August 21, 2025 • 63 mins
Clay's Prediction Comes True
A breakdown of the New York Court of Appeals' unanimous decision to overturn the $500 million civil fraud fine levied against President Donald Trump by Attorney General Letitia James. The hosts frame this legal victory as a major turning point in the ongoing battle against politically motivated lawfare and judicial overreach. Clay Travis is credited for accurately predicting the case’s dismissal, reinforcing his credibility among listeners.
The episode dives deep into the origins of the case, which alleged Trump inflated asset values—most notably Mar-a-Lago—to secure favorable mortgage terms. However, the hosts emphasize that Trump repaid all loans with interest, and the banks involved expressed no concerns, even stating they’d gladly do business with him again. The legal theory behind the case is described as “harebrained,” with no actual victim, and the $600 million penalty (including interest) is portrayed as a product of Trump Derangement Syndrome infecting the courtroom.
Clay and Buck also explore the broader implications of this ruling, suggesting it signals the unraveling of other politically charged cases against Trump, including the E. Jean Carroll civil suit and the 34 felony counts related to bookkeeping. They argue these cases are built on weak legal foundations and will likely be tossed on appeal.
Yuge Trump Victory
Clay and Buck criticize Letitia James for her public statements promising to prosecute Trump, calling her actions disgraceful and politically motivated. They speculate she may face legal consequences herself for alleged mortgage fraud and call for her disbarment. The episode also features Trump’s reaction via Truth Social, where he celebrates the court’s courage and labels the case a “political witch hunt.”
Clay compares Trump to Neo from The Matrix, highlighting his growing popularity and influence. The hosts argue that Trump’s legacy will become even more iconic over time, especially as the public recognizes the extent of misinformation and partisan targeting.
Cracker Barrel Crackup?
Cracker Barrel’s rebranding backlash. The hosts criticize the removal of the iconic grandfather logo and the chain’s attempt to modernize its image, arguing that the move alienates its core Southern customer base. The rebrand is compared to Bud Light’s marketing missteps, with Clay and Buck warning that corporate identity crises often stem from executives disconnected from their consumers. The stock market agrees—Cracker Barrel’s shares dropped $8, wiping out $100 million in market cap.
In a humorous interlude, Producer Greg apologizes for ending a previous show with a somber suicide hotline story, coining the phrase “Meow Culpa” in reference to cat owners finding purpose in caring for their pets.
Rep. Byron Donalds
Congressman Byron Donalds, who shares his personal experience as a Cracker Barrel waiter, calls the show to slam the rebrand as unnecessary and culturally tone-deaf. He emphasizes the restaurant’s nostalgic value and calls for companies to embrace their roots rather than chase trends. The segment also features listener feedback from Virginia and North Carolina, echoing dissatisfaction with menu changes and declining food quality.
The hosts explore chain restaurant branding, comparing Cracker Barrel to Olive Garden, Outback Steakhouse, and Applebee’s, and discuss the cultural symbolism of Southern food. They also touch on beer branding myths, revealing that Foster’s is brewed in Texas and Budweiser is marketed as premium in Australia.
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For the latest updates from Clay & Buck, visit our website https://www.clayandbuck.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everybody to the Thursday edition of The Clay Travis
and Buck Sexton Show. A lot of news to dive into,
and we will do that with all of you. We
appreciate you hanging out with us, being ready to look
at all things that are mattering on this lovely Thursday.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
We can start with one here.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
We have a we can put one on the board
for a Clay Travis prediction come true. He feels he's
got a little bit of the hot hand right now.
He's feeling feeling pretty smooth, feeling pretty on it. The
Court of Appeals in New York has tossed tossed the
five hundred million dollars civil fraud fine by Age Tish James.
(00:46):
This is a breaking news today. And I will say
this is one where I was Clay called this very
early on and was he was vociferous, he was unwavering.
I thought this was possible, but not as confidence. So
I give the full predictive If both of us one
hundred percent agree on something it's not I give the
(01:06):
full predictive value.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Here.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
All points are worded to Clay on the prediction on
this one, because I thought it was kind of a
fifty to fifty and he said, they're absolutely going to
toss it.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
And now this is this is good.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
The Appellate Division, First Department in New York Credit where
it's due, did the obviously right thing. This was completely
a completely insane case, obvious political headhunting. Attorney General of
New York State Tiss James was, it was awful what
(01:37):
she did.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
It was disgraceful that she.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Ran promising to prosecute somebody or promising to find somebody,
you know, bring suit again civil suit in this case.
And that they that they said, Clay, I mean, the
things that came out in this case. They that Trump
valued mar A Lago at five hundred and seventeen million dollars,
and they said it was twenty seven million dollars in
twenty two.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Anybody with even a passing.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
The vaguest familiarity with the Palm Beach real estate market,
you know, I don't know what house you're gonna get
on the water for twenty seven million dollars in Palm
Beach these days, Clay, it was the abuse of law
in the worst possible fashion. And maybe the look he's
president now, so maybe the appellate court decided they weren't
(02:26):
going to continue to poke the dragon.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
But a good call by you, sir, take take a bow,
for sure.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
And a good moment actually for I know this sounds corny,
perhaps it's true, a good moment for law and order
in this country, for the rule of law.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
In this country. Yeah, for people who have forgotten.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
And I know there are so many different legal proceedings.
We've joked kind of about this, but I never would
have believed when I went to law school that I
would end up just analyzing Trump legal cases for what
feels like a career oftentimes, because Trump two point zero
has primarily been driven the resistance has by the judiciary,
(03:05):
by the legal branch, and it all started as a
part of the twenty twenty four elections. So this particular case,
and I know there are so many of them that
it is hard to keep up, was brought by Letitia
James alleging mortgage fraud. And I'm trying to simplify this
a little bit, And she said the mortgage fraud was
that Trump inflated the assets that were under his control
(03:27):
to obtain a lower rate of the mortgage than he
otherwise should have. But and this is why the case
was really outlandish from the start. He paid all the
loans back, so there was no actual victim here.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Even worse, even worse than that Clay.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
He paid all the loans back with interest, and the
banks said they had no problem with this. They agreed
with his The banks did an independent assessment. They always do.
I mean, this is anyone who's gotten a mortgage knows
it is a giant pain in the butt. The banks
do their own assessment. They want their own person going there. Clearly,
the bank said they would be this was part of
the court finals. They would be eager to do business
(04:12):
with Trump again.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Yes, so this was an incredibly strained legal theory to
begin with, because there was no victim, and so the
idea that Trump should have to pay back what five
over five hundred million dollars with interest. Now, she tried
to calculate what the rate, in her opinion, should have
(04:36):
been for the loans that Trump took out that he
ended up paying back, and that the banks said they
were very comfortable in the deal they did, and then
argued that that was a fraud perpetrated that the state
of New York needed to investigate, bring civil criminal penalties,
civil penalties against and the New York Court of Appeals
(04:57):
just said this is garbage, and he there is where
I think we are headed. I think all these cases
are going to end up getting tossed. I think there
are three. Correct me if I'm wrong, Buck, because sometimes
I get kind of lost in the weeds on some
of this too. There are three New York state trials
and or legal proceedings of significance. There's probably more than this.
(05:19):
One is this one that was just tossed out the
mortgage fraud. The other one was the Egene Carroll civil
suit relating to allegations of sexual assault. I think that's
going to be tossed. I've explained why. And then is
it thirty four felony counts over bookkeeping fraud? It was
thirty four, right, not forty three. I can't remember which
(05:42):
one of those numbers sounds right. Yes, I think all
three of these are going to get tossed eventually. The
felonies obviously, is the only one that is criminal in nature,
and it is a sham case that is going to
be tossed on appeal the most likely if you had
me rank them to remain, if Trump were gonna lose
(06:02):
one of these, it would be the e Gene Carroll.
But I just at its baseline. Again, this goes into
the weeds. I don't understand how it's defamation to deny
that you raped someone. I mean, that seems that seems
like fair, fair for Trump to say, right.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
This would mean this would mean that in any case,
by the way, your defense would make you lie, liable
for liable for the defense itself. Right, and I didn't
do this thing. Let's have a trial. Oh, we're gonna
find you guilty. And by the way, because you said
you didn't do it, we're also gonna sue you because
of what you said in court.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
I mean, I don't understand how it's It is crazy.
And let me be even clearer on this, because this
we've seen a lawsuit over George Stephanopolos. Of this, Trump
was actually, in a civil context found not to have
committed rape. That is, the jury found it more likely
than not in a civil context that he did not
commit a rape. They did find it more likely than
(07:01):
not that he had engaged in sexual assault. So he
then said, this is where the additional lawsuit and additional
damages came buck After this verdict, he said, well, that's
not true. I didn't, you know, rape her, I didn't
sexually assault her. And then she's lying about that, and
then she sued him again saying, well, he defamed her
(07:25):
based on the ruling that she had gotten. So again,
I just think that case is garbage. We're seeing the
Letitia James mortgage case is officially basically from the New
York Court of Appeals garbage. And I think all the
felony charges are gonna get tossed to Now. A lot
of you may say I don't even care Trump's in
office all these things. I do think the court's rulings
(07:47):
here matter because the precedent they put in place when
they went after Trump. If you happen to be a
Republican and live in a blue state, or candidly, if
you happen to be in a Democrat and run in
a red state, can't allow your politics to become proxy
for civil and criminal liability just based on what you
happen to believe.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
In my opinion, Trump stomped on law fair the same
way that he's stomped on MSNBC and CNN and accomplish
things that I don't think many of us believed were
even possible years ago in both In both of those instances,
the fact that you had it was four criminal trials
(08:28):
or four criminal prosecutions rather and multiple civil suits all
timed to hit him at the same time and while
he's running for president, and that he will emerge from
all of that Clay essentially now. I know there's still
the New York case, but that one I agree with you.
I mean, there's gonna be there's gonna be no punishment
(08:48):
that they He's the president. They can't do anything right now,
and there's gonna be no punishment for it. And I
think eventually that's gonna be overturned as well. He's going
to emerge on scaths from all of this, yes, which
is which is incredible, and it also goes to I
think the desperation that the Democrats feel right now, because
what happens when you've thrown everything in the kitchen sink
(09:09):
and the other guy just grins and keeps coming. That's
exactly what Trump did. They did everything they could abuse
the system in ways we have never seen before as
a country, and Trumps president more popular than he's ever been.
His base is more behind him than they've ever been.
If that's even possible, and what have they got Davin
Newsom trying to create cool guy memes of himself and
(09:33):
posting them online.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
It's one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
I mean, whatever you think of Trump, I don't know
that we have ever seen someone take this degree of
attack and just keep moving forward and ultimately vanquish everybody
who tried to fight against him. I mean, at this point,
you're gonna like this pop culture reference. It feels it's
(10:00):
like Trump is Neo and the Matrix Buck. It feels
like he has just learned how to move at a
different speed and how to handle attack for those of
you who have seen the movie, in a way that
is unprecedented, and where he can basically turn on his
foes and just utterly vanquish them and look I do.
(10:25):
The one thing I will say is I really admire
Trump because there were so many cowards who refuse to
stand up for Trump that now are showing up and
kissing the ring. He's been the cover for a lot
of companies out there that knew that their woke employees
were engaging in ridiculous insubordination that undercut the very fabric
(10:49):
of the company's culture itself, and he is making so
much of American society better because they're using him as
the saying, well, you know, Trump won, we have to
do this. They're doing what they know to be right
because Trump has given them the cover to do it.
And I just think the Trump story for decades to
(11:13):
come is actually going to get more impressive because so
many people out there are caught up in the political
moment day to day and they've just decided they hate Trump.
And as that fades, I think Trump is going to
become an even more iconic figure than he is as
we speak about him on this day.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
This is a man who, at no point during the
effort to destroy him, destroy his his legacy, his reputation,
take away his freedom, tried to bankrupt him. I mean
it's five hundred million, I think, plus some one hundred
million in interest. Now Trump has a lot of money,
but that hurts anybody cash, Okay, I've when was the
(11:52):
last time you heard him a fine for an individual
that big? I might add, I mean, how much money
could he have possibly made?
Speaker 2 (11:57):
It's a differential have been.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
With the the bank loans, if they had even been hot,
There's no way it would bonkers buck. I mean they
went back in time to the date of the initial
loan and decided to create their own loan amount, sorry,
loan rate, and then charge him interest on that. For
I mean, it's one of the most hair brained legal
(12:20):
schemes I've ever seen. And again it is Trump derangement
syndrome inside of a courtroom. And I honestly think Letitia
James should be disbarred over some of the legal arguments
that she has made. And if somebody, if she as
has been alleged, was involved in mortgage actual clear mortgage
bought herself, she should spend some time in a prison.
(12:41):
That should actually happen because she sent other people to
prison for that while she was ag no problem with that.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Why shouldn't she go She.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Would send any of you if you checked, you know
it's my primary residence, then it's not and you got
a better rate, and she would she would send you
to prison.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
But she doesn't go to prison. But just one more
note on Trump Clay. This whole process.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Never once did you see this guy and he's in
the public all the time. He's showing up for the
mug shot and he got shot. As we know, in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Never once did you see this guy despair. Never once
did you see him claim that he's he's unable to
handle all the forces arraid against him. I mean, there's
(13:22):
a real there's a real lesson in that. I mean,
this guy is a force of nature. A lot of
what was thrown against him would have been enough to
break even some considerable formidable people out there, and they
just he just kept coming. He just kept coming. There's
a life lesson in that, you know, never give up.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
All right.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
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Speaker 5 (14:51):
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Speaker 2 (15:05):
A lot of news break and a lot of things happening.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
So thanks for joining us here live and in real
time as we are making sense of it all for
you just dropping. Let me see when did this happen? Yeah,
right when we started the show today, right as we
came on air, almost like he teed it up for
Clay and Buck. Donald Trump on truth Social in regards
to the massive court victory. As Clay just pointed out
(15:31):
to me in the commercial break, five oh by the
Appellate Court in New York, all the judges saying this
entire Let me just be clear.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Five oh against Trump in New York.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Those are judges they've been you know, these are judges
in a very blue state. These are judges who I'm
sure I haven't looked at who appointed them, but some
Obama appointees. Probably there some Biden appointees.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Or let me point out this too, by the way,
we haven't had the time to read. There are three
different opinions among the five judges. So the whole thing
is just a cluster. Trying to avoid cursing. Yes, it's
a cluster, but it is to your point. Yes, I
mean a New York jud Court of Appeals siding with
Trump is I think they held this for a long time.
(16:21):
They didn't want to release it before the election. I mean,
this timing is no coincidence.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
So Trump has weighed in on truth social and it
is a doozy. This is a big truth, not a
little truth.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Very large. Here we go. I'm going to read some
of this to you.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Total victory, all caps in the fake New York State
Attorney General Letitia James case. I greatly respect the fact
that the court had the courage to throw out this
unlawful and disgraceful decision that was hurting business all throughout
New York State.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Others were afraid to do business there.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
The amount, including interest in penalties, was over five hundred
and fifty million dollars. It was a political witch hunt
in a business sense, the likes of which no one
has ever seen before. Case of election interferenced by the
city and state trying to show illegally that I did
things that were wrong, when in fact, everything I did
was absolutely correct and even perfect. Every single dollar was
(17:17):
thrown out, even the penalties imposed on us by the
corrupt judge, one of the most overturned in history Arthur
and gern I wasn't given a jury, and during the
course of the trial, which lasted a long time, was
not given one ruling in my favor by this political hack.
But worse than him, if possible, was Letitia James, a
corrupt and incompetent attorney general who only brought this case
in order to hurt me politically. She is a trump deranged,
(17:40):
lunatic they made me bomb. The outrageous sum which never
happened before, cost me millions of dollars a month. It
should have never been allowed to happen. Everyone knew it. Importantly,
the vote was five to zero. I'm so honored by
Justice David Friedman's great words of wisdom, which should be
read by everyone. I would also like to thank the
Court for having the courage to make this decision, etc.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I mean to Clay, he talks about.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
How the I mean wine being keeps going Trump post
I got less than halfway through it.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Everybody, I mean, it's I'll just say this he he
is laying Haymakers on this whole thing. Uh and it is.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Uh. Now, look it's it's a huge win for Trump.
There's no question.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
It's a six hundred I think it's right, five hundred
million plus one hundred million basically in the everything together.
So call it a six hundred million dollar give or take,
no matter who you are, six hundred million dollars a
lot of money. Six hundred million dollars you were gonna
pay for what, dude, who is this even being paid to?
You're gonna pay the State of New York because a
bunch of banks with you know, hundreds of billions on
(18:39):
the asset on the balance sheets or whatever.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Said Trump's a great guy to do business with. We
would do it again.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
This was one of I think you could actually argue
this was the craziest case because I know people say, oh,
eg and Carol, uh, you know they talk about it. Well,
you know, anyone can accuse someone of something from thirty
years ago. This is why we actually have a statute
of leitations.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
That let me point out on the Egen Carol, they
changed the statute of limitations to allow Trump to be
sued on this.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
The statute of limitations is a very important I know
sometimes people say, oh, but you know it feels no,
it's very important, okay, because it's unfair to a defendant.
And there are you know, there are places like murder
and other you know, extreme sex crimes and treason and
things like that. There are no statute limitations statutes. But
(19:29):
in general, if someone can accuse you of something from
twenty years ago or thirty years ago, a like, defending
yourself against this is very challenging, right, This is a
very hard thing to do because you know, for a
whole range of reasons and also memories fade and the
evidence that's presented. My point is, even with all that,
(19:49):
I think that the I think the Letitia James case
against Trump was the most egregious abuse of the law
in a legal sense. I know it wasn't criminal, but
I think it would you co signed this one. I
think it was the most You have got to be
bleeping kidding me. I cannot believe they are doing this. Well, yeah,
(20:11):
here's the way I would analyze it. I don't agree
with eg and Carroll's lawsuit, but what she alleged, if
it were true, is a crime. The other two New
York and remember it was a civil case, but at
least her allegations would if they occurred, merit significant legal attention.
(20:33):
There's no victim in when you borrow money from a bank.
First of all, you're arguing that the bank is a victim.
Here the bank said they were not a victim and
they were paid back in full. And to your point, Buck,
does anybody who's ever taken out a loan from a
bank feel like the bank isn't adequately correct present? So, so,
can we talk about this for a second, Actually, because
(20:55):
I do. I think that the mortgage fraud thing. And
it's a very severe statute. That is, you know, this
is just the power and balance of banks versus individuals
going to prison for ten years because you could have
gotten a different interest rate if you checked a few
different boxes. I know it's I think it's I think
this is actually a statute totally apart from Trump and
(21:16):
just James, I think it's a pretty severe one unless
it's a systemic someone's doing this over and over again.
Clearly there are people who for pretty minor stuff they go,
they'll serve the I think the average mortgage fraud sentence
is like two years in federal prison or something. But
you take you know, people get sent away for this. Yeah,
that's at least criminal.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
This is civil. So they didn't even attempt to charge
him with a criminal offense. They just said, you got
a loan you shouldn't have gotten in the opinion of
the State of New York, and we are as a result,
going to give the rate in our opinion that you
should have paid, and the difference between the rate that
(22:00):
you should have paid in the rate that you got
is going to be a fine to come back to
the stadium.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
This is also to suggestion this is also to suggest
that Tis James and her team are better in retrospect
assessors of real estate value not only than Donald Trump,
but the banks who have their own independence. Uh not inspection.
What do you call it when someone comes is the
assessor or no, it's the more mortgage evaluator. Yeah, the
(22:30):
guy who valued whatever you there's a term for it.
But uh yeah, praise on my point, the mortgage appraiser,
the praiser.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
That's the word. I'm gonna thank you appraiser.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
This is this is absurd, right, I mean, these are
people looked at this said this is a great deal.
It would be like if Clay, if if you and
I were sitting there and we were we were buying
a car from from from Tiss James, and we said
this is the price, and she said that's a great price.
And we paid that price and she says, great, I
got a good price on my car. You got he's
got a car, you like, everyone's happy. And then later
(23:02):
she's like, you know what, I'm going to prosecute you guys.
You paid way too little for that car.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
It's like you agreed to the price of the car,
like everyone was happy. I don't understand it. Is it's even.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
Crazier than that, buck, because it's not even about the deal.
It's about Trump's politics because they would have never ever
looked at this if he hadn't got involved in politics.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
So it was all it's all, it's all pretextual. But
the fact that this was even broad is madess. But
you know when you bring up the kribble versus seminal kribble, sorry,
criminal versus civil separation, remember it's a it's a fit
for everybody. It's a fifty fifty one percent standard, which
is so so hugely different the e. G.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
And Carrol thing. The standard the jury has is do
you think it's like a fifty better than fifty to
fifty shots?
Speaker 1 (23:50):
This lady's telling the truth on again on the sexual
assault part, not actually on on rape. I think there
was a distinction that was made in that in that
case about it right, So essentially do you think it
do you think Trump might have grabbed or groped this woman?
Oh you know, that's different than did he actually forcibly
penetrate this woman, which I believe that was not what
he was found right, and that's where he went after Stephanopolis.
(24:10):
That wasn't even in the civil trial found to be
that they founded him did not. He did not do
him this civile trial. Yeah, but but do you think
that maybe he groped this lady in and the standard
in a criminal trial it would be, guys, are you
absolutely I mean, the real standard beyond a reasonable that
are you absolutely sure that Donald Trump grabbed this woman
(24:31):
thirty years ago and should possibly lose his freedom? That's
criminal civil it's hey, do you think he was, you know,
grabbing this lady?
Speaker 2 (24:39):
We don't know, but like better than fifty to fifty,
huge difference.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah, And that's why when they when they change the
rules and they use these civil things, they're just hoping
to get a jury that doesn't like Trump that goes, yeah, whatever,
screw him.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
They were trying to bankrupt him, and they were trying
to imprison him for life. They were trying to end
his political future. And now the shoe is on the
other foot. As Rump has said, in the first term,
he was the hunted. Now he's the hunter. And I
do think it's important to play back. Here is Leticia
James bragging in twenty twenty three, I'm going to come
back to all of you soon. With a check for
(25:13):
two hundred and fifty million dollars. Remember, they also tried
to ban him from doing business ever again in New York.
And my recollection is the Trump sons. The Trump sons
were banned from doing business in New York over this.
I mean, this was effectively an attempt to force Trump
out of New York. And honestly, when this all happened,
(25:34):
I remember we talked about it a lot on the show,
but I said, this is why I'm never leaving Tennessee.
This is I'm very comfortable living in my red state
at Tennessee. People that I'm not saying I'm going to
be perfect, but I don't have to worry about getting
attacked like this. This has cut twenty seven. Letitia James
bragging about taking Trump's money.
Speaker 6 (25:58):
Listen, I will be honored. I walk into that courtroom
on October second. Well, my role is civil, and I
will come back before you soon with a check for
two hundred and fifty dollars and to let you know
(26:23):
that he is no longer allowed to do business in
the state of New York. Yeah, we got a We've
got a special charge to show up and stand up
for one another.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
She's in trouble. She's in real trouble. If she weren't
in New York, she already would have lost her job.
And I know there's an investigation into her. Uh, but
with this New York Appeals Court decision, I think she's
in trouble. I haven't forgotten about Alvin Bragg. I know
Trump has not either. I know his DOJ is investigating
(27:03):
both of these individuals. Again, I think the felonies are
going to be tossed eventually on appeal in New York.
I think the timing on this is not coincidental. They
held this for a year, if I'm not mistaken to
wait till after the election to release this opinion. And again,
(27:24):
this is total vindication for Trump, but I think he
wants to take the next step and send a message
that total vindication for him is not I mean, he
still had to spend millions of dollars in legal fees.
He still had to tie up hundreds of millions of dollars.
I think he had to get a bond of one
hundred and fifty million dollars or something to even appeal this.
(27:47):
I understand why he wants there to be consequences for
Letitia James and why he wants there to be consequences
for Alvin Bragg. One more cutbuck. This was Leticia James
before all this happened, going on the view and saying
I'm going to get Trump. Remember this is unprecedented. Cut
twenty eight.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
You also intend to prosecute him after he is out
of office?
Speaker 7 (28:10):
Correct? Our investigation currently is civil in nature, it is
not criminal. Yes, our civil suit will continue whether he's
president or not. And so after January twenty ath at
twelve o'clock, our investigation will continue. Joy he cannot pardon himself.
What he could do is step down and allow the
(28:30):
vice president, Vice President Pence to pardon him. Now, it's
important to understand he has pardoned from federal crimes, but
he has not pardoned from state crimes. Last year, I
introduced a bill in the state legislature which would close
the pardon loophole so that individuals such as the president
of the United States would not evade justice. It's important
(28:52):
that we have this check on presidential powers.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
What there's so many things I would like to call
her that it would not be allowed on fcc UH broadcast.
But has she ever commented on Joe Biden's pardons.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
No, she's a horror. She's a horrible person just based
on her actions. I mean what she did. Trump is
a father, he's a grandfather, He's an American, he's a patriot.
And the glee she has trying to he's a president
and former president, current president. Uh, the glee that she takes,
and the and the sense of pride she has and
trying to destroy somebody over what all this all this
(29:27):
flowery language she's using about you know, no one's above
the law and everything else.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I'm sorry, what's the law that he broke?
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Well, what's the what's the bad thing that he did
that we need to punish the law that he broke
as being Trump and taking the fight to the left
and making Democrats sad at election time.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
That's the law that he.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Broke, and honestly having the misfortune to have done it
all while having many of his businesses registered in New York,
which I think the ultimate consequence of all of this
is a lot of people said, I'm not willing to
have my businesses based on in New York where I
can be prosecuted if my politics don't end up aligning
(30:01):
with whoever is in power there. I think Elon Musk
saw this. I think it's why he's moved so much
of his assets to Texas. It's why I'm never leaving Tennessee.
Imagine it's one reason you're happy to be in Florida.
But I think a lot of people out there with
New York assets have made that decision. Look, I told
you about my trip to Legacy Box headquarters Chattanooga, Tennessee,
my mom's hometown. What a cool experience it was. It
(30:23):
was like being in a time capsule because they can
take all of your media eight millimeter films, VHS tapes,
old photographs, and they can digitize them. And they have
different parts of their huge facility there in Chattanooga where
they are digitizing so many of these different so many
of these different products. In fact, I was talking with
(30:45):
Ad I'm one of the co founders there, and he said, look,
we basically are on eBay buying VHS, VCR VCRs all
the time. And he said, we got techs who can
put these things back working together because they're not making
more VCRs and we want to make sure that we
can preserve your family's memories. They do incredible work, right
(31:05):
now before the holidays start, you can get fifty percent
off your order. You get the originals back. It's very
easy to use. Go to legacybox dot com slash Clay
fifty percent off your order. That's legacybox dot com slash
Clay one more time. Legacy box dot com slash Clay.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Sometimes all you can do is laugh, and they do
a lot of it with the Sunday Hang.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Join Clay and Buck as they lap it up in the.
Speaker 8 (31:35):
Clay and Buck podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Some news out there, as we discussed in the first hour,
Trump with a big legal win New York Appeals Court
tosses his five hundred million dollar mortgage fraud civil penalty
verdicts from.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Attorney General Letitia James.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
Trump has reacted as you would imagine that Trump has reacted.
We've got news that Trump now says, we'll have some
fun with this, probably in the third hour. First of all,
DC crime has basically collapsed. Carjackings down eighty three percent,
robberies down by half in the nine some odd days
since Trump deployed the National Guard and additional resources to
(32:22):
help drive down crime. As we are speaking. I believe
it has now been you jinx this thing because inevitably
it's going to end. But it has been over a
week since there was a murder in Washington, d C.
They have searched the record books and they cannot find
a summer which is when murder typically peaks. Kids are
(32:42):
out of school, there's way more people out and about
in the streets. It's usually that time when murders are
peaking all over the country. They have not found a
summer stretch like this in decades, going back to try
to find a period of time where there has been
no murders occurring. So we're going to get into this
(33:02):
maybe in the third hour, but let's first. We're going
to get to cracker Barrel momentarily here. But I tease this.
As we went to break yesterday, as many of you know,
producer Greg dropped the ball. He said, we like to
end hours and we certainly like to end the show
if you haven't noticed on an uplifting idea, and producer
(33:23):
Greg said, hit this talk back and immediately it was
a guy talking about working on the suicide hotline and
trying to get people to not kill themselves and everybody
was just like, well, thanks, producer Greg, We're just going
off into the rest of the day in an awful spirit.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Well, to be fair that the gentleman was saying that
people who have cats, when they are in a very
bad way mentally, sometimes what is able to get them
through that when they call this suicide helpline is well,
I need to take care of my cat.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
All That's very fine, but suicide helpline stories should not
be the one that we end the show.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
We did not get fair warning.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
We thought people, we thought cat lads were going to
be coming at you and making fun of you, and
instead it was like a very earnest and serious talkback.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
That's because I suggested that MSNBC, instead of rebranding as
ms NOW, should should rebrand as Menopause, the Menopause Network,
and that they should spell the pause paws with a
cat paw to reach out to all of their childless
cat ladies that are the base of the MSNBC viewing audience.
(34:34):
But producer Greg, after throwing the show off the rails,
recorded his own talkback We have not heard this.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
To apologize to everyone here, it is Hey guys, it's
producer Greg.
Speaker 9 (34:46):
Yeah, sorry, I kind of led you down the path
there on that last talkback yesterday. It was a little grim,
but I thought it was an interesting point, especially as
someone who owns three cats myself, that women won't kill
themselves because they have to feed their cats. Anyway, Sorry
(35:09):
about that meow Copa.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I like, though, Copa is pretty good. I'll give a
high to Greg on that one.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
He also though even there, he's trying to be like
have it both ways, Like, hey cat people, I've got
three cats too. I think there may be a revolution
brewing among the cat fanatics out there. But thanks to
producer Greg So, that leads into so hopefully all of
you are still alive. That leads into Cracker Barrel, which
(35:40):
is dead because they have decided that they need to
rebrand themselves. So I have eaten at Cracker Barrel a lot.
During the commercial break, my mom texted me and said,
your dad and I used to eat at the very
first Cracker Barrel in Lennon. Lennon, Tennessee spelled like Lebanon
(36:02):
used to stop there going to Tennessee football games.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
The Southerners are not going to be happy about this.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
So I don't know what percentage of our audience has
ever eaten at a cracker barrel. I have eaten at
many different cracker barrels over the years. The way that
I would describe cracker barrel is it's basically what your
grandma cooked if you grew up in the South.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
That is this where I would get to say, as
a Yankee, my first introduction to country fried steak, perhaps.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
That would be that would be on the That would
be a very bit. They fry a lot of things
at cracker barrel as your grandma in the South would
have fried everything. They have great biscuits and gravy they have.
I mean, again the way that I was, how are
they for the gluten free community clay Probably not great?
Probably not great, That's what I was thinking. I don't
(36:51):
think gluten free New Yorkers are not the base of
the cracker barrel food pyramid.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
I think it's fair to say they have. I feel judged.
They have a.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Country store which has all sorts of things that your
grandma would like to buy. I think that's probably a
fair way to this. I'm looking at the menu now.
A lot of the food is beige.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
What does that mean? The color? It's just like looking
at the menu.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
They have all the pictures of the food, and it's
just like variations of beige.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
I mean it is like.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Bread things, bread things that are deep fried in bread
things put between pieces of bread, and French fries.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
Yes, like they have corn bread with everything, they have
rolls with everything.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
The bread is very much of a Southern staple.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
So it basically is whatever was super popular to eat
in the South in the forties, the fifties, the sixties,
the seventies. I think it's probably fair to say this
is that writ large.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Now.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
I think the Cracker barrels basically in all fifty states.
They're based here in Nashville. They decided buck that they
needed to rebrand to get hipper, to get fresher. Now,
of all the restaurant chains out there, I can't think
of a less hip and a less forward thinking. And
I actually think that's the strength of the brand. In
(38:16):
other words, the nostalgia is what makes Cracker Barrel exist
as a brand. If you want to go to a
hip restaurant, you are not going to go to Cracker Barrel.
That's that's not their brand. So they rebranded. They took
the old Grandfather off of their logo, sitting by the
(38:36):
Cracker Barrel and they now just have the words Cracker
Barrel written there the stock. This is crazy. The stock
today has dropped eight dollars a share. They have taken
one hundred million dollars off of the market cap. Do
we have the audio of the cackling Rachel Maddow looking
new CEO of Cracker Barrel. It's as if she is
(38:59):
a terrorist try to destroy the existing track, Like if
you created a biscuit she's a biscuit terrorist.
Speaker 7 (39:05):
Clean.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
If you created a movie villain to destroy a Southern
restaurant chain, it would look exactly like this woman looks.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Do we have the audio of this woman?
Speaker 4 (39:16):
I think she was on Good Morning America talking about
how everyone loved the real don't have any We will.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Have it in the next second, so I'll introduce it.
So this is uh, this is just to me.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Maybe this would have flown a decade ago, but Cracker
Barrel seems to me to have completely bud lighted themselves.
And I think they're gonna have to fire this CEO.
I think they're gonna have to acknowledge what I just
told you, which is Cracker Barrel is a nostalgic place
designed to evoke fond memories of people who used to
(39:48):
eat Southern meals like this in the past, and is
not ever going to be something different than it is,
and in fact should lean even more into the brand
that it is created as a posed to trying to be.
I don't know, like an orange and brown version of Applebee's.
No no shame this Applebee's out there.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
It is.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
It is impressively calorically dense in some cases here the
hash brown casserole Shepherd's pie comes in and a lean
fourteen hundred calories.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
So it is not a like for you go to
lose weight. You do not go to Cracker Barrel to
lose weight. And can I honest question cracker Barrel versus
Olive Garden? Which one is? Which one do you think
has better food? Because I have not been to the
Cracker Barrel. I am an I'm an expert on chain
(40:38):
restaurants because I have eaten at them all often frequently.
I think it just depends on what kind of food
you want. I mean, olive Garden I think is pretty
good Italian food in a chain setting, just like I think.
And people are gonna get all fired up at me.
They're even gonna agree. Like I think chain restaurants in
general do a pretty good job. Like is is outback steakhouse?
(41:01):
What an actual Australian steakhouse looks like?
Speaker 5 (41:04):
No?
Speaker 1 (41:05):
You know, but you know that you know that Foster's
Australian beer I believe is well. First of all, it's
not I don't know if it's sold in Australia. Probably is,
but I think it's like bottled in New Jersey or something.
It's like, oh yeah, I'll get.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Do it well.
Speaker 4 (41:19):
But by the way, this goes both ways because they
sell Budweiser as a premium brand in Australia, right, So
like Budweiser is, I don't know that it's what is
the most premium brand?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Fort Worth, Texas is the primary brewing location for Foster's.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
You can't find a Foster's. But guess what.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
The bloomin Onion maybe the greatest chain restaurant dish ever created.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
I'll throw it out there. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (41:49):
If you don't like a Bloomin Onion, I would submit
to you your taste buds probably don't work.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
I think that was the most calorically dense single menu
item across all American restaurants at one point in time,
the Bloomin onion I think it was something like almost
three thousand calories if you ate one of those.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
So I would hope it tastes good.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
It is amazing, And so I think what's happening here
is I just said this on Fox News right before
we came on the air Aisha Hasny, who used to
live in your building in New York City. To tie
everything together, she was hosting for Harris Faulkner. I really
think that all of these companies need a director of
(42:29):
common sense, and that is someone that actually consumes the
product and says, hey, is this something that the base
that actually made this company exist is going to support?
If you had that bud light never happens with Sidney
with Dylan mulvaney. They should go with Sidney Sweeney the
(42:49):
Cracker Barrel new logo and the remake does not happen
like this. You would not have Nike lighting its brand
on fire with Colin Kaepernick back in the day. The
NBA wouldn't decide to put political slogans on the back
of jerseys and Black Lives Matter on the court again,
just basic common sense. These companies. And this is me
(43:11):
getting on a soapbox because it fires me up so much.
These companies employ people who have never ever been fans
of the company that they're leading, and they decide that
they should make a choice without understanding the base of
the company at all.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
You can't You can't run a kitchen if you don't
know what your food tastes like. You can't be a
good chef if you're not putting that wooden spoon up
to your mouth and knowing what's going on. You got
to eat your own cooking, whether it's radio or it's
running a restaurant or whatever. You got to know the
product you're putting out there.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Look, if you didn't have a Southern grandma, you probably
shouldn't be the CEO of Cracker Barrel because if you
had a Southern grandma, you would recognize the menu and
you would know exactly what the business is. They're trying
to evoke the idea of walking into your grandma's kitchen, right,
can I say grandma home cooked meals?
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Caller Steve in San Antonio, Texas wants to weigh in
on this one, and I think we should let him
because he has a different perspective on the Cracker Barrel.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
What's going on, Steve, good morning, Thank you.
Speaker 10 (44:18):
I'm in San Antonio. Cracker Burrel's been here a long time,
long long time. So I've eaten there, you know, now
and again for a long long time. And in recent
years their product took a turn for the worst. You know.
I don't know why or exactly what the particulars of
(44:38):
that were, but I had pretty much stopped going there,
and then I saw something that they've changed their menu
out forget exactly how they said it, so I wasn't
checked it out, and yeah, it really did look different,
and I saw food coming out that looked different. So
I tried it and they improved it like five hundred
(45:00):
percent from where it had dropped. Tom, and thank.
Speaker 4 (45:05):
You for calling in as a Cracker Barrel employee to
tell us whatuch you thing the.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
The stock clay dismissive, dismissive of our esteemed callers taste.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Buds, Sir.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
I don't I don't buy that this guy happens to
call in and give the exact corporate line that the CEO,
good morning.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Have a plant in this in the audience.
Speaker 4 (45:27):
I'm just saying, I'm just saying, when you call in
with the exact talking points of the corporation, I just
question whether you are giving your true opinion. Maybe I'm wrong,
Maybe maybe he just happens to have the exact talking points.
We'll play it for you that the CEO gave this
morning on Good Morning America. I just think it's awful.
(45:47):
I'm skeptical.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
You come for the cracker barrel. You best not miss
when you're when you're talking about, mister Clay Travis cracker barrel,
you better know what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
With the odds.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
What are the odds that somebody calls in and sounds
exactly like what the CEO would want them to sound like.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
And maybe the New Country Fried Steak is just Look,
I have no dog in this fight.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
I've never even been to this place. I don't even
think I've seen one before.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
This is not a thing we have in Yankee Town
in the Northeast, Okay, I don't think there are any
cracker guys.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Are there cracker barrels up in the Northeast.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
I would bet they have a cracker barrel somewhere in
rural New York.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
I would bet.
Speaker 4 (46:19):
It's a good question how many different states are these in.
I would bet the majority of this audience has been
to a cracker barrel before.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Wow, there are cracker barrels in New York near major highways. Yeah,
not in New York.
Speaker 4 (46:34):
City, but yeah, most most people out there, I would think,
I would think that they actually that they actually have
probably been there. Well, if you think san Antonio caller
was actually organic and he just happens to have the
exact same opinion as the CEO. When we come back,
we will play the CEO this morning saying everybody loves
(46:56):
everything that she's doing. It's ironic how that always happens
when the CEO goes on television. Everybody agrees with every
decision they've made. But I want to tell you about
trust and Will. Maybe maybe you were listening to producer
Greg's final call at the end of the last show
and you were thinking, Hey, maybe it's time. Maybe it's
time I gotta go get my trust and Will done.
Trustinwill dot com you can get twenty percent off. Right now,
(47:20):
we're having a funeral for cracker barrel. Go ahead and
take care of your own funeral. Get your trust and
Will done. Trustinwill dot com is the website twenty percent
off when you use my name Clay. Look, everybody needs
to do this. If you think your family's gonna feud
after you're gone, grandmother, grandfather, dad, mom, whoever it is.
(47:40):
If you're trying to make your family's life better and
you're trying to leave behind less chaos, less division, and
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why not tell them exactly. You don't have to get
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(48:01):
my name Clay.
Speaker 8 (48:03):
Stories are freedom stories of America, inspirational stories that unite us.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
All each day. Spend time with Clay and find them.
Speaker 8 (48:13):
On the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
Didn't expect this, but just saw his tweet. Probably the
man who is going to be the next governor at
the Great State of Florida, Byron Donald's used to work
at Cracker Barrel. And I'm gonna let you tell the
story to everybody. I appreciate you calling in. So you
come down to the South from New York and you
(48:37):
got a job at Cracker Barrel.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
Absolutely, it's gonna be with you. I worked at Cracker
Barrel in Tallahassee when I was going to college. I
was a waiter. I actually was able to become a
three star waiter, and so that's how high I rose
in the ranks. Man, I was a three star. I
basically did everything in that store at the one in Tallahassee,
and then when I moved to Naples, I transferred to
the one down the Naples. It's on I seventy five
(49:01):
things at one on one. I worked there for about
four or five months in Naples before I got my
first job at.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
The Naples Cracker Barrel.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Congressman, did they just did they have the butler slip
you like one hundred dollars bills? You know that's a
very high high rent area.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
Listen, even at the Naples Cracker Barrel, it's about biscuits
and hash brown castle role, That's what it's about. They
nobody slipping hundreds in there.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
I thought that, So, what do you think about the rebrand?
So this is actually a brand? I was, It's funny
your world and Cracker Barrel collides. I used to work
an American eagle back when I was a teenager. So
the whole Sydney sweet thing. I felt like that whole
controversy was designed for me. When you saw that they're
rebranding and changing the logo and everything else, what's your reaction.
Speaker 3 (49:49):
I hate it. I don't even understand why it needed
a rebrand. Cracker Barrel is a staple of you know,
of the country. Everybody comes in there to eat. It
doesn't matter who you are. You've come in there, You've
had your your pancakes and your scrambled eggs and bacon.
You made sure you got your biscuits. You might have
tried the chicken, the country Fried steak, or the chicken
fried chicken. Look, I'm going through the menu, and it's
(50:09):
been more than twenty five years since I worked there,
But I will tell you it's it's a staple. So
I don't even know why we needed this rebrand. Some
things just are what they are. That's Cracker Barrel, Old
Country Store. I don't even know why they've removed that
out of the name. And then and even in the
inside it it looks like what they did is they
tried to have it become like a photo photo shoot
(50:31):
for like better homes and gardens. I don't even know
what that place looks like it doesn't look like anything.
That is what cracker barrel? What made cracker barrel a
real staple in the United States?
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Congressman, If I know I am, I'm sorry to say
I have never never been to a cracker barrel.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
Establishment is clearly.
Speaker 4 (50:49):
Bug is from You're from New York too, I could.
It doesn't surprise me, like I grew up going to
these things all over the country. But I mean described
cracker Barrel food to Buck as someone who's live I
was gonna.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Say, I mean, this is a gentleman.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
This is a gentleman who both appreciates the menu and
had to help people navigate it for many years, a
long time ago, Congressman, as a first time or if
I walked in there, what is like the best of
Cracker Burro? Like, what would I forget about my dietary restrictions?
We'll leave that aside.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
Let me help you. If you're coming in for breakfast,
you have to get the old timers breakfast, very simple, straightforward.
A couple of scrambled eggs, some bacon, some sausage. They
don't really do link sausage too much. Most of it's
patty sausage. You could get biscuits. You might get toast
if you ask for it, but you really just want
the biscuits. If you really want to get into it,
(51:40):
get the French toast. The French toast is some of
the best I've ever had, whether I was serving it
or I'm eating French toasts somewhere else. That's really good stuff.
If you're coming in for dinner, you can't go wrong
with the catfish bilets. They're awesome. Fried oak grilled, it's
gonna be great. If you love fried oakra you can
get that. Green beans are always there. Macaroni and cheese
(52:01):
is always on point and real quick. For the people
who love biscuits, you gotta have their sausage gravy. I
was never a sausage gravy guy, but a lot of
people like it. It's iconic. Man. It is great food
no matter what you eat. So there, I'm telling you,
when you travel the country, go to Cracker Barrel. Maybe
not this new version. I find one of the old
ones that we're still designed the old way because the
food is fantastic.
Speaker 4 (52:23):
Why do you think this happens? Like you are running
for governor of Florida, You're in Congress. Now you have
to talk to people from all different backgrounds, all over
the state of Florida, all over the country. And as
you just said, most people understand cracker barrel. It's like
old Southern cooking. You know what you're gonna get. Everybody's
grandma cooked like that if you're in the South at all,
(52:46):
and it has kind of that down home nostalgic feel.
Why is there such an and look, you can connect
us with bud Light. I think you can connect it
with lots of things. Why do we let people who
never consume the product go out and try to change
a brand like this?
Speaker 2 (53:02):
It seems to happen everywhere.
Speaker 3 (53:04):
I mean, look, I think you sometimes will get a
new CEO who thinks they have to rethink everything to
prove their worth. What you really need to do as
a chief executive is just make sure that the brand
is earning money, make sure that the operations are sound,
make sure the employees are getting the support that they need,
and then you know, no pun intended, but just let
the place cook because if it's cooking good food, people
(53:26):
will continue to come. So these rebrands, I think sometimes
you'll have an executive who think they have to leave
their mark, and that's really not what you need to
be doing. You need to make it be making sure
that everybody's making money. The earning for shares continue to
look good. I don't know how much they're spending on
this rebrand. Just looking at how some of the responses
have been, like mine and a lot of other responses,
it's not going well, you know, so that's probably going
(53:48):
to cost shareholders money. It's pretty unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
Okay, shifting gears here.
Speaker 4 (53:53):
We got college football kicking off in Ireland this weekend
and other places, and then next weekend. I was actually
going to tell you about this. Now I got you
on the show, I'll just tell you. I am going
to Alabama Florida State. I have never been to FSU
for a game. For those of you who don't know,
Big Saturday in Tallahassee. When will you be at the game?
Speaker 2 (54:14):
Two? What should I know and or go see? At
Florida State.
Speaker 4 (54:18):
I think I'm going to take a couple of my
kids for that game on opening weekend to college football.
Speaker 3 (54:25):
Number One, I won't be in Tallahassee. I wish I was.
I was already scheduled to be in another part of
Florida doing an event. So I'm sad I'm miss the Knowles,
but you know, I'm looking forward to seeing how we
start this season. Two, make sure you take your kids
to the Unconquered Statue at the stadium. It's an iconic
statue right in front of Doe Campbell it trust me,
(54:46):
it's nothing like it. Three and I'm pulling from my knowles.
I think we're going to rebound from last season. So
when that Tomahawk chop comes out, let your kids do
the tamahawk chop. Let them be a part of it.
It's iconic and college football out.
Speaker 2 (55:01):
I want to throw this. I just want to throw
this out there.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
I was looking at looking this up and hatsip our
friend Sean Davis, Congressman. This may go a little bit
to what happened with Cracker Barrel. Bring us back around
here for a second. The cracker Barrel chain. This is
the New York Times Cracker Barrel chain, evoking Southern style
home cooking and hospitality long scene as a white coated
establishment that aligned with conservative social norms.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
Oh oh, okay, you see.
Speaker 3 (55:31):
This is what I mean. You get some new CEO
who thinks it's time to do something different. Now they're
concerned that too many conservatives eat at Cracker Barrel. I
got a news flash for this lady. I'm assuming it's
a lady. Now, that's that's the news.
Speaker 1 (55:44):
No, it's definitely it's a lady who looks like it
looks like she's feeding her five cats while she's watching MS.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
Now.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Yes, oh boy, all right, newsflash for her. This is
how you lose customers because go look at your customer base.
They're just regular people. They go and eat good breakfast.
A lot of repeats from people who live in the
community who swear by Cracker Barrel and now they're going
to go somewhere else. I mean, this is how you
end up losing your company. This is These are the
dumb decisions where people who think they're smarter than everybody else.
(56:12):
What you should do is go be undercover boss and
go travel the country before you do these remodels and
to see how people are in these restaurants. I worked
in a Cracker Barrel for almost four years. Everybody was great.
I never felt, you know, I'm a black man. I
never felt like, oh, somebody was trying to hold me
down because I was serving biscuits in the morning.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
Great.
Speaker 1 (56:32):
It sounds to me, Congressman, like you disagree with the
New York The New York Times describes it as a
quote cracker barrel as quote a lightning rod for identity politics.
Speaker 3 (56:42):
It's the New York Times. Of course I disagree with them.
They're stupid. They don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
That's why they're all sure.
Speaker 4 (56:47):
But I mean, I do think this is important. You
worked as a waiter there, and you said this earlier.
People from all different backgrounds come in, and it sounds
like you had a really good experience with the patrons
and the overall environment of the place when you worked are.
Speaker 1 (57:00):
Yeah, yeah, but what percentage of patrons would you say
if you had to just put a percentage on it,
We're just we're friendly and polite folks who were there
to have a nice meal, either alone or with their
friends or family. Like, what would you what would you
put that number at? Roughly and your four years of
working there, I'm just curious.
Speaker 3 (57:15):
Oh, it's like ninety eight percent. Ninety probably a good number.
You know, every now and again somebody might get a
little rowdy if they didn't get their biscuits well.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
That's true of any that's true of any restaurant.
Speaker 3 (57:24):
Right, But yeah, yeah, ninety percent. Everybody was good. They
just they just want to come in and eat good food.
Speaker 1 (57:31):
That's what it's about, all right, Congressman, anything else you
want to announce while we're here, while we got you,
and you're already running for governor. Right, I'm a Floridian,
So can you keep this place? Can you just promise
you'll keep this place awesome when you're governor?
Speaker 3 (57:43):
What I what I'll tell you is in Florida, we're
going to continue to be the free state of Florida.
That will not change. Everything is going great. Proud and
honored to have President Trump's endorsement, Rick Scott's endorsement, most
of the congressional delegation. We're just going to take our
state to a whole nother level, but it will continue
to be the free state of Florida.
Speaker 1 (58:02):
Appreciate you, sir. We'll talk to you again soon, especially
as that gets closer. Right, thanks for making the time
for us today, Congress and Donald's.
Speaker 3 (58:07):
All right, take it of guys.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
See Clay, you never know, you don't have to look
that long. You figure figure it out. The CEO came in.
Speaker 1 (58:16):
It's because there's this there's a perception among people. This
is what I think we've unearthed here, and I'm speaking
kind of from the outsider perspective, there's a perception among
coastal elites that cracker.
Speaker 2 (58:28):
Barrel is coded as old.
Speaker 1 (58:33):
White and Southern, and therefore, inherently, even though it's just
selling biscuits and pancakes and things to whomever goes through
the door and people seem to love the place, inherently problematic.
There's something problematic about the perception, which is not even
rooted in anything of it's for it's old white and Southern.
Speaker 4 (58:52):
Well what I would say, And I am not an
expert in cuisine, clearly, but in my experience, white and
black people in the South eat very very similar foods.
So I've never met anybody of any race in the
South who was like, you know what, I'm not really
a biscuit guy, you know what, I'm not really I'm
(59:14):
not really into fried catfish, you know what. I'm not
really into cobblers and pecan pies and all this stuff.
I just I see people eating very similar foods. I've
been into cracker barrels all over the Southeast, and my
experience would reflect what Congress McDonald's just said, which is
most of the people there are just good old fashioned people. Now,
(59:40):
would it surprise me if Cracker Barrel, to your point
to the New York Times codes, because it's a Southern
based company, as more likely to be eaten in by
a Trump voter than I don't know, I'm trying to think.
I don't even know what the equivalent restaurant of liberals
would be. Yeah, I would think that. But it's all
(01:00:01):
over the South. I mean, so this is what people
have picked up on the South.
Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
This is what they picked up on.
Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
Is that to quote modernize it or to update it
is to desuthernize it.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
But that's my issue with it. It is the South.
Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
It's like, but this is But that's the point. It's
everyone's issue with it. That's why there's five hundred thousand tweets.
Speaker 8 (01:00:22):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (01:00:22):
And this is where I also think you. I think
it's very similar to bud light. You take somebody from
New York or LA who would never drink a bud
light and they say, you know what we should do.
We should have trans influencers. Was there any trans person
who was not drinking bud light because bud light wasn't
trans enough. Of course, not the reason people go to
(01:00:43):
Cracker Barrel is to get a good home cooked, old
school style Southern meal that your black grandma or your
black or your white grandma might have made for you
back in the day, and as some grandmas to this
day continue to cook. And so when you're trying to
take away that which made people go to it in
(01:01:06):
the first place, again, I don't understand the marketplace for
Cracker Barrel is not to be Applebee's. And that's not
a shot at Applebee's, but Applebee's is like the most uh,
we'll probably just got a big deal we're about to
do with Applebe's and they're like this is done forever.
But I would say like Applebee's is the most generic
Americana style food out there. Like what does Applebee's stand for?
Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Nothing? Right, It's like kind of this is generic. This
is generic.
Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
I feel like I feel like Applebee's just caught it
out out there. I'm trying to take Applebee's out. But
like Chili's, you would be like, hey, Chili's is Mexican
style food. Olive Garden, you'd be like Olive Garden is
Italian style food.
Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
I mentioned it earlier.
Speaker 4 (01:01:48):
Outback is Australian steak Steakhouse South Texas Roadhouse.
Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
I mean, is it those is out back Australian I get.
Speaker 4 (01:01:56):
I know it's not at all like that, but you
understand the branding concept. The entire branding of Cracker Barrel
is Southern style food. There is no competitor for that.
There's a lot of competitor for Applebee's. It's not a
matter of whether you're going to have cell phone service.
It's a matter of who you want to give to
provide that cell phone service to you.
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Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
You ain't imagining it. The world has gone insane. We
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Speaker 8 (01:03:22):
Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you
get your podcasts
Welcome everybody to the Thursday edition of The Clay Travis
and Buck Sexton Show. A lot of news to dive into,
and we will do that with all of you. We
appreciate you hanging out with us, being ready to look
at all things that are mattering on this lovely Thursday.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
We can start with one here.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
We have a we can put one on the board
for a Clay Travis prediction come true. He feels he's
got a little bit of the hot hand right now.
He's feeling feeling pretty smooth, feeling pretty on it. The
Court of Appeals in New York has tossed tossed the
five hundred million dollars civil fraud fine by Age Tish James.
(00:46):
This is a breaking news today. And I will say
this is one where I was Clay called this very
early on and was he was vociferous, he was unwavering.
I thought this was possible, but not as confidence. So
I give the full predictive If both of us one
hundred percent agree on something it's not I give the
(01:06):
full predictive value.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Here.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
All points are worded to Clay on the prediction on
this one, because I thought it was kind of a
fifty to fifty and he said, they're absolutely going to
toss it.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
And now this is this is good.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
The Appellate Division, First Department in New York Credit where
it's due, did the obviously right thing. This was completely
a completely insane case, obvious political headhunting. Attorney General of
New York State Tiss James was, it was awful what
(01:37):
she did.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
It was disgraceful that she.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Ran promising to prosecute somebody or promising to find somebody,
you know, bring suit again civil suit in this case.
And that they that they said, Clay, I mean, the
things that came out in this case. They that Trump
valued mar A Lago at five hundred and seventeen million dollars,
and they said it was twenty seven million dollars in
twenty two.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Anybody with even a passing.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
The vaguest familiarity with the Palm Beach real estate market,
you know, I don't know what house you're gonna get
on the water for twenty seven million dollars in Palm
Beach these days, Clay, it was the abuse of law
in the worst possible fashion. And maybe the look he's
president now, so maybe the appellate court decided they weren't
(02:26):
going to continue to poke the dragon.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
But a good call by you, sir, take take a bow,
for sure.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
And a good moment actually for I know this sounds corny,
perhaps it's true, a good moment for law and order
in this country, for the rule of law.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
In this country. Yeah, for people who have forgotten.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
And I know there are so many different legal proceedings.
We've joked kind of about this, but I never would
have believed when I went to law school that I
would end up just analyzing Trump legal cases for what
feels like a career oftentimes, because Trump two point zero
has primarily been driven the resistance has by the judiciary,
(03:05):
by the legal branch, and it all started as a
part of the twenty twenty four elections. So this particular case,
and I know there are so many of them that
it is hard to keep up, was brought by Letitia
James alleging mortgage fraud. And I'm trying to simplify this
a little bit, And she said the mortgage fraud was
that Trump inflated the assets that were under his control
(03:27):
to obtain a lower rate of the mortgage than he
otherwise should have. But and this is why the case
was really outlandish from the start. He paid all the
loans back, so there was no actual victim here.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Even worse, even worse than that Clay.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
He paid all the loans back with interest, and the
banks said they had no problem with this. They agreed
with his The banks did an independent assessment. They always do.
I mean, this is anyone who's gotten a mortgage knows
it is a giant pain in the butt. The banks
do their own assessment. They want their own person going there. Clearly,
the bank said they would be this was part of
the court finals. They would be eager to do business
(04:12):
with Trump again.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Yes, so this was an incredibly strained legal theory to
begin with, because there was no victim, and so the
idea that Trump should have to pay back what five
over five hundred million dollars with interest. Now, she tried
to calculate what the rate, in her opinion, should have
(04:36):
been for the loans that Trump took out that he
ended up paying back, and that the banks said they
were very comfortable in the deal they did, and then
argued that that was a fraud perpetrated that the state
of New York needed to investigate, bring civil criminal penalties,
civil penalties against and the New York Court of Appeals
(04:57):
just said this is garbage, and he there is where
I think we are headed. I think all these cases
are going to end up getting tossed. I think there
are three. Correct me if I'm wrong, Buck, because sometimes
I get kind of lost in the weeds on some
of this too. There are three New York state trials
and or legal proceedings of significance. There's probably more than this.
(05:19):
One is this one that was just tossed out the
mortgage fraud. The other one was the Egene Carroll civil
suit relating to allegations of sexual assault. I think that's
going to be tossed. I've explained why. And then is
it thirty four felony counts over bookkeeping fraud? It was
thirty four, right, not forty three. I can't remember which
(05:42):
one of those numbers sounds right. Yes, I think all
three of these are going to get tossed eventually. The
felonies obviously, is the only one that is criminal in nature,
and it is a sham case that is going to
be tossed on appeal the most likely if you had
me rank them to remain, if Trump were gonna lose
(06:02):
one of these, it would be the e Gene Carroll.
But I just at its baseline. Again, this goes into
the weeds. I don't understand how it's defamation to deny
that you raped someone. I mean, that seems that seems
like fair, fair for Trump to say, right.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
This would mean this would mean that in any case,
by the way, your defense would make you lie, liable
for liable for the defense itself. Right, and I didn't
do this thing. Let's have a trial. Oh, we're gonna
find you guilty. And by the way, because you said
you didn't do it, we're also gonna sue you because
of what you said in court.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
I mean, I don't understand how it's It is crazy.
And let me be even clearer on this, because this
we've seen a lawsuit over George Stephanopolos. Of this, Trump
was actually, in a civil context found not to have
committed rape. That is, the jury found it more likely
than not in a civil context that he did not
commit a rape. They did find it more likely than
(07:01):
not that he had engaged in sexual assault. So he
then said, this is where the additional lawsuit and additional
damages came buck After this verdict, he said, well, that's
not true. I didn't, you know, rape her, I didn't
sexually assault her. And then she's lying about that, and
then she sued him again saying, well, he defamed her
(07:25):
based on the ruling that she had gotten. So again,
I just think that case is garbage. We're seeing the
Letitia James mortgage case is officially basically from the New
York Court of Appeals garbage. And I think all the
felony charges are gonna get tossed to Now. A lot
of you may say I don't even care Trump's in
office all these things. I do think the court's rulings
(07:47):
here matter because the precedent they put in place when
they went after Trump. If you happen to be a
Republican and live in a blue state, or candidly, if
you happen to be in a Democrat and run in
a red state, can't allow your politics to become proxy
for civil and criminal liability just based on what you
happen to believe.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
In my opinion, Trump stomped on law fair the same
way that he's stomped on MSNBC and CNN and accomplish
things that I don't think many of us believed were
even possible years ago in both In both of those instances,
the fact that you had it was four criminal trials
(08:28):
or four criminal prosecutions rather and multiple civil suits all
timed to hit him at the same time and while
he's running for president, and that he will emerge from
all of that Clay essentially now. I know there's still
the New York case, but that one I agree with you.
I mean, there's gonna be there's gonna be no punishment
(08:48):
that they He's the president. They can't do anything right now,
and there's gonna be no punishment for it. And I
think eventually that's gonna be overturned as well. He's going
to emerge on scaths from all of this, yes, which
is which is incredible, and it also goes to I
think the desperation that the Democrats feel right now, because
what happens when you've thrown everything in the kitchen sink
(09:09):
and the other guy just grins and keeps coming. That's
exactly what Trump did. They did everything they could abuse
the system in ways we have never seen before as
a country, and Trumps president more popular than he's ever been.
His base is more behind him than they've ever been.
If that's even possible, and what have they got Davin
Newsom trying to create cool guy memes of himself and
(09:33):
posting them online.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
It's one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
I mean, whatever you think of Trump, I don't know
that we have ever seen someone take this degree of
attack and just keep moving forward and ultimately vanquish everybody
who tried to fight against him. I mean, at this point,
you're gonna like this pop culture reference. It feels it's
(10:00):
like Trump is Neo and the Matrix Buck. It feels
like he has just learned how to move at a
different speed and how to handle attack for those of
you who have seen the movie, in a way that
is unprecedented, and where he can basically turn on his
foes and just utterly vanquish them and look I do.
(10:25):
The one thing I will say is I really admire
Trump because there were so many cowards who refuse to
stand up for Trump that now are showing up and
kissing the ring. He's been the cover for a lot
of companies out there that knew that their woke employees
were engaging in ridiculous insubordination that undercut the very fabric
(10:49):
of the company's culture itself, and he is making so
much of American society better because they're using him as
the saying, well, you know, Trump won, we have to
do this. They're doing what they know to be right
because Trump has given them the cover to do it.
And I just think the Trump story for decades to
(11:13):
come is actually going to get more impressive because so
many people out there are caught up in the political
moment day to day and they've just decided they hate Trump.
And as that fades, I think Trump is going to
become an even more iconic figure than he is as
we speak about him on this day.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
This is a man who, at no point during the
effort to destroy him, destroy his his legacy, his reputation,
take away his freedom, tried to bankrupt him. I mean
it's five hundred million, I think, plus some one hundred
million in interest. Now Trump has a lot of money,
but that hurts anybody cash, Okay, I've when was the
(11:52):
last time you heard him a fine for an individual
that big? I might add, I mean, how much money
could he have possibly made?
Speaker 2 (11:57):
It's a differential have been.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
With the the bank loans, if they had even been hot,
There's no way it would bonkers buck. I mean they
went back in time to the date of the initial
loan and decided to create their own loan amount, sorry,
loan rate, and then charge him interest on that. For
I mean, it's one of the most hair brained legal
(12:20):
schemes I've ever seen. And again it is Trump derangement
syndrome inside of a courtroom. And I honestly think Letitia
James should be disbarred over some of the legal arguments
that she has made. And if somebody, if she as
has been alleged, was involved in mortgage actual clear mortgage
bought herself, she should spend some time in a prison.
(12:41):
That should actually happen because she sent other people to
prison for that while she was ag no problem with that.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Why shouldn't she go She.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Would send any of you if you checked, you know
it's my primary residence, then it's not and you got
a better rate, and she would she would send you
to prison.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
But she doesn't go to prison. But just one more
note on Trump Clay. This whole process.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Never once did you see this guy and he's in
the public all the time. He's showing up for the
mug shot and he got shot. As we know, in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Never once did you see this guy despair. Never once
did you see him claim that he's he's unable to
handle all the forces arraid against him. I mean, there's
(13:22):
a real there's a real lesson in that. I mean,
this guy is a force of nature. A lot of
what was thrown against him would have been enough to
break even some considerable formidable people out there, and they
just he just kept coming. He just kept coming. There's
a life lesson in that, you know, never give up.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
All right.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
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Speaker 5 (14:51):
Making America great again isn't just one man, It's many.
The Team forty seven podcast Sundays at noon Eastern in
the podcast feed, find it on the iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
A lot of news break and a lot of things happening.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
So thanks for joining us here live and in real
time as we are making sense of it all for
you just dropping. Let me see when did this happen? Yeah,
right when we started the show today, right as we
came on air, almost like he teed it up for
Clay and Buck. Donald Trump on truth Social in regards
to the massive court victory. As Clay just pointed out
(15:31):
to me in the commercial break, five oh by the
Appellate Court in New York, all the judges saying this
entire Let me just be clear.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Five oh against Trump in New York.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Those are judges they've been you know, these are judges
in a very blue state. These are judges who I'm
sure I haven't looked at who appointed them, but some
Obama appointees. Probably there some Biden appointees.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Or let me point out this too, by the way,
we haven't had the time to read. There are three
different opinions among the five judges. So the whole thing
is just a cluster. Trying to avoid cursing. Yes, it's
a cluster, but it is to your point. Yes, I
mean a New York jud Court of Appeals siding with
Trump is I think they held this for a long time.
(16:21):
They didn't want to release it before the election. I mean,
this timing is no coincidence.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
So Trump has weighed in on truth social and it
is a doozy. This is a big truth, not a
little truth.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Very large. Here we go. I'm going to read some
of this to you.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Total victory, all caps in the fake New York State
Attorney General Letitia James case. I greatly respect the fact
that the court had the courage to throw out this
unlawful and disgraceful decision that was hurting business all throughout
New York State.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Others were afraid to do business there.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
The amount, including interest in penalties, was over five hundred
and fifty million dollars. It was a political witch hunt
in a business sense, the likes of which no one
has ever seen before. Case of election interferenced by the
city and state trying to show illegally that I did
things that were wrong, when in fact, everything I did
was absolutely correct and even perfect. Every single dollar was
(17:17):
thrown out, even the penalties imposed on us by the
corrupt judge, one of the most overturned in history Arthur
and gern I wasn't given a jury, and during the
course of the trial, which lasted a long time, was
not given one ruling in my favor by this political hack.
But worse than him, if possible, was Letitia James, a
corrupt and incompetent attorney general who only brought this case
in order to hurt me politically. She is a trump deranged,
(17:40):
lunatic they made me bomb. The outrageous sum which never
happened before, cost me millions of dollars a month. It
should have never been allowed to happen. Everyone knew it. Importantly,
the vote was five to zero. I'm so honored by
Justice David Friedman's great words of wisdom, which should be
read by everyone. I would also like to thank the
Court for having the courage to make this decision, etc.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I mean to Clay, he talks about.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
How the I mean wine being keeps going Trump post
I got less than halfway through it.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Everybody, I mean, it's I'll just say this he he
is laying Haymakers on this whole thing. Uh and it is.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Uh. Now, look it's it's a huge win for Trump.
There's no question.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
It's a six hundred I think it's right, five hundred
million plus one hundred million basically in the everything together.
So call it a six hundred million dollar give or take,
no matter who you are, six hundred million dollars a
lot of money. Six hundred million dollars you were gonna
pay for what, dude, who is this even being paid to?
You're gonna pay the State of New York because a
bunch of banks with you know, hundreds of billions on
(18:39):
the asset on the balance sheets or whatever.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Said Trump's a great guy to do business with. We
would do it again.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
This was one of I think you could actually argue
this was the craziest case because I know people say, oh,
eg and Carol, uh, you know they talk about it. Well,
you know, anyone can accuse someone of something from thirty
years ago. This is why we actually have a statute
of leitations.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
That let me point out on the Egen Carol, they
changed the statute of limitations to allow Trump to be
sued on this.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
The statute of limitations is a very important I know
sometimes people say, oh, but you know it feels no,
it's very important, okay, because it's unfair to a defendant.
And there are you know, there are places like murder
and other you know, extreme sex crimes and treason and
things like that. There are no statute limitations statutes. But
(19:29):
in general, if someone can accuse you of something from
twenty years ago or thirty years ago, a like, defending
yourself against this is very challenging, right, This is a
very hard thing to do because you know, for a
whole range of reasons and also memories fade and the
evidence that's presented. My point is, even with all that,
(19:49):
I think that the I think the Letitia James case
against Trump was the most egregious abuse of the law
in a legal sense. I know it wasn't criminal, but
I think it would you co signed this one. I
think it was the most You have got to be
bleeping kidding me. I cannot believe they are doing this. Well, yeah,
(20:11):
here's the way I would analyze it. I don't agree
with eg and Carroll's lawsuit, but what she alleged, if
it were true, is a crime. The other two New
York and remember it was a civil case, but at
least her allegations would if they occurred, merit significant legal attention.
(20:33):
There's no victim in when you borrow money from a bank.
First of all, you're arguing that the bank is a victim.
Here the bank said they were not a victim and
they were paid back in full. And to your point, Buck,
does anybody who's ever taken out a loan from a
bank feel like the bank isn't adequately correct present? So, so,
can we talk about this for a second, Actually, because
(20:55):
I do. I think that the mortgage fraud thing. And
it's a very severe statute. That is, you know, this
is just the power and balance of banks versus individuals
going to prison for ten years because you could have
gotten a different interest rate if you checked a few
different boxes. I know it's I think it's I think
this is actually a statute totally apart from Trump and
(21:16):
just James, I think it's a pretty severe one unless
it's a systemic someone's doing this over and over again.
Clearly there are people who for pretty minor stuff they go,
they'll serve the I think the average mortgage fraud sentence
is like two years in federal prison or something. But
you take you know, people get sent away for this. Yeah,
that's at least criminal.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
This is civil. So they didn't even attempt to charge
him with a criminal offense. They just said, you got
a loan you shouldn't have gotten in the opinion of
the State of New York, and we are as a result,
going to give the rate in our opinion that you
should have paid, and the difference between the rate that
(22:00):
you should have paid in the rate that you got
is going to be a fine to come back to
the stadium.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
This is also to suggestion this is also to suggest
that Tis James and her team are better in retrospect
assessors of real estate value not only than Donald Trump,
but the banks who have their own independence. Uh not inspection.
What do you call it when someone comes is the
assessor or no, it's the more mortgage evaluator. Yeah, the
(22:30):
guy who valued whatever you there's a term for it.
But uh yeah, praise on my point, the mortgage appraiser,
the praiser.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
That's the word. I'm gonna thank you appraiser.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
This is this is absurd, right, I mean, these are
people looked at this said this is a great deal.
It would be like if Clay, if if you and
I were sitting there and we were we were buying
a car from from from Tiss James, and we said
this is the price, and she said that's a great price.
And we paid that price and she says, great, I
got a good price on my car. You got he's
got a car, you like, everyone's happy. And then later
(23:02):
she's like, you know what, I'm going to prosecute you guys.
You paid way too little for that car.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
It's like you agreed to the price of the car,
like everyone was happy. I don't understand it. Is it's even.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
Crazier than that, buck, because it's not even about the deal.
It's about Trump's politics because they would have never ever
looked at this if he hadn't got involved in politics.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
So it was all it's all, it's all pretextual. But
the fact that this was even broad is madess. But
you know when you bring up the kribble versus seminal kribble, sorry,
criminal versus civil separation, remember it's a it's a fit
for everybody. It's a fifty fifty one percent standard, which
is so so hugely different the e. G.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
And Carrol thing. The standard the jury has is do
you think it's like a fifty better than fifty to
fifty shots?
Speaker 1 (23:50):
This lady's telling the truth on again on the sexual
assault part, not actually on on rape. I think there
was a distinction that was made in that in that
case about it right, So essentially do you think it
do you think Trump might have grabbed or groped this woman?
Oh you know, that's different than did he actually forcibly
penetrate this woman, which I believe that was not what
he was found right, and that's where he went after Stephanopolis.
(24:10):
That wasn't even in the civil trial found to be
that they founded him did not. He did not do
him this civile trial. Yeah, but but do you think
that maybe he groped this lady in and the standard
in a criminal trial it would be, guys, are you
absolutely I mean, the real standard beyond a reasonable that
are you absolutely sure that Donald Trump grabbed this woman
(24:31):
thirty years ago and should possibly lose his freedom? That's
criminal civil it's hey, do you think he was, you know,
grabbing this lady?
Speaker 2 (24:39):
We don't know, but like better than fifty to fifty,
huge difference.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah, And that's why when they when they change the
rules and they use these civil things, they're just hoping
to get a jury that doesn't like Trump that goes, yeah, whatever,
screw him.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
They were trying to bankrupt him, and they were trying
to imprison him for life. They were trying to end
his political future. And now the shoe is on the
other foot. As Rump has said, in the first term,
he was the hunted. Now he's the hunter. And I
do think it's important to play back. Here is Leticia
James bragging in twenty twenty three, I'm going to come
back to all of you soon. With a check for
(25:13):
two hundred and fifty million dollars. Remember, they also tried
to ban him from doing business ever again in New York.
And my recollection is the Trump sons. The Trump sons
were banned from doing business in New York over this.
I mean, this was effectively an attempt to force Trump
out of New York. And honestly, when this all happened,
(25:34):
I remember we talked about it a lot on the show,
but I said, this is why I'm never leaving Tennessee.
This is I'm very comfortable living in my red state
at Tennessee. People that I'm not saying I'm going to
be perfect, but I don't have to worry about getting
attacked like this. This has cut twenty seven. Letitia James
bragging about taking Trump's money.
Speaker 6 (25:58):
Listen, I will be honored. I walk into that courtroom
on October second. Well, my role is civil, and I
will come back before you soon with a check for
two hundred and fifty dollars and to let you know
(26:23):
that he is no longer allowed to do business in
the state of New York. Yeah, we got a We've
got a special charge to show up and stand up
for one another.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
She's in trouble. She's in real trouble. If she weren't
in New York, she already would have lost her job.
And I know there's an investigation into her. Uh, but
with this New York Appeals Court decision, I think she's
in trouble. I haven't forgotten about Alvin Bragg. I know
Trump has not either. I know his DOJ is investigating
(27:03):
both of these individuals. Again, I think the felonies are
going to be tossed eventually on appeal in New York.
I think the timing on this is not coincidental. They
held this for a year, if I'm not mistaken to
wait till after the election to release this opinion. And again,
(27:24):
this is total vindication for Trump, but I think he
wants to take the next step and send a message
that total vindication for him is not I mean, he
still had to spend millions of dollars in legal fees.
He still had to tie up hundreds of millions of dollars.
I think he had to get a bond of one
hundred and fifty million dollars or something to even appeal this.
(27:47):
I understand why he wants there to be consequences for
Letitia James and why he wants there to be consequences
for Alvin Bragg. One more cutbuck. This was Leticia James
before all this happened, going on the view and saying
I'm going to get Trump. Remember this is unprecedented. Cut
twenty eight.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
You also intend to prosecute him after he is out
of office?
Speaker 7 (28:10):
Correct? Our investigation currently is civil in nature, it is
not criminal. Yes, our civil suit will continue whether he's
president or not. And so after January twenty ath at
twelve o'clock, our investigation will continue. Joy he cannot pardon himself.
What he could do is step down and allow the
(28:30):
vice president, Vice President Pence to pardon him. Now, it's
important to understand he has pardoned from federal crimes, but
he has not pardoned from state crimes. Last year, I
introduced a bill in the state legislature which would close
the pardon loophole so that individuals such as the president
of the United States would not evade justice. It's important
(28:52):
that we have this check on presidential powers.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
What there's so many things I would like to call
her that it would not be allowed on fcc UH broadcast.
But has she ever commented on Joe Biden's pardons.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
No, she's a horror. She's a horrible person just based
on her actions. I mean what she did. Trump is
a father, he's a grandfather, He's an American, he's a patriot.
And the glee she has trying to he's a president
and former president, current president. Uh, the glee that she takes,
and the and the sense of pride she has and
trying to destroy somebody over what all this all this
(29:27):
flowery language she's using about you know, no one's above
the law and everything else.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I'm sorry, what's the law that he broke?
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Well, what's the what's the bad thing that he did
that we need to punish the law that he broke
as being Trump and taking the fight to the left
and making Democrats sad at election time.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
That's the law that he.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Broke, and honestly having the misfortune to have done it
all while having many of his businesses registered in New York,
which I think the ultimate consequence of all of this
is a lot of people said, I'm not willing to
have my businesses based on in New York where I
can be prosecuted if my politics don't end up aligning
(30:01):
with whoever is in power there. I think Elon Musk
saw this. I think it's why he's moved so much
of his assets to Texas. It's why I'm never leaving Tennessee.
Imagine it's one reason you're happy to be in Florida.
But I think a lot of people out there with
New York assets have made that decision. Look, I told
you about my trip to Legacy Box headquarters Chattanooga, Tennessee,
my mom's hometown. What a cool experience it was. It
(30:23):
was like being in a time capsule because they can
take all of your media eight millimeter films, VHS tapes,
old photographs, and they can digitize them. And they have
different parts of their huge facility there in Chattanooga where
they are digitizing so many of these different so many
of these different products. In fact, I was talking with
(30:45):
Ad I'm one of the co founders there, and he said, look,
we basically are on eBay buying VHS, VCR VCRs all
the time. And he said, we got techs who can
put these things back working together because they're not making
more VCRs and we want to make sure that we
can preserve your family's memories. They do incredible work, right
(31:05):
now before the holidays start, you can get fifty percent
off your order. You get the originals back. It's very
easy to use. Go to legacybox dot com slash Clay
fifty percent off your order. That's legacybox dot com slash
Clay one more time. Legacy box dot com slash Clay.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Sometimes all you can do is laugh, and they do
a lot of it with the Sunday Hang.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Join Clay and Buck as they lap it up in the.
Speaker 8 (31:35):
Clay and Buck podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Some news out there, as we discussed in the first hour,
Trump with a big legal win New York Appeals Court
tosses his five hundred million dollar mortgage fraud civil penalty
verdicts from.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Attorney General Letitia James.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
Trump has reacted as you would imagine that Trump has reacted.
We've got news that Trump now says, we'll have some
fun with this, probably in the third hour. First of all,
DC crime has basically collapsed. Carjackings down eighty three percent,
robberies down by half in the nine some odd days
since Trump deployed the National Guard and additional resources to
(32:22):
help drive down crime. As we are speaking. I believe
it has now been you jinx this thing because inevitably
it's going to end. But it has been over a
week since there was a murder in Washington, d C.
They have searched the record books and they cannot find
a summer which is when murder typically peaks. Kids are
(32:42):
out of school, there's way more people out and about
in the streets. It's usually that time when murders are
peaking all over the country. They have not found a
summer stretch like this in decades, going back to try
to find a period of time where there has been
no murders occurring. So we're going to get into this
(33:02):
maybe in the third hour, but let's first. We're going
to get to cracker Barrel momentarily here. But I tease this.
As we went to break yesterday, as many of you know,
producer Greg dropped the ball. He said, we like to
end hours and we certainly like to end the show
if you haven't noticed on an uplifting idea, and producer
(33:23):
Greg said, hit this talk back and immediately it was
a guy talking about working on the suicide hotline and
trying to get people to not kill themselves and everybody
was just like, well, thanks, producer Greg, We're just going
off into the rest of the day in an awful spirit.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Well, to be fair that the gentleman was saying that
people who have cats, when they are in a very
bad way mentally, sometimes what is able to get them
through that when they call this suicide helpline is well,
I need to take care of my cat.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
All That's very fine, but suicide helpline stories should not
be the one that we end the show.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
We did not get fair warning.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
We thought people, we thought cat lads were going to
be coming at you and making fun of you, and
instead it was like a very earnest and serious talkback.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
That's because I suggested that MSNBC, instead of rebranding as
ms NOW, should should rebrand as Menopause, the Menopause Network,
and that they should spell the pause paws with a
cat paw to reach out to all of their childless
cat ladies that are the base of the MSNBC viewing audience.
(34:34):
But producer Greg, after throwing the show off the rails,
recorded his own talkback We have not heard this.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
To apologize to everyone here, it is Hey guys, it's
producer Greg.
Speaker 9 (34:46):
Yeah, sorry, I kind of led you down the path
there on that last talkback yesterday. It was a little grim,
but I thought it was an interesting point, especially as
someone who owns three cats myself, that women won't kill
themselves because they have to feed their cats. Anyway, Sorry
(35:09):
about that meow Copa.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I like, though, Copa is pretty good. I'll give a
high to Greg on that one.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
He also though even there, he's trying to be like
have it both ways, Like, hey cat people, I've got
three cats too. I think there may be a revolution
brewing among the cat fanatics out there. But thanks to
producer Greg So, that leads into so hopefully all of
you are still alive. That leads into Cracker Barrel, which
(35:40):
is dead because they have decided that they need to
rebrand themselves. So I have eaten at Cracker Barrel a lot.
During the commercial break, my mom texted me and said,
your dad and I used to eat at the very
first Cracker Barrel in Lennon. Lennon, Tennessee spelled like Lebanon
(36:02):
used to stop there going to Tennessee football games.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
The Southerners are not going to be happy about this.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
So I don't know what percentage of our audience has
ever eaten at a cracker barrel. I have eaten at
many different cracker barrels over the years. The way that
I would describe cracker barrel is it's basically what your
grandma cooked if you grew up in the South.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
That is this where I would get to say, as
a Yankee, my first introduction to country fried steak, perhaps.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
That would be that would be on the That would
be a very bit. They fry a lot of things
at cracker barrel as your grandma in the South would
have fried everything. They have great biscuits and gravy they have.
I mean, again the way that I was, how are
they for the gluten free community clay Probably not great?
Probably not great, That's what I was thinking. I don't
(36:51):
think gluten free New Yorkers are not the base of
the cracker barrel food pyramid.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
I think it's fair to say they have. I feel judged.
They have a.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Country store which has all sorts of things that your
grandma would like to buy. I think that's probably a
fair way to this. I'm looking at the menu now.
A lot of the food is beige.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
What does that mean? The color? It's just like looking
at the menu.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
They have all the pictures of the food, and it's
just like variations of beige.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
I mean it is like.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Bread things, bread things that are deep fried in bread
things put between pieces of bread, and French fries.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
Yes, like they have corn bread with everything, they have
rolls with everything.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
The bread is very much of a Southern staple.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
So it basically is whatever was super popular to eat
in the South in the forties, the fifties, the sixties,
the seventies. I think it's probably fair to say this
is that writ large.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Now.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
I think the Cracker barrels basically in all fifty states.
They're based here in Nashville. They decided buck that they
needed to rebrand to get hipper, to get fresher. Now,
of all the restaurant chains out there, I can't think
of a less hip and a less forward thinking. And
I actually think that's the strength of the brand. In
(38:16):
other words, the nostalgia is what makes Cracker Barrel exist
as a brand. If you want to go to a
hip restaurant, you are not going to go to Cracker Barrel.
That's that's not their brand. So they rebranded. They took
the old Grandfather off of their logo, sitting by the
(38:36):
Cracker Barrel and they now just have the words Cracker
Barrel written there the stock. This is crazy. The stock
today has dropped eight dollars a share. They have taken
one hundred million dollars off of the market cap. Do
we have the audio of the cackling Rachel Maddow looking
new CEO of Cracker Barrel. It's as if she is
(38:59):
a terrorist try to destroy the existing track, Like if
you created a biscuit she's a biscuit terrorist.
Speaker 7 (39:05):
Clean.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
If you created a movie villain to destroy a Southern
restaurant chain, it would look exactly like this woman looks.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Do we have the audio of this woman?
Speaker 4 (39:16):
I think she was on Good Morning America talking about
how everyone loved the real don't have any We will.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Have it in the next second, so I'll introduce it.
So this is uh, this is just to me.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Maybe this would have flown a decade ago, but Cracker
Barrel seems to me to have completely bud lighted themselves.
And I think they're gonna have to fire this CEO.
I think they're gonna have to acknowledge what I just
told you, which is Cracker Barrel is a nostalgic place
designed to evoke fond memories of people who used to
(39:48):
eat Southern meals like this in the past, and is
not ever going to be something different than it is,
and in fact should lean even more into the brand
that it is created as a posed to trying to be.
I don't know, like an orange and brown version of Applebee's.
No no shame this Applebee's out there.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
It is.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
It is impressively calorically dense in some cases here the
hash brown casserole Shepherd's pie comes in and a lean
fourteen hundred calories.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
So it is not a like for you go to
lose weight. You do not go to Cracker Barrel to
lose weight. And can I honest question cracker Barrel versus
Olive Garden? Which one is? Which one do you think
has better food? Because I have not been to the
Cracker Barrel. I am an I'm an expert on chain
(40:38):
restaurants because I have eaten at them all often frequently.
I think it just depends on what kind of food
you want. I mean, olive Garden I think is pretty
good Italian food in a chain setting, just like I think.
And people are gonna get all fired up at me.
They're even gonna agree. Like I think chain restaurants in
general do a pretty good job. Like is is outback steakhouse?
(41:01):
What an actual Australian steakhouse looks like?
Speaker 5 (41:04):
No?
Speaker 1 (41:05):
You know, but you know that you know that Foster's
Australian beer I believe is well. First of all, it's
not I don't know if it's sold in Australia. Probably is,
but I think it's like bottled in New Jersey or something.
It's like, oh yeah, I'll get.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Do it well.
Speaker 4 (41:19):
But by the way, this goes both ways because they
sell Budweiser as a premium brand in Australia, right, So
like Budweiser is, I don't know that it's what is
the most premium brand?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Fort Worth, Texas is the primary brewing location for Foster's.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
You can't find a Foster's. But guess what.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
The bloomin Onion maybe the greatest chain restaurant dish ever created.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
I'll throw it out there. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (41:49):
If you don't like a Bloomin Onion, I would submit
to you your taste buds probably don't work.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
I think that was the most calorically dense single menu
item across all American restaurants at one point in time,
the Bloomin onion I think it was something like almost
three thousand calories if you ate one of those.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
So I would hope it tastes good.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
It is amazing, And so I think what's happening here
is I just said this on Fox News right before
we came on the air Aisha Hasny, who used to
live in your building in New York City. To tie
everything together, she was hosting for Harris Faulkner. I really
think that all of these companies need a director of
(42:29):
common sense, and that is someone that actually consumes the
product and says, hey, is this something that the base
that actually made this company exist is going to support?
If you had that bud light never happens with Sidney
with Dylan mulvaney. They should go with Sidney Sweeney the
(42:49):
Cracker Barrel new logo and the remake does not happen
like this. You would not have Nike lighting its brand
on fire with Colin Kaepernick back in the day. The
NBA wouldn't decide to put political slogans on the back
of jerseys and Black Lives Matter on the court again,
just basic common sense. These companies. And this is me
(43:11):
getting on a soapbox because it fires me up so much.
These companies employ people who have never ever been fans
of the company that they're leading, and they decide that
they should make a choice without understanding the base of
the company at all.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
You can't You can't run a kitchen if you don't
know what your food tastes like. You can't be a
good chef if you're not putting that wooden spoon up
to your mouth and knowing what's going on. You got
to eat your own cooking, whether it's radio or it's
running a restaurant or whatever. You got to know the
product you're putting out there.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Look, if you didn't have a Southern grandma, you probably
shouldn't be the CEO of Cracker Barrel because if you
had a Southern grandma, you would recognize the menu and
you would know exactly what the business is. They're trying
to evoke the idea of walking into your grandma's kitchen, right,
can I say grandma home cooked meals?
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Caller Steve in San Antonio, Texas wants to weigh in
on this one, and I think we should let him
because he has a different perspective on the Cracker Barrel.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
What's going on, Steve, good morning, Thank you.
Speaker 10 (44:18):
I'm in San Antonio. Cracker Burrel's been here a long time,
long long time. So I've eaten there, you know, now
and again for a long long time. And in recent
years their product took a turn for the worst. You know.
I don't know why or exactly what the particulars of
(44:38):
that were, but I had pretty much stopped going there,
and then I saw something that they've changed their menu
out forget exactly how they said it, so I wasn't
checked it out, and yeah, it really did look different,
and I saw food coming out that looked different. So
I tried it and they improved it like five hundred
(45:00):
percent from where it had dropped. Tom, and thank.
Speaker 4 (45:05):
You for calling in as a Cracker Barrel employee to
tell us whatuch you thing the.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
The stock clay dismissive, dismissive of our esteemed callers taste.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Buds, Sir.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
I don't I don't buy that this guy happens to
call in and give the exact corporate line that the CEO,
good morning.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Have a plant in this in the audience.
Speaker 4 (45:27):
I'm just saying, I'm just saying, when you call in
with the exact talking points of the corporation, I just
question whether you are giving your true opinion. Maybe I'm wrong,
Maybe maybe he just happens to have the exact talking points.
We'll play it for you that the CEO gave this
morning on Good Morning America. I just think it's awful.
(45:47):
I'm skeptical.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
You come for the cracker barrel. You best not miss
when you're when you're talking about, mister Clay Travis cracker barrel,
you better know what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
With the odds.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
What are the odds that somebody calls in and sounds
exactly like what the CEO would want them to sound like.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
And maybe the New Country Fried Steak is just Look,
I have no dog in this fight.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
I've never even been to this place. I don't even
think I've seen one before.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
This is not a thing we have in Yankee Town
in the Northeast, Okay, I don't think there are any
cracker guys.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Are there cracker barrels up in the Northeast.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
I would bet they have a cracker barrel somewhere in
rural New York.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
I would bet.
Speaker 4 (46:19):
It's a good question how many different states are these in.
I would bet the majority of this audience has been
to a cracker barrel before.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Wow, there are cracker barrels in New York near major highways. Yeah,
not in New York.
Speaker 4 (46:34):
City, but yeah, most most people out there, I would think,
I would think that they actually that they actually have
probably been there. Well, if you think san Antonio caller
was actually organic and he just happens to have the
exact same opinion as the CEO. When we come back,
we will play the CEO this morning saying everybody loves
(46:56):
everything that she's doing. It's ironic how that always happens
when the CEO goes on television. Everybody agrees with every
decision they've made. But I want to tell you about
trust and Will. Maybe maybe you were listening to producer
Greg's final call at the end of the last show
and you were thinking, Hey, maybe it's time. Maybe it's
time I gotta go get my trust and Will done.
Trustinwill dot com you can get twenty percent off. Right now,
(47:20):
we're having a funeral for cracker barrel. Go ahead and
take care of your own funeral. Get your trust and
Will done. Trustinwill dot com is the website twenty percent
off when you use my name Clay. Look, everybody needs
to do this. If you think your family's gonna feud
after you're gone, grandmother, grandfather, dad, mom, whoever it is.
(47:40):
If you're trying to make your family's life better and
you're trying to leave behind less chaos, less division, and
you just want what you think is best for the family,
why not tell them exactly. You don't have to get
a lawyer. You can save twenty percent right now. Trustinwill
dot com my name Clay. That's truston will dot com,
(48:01):
my name Clay.
Speaker 8 (48:03):
Stories are freedom stories of America, inspirational stories that unite us.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
All each day. Spend time with Clay and find them.
Speaker 8 (48:13):
On the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
Didn't expect this, but just saw his tweet. Probably the
man who is going to be the next governor at
the Great State of Florida, Byron Donald's used to work
at Cracker Barrel. And I'm gonna let you tell the
story to everybody. I appreciate you calling in. So you
come down to the South from New York and you
(48:37):
got a job at Cracker Barrel.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
Absolutely, it's gonna be with you. I worked at Cracker
Barrel in Tallahassee when I was going to college. I
was a waiter. I actually was able to become a
three star waiter, and so that's how high I rose
in the ranks. Man, I was a three star. I
basically did everything in that store at the one in Tallahassee,
and then when I moved to Naples, I transferred to
the one down the Naples. It's on I seventy five
(49:01):
things at one on one. I worked there for about
four or five months in Naples before I got my
first job at.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
The Naples Cracker Barrel.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Congressman, did they just did they have the butler slip
you like one hundred dollars bills? You know that's a
very high high rent area.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
Listen, even at the Naples Cracker Barrel, it's about biscuits
and hash brown castle role, That's what it's about. They
nobody slipping hundreds in there.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
I thought that, So, what do you think about the rebrand?
So this is actually a brand? I was, It's funny
your world and Cracker Barrel collides. I used to work
an American eagle back when I was a teenager. So
the whole Sydney sweet thing. I felt like that whole
controversy was designed for me. When you saw that they're
rebranding and changing the logo and everything else, what's your reaction.
Speaker 3 (49:49):
I hate it. I don't even understand why it needed
a rebrand. Cracker Barrel is a staple of you know,
of the country. Everybody comes in there to eat. It
doesn't matter who you are. You've come in there, You've
had your your pancakes and your scrambled eggs and bacon.
You made sure you got your biscuits. You might have
tried the chicken, the country Fried steak, or the chicken
fried chicken. Look, I'm going through the menu, and it's
(50:09):
been more than twenty five years since I worked there,
But I will tell you it's it's a staple. So
I don't even know why we needed this rebrand. Some
things just are what they are. That's Cracker Barrel, Old
Country Store. I don't even know why they've removed that
out of the name. And then and even in the
inside it it looks like what they did is they
tried to have it become like a photo photo shoot
(50:31):
for like better homes and gardens. I don't even know
what that place looks like it doesn't look like anything.
That is what cracker barrel? What made cracker barrel a
real staple in the United States?
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Congressman, If I know I am, I'm sorry to say
I have never never been to a cracker barrel.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
Establishment is clearly.
Speaker 4 (50:49):
Bug is from You're from New York too, I could.
It doesn't surprise me, like I grew up going to
these things all over the country. But I mean described
cracker Barrel food to Buck as someone who's live I
was gonna.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Say, I mean, this is a gentleman.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
This is a gentleman who both appreciates the menu and
had to help people navigate it for many years, a
long time ago, Congressman, as a first time or if
I walked in there, what is like the best of
Cracker Burro? Like, what would I forget about my dietary restrictions?
We'll leave that aside.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
Let me help you. If you're coming in for breakfast,
you have to get the old timers breakfast, very simple, straightforward.
A couple of scrambled eggs, some bacon, some sausage. They
don't really do link sausage too much. Most of it's
patty sausage. You could get biscuits. You might get toast
if you ask for it, but you really just want
the biscuits. If you really want to get into it,
(51:40):
get the French toast. The French toast is some of
the best I've ever had, whether I was serving it
or I'm eating French toasts somewhere else. That's really good stuff.
If you're coming in for dinner, you can't go wrong
with the catfish bilets. They're awesome. Fried oak grilled, it's
gonna be great. If you love fried oakra you can
get that. Green beans are always there. Macaroni and cheese
(52:01):
is always on point and real quick. For the people
who love biscuits, you gotta have their sausage gravy. I
was never a sausage gravy guy, but a lot of
people like it. It's iconic. Man. It is great food
no matter what you eat. So there, I'm telling you,
when you travel the country, go to Cracker Barrel. Maybe
not this new version. I find one of the old
ones that we're still designed the old way because the
food is fantastic.
Speaker 4 (52:23):
Why do you think this happens? Like you are running
for governor of Florida, You're in Congress. Now you have
to talk to people from all different backgrounds, all over
the state of Florida, all over the country. And as
you just said, most people understand cracker barrel. It's like
old Southern cooking. You know what you're gonna get. Everybody's
grandma cooked like that if you're in the South at all,
(52:46):
and it has kind of that down home nostalgic feel.
Why is there such an and look, you can connect
us with bud Light. I think you can connect it
with lots of things. Why do we let people who
never consume the product go out and try to change
a brand like this?
Speaker 2 (53:02):
It seems to happen everywhere.
Speaker 3 (53:04):
I mean, look, I think you sometimes will get a
new CEO who thinks they have to rethink everything to
prove their worth. What you really need to do as
a chief executive is just make sure that the brand
is earning money, make sure that the operations are sound,
make sure the employees are getting the support that they need,
and then you know, no pun intended, but just let
the place cook because if it's cooking good food, people
(53:26):
will continue to come. So these rebrands, I think sometimes
you'll have an executive who think they have to leave
their mark, and that's really not what you need to
be doing. You need to make it be making sure
that everybody's making money. The earning for shares continue to
look good. I don't know how much they're spending on
this rebrand. Just looking at how some of the responses
have been, like mine and a lot of other responses,
it's not going well, you know, so that's probably going
(53:48):
to cost shareholders money. It's pretty unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
Okay, shifting gears here.
Speaker 4 (53:53):
We got college football kicking off in Ireland this weekend
and other places, and then next weekend. I was actually
going to tell you about this. Now I got you
on the show, I'll just tell you. I am going
to Alabama Florida State. I have never been to FSU
for a game. For those of you who don't know,
Big Saturday in Tallahassee. When will you be at the game?
Speaker 2 (54:14):
Two? What should I know and or go see? At
Florida State.
Speaker 4 (54:18):
I think I'm going to take a couple of my
kids for that game on opening weekend to college football.
Speaker 3 (54:25):
Number One, I won't be in Tallahassee. I wish I was.
I was already scheduled to be in another part of
Florida doing an event. So I'm sad I'm miss the Knowles,
but you know, I'm looking forward to seeing how we
start this season. Two, make sure you take your kids
to the Unconquered Statue at the stadium. It's an iconic
statue right in front of Doe Campbell it trust me,
(54:46):
it's nothing like it. Three and I'm pulling from my knowles.
I think we're going to rebound from last season. So
when that Tomahawk chop comes out, let your kids do
the tamahawk chop. Let them be a part of it.
It's iconic and college football out.
Speaker 2 (55:01):
I want to throw this. I just want to throw
this out there.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
I was looking at looking this up and hatsip our
friend Sean Davis, Congressman. This may go a little bit
to what happened with Cracker Barrel. Bring us back around
here for a second. The cracker Barrel chain. This is
the New York Times Cracker Barrel chain, evoking Southern style
home cooking and hospitality long scene as a white coated
establishment that aligned with conservative social norms.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
Oh oh, okay, you see.
Speaker 3 (55:31):
This is what I mean. You get some new CEO
who thinks it's time to do something different. Now they're
concerned that too many conservatives eat at Cracker Barrel. I
got a news flash for this lady. I'm assuming it's
a lady. Now, that's that's the news.
Speaker 1 (55:44):
No, it's definitely it's a lady who looks like it
looks like she's feeding her five cats while she's watching MS.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
Now.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Yes, oh boy, all right, newsflash for her. This is
how you lose customers because go look at your customer base.
They're just regular people. They go and eat good breakfast.
A lot of repeats from people who live in the
community who swear by Cracker Barrel and now they're going
to go somewhere else. I mean, this is how you
end up losing your company. This is These are the
dumb decisions where people who think they're smarter than everybody else.
(56:12):
What you should do is go be undercover boss and
go travel the country before you do these remodels and
to see how people are in these restaurants. I worked
in a Cracker Barrel for almost four years. Everybody was great.
I never felt, you know, I'm a black man. I
never felt like, oh, somebody was trying to hold me
down because I was serving biscuits in the morning.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
Great.
Speaker 1 (56:32):
It sounds to me, Congressman, like you disagree with the
New York The New York Times describes it as a
quote cracker barrel as quote a lightning rod for identity politics.
Speaker 3 (56:42):
It's the New York Times. Of course I disagree with them.
They're stupid. They don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
That's why they're all sure.
Speaker 4 (56:47):
But I mean, I do think this is important. You
worked as a waiter there, and you said this earlier.
People from all different backgrounds come in, and it sounds
like you had a really good experience with the patrons
and the overall environment of the place when you worked are.
Speaker 1 (57:00):
Yeah, yeah, but what percentage of patrons would you say
if you had to just put a percentage on it,
We're just we're friendly and polite folks who were there
to have a nice meal, either alone or with their
friends or family. Like, what would you what would you
put that number at? Roughly and your four years of
working there, I'm just curious.
Speaker 3 (57:15):
Oh, it's like ninety eight percent. Ninety probably a good number.
You know, every now and again somebody might get a
little rowdy if they didn't get their biscuits well.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
That's true of any that's true of any restaurant.
Speaker 3 (57:24):
Right, But yeah, yeah, ninety percent. Everybody was good. They
just they just want to come in and eat good food.
Speaker 1 (57:31):
That's what it's about, all right, Congressman, anything else you
want to announce while we're here, while we got you,
and you're already running for governor. Right, I'm a Floridian,
So can you keep this place? Can you just promise
you'll keep this place awesome when you're governor?
Speaker 3 (57:43):
What I what I'll tell you is in Florida, we're
going to continue to be the free state of Florida.
That will not change. Everything is going great. Proud and
honored to have President Trump's endorsement, Rick Scott's endorsement, most
of the congressional delegation. We're just going to take our
state to a whole nother level, but it will continue
to be the free state of Florida.
Speaker 1 (58:02):
Appreciate you, sir. We'll talk to you again soon, especially
as that gets closer. Right, thanks for making the time
for us today, Congress and Donald's.
Speaker 3 (58:07):
All right, take it of guys.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
See Clay, you never know, you don't have to look
that long. You figure figure it out. The CEO came in.
Speaker 1 (58:16):
It's because there's this there's a perception among people. This
is what I think we've unearthed here, and I'm speaking
kind of from the outsider perspective, there's a perception among
coastal elites that cracker.
Speaker 2 (58:28):
Barrel is coded as old.
Speaker 1 (58:33):
White and Southern, and therefore, inherently, even though it's just
selling biscuits and pancakes and things to whomever goes through
the door and people seem to love the place, inherently problematic.
There's something problematic about the perception, which is not even
rooted in anything of it's for it's old white and Southern.
Speaker 4 (58:52):
Well what I would say, And I am not an
expert in cuisine, clearly, but in my experience, white and
black people in the South eat very very similar foods.
So I've never met anybody of any race in the
South who was like, you know what, I'm not really
a biscuit guy, you know what, I'm not really I'm
(59:14):
not really into fried catfish, you know what. I'm not
really into cobblers and pecan pies and all this stuff.
I just I see people eating very similar foods. I've
been into cracker barrels all over the Southeast, and my
experience would reflect what Congress McDonald's just said, which is
most of the people there are just good old fashioned people. Now,
(59:40):
would it surprise me if Cracker Barrel, to your point
to the New York Times codes, because it's a Southern
based company, as more likely to be eaten in by
a Trump voter than I don't know, I'm trying to think.
I don't even know what the equivalent restaurant of liberals
would be. Yeah, I would think that. But it's all
(01:00:01):
over the South. I mean, so this is what people
have picked up on the South.
Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
This is what they picked up on.
Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
Is that to quote modernize it or to update it
is to desuthernize it.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
But that's my issue with it. It is the South.
Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
It's like, but this is But that's the point. It's
everyone's issue with it. That's why there's five hundred thousand tweets.
Speaker 8 (01:00:22):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (01:00:22):
And this is where I also think you. I think
it's very similar to bud light. You take somebody from
New York or LA who would never drink a bud
light and they say, you know what we should do.
We should have trans influencers. Was there any trans person
who was not drinking bud light because bud light wasn't
trans enough. Of course, not the reason people go to
(01:00:43):
Cracker Barrel is to get a good home cooked, old
school style Southern meal that your black grandma or your
black or your white grandma might have made for you
back in the day, and as some grandmas to this
day continue to cook. And so when you're trying to
take away that which made people go to it in
(01:01:06):
the first place, again, I don't understand the marketplace for
Cracker Barrel is not to be Applebee's. And that's not
a shot at Applebee's, but Applebee's is like the most uh,
we'll probably just got a big deal we're about to
do with Applebe's and they're like this is done forever.
But I would say like Applebee's is the most generic
Americana style food out there. Like what does Applebee's stand for?
Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Nothing? Right, It's like kind of this is generic. This
is generic.
Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
I feel like I feel like Applebee's just caught it
out out there. I'm trying to take Applebee's out. But
like Chili's, you would be like, hey, Chili's is Mexican
style food. Olive Garden, you'd be like Olive Garden is
Italian style food.
Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
I mentioned it earlier.
Speaker 4 (01:01:48):
Outback is Australian steak Steakhouse South Texas Roadhouse.
Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
I mean, is it those is out back Australian I get.
Speaker 4 (01:01:56):
I know it's not at all like that, but you
understand the branding concept. The entire branding of Cracker Barrel
is Southern style food. There is no competitor for that.
There's a lot of competitor for Applebee's. It's not a
matter of whether you're going to have cell phone service.
It's a matter of who you want to give to
provide that cell phone service to you.
Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
This is why I am telling you really give some
thought to this. Puretalk. That's a cell phone company that
I use. It's one that Clay's family is on. It's
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your phone and your number. So using your cell phone
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Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
You ain't imagining it. The world has gone insane. We
claim your sanity with Clay and Buck.
Speaker 8 (01:03:22):
Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you
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