780 anywhere near as much as I do now that the 81 million Biden votes were illegitimate.

00:37:12.300 And I looked at it and I said, okay, maybe Trump is uniquely able to, in 2020,

00:37:19.400 we know they changed all the rules with ballots and everything else.

00:37:22.820 The fact that Kamala is 6 million less than Biden in 2024 made me go back to 2020

00:37:30.180 and look at it and say, there's no way that Biden got 81 million legitimate votes.

00:37:37.200 There just isn't.

00:37:38.600 And I think increasing majorities of Americans just look at it,

00:37:43.420 take away the politics, whether you're a Trump person, whether you're a Biden person.

00:37:47.700 The question I think you have to ask is,

00:37:49.520 is Joe Biden the most popular presidential candidate to ever run in the history of the United States?

00:37:56.220 I think there's not one single person in America that would say that.

00:37:58.900 I'll put it this way, Buck.

00:38:00.180 We're making fun of Biden announcing that he's releasing a book this week.

00:38:04.120 Have you ever seen anybody wear Biden gear?

00:38:08.220 Oh, yes.

00:38:08.920 No, no.

00:38:09.380 Excuse me.

00:38:10.180 Excuse me, sir.

00:38:11.720 Some of the illegals who were showing up at the border were wearing Biden T-shirts.

00:38:16.000 They were very excited, very excited about Biden's presidency.

00:38:20.020 So the reason why I bring it up, you might say, okay, Clay, why would you even bring up the idea of Biden gear?

00:38:25.520 When you wear something, like right now I'm wearing an Atlanta Braves T-shirt, right?

00:38:30.180 When you wear something that you are committed to that shows you are a member of a tribe,

00:38:36.120 it shows a depth of commitment.

00:38:38.800 Whatever you think about Trump, the red MAGA hat is an unbelievably powerful sign

00:38:45.940 of how much depth of support there is for Trump, right?

00:38:49.860 I don't ever remember seeing anyone wear in their normally existing life Biden gear.

00:38:56.020 And so I think you just reasonably look at all of this and say, is there a depth of support of Joe Biden?

00:39:04.560 You went through with Grok, was it yesterday?

00:39:06.740 I think you were reading what Grok said about the 81 million votes that Biden got.

00:39:11.380 In the wake of the 2024 election, we can test Trump.

00:39:15.480 2016, 2020, 2024.

00:39:17.500 There are 12 years, basically, of Trump data out there now since he came down the escalator and began his political career.

00:39:29.600 There's about 12 years of data-ish of what Trump represents on the American political landscape.

00:39:35.780 There's no way Biden got 81 million legal votes.

00:39:39.660 I do not believe it.

00:39:41.720 Now, I don't think there's any way that a New York Times reporter would ever say what I just said, no matter what the evidence is.

00:39:49.540 I don't think there's any way a CNN reporter would say it.

00:39:51.960 I don't think there's any way an MSNBC reporter would say it.

00:39:55.040 So no matter what Trump lays out tonight, it's not going to impact the way that this is covered,

00:40:01.880 and half the country is not going to hear what he says at all, and they're going to be told that he's just lying to them.

00:40:08.300 So my concern, and we just asked Tommy Lahren about this at the top of the next hour, is, is this going to help in the midterms?

00:40:17.900 Or is it going to be people saying, hey, like that was six years ago, and I'm talking about people who are persuadable voters.

00:40:24.960 What I care about now is cost of living.

00:40:27.380 What I care about now is mortgage rates, which are way too high.

00:40:30.940 What I care about is the rate on my credit card debt.

00:40:33.660 that's what i think the average american wants to hear and my concern is this is going to be

00:40:40.840 discordant because it's going to sound like trump again we haven't read this speech and

00:40:45.200 we haven't seen the speech or anything else but it's going to sound like trump is retrospectively

00:40:49.900 focused on events instead of prospective prospectively focused my my sense clay is he

00:40:57.220 may present tonight numbers and data to support uh his very clear view on the 2020 election and

00:41:07.960 he's doing so not just to relitigate the past which will certainly be an alleg you know an

00:41:13.440 accusation that people a criticism people will make about this but also because of the save

00:41:17.780 america act and the desire that the president and many other republicans have to further uh secure

00:41:25.700 and solidify elections going forward, right?

00:41:28.460 So there is, I think, going to be an action piece of this

00:41:31.380 other than Trump wanting to address something

00:41:35.340 that he feels very passionately and personally about

00:41:37.860 for obvious reasons.

00:41:39.440 My sense is that it will tie into the Save America Act as well,

00:41:43.040 which, unfortunately, then you get into

00:41:46.160 why isn't it being passed?

00:41:47.520 It's not being passed because of the assumption

00:41:50.060 of a Democrat filibuster,

00:41:51.780 and unless people are willing to change that rule in the Senate,

00:41:54.740 that's where it goes and dies

00:41:57.040 I don't think there's any

00:41:58.920 willingness to change it in the Senate

00:42:00.140 so we get into this

00:42:02.560 this is where it just gets frustrating

00:42:04.000 you and I are frustrated as much as many listeners are

00:42:06.940 the SAVE Act has 80% public

00:42:09.040 support

00:42:09.480 majorities of black, white, Asian, Hispanic

00:42:12.920 people all say

00:42:14.460 this is very basic

00:42:15.760 let's have elemental security

00:42:18.920 when it comes to casting a ballot

00:42:20.640 and yet

00:42:22.020 and yet we cannot get

00:42:24.680 this basic uh bill passed we got a lot of people jack in virginia wants to weigh in on this jack

00:42:30.900 what you got yes uh your call screener and i've talked about this uh we don't want to

00:42:38.160 re-litigate it but don't think that this can't happen again the democrats are very good at this

00:42:45.720 and if you know anything about american history this isn't the first time they did this so we

00:42:52.760 need to get the uh the facts out and uh just let let the people decide themselves to me there there

00:43:00.440 was no doubt that election night i stayed up till two or three in the morning and to see what

00:43:06.380 happened by the next morning i'm like huh what you know where did all these votes come from

00:43:12.560 so uh i hear a lot of people in the media say oh this is not a big deal we need to move on

00:43:19.880 No, we don't need to move on. I mean, this is this is what men fight and die in wars.

00:43:25.760 I agree with everything you're saying. The question that I'm asking is this audience agrees with everything that you're saying.

00:43:33.240 This audience is going to watch whatever Trump says tonight and say, yes, I agree.

00:43:40.040 Is there an ability to actually tangibly change something right now?

00:43:45.600 we have control of the Senate and the argument is, thank you for the call, we need at least

00:43:49.660 60 votes to get anything done. Well, Buck and I have said, and I think

00:43:53.600 President Trump's 100% right about this, as soon as Democrats get back

00:43:57.520 control of the United States Senate and the

00:44:00.800 House and the White House, which could happen as soon as 2028,

00:44:06.340 they're going to immediately do away with the filibuster

00:44:08.920 and they are going to implement radical left-wing

00:44:13.580 agendas and everybody on the Republican side who sat around and said, we have to remain

00:44:18.780 committed to principle and procedure and history is going to look like a patsy because Democrats

00:44:26.580 are going to run roughshod over whenever they have the power to do so.

00:44:30.580 That's my concern.

00:44:32.320 So I just think in many ways, Trump is going to be preaching to the choir that already

00:44:38.660 believes everything he has said.

00:44:41.060 I want to see the speech.

00:44:43.160 I do think having the head of the FBI or the CIA deliver this speech as well,

00:44:51.500 if there's tangible evidence of cheating and also prosecutions.

00:44:57.520 This is where I get really frustrated, and I know you do too, Buck.

00:45:01.220 If we've got people cheating on everything related to COVID,

00:45:04.280 and if we've got everybody cheating on many different things relating to elections,

00:45:09.280 who's who's paid the consequences for any of this well there's all that's all true there's also

00:45:15.900 a component of this clay of the continued beating that the democrat media uh takes formerly the

00:45:24.680 formerly known as the legacy corporate media uh that they take over the i think there's going to

00:45:30.120 be an obvious uh double standard at play if he talks about china influencing the election doing

00:45:36.700 anything that's based in either mainland China or perhaps North Korea

00:45:39.940 on behalf of China, the Democrats in the media are all just going to say,

00:45:45.380 oh, but it didn't matter, it didn't do much.

00:45:47.520 Right, like the Russia $100,000 on Facebook in 2016 really shifted.

00:45:52.200 So he'll expose them for the total frauds and phonies they are once again,

00:45:57.080 and there is value to that as well, assuming that's part of the presentation tonight.

00:46:02.540 But I still think that the midterms here

00:46:06.380 and how this factors into that is probably the most important component.

00:46:11.060 So we've got to see.

00:46:12.260 We're just previewing it right now.

00:46:13.520 We'll see where it goes.

00:46:14.740 We'll take your calls, 800-282-2882, your talkbacks as well.

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00:47:57.400 artists athletes politicians and newsmakers all at different stages of their journey so if you're

00:48:03.740 looking to connect then we hope you'll join us listen to the honest talk podcast on iheart radio

00:48:08.540 or wherever you listen to your podcasts welcome back in here to clay and buck okay we got an

00:48:15.200 update here for you in a real time uh u.s forces are conducting a new wave of strikes against iran

00:48:22.660 as we talk to you uh so they are degrading iranian military capabilities centcom put this out

00:48:29.020 yes we are we are bombing them again the mou is dunzo uh memorandum memorandum of understanding

00:48:37.800 and we are continuing to uh to watch this i so very interesting just one note about this and 0.53

00:48:47.380 i don't want to spend too much time on it because not much has really changed we're back where we

00:48:52.880 were and this is a lot of stop start but clay when we talked about it looks like we don't have i said

00:48:58.900 it looks like we don't have iran quite where we thought we did with cutting off their oil well

00:49:04.540 and you said well yeah during the opening they uh just rushed it all out yep so but this is both of

00:49:13.080 these statements are true we don't have iran right where we want them with the oil because

00:49:17.920 they use the 30 days of negotiations when trump said okay you can sell your oil again to just

00:49:25.960 flood as much of their oil out as possible which now means that one now their storage capacity

00:49:32.420 is back to a place where they have some time they filled their coffers with some hard currency

00:49:38.120 done all this so now it's like we're we're starting not from square one because i know

00:49:43.060 there's a lot of degraded military capability on the ground there but in terms of using the oil

00:49:47.600 as the choke point this could be this could be a little while look the question that president

00:49:53.720 trump is going to be confronted with and we've talked about this a lot on the program over the

00:49:57.560 past several months if you really want to control the situation in iran you have to take karg island

00:50:04.380 You have to take Karg Island and you have to then be in control of the means of production of oil and gas in Iran.

00:50:15.960 If you do that, it would require putting American troops on that island and it would put them in peril and danger.

00:50:25.500 That is to me the that is the decision that President Trump is going to be faced with.

00:50:31.980 because I think we have established that we're not going to get significant regime change

00:50:38.140 through all of these bombs.

00:50:40.460 You were on this from the get-go, Buck, that in order to really force out the IRGC, 0.80

00:50:46.480 you're going to have to replace that government.

00:50:50.540 And the only way you can replace that government is by putting troops on the ground.

00:50:53.960 So to me, kind of the middle ground here would be taking over the financial means

00:50:59.840 of the funding of the government, which would require troops on the ground in Karg Island

00:51:05.900 and us taking over the oil and gas production capabilities of Iran, which is an accelerant.

00:51:13.360 And at that point, when you have U.S. troops who are engaging in gun battles with whatever

00:51:20.100 Iranian resistance is there, it's a war.

00:51:24.660 You can argue about the scale or you can debate the scale of the war, but it's certainly a war.

00:51:28.380 Right now, Trump is saying it's more of a military action than a war.

00:51:31.500 However, we want to, it's really an air campaign or an air and missile, I guess, aerial campaign includes the missiles.

00:51:37.020 But there hasn't been a ground troop component really yet.

00:51:41.040 I know we had to save a downed pilot, but we're not doing the landing large numbers of soldiers.

00:51:48.540 That would be an obvious escalation from the perspective of U.S. risk and also politically here at home. 0.96

00:51:58.380 It's a lot harder to say, oh, but this is just something that we're doing to pressure the Iranians, 0.98

00:52:03.320 especially if we start losing any number of Americans.

00:52:06.180 That changes the calculation for a lot of people.

00:52:09.060 So, Clay, you're right about what we would need for the pressure. 1.00

00:52:12.540 The Iranians, I don't think we'll be able to bring the Iranians to heel, so to speak, 1.00

00:52:16.760 by cutting off their oil for, I mean, based on the numbers in the past. 1.00

00:52:21.760 It'll take a couple of months, really, here.

00:52:23.860 So how long are we going to do the airstrikes?

00:52:25.480 It would put it into the American political midterm process, right?

00:52:30.660 So the question is, does President Trump try to jump ahead of that and decide to make a decision that would be an accelerant, but also, in theory, would, in an ideal world, accelerate some form of resolution?

00:52:45.920 I think the challenge is, Buck, and I think you probably would sign off on this, too.

00:52:50.320 this is never going to be a resolved situation unless you're willing to actually commit boots on the ground 0.51

00:52:59.360 to try to wipe out the irgc once and for all right to send them this is why you know people will talk

00:53:05.920 about uh you know whether or not they thought the bush administration in iraq was a was a total

00:53:12.800 disaster did they make some smart moves some dumb moves whatever it may be yeah if they thought they

00:53:18.020 could get the whole thing done from the air they would have right and and this was also true we

00:53:22.400 had a no-fly zone over iraq for many years which was part of a you know part of the un resolution

00:53:28.220 and and a a carrots and sticks approach to saddam hussein and all this you can't get it all done

00:53:33.640 from the sky and that is uh something that i think the trump administration knew and they were testing

00:53:41.060 this out there has been some miscalculation here i think it's fair to say with the amount of

00:53:48.000 Iranian descent-slash-resistance uprising, you would see as a result.

00:53:53.100 I really do think the hope here was we will be the Iranian counter-revolution's air force.

00:54:01.240 If we're really just being honest about what I think the administration believed at the beginning,

00:54:04.780 they'll say not now, they'll say that's not true, and maybe they're right, maybe they're not,

00:54:11.060 but I do believe that that's what was thought, and there's actually a fair amount of reporting to support that.

00:54:17.440 And then it was, OK, well, we did this thing.

00:54:19.640 They're not rising up.

00:54:20.520 What's the most that we can get out of this?

00:54:22.640 We're going to have to accelerate the punishment from the air to force the concessions we want.

00:54:27.980 I think that has been harder than we anticipated as well.

00:54:32.960 I think the other part of this, and it does deserve to be talked about, Israel was wrong when they told Trump that they believed they had a process by which regime change could occur.

00:54:45.140 I also think this is the question.

00:54:47.440 will israel put boots on the ground if the united states said hey we'll give you air support

00:54:55.900 is there a willingness in israel for israeli soldiers to go into iran and then what does

00:55:05.560 that do in the middle east because buck as you well know having spent time in the middle east

00:55:10.620 there is a different dynamic at play i think when american troops are on the ground because

00:55:17.200 we are seen as less of a religious war right than when israeli troops are on the ground and it is

00:55:24.680 seen as jews versus muslims now we're pretty much the same you think it's just as bad for u.s troops

00:55:31.160 on the ground as it is when they were trying to blow us up in iraq they were calling us crusaders

00:55:35.520 and jews crusaders and judas i'm just telling you it's bad they're not like oh the americans are

00:55:40.300 here well i'm thinking that americans would be a little bit better uh no not really they think

00:55:45.880 that we're just the army of israel essentially that we're the army arm of the israeli government

00:55:50.420 like we do israel's bidding so no they do they would not be uh so the question then becomes

00:55:56.900 i did circles right back around i was trying to find a middle ground where israel uh is acting

00:56:03.220 and we're not right where they're putting boots on the ground and taking more risks than we are

00:56:08.060 is there a will to do that in israel would it play worse in the middle east if the answer is no

00:56:12.520 then basically we're just back to the question and this is one of the legacies unfortunately

00:56:17.360 of iraq it could be the case in afghanistan it could be the case that if we put boots on the

00:56:23.360 ground in iran it could actually work out okay right that's a possibility the idea

00:56:28.380 the idea that every time but not into the risk factor right the risk factor of blowing up a

00:56:34.580 bunch of air installations and stuff in iran is pretty low for us yes correct the risk factor of

00:56:40.020 once you start landing look once people are in harm's way uh it changes dynamic overnight i do

00:56:47.260 think that the failure of iraq and afghanistan has basically now for a generation plus it's

00:56:54.480 created a world where everyone says i don't want american troops on the ground anywhere in the

00:57:01.160 middle east and the result is we can't solve anything you know and this is where you start

00:57:09.300 to get into an intractable never-ending you use the phrase you constantly got to mow the grass

00:57:16.260 um and this is where i think a lot of americans just we don't have a lot of patience they think

00:57:20.860 in hundred year terms in iran and in many of these middle eastern countries and we're thinking about

00:57:26.580 months this is also part of the problem with the approach and i know uh didn't jd went on the uh

00:57:33.360 joe rogan right and talked about a bunch of this stuff and jd's frustrated with the criticism about

00:57:38.680 this okay but jd can come on and talk to us whenever he wants it should be criticized this

00:57:45.060 is not working out as planned all right like we should be able to have a conversation about where

00:57:49.500 this is and what's true and what's not uh this is obviously i mean as you know clay i mean everyone

00:57:55.080 knows listens to the show i've been saying the iranians are just going to entangle us

00:57:58.300 in negotiations and then they're going to lie and then they're going to cheat and steal they're

00:58:02.220 going to do everything that this is just this was pretty clearly going to be the case and and the

00:58:07.380 background of all this as well is whatever agreement they do whatever they would even

00:58:11.620 theoretically sign on to as soon as there's a democrat administration they know that there'll

00:58:17.140 be no consequences so they don't have they don't they can sign anything they want ultimately all

00:58:22.200 they have to do is wait until there's heaven forbid but a president kamala or president newsome

00:58:29.480 and then all of a sudden they know it's totally game on they do whatever they want here's jd by

00:58:34.060 the way on iran cut 20 play it what the president has done i think very very capably is said we're

00:58:41.480 going to use military force in the in this situation when it's connected to something

00:58:45.680 we're trying to achieve so if you shoot at ships we're going to shoot at the facilities at which

00:58:49.880 you used to shoot at the ships but we're not just going to do something open-ended indefinitely we're

00:58:55.280 not just going to bomb and bomb and bomb we're going to try to use our military force as one of

00:58:59.340 the many tools that we have to solve the problem and obviously like i'm biased but i think that's

00:59:03.160 exactly the right approach no that's by the way that's he basically contradicts himself without

00:59:08.080 recognizing in the statement we can shoot at whatever they've shot at the ships with

00:59:12.720 for the next 20 years and they'll still have stuff to shoot at the ships so this is actually

00:59:17.920 open-ended i mean i would just disagree with jd on that portion of what he said i would also point

00:59:23.640 out jd vance in a really tough position because he doesn't agree i think it's fair to say with

00:59:30.540 the policies that have been implemented so far that it's public that he argued against going

00:59:36.480 into iran and didn't like a lot of these decisions but as the vp his job is to defend the choices

00:59:43.860 that the president of the United States makes.

00:59:46.340 He has to be an advocate for policies

00:59:48.600 that he individually may not have embraced himself,

00:59:51.660 which is a tough spot.

00:59:53.240 I mean, I think that's one reason, to your point, Buck,

00:59:57.500 that he's kind of on each side of the issue

01:00:00.660 and isn't able to just say exactly.

01:00:04.020 I think the truth of the matter is

01:00:06.140 the president made a choice that J.D. Vance disagrees with,

01:00:10.240 and he can't just come out and say,

01:00:12.780 i disagree with the president because his job is to execute the president's uh decisions well and

01:00:17.900 i think he's been chosen for this role of spokesperson on this because a lot of the pro

01:00:22.680 trump trump voting right that didn't really support this iran situation you know jd is more

01:00:31.060 uh say palatable to them than maybe some of the more interventionist members of the administration

01:00:37.200 so he's a buffer he's a buffer for this trump administration because at least the people that

01:00:42.300 feel like the iran move wasn't the wise move or saying well jd's there we know he didn't like this

01:00:48.020 he's trying to get this done he's trying to get us out of this so there's an optics component of

01:00:53.020 this that that i think is pretty clear would you agree with this i think pete hegseth marco rubio

01:00:59.200 would be on the more aggressive anti-iran response would that be a fair i think secretary hegseth was

01:01:06.300 like we will destroy them down to the lizards if you remember from borat yes yeah so i think those

01:01:11.540 guys are on one side jd vance is on the other and president trump is in between listening to both

01:01:17.760 sides of the argument and on any given day i think president trump is just frustrated at the degree

01:01:25.820 to which iran is lying to him in negotiation yeah and that's coloring much of his response at this

01:01:33.220 point is hey we had a deal you guys are just total liars and he's just almost offended as a deal

01:01:39.380 maker more than anything else so i think what people have to understand about the trump approach

01:01:44.520 to this uh especially for those who are mma fans trump has them in a in a like an arm lock

01:01:52.000 and is saying okay tap out and they're like no and then he snaps the arm and then he goes okay

01:01:59.700 i'm gonna do this to your other arm you're gonna tap out right no because they're crazy and it's 0.99

01:02:06.800 really not their arm that's being broken it's the arm of the iranian people in their economy 0.73

01:02:11.080 so that's the problem here is that a normal leader would say all right trump's got us boxed in there's

01:02:18.080 nothing else to do the iranians who are calling the shots are like yeah whatever it's horrible

01:02:23.140 for people our guys are getting blown up well that's what we signed up for and again buck the

01:02:27.440 other part of this is it's part of this just thinking in 100 year windows right i mean being

01:02:34.240 in an awful position for years for them is just it's part of the part of the game yeah all right

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - July 16, 2026

Bonus： Daily Review with Clay and Buck - Jul 16 2026

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