Verdict with Ted Cruz - BONUS： Daily Review With Clay and Buck - Jun 26 2025

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.440 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.100 Welcome to today's edition of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show podcast.

00:00:09.320 Welcome in Thursday edition, Clay Travis, Buck Sexton Show.

00:00:13.800 Appreciate all of you rolling with us as we are diving into the biggest stories of the day

00:00:20.380 and beyond probably, but also going to have a lot of fun with you

00:00:25.800 as we break down everything going on in the larger universe.

00:00:29.500 And right off the top here, we had a big conversation about this yesterday.

00:00:33.880 The fact that there was a leak to CNN and the New York Times

00:00:38.680 that suggested the attack on Saturday evening here in the United States on Tehran

00:00:46.340 was not actually effective.

00:00:49.540 And that has been pushed back on aggressively.

00:00:52.620 And it started really early this morning at 8 a.m. Eastern

00:00:57.340 when Pete Hegseth came out and just went to town on the press

00:01:02.400 and the reporting surrounding this.

00:01:05.020 Now, I want to play some of these cuts because it was a pretty intense press conference.

00:01:09.220 But I'll start with a conversation that we had yesterday,

00:01:12.660 which was about the challenge, the difficulty of finding out who leaked this information,

00:01:20.360 particularly as it appears that it may well not have been accurate.

00:01:25.320 So, Buck, you worked in the intelligence community.

00:01:29.380 When you saw this report was leaked, did you think initially, hey, this is kind of unheard of?

00:01:36.200 Did it totally seem maybe not a positive thing, but not an unexpected thing?

00:01:42.800 And I know we talked about this some yesterday, but what are the difficulties that would be inherent

00:01:48.600 in figuring out who actually leaked to this because it is certainly classified information?

00:01:55.540 Well, the fact that somebody would take this to the press so early on in the process

00:02:00.700 and that it was already known to be a low-confidence assessment 0.99

00:02:04.900 just means somebody wanted to blunt the narrative of Trump is just kicking ass 0.93

00:02:10.560 and making excellent decisions as commander-in-chief and this war, 0.94

00:02:16.020 those who said it's not even a war, it's a military strike, okay?

00:02:19.040 You know, think of all the countries that we have had military operations in

00:02:23.740 that we would not consider ourselves to be at war or in the midst of a war.

00:02:28.500 But, Clay, this was meant to have a political ramification

00:02:32.760 because if you wanted this to have U.S. national security in mind,

00:02:37.920 if you wanted to be somebody who said, hey, guys, hey, I'm worried about the reactors,

00:02:42.460 I'm worried that there could still be a lot more here, we didn't get enough,

00:02:47.280 what you would want is to wait until you pull together all of the best sources,

00:02:53.200 get it rock solid, and then work its way up the chain through the CIA director

00:02:58.480 or the DIA director in this case, and then at that point, you know,

00:03:03.060 you would have done your due diligence.

00:03:04.320 This wasn't a due diligence moment.

00:03:06.020 This was somebody who decided, I'm going to be the one who reigns on Trump's parade here.

00:03:14.040 This was an individual. This was a deep stater.

00:03:16.400 This is someone who did not have the interests of the United States in mind,

00:03:20.440 but the interests of a very bitter and weak and feckless-looking Democrat machine in mind

00:03:28.960 and hope to take away some of the sense of ebullience

00:03:33.880 and some of the congratulations that have been going around,

00:03:36.580 not just for Trump's decision but for the men and women who flew the airstrikes themselves,

00:03:40.960 for the Pentagon pulling this off, the intelligence community for having these sites mapped out.

00:03:45.920 Clay, it's a big win.

00:03:46.940 But this would, to me, this is a bit like saying somebody from within the intelligence community

00:03:52.420 after the bin Laden raid is raising concerns that there was really, you know,

00:03:58.400 no document exploitation that came out of that raid,

00:04:02.400 or maybe that we didn't even get bin Laden.

00:04:04.960 Why would you do that?

00:04:07.080 You would only do that if you were trying to hurt.

00:04:09.400 Now, of course, that didn't happen because somehow our team doesn't do those kinds of leaks.

00:04:12.720 That's always a Democrat left-wing thing when there's a leak of classified to hurt a commander-in-chief.

00:04:17.380 But that's what this was.

00:04:18.420 It's very clear.

00:04:19.540 There's no way that this person could have had the level of visibility necessary to,

00:04:25.460 with a, remember, it's a low-confidence assessment.

00:04:27.280 Clay, I was in the room many times with people from DIA, CIA, NSA, go down the list, all of them,

00:04:34.460 and there was squabbling over who's right about very important, and we were at a war, right?

00:04:41.260 We were in the midst of a war, and, you know, things like, hey, could a surge in Baghdad work to stabilize things?

00:04:48.340 Let me tell you something.

00:04:49.640 A lot of fighting and dissenting voices over that.

00:04:52.560 The notion that one person has the keys to the kingdom on the damage assessment is absurd.

00:04:59.840 It's just a political hit, and that's why they should go after the leaker.

00:05:03.720 All right, so let me play some of these cuts.

00:05:06.920 This was from the Pentagon earlier today, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

00:05:11.400 I do give a lot of credit.

00:05:13.600 We've talked about this on the program.

00:05:15.560 They made everybody get there early.

00:05:17.560 8 a.m. Eastern time start for this to dominate the news cycle for the day.

00:05:23.380 Here's Hegseth blasting the press in particular for these leaks.

00:05:29.500 This is cut two.

00:05:30.460 Because you, and I mean specifically you, the press, specifically you, the press corps, because you cheer against Trump so hard, it's like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump.

00:05:44.800 But because you want him not to be successful so bad, you have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes.

00:05:52.360 You have to hope maybe they weren't effective.

00:05:55.360 Maybe the way the Trump administration has represented them isn't true.

00:05:57.940 So let's take half-truths, spun information, leaked information, and then spin it, spin it in every way we can to try to cause doubt and manipulate the public mind over whether or not our brave pilots were successful.

00:06:16.280 How many stories have been written about how hard it is to, I don't know, fly a plane for 36 hours?

00:06:23.320 Has MSNBC done that story?

00:06:25.500 Has Fox?

00:06:26.400 Have we done the story how hard that is?

00:06:28.640 Have we done it two or three times?

00:06:30.240 So that American people understand how about how difficult it is to shoot a drone from an F-15 or F-16 or F-22 or F-35?

00:06:36.800 Or what it's like to man a Patriot battery?

00:06:38.660 Or how hard it is to refuel midair?

00:06:40.860 Giving the American people an understanding of how complex and sophisticated this mission really was.

00:06:46.720 There are so many aspects of what our brave men and women did that, because of the hatred of this press corps, are undermined.

00:06:55.180 Because people are trying to leak and spin that it wasn't successful.

00:06:59.880 It's irresponsible.

00:07:01.000 Okay, so that's one.

00:07:02.280 Let's continue.

00:07:03.040 This sounds a little bit like Fox and Friends or a hit that Pete Hegseth is doing on Fox News.

00:07:09.720 And it's one reason, I think, that Trump wanted him in this position, because he is a very talented communicator.

00:07:16.980 And that matters in this world where you are really having to lace on the gloves and go head-to-head with the press every single day.

00:07:26.540 Here's cut three more on Hegseth saying the classified information, as you said, Buck, is leaked to try and harm Trump.

00:07:35.180 Cut three.

00:07:35.640 Time and time again, classified information is leaked or peddled for political purposes to try to make the president look bad.

00:07:42.960 And what's really happening is you're undermining the success of incredible B-2 pilots and incredible F-35 pilots and incredible refuelers and incredible air defenders who accomplished their mission.

00:07:54.340 Set back a nuclear program in ways that other presidents would have dreamed.

00:07:58.380 How about we celebrate that?

00:08:01.200 How about we talk about how special America is, that only we have these capabilities?

00:08:06.060 I think it's too much to ask, unfortunately, for the fake news.

00:08:08.960 So we're used to that.

00:08:10.520 But we also have an opportunity to stand at the podium and read the truth of what's really happening.

00:08:15.640 And the reality is you want to call it destroyed.

00:08:17.600 You want to call it defeated.

00:08:18.980 You want to call it obliterated.

00:08:20.940 Choose your word.

00:08:22.160 This was a historically successful attack.

00:08:25.220 We should celebrate it as Americans.

00:08:26.940 And it gives us a chance to have peace, chance to have a deal, an opportunity to prevent a nuclear Iran, which is something President Trump talked about for 20 years. 0.95

00:08:36.560 I mean, guns blazing here.

00:08:38.900 I don't think we mentioned the New York Times getting upset about the fact that Hegseth praised our boys.

00:08:46.440 And so he was actually asked, we have this cut, and I couldn't believe it.

00:08:51.620 He was actually asked, why not acknowledge female pilots that participated instead of congratulating the boys?

00:08:59.700 This is cut for.

00:09:00.860 Why not acknowledge the female pilots that also participated in this mission? 1.00

00:09:04.880 The early messages that you sent out only congratulated the boys.

00:09:08.740 So when I say something like our boys in bombers, see, this is the kind of thing the press does, right?

00:09:13.180 Of course, the chairman mentioned a female bomber pilot. 0.99

00:09:15.640 That's fantastic.

00:09:16.800 She's fantastic.

00:09:17.720 She's a hero.

00:09:18.380 I want more female bomber pilots. 1.00

00:09:19.840 I hope the men and women of our country sign up to do such brave and audacious things.

00:09:24.080 But when you spin it as, because I say our boys in bombers is a common phrase, I'll keep saying things like that.

00:09:29.720 Whether they're men or women, very proud of that female pilot, just like I'm very proud of those male pilots.

00:09:34.820 And I don't care if it's a male or a female in that cockpit, and the American people don't care.

00:09:39.700 But it's the obsession with race and gender in this department that's changed priorities.

00:09:45.800 And we don't do that anymore.

00:09:46.700 We don't play your little games.

00:09:48.480 I love this.

00:09:49.900 I mean, I can't believe that's a real question he got asked.

00:09:52.380 But it's good that we see that this is what the press still pretends is their job, right?

00:09:58.000 It is to push.

00:09:59.620 They're just asking questions.

00:10:00.900 We'll get to Jake Tapper's latest on that.

00:10:02.540 Really, they're always pushing an agenda.

00:10:04.380 No one thinks that Pete Hegseth was undermining any woman who...

00:10:07.700 This is a bit like saying, hey, when you were talking, you said, hey, you guys, great job.

00:10:12.920 Why didn't you say you guys and girls?

00:10:15.200 I mean, it's absurd.

00:10:16.080 It's childish.

00:10:17.880 It's focused on nothing.

00:10:19.900 But I also think that what this shows you, Clay, is in these, you know, the media, the non-Fox media, the Democrat media, the non-aligned leftist media,

00:10:31.640 they have been making a lot of jokes about how Fox News essentially has staffed this Trump administration.

00:10:36.800 And what's interesting is, yeah, guess what?

00:10:40.060 Now you've got people who are both qualified to do the job, people like Dan Bongino and Hegseth and others,

00:10:46.800 who are also really good at media and comms themselves.

00:10:50.920 Yes.

00:10:51.240 And so if you think back to other times, we've had people who are running, you know, Department of Defense,

00:10:57.020 and we've had people who were in these kinds of cabinet-level positions.

00:11:00.960 Secretary of State, look at Secretary of State Rubio.

00:11:02.940 I mean, that guy might as well have been a Fox contributor for the last decade.

00:11:06.880 He's been on Fox, you know, as much as anybody.

00:11:09.120 They're good at this.

00:11:10.860 And so the ability that the media has to attack them, trip them up, undermine them,

00:11:15.180 and then focus on that instead of what's actually happening is vastly diminished.

00:11:20.880 I mean, it's almost nonexistent at this point.

00:11:22.960 Can you imagine being a Pentagon news reporter and we just had the strike that we did on Iran

00:11:29.660 and you get a limited amount of time to ask questions and a limited amount of things that you can even ask about

00:11:37.000 because they're only going to be whatever it is, five, six, seven people called on,

00:11:40.740 that that would be the thing that you went in as a Pentagon reporter to focus on was the fact that one female was there 0.99

00:11:50.120 and said when he said the boys in the planes or whatever the heck it used to be, that that would be your focus.

00:11:55.860 It even is stunning to me still.

00:11:57.620 This all makes sense, though, because their job, if you work for the Washington Post and you're in the Pentagon briefing room

00:12:03.880 or if you work for the New York Times and you're in the White House,

00:12:07.200 the only way you're going to get any attention and that your readership, which is hyper-partisan,

00:12:12.600 is going to like your reporting is if you manage to attack successfully, get them to stumble, get to pull some soundbite.

00:12:22.520 They don't actually care about the information.

00:12:25.080 They don't.

00:12:25.740 They're not there to ask relevant, reasonable questions

00:12:29.500 and get back objective data for the American people.

00:12:34.520 They are there to be partisan attack dogs.

00:12:37.360 And so if they don't do that, they're not actually serving the purposes of their paper.

00:12:42.780 I get the partisan attack dog thing, but to think that your audience is obsessed because he used the word boys.

00:12:53.700 Did you see who asked that question?

00:12:56.300 Did you see who asked that question?

00:12:57.540 She's been wagging her finger at people for saying, you guys, for the last 20 years.

00:13:03.440 I guarantee you.

00:13:05.180 I just I can't believe that that is real.

00:13:08.000 And by the way, the New York Times got savaged in their live chat because they had a male reporter who said in real time,

00:13:17.420 hey, well, actually, you know, there was a girl.

00:13:20.400 Well, first of all, when the idea that boys and girls or guys or we all understand the concept.

00:13:28.040 I mean, I imagine it comes from the boys in the bombers is also a phrase boys in the boat, which was one of the bestselling books.

00:13:36.000 Great book, by the way.

00:13:37.780 But is there are there any women that were actually offended by that? 0.94

00:13:42.640 I just the fact that that would be a question that's asked of the secretary of defense in a limited public availability situation where he doesn't answer a lot of questions is actually even for left wing media.

00:13:55.520 I think a huge embarrassment for them.

00:13:57.680 Look, heads up, everybody.

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00:15:37.780 Hey, Buck.

00:15:39.880 One of my kids called me an unk the other day.

00:15:41.880 An unk?

00:15:42.620 Yep.

00:15:43.260 Slaying evidently for not being hip, being an old dude. 1.00

00:15:45.980 So, how do we un-unk you?

00:15:48.240 Get more people to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

00:15:51.360 At least that's what my kids tell me.

00:15:52.920 That's simple enough.

00:15:53.800 Just search the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show and hit the subscribe button.

00:15:57.640 Takes less than five seconds to help un-unk me.

00:16:00.800 Do it for Clay.

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00:16:02.440 And get great content while you're there.

00:16:04.060 We're the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show YouTube channel.

00:16:07.280 Mamadani mania sweeping the Democrats all across this land of ours.

00:16:13.580 And we all know from yesterday that this guy, Zoran Mamadani, is the Democrat nominee for the mayor of New York City.

00:16:25.280 Now, that's not a done deal.

00:16:27.280 There are some long bomb in the end zone hopes.

00:16:34.540 That maybe Eric Adams could pull this off.

00:16:38.240 Or maybe there's some Cuomo deal. 0.98

00:16:41.460 Although, I think Cuomo now is just considered a loser.

00:16:44.180 The comeback, Clay, the comeback has not worked out the way that Cuomo wanted.

00:16:53.100 The spaghetti and meatballs was not as good as he was hoping for.

00:16:57.920 This was a total whiff by me, Buck.

00:17:00.180 I mean, I really thought that they had rolled out the red carpet for him.

00:17:03.660 I thought he was going to win the mayoral race and would then use it as the jumping off point to be a candidate in 2028.

00:17:11.180 Instead, I think his political career is over.

00:17:13.420 I think he gave up the political ghost, so to speak, in that loss and the way that he lost.

00:17:19.520 So now, here's, again, I bring this to your attention because so go with New York City, so go with a lot of other Democrat cities, I think.

00:17:30.400 This is going to be viewed.

00:17:31.700 So if you live in Texas, you're like, well, that's New York's problem.

00:17:36.000 Yeah, but, you know, you live in a city like Houston or Dallas, which is Democrat majority, unfortunately.

00:17:41.500 This might affect you.

00:17:42.620 You know, obviously, if you live in California, you're in a Democrat enclave statewide.

00:17:45.860 You know, there's a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff that will filter out from this.

00:17:52.140 And I think it's an interesting test case because you already have national level them.

00:17:55.700 You had Bill Clinton.

00:17:57.540 Bill Clinton.

00:17:58.600 I don't even know he was on Twitter.

00:18:00.340 He was like, hey, I hear you're a socialist.

00:18:02.940 You love those pretty ladies. 1.00

00:18:04.780 I like pretty ladies, too. 1.00

00:18:06.080 We should talk.

00:18:07.140 You know, Bill Clinton, all of a sudden, giving his congratulations.

00:18:12.260 Khomeini himself.

00:18:12.980 Just kidding, Khomeini didn't congratulate him, but it would have been funny if he had.

00:18:17.120 Khomeini did say that they've won the war, though.

00:18:19.300 I do have that one here.

00:18:20.760 We'll get to that later.

00:18:22.060 Bill Clinton.

00:18:23.040 Congratulations to Zoran on your victory.

00:18:25.680 Wishing you success.

00:18:26.520 Well, yeah, yeah, nothing really interesting there.

00:18:28.220 But Bill Clinton weighed in.

00:18:29.880 AOC and Bernie.

00:18:31.700 There's really a decision that's being made within the Democrat Party.

00:18:38.700 There's the AOC-Bernie pathway, and then there's the, you know, somebody who's the Democrat in charge of Kentucky.

00:18:46.640 What's that guy?

00:18:47.140 I'm forgetting.

00:18:47.620 Blanking on his name.

00:18:48.260 Andy Beshear. 0.93

00:18:49.160 You know, there's like the Beshear or the governor of Maryland or the, you know, there's that, like, I'm a Democrat, but I'm not like one of those crazy Democrats.

00:18:58.800 They'll do whatever Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi tell them, but they pretend not to be, right?

00:19:04.000 Right now, you've just had a big win go up on the board for the crazy AOC wing of the Democrat Party. 0.62

00:19:09.940 And I understand you might say, Buck, they'll never be able to win a national election.

00:19:14.500 Kamala lost by, in the Electoral College, which is what matters, a couple hundred thousand votes, really.

00:19:21.420 Right?

00:19:21.740 Meaning, I understand she lost by a lot more.

00:19:23.960 She lost the popular vote.

00:19:25.060 I'm not taking away from Trump's enormous victory.

00:19:26.840 It was fantastic.

00:19:27.440 But if you were able to shift a couple hundred thousand votes in half a dozen states, really less than half a dozen states, Kamala Harris would have been president. 1.00

00:19:36.440 So don't, let's not get complacent about the fact that the worst presidential candidate in my lifetime is somebody who wasn't that far.

00:19:46.280 It was not like a, you know, Mondale absolute thrashing.

00:19:51.580 Okay?

00:19:51.820 This was something that was closer than it should have been.

00:19:54.900 Now, let's, just because of why, I don't want you to think, oh, this is just New York City's problem.

00:20:00.600 This is, that's like saying Soros prosecutors were New York's problem.

00:20:04.500 Oh, wait, hold on a second.

00:20:06.060 They were in every major city in the country for a while.

00:20:09.260 There were Soros prosecutors in St. Louis and in Philly and in L.A. and in Atlanta.

00:20:16.180 You know, you get it on the list, right?

00:20:17.420 Chicago, Soros money, all over the country.

00:20:20.500 So you have to watch these trends.

00:20:22.080 Clay, let's get into some of the crazy stuff here.

00:20:24.900 Socialist Democrat Zoran Mamadani.

00:20:28.860 Something that he says he wants to do.

00:20:30.200 This is cut nine.

00:20:31.600 This guy says he wants to 800% increase hate, hate crime prevention.

00:20:38.300 Play this.

00:20:38.840 I know that Jewish New Yorkers, like Jewish Americans, are fearful in this moment of anti-Semitism.

00:20:44.480 And ultimately, it's through the conversations I've had with Jewish New Yorkers that I have developed a proposal for the Department of Community Safety that would include an 800% increase in funding for hate crime prevention programs.

00:20:58.640 Because ultimately, we cannot simply say that anti-Semitism has no home in this city or no place in this country.

00:21:04.400 We have to do more than talk about it.

00:21:05.920 We have to tackle it.

00:21:06.920 And that's what we will do through this funding and through this commitment.

00:21:09.560 We will root out bigotry across the five boroughs.

00:21:12.060 Let me just throw this out there, Clay.

00:21:13.920 This is going to absolutely not work at all to stop any bigotry.

00:21:18.060 But it will be a way to fund left-wing indoctrination programs in community centers, schools, and all the rest of it.

00:21:26.800 Yeah.

00:21:27.500 And look, I think what you're saying is so important because a lot of people think, oh, New York City, that doesn't really impact my life in a substantial way.

00:21:37.380 I think who the mayor of New York City is impacts all of our lives, even if you live in the smallest town in Alabama or the most remote part of Utah.

00:21:49.140 The decisions made in New York City, given its primacy as the financial capital of the world, have a major resonance.

00:21:57.320 And the idea that New York City is going to potentially elect a guy like Mom Donnie should be a clarion call for sanity to ring forth. 1.00

00:22:09.940 And I think maybe some of these parents that are subsidizing all their kids to live in New York City.

00:22:15.000 Producer Allie made a good point yesterday, but I do think it's true that a lot of Mom Donnie's voters are young, under 30s, who otherwise wouldn't be living in New York City.

00:22:27.360 But for the fact that their parents are helping to pay their rent and they have decided they like socialism.

00:22:33.920 The parents like capitalism because that's how they can afford to take care of their kids.

00:22:39.360 But I do think that there's a generational divide here.

00:22:42.460 And I think as you break all of this down, unfortunately, look, I don't know that the Democrat Party, this is a good question for you, Buck, is still in a powerful enough position that they would be able to knock out a Bernie Sanders candidacy now, that they would be able to knock out an AOC candidacy now.

00:23:05.940 I think the party is so fractured and so broken and you might say, OK, well, that's good.

00:23:11.220 But the problem is they could win.

00:23:14.700 I don't think it's a crazy idea that Bernie Sanders could, if he weren't 83 or 84 or whatever the heck he is, that he could catch fire.

00:23:24.600 Someone like him could catch fire and end up as the president. 0.94

00:23:29.540 I don't think it's a crazy, ridiculous idea. 0.98

00:23:33.420 I'm going to tell you something.

00:23:34.740 I watched a lot of these Mom Donnie videos and the guy is the guy is very slick.

00:23:41.100 He understands social media.

00:23:42.800 He comes across as just objectively.

00:23:46.720 He comes across as affable and pretty humble.

00:23:51.000 And a guy who just wants to talk to people, he did this whole video.

00:23:55.020 It's now gone pretty viral, Clay, where he goes around talking to like, you know, people call them like halal carts, like the meat, meat and rice carts that are in New York City.

00:24:06.260 Asking them, like, why is it so expensive?

00:24:08.420 Like, why is it 10 or 12 dollars now for this?

00:24:10.740 Wouldn't couldn't be less.

00:24:11.740 And he has these guys, he goes right in and they're saying, oh, it's because of city permitting.

00:24:17.820 The city permitting process is corrupt and takes too long and it's too expensive.

00:24:22.240 And he goes, oh, we're going to fix that.

00:24:24.800 You know, say what you will about the fact that he, you know, freezing.

00:24:27.860 There's a whole, Bill Ackman has a whole takedown of this guy.

00:24:31.680 Freezing rent prices is just going to make the housing shortage worse.

00:24:35.340 Worse.

00:24:36.060 Because it means that, you know, there are expenses that are already baked in and people have to build more.

00:24:39.980 And they don't want to build more if they can't actually charge the market rate.

00:24:43.160 Anyway, so he's an economic illiterate, but he understands.

00:24:47.220 Mom, Donnie understands story.

00:24:49.740 And he understands social media and how to connect with an audience.

00:24:54.680 I, you know, don't sleep on this guy, everybody.

00:24:57.900 You know, we have this thing, you know, and I know we've done this with AOC, too. 0.93

00:25:01.580 Oh, you know, she's, but this guy doesn't strike me as dumb. 0.96

00:25:04.720 Wrong, yes. 1.00

00:25:05.760 Dumb, no. 1.00

00:25:06.780 He doesn't strike me as dumb. 1.00

00:25:07.920 And, you know, horrible ideas, certainly. 0.98

00:25:12.140 But this is the other, you know, the option the Democrats have is to say, we're not going to go toward the center and try to reform our crazy. 0.69

00:25:20.520 We're going to double down on crazy.

00:25:21.920 We're just going to package it better.

00:25:23.660 Oh, I think AOC sees this and says, I'm running for president now in 2028.

00:25:27.900 Absolutely.

00:25:28.660 I've said this all along.

00:25:30.140 You asked me right after this election, who's going to be the leader of the Democrat Party?

00:25:33.680 I said, well, I said AOC at one point, and then I've also mentioned Wes Moore, the governor of Maryland.

00:25:39.200 But those are the pathways.

00:25:41.120 There's the AOC, hard left, socialist.

00:25:45.220 Just say the stuff that you want to say.

00:25:47.480 And then there's the, oh, I'm not like them.

00:25:49.700 I'm more normal.

00:25:50.620 And then you get the AOC policies, but you get somebody who pretends to be something else during the election cycle.

00:25:55.580 I'm not sure the Democrat Party has the ability to slap down someone like Bernie Sanders if he were running today, which if I'm looking at AOC, I'm saying Mom Donnie just ran through.

00:26:09.660 What did Mom Donnie do well? 1.00

00:26:11.160 He's pretty good on social media. 1.00

00:26:13.100 You may think, and I certainly think, that AOC is economically illiterate and a moron. 0.99

00:26:19.140 One, there's a huge audience for what she puts out on social media, and she's skilled at that. 0.99

00:26:26.140 Now, I hope that her overall policies are so crazy and she would do such a poor job even of defending those policies that she would not be capable of winning an election. 1.00

00:26:37.460 But I think you're starting to see that the Democrat Party had two pathways.

00:26:42.180 They could wake up and be somewhat more sane, or at least pretend to be more sane, and take the more moderate path as they move towards 2026 and 2028.

00:26:53.980 Or they could double, triple, and quadruple down on crazy.

00:26:58.620 And it seems to me that the early returns, based on what we saw in New York City, are that they're going to double, triple, quadruple down on crazy.

00:27:06.240 And you know, now we're in a situation where Eric Adams is the savior of New York City, and that's only if they can get Cuomo to officially drop out,

00:27:18.160 if they can find a way to kind of corral this strange coalition that potentially he would be able to bring to bear.

00:27:25.780 And that would require black voters, interestingly, deciding that they had to show up in a monster number for Eric Adams in order to offset a lot of these young white voters that have fallen in love with socialism. 0.86

00:27:42.140 So you've got Mamdani talking about the 800% increase in the anti-bigotry forces.

00:27:50.520 Not police, like I don't know what they're going to be.

00:27:52.700 The bigotry prevention programs.

00:27:55.000 Also, as we know, in New York, if you're talking about anti-Semitic or anti-Asian bigotry, you're probably not going to, if you're a leftist,

00:28:04.440 you're not going to like the demographics that are disproportionately targeting those groups.

00:28:08.840 This is just a matter of fact, a matter of numbers and data.

00:28:11.960 But put that aside for a moment.

00:28:14.000 Here is, really at the heart of it, Mamdani saying that our criminal justice system, this is Cut 8, is just straight up racist.

00:28:21.480 The alternatives are things that we must look to immediately, both with regards to neighborhood groups who do anti-violence work and are shown to be more effective than the police.

00:28:32.520 But also asking, you know, if we have an understanding that our criminal justice system is racist, which is quite a general understanding now, it seems to be shared by many, many people,

00:28:44.480 then how can we simultaneously be investing in it as the way we both judge and determine the futures of so many people in our state?

00:28:51.920 Now, that was 2020, granted, but the criminal justice system in this country is actually not racist.

00:28:58.740 It is not racist.

00:28:59.940 I know that this is something Democrats love to say, but the laws are the laws.

00:29:03.740 And we have talked about this before, and to me, the way that this gets destroyed is if you just push back.

00:29:11.820 Anybody who says this, just nod and say, super sexist, too.

00:29:16.660 Why are men charged with crimes at such higher rates?

00:29:19.680 Really unfair.

00:29:20.260 Those murder laws.

00:29:21.240 Men do all the murders. 0.87

00:29:22.120 This is my favorite argument, Clay.

00:29:23.340 We've been making it here for a long time.

00:29:24.940 Because they don't know what to say.

00:29:27.100 Because they have to admit, yeah, men commit more murders.

00:29:29.420 We just do.

00:29:30.160 Sorry, guys.

00:29:31.020 We're the ones who kill people.

00:29:33.140 Does that mean we should change the murder laws?

00:29:34.920 Does that mean that murder laws are sexist?

00:29:37.360 It does not.

00:29:39.880 It's a pretty strong argument.

00:29:41.200 It's a good one to use on your kids or grandkids if they bring that home with you sometime.

00:29:45.480 Instead of immediately combating them there, say, you know what?

00:29:48.100 I've been thinking about this a lot.

00:29:49.560 Why are men in prison at such higher rates than women?

00:29:52.680 I think maybe we need to go back and look at all of our laws.

00:29:55.260 They're very sexist.

00:29:56.560 And see how your kids respond.

00:29:58.940 By the time this day ends, another American family farm is going to be forced to close.

00:30:03.800 Not because they stop working hard and doing their best,

00:30:05.960 but because a lot of grocery stores aren't buying their meat anymore.

00:30:09.680 Over 85% of the grass-fed beef sold in the U.S. is imported.

00:30:14.180 Most Americans have no idea.

00:30:16.060 But that's where Good Ranchers comes in.

00:30:17.900 That's why Clay and I get our meat from GoodRanchers.com.

00:30:21.840 Good Ranchers doesn't just sell super tasty meat.

00:30:24.640 I mean, it is delicious.

00:30:25.420 They bring you back to the source.

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00:30:34.420 This summer, you can subscribe to any Good Ranchers box and get your pick of free meat for life.

00:30:39.920 That's free, wagyu burgers, hot dogs, bacon, or chicken wings in every box for the lifetime of your subscription.

00:30:45.940 Get an extra $40 off your first box when you use my name, Buck, as your promo code at checkout.

00:30:51.740 Once again, visit GoodRanchers.com.

00:30:54.380 Use promo code Buck.

00:30:55.700 Get your free meat for life, plus $40 off.

00:30:58.880 GoodRanchers.com.

00:31:00.800 American meat delivered.

00:31:09.880 White House Press Secretary, our friend Caroline Levitt, taking questions right now on the intel leaks surrounding the Iran operation.

00:31:20.880 We have been talking about the big decision that New York City is going to have.

00:31:26.220 What do you think Cuomo does?

00:31:29.120 I was totally wrong.

00:31:31.000 I thought I did think he would run for mayor.

00:31:33.720 I look like a genius.

00:31:35.380 I've told that a month ago.

00:31:36.300 This is the one in the forget file, Clay, okay?

00:31:38.500 You've made some great calls.

00:31:39.780 This one didn't quite work out as we thought, but it's okay.

00:31:43.380 What's the best?

00:31:44.560 Let's pretend that you were giving advice to Andrew Cuomo.

00:31:48.520 Is it to now get behind Momdani and just kind of step off to the side, or is it to try to run as an independent and maybe have a secret deal behind the scenes?

00:32:03.440 Because if he runs as an independent and Eric Adams runs, then Momdani's definitely going to win because they will split the Momdani opposition vote.

00:32:13.660 I think he's a two-time loser, and that means the best thing that he can do is to get an agent and find his way onto an episode of Law & Order where he plays a probably elderly mobster or something along those lines.

00:32:29.680 Maybe a corrupt politician. 0.88

00:32:31.440 I do not think that he has a future in New York politics anymore after this.

00:32:36.180 I don't see it because you can't win the—he'll just be playing spoiler at that point.

00:32:41.760 I mean, if I'm a New Yorker, and I'm New York adjacent in my heart, right?

00:32:46.240 I mean, if I'm a New Yorker still, though, voting—you know, I talk to my family about this all the time, and I want what's best for New York, not just for all of our fantastic WOR listeners and podcast listeners in the New York area.

00:32:57.940 We want the best for all of you.

00:33:00.020 But also, my own family is there.

00:33:01.900 So when we talk about safe streets in New York, I'm thinking about my mom, my dad, my sister.

00:33:06.980 I'm thinking about people who I love and mean a lot to me.

00:33:09.660 So that means that I want what's best.

00:33:12.740 Now, in what way is Andrew Cuomo an improvement over Eric Adams?

00:33:19.420 I have to say, I don't think he is.

00:33:21.400 And so that's where the—you've got a guy who's already mayor, already in the job, not horrible, okay?

00:33:28.320 He's not good.

00:33:29.720 You know, I think Eric Adams—and let me know, WOR listeners, if you want, if you think this is a fair grade.

00:33:36.440 I think he's a—you know, if de Blasio was an F, I think Mayor Eric Adams is probably a C minus, maybe a C, you know?

00:33:45.140 I think that's a fair—you know, he's not intentionally, maliciously destroying New York.

00:33:51.580 He's just not a very good manager.

00:33:54.460 He was good on the issue—let's take a few things.

00:33:57.340 He tried to help on the crime issue, brought in somebody good here with Jesse Tisch to run the NYPD as commissioner.

00:34:04.040 He spoke out in a way that I think was really important for the Trump campaign, actually.

00:34:09.560 He didn't speak on behalf of them, but when he said, guys, we're flooded with all these migrants, this is crazy. 0.98

00:34:14.660 He was honest about that and said he didn't want any more.

00:34:16.940 So he did do some things that are—there's nothing I can—de Blasio did nothing that is good.

00:34:21.880 Everything de Blasio did was, in my mind, every decision he made was against the interests of New Yorkers.

00:34:27.440 And we can just forget about him, but, you know—didn't he run for president, by the way?

00:34:30.720 Didn't he run for president for a second?

00:34:31.960 I think he did.

00:34:32.640 Wasn't he one of those guys who was like, I'm also on the stage?

00:34:35.920 Everyone was like, get out of here.

00:34:38.080 So, Clay, I think that Eric Adams is the non-Mom Downey hope of New York now.

00:34:44.480 And is that enough?

00:34:45.400 And people who are going to tell me, Buck, you can get behind Curtis Lewa.

00:34:48.500 You can get behind Curtis Lewa.

00:34:50.800 Obviously, I agree with Curtis.

00:34:52.360 I like Curtis.

00:34:53.300 We've had him on the show several times, right?

00:34:55.180 We've had him on the show.

00:34:57.040 You know, it's an 80-20 Democrat city, guys.

00:35:00.200 It's just not going to happen.

00:35:02.040 It's just not going to happen.

00:35:03.400 I wish, you know, that that wasn't the case.

00:35:05.800 But you just had the most radical leftist win the Democrat primary.

00:35:10.260 You're not about to win over a lot of Democrats to be a Republican.

00:35:13.980 That's not going to happen.

00:35:14.940 They're going to vote for a Republican.

00:35:16.340 A part of me wonders whether there might be such a panic setting in among the Wall Street universe

00:35:22.260 that somebody with hundreds of millions of dollars, a la a Bloomberg, decides—

00:35:29.200 Ackman is by saying he's going to spend huge money.

00:35:31.580 Bill Ackman, who's kind of a red pill—

00:35:34.460 We need to get him on the show because I think that would be an interesting conversation.

00:35:37.700 But he has been tweeting that there are people out there that he thinks he could help to persuade.

00:35:44.220 The challenge is whoever is opposed to Mom Donnie, everybody else has to drop out.

00:35:50.440 And there has to be one focal point of, hey, this is the guy or the gal, as the case may be,

00:35:57.520 who is going to go head-to-head against Mom Donnie, and everybody has to get behind this person. 0.99

00:36:04.560 My concern is I think Cuomo's ego is involved here now.

00:36:09.920 Eric Adams, I don't think there's any way he's going to drop out.

00:36:12.720 And then Curtis Sliwa, you start getting all these different groups, and it's hard to get to 50% plus one

00:36:22.540 when you've got this many different splintered individuals running.

00:36:28.700 De Blasio's presidential campaign, by the way, good research by Ali,

00:36:31.960 he ran from May 16, 2019 to September 20, 2019, spent $1.4 million,

00:36:40.380 and everybody just kind of laughed him out of the arena.

00:36:45.100 Because even New Yorkers were like, this is one of the craziest things we've ever seen, 0.97

00:36:49.080 that a guy who's this—

00:36:49.940 But didn't the guy this unpopular would decide to run—

00:36:52.860 Did it Bill de Blasio make news most recently, Buck,

00:36:56.700 because he and his wife announced that they were going to basically have an open marriage?

00:37:00.460 Am I wrong about this?

00:37:03.260 I think I know this and tried to forget it because I don't really need to know this stuff,

00:37:07.900 but I believe there's something like that that has occurred, yeah.

00:37:11.820 They made a public statement that they were staying married,

00:37:14.380 but they were going to be with other people. 0.99

00:37:16.460 I mean, what a ridiculous guy that dude was. 0.99

00:37:20.500 The fact that he could get elected actually makes me terrified 0.99

00:37:24.180 because Mamdani, to your point, Buck,

00:37:27.220 is actually a super articulate, smart, charismatic guy

00:37:32.980 who's just wrong about everything.

00:37:35.220 But he's not an unlikable person, if that makes sense.

00:37:38.680 He's wrong about everything, but not unlikable,

00:37:41.460 and also smart and savvy when it comes to trying to understand

00:37:46.160 how to make arguments on social media.

00:37:48.600 Yes, I think that he's more formidable than a lot of people looking from the outside

00:37:54.500 are assessing right now, and that's something to keep in mind as we go forward.

00:37:59.760 So look, I'm totally, I hope I'm wrong on this one,

00:38:03.180 and I hope that this is something that, you know, that does not come to pass.

00:38:08.340 But here is, let me see, we've got Tom Homan laying down the law here.

00:38:17.820 You know, there's this whole separation of powers thing,

00:38:21.160 and here is Tom Homan saying,

00:38:24.540 look, you can't kick ice out of New York, buddy.

00:38:27.240 It's called federal law.

00:38:28.420 Play 16.

00:38:29.260 He's vowed to kick the, quote, fascist ice out of New York City, okay?

00:38:34.500 So how do you intend to deal with that?

00:38:36.600 Because I would guess there are going to be a lot of criminals

00:38:38.920 and Iranian cells and whatnot in New York City.

00:38:41.580 The job's not done there.

00:38:42.620 What do you say to this guy?

00:38:43.740 Good luck with that.

00:38:45.220 Federal law jumps him every day, every hour, every minute.

00:38:50.300 We're going to be in New York City.

00:38:51.400 Matter of fact, because this is a sanctuary city,

00:38:53.500 President Trump made it clear a week and a half ago.

00:38:56.300 We're going to double down and triple down in sanctuary cities.

00:38:59.000 If we can't arrest a bad guy in a county deal,

00:39:01.260 one agent arresting one bad guy,

00:39:02.680 they release him in the streets like New York does every day.

00:39:05.040 We've got to send a whole team to look at this guy.

00:39:09.500 Yeah, that's going to be a showdown that I don't think is going to go well

00:39:12.700 for Momdani, by the way.

00:39:13.920 I don't think that he wants to be on the other side of Tom Homan

00:39:17.580 on the immigration issue because, first of all, legally, Homan's right.

00:39:21.760 And second of all, if there's anything that looks like a showdown,

00:39:26.500 this Momdani guy is going to shrink away from that fight very quickly. 0.60

00:39:29.680 I'm not sure anybody in the entire Trump team is working harder right now

00:39:34.360 than Tom Homan is.

00:39:36.200 I mean, if you look at that guy.

00:39:38.460 Stephen Miller, I mean, when we saw him, Stephen Miller looks like,

00:39:40.860 he looks like he lives on a cot on the White House floor right now.

00:39:44.760 I mean, he's going through a lot.

00:39:46.420 There are a lot of guys who are working unbelievable hours

00:39:50.020 because they see this as the 18 months when Trump is able to be

00:39:54.060 his most effective and efficient version of himself.

00:39:56.620 But the amount of media that is out there that Tom Homan is doing

00:40:02.820 on a day-to-day basis and the amount of success that he is having

00:40:06.740 is frankly unparalleled.

00:40:09.120 And I know we talk about this on this program and try to make sure

00:40:12.980 that we reference it often.

00:40:15.120 I'm not sure in our lives that there has ever been anything

00:40:19.900 that government has fixed faster and more effectively

00:40:23.440 than the border under Trump.

00:40:25.740 When you consider historic failure under Biden and it was as if

00:40:32.240 a light switch just got flipped or got turned off,

00:40:35.780 whichever direction you want to go, and overnight everything changed

00:40:40.200 and it became flawless.

00:40:42.000 And you know that's the case because it suddenly isn't talked about anywhere.

00:40:46.900 But my goodness, this is the number one thing Trump said he would fix,

00:40:51.660 and they don't want to give him any credit for it.

00:40:54.180 But Tom Homan and the team and Stephen Miller is a part of this too.

00:40:57.620 They've just been unbelievable on this front.

00:40:59.320 I also want to bring this to your attention again because I know we talk about this

00:41:03.880 and it's like, oh, we're so New York focused and Buck's from New York.

00:41:06.480 And maybe that's why a lot of people are focusing on this all over the country right now

00:41:10.620 because it's a playbook that I think you're going to see replicated elsewhere

00:41:15.280 and you could even see replicated in the 2028 election cycle,

00:41:18.980 which I know feels like an eternity away, but it's not.

00:41:21.620 It'll be here before you know it.

00:41:22.660 And socialist Mamdani, Kami Mamdani, this is Cut10, is saying,

00:41:30.080 yeah, what I did, this should be the playbook.

00:41:32.080 This absolutely will work in other cities, in other states across America.

00:41:36.360 Play it.

00:41:36.840 You're a proud democratic socialist.

00:41:38.740 Do you think that is a platform that would work for other candidates running

00:41:42.880 in other parts of the country?

00:41:44.260 Absolutely.

00:41:44.880 I think ultimately this is a campaign about inequality.

00:41:48.940 inequality and you don't have to live in the most expensive city in the country

00:41:52.120 to have experienced that inequality because it's a national issue.

00:41:55.840 And what Americans coast to coast are looking for are people who will fight for them.

00:42:00.700 And part of how we got to this point was through the endorsements of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

00:42:05.720 and Senator Bernie Sanders, who've been leading this fight against oligarchy across the country.

00:42:10.540 And I think that in focusing on working people and their struggles,

00:42:14.300 we also return back to what makes so many of us proud to be Democrats in the first place.

00:42:18.940 Not shying away from it at all.

00:42:22.240 Clay, I think you will see more people try to play this.

00:42:27.520 Remember, the whole thing about socialism is that all you have to do,

00:42:30.420 you find as many people as possible who are unhappy with some aspect of their day-to-day life

00:42:35.520 and you tell them it's not your fault, there's nothing that you can do to change this,

00:42:40.240 other people are the reason for this,

00:42:42.000 I'm going to hurt those other people, usually financially, sometimes more than that,

00:42:46.000 but I'm going to hurt those other people and take their stuff and give it to you

00:42:49.660 and make your problems go away.

00:42:51.300 It's very appealing.

00:42:53.260 It works for a reason.

00:42:56.280 And so we have not seen the end of this.

00:42:58.800 On the right, we yell socialism and act like it's some kind of argument ender.

00:43:04.060 A lot of people, especially Gen X and Gen Z, they love their socialism.

00:43:09.280 They don't know what it is, but it sounds good to them.

00:43:11.480 The biggest flaw of capitalism is it provides the wealth and luxury

00:43:16.340 to think you don't need capitalism anymore.

00:43:20.220 It's just the lesson out there is you have to have the freedom and the time

00:43:26.300 and the wealth in order to make these arguments.

00:43:28.540 And I look at those Mom Donnie celebration partners,

00:43:31.120 those aren't poor kids celebrating Mom Donnie winning.

00:43:34.680 That is not people struggling to put food in their mouths.

00:43:37.800 I know who they are.

00:43:39.260 I know who they are.

00:43:41.020 I used to socialize in New York with a lot of people

00:43:44.180 that would fall into the Mom Donnie category. 0.71

00:43:47.440 But, Clay, you know, I often mention Naval Ravikant.

00:43:50.460 Did you see this?

00:43:51.120 I just thought this was a perfect one-liner on this whole situation.

00:43:54.400 He wrote,

00:43:55.720 Socialism is the suicide pact of mediocrity.

00:43:59.840 It is absolutely true.

00:44:02.020 And that really gets the psychology of it.

00:44:03.960 If there are people that have more than me, people that are doing more than me,

00:44:08.420 people that are happier and enjoying more than me,

00:44:11.080 I want a system of power that will pull them down and promises to pull me up.

00:44:17.480 And even if it doesn't pull me up, as long as it pulls them down, I'll be happy.

00:44:23.420 This is why I thought sports was such an important battleground,

00:44:27.840 because sports is the ultimate meritocracy.

00:44:30.580 Best man or best woman wins.

00:44:32.620 And as soon as they can start to create the idea that there's something wrong with that

00:44:37.960 or that a boy can be a girl's champ and all this other stuff,

00:44:40.720 they destroy the underbelly of much of success in the meritocracy in the country,

00:44:45.760 which is embedded in sports.

00:44:46.960 I made this argument, something fun for you guys to think about.

00:44:50.620 Is there anything more trusted in America today than the scoreboard?

00:44:57.040 Think about that for a minute.

00:44:58.640 And where everybody sits around and argues about everything,

00:45:02.660 the scoreboard in a game,

00:45:04.740 if it's a little bit off, everybody's standing up like,

00:45:07.740 hey, that bucket was just made.

00:45:09.220 Now, you may be upset with officials every now and then,

00:45:11.700 but I would argue that the scoreboard might be the most trusted symbol in America today,

00:45:18.040 that we trust it to be able to tell us who's winning and who's losing.

00:45:21.720 And at the end of a game, everybody says, you know what?

00:45:23.960 That team won or that team lost.

00:45:25.280 Think about it for a minute.

00:45:26.080 I really think it might be number one.

00:45:28.500 Look, I want to tell you about James Carey.

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00:45:34.300 who also served our nation.

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00:45:38.140 but his life would change forever during a training exercise.

00:45:41.380 when he lost consciousness and nearly drowned.

00:45:44.540 The incident resulted in a brain injury that left James blind

00:45:47.960 and unable to use his body,

00:45:50.280 susceptible to memory loss,

00:45:51.940 and it even brought on dementia.

00:45:54.500 Tunnel to the Towers Foundation built James

00:45:56.640 a specially adapted smart home to enable him to live more independently.

00:46:01.600 Thanks to the generosity of friends like you,

00:46:03.640 the lives of America's heroes and their families are being improved.

00:46:07.340 James Carey and so many other service members and first responders

00:46:10.720 have paid a high price to keep our country and our community safe.

00:46:14.560 Through Tunnel to Towers,

00:46:15.680 friends like you have said thank you,

00:46:17.500 not only through words,

00:46:18.760 but through actions.

00:46:20.220 America's heroes need your help now more than ever.

00:46:22.860 Help heroes like James and their families.

00:46:25.720 Donate $11 a month to Tunnel to Towers at T2T.org.

00:46:29.300 That's T,

00:46:30.600 the number two,

00:46:31.580 T.org.

00:46:40.980 Canadian women are looking for more, 1.00

00:46:43.080 more out of themselves,

00:46:44.160 their businesses,

00:46:45.100 their elected leaders,

00:46:46.040 and the world around them.

00:46:47.260 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:46:50.580 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:46:51.920 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:46:53.520 And in this podcast,

00:46:54.580 we interview Canada's most inspiring women,

00:46:57.040 entrepreneurs,

00:46:57.860 artists,

00:46:58.520 athletes,

00:46:59.140 politicians,

00:46:59.840 and newsmakers,

00:47:00.740 all at different stages of their journey.

00:47:02.940 So if you're looking to connect,

00:47:04.740 then we hope you'll join us.

00:47:06.160 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio

00:47:08.520 or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:47:10.220 I really want to say thanks.

00:47:13.020 I've met a ton of you up here in Northern Michigan.

00:47:17.240 I know a lot of you say,

00:47:18.720 please don't say positive things about it up here because it's getting so crowded.

00:47:23.420 But it is amazing in the summer up here.

00:47:26.260 We've been all over the place.

00:47:28.040 Traverse City.

00:47:29.960 News Talk 580 has been taking care of us every single day here this week.

00:47:36.180 And I appreciate all of you.

00:47:37.820 Buck's been down in Miami.

00:47:38.860 I'm sitting here in a jacket because it's only like 65 degrees today.

00:47:43.620 But new affiliate that we have up here in Traverse City, Michigan, WTCM 580.

00:47:49.080 They've had me all week.

00:47:50.160 They have been fantastic.

00:47:52.400 A couple of cuts that I want to play for you because I think they kind of get at

00:47:56.700 the failures that CNN in general has been having.

00:48:02.560 First of all,

00:48:03.620 every evening they just have sort of the Star Wars universe of crazy left

00:48:08.700 wing peddler arguments.

00:48:12.320 And Jamal Bowman, who lost his Democrat primary and no longer has a job, was on.

00:48:19.880 He is the guy who pulled the fire alarm and was defeated in the New York City area district,

00:48:26.040 which he was representing.

00:48:27.380 Here he is saying, and I want to get Buck's reaction to this, that he was confronted on the street and heckled.

00:48:36.020 And this is what he has to deal with on a regular basis.

00:48:40.340 Listen, I don't want to fight.

00:48:42.000 I just want to chill.

00:48:43.460 I just want to not.

00:48:44.340 I was in.

00:48:44.820 I was walking down the street the other day.

00:48:46.360 Some white dude,

00:48:47.340 he looked me, 1.00

00:48:48.940 called me a piece of shit in my face, 1.00

00:48:50.620 said, 1.00

00:48:50.880 I'm going to get what's coming to me.

00:48:52.540 Why did I deal with that,

00:48:53.720 dog?

00:48:54.140 In Yonkers,

00:48:55.320 New York.

00:48:56.000 Well,

00:48:56.220 can I tell you something?

00:48:56.880 I'm not making that up.

00:48:57.960 Do you buy it,

00:49:00.360 Buck?

00:49:00.580 Do you think Jamal Bowman,

00:49:02.060 not a small guy?

00:49:02.700 I think he's making it up.

00:49:03.880 Yes.

00:49:04.060 I think he's making it up.

00:49:05.160 Jamal Bowman,

00:49:05.780 I've seen him bench three plates on each side.

00:49:09.440 He's a big dude.

00:49:11.540 Yeah.

00:49:12.140 I mean,

00:49:12.340 so I just,

00:49:12.900 I don't buy this story.

00:49:14.460 And it's one of these things you can never prove or disprove.

00:49:16.980 But I don't,

00:49:17.720 I don't believe that somebody went up to him in Yonkers.

00:49:19.840 And,

00:49:20.320 you know,

00:49:20.640 I'm just glad he didn't say that,

00:49:22.060 you know,

00:49:22.240 the guy yelled like this is a MAGA country or whatever.

00:49:25.180 Like this just sounds fake to me.

00:49:26.620 I just don't buy very often big dudes being confronted by probably small.

00:49:35.760 And if the,

00:49:36.260 if the guy who confronted Jamal Bowman would have to be a heavyweight boxer or an NFL defensive lineman to be appreciably bigger than Jamal Bowman.

00:49:47.800 First of all,

00:49:48.160 I don't think most people know who Jamal Bowman is.

00:49:50.200 And,

00:49:50.660 and I don't mean that to be,

00:49:51.780 to insult him.

00:49:52.980 I just,

00:49:53.440 I don't think most people in New York city have any idea who he is.

00:49:57.360 So the percentage of people that would hate him enough to taunt him face to face and know him is what?

00:50:04.960 Like 1% of New York.

00:50:07.120 Also the way he tells the story,

00:50:09.140 did he,

00:50:10.360 did he do something like rude to somebody?

00:50:12.640 And then they responded because you're supposed to think,

00:50:15.940 I guess that someone came after him because he's Jamal Bowman.

00:50:19.620 I don't know.

00:50:20.280 Maybe he was,

00:50:21.160 maybe he was having a loud speakerphone conversation or doing something that sets people off.

00:50:25.440 That may,

00:50:26.260 you know,

00:50:26.500 I gave somebody on my plane ride over to France clay,

00:50:29.460 an extra set of headphones.

00:50:31.580 Oh no.

00:50:32.360 Because I turned around,

00:50:34.000 I said,

00:50:34.340 I have a spare.

00:50:35.580 I have a spare.

00:50:36.840 He was,

00:50:37.320 it was a guy.

00:50:38.460 I'm just gonna say,

00:50:39.220 he's a white guy in his fifties.

00:50:40.760 Okay.

00:50:41.800 Uh,

00:50:42.120 very well-dressed,

00:50:43.440 like very,

00:50:44.160 you know,

00:50:44.580 uh,

00:50:45.060 hoity toity at like Louis Vuitton baggage.

00:50:47.860 And,

00:50:48.320 uh,

00:50:48.560 and he,

00:50:49.320 uh,

00:50:50.180 thought he could watch his iPad.

00:50:52.940 Like he's a little kid with no headphones on.

00:50:55.240 So I actually had a spare.

00:50:57.180 I had the wired set in my bag.

00:50:58.840 And I said,

00:50:59.520 here you go.

00:50:59.940 Here's a wired set of headphones.

00:51:01.340 And he kind of stared me down for a second and realized like,

00:51:04.000 so now what's your excuse?

00:51:06.140 So he put them on.

00:51:07.660 Now I have to watch them though.

00:51:09.340 That is really,

00:51:10.320 really.

00:51:10.580 So he gave them back to you at the end of the trip.

00:51:12.700 He,

00:51:12.840 he,

00:51:13.020 he rolled them up,

00:51:13.880 uh,

00:51:14.180 rolled them up nicely and gave them back to me at the end.

00:51:16.180 So now this is my new move.

00:51:17.900 I'm going to carry an extra set of headphones in public places and offer

00:51:22.000 headphones to people who are on the side of barbarism and think that we want to hear

00:51:27.300 your cell phone conversation or your iPad noises or whatever it is.

00:51:31.680 This is funny because on my flight up to Michigan with the Travis boys,

00:51:36.640 my oldest son wanted to watch Trump's address about the bombing of Iran did not have wireless

00:51:45.680 phones or his,

00:51:47.420 uh,

00:51:47.820 or a plug to put in.

00:51:49.160 And my wife who was in the row in front of us turned around and complained about 1.00

00:51:55.340 our oldest son making too much noise while he was watching Trump's address.

00:52:00.180 So she would have certainly appreciated if you would had an extra pair of

00:52:04.480 headphones for my son.

00:52:05.620 All right.

00:52:05.900 That is Jamal Bowman claiming that he's a victim.

00:52:08.500 This also always reminds me what there are people who behave awfully towards famous

00:52:16.460 people, but the idea that the Jussie Smollett, this is MAGA country, the number of Trump voters

00:52:24.320 who knew who Jussie Smollett is or was in that era was zero.

00:52:30.220 I mean, there was nobody watching.

00:52:31.900 What was the show?

00:52:32.520 Empire.

00:52:33.160 The number of Trump voters watching Empire frequently enough that they knew who Jussie

00:52:38.740 Smollett was, that they would feel compelled to not only know who he was, but know his

00:52:43.400 politics and taught him in Chicago at 2 a.m.

00:52:47.080 So one of the craziest stories on a freezing cold winter night to lie in wait with a noose.

00:52:53.360 Yes.

00:52:54.060 And some kind of thing to spray on him because you're that angry about Jussie Smollett who

00:52:59.360 nobody who voted for Trump had any idea whom he was.

00:53:02.260 Yes.

00:53:02.560 Yeah, that would be.

00:53:03.420 That was a strange one.

00:53:04.660 And you would think that the media might have actually questioned some of that, particularly

00:53:10.580 because our good friend Jake Tapper wants all of you to know what the role of the media

00:53:16.920 really is.

00:53:17.780 So you got CNN Jamal Bowman saying he's getting taunted because of who he is.

00:53:21.700 Here is Jake Tapper lecturing everyone about what it is the job of the media really is.

00:53:28.420 Asking questions is literally our job, demanding facts and answers instead of just taking a

00:53:34.500 president's word for it.

00:53:38.180 No, that's actually that's actually not their job, though.

00:53:40.700 This is the this is where I have a really I have a big bone to pick with with all these

00:53:45.820 people who call themselves journalists.

00:53:47.100 We have seen what their job is, depending on where they work.

00:53:50.240 The job of a CNN employee is to tell Democrats in the audience what they want to hear and

00:53:56.420 to hurt Republicans in terms of public perception in every way that they can.

00:54:01.120 That is the job.

00:54:01.960 That's actually the job.

00:54:03.160 If you don't do that, you will be fired.

00:54:05.760 So that's what the job is.

00:54:07.480 This it's to ask questions and get the truth to the people.

00:54:11.220 That is a lie that is meant to cover for the actual job, which is to tell Democrats what

00:54:17.720 they want to hear and attack Republicans in every way you can.

00:54:21.300 What do you think?

00:54:22.340 Let's pretend that suddenly you or I were in charge of CNN and they said, hey, we've

00:54:27.800 been listening to your radio show.

00:54:29.940 It's phenomenal.

00:54:30.880 They should do it.

00:54:31.580 We would shake that place up.

00:54:33.720 It'd be amazing.

00:54:34.980 OK, so is it salvageable?

00:54:38.460 Like, let me just give you a hypothetical.

00:54:40.500 If Megan Kelly, who obviously had a very successful show on Fox News, look at you, look at you. 0.95

00:54:45.960 I mean, look, Megan's great.

00:54:48.120 She was always great to me in my career and everything else.

00:54:50.400 But she's always number one on your list for who's going to be the top of CNN. 0.59

00:54:53.380 I think she's the smartest, most talented person in digital space that I don't work with.

00:55:00.180 Does that make sense?

00:55:01.660 Wow.

00:55:02.260 Who would you put at the top of the list?

00:55:03.760 Someone cut this and send this to Megan. 1.00

00:55:05.040 Well, I think she is.

00:55:06.500 I think she asks really smart questions.

00:55:08.460 I think she gets to the heart of issues.

00:55:10.760 If I were right.

00:55:12.080 So but the question here is, let's pretend that I am running CNN and I say, hey, I want

00:55:18.680 to change.

00:55:19.460 We got to get away from the Jake Tapper world.

00:55:22.240 We can't have this stenographer for the Democrat powerful anymore.

00:55:26.840 We're going to shake things up.

00:55:29.400 Could Megan Kelly, who I think I'm just telling you, I think is the most talented, independent

00:55:33.860 voice in media today.

00:55:35.220 All right.

00:55:35.680 All right.

00:55:36.060 I mean, I think Megan's great, too.

00:55:37.500 But yes, OK.

00:55:38.260 Could she alone?

00:55:39.980 Would she be able to produce an audience or CNN's brand so broken that even if you put

00:55:46.620 somebody who's good at television and good at doing a show, people wouldn't respond to

00:55:52.120 it because their brand is broken?

00:55:53.800 In other words, how salvageable do you think it is?

00:55:56.280 Right.

00:55:56.520 You would have to accept that during the change process from being a Democrat propaganda outlet,

00:56:04.500 that you would lose a lot of audience and then have to rebuild audience.

00:56:10.900 Yeah.

00:56:11.060 The audience of CNN right now does not want anything to be told to them that is outside

00:56:19.440 of what the DNC would approve and send themselves.

00:56:23.460 They don't want to hear it.

00:56:25.080 And so you would have to accept that there would be that painful ratings transition period.

00:56:30.420 And then I think you could build into something else.

00:56:34.240 But that's, you know, that's a risk that executives at these places are very rarely willing to

00:56:40.460 take any risks.

00:56:41.940 I think CNN's brand is in terminal decline.

00:56:44.420 I think CNN will exist in kind of the way that ABC News and some of these places.

00:56:50.500 Yeah, sure.

00:56:50.840 They'll have some audience, but a shadow of their former.

00:56:54.240 Now, ABC News still has a pretty big TV audience, but it's a shadow of what it was 20 or 30 or 30

00:56:59.300 years ago.

00:57:00.740 So I think that that's where I don't think CNN is going to be able to turn this thing

00:57:04.120 around.

00:57:04.500 I just look at it purely from a business market perspective.

00:57:09.280 If Fox News has around 70 percent of the news audience on cable and it does and it's got

00:57:15.600 an incredibly loyal brand.

00:57:18.260 What is CNN's angle?

00:57:19.960 Because that leaves 30 percent MSNBC, whatever you think about them, has the left wing angle

00:57:27.980 covered.

00:57:29.320 Why would you not go after some of the 70?

00:57:31.720 This is why.

00:57:32.860 And I was there and observed this when it happens.

00:57:35.520 CNN under Jeff Zucker's leadership, if you can call it that, ignominiously ended in scandal.

00:57:43.240 CNN decided to become MSNBC with different letters, anti-Trumpism, completely crazy, treat 0.97

00:57:52.760 all the actual conservatives who would have come on your air like trash. 0.96

00:57:57.560 You know, this this is what they did.

00:58:00.180 And so that space that they were at least theoretically occupying of somewhere in between Fox and MSNBC

00:58:07.820 that just became untenable.

00:58:09.600 They were just another version.

00:58:11.640 There were MSNBC with less honesty.

00:58:14.260 And that is not a tenable brand.

00:58:17.660 That's not a place where you can really be.

00:58:19.800 And so that's what ended up happening to them.

00:58:21.320 But I'm I'm happy.

00:58:22.980 I mean, if you had told me if you had told me when the Tea Party was getting their thing

00:58:27.360 going, don't worry, one day not only will Trump call CNN fake news to their faces, but

00:58:31.680 he'll essentially destroy the death star of propaganda that is CNN.

00:58:37.400 I would have said that sounds amazing.

00:58:39.040 And we're pretty much there.

00:58:40.520 Oh, totally.

00:58:41.980 And again, they only have about 10 or 15 percent of the overall news marketplace.

00:58:46.960 And you know what what it really comes through.

00:58:49.800 It used to be when big news happened, people would turn on CNN because they trusted them

00:58:56.780 to get big news.

00:58:57.880 Right.

00:58:58.020 I still think about CNN back in the day of Bernard Shaw and the Scud Stud, whatever that

00:59:02.860 guy's name was during the first Gulf War, when that really made CNN's brand as somebody

00:59:08.940 that could you could trust.

00:59:11.160 Now they don't even get turned on when big news happens.

00:59:14.200 Fox News, I think, had four point nine million viewers when the Iran attacks happened.

00:59:19.700 Nobody else was even close to them.

00:59:21.540 And it just feels like CNN is in a terminal decline.

00:59:25.640 And I wonder at this point if there's anything they could do to change the trajectory that

00:59:31.620 they're on.

00:59:32.140 And I don't know that they could, but I would be trying to undertake radical change, I think,

00:59:37.160 if I were in charge of CNN.

00:59:39.300 Yeah, I mean, it would have to be, you know, when you're doing a you're doing some housing

00:59:44.020 construction stuff, but when you're doing a renovation and people say, I'm going to tear

00:59:48.500 it down to the studs, CNN really needs to be torn down to the studs. 1.00

00:59:52.980 You need to get all the way, you know, get all the way into the drywall and really pull

00:59:58.380 things apart in there to rebuild.

01:00:00.120 You can't just do a little coat of paint and call it a day.

01:00:03.320 That's totally what's, by the way, happening with the intelligence agencies right now, too.

01:00:08.260 We'll see how that's going.

01:00:10.400 We are.

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - June 26, 2025

BONUS： Daily Review With Clay and Buck - Jun 26 2025

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