Daily Review with Clay and Buck - May 4 2026

Killing America's Spirit 

Clay Travis and Buck Sexton discuss the blocked JetBlue–Spirit merger, valued in the billions, which Clay and Buck argue would have strengthened competition against the dominant “big four” airlines—American, Delta, United, and Southwest. Instead, they contend that opposition from Democratic leaders and federal regulators prevented the deal, ultimately leading to Spirit Airlines’ bankruptcy, liquidation, and the loss of thousands of jobs.

The conversation emphasizes the real-world economic consequences of the airline’s collapse, including employee layoffs, shareholder losses, and reduced consumer choice in the commercial aviation market. The hosts highlight how investors and workers were directly impacted, including a listener whose spouse lost nearly $1 million in stock value following the failed merger. Clay and Buck repeatedly stress what they characterize as a broader pattern of government interference harming free-market outcomes, arguing that the regulatory process misjudged how consolidation could have actually improved competition and stabilized ticket prices.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm

An in-depth interview with investigative journalist Luke Rosiak, focusing on a major report about Medicaid fraud and abuse in the home healthcare system, particularly in Ohio. The discussion outlines allegations of widespread exploitation of Medicaid-funded “personal care” services, where individuals are reportedly being paid to provide routine household assistance to family members. The hosts and guest describe the system as a multi-billion-dollar taxpayer-funded loophole, raising concerns about government waste, lack of oversight, and systemic fraud. The segment delves into how middleman companies profit from Medicaid billing, the difficulty of prosecuting fraud cases, and the broader implications for federal spending and healthcare policy. Clay and Buck frame the issue as part of a larger debate about government programs, entitlement reform, and fiscal responsibility, arguing that current structures incentivize misuse and are difficult to regulate effectively.

The conversation expands into a broader critique of federal spending and entitlement programs, with the hosts suggesting that significant portions of discretionary government spending could be reduced without meaningful impact on everyday Americans. They emphasize concerns about inefficiency, corruption, and lack of accountability in large-scale government programs, particularly in healthcare.

Strait of Hormuz

Clay and Buck give an in‑depth examination of the escalating situation in the Strait of Hormuz, with Clay and Buck analyzing President Donald Trump’s strategy toward Iran, including the U.S.‑led naval blockade and economic pressure campaign. The hosts debate whether Iran can realistically disrupt global shipping without destroying its own economy, emphasizing that Iran’s ability to sell oil and natural gas is almost entirely dependent on safe passage through the Strait. They explore the difference between allowing ships to exit versus convincing shipping companies to re‑enter the waterway, arguing that long‑term uncertainty could financially cripple Iran regardless of limited military actions. The discussion includes oil price volatility, crude futures, global shipping risk, and how prolonged instability could impact gas prices, inflation, and global markets heading into the fall.

Clay and Buck react to statements from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, framing the administration’s approach as a full‑scale economic suffocation strategy rather than traditional warfare. They argue that Iran’s military capabilities have been severely degraded and mock reports of unconventional Iranian threats as signs of desperation. Both hosts express growing confidence that Trump’s pressure campaign is working, while acknowledging the unpredictability of Middle East conflicts and the risks of miscalculation.

Record Scratch Stats

Clay and Buck discuss economic opportunity and quality‑of‑life issues, particularly for young adults entering the workforce. Clay highlights a Wall Street Journal ranking of the best U.S. cities for job availability and affordability, with Birmingham, Alabama surprisingly topping the list. The hosts analyze why Southern and red‑state cities—including Tampa, Nashville, Raleigh, Tulsa, and Columbus—are increasingly attractive due to lower cost of living, job growth, safety, and business‑friendly policies, while high‑cost cities like New York, Miami, and San Francisco face affordability challenges.

Make sure you never miss a second of the show by subscribing to the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton show podcast wherever you get your podcasts! ihr.fm/3I

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everybody.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Monday edition of The Clay and Buck Show begins right now.
Thanks for being here with us. We love hanging out
with all of you. A lot of news going on.
Sorry if you got stranded because your Spirit Airlines flight
was canceled forever. It was not a one time thing,

(00:22):
it was all of them canceled. We're going to talk
about this in a minute. Democrats, with Spirit Airlines burning
down the village in order to save it, as they say,
figured you know what the best thing to do would be.
We can save Spirit Airlines the Democrat way, which means
just kill the whole thing, just take the scalp. Elizabeth

(00:43):
Warren deciding to step in on the war path and
make sure that Spirit Airlines is no more. So the
pow wow that she had to try and make things
better was a failure. That is not a surprise. She
broke the treaty and now Spirit Airlines is no more.
We will talk, by the way, if you are a

(01:04):
Spirit Airlines employee, we would very much like to hear
from you on this matter, and we'll walk you through this.
Because the Democrats, in their usual just mendacity. I'll give
that a word of the day. Mendacity. That's a fun one.
They are saying that this is a Trump thing. It's
because of the high gas prices. Yeah, the entire airline

(01:27):
collapsed because of a temporary uptick in gas price.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Give me a break.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
This was years in the making, and Democrats weighed in
on it, and they, no surprise, made everything worse. And
now the body of Spirit Airlines sits at their feet,
if you.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Will, This is all on them.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
So, mister Clay, any surprises here at all about how
this went down. We got iron stuff. We got other
things to talk about. Huge fraud in Ohio. Will get
to that. But Spirit Airlines. You're a Southwest guy, so
at least this doesn't affect your itinerary.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Fired up about this and we've talked about it on
the program a bunch of times over the years, and
I do think this is one where when people in
business screw up, you lose jobs and companies go bankrupt.
Right here, the government screwed up. And this is where

(02:26):
if you're a Spirit Airlines employee, I would actually like
to hear from you. There's fifteen thousand some odd people
who lost their jobs.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Buck. Here is what happened.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Because I do think this data matters, and this storyline matters,
and this narrative matters. And this is when I get
really angry. When government screws up, real people suffer. And
this is a perfect example of government screwing up. So
Spirit Airlines was in peril as a business and they

(02:56):
sold the company. They managed to find a company that
wanted to buy them. Jet Blue offered three point eight
billion dollars for Spirit Airlines. So if you owned stock
in Spirit Airlines, you were gonna be in a great spot.
You were gonna be in a position where where everybody
was able to basically get onto a new company.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Jet Blue.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
And we were gonna be in a position where the
four biggest airlines out there actually had competition. So if
you fly as I do, I'm on Southwest Airlines everywhere, Buck,
if you fly Southwest Airlines out of Nashville, there's almost
one hundred percent chance that you're gonna see me somewhere.
I really like Southwest Airlines, Buck, I have two point

(03:42):
five million Southwest Airlines points. That has to put me
in like the point one percent of most frequent Southwest
Airlines flyers.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
I don't even know.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
I don't even I wouldn't have to buy a ticket
for the rest of my life. I could probably just
use my points. But I love Southwest. It's the biggest
airline in Nashville. They do a good job of getting
me safely all over the place. Yes, it's not fancy,
I get it, but that's the reality.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
All right.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Then you've got America, and then you've got United, you
got Delta. They need a fifth competitor to help keep
down prices for a lot of different airports across the country.
So Needing heft Jet Blue said we're gonna buy Spirit
Airlines for three point.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Eight billion dollars.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
And then I want to play some of these cuts
because I think this is so significant. Then Mayor Pete,
who was the Transportation Secretary at at the time, came
out and said, we're gonna oppose this merger the Biden
doj which got everything wrong. Mayor Pete, who was totally
unqualified to ever be in the cabinet and have this job.

(04:48):
This is March seventh, twenty twenty three. Mayor Pete announcing
Pete Buddhajeedge announcing Transportation Secretary. We're opposed to this cut too.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
Our department, the Department of Transportation has generally not gotten
involved in these merger cases, but that's changing today. It
is so important to make sure that passengers have choices,
that they have access to low fares, that they have
access to competition, and yet we've seen less and less
and less of that competition over the years. We are

(05:22):
taking a step that, again is unusual in terms of
recent years, but we think is the right thing to do,
supporting the DOJ's lawsuit and independently using our own authorities,
which are a little bit different from the DOJ, starting
our own investigation, and taking other actions.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
All right, I want to play another one because what
he was doing was echoed by Senator Elizabeth Warren by
so many other Democrats out there saying, oh, this is
anti competitive, this is going to make airline fares more expensive.
We can't allow this. Here is another flashback. This is
September twenty, twenty twenty three, on why Biden DOJ was

(06:01):
preventing this merger.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Cut three.

Speaker 5 (06:03):
You're saying that we have four major carriers that represent
eighty percent of the traffic and adding another one would
stop competition.

Speaker 4 (06:12):
By definition, a merger doesn't add a company at removes.

Speaker 5 (06:16):
By definition, a merger also gives for a competition that
they don't have presently of eighty percent.

Speaker 4 (06:21):
So our role is to make sure that there is
more competition, not less, and we will only act to
prevent a merger if there is a determination that a
merger would harm competition.

Speaker 5 (06:30):
Okay, So let me ask so in other words, we
have four major airlines represent eighty percent of the traffic.
You're saying another competition would be what would not be competition?

Speaker 4 (06:42):
My point is taking two airlines and turning them into
one could mean less competition.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
Okay, Buck, wrong on everything. I do want to give
credit there. Let me make sure that is Burgess Owens questioning.
He is a representative from Utah Republican congressman really grilling
him back in September twenty twenty three pointing out the
absurdity of this. So Buck, they sue under anti trust law.

(07:12):
A judge in Massachusetts I believe his last name was Walker.
Here's all of this, says, I agree with the Biden government,
this will be anti competitive, disallows the merger. Within a
few months, Spirit enters bankruptcy for the first time. Now
they have entered bankruptcy for the second time, and Buck
do you know what the end result here, I'm not

(07:33):
even going to get into the fifteen thousand lost jobs,
all the people out there who are going to have
less opportunity to fly Spirit Airlines because the airline no
longer exists. Everybody is going to now buy Spirits assets
for pennies on the dollar, and the big four airlines
are going to have even more power because they're gonna
get the gates, They're gonna get the airplanes for pennies

(07:56):
on the dollar.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
And the end result is going to be consumed lose.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
So the government got everything wrong here and everybody loses,
and I'm pretty pissed off about it.

Speaker 6 (08:07):
Frankly well, Elizabeth Warren a couple of years ago, she
wrote this is on X. I've worned for months that
a jet blew Spirit Airlines merger would have led to
fewer flights and higher fares. US Department of Transportation was

(08:28):
right to stand up for consumers and fight against runaway
airline consolidation. This is a Biden win for flyers.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
That is actual tweet from That is an actual tweet
from Elizabeth Warren. She has taken Spirit Airlines and driven
into the side of a mountain. It is no more.
It is now the plane from Indiana Jones, the Temple
of Doom that had no pilots and was just going down.
She was proud of herself and proud of the Biden
administration in doing so.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
This is why I am so angry too. Is when
you screw up in government, nothing happens. You get reelected
the people that you screw over. There are no consequences
typically for you. When you screw up in business, your
company goes bankrupt, the CEO gets fired. When you screw

(09:21):
up in your jobs, you get fired. Their real consequences,
they weren't just wrong, Buck, They were the exact opposite
of right. Like sometimes you're wrong and you're like, oh,
this is a little gradation of failure. This is they
did the exact opposite. All of these airline people were
in favor of this merger, and now the American consumer loses,

(09:44):
all of the shareholders lose, and probably even the debt
holders aren't going to be made one hundred percent full
fully compensated.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Here.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, the Biden administration was like a doctor running into
the ICU and saying, take that patient off that you know,
IV drip right away, and the patient died and now
they're like, look what those other doctors did. No, No,
this is what Biden's team did. They took the credit

(10:12):
for it. Then they take the blame for it now.
Although I'll just note, Clay, there's something even more galling.
It's we talk and we're gonna be talking more about
it because of the Ohio big story in the Daily Wire,
Luke Rosiak, we'll talk about it.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
The fraud.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
I mean billions and billions and billions of dollars and
smallies are involved.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Once again. Interesting.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
It's one thing when government is wasteful in an aptin stupid, Now,
that's bad enough. But when government decides, like a big, lumbering,
blind giant to crush private industry because it's so dumb
and feels like it, that's particularly annoying.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Right.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
That goes beyond even what we see with government waste.
This is now the government wasting a company that could
be doing just fine. Yes, yes, again it is.

Speaker 3 (11:02):
I think that what this is indicative of is a
lot of people just don't understand on the Democrat Party,
basic business. If you've never made a payroll, if you've
never founded a business, and I'm not talking about a big,
huge business I'm just talking about. Have you ever run
a small business that you hope to grow into a

(11:22):
medium sized business. I've done it. A lot of you
out there listening have done it. Buck and Eye Hecker
doing it right now with Crockett Coffee. There's all sorts
of challenges associated with running businesses, and when people who
have no conception of business come and stop you from
being able to do the best thing for your business,

(11:44):
this is just.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
And by the way, this judge across.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
The board, all of the Democrat Party, all of the
Biden DOJ, and the judge who was assigned this case,
they all got it completely wrong. And what happens to them.
Elizabeth Warren has a multimillion dollar pension. Everybody who worked
in the Biden DOJ is employed making millions of dollars.
The judge who got this one hundred percent wrong has

(12:10):
lifetime tenure. Nothing happens to him. The people who lose
are the Spirit Airlines employees and the shareholders of Spirit
Airlines who put their money into this company and were
not allowed to profit because Jet Blue couldn't buy their assets.
And by the way, Jet Blue probably is going to

(12:32):
end up losing two because Jet Blue is in dire straits.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
And one thing they.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
Needed to do to be able to compete with the
big four airlines they needed to have a half buck.
They needed to have more airlines, more offerings, better opportunities
for consumers. And now what we're gonna see, I'm just
telling you is everybody out there on pennies on the
dollar is going to buy the spirit assets and the

(12:57):
strength of the four biggest airlines is going to grow.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Something is really up here because the airlines, like the
healthcare industry, well, I know that's not even really fair,
because there are healthcare breakthroughs, there are new exciting drugs,
you know, talking about GLPS recently like that. Somehow the
airline industry just gets worse all the time. Yeah, the
seats get smaller, the service gets worse, the tickets get
more expensive. So we know it has to be the

(13:24):
government doing stupid things, because otherwise the market would short
this out over time. There has to So I'm very
curious if you really know, you know, if you're a
former or current airline execut or, you can explain why
is it that my airline attendants are more surly than ever,
my seat is more uncomfortable than ever, and I'm paying
more than ever for basically all of these airlines.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yeah, least, that's what it feels like.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
Maybe not more than ever, but certainly more than I
have in the last ten or fifteen years.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
I think it's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
And this would go to my general thesis that I
think a lot of you share the more government gets
involved in business, the worse the business does. And so
I think a lot of.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
You are fr If you're a Somali running a home
health care business, buddy, then you're doing great because you
just get checks for nothing millions of dollars.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
Yeah, but I mean, I mean, it really is such
an interesting test. I mean, what does the government do
that is way better than private industry would be. I mean,
I'm not talking about provide the structure like to allow
capitalist structure to exist. The big picture of government, I'm
talking about government getting involved in healthcare. Do any of
you feel like healthcare as well run in the United States?

(14:32):
It's infuriating. Government getting involved in what airline should exist.
It's infuriating. And but the real thing is we go
to break here airlines. The fixed cost of getting competitive
in an airline is so huge that it's hard, the
moat that protects the existing businesses. You know how many
billions of dollars you would have to raise to decide

(14:53):
that you want to get into airline competition.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
I don't want to sound like a baby, but like,
can Elon just buy an airline and fix all that?

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Please? Elon?

Speaker 2 (15:01):
If you're out there, you can do these Apparently no
one else can figure this out. You can do the
space travel thing. I'm sure you can get a flight
from Columbus to San Antonio going.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
I bet what Elon would do, honestly, Buck, I bet
he would just design brand new airports, and I bet
he would make the airport only exist for his airlines.
I mean, it would actually be fun if you went
back and you could redesign air travel. What would you
do differently? But we'll take some of your calls in
the meantime. Business insurance must have if you're operating a business.
I operate a business, Buck operates a business. Many of

(15:34):
you operate businesses out there. Super Sure is the first
company we know of that makes sense of all the
business intricacies, the insurance policies owners must maintain to operate
their business Wisely, business owners complain about multiple policies, multiple applications,
different brokers, no clear view of how it all fits together,
and when questions come up, not easy to get the

(15:55):
clarity you need. Super Sure We'll change all of that.
One broker for all your business insurance, backed by a
team that works with you year round, not just at renewal.
And if you've ever stared at a policy wondering what
it covers, super Sure has a fine print facts tool
that translates the legal jargon into plain old English, so

(16:15):
you know what's covered and what's not. Go online at
supersure dot com slash clay for a full report on
your current policies, no obligation. Find out if you're over insured, underinsured,
or somewhere in between. Go to supershore dot com slash clay.
One powerful platform, all your policies in one place. That's

(16:37):
supersure dot com slash clay paid for by super Sure
Insurance Agency LLC, a licensed insurance agency.

Speaker 7 (16:46):
Common sense never sounded so good. Clay and Buck owning
the airwave.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
Welcome back into Clay and Buck. We're joined by Luke
Rosiak from the Daily Wire. He has done an increase credible,
incredible investigative journalist analysis.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
He's gone deep into home health care fraud.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
If that sounds like it's not super exciting, I promise
you give him a minute, because you're you're gonna all
have steam coming out of your ears. Luke, First of all,
great work. Really enjoyed. I enjoyed might not be the
right word. Really appreciated. Reading the piece, it's pretty frustrating
as a taxpayer to read it. Tell everybody what you
did and what you found and what the heck is
going on here?

Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker 8 (17:33):
So what we're talking about is basically taxpayer funded Butler's
for Somali's to the tune of a billion dollars a
year just in Ohio. They come here from as refugees
or whatever. But now they have free servants that will
come cook for them, glean for them anything they anything

(17:55):
they want. And this is Medicaid funded. It's an expansion
of the Medicaid program and that Ohio as a waiver
for that they call personal services, because it's an acknowledgement
that there's nothing really health it's it's not medical. And
then further infuriating people, I think is uh the fact
that a lot of the butlers are just the relatives

(18:17):
of the other Somali. So they're just getting paid to
hang out with their own relatives and doing things that
normal families do, cooking for each other, gleaning for each other.
And so, just as we saw with Nick Shirley and
everything else in Minnesota, them demanding to get paid for
watching their kids or watching their neighbors kids, which if

(18:38):
they're not working, I don't know why they need daycare.
They're getting paid to watch kids. They're getting paid to
hang out with their own, you know, elderly mother. The
Somalis have basically mastered the art of getting paid to
do things that everyone else does just because they're decent
human beings. But it's kind of on track to bankrupt

(18:59):
Ohio because you know, Medicaid is like half of Ohio's budget.
Medicaid spending is like doubled in the last few years,
and no society can afford to pay people to hang
out with their own family members.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
Okay, so in Minnesota, there seem to be a desire
on behalf of the Democrat party not to look in
very aggressively into the spending because Somalis were a huge
part of their coalition and they saw it as maybe
a price to pay for the political support. What's going
on in Ohio? What is the politics behind this? How

(19:35):
does the situation like this such that you could tell emerge?

Speaker 8 (19:40):
You know, obviously it's very interesting because it's a Republican state,
Republican governor, Republican legislature. But the attorney general testified to
the state legislature not too long ago saying that he's
being blocked from doing fraud investigations, Like really, it's almost
like you'd have to be pro fraud to do some
of the things they've done. They used to have a
rule where you had to have a GPS in your car.

(20:02):
If you're one of these butlers who's being paid to
go from house to house and you know, cook a
meal for an old person, they had a GPS in
your car just to make sure that you're actually going there.
That rule was changed, so there's no longer a GPS.
The state attorney general is not empowered to prosecute these
crimes or even subpoena people for medicaid fraud because of

(20:24):
turf wars, where the local prosecutors just don't want somebody
intruding on their jurisdiction. But local prosecutors don't know how
to do medicaid fraud, you know, it's pretty technical, and
they're just doing like normal street crime, and so there's
essentially nobody looking into the ins and outs of this.
And I went there and it's I went to Columbus, Ohio,

(20:47):
and it's it's just very blatant. I mean, you pick
a name at random and they're all foreign names. But
you can look into it, and they've got other businesses,
like they're just casually running this multimillion dollar medicaid business
on the side while they do other things. There's nobody
in most of these offices. And it's really I mean,
it's either nobody is interested in fraud or in policing fraud.

(21:10):
In in Ohio. One reason is seventy percent of it
is paid by the federal government, so it might be
the other people's money problems where and I think Minnesota
this was true. It's like, what do we even care?
Even if the money is being stolen, maybe it's going
to help our economy some way, and it's really it's
just a federal taxpayer's dollars.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
Who cares?

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, Luke, this is so important when you're laying out
because it's it's almost like a it's a stealth universal
basic income or something. I mean, it's a giant welfare
program being paid by the Feds. People think it's about
necessary healthcare, like, oh my gosh, with these Medicaid dollars.
Without it, you know, people would be turned away from
emergency rooms, they would bleed out on the floor. No,

(21:51):
this is this. It's a giant scam. It's an all.
It's in all fifty states. This stuff is going on.
But can you speak to and obviously his pieces up
at Daily y We're going to link to his piece
at clanbuck dot COM's make it easy for you, guys,
we're gonna go check it out. But Medicaid Millionaires is
the title. Talk about the businesses like you're discussing how
they're these home aids or whatever they are, and they're

(22:12):
really like a butler, that's a family member that's being
paid to just hang out with you, and there's no
proof that they're doing anything.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
There's no requirements running actual work.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Talk to me about the businesses though, that are acting
as middlemen getting fat on these tax payer dollars coming
in and it's not even clear any work is being done.

Speaker 8 (22:32):
Yeah, that's so important because the traditional archetype of the
welfare queen was like somebody it's on a poverty program
and they just got you know, maybe some nicer food
than somebody who's on employed should have. This is that
seems really quaint. Now, like we're so far beyond that.
The new welfare queens are the corporations that provide poverty
services to others. So they're billing these poverty programs as

(22:56):
the as the providers. And so if you do want
to hang out with your family members and get paid,
you don't have the ability to build medicaid directly, so
you need to become an employee of a company who does.
But your only client is really your own family member.
So there was all these companies that basically just sit
in the middle and take a little piece off of
a billion dollars a year, which really adds up. And

(23:19):
these are people that oftentimes have criminal records, are totally
disreputable people, some of them have like violent tendencies, and
we're just like, oh, yeah, it's health it's healthcare, and
you know, you're heartless if you don't want that want this,
But it's huge money for people that are not actually
providing any services, and you know, basically, I think it

(23:43):
jeopardizes the abilability of Medicaid to pay for things that
people really need. I mean, the original justification was if
you have to go into a nursing home, it would
actually be cheaper if we could just come take care
of you in your house if you needed things. But
then they expanded to where it's not even nursing. It's
just stuff that like your normal family would do, cook

(24:04):
you dinner or just hang out with you. And the
problem is people aren't going to pretend to be like
hold into crepit to go to a nursing home, because
nobody wants to go to a nursing home. But if
there's if you're getting free paychecks and you can still
just hang out and do whatever you want at your house,
there is an incentive for people to go to these
doctors and get notes claiming to be infirm. And the

(24:25):
Somalis in particular seem to be the ones who are
exploiting that. And maybe Americans we have skin in the
game where we don't want to bankrupt our own country,
and it seems like the Smalies don't have any trepidation
about that.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
How does this get fixed. I mean, I think that's
the number one question that most people have out there.
It's infuriating, it's frustrating. The amount of fraud is frankly overwhelming.
It appears in many parts of the government, but particularly
all this home health care stuff. When the government has
gotten involved in healthcare. How does it get fixed?

Speaker 8 (24:59):
Yeah, So I've got some ideas on that. I know
a lot of people feel hopeless and like really blackpilled.
I think there is a way to I mean, one
of the ways to solve this is just to end
the personal services waiver in Medicaid, and I think the
Trump administration could do that.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
And like, you know, if you've.

Speaker 8 (25:16):
Got an old person in your family that it could
they could use some help having somebody cook them lunch. Great,
you're just gonna have to do that yourself. That's what
families do. You don't need to build the government for that.
And if that's a hardship for some people, you know,
I think that's the cost of immigration, honestly is we
may have been able to have these programs before, but
now we can't afford to have nice things because we
have people from low trust societies that will exploit them.

(25:40):
But I'm going to be rolling out stories in the
Daily Wire every day this week exploring these ridiculous scenarios
where it's pretty clear that something absurdly sketchy is going on.
For example, there's an accountant who lost his license for
stealing public funds, and then he created a medicaid company
using the address of the teenage son of a convicted

(26:02):
money launderer. So like, pretty clearly sketchy, right, But how
do you prove that that dude isn't actually going to
people's houses and helping them. Unless you have cameras in
the names of the old ladies, you can't prove it.
And so I think that it's very difficult to actually
proving the court of law fraud on some of these
And that's why I get really concerned that we just

(26:22):
if there is a program where fraud is almost impossible
to prove, I think we can't have that program. So
I think that the Trump administration bottom line, rather than
playing whack a mole with Ahmed Mohammed and Muhammad Ahmed
and Omar Omar, and they shut down one firm because
it's busted for fraud, but then their brother creates a
new one next door, and we saw all kinds of
stuff like that in my investigation.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
That's whack a mole.

Speaker 8 (26:46):
It's going to take so many resources to police the fraud.
I say, we got to just end this whole Medicaid
waiver for personal care.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
Thank you so much, Luke Rosiak. Daily Wire dot com
is where you go the piece. Appreciate you man, good
work and we'll have you back on.

Speaker 8 (27:05):
Thanks guys.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
So Clay, I can just tell you from I know
this from friends of mine who are either current or
former current or former federal prosecutors. A lot of financial
financial crime, which is rampant in this country these days.
It's tough to get people. You know, there has to
be a little more to it. A lot of the
time takes a lot of man hours and and woman hours.

(27:29):
Takes a lot of man power hours. And most of
these federal prosecutors it's all just drugs and guns. Drugs
and guns, drugs and guns, illegal guns. But this is
what they spend their time in the big prosecutor's offices
dealing with a lot of the time because they're easy,
those are easy to prosecute. Makes it seem like you're

(27:50):
doing your job. It never stops it's always by the way,
it never stops. But actually looking into this stuff and
seeing that the federal government is being ripped off, I
mean they're just finally catching up with people who did
massive COVID fronts.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
I think we're catching a small fraction of it. I
just still, I mean, I think we should. This would
be if I had a magic wand I think we
could cut in half all discretionary spending that the government
puts out there, and I think the actual impact of
normal Americans would be negligible, right, I mean, in other words,

(28:23):
if we just cut it, I understand I'm talking about
discretionary spending. If we just cut it in half, I
think there would be zero impact. I think the money
would be spent better. And ultimately, what you come back
to is this was what the conversation we were having earlier.
When the government gets involved, typically things get worse. And
the government is super involved in healthcare, and we have
created all of these different plans and all these different

(28:47):
outcomes that are designed to try to pay people to
do healthcare jobs. And a lot of these groups, like
the Somalies, seem to be able to recognize, oh my god,
we can just exploit it. And this is where Buck,
you go to the culture of Somalia. It is a
exploit as many people as you possibly can culture, right,
It is.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
A has been lawless, has been a lawless place and
largely like thirty percent of the population addicted to a
stimulant called kat which they chew on, a largely lawless
place for as long as you and I have been alive. Yes,
and so the exploitation of people is deeply ingrained in
the culture because it's do that or you don't. You

(29:27):
don't survive. That's right, And that's just the truth. Okay,
this this is the reality of day to day in Somalia.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
Uh, never mind all the violence and everything else.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
Now, I would just point out, Buck, if this were
really an issue, there hasn't been any complaint about people
not having daycare, right, like, yeah, if you remember that
they basically finally have shut down a lot of nobody's
this is suddenly saying, oh my goodness, my entire family
is thrown asunder here.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
This medic Medicaid has just been turned into a giant,
well fair slush fund that has less and less to
do with anything related to actual health medical issues, and
is now it's just a welfare fund. But it's so
much easier because politically you have to say, hey, guys,

(30:16):
we're spending too much on Medicaid. It's like you don't
want babies, you have a cleft palette to get a
surgery in the you know, they oh my god, the
heartstrings are pulled on right away.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
No, I'm okay with that.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
I'm not okay with people making thousands of dollars a
month to hang out with the relative and watch TV
because they don't want to do an actual job. And
that's medicaid and that's what we're seeing. I'm not okay
with companies billing two hundred million dollars. This was medical,
but medical gets a lot of money from the federal
government two hundred million dollars for prescriptions that aren't actually
even going out. Like, I'm not okay with that. And

(30:49):
you would think that people would be on board for this.
But we got to bring this focus home. Jd And
by the way, Clay I reached out to JD Vance's team.
I want jad to come on talk to us about
this this fraud because it has to more than just
a few high profile prosecutions. It has to be systemic change.
So we'll get into this. Mother's Day is one of
the most beautiful moments of the year to share life

(31:10):
changing news. Maybe you've seen it within your own family.
A family gathered around the table and someone stands up
and says, next year, there's going to be a brand
new mom in the family. There's nothing like it. But
for some women, Mother's Day feels very different. Instead of celebrating,
they're carrying a secret. They're afraid, they're they're unsure, they're alone.
That's why Preborn exists. Preborn's network of clinics nationwide are

(31:34):
open and available to every pregnant mother, especially those with
unplanned pregnancies. In addition to unconditional love, care and resources,
Preborn gives them something else, an ultrasound experience so they
can meet the unborn child in their womb. Because when
that mom deb sees her baby on ultrasound, here's that
tiny heartbeat, it doubles the chance that she's going to

(31:56):
choose life. This may you can be the reason a
scared young mom to be becomes a mom. In reality,
just twenty eight dollars provides one ultrasound that it could
save a life, or one hundred and forty dollars that
could reach five expectant mothers. Preborn empowers women to be mothers,
and that's only the beginning because they help for two
years after the birth of the baby with maternity care,

(32:18):
baby clothes, diapers, counseling, and so much more. Yes, of course,
celebrate the mothers in your lives this Mother's Day, but
also help some become moms. Help some moms out there
to get involved. Simply dial pound two five zero, say
the keyword baby that's pound two five zero, Save baby,
or go to preborn dot com, slash buck preborn dot com,

(32:39):
slash b u c K sponsored by Preborn.

Speaker 7 (32:43):
Miss the show while you're on the go. Wind down
your day with the Daily Review podcast. Find it on
the iHeartRadio app for wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
Welcome back in hour number three Clay Travis buck Sexton Show. Okay,
stories that are underway right now. We have talked a
lot about the collapse of Spirit Airlines. Some of you
found yourself stranded this weekend as a result.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Good discussion of that a bit earlier in the program.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
We are going to have Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on
at some point this week to discuss. That is a
major story that is not going to fade. Ron DeSantis
has officially signed the map in Florida, which would give
Republicans a twenty four to four lead, going from I

(33:33):
believe twenty to eight to twenty four to four, a
net Republican pick up there in the House expected of
plus four, although I'm sure Buck that there will be
lawsuits filed over this as well. The straight up wore moves,
I would say, is the biggest story that we are

(33:53):
following right now, as it has been a big story
that we have been following for some time. I read
you that post from President Trump about how traffic is
going as the United States has said it is open
and they are going to allow everyone to come through.
I think, intriguingly, Buck, the question here is twofold one

(34:16):
will it work? And the answer might well be yes,
we will see. In other words, will ship owners put
their ships en route? President Trump says, so far a
South Korean ship is the only one that has been
challenged at all, and they maintain that ships should be
able to exit.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
One it will it work? Two? And maybe this is
partly a little bit.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
Of a trap that President Trump might might have set
if it does not work, meaning if Iron is firing
on this ships, what is the United States going to do?
How aggressive is our response going to be? And maybe
I should add a third one here, buck, which I
think is interesting to think about too. It's one thing

(35:05):
to get the ships out, what ships are going to
go back? So I don't hear very many people discussing
that aspect. There are a lot of ships that have
been choosing not to leave the Straight of hor Moves.
They've been basically held hostage by the threats of Iran.
If you get your ship out, who's going to go back?

(35:30):
So I do think we talk about the I guess
that would be the egress, right, the departure from the
straight of hor Moves.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
But the ingress that is, who's.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
Got a ship outside of the Straight of hor Moves
that's saying, hey, you know what I want to do.
I want to put my ship and send it through
that straight because if you're just a business owner, you
have to be concerned that your ship will get held
up on the other side, just like all these ships
are good. So I guess my point is cleaning out

(36:00):
all of the backup in traffic would be great, But
We're still in kind of a difficult situation for a
RAN in particular because I don't know who's sending their
ships in at this point.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Once they get out, you might.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
Decide, hey, you know what, maybe there's other routes that
I want to send my super expensive tankership on that
don't have the possibility of getting them held up or
I can't make money for them for a couple of months.
And I would think CRUs once they come through as well.
I know we're not talking that much about the people
that are on those boats. That's got to be kind
of awful to just be kind of spending idle time

(36:37):
sitting there in the strait. And so I do think
that it's not only getting those ships out, it's what's
the response going to be once they are out that
we need to be contemplating.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
So you're feeling good about things right now. I think
that Trump has got them pretty much where he wants them.
I mean, Trump is certainly a brilliant on his prospects.
I think that's the correct usage of that word. We
already got mendacity in today. I think a bulliant. We
got two big time words into the show. One of
the fun benefits of Clay and Buck. We throw those

(37:10):
fun words around. Trump on his latest around proposal, this
is cut eight. Here's what he says about where things
stand now.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
No, I have it.

Speaker 9 (37:20):
I have it. I'm looking at it up here. I'll
let you know about it later. But well, I wouldn't
have to.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
I didn't say that.

Speaker 10 (37:32):
I said that if we left right now, it would
take them twenty years to rebuild.

Speaker 9 (37:36):
But we're not leaving right now.

Speaker 10 (37:38):
We're gonna do it, so nobody has to go back
in two years or five years. They told me about
the concept of the deal. They're going to give me
the exact wording that.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
The concept of the deal. Unfortunately, Clay the Devil is
very much in the details when dealing with the Iranian
regime on where this is all going. But Trump has
also laid on this is the cut nine. He says,
we might have to light them up, Light them up,
Linda style, play nine, start military straight.

Speaker 10 (38:11):
I don't want to say that. I mean, I can't
tell that to a reporter if they misbehave, if they
do something bad. But right now we'll say, but it's
a possibility that could happen.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
Certain, it's possible we could start blowing up stuff again, Clay,
So where does this go?

Speaker 3 (38:31):
Well, I think the question is what is Iran actually
going to do? Like we said, I mean, so far,
there does not seem to have been much that they've
been able to do to these ships. But how long
does the uncertainty factor in? Let me hit you right now, Buck,
the price of oil and gas right at one hundred
and five dollars. Okay, it was to kind of put

(38:54):
it in perspective, it's spiked in early April, so about
a month ago it spiked all the way up to
one hundred and twelve dollars.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
This is crude oil futures.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
Then it plummeted all the way to let's see, like
seventy five, and now it has slowly worked its way
back up to around one hundred and five dollars. So
it's still below by about seven bucks where it was
in early April, but it is it is up today.
So I think what everybody is kind of sitting around

(39:27):
and waiting for is Okay, how does this go? And again,
to me, the question is not so much the ships
that are still in the Strait that haven't been willing
to come out. It's to what extent, would you commit
your ship, like pretend that you're in the you're in
the international shipping business. There are all sorts of routes,

(39:48):
all sorts of different cargo that you could take on
from all different sorts of parts of the world. Would
you send your ship back into the straight moves? It's
one thing to get it out, it's another thing to
send it back in. And this is why, ultimately I
think Iran is in dire straits. I think Iran is

(40:08):
in significant economic upheaval danger zone right now. And the
way that I would analyze it is, we don't know
exactly how much more oil and gas they can store,
but we know it's not very much. And again, a
lot of you guys out there listening to us right
now are oil and gas experts. But if Iran is

(40:29):
going to shut down its production of oil and gas
because they have nowhere to be able to store it,
then I think they find themselves in an intractable position
where their entire economy is going to collapse. We have
effectively destroyed their military. Did you see they're talking about
using dolphins. Did you see this story from the Wall
Street Journal book that they are going to use mine

(40:52):
carrying dolphins. This is what Iran has threatened the United
States with. In the Straight of wour moves, we talked
about the little speedboats. I don't know how suicide dolphins
would be another way to put it.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
I don't It doesn't seem to.

Speaker 3 (41:09):
Me like it would be very reliable to have suicide dolphins.
But that is basically where Iran is when it's threatening
some of these ships coming in and out of the
Straight of four moves. Now, again, with drones, you can
do damage without having to have that much that much
actual military capacity. But I do think the story of

(41:31):
mind carrying dolphins is a sign maybe that Iran's military
is not in great shape. So I think in the
next twenty four hours we will find out what percentage
of ships are able to leave and what that will
do to the overall oil and gas industry. But I
think the challenge that they're in buck is if they
can't sell oil and gas, the entire economy collapses on

(41:53):
a degree that even so far it has not already,
and I think that's going to be really call for
them to overcome.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
Treasury Secretary Scott bess int Here said straight up that
this is now an economic fury campaign, and this has
cut sixteen He just says we're going to financially suffocate them.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
Play it.

Speaker 11 (42:15):
Three weeks ago the President gave the order to Treasury
myself to begin economic fury. And the way to think
about that, we were running a marathon over the past
twelve months, and now we are sprinting towards the finish line.
And I can tell you that we are suffocating the
regime and they are not able to pay their soldiers.

(42:36):
This is a real economic blockade, and it is in
all parts of government, all hands on deck. It is
the blockade that our great navy is doing. No ships
are getting through, and we have up the pressure on
anyone trying to remit money into Iran to help the IRGC.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
I don't see how the Iranians get around this, because
their only real play is to try to get us
ensnared in ongoing negotiations while they get relief. And it
just sounds like Trump's position is no relief until you
agree to what we want.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
Yes, And again, I just don't see the hand that
the Iranian government has that's very good to play because
just again presume some form of rationality, and I understand
some of you are going to say, well, there are
thoroughly irrational actors, I understand, but the only way they
really get money is by selling oil and gas.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
If you blow up a ship.

Speaker 3 (43:38):
In the str straight of horror moves, you create the
situation when that I just asked, which is, why would
any news ships commit themselves to any sort of Iranian
commerce if at any point in time Iran can get
angry and blow up the ship. I think the answer
is rational business people would not do that. So Iran
is going to be in a u such a weak

(44:00):
position that I think economically they're even going to be
in a worse shape than they are militarily. And this
is why I think a lot of the media that's
covered this has done such a poor job, because they've
tried to make it seem like Iran has got some
incredible situation that they that they control. Their economy, I
believe has collapsed. They've lost forty percent of their economy
since this war started. The United States economy is setting

(44:24):
all time record highs in the stock market. The price
of oil and gas has gone up, and that's frustrating,
But I would analogize it to the way that the
price of eggs went up.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
I remember when.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
Early and Trump people are like, oh my god, eggs,
and then the price is going to come down, and
everyone who's been telling you to panic is just going
to stop covering it. I think by the fall, the
price of gas will have come back down precipitously to
somewhat similar to what it was before this all started
on February twenty eighth. People disagree with me, Okay, we'll see.
By the time we get to the fall and people

(44:58):
start voting, we will see whether the price of oil
and gas has come back down. I think it will
have come back down a great deal, and so I
think you pay attention to it and see how this
is going to shake out. And I just don't see
a RAN having very many good options because they have
to sell their oil and gas buck The only way
it gets out is through the straight of horror moves.
And if they start blowing up ships, no one is

(45:20):
going to go and decide that they're going to put
ships into the into the situation. So again, I think
all of that is is significant, and I think we're
in a tough spot for Iran.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
I think that you.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
Sign off how on a scale of one to ten.
If I'm an eight on the this is gonna work out.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
Fine.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
Where would you put yourself on the one to ten
scale right now and how would you compare it to
two weeks ago or three weeks ago. I'm like a
six or seven. I'm certainly more optimistic. Okay, I was
a solid five. I was like, I don't know, could go,
could not go? But I think now the Trump strategy
as it stands here makes sense to me to get

(46:07):
to the outcome that they want, and they're not falling
for I was worried they were going to fall for
the ropidope of oh yeah, sure, let's talk, let's talk,
just open up the straight for our shipping.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Yeah. No, they're not.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
Doing that, because then we would know exactly how it
would just completely it would turn into a delay game
and they would play all the games they've been playing
the whole time. So yeah, I'm like, I'm like a
six or seven. I'm not quite as optimistic as you
because it's the Middle East and I've been burned too
many times. But trust and Trump has been a very
effective policy on this for a lot of people so far,

(46:39):
a very effective position.

Speaker 3 (46:40):
I should say, we got a bunch of calls. We'll
get to some of those. We will continue to break
down the absolute latest there. But I want to tell
you if you are out there right now and you
are thinking to yourself, my roof's in rough shape, and
there are a lot of you that may be thinking
that right now. Have had some tough weather, Maybe you've
been living in a home for a long time. Maybe
you thought, hey, we're going to be out of this house,
but then mortgage rates have been frustrating and you've got

(47:02):
a good rate and you don't want to move, but
you're looking at the ceiling and you're saying, I don't
know how this is going to work. Eerie Home can
hook you up fifty year old company that specializes in
roof repair. They'll inspect your roof for any problems free
of charge, with a twenty five point inspection they've developed
over many years in business. And if your roof needs
a replacement, Eerie Home offers all kinds of options, including

(47:23):
newer metal materials made to mimic the look of the
roof you're likely have now, whether that's dimensional shingles, wood,
shake barrel tiles, your new roof will look great last
up to two to three times longer than traditional shingle
roofs with proper care and maintenance. Your new roof from
Marie Home comes with a fifty year transferable warranty, so
if you sell your home, you're providing even more value

(47:46):
in the sales process. Schedule your free inspection at eeriehome
dot com slash clay today and get up to twelve
hundred dollars in a discount. That's eriehome dot com slash
Clay one more time. Eeriehome dot com slash Clay discount
maximized at one thousand, two hundred dollars twelve hundred bucks

(48:09):
valid on new roofing installations only. Minimum purchase required restrictions apply.
See rep for warranty or promotional details.

Speaker 7 (48:17):
Looking for normal in a world of crazy, Clay and
Buck have your back. Welcome back in Clay, Travis Buck
Sexton Show. Appreciate all of you hanging out with me
as we are and Buck as we are rolling through
the program right now.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
A couple of other things that are out there.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
Buck, I don't know if you saw this, but I
do know that graduation season is up, honest, and I
bet a lot of you out there have kids and
grandkids who may be graduating. For instance, in a couple
of weeks, my oldest son is graduating from high school
and he'll be off to college. We're excited about that.

(48:58):
But Wall Street Journal this morning I was reading, and
if you've got kids that are out there looking for jobs,
get your pen. Maybe you got grandkids that are out
there looking for jobs. The Wall Street Journal ranked cities
buck for the best to find jobs right now if
you are a young twenty something right and then they

(49:20):
also factored in which is pretty cool, cost of living,
available housing, all of those things that if you were
twenty three, twenty four years old and you're thinking to yourself, Okay,
where should I start my career? Where would be a
good place to go? Number one city is going to
stun a lot of people. So I just want all

(49:41):
of you prepared for the number one city that for
cost of living, hiring is best for twenty somethings in America,
according to the Wall Street Journal, Birmingham, Alabama. I think
there's a record scratch out there for a lot of
you saying Birmingham, Alabama. You wouldn't have ex now if
you went to Auburn or you went to Alabama, or

(50:03):
you are listening to us in Birmingham. I've got a
lot of family in Birmingham. I've spent a lot of
time there. But here are some of the others. Buck
and I just thought it was interesting you talk about
red state versus blue state.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
Just listen to this list. This is the.

Speaker 3 (50:18):
Top I jotted down the basically the top ten. Birmingham, Alabama,
number one overall, Tampa, Florida, number two overall. San Jose, California.
Surprised me a little bit, but that's kind of the
tech area. Columbus, Ohio Buckeye fans will be happy about that. Raleigh,
North Carolina, Tulsa, Oklahoma, San Francisco, and some of you

(50:43):
are going to say it's kind of a record scratch.
San Francisco has actually started to get more affordable because
so many people have left. Candidly that there's actually four
young people starting to be more affordable housing. I think
that's also the story with San Jose, Nashville, Tennessee, where
I live, Charlotte, North Carolina. So of the top ten,

(51:06):
the vast majority of those are in red states. Many
of them are in the southeastern part of the United States.
Here then New York City, Denver, Fresno, California, Austin, Texas, Baltimore, Providence,
Rhode Island. That is the top fifteen markets. Buck, How

(51:27):
many guesses would I've had to give you to get
Birmingham as Birmingham, Alabama as the number one for affordability
and job availability and also just the ability to find
a job number one according to the Wall Street Journal
right now.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
In the entire country.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
I would have honestly and truly guessed Nashville if you
had asked me this, just because I know so many
young people, younger people are moving there. I assume the
housing market has just gotten a bit hot, a little pricey. Ye,
it's gotten a little bit more expensive. Yeah, new new
units and things like that. Downtown or pricey Birmingham. I've
been in the downtown there, Producer Ali and I did

(52:07):
a little exploration of Birmingham and has some beautiful areas.
I know it has a really high UH crime problem unfortunately.
So if it gets that under control, when it will
be fashion to see if Memphis starts to creep up
on some of these lists. Because Memphis should be a
great city that people want to live in. But if
you deal with the crime issue, which it seems like

(52:27):
it is being dealt with. Uh, there's I think a
lot of a lot of reason to believe that it
would do very well. But yeah, I'm I'm trying to
think of those of any really surprises. Baltimore also has
some beautiful parts and the crime problem though, Man, I
don't know crime. It's it's I've spent a lot of
time in Baltimore, and Baltimore is rough, rough in a

(52:48):
way that like other cities that have rough neighborhoods, don't
even come close.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
To I think what you've seen in some of these places,
and Baltimore is an example of that, is places that
are white hot, like Nashville is number eight on this
list and has been very hot. I think what you're
starting to see is people are looking at other areas.
For instance, Chattanooga, which is in Tennessee. Knoxville, obviously in Tennessee,

(53:17):
has started to get a lot of the spillover from
Nashville because people say, hey, it's too expensive here. I
think what you're starting to see with a city like
Birmingham is Atlanta for a long time has been white hot, Charlotte, Nashville.
I think you're starting to see other southern towns if
they can make decent strategic decisions, be pro business, pro growth.

(53:39):
Safety matters a great deal. If you're in your twenties,
it matters tremendously. And I will tell you Buck, Nashville
started to take off when all the bachelorettes showed up
in town. And you might say, Okay, what do bachelorettes
have to do with a city getting hot and becoming

(54:00):
a place where people want to go? Women want to
go where it's safe. I saw a video from Spencer Pratt,
who's running. We're trying to get him on for mayor
of Los Angeles. He had a great video. He's standing
by a playground and he just said, uh, I want
to be the mayor for women and children in Los Angeles.
He said, we used to say women and children first.

(54:22):
If you look in cities where women, young women in particular,
feel like they and their girlfriends can safely go, is
a city that is going to skyrocket in popularity. Because
what's the if you owned a bar, what's the most
important thing to make a bar successful?

Speaker 1 (54:39):
Buck chicks? Pretty girls.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
You get pretty girls to go to your bar, you
are going to be minting money so they used to
have ladies Night back in the day. You go downtown
in Nashville. Every bachelorette in America is coming into my
city now. It didn't exist for a long time because
it's so safe in the downtown corridor. You can walk
from one bar to another. You know that you're not
going to get assaulted. It is the number one thing,

(55:07):
and so a lot of these places, like the Birmingham, Alabamas.
Tampa's number two on this list buck Miami, where you
are so popular, so expensive that some people are starting
to say, hey, I still want warm weather, but maybe
I could afford to live in Tampa at twenty five
in a way that I can in Miami.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Frankly, Miami got too popular too fast, and I guess
I'm a part of that problem. But housing here and
cost of living here, and also the infrastructure's ability, the
roads there's really no mass transit here, the road's ability
to handle the popularity of Miami. It's just we have
some of the worst traffic in the entire nation now
and some of the highest housing prices, and also with

(55:47):
insurance prices and things, it's not an affordable place to live,
which is a shame. Because there was a time, if
you really had foresight, you could have picked up waterfront
condos for one hundred grand apiece back after the financial
crisis in two thousand and nine. I mean, I mean nice,
nice inventory stuff. We would have had to hold onto

(56:08):
it for a while. And now those are all go.
You know, they're worth a million bucks a million five.
So there was a time to get involved in. Everybody
that I know that's a long time landholder in Miami
has just absolutely done phenomenally well. But the new people
showing up are paying very, very high prices.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
So this is the thing.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
I mean, you have to look at cost of living,
job opportunities, all the safety, all of these things together.
Baltimore to me, I'm telling you, if Baltimore cleaned up
the crime problem and also just the blight, there's a
lot of urban blight, you know, boarded up houses and stuff,
it's an amazing It's thirty minutes. It's basically a suburb
of DC. It's thirty minutes from DC on the train.

(56:48):
It's a quick quick drive on the highway. There are
beautiful parts of downtown Baltimore. The waterfront's really nice. Honestly,
you just need like a Republican mayor and a serious
city council to come in and be like, we're not
going to do with this crime thing anymore. You could
make that city so much better and so much nicer,
but I don't think they're going to do it anytime soon.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
I'll give you another one on this list that I
think may surprise some people. Tulsa, Oklahoma. I think a
lot of people this goes to Dallas and Houston and
other parts of Texas Austin that have been so incredibly popular.
People are finding Tulsa and saying, Okay, it's a little

(57:28):
bit more affordable and has a flavor that is not
dissimilar to those places. So anyway, I just think it's
graduation season. I know that a lot of you have
kids and grandkids out there timing on the Wall Street
Journal putting this out, I thought was intriguing.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Where would you tell your kids, well, your boy, if
you were graduating college now not going to college, what
would be your top three places forget about you want
to do and of course wanting to be closed and everything.
Let's say Nashville's off the list because he wants to
EXPERI in something else that's new, So that takes that
off the table.

Speaker 3 (58:02):
Yeah, so I'll tell you the answer on Nashville. My
wife's already thinking about this. Where the boy's gonna go.
I said, oh, they're coming back here. She said, how
do you know. I said, it's there's more pretty girls
in Nashville per capita than anywhere. Twenty three twenty four
year old boys. They're gonna go where pretty girls are.
I feel good about them ending up back here. So
let me take Nashville off the table. If I were

(58:23):
giving advice, I mean, again, the career matters, because advice.
For instance, if your kid is going into tech or
venture capital, I mean, you may not love the city,
but I would say you should be in San Francisco
because that's where that environment is, that's where there still
is a tech the tech focused industry. And you know,

(58:46):
in the same way, if your kid was going into
finance and wanted to work in an investment bank, I
would say New York City. So step stepping out of that,
I would I think it's gonna be really hard. I
would go Texas, Tennessee, Florida. I would say, you find
a city in either Texas, Tennessee or Florida zero income
tax money flowing in like crazy from so many people

(59:09):
that are super wealthy. I think there's going to be
dynamic businesses created an opportunity for growth. If I were
bullish on three states right now, I think lack of
state income tax in Texas, Texas, Tennessee, and Florida, I
would tell them to pick a city in one of
those three market one of those three states, and say
start your career there. What about you, You've got almost

(59:33):
twenty years you're gonna be thinking about this. But I
would go with one of those three states. I think
the next generation Texas, Tennessee, and Florida are going to
be creating substantial gaps between themselves and other places. And look,
part of being successful, is you right, we believe in
individual autonomy and everything else, but you also should go
where the fish are biting and you can be the

(59:54):
greatest fishermen in the world. And if you're in a
lake and there aren't any fish there, it doesn't matter
how talent that you are. So I think going to
a place that's going to grow is going to help
you be more successful. I would pick one of those
three states.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
I would say, if the if job, if we control
if job is removed from it, as in, you know,
we're not taking that specifically into account because that matters
a whole.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
Lot, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
I mean, if you're really going to do finance for
the most part, you still want to be in New York.
I mean the big boys are mostly in New York.

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Or if you're gonna do government, you should be in
the Washington DC area.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
Right like, yeah, and and DC as much as you
some of you are going to grow and play and
I have both been DC residents for years in the
past in your twenties. D C is a great city
because it's relatve for the access you have.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
It's relatively an expensive.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
You can get some row house, get six of your buddies,
you have some big old Victorian row house, and you
know this is what people would do and you're not
paying that much in rent.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
Uh So d C is cool for that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
I would say, though, just three cities to pick for
anyone who's listening and their kids, their grandkids if they
were starting out, they want.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
San Diego, I think is amazing. I'm just gonna tell you,
I think California off the list for taxes. It is
an amazing place. I don't disagree on San Diego being stranginary,
but I would just help your kid to go to
California right now because of the the finances.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
I would say San Diego, Charleston, South Carolina, and I
love and you know what West Palm I would do.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
West Palm is really starting to boom.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
I would I would go for the Florida city I
would do is West Palm because there's a lot of
good things happening there. It's not as congested. Miami's insane.
Miami's like more expensive than Manhattan now in a lot
of places, Miami prices have just had It's priced truly
has priced people out of the market.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
So that's a little bit. That's that's a shame. That's
why Tampa.

Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
Honestly, I think that's why Tampa has spot has sprouted
up as people like South Florida, but Miami's gotten so expensive,
Tampa feels like an accessible entree point.

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
I also, I've always loved Savannah. I've had people tell
me that they've moved to Savannah and they feel like
Savannah is not that welcoming to outsiders, which that's true.
That's the whole state of South Carolina. They're they're like not,
Savannah is not psyched. When you come in, You're like,
I just bought a beautiful old row house.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
They're like, who are you.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
I'll give you a South Carolina example, Buck, And this
is twenty years old, so granted it may have changed
somewhat when we were We did it on campus interviews
at Vanderbilt Law School. You know, different firms come in
from all over the country. They told us, don't even
bother interviewing with the South Carolina law firms unless your
family has been in South Carolina for a long time.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
I've heard that's only when I've heard. It's funny. You
and I did not coordinate this beforehand. I have picked
that up from multiple people, especially Yankees who want to
move somewhere south.

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
I just thought it was super interesting because I'm a
born and raised Nashville kid, and a lot of you
out there, Atlanta, Charlotte, you know, decent sized southern cities
that have grown a lot. The only state it was Charleston,
it was Columbia. It was not exclusive to any one area.
They said, if you want to go to a Charleston
law firm, your family needs to have been in South

(01:03:09):
Carolina for a while. Only city, only state where they
said anything like that, Florida, Texas, you know, Tennessee, all
the other places you know, New York, California, wherever you
might have been interviewing.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
And it's a good law school, right.

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
You would think South Carolina law firms would want a
lot of young Vanderbilt lawyers.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
They're like, not unless you've been there a while. Apparently,
all right.

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
We're proud to partner with the International Fellowship of Christians
and Jews. Forty three years ago, their founder, Arambi, serving
his community in New Jersey, made a pledge to look
after the most vulnerable members of the Jewish space with
the help of Christians across the US. They do remarkable
work fueled by donations from private individuals like you and me.
Most often we refer to this nonprofit as the IFCJ.

(01:03:52):
They are dedicated to positively affecting the lives of those
in need throughout Israel, Ukraine and other parts of the world.
They provide support and much needed help to them most
vulnerable with medicine, food and other essential supplies. Give forty
five dollars right now to rush life saving essentials to
the vulnerable underfire call eight eight eight four eight eight IFCJ.
That's eight eight eight four eight eight IFCJ, or go

(01:04:13):
online to ifcj dot org.

Speaker 7 (01:04:16):
Miss the show while you're on the go, wind down
your day with the Daily Review podcast. Find it on
the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.