Verdict with Ted Cruz - Bonus： Daily Review with Clay and Buck - Sep 25 2025

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.560 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.400 Welcome, everybody.

00:00:05.440 Thursday edition of Clay and Buck kicks off right now.

00:00:08.900 And let's just jump to it.

00:00:10.140 We got in the Oval Office, President Trump with the premier of Turkey.

00:00:15.520 He is sitting down.

00:00:16.840 They are talking.

00:00:17.600 He is taking questions.

00:00:19.200 Let's jump to it.

00:00:20.900 Play it.

00:00:21.900 Great friendship, President Trump.

00:00:24.120 With a few news items.

00:00:25.740 Sorry.

00:00:26.860 Well, he said that the right is a lot tougher than the left.

00:00:31.340 That's true for sure.

00:00:32.900 We'll give you some of the top sound bites and some of the most important things from all of this here coming up shortly.

00:00:39.800 We've also got some news on the economy.

00:00:43.720 James Comey in the headlines once again because of the possibility of charges against Comey.

00:00:52.280 Before that five-year clock runs out on the statute of limitations, we've got more updates also on the ICE facility, that fatal shooting that happened yesterday.

00:01:03.900 We'll discuss that.

00:01:05.100 Hillary Clinton is weighing in on things, a whole range of things right now, which we will share with you so we can pull apart her preposterous arguments.

00:01:15.740 And we've also got Washington Post yesterday reporting that marked classified material was found in the home of former Trump National Security Advisor Bolton.

00:01:26.860 He's also formerly a Fox News contributor.

00:01:29.340 I saw a lot of you have seen him on Fox.

00:01:30.700 He's the guy with the mustache he'd seen over many years.

00:01:34.400 That's not good.

00:01:35.440 If that is accurate, he's in – if that reporting, I should say, is accurate, that's going to be a very tough one to explain to anyone.

00:01:43.880 And he's not a former president.

00:01:45.760 There's no basis for him to have declassified anything.

00:01:48.920 So we can talk a little bit more about that.

00:01:51.980 But I just want to note, I love when we can take a moment for just some positive news.

00:01:57.460 And here is CNBC's Rick Santelli saying, look, second quarter GDP, even a little better than anticipated.

00:02:07.420 Play clip one.

00:02:08.120 Now, on the GDP side, this is our third time around the block on Q2, and we see a really solid revision, 3.8%.

00:02:17.620 I'm a bit shocked, to be honest.

00:02:19.740 Usually the revisions as you get to second and third become smaller and smaller.

00:02:23.220 So 3.8% would be the best quarter going back to – and we have to go back a ways here – to 4.4%, and that was the third quarter of 23%.

00:02:32.580 Now, it is important to point out that if you look at the first quarter final, down half a percent, there's a balance there.

00:02:40.120 But the balance is moving in favor, and momentum is moving in favor for better growth.

00:02:45.460 Clay, looking pretty good still on the economy, and Trump not getting much credit for it from the media for obvious reasons.

00:02:52.280 But if somebody had told me at the start of his presidency, this is where the numbers would be, and this is how the markets, and also how rates, and inflation, and everything would look at this point, it's pretty darn good.

00:03:05.820 I think the president should be happy, certainly, with the progress so far we've seen in year one.

00:03:10.880 No doubt.

00:03:11.580 And we've got record, basically, high stock prices.

00:03:16.040 You've got overall inflation continuing to come down.

00:03:19.900 The much maligned impact of tariffs seem to be non-existent.

00:03:26.180 All of the experts are now, Buck, as you watch, coming out and saying, hey, well, we haven't seen the pricing impact that we thought from the tariff situation.

00:03:36.320 The overall interest rates are coming down.

00:03:39.340 Jerome Powell is behind on being able to do that.

00:03:42.400 But we just got the quarter point decline.

00:03:44.800 There's a forecast of a couple of more declines on interest rates and then going into next year.

00:03:51.020 So I would suspect that you're going to see 15- and 30-year mortgages continue to come down, which is going to help to free up.

00:03:58.940 You were talking, I think we were talking about this off air, the degree to which the housing market has been just frozen to a large extent.

00:04:06.520 Because, look, if you were fortunate enough to get one of those 2.5% or 3% mortgages, you don't want to move.

00:04:13.920 And if you were unfortunate enough to buy and have a 7% mortgage, I'm telling you, you're going to start to see a lot of movement as those mortgage rates get down to 4.5%, 5%.

00:04:25.520 And there starts to be less of a major difference in potentially moving, selling homes.

00:04:32.000 I think when the housing market just kind of gets unlocked and it starts to move freely as a more liquid asset class, I think you're going to see a lot of rapid growth.

00:04:44.720 But 3.8% growth is amazing.

00:04:47.420 Look, there's two ways to balance the budget.

00:04:49.780 One is to essentially cut spending in a massive way.

00:04:54.520 That's what Doge was trying to do.

00:04:56.280 There is, I'm just going to tell you, there is no political will to massively cut spending.

00:05:02.380 Democrats aren't going to do it. 1.00

00:05:03.960 Republicans aren't going to do it. 0.97

00:05:05.360 And this is where I think Elon Musk is correct.

00:05:07.660 So how do you get about balancing the budget?

00:05:10.360 You have to grow the economy.

00:05:12.100 And you have to grow the revenue that the growing economy is going to produce.

00:05:16.720 And I think that's where Elon now is saying, hey, AI is going to potentially be so transformative in what it provides to the overall economy that we're just going to have to grow our way to get past the ballooning national deficits.

00:05:34.120 Because people like things.

00:05:36.880 And when you give them things, they do not want to give them up.

00:05:40.260 Santa Claus is very tough to compete with.

00:05:42.380 Getting free goodies that you don't have to pay for over and over again.

00:05:47.300 And, you know, people get very...

00:05:49.060 It's funny, too, because everyone wants to cut.

00:05:51.420 It's like everyone's a hero when it comes to the budget until you actually talk about what has to be cut from the budget.

00:05:57.880 And then we have some big problems.

00:06:00.940 All right.

00:06:01.100 So this is what I wanted to play before.

00:06:02.520 I just wanted to know.

00:06:03.020 This was just said by President Trump.

00:06:05.560 Now, just to set this up, play.

00:06:08.660 So we've had the Charlie Kirk assassination, which we are all still dealing with the trauma and the heartbreak of that.

00:06:17.580 Honestly, also, the processing of how many lunatics are out there who are celebrating such a horrific event is...

00:06:26.100 That's also, in a way, its own trauma, I think, as an American.

00:06:29.060 And much lesser than seeing what happened with Charlie.

00:06:31.160 But for a lot of people, it's made...

00:06:33.080 It's brought it home to them as well, that there could be anybody they know in their life.

00:06:37.440 So that would celebrate such a horrific thing.

00:06:40.500 There's that.

00:06:41.620 There's now the...

00:06:42.820 We'll have more details on this to share with everybody.

00:06:45.520 I'm more reporting on it.

00:06:46.540 But the guy who killed...

00:06:48.420 He killed two migrants at the ICE facility.

00:06:50.760 So this guy is anti-ICE, but he killed two migrants being processed in an ICE facility because he just opened fire.

00:06:59.620 So this...

00:07:00.180 I mean, it's horrible no matter what, but also, you just add this person is such a... 0.57

00:07:06.520 Such a gross and evil individual that he killed... 0.95

00:07:11.080 He's upset about what's happening to migrants, so he killed two of them. 0.99

00:07:14.100 It's... 0.98

00:07:14.580 Clearly...

00:07:14.760 The FBI has released a couple of more data points on that guy.

00:07:18.180 We try to avoid naming these guys, so I'm not going to do that.

00:07:20.960 But he downloaded the list of DHS facilities.

00:07:25.260 This is, according to Libs of TikTok, repeated searches on the Charlie Kirk shooting, tracked ICE agent movements through apps,

00:07:34.500 and had a handwritten note saying, quote, hopefully this will give ICE agents real terror.

00:07:41.080 So, anyone out there who is trying to argue that this is anything other than yet another left-wing shooter motivated by left-wing political arguments is being dishonest to you.

00:07:54.800 And, again, that is the absolute latest in terms of the FBI investigation that they have reported.

00:08:01.020 So, this is cut 27.

00:08:02.420 Trump spoke about...

00:08:04.280 I'm sorry, cut 26...

00:08:05.620 28, team.

00:08:06.480 28.

00:08:07.120 Trump spoke about this left-wing violence.

00:08:09.660 Play it.

00:08:09.920 Who do you hold responsible for the uptake of the left-wing violence in the country?

00:08:13.700 Radical left rhetoric.

00:08:15.720 The radical left is causing the problem.

00:08:18.940 They're out of control.

00:08:20.820 They're saying things. 1.00

00:08:22.020 And they're really dumb people. 1.00

00:08:23.400 I mean, I look at Crockett. 1.00

00:08:24.440 I look at some of these people.

00:08:26.220 They're very low IQ people, actually.

00:08:29.960 But the radical left is causing this problem.

00:08:32.460 Not the right.

00:08:33.160 The radical left.

00:08:34.620 And it's going to get worse.

00:08:36.060 And, ultimately, it's going to go back on them.

00:08:37.720 I mean, bad things happen when they play these games.

00:08:40.640 And I'll give you a little clue.

00:08:43.300 The right is a lot tougher than the left.

00:08:45.420 But the right's not doing this.

00:08:47.500 They're not doing it.

00:08:48.400 And they better not get them energized.

00:08:50.220 Because it won't be good for the left.

00:08:52.060 And I don't want to see that happen either.

00:08:53.560 I'm the president of all the people.

00:08:56.080 But the radical left is causing this.

00:08:57.860 The radical left Democrats are causing this problem.

00:09:01.180 And it gets worse.

00:09:03.740 It gets worse.

00:09:04.640 And it'll be a point where other people won't take it anymore.

00:09:08.120 And that will not be good for the radical left.

00:09:10.060 And we don't want that.

00:09:10.780 I just appreciate that the president is saying it in the most plain-spoken, straightforward, no-nonsense way possible.

00:09:19.480 He's like, the left is the problem, guys.

00:09:20.880 The left are the ones doing the violence.

00:09:23.160 I just also wish that we all could say, or we could just be reminded, that Davy Crockett, fantastic American icon.

00:09:31.700 Crockett Coffee, a delicious coffee.

00:09:33.800 When he's saying Crockett, he's referring to Congresswoman Crockett, who is causing some brand problems sometimes. 0.92

00:09:41.860 But yes, the left is the problem.

00:09:43.920 The left is where the violence is.

00:09:45.460 Another left-wing violent incident that has been getting some attention this morning, Buck, that ties into what the president was just saying.

00:09:52.660 This is a Fox News alert.

00:09:54.620 A man's been arrested, charged after allegedly making social media threats against a Charlie Kirk vigil at the University of Texas, San Antonio.

00:10:03.800 This man allegedly suggested on social media he planned to use his truck to drive through and disrupt the Charlie Kirk vigil.

00:10:14.920 I mean, this is everywhere, and it's happening in every state.

00:10:18.800 And again, the gunman who opened fire yesterday at the Dallas ICE facility has left a written record that he wanted to provide real terror for ICE agents and that he, again, I mean, this is just not...

00:10:38.800 We didn't even mention this, either, because there's so much of this stuff.

00:10:41.560 A guy shot up an ABC news affiliate...

00:10:43.800 We haven't talked about that much.

00:10:45.420 ...news affiliate...

00:10:45.780 Yeah, in Sacramento.

00:10:46.580 ...and he was upset about Jimmy Kimmel being taken off the air, so he shot up an ABC news affiliate.

00:10:54.380 Jimmy Kimmel's back on the air, I might add. 0.64

00:10:56.380 And you're like, these people are such maniacs that they're going to shoot at innocent people because some guy was... 0.99

00:11:04.660 Some millionaire jerk was taken off the air for a couple of days, like he got a free vacation out of it. 1.00

00:11:11.160 How much more of this... 0.99

00:11:12.560 You stack these things up, how much more of this has to happen that's all clearly politically aligned with Democrats, with the left, with the commies?

00:11:22.500 Because there's no argument, there's no debate anymore.

00:11:26.580 You know, I saw Megyn Kelly Clay was at, what was it, Virginia Tech, I think it was, speaking, you know, as part of Turning Point now, reaching out and having people go to campuses to continue Charlie's work.

00:11:38.100 And some kid did the whole, the violence comes from the right, the violence comes from the right.

00:11:43.240 People are delusional.

00:11:44.460 They're being fed lies by the Democrat media and by the Democrat, you know, think tanks and everything else, and the Democrat Party.

00:11:54.080 And what they're being told is just absurd.

00:11:56.320 I mean, how can you make this claim with a straight face?

00:11:59.600 Where is this right-wing violence?

00:12:01.300 Or, we're going to have to hear about J6 again. 0.98

00:12:03.220 Is that the big, terrible thing?

00:12:04.840 That's the worst than 9-11?

00:12:06.240 Remember, they used to say that.

00:12:07.700 They used to say J6 is worse than 9-11.

00:12:09.600 Worse than 9-11, worse than Pearl Harbor, the worst thing that's happened in the country since the Civil War. 0.66

00:12:15.320 That's legitimately what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris argued about January 6th.

00:12:19.240 I mean, that was their direct talking point.

00:12:21.240 Worst thing that's happened in the country since the Civil War.

00:12:23.500 I'm worried, Clay, that people are going to recognize more and more that even if Democrats wanted to put this genie back in the bottle, so to speak,

00:12:34.180 even if they wanted to close up Pandora's box with all the lies they have told about the fascist Republicans who are destroying democracy and all this stuff,

00:12:45.640 I don't even think that they could do this.

00:12:47.360 I don't think they could turn it off now is my point.

00:12:49.540 I think they have unleashed this long enough on the American people that we are going to have to continue to suffer through what are just waves of domestic terrorism, plain and simple,

00:13:00.600 by people who think, because the New York Times and CNN and Joe Biden and Kamala told them, they think they're fighting fascism.

00:13:08.960 And by fascism, they mean Nazis.

00:13:10.920 Like, no one's really going around like, Trump is just like Mussolini. 0.95

00:13:14.000 It's Nazis. 0.88

00:13:15.120 And the reason they want to compare us to Nazis is so they feel justified in being violent against us.

00:13:19.200 It's very straightforward.

00:13:20.320 It's insane, but it's straightforward. 0.99

00:13:21.980 The reason they say that is so they have an excuse to kill us. 0.96

00:13:25.660 Yeah.

00:13:25.800 That's the simple truth.

00:13:27.280 And the fact that they've done it for 10 years, by the way, I don't believe that any of the Democrat leadership actually believes that argument, right?

00:13:36.440 Because if they did, when Donald Trump got hit in the ear and when another guy tried to kill him, they wouldn't have said, well, we condemn that violence, right?

00:13:45.540 If you truly thought Trump was Hitler, you should be honest and say, well, I wish they hadn't missed. 0.65

00:13:50.060 They never say that because they know it would play so poorly in the larger public, but with their deranged lunatic base, I don't know what percentage of them, but enough of them to kill Charlie Kirk and enough of them to kill at the Dallas ice facility and enough of them to go to Brett Kavanaugh's house and enough of them to show up at the softball baseball team practice and start firing away. 0.91

00:14:15.840 There is a deranged lunatic fringe of the left that is acting on what they believe that is true coming from the Democrat base, their arguments and buck.

00:14:27.940 They think they're heroes. 0.96

00:14:29.960 You have to go into these misguided souls brains and think about the way that they are motivating themselves.

00:14:36.120 They're making it clear why they're doing what they're doing.

00:14:38.860 They're writing it on the bullets.

00:14:40.600 They think they are heroes for the actions that they are undertaking.

00:14:44.400 Well, look at men, Luigi, whatever his name is.

00:14:48.700 Yes.

00:14:49.000 And and and how he there are leftists who think he is a hero.

00:14:53.600 There he's got fan.

00:14:54.940 He has fans, everybody.

00:14:56.700 This guy murdered an American father, husband.

00:15:00.140 It's a guy who's doing his job.

00:15:01.980 You can say you don't like health care companies.

00:15:03.560 All you want.

00:15:04.280 You shouldn't murder somebody because they work at a health care company or they run a health care company.

00:15:08.180 A lot of leftists think that that was great.

00:15:09.920 And they say it online. 0.99

00:15:10.720 They're insane. 0.78

00:15:11.580 You don't see this on the right. 0.93

00:15:12.620 It's not to us or Trump is correct.

00:15:14.920 Hammer this point.

00:15:15.720 It is not a both sides thing.

00:15:17.320 The problem is on the left.

00:15:18.400 The problem is with the Democrats.

00:15:20.440 And we have to face up to that as a country.

00:15:22.680 All right.

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00:16:33.080 Making America great again isn't just one man.

00:16:36.480 It's many.

00:16:37.460 The Team 47 Podcast.

00:16:39.520 Sunday's at noon Eastern in the Clay and Buck podcast feed.

00:16:43.480 Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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00:17:54.840 All right.

00:17:55.360 Welcome back.

00:17:55.900 Welcome back in here to Clay and Buck.

00:17:57.860 And we were just talking a moment ago before we took a brief pause there to get into the Comey situation.

00:18:06.200 Now, let's be clear.

00:18:06.820 Nothing has happened yet.

00:18:09.100 There is a lot of discussion, though, a lot of reporting that is indicating that someone thinks high up the chain,

00:18:17.560 there will be charges brought against James Comey, the former FBI director, for lying under oath.

00:18:25.640 And this may or may not happen, but there has certainly been a lot of chatter about it,

00:18:31.120 and there's a lot of reporting suggesting that it is likely to happen.

00:18:36.300 And so, Clay, I thought that we should remind everybody, because I really always want to make sure that any time someone has the possibility of their freedom being taken away,

00:18:50.940 even for a day, never mind for months or even years,

00:18:54.420 I always want to make sure that the person is guilty of the crime and that it is a reasonable punishment for the crime that they have committed.

00:19:05.620 You know, because if we start getting into Third World Banana Republic stuff of people, 1.00

00:19:10.520 oh, you mean like what they did to Trump?

00:19:12.320 Trust me.

00:19:12.840 I know.

00:19:13.280 We can't allow this country to go down that pathway.

00:19:17.420 Avoiding that does require consequences for those who have been involved in trying to do that.

00:19:26.480 And if you broke the law trying to use the law as a weapon against people in politics,

00:19:34.540 law is the law, right?

00:19:35.740 That's where we're all supposed to be on this.

00:19:37.140 That's the only way.

00:19:37.780 Without that, we have nothing, right?

00:19:39.140 Without that, everything just starts to become pure power stuff.

00:19:44.460 And, Clay, this is a throwback flashback.

00:19:48.100 December of 2018 at the, well, in New York City, James Comey talking to Nicole Wallace.

00:19:55.160 I want everyone to hear this exchange before we, to be reminded of who this guy James Comey really is,

00:20:01.560 because I think this encapsulates it really well.

00:20:03.160 Play three.

00:20:03.520 You look at this White House now, and it's hard to imagine two FBI agents ending up in the same room.

00:20:07.820 How did that happen?

00:20:09.140 I sent them.

00:20:15.100 Something I probably wouldn't have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized investigation,

00:20:21.360 a more organized administration, in the George W. Bush administration, for example,

00:20:25.180 or the Obama administration.

00:20:26.740 The protocol.

00:20:28.080 Two men that all of us have perhaps increased appreciation for over the last two years.

00:20:33.840 And in both of those administrations, there was process.

00:20:39.920 And so if the FBI wanted to send agents into the White House itself to interview a senior official,

00:20:47.820 you would work through the White House counsel, and there'd be discussions and approvals, and who would be there.

00:20:52.540 And I thought, it's early enough, let's just send a couple guys over.

00:20:59.100 Play.

00:20:59.460 And so we placed a call to Flynn, said, hey, we're sending a couple guys over.

00:21:08.400 Hope you'll talk to them.

00:21:09.560 He said, sure.

00:21:11.200 Nobody else was there.

00:21:12.120 They interviewed him in a conference room at the White House Situation Room, and he lied to them.

00:21:16.460 And that's what he's now pled guilty to.

00:21:19.000 What did he think they were coming over there for?

00:21:20.780 I don't think he knew.

00:21:24.740 I know we didn't tell him.

00:21:26.360 Just said, we've got to send over a couple of agents.

00:21:28.860 I want to ask you some questions.

00:21:30.720 I didn't have this conversation.

00:21:31.860 My deputy director did.

00:21:33.240 But hope you've got a few minutes.

00:21:35.800 You can sit down and talk to them.

00:21:37.440 And he said, sure.

00:21:39.740 I just want to say this, Clay, before we get into some of the specifics.

00:21:43.460 If Comey broke the law, he should face the full consequences of the law. 1.00

00:21:46.500 He's a scumbag, and I hope he spends years in prison. 1.00

00:21:48.560 If he broke the law, and there are people who seem to think that he did. 1.00

00:21:52.420 Did you hear?

00:21:53.020 I mean, when you listen to what this guy did to General Flynn, they used the Logan Act as a pretext to send FBI agents to the incoming National Security Advisor's office to just have a conversation.

00:22:06.340 He thought they were probably just, you know, welcoming him to the new administration.

00:22:11.960 And then they claim, with no proof other than their word against his, that he lied about non-illegal activity that he was completely justified in doing.

00:22:20.840 And they only did this because they unmasked phone calls abusing Pfizer in the process.

00:22:24.920 This is also where the statute of limitations play in.

00:22:29.780 And I know we've talked about this statute of limitations issue on a lot of these cases.

00:22:35.020 And I know people roll their eyes and they try to say, well, it's an ongoing conspiracy and all these things.

00:22:41.520 Because the Comey charges, based on my reading, statute of limitations related, Buck, must happen almost immediately.

00:22:51.240 In other words, they're going to be able to argue, hey, that statute of limitations has told we are no longer able to be charged under these auspices.

00:23:01.580 And, given that we know many federal district court judges, the people who will likely be assigned these cases, are not going to be favorably disposed to the Trump administration.

00:23:13.840 You've got to have everything lined up when you bring these charges and you've got to get it done well.

00:23:19.140 And we haven't even talked about this, Buck, but I think we probably should have.

00:23:21.940 There are tons, I think it's like seven or eight different individuals, that the D.C. grand jury has refused to indict for blatant crimes during the Trump crime surge to try to bring down crime in D.C.

00:23:40.000 The grand jury has just said, for instance, the guy who threw the sandwich at the cop, it's on video, it's blatant, he did it.

00:23:48.940 They just said, yeah, we're not indicting for this.

00:23:51.940 So, the politics of D.C. when it comes to getting people indicted, even when you have evidence on video of crimes being committed, some of the grand jury members are just like, nah, I kind of agree with what they did.

00:24:06.720 I'm not going to agree to charges here.

00:24:09.420 Well, yeah, absolutely.

00:24:10.600 It's very political. 0.99

00:24:11.900 But I wanted everyone to hear what a sanctimonious scumbag Comey is. 0.99

00:24:16.520 I used to call him Sancti-Comey Clay back in the day. 1.00

00:24:19.160 He's a bad dude.

00:24:20.460 He's always been a bad dude.

00:24:21.940 He's slithered from one administration to another within the bureaucracy and somehow always ended up, you know, elevating himself.

00:24:32.460 And he's the guy who, over the objections of fellow prosecutors, wanted Martha Stewart to go to prison just because he wanted to make a name for himself.

00:24:44.600 Martha Stewart, worth reminding everybody, serve time in prison. 1.00

00:24:48.460 Okay.

00:24:48.860 The lady who was like, you know, here's how to make the most delicious summer salad. 1.00

00:24:52.560 And, you know, you all know Martha Stewart, went to prison because she got jammed up with an investigation of her talking to her broker.

00:25:03.320 And they say that she lied about the conversation with the broker.

00:25:07.880 It wasn't even illegal.

00:25:09.140 It wasn't insider trading.

00:25:10.700 Didn't she only make like 200K? 1.00

00:25:13.420 I mean, I'm not trying to minimize.

00:25:15.120 I think it was like, Clay, I think it was like 30 or 40K, the trade.

00:25:18.540 I think it was a small trade.

00:25:19.980 It was small.

00:25:20.920 It was small.

00:25:21.420 She's a billionaire.

00:25:22.620 And a billionaire back when there were far fewer of them.

00:25:25.000 She's a billionaire.

00:25:26.100 There's like 30 or 40 grand.

00:25:27.520 And Comey was on a quest.

00:25:31.320 Send her. 1.00

00:25:32.020 And everybody was like, this guy's kind of a weirdo.

00:25:33.840 Like, this has come out.

00:25:34.640 Rudy Giuliani told me this personally at the time.

00:25:37.320 He was like, yeah, when Comey was going after Martha Stewart, we were all like, what is this guy doing?

00:25:43.060 But I wanted to point out what he did to General Flynn.

00:25:46.140 This is a guy who served in the military for 30 years, was DIA director, and was going to be the national security advisor.

00:25:53.060 And Comey just wanted to take him out. 1.00

00:25:56.120 Comey set a, the FBI director set a perjury trap for the incoming national security advisor based on a non-crime.

00:26:04.680 Let me tell you, if someone starts interrogating you and you don't think you're being interrogated and you think they're on your team.

00:26:11.500 Get a lawyer, get a lawyer, get a lawyer. 0.57

00:26:14.580 That's right.

00:26:14.940 Yeah, of course, Clay.

00:26:15.980 But that was so diabolical was that they didn't even, he didn't even really realize what was going on.

00:26:22.360 I mean, this would be like, imagine two FBI guys were talking about a case and one of them's like, you know what?

00:26:27.160 I think you lied to me.

00:26:28.000 I'm going to bring charges against you now.

00:26:29.480 It's like, wait, we're on the same team.

00:26:30.720 What are you talking about?

00:26:32.060 That was, that was what this was like.

00:26:34.620 This was, were the executive branch FBI employees coming to talk to national security advisor in the White House?

00:26:40.580 For the explicit purpose, the clear purpose of taking, and Comey thought it was funny.

00:26:45.680 Comey thought it was, you hear, he's, oh, they're all laughing.

00:26:48.840 It's so great.

00:26:49.400 They took out General Flynn.

00:26:50.820 Took out General Flynn for what?

00:26:52.840 Speaking to his counterpart, the, or in a sense, the ambassador of Russia saying, look, we're coming in, you know, let's talk this out.

00:26:59.200 We come in.

00:26:59.980 He didn't do anything illegal.

00:27:00.820 No, the Logan Act, Clay, the Logan Act has been not successfully prosecuted to, uh, to completion once in 200 years.

00:27:10.480 Yeah.

00:27:11.100 And that's what he pulls out.

00:27:12.420 And that's because the Logan Act could apply to basically anything.

00:27:14.980 I'm going to Taiwan tomorrow.

00:27:16.440 Am I running my own foreign policy?

00:27:18.000 I mean, this is absurd, right?

00:27:19.100 But if, if I am, then thousands, tens of thousands of people in DC are.

00:27:22.920 So, uh, it's, I want to ever be reminded that Comey's a bad guy and Trump isn't exaggerating when he says this is a bad individual who is a narcissistic freak and wanted to really harm people and abuse his power to do so.

00:27:36.880 And so if, if he lied under oath, he loves sending other people to prison for lying under oath about the most minute things. 0.99

00:27:42.740 If he lied under oath, his ass should go to jail too. 1.00

00:27:45.700 Full stop. 0.99

00:27:47.000 And those charges need to come soon or else you're going to run into statute of limitations related issues.

00:27:52.380 Uh, we'll get into some of this.

00:27:53.900 We'll take some of your talkbacks.

00:27:55.500 Buck, get your pen.

00:27:56.620 I got a winner for you tonight on Thursday night football.

00:27:59.840 We have won two of the last three weeks.

00:28:02.320 We've got a game going on tonight between the Seahawks and the Arizona Cardinals Thursday night football.

00:28:08.960 Uh, if you go to prizepicks.com, you go download the prizepicks app.

00:28:13.320 Use my name, Clay.

00:28:14.560 You get $50 when you play $5.

00:28:18.460 This one plays, uh, pays out at two and a half to one.

00:28:22.700 So if you put in $10, you'd get back to $25.

00:28:27.200 You put in a hundred dollars, you get back $250.

00:28:30.380 I feel good about this one.

00:28:32.600 We've won two of the last three weeks.

00:28:34.520 First of all, we've got a guaranteed winner square.

00:28:37.540 Jalen Hurts is going to throw for more than one half of a passing yard. 0.89

00:28:41.320 So they're basically giving you one winner.

00:28:44.440 All right.

00:28:44.940 Here are the two more.

00:28:47.060 Kyler Murray, Arizona quarterback tonight, is going to throw more than one half passing touchdowns.

00:28:54.540 That means he needs to have one passing touchdown.

00:28:57.160 Passing.

00:28:57.600 Sam Darnold, more than one half passing touchdown as well.

00:29:02.280 If I am correct, and I think I'm going to be correct, all three of these hit, it pays out at two and a half to one.

00:29:11.220 So if Kyler Murray throws a touchdown pass tonight, and if Sam Darnold throws a touchdown pass tonight,

00:29:17.740 and we take our free square with Jalen Hurts, we're going to win tonight.

00:29:24.160 PrizePix.com.

00:29:25.540 Code Clay.

00:29:26.380 You can download the app.

00:29:27.540 You can play in California, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, where I am.

00:29:32.620 40-plus states.

00:29:34.400 Congrats.

00:29:34.920 Like I said yesterday, PrizePix is killing it.

00:29:37.120 Company just sold for over $4 billion.

00:29:39.920 They have just been dominating.

00:29:43.040 You're going to have fun with them.

00:29:44.640 Great American success story.

00:29:46.940 PrizePix.com.

00:29:48.140 Code Clay.

00:29:49.300 $5 turns into $50 automatically when you play your first $5.

00:29:54.980 That is PrizePix.com.

00:29:56.980 Code Clay.

00:29:57.880 Sometimes all you can do is laugh, and they do a lot of it with the Sunday hang.

00:30:04.980 Join Clay and Buck as they laugh it up in the Clay and Buck podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app

00:30:10.820 or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:30:13.140 Welcome back into Clay and Buck.

00:30:14.880 We're joined now by Dr. Oz.

00:30:16.840 Dr. Mehmet Oz serves as the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

00:30:22.120 under HHS Secretary RFK Jr. and President Trump.

00:30:26.380 Dr. Oz, welcome to the show.

00:30:28.860 As always, good to talk to you.

00:30:30.740 Good to talk, as always.

00:30:31.780 It's been an active week.

00:30:33.380 I suspect you'll want to speak a bit about autism and what might work.

00:30:37.980 Yeah, let's talk about autism and the Tylenol situation here, Doc.

00:30:42.560 What do we know?

00:30:45.440 What is being recommended?

00:30:46.840 What is actually going on?

00:30:48.700 And let's just stay as tight to the facts as we can on this one

00:30:51.840 because there's a lot of passion around this topic.

00:30:54.920 There is.

00:30:55.160 Let's take a step back for one second and just make it really clear.

00:30:57.640 There is no political benefit to President Trump talking about this.

00:31:01.600 This is a whole-scale departure from what historically has happened with data within government,

00:31:06.480 which is we have a real take process.

00:31:09.060 You don't really know what we know.

00:31:10.720 Eventually, we figure it all out and tell you the best we can.

00:31:13.720 We saw that in COVID.

00:31:15.060 It backfires when moms think that they're gaslighting, that they're being gaslit 1.00

00:31:20.160 because they're not getting access to data.

00:31:22.060 So the president charged all of us, Secretary Kennedy, leading the process with just breaking all the silos,

00:31:28.960 breaking the barriers, just do the work, and release the information when you have it.

00:31:33.640 This is the first example.

00:31:34.920 There will be future ones.

00:31:36.120 So let's go over the data.

00:31:37.500 $50 million is put into a process to try to research autism.

00:31:41.860 Jay Bhattacharya at the NIH has been allocating that money in grants along the way,

00:31:46.920 studying what's going on with autism, and discovered two signals, two leads,

00:31:51.460 that were intriguing enough that after a lot of discussion, we decided to share with the American people.

00:31:57.960 The first had to do with a prescription medication called Leucovorin, which no one's ever heard of,

00:32:03.840 but prescription Leucovorin is essentially a way of getting B vitamins into the brains of children.

00:32:08.960 Why is that a problem?

00:32:10.060 We believe that there's a fair amount of pathology around B vitamins in the brains of kids who have autism.

00:32:16.920 That's one of the reasons their brains get cloudy, foggy.

00:32:19.640 They can't really process information.

00:32:21.420 They don't learn to speak, right?

00:32:22.880 And so if we can reverse that problem, which is caused by their genes in some cases that we know of,

00:32:29.140 and by antibodies blocking those receptors, those pathways into the brain and others, that would make a difference.

00:32:34.920 It turns out with a couple hundred kids in different small studies,

00:32:39.080 about half the kids seem to benefit when given this medication correctly.

00:32:43.300 It's not perfect.

00:32:44.560 We don't know enough about it to make broader promises, but I ask the key question.

00:32:48.320 Clay and Buck, both of you just tell me that if this resonates with you, I ask the question everyone should ask their doctor.

00:32:53.400 Would you do it for your kid?

00:32:55.820 And the answer I got over and over again was yes.

00:32:58.760 We don't know for sure, but because it's so safe and this drug's been around forever, we think it will be worth it.

00:33:04.060 So we released that information.

00:33:06.040 At the same time, there was data that's been around for a couple years, but more and more of it coming out,

00:33:12.140 about potential concerns around acetaminophen, which is the raw material in Tylenol.

00:33:17.700 Now, I want to say this as crisply and clearly sticking to the facts as you asked me to.

00:33:22.800 If you have a high fever, if you've got a bad problem, please talk to your docs if you're pregnant.

00:33:27.940 Make sure that they're involved and take the acetaminophen, which is pretty much the only drug we would use in that setting.

00:33:33.640 And it's the drug that most doctors use, myself included, in that setting because all the other drugs seem to have bigger problems

00:33:40.840 and having high fevers itself causes a problem.

00:33:43.280 So this is not a warning never to take the drug.

00:33:45.740 However, in cases where there was a lot of use of this drug, there does seem to be a signal concerning enough that we were sharing it,

00:33:53.440 that women subsequently have babies to develop autism.

00:33:56.500 So the message really is if you have a low-grade temperature, if you stub your toe, don't use the medication willy-nilly.

00:34:02.480 Use it thoughtfully, recognizing that any medication that's strong enough to help you is strong enough to hurt you.

00:34:09.120 Doctor, as you have kids, Buck has a baby.

00:34:13.440 I've got three.

00:34:14.840 I want to run through a couple of things because I know we've got a lot of moms and a lot of grandmas out there.

00:34:20.480 And everybody, when they get pregnant, by and large, is trying to do the best possible things they can for the baby that they are carrying.

00:34:29.660 And there's a couple of things out there that I was going to point out.

00:34:32.160 And how complicated and sometimes even to the detriment all of these strictures can be.

00:34:42.340 In America, they say women shouldn't eat sushi, pregnant women. 0.95

00:34:46.120 They say that women should not have alcohol at all.

00:34:49.260 As I'm sure you're aware, in Japan, women continue to eat sushi throughout pregnancy.

00:34:54.380 Most no issues.

00:34:56.100 In France, women continue to drink glasses of wine.

00:34:58.980 I mean, they're not pounding bottles of wine and getting super drunk.

00:35:01.980 By and large, kids aren't having issues there.

00:35:04.960 Circling back, I read in the New York Times today, you may have more accurate data than this,

00:35:09.300 that now I believe it's one in every 31 kids is being classified as autistic.

00:35:15.940 Those numbers have skyrocketed.

00:35:19.040 Something is going on, right?

00:35:20.980 Either we're identifying autism way more, and maybe that's partly it.

00:35:25.320 Maybe there are multiple different factors out there.

00:35:29.740 You're a doctor, though.

00:35:30.980 And I just like to go baseline.

00:35:32.920 What would you tell a woman who just found out she's pregnant right now that is concerned about autism that she should do, in your opinion, to be the absolute healthiest?

00:35:45.000 And obviously, one answer is she can talk to her doctor, but if this were your daughter and you were about to have a grandbaby, what would you tell her?

00:35:54.920 The most important thing you can do when you're pregnant is actually to be calm and realistic about the numbers.

00:36:02.800 You will almost certainly do well.

00:36:05.060 Mortality rates, obviously, are very low because we're so good generally at taking care of crises or complications when they occur.

00:36:11.620 And anxiety itself is a problem during pregnancy.

00:36:15.500 So recognize that you're in pretty good shape and you're lucky to be born in an era where we have high-quality care.

00:36:22.520 That stated, there are some unforced errors, rookie errors you want to avoid.

00:36:27.300 Trusting that there's one product that's so safe that you can take it whenever you think you might have a small little thing not right is unwise because we just don't know.

00:36:36.740 There's so many things happening during pregnancy with that miraculous process where these cells are growing at a fast rate, differentiating into organs.

00:36:46.320 Everything's got to work.

00:36:47.140 It's sort of a miracle that it ever works, but it almost always does work because we get out of the way.

00:36:51.800 If I say the same thing to my kids is when I've got five grandkids now when we're coming, just get out of the way of biology and let it run itself.

00:37:00.240 A low-grade temperature is a healthy thing usually because it'll kill the virus that's bothering you, but it doesn't hurt your own cells.

00:37:08.660 Don't trust external substances of any kind.

00:37:10.840 I don't think alcohol is a good thing to do when you're pregnant, and you shouldn't have to drink alcohol to be able to get through your day. 0.98

00:37:16.940 So, yes, you know, if you're going to toast someone, that's different, but it should not be part of the norm.

00:37:21.980 The cleaner you eat, the better.

00:37:23.620 Do not trust the environment to be clean.

00:37:25.560 Go out of your way.

00:37:26.540 Air purifiers, water purifiers are wise moves.

00:37:30.500 It's a time for you to be so careful because you're the canary in the coal mine.

00:37:33.800 Anything that's not right in society, in the world around us, would have an increased detrimental effect on you and your fetus.

00:37:43.880 And let me take one step back up because you mentioned a stat.

00:37:46.180 One in 31 kids don't have autism.

00:37:48.060 Just to put this in perspective, that is five times more than it was in 2000, 25 years ago.

00:37:55.060 Five times more.

00:37:56.040 So it's not genetics, and I don't buy the canard that this is all about measurement because I just turned 65.

00:38:03.480 I'm running the agency that I'm a member of now, Medicare, right?

00:38:06.360 There aren't any people my age that I know of who have autism.

00:38:10.460 Bobby Kennedy, Secretary Kennedy, reminds all of us that he in his whole life never met anyone his age who has autism.

00:38:18.900 I'm sure they're out there, but they're not very common.

00:38:21.460 Whereas you go to school today, you take your kids to school, you talk to the other parents, many of those parents have kids with autistic children.

00:38:28.660 It changes their life.

00:38:29.720 So the president's passion about this comes from a realization this is not genetic.

00:38:35.220 This is not measurement.

00:38:36.080 There is a change in our environment.

00:38:37.780 He is undaunted.

00:38:38.700 He will find it and pursue it.

00:38:40.220 And these are two clues of how to deal with it.

00:38:42.260 Dr. Oz, I wanted to follow up on this.

00:38:45.500 Is it your – and now I'm asking more for your analysis and maybe even a bit of your gut instinct on this, having practiced medicine for decades

00:38:53.380 and now having access to the data on these things at a very high level on the policy side.

00:38:59.680 When you're talking about that, we just established that really deeply troubling rise of autism.

00:39:06.640 Do you think it is most likely to be a multi-factor problem that has caused the increase, as in several things together or just several things in general?

00:39:19.500 Or do you think that it might be a really one primary culprit that will be found?

00:39:24.780 It's just a question of whittling down the data and pursuing the science and finally getting us to what's really at the heart of this crisis.

00:39:32.560 I believe it's multifactorial, but they may work through common mechanisms.

00:39:37.960 For example, I brought up the reality that folate levels are low in the brain.

00:39:41.960 Folate comes from foliage, leafy greens.

00:39:44.740 So this vitamin B9 is a critical element in brain development.

00:39:48.840 It's possible that several of the things we're worried about all work to inhibit the ability of the fragile child's brain to take up enough of this critical ingredient so the brain forms normally.

00:40:00.960 It could happen because antibodies are made because the kid's allergic to everything from a food that they're being given to a substance in their body to a toxin in their environment, mold and chemicals, all kinds of things.

00:40:15.260 We don't know how they work in the body, but they probably work through several common pathways.

00:40:19.680 What I do have confidence in, since I've been looking at this together with the rest of the team, and Jay Bhattacharya, Marty McCary, who are head of the NIH and FDA, we're all razor focused on this, in part because the secretary insists it and the president demands it.

00:40:33.080 We are seeing signals of lots of things.

00:40:35.680 We didn't want to talk about all of them, but we're seeing things that all could be concerning.

00:40:39.480 We just want to sort of whittle it down and get to the ones that are legitimate, the things we might be able to do differently in our lives.

00:40:46.360 But certainly you want to start being transparent with the American people because trust is built brick by brick by a shining light on all the things you know.

00:40:55.580 If I know things you don't know, there's no reason why you would trust me to do more and better with it than you would.

00:41:00.960 And this is why I think parents in particular who love their kids more than anybody should be armed with the best data the government has as we get it.

00:41:09.700 And, of course, yes, it scares people.

00:41:11.480 It alarms people.

00:41:12.340 Not everyone wants to hear it.

00:41:13.520 Not everyone agrees ideologically.

00:41:15.200 I get all that stuff.

00:41:16.040 But if you mix politics and medicine, do you know what you get?

00:41:19.220 Politics.

00:41:19.880 You kill medicine.

00:41:21.280 And so the last thing we want to do is hold back because there's a political rationale, which is, again, if you're a political person who's passionate about people, you tell them what you know.

00:41:30.580 That's what a doctor does. 0.98

00:41:32.180 We're talking to Dr. Oz.

00:41:33.400 You just hit on something.

00:41:34.400 This will be the last question because I know you're busy and we've got to hit a break.

00:41:37.780 But the autism rates have skyrocketed.

00:41:41.160 You talked about how they've skyrocketed, not just historically, but in the 21st century in particular.

00:41:46.840 It's also happened with allergies.

00:41:48.740 I know there are a lot of parents out there.

00:41:50.540 You mentioned, Dr. Oz, that you rarely see, and Bobby Kennedy has rarely seen people your age who have autism, allergies.

00:41:58.280 When I was a kid growing up, nobody was allergic to peanuts.

00:42:02.040 It didn't feel like.

00:42:03.340 Now the peanut allergy is so commonplace that they don't even give out peanuts on airplanes anymore.

00:42:08.800 They've had to stop doing that.

00:42:10.920 Is it possible that we're seeing some connection in the environment that is impacting things on a variety of different levels?

00:42:18.300 Do you think there might be any connection between autism and allergies and just the way that the body chemistry is changing?

00:42:25.760 And Buck and I have talked about this.

00:42:27.180 This is a big question, too.

00:42:28.860 Is it partly maybe connected also to the idea of older parents, right?

00:42:34.460 Dads and moms, frankly, are having babies way later in the 21st century than they did for basically the entirety of human existence?

00:42:43.920 Clay, such an excellent question.

00:42:46.280 All the things you identify because you're a curious person.

00:42:49.400 And by the way, to me, the Maha movement is about being curious.

00:42:52.100 And 80% of statements are questions in disguise.

00:42:54.540 You're actually a curious human being.

00:42:56.240 The questions you're asking are the ones that we have got to be brave enough to answer and share if we're courageous with people around us.

00:43:02.880 But you've got to be kind.

00:43:03.740 So you mentioned age of the parent.

00:43:05.100 Yes, that's a risk factor.

00:43:06.340 We've known that.

00:43:07.140 But it's hard to hear that if you're a parent.

00:43:09.940 But yet, again, you've got to be transparent.

00:43:11.980 Doctors tell patients things they don't always want to hear.

00:43:14.860 But you at least will respect us for telling you the truth.

00:43:17.580 The allergy issue, I think, is a bigger problem.

00:43:20.220 There's a reason why so many kids are allergic.

00:43:22.100 You're right.

00:43:22.360 Peanut allergy is unheard of when I was a kid.

00:43:25.240 We have an epidemic of all types of allergies, which, again, is reflective of the fact that we're traumatizing the fragile immune system of the child.

00:43:33.380 Who's just trying to figure out what the world is about and differentiate what's friendly and what's faux.

00:43:38.800 Their immune system is confused.

00:43:40.520 I suspect there are chemicals that they're getting exposed to that are causing this.

00:43:44.480 We are actively, of course, searching.

00:43:45.980 There's many allegations.

00:43:47.860 When you don't know the answer, it's easy to blame folks.

00:43:50.100 We don't have the luxury of bickering.

00:43:52.840 When you're increasing by five-fold the incidence of a tragic condition that could be, obviously, these kids are lovable, should be loved.

00:44:01.280 We'll be taking care of it.

00:44:02.180 As a society, we're judged by how we take care of our most vulnerable, so we'll always take care of kids on the autism spectrum.

00:44:08.060 But it's a heck of a lot easier not to have to fight that battle when you're going through life.

00:44:11.440 And these kids deserve better.

00:44:12.980 We have got to deliver.

00:44:14.540 And looking at the cause of allergies, I think, is one of the biggest clues because they're the tip of the iceberg.

00:44:19.940 You figure that out.

00:44:20.840 That's the leading edge.

00:44:21.920 Behind that are a whole bunch of other conditions, celiac disease, bowel problems.

00:44:25.960 Of course, all kinds of pathologies like autism spectrum, ADHD.

00:44:30.600 If you can go down the laundry list of issues that plague our youth, and many of them come back to an immune system that can't function correctly, it's a fragile system.

00:44:39.520 It's being maligned.

00:44:40.520 We've got to figure out what's doing it.

00:44:42.980 Dr. Oz, we appreciate the time.

00:44:44.560 Thank you so much for joining us.

00:44:46.040 Always happy to have you on.

00:44:47.300 Just let us know when you think it makes sense, and good work and good luck trying to figure all this out.

00:44:53.300 God bless you both.

00:44:54.160 Take care.

00:44:54.480 That's Dr. Oz, much less serious.

00:44:57.760 Although, Buck, I do think, and we'll talk about this some more during the course of the program, this is something that motivates a huge majority, I think, of our listeners out there.

00:45:07.820 There's a sense that we are making choices, not only on our own self, but on behalf of our kids, that are actually creating worse outcomes.

00:45:16.920 And I think that allergy and autistic thing, whatever you think, obviously, they have skyrocketed.

00:45:22.820 And we'll talk about some of that.

00:45:25.160 Why is that happening?

00:45:26.500 In the meantime, I want to tell you about our friends that are over in Israel that are fighting so many difficult battles every single day.

00:45:35.240 It's been another very trying week in Israel.

00:45:37.600 Renewed drone attacks on innocent civilians.

00:45:39.780 The attacks don't get the headlines they once did, but a lot's happened since October 7th.

00:45:44.940 Hostages still being held, and we've got a movement of support for the people of Israel coming.

00:45:51.260 It's called Flags of Fellowship.

00:45:53.120 It's organized by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.

00:45:56.920 On Sunday, October 5th, millions of people across America will plant an Israeli flag in honor and solidarity with the victims of the terror attack of October 7th,

00:46:07.440 when 1,200 innocent Israelis were killed.

00:46:10.340 You can be a part of the movement, too.

00:46:11.960 To get more information about how you can join the Flags of Fellowship, visit the fellowship online at ifcj.org.

00:46:20.040 That's ifcj.org.

00:46:23.100 You ain't imagining it.

00:46:24.800 The world has gone insane.

00:46:27.640 Reclaim your sanity with Clay and Buck.

00:46:30.760 Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:46:35.760 Canadian women are looking for more. 1.00

00:46:37.860 More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.

00:46:41.980 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:46:45.700 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:46:46.840 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:46:47.860 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

00:46:57.640 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:47:00.880 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:47:06.360 All right.

00:47:07.020 Third hour, Clay and Buck kicks off now.

00:47:09.000 Our friend Ryan Gerdusky joins us.

00:47:11.780 He is the host of the Clay and Buck podcast network of It's a Numbers Game.

00:47:15.500 He does the deep dive, nerdiness, numbers analysis that you need to know to understand the politics of this country right now.

00:47:24.740 Our friend Ryan Gerdusky is with us.

00:47:27.360 Mr. Gerdusky, thanks for making the time.

00:47:29.840 Thank you for having me.

00:47:30.380 Let's start with some of these numbers.

00:47:32.340 I'm seeing some interesting stuff out of New Jersey.

00:47:35.440 Now, you're a Northeast guy like me.

00:47:37.700 The idea of Republicans even being competitive in New Jersey seems like it's too good to be true.

00:47:43.820 What are the numbers telling us about this?

00:47:45.440 And Clay's, one of his favorite candidates is Chittarelli.

00:47:49.780 So how's this all looking?

00:47:51.580 I've got us on FCC watch because I can't pronounce his name correctly, Ryan.

00:47:55.760 So just be aware.

00:47:58.040 So let's go over some background information again with Democrats start off with an 860,000 voter advantage in the Garden State.

00:48:06.480 Now, you may say, Ryan, that's a lot of voters.

00:48:08.760 Yes, but it is down significantly from November 2021, the last time Jack Chittarelli ran for governor.

00:48:15.380 Republicans in the last four years, since the last governor's election, have gained 162,000 new voters,

00:48:21.740 while Democrats have lost 47,000 voters in an election that Chittarelli lost by only 84,000 votes.

00:48:28.240 If you look at the polls, first time for the polls, there were seven polls recently.

00:48:33.140 Overall, Mickey Sherrill, the Democratic nominee, has led in five of them, averaging a lead of 5.5 points.

00:48:39.900 But the last two polls by accredited pollsters that have come out said that Chittarelli is either tied or winning.

00:48:45.660 A national research poll, which was funded by his campaign, so it's an internal campaign number,

00:48:49.980 has him leading by a point and is up by 21 points.

00:48:53.160 Normally, internal polling, obviously, they slant things towards their candidate.

00:48:56.920 But Emerson, which has been on a rollercoaster streak of good polling lately,

00:49:02.260 they came out with a poll just today, finding the race tied.

00:49:05.640 And they also said that Chittarelli is leading by 26 points among independents, so there's consistency there.

00:49:12.340 It's not all good news because the group of undecided voters overwhelmingly lean Democrat, a lot of minorities, a lot of women.

00:49:20.820 The problem for Mickey Sherrill is this.

00:49:23.340 Minority voters in urban New Jersey do not like her.

00:49:26.660 They voted overwhelmingly against her in the last – and in the primary, she comes from a small town where the median income is well over $150,000 a year.

00:49:36.800 And she had a disastrous interview on The Breakfast Club where she couldn't describe how she made $7 million in profit selling stocks,

00:49:44.300 which she was fined for because she was selling while she was on the House appropriations for military contracts. 0.99

00:49:50.800 That has been a huge, huge problem.

00:49:52.980 Democrats are freaked out.

00:49:54.240 They've spent an additional $1.5 million on this race, $25 million in total.

00:50:00.720 Internals are showing that she is not in a strong place, and that's where they're putting all their hands on deck.

00:50:05.360 A couple of things, Ryan, and I know some of you from New Jersey are going to know this, but I actually think it got snowed under.

00:50:15.020 Trump lost New Jersey by about five points.

00:50:17.920 He lost Virginia by about five points.

00:50:20.120 That's where both of the governor's races that are going to be happening in about six weeks are taking place.

00:50:25.340 Ryan, the Trump team believes that if they had had Kamala Harris money, that is, they could have just sprayed money everywhere like Kamala did,

00:50:35.240 that they could have won in Virginia.

00:50:37.080 They could have won in New Jersey.

00:50:39.160 Do you buy it, and do we know if the current candidates in New Jersey and Virginia,

00:50:46.680 are they competitive enough with dollars to spend coming down the stretch run here?

00:50:51.680 As a lot of people that are not political obsessives become aware these governors' races are going on.

00:50:57.280 Well, it's great you mentioned Trump.

00:50:59.200 So there's an inverse problem happening between New Jersey and Virginia.

00:51:03.480 In Virginia, Winsome Sears, the Republican nominee, is trying to nationalize this election.

00:51:08.820 She is making this specifically about trans girls playing biological female sports. 0.60

00:51:14.100 That is her number one issue. 0.53

00:51:15.540 She is talking about it consistently, and is what her ads are focusing on.

00:51:19.120 And inversely, in New Jersey, the Democrat, Mickey Sherrill, is making this entire election about Trump.

00:51:25.040 Just today, there was a news-breaking story a little while ago that she was not allowed to walk in the U.S. Naval Academy commencement speech

00:51:31.720 because she cheated 130 times in her class. 0.94

00:51:35.400 That was implicit, 130 people.

00:51:37.820 She cheated, and she could not walk in her graduation. 1.00

00:51:40.200 Hold on.

00:51:41.240 Let me rephrase that, Ryan, because I think it was a little bit – I think she was part of a group of 130 people that was accused of cheating on tests that were not allowed to walk.

00:51:51.960 Not she cheated 130 times.

00:51:54.140 I think the Naval Academy would probably say, hey, I don't know what the number is, but I think you'd get kicked out for that.

00:51:59.400 My apologies.

00:52:00.280 I screwed up.

00:52:00.600 Yes, that is true.

00:52:01.840 She was with 130 people.

00:52:03.420 So she had made this election about Trump.

00:52:05.100 She blamed Jack Cittarelli for this story coming out, saying he's part of the Trump cabal to release information.

00:52:11.820 Jack Cittarelli is focused specifically on affordability and electricity costs.

00:52:17.020 Electricity costs are the number one issue in both Virginia and New Jersey's election, incidentally enough.

00:52:24.080 Electricity costs are skyrocketing in both places.

00:52:26.680 The difference between New Jersey and Virginia is the elasticity of the electorate. 0.80

00:52:31.180 So Virginia's electorate, because it is much blacker and blacks in America have a lower level of – they move far less than Hispanics or whites do.

00:52:41.620 It is a less – there's less elasticity for the Republicans to make big, big gains.

00:52:45.840 The question is do they show up at all?

00:52:47.900 There's also a lot of, you know, quote-unquote, awfals, which is like angry white female liberals. 1.00

00:52:52.880 There's a lot more in Virginia, and there's a lot of people angry over the Elon cuts to federal jobs.

00:52:58.360 New Jersey doesn't have that problem, and Cittarelli has been more centralized on the affordability question and on the tax question.

00:53:06.060 Cheryl had an absolutely abominable debate performance where she would not commit to not raising taxes in the middle class, 1.00

00:53:12.600 and she would not explain once again how she made $7 million on a stock trade.

00:53:17.820 Both those clips went viral.

00:53:19.200 It's been very, very bad.

00:53:20.320 Everything that is breaking in someone's favor is Cittarelli.

00:53:23.500 Cittarelli's campaign in the last 45 days have reminded me more of Glenn Youngkin than Winston Sears.

00:53:30.760 Winston Sears is really just trying to get the Trump face out, and she's had a mixed record on having that ability.

00:53:37.520 Can you break down for us a little bit, Ryan?

00:53:39.080 I thought that was really interesting, and I'd seen some headlines around this.

00:53:42.480 The skyrocketing electricity price, that's generally not something you think of as a top election issue at the state level,

00:53:48.240 but that that is in two different states in these two critical governors' races, I think it's very interesting.

00:53:54.260 Part of it, as I understand it, is data center usage and essentially places getting ready for AI or wanting to be more part of the AI race

00:54:04.700 and also to store all this data online.

00:54:07.180 Part of it is natural gas prices, so there's a few things coming into it.

00:54:10.900 But how are the various campaigns handling this?

00:54:13.960 Because I always think it's so funny.

00:54:15.320 The Democrats, their only idea for how to make electricity prices less expensive

00:54:20.200 involve finding more expensive forms of electricity, like solar.

00:54:24.540 I mean, I don't know what they think they're going to do.

00:54:26.080 So how is that playing out?

00:54:27.800 Right.

00:54:28.120 So it is the number one issue in both New Jersey and Virginia.

00:54:30.960 And AI centers or data centers are the main culprit.

00:54:34.320 Data centers take about 25 percent of Virginia's electricity.

00:54:38.000 One in four, they've added about 20 million homes using power through data centers.

00:54:43.060 In New Jersey, data centers are responsible for 70 percent of the increased prices in electricity.

00:54:48.660 Jack Turrelli is talking about having tax cuts for the middle class

00:54:52.840 and about trying to have more alternative, not alternative in a form of solar,

00:54:57.780 but really looking at increasing natural gas subsidies or anything he can just sit there

00:55:02.500 and try to get prices lower through using taxes in the state.

00:55:06.180 Like, Abigail Spanberger over in Virginia, she's actually the only candidate running statewide 0.99

00:55:11.740 who has pointed to data centers and saying we need to figure out how to deal with this increase

00:55:16.420 in the cost of electricity through data centers.

00:55:18.360 And she's the one who's pointed the finger.

00:55:20.420 Winston Sears really hasn't spoke about data centers or electricity prices nearly as much,

00:55:25.380 focusing much more on national issues to try to really drive out lower propensity voters.

00:55:30.380 And I have a number on that. Virginia does not have the does not have party registration like New Jersey does.

00:55:37.440 So you're not a registered Republican or Democrat.

00:55:39.740 But among modeling companies, companies that model whether you're likely to be a Republican or a Democrat,

00:55:45.160 Republicans have done a much better job at turning out people who have either never voted

00:55:49.420 and are likely Republicans are only voted once in the last four elections than Democrats have.

00:55:54.480 So if that's her game plan by bringing out low propensity voters, it's showing a little bit of traction. 1.00

00:55:59.780 But Democrats outside of Richmond and in the northern part of the state and in the northern part of the state,

00:56:03.640 outside of D.C., are really turning out like gangbusters, especially in the Richmond suburbs.

00:56:09.080 Let's go to the New York City mayor's race, because a lot of our W.O.R. listeners are plugged in on this.

00:56:17.260 Ryan, we still haven't gotten any movement from from anyone to drop out, whether it's Eric Adams, Curtis Lewa, Andrew Cuomo.

00:56:26.120 And as I'm looking right now at Polymarket, they have an 87 percent chance that Mom Donnie is elected mayor.

00:56:34.440 Is there any reason right now in your mind to expect any kind of movement there?

00:56:40.480 Or if you kind of resign yourself to Mom Donnie is going to be the next New York City mayor?

00:56:45.340 Mom Donnie is going to be the next city mayor, unless Eric Adams and Curtis Lewa drop out. 0.99

00:56:50.320 I mean, and we've had more polling out of New York City than either Virginia or New Jersey at this point.

00:56:55.720 Pollsters love polling New York. It's an interesting race.

00:56:58.360 The problem is in this fractured field, it needs to be a head-on-head competition.

00:57:01.700 And all pollsters agree a head-to-head competition between Cuomo and Mandami shows a competitive race, and we don't know who would win.

00:57:10.200 But Cuomo has run one of the most god-awful campaigns I could imagine.

00:57:14.660 He's made no concessions to Republicans to try to win them over whatsoever.

00:57:18.840 And Eric Adams is still hanging around around 7 or 8 percent, mostly among Jewish and black voters who would otherwise be voting for Cuomo.

00:57:25.760 So it's really been some of the worst campaigning I've ever seen, especially from Cuomo.

00:57:32.220 And Curtis Lewa has had essentially no campaign, aside from going to the same five places over and over and over again.

00:57:37.700 He's polling somewhere in the low to mid-teens, and it's really kind of fizzled out.

00:57:42.960 Okay, do you buy, Buck and I have kind of debated this, that Momdani could have an impact in the 2026 midterms if he is the face of the Democrat Party?

00:57:54.700 Or do you think he's really not that well-known outside of New York City?

00:57:59.500 What is his impact?

00:58:00.400 Let's say he wins.

00:58:01.940 Obviously, he's not a citizen.

00:58:03.340 I mean, born American citizen, so he's not eligible to run, for instance, for president, thankfully, sadly, given how much support he has among Democrats.

00:58:13.480 Does he have national residence next year, in your mind, if he wins in New York City or not?

00:58:19.780 Yeah, absolutely.

00:58:20.680 I mean, there's a reason why Fox News is the only one who covers his speeches live.

00:58:25.200 And they don't do it for any New York City politician.

00:58:27.300 I mean, Republicans desperately want to make him the face, which is why Hakeem Jeffries still won't endorse him, despite Kathy Hochul endorsing him.

00:58:34.980 And it'll be a big question going into 2026 if they sit there and try to play.

00:58:39.120 Spoiler, Momdani made a comment saying, I'm not promising to re-endorse Kathy Hochul or any other Democrat.

00:58:45.260 So they very much want to play.

00:58:47.080 And I spoke to some Democratic consultants who are very, very smart.

00:58:50.280 And the question, they said this, it is not a question of if, like an AOC or Mondani type of person will be the Democratic nominee in 2028.

00:59:00.080 It's a matter of when.

00:59:01.540 It is just a matter of timing.

00:59:03.420 All the movement is on the progressive side, and they are absolutely going to make Mondani the face of it.

00:59:08.520 And he is, you know, he's charming to some people.

00:59:10.560 He's charismatic to some people.

00:59:11.760 He does have some ability, political ability that I do notice.

00:59:15.880 But his policies are absolutely insane, especially around policing, and it's going to, especially in the Northeast, it's going to be very problematic for Democrats.

00:59:25.500 So is it your view that he will be as insane as we are worried he will be if he becomes the mayor of New York?

00:59:33.000 Like, will he actually do these policies, or is this just to get the sizzle going, but he'll have to deal with the reality of trying to govern 8.5 million people?

00:59:41.640 Well, he has limitations because the governor has a lot of control over New York City.

00:59:46.600 So it's not like he's the president or the king of the city.

00:59:50.460 There are certain things that he can do that I expect him to do on day one.

00:59:53.940 He also has a problem with the federal government is going to be breathing down his neck on certain issues, like the idea that he's going to be able to kick ICE agents out of the city is just not realistic whatsoever.

01:00:02.940 On certain things, he's going to be pretty horrific.

01:00:04.780 On other things, he can't fulfill half of those promises because he doesn't have the ability or the wherewithal to do so.

01:00:11.980 So, I mean, I think that he's going to be a worse mayor than Bill de Blasio, but, I mean, that's what's happening right now in New York.

01:00:19.980 Go check out It's a Numbers Game.

01:00:21.820 Comes out every week on the Clay and Buck Podcast Network.

01:00:24.480 Ryan Gerdusky is the excellent host.

01:00:27.600 Ryan, thanks for breaking it all down for us.

01:00:29.360 Great stuff.

01:00:29.880 Thank you.

01:00:30.420 Thank you.

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - September 26, 2025

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