Verdict with Ted Cruz - BONUS： Daily Review with Clay Travis and Buck Sexton - Mar 27 2025

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.500 Guaranteed human.

00:00:06.980 Welcome in Thursday edition Clay Travis Buck Sexton show.

00:00:11.200 We appreciate all of you hanging out with us as we are rolling into what should be another

00:00:16.880 fun show with all of you.

00:00:19.000 Senator Rand Paul is going to join us at two.

00:00:21.460 That is a couple of hours from now and give us the latest on how the big beautiful bill 0.99

00:00:27.320 is progressing in the Senate.

00:00:29.640 Remember, despite all of the attention this week on the signal chat of Pete Hexeth, J.D.

00:00:37.060 Vance and others, the big story remains that the border bill as well as the tax bill and

00:00:44.400 the overall budget priorities of President Trump for the next several years is winding

00:00:50.500 its way through the capital process and there is still a lot of work to be done there with

00:00:57.200 the hope that sometime in May it will be officially complete but lots of pulling to do on the

00:01:02.880 House side and the Senate side.

00:01:04.560 We will get the absolute latest from Senator Rand Paul there as well as whether that new

00:01:09.560 budget can help, we hope, to create at least some of a clawback on the growth of the national

00:01:17.880 deficit, which is at $36 trillion and continuing to expand as we all speak.

00:01:23.820 Trump has been effective in getting more of the Venezuelan gang leaders arrested.

00:01:29.660 We'll talk about that a little bit press conference earlier this morning, but he had a press conference

00:01:35.260 yesterday and I want to play some of those cuts for you as Trump took command of the national

00:01:43.880 story.

00:01:44.440 I will say, Buck, and I think you'll sign off on this, the signal story seems to be basically

00:01:51.060 done now.

00:01:52.160 It took a couple of days.

00:01:53.740 The Atlantic managed to drag it out as long as they could, but by and large, I think that

00:01:59.920 story is now behind us and I'm sure there will be a new emergence of a top story in the

00:02:07.040 near future.

00:02:07.640 But right now, what is going on seems to have vanished.

00:02:13.040 And I think, Buck, if it's being played at all, it's mostly being played for laughs at

00:02:18.740 this point as opposed to anything else.

00:02:21.060 But here is President Trump yesterday saying on a day when they were honoring the number of

00:02:29.800 women involved in his administration as a part of a women's history celebration. 0.81

00:02:34.080 Guess what?

00:02:35.640 No matter how many surgeries you have, a man is not a woman. 1.00

00:02:38.800 This is cut four.

00:02:39.920 No matter how many surgeries you have or chemicals you inject, if you're born with male DNA in

00:02:46.060 every cell of your body, you can never become a woman. 1.00

00:02:49.560 You're not going to be a woman. 1.00

00:02:53.660 And that's why last month I proudly signed a historic executive order to ban men from competing 0.99

00:03:00.040 in women's sports and it was very popular and very... 0.99

00:03:05.040 So that is very popular, Buck.

00:03:07.680 Positive news here.

00:03:08.840 I mean, to me, this goes to the essence of whether truth is real or not.

00:03:13.200 Is biology real or not?

00:03:15.080 The World Track and Field Association now says, hey, we're going to cheek swab every woman who 0.96

00:03:21.080 is competing in women's track and field and confirm that they are, in fact, all women.

00:03:26.120 And this is important because I don't know if we talked about this on the show, but I've

00:03:30.900 been doing research.

00:03:32.160 Do you know that every women's track and field record has been broken by a 14 or 15-year-old

00:03:40.740 boy in the United States?

00:03:42.460 That is, the fastest women in the history of the world are all slower than a 14 or 15-year-old 1.00

00:03:48.820 male sprinter.

00:03:49.740 That's how much biology matters.

00:03:51.340 We're not even talking about grown men who are training full-time.

00:03:54.940 This testosterone stuff's pretty powerful and about 14 or 15 years old, there is no

00:04:00.800 similarity between the sexes anymore when it comes to...

00:04:03.340 It's remarkable that Trump says this and they still will deny it and they'll pretend

00:04:10.640 that it's not true.

00:04:12.000 They will talk around the issue.

00:04:14.680 But the statement, if you're born with male DNA in every cell of your body, you can never

00:04:19.960 become a woman.

00:04:20.720 You're not going to become a woman. 1.00

00:04:22.180 And this should be the most straightforward and incontrovertible thing.

00:04:25.820 This is, the sky is blue, right?

00:04:28.520 This is the most straightforward statement of fact you can really come up with.

00:04:32.900 And yet, there will be Democrats and the left pretending that somehow this is controversial.

00:04:39.700 In fact, worse than controversial.

00:04:41.260 It's bigoted, Clay. 0.61

00:04:42.120 If you believe this, you are a bad person.

00:04:45.520 And, you know, we're starting to see also the data compiled on what really the reality

00:04:53.660 is for a lot of these individuals who are trans and problems with sexual deviancy, sexual 1.00

00:05:01.640 assault.

00:05:02.320 I mean, this stuff, we're not allowed to talk about the number of people who have been trans

00:05:06.480 who are involved in recent mass shootings, for example, the most notable one in Nashville.

00:05:11.480 You're supposed to forget all about this because they don't want anyone to realize that there

00:05:15.840 is a huge, that this is a mental health issue, essentially.

00:05:19.720 And they don't want anyone to talk about that.

00:05:22.160 Instead, we're supposed to believe this is a class of protected person.

00:05:25.260 And if you won't go along with, and you are supposed to stand and cheer as an 18-year-old

00:05:32.320 man runs and sets the new track and field record for the 800 meters against a bunch of girls.

00:05:40.000 Yeah.

00:05:40.420 You're supposed to do that.

00:05:41.680 They really believe this, or rather, they really say it.

00:05:44.140 I can't tell you what they believe on an individual basis.

00:05:47.120 So I think Trump needs to keep hammering this home because, Clay, once they're in charge,

00:05:52.120 who knows, Democrats, they might.

00:05:53.780 Like, Biden was putting forward guidance on trans surgery for minors from the White House.

00:05:58.160 Joe Biden, that was reality under a Democrat administration.

00:06:01.720 So this battle is not over, and this fight for sanity continues no matter how much they

00:06:06.680 say, why are you focusing on this?

00:06:09.280 I also think that, and this is not going to surprise any of you, we talked about how Caroline

00:06:14.660 Levitt doesn't get any of the credit that she deserves, despite being the youngest White 0.98

00:06:19.100 House press secretary ever, who's also raising an eight-month-old son right now.

00:06:24.480 But Trump pointed out that his cabinet actually has more women than any Republican president 0.98

00:06:30.160 in the history of the country.

00:06:32.220 I haven't seen that headline anywhere.

00:06:34.120 Of course, you wouldn't because it's Trump and nothing positive he does.

00:06:37.160 But he said this in Cut 6.

00:06:39.860 I'm also thrilled to say that we have more women in our cabinet than any Republican president 0.95

00:06:45.900 in the history of our country.

00:06:53.480 And joining us today is a woman I've known a long time.

00:06:58.320 You talk about strong women.

00:06:59.640 This is strong woman.

00:07:00.820 Remember, they were saying, he doesn't like strong women. 1.00

00:07:03.020 That may be true, but if that's true, I'm in deep trouble because I'm surrounded.

00:07:08.340 I got the strongest women. 1.00

00:07:10.200 And this is a beautiful, strong, wonderful woman.

00:07:14.560 Attorney General Pam Bondi.

00:07:19.620 Buck, you know, that strong woman comment, you remember who said that in the campaign?

00:07:24.820 That Trump refused to surround himself with strong women, and then they basically sidelined

00:07:29.300 him.

00:07:29.480 It was a guy.

00:07:30.100 Our good buddy, Mark Cuban, and then like, I remember now I've forgotten that sounds like

00:07:38.440 honestly, it's it's so hysterical and low T that it sounds like something that Olbermann

00:07:43.120 would have said, but it is a Mark Cuban, a Mark Cubanism that is that they basically side.

00:07:48.780 Remember, Mark Cuban became the avatar for Kamala Harris for men.

00:07:54.080 He was going around speaking everywhere about what an incredible talent she was and how phenomenal

00:08:00.040 the president she would be.

00:08:02.140 And then he made those comments and they went mega viral. 0.97

00:08:05.740 And they happened around the time that Joe Biden called Trump supporters trash. 0.75

00:08:11.720 So this was in the closing days of the campaign in the October final sprint.

00:08:17.800 And they basically sidelined Mark Cuban.

00:08:20.660 And I've barely seen the guy anywhere.

00:08:23.200 Uh, I think he now spends a lot of time over on blue sky, which, uh, I have no idea who I

00:08:28.860 thankfully I never have to, uh, to venture into the blue sky streets.

00:08:32.240 I think that was the, that was the Zuckerberg alternative, right?

00:08:35.580 Um, that, uh, that he tried to build to Twitter where they have all sorts of protective safeguards

00:08:41.940 for what can and cannot be said.

00:08:43.820 And a lot of people say they're going to go there, but then nothing happens over on that

00:08:48.300 site and, uh, and nobody's really kind of paying attention there.

00:08:51.620 And then they come back and, but I do think, uh, uh, it is important to emphasize here that

00:08:57.760 Trump has not only, we know he's done very well with young men, but a lot of women, many

00:09:01.720 of whom are out there listening to us right now, uh, either got on the Trump train early

00:09:06.600 on in 2016, or as 2020 and 2024 have progressed, have finally ended up on board the Trump train.

00:09:14.420 I had dinner with a media executive, uh, on Tuesday, a group of them, uh, here in Nashville.

00:09:21.220 And one of the guys there said, you know, I was totally apolitical.

00:09:25.160 He said, I didn't vote for 20 years.

00:09:27.020 I was just kind of focused on my career.

00:09:28.780 I wasn't really focused on politics at all.

00:09:30.940 And then he was like, I looked up and I looked around and I was like, there really is no other

00:09:34.740 choice, is there?

00:09:35.520 Like things have gotten so crazy.

00:09:37.600 He said he was a, you know, very happy to go out and vote for Trump in 2024.

00:09:41.440 And he hadn't voted hardly in the 21st century.

00:09:44.000 And I think there are a lot of people like that who just get so busy with work and life

00:09:48.380 that they're not really paying attention to the larger culture or certainly the day-to-day

00:09:52.020 of politics.

00:09:53.140 And it just got so crazy that finally a lot of people came in off the sidelines and said,

00:09:59.320 we got to fix this.

00:10:00.580 I know we talked about it a lot yesterday, uh, but I, I think that it will become

00:10:05.440 clear.

00:10:05.920 It'll take some time, but the, uh, the woke Snow White disaster, I think could be the

00:10:11.440 beginning of a change in the creative content business, uh, occurring now where they start

00:10:20.060 to go.

00:10:20.640 It's not going to be conservative, but they're going to start being less insane because of

00:10:25.900 the, I think the financial imperative is clear, is more clear now than it has been, uh,

00:10:30.640 ever before people just don't want this stuff.

00:10:33.440 And even Disney can't afford to keep doing this stuff.

00:10:36.640 You, no one can afford to light hundreds of millions of dollars on fire on one project.

00:10:40.680 Correct.

00:10:41.240 So there's going to have to be a reckoning here with the bottom line.

00:10:45.600 I don't think the individuals in charge have necessarily changed their beliefs at all, 0.92

00:10:49.280 but they're going to have to stop being so crazy.

00:10:52.020 Uh, if they want to stay in business and this has been a part of a long transformation.

00:10:56.680 I mean, if you would, we'd had this conversation 10 years ago, uh, it would have felt like,

00:11:02.160 oh my gosh, no way will they ever abandon the, uh, the, the tenets of the far left worship

00:11:09.500 that we see in all of these different media projects.

00:11:13.020 Look at CNN, look at MSNBC. 0.92

00:11:14.900 I mean, we are in a time of change in the narrative overall in this country, but also in the gatekeepers

00:11:22.500 and the content creators, uh, corporations, massive corporations, obviously Bezos and face,

00:11:29.200 uh, and, and, um, uh, Zuckerberg showing up at the inauguration with Trump.

00:11:33.260 It's not about clay.

00:11:34.600 Who's a true believer.

00:11:35.340 Now I think the market has changed.

00:11:38.100 That's the, that's the difference, right?

00:11:39.520 It's not.

00:11:40.040 Oh, cause it was, we're going to build our own stuff and they're going to have their stuff.

00:11:45.120 And eventually our stuff will grow to the size where we'll have the, we talked about

00:11:49.180 the parallel economy.

00:11:50.480 Yes.

00:11:51.520 Increasingly, this is just the economy now where you can't get away with the fringe.

00:11:56.680 20% leftist stuff is starting to become financially toxic.

00:12:01.680 That's right.

00:12:02.440 And it's very important that that happened.

00:12:04.520 And this is why we said many of you stopped drinking Bud Light.

00:12:08.200 And we've used that as an example.

00:12:09.820 You shouldn't be firebombing Bud Light trucks, right?

00:12:12.960 Like, uh, there's a difference between saying, Hey, I'm going to put my money where I feel like

00:12:18.660 my values are and trying to physically attack and destroy people who make decisions that

00:12:23.920 are different than you. 0.59

00:12:25.080 And I will give a little bit of credit to Bud Light.

00:12:27.600 Like, I think they lit their brand on fire, metaphorically speaking, but they have been

00:12:32.080 aggressively trying to win back the audience.

00:12:34.760 Now, I think the challenge, as we said before, is their beer doesn't taste that much different

00:12:39.400 than a lot of other light beers.

00:12:40.880 And I'm going to get deluged as I always do.

00:12:43.360 I can tell the difference between Miller Light and Coors Light Bud Light all day, Clay.

00:12:46.980 After about two beers, trust me, you can't.

00:12:49.640 Um, but that's the challenge that they've got.

00:12:52.560 The brand value that they created, Buck, was really just, Hey, drinking a beer and hanging

00:12:57.500 out with your friends is fun.

00:12:59.180 Sports are good.

00:13:00.300 We like girls in bikinis. 1.00

00:13:01.760 Like this was the fun element that they tried to sell with beer.

00:13:05.580 And then suddenly they're telling you, Hey, here's a dude.

00:13:09.840 And actually you have to say, it's a girl with a Bud Light can.

00:13:13.200 And guys just said, yeah, we're not doing this.

00:13:15.860 And I think that the bottom line ultimately is the driver.

00:13:19.820 For a long time, they said none of this works.

00:13:22.700 Bud Light is basically destroyed as a brand now.

00:13:26.520 Disney's in trouble.

00:13:28.380 Disney's in real trouble when a lot of parents out there can't trust taking their kids to

00:13:35.420 a Disney movie because there's all sorts of crazy left-wing politics in it.

00:13:41.080 And if I'm Bob Iger, I am looking around and saying, Hey, we're done with this. 0.97

00:13:47.260 And sometimes Buck, those guys can know it's not smart, but a lot of CEOs are cowards, frankly,

00:13:52.780 and they follow whatever the herd is going because they want to keep their jobs.

00:13:57.500 And now Bob Iger can walk into the boardroom or the creative team and he can say, Look,

00:14:02.300 guys, we lost $200 million on this movie.

00:14:05.300 Like we can't do this ever again or the company won't exist.

00:14:09.180 Let's get back to just telling universal awesome stories for everyone.

00:14:13.720 Example I've used for a while.

00:14:15.920 How about Top Gun Maverick?

00:14:17.220 Why can't we go back to the movies that were made in the 80s and the 90s that truly appealed

00:14:24.260 to everyone instead of trying to check all these different identity boxes?

00:14:29.700 Let's just tell universally great stories that have mass appeal to everyone.

00:14:35.660 Totally agree.

00:14:36.500 We'll take calls, talkbacks, all that good stuff.

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00:15:51.280 Want to be in the know when you're on the go?

00:15:55.320 The Team 47 Podcast.

00:15:57.720 Trump highlights from the week, Sundays at noon Eastern in the Clay & Buck Podcast feed.

00:16:02.800 Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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00:16:39.140 Okay, so I know a lot of you are going to say, wait a minute, Clay.

00:16:42.400 We just had an election.

00:16:44.360 We just had November 5th.

00:16:46.400 We just celebrated.

00:16:47.800 We won the presidency.

00:16:49.240 We won the House.

00:16:50.000 We won the Senate.

00:16:51.660 But the House majority is tenuous.

00:16:55.660 Comes down to a few seats.

00:16:58.360 Tuesday, two of the seats are being filled by guys who step down.

00:17:05.040 Matt Gaetz in Florida 1 is going to be replaced by Jimmy Petronas.

00:17:11.420 I know Jimmy.

00:17:12.580 He's done really good work in the state of Florida.

00:17:14.980 All of you out there in the panhandle, Florida 1, you need to get out and vote.

00:17:20.940 But I want to talk about Florida 6 here.

00:17:24.540 This is the seat that was relinquished by Mike Waltz when he decided to join the Trump cabinet, the Trump administration.

00:17:33.160 It is a very comfortable Trump district.

00:17:36.680 But I want to hit you with these numbers, Buck.

00:17:39.540 You were also just reading this.

00:17:41.400 The Democrats, in an effort to try to steal this seat, have spent $9.7 million in Florida 6 compared to the $560,000 spent by Randy Fine, who is the Republican candidate.

00:18:03.640 This is a very pro-Trump district.

00:18:07.420 You guys, I understand you just voted.

00:18:10.380 You need to get back out and vote because they're concerned enough about how tenuous this House majority is that they just pulled Elise Stefanik's UN ambassador role over being concerned about her New York congressional seat.

00:18:28.980 And then you've got two different seats that are available for the remainder of the term that are up on April 1st.

00:18:37.860 That's Tuesday.

00:18:39.080 I think a lot of you listening to us in Florida right now may not even be aware this is going on because so many of you right after the election, you're taking a breather.

00:18:49.100 You're kicking back, you're enjoying the results of the Trump victory, but you need to turn out again because if Democrats can whittle down and take back the House, they're not passing anything that Trump wants to get done.

00:19:03.660 And this is going to be the risk next year in the midterm when all 435 House seats are up for grabs, and we'll have to see how that goes next year.

00:19:12.520 But in the meantime, we've got to preserve what we've already won, and so if you're listening to us in Florida right now or you've got friends and family, these are very Trump districts.

00:19:23.940 Trump won Florida 1 by 37.

00:19:26.840 He won Florida 6 by 30, but a lot of the people that voted for Trump may not be coming out.

00:19:33.560 They may not even be aware of these special elections.

00:19:36.000 So this is, I think, just, hey, pay attention.

00:19:39.260 Keep your head on a swivel here.

00:19:40.420 Yeah, I mean, it would be a disastrous state of affairs for the Trump agenda if we were to lose control of the House, even with the very narrow control that we have.

00:19:49.640 It still is effectively there.

00:19:52.180 So that's something that we need to keep an eye on, and it's interesting to see how Democrats are able to funnel.

00:19:59.420 I'm sure, Clay, if you looked at, it's public information, right?

00:20:03.300 I'm just guessing, but of the almost $10 million the Democrat has raised in this district.

00:20:08.280 Remember, a district that Trump won by 30 points, okay?

00:20:11.140 $10 million for a congressional seat that you are at minus 30 in the last election, which was just a few months ago.

00:20:16.920 This goes to show you, Democrats, they will funnel cash in.

00:20:20.940 I bet a huge percentage of it is money out of the district.

00:20:25.960 It's money that's coming in from New York and Los Angeles.

00:20:29.080 People are giving money to whatever they have to to try to sneak this congressional seat into the Democrat column.

00:20:37.000 So, you know, we sit here, we talk about how the Democrats have no messaging, which is true.

00:20:40.960 They do have a lot of money, though.

00:20:42.460 They totally outspent Trump the last time around.

00:20:44.980 They totally outspent Trump the first time around.

00:20:47.100 And they will do things like this, which is something we have to be prepared for.

00:20:53.080 So if you're listening, you know, we're on in this area, in the 6th District of Florida.

00:20:58.060 We have a huge Florida audience.

00:20:59.940 Thank you very much, Floridians.

00:21:01.780 Our Florida audience has grown by, I think, overall, like 25 or 30 percent in the last couple of years.

00:21:08.040 So we have a lot of Floridians that are listening.

00:21:10.180 And I know some of you are in that Daytona Beach area, right?

00:21:12.720 I think that's roughly what this – so if you're listening to us in the Daytona Beach area, you cannot let the Democrats take this one.

00:21:20.520 Get out there.

00:21:21.700 This is where also yard signs – I mean, the basic stuff, right?

00:21:25.100 This is going to be a small number overall of people who are determining this congressional seat.

00:21:31.860 So if you're listening to us and you're in this district, whatever you can do makes a difference.

00:21:36.260 This is not, you know, oh, but do I really – does the president need my vote?

00:21:40.340 Randy Fine needs your vote.

00:21:41.640 Get out there.

00:21:42.720 Yeah, and it is, I think, true, if you look at the data, that the diehard left-wing crazy town base of the Democrats does better at showing up on special elections than the average Republican voter does.

00:21:57.660 They're super committed for these things that a lot of people don't pay attention to.

00:22:02.020 They do better at primary turnout.

00:22:04.300 They do better in special elections.

00:22:06.080 We do better as a party in midterms when they're actually big midterms.

00:22:11.880 In election now with presidential races, the turnout is very good.

00:22:16.480 But don't get caught napping.

00:22:18.600 And to your point – I mean, think about that.

00:22:20.620 Nearly – I'm always bad at math a lot, but we're talking about 20 to 1 being outspent in that Florida 6th congressional district.

00:22:28.080 So, they think they can steal it.

00:22:30.680 And, by the way, also, if you're up on the panhandle, get out and vote as well.

00:22:35.940 Again, I don't think we're pressing the alarm too soon.

00:22:39.480 But if they were super confident about their majority, Elise Stefanik wouldn't be stepping down from the U.N. ambassador position. 0.99

00:22:48.220 But I will make this – I'll make this prediction right now so we can log this as a prediction.

00:22:53.020 Elise Stefanik in the – after this next cycle is going to end up getting something even more exciting in the Trump administration than a U.S. ambassador to the U.N. role. 0.86

00:23:05.720 Which is high up there, obviously, but I think she could be in line for something even a little more exciting 0.93

00:23:11.880 because for her to obviously voluntarily say, okay, okay, I'm not going to take that U.S. ambassador to the U.N. role.

00:23:19.320 I'm going to stay in Congress.

00:23:20.660 No offense to Congress, but there's a lot of them.

00:23:23.420 They're making some kind of a sweetheart deal for her to do what's right for the team, and I think she's willing to do that.

00:23:29.960 Again, I don't want to speculate on who.

00:23:32.860 I also think, Buck, this tells us that there may be some health issues in the larger Republican caucus

00:23:39.560 because it only takes – again, we've seen this happen.

00:23:43.240 Look at what happened with Dianne Feinstein at the end of her tenure as the senator from California.

00:23:49.960 Look at what's happened with Mitch McConnell and his health, the falls that he's had.

00:23:54.560 When you start getting people in their 70s and 80s, this is one of the dangers of having a gerontocracy

00:24:00.780 when it comes to leadership.

00:24:02.300 People age differently, as many of you know, but you can go from very healthy in your 70s

00:24:09.100 to really in dire straits very quickly, and there are a lot of people in their 70s and 80s

00:24:15.480 who are a part of our leadership, and so when you've got a margin this fine, this tiny,

00:24:21.340 I think that everybody needs to make sure and make certain that they make rational, good decisions

00:24:26.680 and get out and vote in these races.

00:24:29.620 This also is a powerful reminder that while we sit here, and it has been – there's been

00:24:34.020 a little bit of political euphoria in the first 60 days of Trump's term because of the

00:24:39.800 team he's assembled and the accomplishments they're racking up and the focus, the messaging.

00:24:45.680 It's been – this is fantastic stuff.

00:24:48.900 They've been doing everything that we want them to do and then some, but remember from the

00:24:53.280 beginning, we said they really have 12 to 18 months to save the country or to make meaningful,

00:24:59.740 lasting change for the United States in very positive ways.

00:25:05.280 This midterm election is going to be – it's going to be a dogfight.

00:25:08.780 It just is.

00:25:09.620 That's the reality of being the party in power, and it's not like we're going into it with

00:25:13.960 15 or 20 seats of majority.

00:25:16.760 So on the Senate side, I think it looks a lot better, but if Democrats were to take the

00:25:20.560 House, oh my gosh, they – you know, the hearings, they'll find something.

00:25:26.600 They'll be having hearings on SignalGate, you know, and it's – the whole thing.

00:25:31.320 They're just going to go into anything to slow down and mess up Trump is justified and

00:25:36.660 necessary.

00:25:37.380 So it's – it reminds us all that there is a finite window here to get very important

00:25:43.800 stuff done to fix the country.

00:25:46.220 Hopefully it doesn't become an issue because we keep the majority and Trump can keep doing

00:25:49.600 great stuff, but you can't – you can't plan on that.

00:25:52.740 You've got to plan on getting it done now.

00:25:55.000 No doubt.

00:25:55.640 I'm going to be down in Florida with Buck in studio Tuesday, Wednesday.

00:26:00.280 On Monday, I'm going to be helping to raise money for Tunnel to Towers.

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00:26:43.860 thought to be trapped inside, and when the situation escalated, James wasn't able to

00:26:48.660 escape.

00:26:49.480 He perished in the blazing inferno.

00:26:51.860 Cause of the fire, arson.

00:26:53.700 James leaves behind his loving wife, Jamie, and his children, Paige and Grant.

00:26:58.560 Tunnel to Towers gave the Dickman family the gift of a mortgage-free home.

00:27:01.980 Jamie's grateful to Tunnel to Towers and to caring friends like you for lifting the financial

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00:27:16.900 Making America great again isn't just one man, it's many.

00:27:21.600 The Team 47 podcast.

00:27:23.860 Sundays at noon Eastern in the Clay and Buck podcast feed.

00:27:27.320 Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:27:32.180 Welcome back in.

00:27:33.280 Clay, Travis, Buck, Sexton Show.

00:27:35.200 Appreciate all of you hanging out with us.

00:27:37.240 We've been breaking down all of the absolute latest news out there from across the nation.

00:27:43.060 And we head now up to, I believe where he is, Washington, D.C.

00:27:46.640 Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky joins us now.

00:27:50.640 Senator, we got a lot to dive into with you.

00:27:53.320 Appreciate you joining us.

00:27:54.620 Let me just start here right off the top.

00:27:57.640 How is the budget and border bill process going?

00:28:02.700 How does the timeline look to you?

00:28:04.480 How would you assess it at this point?

00:28:07.640 I'm worried.

00:28:09.000 I'm very worried that they're wanting to add $5 trillion to the debt ceiling.

00:28:13.940 All the good news we've heard about Elon Musk, about cutting contracts and cutting foreign aid,

00:28:20.240 all that has been so energizing to our base, to conservatives like me.

00:28:24.860 We jump for joy.

00:28:26.160 We cheer.

00:28:27.500 And then they say, well, but the bill's going to increase the debt ceiling by $5 trillion.

00:28:31.140 And we say, well, how is that possible?

00:28:33.080 We thought we were cutting spending.

00:28:35.240 Why would we increase it more than $2 trillion a year for the next two and a half years?

00:28:40.160 And there's not a good explanation.

00:28:42.460 And so I've told them I won't vote for any bill that adds $5 trillion to the deficit.

00:28:47.660 That's not fiscally conservative.

00:28:49.860 Now, I'll vote for the tax cuts.

00:28:51.440 I voted for them in 2017.

00:28:53.020 I'll vote to make the tax cuts permanent.

00:28:54.840 I'll vote for spending cuts.

00:28:56.940 But I didn't vote for the spending, and I'm damn sure not voting for adding $5 trillion to the national debt.

00:29:04.620 I just think that's outrageous.

00:29:06.700 And people are going to wake up, people who listen to your show are going to wake up in a couple of months from now

00:29:11.020 and say, my gosh, I thought we voted for something conservative.

00:29:14.140 I thought Doge was cutting all this spending, and yet they're still going to add $2 trillion to the debt this year.

00:29:19.420 Something's not right.

00:29:20.460 You know, Senator Paul, appreciate you being with us.

00:29:23.660 We've played for the audience some sound bites from years past when people like Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama,

00:29:32.020 and other very high-profile Democrats talked about stopping fraud, waste, and abuse in government spending,

00:29:39.280 reining in unnecessary spending.

00:29:41.620 So we know that they've said stuff like that.

00:29:44.020 But to where we are right now, it seems like everything that Doge tries to do in terms of recommendations to the president

00:29:52.320 and then everything that Trump tries to do to rein in that spending, Democrats oppose.

00:29:57.500 Are there any Democrats in the Senate who do want to cut spending?

00:30:00.760 In all honesty, is there anyone who actually wants to see that number go down for anything other than the military?

00:30:06.200 Zero. Nada.

00:30:09.360 No Democrat in the entire body of Congress will vote to cut even a dollar.

00:30:15.200 So I had an amendment last week that would have cut about, oh, $16 billion out of foreign aid.

00:30:22.360 Foreign aid is about $40 billion.

00:30:23.820 I would have cut $16 billion, so a little less than half.

00:30:26.460 And this was to represent what Doge was doing, what Elon Musk had proposed, what really Secretary Rubio has already said.

00:30:33.560 He's canceling these contracts.

00:30:35.320 I would just put it into law.

00:30:37.300 Zero Democrats voted for that.

00:30:39.480 But even worse, about half the Republicans voted against me as well.

00:30:43.980 I got a little over half of the Republicans with me, about half the Republicans against me.

00:30:48.340 And the reason I put it forward was to show that even low-hanging fruit, even $2 million for sex changes in Guatemala, $300,000 for food justice for queer and trans farmers, crazy stuff like that.

00:31:06.600 You can't even get all of the Republicans on board, but you get zero Democrats.

00:31:11.760 So we still have a problem, and I'm the lonely voice crying out on this because people are going to be disappointed, and they're going to be upset, and they're going to be saying, what happened?

00:31:24.480 What happened to the Republicans when the end of the year rolls around and there's still a $2 trillion deficit this year, and the Republicans are anticipating another $2 trillion the next year?

00:31:34.660 It just shows that there is not a true seriousness, even on the Republican side.

00:31:39.860 How much of this is the embedded cost of COVID becoming standardized in budgets going forward?

00:31:47.080 Because we had Senator Ron Johnson on, and he's talked about this quite a lot, that if we just went back to budget spending 2019, that we would have a balanced budget right now.

00:31:57.740 Now, I know inflation has risen since then, and there are other costs that continue to grow.

00:32:02.880 But it does seem that the growth of the federal government has now been embedded, which is what Democrats wanted, in all future budget bills, with the idea being anything that doesn't continue to grow those rates is considered to be a massive cut.

00:32:17.540 I think that's true during pandemic.

00:32:20.720 You know, the deficit went up to $3.5 trillion in a year.

00:32:23.980 The deficits have come down.

00:32:25.840 Yes, remember, Biden was bragging, he's bringing the deficit down.

00:32:29.020 Yeah, well, from $3.5 trillion to $2 trillion.

00:32:31.400 But a lot of that spending got embedded into government and still there.

00:32:35.120 But realize that those pandemic programs, all the free money that was passed out, all the checks that were passed out, that was all the Democrats and most of the Republicans.

00:32:46.000 That was a bipartisan screw-up, if you will, to lock the economy down and just print out money.

00:32:52.700 I opposed every bit of it, every bit of the CARES program, the PPP.

00:32:56.580 I said, you shouldn't lock us down.

00:32:57.920 We shouldn't do this.

00:32:59.300 And we did.

00:33:00.980 And that's part of it.

00:33:02.060 But part of it is this disconnect that people will say, oh, they love Elon Musk, they love the cuts, and they're not for, you know, transgender surgery in Guatemala.

00:33:11.960 They're not for all these crazy trans operas in Colombia. 1.00

00:33:15.080 But when push comes to shove, there are at least 10 or 15 Republicans in the Senate who love foreign aid.

00:33:21.380 They think it's the best thing since sliced bread.

00:33:24.060 I think it's one of the worst and most egregious of all the spending we have in Congress.

00:33:28.380 And yet, if they won't cut that, you then say, well, will you cut any of the entitlements?

00:33:34.680 Will you look at Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security or food stamps or welfare?

00:33:39.280 Oh, no, they're not looking at that either.

00:33:40.980 And you start to wonder, are these Republicans really conservative at this point?

00:33:45.340 And mind you, there are zero Democrats.

00:33:47.080 I admit that.

00:33:47.720 There are zero Democrats.

00:33:48.720 But we're trying to pass something this spring that will be only Republican votes, and yet we can't get Republican votes even to have the states pay more of their fair share.

00:34:00.000 So Medicaid, normally it's 50-50.

00:34:03.220 States pay 50.

00:34:04.260 Federal government pays 50.

00:34:05.760 But when they expanded Obamacare, they expanded Medicaid, and they made it 90 percent federal government paid for and 10 percent states.

00:34:13.340 If we just went back to 50-50, it saves half a trillion dollars for the federal government, and it makes it a more conservative program because the states traditionally have to balance their budgets.

00:34:23.720 They don't have a federal reserve.

00:34:25.780 And yet we've got five or 10 Republicans in the Senate that won't consider any changes to having the states pay more of their fair share for Medicaid.

00:34:34.680 We're speaking to Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.

00:34:37.580 Senator, is there anything that the Trump administration you think could do or you'd like to see them do, whether it's leading the charge to try to get something through involving the Congress or just in an executive capacity using executive orders to try to tackle some of these problems?

00:34:55.660 Because on the one hand, it's great that we have an administration that's trying, and, you know, you're trying.

00:35:01.860 But on the other hand, if this doesn't work with Trump and Elon, people like you in the Senate, what hope is there for it to get better in the future?

00:35:09.520 Yeah, so I don't blame the administration at all.

00:35:11.640 This is the best administration we've had in a lifetime.

00:35:14.380 He's picked the best cabinet.

00:35:16.120 They are action players.

00:35:17.940 They're not waiting around.

00:35:19.280 I was with Robert Kennedy for breakfast this morning.

00:35:21.460 He says he's counting 10 to 20,000 workers over there.

00:35:24.320 They're consolidating programs.

00:35:26.180 They are doing what you would do as a CEO to clean house.

00:35:29.300 So I don't blame the executive branch at all.

00:35:31.860 The one thing they could do, though, is as they're finding savings, Doge says they've saved $140-some-odd billion, they should send that money back to Congress.

00:35:41.900 It's called rescission.

00:35:43.240 It has a special name, but it can be voted on by a simple majority.

00:35:47.400 And some of them say, well, we're worried that four or five of the big government Republicans in the Senate won't vote for it.

00:35:54.360 That's when President Trump should use his political capital.

00:35:58.360 He should come to Capitol Hill and say, I'm sending you $50 billion in cuts.

00:36:03.540 Every month I'm going to send you another $50 billion in cuts, and I need you as Republicans to pull together on it.

00:36:09.460 But instead, the pressure is coming to me to say, why won't you vote for a spending bill that attaches $5 trillion in new borrowing?

00:36:18.880 And it's like, really?

00:36:20.020 It seems like we're at odd purposes here.

00:36:23.680 That on the one hand, you have Elon Musk and Doge cutting.

00:36:26.760 On the other hand, they're pressuring conservatives like me to vote for $5 trillion in borrowing.

00:36:31.100 Something doesn't fit here.

00:36:32.320 Did you see the New York Times over the weekend and 10 days ago or so, a five-year anniversary of COVID, I know you haven't forgotten about it,

00:36:40.960 said that we were misled by where COVID might have come from and in some of our responses.

00:36:47.840 Yeah, by the New York Times.

00:36:49.020 We were.

00:36:49.620 We were misled by the New York Times.

00:36:51.320 That's right.

00:36:53.060 I want to give you an opportunity to tee off on that because you were one of the first people to test positive for COVID.

00:36:59.420 And the way that you were treated, the way your family was treated, frankly, was unacceptable.

00:37:05.080 And now five years later, I do find it very interesting that the New York Times, like you said, comes out and says, oh, you know, we were misled.

00:37:12.740 It's like the arsonist saying, boy, somebody's really lighting fires around here.

00:37:16.180 Well, the next step, you know, to sort of come in clean would be to say not only were we misled, but we were misled by our government and by media establishment figures who parroted every move and word of Anthony Fauci.

00:37:30.900 He was wrong virtually on everything, six foot of distance.

00:37:34.340 He's now admitted doesn't work.

00:37:36.160 But actually, it was bad advice.

00:37:37.720 It was probably bad advice if you were older and overweight or of any kind of sickly nature to be 30 feet from somebody in a closed room during the height of the pandemic.

00:37:47.220 You probably should have been told to stay home.

00:37:49.480 But six feet of distance, you didn't need that for kids at all.

00:37:53.020 You can put them all together because guess what?

00:37:55.380 Kids got it very readily, but they got over it very readily.

00:37:58.880 So the idea that kids were a danger and somehow shouldn't be in school or should be six feet apart,

00:38:03.340 and we should build these monstrous thousand-acre schools so the kids could all be six feet apart. 0.94

00:38:08.640 No science behind it.

00:38:10.220 And it led to bad behavior in the form of adults who were at risk and then inappropriate separation and school closure on the other end.

00:38:18.260 The masks.

00:38:19.440 They told people wearing a cloth mask was a good idea.

00:38:22.340 So elderly people went in to feed their elderly spouse with a cloth mask on. 0.75

00:38:26.860 Guess what?

00:38:27.660 That's bad medical advice.

00:38:29.180 That's how you catch COVID.

00:38:30.520 The cloth masks don't work at all.

00:38:32.180 But they went years telling people inappropriate, unhealthy behavior.

00:38:36.820 And then the one thing they really failed on was once you got COVID, they should have reassured you that you didn't need a mask

00:38:43.820 and you didn't have to worry about catching it again and that the chances of you dying were basically zero.

00:38:49.840 After you've got it and recovered, the chance of getting it again and dying are virtually zero.

00:38:55.300 And there were a lot of good, hardworking people, people working in meatpacking factories where they all got COVID early on.

00:39:01.620 Instead of bundling them up in all this hot clothing, we should have been saying the good news is when you come back from work,

00:39:08.200 when you're fueled up in a week or two, guess what?

00:39:10.600 You're not going to get it again and you don't have to wear all this BS protective gear.

00:39:14.500 Is there anything that can be done or you think will be done?

00:39:18.720 You said you just had breakfast this morning with RFK Jr.

00:39:22.460 He was running HHS.

00:39:24.180 I worry, Doc, that, well, you are Doc as well as a senator.

00:39:27.780 But I worry that the doctors out there and the medical establishment has not been forced to finally admit that they were wrong.

00:39:38.640 And as a matter of government administrative policy, have these things changed?

00:39:44.440 I mean, it should now be, to me at least, HHS should have officially, hey, guys, we looked at all the data.

00:39:49.760 Masks don't work.

00:39:50.580 This is on the HHS website, just so you know.

00:39:53.120 Is that coming?

00:39:53.760 You know, that's a good point, and I'm going to keep fighting that battle as well.

00:39:58.820 But the other way to correct it is, is like all the soldiers that were fired, they are giving them, you know,

00:40:04.660 the Trump administration's position now, and I think it was done by executive orders, to let them get their jobs back.

00:40:09.860 We should do that to the doctors and nurses that were fired as well.

00:40:13.260 So think about it.

00:40:14.520 The doctors and nurses, if you were a doctor working in February, March of 2020, it was a pretty potent disease then,

00:40:21.300 and there were doctors who died.

00:40:22.900 But if you risked your life to help people, you got COVID, you survived, and you came back to work,

00:40:28.560 and then they said, oh, you're fired because you don't have a vaccine, and you're like, well, wait a minute,

00:40:31.800 I got the disease.

00:40:33.040 Why would I need to get vaccinated if I already got the disease?

00:40:35.960 And you used common sense on them, and they fired you.

00:40:38.840 Those people ought to be reinstated.

00:40:40.600 There are still thousands of doctors and nurses.

00:40:43.220 Now, in some states, they tried to fix some of this.

00:40:46.680 In Florida, they passed a law that said you cannot take a doctor's license for speech.

00:40:52.900 Now, that would seem to be pretty obvious, but many states, including California, were saying,

00:40:58.760 if you were to say things that I said often, that children don't need to be vaccinated for COVID,

00:41:04.580 they would say, oh, you can't say that, and they would try to take my license away.

00:41:08.960 Nobody did.

00:41:09.800 But in California, they did to other doctors who were saying similar things.

00:41:13.820 There's a lot of things that need to be corrected.

00:41:15.680 I think we've learned some lessons, but I fear, one, we're still paying for research that could turn into this nightmare again,

00:41:22.880 gain-of-function research still happening in the U.S. and outside the U.S., funded by taxpayers.

00:41:29.040 I'm still working on getting that stopped.

00:41:31.620 But also, we need to make sure that the essence of medical freedom exists in our country

00:41:37.900 and that people are allowed to make choices for themselves and not be bullied.

00:41:42.240 Senator Paul, always appreciate you making the time for us.

00:41:44.420 Thank you.

00:41:45.480 Thanks, guys.

00:41:47.600 Look, we were just talking about the debt.

00:41:49.580 I mean, Trump's doing everything that he can.

00:41:51.380 Senator Paul just said it.

00:41:52.260 They're doing everything he can to get this thing under control,

00:41:54.380 start turning things back in the direction of fiscal sanity.

00:41:57.860 But it's going to take time.

00:41:58.960 It's not going to be solved overnight.

00:42:00.340 And there's going to be some rough seas ahead, if you know what I mean.

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00:43:03.820 News and politics, but also a little comic relief.

00:43:07.720 Clay Travis and Buck Sexton.

00:43:10.000 Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:43:14.900 Canadian women are looking for more. 1.00

00:43:16.960 More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.

00:43:21.140 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:43:24.260 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:43:26.080 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:43:27.360 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

00:43:31.060 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers.

00:43:34.600 All at different stages of their journey.

00:43:36.800 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:43:40.020 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:43:45.520 Welcome back in.

00:43:46.780 Clay Travis, Buck Sexton Show.

00:43:48.740 Appreciate all of you hanging out with us.

00:43:51.440 We had some, by the way, a lot of you want to weigh in.

00:43:53.380 You can always weigh in on the talkback.

00:43:55.780 We'll play some of those.

00:43:56.800 We'll also take some of your calls.

00:43:58.260 800-282-2882 with the things that we were already talking about.

00:44:01.900 But, Buck, I wanted to come back because we talked about the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott,

00:44:09.340 being insulted with the governor Hot Wheels line.

00:44:14.120 And we said, hey, I loved your idea.

00:44:17.320 Put some, like, flames on the wheels.

00:44:19.460 Like I said, wear a governor Hot Wheels t-shirt.

00:44:21.920 I don't like, personally, the idea.

00:44:25.140 And I think you're in my camp here, too, Buck.

00:44:27.360 When people say mean things to you, I think pretending to be offended by people saying mean things is actually a weak look.

00:44:35.160 I don't think it looks good for Republicans to be like, oh, so-and-so said something mean about me.

00:44:41.960 And that's what Democrats do. 0.99

00:44:44.180 And I don't think we should play into that game, right?

00:44:46.380 The word policing, the, my feelings are hurt.

00:44:49.740 I think mockery and ridicule and humor is the way to handle things like this.

00:44:54.940 Yes.

00:44:55.260 And sometimes even mockery can be quite helpful.

00:44:57.500 Like when one of you told me that I was starting to look like Mrs. Doubtfire and wasn't handsome anymore,

00:45:01.800 I decided it was time to lose some weight.

00:45:06.760 Wow.

00:45:07.280 That's a tough hit, Mrs. Doubtfire.

00:45:10.120 I mean, oh, hello.

00:45:12.440 Yes.

00:45:12.720 Wow.

00:45:13.260 Well, now, see, there you go.

00:45:14.620 Sometimes mockery and ridicule can lead to good results.

00:45:18.700 And honestly.

00:45:19.900 Now, thanks to that mean person, I'll be grating Parmesan on my abs before long.

00:45:24.240 So there we go.

00:45:25.380 So there you go.

00:45:25.920 You insult Buck and now you've got him back in shape.

00:45:28.040 And sometimes that is the motivation, right?

00:45:30.740 Like sometimes people saying mean things to you can lead to a better result.

00:45:34.940 This is part of why, you know, tough love in athletic teams sometimes leads to better performance.

00:45:42.520 This clearly does not apply to people with lifelong disabilities, though.

00:45:45.280 So, yes, you should not be making jokes about Governor Greg Abbott.

00:45:49.120 But Greg Abbott has the opportunity to really kind of lean into this in a funny way.

00:45:54.320 And you know what?

00:45:54.940 Jasmine Crockett could have come out and said, hey, I'm going to say, that's what I would have said.

00:45:59.860 Hey, I'm going to say sometimes jokes you may not like.

00:46:03.160 That's life.

00:46:03.880 If you don't like it, don't have to vote for me.

00:46:05.740 But I think my constituents are probably still going to keep voting for me.

00:46:08.820 And they understand that I'm not going to be perfect.

00:46:10.740 But my goal is to fight for them.

00:46:12.780 Like there's easy ways to handle this.

00:46:14.320 Again, I can just off the cuff give what the answer should be.

00:46:17.660 Trump certainly has levied his fair share of insults over the years.

00:46:22.820 And so I think when Republicans like try to be offended by things that people say, I just personally think it's a poor look.

00:46:29.640 Okay, with that in mind, Jasmine Crockett tried to say, she didn't say, hey, I'm going to make jokes.

00:46:35.760 Sometimes they're going to land inappropriately.

00:46:37.540 That's life.

00:46:38.160 Deal with it.

00:46:38.680 We're all adults.

00:46:39.720 Kind of what I would say.

00:46:40.740 She said, oh, I wasn't referring to the governor being in a wheelchair when I called him Governor Hot Wheels.

00:46:50.060 But she has been calling him Governor Hot Wheels for some time now.

00:46:54.400 People went back.

00:46:55.520 She's done it on Facebook posts.

00:46:57.180 She's done it on all sorts of different places.

00:47:00.260 She tried to say, oh, this is about the deportation policies.

00:47:03.460 She's been doing this for years.

00:47:05.100 She's making fun of him because he's in a wheelchair and calling him Governor Hot Wheels.

00:47:09.080 Here she is in yet another conversation.

00:47:11.660 I think this is a couple years ago.

00:47:12.980 Listen.

00:47:13.440 So the governor called a special session to get his voter suppression bills through.

00:47:17.320 And this is Hot Wheels.

00:47:18.140 She did this.

00:47:18.680 Yes, Hot Wheels did this. 0.55

00:47:20.420 Hot Wheels.

00:47:21.600 I mean, I'm sorry.

00:47:24.300 That is her that she is mocking him because he's in a wheelchair.

00:47:27.440 Now, trying to argue and say, oh, I like this is just a reference to the fact that buses have wheels and we're putting people on buses and say, no, you've been doing this for years.

00:47:40.440 You've been making fun of the governor because he's in a wheelchair.

00:47:43.660 And maybe this is a term that is used in Democrat circles beyond Jasmine Crockett.

00:47:49.400 Maybe it's something that's talked about privately, not usually said publicly.

00:47:53.300 But I do think it's important to call people out, not necessarily for what they say, although that's important.

00:48:01.640 But when you blatantly lie about what you said and try to gaslight us and convince us that what you said wasn't what you actually said, it actually is worse.

00:48:11.900 Like, I think you said this yesterday, doubling down and trying to make up an excuse on this to me is worse than just being like, hey, it's a joke name I have for him.

00:48:20.160 I don't like his policies and you could not like it.

00:48:23.660 I mean, I could easily come up with a reason why she could why she could explain this.

00:48:28.700 This this goes along with a much broader trend in the Democrat Party, which is it's one thing when they lie to us.

00:48:36.520 It's another thing when they lie to people that they're trying to fool.

00:48:41.100 But when they lie to their own side, like to their base.

00:48:44.940 Right.

00:48:45.120 So there's lying to Republicans.

00:48:46.820 That's, of course, what they do every day.

00:48:48.200 There's lying to swing voters.

00:48:50.360 That's called every election cycle for Democrats for all of my lifetime.

00:48:55.340 And then there's lying to like the MSNBC watchers.

00:48:58.800 Right.

00:48:59.820 Biden doesn't have dementia, for example.

00:49:02.480 Yes. 1.00

00:49:02.820 They made them look foolish. 0.99

00:49:04.240 They made their own people look like they're they're easy to to mislead and that they're buffoons, basically, that they will not forgive so easily when you say something like this. 0.99

00:49:16.140 And it's so easily provable that you are lying.

00:49:19.900 It it's it insults the intelligence of your own audience is basically what I'm what I'm getting at.

00:49:25.560 It insults the intelligence of the people that you're supposed to be on the team with.

00:49:30.120 And so that's why this is not this is not a win for Congresswoman Crockett, other than her name is getting out there a whole lot.

00:49:37.780 And her name, unfortunately, conflicts with America's greatest coffee company, which we're going to have to keep on trying to just deal with.

00:49:45.720 You know what I mean? 0.94

00:49:46.160 Unfortunate that the Crockett in Texas would end up being a crazy woman as opposed to a badass sort of legacy. 1.00

00:49:53.460 Imagine if she was really like a imagine if she was like a great, you know, patriot, a conservative, a constitutional. 0.73

00:50:00.120 And was like a rising star in the Republican Party.

00:50:03.180 We'd be sending her Crockett sweatshirts.

00:50:05.500 It'd be fantastic.

00:50:06.540 But totally true.

00:50:07.780 Unfortunately, that's not where we are.

00:50:11.260 You I do.

00:50:12.920 I do hope.

00:50:14.320 Let me just implore upon this, because I know there are a lot of congressmen, senators, their staff, the White House people who listen.

00:50:21.560 Please don't fall into the trap of trying to be offended by things that people say.

00:50:29.240 And I would encourage all of you out there listening to us, too.

00:50:33.120 Please do not fall into this circular firing squad.

00:50:37.040 I think we're and I think you would agree with me on this, Buck.

00:50:39.560 I think we're moving out of the era of somebody sent a tweet or a Facebook post or an Instagram post or whatever it is.

00:50:47.920 And they can never be employed ever again because, oh, my goodness.

00:50:52.580 Can you believe what that one post said?

00:50:55.100 Whether you work at Lowe's department stores or whether you work at McDonald's or whether you work in a congressional office or you're doing something like what Buck and I do.

00:51:05.040 The idea of, hey, somebody screwed something up and therefore they should never be able to be employed again because they have an opinion that's considered to be unacceptable.

00:51:15.780 I just I fundamentally reject that on all levels.

00:51:18.340 So I don't want in this era for Republicans to start to adopt the Democrat policies of, oh, somebody said something mean.

00:51:28.660 Mock, ridicule, satirize, use humor to point out how absurd they are and what they said.

00:51:36.840 But please do not try and play the victim card.

00:51:40.020 I'm so sick of the victim card and I'm afraid because I see it a little bit.

00:51:45.200 I see it a little bit now kind of starting to pop up as Republicans have more cultural ascendancy where you're saying, oh, somebody said something mean about me and they should not be able to have a job anymore.

00:51:56.440 I don't want us to go down that path.

00:51:59.260 Does that make sense?

00:51:59.960 Like, I'm afraid when you have a little bit more power, you start trying to play it.

00:52:04.400 I've seen it start to happen just occasionally on social media with somebody says something and it's like anyway, it's it's it's easy to get that sugar high of, hey, somebody said something mean about me.

00:52:18.720 And like, I'm a victim, resist it, attack it, have fun with it, attack the idea.

00:52:24.580 But don't I don't want cancel culture to emerge on the Republican side of the equation, if that makes sense.

00:52:31.960 Yeah.

00:52:32.940 Yeah.

00:52:33.380 Well, I don't think it will, because I think that cancel culture is inherently a, you know, for guys, it's very, very beta male activity.

00:52:42.220 It's very, it's very, as I said before, very low T, very, what are you doing with yourself here?

00:52:47.620 You know, don't be don't be such a little girl.

00:52:49.900 So, yeah, I think that there's less likelihood that our our team is going to start going down the cancel culture path.

00:52:56.380 And it's been it's been a wild ride.

00:52:58.700 I will say that because in media there has been there was a period of time where they were going after people like me, like Clay in a big way.

00:53:06.700 Well, look at what Rush went through.

00:53:08.680 I mean, they basically tried to pull every advertiser off this show, you know, six, seven years ago, as many of you listening know.

00:53:15.640 But there were they went that they were smart in the way that they went after advertisers.

00:53:20.720 And they found out that a lot of advertisers are very cowardly.

00:53:24.400 And if they even have this astro turfed fake campaign, it was over a decade ago was what you're talking about.

00:53:30.360 Just it was a long.

00:53:30.980 Yeah, it was a long time ago.

00:53:32.120 But but it is emblematic.

00:53:34.160 Like, that's really kind of when they started to hit their stride and it picked up for years and years and years.

00:53:38.760 And they really managed to do a good job of trying to terrify advertisers and make them think that these kind of responses were real.

00:53:47.340 Look, there were a number of people on our side of of the political aisle who were big, big names, big voices, and they did not bend the knee.

00:53:58.580 And we should always rush.

00:54:00.000 Obviously, it was, you know, they wanted to take rush down for so many years.

00:54:03.500 And the fact that he just kept on showing up and being the voice and the leader that he was in this country and that they couldn't stop him was so important.

00:54:13.380 Right.

00:54:13.820 He was he was like the bulldozer running through all the barbed wire of the communists.

00:54:20.380 I mean, he just would not.

00:54:21.760 And they tried everything they could.

00:54:23.020 But there are there were others also.

00:54:24.640 They tried to cancel.

00:54:25.380 I remember they went after.

00:54:26.340 Remember, they went after Tucker early on when he was at Fox and no, but early on when he was at Fox and a big he had gone on some different radio shows.

00:54:35.960 Oh, then I'll never found jokes that he had made years ago.

00:54:38.980 And they were.

00:54:39.280 Yeah.

00:54:39.360 He was on kind of a kind of a bawdy radio show, if I may say so.

00:54:44.260 It was a bit bawdy and, you know, a little a little bit on the salty side.

00:54:48.420 And he he went on and instead of, you know, going on his show on Fox and this was early and they were so they were hoping to just tear him down so quickly.

00:54:58.320 He was like, yeah, I see some people found that I said some naughty words a long time ago.

00:55:03.080 Good luck with that.

00:55:04.120 You know, just totally was like not happening.

00:55:06.520 And because he took that position, I actually remember I was texting with him when he did that and I was like, I know that that's who you are.

00:55:13.260 And so you didn't do it for this reason, but you actually just did all the rest of us a favor because by you refusing to bend the knee, it means that the rest of us coming up in the ranks behind you can also do the same.

00:55:26.060 I 100 percent agree with that.

00:55:27.980 And I would just point out that I think it actually ties in a bit with the signal controversy that came out this week.

00:55:34.100 I think Trump has decided I am not going to give an inch to any of my critics and ever fire anybody by and large because they're coming completely without good faith.

00:55:48.060 And they believe that if they can get one scalp that they it's not like they're ever going to be satisfied.

00:55:53.380 Right.

00:55:53.880 Let's say that Trump suddenly said, hey, this is unacceptable.

00:55:56.960 I'm firing X.

00:55:58.400 It's not like they're going to say, well, we'll go easy on Trump when Y happens because he did X.

00:56:04.300 Right.

00:56:04.500 They they don't have a good faith obligation.

00:56:07.100 They're not trying to solve things here.

00:56:09.300 So I've been doing this now.

00:56:10.340 This is pretty astonishing when I say this out loud.

00:56:13.360 I've been doing this now for this will be 15 years, which is which is great, especially for those who think I look like I'm still in college.

00:56:21.220 I've been doing this for 15 years and at the beginning, Clay, I remember there was the there was the in this cancel culture world.

00:56:29.520 It was the apology tour thing.

00:56:31.660 Yeah.

00:56:32.280 Right.

00:56:32.640 Which I actually think in some ways is the worst.

00:56:34.480 We have to go like, I am so sorry that I used the word or that I said the thing.

00:56:39.440 And you go on like these kind of schmaltzy daytime talk shows.

00:56:43.400 They're just like, oh, are you really like a changed person?

00:56:45.880 I've learned different actors.

00:56:47.780 I've learned incredibly just like and then you make the you make the requisite.

00:56:53.340 You know, I've become a better person.

00:56:54.660 And also I'm making a donation to some foundation that, you know, is is all about whatever the issue, whoever you offended, you made the donation.

00:57:02.640 But then it changed and it really changed.

00:57:05.800 I would say me like by the end of Obama term one, in my mind, at least.

00:57:11.480 And it started it started to turn into you have to apologize.

00:57:15.220 You just said that.

00:57:16.340 And then it was, well, now we're going to take your career like now.

00:57:20.320 You have that's right.

00:57:20.880 Even when you apologize, we take your head.

00:57:23.040 You're fired.

00:57:23.600 You're done.

00:57:24.340 You know, and now we finally broken out of that where it's no, don't bend the knee.

00:57:28.500 If you bend the knee, they take your head.

00:57:29.920 So it's been a it's been a wild ride, like I said.

00:57:33.600 But I think we're starting to win and we're starting to win every day in big ways.

00:57:38.440 And we want you to get a little smarter.

00:57:40.660 In the meantime, I want to get a little smarter, trying to read as much as I can, try to be as formed as I possibly can, try to learn as often as I can.

00:57:48.220 And that's what Hillsdale College trying to do from the Civil War.

00:57:52.080 You guys know that I am a Civil War history nerd.

00:57:54.460 How about how did the American free market economy get started?

00:57:57.940 What happened in World War One, World War Two?

00:58:00.700 What about the Constitution itself?

00:58:02.580 What is the foundational elements of the Constitution?

00:58:04.760 You should know about from a historical perspective.

00:58:07.820 Professors at Hillsdale College will read the lead these online courses with television production value that will teach you an awful lot.

00:58:15.980 Maybe your grandkids might like this, but certainly you and your free time, no schedule, no having to wake up for a particular class, no grades, just learning for learning's sake.

00:58:28.800 There are nearly 40 of these.

00:58:30.600 You can find something that you will love.

00:58:32.540 Trust me.

00:58:32.900 Go check out the library.

00:58:34.760 Clay and Buck for Hillsdale dot com.

00:58:36.980 No cost.

00:58:37.760 Easy to get started.

00:58:39.280 That's Clay and Buck, F-O-R Hillsdale dot com to register.

00:58:43.280 One more time.

00:58:44.720 Clay and Buck for Hillsdale dot com.

00:58:48.180 Sometimes all you can do is laugh and they do a lot of it with the Sunday hang.

00:58:54.380 Join Clay and Buck as they laugh it up in the Clay and Buck podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - March 27, 2025

BONUS： Daily Review with Clay Travis and Buck Sexton - Mar 27 2025

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