Daily Review with Clay and Buck - Sep 16 2023

Clay: If I were Hunter's lawyer. Buck: The WSJ got played. Avik Roy: Affordable healthcare isn't affordable. Political double standards.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to today's edition of the Clay Travis and Buck
Sexton Show podcast. Welcome everybody, it is Monday. It is
time for Clay and Buck all across the land. Thanks
for being here with us. We've got, as always as
the case on Monday, because it all comes together from
over the weekend, a lot to discuss. We've got Trump

(00:22):
on Meets the Press with its new host Kristen Welker.
We've got Speaker McCarthy proceeding with the impeachment inquiry without
much pushback from Republican stories on that over the weekend,
so it looks like so far unity on the impeachment inquiry.

(00:42):
Numbers from the Border, Customs and Border Patrol telling Fox
News how many thousands of encounters. I'm not going to
tell you the number now you've got to stay with us,
but just think in your head, how many in one weekend,
how many people entered into America at our southern border illegally.
So that's certainly something we will dive into. A lot

(01:02):
of stuff from the Trump Meet the Press interview, some
of which we'll dive into here outlining his Trump's positions
on Ukraine, on abortion on I obviously talked about the
trials January sixth. Stuff, a lot of things, so I'll
have some time for that in a little bit. But
first up, one thing that we've been processing here on

(01:27):
the show is the new reality that Hunter Biden is
facing three felony indictments related to a gun charge. This
news broke last week. Clay, I actually managed to do
a backflip while still seated in his chair. I didn't
even know what was possible. But when the news broke,
he had been calling it for a long time, this

(01:48):
could happen. So we're going to see if it turns
into a reality that Hunter Biden could face prison time.
In the meantime, I still think there are a lot
of ways they're going to try to make this go away.
But the crazy world we live in now we've got
I mean, it's crazy enough, Clay that Trump is facing
four indictments when you add to this though, that the
president's son is facing a multiple count indictment. So Trump

(02:11):
is facing four different criminal trials and also a civil
trial and whatever else they're going to throw at him.
Hunter Biden facing three felony charges in one indictment around
the gun charge. The son of the sitting president we
got a lot of things to dive into. This was
a strategy that I'm not sure that many people saw coming,

(02:32):
and it was Hunter Biden over the weekend. This just broke.
Has sued the IRS for allegedly breaching his privacy. He
says that the whistleblowers is twenty seven page lawsuit Clay
Hunter Biden's lawyers say that a couple of IRS agents,

(02:53):
the whistleblower Shapley and Zieglert, have created problems for hunters privacy,
effectively putting the trying to put the whistleblowers on the
hot seat in this instance. What do you take from this?
What do you make of this strategy? Is it something
that might work?

Speaker 2 (03:12):
It's incredibly brazen and reckless. And if we had an
honest Department of Justice, immediately they would file felony charges
against Hunter Biden for income tax evasion.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
I I just want everybody out there to think about
what's going on.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Hunter Biden is not saying, hey, these these releases are inaccurate,
because remember he hasn't paid millions of dollars that he
owed that we know of for sure in back taxes.
Buck he tried to write off hookers on his tax returns.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Right off hookers.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
And the only reason why he didn't get away with
this sweetheart deal was because the House was won by Republicans.
And these two IRS agents step forward and told us
exactly how rig the investigation was into Hunter Biden. So
I think this is an incredibly reckless legal strategy. At
a minimum, buck it would require that Hunter Biden testify

(04:11):
under oath and be aggressively deposed. This is a civil suit,
but anything that he said in a civil suit would
potentially open him up to criminal liability for what he
said under oath. So I just maybe there's a lawyer
out there that has been involved in cases like these
that could even point out what the legal strategy could be.

(04:35):
Because but as soon as I saw this this morning,
I started reading about it, and it just seems like
a reckless, indefensibly dumb legal strategy because I don't even
know what his defense is. I think that this is
part of I mean, clearly, it's a muddy the Waters thing,
that's the obvious, and I'm not sure how effective that is,

(04:56):
but I think it's part of a broader attempt here
to turn all of the Biden crime family allegation stuff
into the opposite end of the playing field, if you will,
like the opposite team from all the stuff up against
Donald Trump. In essence, Hunter's team is trying to say,

(05:19):
this is all political too, This is a hit job.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Just like the stuff against Trump they say is a
hit job. This is a hit job. They want to
elevate the Biden crime family stuff to the same level
of politicization that the Trump stuff is. Right, this is
I'm saying, this is I think their goal. So that
then that gives Democrats the ability to say, you know,

(05:42):
the Republic is at stake. They would have left Hunter
alone if it wasn't for the politics of this, and
Donald Trump is the real threat. You know what I
mean to dismiss because legally he's guilty, right, Like, from
a statutory perspective, Hunter Biden's a criminal, full stop. We
all know it. Yeah, the only defense they're gonna run
with is is, oh, this is politicized too, just like

(06:03):
the Trump stuff. Now, the Trump stuff is obviously very political,
as whether there's four crazy indictments, the Hunter stuff, they
should have prosecuted this guy years and years ago, that's
what's political. Yeah, well, so what's weird about this to me? Buck?

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Is they're not even arguing like Trump is arguing, I
didn't commit these crimes. Right, Trump said, I didn't mishandle
the documents. Trump said I didn't do anything illegal. On
January sixth, Trump said, and again I'm just paraphrasing. In
New York City, this is a misdemeanor at worst, I
wasn't involved. I'm not criminally culpable. And in Atlanta he's

(06:38):
saying I didn't do anything wrong. What's interesting about this
is Hunter Biden's lawsuit implicitly is acknowledging that he did
everything wrong because basically what he's trying to sue for
is invasion of privacy. But in order for your privacy
to be invaded, at least so far by what I
have seen, he is saying that accurate information has been

(07:01):
released about him into the general public. So the laptop,
the failure to pay taxes, the gun charges, all these
things that have been written about are in fact true.
So the difference is to me, yes, I can see
the political angle. But the political angle for Trump is
this is all politics. I didn't commit any crime. What
Hunter Biden is saying is, okay, this is all politics.

(07:25):
My privacy was invaded well, which I remember a pretty
substantial distinction I would see there.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
The pitch is not to convince a single Republican in
the country that Hunter Biden is not guilty of these things.
It's to create a narrative that Democrats can use to
blunt the effectiveness of the truth coming out about Hunter
and the crime family. Right, So this is just it's
like a fallback. This is the talking point. And so

(07:54):
to what you're saying, Yeah, Trump is saying I didn't
do anything wrong, I did nothing criminal. The Hunter team
is going to say, and this is you notice they've
already said this, Oh, Hunter's gotten such harsh treatment. Whenever
one looks at this and says that's that's absolutely absurd,
They're going to try to bring some of I'm just
trying to see what they're doing here and look at
it for some level of strategy. It's I think it's flailing,

(08:15):
but I I'm trying to see what their you know,
what their motive is, what their their action is based on.
And I think it's that they can say that this
would have never this would have been dealt with, you know,
in an easy fashion, and you know he's being treated
poorly because of the politics involved Republicans and the whistleblowers,

(08:37):
and it's a it's crap, but it is the line, right.
I mean, you gotta remember they went with Russia collusion
play for four years, so we can't assume that their
defense or their talking points will be reality based.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
That's not I'm actually that's what I'm surprised by. I guess, Buck,
is they're not as they're not as aggressive in the
defense as I would think they would be if they
were defending.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Because here's what I would say if I Hunter Biden's lawyer.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Right, I've represented convicted murderers, I've represented drug dealers, I've
represented reprobates.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
Okay, so did the murderous get off? You always tell
me about this, but you never tell me did you
get the murderer of Oh no, so far as I know,
I believe he's still in jail. But but.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Why would the defense not be to build on what
you're saying, Buck, My client didn't do anything wrong. Like
if I were advising Hunter Biden and I were his lawyer,
my defense would be my client did nothing wrong. The
only reason why he's being investigated is because his dad's
a president of the United States, and the only reason
we agreed to a plea agreement at all was because

(09:38):
we wanted to take this distraction away from my father's
re election campaign in twenty twenty four. That would be
my defense. Now I think it's bs right, but that's
what I would defend him. That's far more effective.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
I think that they're suing the irs is a part
is trying They're trying to create the paper trail, so
to speak, to make a case that this is being
you know, this is all a big political circus. Now
it's it's become a function of you know, trying to
get political back and forth, going here a you know

(10:12):
you did to me, I will do to you situation.
I don't know how well it's really going to work,
but remember Democrats will all go, They'll all they're signed on.
I think the Democrat media is largely signed on the
fact that you have people who make a living thinking
and speaking on television saying that Hunter Biden is only
being prosecuted because of who his dad is. I mean,

(10:34):
Hunter Biden clearly broke the law, as much as we
can know anyone before they're actually convicted in a court
of law, broke the law. I mean effectively, the conduct
is clear it some of it's on video, right, what
else is there? I know we have a presumption of innocence,
and it is an important principle. I think it gets
lost a lot. But the presumption of innocence in the
case of Hunter Biden is you know, you're really standing

(10:58):
on a formality with that one.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, I guess I'm looking at it again. I always
try to think about it. If I were representing this guy,
like take away the politics everything else. The last thing
I want to do, Buck is put him in any
situation where he ever might have to testify under oath,
because that would create the largest possible criminal culpability for him.
When you are voluntarily suing you are and they're suing

(11:22):
the irs. If this case were to proceed, then it
would lead to Hunter Biden being directly under oath deposed
about every single detail of his tax return.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
To the point that we always make about the processes
here and the machinery of the I'm assuing the irs.
This this is not going to the front of the line, buddy,
you know what I mean? This is good, I get it.
So it's just this creates This is for the media
to have something to chew on. This is not for
the actual defense of Hunter via a lawsuit against whistleblowers

(11:53):
that's going nowhere.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Anger is not a legal strategy When I see this, Buck,
this looks like a as a legal strategy. Hunter is
angry because he didn't get his plea deal. Hunter is
angry because he's now got an indictment against him. And
when your client is angry, and every lawyer out there
can talk about this, when you have an angry client,
you have an irrational client that often requests that you

(12:16):
do things that do not make sense. I think this
is coming from Hunter, Biden Buck. I think he's behaving irrationally,
and he's acting out in an angry fashion, and I
think he is exposing himself. Ironically enough, given the phrase
given him what he's already exposed, I think he's exposing
himself legally in a far more severe fashion than he understands.

(12:37):
And sometimes sometimes clients make you do things that are
stupid because they're the client and you are the attorney.
I think this is driven by Hunter.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
Well, he is going through his lawyers. Trump over the
weekend was speaking about ongoing indictments against him in specificity
without his lawyer President, without his lawyers say so, he doesn't.
He doesn't give it a trump about the whole situation.
He's just going for it. So I'm curious when we
come back, you tell me what do you think about this?

(13:10):
He is saying, uh, yeah, He's saying a lot of
stuff again, a lot of stuff on the TV for
the trials.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
A lot of lawyers out there listening say I love
the practice of law, except for the clients. I think
that's probably what Donald Trump's criminal defense attorneys are saying
right now. And to be fair to Trump and to
be fair to Hunter, they're really engaged in a unique
spot where they have to be both politically and legally
fighting simultaneously, and sometimes that can lead you in divergent paths.

(13:41):
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Speaker 1 (14:33):
Don't miss a day of the Clay Travis and Buck
Sexton Show.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Well Good Now number two Monday edition in Clay Travis
Buck Sexton Show. We hope all of you had fantastic weekends.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
And I had.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
Two birthday parties to celebrate. Both of them went well.
So I now have a nine year old and a
thirteen year old in addition to the fifteen year old.
So happy birthday to Lincoln and Nash. We had a
good time, went watched football game, ran around, had a
lot of pizza, a lot of cake as one would imagine,
and that was a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
Buck.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
I know you continue to be deep in the weeds
of writing your book, which is not as much fun.
But this morning I'm reading the Monday edition to Wall
Street Journal, and I think this is important because we've
been talking about for those of you missed the first hour,
Hunter Biden suing the irs. By the way, we're going

(15:27):
to be joined by Ovic Roy at one point thirty.
He's fantastic, So you can put that on the horizon.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
And Buck.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
I saw this story and it reminded me of a
front page New York Times story that ran I think
back in like March or April, and that story front
page I believe it was a Sunday edition in New
York Times, made it known that Joe Biden was unhappy
with the progress of Merrick Garland and his Department of

(15:57):
Justice as it pertained to investigations of Donald Trump. And
shortly thereafter there was the appointment of Jack Smith as
the Special counsel and then boom, boom boom, suddenly you
get federal charges in both South Florida and in and
in DC.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
And that was not coincidental. It was Joe Biden.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Speaking through the media to his Attorney general in a
way that he could not miss it. Today headline on
the front page, well, the fourth page of the Wall
Street Journal probe's ad strain between President and Attorney General.
And I thought this was really interesting, Buck, because I

(16:42):
remember we were talking about last week. I wonder what
the relationship now was like between Merrick Garland and Joe Biden.
And the opening paragraph here says, the already frosty relationship
between President Biden and his Attorney General Merrick Garland is
now in a deep freeze. That's the opening paragraph of

(17:04):
their piece. Respect and admiration among White House aids for
Garland has shifted for some into resignation and distrust. They
point to Garland having appointed not just a special counsel
to investigate Trump, but two others as well, one looking
into Biden and another into Hunter. Some Biden aides have

(17:29):
said they see Garland's handling of the inquiries as driven
less by dispassionate pursuit of justice than by a punctilius
desire to give the appearance that sensitive investigations are walled
off from political pressure, people familiar with the matter say
these aids. Then Buck point out that they're upset that

(17:53):
the Biden classified documents investigation has not occurred, and then
buried down here at the end is adding to the
fraud relationship between the Justice Department and the White House.
Special Counsel Robert Her remember him, Buck. We haven't heard
about Special Counsel Robert Her since he was appointed. That
is the guy who's looking into the Biden classified doubt.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
Biden was a total non event.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
But he's been negotiating with Biden's lawyers, according to this
story for weeks over an interview with the President, and
they are unhappy about how those negotiations have gone. All right,
So do you buy into this idea that the way

(18:37):
that Biden chooses to speak about Merrick Garland is actually
through the media. He knows everybody's going to read this
and that this is designed to put pressure on Merrick
Garland and basically say the White House is upset with you.
Do you think this is? You don't buy this? So
what do you think? What's the what's the impetus behind

(18:57):
this article?

Speaker 1 (18:58):
In your mind? Then in my mind is and maybe
I might be giving Democrats too much credit here, but
I think this is meant to give the impression that
Biden so upset that this super tough DOJ is going
after his son and that it's out of his hands now,

(19:20):
and I think the fix is still in. I think
that the fix has been in all along here. It's
just Hunter is such a screw up. I mean, Hunter
is such a walking felony that it's become more challenging.
And the House Republicans have played a major role in this. Remember,
if the laptop isn't left right before or the laptop

(19:40):
story is just they doesn't come out right before the election,
if the laptop isn't left at that repair shop, none
of us ever really comes out right. Yeah, none of
us ever becomes a thing, correct. So this is like,
you know when I point this out people, I mean,
if I remember correctly, with Hillary Clinton, there was something
in the the Benghazi emails, the Bengazi hearings they I saw,
and then this is how they figured out that Hillary

(20:02):
had some So as reckless as Hillary's email scheme was,
she almost got away with it. Right now, I sound
like the guy at the end of the Scooby Doo cartoon,
like it wasn't for you, gosh darn kids, I would
have gotten away with it, But she almost got away
with it entirely scot free. The whole scam which was
just meant to make sure that she had control overall
communications couldn't be foid because of all the corruption that

(20:23):
the Clinton Foundation, it was a pay for play scheme
was engaged in and with Hunter, I think he almost
got away with it. So bringing this back to you're
asking me what I think is going on here, Merrick
Garland appointed somebody who's not even legitimate within DOJ's own
regulations to be the special counsel to Hunter Biden, who's
a Hunter Biden partisan basically, who had been running the

(20:45):
scam investigation beforehand, and Merrick Garland has effectively bent over
backwards to have the appearance of propriety for the purposes
of all things Hunter Biden, while doing everything possible behind
the scenes to actually scuttle any real accountability for the
Democrat president's son. So to me, I think this is

(21:05):
the oh he's he's been so tough on the Bidens
that Merrick Garland, you know, think of the sourcing from this.
He's been so because what's the benefit of going against
Merrick Garland in public this way? I don't see it
from from the Democrat perspective, if anything, could want to
pressure him privately. So I think this is all for show.

(21:26):
That's my I think this is a show to make
it seem like Joe Biden's so worried about what's going
on with this song because this big, mean Attorney general
is going after him. I'm not buying it.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
I think it's I know, I think that's a very
valid perspective you could have. And if that's true, then
the Wall Street Journal reporters of this article got played, right,
because if that, if they are putting out a message
that is not actually rooted in truth, then they are
being played to do what you're saying, which is try

(22:03):
to provide cover because it makes it sound like, Oh,
Biden's really upset, but the reality is he's not upset
at all. And then in which case, they're writing a falsehood.
But it makes it look like Merrick Garland is independent
because he's actually giving Merrick Garland the cover here because
he's claiming, oh, Merrick Garland is being so tough on

(22:24):
Joe Biden.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
Right.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
So it's it's basically the opposite of the way that
the story is conveyed. It's more of a uh, think
about kay than it is a criticism.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
People will use that you know, they'll use this phrase
to influence and to inform. Right, there's there's two things
you can think of simultaneously. It's not just to tell
someone something, it's to tell them something for a specific purpose.
And Biden. This is what the article says, quote. Some
Biden aids have said they see Garland's handling of the
inquiries and the Biden family has driven less by dispassionate

(22:57):
pursuit than by what you read, punctilious desire. Those aids
point out that prosecutors YadA, YadA, YadA what Biden aids
Clay are talking to the Wall Street Journal. Think about
that for a second too, right, who who like to me?
This is play? It all goes to, you know, Hunter,

(23:17):
Biden's bringing the indictment or not indictment DA in lawsuit
against the I R S. And now all look at
how rough the Attorney General's relationship is with the president
and all this stuff to create this completely false premise
that things are actually uh you know that that the
system is working against Hunter and the and that there's
not effectively a get out of jail free card waiting

(23:39):
for him. At the end of this, I mean that
what White House ads are going to talk to the
Wall Street The Wall Street Journal, they know is basically
opposition media. I mean, the Wall Street Journal reporters would
disagree with that, but you know it's a right of
center paper. So I see this as as they're they're
trying to influence as well as informed. That is how
I see this, this article, and I just.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
Know it's interesting and I could see that argument the
opening paragraph. Again, the already frosty relationship between President Biden
and his Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Is now in a deep freeze. Why is it frosty?
Let me ask this question. What what is Merrick Garland
supposed to do? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (24:19):
What is I think they say it's frosty because he
appointed Again, it's an interesting question.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
I think I'm fascinated by this, not to a point
a space. He waited and waited. They were finding classified
documents in the corvette next to the old tennis rackets,
and I mean that the whole thing is crazy. He
has been holding out for the Bidens at every step.
He the Bidens want him on that wall, Clay, they
need him on that wall. The notion that Merrick Garland

(24:48):
is like, why it up cleaning up the mess here
of the Biden White House is absurd. And that's why
when I see this piece, I look at it, I go,
why would anyone in the Biden orbit right now going
to selection year present this to the Wall Street Journal.
They're definitely not going to fire Merrick Garland, right, there's no,
you can't do it right? So what what really is

(25:11):
the play here? And if it's in a deep freeze?
Is this gonna make the relationship better?

Speaker 3 (25:16):
No?

Speaker 2 (25:16):
So I think this is really interesting. I think that
it's possible this is spy stuff.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Clay.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
I'm going full seeing and I'm analyzing because I see
this story and I'm like, this is a Monday Morning story.
That's a really strong opening paragraph. I see the story
and I think, so, why would it be in a
deep freeze? Let's pretend that it is. Let's pretend that
they're correct and that that they are not getting along.

(25:43):
I think it would be that the Biden administration has
finally embarrassed Merrick Garland to such an extent. Let me
give you a couple of examples of that. When they
got the sweetheart deal for Hunter Biden.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
Do you know what they did? They invited Merrick Garland
and Hunter to that I think it was India. At
the state dinner. There's only like one.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Hundred and fifty people or whatever it is there, and
you've got your Attorney general mingling with the president's son
that he just gave a get out of Jael free
I can see Merrick Garland saying that is reckless. They
put me in a really bad position. I think the
way that the thing the hearing went down with Judge Noriyeika.
Even if you are doing the dirty work of the client,

(26:28):
which you could argue Merrick Garland has been, there is
a point where you move from advocate to shameless partisan.
And I wonder if Merrick Garland believes that the Biden
administration has put him into the role of shameless partisan
and he's unhappy and uncomfortable with it. That's the only

(26:48):
reason I could see it be in deep freeze.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
I think Merrick Garland has wholeheartedly embraced his role as
shameless partisan. Let's not forget Merrick Garland. His DOJ was
involved in the threat that parents pose by objecting disaster.
He's as an Attorney general, and I think a lot
of people even years ago, I remember speaking to Andy

(27:12):
McCarthy about this back when he was back when Merrick
Garland was up for that Obama appointed Supreme Court seat
if it could get through the Senate didn't get through,
and they were all telling us, and even in some
conservative if I remember correct, they pardon me Andy if
I'm wrong, but he said that Merrick was a pretty
pretty middle of the road guy. And since then, since
he's been Attorney General, everyone on the right I know

(27:33):
has said, this guy is a hack and this guy
is a scoundrel. And so it's with that in mind
that I see this as I mean, to the point
that you're making, is it possible that they've pushed him
so like people do have a breaking point? Is a
break Even lib media journals we've discussed this, have their guys.
I'll lie for you, but I won't abjectly humiliate myself

(27:55):
to my own audience. For you, right, there's a line
that they won't necessarily willingly go past. They'll go past it,
but they'll whine about it. But for me, I still
see this as White House aids trying to create the
perception of the public's mind that justice will be done
here about Hunter Biden, when there's plenty of indicators that
the furthest possible thing is going to be the end.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
So your take is an interesting one. It's that the
Wall Street Journal reporters got played.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yes, yeah, yeah, because I don't see why would these
aids give the Wall Street Journal this story at this time?
If it's true, how many other times have we seen
Biden White House aids come forward to give what could
be I don't think it is, but could be damaging
information about the regime. I can't remember the last time

(28:42):
that happened.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
No, I mean, I see this, And the other question
I would have is from an editorial perspective, did the
editors question it too?

Speaker 1 (28:49):
Because it's not on the front page. So when I
read it, I was like, oh, this is interesting.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
They put it on page four, like if they truly
thought they had a big scoop about discord between Biden
and his attorney general. That feels like to me, a
you know, a one top of the top of the
fold story. So I'm curious on that too.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
Just putting it out there, folks, I think this could
have This could have been a stealth operation, a propaganda
mission through the through the journal. I We'll continue to
watch this one. I just I don't see if you're
in a reality based world, Clay, if you're Joe Biden,
you are thanking Merrick Garland every day for doing everything

(29:32):
possible to give Hunter every opportunity to completely escape without
any consequences. I mean, short of I don't know what
I wonder, like, what else could he have possibly done
at this point? Remember the prosecutors tried to get that
deal through. Yeah, the federal prosecutors tried to give Hunter
Biden a deal. I mean that was like an Epstein

(29:55):
level deal for those of you who know about the
original Epstein deal with the Feds that actually cost a
Trump appoint his job in the Trump administration from when
he was US Attorney. I believe it was a cost. Well,
I gotta check in the name, but it was the
most sweetheart deal imaginable. So anyway, I will watch this one.
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Speaker 2 (31:16):
Helping you separate truth from fiction every single weekday, the Clay,
Travis and Buck Sexton Show Welcome back in and Clay's
Travis Buck Sexton Show. Appreciate all of you hanging out
with us. We're joined now by Ovic Roy, President of
the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity Policy editor at Forbes.
It's done fantastic work for a variety of different issues.

(31:39):
I think the last time I saw you OVIC was
down last year in Austin for the Alabama Texas game,
which is a lot of fun. And I think you're
still in Austin where your organization is based. But you're
a big Michigan Wolverine fan. So before we dive into
healthcare policy issues, how would you assess we just got
a brand new affiliate in Detroit nine ten am. We're

(32:00):
blowing up all over the state of Michigan. How would
you assess the University of Michigan start to the season.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
Well, those Lions fans are going nuts in Detroit. That's
been the hot topic out there. But yeah, I think
you know, so far the non conference schedule, I can't
say that Michigan has overperformed. There's been I think a
lot of lack of chemistry on the offensive line. The
perimeter blocking in the run game hasn't been great, whether
it's the tight ends or particularly the wide receivers. They

(32:30):
did a little bit better on that against Bowling Green,
so that was a good signed. Korm seemed to get
his legs back. But then JJ McCarthy had a couple
of brain dead throws and very unlike him was flashbacks
the TCU, So they obviously have to get that cleaned up.
But they've got all the pieces. Look, they have great
offensive line in theory, they have great two great running backs,

(32:52):
first round caliber running backs. They have a first round
caliber quarterback. They have fast receivers, they have great tight ends.
On defense, their defensive line is awesome Georgia level perhaps
uh and uh, and their secondary is banged up a
little bit but looking pretty good. So they've got they've
got all the pieces to go very far, but they

(33:12):
just have to put it all together, and they haven't
done that yet. And the Rutgers next week is gonna
be an underrated test because Rutgers is looking pretty good.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
So Ovid, I'm gonna do the nerd here, and I'm
gonna ask you about healthcare policy if I can. I
know you guys are having fun.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
I was thinking of you all of that with that
Alabama Texas game though the week before last, because that
would have been a fun one to see. I bet
you guys, if you were there, I had a great time.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
That was a phenomenal I was a phenomenal game, especially
because it was almost such a such a big upset.
But a lot of people out there have too much
that they're paying for healthcare premiums, healthcare visits across the board.
You know, I pulled this up right beforehand, Ovic, and
I know you're you're a health care policy expert, have
been for many years that affordability of healthcare when you

(33:58):
average it between Democrat and Report public in most of
the major polls that you can pull for the last
well probably a long time. It's certainly in the last
twelve months, affordability of healthcare is a top two or
three issue, and poll after poll for people right now,
usually just behind inflation and jobs. Those are the ones
that inflation, jobs, and then affordability of healthcare pops up

(34:19):
right alongside them. I thought Obamacare was supposed to fix
all that. What happened? What happened? How are things getting
more expensive? Ovic? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (34:28):
They called it the Affordable Care Act, right, and healthcare
In fact, Obama you'll remember this, Buck and Clay you
might as well. In two thousand and eight, when Obama
was campaigning for president, he promised repeatedly on the campaign trail,
and I've got the video to prove it that his
plan would reduce the average family's healthcare premiums by twenty

(34:50):
five hundred dollars per year. He kept repeating that promise,
which came out of a random, you know, liquid back
of the envelope estimate from a couple of Harvard professors
that just kind of guessing basically.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
But he ran with that, and.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
Instead healthcare premiums for the average consumer average family four
went up by twenty five hundred dollars for a family
four in year one, and it's only gotten worse over time.
And now we have to say that healthcare was expensive
before Obamacare. Its prices were growing faster than inflation before Obamacare.

(35:26):
Obamacare made it worse if you had to buy insurance
on your own. So if you weren't getting it from
your employer, you weren't getting it from the government, you
were shopping for it. In the old what was called
the individual market for health insurance, it used to be
a lot cheaper. Under Obamacare, those premiums doubled and tripled,
and they've continued.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
To go up.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
So Ovick, this is part and parcel of I think
a failure of the American health care system. And you
tell me if I'm wrong here, But the data that
I have seen suggests that if we had half as
much medical treatment, there would be no change really in
the amount.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
Of years of average life that are added.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Right.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
In other words, the quality of the healthcare results would
not change with half of the amount of healthcare spending.
Do you buy that or do you think that's an
exaggerated analysis of our current system. I do buy that.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
There's stuff we do at the end of life that
you know, to kind of be heroes that may not
make much of a difference. But the problem is it's
really hard. It's easy to look at that in hindsight
and say, oh, we shouldn't have done that, or we
shouldn't have done that that didn't work. But you don't
know until you try it, right, And who's going to
tell that seventy five year old or that eighty year
old don't do that, don't do that thing that might

(36:45):
save my life. Right. So that's a hard thing to solve.
But what you can solve, and what's clearly true in
the United States is that unit price of every piece
of healthcare we deliver to people is way higher here.
Most people know that what you pay for prescription drugs
in the US is two to five x what it is.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
In other countries.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
That's true of hospital care too, the average hospital stay
in the US. We actually are very good at getting
people out of the hospital. A lot of the surgeries.
You know, when I tore my achilles five years or
seven years ago, it was done in a day. I
was in and out of the hospital a day, So
in a lot of other countries that's a five day operation,
or you're in the hospital for seventy So really good
at getting people in and out of the hospital, which

(37:24):
would save a lot of money. The problem is, each
day we spent in an American hospital costs five times
as it does five times as much as it does
in Switzerland or Germany or Scandinavi or any other wealthy
country that you can think of. So the problem in
America is that the price of the healthcare that we
deliver is way higher than it is elsewhere. And the

(37:44):
reason for that is because we've made eighty years of
policy mistakes at the federal level that have incentivized drug
companies and hospitals and doctors and lab test companies to
charge you more and more every year because you don't
pay directly for those services. You know, you think you
bought insurance, your employer bought it for you, and you
have no sense of what anything costs or what you

(38:06):
paid for anything, because you didn't directly pay for it.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
So what are the parties offering right now for Democrat
Republican twenty twenty four healthcare solutions? One thing I asked
Clay about I was talking about this off Ara, is like,
does anything even have a healthcare plan that they're talking
about right now? What is it and what should it be?
Maybe more importantly, Yeah, so far, not much.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
So.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
Biden hasn't really talked about much on healthcare other than,
you know, continuing to bail out Obamacare with more subsidies.
They did pass the Inflation Reduction Act Medicare prescription drug
price negotiation provisions last year, which I actually think is
reasonably good policy, and I can get into that if
you want, so. I'm different from a lot of Republicans

(38:56):
on that particular piece. I think it's actually the pro
free market thing to do to let Medicare negotiate drug
prices to a limited degree. But if you talked to
the Republican field, there's not a lot at all now
that could change. You know, it's still early in the campaign.
It's possible that you'll see some of the candidates in
the Republican field talk about healthcare more as the as

(39:19):
the campaign goes along, But as of now, we don't
have a lot of details from the candidates. The closest
we've gotten, I think is Nikki Haley, who said at
the last debate that she's very concerned about the federal
deficit and debt and flagged healthcare is one of the
causes of that. But she didn't get into a lot
of details as to what her plan would be.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
So how do we fix it?

Speaker 3 (39:41):
Well, you know, at my think tank, the Foundation for
Research on Equal Opportunity, we've talked about how to fix
it for a long time. In fact, there's a bill
that's been introduced in Congress in both the House and
the Senate based on our work called the Fair Care Act,
and it's the main sponsors in the House are a
congressman from Arkansas and Bruce Westerman, one from Indiana named
Jim Banks, and then in the Senate it's an Indiana

(40:03):
Senator named Mike Brawn and basically the idea of the
Fair Care Act is pretty simple. Let's make healthcare less
expensive by unleashing the forces of competition innovation so that
people are competing for your business as a consumer. Let's
make sure that we're only subsidizing people who really need
to help. So one of the real things that we

(40:24):
do that's a mistake in America is you and I
pay taxes, and all your listeners pay taxes so that
Warren Buffett admit Romney can get some government subsidized healthcare.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
Why is that?

Speaker 3 (40:35):
Why don't we actually subsidize healthcare only for the people
who truly struggle to afford it, whether it's because they're vulnerable,
or they're sick, or they're low income or even middle
income people who just can't afford it. And let's stop
subsidizing healthcare for rich people. If we just stopped subsidizing
healthcare for rich people and allow people to buy the
insurance they want to buy instead of having it forced

(40:55):
upon them by their employer or the government, you'd unleash
enormous synergies in terms of savings. Because at the end
of the day, what we all know about everything in
life is that if you're spending your own money, you're
going to be a lot more careful about how you
spend it. But if somebody else is spending somebody else's
money on your behalf, no one's going to care how
it's spent. And that's what allows everyone in the healthcare

(41:17):
industry to raise prices on you. So the left wing
solution to that is have the government run it even
more right, have price controls, restrict access to expensive things,
all the things that you see in all those single
payer countries. But there's a free market way to do this,
which is you should control the healthcare dollars that are
spent on your behalf. If you spend the money, just
like on everything else you do in life, you're going

(41:38):
to spend it wisely. And yes, let's make sure that
we help the people who truly truly need the help,
but that's a fraction of who we're subsidizing today.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
Oviik easy question.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
Example of that. I've had three kids. Fortunately they have
all had relatively smooth deliveries. We went and toward all
of the places in Nashville where you have children, you know, hospitals.
None of them could tell me what it was going
to cost. They could tell me that they were going
to have Wi Fi. They could tell me that they
were going to have bamboo floors, they could tell me

(42:09):
that we were going to have private waiting rooms. None
of them could tell me what having a.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Baby was going to cost.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
And I just I couldn't get ask that when you
would tour and this is discretionary, right, I could choose
to go to this hospital or that hospital. In every
other facet there would be price competition. They couldn't even
tell me the cost.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
Right, And there's no law preventing them from telling you
the cost. They just have no incentive to do so.
How crazy all the government distortions. It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
And if you.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
Showed up to Conservaick, if you showed up to buy
a car and you just walked onto the car lot
and no one told you what a car cost, it
would be madness. Right, That's basically what happens oftentimes with healthcare.
Even when it's a discretionary time. You know, it's not
like this was an emergency. You can pick where you're.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
Going absolutely, and so you know, one of the things
I tell conservative Republicans all the time is you hear
some people say it's not the federal government's job to
fix healthcare and make it more affordable for you. I
understand that sentiment, But what people need to understand is
the reason healthcare is so stupid and expensive and opaque

(43:18):
to the patient and the consumer is because the federal
government has been messing it up for eighty years. And
so it is important for members of Congress and senators
to fix the things that the federal government has messed up.
That Congress has messed up about healthcare for eighty years.
And price transparency is part of it, not just price transparency,
so you, as a patient or as a parent, can

(43:39):
know how much it's going to cost you to get
your baby delivered. But one of the things that the
Trump administration did that I think is a really positive
development that's going to improve healthcare over the next several
years is the Trump administration passed some a series of
regulations that force insurers and hospitals to be transparent about
the prices they negotiate with each other. So if Blue

(44:02):
Cross are United or at N or whichever insurance plan
you have, has negotiated a certain price for that delivery
of a baby at a particular hospital, now that has
to be disclosed to the public. Now, the hospitals have
been dragging your feet and disclosing that data, and that's
an area where the government has to be more. It
has to do more to enforce the transparency rules. But
once you have that data out there, then as an employer,

(44:25):
you can see whether or not your insuran has done
a good job of negotiating on your behalf, because sometimes
insurers are lazy, they don't actually do a good job
of negotiating on your behalf. Because actually, if healthcare prices
are higher and their operating margin is five percent of
a bigger number, they make more money. They actually make
more money if healthcare is more expensive in a paradoxical way.
So as a business, or as a consumer, or as

(44:46):
an individual, what you need to know is whether those
insurers are doing good job negotiating on your path. And
one way for you to do that is to pay
for the premium yourself instead of having someone pay the
premium for you. So another big reform and part of
the fair care is instead of what we do now,
which is given a big tax break to the employer,
if the employer buys health insurance for you, why not

(45:08):
give the money to you to buy the health insurance
that you want to buy. Then you really unleash these
forces of competition, just like the exists in other parts
of the economy. And that's what we got to do
if we want to not have a socialized system. And
I think the thing that Republicans do that concerns me
is they're so scarred by the experience of twenty seventeen,
not failing to repeal in replace Obamacare in seventeen, that

(45:29):
they just don't want to touch it. They're like, you
know what, we tried doing healthcare in seventeen. We got
our fingers burned on the stove. We don't want to
deal with it again. And that's a mistake, because healthcare
keeps getting more expensive. Just as you said, the polls
show that it's a top concern of voters. And if
Republicans and Conservatives don't have a reform that's going to work,
then people are going to turn to Democrats. And we
know what Democrats are going to support. They're going to

(45:49):
support public options, they're going to support single payer, they're
going to support removing even further the role of the
private sector in healthcare.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
Ovic Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on equal opportunity.
OVIC always a pleasure, sir, Thanks for being here.

Speaker 3 (46:04):
Great to see both.

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Speaker 2 (47:06):
Live, catch up on any part of the show you
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Speaker 1 (47:12):
Fine the Clay and Buck app in your app store
and make it part of your day. All right. We
got a couple of stories here I wanted to circle
back do we had mentioned. One is the fact that
there is a one hundred million dollar F thirty five
fifth generation fighter plane that the pilot's fine, he ejected,
he's fine, that it went missing over South Carolina, and

(47:37):
there is as I speak to you now, unless there's
been some breaking news in the last few minutes, no
evidence yet of it having crashed anywhere. They're saying it
went into quote zombie mode, as in some kind of
an autopilot mode. So this is let's hope they find
one hundred million dollar plane that's over South Carolina if
they have not already. And they are asking the public

(47:58):
for tips, which I mean, I'm that that information line
I'm sure gets really interesting really fast there. It's like,
has anyone seen the stealth fighter plane in there, you know,
in their airspace? So we're looking into that. And then
Clay had mentioned the uh, the it's getting a lot
of attention on a few different levels out of questions. Okay,
So the congresswoman Bobert, who won a very very tight

(48:23):
re election race. Remember she was counted out and then
actually came back and won when they counted all the votes.
She is, to my recollection, a great vote in the Congress, like,
very solid, very reliable as a conservative. I've interviewed her
a couple of times. I don't really it has. We've

(48:44):
had her on the show. We've had we've had her
on the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a couple of times.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
I think maybe we should reach out now invite her
on again to see what she wants to say about
this Ali.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
So yeah, So here's the thing. So she's all of
a sudden, the media is getting very puritanical over some stuff.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
You know.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
I mean what I say, Clave, cand I get I'll
give you credit for this, but it's amazing there's a
woman running for state office in Virginia, for the State
House in Virginia who was effectively doing online pornography for
a profit, and that is that is fine, and it
is somehow feminist to vote for this woman. According to

(49:22):
Democrats Lauren Bobert. There's some video and you know, a
guy's getting a little getting a little handsy with her.
I think, is that's what we was a little handsy
in a theater, in a darkened theater and a beetlejuice.
Here's what I did not know this. This is the
first thing that I think about at do they have
Do they have night vision cameras going in theaters all

(49:42):
across America? Like a Broadway plays and things like this,
Like so when the lights go down, are they recording
everything going on with night vision in the theater? Because
how else? Because I mean, it's it's not a binladen raid,
Like where did this night vision come from? They must
I wouldn't have no own that either.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
I mean, and I you know, if I'm in a Broadway,
I can see why they might do that because for
lawsuits or security related reasons they may be. I guess
they do have some sort of night vision cameras. Maybe
they have security monitoring the audience to make sure that
everything's same.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
I wouldn't have even thought about this, but.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
They leaked this video and Bobert is in a you know,
what I would describe as a sexy dress on a date.
I believe she got divorced in the last year or so,
and she and her She and her date are a
little bit handsy in the dark during the theater, and

(50:39):
then she got kicked out, I think for vaping or something.
We'll invite her on. We'll see if she wants to
take us through the They went to go see Beetlejuice,
I think in a Denver area.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
Theater, not a movie the play. I didn't know Beetlejuice
was a play.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
But the thing that is interesting to me about this
buck is there are lots of people on the left
who have said Bobert has to resign over this. If
you haven't heard this controversy, it's out there. But they
simultaneously are saying it's very brave of this woman in
Virginia to have been making sex tapes and selling them,

(51:21):
and that she is a victim. And so I don't
understand how your standard for behavior for Bobert can be.
You aren't allowed to basically kind of get a little
bit handsy in a theater. Again, the only reason we
know about it is because of night vision, but that

(51:42):
that is unacceptable behavior for a congress person. But simultaneously,
it's wrong to judge a woman who actually made sex
tapes and sold them online and now wants to represent
the state of Virginia. Like, to me, your standard should
be the same on this, and at a minimum, you

(52:04):
should be tougher on the on the person who actually
made sex tapes as opposed to the person who may
have gotten a little bit of handsy during a play.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
Right, to be clear, Bobert has apologized, so she has
apologies or a conic because I'm gonna say something. I
think she's been a very good vote in Congress and
has has won some really interesting races.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
I am.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
I am ferociously protective of the theater goer environment. And
you do you do hate people with pull out for anything?
This is not political for me. People that are people
that start talking on their phones during the movie. People
who all of a sudden think that the hey, no
recording allowed means well, but I have to record for
my Instagram whatever's going on on stage. Like I am

(52:51):
the voice that shouts out from the darkness. Literally, I
am the voice that shouts out from the darkness in
those situations, because you know, the civilization needs rules. Clay,
we went out to dinner in New York and if
I remember, you had to go do like a television
hit or something and me, my wife, you're talking about

(53:13):
tables because there was a loud table of Ruffians nearby.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
There was a bunch of guys that I hate to
cast dispersions. They felt like they were from New Jersey
in the steakhouse. Wow, I feel like, hey, this is
a common thing in New York City, right, the Bridge
and Tunnel crowd. These did not feel like Manhattan natives.
And I went to GW. I know a lot about
the Jersey, the Jersey universe, all right, so, uh, these
loud I would call them New Jerseyans. We're sitting there,

(53:41):
the three of us, Buck walked. I can't tell you
how loud they were. I mean, this is like a
table of fifteen they were. It was all dudes, and
they were super loud. To be fair, they were very
very loud. But Carrie was like, Buck is going to
lose his mind when he comes back in. Like I'm paraphrasing,
I don't know that.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
That was exactly I think she said that. I think
she said that, yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
And so but.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
Sits down.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
It might have been forty five seconds and he immediately
stands back up and he's like, I can't do this,
and so we got we got moved. So to your
point on I can only imagine that if Bobert had
been vaping and you would have lost it Democrat or
Republican behind her, I will say this, I think that

(54:27):
I would have had I would I would have had
no issue with this, like in the grand scheme of things, right, Like,
I'm not a huge I I am more troubled by
having to sit through a musical than I am by
people making out in the crowd during the musical.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Right, I hate musicals for everybody out there.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Hopefully we don't have a huge musical audience that's you know,
a huge Broadway Broadway listenership. When people sing on the stage,
I just think all the time this immediately like people
don't do this, and maybe I'm weird on this.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
I can't do a musical.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
As soon as people start singing and dancing around on
the stage, I'm like, this would never happen in real
real life.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
I can't. It takes me completely out.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
Of the play, actual play where people you know, talk
and there's a story and there's no singing. I have
no issue with so I would have no issue with
Bobert and her date making out. I would have more
of an issue with the Beetlejuice musical in general, which
sounds miserable to have to attend to me. But if
your standard is what is the proper decorum for someone

(55:27):
who seeks to represent others, it seems like sex tape
would be like far more significant in terms of a
disqualifying event than making out during a during a play.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Can I throw this out there? I feel like we
are entering a period in politics where increasingly the contingent
of people who will make the case that personal conduct
short of illegality. And I mean really, and people are
gonna say, what about hundred hunters not in office? But

(56:02):
you know, and Joe, we haven't proven yet, but you know,
give it time. But basically, personal conduct no longer matters
for elected for people that are going to be an
elected office, or et cetera. I think that you'd have
a lot of people that make that claim now, which
is different than it used to be. You know, we

(56:22):
had the standard here has shifted, you know, you can
your personal life can be a little bit more what's
the word, a little more common scene.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
Here.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
Here's what I here's what I would say, Buck. I
agree with that on some level. I actually think it's
worse than that. I think it's whatever my side does
is okay, no matter what it is, whatever the other
side does.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
I'm a hanging judge.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
So you have absolutely no leniency at all for the opposition,
and yet for your side, you will allow basically.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
Anything to give be given. Package. I'd co sign that
if you let me. That. That is where we are. So,
but there are a lot of people that will excuse
it's situational excusing. But if a Republican does something and
you're you know, you'll get a lot of Republicans down
to be like, hey, it's not illegal. It's not you know,
it's well impeachable, and it's a whole other thing, but

(57:17):
it's not illegal. So not my problem as long as
they vote the way that I want, or as long
as they stand for the things that I like. Democrats, obviously,
I think Democrats have kind of always been there. I
think I'm not sure they really had much of a
standard where it came to this stuff. You look at like,
you know, the Kennedys, and there's.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
Not caring, but these and the Clintons get away, but
then they kicked over this stupid me too thing out
Franklin like pantomimes grabbing somebody's boobs and they kick him out.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
So like it's very like that was a politically expedient
panic button for them. Yeah, that's it right. It wasn't
like the standard change permanently. It was just okay, we'll
we'll push frankin aside on this one. You know, Yeah,
I think Franken is a jerk. But do I think it?

Speaker 4 (58:00):
Well, you think Teddy Kennedy killed round a woman in
his car that he was clearly driving drunk and we
all know it, and he tried to concoct an alibi,
and you know, heaven knows what was if he was
trying to make a move on this young woman or whatever,
and they didn't even care.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
Yeah, they didn't even care. There's actually a chap equitic
movie that came out a few yearsgo. I think it
was made by some conservatives. It was a good movie.
If you haven't seen it. They did adsport on my
radio show Clay and I saw it because I was like,
this sounds interesting, and Democrats were totally fine with it.
So your point about the situational nature of it is
absolutely true. But Democrats used to say, we have standards

(58:39):
of moral conduct for politicians, and then they would selectively
excuse I think now it's democrats.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
They don't even pretend to have those standards for democrats.
It's just what's happening. Is the way I would assess it,
Buck is, this is sports. This is how sports fandom works.
Your star quarterback can do almost anything, and you will
excuse his behavior and say, as long as he plays like,
we'll defend it.

Speaker 1 (59:03):
I have seen this because you know, I'll see when
Clay is Clay likes to get very feisty on Twitter.
You know, I tend to be a little more low key.
Clay likes to throw down with with with you know
user number seven two five nine, who's given. I used
to do it more.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
I used to get in more scraps, but I've I've
dialed back my social media usage.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
But I'll see this in the Clay scraps sometimes, and
it's amazing to see that people will if like a
quarterback is accused of a like a college quarterback is
accused of a major crime or role in the fans
of that team are like all of a sudden, don't
want to hear it, Like you're a bad person for
bringing that up. That's that's a surprise, that's that's that's

(59:43):
the situational ethics. It's basically fandom come to politics. Where
as long as somebody makes yours team more likely to win,
you will defend anything they do. And the moment that
the opposing again it's it's your side can do no wrong,
you'll defend them to the degree. And then the minute
somebody on the other side does something, you want to

(01:00:05):
be a hanging jury. To me, what should happen is
a standard of behavior, like apply it evenly regardless of
the politics or the teams that is involved.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Used to be the media did that buck. Now the
media is worthless. Like we really don't have any fair
arbiters and referees in society, which is another reason I
think everything's going to hell.

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Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
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