Verdict with Ted Cruz - BONUS： Daily Review With Clay and Buck - May 20 2025

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.420 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.560 Welcome to today's edition of the C&B 24-7 Podcast.

00:00:09.320 Here are your co-hosts, Clay Travis and Buck Sexton.

00:00:13.140 Welcome in, Tuesday edition, Clay Travis, Buck Sexton show.

00:00:17.820 Appreciate all of you hanging out with us as we are rolling through the program.

00:00:22.880 A ton of different news stories out there.

00:00:26.300 The big, beautiful Bill Trump on Capitol Hill.

00:00:29.120 We will talk with White House official James Blair at 2.30.

00:00:34.200 That is the third hour Eastern of this program to get the absolute latest there.

00:00:39.400 James Comey went on MSNBC to talk about his seashells by the seashore.

00:00:45.600 Original Sin, the book, is out.

00:00:48.840 And then a couple of crazy stories that we may have some fun with during the course of the program.

00:00:54.420 Robert Griffin III.

00:00:55.740 The third, Buck, you saw this story and you were like, this can't be real, is in a feud with a guy named Ryan Clark over Caitlin Clark.

00:01:07.240 And they have had wife attacks now.

00:01:10.940 Anyway, this is crazy.

00:01:12.300 Also, I don't know if you saw this.

00:01:13.780 This is not super serious, but it is a little bit crazy.

00:01:17.720 Bill Belichick and his 24-year-old girlfriend are reportedly engaged, Buck.

00:01:23.720 So true love, as spring flowers bloom, may well be afoot in the great state of North Carolina with Bill Belichick as the head coach of the Tar Heels.

00:01:35.220 Some ladies like Granddad, Bob. 1.00

00:01:37.200 What can I tell you?

00:01:38.040 72-year-old Belichick, 24-year-old Jordan Hudson.

00:01:43.200 The heart wants what the heart wants, Buck.

00:01:45.200 But we begin with the big, beautiful bill.

00:01:51.460 Trump is up on Capitol Hill.

00:01:53.360 Here is my prediction before we go through all this different audio.

00:01:57.080 The bill is going to pass.

00:01:58.420 This reminds me a bit of the speaker count votes, everything else.

00:02:04.860 Eventually, there is going to be a speaker.

00:02:07.200 And it reminds me of the debt ceiling.

00:02:09.380 Oh, my goodness.

00:02:10.160 What's going to happen?

00:02:10.960 The government's going to shut down.

00:02:12.260 Oh, no.

00:02:13.200 And then the debt ceiling gets resolved.

00:02:15.760 Nothing ever really changes.

00:02:17.460 It's all posturing and negotiation.

00:02:19.820 So that is my prediction of where we are headed.

00:02:24.500 But let's listen to what Trump said this morning on Capitol Hill.

00:02:29.260 Before the meeting, he said, this is a big, beautiful bill.

00:02:33.120 And we're going to get it done because it has tremendous tax cuts.

00:02:36.660 Cut one.

00:02:37.200 Well, it's not a question of holdouts.

00:02:38.760 We have a tremendously unified party.

00:02:40.680 I don't think we've ever had a party like this.

00:02:42.520 There are some people that want a couple of things that maybe I don't like or that they're not going to get.

00:02:48.120 But I think we're going to have tremendous, not luck.

00:02:52.220 We have tremendous talent.

00:02:53.120 But this man has done an incredible job of speaking.

00:02:56.160 So I think we're going to I think we're a very unified party.

00:02:59.640 The Senate's doing great.

00:03:00.720 John Thuner's doing fantastic.

00:03:02.560 He's a great guy.

00:03:03.820 And we're going to have a bill, the one big, beautiful bill.

00:03:07.260 I think it's going to be the biggest bill ever passed.

00:03:09.800 And we've got to get it done.

00:03:11.160 Tremendous tax cuts for people.

00:03:13.200 Tremendous incentives.

00:03:14.720 Tremendous regulation cuts.

00:03:16.240 All these regulations that are so horrible.

00:03:18.840 OK, so that was before the meeting.

00:03:21.420 Speaker Johnson after the meeting and then I'll play some Trump.

00:03:24.720 Here's Speaker Johnson after the meeting of what happens if they don't pass this bill.

00:03:29.740 They love this president.

00:03:30.780 The people back home love what he's doing.

00:03:32.260 It's historic.

00:03:33.000 And everybody understands the scope and the meaning of this.

00:03:35.960 If we do not accomplish this mission, every one of you, all the American people are going to have the highest tax increase that you've ever had.

00:03:42.260 And among the debt ceiling cliff that's approaching and all the other problems, this is the bill to do it.

00:03:47.120 I think we're going to get it done, Mr. President.

00:03:49.880 OK, and then Trump after the meeting, one more cut five.

00:03:53.420 And then, Buck, you can weigh in on all the drama on Capitol Hill.

00:03:56.640 How big it is.

00:03:57.460 How beautiful it is.

00:03:58.540 So beautiful.

00:03:59.580 I can't stop looking at it.

00:04:01.520 Trump says it was a meeting of love.

00:04:03.940 Cut five.

00:04:04.740 That was a meeting of love.

00:04:05.840 Let me tell you, that was love in that room.

00:04:07.660 There was no shouting.

00:04:09.760 I think it was a meeting of love.

00:04:11.380 There were a couple of things that we talked about specifically where some people felt a little bit one way or the other, not a big deal.

00:04:17.920 And I covered them.

00:04:19.140 It wasn't so much a speech.

00:04:20.340 I covered certain points.

00:04:22.240 And I think there was, I'd be very surprised.

00:04:24.280 You told them you were losing right now.

00:04:25.880 No, I didn't tell.

00:04:27.480 Who told you I said I'm losing?

00:04:28.560 That's what we heard inside the room.

00:04:29.740 Who told you that?

00:04:32.940 What you heard from people inside the room.

00:04:34.880 Oh, really?

00:04:35.540 That's totally true.

00:04:36.460 I never used the term.

00:04:37.380 I didn't say losing.

00:04:38.100 I didn't even talk about it.

00:04:39.180 In fact, it's the opposite.

00:04:39.920 I said, I think we're going to get into that.

00:04:41.580 I'm not losing patience.

00:04:43.040 We're ahead of schedule. 0.72

00:04:44.420 Anybody that told you that is a liar.

00:04:48.560 Wait a minute.

00:04:49.240 Wait a minute.

00:04:50.320 I never mentioned the word losing patience because I'm not losing patience.

00:04:53.800 We're ahead of schedule.

00:04:55.360 Why don't you go back to your source and tell them they're liars if the source even exists?

00:05:00.740 All right.

00:05:01.380 So there is Trump getting into it with reporter Capitol Hill.

00:05:04.860 Buck, your take on all of this.

00:05:06.000 One thing, I'll get into the substance of the bill in just a second.

00:05:09.360 When I hear Trump with the reporters, I do think you and I, we know Don Jr. and Ivanka.

00:05:15.360 Could you imagine Trump as your dad, like trying to tell him why you broke curfew or something?

00:05:20.920 Like, excuse me, excuse.

00:05:21.960 Like, just he's very tough to argue with.

00:05:24.820 Remember when we had Jr. on at the RNC, if I remember correctly, and he had gotten permission

00:05:31.640 to have a few people over and Trump got home and there were like, he said, 100 people at

00:05:37.660 the house and he was just like, all of them have to be gone.

00:05:41.100 Can you imagine being at that party as a high school kid?

00:05:44.060 Trump walks in and he's like, you're all gone.

00:05:46.660 Like, it is very funny to think about.

00:05:48.460 He's not the dad that you wanted to be rolling kegs in when he wasn't looking.

00:05:51.880 I'm just throwing that out there.

00:05:52.960 Like, I can tell.

00:05:54.300 You know, I met him when I was 13 or 14 for the first time.

00:05:57.520 And yeah, he was.

00:05:58.840 Nobody was messing with him then and nobody's messing with him now.

00:06:01.240 OK, the big, beautiful bill.

00:06:03.380 It's huge.

00:06:03.840 It's beautiful.

00:06:04.320 Let's get into it.

00:06:05.380 The biggest thing in this claim.

00:06:06.860 And, you know, I spoke to and you can check it out.

00:06:09.800 It's on the Clay and Buck podcast network in the Buck brief.

00:06:12.800 I spoke to the head of the National Economic Council and I just said, my friend, you are

00:06:17.920 respectfully, he's a Ph.D.

00:06:19.180 from Harvard in economics.

00:06:21.980 And I said, you are an econ guy.

00:06:24.260 I didn't want to say nerd, but I mean, I think econ nerd would be respectfully said here.

00:06:28.740 I said, take me through the whole thing.

00:06:30.200 And so we just sat there and I went through it.

00:06:32.080 I'll give you some of the highlights of it and what is in this that really matters to

00:06:36.920 people and why Trump is so excited about the first thing is it's it's one of those

00:06:41.140 if you don't do it, really bad things are going to happen, meaning the tax raises that

00:06:46.360 would kick in because the twenty seventeen Trump tax cuts are made permanent here.

00:06:53.680 So I know it's confusing, but if the stuff if you don't do this, they would expire and

00:06:58.020 you would go back to much higher tax rates.

00:07:00.800 So that would be a shock to the system in a bad way.

00:07:02.840 Right.

00:07:03.580 Yeah, that's one part of it.

00:07:04.820 You're extending tax cuts.

00:07:06.360 You're extending tax cuts really across a whole a whole range, whether it's for for

00:07:12.560 businesses, for individual filers and the average American family on an annual basis.

00:07:21.740 And again, this is from the chairman of the National Economic Council.

00:07:25.400 And I said, let's nerd out, buddy.

00:07:27.280 Let's get it.

00:07:28.340 It's something like seven to twelve thousand dollars of additional money in the bank for

00:07:34.680 you at the end of the year for the average American household.

00:07:37.120 OK, that's not I think that's such an important because they're going to say it's for the rich.

00:07:40.440 It's for the billionaires.

00:07:41.320 The Democrats who rely on their plurality of billionaires to fund their party are always

00:07:47.060 so upset about billionaires.

00:07:49.280 Right.

00:07:49.520 This has nothing to do with the billionaires.

00:07:51.140 This is about the average American household.

00:07:53.420 And you're going to have think about if someone told you, hey, you're going to have an extra

00:07:56.620 10 grand next year at the end of the year, you'd say, wow, that's that's great.

00:08:01.700 Well, that's what this does for the average household.

00:08:03.480 So I think that's really important.

00:08:04.620 And it's also there's the salt deduction component of this.

00:08:10.220 So there's the cap for this is going to be changed.

00:08:16.680 They're going to deduct more of the regional taxes from the federal tax bill.

00:08:19.980 That's actually good for blue states.

00:08:21.260 And I think that's probably for some blue state Republicans or or purple state Republicans,

00:08:25.660 something they're happy to see.

00:08:27.060 The big one, Clay, and I said, wow, they're actually doing this.

00:08:30.480 There's no tax on tips that that is a real thing.

00:08:36.400 Remember, that was so popular and cool when Trump said it on the campaign trail that Kamala

00:08:41.500 for whatever campaign she was running.

00:08:44.340 She was like, yeah, I think we should have no tax.

00:08:46.220 She just blatantly copied it. 0.99

00:08:47.740 It was totally lifted it.

00:08:49.160 Yeah, totally lifted it.

00:08:50.180 She was plagiarizing Trump.

00:08:52.460 One thing that I'm going to say people on the right are annoyed about is the green energy

00:08:58.860 tax credits part of this.

00:09:00.640 The bill's initial tax eliminates tax credits for electric vehicles within two years, phases

00:09:05.720 out credits for low carbon electricity, including wind and solar, new requirements on these

00:09:10.280 credits, but doesn't totally zero.

00:09:13.040 There are people that are credit.

00:09:14.320 I'm just going to tell you what's getting criticized.

00:09:15.860 They're criticizing this for not getting like there should be the whole Green New Deal scam

00:09:21.120 stuff should all be completely root and branch taken out.

00:09:24.200 Some Republicans are saying, OK, we had Ron Johnson on yesterday talk a bit about this.

00:09:30.300 They tighten up SNAP benefits, which is food stamps.

00:09:34.260 I guess we don't like to call it food stamps anymore.

00:09:35.820 They're tightening that up.

00:09:36.880 So they think there'll be some savings.

00:09:38.700 They're limiting funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which had been

00:09:42.900 Elizabeth Warren's little fiefdom that didn't actually help consumers, but was a good

00:09:47.360 way to harass disfavored businesses by Democrats.

00:09:49.840 That's increases the debt limit, four trillion dollars, and then some substantial funding

00:09:54.420 boost for Pentagon priorities and deportation.

00:09:58.420 So, Clay, I think those are the big top lines of where this where this thing is, where this

00:10:05.240 thing stands.

00:10:06.440 And the biggest criticism, it's over a thousand pages, eleven hundred pages.

00:10:10.620 Just remember that when somebody's like, I've read the bill.

00:10:13.960 Really?

00:10:14.640 Have you?

00:10:15.680 Have you?

00:10:16.520 Yeah.

00:10:16.800 Yeah.

00:10:17.160 Yeah.

00:10:18.360 They've read the section of the bill that their lobbyists wanted included, I'm sure.

00:10:22.800 But this is on eleven hundred pages.

00:10:24.600 And the part of it that I think people on the right conservatives are a little frustrated

00:10:29.520 on is just that it's extending the debt ceiling, four trillion dollars and doesn't really have

00:10:35.120 the big meaty cuts that from does you would have liked to see.

00:10:40.120 That's the part of it.

00:10:40.940 That's what if you're talking about if you're talking about juicing the economy.

00:10:44.540 I mean, this thing, I think, is going to be rocket fuel for the economy.

00:10:47.680 So that's why Trump's so excited about it.

00:10:49.620 Look, it's it's not a perfect bill.

00:10:51.960 And the big issue, which if you're around our age, meaning if you're 40s or younger, that

00:11:01.420 you're going to have to deal with over the next two generations is the national debts out

00:11:06.220 of control.

00:11:06.640 And the only real way we've told you this before, the only real way to fix the national

00:11:12.800 debt is to address Social Security and Medicare.

00:11:16.700 And if you look, I believe Social Security, Medicare defense and the interest, I believe

00:11:25.100 that's 86 percent of the entire federal budget.

00:11:28.340 I think that's the number.

00:11:30.260 So even if you eliminated every other part of the federal government, 86 percent of it

00:11:37.560 would still exist just based on those four things.

00:11:40.960 And unfortunately, as our debt grows, the percentage of interest that we have to pay on that debt

00:11:46.840 grows massively such that we now pay more typically, unfortunately now for the debt than we do

00:11:54.740 national defense, and there is an argument that if you look at history, as soon as the debt

00:12:00.860 expenditures exceed the the defense expenditures, your country, your civilization has begun a

00:12:09.060 decline.

00:12:10.460 So what first segment on Tuesday?

00:12:15.420 No one in the Democrat Party, no one in the Republican Party really wants to address Social

00:12:23.160 Security and Medicare.

00:12:25.220 And until those issues are addressed, then there is virtually no opportunity to balance a budget.

00:12:34.220 That's the reality.

00:12:35.260 Now, I agree with Ron Johnson when he says, like, hey, we should be going back to pre covid

00:12:40.380 baseline spend expenditures.

00:12:42.000 That's way better.

00:12:43.820 That's the better solution here in my mind, because we basically have embedded the cost of

00:12:50.880 a growing government from covid and we're continuing.

00:12:54.260 And by the way, when you have twenty one percent inflation, your expenses are going to go up

00:12:57.960 substantially just to keep pace with the cost of goods.

00:13:01.480 But this this is this is the reality in which we live.

00:13:04.960 There's also there on the good side of things.

00:13:07.600 So I can give you the quick negative overview, not of the bill, but just of the U.S.

00:13:12.940 fiscal trajectory is we are not stopping this train at all, really.

00:13:18.240 And the next, I think, four years on the train are going to be awesome.

00:13:22.900 So there's that.

00:13:24.160 Right.

00:13:24.440 I think I think the Trump administration, you're going to see everyone's going to be doing

00:13:27.960 great.

00:13:28.320 And that's fantastic.

00:13:29.200 And, you know, that's nothing to sneeze at.

00:13:32.000 But the other side of it is we haven't we haven't suffered enough as a country from

00:13:37.120 the overspending when we've suffered enough.

00:13:39.260 People want to do something about it.

00:13:40.860 And this is I almost think it's a waste of time to get into beyond that right now, Clay,

00:13:46.660 because every time we could say we're spending too much money, look at the math.

00:13:50.720 You can just line up.

00:13:51.880 We'll just get calls all day from everyone saying you absolutely cannot touch my Medicare.

00:13:56.640 Yeah.

00:13:57.040 OK, that's where we are.

00:13:58.800 And that's what Trump has said.

00:14:00.360 You can't trust if you can't touch Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, basically.

00:14:04.560 There's nothing to talk about.

00:14:05.500 People are just saying we haven't suffered enough as a country from the fiscal profligacy.

00:14:09.640 And that means that we just got to keep going and keep on hoping that we grow and grow and

00:14:15.620 grow this economy.

00:14:16.840 We got hundreds of billions coming in from the tariffs, by the way, which you're hearing

00:14:20.920 you're not getting a lot of conversation about that right now in the media because the

00:14:24.140 tariffs are going to bring in additional revenue to the government.

00:14:27.720 Remember, we used to fund until the 20th century.

00:14:30.520 We funded this country's government on tariffs overwhelmingly.

00:14:34.860 I mean, that was that was the primary source.

00:14:36.400 So it is a thing.

00:14:37.480 But yeah, hopefully we can grow, grow the economy much faster and and find, you know,

00:14:44.700 greater efficiencies that we'll be able to kind of keep riding this thing out.

00:14:49.440 But yeah, I'm with you.

00:14:50.880 It's not even worth the debt bomb.

00:14:53.180 The debt bomb is ticking.

00:14:54.360 Nobody wants to fix it.

00:14:55.340 So why whine about it?

00:14:57.260 Trump is doing the best thing he can do for the economy this year.

00:15:00.120 And hopefully that means we lead into better things in the years after it.

00:15:03.420 But yeah, that's that's kind of where I am on this.

00:15:06.060 It's also like having the debt ceiling fight.

00:15:08.100 No, it's not even fun to talk about anymore because they're just going to raise the debt

00:15:10.720 ceiling.

00:15:11.380 If I'm wrong, let me know.

00:15:13.160 Trying to stir the pot a little bit.

00:15:14.480 Eight hundred two, eight, two, two, eight, eight, two.

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00:16:17.740 Pure talk.

00:16:20.900 Clay and Buck kicks off right now.

00:16:23.320 Thank you for being here with us all across this great land.

00:16:26.460 It was quite a post on X from Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey.

00:16:36.680 She wrote on her X account that Congresswoman LaMonica McIver had been charged for assaulting, 1.00

00:16:45.660 impeding and interfering with law enforcement when she visited the detention center.

00:16:50.700 A couple other members of Congress back on the 9th of May in New Jersey and then put out

00:16:58.600 a statement from her office.

00:17:00.200 Clay, no one is above the law, politicians or otherwise.

00:17:05.580 It is the job of this office to uphold justice impartially, regardless of who you are.

00:17:12.260 Now we will let the justice system work.

00:17:16.300 She had sought a resolution without bringing criminal charges, according to The New York Times.

00:17:20.640 But Ms. McIver declined.

00:17:23.840 She says now, this is Congresswoman McIver, that the ICE agents created an unnecessary and unsafe confrontation.

00:17:32.720 These charges are entirely political, of course.

00:17:38.780 We knew she was going to say that.

00:17:40.500 But you can see body camera footage released by the Department of Homeland Security shows Representative McIver getting into it, Clay,

00:17:52.820 tussling with members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

00:17:58.400 One might even say, Clay, obstructing, perhaps obstructing an official proceeding or official law enforcement activity,

00:18:07.520 something that all the cops listening know, yeah, if they're trying to make an arrest and you're like, no, that's my body,

00:18:14.040 and you hip check the cop so that he can't actually put the cuffs on, you're going away, too.

00:18:19.900 That's not OK.

00:18:22.700 Now, there's a lot going on here, Clay, right?

00:18:25.720 There's the law and order angle of this.

00:18:28.040 The no one is above the law, which Democrats certainly are familiar with as a phrase,

00:18:32.600 because they used to say it with such frequency to justify their absurd prosecutions.

00:18:38.360 Four of them, one year, never been convicted or charged with a crime in his entire life.

00:18:43.040 Almost 80 years, Trump goes, without ever committing a crime.

00:18:46.820 And then four in one year that also happened to be the same year he's running for re-election to be president.

00:18:52.380 Gee, what a coincidence, almost like finding out Biden's cancer after the election that they had to know about before.

00:18:59.280 Quite a coincidence. But for me, this is they created this environment, and I'm happy.

00:19:07.860 We can talk about the immigration piece of this, too, Clay.

00:19:10.200 Like, really? They're willing to physically throw their bodies in front of ICE agents to stop deportations from happening?

00:19:16.940 Members of Congress, people that write the laws, or at least pretend to write the laws.

00:19:22.060 But the law is the law. No one is above it.

00:19:25.180 And Democrats made us all believe, or rather, made us all hear from them that they believe this.

00:19:32.360 And now they have to live with it.

00:19:33.900 And I don't think they're going to like the consequences, because the Trump administration has decided,

00:19:38.000 you know what? We'll take you up on that.

00:19:40.580 Your terms are acceptable, Democrats. 0.63

00:19:42.780 I think this was and is, and this will not surprise you, Buck, but LaMonica McIver, the arrested congresswoman,

00:19:53.200 texted, no one is, I mean, tweeted, no one is above the law after Trump was arrested.

00:19:59.640 So, you know, this talking point that they all had of no one is above the law,

00:20:05.740 clearly they thought they were above the law, but it's not a good position to be in

00:20:10.860 when you are arrested to have, on the record, called your political adversaries out as being,

00:20:20.460 as no one is being above the law.

00:20:22.660 Now, do I think that this is some massively violent behavior that she engaged in? No. 1.00

00:20:31.300 But I do think that there are countless people who were involved in January 6th

00:20:36.660 that engaged in less than what she did on that day, that were charged with crimes,

00:20:44.060 that were hunted down by the FBI, that had to plead guilty to minor misdemeanors,

00:20:49.520 and received massive punishment as a result.

00:20:53.380 So, if you put it in that context, what is good for the goose is good for the gander,

00:20:59.120 which is probably a phrase that I've never used before in the history of radio,

00:21:02.560 but seems apropos here.

00:21:04.520 And I think what it represents is, there have been a lot of you, and I am among them,

00:21:11.740 and Buck is among them, that said the only real way we can end lawfare in this country,

00:21:17.980 one, Trump winning, I think, showed Democrats that their idea of putting him in prison for the rest of his life

00:21:27.400 and bankrupting him and trying to use the full apparatus of the Department of Justice against him,

00:21:34.360 as well as other state governments in Georgia and New York,

00:21:37.640 was not a way that was going to be politically beneficial to them.

00:21:42.500 And I think the results of the 2024 election were wildly important for that reason.

00:21:47.440 But the second part of this is, they have to feel the danger themselves of lawfare redounding at them

00:21:56.340 as paying the consequences here.

00:21:59.240 And I'm curious how aggressively the Democrat Party will come out and defend her,

00:22:04.460 because I will say this, Buck, remember the judge in Milwaukee?

00:22:07.520 That they were saying, oh, like, this is an unprecedented act,

00:22:11.800 and then people looked into it, and then a grand jury in Milwaukee indicted her.

00:22:16.180 That story's kind of vanished.

00:22:17.900 They tried to make a lot of hay of that.

00:22:20.260 I don't think that the average person, because it's on video,

00:22:23.780 is going to watch this and say, hey, you know what,

00:22:26.300 this woman seems like she's being treated unfairly. 1.00

00:22:28.620 You know who's not going to, all of a sudden, cry big tears for the situation?

00:22:36.380 Tom Holman.

00:22:37.900 I think we could just call it, I think if he had a nickname,

00:22:40.320 like if this was professional wrestling, it would be the enforcer,

00:22:43.220 because I think he is the enforcer of immigration law.

00:22:46.260 Here he is saying that she broke the law, this is cut 10,

00:22:50.180 and she's going to be held to account.

00:22:52.520 You can push back against President Trump's immigration agenda?

00:22:56.000 Whatever, you can protest, but you cannot cross that line.

00:22:59.000 You can't knowingly impede a law enforcement officer, ICE officer.

00:23:02.820 It's a crime.

00:23:04.440 You can't knowingly conceal and harbor an illegal alien from ICE.

00:23:08.000 You cannot, you know, commit criminal trespass to our facilities

00:23:11.400 and endanger our employees, and you certainly can't put hands on an ICE agent.

00:23:17.340 So, you know, she's going to have to pay the consequences for doing what she did. 1.00

00:23:21.960 She broke the law, and we're going to hold her accountable.

00:23:23.680 This is where we have to be reminded that the Democrats,

00:23:29.520 despite whatever they may say as a party publicly,

00:23:32.420 and I think even that, you could argue, has trended in this direction,

00:23:36.380 but they really don't believe that illegal immigration is a crime.

00:23:41.280 They don't believe that it's illegal.

00:23:43.520 And so to them, anyone who's being held in a detention facility

00:23:47.140 for immigration-related issues is essentially a political prisoner.

00:23:51.800 And therefore, whatever they have to do in order to bring attention to

00:23:57.260 or even impede what's going on is morally justified.

00:24:02.840 And this is what, as more and more Americans figure this out,

00:24:06.920 we have greater clarity on this issue, and we can handle this better.

00:24:10.280 The Democrats do not believe that anyone should be punished

00:24:13.860 for being in the country illegally.

00:24:15.440 And I mean anyone.

00:24:17.840 They fundamentally do not believe that if someone is here,

00:24:20.740 it doesn't matter if they're a mass murderer on behalf of MS-13.

00:24:23.780 It doesn't matter.

00:24:24.700 Those crimes, sometimes Democrats will agree with us, are bad,

00:24:28.280 like the killing of all the people.

00:24:29.520 Okay, they'll say that's bad. Fine. 0.99

00:24:31.480 But the crime of status in the country is not a crime to them.

00:24:35.780 They do not believe that there is any infraction worthy of punishment

00:24:41.300 that comes from breaking immigration laws.

00:24:44.840 And that is why you have members of Congress who will throw their bodies in the way

00:24:49.300 and scream about this and all this mayhem that they will cause around it.

00:24:54.660 It's because fundamentally, once you understand their view of it,

00:24:58.280 yeah, of course, like if you and I were sitting here,

00:25:00.220 we're talking about people who are being locked up

00:25:01.800 for absolutely no reason whatsoever in our minds.

00:25:04.520 We'd say, well, that's a huge problem.

00:25:05.940 We've got to address this.

00:25:07.160 That's what they think about illegals.

00:25:09.640 Yeah, and look, I think the ultimate question here is

00:25:14.200 why Democrats are still floundering to such an extent.

00:25:18.360 They're getting arrested to fight for the rights of illegal immigrants.

00:25:22.160 They're getting on airplanes to fly to El Salvador

00:25:25.280 to advocate for wife-beating, human-trafficking gang members

00:25:30.580 who should never have been in this country.

00:25:33.620 And I think a lot of regular, everyday Americans are asking the question,

00:25:38.080 why are Democrats willing to fight so hard for people

00:25:40.700 who are not citizens of this country

00:25:42.400 to continue to be able to illegally break the law here?

00:25:45.120 And I also think that a lot of people are saying

00:25:49.340 that this is indicative of them picking issues

00:25:54.580 that the average American does not agree with.

00:25:58.540 And the only reason this makes sense,

00:26:00.820 the only reason this makes sense,

00:26:04.120 is they have a plan to one day make all of these people

00:26:07.680 citizens of the United States,

00:26:09.480 and they believe it will benefit them.

00:26:11.660 I mean, is there any other explanation

00:26:15.140 that remotely makes sense for their behavior right now?

00:26:18.600 And let me just point this out.

00:26:20.000 This is a black congresswoman from New Jersey, right?

00:26:24.420 This is where LaMonica McIver is from.

00:26:27.760 Do you think the average black constituent,

00:26:31.640 because I bet her district is a majority black district, 0.96

00:26:34.100 that would be my guess.

00:26:35.180 Team, you can look that up, and I'll correct it

00:26:37.500 if LaMonica McIver has been representing

00:26:41.340 a largely white area of the country.

00:26:43.900 I tend to think that's probably unlikely.

00:26:46.220 Do you think black constituents of LaMonica McIver

00:26:49.840 feel as if they are being strongly represented

00:26:53.000 by their congresswoman when she is being arrested

00:26:55.560 outside of an ICE detention center?

00:26:58.340 Is that advocating for their best interest?

00:27:00.660 I think there are a lot of black residents.

00:27:03.200 We saw this happen, certainly with more black residents 1.00

00:27:06.600 in inner cities starting to vote Trump.

00:27:09.460 We saw this in New York City.

00:27:10.620 We saw it in many parts of the country,

00:27:12.320 but New York City in particular.

00:27:13.440 But Buck, remember all the Chicago inner city residents

00:27:16.760 who were saying, wait a minute, you're taking over our gyms,

00:27:20.320 our sports fields that our kids are supposed

00:27:22.780 to be able to play on to give benefits to illegal immigrants? 0.71

00:27:26.620 Filling their kids' classrooms with kids who have 1.00

00:27:30.040 a tremendous amount of trauma from the journey often

00:27:33.400 and speak no English, by the way, overwhelmingly.

00:27:36.700 Look, we have a limited amount of resources that we have

00:27:39.840 to provide support for underprivileged American citizens.

00:27:44.640 And if your community is feeling like it's underserved,

00:27:48.200 are you looking over your shoulder saying,

00:27:50.320 hey, these people who've only been here for a couple of months,

00:27:53.140 my families have been here for generations, for decades,

00:27:55.780 and we're struggling to stay ahead.

00:27:58.660 And you're going to give resources to all these illegal immigrants? 0.99

00:28:02.040 I mean, just honestly, I can't imagine that Congresswoman

00:28:07.240 LaMonica McIver, that her average constituent says, 0.92

00:28:11.480 hey, this is what I want you out fighting for.

00:28:14.600 This is why we sent you to Washington, D.C.

00:28:17.880 And I think that's a big part here.

00:28:20.680 The Marxist left in this country, I mean, I repeat myself, right,

00:28:25.160 but the hard left, the true left in America,

00:28:29.020 has replaced, you know, the modern Marxists

00:28:32.740 have replaced class solidarity with race solidarity.

00:28:35.880 And so the street disruptors, community organizers,

00:28:41.460 social justice brigades, if you will, they now view issues.

00:28:46.740 Remember we talked about this even in the context of Israel-Palestine,

00:28:49.120 like, why will you have black members of Congress

00:28:53.380 who are, you know, generally speaking, overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian?

00:28:58.560 I mean, you know, make a case,

00:29:00.480 if you have solidarity with people who have suffered persecution,

00:29:03.220 the Jews have suffered more than their share of persecution historically,

00:29:06.740 but why do black American congressmen identify with Palestinians?

00:29:11.260 Because Palestinians are considered brown,

00:29:13.120 even though there are Palestinians, and I've met them

00:29:15.120 because I've been to the West Bank, et cetera, as has Clay now.

00:29:17.820 You know, who have red or blonde hair and blue eyes.

00:29:21.760 That's a whole other thing, okay?

00:29:22.800 And, you know, very much, you would think, white or Caucasian. 0.79

00:29:26.200 But put that aside, they think Palestinians are brown,

00:29:29.420 therefore black members of Congress have a Marxist solidarity,

00:29:34.520 but it's based on race with the Palestinians.

00:29:37.240 Same thing with the illegal immigrants at some level. 0.97

00:29:39.440 What you're pointing out is what you would think black Democrat members of Congress

00:29:44.220 would focus on first and foremost, which is if they are, and a lot of them are,

00:29:48.080 in a predominantly African-American, black American district,

00:29:52.960 are illegal immigrants generally making the daily lives of black Americans better

00:30:01.760 in their neighborhoods, in their schools?

00:30:04.000 Are they helping the resource allocation that those communities get,

00:30:07.960 or are they a competition for that?

00:30:10.720 And, of course, we know the answers to this, but for the cameras,

00:30:15.620 racial solidarity with the non-white illegal immigrants is where the left,

00:30:22.000 the Marxists, the social justice construct in this country goes.

00:30:26.000 Here's the breakdown, by the way.

00:30:27.900 48.5% black district, 21.4% Hispanic, 18.8% white.

00:30:35.240 So, just shy of a majority black district,

00:30:39.280 but a massive, substantial overall number of the population is black,

00:30:46.440 and it is an overwhelming Democrat district.

00:30:51.160 She won in the last congressional race, based on what I'm looking to here,

00:30:56.460 81.4% of the vote to 15.6% to the Republican representative.

00:31:05.820 So, I mean, again, we're talking about, in my opinion,

00:31:09.560 someone who is not representing remotely the majority of the citizens of her district,

00:31:14.440 and I would think that would not be favorably received.

00:31:18.340 Maybe some of you are out there listening to us right now

00:31:20.940 in that New Jersey 10 congressional district

00:31:24.140 and want to weigh in on whether you think she is representing you well.

00:31:28.040 800-282-2882.

00:31:31.600 Yeah.

00:31:32.700 Definitely give us a call.

00:31:35.040 I've been an investor in gold for a long time.

00:31:38.440 We're joined now by James Blair, White House Deputy Chief of Staff,

00:31:43.260 a.k.a. The Oracle, joining us now.

00:31:47.260 All right.

00:31:47.860 So that's a pretty cool nickname, and I imagine that doesn't stink

00:31:52.840 to be the White House Chief of Staff Deputy that is known as the Oracle.

00:31:56.440 So let me ask you for your predictions, Oracle,

00:31:59.120 on how the Big Beautiful Bill is going to go

00:32:02.440 and what should this audience know about it from your perspective?

00:32:08.640 I appreciate that.

00:32:10.180 Good to be with you guys.

00:32:11.400 I think that the Big Beautiful Bill will get out of the House this week.

00:32:16.020 I think that, obviously, if it gets out of the House this week,

00:32:20.180 then it will go over to the Senate.

00:32:21.580 They'll work on it for a few weeks.

00:32:22.920 And the goal is to get it on the president's decks by July 4th,

00:32:27.820 which I think will happen.

00:32:28.860 Look, we've got to get this done.

00:32:30.880 This bill has so much to love, guys.

00:32:33.500 First of all, let's talk about the border, first and foremost,

00:32:36.680 which nobody's talking about anymore because the president has driven illegal border crossings

00:32:41.160 to zero since he came into office.

00:32:42.860 But this bill funds border enforcement, adds 10,000 new ICE officers, gives them pay raises,

00:32:50.000 gives us everything we need logistically to not only keep the border secure

00:32:54.320 for the president's entire term in office so we don't have to come back and do this again,

00:32:58.800 but also to deport people and get millions of illegal immigrants out of this country,

00:33:03.960 which is something that a majority of the American people support.

00:33:07.580 Secondarily, it gives us the funding we need for our military.

00:33:10.000 You know that the president is involved in complex negotiations across the globe to bring peace.

00:33:14.720 That's backed up through strength, and it gives us the funding to modernize our military

00:33:18.740 and make sure it's the most lethal fighting force in the world for the foreseeable future.

00:33:23.140 But then the big thing that it does that everyone's talking about is the tax cuts.

00:33:26.460 This renews the president's historic tax cut from 2017.

00:33:30.540 That was the biggest in history.

00:33:31.820 And then adds more taxes on top, everything he campaigned on, no tax on tips,

00:33:35.920 no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime pay.

00:33:38.880 It will be the single largest tax cut for middle and working class Americans in the history of the country.

00:33:44.660 And it will do that while still generating more than a trillion dollars right now,

00:33:50.760 $1.7 trillion in savings for the American taxpayer,

00:33:55.480 which is twice as much savings that has ever been delivered by Congress in the last 30 years,

00:34:01.080 and that was almost 30 years ago under Bill Clinton.

00:34:03.140 So we're getting the country's fiscal house in order.

00:34:06.280 We're giving people money back in their pocket that they earned.

00:34:09.060 We're deregulating.

00:34:10.500 We're unleashing energy.

00:34:11.720 We're securing the border.

00:34:12.780 We're rebuilding the military.

00:34:14.100 We're doing what President Trump campaigned on, plain and simple.

00:34:17.620 So there's still some little issues being worked out with a few guys at the edges,

00:34:21.340 but in the big picture, I think we're right on track, and I think we'll get everybody there.

00:34:25.040 James, appreciate you being with us, and certainly a lot to be excited about that is in this bill.

00:34:32.900 For those who are concerned about the debt, who want the spirit and action of DOGE to be enshrined in some way in this bill,

00:34:43.320 what do you say to them, and what can we point to that deals with getting that fiscal house in order,

00:34:49.680 not just for this year but in the longer term?

00:34:52.280 Yeah, great question.

00:34:55.460 Well, first of all, it's important to note that this is by far the biggest savings,

00:34:59.620 which I mentioned a minute ago, but let's put some points on it.

00:35:01.960 Back when Bill Clinton was president, Congress passed a package that saved like $800 billion in spending cuts, okay?

00:35:10.440 This one's looking like $1.6, $1.7 currently.

00:35:14.160 It'll still be iterated on a little bit as it goes through the Senate and everything, but more than double.

00:35:19.380 Okay, Congress literally has not done anything like that in over 30 years.

00:35:23.300 So right there, those are the biggest savings that we've ever seen.

00:35:26.540 We're doing something called rescissions, which is the stuff that DOGE has found, this bad stuff.

00:35:31.560 We go out, the Congress votes on it in what's called a rescissions package that's actually separate from this bill,

00:35:37.100 but then it permanently pulls out that stuff out of the budget, okay?

00:35:40.140 There's savings in that. 0.60

00:35:41.740 And then, you know, what's not counted in this bill, and it's just a stupid quirk of how legislative scoring works, is tariff revenue.

00:35:49.940 The president is bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars of tariff revenue right now, and that money's not being spent, okay?

00:35:56.780 That money's not being spent in the big, beautiful bill or anything else.

00:35:59.860 That's just money in the Treasury that goes straight to deficit reduction.

00:36:02.960 So sometimes, you know, when they call it the Congressional Budget Office, which kind of puts out the charge,

00:36:10.640 they're not being honest because they don't add in the tariff revenue and some of the rescissions and the different things that are happening,

00:36:15.360 so you're not really seeing the full picture.

00:36:17.140 But the fact is, this is a huge step in the right direction for getting the country on a better fiscal footing.

00:36:22.680 And we're unlocking growth.

00:36:24.960 You know, there's three things we have to do, really, to get to a balanced budget,

00:36:28.640 which the president hopes to achieve at some point before he leaves office, but, you know, at least in the foreseeable future.

00:36:35.460 We've got to grow, okay?

00:36:36.460 We've got to unleash our economy.

00:36:37.980 We do that through tax cuts.

00:36:39.200 We do that through deregulation.

00:36:40.800 We do that through getting government out of the way.

00:36:43.240 We're doing that, right?

00:36:44.380 That's partly the president, partly Congress, partly Doge, all of those things combined.

00:36:48.020 Second, we've got to do spending reductions.

00:36:49.560 I already told you the historic nature of those spending reductions that we're doing.

00:36:54.720 And then the third thing is we've just got to deregulate, and we've got to bring more jobs in.

00:37:00.520 And ultimately, you know, in 2017, we actually collected more money in taxes, which improved the fiscal picture,

00:37:08.860 as a result of the tax cuts than we would have if we didn't have the tax cuts.

00:37:13.200 That's because more jobs were created.

00:37:14.900 More people were paying taxes.

00:37:16.200 So we've got to add revenue.

00:37:19.700 The tariffs are doing that.

00:37:21.160 We've got to cut taxes.

00:37:22.600 We've got to cut regulation, unlock the economy through growth.

00:37:25.700 We're doing that.

00:37:26.640 And then we've got to do spending reductions.

00:37:28.400 It's going to take all three of those things, concerted effort over a period of time.

00:37:32.240 But if we just stick through it here and we are able to do it for four years instead of two,

00:37:37.340 which means we have to win the House majority back in the midterms,

00:37:40.620 then we'll be able to really be on a great, sustainable fiscal path.

00:37:45.240 So I think we're on the path.

00:37:47.280 But, you know, it's not all going to be done in one bill.

00:37:49.200 We're going to have to do a couple.

00:37:50.800 And this is a monumental first step, way bigger than anyone expected months ago.

00:37:55.040 So we're really proud of that.

00:37:56.400 And we've just got to get it done.

00:37:58.040 We're talking to James Blair, White House Deputy Chief of Staff.

00:38:02.120 You mentioned the border.

00:38:03.180 I also think this is important.

00:38:04.580 The tax cuts expire.

00:38:06.240 So for people out there who don't realize this, what happens if the bill doesn't pass?

00:38:12.680 Well, if this bill doesn't pass, first of all, economic forecasters are said we're going into a recession

00:38:17.360 because taxes are going to go through the roof.

00:38:19.820 All of these tax cuts we passed in 2017 will go away at the end of this year.

00:38:24.100 OK, so the average family is going to pay thousands more in taxes if the bill doesn't pass next year.

00:38:31.540 Businesses are going to pay thousands more in taxes.

00:38:34.300 We're not going to have the money to secure our border.

00:38:37.000 OK, all of these terrible things are going to happen.

00:38:38.980 It'll be the largest tax hike in history if this bill doesn't.

00:38:43.100 So that's just not an option.

00:38:44.800 Right.

00:38:45.240 If we don't extend the debt ceiling, the country is going to default on its debt,

00:38:49.300 which could drive us into a global depression. 0.99

00:38:51.240 Right.

00:38:51.720 This is not our fault.

00:38:53.000 This is Joe Biden's fault.

00:38:54.600 We're just here cleaning up the mess.

00:38:56.040 And that's what we have to do.

00:38:57.220 It's not anything anybody wants to do.

00:38:58.960 It's something that we have to do.

00:39:00.560 The country can't default on its debt or people would pay the price in a massive way.

00:39:05.100 I don't think any of us can even fathom.

00:39:06.940 And then on the border, look, we've got to ultimately have money to pay for planes and law enforcement

00:39:13.060 to get people out of the country.

00:39:14.980 And that money is coming in this bill.

00:39:17.240 And that is such a critical piece.

00:39:19.180 Everyone needs to understand that illegal immigrants in this country level that Joe Biden brought

00:39:26.220 in are a huge drain on our system.

00:39:28.800 When you talk about the spending, I mean, hundreds of billions of dollars being cost by illegal

00:39:35.280 immigrants being in this country and being on on on public programs are in place for American

00:39:41.880 citizens.

00:39:42.360 When we get them out of the country, that's actually going to lower our spending levels

00:39:46.340 massively without doing a single thing.

00:39:48.900 One of the changes in the big, beautiful bill will be getting millions of illegal immigrants 1.00

00:39:52.720 off of Medicaid.

00:39:53.840 OK, they're costing Medicaid billions of dollars a year.

00:39:56.680 So it's open borders that we have.

00:39:59.060 We have to not only have the border secure, but we got to get these people out so they stop 1.00

00:40:02.560 draining our public resources.

00:40:04.500 All of this stuff has to work together to get our country on the right fiscal path forward.

00:40:09.680 Appreciate you being with us.

00:40:12.660 Thank you so much for giving us some of the details on the big, beautiful bill.

00:40:15.720 What can you give us a sense as to what you what what this announcement is supposed to

00:40:21.060 be about the Golden Dome?

00:40:25.300 I'm going to let the president break that news, but it's very exciting stuff like the

00:40:29.100 president and something he's talked about for a long time.

00:40:31.680 The president wants to make make sure the homeland is secure.

00:40:34.520 He wants to make sure that other countries are deterred from ever thinking about even 0.99

00:40:40.280 even remotely thinking about attacking our country.

00:40:43.160 So it's all part of his vision of having the most lethal fighting force in the world.

00:40:47.900 And that is what really gives us the leverage to sit at the table and demand peace, not only

00:40:54.000 for ourselves and our allies, but everywhere across the globe.

00:40:57.100 And the world has been better off when America has been strong in the world.

00:41:00.260 And that is part and parcel, having a strong military is part and parcel of that effort.

00:41:05.800 Peace through strength.

00:41:07.300 Thank you so much for the time.

00:41:08.380 Keep up the good work.

00:41:09.580 And we'll talk to you again soon.

00:41:11.780 Thank you, guys.

00:41:13.380 That's James Blair, White House Deputy Chief of Staff.

00:41:18.520 We are joined now by James Blair, White House Deputy Chief of Staff, a.k.a.

00:41:24.360 the Oracle joining us now.

00:41:27.180 Well, all right, so that's a pretty cool nickname, and I imagine that doesn't stink to be the

00:41:33.420 White House Chief of Staff Deputy that is known as the Oracle.

00:41:36.840 So let me ask you for your predictions, Oracle, on how the big, beautiful bill is going to

00:41:42.260 go and what should this audience know about it from your perspective?

00:41:48.900 I appreciate that.

00:41:50.380 Good to be with you guys.

00:41:51.640 I think that the big, beautiful bill will get out of the House this week.

00:41:56.220 I think that obviously if it gets out of the House this week, then it will go over to

00:42:01.160 the Senate.

00:42:01.780 They'll work on it for a few weeks.

00:42:03.120 And the goal is to get it on the president's decks by July 4th, which I think will happen.

00:42:09.080 Look, we've got to get this done.

00:42:11.100 This bill has so much to love, guys.

00:42:13.720 First of all, let's talk about the border, first and foremost, which nobody's talking about

00:42:18.220 anymore because the president has driven illegal border crossings to zero since he came into

00:42:22.680 office.

00:42:23.680 But this bill funds border enforcement, adds 10,000 new ICE officers, gives them pay raises,

00:42:30.200 gives us everything we need logistically to not only keep the border secure for the president's

00:42:35.440 entire term in office so we don't have to come back and do this again, but also to deport

00:42:40.060 people and get millions of illegal immigrants out of this country, which is something that

00:42:45.020 a majority of the American people support.

00:42:46.680 Secondarily, it gives us the funding we need for our military.

00:42:50.440 You know that the president is involved in complex negotiations across the globe to bring

00:42:54.500 peace.

00:42:54.920 That's backed up through strength.

00:42:56.500 And it gives us the funding to modernize our military and make sure it's the most lethal

00:43:00.460 fighting force in the world for the foreseeable future.

00:43:03.400 But then the big thing that it does that everyone's talking about is the tax cuts.

00:43:06.520 This renews the president's historic tax cut from 2017.

00:43:10.480 That was the biggest in history.

00:43:11.860 And then adds more taxes on top, everything he campaigned on, no tax on tips, no tax on

00:43:16.700 Social Security, no tax on overtime pay.

00:43:19.200 It will be the single largest tax cut for middle and working class Americans in the history

00:43:24.020 of the country.

00:43:24.720 And it will do that while still generating more than a trillion dollars right now, $1.7

00:43:31.920 trillion in savings for the American taxpayer, which is twice as much savings that has ever

00:43:38.940 been delivered by Congress in the last 30 years.

00:43:41.300 And that was almost 30 years ago under Bill Clinton.

00:43:43.740 So we're getting the country's fiscal house in order.

00:43:46.280 We're giving people money back in their pocket that they earned.

00:43:49.220 We're deregulating.

00:43:50.620 We're unleashing energy.

00:43:51.740 We're securing the border.

00:43:52.960 We're rebuilding the military.

00:43:54.260 We're doing what President Trump campaigned on, plain and simple.

00:43:57.800 So there's still some little issues being worked out with a few guys at the edges.

00:44:01.560 But in the big picture, I think we're right on track.

00:44:03.920 And I think we'll get everybody there.

00:44:05.280 James, appreciate you being with us and certainly a lot to be excited about that is in this bill.

00:44:13.060 For those who are concerned about the debt, who want the spirit and action of Doge to be

00:44:21.080 enshrined in some way in this bill, what do you say to them and what can we point to that

00:44:27.200 deals with getting that fiscal house in order, not just for this year, but in the longer term?

00:44:32.480 Yeah, great question.

00:44:35.680 Well, first of all, it's important to note that this is by far the biggest savings, which

00:44:39.900 I mentioned a minute ago.

00:44:40.960 But let's put some points on it.

00:44:42.180 Back in back when Bill Clinton was president, Congress passed a package that saved like

00:44:47.740 eight hundred billion dollars in spending cuts.

00:44:50.140 OK, this one's looking like one point six, one point seven.

00:44:53.900 Currently, no, still be iterated on a little bit as it goes through the Senate and everything,

00:44:58.220 but more than double.

00:45:00.000 OK, Congress literally has not done anything like that in over 30 years.

00:45:03.520 So right there, those are the biggest savings that we've ever seen.

00:45:06.720 We're doing something called rescissions, which is the stuff that Doge has found, this bad stuff.

00:45:11.760 We go out, the Congress votes on it in what's called a rescissions package that's actually

00:45:16.080 separate from this bill.

00:45:17.320 But then it permanently pulls out that stuff out of the budget.

00:45:20.080 OK, there's savings. 1.00

00:45:20.960 And then in that and then, you know, what's not counted in this bill and it's just a stupid 0.94

00:45:25.340 quirk of how legislative scoring works is tariff revenue. 0.70

00:45:30.160 The president is bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars of tariff revenue right now.

00:45:34.820 And that money is not being spent.

00:45:36.500 OK, that money is not being spent in the big, beautiful bill or anything else.

00:45:40.060 That's just money in the Treasury that goes straight to deficit reduction.

00:45:43.980 So sometimes, you know, when they call it the Congressional Budget Office, which kind of

00:45:49.660 puts out the charge, they're not being honest because they don't add in the tariff revenue

00:45:53.120 and some of the rescissions and the different things that are happening.

00:45:55.580 So you're not really seeing the full picture.

00:45:57.440 But the fact is, this is a huge step in the right direction for getting the country on a

00:46:01.980 better fiscal footing.

00:46:03.380 And we're unlocking growth.

00:46:05.160 You know, there's three things we have to do, really, to get to a balanced budget, which

00:46:09.080 the president hopes to achieve at some point before he leaves office.

00:46:13.480 But, you know, at least in the foreseeable future, we've got to grow.

00:46:16.500 OK, we've got to unleash our economy.

00:46:18.180 We do that through tax cuts.

00:46:19.320 We do that through deregulation.

00:46:21.000 We do that through getting government out of the way.

00:46:23.460 We're doing that, right?

00:46:24.580 That's partly the president, partly Congress, partly Doge, all of those things combined.

00:46:28.240 Second, we've got to do spending reductions.

00:46:29.940 I already told you the historic nature of those spending reductions that we're doing.

00:46:34.980 And then the third thing is we've just got to deregulate and we've got to bring more

00:46:39.940 jobs in.

00:46:40.580 And ultimately, you know, in 2017, we actually collected more money in taxes, which improved

00:46:48.000 the fiscal picture as a result of the tax cuts than we would have if we didn't have the

00:46:52.860 tax cuts.

00:46:53.420 That's because more jobs were created.

00:46:55.100 More people were paying taxes.

00:46:56.800 So we've got to add revenue.

00:46:59.880 The tariffs are doing that.

00:47:01.360 We've got to cut taxes.

00:47:02.780 We've got to cut regulation, unlock the economy through growth.

00:47:05.880 We're doing that.

00:47:06.640 And then we've got to do spending reductions.

00:47:08.320 It's going to take all three of those things, concerted effort over a period of time.

00:47:12.480 But if we just stick through it here and we are able to do it for four years instead of

00:47:16.940 two, which means we have to win the House majority back in the midterms, then we'll be

00:47:21.820 able to really be on a great, sustainable fiscal path.

00:47:25.440 So I think we're on the path.

00:47:27.460 But, you know, it's not all going to be done in one bill.

00:47:29.400 We're going to have to do a couple.

00:47:31.000 And this is a monumental first step, way bigger than anyone expected months ago.

00:47:35.100 So we're really proud of that.

00:47:36.720 And we've just got to get it done.

00:47:38.700 We're talking to James Blair, White House Deputy Chief of Staff.

00:47:42.320 You mentioned the border.

00:47:43.360 I also think this is important.

00:47:44.800 The tax cuts expire.

00:47:46.440 So for people out there who don't realize this, what happens if the bill doesn't pass?

00:47:52.860 Well, if this bill doesn't pass, first of all, economic forecasters are said we're

00:47:56.500 going into a recession because taxes are going to go through the roof.

00:48:00.180 All of these tax cuts we passed in 2017 will go away at the end of this year.

00:48:04.300 OK, so the average family is going to pay thousands more in taxes if the bill doesn't

00:48:09.740 pass next year.

00:48:11.780 Businesses are going to pay thousands more in taxes.

00:48:14.500 We're not going to have the money to secure our border.

00:48:17.200 OK, all of these terrible things are going to happen.

00:48:19.180 It'll be the largest tax hike in history if this bill doesn't.

00:48:23.380 So that's just not an option, right?

00:48:25.520 If we don't extend the debt ceiling, the country is going to default on its debt, which could drive

00:48:30.080 us into a global depression, right?

00:48:31.940 This is not our fault.

00:48:33.200 This is Joe Biden's fault.

00:48:34.840 We're just here cleaning up the mess.

00:48:36.260 And that's what we have to do.

00:48:37.460 It's not anything anybody wants to do.

00:48:39.280 It's something that we have to do.

00:48:40.840 The country can't default on its debt or people would pay the price in a massive way.

00:48:45.400 I don't think any of us can even fathom.

00:48:47.520 And then on the border, look, we've got to ultimately have money to pay for planes and

00:48:52.580 law enforcement to get people out of the country.

00:48:55.080 And that money is coming in this bill.

00:48:57.280 And that is such a critical piece.

00:48:59.400 Everyone needs to understand that illegal immigrants in this country, the level that Joe Biden brought 0.99

00:49:06.420 in, are a huge drain on our system.

00:49:09.120 When you talk about the spending, I mean hundreds of billions of dollars being cost by illegal

00:49:15.500 immigrants being in this country and being on public programs are in place for American

00:49:22.100 citizens.

00:49:22.660 When we get them out of the country, that's actually going to lower our spending levels

00:49:26.540 massively without doing a single thing.

00:49:29.060 One of the changes in the big, beautiful bill will be getting millions of illegal immigrants 1.00

00:49:32.920 off of Medicaid.

00:49:34.040 OK, they're costing Medicaid billions of dollars a year.

00:49:36.940 So it's open borders that we have.

00:49:39.260 We have to not only have the border secure, but we've got to get these people out so they 1.00

00:49:42.520 stop draining our public resources.

00:49:44.500 All of this stuff has to work together to get our country on the right fiscal path forward.

00:49:49.880 Appreciate you being with us.

00:49:52.880 Thank you so much for giving us some of the details on the big, beautiful bill.

00:49:55.920 What can you give us a sense as to what you what this announcement is supposed to be about

00:50:01.680 the Golden Dome?

00:50:05.500 I'm going to let the president break that news, but it's very exciting stuff like the

00:50:09.320 president and something he's talked about for a long time.

00:50:11.880 The president wants to make make sure the homeland is secure.

00:50:14.720 He wants to make sure that other countries are deterred from ever thinking about even 0.99

00:50:20.480 even remotely thinking about attacking our country.

00:50:23.360 So it's all part of his vision of having the most lethal fighting force in the world.

00:50:28.240 And that is what really gives us the leverage to sit at the table and demand peace, not only

00:50:34.200 for ourselves and our allies, but everywhere across the globe.

00:50:37.260 And the world has been better off when America has been strong in the world.

00:50:40.460 And that is part and parcel, having a strong military is part and parcel of that effort.

00:50:46.000 Peace through strength.

00:50:47.520 Thank you so much for the time.

00:50:48.580 Keep up the good work.

00:50:49.780 And we'll talk to you again soon.

00:50:52.000 Thank you, guys.

00:50:53.580 That's James Blair, White House Deputy Chief of Staff.

00:50:59.800 This is an iHeart Podcast.

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