January 29, 2025 • 36 mins
Trump offers federal workforce buyouts. RFK Jr. confirmation hearings are more about politics than they are about health. We're cautiously optimistic about the rest of the nominees. Trump is putting the bloated and lazy government on an overdue diet and exercise plan.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everybody. Wednesday edition of the Clay Travis and Buck
Sexton Show kicks off right now. Thanks for being here
with us as we speak to you, some very interesting
exchanges going on upon Capitol Hill. R FK Junior, Donald
Trump's nominee to b Secretary of Health and Human Services,
(00:20):
a massive entity with enormous funding and a very big mission,
a very big mandate. Donald Trump nominee RFK Junior getting
pretty favorable treatment from Republicans and Democrats are really going
after him. We will dive into that momentarily because I
(00:41):
think that's a big, a big deal. There's a lot
that comes together there, everything from how COVID was handled,
to vaccines, to Medicare and Medicaid, and the state of
America's health which is on the whole poor, and it's
certainly worth trying to figure out why that is. So
(01:02):
we will dive into all of this, my friends. This
is absolutely top of the agenda. We also have a
very interesting proposal put forward by the Trump White House
offering federal employees a buyout essentially extended severance of almost
(01:23):
eight months if they are willing to just walk away,
essentially telling the federal workforce Look, if you're not really
doing anything, don't make us come find you and fire you.
Better for you to just take the eight months and
go do something else. And everybody's happy, especially the taxpayer
who's no longer carrying this weight of the expense of
(01:45):
these people that are not really doing anything. But Clay,
I think we should jump right into with the RFK
junior hearing. We haven't seen what they've said to Tulca yet.
We haven't seen what they have done with Spattel that's
coming up. I had thought this would be the most
contentious of the nominations that would happen this week. It
(02:10):
started out, we don't have to play this a bunch
of protesters yelling protesters that do this stuff for idiots.
But here, let's just start play with it. This is
cut ten. This is kind of the baseline for what's
going on here. RFK juniors coming in with a mandate
to address the state of America's health play cut ten
and will dive in the.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
United States has worse health than any other developed nation. Yeah,
we spend more on healthcare, at least double and in
some cases triple as other countries. Last year, we spent
four point eight trillion, not counting the indirect cause of
missed work. That's almost a fifth.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
A fifth of.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
GDP is tan amount to a twenty percent tax on
the hire economy. No wonder America has trouble competing with
countries that pay a third of what we do for
health and have better outcomes and a healthier workforce. And
I don't want to make this too much about money.
It's the human trategy that moves us to care.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Clay, there is something. There are a lot of things
that need to be addressed that are malfunctioning with our health,
not just our healthcare system, as in a lot of
money going to a lot of places and a little
card that says at some point maybe you'll get to
see a doctor. But the way that we address and
approach health as a country is something that needs an overhaul.
(03:37):
And it's interesting to see how many Democrats are all
of a sudden, very dead set against that kind of
for the greater good approach to American health. I don't
even think it's just that buck, it's that until about
six months ago, RFK Junior was one of the most
prominent Democrats from the most prominent Democrat fan maybe other
(04:01):
than the Clintons right now, but I think even bigger
than the Clintons and the Obamas, and it is indicative
of a reflexive anti Trump disposition where even when you
pick someone like RFK Junior, who has been a lifelong
Democrat and has I think it's fair to say many
(04:24):
opinions that are the antithesis of what a lot of
Republican voters believe. In other words, this is a guy
with a wildly divergent background relative to most Republican Cabinet
picks in any of our lives. Yet Democrats have decided
that they're going to align against him and Tulca Gabbard
(04:47):
as aggressively as they went against Pete Hegseth. And I
think it's just for many people out there, a reflection
of the existing tribalism that RFK Junior is unable to
get any kind of Democrats support at all, despite the
fact is he's seventy four. For seventy three and a
(05:08):
half years, he's been a card carrying member of the
Democrat Party. And even the criticism that you would have
for him prior to endorsing Trump, what was it buck
He said that Joe Biden wasn't mentally or physically capable
of doing the job and got completely frozen out in
the Democrat primary race to such an extent that he
decided to run as an independent before endorsing Trump. My
(05:31):
point on all this is, this should be a guy
that gets eighty votes.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I mean, this shouldn't even be remotely a difficult confirmation process.
He should be a guy who is an overwhelming majority
pick most Republicans. I understand some Republicans who would actually
vote against RFK Junior because he has been, as you
pointed out, not on the side of many Republicans for.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
A long time. I mean, yeah, we should. We should
be very straightforward about this. In the past, RFK Junior
has said really dumb and really bad things, many of them,
too many of them for me to recount. For all
of you and anyone who doubts me, I don't know.
Do you think the NRA is a terrorist organization? Because
he did. He did. He has repudiated these comments. He
has said he does not believe this anymore. Donald Trump
(06:18):
at different points was to the left of where he
was now many years ago. So I think we're in
an era now where if people believe that somebody's views
have of all, but you know, I don't want us
to run away from that. Not only was RFKA Junior
a Democrat, RFK Junior was somebody who took some very
radical left positions, including if you're not on board for
(06:39):
climate change, you're a trader. I don't think anybody who
believes in climate change as an existential threat is all
that smart. But RFK Junior figured that out. So I'll
give him a pass on that. There are some things
he has been and some of you might get annoyed
at hearing this. This is just fact right. Some things
he's been very wrong on when he was a Democrat Clay,
but he has had a red pill moment perhaps, I
(07:02):
don't know how we want to phrase it. He has changed,
he wants to do. He has a specific mission set
that he wants to accomplish for Donald Trump. Maha we
are calling it. And I think to that end he
can be a very useful, very useful implementur of Trump
policy and vision. He was right about COVID, he was
right about Fauci, and he was okay on COVID. He
(07:24):
was much better on Fauci. But that's many people out
there that is enough. My point on it is, I
would understand if thirty five Republicans said, hey, we're on
board with RFK Junior, but fourteen or fifteen said we're
not right. Like I mean specifically he liked lockdowns because
of the change in CO two emissions. I'm just saying,
you know, if you look into this stuff like, there's
(07:45):
some bad stuff, Clay, I'm not getting know what I mean,
there's some stuff that's not so good. But he saw
Fauci as the evil little tyrann smurf he was, and
he saw that the vaccine should not have been forced
on us, and he saw some very big things. I'm
just again balls and strikes here, folks. I think RFKH
should be confirmed for this role. But I can understand
why some people have some questions about what he said
(08:05):
in the past.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
The fact that right now are there any Democrats that
are on the record as saying they're going to vote
for him.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Is what I'm kind of hammering on.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
This should be a bipartisan I think, you know, thirty
five forty forty five, it's going to end up having
to be almost all Republicans supporting him and virtually no Democrats.
To me, this should be a bipartisan choice because I
don't think that RFK Junior is actually a radical ideologue
committed to either party. Well, he's kind of radical on
(08:37):
some of the health issues, and he has he has
switched teams, right, so it's not surprising to me that
Democrats aren't on board with him. Clay, I mean, you
mentioned this. The fact that the most famous sorry ambassador
to former ambassador to Japan, the most famous still living
Kennedy is a Republican is something of a slap in
(08:58):
the face to Democrats, right. You know, there's all these
different levels that intersect with RFK Junior. There's the Trump component,
which you mentioned, which is true, which is just Trump
for him, Democrats against him. That's very straightforward, yes, But there's.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Also the longer political separation of this is a very
famous legacy Democrat who has not just switched teams like
a little you know, it's not like he says he
wants to be, you know, Mitt Romney's Treasury secretary or something.
He wants to be Trump's HHS secretary. So the Democrat opposition,
(09:30):
you know, again, I think you're speaking from the perspective
of if this was about what he really would do,
then there should be a lot of Democrats on board.
But because of the politics of it, they've all flipped
on him and they despise I mean, I've been watching
the questioning all morning. That's why I've been sort of
fired up on this. They despise him, Clay, I mean,
they actively loathe him, and I hope that he is
(09:52):
going to be confirmed. But this to me, has become
the battleground. Now we got hag set across fifty to
fifty with jd Vance breaking the tie. Now it is
former Democrats which has really got it crazy to think about.
Trump is a former Democrat who has nominated two former
Democrats Tulsea Gabbert RFK Junior, who historically would have been
(10:15):
in the good graces of much of the Democrat Party.
And those are the ones that are in the most
danger now of not being confirmed. You know. Within I
will say, at least radical Islam, the penalty for apostasy,
meaning leaving the religion, is death. The apostasy in politics
is something that people also punish severely, at least politically speaking.
(10:38):
And see you're saying he used to be a Democrat,
so clearly he's in line with Democrats on a lot
of things, and they were okay with him for the
first seventy something years of his life. How could they
have turned so much now if it's really about what
he believes. Of course, as we both know, as everyone knows,
it's not right. This is about power, and he helped
Trump and he jumped on the Trump train when it mattered.
(11:01):
And you know, I think that's where a lot of
the sort of blind hatred comes from. And a lot
of people are pointing out, well, these Democrats have gotten
money from big farm. True democrats are you know, corporate
capture experts, meaning they're captured by the Corporation's true all that,
But you know, there's all these reasons that pile together,
which is why this is an interesting hearing to watch
because to your point, well, I mean, he was a
(11:23):
Democrat and he's working on health and he says he's
not gonna stop anybody from getting a vaccine that they
want to get, and he says that everyone's gonna have
access to the Medicare and Medicaid that they've had. But
and they're acting like he's coming into to torch the
whole place.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
I also think, and this is something that I bet
a lot of our listeners are really on top of
it's hard to know what really I mean. There are
rough outlines like don't eat a ton of sugar, exercise,
move your body right that I think most people would
recognize our generally health related things, But I don't know.
You you probably know more than I I do, Like
(12:00):
I don't know, for instance, what vitamins I should be taking,
or I feel like there are a lot of people
out there that would like to make America healthy again,
that would like to have someone that you could really
trust to give you that information. And that, to me
feels a little bit like what RFK Junior is trying
to do. For lack of a better way of describing it,
(12:22):
In other words, his ultimate goal is something that is
profoundly apolitical. Hey, let's make Americans healthy and prolong healthy
lifespans and lead everyone to make better choices as a result.
That seems like maybe what the most important thing anybody
in government could do well in terms of trying to
help lifespans.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
If there's anything that you would think could be bipartisan,
it would be, Hey, our food supply shouldn't have stuff
in it that is slowly poisoning us or causing all
sorts of disorders, or hey, we need an urgency, an
urgency as a nation to tackle the obesity and type
(13:04):
two diabetes and hypertension and heart disease epidemic. I mean
you can roll all of these things together, which are diet, lifestyle, genetics,
food supply, all these different things. This stuff is really
important and it affects all of us irrespective of politics. Yes,
and it kills a lot of people that all of
us know and love, right, I mean this, if you've
(13:25):
lost a family member, chances are you know it's by
the numbers, cancer, heart attack, stroke. These are all things
that have connectivity to some of what RFK Junior is
talking about addressing, which is overall health and wellness, overall
susceptibility to these diseases from the things we take, the
(13:47):
things we eat, the decisions we make, all of this.
And yet this has become to your point, right, this
is it should not be a hardline party issue, but
it is because of the politics. It's actually not about
the health policies. Yeah, it is fascinating. We'll take some
of your calls, by the way. Eight hundred and two
A two two eight A two, and I think we
have ran Paul later in the program today, who will
(14:09):
have I think a lot to say about RFK Junior.
You guys know we're both history nerds.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
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(14:36):
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(15:20):
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Speaker 4 (15:26):
Com, Claytravis and Buck Sexton Mike drops that never sounded
so good. Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Welcome back in Clay Travis Buck Sexton Show. Appreciate all
of you hanging out with us. RFK Junior underway with
his testimony right now, and really it looks like Cash
Bettel is in good shape. I think RFK Junior is
going to get confirmed.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Buck. The real battle.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Right now seems to have swung to Tulci Gabbard because
they're talking about having secret votes about whether or not
she can advance in all of these things. I'm cautiously
optimistic that Trump is basically going to get everybody that
he wanted except for Matt Gates, who he abandoned in
(16:18):
the early aftermath of that nomination.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
And if that occurs, if you.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Combine it, we need to dive into some of the
executive orders that are being put out right now. We're
sitting at day what ten of the of the Trump era, Buck,
I can't remember a day where when every time I
pick up my phone and see a news alert, I
see it pop up and I'm like, yeah, that's that's
a really good decision, like the EO on transsurgery issues,
(16:46):
which we'll get into the decision about, Hey, we're going
to offer buyouts to all federal employees if they don't
and aren't willing to show up and work in person.
You and I just came back from DC. It's amazing
how empty many of the DC streets are. These are
not particularly partisan moves, many of them. They're just eminently logical,
(17:09):
and I think we should dive into some of them.
And I think the lack of Democrat opposition to them
in many respects is a recognition that their party is
on the wrong side of a lot of massive public opinion,
and that Trump has done an elite job of being
able to explain why he advocates for the policies that
(17:31):
he is for and has actually won over a lot
of reasonable people out there.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
I agree. I think that's what we're seeing.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
And so we'll dive into that and break it all
down for you. When we come back in the meantime.
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Speaker 1 (18:56):
So it is amazing to see how many great executive
orders are coming out of this White House right away.
It is a flurry. It is a fusillade. It is awesome,
and you got to keep up with it because just
when you think, oh, wow, have we gotten our fill
(19:18):
for this week, you get another one, or you get
another executive decision, you get another policy that comes out.
I thought this one and I hadn't heard anything about
this before it came out, so I was like, wow, okay,
this is interesting. There is now a move by the
White House to offer the two million federal employees. Think
(19:43):
about there are two million federal government employees right now.
There are some exceptions this, by the way, I don't
think get anew. I think the Post Office doesn't count
under this. There's a few others. Military is not a
part of this. Yeah, military and post Office there you go,
and also immigration and National secure reinforcement. So national security
is not a part of this one. But if you
(20:04):
work for the federal government in the civil service, the
Trump White House has come out with a proposal. Now
keep in mind six percent. I didn't even know this
until the Trump team made this an issue that six
percent of federal employees are actually in the office full time.
That's astonishing to me because Clayon, Well, it would be
illegal unless you have a skiff in your home to
(20:24):
do any CIA work at home. So like that was
never even a consideration. You know, doesn't that number just
make your jaw drop? So people are taking like, if
you work at the Commerce Department, you're just work from home.
You and I walked into what was it the National
Press Center to pick up some credentials for the inauguration,
and that area is just a couple of blocks from
(20:47):
the White House, and we walked into an office building
there and NERD alert. I. When we stay in Washington,
d C AM always looking for places where I can
go buy newspapers.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
And what did I say to you when we in there?
I was like, Oh, I might be able to get
my newspapers here. That place was closed. It looks like
a abandoned you know, the abandoned malls out there that
basically are shut down like that that that that are
just sad to look at. You'll see some of the
videos that have gone viral of places that used to
(21:19):
go in the nineteen eighties that now are just completely empty.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
That's what Washington, d C. Looks like.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
And I was reading there's actually a front page article.
You know who agrees with Trump on this maybe the
only thing they agree on, DC may Or Muriel Bowser,
Because you can't run a business anywhere where federal employees
used to work in offices because there's no one there.
Buck we got a coffee company. They said that every
(21:46):
coffee company in the federal universe there closes by three
o'clock cause there's like they can't even if you wanted to.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Go out and get a cup of coffee.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Everything closes down because of this point the six percent
federal workers. Okay, so to build on that, which shouldn't happen,
you should have to go in.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
This is I think a brilliant move by Trump. So
here's here's the proposal. Eight month severance. Essentially you'll get
paid through September thirtieth, but you have to quit by
February six. So this has got to happen fast. You
don't have weeks and weeks to sit on this. And
there's a lot going on here. One is that the
expected savings of this the Trump White House, according to
ACXOS reporting on this, things five to ten percent of
(22:28):
the federal employees offered this. Remember, non military, non national security,
non immigration, and not the post office. The Trump White
House though things that five to ten percent will take it.
I think ten percents high, but we'll see. I could
be wrong. This is their plan. They know more than me.
But it's also interesting to see what the political dynamics
of this are because the Democrats are very upset. Why
the Democrats upset? Stephen Miller was talking to CNN's Jake Tapper.
(22:51):
This has cut one about this federal buyout offer, eight
month severance and you can walk away clean right now? Democrats?
Tapper very unhappy. Play clip one.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
There's two million employees in the federal government. Overwhelmingly the
career federal service in this country is far left left wing.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
I don't know that to be a fact.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
Well, i'll give you a great example. We looked at
USAID as an example. Ninety eight percent of the workforce
either donated to Kamala Harris, another left wing Canada just
as an example.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Okay, but we just sing an entire workforce is having
a point.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
Wait, wait, whoa who WOA did you just say that
saying someone voted for Kamala Harris is demonizing them.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
No, so course your suggestion is that there's a bias.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
But you use the word demonizing. You just said that
I'm demonizing somebody by saying they voted for Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Let's get back on that. I just I am on track.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
Let me stay on track. What I'm saying to you
is this, there are two million employees in the federal government, right,
they're overwhelmingly left of center. The American people. I gotta
finish the sentence. I gotta finish the sentence. The American
people voted for dramatic change implemented by Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Clay the Tapper knows, even though he's pretending to fight
on this, then ever knows the federal civil Service has
become it's almost like a teachers unions or something. They're
just you have to assume they're all Democrats.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Well, also, Steven Miller, what we're seeing here is Trump
has now got an elite cadre of communicators that are
actually far better at television communication, which does matter than
many people who make a living talking on television. And
I think that is significant. Here's the thing, though, why
would this be again? I come back to leave a
(24:33):
side Trump because there is a reflectively anti Trump reaction
among forty five percent of the American public. But let
me just have you take a step back. Why is
giving federal employees the option to get paid nine months
basically eight months, however you want to classify it till
(24:53):
September your full salary and be able to leave and
take another job if you don't want to show up
and work in the office a bad thing?
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Buck?
Speaker 3 (25:05):
What percentage of our audience right now, some of them,
maybe some of these federal employees that got this email
sent to them. How many of you out there right
now would gladly leave the job that you have right
now if you got eight months of your salary paid
and could go on like a six month vacation.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
I mean, that's not a bad thing. Like, I don't know,
there's I could think of. I could think of a
few jobs that I would have left happily if I
could have gotten eight month severance.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
I love the jobs that we have now. They're the
only jobs that I wouldn't have left, probably to get
eight months of my job paid. I mean, so, how
is this about? And some of you out there are
going to say Okay, why does he do that? Because
it's almost impossible to fire someone who is a federal
employee because of their union protections, so you need them
(25:55):
to voluntarily agree to leave. And yes, does this have
some short term cost, Yes, you have to continue to
pay people who might not be working, but in the
long range it saves tens of billions of dollars of
our tax payer money.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Well, also, the implication here is that you're gonna stop
paying them in eight months to do and you're gonna
pay them for eight months to do nothing and then
you stop, Whereas without this, you're paying them to do
nothing for decades, basically for decades.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
So I mean again, I bet a lot of people
out there listening to us right now, especially Buck.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Let's be honest it.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Let's say you're sixty two and you've been in a
federal employee for a long time and you're ready to retire.
How many of you would like this opportunity? I just
I think it's brilliant. I think I hope that it
leads to around ten percent of the workforce federal government
deciding to take the buyouts, and then in the years ahead,
(26:53):
our expensive for federal government employees actually go down. I
think I saw that Biden increase the number of federal
employees by seven percent during his tenure as President of
the United States. I don't remember the last time that
we would have had a president who declined to the
number of federal employees. I'm talking about in a time
(27:14):
of non war, right like after World War II, a
lot of people were in the service, they leave. I'm
sure that Truman and Eisenhower the number of federal employees
probably declined as a result of that. But I'm talking
about someone in a time of peace who came in
and ten percent of the federal employees left. And again,
this is something that actually DC's mayors in favor of
(27:35):
because they want everybody back in the office too.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
It's not the part is the decision. It's a good one. Well,
she wants them back for very clear economic reasons for
her own city, right, It's not that she's all of
a sudden I guess government spending, I get it.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
But my point is, if you just look at this,
is it is it unacceptable if you're a private employee,
if you weren't at Ford or you Walmart, and you
got an email offering you nine months of pay to
decide to leave and take another job. Would you be like,
this is an unbelievable outrage. That's what they're trying to say.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Well, the mentality, I've said this before to you, Clay,
when I was at the CIA, the State Department joke
was that presidents come and go, but the department, meaning
the State Depress is forever. That is very much the
mentality within the civil service that it is a job.
It is job, a job for life, and they make
(28:30):
it so that there's very little that you have to
actually do in order to keep those jobs. It's in fact,
I used to say at the CIA, there's a lot
of things I could talk with this all day. CIA.
You know, the eighty twenty rule applies, which is that
eighty percent of the work is done by twenty percent
of the people. Excellence is suspicious or excellence is suspect,
(28:51):
meaning if you try to do more or better, if
you try to go beyond what your time in grade allows,
you aren't encourage your to to sort of sit down,
shut up and wait your turn. This is the culture
of these places. And when you look at someone like
RFK Junior, he's gonna be if he gets confirmed, which
I think we all believe he will. He's gonna be
taking over AHHS Health and Human Services. Clay Health in
(29:14):
Human Services has over eighty thousand employees. It's crazy.
Speaker 6 (29:20):
Are they all doing now? Somebody might have an answer
for that. Oh, they're administering Medicare and medicaid and all
these different Okay, but do we really need eight thousand
people doing this? Are they doing it well? Does anybody
even know?
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Could anyone even tell me off the top of their
head what the biggest non military employer in the federal
government is. I mean, you start to think about this stuff.
The Leviathan is so big we can't even see the
head in the tail. Remember Elon Musk fired seventy five
or eighty percent of Twitter. That's a for profit company, buck,
(29:53):
and it actually seems to work just as efficiently, if
not better, than it was before. I really do believe
if we fired seventy five percent of all federal employees
and we doubled the wages of the twenty five percent remaining,
which would save us right about half, I don't think
we would see any difference at all in the overall
(30:14):
effectiveness of the federal government. You know, it's it's remarkable.
You see some of the where these people are are employed, right,
you know, Agriculture, HHS, Treasure, Treasury, Defense, And then you
speak to somebody the VA. The VA is huge. You
(30:34):
speak to somebody who, by the way, it's basically socialized medicine,
but only for members of the military and the VA.
I'll be honest, I've heard and I don't want to
get into this right now because our phones will be
lit up for three hours.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Some veterans say it's okay sometimes and there's some good
care that gotten. Other veterans tell me it's absolutely nightmare. So,
you know, like any large system, I think there are
people that have differing opinions on it, but overall it
needs to be a lot better than it is. Clay,
the eyes of this is astonished. The size of all
of this is astonishing. And the the other part of
(31:06):
it is to have federal employees at these agencies who
don't have much to do if they decide they want
to do something, you know what, A lot of it
is harassing the American people. This is the problem because
a lot of these federal agencies have binding regulatory authority
which goes you know, beyond the constitutional congressionally pass statutes.
(31:27):
It's so it's all of a sudden. If you work
at like you know, the the Environmental Protection Agency, or
you know, you work at agriculture or something, you can say, well,
now we need to come up with something to do,
and we have more rules we need to pass.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
I would also say this, I bet if you told
a federal government employee, if you finish every bit of
work you need to do this week as rapidly as
you can, I bet every single one of them could
have Wednesday, Thursday, Friday off and do everything that they
actually needed to do as part of their job Monday
(32:02):
and Tuesday. Right, Like this idea that they are grinding
away in any kind of efficient or effective manner.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
What how many hours day do you think they're actually
working at home? Two? Maybe? Maybe? I mean it's it's
just probably some zoom meetings and emails. Zoom meetings and emails.
I mean that is sort of the modern bureaucrats, you know,
meeting potatoes, zoom and emails. And you know I generally
hate zoom meetings, so you know I hate by the way,
I hate I hate meetings. Actually I hate meetings, do
(32:32):
I agree with that. I'm that's one of the big
there's one of the reason why I couldn't stay in
the CIA. Oh got it, guys, I'm having flashbacks.
Speaker 6 (32:38):
We need to have a meeting about the meeting that
we had at the last meeting.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
I mean, this is the kind of stuff that goes
on in the federal government. You don't even like. This
is why I could never have been a government bloy.
People think my condo board is inefficient. Oh no, it
is a Swiss watch compared to the CIA. Let me
tell you, well, we'll take some of your calls on
this here and they'll come back into it. It's a
big topic just a second. But you know, President Trump's
doing a lot of amazing stuff. We know this, but
(33:03):
he can't fix everything right away. We also know that.
And we've got a thirty six trillion dollar debt right now.
We got spending out of control, we got a leviathan
federal government out of DC, and inflation is still chipping
away at your savings day in and day out. What
can you do for the long haul to protect some
of the value of what you've worked so hard to earn.
(33:24):
Put it in gold, A portion of your savings in
gold just makes sense. You can trust the Birch Gold Group.
Get your free copy of the Ultimate Guide for Gold
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(33:46):
country continues to print money and that diminishes the value
of our dollar, gold is still your best hedge against
a weakening dollar. So just text my name Buck to
ninety eight ninety eight ninety eight or go to Birch
Gold dot com slash buck.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
Today, the super Bowl of Politics is in the history books.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
But history is being made each and every day.
Speaker 7 (34:07):
On the Team forty seven podcast, playin Buck highlight Trump
free place.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
From the week. Some days at noon Easter, Team forty
seven Fight.
Speaker 7 (34:15):
It on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome back in Clay Travis buck Sexton show.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
I mentioned that nobody can get coffee in Washington, d C.
After three o'clock. It's either a New York Times or
a Wall Street Journal piece. I was reading about the
streets of Washington d C being very quiet because there's
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Speaker 3 (34:57):
When I finish shows today, I'm gonna go sit down
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I was signing them last night, I was signing them
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(35:20):
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We come back here in sec Buck. I don't know
if you've watched this video. I've got three boys, so
I have seen every comic book movie on the planet,
all of them. If you have kids, if you have grandkids,
(35:41):
you're probably somewhat like me. I have enjoyed a lot
of the Marvel movies. They're a little bit ridiculous. So
they have a new Captain America. They replace the old
Captain America. I can't keep up with all the Evidently
there are three different guys named Chris who all play
different superheroes and don't I can't even keep up with
(36:01):
all the differences between them. But they have a new
Captain America, and they have a new Captain America movie
coming out. Guy playing it goes to Italy and is
asked whether or not Captain America stands for America or
not and says no, Basically, he doesn't like America and
he doesn't like American values.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
This is the actor. I don't think it's going to
play very well with the Captain America fans, which you
would think he would know. But we'll have to discuss this.
Maybe he saw the snow White, the woke snow White,
and was like, oh, I could do something even worse
than this.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
I could only imagine the PR team's reaction when Captain
America said that he doesn't really think Captain America actually
stands for America or that America has good things to
stand for. We're gonna have some fun with this, and
we come back. Thanks for hanging with us here on
Clay and Buff
Welcome everybody. Wednesday edition of the Clay Travis and Buck
Sexton Show kicks off right now. Thanks for being here
with us as we speak to you, some very interesting
exchanges going on upon Capitol Hill. R FK Junior, Donald
Trump's nominee to b Secretary of Health and Human Services,
(00:20):
a massive entity with enormous funding and a very big mission,
a very big mandate. Donald Trump nominee RFK Junior getting
pretty favorable treatment from Republicans and Democrats are really going
after him. We will dive into that momentarily because I
(00:41):
think that's a big, a big deal. There's a lot
that comes together there, everything from how COVID was handled,
to vaccines, to Medicare and Medicaid, and the state of
America's health which is on the whole poor, and it's
certainly worth trying to figure out why that is. So
(01:02):
we will dive into all of this, my friends. This
is absolutely top of the agenda. We also have a
very interesting proposal put forward by the Trump White House
offering federal employees a buyout essentially extended severance of almost
(01:23):
eight months if they are willing to just walk away,
essentially telling the federal workforce Look, if you're not really
doing anything, don't make us come find you and fire you.
Better for you to just take the eight months and
go do something else. And everybody's happy, especially the taxpayer
who's no longer carrying this weight of the expense of
(01:45):
these people that are not really doing anything. But Clay,
I think we should jump right into with the RFK
junior hearing. We haven't seen what they've said to Tulca yet.
We haven't seen what they have done with Spattel that's
coming up. I had thought this would be the most
contentious of the nominations that would happen this week. It
(02:10):
started out, we don't have to play this a bunch
of protesters yelling protesters that do this stuff for idiots.
But here, let's just start play with it. This is
cut ten. This is kind of the baseline for what's
going on here. RFK juniors coming in with a mandate
to address the state of America's health play cut ten
and will dive in the.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
United States has worse health than any other developed nation. Yeah,
we spend more on healthcare, at least double and in
some cases triple as other countries. Last year, we spent
four point eight trillion, not counting the indirect cause of
missed work. That's almost a fifth.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
A fifth of.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
GDP is tan amount to a twenty percent tax on
the hire economy. No wonder America has trouble competing with
countries that pay a third of what we do for
health and have better outcomes and a healthier workforce. And
I don't want to make this too much about money.
It's the human trategy that moves us to care.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Clay, there is something. There are a lot of things
that need to be addressed that are malfunctioning with our health,
not just our healthcare system, as in a lot of
money going to a lot of places and a little
card that says at some point maybe you'll get to
see a doctor. But the way that we address and
approach health as a country is something that needs an overhaul.
(03:37):
And it's interesting to see how many Democrats are all
of a sudden, very dead set against that kind of
for the greater good approach to American health. I don't
even think it's just that buck, it's that until about
six months ago, RFK Junior was one of the most
prominent Democrats from the most prominent Democrat fan maybe other
(04:01):
than the Clintons right now, but I think even bigger
than the Clintons and the Obamas, and it is indicative
of a reflexive anti Trump disposition where even when you
pick someone like RFK Junior, who has been a lifelong
Democrat and has I think it's fair to say many
(04:24):
opinions that are the antithesis of what a lot of
Republican voters believe. In other words, this is a guy
with a wildly divergent background relative to most Republican Cabinet
picks in any of our lives. Yet Democrats have decided
that they're going to align against him and Tulca Gabbard
(04:47):
as aggressively as they went against Pete Hegseth. And I
think it's just for many people out there, a reflection
of the existing tribalism that RFK Junior is unable to
get any kind of Democrats support at all, despite the
fact is he's seventy four. For seventy three and a
(05:08):
half years, he's been a card carrying member of the
Democrat Party. And even the criticism that you would have
for him prior to endorsing Trump, what was it buck
He said that Joe Biden wasn't mentally or physically capable
of doing the job and got completely frozen out in
the Democrat primary race to such an extent that he
decided to run as an independent before endorsing Trump. My
(05:31):
point on all this is, this should be a guy
that gets eighty votes.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I mean, this shouldn't even be remotely a difficult confirmation process.
He should be a guy who is an overwhelming majority
pick most Republicans. I understand some Republicans who would actually
vote against RFK Junior because he has been, as you
pointed out, not on the side of many Republicans for.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
A long time. I mean, yeah, we should. We should
be very straightforward about this. In the past, RFK Junior
has said really dumb and really bad things, many of them,
too many of them for me to recount. For all
of you and anyone who doubts me, I don't know.
Do you think the NRA is a terrorist organization? Because
he did. He did. He has repudiated these comments. He
has said he does not believe this anymore. Donald Trump
(06:18):
at different points was to the left of where he
was now many years ago. So I think we're in
an era now where if people believe that somebody's views
have of all, but you know, I don't want us
to run away from that. Not only was RFKA Junior
a Democrat, RFK Junior was somebody who took some very
radical left positions, including if you're not on board for
(06:39):
climate change, you're a trader. I don't think anybody who
believes in climate change as an existential threat is all
that smart. But RFK Junior figured that out. So I'll
give him a pass on that. There are some things
he has been and some of you might get annoyed
at hearing this. This is just fact right. Some things
he's been very wrong on when he was a Democrat Clay,
but he has had a red pill moment perhaps, I
(07:02):
don't know how we want to phrase it. He has changed,
he wants to do. He has a specific mission set
that he wants to accomplish for Donald Trump. Maha we
are calling it. And I think to that end he
can be a very useful, very useful implementur of Trump
policy and vision. He was right about COVID, he was
right about Fauci, and he was okay on COVID. He
(07:24):
was much better on Fauci. But that's many people out
there that is enough. My point on it is, I
would understand if thirty five Republicans said, hey, we're on
board with RFK Junior, but fourteen or fifteen said we're
not right. Like I mean specifically he liked lockdowns because
of the change in CO two emissions. I'm just saying,
you know, if you look into this stuff like, there's
(07:45):
some bad stuff, Clay, I'm not getting know what I mean,
there's some stuff that's not so good. But he saw
Fauci as the evil little tyrann smurf he was, and
he saw that the vaccine should not have been forced
on us, and he saw some very big things. I'm
just again balls and strikes here, folks. I think RFKH
should be confirmed for this role. But I can understand
why some people have some questions about what he said
(08:05):
in the past.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
The fact that right now are there any Democrats that
are on the record as saying they're going to vote
for him.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Is what I'm kind of hammering on.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
This should be a bipartisan I think, you know, thirty
five forty forty five, it's going to end up having
to be almost all Republicans supporting him and virtually no Democrats.
To me, this should be a bipartisan choice because I
don't think that RFK Junior is actually a radical ideologue
committed to either party. Well, he's kind of radical on
(08:37):
some of the health issues, and he has he has
switched teams, right, so it's not surprising to me that
Democrats aren't on board with him. Clay, I mean, you
mentioned this. The fact that the most famous sorry ambassador
to former ambassador to Japan, the most famous still living
Kennedy is a Republican is something of a slap in
(08:58):
the face to Democrats, right. You know, there's all these
different levels that intersect with RFK Junior. There's the Trump component,
which you mentioned, which is true, which is just Trump
for him, Democrats against him. That's very straightforward, yes, But there's.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Also the longer political separation of this is a very
famous legacy Democrat who has not just switched teams like
a little you know, it's not like he says he
wants to be, you know, Mitt Romney's Treasury secretary or something.
He wants to be Trump's HHS secretary. So the Democrat opposition,
(09:30):
you know, again, I think you're speaking from the perspective
of if this was about what he really would do,
then there should be a lot of Democrats on board.
But because of the politics of it, they've all flipped
on him and they despise I mean, I've been watching
the questioning all morning. That's why I've been sort of
fired up on this. They despise him, Clay, I mean,
they actively loathe him, and I hope that he is
(09:52):
going to be confirmed. But this to me, has become
the battleground. Now we got hag set across fifty to
fifty with jd Vance breaking the tie. Now it is
former Democrats which has really got it crazy to think about.
Trump is a former Democrat who has nominated two former
Democrats Tulsea Gabbert RFK Junior, who historically would have been
(10:15):
in the good graces of much of the Democrat Party.
And those are the ones that are in the most
danger now of not being confirmed. You know. Within I
will say, at least radical Islam, the penalty for apostasy,
meaning leaving the religion, is death. The apostasy in politics
is something that people also punish severely, at least politically speaking.
(10:38):
And see you're saying he used to be a Democrat,
so clearly he's in line with Democrats on a lot
of things, and they were okay with him for the
first seventy something years of his life. How could they
have turned so much now if it's really about what
he believes. Of course, as we both know, as everyone knows,
it's not right. This is about power, and he helped
Trump and he jumped on the Trump train when it mattered.
(11:01):
And you know, I think that's where a lot of
the sort of blind hatred comes from. And a lot
of people are pointing out, well, these Democrats have gotten
money from big farm. True democrats are you know, corporate
capture experts, meaning they're captured by the Corporation's true all that,
But you know, there's all these reasons that pile together,
which is why this is an interesting hearing to watch
because to your point, well, I mean, he was a
(11:23):
Democrat and he's working on health and he says he's
not gonna stop anybody from getting a vaccine that they
want to get, and he says that everyone's gonna have
access to the Medicare and Medicaid that they've had. But
and they're acting like he's coming into to torch the
whole place.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
I also think, and this is something that I bet
a lot of our listeners are really on top of
it's hard to know what really I mean. There are
rough outlines like don't eat a ton of sugar, exercise,
move your body right that I think most people would
recognize our generally health related things, But I don't know.
You you probably know more than I I do, Like
(12:00):
I don't know, for instance, what vitamins I should be taking,
or I feel like there are a lot of people
out there that would like to make America healthy again,
that would like to have someone that you could really
trust to give you that information. And that, to me
feels a little bit like what RFK Junior is trying
to do. For lack of a better way of describing it,
(12:22):
In other words, his ultimate goal is something that is
profoundly apolitical. Hey, let's make Americans healthy and prolong healthy
lifespans and lead everyone to make better choices as a result.
That seems like maybe what the most important thing anybody
in government could do well in terms of trying to
help lifespans.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
If there's anything that you would think could be bipartisan,
it would be, Hey, our food supply shouldn't have stuff
in it that is slowly poisoning us or causing all
sorts of disorders, or hey, we need an urgency, an
urgency as a nation to tackle the obesity and type
(13:04):
two diabetes and hypertension and heart disease epidemic. I mean
you can roll all of these things together, which are diet, lifestyle, genetics,
food supply, all these different things. This stuff is really
important and it affects all of us irrespective of politics. Yes,
and it kills a lot of people that all of
us know and love, right, I mean this, if you've
(13:25):
lost a family member, chances are you know it's by
the numbers, cancer, heart attack, stroke. These are all things
that have connectivity to some of what RFK Junior is
talking about addressing, which is overall health and wellness, overall
susceptibility to these diseases from the things we take, the
(13:47):
things we eat, the decisions we make, all of this.
And yet this has become to your point, right, this
is it should not be a hardline party issue, but
it is because of the politics. It's actually not about
the health policies. Yeah, it is fascinating. We'll take some
of your calls, by the way. Eight hundred and two
A two two eight A two, and I think we
have ran Paul later in the program today, who will
(14:09):
have I think a lot to say about RFK Junior.
You guys know we're both history nerds.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Nothing like learning history from a professor who's passionate about
the subject and knows it well. And all of us
hopefully have had professors or teachers like that during the
course of our education. But what if you feel like
you have some blind spots in your history and you
would like to just get more knowledge. That's what Hillsdale
College does. They have tons of free online courses that
(14:36):
you can check out. My mom has said, you watched them,
she was super impressed. Constitution one oh one is one
of the most popular of these courses, and it's relevant
because a lot of you probably would like to know
a little bit more about how the Constitution came to
be what it says. These are college level courses, but
guess what, no tests, no homework, no set time that
(14:58):
you have to be watching them. It's us learning for
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you smarter and more educated on the country we all
(15:20):
love in the larger world as well. One more time,
clayanbuckfour Hillsdale dot.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Com, Claytravis and Buck Sexton Mike drops that never sounded
so good. Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Welcome back in Clay Travis Buck Sexton Show. Appreciate all
of you hanging out with us. RFK Junior underway with
his testimony right now, and really it looks like Cash
Bettel is in good shape. I think RFK Junior is
going to get confirmed.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Buck. The real battle.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Right now seems to have swung to Tulci Gabbard because
they're talking about having secret votes about whether or not
she can advance in all of these things. I'm cautiously
optimistic that Trump is basically going to get everybody that
he wanted except for Matt Gates, who he abandoned in
(16:18):
the early aftermath of that nomination.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
And if that occurs, if you.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Combine it, we need to dive into some of the
executive orders that are being put out right now. We're
sitting at day what ten of the of the Trump era, Buck,
I can't remember a day where when every time I
pick up my phone and see a news alert, I
see it pop up and I'm like, yeah, that's that's
a really good decision, like the EO on transsurgery issues,
(16:46):
which we'll get into the decision about, Hey, we're going
to offer buyouts to all federal employees if they don't
and aren't willing to show up and work in person.
You and I just came back from DC. It's amazing
how empty many of the DC streets are. These are
not particularly partisan moves, many of them. They're just eminently logical,
(17:09):
and I think we should dive into some of them.
And I think the lack of Democrat opposition to them
in many respects is a recognition that their party is
on the wrong side of a lot of massive public opinion,
and that Trump has done an elite job of being
able to explain why he advocates for the policies that
(17:31):
he is for and has actually won over a lot
of reasonable people out there.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
I agree. I think that's what we're seeing.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
And so we'll dive into that and break it all
down for you. When we come back in the meantime.
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(18:03):
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Speaker 1 (18:56):
So it is amazing to see how many great executive
orders are coming out of this White House right away.
It is a flurry. It is a fusillade. It is awesome,
and you got to keep up with it because just
when you think, oh, wow, have we gotten our fill
(19:18):
for this week, you get another one, or you get
another executive decision, you get another policy that comes out.
I thought this one and I hadn't heard anything about
this before it came out, so I was like, wow, okay,
this is interesting. There is now a move by the
White House to offer the two million federal employees. Think
(19:43):
about there are two million federal government employees right now.
There are some exceptions this, by the way, I don't
think get anew. I think the Post Office doesn't count
under this. There's a few others. Military is not a
part of this. Yeah, military and post Office there you go,
and also immigration and National secure reinforcement. So national security
is not a part of this one. But if you
(20:04):
work for the federal government in the civil service, the
Trump White House has come out with a proposal. Now
keep in mind six percent. I didn't even know this
until the Trump team made this an issue that six
percent of federal employees are actually in the office full time.
That's astonishing to me because Clayon, Well, it would be
illegal unless you have a skiff in your home to
(20:24):
do any CIA work at home. So like that was
never even a consideration. You know, doesn't that number just
make your jaw drop? So people are taking like, if
you work at the Commerce Department, you're just work from home.
You and I walked into what was it the National
Press Center to pick up some credentials for the inauguration,
and that area is just a couple of blocks from
(20:47):
the White House, and we walked into an office building
there and NERD alert. I. When we stay in Washington,
d C AM always looking for places where I can
go buy newspapers.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
And what did I say to you when we in there?
I was like, Oh, I might be able to get
my newspapers here. That place was closed. It looks like
a abandoned you know, the abandoned malls out there that
basically are shut down like that that that that are
just sad to look at. You'll see some of the
videos that have gone viral of places that used to
(21:19):
go in the nineteen eighties that now are just completely empty.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
That's what Washington, d C. Looks like.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
And I was reading there's actually a front page article.
You know who agrees with Trump on this maybe the
only thing they agree on, DC may Or Muriel Bowser,
Because you can't run a business anywhere where federal employees
used to work in offices because there's no one there.
Buck we got a coffee company. They said that every
(21:46):
coffee company in the federal universe there closes by three
o'clock cause there's like they can't even if you wanted to.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Go out and get a cup of coffee.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Everything closes down because of this point the six percent
federal workers. Okay, so to build on that, which shouldn't happen,
you should have to go in.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
This is I think a brilliant move by Trump. So
here's here's the proposal. Eight month severance. Essentially you'll get
paid through September thirtieth, but you have to quit by
February six. So this has got to happen fast. You
don't have weeks and weeks to sit on this. And
there's a lot going on here. One is that the
expected savings of this the Trump White House, according to
ACXOS reporting on this, things five to ten percent of
(22:28):
the federal employees offered this. Remember, non military, non national security,
non immigration, and not the post office. The Trump White
House though things that five to ten percent will take it.
I think ten percents high, but we'll see. I could
be wrong. This is their plan. They know more than me.
But it's also interesting to see what the political dynamics
of this are because the Democrats are very upset. Why
the Democrats upset? Stephen Miller was talking to CNN's Jake Tapper.
(22:51):
This has cut one about this federal buyout offer, eight
month severance and you can walk away clean right now? Democrats?
Tapper very unhappy. Play clip one.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
There's two million employees in the federal government. Overwhelmingly the
career federal service in this country is far left left wing.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
I don't know that to be a fact.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
Well, i'll give you a great example. We looked at
USAID as an example. Ninety eight percent of the workforce
either donated to Kamala Harris, another left wing Canada just
as an example.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Okay, but we just sing an entire workforce is having
a point.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
Wait, wait, whoa who WOA did you just say that
saying someone voted for Kamala Harris is demonizing them.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
No, so course your suggestion is that there's a bias.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
But you use the word demonizing. You just said that
I'm demonizing somebody by saying they voted for Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Let's get back on that. I just I am on track.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
Let me stay on track. What I'm saying to you
is this, there are two million employees in the federal government, right,
they're overwhelmingly left of center. The American people. I gotta
finish the sentence. I gotta finish the sentence. The American
people voted for dramatic change implemented by Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Clay the Tapper knows, even though he's pretending to fight
on this, then ever knows the federal civil Service has
become it's almost like a teachers unions or something. They're
just you have to assume they're all Democrats.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Well, also, Steven Miller, what we're seeing here is Trump
has now got an elite cadre of communicators that are
actually far better at television communication, which does matter than
many people who make a living talking on television. And
I think that is significant. Here's the thing, though, why
would this be again? I come back to leave a
(24:33):
side Trump because there is a reflectively anti Trump reaction
among forty five percent of the American public. But let
me just have you take a step back. Why is
giving federal employees the option to get paid nine months
basically eight months, however you want to classify it till
(24:53):
September your full salary and be able to leave and
take another job if you don't want to show up
and work in the office a bad thing?
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Buck?
Speaker 3 (25:05):
What percentage of our audience right now, some of them,
maybe some of these federal employees that got this email
sent to them. How many of you out there right
now would gladly leave the job that you have right
now if you got eight months of your salary paid
and could go on like a six month vacation.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
I mean, that's not a bad thing. Like, I don't know,
there's I could think of. I could think of a
few jobs that I would have left happily if I
could have gotten eight month severance.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
I love the jobs that we have now. They're the
only jobs that I wouldn't have left, probably to get
eight months of my job paid. I mean, so, how
is this about? And some of you out there are
going to say Okay, why does he do that? Because
it's almost impossible to fire someone who is a federal
employee because of their union protections, so you need them
(25:55):
to voluntarily agree to leave. And yes, does this have
some short term cost, Yes, you have to continue to
pay people who might not be working, but in the
long range it saves tens of billions of dollars of
our tax payer money.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Well, also, the implication here is that you're gonna stop
paying them in eight months to do and you're gonna
pay them for eight months to do nothing and then
you stop, Whereas without this, you're paying them to do
nothing for decades, basically for decades.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
So I mean again, I bet a lot of people
out there listening to us right now, especially Buck.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Let's be honest it.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Let's say you're sixty two and you've been in a
federal employee for a long time and you're ready to retire.
How many of you would like this opportunity? I just
I think it's brilliant. I think I hope that it
leads to around ten percent of the workforce federal government
deciding to take the buyouts, and then in the years ahead,
(26:53):
our expensive for federal government employees actually go down. I
think I saw that Biden increase the number of federal
employees by seven percent during his tenure as President of
the United States. I don't remember the last time that
we would have had a president who declined to the
number of federal employees. I'm talking about in a time
(27:14):
of non war, right like after World War II, a
lot of people were in the service, they leave. I'm
sure that Truman and Eisenhower the number of federal employees
probably declined as a result of that. But I'm talking
about someone in a time of peace who came in
and ten percent of the federal employees left. And again,
this is something that actually DC's mayors in favor of
(27:35):
because they want everybody back in the office too.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
It's not the part is the decision. It's a good one. Well,
she wants them back for very clear economic reasons for
her own city, right, It's not that she's all of
a sudden I guess government spending, I get it.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
But my point is, if you just look at this,
is it is it unacceptable if you're a private employee,
if you weren't at Ford or you Walmart, and you
got an email offering you nine months of pay to
decide to leave and take another job. Would you be like,
this is an unbelievable outrage. That's what they're trying to say.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Well, the mentality, I've said this before to you, Clay,
when I was at the CIA, the State Department joke
was that presidents come and go, but the department, meaning
the State Depress is forever. That is very much the
mentality within the civil service that it is a job.
It is job, a job for life, and they make
(28:30):
it so that there's very little that you have to
actually do in order to keep those jobs. It's in fact,
I used to say at the CIA, there's a lot
of things I could talk with this all day. CIA.
You know, the eighty twenty rule applies, which is that
eighty percent of the work is done by twenty percent
of the people. Excellence is suspicious or excellence is suspect,
(28:51):
meaning if you try to do more or better, if
you try to go beyond what your time in grade allows,
you aren't encourage your to to sort of sit down,
shut up and wait your turn. This is the culture
of these places. And when you look at someone like
RFK Junior, he's gonna be if he gets confirmed, which
I think we all believe he will. He's gonna be
taking over AHHS Health and Human Services. Clay Health in
(29:14):
Human Services has over eighty thousand employees. It's crazy.
Speaker 6 (29:20):
Are they all doing now? Somebody might have an answer
for that. Oh, they're administering Medicare and medicaid and all
these different Okay, but do we really need eight thousand
people doing this? Are they doing it well? Does anybody
even know?
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Could anyone even tell me off the top of their
head what the biggest non military employer in the federal
government is. I mean, you start to think about this stuff.
The Leviathan is so big we can't even see the
head in the tail. Remember Elon Musk fired seventy five
or eighty percent of Twitter. That's a for profit company, buck,
(29:53):
and it actually seems to work just as efficiently, if
not better, than it was before. I really do believe
if we fired seventy five percent of all federal employees
and we doubled the wages of the twenty five percent remaining,
which would save us right about half, I don't think
we would see any difference at all in the overall
(30:14):
effectiveness of the federal government. You know, it's it's remarkable.
You see some of the where these people are are employed, right,
you know, Agriculture, HHS, Treasure, Treasury, Defense, And then you
speak to somebody the VA. The VA is huge. You
(30:34):
speak to somebody who, by the way, it's basically socialized medicine,
but only for members of the military and the VA.
I'll be honest, I've heard and I don't want to
get into this right now because our phones will be
lit up for three hours.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Some veterans say it's okay sometimes and there's some good
care that gotten. Other veterans tell me it's absolutely nightmare. So,
you know, like any large system, I think there are
people that have differing opinions on it, but overall it
needs to be a lot better than it is. Clay,
the eyes of this is astonished. The size of all
of this is astonishing. And the the other part of
(31:06):
it is to have federal employees at these agencies who
don't have much to do if they decide they want
to do something, you know what, A lot of it
is harassing the American people. This is the problem because
a lot of these federal agencies have binding regulatory authority
which goes you know, beyond the constitutional congressionally pass statutes.
(31:27):
It's so it's all of a sudden. If you work
at like you know, the the Environmental Protection Agency, or
you know, you work at agriculture or something, you can say, well,
now we need to come up with something to do,
and we have more rules we need to pass.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
I would also say this, I bet if you told
a federal government employee, if you finish every bit of
work you need to do this week as rapidly as
you can, I bet every single one of them could
have Wednesday, Thursday, Friday off and do everything that they
actually needed to do as part of their job Monday
(32:02):
and Tuesday. Right, Like this idea that they are grinding
away in any kind of efficient or effective manner.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
What how many hours day do you think they're actually
working at home? Two? Maybe? Maybe? I mean it's it's
just probably some zoom meetings and emails. Zoom meetings and emails.
I mean that is sort of the modern bureaucrats, you know,
meeting potatoes, zoom and emails. And you know I generally
hate zoom meetings, so you know I hate by the way,
I hate I hate meetings. Actually I hate meetings, do
(32:32):
I agree with that. I'm that's one of the big
there's one of the reason why I couldn't stay in
the CIA. Oh got it, guys, I'm having flashbacks.
Speaker 6 (32:38):
We need to have a meeting about the meeting that
we had at the last meeting.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
I mean, this is the kind of stuff that goes
on in the federal government. You don't even like. This
is why I could never have been a government bloy.
People think my condo board is inefficient. Oh no, it
is a Swiss watch compared to the CIA. Let me
tell you, well, we'll take some of your calls on
this here and they'll come back into it. It's a
big topic just a second. But you know, President Trump's
doing a lot of amazing stuff. We know this, but
(33:03):
he can't fix everything right away. We also know that.
And we've got a thirty six trillion dollar debt right now.
We got spending out of control, we got a leviathan
federal government out of DC, and inflation is still chipping
away at your savings day in and day out. What
can you do for the long haul to protect some
of the value of what you've worked so hard to earn.
(33:24):
Put it in gold, A portion of your savings in
gold just makes sense. You can trust the Birch Gold Group.
Get your free copy of the Ultimate Guide for Gold
and the Trump Era with a forward by Donald Trump Junior,
along with Birch Gold's free infoKit. Just text my name
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(33:46):
country continues to print money and that diminishes the value
of our dollar, gold is still your best hedge against
a weakening dollar. So just text my name Buck to
ninety eight ninety eight ninety eight or go to Birch
Gold dot com slash buck.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
Today, the super Bowl of Politics is in the history books.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
But history is being made each and every day.
Speaker 7 (34:07):
On the Team forty seven podcast, playin Buck highlight Trump
free place.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
From the week. Some days at noon Easter, Team forty
seven Fight.
Speaker 7 (34:15):
It on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome back in Clay Travis buck Sexton show.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
I mentioned that nobody can get coffee in Washington, d C.
After three o'clock. It's either a New York Times or
a Wall Street Journal piece. I was reading about the
streets of Washington d C being very quiet because there's
no federal workers there. You know where you can get
coffee all the time. Crockettcoffee dot Com, the greatest coffee
company in the world that loves America as much as
(34:47):
you do, and now is advertising across the media landscape
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Speaker 1 (34:55):
Use code book right now.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
When I finish shows today, I'm gonna go sit down
and I'm going to be signing a bunch of books.
I was signing them last night, I was signing them
this morning. We have one thousand books left, Buck, one
thousand books left for all of you to be able
to get an autograph copy of my book when you
subscribe at Crocketcoffee dot com, and then all my copies
(35:20):
are gone. So that is the incentive that we have
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We come back here in sec Buck. I don't know
if you've watched this video. I've got three boys, so
I have seen every comic book movie on the planet,
all of them. If you have kids, if you have grandkids,
(35:41):
you're probably somewhat like me. I have enjoyed a lot
of the Marvel movies. They're a little bit ridiculous. So
they have a new Captain America. They replace the old
Captain America. I can't keep up with all the Evidently
there are three different guys named Chris who all play
different superheroes and don't I can't even keep up with
(36:01):
all the differences between them. But they have a new
Captain America, and they have a new Captain America movie
coming out. Guy playing it goes to Italy and is
asked whether or not Captain America stands for America or
not and says no, Basically, he doesn't like America and
he doesn't like American values.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
This is the actor. I don't think it's going to
play very well with the Captain America fans, which you
would think he would know. But we'll have to discuss this.
Maybe he saw the snow White, the woke snow White,
and was like, oh, I could do something even worse
than this.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
I could only imagine the PR team's reaction when Captain
America said that he doesn't really think Captain America actually
stands for America or that America has good things to
stand for. We're gonna have some fun with this, and
we come back. Thanks for hanging with us here on
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