January 13, 2025 • 36 mins
CA Congressman Tom McClintock explains how bad policy served as kindling for the LA fires. When and why CA started to decline. Jack Smith news.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back in Clay Travis buck Sexton show.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Appreciate all of you hanging out with us.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
We've been talking about what I think is just a
scary situation, but also a sign of what can happen
when you begin to reverse progress. When you go from
as Congressman Tom McClintock points out, driving down in a
massive way the amount of wildfire acres that are being
(00:30):
consumed in California, and then you start to reverse all
the policies that had helped to make that such a
huge success. And we're joined now by the author of
that Wall Street Journal editorial, Congressman Tom McClintock from the
fifth Congressional District in California. Congressman Clintock, appreciate you coming
(00:51):
on with us. Great peace this morning. How frustrating is
it to you look at the data and do your
deep dive on what's been going on with California wildfires?
As you lay out, this is a historical reality, four
and a half million, on average acres a year have
(01:13):
burned since the fifteen hundreds in California. Due to smart policies,
that number gets driven back down to two hundred and
fifty thousand and then as you lay out, new decisions
are made that reverse many of those successful policies. And
here we are California can't put out a fire, and
there are a lot more of them than there used
(01:34):
to be.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Well, exactly right. Fire is how nature gardens, and nature's
allows e gardener. If you doubt that for a second,
just leave your own alone for a few years and
tell me what it's going to look like. Nature removes
excess growth by catastrophic fire. Beginning in the twentieth century,
we adopted policies to do the gardening ourselves. We auctioned
(02:00):
off excess timbered logging companies who actually paid us to
remove the excess. We leased public lands to cattle and
sheep ranchers to suppress brush growth through grazing. In the
Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu, I remember as a kid
back sheep herders used to graze tens of thousands of
heads of sheep every year to keep the brush under control.
(02:21):
We used herbicides to keep brush from residential areas. We
put out fires before they could explode out of control.
And as you pointed out, fire losses went from the
historic average of about four and a half million acres
in California to a fairly steady quarter of a million acres.
But then we adopted these leftist environmental laws in the
nineteen seventies that have made permitting for these practices endlessly
(02:45):
time consuming, ultimately cost prohibitive, and so not a lot
of it gets done. We still had fires in those days,
but they were a fraction of the intensity that we
see the day. And now what we're seeing is not
a new normal, we're simply seeing the old normal return.
In twenty twenty, we were back up to about four
and a half million acres destroyed by fire. And that
(03:06):
is a choice that we made when we adopted laws
that have made it impossible to manage our lands.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
How frustrating is that to not only you but other
Californians who have lived through the process. Boy, we're making
really good decisions when it comes to limiting these wildfires.
And then this is often, as you know, much of
this is circular.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
You start to have that success and people say.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Well, maybe we don't need to do this anymore, and
the environmentalists and the climate change people make these changes,
and now they're arguing, and I'm sure you're already seeing
this well, this is a natural consequence of climate change,
as opposed to a natural consequence of many of the
choices that they made in an effort to try to
combat climate change.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Well, here's the problem with their argument is he referenced
Cabrio dropped anchor in San Pedro Bay. It was the
autumn of fifteen forty two. That's the height of the
Santa Ana fire season. He promptly named it the Bay
of Smoke. So fires fanned by these seasonal sant Ana
winds are nothing new. And by the way, when Juan
(04:17):
Cabrio observed those fires off the coast of California in
fifteen forty two, it was the height of the Little
Ice Age, when temperatures were at their lowest in ten
thousand years. And it also doesn't explain this. You can
literally go up in a helicopter and you can often
tell the difference between the public lands they're subject to
(04:38):
these environmental laws and the private lands that are not,
just by the condition of the forests on each side
of the line. So we have to ask ourselves how
clever are the climate to know the exact boundary lines
between the public and private lands and only decimate the
public ones.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
So what is the solution here in your mind? And
how frustrating is.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
It that, Well, let me go back to the solution,
because I think you'll get to that. But how frustrating
is it that basically the government of Los Angeles and
certainly the state government of California we're talking about the
fifth largest economy in the world, and that they not
only have lost the ability to help prevent these fires
based on public policy decisions, but also lost the ability
(05:24):
to even put the fires out. I would argue, Congressman
that maybe the number one goal and responsibility of any
government on its most basic level is when people's homes
are burning, we should be able to put them out.
California can't even do that. Los Angeles area right now?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yes, well, who hasn't, just said doctor Johnson said, when
a man is to be hanged in the morning, it
focuses attention remarkably. Well, you know, maybe this is something
that will focus the attention of the people of California
on the people they've been electing now for forty or
fifty years. And by the way, it's not just California.
Some of the worst of these environmental laws are federal
(06:01):
that we're imposed in the nineteen seventies. But it comes
down to a simple question that elections matter because they
determined public policy, and public policy matters because that determines
our fundamental safety and quality of life as human beings.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
So what's the solution in your mind? Let's pretend that
Californians actually made a good decision. And I loved your
piece in the Wall Street Journal, and I think the
Wall Street Journal for publishing it, you for writing it.
What would you do looking forward? Okay, we have to
try to limit the amount of wildfires. You're never going
to completely eliminate them, because, as you mentioned, this is
(06:40):
a natural condition of southern California from time immemorial, or
at least since we've had recorded history of the La area.
From a European perspective, what should happen from if you
were given a magic wand and they said you're in
charge of fixing this and trying to limit this going forward,
what's the right solution?
Speaker 3 (06:59):
This is not theoretical discussion, because we already know what works.
We've practiced it for for much of the twentieth century.
Every year we would send out foresters to the to
the National Force. It would mark off excess timber, and
then we would auction that timber off to logging companies
to remove they would pay us to remove it. Of
(07:20):
the same thing with leasing public lands of you know,
the BLM right now leases of most of its public
lands across the country for about a buck fifty ahead
for cattle in California's twenty five dollars. So obviously nobody
leases land for grazing. So you have this huge build
(07:40):
up of brush. You know, all of that excess brush
and all of that excess timber is going to come
out one way or the other. It's going We're either
going to carry it out or nature is going to
burn it out. So you know, go back to the
policies that work. Scientific management of the forests worked remove
the excess before it can choke off the forest or
(08:02):
before it can build up as brush when nature comes
to burn it out. That's the fundamental issue in all
of this is scientific management of the lands. We can
signed our lands to a condition of benign neglect because
the environmental left promise that would improve the forest and
(08:23):
brush land environment. Well, I think we're entitled to ask, now,
after fifty years of experience with these laws, how are
they working, And the answer is damning is going up
in smoke all around us. We've lost about a quarter
of our national forests to catastrophic fire in the last
ten years. That's the effect of these new environmental policies.
(08:45):
And what we've found out is that benign neglect is
not so benign.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
How frustrating is it as a Californian. I don't know
if you heard any of the first hour of the program,
but I've spent a lot of time in California. I mean,
there's a strong argument that California as America's Garden of Eden.
You just laid out, we're not trying to do anything
that hasn't worked before. It's not like you're coming out
and saying, hey, we need to take some radical moves
to try and adjust this. California made a lot of
(09:12):
great decisions. It's why the state grew and flourished into
the fifth largest economy in the world. It now feels
to me, and I'm curious if you feel this on
the ground, like all of that incredible wealth and all
of those good decisions are now being left behind in
favor of radical, anti growth and frankly destructive policies. For
(09:34):
many of the people living there. For someone like you,
how incredibly frustrating is that, Well, it's.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Not just frustrating, it's heartbreaking. You look at California. We
have the most equitable climate in the entire Western hemisphere.
We have the most bountiful natural resources anywhere in the
continent of the United States. We're poised on the Pacific
rim in a position to dominate a world trade for
the next century. And yet if you look the census data,
(10:01):
you will find that there is a unprecedented exodus of
Californians leaving the state, and one of the two of
the most popular destinations are Nevada and Arizona. Now think,
I cannot imagine an act of God that could do
so much damage to this beautiful state as to cause
(10:22):
people to find a better place to live and work
and raise their families out in the middle of the
Nevada Nuclear test range. No active God can do that
that I can think of. But active government can do
that much damage, and they have. And so now people
are voting with their feet and leaving this beautiful state.
And the only thing that's changed in the state is
public policy. And the good news is we can't control
(10:45):
acts of God, but active government we can change the
moment we summon the political will to do so. So
far we haven't summoned that will. But maybe this is
a catalyst to get people to start rethinking their whole
world view about the people they've been electing in California
for the past fifty years. And hopefully it's a wake
up call to the federal government as well to begin
(11:07):
changing some of these federal policies that have contributed to
this disaster.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
We're talking to Congressman Tom McClintock. Last question for you, Congressman.
I get a lot of questions, and we had a
caller just at the end of the last hour about
California's failure to capture much of the rain that actually
falls in California, particularly southern California. I've spent a lot
of time there, anybody who has. When the rain comes,
and it doesn't come in a consistent fashion, it often
(11:34):
arrives all of a sudden. You can stand and watch
all of this bounteous fresh water just roaring right out
into the Pacific Ocean, never claimed. How does that get
fixed and how's that been allowed to continue to occur?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Well, I assert on the Water and Power Subcommittee's chairman
for several years, and what I learned in those years
is droughts are nature's fault. They happen, but water shortages
are our fault. Water shortages are a choice we made
when we had up to the same environmental laws that
have made the management of our public lands all but impossible.
They've also made the construction of new dams and reservoirs
(12:09):
all but impossible. California, of just precipitation alone produces about
forty five hundred gallons of fresh water every day for
every man or woman and child in the state. The
problem is it's unevenly distributed over time and distance. We
used to build dams to store water from wet years
to move it to dry years. We used to build
(12:31):
aqueducts to move water from wet regions to dry regions.
That same environmental left movement destroyed our ability to do that.
So we haven't constructed a major dam over a million
acre feet in California since nineteen seventy nine. Well, the
population's more than double. So it all comes back to
a choice that we have made through the policies that
(12:51):
we've enacted by the people.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
We have elected Congressman. Fantastic editorial.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I appreciate you coming on and talking with all of
our audience that has been so frustrated by so much
of what you've laid out. We need to get you
on again, but appreciate you fighting the right battle and
hopefully public policy, as you said, can be corrected in California,
because it wasn't very long ago when the state was
making a lot of great decisions.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yes, exactly right, as someday it will again.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
I pray Congressman Tom McLintock from the fifth Congressional District
in California. We appreciate the time I shared that editorial.
Encourage all of you to go read it fantastic this
morning in the Wall Street Journal. Look, you can switch
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Speaker 1 (14:44):
Welcome back in Clay, Travis Buck Sexton Show. Appreciate all
of you hanging out with us. Ted in Oakdale, California.
You say, the last damn built in California was all
the way back in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Uh, and you worked on some of those Tell me
about it.
Speaker 5 (15:03):
I worked on an irrigation dam system above that lake.
But in nineteen sixty nine, the new Maloney's Dam was
built and had held about two point two million acre
feet of water. But that was the last dam ever
built in California, and at that time, the above ground
(15:28):
reservoir storage was four hundred and two million acre feet
of water for California. In the last forty five years,
the population of California has almost tripled, but not one
drop of storage has increased. It is still four hundred
(15:48):
and two million acre feet of water.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
That's crazy, that is crazy. I mean, so since nineteen
sixty nine.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I guess that's what fifty five years, basically right to
your point, the population of California has basically tripled and
the ability of California to store water has not changed
at all. And I'm assuming that's an environmentalist opposition to
the idea of damning and what it might do to
the natural world community.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
I assume that past resolution voting resolution a few years back,
and it created a government body, a water could Quality
Control Board, which is appointed by the government. So you
can imagine who he appoints for that thing. And I
(16:37):
have gone to seminars or know about seminars that they
have been at and actually said there will never be
another dam built in California as long as they are
in control.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Thank you for the call. Again, I think Congressman made
a good point. These decisions have real consequences, and it's easy,
and when I come back, I'll play it for you,
because I do think it's important that you understand their
talking points, which are we're not going to examine any
of the decisions we made that have created this awful
(17:15):
situation in Los Angeles. They're just going to blame climate change.
They're just going to say throw up their hands and say, well,
this is a result of temperature changing. No, it's not
at all. In fact, it's a direct result of the
policy choices they have made. And I'm not even talking
about it's a great call. I'm not even talking about
(17:35):
just the recent DEI policy choices. I'm talking about not
storing the water that lands in California. I'm talking about
reversing generations of policy that had driven down the number
of acres of burning to two hundred and fifty thousand
before we returned all the way back to the policy
(17:57):
where we now have basically the same amount that.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
We had before. It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
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(18:22):
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Welcome back in Clay Travis buck Sexton show. Some breaking
news by the way, that I think is probably not
(19:05):
going to matter that much, but will get probably a
decent amount of attention for the next twenty four hours
or so. There's going to be a release of the
jack Smith Report, and that Jack Smith Report is probably
going to say, oh, Donald Trump is the most evil
(19:27):
dictator who's ever lived in the history of mankind. Also,
it's almost all going to have been publicly written before
by the Wall Street Journal, sorry, by the New York
Times and the Washington Post. So I don't think there's
going to be anything of any compelling nature there. But
this is a report that Jack Smith wrote. We should
(19:49):
mention that Jack Smith has also announced his resignation and
that that is underway, meaning that that probably he will
be released. I don't know exactly what the timeframe is
going to be, but in short order, relatively speaking, that
is going to be released. By the way, Buck still
(20:10):
on his way. I'm told South Florida is basically locked
down in terms of traffic. He was texting me a
little bit earlier that there are he lives in South Florida,
and he's now he's back.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
He has made it in.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
He is pulling into the studio there, so we will
be talking with him shortly. Let me play the audio
that I tease that I was going to play I
think a little bit ago. We're talking about the awful decision.
I'll let Buck react as he buckles into his seat
and gets everything up and running there. We're talking about
the awfulness of the mayor and the governor in California.
(20:48):
It's also worth noting that they lie, and they're actually
getting called on some of the lies.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
We discussed the fact that.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Karen Bass was in Ghana in Africa, and what in
the world sense does that make for her to have
been there when all of these fires were breaking out.
But she pledged that she would not travel internationally if
she were elected, and this is her being called out
(21:20):
for that. This is cut ten. Even on Morning Joe,
they are talking about Karen Bass saying she wouldn't travel internationally.
In addition to Ghana, Buck she went to the Olympics
four different times from LA four times.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
But listen to this.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
The New York Times this morning, reporting in their lead
story mounting criticism of Bass threatens grip on leadership, talking
about the mayor, and it writes the mayor told the
Times that if she was elected mayor, not only would
I of course live here, but I would also not
travel internationally. The only places I would go DC, Sacramento,
(22:02):
San Francisco, and New York.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
In relation to LA and The.
Speaker 6 (22:06):
Times rights, that pledge has been spectacularly broken.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
The National Weather Service had warned that these winds did
present a real fire danger that she knew that was overseas.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Anyway, so buck she claims she wouldn't travel to me
like as bad as Ghana is going to the Olympics
four times in Paris.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
You couldn't have gone for just a few days.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
I don't even know how that's possible that she would
need to make four different trips to Paris. I mean,
I can understand why somebody would want to go if
they were going on the dime of the government, but
this is just emblematic of failed leadership.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Well, I appreciate you holding down the fork by the way, Clay,
that was the most heinous traffic situation. It took me
four hours to go about sixty miles, so I've never
they shut down ninety five going north entirely. It's a
six lane highway. There was a fatal, a double accident,
(23:03):
a fatal accident, everything shut down, and I just got
stuck right in the middle of it. So anyway, a
completed utter mess this morning. Thank you for holding everything down.
As for Karen Bass, here's the thing. If you're doing
a great job, you get leeway right when when you
are somebody who's talent in leadership far out weighs your
(23:25):
baggage or perhaps some of your you know, your your
personal prerogatives that you are taking with travel. Then that's
one thing. But Los Angeles has got a lot of
problems that have predated Karen Bass and gotten worse under
her tenure. So I think it's very understandable for people
to say, hold on a second, why are we paying
(23:47):
for you to travel internationally as a mayor? And there
really is not a good, a good reason for this, right.
I know that they come up with some reason, some
rationale for it. The thing's kind of funny you think
about Mayor Eric Adams being federally prosecuted for upgrades to
his flights. Meanwhile, it's a standard operating procedure for a
(24:10):
mayor of another large city to go on what are
effectively boondoggles. And she got look also, to go all
the way to Ghana. That's a very far flight. Right,
It's one thing to go to Mexico or Canada. I
think we can understand that, you know, near neighbors, you know,
border a border with California obviously in Mexico. To go
(24:31):
to West Africa, though, is too much, and given what's
gone on here, I think people have every right to
be incredibly frustrated with what they're seeing. And I think
at some level, Clay, this is part of the of
the reckoning that those who have the ability to see
results and view them as such are deeply frustrated with
(24:56):
the Democrat governance, the far left Democrat governance model that
has played out in a number of places. I know
you were talking. I got to listen to the whole
show on my way in excellent Joba, by the way.
I was like, this is a great radio show this
guy is doing here.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
But that's super frustrating when you're supposed I've had that
happen a few times when you're supposed to be on
your own show and you have to listen to it
while you're driving because you or there's some sort of
cluster that is not allowing you to be there. And yes,
but so I'm glad that. I'm glad reception in your car.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Was good on the trap call in on the cell
phone routine, by the way, something that every every true
radio host at some point has had to do that one,
you know, where your cell phone is the best thing
you can get connectivity with so anyway, I think that
the back to the the recognition that that people are
having right now about California. It plays into the larger
theme of people don't want incompetent governance when it affects them,
(25:53):
you know. And I think in a lot of cases
you've seen it took longer than anticipated. In San Francisco,
they were willing to put up with even more deterioration
than I would have guessed. Right, it really had to
get to the point where, you know, Twitter headquarters has
to move, people can't be in downtown without being harassed,
and you know cars are broken, star football.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Players getting shot in Union Square, I mean in broad
daylight in order.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
To get a new mayor. And we'll see how the
new mayor does, right, And so you've seen this trend happening.
And look, you have to also remember this hasn't been
happening in places that have a more conservative model of governance.
Show me the equivalent of a place that has been
more even just more down the center, never mind more
(26:43):
right wing or more republican, where there's been a rapid
deterioration that you can point to those policies as the
basis for it. You know, we've been talking about the
trends in crime for a long time and how things
got so safe that people decided, you know what, let's
just sort of see if we rip what happens. You know,
what's going to be the reality of crime if we
(27:04):
are not enforcing it with the same enforcing the law
the way that we had been. This is also the
case with red tape and bureaucracy. And you've noticed Gavin
Newsom has come forward now and said, oh, I'm gonna
get rid of I'm gonna get rid of so much
of this red tape. You want to ask why is
it there in the first place? Right, who put it
there in the first place. The answer is Gavin Newsom
(27:26):
and the Coastal Commission and these other entities. But also
why can't they understand that they make everything worse with
no attendant benefit. That's the thing about all the climate
change legislation and you know regulations they have in California.
It's not even like there's a trade off. It's just
bad meaning it just makes things slower, more expensive, and
(27:47):
more frustrating for people who live there. For the make
believe benefit of lowering global temperature, which California has absolutely
no prayer of affecting whatsoever, no matter you know, how
big their economy is. So I think that people are
seeing this now with fresh eyes, and there's been a
red pilling effect that we shouldn't underestimate.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
I talked years ago with a CEO of a successful
media company, and he said things were going so well
at this point in time that he said, even when
I made good even when I made poor choices, the
results still turned out well. And I think for a
long time that's what's happened with California. They have lived
(28:32):
for a couple of generations in this idea that there
are consequence free policy choices that they make. A guy
who just called in and said they haven't built a
new dam since nineteen sixty nine. I mean, that's crazy, right,
the congressman saying like, hey, we got the fires down
to two hundred and fifty thousand acres, the consequences didn't
show up for so long, Buck, that's your point.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
They thought, hey, we can do whatever we want.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
We can spend time on all these ribble as things
that don't really matter, and the actual core infrastructure, which
should be the focus of government, doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Well, this is this is a I would argue a
hallmark historically of left wing ideology, including I know this
is taking a bit far, but communist ideology it takes
a while for them, or socialist ideology takes a while
for them to ruin things. And in the meantime, and
I saw this very clearly in New York City. Build
a Blasio kept saying crime is so low, crime is
(29:29):
at this all time low. You don't believe what you're
hearing about, how it's getting more dangerous in the streets.
And then COVID and then all of a sudden everyone realized,
oh my gosh, the city trajectory has gone toward degeneracy, chaos,
more crime, more more disorder, and just more dysfunction. You know,
it's like bankruptcy. It hadn't happened slowly then suddenly, you
(29:50):
know the old YUK Same thing with the Democrat takeover
of the state of California overall. Remember Reagan was the
governor of California. It's worth this. I know you did
a bunch of the history history going back to the Spanish.
The Spanish super fascinating, right.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I mean, people like to claim, oh it's climate change,
causing these fires. Actually, they've existed there throughout before your peak, right,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
It's stuck in my car. I'm like, this is a
great history deep dive we got got here. I'm enjoying.
It kept me sane when I was punching my steering wheel.
But the truth is that California became America, America's paradise.
While it was a at least center right, if not
Republican state, it wasn't until the nineties. And by the way,
(30:34):
mass illegal immigration was a huge part of this that
it became a one party state, a Democrat one party state.
And at that point it had two of the greatest
wealth generation industries in the history of the plant well
one probably the greatest other than maybe the oil industry,
which is Silicon Valley. And between Silicon Valley and Hollywood
(30:54):
you have these giant ATM machines that now the left
has taken over and they can find a lot. Peter
Thiel had a really good way of putting this, I
think it was on the on the Rogan Joe Rogan's podcast.
He said, it's a little bit like Saudi Arabia that
they have a radical religion, but because they have so
much money coming out of the ground, they can make
(31:15):
a lot of stupid policies and stupid decisions and get
away with things. Right. It's not a very nice way
of talking with Saudi Arabia, but you know, that's the
that's the basic idea. California is somewhat similar. California was
so rich, so prosperous, so blessed as a state that
it took democrats a long time to create the degree
of dysfunction where you now have the outflow. But now
(31:38):
you're there, right, it's it's they went bank not that
it's bankrupt, but you know, they went bankrupt slowly, then
suddenly now all of a sudden, everyone recognizes what's going on.
I shouldn't say everybody. There's still people who you know,
they're never going to go. They this is their place,
and I understand that. But I'm telling you I have friends,
you know. I was talking to a friend of mine
who just used to live in la We had coffee
(31:58):
over the weekend, Clay, and he was saying, so many
of his friends who were kind of the way I
was in New York, which is, no matter what happens,
I'm never leaving. This has actually pushed them over the edge.
This is now an event that has gone too far
for them. And you know, while you're seeing these situations
play out, you know, remember when my family, my in
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Speaker 4 (33:24):
Guys walk up to a mic eight anything goes Clay,
Travis and Fuck Sex to find them on the free
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
All right, welcome back into Clay and Vock. And I
got to tell you one thing that was keeping me
saying and keep me company. I had a little cup
of Crocketcoffee as I was inching along, ninety five inching along,
watching watching the tumbleweeds blow past me faster than I
was driving for a few hours there. Yes, Crocketcoffee dot com.
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(34:17):
Highly highly recommend you go take advantage of that while
you can. Company is growing thanks to all of you.
It's been a tough day for the buckster. So let's
run up some fantastic numbers on Krockett today. Shalli, that
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It would be nice to actually have some Crockett sales
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Speaker 1 (34:42):
At what point did you realize how long should the
drive take?
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Oh? I left two hours for a drive that should
take an hour, and it took me four. So at
what point did you realize that you were screwed?
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Like?
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Did you when you left? Were you aware it was bad?
Or or were you like on the way.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
And then that's an awful feeling when your app updates
or whatever, and it goes from like you'll be there
in like twenty four minutes, you'll be there in two
hours and forty minutes you're like, no, is exactly what happened.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I was looking at my phone, I'm on the highway,
I see a slow down, and all of a sudden
it says I was supposed to be in the radio
studio by eleven am Eastern and uh and it says
you're gonna arrive in like two and a half hours.
I couldn't I couldn't believe. And then I you know,
and then I'm getting like our friends here on WJ
and O at the traffic and weather folks are reaching
out to me like, oh man, do you know about this?
(35:32):
I'm like, oh do I know? I am living it
right now. So yeah. And then you whenever you see
the choppers by the way up at like went out
a good something aren't moving, you know that's that's bad,
bad situation. So yeah, anyway, you.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Know, on some level, I don't know, I've thought about
this a lot because I use and many of you
who drive around in cities you use ways or you
use your Google app or whatever else, because you know
you don't know when traffic's going to emerge. It used
to be that you just when you get a traffic jam,
you had no idea how long it might last. Right. Yeah,
Now you get the information, but it's like infuriating because
(36:10):
you get it in real time, right, Like you're sitting
there and you're like, I don't know. Back in the day,
you might be like, oh, this might only last like
fifteen minutes, and you really have no idea.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Now you're like, oh, this is gonna be two and
a half. Is it better to or I don't know.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
It used to be frustrating. You know, they can give
you different routes. The problem you have is your one
route is the ocean, so like, there aren't that many
ways you can go in depending on what part of
the country you're in when there's traffic, and that is
super frustrating.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
I don't know. I used to want to know the info.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Now, when you know you're gonna be stuck in traffic
for hours, it's just like such a defeating feeling to
be hitting refresh on your phone and know there's nothing
to say to you, but you're there now, and we're
to get the third hour.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
We'll have some fun here.
Welcome back in Clay Travis buck Sexton show.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Appreciate all of you hanging out with us.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
We've been talking about what I think is just a
scary situation, but also a sign of what can happen
when you begin to reverse progress. When you go from
as Congressman Tom McClintock points out, driving down in a
massive way the amount of wildfire acres that are being
(00:30):
consumed in California, and then you start to reverse all
the policies that had helped to make that such a
huge success. And we're joined now by the author of
that Wall Street Journal editorial, Congressman Tom McClintock from the
fifth Congressional District in California. Congressman Clintock, appreciate you coming
(00:51):
on with us. Great peace this morning. How frustrating is
it to you look at the data and do your
deep dive on what's been going on with California wildfires?
As you lay out, this is a historical reality, four
and a half million, on average acres a year have
(01:13):
burned since the fifteen hundreds in California. Due to smart policies,
that number gets driven back down to two hundred and
fifty thousand and then as you lay out, new decisions
are made that reverse many of those successful policies. And
here we are California can't put out a fire, and
there are a lot more of them than there used
(01:34):
to be.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Well, exactly right. Fire is how nature gardens, and nature's
allows e gardener. If you doubt that for a second,
just leave your own alone for a few years and
tell me what it's going to look like. Nature removes
excess growth by catastrophic fire. Beginning in the twentieth century,
we adopted policies to do the gardening ourselves. We auctioned
(02:00):
off excess timbered logging companies who actually paid us to
remove the excess. We leased public lands to cattle and
sheep ranchers to suppress brush growth through grazing. In the
Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu, I remember as a kid
back sheep herders used to graze tens of thousands of
heads of sheep every year to keep the brush under control.
(02:21):
We used herbicides to keep brush from residential areas. We
put out fires before they could explode out of control.
And as you pointed out, fire losses went from the
historic average of about four and a half million acres
in California to a fairly steady quarter of a million acres.
But then we adopted these leftist environmental laws in the
nineteen seventies that have made permitting for these practices endlessly
(02:45):
time consuming, ultimately cost prohibitive, and so not a lot
of it gets done. We still had fires in those days,
but they were a fraction of the intensity that we
see the day. And now what we're seeing is not
a new normal, we're simply seeing the old normal return.
In twenty twenty, we were back up to about four
and a half million acres destroyed by fire. And that
(03:06):
is a choice that we made when we adopted laws
that have made it impossible to manage our lands.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
How frustrating is that to not only you but other
Californians who have lived through the process. Boy, we're making
really good decisions when it comes to limiting these wildfires.
And then this is often, as you know, much of
this is circular.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
You start to have that success and people say.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Well, maybe we don't need to do this anymore, and
the environmentalists and the climate change people make these changes,
and now they're arguing, and I'm sure you're already seeing
this well, this is a natural consequence of climate change,
as opposed to a natural consequence of many of the
choices that they made in an effort to try to
combat climate change.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Well, here's the problem with their argument is he referenced
Cabrio dropped anchor in San Pedro Bay. It was the
autumn of fifteen forty two. That's the height of the
Santa Ana fire season. He promptly named it the Bay
of Smoke. So fires fanned by these seasonal sant Ana
winds are nothing new. And by the way, when Juan
(04:17):
Cabrio observed those fires off the coast of California in
fifteen forty two, it was the height of the Little
Ice Age, when temperatures were at their lowest in ten
thousand years. And it also doesn't explain this. You can
literally go up in a helicopter and you can often
tell the difference between the public lands they're subject to
(04:38):
these environmental laws and the private lands that are not,
just by the condition of the forests on each side
of the line. So we have to ask ourselves how
clever are the climate to know the exact boundary lines
between the public and private lands and only decimate the
public ones.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
So what is the solution here in your mind? And
how frustrating is.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
It that, Well, let me go back to the solution,
because I think you'll get to that. But how frustrating
is it that basically the government of Los Angeles and
certainly the state government of California we're talking about the
fifth largest economy in the world, and that they not
only have lost the ability to help prevent these fires
based on public policy decisions, but also lost the ability
(05:24):
to even put the fires out. I would argue, Congressman
that maybe the number one goal and responsibility of any
government on its most basic level is when people's homes
are burning, we should be able to put them out.
California can't even do that. Los Angeles area right now?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yes, well, who hasn't, just said doctor Johnson said, when
a man is to be hanged in the morning, it
focuses attention remarkably. Well, you know, maybe this is something
that will focus the attention of the people of California
on the people they've been electing now for forty or
fifty years. And by the way, it's not just California.
Some of the worst of these environmental laws are federal
(06:01):
that we're imposed in the nineteen seventies. But it comes
down to a simple question that elections matter because they
determined public policy, and public policy matters because that determines
our fundamental safety and quality of life as human beings.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
So what's the solution in your mind? Let's pretend that
Californians actually made a good decision. And I loved your
piece in the Wall Street Journal, and I think the
Wall Street Journal for publishing it, you for writing it.
What would you do looking forward? Okay, we have to
try to limit the amount of wildfires. You're never going
to completely eliminate them, because, as you mentioned, this is
(06:40):
a natural condition of southern California from time immemorial, or
at least since we've had recorded history of the La area.
From a European perspective, what should happen from if you
were given a magic wand and they said you're in
charge of fixing this and trying to limit this going forward,
what's the right solution?
Speaker 3 (06:59):
This is not theoretical discussion, because we already know what works.
We've practiced it for for much of the twentieth century.
Every year we would send out foresters to the to
the National Force. It would mark off excess timber, and
then we would auction that timber off to logging companies
to remove they would pay us to remove it. Of
(07:20):
the same thing with leasing public lands of you know,
the BLM right now leases of most of its public
lands across the country for about a buck fifty ahead
for cattle in California's twenty five dollars. So obviously nobody
leases land for grazing. So you have this huge build
(07:40):
up of brush. You know, all of that excess brush
and all of that excess timber is going to come
out one way or the other. It's going We're either
going to carry it out or nature is going to
burn it out. So you know, go back to the
policies that work. Scientific management of the forests worked remove
the excess before it can choke off the forest or
(08:02):
before it can build up as brush when nature comes
to burn it out. That's the fundamental issue in all
of this is scientific management of the lands. We can
signed our lands to a condition of benign neglect because
the environmental left promise that would improve the forest and
(08:23):
brush land environment. Well, I think we're entitled to ask, now,
after fifty years of experience with these laws, how are
they working, And the answer is damning is going up
in smoke all around us. We've lost about a quarter
of our national forests to catastrophic fire in the last
ten years. That's the effect of these new environmental policies.
(08:45):
And what we've found out is that benign neglect is
not so benign.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
How frustrating is it as a Californian. I don't know
if you heard any of the first hour of the program,
but I've spent a lot of time in California. I mean,
there's a strong argument that California as America's Garden of Eden.
You just laid out, we're not trying to do anything
that hasn't worked before. It's not like you're coming out
and saying, hey, we need to take some radical moves
to try and adjust this. California made a lot of
(09:12):
great decisions. It's why the state grew and flourished into
the fifth largest economy in the world. It now feels
to me, and I'm curious if you feel this on
the ground, like all of that incredible wealth and all
of those good decisions are now being left behind in
favor of radical, anti growth and frankly destructive policies. For
(09:34):
many of the people living there. For someone like you,
how incredibly frustrating is that, Well, it's.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Not just frustrating, it's heartbreaking. You look at California. We
have the most equitable climate in the entire Western hemisphere.
We have the most bountiful natural resources anywhere in the
continent of the United States. We're poised on the Pacific
rim in a position to dominate a world trade for
the next century. And yet if you look the census data,
(10:01):
you will find that there is a unprecedented exodus of
Californians leaving the state, and one of the two of
the most popular destinations are Nevada and Arizona. Now think,
I cannot imagine an act of God that could do
so much damage to this beautiful state as to cause
(10:22):
people to find a better place to live and work
and raise their families out in the middle of the
Nevada Nuclear test range. No active God can do that
that I can think of. But active government can do
that much damage, and they have. And so now people
are voting with their feet and leaving this beautiful state.
And the only thing that's changed in the state is
public policy. And the good news is we can't control
(10:45):
acts of God, but active government we can change the
moment we summon the political will to do so. So
far we haven't summoned that will. But maybe this is
a catalyst to get people to start rethinking their whole
world view about the people they've been electing in California
for the past fifty years. And hopefully it's a wake
up call to the federal government as well to begin
(11:07):
changing some of these federal policies that have contributed to
this disaster.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
We're talking to Congressman Tom McClintock. Last question for you, Congressman.
I get a lot of questions, and we had a
caller just at the end of the last hour about
California's failure to capture much of the rain that actually
falls in California, particularly southern California. I've spent a lot
of time there, anybody who has. When the rain comes,
and it doesn't come in a consistent fashion, it often
(11:34):
arrives all of a sudden. You can stand and watch
all of this bounteous fresh water just roaring right out
into the Pacific Ocean, never claimed. How does that get
fixed and how's that been allowed to continue to occur?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Well, I assert on the Water and Power Subcommittee's chairman
for several years, and what I learned in those years
is droughts are nature's fault. They happen, but water shortages
are our fault. Water shortages are a choice we made
when we had up to the same environmental laws that
have made the management of our public lands all but impossible.
They've also made the construction of new dams and reservoirs
(12:09):
all but impossible. California, of just precipitation alone produces about
forty five hundred gallons of fresh water every day for
every man or woman and child in the state. The
problem is it's unevenly distributed over time and distance. We
used to build dams to store water from wet years
to move it to dry years. We used to build
(12:31):
aqueducts to move water from wet regions to dry regions.
That same environmental left movement destroyed our ability to do that.
So we haven't constructed a major dam over a million
acre feet in California since nineteen seventy nine. Well, the
population's more than double. So it all comes back to
a choice that we have made through the policies that
(12:51):
we've enacted by the people.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
We have elected Congressman. Fantastic editorial.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I appreciate you coming on and talking with all of
our audience that has been so frustrated by so much
of what you've laid out. We need to get you
on again, but appreciate you fighting the right battle and
hopefully public policy, as you said, can be corrected in California,
because it wasn't very long ago when the state was
making a lot of great decisions.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yes, exactly right, as someday it will again.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
I pray Congressman Tom McLintock from the fifth Congressional District
in California. We appreciate the time I shared that editorial.
Encourage all of you to go read it fantastic this
morning in the Wall Street Journal. Look, you can switch
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Speaker 1 (14:44):
Welcome back in Clay, Travis Buck Sexton Show. Appreciate all
of you hanging out with us. Ted in Oakdale, California.
You say, the last damn built in California was all
the way back in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Uh, and you worked on some of those Tell me
about it.
Speaker 5 (15:03):
I worked on an irrigation dam system above that lake.
But in nineteen sixty nine, the new Maloney's Dam was
built and had held about two point two million acre
feet of water. But that was the last dam ever
built in California, and at that time, the above ground
(15:28):
reservoir storage was four hundred and two million acre feet
of water for California. In the last forty five years,
the population of California has almost tripled, but not one
drop of storage has increased. It is still four hundred
(15:48):
and two million acre feet of water.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
That's crazy, that is crazy. I mean, so since nineteen
sixty nine.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I guess that's what fifty five years, basically right to
your point, the population of California has basically tripled and
the ability of California to store water has not changed
at all. And I'm assuming that's an environmentalist opposition to
the idea of damning and what it might do to
the natural world community.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
I assume that past resolution voting resolution a few years back,
and it created a government body, a water could Quality
Control Board, which is appointed by the government. So you
can imagine who he appoints for that thing. And I
(16:37):
have gone to seminars or know about seminars that they
have been at and actually said there will never be
another dam built in California as long as they are
in control.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Thank you for the call. Again, I think Congressman made
a good point. These decisions have real consequences, and it's easy,
and when I come back, I'll play it for you,
because I do think it's important that you understand their
talking points, which are we're not going to examine any
of the decisions we made that have created this awful
(17:15):
situation in Los Angeles. They're just going to blame climate change.
They're just going to say throw up their hands and say, well,
this is a result of temperature changing. No, it's not
at all. In fact, it's a direct result of the
policy choices they have made. And I'm not even talking
about it's a great call. I'm not even talking about
(17:35):
just the recent DEI policy choices. I'm talking about not
storing the water that lands in California. I'm talking about
reversing generations of policy that had driven down the number
of acres of burning to two hundred and fifty thousand
before we returned all the way back to the policy
(17:57):
where we now have basically the same amount that.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
We had before. It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Look last month I was in Israel and it was
an incredible trip, a chance to experience, unfortunately, everything that
happened on October seventh, and also deal with the challenges
that Israel has to face every single day. There's now
growing optimism that we may see a ceasefire in Gaza.
(18:22):
We've got one with Hezbola in the north, but man
I saw all over that country the impact of the
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Welcome back in Clay Travis buck Sexton show. Some breaking
news by the way, that I think is probably not
(19:05):
going to matter that much, but will get probably a
decent amount of attention for the next twenty four hours
or so. There's going to be a release of the
jack Smith Report, and that Jack Smith Report is probably
going to say, oh, Donald Trump is the most evil
(19:27):
dictator who's ever lived in the history of mankind. Also,
it's almost all going to have been publicly written before
by the Wall Street Journal, sorry, by the New York
Times and the Washington Post. So I don't think there's
going to be anything of any compelling nature there. But
this is a report that Jack Smith wrote. We should
(19:49):
mention that Jack Smith has also announced his resignation and
that that is underway, meaning that that probably he will
be released. I don't know exactly what the timeframe is
going to be, but in short order, relatively speaking, that
is going to be released. By the way, Buck still
(20:10):
on his way. I'm told South Florida is basically locked
down in terms of traffic. He was texting me a
little bit earlier that there are he lives in South Florida,
and he's now he's back.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
He has made it in.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
He is pulling into the studio there, so we will
be talking with him shortly. Let me play the audio
that I tease that I was going to play I
think a little bit ago. We're talking about the awful decision.
I'll let Buck react as he buckles into his seat
and gets everything up and running there. We're talking about
the awfulness of the mayor and the governor in California.
(20:48):
It's also worth noting that they lie, and they're actually
getting called on some of the lies.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
We discussed the fact that.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Karen Bass was in Ghana in Africa, and what in
the world sense does that make for her to have
been there when all of these fires were breaking out.
But she pledged that she would not travel internationally if
she were elected, and this is her being called out
(21:20):
for that. This is cut ten. Even on Morning Joe,
they are talking about Karen Bass saying she wouldn't travel internationally.
In addition to Ghana, Buck she went to the Olympics
four different times from LA four times.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
But listen to this.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
The New York Times this morning, reporting in their lead
story mounting criticism of Bass threatens grip on leadership, talking
about the mayor, and it writes the mayor told the
Times that if she was elected mayor, not only would
I of course live here, but I would also not
travel internationally. The only places I would go DC, Sacramento,
(22:02):
San Francisco, and New York.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
In relation to LA and The.
Speaker 6 (22:06):
Times rights, that pledge has been spectacularly broken.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
The National Weather Service had warned that these winds did
present a real fire danger that she knew that was overseas.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Anyway, so buck she claims she wouldn't travel to me
like as bad as Ghana is going to the Olympics
four times in Paris.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
You couldn't have gone for just a few days.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
I don't even know how that's possible that she would
need to make four different trips to Paris. I mean,
I can understand why somebody would want to go if
they were going on the dime of the government, but
this is just emblematic of failed leadership.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Well, I appreciate you holding down the fork by the way, Clay,
that was the most heinous traffic situation. It took me
four hours to go about sixty miles, so I've never
they shut down ninety five going north entirely. It's a
six lane highway. There was a fatal, a double accident,
(23:03):
a fatal accident, everything shut down, and I just got
stuck right in the middle of it. So anyway, a
completed utter mess this morning. Thank you for holding everything down.
As for Karen Bass, here's the thing. If you're doing
a great job, you get leeway right when when you
are somebody who's talent in leadership far out weighs your
(23:25):
baggage or perhaps some of your you know, your your
personal prerogatives that you are taking with travel. Then that's
one thing. But Los Angeles has got a lot of
problems that have predated Karen Bass and gotten worse under
her tenure. So I think it's very understandable for people
to say, hold on a second, why are we paying
(23:47):
for you to travel internationally as a mayor? And there
really is not a good, a good reason for this, right.
I know that they come up with some reason, some
rationale for it. The thing's kind of funny you think
about Mayor Eric Adams being federally prosecuted for upgrades to
his flights. Meanwhile, it's a standard operating procedure for a
(24:10):
mayor of another large city to go on what are
effectively boondoggles. And she got look also, to go all
the way to Ghana. That's a very far flight. Right,
It's one thing to go to Mexico or Canada. I
think we can understand that, you know, near neighbors, you know,
border a border with California obviously in Mexico. To go
(24:31):
to West Africa, though, is too much, and given what's
gone on here, I think people have every right to
be incredibly frustrated with what they're seeing. And I think
at some level, Clay, this is part of the of
the reckoning that those who have the ability to see
results and view them as such are deeply frustrated with
(24:56):
the Democrat governance, the far left Democrat governance model that
has played out in a number of places. I know
you were talking. I got to listen to the whole
show on my way in excellent Joba, by the way.
I was like, this is a great radio show this
guy is doing here.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
But that's super frustrating when you're supposed I've had that
happen a few times when you're supposed to be on
your own show and you have to listen to it
while you're driving because you or there's some sort of
cluster that is not allowing you to be there. And yes,
but so I'm glad that. I'm glad reception in your car.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Was good on the trap call in on the cell
phone routine, by the way, something that every every true
radio host at some point has had to do that one,
you know, where your cell phone is the best thing
you can get connectivity with so anyway, I think that
the back to the the recognition that that people are
having right now about California. It plays into the larger
theme of people don't want incompetent governance when it affects them,
(25:53):
you know. And I think in a lot of cases
you've seen it took longer than anticipated. In San Francisco,
they were willing to put up with even more deterioration
than I would have guessed. Right, it really had to
get to the point where, you know, Twitter headquarters has
to move, people can't be in downtown without being harassed,
and you know cars are broken, star football.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Players getting shot in Union Square, I mean in broad
daylight in order.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
To get a new mayor. And we'll see how the
new mayor does, right, And so you've seen this trend happening.
And look, you have to also remember this hasn't been
happening in places that have a more conservative model of governance.
Show me the equivalent of a place that has been
more even just more down the center, never mind more
(26:43):
right wing or more republican, where there's been a rapid
deterioration that you can point to those policies as the
basis for it. You know, we've been talking about the
trends in crime for a long time and how things
got so safe that people decided, you know what, let's
just sort of see if we rip what happens. You know,
what's going to be the reality of crime if we
(27:04):
are not enforcing it with the same enforcing the law
the way that we had been. This is also the
case with red tape and bureaucracy. And you've noticed Gavin
Newsom has come forward now and said, oh, I'm gonna
get rid of I'm gonna get rid of so much
of this red tape. You want to ask why is
it there in the first place? Right, who put it
there in the first place. The answer is Gavin Newsom
(27:26):
and the Coastal Commission and these other entities. But also
why can't they understand that they make everything worse with
no attendant benefit. That's the thing about all the climate
change legislation and you know regulations they have in California.
It's not even like there's a trade off. It's just
bad meaning it just makes things slower, more expensive, and
(27:47):
more frustrating for people who live there. For the make
believe benefit of lowering global temperature, which California has absolutely
no prayer of affecting whatsoever, no matter you know, how
big their economy is. So I think that people are
seeing this now with fresh eyes, and there's been a
red pilling effect that we shouldn't underestimate.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
I talked years ago with a CEO of a successful
media company, and he said things were going so well
at this point in time that he said, even when
I made good even when I made poor choices, the
results still turned out well. And I think for a
long time that's what's happened with California. They have lived
(28:32):
for a couple of generations in this idea that there
are consequence free policy choices that they make. A guy
who just called in and said they haven't built a
new dam since nineteen sixty nine. I mean, that's crazy, right,
the congressman saying like, hey, we got the fires down
to two hundred and fifty thousand acres, the consequences didn't
show up for so long, Buck, that's your point.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
They thought, hey, we can do whatever we want.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
We can spend time on all these ribble as things
that don't really matter, and the actual core infrastructure, which
should be the focus of government, doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Well, this is this is a I would argue a
hallmark historically of left wing ideology, including I know this
is taking a bit far, but communist ideology it takes
a while for them, or socialist ideology takes a while
for them to ruin things. And in the meantime, and
I saw this very clearly in New York City. Build
a Blasio kept saying crime is so low, crime is
(29:29):
at this all time low. You don't believe what you're
hearing about, how it's getting more dangerous in the streets.
And then COVID and then all of a sudden everyone realized,
oh my gosh, the city trajectory has gone toward degeneracy, chaos,
more crime, more more disorder, and just more dysfunction. You know,
it's like bankruptcy. It hadn't happened slowly then suddenly, you
(29:50):
know the old YUK Same thing with the Democrat takeover
of the state of California overall. Remember Reagan was the
governor of California. It's worth this. I know you did
a bunch of the history history going back to the Spanish.
The Spanish super fascinating, right.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I mean, people like to claim, oh it's climate change,
causing these fires. Actually, they've existed there throughout before your peak, right,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
It's stuck in my car. I'm like, this is a
great history deep dive we got got here. I'm enjoying.
It kept me sane when I was punching my steering wheel.
But the truth is that California became America, America's paradise.
While it was a at least center right, if not
Republican state, it wasn't until the nineties. And by the way,
(30:34):
mass illegal immigration was a huge part of this that
it became a one party state, a Democrat one party state.
And at that point it had two of the greatest
wealth generation industries in the history of the plant well
one probably the greatest other than maybe the oil industry,
which is Silicon Valley. And between Silicon Valley and Hollywood
(30:54):
you have these giant ATM machines that now the left
has taken over and they can find a lot. Peter
Thiel had a really good way of putting this, I
think it was on the on the Rogan Joe Rogan's podcast.
He said, it's a little bit like Saudi Arabia that
they have a radical religion, but because they have so
much money coming out of the ground, they can make
(31:15):
a lot of stupid policies and stupid decisions and get
away with things. Right. It's not a very nice way
of talking with Saudi Arabia, but you know, that's the
that's the basic idea. California is somewhat similar. California was
so rich, so prosperous, so blessed as a state that
it took democrats a long time to create the degree
of dysfunction where you now have the outflow. But now
(31:38):
you're there, right, it's it's they went bank not that
it's bankrupt, but you know, they went bankrupt slowly, then
suddenly now all of a sudden, everyone recognizes what's going on.
I shouldn't say everybody. There's still people who you know,
they're never going to go. They this is their place,
and I understand that. But I'm telling you I have friends,
you know. I was talking to a friend of mine
who just used to live in la We had coffee
(31:58):
over the weekend, Clay, and he was saying, so many
of his friends who were kind of the way I
was in New York, which is, no matter what happens,
I'm never leaving. This has actually pushed them over the edge.
This is now an event that has gone too far
for them. And you know, while you're seeing these situations
play out, you know, remember when my family, my in
(32:21):
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speak to them in real time during that disaster thanks
to rapid radios rapid radios. When you need an emergency,
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(32:43):
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(33:05):
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Speaker 4 (33:24):
Guys walk up to a mic eight anything goes Clay,
Travis and Fuck Sex to find them on the free
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
All right, welcome back into Clay and Vock. And I
got to tell you one thing that was keeping me
saying and keep me company. I had a little cup
of Crocketcoffee as I was inching along, ninety five inching along,
watching watching the tumbleweeds blow past me faster than I
was driving for a few hours there. Yes, Crocketcoffee dot com.
(33:57):
Absolutely delicious. We've got the gear up now at Crocket
Coffee dot com. Go check it out. The hoodies are
so comfortable you will love them. The T shirt they've
got women's cut as well. Crockett Gear fantastic. Plus if
you use code Code Book when you go to subscribe,
Clay will send you a signed copy of American Playbook.
(34:17):
Highly highly recommend you go take advantage of that while
you can. Company is growing thanks to all of you.
It's been a tough day for the buckster. So let's
run up some fantastic numbers on Krockett today. Shalli, that
would be that would be to help me instead of
like the worst start of the week on the highway imaginable.
It would be nice to actually have some Crockett sales
through the roof today everybody, so stepan Plus it's delicious
(34:39):
and I was drinking it all morning, so Crockettcoffee dot com.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
At what point did you realize how long should the
drive take?
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Oh? I left two hours for a drive that should
take an hour, and it took me four. So at
what point did you realize that you were screwed?
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Like?
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Did you when you left? Were you aware it was bad?
Or or were you like on the way.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
And then that's an awful feeling when your app updates
or whatever, and it goes from like you'll be there
in like twenty four minutes, you'll be there in two
hours and forty minutes you're like, no, is exactly what happened.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I was looking at my phone, I'm on the highway,
I see a slow down, and all of a sudden
it says I was supposed to be in the radio
studio by eleven am Eastern and uh and it says
you're gonna arrive in like two and a half hours.
I couldn't I couldn't believe. And then I you know,
and then I'm getting like our friends here on WJ
and O at the traffic and weather folks are reaching
out to me like, oh man, do you know about this?
(35:32):
I'm like, oh do I know? I am living it
right now. So yeah. And then you whenever you see
the choppers by the way up at like went out
a good something aren't moving, you know that's that's bad,
bad situation. So yeah, anyway, you.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Know, on some level, I don't know, I've thought about
this a lot because I use and many of you
who drive around in cities you use ways or you
use your Google app or whatever else, because you know
you don't know when traffic's going to emerge. It used
to be that you just when you get a traffic jam,
you had no idea how long it might last. Right. Yeah,
Now you get the information, but it's like infuriating because
(36:10):
you get it in real time, right, Like you're sitting
there and you're like, I don't know. Back in the day,
you might be like, oh, this might only last like
fifteen minutes, and you really have no idea.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Now you're like, oh, this is gonna be two and
a half. Is it better to or I don't know.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
It used to be frustrating. You know, they can give
you different routes. The problem you have is your one
route is the ocean, so like, there aren't that many
ways you can go in depending on what part of
the country you're in when there's traffic, and that is
super frustrating.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
I don't know. I used to want to know the info.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Now, when you know you're gonna be stuck in traffic
for hours, it's just like such a defeating feeling to
be hitting refresh on your phone and know there's nothing
to say to you, but you're there now, and we're
to get the third hour.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
We'll have some fun here.
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