All Episodes

August 28, 2024 36 mins
Nate Silver, founder of FiveThirtyEight and NYT’s bestselling author of “On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything,” talks to Clay about what he sees in the election data and the state of discourse between Democrats and Republicans. Caller rips Clay on Nate Silver interview. Silver says he's voting for Kamala and doesn't pretend to be unbiased. Rep. Jim Jordan joins Clay to discuss the blockbuster admission by Mark Zuckerberg to his committee confirming that the FBI lied to Big Tech about Hunter's laptop. Zuckerberg refuses to endorse. Brittany Mahomes causes social media buzz by liking Trump posts.

Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to today's edition of the Clay Travis and buck
Sexton Show podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome back an hour number two Clay Travis buck Sexton Show.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
We welcome in now all of you.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hope you're having a fantastic Wednesday wherever you may be
across the country. We're joined now by Nate Silver, who's
got a book out called On the Edge, which I
have finished and read and really enjoyed. I also liked
his book. I think I'm correct in this, Nate. Your
prior book was The Signal and the Noise, which was
about trying to use probability analysis. I don't know if

(00:31):
you remember this, but we have met in person out
in Vegas. You love playing poker. I have recognized that
I am not good enough at math in real time
to be very good at poker. I just don't have
that skill set like a lot of great poker players do.
But what I love about your work is you try
to use data and be rational in a world that

(00:54):
has become wildly irrational. It feels like every single day
I want to start with this. You became somewhat well known,
I would say, with your analysis and predictions of the
twenty twelve election but in the twelve years that you've
been a public figure, and to a large degree since that,

(01:15):
do you think national discourse has gotten better or worse?
And if you think it's gotten worse, which I think
most people would say that it has, are we starting
to get a little bit better now, or is the
discourse continuing to get worse? How would you assess the
broader picture of sort of the national character of debate

(01:35):
in this country as we set two months from an election.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, thank you, Clay. No, Look, I think over the
course of this gosh, sixteen years had been covering politics,
it got pretty consistently worse. From two thousand and eight
when I started to twenty twenty, in the kind of
pandemic year where we had the racial reckoning and COVID
all this stuff an election year. I think in the
past four years it might have gotten a little bit better.
I think people have a little bit more of a
sense of humor. Interesting seeing Twitter go from being the

(02:01):
slipper platform to more conservative frankly under Elon, you know
you see more independent content creators on platforms like substack,
where I have my newsletter s over Builton, for example.
So I feel a little bit more optimistic. I suppose
not being in a huge pandemic is helpful at least.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Okay, one of the big things that you write about
in your book is being willing to re examine your priors.
That is, things that you believe. If there's data that suggests, hey,
maybe I was wrong about this, going back and looking
at it and being honest in the way that you
analyze that data. I agree. I think that's super important.
What percentage of Americans do you think actually do that

(02:38):
in their day to day life?

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Oh gosh, like you know, five percent or ten percent?
About ninety percent of people are going to vote for
one party or another every single time. And look, it's hard.
It's hard to error, right, It's hard for me to
do that too. The discipline of having a model or
a process is that you follow some type of discipline
in how you look at the world. But yeah, I
can just kind of ping back and forth based on

(03:01):
the most recent conversation you had, then you won't be
very well off. I mean, you can be driven crazy
by Twitter and social media. You know, when our forecast
had Biden trailing Trump, people are like, oh, it is
Nate like a MAGA supporter. Now right, people I think
can't separate out that some of us are actually curious
about trying to make forecasts or you know, myopilitical preferences.
Probably they don't match your audience that much, Clay, But

(03:23):
I'm trying to be at armslength and trying to be
as accurate as I can be.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Okay, So I've voted. I've said this before, I voted
Democrat in the past. I'm going to vote Trump in
twenty twenty four. I Buck and I have debated this
and talked about it quite a lot. How many people
do you think there are out there on a percentage
basis that are open to go from voting Trump sixteen
Biden twenty and then going back to Trump in twenty four?

(03:49):
In other words, how many people are they really competing for,
particularly in the battleground states, if you were trying to
assess what that number looks like, what are we basically
spending billion dollars to try to persuade How persuadable is
that audience?

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah, Look, it's maybe ten percent of the electorate in
twenty percent of the states or tention of the states
that matters. So yeah, this billion dollars is being spent
on one percent of the electorate. You've seen polarization increased
a lot. Although there is more split ticket voting. You
see it in Congress for example, people splitting between the
Democrat for Congress and maybe a Trump vote. But yeah, look,

(04:25):
I in my life, I've certainly there's more of a
permission structure to use a fancy term to vote for
Trump than in some groups Lakon Valley for example. But
we're talking about you know, ninety plus percent people have
made their mind up already.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
So when you look, we're talking tonight, Silver's got a
great new book out called On the Edge. When you
look at Elon Musk, RFK Junior and Tulsea Gabbard, I
would say that that in many ways my political evolution
mirrors what they've done. I was maybe a few years
ahead of them, and COVID accelerated it. Do you think
that those three obviously very big name and Elon Musk

(05:00):
and given the fact that he owns Twitter, Tulci Gabbard,
RFK Junior, do they change anything in terms of your calculus.
I was reading in Axios that one way to connect
those three people, and I think it connects with sort
of my political worldview is that the First Amendment is
sort of the thing that matters the most to me,
and so I'm going to vote for whoever I think

(05:22):
is going to have the most robust, open policy for discussion,
whether I agree or disagree with them. I think that's
where a lot of the Trump support now is coming
in Silicon Valley. Does RFK Junior, does Elon Musk, and
does Tulci Gabbard? To your point, give any cover for
people who might be willing to consider Trump that haven't

(05:43):
done it before. What's their impact?

Speaker 3 (05:46):
I mean, so RFK, we removed him from our model
this weekend. So far not much impact, but we're kind
of taking a weight and see attitude. You might have
Kamala Harris's convention bounce administrated by that though it was
only three four percent of the vote. I think the
broadest thing here is, like you know, it's now conservatism,
that's the anti establishment party, and in different flavors of it, right,

(06:08):
not just the Trumpian flavor, but you see in those
other you know, Elon Musk, for example, a guy that
you know, one of the greatest founders of our time.
And yeah, look I used to be again, I'm gonna
I'm not gonna vote for Trump. I'll vote for Harris probably,
but yeah, you know the free speech stuff.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Let me let me pause you there, because I'm actually
I think you'd overlap with me on the free speech stuff.
But so you said you're not going to vote for Trump,
You're going to vote for Harris? What is harrisden?

Speaker 3 (06:34):
Because I thought it was very irresponsible to nominate somebody
who was that old and clearly not capable of being president.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
For him, you.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Wouldn't you wouldn't have voted for Biden? Well, how would
you have voted if Biden Trump was going on?

Speaker 3 (06:45):
Probably libertarian? Or see which other which other funky third
party candidates were on the ballot? Where in New York?

Speaker 1 (06:50):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (06:50):
So relevant vote?

Speaker 2 (06:51):
But yeah, I get it. You live in New York, right,
so you're I'm in Tennessee. It doesn't really matter who
I vote for, uh in terms of the presidential election,
because my state's going to go for plus twenty.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
What do you think Kamala Harris is going to do?

Speaker 4 (07:04):
Well?

Speaker 2 (07:05):
You thought Biden was too old? I think there's people
out there who would say, yeah, I agree with that.
Now you say, but you're willing to vote for Kamala,
She's going to be sixty years old. She's you know,
twenty two years some odd younger than Biden. What attracts
you to Kamala? What do you think she's going to
do well or what do you think she's done well
in the past? Or is it just you're not willing
to vote for Trump?

Speaker 4 (07:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (07:26):
To me, some of the January sixth stuff was predisqualifying. Look,
I think she has shown some tendency to play for
the center. Yeah, there's something to be of flip flopping
there for sure. But Eric convention, the speech to talk
about how he wanted like a lethal military and how
we want to kick China's butt and things like that,
it was a very atypical speech for Democrats that spoke

(07:47):
to the center. And usually I watch speeches like at
arms like I'm like, this is not speaking to me.
I'm not a partisan Democrat whatever. But like she showed
some instincts there that I thought we're a little different.
And yeah, you're getting some flip flopping for sure, But
but look, I mean, you know, with the January sixth stuff,
that's kind of just an issue for me. In Biden's
age was also disqualifying. So now it's kind of process
of elimination.

Speaker 5 (08:07):
I suppose.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Okay, I'm gonna give you a pass on that because
I don't see how anybody with a functional brain can
vote for Kamala, and you clearly have a functional brain.
But I want to dive into your modeling and the
battleground states. Here again talking to Nate Silver, who is
smart despite the fact that he says he's going to
vote for Kamala. All right, so you have an interesting read.
I was reading it North Carolina and Georgia to southern states.

(08:33):
They did not move in tandem all the time. They
went in different directions in twenty twenty. My thesis is
Trump's gonna win North Carolina and Georgia. I think that
he is. That's what the betting markets would show right now.
How connected are they in your analysis? Do you like
Kamala's chances in North Carolina more than Georgia vice versa.

(08:53):
How likely are they to move together in your mind?

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah, Look, we have Trump as a modest favorite about
sixty to forty in both states. She's actually polling better
in North Carolina, which might be a bit counterintuitive, but
keep in mind that in two thousand and eight brock
Obama one North Carolina and not Georgia. You have a
very popular GP governor in Georgia, although not one that
Trump gets along with terribly well. The guy identical. North

(09:18):
Carolina has a substantially larger white population, although they're both
quite diverse. We had seen Biden's numbers frankly collapse Creater
with younger voters of color, younger Black voters, younger Hispanic voters.
Harris has gotten about half of that back, So she's
competitive in these states. But you actually have some degree
of racial depolarization in the country, which, other things being equal,

(09:41):
I think is probably a healthy thing.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Okay, So the other states that I think are most
fascinating clearly what I call the Big ten states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin.
They all moved together in sixteen. Trump won them all,
Biden won them all in twenty twenty. What are the
chances that they move together in your mind in twenty
four and how would you assess them state by state

(10:05):
in terms of the odds that Trump would win. Because
if I'm right, and if your analysis is right, if
Trump wins North Carolina and he wins Georgia, the easiest
way for Trump to win the election is to win Pennsylvania,
and it's over. And it doesn't even matter what happens
in Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, or Wisconsin. He would have their
requisite electoral votes. So how would you assess those three

(10:27):
states chances they move together? Where does Trump have the
best chance? Where does Kamala have the best chance?

Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yeah, and they do tend to vote together, as Hillary
Clinton learned the hard way in twenty sixteen. You know,
of the three, Pennsylvania's the one where I mean, look,
Tamo Harris has been a good in a good period
for the polls, but Pennsylvania has been still a toss up,
a photo finish. There's a chance to regret not picking
Josh Shapiro. Tim Wallace has been effective in some ways.
But look, I'm a maths guy, and I'm like, yeah,

(10:53):
I want with electoral votes if I were hear, probably
they are different tuctors in each state. You see in Michigan,
for example, has a larger Palestinian Arab American population. I
think Democrats are fortunate that the Gaza issue seems to
have been diffused quite a bit. You know, Wisconsin's more
world than the other two Pennsylvania is kind of northeastern
in the city, midwestern, so there are subtle, little differences,
but you know ninety percent of time they'll vote as

(11:15):
a block basically.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
And which one do you like Trump's chances in the
best of those three based on your modeling?

Speaker 3 (11:21):
I think Pennsylvania. I mean, you know, we've just seen
that consistently poll as a TSSA. You know, Harris plus one,
Trump plus one, whereas Harris been ahead recently in most
polls of Michigan Wisconsin.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
If you had to pick one state that you could
know the exact results for and forecast based on that
to twenty twenty four, would.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
It be Pennsylvania? Is that the one that you would
want to have the data for.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah, Look, all you tell me is Harris went Pennsylvania
or Trump when Pennsylvania? Could you know predict with ninety
some percent accuracy it was going in the electoral college.
That's that's It's a lot of electoral votes. It's a
very democratic, democratic representative state. You got rural areas and
a big city in suburbs, et cetera decent sized black population.
So that's the biggest circle on the map.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Okay, you have it almost dead even I think right now,
fifty to fifty in your forecast, Trump was ahead, Kamal
has got a small lead right now. Is it fair
to say that based on what we've seen from the
polls so far? And my suspicion is that they're waiting
to give us a lot of poles after Labor Day
and so we're going to get an inflection of a
new data then. But is it fair to say that

(12:27):
we haven't seen any kind of real substantial Kamala Harris
convention bounce as would typically occur historic or are the
convention bounces more of something that isn't as much of
a function anymore because so many people have already made
up their mind.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah, between the twenty four seven news cycle and partsnship,
they're less profoundly used to be. I mean, you know,
poles are showing, we're showing about it one and a
half or two point bounce so far. You're right, by
the way, Clay that like the timings weird. We have
Labor Day coming up, we had RFK. I'm sure some
people tossed out their polls because they tested RFK. He
won't officially be a catly some states look if you

(13:02):
have an election today, then Harris would be the favorite,
a big favorite. We have all seen elections where the
polls are off by quite a bit. But our model
thinks that when you get to November it'll tighten back
up again. Look, I think Trump has not been on
his a game recently, but you have a debate, you
have other things to shake up and learn from. It's
a bit like if you have the backup quarterback come

(13:23):
in and he's like a scrambler and not like a
downfield passer, and you need some adjust period. But but look,
we know that American elections are very close. We know
also that if the popular vote is a tie, then
probably Republicans win, So they have a couple of it's
a big ace in the hole. We're talking about strategy
down the road.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
All right, last question for you, I'd encourage you to
check out the book.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
I read it. I really enjoyed it. On The Edge,
Signal and the Noise also a really good read. If
you're looking for something and you're a data probabilistic guy
who is more rational sports fans for political junkies, who
is a more rational group?

Speaker 3 (14:00):
Fans by far right, I mean you can see a
field goal like joint off the crossbar, or you know,
a sharply hit baseball that gets caught by the shortstop. Yeah,
there's not this grievance. I mean there's some. You know,
I'm kind of a New York Knicks fan now, so
you see some grievance of the Knicks fans. But I
think sports fans tend to have a sense of humor
that is often lacking in the political sphere.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Also, sports fans are constantly willing to re examine their
priors when it comes to a coach, when it comes
to a player. Sports fans innately embrace data, right. I mean,
if youve got Aaron Judge hitting fifty one home runs
in New York City and you didn't think he was
going to have a good year, I mean, the data
comes out and you have to adjust. It seems to
me that sports fans are, by the way, crazy, but

(14:41):
more rational than political diehards.

Speaker 4 (14:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
To be confronted with the reality check one hundred and
six two times a year in Major League Baseball or
seventeen times a year in the NFL instead of once
every four years, it just kind of makes you adjust
to reality a lot more.

Speaker 4 (14:54):
Rapidly.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
Nate, I appreciate the time. Again, the book on the edge,
good luck with it. Appreciate you giving us the time.
I think people will enjoy it, and I'd encourage signal
and the noise as well.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
Of course, thank you, Clay.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
I got lots of good things to say. You almost
killed them all by saying you're voting for Kamala by
the way, but I appreciate the time.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Thanks man.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
It's Nate Silver, super smart guy. His forecast fun to
watch and look at. Among many other outlets out there,
I find that he is rational in a way that
few people are very often rational.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
By the way, we'll take some of your calls. Eight
hundred and two two two eight a two.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
We're going to be joined by Jim Jordan to talk
about this big Facebook story that much of the media
is ignoring. That letter from Mark Zuckerberg was addressed directly
to Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio. We'll talk with him next.
But I want to tell you we've got a lot
of hunters out there in this audience. If you're one
of them, let me tell you about Bear Creek Arsenal.
They've been in the business for more than two decades
manufacturing great products at an incredible value. Buck loves the

(15:51):
company has a ton of their firearms. You've heard him
talk about the performance quality but also the price points.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
I'm going to be down in Miami in a few weeks.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
We're gonna go out and try out many of their
arsenal and Bear Creek has eliminated the middleman. You get
the benefit of those savings. You can save even more
when you use my name Clay as the discount code
at bear creekarsenal dot com. Again, we're gonna spend a
day out on the range. I can't wait to check
all this stuff out and add it to my own

(16:20):
personal arsenal. You can learn more about Bear Creek Arsenal
at bear Creek arsenal dot com. Remember discount code Clay.
That's Bearcreek Arsenal dot com. My name Clay. Ike in
California's fired up about the Nate Silver interview. Mike, what

(16:42):
you got for me?

Speaker 4 (16:43):
Yeah? How you doing, Clay?

Speaker 5 (16:45):
I don't know how you can even trust that guy.
He's a full on partisan. I know the book is
good and everything, but you know what.

Speaker 4 (16:51):
All he did was say that he looked at facts
and numbers and everything.

Speaker 5 (16:54):
Else, and then said he's gonna vote for Kamala Harrison.
He doesn't even know what she stands for.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
But if you heard me, ask him, I will say,
right now, his forecast is fifty one point five percent
Kamala wins, forty eight point three percent Trump wins. And
of anybody out there in twenty twenty, he had the
highest probability that Trump would win. When everybody else was

(17:21):
running around saying ninety seven percent chance that Hillary was
going to win, he was saying there was about a
third of a chance that Trump was going to win.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
So I think his forecast model.

Speaker 5 (17:32):
They knew that ninety seven percent was fake. If anything,
it was maybe sixty forty. But everybody knew that she
wasn't going to get ninety seven percent of the vote.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
No, no, no, ninety seven percent chance that she won, not
that she was going to get ninety seven percent of
the vote. That's what thanks for the call, by the way,
that's what the New York Times forecast said. I think
you have to challenge your priors. That's a big part
of his book. I would encourage you guys to read
it and when you consider other options, what I find

(18:01):
is that your opinions end up stronger. This is why
I think that Ron DeSantis wiped the floor to such
an extent with Gavin Newsom, because Gavin Newsom didn't have
any actual arguments in his back pocket. Because the media
is so biased in his favor. You got to challenge
your priors. That makes you stronger. We'll talk more about that,
but I want to tell you Pure Talk. My soon

(18:23):
to be fourteen year old is gonna get a Pure
Talk phone. My sixteen year old already has one. I
trust Puretalk to keep me in touch with my kids
and also save me a bundle. You can do the same,
keep the same phone, same phone number, save up to
one thousand dollars a year. Why wouldn't you trust them
to save you a bundle? Two pound two five zero.

(18:44):
Make the switch today to Puretalk. That is pound two
five zero Puretalk. Do it today. Made Silver on Twitter
getting a lot of hate for saying that he's going
to vote for kamalas He's a smart guy making a

(19:06):
very bad choice. But where I'll give him credit is
I don't mind when people tell you what they're gonna do,
and then you can assess how to weigh their opinion
based on that. What I am bothered by is Dana
Bash is going to sit down and interview Kamala Harris
and Tim Walls tomorrow, and after that interview, she's gonna say,

(19:29):
you know, I don't really have partisan leanings. I'm a journalist.
I'm right down the middle. I don't ever make decisions
based on what might be my own biases. I am
completely right down the middle. And it's a lie. I've
told people my whole career in media. When I started

(19:49):
writing an O four, I told people every election, Hey,
this is who I'm voting for. You don't have to
agree at all, but I think you should be able
to understand where I'm coming from. And if you think
I'm biased or you think I'm not being honest, all
I can do is tell you what I'm doing. And
I did the same thing during COVID. I'm like, hey,

(20:09):
I'm putting my kids back in school. My kids aren't
wearing masks, I'm not getting them shots. To me, what
you do in your own life tells us way more
than what you say. I didn't get the COVID shot.
I told everybody, and I think actually Nate Silver knows
that Kamala is a joke. I think because he works

(20:30):
in media and lives in New York City, he's not
willing to cross the bridge and vote for Trump. Because
I'll tell you, when I came out and said I
was voting for Trump in sports media, people said, you
just lit the bridge on fire behind you. You can't
work in sports media anymore. When twenty twenty, when I
did that, I was the only person. I think I'm

(20:51):
still the only person who talked about sports for a
living that publicly said I'm voting for Donald Trump. Jim
Jordan's with us now. Jim, I appreciate you coming on
with us. You went through some of those fires with me.
You would come on the Sports Show back in the day.
You're a huge sports fan. Isn't it incredible that not

(21:13):
one single person who works at ESPN has ever said, Hey,
I'm voting for Trump publicly.

Speaker 4 (21:19):
No, that's today's sports world, today's media world. I think
what's interesting too, is that it's sticking with a sports analogy.
Is I think we're now getting past the pep rally
stage and we're getting into the game. You know, for
third thirty seven thirty eight days, it's been one giant
pep rally, all kicks and giggles, but I learned a
long time ago in the sport I was involved in.
The pep rally is great. At some point you got

(21:41):
to step.

Speaker 5 (21:41):
On the mat.

Speaker 4 (21:41):
You gotta prove it, yep. And now it's time to
get to the facts and the issues.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
And we've got this.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
Debate and we'll see what happens there. I have a
pretty good feeling that President Trump, who does great in
these debates, and Jade bands are going to win when
they go up against the Vice president and Governor Wallas.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
I agree with you, and let me give you some
credit here. You and I, I believe, met for the
first time in twenty twenty one in person when I
came and spoke at a subcommittee hearing dealing with Yeah,
it was fun, but it was important too, dealing with
the way that Facebook can rig traffic. And I don't
know how well you remember that, but I certainly remember

(22:17):
it well because I lived it. With my business. We
wrote a bunch of positive things about Donald Trump after
he came on my show, and our site traffic vanished
on Facebook and it was an algorithmic move. They punished
us for writing too positively about Trump and what we're
now saying. I got to give you a minse credit here.
The letter that Mark Zuckerberg wrote to you that came

(22:40):
out what Monday afternoon is one of the most jaw
dropping admissions that I have ever seen anyone.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
In big tech make.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
And it was so incredible that The New York Times
is pretending it doesn't exist. I was talking to my
audience earlier. I read the New York Times this morning.
I read it yesterday print edition of the news paper
delivered to my house. They don't have a single article
about Zuckerberg admitting that he was lied to by the FBI,
about the Hunter Biden laptop, or about the censorship attempts

(23:10):
from the Biden White House. So my question, first of all,
incredible work by you to get that letter written. Why
did Mark Zuckerberg write it?

Speaker 1 (23:16):
Now? What do you think his motivations were?

Speaker 4 (23:19):
Well, because we've deposed over a dozen Facebook employees, we
had a year and a half investigation. We've deposed from deposeder,
interviewed line level people all the way up to Sir
Nick Clegg, the Number three guy, former Deputy Prime Minister,
Great Grid, number three guy Meta, and I think at
some point he just said, look, this needs to be
over with. We're gonna We're just gonna come clean and
save the fact. And if you've been that letter, there

(23:39):
were four key key things he pointed out. One Biden
Harris administration pressure Facebook to censor. Two they did censor.
Three they throttled back the Hunter Biden laptop story. And
then the fourth big point, which I think is really
important as well, he said, no more Zuckerbocks, no more
spending on these elections like we did back in twenty twenty.
But I think the reason they did is because our

(24:02):
team and it didn't. It wasn't just you know, it
was our committee, it was our staff. We worked hard
on this over the last year, and God bless Elon
Musk who came forward and provided sort of the catalyst
for this with the Twitter files, because then it was
the Facebook files, the YouTube files, all this stuff we did,
but specifically with Meta, it was we deposed over a
dozen people. They saw, we have the transcripts that point

(24:22):
all this out, how government was working with them, and
I think he just said, let's just put it in a
letter and hopefully get this thing over with.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
FBI got the Hunter Biden laptop in December of twenty nineteen.
They were telling Twitter and Facebook in the late fall,
right before the twenty twenty election, that they thought this
was going to be Russian disinformation.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah, Congressman, are.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
We ever going to know who ordered that code red
inside of our government? And here's what I'm troubled by.
I mean, one that rigged the election. I think you
would probably agree with it because if the truth had
come out about the Hunter Biden laptop and Joe Biden's involvement,
all the different foreign millions of dollars pouring into the family,
Trump would have won. So I do think they rigged

(25:05):
the election. They are just based on that individual story.
But if that person or those individuals did that in
twenty twenty, why wouldn't they try something similar in twenty
twenty four.

Speaker 4 (25:16):
Well that's why this the timing this I think is
also important because we don't know what they may be
up to now. You're right, that came out on October fourteenth,
the New York Post story. I mean, we're just what
twenty some days before the most important election we have
for you know, President of United States, and they had
prebunked it all along. I mean, Shallenberger writes about this
in Twitter files TYBI the whole thing. So they had

(25:37):
prebunked this. But one of the guys we did interview
is a guy named Brady Olsen with the FBI, and
he told us that there was a meeting the day
the New York Post story comes out. The government, our
government just happened to be meeting with big tech companies
and the meeting with Twitter. Someone from Twitter asked, hey,
is this true, this story because it didn't jibe with
what our government had been telling him that the whole
summer in early fall, And they said, is this true?

(25:59):
And someone said the laptop's reel That was quickly followed
up by another individual from the Justice Department says no
further comment. And then they got their stories straight and
that they put out a statement to all tech companies
basically saying we have the laptop and we're not going
to say one way or the other. But initially someone
spilled the beans and then they quickly tried to say,
oh no, no, we're not going to talk about that, and

(26:19):
that's exactly what they did. So yeah, they pre bunked it,
and then when it happened. That's why Facebook and Twitter,
and these folks kind of did the the censoring that
they did of the laptop story, and as you and
I believe that had an impact on the election. Probably
when you're talking about such a small margin for Joe Biden,
probably changed the course of the election.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
I think Trump would be in office. I don't think
Ukraine would have gotten invaded. I don't think that Hamas
would have done what they did on October seventh. Certainly
we wouldn't have let over ten million people in the nation.
Inflation wouldn't have gone from one point four percent to
nine percent, all of those things. Jim, I think our
direct result of the lies that were told from inside
our government to the big tech companies.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
And I know this.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
I don't know what your personal relationship is like, if any,
with Mark Zuckerberg, but I've said on this show, and
I know you listened, so you may have heard it.
But it's easy to focus on the Zuckerbergs and the
Jack Dorsey's of the world at Twitter. But if the
FBI comes to you and says that Russian disinformation is coming,
and then a version of that comes out, it's natural

(27:19):
for them to have believed that it was Russian disinformation.
A lot of the blame shifting on them to me
should instead be back on our intelligence agents in our
interior government for what they did not the tech guys.

Speaker 4 (27:33):
No, exactly right, And you know the biggest problem is
government government pressuring him.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
That's the real city.

Speaker 4 (27:39):
Now. They us succumb to it. And it wasn't just
the laptop. Remember they censored other things as well. And
remember too, did this. You had a tweet last week
that I thought was so good about RFK what he
said about President Trump and his endorsement. He made the
same statement in front of our committee because I invited
him in as a witness a year ago, and he
said the same thing. He said, the people who censor

(28:00):
usually aren't the good guys in history. I'm paraphrase. He
said it better than that, but he said that in
our hearing as well, because he came in. And the
reason he is so far up about President Trump is
this censorship industrial complex is ab and Tellenburger have called
it because they went after him. On day three of
the Biden Harris regime. There's an email from Clark Humphrey
to Twitter saying take down this tweet ASAP car company

(28:23):
working at the White House take down this tweet asap.
And it was a tweet from RFK Junior where he said,
Hank Aaron took the vaccine, Hank Karen passed away after
taking it. He was doing so to encourage black Americans
to get vaccinated. There's not one false statement in that tweet,
and yet they wanted him to take it down because
they didn't like what it was conveying. They didn't like
the context that this was this, you know, malinformation belowing
that our government was involved in. So this is big

(28:46):
stuff when our government is pressuring people to censor. Because,
as RFK Junior said, and you tweeted about it, the
good guys in history aren't the ones who are on
the censorship side, Jim.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
When you look at the way that the New York Times,
the Washington Post, NPR, the usual suspects c in NMSNBC,
the way they covered a few ad bys by Russia
on Facebook, which in the grand scheme of things, is
completely inconsequential. And I'm saying that as a media figure
who's run a media company. We bought a lot of

(29:17):
Facebook ads over the years. You have to spend millions
and millions of dollars, tens of millions, even hundreds of millions,
in order for your message to really get out. Russia
was testing and spending a few hundred dollars, maybe one
thousand dollars here and there. It was covered as if
those ad bys put Trump in the White House in
twenty sixteen. We spent years on that allegation. Given what

(29:38):
Mark Zuckerberg just admitted to, How wild is it if
you compare the amount of attention given to that twenty
sixteen tiny ad buy with the censorship and also with
the government briefings that led to the censorship of the
Hunter Biden laptop story.

Speaker 4 (29:53):
Not even close, not even close. And this is just
part of it. Remember three weeks ago, get two and
a half weeks ago, this organization GARM, This continues operation,
and this all stem from US doing an investigation. But
basically I really started when I when I was in
a meeting with Speaker McCarthy and Elon Musk, and I

(30:14):
remember Elon Musk, we were talking about garment, he said, and.

Speaker 5 (30:18):
He was so right. We dug into this, but it
is so broad.

Speaker 4 (30:21):
And yet they made a big deal out of a
few what Russian.

Speaker 5 (30:23):
Spots doing whatever they were doing and something other back
in twenty sixteen, and it.

Speaker 4 (30:28):
Was nothing compared to what they're doing, to what they
did to you and OutKick, what they did to Fox News,
the Federalists, what they did the Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro.
We had been Shapiro in a testified about a month
and a half ago, and as a result of that
that hearing group them the Big advertised they fired their guy.
This is all part of this garm and everything else

(30:49):
was going on. So yeah, this is so much bigger.
But as you point out, the mainstream the big media
doesn't really want to cover.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
You're doing the Lord's work here. It's truly incredible to
see it all stacked together and how important it is
to fight the sensor censorship industrial complex inside a big
tech You talk to President Trump all the time. How
often I know you know JD. Vance well because he's
from Ohio where you are a congressman. How optimistic are
you about what you are seeing as we get close
to Labor Day weekend and the official kickoff in many

(31:18):
ways of the election season. What do you expect to see?
What is the president telling you? What should our audience know?
Based on your overview of the election.

Speaker 4 (31:27):
Look, I listened to you and I and I actually
I think you you've nailed it. I'm optimistic like you are.
I think it is EBC, you know, economy, boarder crime.
I think I think we're now getting past the PEP
Rally's she and Tim Walls are going to do uhuh
the vice president Tim Wals is going to do an interview. Uh.
They're they're uh, they're going to have debates. You know
that there's a big difference between playing the game and

(31:48):
having the pep rally. I know at the pep rally
everyone's undefeated, but you've got.

Speaker 5 (31:52):
To when we get to the facts, think about it.
In four years time, we went from a secure border
to no border. They just made the borders are their nominee.
We went from safe streets to record crime. They made
the lady who was saying, let's bail out the rioters
in twenty twenty, they made her the nominee. We went
from two dollars gas to four dollar gas.

Speaker 4 (32:08):
They made the person who said I'm against cracking as
their nominee. And we went from stable prices to record inflation.
And the lady who was for the inflation so called
inflation Reduction Act, which actually called it caused inflation. Voted
for that, so that's their nominee. You can't run from
the facts and the issues, and at some point we're
going to get to that. I think it'll probably start

(32:30):
as a debate on the tent, but I feel good
about it. And the polling numbers, while they're close in
the seven swing states, they're much better now than they
were with Biden and McClinton. So I feel good. I
feel like the country is going to say, no, we
want to go back to the good policies we had
under President Trump.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
Congressman, keep up the good work.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Look forward to meeting with you in person again at
some point, and anytime you want to come on, just
let us know.

Speaker 4 (32:53):
All right, thanks, say take care, guys, we'll.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
Do That's Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio really doing incredible
work as it pertains to the impact of big tech,
censorship and more. The letter that Mark Zuckerberg wrote addressed
to him seismic and importance that we have spent a
lot of time talking on. It would not have happened
without the work of he as committee and his staff.
Look right now, it's the end of summer. I am
headed down on Friday evening to go to the beach,

(33:18):
last trip to the beach with my family before the
fall officially gets underway. You're gonna take a bunch of pictures,
probably going to relive a lot of memories we've been
having with our family. I bet a lot of you
are going to do the same as you get ready
for this Labor Day weekend. You're gonna go out to
the lake. You're gonna have barbecues. You're gonna hang out
with your friends, your family, people that you hold and
cherish the most. How many times have you done that

(33:39):
in the past, and how many of those memories that
you created on those days the end of summer during
the course of the summer are old photos, old family
VHS tapes, old reels. Now's the time to preserve those
forever in a digital fashion. That's what Legacy Box does now.
In my mom's hometown at Chattanooga, Tennessee, where I spend
a lot of time over the years, these guys do
a phenomenal job of preserving your family memories forever, and

(34:02):
right now they're offering fifty five percent off their regular prices,
making the project all the more attractive. Think of the
hours of entertainment in your family's future and just preserving
your family's history and what that can mean. At legacybox
dot com slash clay for half off regular prices. That's
a legacybox dot com slash clay fifty five percent off.

(34:24):
Summer's coming to an end, but make sure that you
preserve your summer memories forever at legacybox dot com slash
clay for fifty five percent off. My thanks for Jim
Jordan and how great he was just there and for

(34:47):
the work he's been doing. Because a lot of times
people say, Okay, what is the impact of let's say,
a Republican control of the House. I don't think a
lot of this information comes out if Republicans don't control
the House. And the decision of Mark Zuckerberg not to
spend money in twenty twenty four and for him to
say publicly, hey, I'm not going to endorse in the

(35:10):
twenty twenty four race is actually a huge win for
Trump because I'll tell you this, if people say I'm
not endorsing, that often means I'm for Trump.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
They are just a lot of people who are.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Not willing to actually take the next step and say yeah,
I'm voting for Trump. Patrick Mahomes, a quarterback of the
Kansasity Chiefs, did this recently. I don't know how many
of you saw. His wife, Brittany liked a Trump post
on Instagram and got absolutely savaged for it. She refused
to apologize, but Patrick Mahomes came out and said, I'm

(35:45):
not going to endorse in the twenty twenty four race. Well,
I would just submit to you. I know some couples
vote different ways. You may have a husband or a
wife that votes it differently. But if Brittany Mahomes is
going on Instagram and liking Donald Trump up posts, I
don't think there's very many women voting Trump married to

(36:05):
men who are voting Kamala or Biden.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Would most of you agree with that?

Speaker 2 (36:10):
I mean, the data reflects that men are voting for
Trump by a substantial margin. I think if your wife
is a Trump supporter, the odds that a Trump supporting
woman is married to a Kamala voter.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
Are super slim. I'm just tossing that out there.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
If you're one of the women out there that is
voting Trump and you've got a husband that's voting Kamala,
I'd actually love to hear from you right now eight
hundred and two two eight A two. I don't think
there are very many of those of those people. We
come back, we'll break down the absolute latest on the
Kamala interview and the polic

The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News

Advertise With Us

Follow Us On

Hosts And Creators

Clay Travis

Clay Travis

Buck Sexton

Buck Sexton

Show Links

WebsiteNewsletter

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!

The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club

The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!

The Joe Rogan Experience

The Joe Rogan Experience

The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.