Verdict with Ted Cruz - Bonus： Daily Review with Clay and Buck - Jun 4 2026

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00:00:35.720 Welcome, everybody, to Clay and Buck Thursday edition.

00:00:40.380 It's going to be a doozy.

00:00:42.400 Got to start with this.

00:00:44.500 My beloved, truly, no irony here, New York Knicks winning the first game in San Antonio

00:00:52.460 against the very formidable San Antonio Spurs team.

00:00:58.320 The Knicks in six, you heard it here first.

00:01:01.200 Some people are saying it might even be sooner than that,

00:01:02.660 but I'm saying the Knicks in six, it's going to be.

00:01:05.560 What were the odds Buck will open up the show talking about a sporting event

00:01:10.480 that he watched that he is super excited to watch every second of

00:01:16.680 and make sure that he jumps on the air and talks about immediately?

00:01:20.180 15 hours a week, Clay.

00:01:21.460 You are rubbing off on me a little bit here.

00:01:23.600 15 hours a week, buddy.

00:01:24.880 Going on five years here, so it's been a while.

00:01:26.960 Yes.

00:01:27.620 So, yes, indeed.

00:01:29.560 But, Clay, it was a beautiful game.

00:01:33.160 It really – that guy Brunson – guys, don't worry.

00:01:35.820 We're going to talk about Trump and Iran and true crime stories and fraud.

00:01:42.840 And we've got someone joining to discuss the huge – we're going to get into all this.

00:01:45.520 Just give me a second here with this, okay?

00:01:47.220 That guy Brunson is incredible, truly.

00:01:50.880 Not just because of how good he is, but the fact that in a league now full of seven-footers,

00:01:56.560 seven foot plus guys who can shoot the three who can move and who have point guard level

00:02:01.820 ball handling and passing skills to be brunson who looks like a very sort of you know mediocre

00:02:10.900 to low nba player by just by physique be the closer in the league i mean the guy's the guy's

00:02:19.120 absolutely amazing i mean it's incredible it's inspiring the fact that the dallas mavericks

00:02:23.240 your boy uh what's his face let him go uh you know uh what's his name mark cuban mark cuban

00:02:28.200 mark cuban let this guy just slip through his rich fingers just goes to show you you never know

00:02:34.420 he's only uh only 6-2 and i would point out and this is going to be a crazy scene president trump

00:02:41.680 says he's going to game three so in the garden uh nba finals i don't know what the reception is

00:02:49.100 going to be like i don't know what the scene will be like i imagine that it will be crazy

00:02:54.080 courtside seats are going for what buck like 100k uh oh no more and more more there are people

00:03:01.980 garden there are nba finals tickets clay vip courtside have been listed for 500 000 to 1.4

00:03:13.000 million a pair it's unbelievable yeah a lot a lot of hedge fund guys deciding to uh cash in

00:03:21.820 um because that is a uh that is a crazy amount that's got to be the most expensive sporting

00:03:27.380 ticket of all time right i think you can't even think of anything close it's a quick way to get

00:03:32.100 a hinge date you just put on there i've got two seats courtside i think you'll be uh inundated

00:03:36.900 with with takers on that one but nonetheless it's it's a uh something of a cinderella story

00:03:42.420 this team that has been through so much

00:03:45.640 and so many very bad years as a franchise,

00:03:49.540 and now they look like they're poised

00:03:51.300 to win their first championship in 50-something years.

00:03:53.340 Anyway, so I watched every second of it last night.

00:03:55.780 It was fun.

00:03:56.300 It's like exercising some of the demons of my youth

00:04:00.180 watching the Knicks get destroyed by the Bulls,

00:04:02.420 beat by the Pacers, beat by Houston in the finals,

00:04:05.640 OJ's car chase scene interrupting the finals,

00:04:08.300 all that stuff.

00:04:08.920 It's all coming back to me.

00:04:10.000 But okay, for the Knicks fans out there,

00:04:11.500 amazing for us the Knicks are going to win you heard it here this is where we're going Brunson

00:04:15.580 is like a a uh a basketball deity he's incredible and uh I also like this this Mr. Carl Anthony

00:04:22.660 Towns he's a very uh very fun player to watch a lot of a lot of interesting emotion out there

00:04:27.780 great team great team all right it's not a sports show I know don't even send those VIP emails we've

00:04:32.740 got other things to get into and some it's gonna get I'm gonna tell you this is gonna get pretty

00:04:37.080 intense at different points the program given some of the stories we're going to address

00:04:41.020 Before, though, we go there, a couple of things that are high up on the agenda.

00:04:44.980 You know, Clay, I saw Dr. Oz.

00:04:46.700 He came by the Normally, which is the Mary Catherine Ham and Carol podcast.

00:04:51.920 They threw a party for me in D.C. for the book.

00:04:54.260 Really just an excuse to throw a party.

00:04:55.780 But, you know, people got free books, which was great.

00:04:58.660 And, you know, Dr. Oz came by.

00:05:00.320 The fraud thing, it's a little bit of like a doge moment here, Clay,

00:05:06.620 where once people have actually gotten the keys to the system

00:05:11.340 and begun to really look into it,

00:05:13.520 the amount of fraud going on in this country,

00:05:17.420 when I say amount, I should say the dollar figure of the fraud

00:05:21.620 is jaw-dropping.

00:05:27.160 And let's start with Todd Blanch here.

00:05:30.080 This is cut one in Ohio.

00:05:32.440 Talking about the DOJ looking into this.

00:05:34.720 Play it.

00:05:35.000 Today, the Department of Justice is announcing significant fraud enforcement in the state of Ohio, as well as a historic fraud fighting partnership with the state of Ohio officials, which is exactly how it should be in every state.

00:05:47.260 One that can serve as a template partnership for other states in this country.

00:05:51.580 We welcome everyone everywhere to team up with our fraud division and our federal partners and our U.S. attorney's offices to bring fraudsters to justice.

00:06:01.360 In total, between our state and federal partners today, we're announcing charges that were either unsealed today or over the past week

00:06:08.720 against 14 defendants allegedly involved in fraud schemes targeting over $50 million here in Ohio.

00:06:17.480 And again, these numbers are staggering, but just the tip of the iceberg, both here in Ohio and nationwide.

00:06:25.040 Clay, this is going to get deeper and deeper.

00:06:29.940 This is going to look scarier, as people understand.

00:06:33.180 Remember, on the one hand, we are held to these incredibly intricate,

00:06:39.060 would be one way of putting it, rules about our taxes and our businesses

00:06:42.520 and our regulations.

00:06:44.140 So the Democrats will particularly push endless ways to harass

00:06:50.380 and take money from people that are trying to do things the right way

00:06:53.920 in their personal, you know, personally, as a business, as an entity.

00:06:57.000 And then the other side, they just let people go out the backside of the bank with bags full of cash whenever they feel like it.

00:07:04.940 And nobody cares.

00:07:06.200 This has to stop.

00:07:07.640 I mean, this goes to more than just the dollar loss.

00:07:09.800 This is just the loss of faith in the functioning of our whole system.

00:07:15.740 Yeah, look, I mean, I think the biggest challenge as we break all this down is how much is there?

00:07:24.080 how much fraud is there and almost i would say uh the huge majority of it is all embedded in

00:07:34.900 health care cost that there's a lot of fraud in our government in general but

00:07:39.480 the fact that you could have even in a red state like ohio this amount of fraud i i i just it comes

00:07:48.180 back to what i think is the original sin here which is the government being extensively involved

00:07:54.320 involved in our health care system it's made everything more expensive no one has any idea

00:08:00.580 what anything costs no one has any idea how their health care works in fact you're listening to me

00:08:07.160 right now one of the least favorite things that any of you could be required to do is actually

00:08:12.100 get on the phone with somewhere someone at your health care company and try to have them explain

00:08:17.780 why the charges are what they are it's totally broken and i i i think it's probably look that

00:08:26.080 the tax code is a joke but the tax code is uh you're able to manipulate some aspects of the

00:08:35.140 tax code the health care system is just broken i mean i mean it is just utterly completely broken

00:08:42.040 Even every aspect of it, Buck, the fact that employers provide health care is a mess.

00:08:48.980 Most employees don't know that the average health care is costing sometimes $25,000 or $30,000 a year.

00:08:58.560 I think a lot of people out there that are employees would like to get their own health care spend as part of their salary

00:09:07.560 and say, hey, let me go out and see if I can find something that better fits my family,

00:09:11.760 that better fits what I need for my lifestyle, it's fundamentally broken.

00:09:15.880 And all of this money, for those of us out there, all of you that are working super hard,

00:09:21.280 that are working 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, or more hours a week, multiple jobs,

00:09:27.700 you're giving money to the government, and the government's just lighting it on fire.

00:09:31.920 It's incredibly frustrating.

00:09:33.240 Well, they're actually giving it to Somali fraudsters in Minnesota,

00:09:36.800 and you know it's not being used it's lit on fire from their perspective of not going to what we

00:09:41.760 wanted to but the other side of this is there are people who are becoming who have become

00:09:45.880 incredibly rich by running the most straightforward scams if you're a medical practice and you bill

00:09:53.280 250 million dollars of prescriptions you're a clay one doctor did this in california one medical

00:10:01.160 practice under one physician 250 million dollars of think about how many you know bottles of

00:10:09.700 whatever that would have to be and it took them five years to track this guy down and figure it

00:10:15.720 out i mean this is the other the other part of it and you're talking about the the health care

00:10:19.180 system and the the breakdown in it there are about 650 000 health care administrators in

00:10:28.200 this country right now we've got about as many health care administrators i'm not saying for

00:10:33.480 anything we're gonna buck i'm a nurse and i work so hard no no you're not an administrator well

00:10:37.040 you probably know that if you're a nurse i'm not talking nurses or doctors or physician assistants

00:10:41.440 or whatever those are all people who do health care we actually need more of that we have a lot

00:10:47.260 of people who are being counters either in the hospital system and those cases by the way those

00:10:52.540 some of those guys and gals are making huge salaries yes and you know what their salary is

00:10:56.760 mostly comprised of figuring out ways to get as much from the government as possible and as much

00:11:01.360 from the patients who can pay as possible to make sure that all the illegals and the indigent people

00:11:06.580 who come in get free health care that's actually the job of the modern hospital executive and you

00:11:12.000 see all these other administrators and stuff they're just processing the paper of endless

00:11:17.420 frustration that we all have to deal with with our our uh insurers about all these stupid changes

00:11:23.520 and ridiculous regulations

00:11:24.660 and we don't know the prices

00:11:25.720 and we can't go to this pharmacy

00:11:26.940 and we can only do mail order

00:11:27.960 from that pharmacy and all.

00:11:30.580 We're creating a Sovietized system.

00:11:33.960 We are fighting against

00:11:35.380 the progress of better drugs,

00:11:37.580 more efficient telecommunication,

00:11:39.100 more efficient computation,

00:11:41.700 more efficient everything.

00:11:43.780 And somehow we keep making everything

00:11:45.240 more expensive and worse.

00:11:47.140 It's truly remarkable

00:11:48.340 when it really is a case study

00:11:50.120 in the opposite of a free market system, unfortunately,

00:11:54.520 or a system that is increasingly strangled from being free market.

00:11:58.020 But, Clay, the fraud aspect of it is, well, we're all paying for that.

00:12:02.320 Yes.

00:12:02.960 When you have $100 billion of Medicare and Medicaid fraud in the country,

00:12:07.340 how many of you feel like you're being squeezed if you're on Medicare or Medicaid?

00:12:11.120 How many of you feel like you're not getting what you need?

00:12:13.540 $100 billion would go a long way to helping, wouldn't it?

00:12:16.660 Well, that's going to people that are driving around in new Ferraris

00:12:19.780 because they are bilking the system and not getting caught.

00:12:24.280 I just come back to, I think the government should be cut in half.

00:12:27.940 And I think the government would be far more efficient

00:12:30.420 if we could just cut half of all government spending.

00:12:33.980 I think we would be in a better place.

00:12:35.900 This is like, you know, there's this whole, we didn't talk about it,

00:12:38.360 but there's an interim director of national intelligence who has been appointed.

00:12:42.480 I don't know this guy.

00:12:43.900 He could be a great human being.

00:12:45.280 I don't know him at all.

00:12:46.000 I know very little about him.

00:12:46.980 All I know is that he has absolutely zero national security or intelligence background whatsoever.

00:12:51.740 And the idea that putting him in charge of the intersection of all these warring bureaucracies,

00:12:57.820 which is what's really going on in the intel community, is a good idea.

00:13:00.620 Here's what he should do.

00:13:01.740 I'm just going to give him a tip.

00:13:02.960 He should get in there, look at the books, and be like, we should shut down the DNI.

00:13:07.100 Shut it down.

00:13:08.640 Tell Congress to defund it.

00:13:10.220 It does not have authority.

00:13:12.340 It is a coordination agency without the power, Clay, to fire or hire or direct resources in any meaningful way.

00:13:21.180 What is it doing?

00:13:22.840 Get rid of it.

00:13:25.700 Pulte is his name, right?

00:13:26.960 Mr. Pulte.

00:13:28.400 Look at what you're doing when you become the interim DNI and look around.

00:13:31.940 By the way, this is my pitch to Tulsi, too.

00:13:33.700 Tulsi now, God bless, by the way.

00:13:34.960 I know her husband's going through a tough time with the surgery.

00:13:37.260 but this is we need to actually do some of this stuff now or at least get this stuff out there

00:13:43.840 clay because we haven't guys we have not cut spending we have not touched the debt we have

00:13:48.720 not changed the trajectory we're just beginning in year halfway through year two to look at the

00:13:54.020 fraud there is an urgency of doing this stuff while we're in charge because oh my gosh when

00:13:58.920 those democrats have the they have the checkbook again clay they they love seeing uh illegal

00:14:04.740 immigrants driving around in ferraris from running fake autism practices you know they love that

00:14:09.660 stuff speaking of being in charge we should also mention what we talked about yesterday what i was

00:14:15.760 afraid of the votes are slowly trickling in in california and they are now continuing to say

00:14:24.540 that it's going to take longer and longer and guess what's happening steve hilton and spencer

00:14:29.380 Pratt are going to start to decline and they're going to try to find a way because you still have

00:14:35.960 a week for your ballot to get there they're going to try to find a way to get double Democrats in

00:14:43.320 both runoffs LA mayor and also governor I'm just telling you it's going to get unfortunately worse

00:14:51.040 and worse and nastier and nastier this is indefensible that California can take a month

00:14:55.740 to count votes and it's amazing how the benefit of the counting only goes in one way isn't it

00:15:02.000 it's kind of extraordinary yeah it is it isn't it is interesting it really is interesting how

00:15:06.180 that happens clay the longer it takes to count the votes the better it is for the democrat it

00:15:12.180 seems that's hmm there's something going on there policies in place yeah uh look the good news for

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00:15:27.540 gonna say it in my cozy earth bubble cuddle blanket with ginger spice and carry and we were watching

00:15:35.220 my Knicks just do phenomenal things and thankfully I felt so comfy and and warm and and cozy in my

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00:17:03.620 the guys right there when you need them most clay and buck just preset them on the iHeart app every

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00:17:39.760 Turn someday into right now with Body by Jake Radio.

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00:17:46.340 Hey, head over to iHeart.com.

00:17:48.320 Search Body by Jake Radio and stream it for free right now.

00:17:51.860 Awesome health and wellness tips 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

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00:18:07.360 welcome back in hour number two clay and buck we are rolling through the program hope all of you

00:18:17.700 are having great days wherever you may be across the country uh as we continue to deal with day

00:18:25.380 three of the counting day three going on of counting in california for both the mayor's race

00:18:33.280 and the governor's race we bring in now charles carron he has been doing and responsible for

00:18:40.120 the pro spencer pratt ai ads and before we dive into those what motivated you thanks for coming

00:18:48.680 on the show no thank you for having me i appreciate it what what led you to decide that you wanted to

00:18:55.980 get involved in speaking out in the la mayor's race what kind of relationship if any do you have

00:19:02.840 with spencer pratt i don't have any relationship with spencer pratt but i live in hollywood i live

00:19:08.260 in la and i have a lot of friends that lost their homes in the palestin's fires and i have to live

00:19:13.880 in the city you know so like i have to deal with the ramifications of the policies here so

00:19:18.200 you know like whether it's it's it's just really bad here right now it's just it's not hyperbole

00:19:23.480 it's just genuinely genuinely pretty awful like women don't feel safe walking their kids down the

00:19:28.500 street um there's human feces on the street there's needles are a common occurrence um if

00:19:34.460 you call the police you don't know if you're going to get a response or not and myself and

00:19:39.320 a lot of my friends and basically everyone if they're being honest it just kind of had enough

00:19:43.500 of it hey charles it's buck thanks for being here uh those things you describe we've talked

00:19:48.500 about before on the show and we certainly have a lot of listeners who will call in and tell us

00:19:52.940 about this but one thing i i'm wondering about is uh i have heard for example i already know

00:19:58.020 that venice beach santa monica which are very expensive places they have these problems right

00:20:03.920 so is has this now spread out into most if not all of the high rent or higher end neighborhoods

00:20:12.420 if you will of los angeles proper are affected by this stuff because that's always a marker i think

00:20:19.060 of of the decay is it just rough areas is it everywhere how widespread is it it's everywhere

00:20:25.940 it's you can't you can't go down the street without saying like a homeless homeless encampment

00:20:30.040 of some sort like it's it's everywhere it's it's not uh selective i think there's probably some

00:20:34.840 very rich very gated communities that aren't affected by this and those are kind of the

00:20:38.780 i think those are the kinds of people that endorse you know like bass which is why they

00:20:43.060 send their staffers to go shop for them and hope they don't get accosted in the parking lot of

00:20:47.540 Erewhon. I know the type. Yeah, exactly. So everyone else is stuck living in the actual

00:20:53.800 reality. And so those are the people that are voting for Spencer Pratt. Okay, so you're frustrated.

00:20:58.320 You decided Spencer was someone who was speaking to your frustrations. How did the AI videos come

00:21:05.080 about? Where did the idea come from? How many people are involved? Take me through how this

00:21:10.880 process works because they have gone so mega viral i am just utterly fascinated with uh the

00:21:17.280 story behind them yeah i mean so like long story short i'm a traditional filmmaker um and for like

00:21:24.460 the last three years i've been taking ai video really seriously it used to be quite rudimentary

00:21:28.700 but i i saw where the puck was going and i knew that this was going to be the new camera i was

00:21:33.160 going to democratize filmmaking in the same way that like digital filmmaking did and uh so we

00:21:37.820 sort of meant a studio to do that and the idea for us was that there would be no longer a gatekeeper

00:21:43.560 like there would be like a hollywood gatekeeper to say what movies can and can't get made

00:21:46.700 and as we were building this out spencer started talking the truth and we were like okay what can

00:21:52.460 we do to help him um this needs to happen and we just started making the ads um it's four of us

00:21:58.380 right now um but you know like we're obviously expanding very quickly um and we just started

00:22:03.120 making them and they started resonating with people and we just kept making them so can you

00:22:08.900 give us some how many did you make total uh menace studios if people didn't hear it you said there's

00:22:14.060 four of you how many total videos did you guys make and do you have a sense for how many views

00:22:19.420 those videos got oh man i'd have to count honestly because we just kind of riffed like it's more like

00:22:25.040 a jam band than anything like whenever we have an idea like we'll just jump in a group chat you

00:22:28.500 know like if i make this laugh and there's some truth to it we'll make it you know and it takes

00:22:32.760 us about anywhere from three to nine hours to make a video you know so it's quite quick and um

00:22:39.560 you know if we go to sleep with an idea and it's still funny to us the next day we know it's going

00:22:43.120 to be a hit you know what i mean kind of thing and um what was what was the second question i'm

00:22:47.600 sorry i asked how many people if you knew how many because i i have seen just ones that i have

00:22:53.180 shared have done five or ten million views so i mean this has to be in the hundreds of millions

00:22:57.620 of views for sure right of these videos it's it's really hard to quantify the impact because beyond

00:23:03.380 just twitter where we've been posting them like whenever i turn on fox news or cnn they're

00:23:08.000 constantly running whenever whenever it's on joe rogan it's on the tim dillon podcast it's on the

00:23:13.960 local news now every day um all the stations so it's it's a little overwhelming like we knew it

00:23:19.560 was going to be important we knew we knew what we could do what we were capable of but we did not

00:23:23.540 expected to like reach critical mass quite so quickly and we have some theories about why that

00:23:28.940 is but it's been it's been interesting to see for sure i'm just curious and i know you know i'm not

00:23:34.060 asking a magician to give us all the secrets but maybe i am how does one learn how to do this how

00:23:42.320 do you become adept like if i wanted to make a feature-length film about a uh a radio host in

00:23:51.060 middle age who plays the flute shirtless like how would i be able to learn to do it at a level

00:23:58.380 that's beyond you know right now i use grok and i'll we'll make some little fun uh images and

00:24:04.220 things like that but you know where does one go to sort of acquire the skill set what what tools

00:24:09.840 does one use to make the kind of videos that you're making i mean i think it's a number of

00:24:15.300 things like there's like the technical aspect of it which i think is probably maybe one of the

00:24:18.760 easier things to teach but the more important one i think is just storytelling you know and that's

00:24:23.020 at the root of like all human kind of history and that hasn't really changed you know like that's

00:24:27.500 what makes a good movie that's what makes a good story like as long as there's some truth in it

00:24:31.580 you know like at the heart of it i think that's why the ads have been successful like people

00:24:35.960 by the way this uh this youtube these youtubers have made i you know it's it's not a ai it's it's

00:24:42.720 a movie but i think this is really also showing people what's possible now especially with the

00:24:47.820 small clips that will circulate on places like tiktok and things of movies um that this movie

00:24:53.140 obsession is going to make i think it's made cost 750 000 to make which for a movie for a normal

00:25:00.380 hollywood movie is not even the catering budget right i mean that's truly like not even the

00:25:04.620 catering budget for a for a full length like a an avenger style kind of movie um and it's going to

00:25:10.080 make uh it's going to make over a hundred million yeah 250 million dollars globally is the estimate

00:25:16.440 that i've seen it's made over 100 million already it's incredible and i think this just speaks to

00:25:21.380 like how much change people want you know people are tired of the same recycled slop from hollywood

00:25:27.180 like we've seen how many marvel movies we've seen how many reboots of you know the same

00:25:31.520 safe brands because like films have to play overseas you know like to recoup a hundred

00:25:36.320 million dollar budget or you know like they have to be a prestige picture to justify like a spend

00:25:40.600 that if it's going to lose money but people want new things and i think that speaks to it like and

00:25:45.540 And so that was kind of like one of the reasons why we made Menace, because we were like, OK, when was the last time Hollywood was good?

00:25:51.020 It was like new Hollywood in the 70s.

00:25:52.520 And it came out of the studio system being atrophied and not remembering what made Hollywood good, which was that they made entertainment.

00:25:58.940 And so I think that there's going to be like a profound shift.

00:26:01.700 And I don't think it's just AI.

00:26:02.840 I think it's going to be new things coming through.

00:26:05.420 I'm curious.

00:26:06.780 Obviously, the response to these videos has been phenomenal, and it has spoken to many different people.

00:26:12.760 I'm sure you saw Doug Allen, who created Entourage.

00:26:15.540 He went viral, talking about how frustrated he was with what L.A. had become.

00:26:20.420 I'm curious in the time that you have lived in L.A.

00:26:24.560 We stopped making for a long time really funny movies.

00:26:28.720 It became a very censorious culture in Hollywood.

00:26:32.740 It used to be full of eccentrics, people of all different types of backgrounds, crazy beliefs, creative people.

00:26:40.080 We're not a cultural monolith like they have become.

00:26:43.580 have you seen that progression in the time that you've been in LA do you think it is starting to

00:26:50.260 shift is the Spencer Pratt campaign reflective of that take us into the what culture of what

00:26:56.020 you see on the ground and what has helped to make your videos so popular and is it reflective of a

00:27:01.940 larger wake-up call in Los Angeles yeah I mean I think like people people miss like you know like

00:27:08.420 the 80s like they miss like when like I kind of probably like a John Milius you know like they

00:27:12.340 miss these kinds of movies that probably used to turn out and i was at the um the campaign uh

00:27:19.060 watch party like on the night of the election and everyone there had never been involved in

00:27:24.100 local politics before everyone there was just grassroots excited to do whatever they could

00:27:29.060 within their capacities to like help push the pup forward and um you know like similar to us and so

00:27:35.780 i thought that was really exciting that like he's spoken like the truth he's been like okay everyone

00:27:40.660 open your eyes let's let's solve these basic basic problems of like you know like civic

00:27:45.800 confidence you know and people are just rallying around that so i think that there is a shift i

00:27:50.260 don't know on a grander scale what that means yet but it's obviously shifting well what you're doing

00:27:56.540 is so cool i just i just wonder is there do you have i know this maybe is like asking you i don't

00:28:01.960 know if you have kids you seem like a very young guy charles but it's like asking to pick favorite

00:28:05.520 among your children is there one movie that you guys have made though where you just knew as soon

00:28:09.960 as you let it fly that this thing was going to just boom all over the internet was it the uh

00:28:14.680 like the batman la uh crossover thing was that the one where you just knew it was going to work

00:28:20.320 or do you do you have do you have one that you're most proud of or you were most excited to release

00:28:24.360 i think the batman one just because it was the first one and i knew that it would be popular

00:28:30.360 i knew that it would be exciting for people because i knew that like as i was looking around

00:28:34.580 and kind of getting a gauge of like political messaging today i was like oh my gosh this is

00:28:38.660 all so formulaic this is all so stale you know like it's just a paint by numbers i was like let's

00:28:43.500 shake it up a little bit i think that the technology is there to really be able to cut

00:28:47.160 through the noise and i knew that it would be effective i just did not appreciate how effective

00:28:52.460 it would be i just want to tell you i've made the case on the show uh which hopefully you listen to

00:28:57.300 sometimes when you're not making amazing ai movies that are hopefully going to defeat communists in

00:29:01.160 los angeles uh that political cartoons became really popular and and powerful in america in

00:29:09.500 the like really post-civil war latter half of the i've studied propaganda and so this sort of came

00:29:14.620 up in it pre-radio political cartoons were such an important part of political messaging uh and

00:29:21.520 people can even think back to ones they've seen i think what you're doing now by the way the you

00:29:25.880 know ai for campaigns is the new political cartoon yeah i mean that's a big inspiration for us like

00:29:32.260 when we look back at like the like um was it thomas naff suited like the vultures for like

00:29:36.560 tammany hall you know like i mentioned the tammany hall one sure yeah so like you know like

00:29:42.480 we're history nerds so like we study this as well and like that's kind of what motivates us to do

00:29:47.400 this do you want to make some cool videos for a radio show but well i i sent him a message i would

00:29:52.740 like i would like them to start doing some stuff with us do you think you have changed the way that

00:29:57.520 campaigns will go will be going forward because what i love about your videos uh are to your

00:30:03.000 point so many political ads are super boring they are you make you kind of almost fall asleep when

00:30:09.820 you're watching them yours are different they grab you do you think you have changed some of

00:30:15.720 the trajectory of future campaigns and do you think that republican leaning campaigns are

00:30:22.540 more likely to be good at this or democrat leaning campaigns so far dem democrats are not great at

00:30:28.800 memeing or humor because humor can be offensive and it seems like they're worried about hurting

00:30:33.220 people's feelings how do you see this playing out going forward i think we've changed the game um

00:30:39.740 i think that uh the reason it'll work for the right and then it won't work for the left is that

00:30:45.200 um they're affected because there's truth in them and it doesn't matter whether it's ai that

00:30:49.700 communicates the truth they resonate with people because they're speaking to something true and to

00:30:53.920 your point the left can't mean because they need to prevent all this context and like language

00:30:57.600 games to kind of foo-foo away what people are seeing with their own eyes and we don't have to

00:31:03.020 do that are you nervous about how long it's taken to count have you talked to spencer pratt and his

00:31:08.740 team uh i this is day three it's ridiculous are you going to make a video mocking how long the

00:31:14.420 counting is taking that's like kind of beyond my wheelhouse like as a filmmaker i don't know

00:31:20.200 enough about the intricacies of like local municipal politics and like vote counting i

00:31:26.040 hope that whatever needs to be searched to make sure that it's fair does get searched but beyond

00:31:30.380 that i don't have really an intelligent answer on that one well we appreciate you making the time

00:31:35.660 for us i know that you've been getting a lot of media requests is there anything we haven't asked

00:31:39.960 you that you would like to tell this audience uh to kind of introduce yourself no i thank you for

00:31:47.480 having me on um i really appreciate it thank you charles curran i've done amazing work uh and maybe

00:31:54.340 we'll find some uh some jobs for him to do with the radio show because i think he could probably

00:31:58.120 do a phenomenal job with that as well um and uh man uh those videos have been so impactful look

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00:32:51.500 Preset Clay and Buck on the iHeart app.

00:32:54.300 Welcome in, hour number three, Clay and Buck rolling through the Thursday edition of the program.

00:33:00.340 We head up to D.C. right now where there is major decisions to be made on a variety of different fronts

00:33:08.420 as we come into the summer season here before we get into the fall campaign season.

00:33:14.240 We are joined now by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Republican from Louisiana.

00:33:19.420 A lot of different stories that are out there.

00:33:22.740 let me start with this I saw where President Trump just posted that he supported Senator

00:33:30.360 Cruz and Senator Cantwell's college bill on the Senate side I know that you guys have been working

00:33:37.620 on the SCORE Act on the other side in the house what for people out there that like college

00:33:43.820 athletics is there a method in your mind by which the Senate bill could pass the house if it got

00:33:51.680 there if not what is the scenario what is the situation there's a lot of us like me who are

00:33:57.540 big time college sports fans what's going to happen here from your perspective yeah well first

00:34:03.280 clay and buck thank y'all for having me and obviously there are a lot of people that care

00:34:07.220 about college athletics and anybody following it knows it's just evolved into the wild wild west

00:34:13.040 primarily because over years lawsuits have been filed and lost by the ncaa to the point where

00:34:19.840 there is no enforcement mechanism for college athletics and so you don't have any ability you

00:34:25.920 can have 28 year olds playing against 17 year olds kids on their sixth school you know playing

00:34:31.760 eight years later and you know so what we what we ended up having was a situation where a lot of the

00:34:38.100 different schools conferences coaches started coming to us probably in the last two years and

00:34:44.880 said, can y'all help? Congress needs to step in to give the kind of antitrust protection so that

00:34:50.940 the schools can govern themselves again. So that was really the genesis of the problem. I had Nick

00:34:55.920 Saban in my office a couple of years ago and a few times since, as well as others, that all

00:35:02.080 recognized, look, we can fight it out on the football field or the basketball court, but

00:35:06.320 can we at least get the ability to govern the schools again and bring structure and protect

00:35:11.540 the student-athlete, by the way, because, Clay, a lot of these young kids in high school are being

00:35:16.840 poached by unscrupulous people as agents that are, you know, taking 10, 15, 20 percent when the going

00:35:25.580 rate is 5 percent for an agent, things like that. So we put together a bill, and the House and Senate

00:35:30.780 I don't think are too far apart, but on some key issues, there are some differences that need to

00:35:35.800 get worked out. But I met with President Trump, and President Trump wants the House and Senate

00:35:40.700 to work through this to fix the problem.

00:35:43.140 He cares about college athletics like we do.

00:35:45.920 And so let's make sure we can let the schools

00:35:48.160 govern themselves, give protections to the student-athletes

00:35:51.520 that they don't have right now.

00:35:53.360 You know, NIL is already there.

00:35:55.360 We're not talking about whether or not

00:35:56.840 to pay student-athletes.

00:35:58.200 They can get paid for their name, image, and likeness,

00:36:01.280 but have some structure to protect them,

00:36:03.420 give them financial literacy so they don't blow the money,

00:36:06.520 protect them from people that might be posing

00:36:09.160 as agents who aren't.

00:36:10.240 We cap agents' fees at 5%, really good protection for the student-athlete.

00:36:15.740 One thing that a lot of schools and student-athletes told us is they don't want to be forced into being employees of the school

00:36:21.580 and then ultimately being unionized, and that's one of the big differences between the House and Senate bill that's got to get fixed.

00:36:28.560 But you also, right now, are in a situation in the House bill, and look, whose bill it is, I don't really care.

00:36:35.420 whose name, we'll name it after Nick Saban or anybody else, but I appreciate that people want

00:36:41.200 to fix the problem, but we need to fix it the right way so that you don't have a situation where

00:36:47.860 colleges are going bankrupt trying to run athletic programs, and so I think we have some things to

00:36:55.020 work out. That's what Congress needs to do, is go fix some of these problems and then get these

00:37:00.240 protections so that we can maintain good strong college athletics going forward with all the

00:37:05.740 conferences by the way right now you've got the two major conferences in college sports the big

00:37:10.660 10 and sec opposed to the senate bill so you can't have a credible fix to college athletics

00:37:17.240 with a bill that is opposed by the two biggest college athletic conferences let's work together

00:37:22.480 with everybody and get this done the right way it sounds to me and and i'll let buck dive into

00:37:28.020 other issues but this is one that i've you know been following pretty closely so i appreciate

00:37:32.280 uh you on this coming on it sounds to me like your position is not the senate bill closer to

00:37:38.460 the house bill we need some sort of synthesis between these two bills in order for it to pass

00:37:43.760 the house is that a fair approximation and it's really to address the issues that the schools

00:37:50.060 came to us on this isn't something where congress woke up one day and said we want to get involved

00:37:54.640 in college athletics. Obviously, we've got a lot of other issues we're dealing with. And we're

00:37:58.880 doing that. We're dealing with some bills on fraud prevention this week on funding the Department

00:38:03.240 of Homeland Security. But I think most people also care about college athletics. And the schools

00:38:08.600 came to us and said, we've got a problem. And the only solution because of lawsuits, the president

00:38:14.540 did some good executive orders, but even President Trump acknowledged Congress needs to fix these

00:38:19.400 final pieces. And so let's fix them in a way where it includes all of the schools. It can't

00:38:25.980 be pitting some schools against other big schools against small schools. You know, this is not a

00:38:31.560 problem that only applies to certain types of schools. I mean, you had everybody from the

00:38:36.880 biggest conferences to the smallest conferences to all of the HBCUs who came to us with the same

00:38:42.720 problem. So let's have a solution that solves it for everybody. Leader Scalise, appreciate you

00:38:48.620 being here what can get done that's probably a question you get asked a lot i'm sure a lot of

00:38:54.720 questions start that way when you're in congress so what can get done before the summer recess if

00:39:00.160 anything and what are you hoping more importantly is on the is on the realistic agenda here before

00:39:07.580 the midterm election yeah clay the biggest issue that oh no i'm buck the other guy's clay buck is

00:39:14.760 buck is the one who asked the salty questions go ahead okay yeah good um the biggest problem

00:39:21.020 that they need congress's help with is antitrust protection because of court decisions that have

00:39:28.340 come you know and you just saw it in the last few months you know some student athlete is you know

00:39:34.900 maybe in his sixth year at a school and he wants to play another year that used to not be allowed

00:39:40.380 well ncaa says you can't play so he goes to a state judge and the state judge is going to rule

00:39:46.320 in favor of the state school and then next thing you know ncaa has no ability to enforce anything

00:39:52.700 anymore and so they need antitrust protection so you don't have a state-by-state hodgepodge of rules

00:39:58.840 that cannot be enforced that's the biggest thing so let's leaders leader scalise i mean beyond the

00:40:04.760 scope of of college athletics what can you get done in congress well we're working like the other

00:40:10.800 things on the department of homeland security which is really important we've seen threats

00:40:15.620 and attacks on our homeland recently that have been stopped by that department they do important

00:40:20.380 work the agency's not fully funded i think by the end of this week we could have a bill that fully

00:40:25.420 funds the department of homeland security we're working on some other bills that would go deeper

00:40:30.420 into fraud prevention. I met yesterday with Dr. Oz, who's doing a great job over at CMS.

00:40:36.320 He's identified close to $100 billion of fraud. I'm talking theft of taxpayer money in programs

00:40:42.780 like hospice care and durable medical equipment, where people are just going, oh, let's give all

00:40:48.040 this money to health care. And then you find out international criminal organizations are setting

00:40:52.480 up phony companies and stealing your tax money because it's that easy to do because there's not

00:40:57.920 fraud prevention measures, and we need to put those in law. So a lot of us are working with

00:41:03.600 agencies like CMS to help root out more fraud, because then you can put that money into the

00:41:10.020 places where it belongs, help people that have true needs in health care, as opposed to a lot

00:41:15.140 of them are foreign countries that are setting up these shell corporations, stealing billions of tax

00:41:21.160 dollars. So we're focusing on things like that, obviously working on more energy production,

00:41:26.280 trying to lower costs, make housing more affordable.

00:41:29.120 We have a really good housing bill right now that's moving through the House and the Senate.

00:41:33.420 They're in final negotiations.

00:41:35.080 I think you could get a bill signed by the president in the next few weeks on housing

00:41:39.520 that would lower housing costs for Americans.

00:41:41.540 And that's something that matters to everybody, whether you're a first-time homebuyer

00:41:45.260 or somebody with an existing home looking to upgrade or downsize.

00:41:48.760 So we're working on that right now.

00:41:51.020 You know, it's nonstop, but I think there's a lot of things we can do

00:41:54.220 before we get to what is the August recess where people go back to their districts in an election

00:42:00.320 year and then everybody's running for re-election. We're talking to House Majority Leader Steve

00:42:06.160 Scalise. I'm sure you're paying at least a little bit of attention to what's going on in California.

00:42:12.040 President Trump is saying we got to get the SAVE Act passed. California is about to be in its third

00:42:18.080 day. I guess they're in their third day now counting votes. It doesn't seem to be happening

00:42:22.560 at all they still have millions of votes outstanding how do we get this fixed it's

00:42:27.360 frustrating i think certainly the people who are listening to us and voters in california

00:42:31.760 but this story right now and how bad california is voting it's really getting a lot of tension

00:42:37.060 nationwide are you as frustrated as we are this is a national embarrassment everybody in the country

00:42:43.240 ought to be looking at this saying you know most states if the polls close on eight o'clock on a

00:42:49.620 Tuesday night, by 930, everybody's got their state returns in. And if you're days later,

00:42:56.720 weeks later, in California, New York, it was three weeks later in some cases, and they were still

00:43:02.300 quote unquote counting ballots. I think it raises a lot of questions and it makes people question

00:43:08.540 the integrity of the vote count when you're seeing them finding boxes of ballots weeks later.

00:43:14.780 is that really right and fair? And so we've got to fix that. The Save America Act, as you mentioned,

00:43:21.360 is a great solution that says just two basic things. Prove your citizenship to register to

00:43:26.840 vote. And when you go to vote, you show a picture ID. Is that really complicated? You can't get on

00:43:31.720 an airplane without showing an ID. You can't go buy a six pack of beer without showing an ID.

00:43:37.140 Why not the franchise of American democracy? You show an ID so that we can make sure that

00:43:42.880 illegals aren't voting people that are not fraudulently fraudulently voting and then

00:43:47.880 shouldn't we be able to have election night be election night and not look california three

00:43:52.720 days later they're not even at 50 on many of these races of the ballots in well where are

00:43:58.800 those ballots who's got the ballots uh it's unreal that in today's age with all the technology you

00:44:05.680 have available that they're going to tell you it's going to take weeks in the 1800s they could

00:44:10.740 count ballots the same day no doubt uh majority leader steve scalise we appreciate the time sir

00:44:18.220 keep up the the fight there and we'll talk to you again soon hey thank you all for having me

00:44:23.260 appreciate it clay and buck thank you uh look i want to tell you right now uh it's awful in israel

00:44:30.520 and has been since october 7 2023 when it comes to just being safe just knowing that there's not

00:44:37.620 going to be missiles raining down all sorts of issues that are going on there it's why the

00:44:44.240 international fellowship of christians and jews you know what they do they build bomb shelters

00:44:48.120 they help hospitals uh build underground uh ability to take care of everybody because

00:44:55.300 unfortunately you've got missiles and bombs raining down up above ground they also do a

00:45:01.180 great job of helping to take care of people who are driving vehicles that may be in danger trying

00:45:06.120 to be first responders and serve and protect so many people all over israel you're listening to

00:45:12.180 us right now uh it's an american-based organization that's designed to bring christians and jews

00:45:16.960 together and build a bridge of connection between the u.s and israel ifcj uses every donated dollar

00:45:24.540 by you in the most productive helpful ways right now they're inviting you to leave a personal prayer

00:45:30.860 or a message of encouragement that will be delivered directly to someone in israel who

00:45:35.280 needs hope it'll be personally delivered by the ifcj more than just support this is standing with

00:45:41.620 israel when it matters most go to pray ifcj.org to submit your prayer today that's pray ifcj.org

00:45:51.240 level up your brain mental mugging with clay and buck every day in ontario a shelter worker will

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00:46:14.080 with no choice but to go on strike. Today, workers are on the picket lines fighting for their

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00:46:23.720 worthfightingfor.ca to show your support. Turn someday into right now with Buddy by Jake Radio,

00:46:29.860 non-stop workout music and expert tips 24 7 hey head over to iheart.com search body by jake radio

00:46:36.080 and stream it for free right now awesome health and wellness tips 24 hours a day seven days a

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00:46:51.720 and stream it for free have a great day iheart radio welcome back in clay and buck appreciate

00:46:59.600 all of you hanging out with us we've got a cool guest here in studio for a couple of segments

00:47:04.620 with us he is brad thor best-selling author how many books have you sold what is that it's got

00:47:10.560 to be i i it's yeah it's in the tens of millions of millions the tens of millions not a bad spot

00:47:16.540 to be you got a brand new book let me make sure that i get uh choke point and you uh now live in

00:47:22.700 nashville buck and i and you were all talking uh during the commercial break there goes the book

00:47:27.560 flying off the shelves already yeah buck you have known brad for a long time we were talking about

00:47:33.140 all the different awesome uh books and programs and uh and entertainment that he's been involved

00:47:38.240 in i'll let you introduce when you guys first met and then we'll dive into all the things he's doing

00:47:43.020 now so when i first got out of the agency and glenn beck hired me uh so apparently glenn beck

00:47:50.320 was doing his recruiting out of the cia uh he brought me you know he brought which i'm sure

00:47:55.800 now he like does not remind everybody of but uh he he was when he started the blaze it was just

00:48:02.820 really cool because it was a a multimedia multi-platform company that wanted to bring

00:48:07.900 in everything right it wasn't just commentators it was obviously great authors it was uh people

00:48:12.860 who were doing creative stuff and so that was when i first uh first met brad thor and i remember i

00:48:17.800 think i did either a hit with brad on glenn show or a panel and afterwards a couple of the guys in

00:48:23.660 the blaze newsroom we're like dude that was so cool you got to do the show with brad thor and i

00:48:29.240 was like whoa and then i of course looked into his books and you know lines of lucerne and etc etc

00:48:34.280 and now now he's like uh he's one of those names he's one of those people that like the bookstore

00:48:39.260 has got like so many of his books and they've 27 books i was just doing the research here 27 listen

00:48:45.840 before we go any further i just have to say how proud i am of you guys and how you've been killing

00:48:50.620 it and uh you know rush had me on his show several times and just such a great guy and in the

00:48:55.920 newsletter and all that kind of stuff and i can remember when we first moved here and rush giving

00:48:59.640 me a call and all that kind of stuff so i don't think they could have handed it to more capable

00:49:03.680 or more talented hands so you guys are killing it great job well thank you thank you you you have

00:49:08.360 moved we are having fun and we are neither of us are clinically insane so those are differentiating

00:49:13.940 factors these days crazily that is an important differentiating factor the instant mere sanity

00:49:19.040 you moved to nashville 12 years ago you were ahead from chicago you were ahead of the curve

00:49:24.240 yep why did you make the move well you know my taxes kept going up in chicago i did conservative

00:49:30.000 uh drive time radio as a guest and sometimes a fill-in uh on wls in chicago and i had people

00:49:36.560 calling in when i started saying i think i'm gonna leave i've worked on enough campaigns i've tried

00:49:40.760 to get things to change they haven't put in a republican administration in chicago and you know

00:49:45.560 well over 100 years and people said oh you're chickening out you're running away and i said

00:49:49.760 guys listen at some point it was okay for rihanna to leave chris brown right like tina had to leave

00:49:55.120 like rihanna left chris i felt like i felt like i was on this island that was being swallowed up by

00:50:00.800 the ocean because the gangs were getting so bad i had to tell our babysitter you can't take the

00:50:05.380 kids to the beach to the zoo all that i'm paying more and more money for less and less enjoyment

00:50:10.260 uh in chicago my wife had some health issues i was worried that she was going to be a target

00:50:14.500 for muggings and i said and they wouldn't let me carry a gun so i said up yours we're leaving

00:50:18.960 and uh you know we moved down here and it's been been great it was a great place to raise our

00:50:24.140 children uh no income tax states run very very well and uh we love it here yes i i will say

00:50:32.220 you you picked one of the two places that i think americans realize these days you can achieve

00:50:38.360 that level of freedom we do love texas but the problem with texas is a lot of people end up

00:50:44.360 I know this because my brother, actually, Brad, went through this during the pandemic.

00:50:49.080 He was kind of the a la carte pioneer going to check out the different.

00:50:53.620 And he checked out this lovely little place of Austin, Texas, which does have some great restaurants and barbecue and all this sort of stuff.

00:51:01.080 No plastic grocery bags.

00:51:02.760 Yeah.

00:51:02.940 Yeah, you get the blue governance in the middle of the very red state, whereas at least in Nashville, the surrounding area, now, believe it or not, here in Miami and the surrounding area, you have sane governance.

00:51:14.360 for the city in a sane state yeah it made all the difference to us to get out and our kids

00:51:21.760 understood why we were moving we luckily moved them young in grade school so that worked

00:51:25.500 and uh we've never looked back i mean everything the property taxes are less here the only thing

00:51:30.040 that's comparable to chicago is the sales tax here but that's that's it and we were used to

00:51:34.020 paying that there so this has just been it's been great for freedom it's been great for my business

00:51:37.520 and great for my family when we come back we're going to ask you all about what it's like to not

00:51:41.280 only be an author but to be working to try to turn those books into multimedia projects and

00:51:46.380 movies and television and more uh but buck you take us to break saber my friends we're just

00:51:51.860 talking about chicago if you're in any city anywhere in the country you know you have to

00:51:55.580 find ways to keep you yourself your family safe and there's some places where by the way they

00:52:00.180 don't allow you they don't even allow you to conceal carry and it's basically impossible

00:52:05.460 So non-lethal options make so much sense.

00:52:08.600 In some cases, they're a complete necessity.

00:52:11.240 But even if you're a 2A person and you live in a rural area,

00:52:16.780 you live in a place where you're in the suburbs,

00:52:18.960 you don't think about crime that often, home invasions happen.

00:52:22.140 Saber Smart Pepper Spray is just something you should have.

00:52:25.220 Think of it as part of your force escalation toolkit.

00:52:28.500 The best non-lethals you can get come from Saber.

00:52:31.520 The Saber Smart Pepper Spray right now is available on Amazon.

00:52:34.740 and it notifies other family members if you have to deploy it

00:52:38.820 so people get a heads-up about this if it is used in defense.

00:52:43.180 It's a brilliant, brilliant tool.

00:52:45.360 Search Saber Smart Pepper Spray on Amazon to get it today.

00:52:48.640 Again, so easy.

00:52:49.560 Get it delivered to your house in the next 24 hours.

00:52:51.440 Saber Smart on Amazon.

00:52:53.080 I've got to say, I love the rejoin music being an homage to Beverly Hills Cop,

00:52:58.880 one of the ten best movies of the 80s.

00:53:00.620 I don't care what Clay Travis says about it.

00:53:02.440 I think you said five before, and I was like, ah, that's aggressive.

00:53:06.760 Ten is a little bit more buffer for you.

00:53:08.460 Okay, I think ten is like a gimme.

00:53:10.900 That's easy.

00:53:11.480 So I'd say top ten movies of the 80s, but we had that one there.

00:53:15.040 We're sitting here, by the way, we're talking about, with Brad Thor, of course,

00:53:18.960 author of so many books.

00:53:22.000 27 bestsellers.

00:53:23.780 We got a huge audience of radio listeners who are also a huge audience of Brad Thor readers.

00:53:30.580 his latest Brad Thor

00:53:32.280 choke point well you know it's Brad Thor

00:53:34.220 he wrote it a choke point

00:53:35.700 number one New York Times bestselling author

00:53:37.940 we're talking about all this fun stuff

00:53:40.300 by the way because we're like oh man who's

00:53:42.260 going to be in the series or who's going to be in the

00:53:44.260 movie and all this we can get into that in a second

00:53:46.060 Brad though because he's a practitioner

00:53:48.340 you know he's a guy who likes to get

00:53:50.240 into the research and he's had some

00:53:51.660 he's done some work in the intel community before himself

00:53:54.220 he's like wait I want to weigh in on the

00:53:56.200 DNI stuff and I'm sitting here

00:53:58.000 He heard us having our super, you and Norm having your super nerdy conversation.

00:54:02.640 Yeah, I'm just like, are we going to get Taylor Kitsch to be in the movie?

00:54:08.080 I want to talk cool Hollywood celebrity stuff, Navy SEALs fighting on the screen and all this, everything else.

00:54:13.960 And he wants to talk DNI.

00:54:15.320 So by all means, Mr. Thor, what do you think about the current state of the intel community?

00:54:21.820 Well, listen, I think we spent a lot of money solving a legit problem,

00:54:25.360 but we over-solved the problem with the ODNI, right?

00:54:29.780 It's like DHS.

00:54:31.640 I've never been a huge fan of DHS,

00:54:33.340 even though that's where I did do the analytic red cell unit and things like that.

00:54:38.260 I thought your answer to Norm was good, number one,

00:54:40.760 because, listen, governments are made up of people,

00:54:43.740 and no organization is perfect.

00:54:45.240 They have problems.

00:54:45.880 I'll give you all of that.

00:54:46.920 But I don't think that the, you know, the DNI is pushing up garbage to give to the president as part of the PDB every single day.

00:54:54.380 But, you know, the issue, as you know, Buck, probably better than anybody because you worked at the agency, is the stove piping, right, is how much stuff just kind of went up and down or basically up at Langley, whether it just, you know, ended up at the seventh floor and didn't get disseminated.

00:55:08.400 That's the problem.

00:55:09.360 That's what the DNI was supposed to solve, is that the agency shared information.

00:55:14.080 So, you know, I'm not I mean, Negroponte, the big insider thing that most of the people in the intel community used to know is Negroponte would go out.

00:55:21.620 The first guy that ran that office, he'd go to these three hour lunches and get a massage.

00:55:26.140 I mean, it was unbelievable how little time that guy was actually in the office.

00:55:29.600 And it kind of gives you a hint as to how important was it in a lot of agencies.

00:55:34.360 And I'm sure Buck knows this as well.

00:55:36.520 Have some put some good people there.

00:55:38.200 But it's also a graveyard where they also stick some people that aren't so good that they don't want in headquarters and shove them over there.

00:55:44.180 So it was set up to solve a communication problem.

00:55:46.780 So we didn't end up with guys that were taking flight lessons that didn't want to know how to learn land the plane.

00:55:51.140 And that information wasn't getting shared around.

00:55:53.020 So could we do without it?

00:55:55.240 Yeah, we probably could do without it.

00:55:56.700 Is Pulte the guy to lead it?

00:55:58.080 Absolutely not.

00:55:59.100 The job description is very clear that you have to have intel experience.

00:56:02.260 But the way that the Federal Vacancy Reform Act is written is that he gets to be there 210 days.

00:56:08.560 President Trump gets to put up one person for confirmation.

00:56:12.280 If that person bombs, then Pulte gets an automatic next 210 days, and then President Trump could put up a second person.

00:56:19.400 And if that guy bombs at the Senate, he gets 210 more.

00:56:21.960 So this guy's basically got the job if he wants it, and if the president chooses to keep him in it for the rest of the administration.

00:56:27.680 All right.

00:56:27.920 So that was a very astute, excellent nerd analysis of the entire thing.

00:56:31.260 It's my baseball.

00:56:31.900 I know Clay is the sports guy, but politics is my baseball.

00:56:35.200 This is like your bucks in heaven right now.

00:56:38.220 We sit here all day and be like, hey, what do you think about the change

00:56:41.700 from the National Clandestine Service back to the Directorate of Operations?

00:56:45.300 No, no.

00:56:45.760 We're going to talk about your cool book and Hollywood stuff here for a second

00:56:49.240 so that we have all of our listeners staying with us.

00:56:51.680 You are, right now, tell us which one of your projects is the furthest along.

00:56:55.880 I know you've got multiple that are optioned and licensed and all that sort of stuff.

00:56:59.940 i feel like uh ari from entourage right now i'm like we got a lot of stoves in the you know well

00:57:04.100 he's just mentioned that's what i'm in business with i'm in business with ari emmanuel's son

00:57:08.860 ezra who is business partners with pete berg the producer director and pete did lone survivor we

00:57:14.720 were talking about that off friday night lights yep was pete uh american primeval on netflix right

00:57:20.180 now with taylor kitsch that's pete's and so they're taking my book my i did my first co-written

00:57:24.820 thriller this year with a great writer uh a veteran named ward larson and ward and i wrote

00:57:29.960 something called cold zero and pete loved it and netflix is turning it into this massive big budget

00:57:36.420 thriller that they're calling a bigger more badass hunt for red october that that has to be so much

00:57:42.040 fun now i want to dive into a couple of these guys you mentioned pete berg friday night lights buck

00:57:46.480 and i have talked about i think it's the best broadcast drama that's ever aired i mean if you

00:57:51.160 haven't watched Friday Night Lights put it on your list whole family can watch it you can watch

00:57:55.320 it with your wife even if you don't love football you'll love this show uh but Nick Pizzoletto and

00:58:00.660 I may be missing a lotto yeah he's a lotto uh is the true detective guy he created true detective

00:58:06.140 and he also adapted the Magnificent Seven screenplay which is a pretty good pretty good

00:58:10.580 variety yeah so what is it like working with those guys they're awesome you know what I didn't know

00:58:15.540 about Pete Berg his dad was also a marine like my dad and that was the first thing when Pete

00:58:20.960 introduced himself to me he said we have something in common and he started with that and I said well

00:58:24.620 Marcus Luttrell is also a good buddy of mine and you did his movie Lone Survivor so we found we had

00:58:29.520 all these connections and stuff Pizzolatto is amazing because True Detective that first season

00:58:34.200 with Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey it's unbelievable how good that is and Colin Farrell

00:58:38.440 season two was fantastic and I love Arctic stuff so I even love the Jodie Foster uh Knight whatever

00:58:45.400 it was called my wife my wife has watched all of the True Detectives they're good and I remember

00:58:49.440 remember it crashed the hbo app the first season of true detective when people tried to get on for

00:58:55.320 the final episode do you remember that buck it crashed you couldn't get on hbo.com because so

00:59:00.680 many people were trying to watch the final episode so they he's the he's the screenwriter so he's

00:59:04.560 writing the movie for cold zero and so as we were talking about off air i'm hoping to see the script

00:59:09.600 uh i'll bring an extra copy we can sit out uh outside have a i was gonna say clay and i are

00:59:15.400 available when those directors chairs are on the set you know and we can we'll even yell cut for

00:59:21.500 you you know this is part of our learning so we can talk to our audience about this stuff and and

00:59:25.860 bring everybody into uh you should do a remote like from the it would be fun from the movie

00:59:30.220 by the way buck and i have both written books you've written 27 i'm curious what is your writing

00:59:36.340 process there's probably a ton of people out there listening right now who have a thriller in the back

00:59:40.800 of their mind or have a goal to write something what is your writing day to day what how do you

00:59:45.980 how do you go about putting together a story what do you do how do you write it so there's two types

00:59:50.200 of writers you've either either got an outliner or what we call a pantser which is flying by the

00:59:54.560 seat of your pants and i'm a i'm a pantser because i want to have the same experience writing this

00:59:59.100 that you have reading it where i don't know what's going to happen next and then i get four ideas and

01:00:03.040 i throw those out because if i if those are the first four that come into my mind they're probably

01:00:06.400 the first four to come into yours so it's all about self-discipline though seat of pants the

01:00:11.000 seated chair you you can't edit what hasn't been written and you just got to sit there and you got

01:00:15.180 to bang it out uh and that's what i do i try to i try to get through that first draft as as solid

01:00:21.460 as i can and as quickly as possible and then go back and edit i don't edit a word until it's done

01:00:26.700 because that's a trap that's a loop particularly with fiction you can get just stuck trying to get

01:00:32.080 the perfect sentence out of page one and you'll spend forever on it you'll never get the book done

01:00:35.900 so your cold zero book which you co-authored with ward larson cia operative not named buck sexton

01:00:43.860 which is a little disappointing but a cia i mean you do have a great day you got a buddy here you

01:00:48.380 got a guy you could anyway i'm sure that he has uh you know there's some things that that are

01:00:53.200 totally borrowed from true life there um he's battling the elements and rival superpowers to

01:00:58.380 secure world altering ai technology speak to me about this for a second as a i think we could

01:01:04.760 call you a mega author you're in the mega author a category you know now you're with like you know

01:01:09.800 the clancy's and the critons and the uh clay who's the one who does all the legal uh john grisham

01:01:15.160 grisham thank you grisham and uh scott scott to row that kind of stuff so you're in that you're

01:01:21.060 in that echelon now by the way congratulations what do you think about what ai is going to do

01:01:28.060 I saw something yesterday that Amazon has seen a 40% increase in the last year in self-published books.

01:01:36.840 And let me tell you, this isn't all people that just decided to write the great American novel the hard way.

01:01:42.400 People are having AI write books for them now.

01:01:44.720 What does this do to the industry?

01:01:46.340 How do you see that playing out?

01:01:48.160 They all suck.

01:01:49.300 They all suck.

01:01:50.240 Listen, AI is not – it is such a misnomer.

01:01:53.920 It's like Federal Reserve.

01:01:55.140 Federal Reserve is about as federal as Federal Express.

01:01:58.060 So this idea that artificial intelligence, there is no intelligence.

01:02:01.740 There's no human spark there.

01:02:03.220 It is a glorified search engine that finds stuff, and it gobbles everything up on the Internet,

01:02:08.920 and it gives you the average of what it finds.

01:02:10.940 So I've played with it and said, give me a plot, and it's so bad.

01:02:14.500 I'd be laughed out of my editor's office.

01:02:16.200 There's no way that AI is coming from my job anytime soon.

01:02:20.500 It's terrible when it comes to artistic things with the human experience in it.

01:02:25.400 Ideas.

01:02:26.280 You've written 27 books.

01:02:27.820 That's a lot.

01:02:29.020 I'm sure some of them seem like they're ripped from the headlines because you're aware and you're constantly, as you've been explaining on the show, you're paying attention to current events and everything else.

01:02:37.640 How many of you think you can do?

01:02:39.580 Do you ever sit and think, hey, I'm tapped out?

01:02:42.200 Do you ever feel as if you can't?

01:02:44.240 Where do the ideas come from at this point?

01:02:46.280 I can tell you about Choke Point, which comes out June 16th.

01:02:49.300 So great name.

01:02:50.620 I picked it in September because it was untitled 25 at that time.

01:02:54.460 And by the way, if you haven't read a Brad Thor book before, I tell people they're like the James Bond movies.

01:02:58.480 You can go and see the latest Bond movie.

01:03:00.380 You can jump in without having read the previous ones.

01:03:02.700 Exactly.

01:03:03.000 So I've been fascinated with the Chinese.

01:03:06.100 They do this thing in real life called the Belt and Road Initiative, where they go into countries and say, your port system could be better.

01:03:11.300 We'll pay for it and help you spruce it up or your rail system.

01:03:14.100 And it's the camel's nose in the tent.

01:03:15.820 And all of a sudden, the Chinese are exerting influence on foreign policy, domestic policy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:03:20.900 The Chinese in real life went to Thailand and said, we want to carve this canal across the southern portion of Thailand because we're afraid of the U.S. Navy closing off the Strait of Malacca.

01:03:32.360 And then we can't get out of the South China Sea into the Indian Ocean.

01:03:36.000 And Thailand told them to go pound sand.

01:03:38.160 So I said, what if the Chinese decided to come into Thailand and foment a military coup?

01:03:43.160 last one in thailand was 2013 2014 and what if to hide their fingerprints they took a disillusioned

01:03:49.220 american veteran and used him to be the guy stirring the pot and creating all the chaos

01:03:53.920 in thailand what might that look like and what option might the president of in my fictional

01:03:59.460 world if you gave him five different things what option might he engage in to make sure this stopped

01:04:03.980 and didn't happen because the chinese would if they were successful it would really erode american

01:04:08.400 naval power particularly in the indo-pacific and so this is a spy novel set in bangkok and the

01:04:13.580 chinese are bombing and killing americans and doing all this terrible stuff but it's fun it's

01:04:17.780 short three-page chapters and you get through it really fast but it's based on a real world

01:04:22.460 geopolitical thing brad uh you you're you're far too successful and the audience loves you too

01:04:27.220 much and this has been too fun of an interview so i'm gonna ask you now about iran okay it's

01:04:33.160 just going too well we gotta give gotta throw something your way is this going okay where do

01:04:37.520 you think this is president i i spoke to some white house folks when i was in dc they seem

01:04:41.640 unbothered by this i'm sure you've written about iran stuff obviously in the past in the you write

01:04:46.360 fiction but it's all informed of course by the reality and the geopolitical realities uh that

01:04:50.220 we face as well as the combat and tactical realities so when you see this thing and you've

01:04:55.900 done red cell for the for the intel community before what do you think about how this is

01:04:59.840 playing out right now well listen anything that puts a little daylight between netanyahu and trump

01:05:05.180 i like so the fact that allegedly they're bickering or arguing in the background i actually

01:05:09.360 think is a really good thing uh so that's number one number two i i worry about what options the

01:05:15.540 president has to declare victory and climb out of this which i think we'd all like to see i don't

01:05:19.660 want another service member injured killed i don't care if it's on a base in kuwait or it's on one of

01:05:24.640 the ships that's uh that's over there i want us out of this thing as quickly as possible and i

01:05:29.000 think we ought to give president trump the grace and the space to get out which would be fantastic

01:05:33.680 I think we've proven something that had not been proven before, which is that the Iranians

01:05:37.480 can close that strait if they want to.

01:05:39.300 I kind of wish we hadn't allowed them to test it and do it.

01:05:43.340 But we are where we are, right?

01:05:44.700 And what was that?

01:05:45.720 That was the old Schwarzkopf thing, I think.

01:05:47.380 You go to war with the army, you have not the one you wish you had.

01:05:49.920 We've got the situation on the ground in the water that we have.

01:05:52.720 I think that was Rumsfeld.

01:05:54.460 Rumsfeld.

01:05:54.980 Sorry, you're right.

01:05:55.500 It wasn't Schwarzkopf.

01:05:56.300 It was Rumsfeld.

01:05:57.140 Known unknowns.

01:05:58.180 Just nerding out here.

01:05:59.600 Yeah.

01:05:59.720 So, listen, I think this is I think the sooner President Trump can declare victory and get out, he will.

01:06:06.520 I think what this current White House is is discovering is that as much as you might not have liked the JCPOA in unfreezing Iranian assets and stuff, it might be very difficult to come to it.

01:06:18.420 Everybody, no matter even if Trump had to give him one Dixie cup full of lemonade, everybody's going to say Trump made a worse deal than Obama.

01:06:25.100 There's no media outlet that's going to be fair to him in it.

01:06:27.780 So I don't know how you how you prep the president to be successful, because that's what his brand is a success.

01:06:34.800 He got into this not to take us to war.

01:06:36.760 I think he really believed that a lot of the B.S. he got from from the Israelis, that this thing could be over quickly and all that kind of stuff.

01:06:42.800 So, Buck, it's a really hard question.

01:06:44.960 I don't know. And as many NSC people as I still have relationships with, they are extremely tight lipped on what's going on behind closed doors.

01:06:53.580 And, you know, one day the negotiations are going great.

01:06:55.880 Next day, we're bombing them.

01:06:56.780 I think anybody who says they know what's going on really doesn't know.

01:07:00.380 And nobody wants to get on the wrong side of the big guy for even one second.

01:07:05.100 So that means that people are very, very cautious about what they're willing to say, even to trusted folks.

01:07:11.000 Brad Thorpe, Choke Point, everybody, get the book.

01:07:13.200 Brad, if you ever just want to call and, like, rap about the interagency coordination process for national intelligence assessments

01:07:20.760 and how the NSA needs to stop the continued stovepiping from DIA.

01:07:24.220 You know, we can do this all day.

01:07:26.220 So you just call me any time.

01:07:27.560 We'll wrap on it, but we'd love to have you here.

01:07:30.240 And Clay obviously wants to go hang out on the movie set

01:07:33.040 and meet all the celebrities, so maybe I'll tag along for that too.

01:07:36.440 But congrats on all your success.

01:07:38.140 Congrats on Choke Point coming out soon.

01:07:39.800 Going to be a number one New York Times once again, I am sure.

01:07:42.800 And people should go get it.

01:07:43.880 And they should watch the Cold Zero.

01:07:47.920 That'll be the next Netflix movie,

01:07:49.580 and Sony's developing the Scott Harvath books into a television series.

01:07:53.100 So we've got both.

01:07:53.800 Clay's going to hit the stack hard,

01:07:55.860 and get that six-pack and those biceps going

01:07:58.240 so that he can be in the next cold zero.

01:08:00.540 He's already told me this, so it's going to be great.

01:08:02.620 Perfect.

01:08:03.700 Thank you so much, Brad.

01:08:04.760 Thanks, guys.

01:08:05.440 All right.

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01:09:07.700 Miss the show while you're on the go?

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - June 04, 2026

Bonus： Daily Review with Clay and Buck - Jun 4 2026

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