Verdict with Ted Cruz - Bonus： Daily Review with Clay and Buck - May 12 2026

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.400 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.820 Welcome in Tuesday edition Clay Travis Buck Sexton show.

00:00:10.120 I am in D.C.

00:00:11.700 We will have a couple of senators here in studio with us.

00:00:15.220 Eric Schmidt from Missouri at the bottom of this hour.

00:00:19.060 And in the third hour, Senator Ron Johnson from the great state of Wisconsin.

00:00:24.820 All of that underway.

00:00:27.120 so we will get the absolute latest from capitol hill president trump prepares and is underway i

00:00:34.200 believe for his official uh for his official trip to china we will discuss everything surrounding

00:00:41.980 that big inflation numbers uh that are out as a result of gas prices being up we will discuss

00:00:50.680 Marco Rubio has surged past J.D. Vance as the leader in the Republican primary, according to one poll that was released today.

00:01:01.040 We will discuss whether we buy that or not.

00:01:03.900 AOC, by the way, is the Democrat leading contender.

00:01:08.240 Wes Moore, who many people said was the governor of Maryland just up the road from where I am right now,

00:01:14.840 weighed in on trans-related issues and showed that he, alongside of basically every other Democrat, 0.92

00:01:22.100 is actually still crazy. And in Tennessee, where we are in the midst of a redistricting battle,

00:01:29.060 we will discuss the opposition there as all of that is underway. I will say, Buck, there are

00:01:36.000 numbers out that are very positive. We have talked some about this. But in the state of Michigan,

00:01:42.680 Mike Rogers is going to be the Republican nominee, and it increasingly is looking like a man named Abdul El-Sayed is going to be the nominee for the Democrat Party in Michigan.

00:01:57.280 That is not a good sign for Michiganders if they are hoping the Democrats are going to waltz to victory.

00:02:05.760 In fact, I actually think this is a sign along with Maine where Democrats are going to nominate a guy with a Nazi tattoo on his chest that people are losing their minds a little bit on the left and picking candidates that are not of a particularly high quality.

00:02:22.400 but right now and we'll play this cut for you in a little bit cnn has a big poll about democrats

00:02:27.360 versus republicans but buck not surprisingly in the wake of the inflation numbers that come out

00:02:32.660 affordability inflation that is the number one story right now high gas prices and the question

00:02:39.320 is how soon can that be reconciled is that kind of how you see the read right now uh that gas

00:02:46.060 prices need to come down in the fall well yes gas prices certainly need to come down and apologies

00:02:51.920 for my voice everybody in advance i'm obviously uh fighting through a little bit of a cold it does

00:02:56.360 happen even here in south florida no matter how warm it is you can still catch a cold virus because

00:03:00.600 the temperature has nothing to do with it it turns out um i think that the reality of the

00:03:06.720 midterm election already is very apparent to people which is that it's going to be a what's

00:03:11.060 going on here at home election no different probably than any other midterm you can think

00:03:15.600 government are not involved in a major war and this sort of war we have with iran could in fact

00:03:23.220 be a big drag on republican fortunes maybe maybe not one thing has become apparent though clay

00:03:29.860 skepticism of a an imminent iran deal was well warranted there is no deal on the table

00:03:36.960 have you seen the things that the iranians are demanding as their red lines this is not like

00:03:44.660 we're Trump is saying we are close and the only way that that line can be believed is if what

00:03:52.880 the Iranians are saying publicly is entirely different from what they're saying privately 0.95

00:03:57.040 but in this kind of negotiation why would they do that because there would be a tremendous amount of 0.88

00:04:04.020 whiplash at home where they're saying one thing and then they go and do another

00:04:08.180 Clay, they're saying they want reparations, they want official control of the Strait of Hormuz,

00:04:14.740 they want an end to all U.S. sanctions against them.

00:04:20.720 None of these things are going to happen.

00:04:23.060 And they're saying without that, there's no deal.

00:04:25.260 So we believe that we're going to strangle them with this sort of blockade.

00:04:29.840 They think they can continue to do what they're doing,

00:04:32.500 and Trump now is weighing military escalation once again.

00:04:38.180 I don't think the Iranians are that scared this time around of military escalation because their leadership, whatever's left of it, is going to be staying underground and they feel like they weathered the biggest shot that we've got.

00:04:51.240 What are we going to do now to hurt them more? So I'm a little concerned about the price of gas as it pertains to all.

00:04:57.200 This is the point. And I've been concerned about it all along. Absent a real deal.

00:05:02.240 I don't know how the price of gas comes down 50 percent. Also, I'm not hearing.

00:05:08.180 Enough from this White House, in my opinion, about immigration enforcement.

00:05:13.980 I don't know if that's because it's not happening in the same way post-Minneapolis,

00:05:18.380 but if that's the case, I think we've got another problem.

00:05:23.020 And the inflation situation, obviously energy is driving this,

00:05:26.800 but inflation jumped up a bit, which is not a good look either.

00:05:30.300 So these things, I think, Clay, are fixable or at least addressable

00:05:33.780 before the actual votes are cast in the midterm.

00:05:38.800 But think about it this way. 0.94

00:05:41.140 Absent high gas prices in this Iran adventurism,

00:05:45.640 what are the Democrats running on?

00:05:48.720 They're still trying to abolish ICE,

00:05:51.360 which is an awful argument for them.

00:05:53.300 They really have nothing,

00:05:54.320 which is why if we can get gas prices back down 0.97

00:05:57.980 and get some form of resolution in Iran

00:06:00.700 between now and November. 0.63

00:06:02.840 And by the way, Buck, on your mow the grass theory, we could get some form of resolution in November, have the election and then bomb Iran again in December. Right. I mean, this this resolution can be relatively short lived in terms of whether or not we're going to get a long term solution. 0.80

00:06:25.780 can we get a short-term solution through the midterms which then gives President Trump more

00:06:30.940 freedom I've been saying this for a long time I think Trump is going to want a large some sort of

00:06:38.220 finality associated stroke and to me seizing the so-called nuclear dust and bringing it out of

00:06:49.160 iran i think is going to have a cinematic quality that leads president trump to believe that that

00:06:56.000 is the perfect ending to this whole thing now we still have the straight of four moves related

00:07:01.500 issue in that is iran going to stop threatening ships such that all of them can get out there was

00:07:08.940 a big article on the front page of the wall street journal over the weekend buck about all of the

00:07:13.240 guys they're almost all men who are trapped on these boats and can't leave and they're running

00:07:19.100 out of food and water and supplies on these boats because they're not anticipating that they're

00:07:24.980 going to be held up for months as they are right now uh and so the expectation was that they would

00:07:30.960 have long been gone so there is a little bit of a humanitarian related crisis that is brewing on

00:07:38.180 these individual ships meanwhile iran's economy is basically completely collapsed inflation is

00:07:44.280 i think it's 70 percent right now in that country to the extent that it can even be measured

00:07:48.340 people are being fired like uh crazy from private sector jobs public employees have not been paid

00:07:55.180 in months so i do think the question is what sort of economic pain can iran endure comparatively

00:08:03.160 we're not really I mean the price of oil and gas is up and that stinks but the actual stock market

00:08:10.120 keeps setting record highs unemployment is low here so we're not bearing anywhere near the same

00:08:16.860 sort of economic crisis that Iran is so I think balancing out how this gets resolved is to a large

00:08:24.680 extent what's going to define the midterms I will say that there is a lot of hate on the Democrat

00:08:32.060 party so it's not so much that the democrats are surging in popularity it is that they are

00:08:38.540 dealing with also their own degree of unpopularity yes and it is interesting to see by the way the

00:08:47.420 way that fetterman has it both ways clay um fetterman is the democrat that we're always

00:08:52.940 saying oh he's so reasonable he sounds reasonable he doesn't vote in a reasonable fashion or rather

00:08:59.140 he votes with democrats 93 percent of the time you see him uh yeah i think he's on with bill

00:09:05.120 maher this is cut 13 listen to this i know you're not a believer in marriage but if you

00:09:10.600 married to someone and you agree 93 percent of the time that's probably be a pretty a great marriage

00:09:16.520 and i i'm mystified by and what's also on the other side i've had republican friends you know

00:09:23.600 in office say they're like you know our internals you're more popular with our people than than we 0.98

00:09:28.900 or how and and i i don't understand that either uh you know when i vote 93 like a damn line 0.86

00:09:36.800 and i'm more popular with republicans i can't explain it i truly don't and i find myself in 0.74

00:09:45.240 a strange in a strange place 93 with democrats and yet he's supposed to be the reason in fact

00:09:53.900 what you find clay is that if you're a democrat who is not in lockstep with them on everything

00:09:59.620 they freak out there is no space anymore for a democrat moderate or a democrat who you know is

00:10:07.900 is a centrist on any of these things even in a state like pennsylvania where clearly

00:10:11.700 it makes sense for fetterman's own political future to at least say these things publicly

00:10:17.260 now he has broken with his party on a few votes that's why it's 93 percent not 100 plenty of

00:10:22.320 Democrats are 100%.

00:10:23.540 But I just think it's indicative of where their party is right now

00:10:27.660 that they still, in every way, push for the same ideas

00:10:32.860 that I think got them a big loss in 2024.

00:10:37.640 Clay, they believe they just need another shot.

00:10:39.880 Yeah, they believe they need a shot without Trump on the top.

00:10:42.400 They believe that if they can get the House,

00:10:43.920 they can slow Trump down enough that he's going to become irrelevant

00:10:46.540 for the last two years of his presidency.

00:10:48.460 I mean, I see the strategy here.

00:10:50.000 but you know the thing about crazy is doing the same thing and hoping you get a different result

00:10:54.400 oh the democrats are crazy and then some because they want to do all the same things with all the

00:10:59.740 same results a pennsylvania supreme court justice just left the democrat party over anti-semitism 0.94

00:11:06.860 concerns and fetterman said uh yesterday this is a post that he put up but it kind of builds on what

00:11:13.380 you're saying i know david that's the supreme court justice and his legendary father cyril

00:11:18.500 As I've affirmed, I'm not changing my party, but I fully understand David's personal choice.

00:11:25.160 The Democrat Party must confront its own rising anti-Semitism problem. 0.54

00:11:30.360 Now, Buck, that is intriguing.

00:11:32.760 I was talking with someone in Pennsylvania who knows their politics really well recently,

00:11:37.340 and they said there's almost a 0% chance that Fetterman can be the nominee for the Democrat Party as a senator in Pennsylvania in 2028.

00:11:47.300 now it's two years away and he'll be up for re-election after serving a six-year term and

00:11:51.980 it's possible Fetterman doesn't like the senate that much and chooses not to run

00:11:55.460 but what that person told me was I think there's a decent chance he runs as an independent

00:12:00.560 and then the math becomes very intriguing now to your point is he an independent that

00:12:07.640 caucuses with democrats okay maybe but is he an independent that would be open to caucusing some

00:12:13.480 with republicans is he a true independent how that would shake out is something to certainly

00:12:19.200 pay attention to because pennsylvania has moved significantly to the right they elected dave

00:12:24.020 mccormick two years ago president trump won the state comfortably 150 000 votes ish i think if

00:12:29.900 i'm not mistaken um and so uh it will be interesting to see what how the democrats handle

00:12:36.980 fetterman because this will all start up as soon as the midterms are over as we've talked about

00:12:41.240 quite a lot the 2028 election starts in january of 2027 so it's going to be here much faster than

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00:14:28.180 Second hour of Clay and Buck kicks off now.

00:14:30.460 Thanks for being here, everybody.

00:14:31.460 all across the U.S. of A.

00:14:35.660 Clay, you know, the 250th is coming up soon.

00:14:38.520 Oh, yeah.

00:14:38.960 It's going to be very exciting.

00:14:40.640 Some people are saying the most exciting.

00:14:42.480 It's going to be huge.

00:14:43.900 It's going to be beautiful.

00:14:45.460 We're going to have a fantastic 250th anniversary

00:14:47.660 of this amazing country of ours.

00:14:51.580 And look, there's a ton to celebrate.

00:14:53.700 And you should always take a moment,

00:14:55.000 even while we're here, doing politics and current events

00:14:58.480 and talking about challenges and different ideologies

00:15:02.040 and things that should be done differently and failures.

00:15:04.260 We're about to get into failure of the L.A. mayor

00:15:07.320 and how people in L.A. should make a different choice here

00:15:10.600 and go with Spencer Pratt.

00:15:12.080 We're about to get into all that, but first just note,

00:15:15.480 if you're listening to this and you are an American and you are alive,

00:15:18.820 which I guess would be a precondition for you to be listening to this,

00:15:23.020 you're very lucky, actually.

00:15:25.240 This is the best country.

00:15:26.200 we are the best country in the world i always laugh when they show that you know that uh 0.93

00:15:32.940 clip it's uh what's his name the guy from dumb and dumber um who who's in it from the newsroom 0.96

00:15:41.280 where the girl personally have a very attractive like blonde would-be sorority girl the girl's 0.97

00:15:47.020 probably like 30 but you know i'm talking about in the newsroom show where she goes why is america

00:15:51.100 the best country in the world and i forget the name of the he's the guy not not jim carrie

00:15:56.560 jeff daniels i always want to say jeff bridges jeff daniels thank you jeff daniels jeff daniels 0.93

00:16:02.260 is like we're not the greatest country and it's just this smug lib idiocy of like we're behind 0.90

00:16:08.080 in literacy we're you know we have the highest incarceration all the stuff it's like first of 1.00

00:16:13.960 all you could smash that stupid take in about two seconds if you actually paid attention to what's 0.98

00:16:20.020 going on in the world um but but more to the point it's absurd when you think about the 1.00

00:16:25.800 greatness of america when you think about what this country has done not only for americans but

00:16:30.040 for the human race for the entire world and then we also do this thing yeah we're imperfect well

00:16:35.640 of course we're imperfect but we're still awesome we're still number one you know when michael

00:16:39.540 jordan was at his peak in the nba was he always going like i know i'm imperfect but no he's like

00:16:44.400 i'm a champion i'm pretty amazing america's a champion we're pretty amazing so don't forget

00:16:49.560 that while we're getting into all this stuff you see that clay you see all that can you

00:16:52.660 just feel all that optimism wafting yeah that's a lot that's a lot of positivity from you for the

00:16:59.040 top of the second hour you've got a maybe a little bit of a fever you're playing hurt yeah

00:17:03.160 and i was gonna say maybe it's the cold meds talking there the pseudofed coming through

00:17:07.300 but this is the best country in the world by far not even close nothing else even scratches uh in

00:17:14.980 our direction and we should just take a moment of that and you know the world should be thankful 0.99

00:17:20.240 that china is not we're going to talk a lot about china coming up obviously this the xi jinping 0.90

00:17:25.300 trump summit is happening i think he arrives clay wednesday night and then thursday there'll be a

00:17:32.060 lot of back and forth with trump and xi jinping xi jinping wants to put taiwan at the very top of

00:17:37.600 the agenda so we will get into all those details china could be the global hegemon you know you

00:17:44.220 could have the chinese communist party in a position to basically uh destroy any country's 0.80

00:17:50.380 economy kill every everybody in the country if they wanted to i mean china could be as powerful 0.78

00:17:56.820 as america theoretically and then what would it what would it be like for humanity where would

00:18:01.240 freedom be globally so you know we don't i don't think we spend enough time uh talking about and

00:18:07.560 i don't mean we on this show i just mean americans in general there should be yeah the price of eggs

00:18:12.940 the price of gas may be a little high right now it's still a it's still the greatest country in

00:18:16.180 the world so that's your backdrop now i understand day-to-day problems are real and they exist

00:18:20.540 this is like you know telling people clay that things could be worse you could be living in the

00:18:25.980 middle of the 30 years war and everyone around you is being raped pillaged murdered or dying of

00:18:31.940 cholera yeah that doesn't really help us right now though right i mean there's historical perspective

00:18:36.620 and then there's just losing yourself in in narratives that have nothing to do with the

00:18:41.060 moment this is the greatest country in the world and we are coming up on the 250th and i do think

00:18:45.700 it i think some reflection on that for all of us is and we'll do more as we get closer but it's

00:18:51.540 necessary context for the challenges that we talk about and also to remind ourselves why it's so

00:18:55.780 important that we not let this place fall apart clay i think all of that is true and i also

00:19:03.920 yesterday buck was talking about this midterm in terms of looking years ahead and i understand

00:19:11.260 everything is immediate and we have very sort of goldfish attention spans in the united states

00:19:17.660 which likely have been has been exacerbated by tiktok and reels on instagram and everything

00:19:23.080 else the amount of deep thought that is uh typically corresponding with policy is is quite

00:19:29.000 rare but i think one reason that what all you just laid out one reason why democrats are so

00:19:35.220 desperate here in 2026 is not only because trump's in power but they know trump's going to leave

00:19:40.020 power in 28 this is so significant the maps that are going to get redrawn in 2030 and who is in

00:19:47.140 power when that census happens is potentially the existential threat to the democrat party

00:19:55.020 Because if the numbers look and continue to move in the direction that they are now, where everybody is moving to red states and you have Illinois and New York and California overwhelmingly losing residents, the math for Democrats to win as the party currently exists almost becomes impossible starting in 2030.

00:20:17.180 I mean, across the board for the House, for Senate and and certainly for the presidency when you look at the Electoral College.

00:20:26.180 So I think there is a desperate fear that is palpable right now in the Democrat Party because they're not just staring down the potential of losing an election.

00:20:34.840 they have a generational shift that is occurring that is moving against them in a profound way

00:20:40.240 and they have to put up substantial roadblocks or else they could basically be sensed to a large

00:20:47.180 extent out of power so now on the la and remember there's a los angeles race there's also the

00:20:53.760 california governor's race los angeles uh mayor debate news here which i thought was really

00:21:00.360 interesting nithya raman and karen bass have at the last minute pulled out of their next debate

00:21:08.520 clay they're gonna say that this is scheduling we're busy whatever there's no way they do this

00:21:17.560 without knowing that to a lot of people it looks like they are ducking for cover they are trying

00:21:23.220 to get away from the attention on this race because the more people i understand it's just

00:21:29.460 people in los angeles who are voting but the more national attention there is the more local

00:21:33.900 attention there will be as well because people can everywhere they turn now this la mayor's race is

00:21:39.440 getting real real coverage in the media and they're also showing you i think the kind of

00:21:46.800 arguments that they're making are in such bad faith they're really looking for the deranged

00:21:52.560 and delusional left to come to their rescue on this one mayor uh can't mayoral candidate nithya

00:21:57.740 Rahman is cut 37 this is what how she refers to Spencer Pratt play it but I also think it's a

00:22:03.480 very real thing that we should take seriously and we need to grapple with and we need to offer it

00:22:07.800 an honest response a response that's rooted in actually solving these problems otherwise people

00:22:14.200 will turn to fascism to mini Trump which is who I think Spencer Pratt really represents

00:22:20.860 fascism clay so now they're trying to they're trying to tie a guy they they let his house

00:22:29.140 burn down with their incompetence along with all of his neighbors his entire neighbor it's gone by

00:22:33.480 the way it's never coming back either everyone in the palisades knows this it's never going to be

00:22:38.060 what it was it's it's gone forever they let his neighborhood burn down they let his hummingbird

00:22:42.980 nests get scorched go up in flames and they're calling him a fascist because he thinks that he

00:22:49.160 can do a better job than the horrible job that they have done i feel like this is democrats

00:22:53.420 encapsulated yes and look the runoff is going to be down to two because it's highly unlikely

00:23:00.760 anybody's going to get 50 plus one vote to be able to ensure that a runoff doesn't happen now

00:23:06.640 when either either spencer loses and you end up with two crazy left-wing people or spencer is one

00:23:14.720 of the two that advances and it's going to be self-evident what they're going to do to him

00:23:18.680 And they're going to do the same thing to him that they did to Rick Caruso.

00:23:22.780 And the question is, I was actually at dinner last night with Andrew Giuliani.

00:23:27.540 And we were talking about his dad and the fact that he came into power.

00:23:32.000 And we were discussing this L.A. mayor race.

00:23:34.200 And a bunch of the guys at the table were L.A. residents.

00:23:38.200 And the conversation was, have people gotten frustrated enough with the filth, with the homelessness, with the drug use in L.A.?

00:23:46.580 And maybe also writ large, when you look at the governor's race, the same sort of issues are applying in San Francisco and other big metropolitan areas, that they're willing to do something different.

00:23:58.600 And you've talked about this quite a lot, Buck, but the numbers on murder in New York City when Rudy Giuliani came into office, what, over 2,000 murders were happening every year, if I'm not mistaken, in New York City alone.

00:24:11.500 and now the number is down around 250, 300.

00:24:15.080 I mean, I think it went all the way to basically 200.

00:24:17.460 They got a 90% reduction effectively in the overall murder rate.

00:24:22.960 And you had Rudy Giuliani for eight years,

00:24:25.800 and then you had Bloomberg, I think, for 12 years.

00:24:28.480 So you had an entire generation of sane leadership.

00:24:32.880 The question that L.A. is going to face is,

00:24:35.200 are they going to pull a Chicago,

00:24:36.700 and are they going to go from Lori Lightfoot to Brandon Johnson,

00:24:40.320 like Chicago did where you arguably I think got even worse could you end up with somebody worse

00:24:46.760 than Karen Bass I think you could or are they going to recognize that it's time for a modern

00:24:53.760 era Rudy Giuliani in LA Spencer represents that and I think what I don't remember you you may

00:25:01.780 remember the campaign that Giuliani ran when he won the mayor's race for the first time I think

00:25:06.620 the thing that spencer pratt has done a really really good job of is buck his ads and his social

00:25:11.920 media is brilliant it is just and he's got people doing videos for him using ai it feels like a next

00:25:19.080 generation campaign where you're taking advantage of the modern technology and modern ai to tell a

00:25:25.820 compelling story about something that is honestly universal for for most people which is let's just

00:25:32.120 have a safe city for women and children when we talk about on this program the best way to judge

00:25:36.740 a neighborhood in my opinion is would you let your wife or girlfriend go for a jog around dark

00:25:41.460 if the answer is no you don't live in a safe neighborhood if the answer is yes you live in

00:25:46.420 a safe neighborhood and every to me it cuts through the noise is your neighborhood safe is

00:25:51.320 your city safe enough for if your wife or your girlfriend goes for a jog do you feel like she's

00:25:56.280 going to be okay and there are way too many parts of america where the answer is no i mean i said

00:26:00.680 this yesterday clay uh when you were en route to the studio three stabbings in venice beach

00:26:05.380 california in about three days one of them was inside a whole foods and in the venice beach

00:26:11.620 whole foods yeah this is a fancy you know venice beach santa monica beverly hills this is the

00:26:17.940 manhattan of la if you will right this is the the highest rent district the highest uh cost areas

00:26:25.480 in bel-air i mean i know there's a few um and there's dangerous stuff that's happening and it

00:26:32.020 doesn't even get a lot of outrage it's just treated like it's part of the cityscape now this is just

00:26:37.460 the way that it works the way that it happens it actually does not have to be this way uh this guy

00:26:42.660 who went out in what was it cambridge shooting a rifle at people and then he got shot he's been

00:26:47.980 arrested like we talked about this yesterday buck with the guy who shoved the 76 year old on this

00:26:52.720 down the subway uh steps in new york city they they act like all these guys who have a dozen

00:27:00.520 serious crimes in their background including including crimes of violence are worthy of a

00:27:06.640 slap on the wrist because you know everybody makes mistakes not these mistakes and the people that

00:27:11.300 are putting these individuals back on the street until they throw you know see this guy who threw

00:27:15.900 a senior citizen uh down the stairs and killed him no reason just ran up behind an old person

00:27:22.060 subway yes yeah shoved him off the top of the you know we wouldn't really know about this stuff if

00:27:30.540 all the video and surveillance stuff didn't exist and if x didn't allow us to share it

00:27:34.120 so freely um we know who's doing the crime we know the democrats don't want to talk about it

00:27:40.620 we know that the people that are in charge of keeping us safe have screwed up and are actively

00:27:45.620 making decisions see clay i think it's worse than they're not good at their jobs and so these things

00:27:50.420 happen i think that whether it's mom donnie or karen bass or name your democrat in any city in

00:27:56.360 america they make choices that result in old people being thrown down the stairs to their

00:28:02.020 deaths in a violent and completely senseless end because that's the cost of social justice to them

00:28:08.660 that's the cost of not doing mass incarceration that's the cost of the police not appearing

00:28:14.900 racist that's the cost they are willing to have other people pay that's 100 right and what i said

00:28:22.040 yesterday and i this is i think one of the messages that spencer is hammering and we've

00:28:26.000 been hammering it on this for a long time refusing to put violent people behind bars is not kind

00:28:31.120 because ultimately it leads to directly what happened with that 76 year old in new york city

00:28:36.820 buck there was a woman who that guy previously shoved in a subway and the quote yesterday that

00:28:42.820 was out was that she didn't want to prosecute him because she didn't want to see another black guy

00:28:46.720 in jail so as a result she didn't prosecute him to the full extent of the law and he ended up

00:28:52.400 killing somebody and the numbers do reflect and this is important that if a violent person is

00:28:59.200 allowed to stay on the streets they're going to continue to engage in violent behavior and so the

00:29:04.240 actual if you if you want to be concerned about empathy i would rather have empathy for innocent

00:29:09.300 crime victims than criminals and that is a huge part uh of how all of this is playing out in so

00:29:16.160 many different cities almost everyone who engages in violent behavior almost everyone who commits

00:29:21.640 uh to a uh to a crime like this you knew what was going to happen and you see it in la you see it

00:29:28.520 new york you see it in chicago all the time so it's not to me it's not clay that it was avoidable

00:29:34.840 it should have been avoided people in charge had a duty to avoid it you know it's that's a different

00:29:41.020 thing well i also think if you want to be empathetic the empathetic thing to do is to

00:29:46.300 protect innocent people who have done nothing wrong not to protect criminals and people are

00:29:51.160 being taken advantage of by using their empathy against them and i actually think if you just use

00:29:56.000 that empathy and redirect it to the people that actually deserve it it is the innocent people who

00:30:00.580 are becoming victims of crime that from people who should have never been on the streets born

00:30:05.040 on america's darkest day of 9 11 25 years ago tunnel the towers foundation has been helping

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00:31:08.540 Three sector pals, Clay and Buck on the iHeart app.

00:31:12.300 Welcome back in.

00:31:13.320 Hour number three, Tuesday edition, Clay and Buck.

00:31:16.400 I am up in D.C.

00:31:17.760 I was at the White House yesterday, saw a lot of our friends, Buck,

00:31:21.220 as Indiana was given the presidential seal of approval

00:31:28.000 for their 16-0 football team.

00:31:30.300 Perfect day on the South Lawn.

00:31:33.040 A lot of fun.

00:31:33.820 Good crowd.

00:31:36.100 Are they the best college football team of all time?

00:31:39.120 Are they the best college football team of all time?

00:31:41.280 Is that fair?

00:31:42.440 They are the first college football team since 1894, I believe, to go 16-0.

00:31:49.520 having said that if you ask me right now who i think the best college football team of all time

00:31:55.700 was i think it would have been 15 and 0 lsu with joe burrow as the quarterback a bevy of

00:32:02.500 incredible talent on that team that won the national championship i believe in 2019

00:32:08.280 that was one of the fat the last events before covid shut down everything buck uh lsu won the

00:32:14.780 national title in new orleans uh in the january mid-january mid to late january of 2020 then the

00:32:21.900 super bowl happened and then all hell broke loose with covet so good question i think i would go

00:32:27.180 2019 lsu some may agree some may disagree but i think i would say that's the best team that i've

00:32:31.580 seen 2001 miami which actually uh was also an incredible team those would be a couple that i

00:32:38.940 would put right near uh the top all time um okay we got a couple of different things that are going

00:32:43.940 on out there president trump i believe guys has boarded marine one to head he was fielding

00:32:51.260 questions on the south lawn on route to the airport as he gets ready to leave for china

00:32:57.360 so president trump under uh underway on his way to fly he's still taking questions according to

00:33:05.540 producer ally uh and we're uh we'll see we'll monitor this and see if there's any major news

00:33:12.040 that comes out of him taking questions

00:33:13.460 before he embarks on that long plane trip to China.

00:33:17.300 Okay, Buck, I wanted to play this for you.

00:33:21.020 We talked earlier about the fact that racial redistricting,

00:33:26.240 racially motivated gerrymandering,

00:33:28.780 has been essentially ruled to be unconstitutional.

00:33:34.300 Essentially.

00:33:34.860 They didn't completely override it, but effectively they have.

00:33:38.280 It's kind of racist, really.

00:33:39.600 it is in fact uh racist arguably to be drawing things based on race and so that was basically

00:33:46.900 what the supreme court said um here is cnn bakari sellers this is the argument he made last night

00:33:56.180 listen if somebody fell asleep in 1896 and woke up today in 2026 they would simply say the only

00:34:06.700 difference is now Negroes have a TV show and we wear nice suits. They swapped out Klan hoods for

00:34:13.540 Brooks Brothers suits. And that is the problem. I mean, Plessy v. Ferguson was 7-1 and it gave

00:34:19.680 birth to 50 years of Jim Crow. What we have with this court right now, what we're seeing is watching

00:34:26.060 people who have fought and died and bled so that we would have access to the ballot box, so that

00:34:31.060 we would have access to our voices being heard in Congress being ripped away. And I think that

00:34:35.680 there is a casual laughter from people we believe to be our friends on the right who are showing us

00:34:40.880 true colors today because the most sacred or one of the most sacred acts you have in the united

00:34:45.820 states of america is the ability to cast a ballot and elect someone and send them to congress the

00:34:50.960 state house or mayoral seat that represents your interest and now black folks throughout the south

00:34:56.160 are being silenced and i don't find that to be a laughing matter this is pretty shameful buck even

00:35:02.520 for cnn because this doesn't directly impact anybody's right to vote and you'll notice that

00:35:08.300 they got embarrassed because in memphis which is a district that has been redrawn now you have a

00:35:14.920 guy named steve cohen who is a white jewish guy that has been representing memphis for a long time

00:35:20.400 and you know who he usually beats in the race when he uh represents memphis republic i mean uh

00:35:26.400 black guys black republicans black woman has been the last couple of times the nominee to

00:35:32.280 run against him in memphis so this this racial dynamic is pretty nasty of bakari sellers i also 0.96

00:35:39.920 think i wanted to play this because um this is a guy named justin pearson he is a tennessee state

00:35:47.340 rep buck is laughing because he has seen these clips but i just want to play these for you this

00:35:54.160 is the guy who is in memphis and is saying that uh that he is so terribly upset about what has

00:36:00.040 happen um and i want to play for you a couple of different things here um this is justin pearson

00:36:07.300 in 2016 being interviewed and i want you to listen to him he went to what's the school that

00:36:14.580 mom donnie went to colgate where did mom donnie go uh northeastern school we'll look it up he went

00:36:22.280 to it he got a boden i forget where did mom donnie go he went to an elite expensive northeast school

00:36:28.520 same school bowden i nailed it nailed it all right here's a good before we play this clip buck

00:36:35.180 i don't know if you're going to get this who is what is the civil war connection

00:36:40.640 for bowden college in a significant way that we have talked about this month on this program

00:36:47.760 uh well clearly it was general bowden who helped grant in the vicksburg campaign no i have no idea

00:36:56.900 I think I should just get credit for knowing that it's not Beaudoin or whatever.

00:37:01.000 It's Beaudoin.

00:37:02.000 Yeah, I would never have been able to correctly pronounce it,

00:37:05.160 except for the fact that Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain,

00:37:09.940 who led the charge on the Battle of Little Round Top for the 20th Maine,

00:37:15.440 he was his alma mater.

00:37:18.120 He was a professor at Beaudoin College when he left to go lead the 20th Maine.

00:37:26.380 And then he came back and ended up being elected governor of Maine in a post-life show

00:37:32.380 And do you know who plays him in your favorite Gettysburg movie

00:37:35.240 Which is based on the novel that you made me read, or told me to read

00:37:38.820 It was very good, made is the wrong word

00:37:40.200 The Killer Angels

00:37:40.760 Killer Angels

00:37:41.620 Yes

00:37:42.500 None other than Jeff Daniels

00:37:44.480 Who also plays the smug media guy in the newsroom

00:37:50.640 Who says that America is not the greatest country in the world

00:37:52.560 Yes, big circle

00:37:53.560 From saving the union at Little Round Top or whatever.

00:37:58.620 Yeah, Little Round Top.

00:37:59.840 Yeah.

00:38:00.300 Thank you.

00:38:01.100 Little Round Top to America's not the greatest country in the world 0.99

00:38:04.200 when a beautiful blonde woman asks him why it is the greatest country in the world. 0.97

00:38:08.680 So how the mighty have fallen.

00:38:11.280 I would also point out while we're taking shots at Jeff Daniels, 0.99

00:38:16.460 dumb and dumber, the range of Jeff Daniels, to be fair, is pretty incredible. 0.99

00:38:20.720 And now a lot of people see him. 1.00

00:38:22.160 he does those pure michigan commercials he's the guy on uh the talking about how awesome of a place

00:38:27.240 michigan is to go visit okay so this is where justin pearson went to college bowden college

00:38:33.520 buck i would bet is what do you think 85 90 000 a year board tuition i mean it's one of the most

00:38:39.620 expensive colleges in america and here is justin pearson speaking when he was on campus in maine

00:38:47.840 2016. Listen, Justin J. Pearson, and I'm running for president of BSG. There are a few reasons

00:38:53.800 that we're running this campaign this year. One has to do with representation. How can we represent

00:38:58.780 all voices in a conversation? I want to do this by partnering with organizations from the voting

00:39:03.880 Democrats to the voting Republicans. I want to bring together different voices, dissenting voices,

00:39:09.340 voices that may be more liberal or more conservative in order that we can reach a point

00:39:13.640 of sort of the radical middle here you've had three strikes laws mass incarceration denied us 0.62

00:39:20.840 of who we are and we are still here and today you will take the only majority black district from us

00:39:28.280 but i want you to know and i want my nephew sons and the future to know no matter what you do no

00:39:34.680 No matter how much you try and break us and make us bid and make us quit,

00:39:39.440 we will still be here.

00:39:43.480 Same guy.

00:39:44.860 Ten years apart.

00:39:46.620 That is in the space of Buck.

00:39:50.540 Just a decade.

00:39:51.380 He's gone from Carlton Banks to Malcolm X in the blink of an eye.

00:39:54.320 Pretty amazing.

00:39:56.080 That is a great Carlton Banks to Malcolm X comparison. 0.98

00:40:00.900 It sounds ridiculous. 0.95

00:40:02.280 You play it. 0.82

00:40:02.980 what does it say that there is not a political future for the first guy but there is a political

00:40:11.060 future for the second guy i would submit to you that that is not a sign of things going better 0.88

00:40:16.200 and look here he is again this district that he's so angry about is represented by a white jewish

00:40:21.480 guy in memphis here he is cut 31 tennessee has now put a new map in place we'll see if it's legal

00:40:28.760 There's lots of challenges going out there to make Tennessee a 9-0 state so that it resembles more so the Northeast, which is all Democrat.

00:40:37.400 They don't allow any Republicans.

00:40:39.120 Here's cut 31 from Justin Pearson.

00:40:42.320 This is the stealing of congressional districts.

00:40:45.020 This is the stealing of people's voice to literally rig it so that he can win.

00:40:49.660 You have the most unprincipled people who are in political offices right now.

00:40:54.580 The same people who say they care about democracy and this is a Republican, people should be able to choose their elected officials, their elected officials shouldn't be able to choose them.

00:41:03.080 Those same Republicans who would say those lines are now the co-conspirators along with this white supremacist president of the United States to take and to steal this election because he doesn't want to be impeached, because he doesn't want to be held accountable for the American citizens he killed with these ICE raids and the deportations that he has caused.

00:41:21.120 He doesn't want to be held accountable. So they are literally rigging and stealing elections and congressional seats.

00:41:27.980 So he sounds a little bit more like himself from Bowdoin College there in that argument.

00:41:33.400 But again, the lack of racial gerrymandering, I think, in the long run is going to be much better.

00:41:41.840 Right. We'll get better quality of representatives. And this argument that we're in 1896.

00:41:47.860 I mean, it's particularly pernicious, I think, Buck, from a guy like Bakari Sellers, who is from South Carolina. 0.86

00:41:54.160 Tim Scott is a black senator from South Carolina. 0.94

00:41:58.640 So you actually have in the state of South Carolina, one of the three most powerful guys or gals, the governor and the two senators, I would argue, probably are the three most powerful politicians in South Carolina.

00:42:10.380 Tim Scott's been winning overwhelming election in the state of South Carolina.

00:42:15.380 A guy that we have had on a lot on this program, Wesley Hunt, represents a majority white district in Texas right now.

00:42:24.840 He ran for Senate, did not win.

00:42:27.880 We got a Senate runoff going on in Texas.

00:42:29.920 But I think he's been actually very eloquent talking about people want to have someone who will advocate for their interest, irrespective of what the color of their skin is.

00:42:39.440 And I think that is a strong message that has been sent in South Carolina.

00:42:42.760 That's a strong message that's been sent in Texas. 0.95

00:42:44.620 and the Bakari Sellers of the world, 0.95

00:42:48.220 I mean, in his own home state of South Carolina, 0.96

00:42:50.840 you can point to someone who disproves that error.

00:42:53.420 And one other bit in that same geographic region,

00:42:57.240 that's where Clarence Thomas came from.

00:43:00.200 And Clarence Thomas is soon going to be

00:43:02.600 the longest serving Supreme Court justice

00:43:05.440 in the history of our nation.

00:43:06.980 He just, in the last week or so, Buck,

00:43:09.420 we talked about this some,

00:43:10.720 but he has moved into the second longest

00:43:13.060 supreme court justice serve and i believe in 2028 he will become the longest serving supreme court

00:43:20.860 justice ever so i actually look at those as very positive stories and the fact that cnn would of

00:43:27.340 course not cover that aspect of this or that nobody on cnn would point back to vacari sellers

00:43:33.100 and say wait a minute tim scott's kind of got an important job in your home state um why have you

00:43:37.880 not talked about him i think speaks to the dishonesty of the much of the rhetoric rhetorics

00:43:43.840 surrounding this i think that is all very accurate i i agree i'm just right now buck scrolling through

00:43:52.900 to see if president trump has made any more news uh as he's got a bunch of things we're going to

00:43:57.420 dive in here in a second we have a bunch of clips from president trump just now speaking to the

00:44:00.900 press we will bring you up to speed on the latest after a word from our sponsor clay yes and our

00:44:07.860 sponsor is the ifcj and there's going to be some news coming out of the uh middle east and we will

00:44:14.820 see what ends up happening with everything having to do with that negotiation as president trump's

00:44:19.720 about to take a super long flight hopefully we will be able to limit the amount of bombs that

00:44:26.600 are dropping in uh israel but right now the ifcj is in the business of actually doing something

00:44:33.860 really important. They help build bomb shelters. They help build hospitals that are more secure.

00:44:38.760 They help build cars that have protection in them so that everybody can be taken care of.

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00:44:49.680 serve that they're not alone. You can help with prayer, donations, advocacy as well. Visit the

00:44:55.440 website to help pray ifcj.org that's pray ifcj.org the international fellowship of christians and 0.53

00:45:04.280 jews pray ifcj.org level up your brain mental mugging with experience harry styles live in

00:45:14.940 london england at wembley stadium this is harry styles ir radio wants to send you and a mate 0.80

00:45:23.160 across the pond with flights from virgin atlantic hotel from tripcentral.ca tickets and one thousand

00:45:30.380 dollars cash download the free iheart radio app listen to iheart new music for 10 minutes

00:45:36.300 enter to win every day is another chance to see harry styles very excited to see you at the show

00:45:41.840 kiss all the time disco occasionally available now welcome back in just rolling in he's got a

00:45:48.180 super busy schedule. We appreciate the time. Missouri Senator Eric Schmidt. Midterms are

00:45:54.000 coming closer. I wanted to play this for you. This was on CNN a bit earlier. Cut 36, and I want to

00:45:59.940 hear how you think this squares with what you hear from your constituents in Missouri. This is Harry

00:46:06.160 Enten talking about, hey, people aren't that happy with Republicans right now, but Democrats are also

00:46:11.380 historically unpopular. I think this poll serves as a big time reality check for Democrats and

00:46:18.480 that is it ain't over yet especially with the redistricting when we look ahead to the 2026

00:46:23.780 race for Congress. Look in March Democrats are up by six points. Look at this now. Democrats are up

00:46:29.340 by three points and I want you to note the yellow lettering. No clear leader. It is within the margin

00:46:34.860 of error. We talk about you know economic approval rating for the president. We talk about the net

00:46:39.440 approval rating among registered voters if we look among registered voters the net approval rating

00:46:43.480 he's 36 points under where to go there's no way there's no way republicans could possibly hold

00:46:49.020 on to the house but look at this which party is trusted more in the economy it's a tie among

00:46:53.520 registered voters just because donald trump is unpopular doesn't make democrats popular

00:46:57.740 and when you match democrats against republicans all of a sudden it is a dead heat all right so

00:47:04.360 does that square kind of with what you're seeing how would you assess the senate how confident are

00:47:08.840 you and Republicans maintaining control? I mean, I think we're going to hold the Senate. The

00:47:12.600 challenge for a midterm always is you don't have this true like binary choice like you do in a

00:47:16.720 presidential, right? Where you've got the two leaders of the party going toe to toe and you

00:47:20.160 have to make this kind of binary choice, which is why midterms are a little more harder to judge.

00:47:24.560 But I do think that by the time we get to the fall, Republicans are going to make very clear

00:47:29.260 the contrast, right? What happened during the four years of Joe Biden? We had a wide open border,

00:47:34.380 right that's been closed we're deporting people now there are 15 million people here here illegally

00:47:39.580 um there's still more work to do i mean president trump inherited a disaster of an economy

00:47:44.580 and to put that in perspective so for those four years the inflation adjusted wage growth was minus

00:47:50.120 five thousand dollars it's now plus fifteen hundred dollars it's not there yet like we're

00:47:54.320 not there yet and we should be honest about that but we're putting in place i think the things

00:47:58.180 that are going to make americans more prosperous you look at the working families tax cut a lot

00:48:02.020 that stuff's starting to kick in now um so i'm confident we're going to hold the senate i can't

00:48:06.360 speak to the house i mean i think that's going to be a dogfight but it is interesting now this

00:48:11.060 this this decision by the supreme court last week oh yeah i've written doj they ought to be on

00:48:15.480 offense going after these districts that are that are racially you know the motivation was race

00:48:20.680 in california specifically so not only winning sort of on this the turf that they've always

00:48:26.440 played on that it's all upside for us you look at those new england states they're all blue

00:48:29.740 there's 40 percent republicans in those states there's not a single congressman from that area

00:48:32.900 so right we might as well play the game here and now that you know you the court said you can't

00:48:37.400 have these racist maps states like california and illinois that composition is going to change there

00:48:42.540 too senator it's buck thanks for being with us yeah we were just talking at the top of the show

00:48:47.460 about gas prices up 50 maybe more since the beginning of the iran crisis um how much are

00:48:55.140 you hearing from your state constituents that this is something that is uh high on their list

00:49:01.420 of concerns is this as big a thing as we in the media seem to make of it based on the polling or

00:49:07.600 do you think it's overblown do you think it has a big impact well i don't want to minimize it i

00:49:12.300 mean look you know i fill my car up with gas like everybody else and it's higher than it was

00:49:18.020 certainly six months ago you know some of these media types that not you guys but who are you

00:49:22.700 You know, making this the central story every day.

00:49:25.100 I didn't hear any of them talking about it when gas prices were actually higher under Joe Biden.

00:49:28.760 Right. So but I think it's temporary.

00:49:31.540 It needs to be temporary. 0.96

00:49:32.800 I do think the president has clearly articulated a limited mission for Iran, which is make sure they don't have a nuclear weapon, take out their missile defense, take out their Navy. 0.92

00:49:41.800 It's led the way and a path for this negotiation that we're at and they'll come down. 0.65

00:49:47.880 It's a different scenario than when the Democrats, I think, had a terrible energy policy that wasn't going to change.

00:49:54.360 I think you can see the fact that prices will come down, but I'm not minimizing it.

00:49:58.680 I don't like that they're higher than they were six months ago.

00:50:00.860 When you look, you were the attorney general in Missouri.

00:50:04.940 Yesterday, we had Alex Berenson on.

00:50:07.380 The United States government settled with him and acknowledged that Joe Biden back in the day and his administration was restricting what he could say about COVID.

00:50:15.900 You have filed a lawsuit there. I'm curious your reactions to two. You kind of hinted at one,

00:50:20.860 the Calais, Louisiana decision. Was that what you expected, which is ended basically racial 0.57

00:50:25.200 gerrymandering? And then the second part of that, what do you think, because we get a lot of

00:50:29.880 questions about this, would happen in the future? Is the law changed? Have the precedents been set

00:50:35.840 to keep government from censoring in the event? God forbid we have another pandemic

00:50:39.780 somewhere down the road. What can and cannot be said? Yeah. So the Missouri versus Biden lawsuit

00:50:45.320 that i filed that went to the supreme court that you gotta remember we've talked about i've been on

00:50:50.280 your show when this was happening we filed it before elon musk had bought twitter right before

00:50:55.380 the twitter file so all this discovery that came out showed this vast censorship enterprise that

00:50:59.580 existed and the supreme court kicked it there was a there a recent um settlement agreement there

00:51:04.980 restricting this kind of activity so that will that holds that's a good thing i do think we need

00:51:10.340 to go further and make sure that um like for example you have a private right of action if

00:51:15.460 your individual first amendment right has been infringed by the government you can go sue an

00:51:19.120 individual bureaucrat who went and did that that would change the incentive structure but right

00:51:23.440 but i think the exposure of it um but look the reality is this is what tyrants have done since

00:51:29.880 the beginning of time the first thing they go for is your ability to to dissent and then they come

00:51:34.380 for your guns i mean it's like it's a playbook here so i think we got to be vigilant on this

00:51:38.020 on the voting rights act yeah this is what i thought they would do um and uh it was pretty

00:51:43.360 well telegraphed and there's just no way with the admissions case that came down you know this sort

00:51:48.540 of this this this regime that the democrats put in place that was only about power really is now

00:51:54.880 crumbling down this sort of race they're the race obsessed and power hungry and now the courts have

00:51:59.560 said you can't have racist maps democrats ironically fought for those racist maps decades ago now

00:52:04.480 they're still fighting for him and it's going to have dramatic implications not just in the

00:52:07.960 southeast but in california i think is is next if doj uptakes in the court speaking of senator

00:52:13.960 schmidt of missouri and senator where where does it go you think with the you've been talking about

00:52:19.940 the redistricting and these fights now playing out it seems like the democrats might have misjudged

00:52:26.180 things a bit in virginia i know clay was talking yesterday on the show about how they're thinking

00:52:31.660 about firing all of the state supreme court justices effectively lowering like retroactively

00:52:38.180 lowering the mandatory retirement age replacing them all just just out with the bath water and

00:52:43.660 the baby the whole thing uh in order to try to achieve more power in that state is this just now

00:52:49.860 is the status quo now just going to be maximal uh or maximum partisan gerrymandering in every state

00:52:57.520 without apology and without reprieve what do you think well i would argue in kind of the new

00:53:03.400 republican party um under president trump um one thing i think that will be remembered is his

00:53:10.340 um what part of his legacy is that republicans should fight back i think for a long time

00:53:16.860 republicans played a very different game than the democrats i referenced the new england states

00:53:20.360 that's why when this whole thing started i was very clear it's all upside for us we haven't

00:53:24.640 played the same game that they played and the courts have been clear that you can have maps

00:53:28.600 that are that are political considerations you can't just you can't have race be the consideration

00:53:32.680 and ironically in california this independent commission they established which was to game

00:53:36.640 the system the map maker himself said that these districts were based on race which is why doj

00:53:41.320 should immediately be going at california and up in that map so um look i think this is where we're

00:53:47.460 at and by the way those census numbers in 2020 were inflated to benefit democrat states you've

00:53:54.180 seen the exodus out of places like illinois and california and new york to republican states so

00:54:00.060 i think over the next four years or so it's going to be pretty dramatic so this kind of structural

00:54:04.520 astroturfing they've been doing for a long time is going to go away which is why you see hakeem

00:54:09.940 jeffries sound like an insane person now like they understand what's going on and now that we're in

00:54:15.640 the game and we're fighting back they know what that means for their grip on power which is why

00:54:19.680 they're so desperate you walked in here and told me hey among many of the things you're working on

00:54:24.760 arkansas basketball coach john calipari was in your office the commissioners of the big 10 and

00:54:29.940 the sec are up here fifa world cup is kicking off i think a lot of them are going to be at the fox

00:54:35.160 event that is going on tonight uh to celebrate that score act is being brought up on the hill

00:54:41.460 is congress going to be able to do anything i know this has been a never-ending question bucks

00:54:45.960 It's like, what in the world is going on with NIL?

00:54:48.180 Is Congress going to pass anything?

00:54:49.820 What is the progress?

00:54:50.860 What is the prognosis?

00:54:51.900 I hope so.

00:54:52.640 I'm more optimistic, I think, than some, because I think that you've got this governance piece,

00:54:57.920 which is effectively the SCORE Act, right?

00:54:59.960 It's transfer, eligibility.

00:55:01.700 The NCA or some other institution has to have the legal protection, the antitrust exemption,

00:55:07.220 effectively to create these rules, because right now they can't, which is why you see the chaos.

00:55:10.880 That's right.

00:55:11.480 And then the second piece of it, I think this revenue piece is very important.

00:55:14.760 And that White House report that came out or recommendations was similar.

00:55:18.440 I was on your show to talk about the blueprint that I had, which allowed for the pooling of media rights among college football programs to go in like the NFL does.

00:55:28.800 I think if college football is at $4 billion all in right now, NBA's got half the eyeballs at $8 billion.

00:55:34.100 Yeah.

00:55:34.340 You know, that's where you're going to get the revenue to save the Olympic sports and save the non-revenue sports.

00:55:38.660 So I think that the combination of those two things, that's the path to get 60 votes in the Senate.

00:55:43.240 And so that's what I'm working on.

00:55:44.240 Buck has got over 100-mile-an-hour serve.

00:55:47.580 I don't know if he saw this story, but Arkansas cut men's and women's tennis.

00:55:53.400 I know it's just south of you in Missouri, but, Buck,

00:55:56.140 I don't know how much you're paying attention to this, but it is kind of interesting.

00:55:59.200 A lot of the so-called Olympic sports now are getting cut because they cost

00:56:03.500 and they lose money on them, right, compared to football and basketball

00:56:06.920 where you have big crowds.

00:56:08.700 Buck, the Olympic sports, I mean, your 100-mile-an-hour serve,

00:56:12.840 I know you're still getting the shoulder loose,

00:56:15.000 and you've got a little bit of a cold right now,

00:56:16.500 but you've got to protect tennis.

00:56:19.540 If tennis goes, civilization goes.

00:56:22.440 The country falls apart.

00:56:24.940 How much eligibility do you have left?

00:56:27.800 Me?

00:56:28.980 Yeah.

00:56:30.100 You probably got all four years.

00:56:31.160 I think you still got all four years.

00:56:32.440 It was a little controversial.

00:56:34.180 Indiana had 25-year-olds on there.

00:56:36.120 That's true.

00:56:37.280 I've got to tell you, there was a 40-year-old playing football recently.

00:56:40.200 The challenge for me, Clay, was the Olympic Committee thought that it might be considered cheating

00:56:45.720 if I shave down my hair because of the aerodynamics involved.

00:56:50.640 So we're wondering if the swoop is considered a performance-enhancing drug.

00:56:55.360 They don't really know how to classify it.

00:56:57.080 So I don't want to cause problems, Clay, so I may not be up for the next Olympics,

00:57:01.680 but I'm thinking about it.

00:57:02.760 For the good of the country, you're stepping away.

00:57:04.960 I appreciate it.

00:57:05.480 No, I think, look, the model has been football has subsidized all these non-revenue sports.

00:57:09.640 Yeah. And if you're losing money on football like Rutgers is, this is just where it's going.

00:57:14.160 And it is a little startling. And I brought it up because the Arkansas A.D. was in the office, too.

00:57:18.080 And I asked him about it. And it's just this is an SEC school. Yeah.

00:57:20.760 Like this is not like New Mexico State. Yeah. And I think what's going to happen if we don't step in and give this anti good Congress.

00:57:27.320 Do I think Congress should be in the business of all this? That's not really what this is.

00:57:30.700 I was skeptical. But Congress is the only entity that can give that antitrust exemption for them to pool and for them to have these rules.

00:57:37.020 And I think that will ultimately be what saves college sports.

00:57:39.640 What else should we know? Everybody out there, save act. I'll ask you this. We get asked about it all the time. Any movement there? And the reason I asked yesterday, we were talking about this and Buck mentioned what they were talking about doing with the Supreme Court in in Virginia, which now they've said the Senate Majority Leader Buck came out and said that's too far even for us to fire effectively all seven of them.

00:58:02.200 But I think Buck and I both agree that if Democrats take back control of the White House and the Senate, they'll just do away with filibuster once and for sure.

00:58:11.720 And so any Republican who's saying I'm standing on principle and I'm standing on history, if they do that, then Democrats aren't going to care.

00:58:19.700 And so that's what the number one concern, I think, probably of this audience is.

00:58:23.160 We're standing on principle and Democrats are just going to stand on power.

00:58:27.460 Yeah, it's about we got that's why I'm sort of getting at the map game.

00:58:30.000 I mean, we got to understand what this is.

00:58:31.640 My time as AG actually informed a lot of being here now in Washington because I saw the full complement of what the left was willing to do, nonprofits, all the crazy stuff during COVID, all of it.

00:58:42.120 And so I certainly have that kind of mentality to sort of fight back.

00:58:45.500 That's just been my experience.

00:58:47.180 But, yeah, no doubt, they'll add states to the union.

00:58:50.060 They'll pack the Supreme Court.

00:58:51.780 They're not messing around here.

00:58:53.720 And I think that if we're serious about this and integrity of our elections, the Save America Act, we have to get it done.

00:59:00.180 But we have to be willing to spend the time on it.

00:59:02.560 And that's really where it's going to be.

00:59:03.820 It's like we got to spend the time on it.

00:59:05.680 And that's where the fight is.

00:59:07.020 The other issue that's probably, you know, in the next couple of weeks will be Democrats blocked all that ICE funding.

00:59:12.980 We got everything else funded, but we're coming now in reconciliation, which is a simple majority now to make sure they're funded for multiple years.

00:59:19.280 So we're not going to play this game with them anymore.

00:59:21.720 These sanctuary jurisdictions.

00:59:23.300 Here's a crazy stat that we saw the other day that we're going to be part of this reconciliation process.

00:59:27.740 18,000, 18,000 criminal illegal aliens have been released from prisons and sanctuary jurisdictions just in one year, just in the last year, because they don't think about that's what a sanctuary jurisdiction is.

00:59:39.500 They will not tell law enforcement when a rapist who's an illegal immigrants being released.

00:59:44.780 Talk about like a moral inversion here. And so we ought to be fighting on this. 0.98

00:59:49.380 So you talk about the midterms. Let's talk about that. Like, let's talk about those kinds of issues, too.

00:59:53.820 And I think when you unpack where everybody is, when the ads are flying in September and October, I'm optimistic that we're going to be able to hold the Senate and hopefully the House.

01:00:04.520 Thanks for spending time with us, Senator.

01:00:05.460 I appreciate you.

01:00:06.280 Yeah, anytime, guys.

01:00:07.080 Thank you so much.

01:00:07.700 Yep.

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01:01:14.740 Clay and Buck, just preset them on the iHeart app.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - May 12, 2026

Bonus： Daily Review with Clay and Buck - May 12 2026

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