December 17, 2025 • 36 mins
Hour 2 of The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show delivers a packed lineup of political analysis, cultural commentary, and a major Capitol Hill interview. The hour begins with Clay and Buck reflecting on the show’s growth in 2025, thanking listeners for helping expand to over 550 affiliate stations and previewing plans for more video content in 2026. From there, the conversation pivots to Zohran Mamdani’s controversial proposal for free buses in New York City, which he claims reduces assaults on drivers. Clay and Buck dismantle the logic behind this policy, arguing that eliminating fares incentivizes bad behavior and risks turning buses into “mobile homeless shelters.” They also discuss the broader implications of Mamdani’s socialist agenda and predict that any exodus from New York due to his policies will likely occur in spring and summer.
The centerpiece of Hour 2 is an in-depth interview with Senator Rand Paul, covering critical issues from foreign policy to domestic economics. Senator Paul strongly opposes what he calls an “offensive war” in Venezuela, warning that U.S. military action to enforce a blockade and target suspected narco-boats amounts to regime change without congressional approval. He stresses constitutional limits on presidential war powers and criticizes the administration’s approach to interdiction, citing high error rates and ethical concerns about targeting unarmed individuals.
On Trump’s first year of his second term, Rand Paul gives the administration an “A triple plus” for securing the southern border and maintaining tax cuts, while blasting both parties for runaway spending and ballooning debt. He calls for a balanced budget and entitlement reform as urgent priorities heading into 2026. The discussion then shifts to healthcare policy, where Paul advocates for association health plans, interstate insurance purchasing, and universal health savings accounts to lower costs without taxpayer subsidies.
The hour also tackles America’s affordability crisis, with Paul linking soaring housing prices and inflation to reckless government spending and Federal Reserve monetary policy. He warns that rent control and socialist policies—like those embraced by New York’s new mayor—will worsen housing shortages and economic inequality. Clay and Buck underscore that affordability will dominate the 2026 midterms, framing it as a kitchen-table issue for millions of voters.
In a lighter moment, the hosts share a viral clip of a 101-year-old World War II veteran praising President Trump, pledging he’d “put on the uniform and fight today.” The segment closes with a preview of upcoming discussions on California’s policy challenges and the latest developments in the Brown University shooting investigation.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome in everybody to the second hour of the Clay
Travis and Buck Sexton Show, and we are continuing with
our last week of live shows for the year.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Very very much want to say, while I can, thank
you to all of you for helping us have such
a great year, or you are the reason.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
We had such a great year on the program. I
know we're still in the news cycle.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
We'll be getting into all this in a second, but
since I only have you for today and then Clay
is going to be throwing a Christmas keg party for
you for the next couple of days afterwards, We've had
a great, really, honestly a great year on this show.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
It has been.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
An honor to be able to spend time with you
all every day. For y'all, as I'm allowed to say
now because so many of you are Southerners and you've
given me permission.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Well you married a Southerner, so I think that's help
us your ability to embrace the word y'all.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
That's true, and so we just want to say thank
you to all of you. Honestly, it's been a phenomenally
You're our team in New York City is the absolute best.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Our audience is the absolute best.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
And we all hope that we're doing a great job
and that Rush is smiling down on us from heaven
thinking that we're carrying on the legacy and holding the
torch as best as we can.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
And I can promise you we do that absolutely every
single day.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
And to build on that which is well said in
this will be when we come back in January together,
it'll be we're working on the fifth year. We added
eighty six stations this year. We have added, thanks to
you guys, over two hundred affiliate stations since we launched
this show in June of twenty twenty one. So that's
(01:41):
a testament to a lot of work going on behind
the scenes. I think we were around three fifty when
we launched ISH and now I know we are over
five hundred and fifty and added an absolute ton of
stations this year, and many of you are listening to
us all over the country on stations that work with
(02:03):
us in June of twenty twenty one, So thanks to
all those stations out there. Obviously, we want to be
on as many platforms as possible everywhere. Clay and Buck
Podcast Network is rolling and we're going to have more
and more video for you as many people out there.
I never really really believe this is where we were headed, Buck,
but a lot of people consume audio on video. In fact,
(02:26):
it's more popular to consume audio on video now often
than it is just playing audio, particularly the younger you are.
So we're going to be adding in more and more
video attributes of this program. It's a big part of
the twenty twenty six plan. So we would like for
you to be out there subscribing to us on all
those platforms, including YouTube, because there's going to be a
(02:48):
lot more video coming for all of you.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
And I will say this, and this is definitely self serving,
but also one hundred percent true when any of you
come up and see me. Was jogging Clay yesterday who
listens to the show and stopped his jog for a
minute to come alongside me to chat.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
A little bit.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Some ideas that I felt bad, like I'm interrupting your job.
It's like, well, right, Buck Sexton, I got it. But
we always appreciate whenever you see any of us, and
you always should feel like you can come up and
talk to us and we feel like we know you,
and you feel like you know us because you do
because you spend so much time with us over the
course of the year, and some of you even a
(03:27):
couple of hours, two or three hours a day when
you have the time. I would also say that whenever
we meet somebody who listens to this show, I truly
immediately this little thing in my brain goes, oh, you're
one of the good, smart conservatives who doesn't waste his
time with nonsense. So I'm just saying that is honestly
what I think. So I think it is to your
(03:47):
tremendous credit to all of you that with I know
there's so much noise out there. There's so much stuff
that is online, in particular these days, and there's a
lot of sort of petty nonsense and people getting crazy
and getting a little reckless. And you stay with us
here and you stay with the mission, and we greatly
appreciate that. So I wanted to say thank you. And
(04:09):
I do have a high opinion of each and every
one of you who listens to the show. So that
is from a bottom of the heart. All right, now
we can do some news you mentioned Mom Donnie. Now
I'm gonna tell you something. There are people who are claiming,
now Clay that since Mom Donnie came into New York,
or rather, since he won the election, he becomes mayor
(04:30):
of January one. I believe since he won that election,
there have actually been some people moving to New York
to experience Mom Donnism. There has not been the flood
of residents to or new residents to Florida that even
some realtor friends of mine were expecting. People tested they
want to know that the lifeboat is there. They did
(04:53):
not get into the lifeboat, though overwhelmingly I have not.
By the way, if you happen to be somebody who
has left New York because of Mom Donnie and moved anywhere,
let us know. The numbers show this is is a
very small group.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
I will say that I think most of those people,
if they leave Buck, they're gonna let Mom Donnie try
it out. Most people have kids, they have grandkids. Moving
around Christmas is hard to do. So I think you'll
see if people are gonna flee Mom Donnie's air in
New York, it will happen in the spring and summer.
So that's when I'm actually curious to see whether or
(05:30):
not there will be any sort of mass movement, because
you'll have a few months he gets inaugurated in January,
you'll have a few months to see how the process
of Mom Donnie is going, and then people's school years
get out and then they start to move. We'll play
the Mom Donni. By the way, new videos being released
now as we speak of a person of interest leading
(05:53):
the news on Fox News, leading the news on MSNBC
right now in that Brown University shooting.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
So a little bit better visualization.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
We'll try to share some of those videos from the
Clay and Buck account for any of you out there
that may be in that area or just trying to
figure out who that person of interest is. But you
were mentioning Mom Donnie, and I tease this buck. Mom
Donnie weighed in on how he thinks free buses are
actually going to make there be less issues on public transportation,
(06:26):
and it's a heck of a whopper that he told here.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
Listen, we made five bus routes free in New York City.
When we made those bus routes free, after a year,
assaults on bus drivers dropped by thirty eight point nine
percent on the bus driver. The bus drivers because unlike
the train, the act of fare collection on the bus
happens on the bus. It's the and bus drivers and
(06:51):
unions have shared anecdotally that about fifty percent of assaults
happen around the fair box. So when you eliminate the
fair you make for a safer experience for the bus
driver for everyone.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Can I can I take mom donnyism to its logical
conclusion here? You know where there can be scuffles in
drug stores and supermarkets and things like that by the
front door with security when people steal stuff. So you
know what we could do, Clay to eliminate scuffles with security.
Just make it legal for people to steal stuff.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
There we go.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
That's another approach to this, right, just say you know what,
you can take whatever you want.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Now.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
I understand public service, public transportation. They can change the
fee schedule. But my point here is you are just
rewarding bad behavior and thinking that that's going to stop
the bad behavior. It's just not true. This is a
really stupid idea. And also he does not have the
funding for it, but he's going to stay with this.
I write, did you ever ride public buses very much?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
When I've done a ton of subway in my life.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
I mean I was a real subway guy for a
long time, I have done very little. The New York
City bus is a is a humbling and often depressing experience.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Void the bus we didn't have. We don't have a
subway in Nashville.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
So as a kid and we did not have I
went to a public school in Nashville, but there were
no public school buses for my school from seven to
twelfth grade, uh Martin Luther King was a school downtown Nashville.
So if you rode the bus, you rode the city bus.
So when school got out, a lot of us kids
(08:34):
would go and we would get on the city bus
and we would ride the city bus all over the
you know city.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
And it's I don't know.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
I look back now and I'm like, man, I was
twelve and I was just getting on the city bus
and I was just riding into downtown and I was
just walking around the city streets. There's a zero percent
chance my wife would let our seventh graders do that.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
I'm just saying.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
I I think people have gotten more protective of kids,
and I think there are benefits and disadvantages to it.
There's a movement I know of parents out there to
have free range kids, to have kids out and about
in streets and cities more often.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
My point on this is.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Getting on the bus and paying and having your token
or having your bus pass and then having your fare.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Is something that makes it way safer.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
And I just say this is somebody who rode city
buses because otherwise vagrants when it's cold, if there is
no charge, we'll just get on the bus and they
will sit there and they'll never leave. And producer ally
has talked about this. There are people who get on
the subway and they stink and they're homeless, and it's cold,
and they just stay on. I don't understand in any way.
(09:50):
I bet Buck they did that pilot program. I bet
they did it on the nicest routes that you run
in the New York City. I find it impossible to
believe that making all buses free is in any way
going to make it safer for the people who are
riding the buses, or that the environment's going to be better.
(10:12):
I just it does not comport with any element of
any experience that I've had as a city bus rider.
It's been a long time since I did it, but
the bus is not that expensive, and I cannot imagine
that there are that many people who would otherwise ride
that can't afford a bus fare in some way.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
What kind of person do you think is physically assaulting
a bus driver. Do you think it's a person who
if only they had a free bus fare, they wouldn't
be laying hands on and becoming violent with a city employee.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
No, Okay, this.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Is a total misunderstanding from Mamdani or a really just
I think ignorance of what it's like for people who
live in low income, high crime neighborhoods where there are
people who are just going to get into trouble. They're
going to do things, they're going to break laws, they're
going to hurt people. Making the bus free, as I've
(11:14):
said all along, will turn them into mobile homeless shelters.
That's part one, So no one's now going to feel
like they want to be on the bus. And two, also,
how much more redistribution of wealth and how much bigger
a a debt does the City of New York water
run ups? So now this will be another thing that
other people have to pay for in a city that
already has a huge welfare state in addition to federal
(11:36):
benefits that people get. And I just think that it
shows that it's totally wrongheaded in its approach. We need
a society where people have greater personal accountability. We want
to promote a society where people are held responsible for
their actions and we are all treated as equals and
as adults. But we also have consequences for when we
(12:00):
viholate that trust. That's the only way to make things better.
To placate the people who break the rules, are violent,
break the law. It just encourages more of it.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Totally, And I again I think your point on hey people,
there's not been a mass departure from New York. In general,
I think people exaggerate what they are going to do
when someone gets elected that they don't like be here
all the time. If Trump wins, I'm moving to Canada.
And to her credit, Rosie O'Donnell is like the only
(12:35):
person that has been famous that has left the country.
She went to Ireland. I give her credit because she
at least stood behind her comments. She doesn't seem like
she's doing very well in Ireland, doesn't seem like the
Irish people like her that much, doesn't seem like her
family's doing that well. But she followed through on her promise,
which most people do not do. What I will say
(12:56):
is I do believe that in the spring and summer
when school year end, I think there are going to
be a ton of people in the New York City
era area that will kick the tires on potentially leaving.
With that in mind, you live through it, Buck, If
you were willing to stay in New York City through COVID,
I don't know how much worse things would have to
(13:17):
get for you to finally say this is my breaking point.
For a lot of people, the COVID restrictions was the
breaking point. If you're still in New York after five years,
six years of COVID going into next year, then I
just don't understand how this is going to finally be
the tipping point that sends you off into a new horizon. Look,
(13:38):
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Speaker 3 (14:28):
You don't know what's you don't know right, but you could.
On the Sunday Hang with Clay and Buck podcast.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
Welcome back in Clay Travis Buck Sexton Show, We're going
to be joined by Senator rand Paul at the bottom
of the hour. I was out yesterday. I wanted to
mention this. So many of you said nice things, and
I appreciate it. My uncle Kenneth died at the age
of eighty four, and I was at his funeral in
(14:56):
East Tennessee. And he was a Vietnam Vet and worked
for Buck thirty years for South Central Bell, going around
working on phone lines all over the Chattanooga, Tennessee area.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
And he was just such an amazing.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Guy, And I know there are many also Vietnam or
veterans out there that are listening to us right now.
And I know somewhat that has changed in the past
couple of decades about how we've responded to the people
who fought in that war. But I actually think we
(15:37):
should be doing a better job of saying thank you
to everyone who fought in that war. Certainly when they
came back, they were not embraced. It wasn't their choice
to go to that war. It wasn't their choice to
be putting their lives on the line, but they were
willing to answer when the country called. And my uncle
(15:58):
is representative of that generation.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
You know.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
He worked on helicopters, served in Vietnam. And as I
was at his funeral yesterday, he was supremely healthy for
eighty three and a half years, just got very sick
in the last six months with cancer. But I wanted
as they had the flag at his casket and as
(16:23):
they were talking about his service there at the funeral,
I wanted to just think about that, say thank you
for the responses that people have shared out there in
the audience, but bigger than that, say thank you to
everyone out there listening to us right now, that is
a Vietnam War vet, because I think in many ways
(16:44):
we have largely neglected saying thank you for everybody out
there who put their lives on the line in that war.
So thank you for everybody. He had an amazing life,
phenomenal guy. I feel honored that I had the forty
six years of my life to be able to experience
with him. He was as good of an uncle as
anybody could be. And it's a holiday season comes up.
(17:08):
I would just encourage all of you, you know, hug
and kiss as many friends and family members as you
can because we don't know when the holiday is going
to be the last one that we get to spend together.
So hopefully we all have a lot more. But last
Christmas was our last Christmas with him. Didn't know it,
And just would encourage everybody out there to say thank
(17:29):
you to the Vietnam Vets in your life, and also
to make sure that you don't neglect saying thank you
to anybody out there that is a member of your
family that you may not get to spend another Christmas with.
All Right, hopefully that wasn't too negative, but I just
wanted to say thank you Buck. We got Senator Rand
Paul who's coming up here in a moment will feed
(17:50):
us all the latest info from Capitol Hill.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
There's a lot you learned from living in DC in
the past and covering politics day to day and being
in the media world. And what you see is that
financial power often comes from political connectivity, and the insiders
have a head start. But we're changing that. That's why
I started Money and Power and e newsletter that's totally
separate from this program. It's something I'm really committed to, though.
(18:16):
Just like this radio show, Money and Power is a
newsletter meant to give everyday Americans access to the kind
of fast moving intelligence that you used to stay locked
behind closed doors.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
My team and I monitor.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
DC for every move, every spending bill, executive order, and
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the markets to give you actionable intelligence for investing purposes.
Go to join buck dot com to sign up for
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(18:47):
join Buck dot com paid for by Paradigm Press. Welcome
back in here to Clay and Buck, and we have
Senator Rand Paul with us.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Senator Paul, appreciate you being with us. Let's just jump
right into this.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
So now we have an embargo going or actually a blockade,
I'm sorry, a blockade going on of ships carrying oil
from Venezuela. We have a flotilla the likes of which
the Caribbean has not seen in quite some time of
US naval and other military power. We have a effectively
(19:21):
an ultimatum from a duro. Is this regime change?
Speaker 3 (19:24):
What's going on?
Speaker 6 (19:26):
It looks like it's going to be regime change. It's
sort of regime change in the process. Personally, I think
that war should be a last resort, that we should
try to attempt to avoid war, and that we should
act in a way that we have to go to
war when we have to defend our country. So war
should be in self defense. And this to me is
(19:49):
an offensive war. It's a war because we don't like
the government of Venezuela. You know, I don't like socialism.
I wrote a book called The Case against Socialism. In it,
I open in the beginning the book talking about gangs
in Venezuela looking for food because the economy's so desperate
under socialism, but at the same time, we could probably
list two dozen countries around the world that have either
(20:11):
authoritarian rule or authoritarian socialist rule. And I just don't
think it's the job of the American soldier to go
around and spread freedom at the point of a bayonet.
So now I'm not for this war, and I think
it ought to be voted on by Congress that presidents
under the Constition don't have the power to initiate war
without approval of Congress.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Where we're talking to Senator r and Paul, and there
are a ton of things going on out there as
we finish year one of Trump two point zero, what
would you if you were giving a letter grade, given
the fact that exams are going on all over the
country right now, what letter grade would you give President
Trump and his administration on year one two point zero?
(20:54):
And what do you think should be the top priorities
when Congress returns to action in in January of twenty twenty.
Speaker 6 (21:01):
Six, Let's say a triple plus on controlling the border.
And in fact, they did so well and did it
so quickly that they've actually forgotten to tell the American
people they did it, so it's become accepted you know,
just everybody expects now the border is controlled, But this
was a border that Biden was letting millions of people
cross unintended, many of them a danger to our community,
(21:25):
and a lawlessness at the border. He came in and
within three months controlled that. I think the mistake is
they've moved on to other things instead of promoting and
telling the people about what a good job they did
on the border. On maintaining the tax cuts that I
supported back in twenty seventeen, a triple plus, great idea
(21:46):
to continue those tax cuts. On spending and deficit, you know,
about the same grade that all parties get. You know,
Republicans and Democrats have historically been terrible with the debt,
and I think the debt continues to accumulate it an
alarming rate. We now have over a trillion dollars in interest.
So I think they can do much better on spending
and debt. But on the taxation level, pretty good and
(22:09):
on the border great.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
Now.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
You have been very vocal Senator Paul about these strikes
on suspected or alleged narco boats and mostly the Caribbean,
also some in the Eastern Pacific off the coast of Mexico.
Are there other Senate colleagues on the Republican side who
share your concerns.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
And what would you like to see?
Speaker 2 (22:32):
What would the administration have to do, this White House
have to do for your concerns to be allayed regarding
these strikes.
Speaker 6 (22:41):
You know, one of the questions I've been putting forward
is are they armed? I mean, we have a long
standing tradition, not just here but around the world among
civilized people that we don't shoot unarmed people. So, you know,
some questions came out, do we shoot shipwrecked people when
people were clinging the wreckage, and it's actually part of
our military law that we don't. We also usually don't
(23:02):
shoot unarmed people. So these boats that are alleged to
curing drugs, probably a lot of them do have drugs.
I'm not disputing that most of these boats don't have
the capability to even get to the United States. They
can go about one hundred miles and after be fuel.
So a lot of these drugs, if they are drugs,
are being distributed by unarmed people into some of the
(23:22):
Lower Caribbean islands. What we've done historically for crimes is
we capture you and prosecute you. It's difficult work, it's
not easy, but that's what we have always expected, and
Coast Guard interdicts these boats routinely, still does. And the
ratio of boats that have drugs to those who don't
is about one in four of every boat that's boarded
(23:44):
doesn't have drugs. So that's a pretty high airr rate.
To expect that we're going to kill unarmed people based
on an air rate of about one in four being
picking up the wrong people. So I'm absolutely opposed to this.
I think that you know, there are are some on
the Republican side who uneasy, but most voices have been
somewhat tamped down on the Republican side on any policy
(24:08):
if they disagree with the president. But I think that
makes us weak as a country. I think we all
need to be big enough to be able to have
criticism even within the party.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
What should happen on healthcare? I know you and the
President have been going back and forth on some disagreements
and issues, but there's talk that maybe the government's going
to shut down again. In January, I saw where Chuck
Schumer refused to say that he would not shut down
the government again. Tell me if you think I'm wrong, Senator,
but it feels like to me that a big part
(24:38):
of the twenty twenty six Democrat plan as they get
ready to run in the midterms, is going to be
shutting down the government arguing that Republicans all want to
take away everybody's health care and they want everybody to die.
I mean, we all know how this is going to
play out. It seems kind of clear to me what
should happen, what will happen in the world of healthcare.
Speaker 6 (25:00):
On healthcare, President Trump and I have a great deal
of agreement. We work together in the first administration to
craft an executive order that the intention was to allow
people to buy insurance across state lines, and insurance as
part of a co op or a collective like Sam's
Club or Costco. The problem with the executive order is
(25:20):
the problem we all often have with executive orders is
the law's not changed. We try to bend the law
through an executive order, people sue in court. So all
the Democrat ag sued. They tied it up in court
and never really got to have its full effect. But
I've communicated with the President in the last couple of
weeks and he says he still favors this policy that
I've been pushing, and mine would basically cost nothing, didn't
(25:44):
cost the taxpayer or anything. Just makes it legal to
buy a cross state lines and makes it legal for
anybody that wants to collect people together, particularly groups that
already exist like Amazon, Costco or Sam's Club, to buy
insurance as a group. What would happen is and really
have no more individual market. So if you're an accountant
and you have three employees you buy insurance for, or
(26:06):
maybe you're a construction guid and you got one hundred employees,
why would you want to buy insurance on your own?
Why not join a private collective that negotiates better prices.
And I think we could really drive prices down if
you just take the subsidies that we're currently giving to
insurance companies and you give those subsidies to people's health
savings accounts. I think that's just a distinction without a difference.
(26:28):
You're still giving away money we don't have, and it's
still going to all wind up in an insurance company's pocket.
So my association health plans would bring prices down. The
other thing I would do is I wouldn't give taxpayer
money to health savings accounts. But I would let everyone
have a health savings account. Right now, only ten percent
of insurance plans sold. Is it legal to have health
(26:49):
savings account? People on Medicare cannot have health savings accounts.
I would let everybody in America have health savings account.
I get a thing I got to do to think
about this is think about how many kids have braces.
I had three kids that all had braces, but I
did it with pre tax money through my ol Sami's account.
It's not fair that only ten percent of the public
gets that we should let that great benefit accrue to everyone.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
It's being the Senator Ran Paul of Kentucky and Senator
Affordability is the big catchword for what is a focus
of twenty twenty six policy and politics. People are already
projecting that the mid terms will take affordability into account
in a major way. And affordability is really just kitchen
table economics, right. This is a concept that we've been
(27:36):
dealing with for as long as American political parties have
been vying for attention and power. But what do you
see as the ways that the administration and to the degree
Congress well I'm not sure Congress is going to be
able to.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Do much on this.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
But what do you see as the best way forward,
especially on the housing issue, because it's so complicated, so important,
and it has gotten too expensive for the average American
family to be able to afford the median.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Home in this country. What can be done? What should
be done?
Speaker 6 (28:10):
Well? Pipbuf to realize, the price of things goes up
because of the value of your dollar shrinks. So part
of the reason that President Trump won this last time
around was because it was becoming unaffordable to live under Biden.
Biden had about twenty percent inflation in four years, and
wages rose less less rapidly. So if you add in
a little bit of inflation under Trump plus the twenty
(28:31):
percent under Biden, it's about twenty five percent inflation over
the last five years. That twenty five percent. Unless your
wages went up twenty five percent, you've all gotten four.
So people are being squeezed it. Things are less affordable
because of the value of the dollar. Why does the
dollar lose its value because of the debt? The debt
is bought by the Federal Reserve. They buy it by
(28:52):
introducing new dollars into circulation and devalues of the dollars
we have. That's what price inflation is. It's not a mystery.
It comes from debt and then the printing of money
to pay for the debt. So I think they need
to explain it better and explain where inflation comes from,
and then you combat it basically by introducing balanced budgets
and less debt. Now, the problem is both parties are
(29:14):
terrible with debt. You know, Biden was terrible with it,
but really the previous Trump administration added eight trillion, then
Biden added eight trillion. We're on target to add another
eight or nine trillion under this administration. So we have
to do a better job at controlling debt and affordability.
With housing, part of it's the loss of the value
of the dollar, but part of it also is controls
(29:37):
that forbid you from you know, raising or improving the
value of things like rent control in New York is
a disaster. It's why you have no apartments and none
of them get fixed up because if you can only
charge four hundred dollars to live in Manhattan, guess what,
there's no money left over to do any of the repairs.
And so these apartments are just decaying in New York.
(29:58):
But people need to I realize that rent control in
New York is the same thing they have in Venezuela.
That's why they have no food. So when you have
price controls, it's a variation of socialism. And they've just
elected a socialist mayor in New York. So I think
they're going to have to get a lot worse before
it gets better, until hopefully the young people of America
will see socialism for the disaster that it is.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
What is the one start? Yeah, no, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I was going to say, what is the one thing
Senator Paul that if you could get President Trump to
really dial in and focus on, for him to spearhead
and try to accomplish next year in advance in the midterms,
what would it.
Speaker 6 (30:35):
Be proposing a budget that balances, proposing to spend less money.
The hard and difficult part of that equation, though, is
that most of the money are entitlements. Two thirds of
the spending of governments entitlements, one third is military and
non military discretionary. That's what we vote on. The hard
(30:57):
part about the deficit is the deficit's about two trillion,
and the budget that Congress votes on is about two trillion,
so you get actually zero out. And I'm not proposing this,
but if you had zero military spending and zero discretionary
welfare spending, you'd balance your budget, which means basically the
taxes that come in are equivalent to all the mandatory
programs without the discretionary programs. So we are really buying
(31:22):
the eight ball. And this gets worse over time. I mean,
it's going to become an escalating problem that will at
some point spiral out of control. And it's fixable now
if you do something. We gradually start fixing the entitlements.
But the President, as many of his predecessors have said, oh,
I'm not going to touch entitlements. It's the third rail,
(31:43):
so we're going to stay away from that. And then
when we had the discussion over the Big Beautiful Bill,
some of us tried to fix medicaid in that bill
and say, look, they got to at least have the
same formula for the states that we once had where
the states pay part, federal government pays part. Instead Obamacare,
I had all these people to medicaid and said, oh,
the federal government will pay the whole thing. And those
(32:04):
people are still on and because it was free or
virtually free to the states, the state said, sure, we'll
welcome more people in Medicaid, and more people join Medicaid.
Everybody's gotten on food stamps. We served Coca cola to
people on food stamps. We served ding Dongs, twinkies, donuts.
I mean, it's just candy. You can buy candy on
(32:24):
food stamps. So we've got to do more on having
government live within its means.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Senator Ran Paul, appreciate you, sir. Merry Christmas, and we'll
talk to you in the new year.
Speaker 6 (32:36):
Same. You guess.
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Speaker 1 (33:51):
US and Politics, but also a little comic relief Clay
Travis and Buck Sexton.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Find them on the free iHeartRadio app wherever you get
your podcast. I saw this this morning as I was
getting ready for the show, and I absolutely loved it.
There is a one hundred and one year old patriot
who got up. He's a World War two vet and
he was singing the praises of President Trump, and I
(34:21):
thought to myself, We've got to make sure that everybody
out there hears this. This man's name is Bill Dillon.
This is the Champions for America second Annual Galas celebration.
He said he'd like to get back and return to
military service for President Trump. Listen to this enthusiasm, cut one.
Speaker 6 (34:48):
Than this.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
A little bit difficult maybe to hear that.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
I don't know why, because I could hear it perfectly
on my phone, but he is up and he says,
I'm one hundred and one going on one hundred and two,
and if President Trump would let me, I'd put on
the uniform and go fight for him today. And so
I just thought that was awesome and wanted to make
sure I shared it before we rolled into the holiday.
(35:43):
A lot of awesome things going on. I know, sometimes
we focus on some negative things, and there's a lot
of awesomeness out there.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Buck, can we come back.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Let's uh, let's dive into a little bit more on
that Brown University shooter. What's going on there? And Scott
Bessen is pointing something interesting out that is, as millions
of people have left the country who were here illegally,
something extraordinary starting to happen. Basic economics are at play.
(36:13):
Rints are starting to come down across much of the country.
It's amazing how that works. We'll talk about some of that.
Plus we've got Katie Zachariah scheduled to join us at
the bottom of the hour, and it is Buck's final
hour of the year.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
She's up next, Actually she's up until she's up in
a few minutes. You're talking about California and all the
good things going on or not so good things going
on over there.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Stick around.
Welcome in everybody to the second hour of the Clay
Travis and Buck Sexton Show, and we are continuing with
our last week of live shows for the year.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Very very much want to say, while I can, thank
you to all of you for helping us have such
a great year, or you are the reason.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
We had such a great year on the program. I
know we're still in the news cycle.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
We'll be getting into all this in a second, but
since I only have you for today and then Clay
is going to be throwing a Christmas keg party for
you for the next couple of days afterwards, We've had
a great, really, honestly a great year on this show.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
It has been.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
An honor to be able to spend time with you
all every day. For y'all, as I'm allowed to say
now because so many of you are Southerners and you've
given me permission.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Well you married a Southerner, so I think that's help
us your ability to embrace the word y'all.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
That's true, and so we just want to say thank
you to all of you. Honestly, it's been a phenomenally
You're our team in New York City is the absolute best.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Our audience is the absolute best.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
And we all hope that we're doing a great job
and that Rush is smiling down on us from heaven
thinking that we're carrying on the legacy and holding the
torch as best as we can.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
And I can promise you we do that absolutely every
single day.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
And to build on that which is well said in
this will be when we come back in January together,
it'll be we're working on the fifth year. We added
eighty six stations this year. We have added, thanks to
you guys, over two hundred affiliate stations since we launched
this show in June of twenty twenty one. So that's
(01:41):
a testament to a lot of work going on behind
the scenes. I think we were around three fifty when
we launched ISH and now I know we are over
five hundred and fifty and added an absolute ton of
stations this year, and many of you are listening to
us all over the country on stations that work with
(02:03):
us in June of twenty twenty one, So thanks to
all those stations out there. Obviously, we want to be
on as many platforms as possible everywhere. Clay and Buck
Podcast Network is rolling and we're going to have more
and more video for you as many people out there.
I never really really believe this is where we were headed, Buck,
but a lot of people consume audio on video. In fact,
(02:26):
it's more popular to consume audio on video now often
than it is just playing audio, particularly the younger you are.
So we're going to be adding in more and more
video attributes of this program. It's a big part of
the twenty twenty six plan. So we would like for
you to be out there subscribing to us on all
those platforms, including YouTube, because there's going to be a
(02:48):
lot more video coming for all of you.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
And I will say this, and this is definitely self serving,
but also one hundred percent true when any of you
come up and see me. Was jogging Clay yesterday who
listens to the show and stopped his jog for a
minute to come alongside me to chat.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
A little bit.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Some ideas that I felt bad, like I'm interrupting your job.
It's like, well, right, Buck Sexton, I got it. But
we always appreciate whenever you see any of us, and
you always should feel like you can come up and
talk to us and we feel like we know you,
and you feel like you know us because you do
because you spend so much time with us over the
course of the year, and some of you even a
(03:27):
couple of hours, two or three hours a day when
you have the time. I would also say that whenever
we meet somebody who listens to this show, I truly
immediately this little thing in my brain goes, oh, you're
one of the good, smart conservatives who doesn't waste his
time with nonsense. So I'm just saying that is honestly
what I think. So I think it is to your
(03:47):
tremendous credit to all of you that with I know
there's so much noise out there. There's so much stuff
that is online, in particular these days, and there's a
lot of sort of petty nonsense and people getting crazy
and getting a little reckless. And you stay with us
here and you stay with the mission, and we greatly
appreciate that. So I wanted to say thank you. And
(04:09):
I do have a high opinion of each and every
one of you who listens to the show. So that
is from a bottom of the heart. All right, now
we can do some news you mentioned Mom Donnie. Now
I'm gonna tell you something. There are people who are claiming,
now Clay that since Mom Donnie came into New York,
or rather, since he won the election, he becomes mayor
(04:30):
of January one. I believe since he won that election,
there have actually been some people moving to New York
to experience Mom Donnism. There has not been the flood
of residents to or new residents to Florida that even
some realtor friends of mine were expecting. People tested they
want to know that the lifeboat is there. They did
(04:53):
not get into the lifeboat, though overwhelmingly I have not.
By the way, if you happen to be somebody who
has left New York because of Mom Donnie and moved anywhere,
let us know. The numbers show this is is a
very small group.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
I will say that I think most of those people,
if they leave Buck, they're gonna let Mom Donnie try
it out. Most people have kids, they have grandkids. Moving
around Christmas is hard to do. So I think you'll
see if people are gonna flee Mom Donnie's air in
New York, it will happen in the spring and summer.
So that's when I'm actually curious to see whether or
(05:30):
not there will be any sort of mass movement, because
you'll have a few months he gets inaugurated in January,
you'll have a few months to see how the process
of Mom Donnie is going, and then people's school years
get out and then they start to move. We'll play
the Mom Donni. By the way, new videos being released
now as we speak of a person of interest leading
(05:53):
the news on Fox News, leading the news on MSNBC
right now in that Brown University shooting.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
So a little bit better visualization.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
We'll try to share some of those videos from the
Clay and Buck account for any of you out there
that may be in that area or just trying to
figure out who that person of interest is. But you
were mentioning Mom Donnie, and I tease this buck. Mom
Donnie weighed in on how he thinks free buses are
actually going to make there be less issues on public transportation,
(06:26):
and it's a heck of a whopper that he told here.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
Listen, we made five bus routes free in New York City.
When we made those bus routes free, after a year,
assaults on bus drivers dropped by thirty eight point nine
percent on the bus driver. The bus drivers because unlike
the train, the act of fare collection on the bus
happens on the bus. It's the and bus drivers and
(06:51):
unions have shared anecdotally that about fifty percent of assaults
happen around the fair box. So when you eliminate the
fair you make for a safer experience for the bus
driver for everyone.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Can I can I take mom donnyism to its logical
conclusion here? You know where there can be scuffles in
drug stores and supermarkets and things like that by the
front door with security when people steal stuff. So you
know what we could do, Clay to eliminate scuffles with security.
Just make it legal for people to steal stuff.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
There we go.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
That's another approach to this, right, just say you know what,
you can take whatever you want.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Now.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
I understand public service, public transportation. They can change the
fee schedule. But my point here is you are just
rewarding bad behavior and thinking that that's going to stop
the bad behavior. It's just not true. This is a
really stupid idea. And also he does not have the
funding for it, but he's going to stay with this.
I write, did you ever ride public buses very much?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
When I've done a ton of subway in my life.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
I mean I was a real subway guy for a
long time, I have done very little. The New York
City bus is a is a humbling and often depressing experience.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Void the bus we didn't have. We don't have a
subway in Nashville.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
So as a kid and we did not have I
went to a public school in Nashville, but there were
no public school buses for my school from seven to
twelfth grade, uh Martin Luther King was a school downtown Nashville.
So if you rode the bus, you rode the city bus.
So when school got out, a lot of us kids
(08:34):
would go and we would get on the city bus
and we would ride the city bus all over the
you know city.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
And it's I don't know.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
I look back now and I'm like, man, I was
twelve and I was just getting on the city bus
and I was just riding into downtown and I was
just walking around the city streets. There's a zero percent
chance my wife would let our seventh graders do that.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
I'm just saying.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
I I think people have gotten more protective of kids,
and I think there are benefits and disadvantages to it.
There's a movement I know of parents out there to
have free range kids, to have kids out and about
in streets and cities more often.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
My point on this is.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Getting on the bus and paying and having your token
or having your bus pass and then having your fare.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Is something that makes it way safer.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
And I just say this is somebody who rode city
buses because otherwise vagrants when it's cold, if there is
no charge, we'll just get on the bus and they
will sit there and they'll never leave. And producer ally
has talked about this. There are people who get on
the subway and they stink and they're homeless, and it's cold,
and they just stay on. I don't understand in any way.
(09:50):
I bet Buck they did that pilot program. I bet
they did it on the nicest routes that you run
in the New York City. I find it impossible to
believe that making all buses free is in any way
going to make it safer for the people who are
riding the buses, or that the environment's going to be better.
(10:12):
I just it does not comport with any element of
any experience that I've had as a city bus rider.
It's been a long time since I did it, but
the bus is not that expensive, and I cannot imagine
that there are that many people who would otherwise ride
that can't afford a bus fare in some way.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
What kind of person do you think is physically assaulting
a bus driver. Do you think it's a person who
if only they had a free bus fare, they wouldn't
be laying hands on and becoming violent with a city employee.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
No, Okay, this.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Is a total misunderstanding from Mamdani or a really just
I think ignorance of what it's like for people who
live in low income, high crime neighborhoods where there are
people who are just going to get into trouble. They're
going to do things, they're going to break laws, they're
going to hurt people. Making the bus free, as I've
(11:14):
said all along, will turn them into mobile homeless shelters.
That's part one, So no one's now going to feel
like they want to be on the bus. And two, also,
how much more redistribution of wealth and how much bigger
a a debt does the City of New York water
run ups? So now this will be another thing that
other people have to pay for in a city that
already has a huge welfare state in addition to federal
(11:36):
benefits that people get. And I just think that it
shows that it's totally wrongheaded in its approach. We need
a society where people have greater personal accountability. We want
to promote a society where people are held responsible for
their actions and we are all treated as equals and
as adults. But we also have consequences for when we
(12:00):
viholate that trust. That's the only way to make things better.
To placate the people who break the rules, are violent,
break the law. It just encourages more of it.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Totally, And I again I think your point on hey people,
there's not been a mass departure from New York. In general,
I think people exaggerate what they are going to do
when someone gets elected that they don't like be here
all the time. If Trump wins, I'm moving to Canada.
And to her credit, Rosie O'Donnell is like the only
(12:35):
person that has been famous that has left the country.
She went to Ireland. I give her credit because she
at least stood behind her comments. She doesn't seem like
she's doing very well in Ireland, doesn't seem like the
Irish people like her that much, doesn't seem like her
family's doing that well. But she followed through on her promise,
which most people do not do. What I will say
(12:56):
is I do believe that in the spring and summer
when school year end, I think there are going to
be a ton of people in the New York City
era area that will kick the tires on potentially leaving.
With that in mind, you live through it, Buck, If
you were willing to stay in New York City through COVID,
I don't know how much worse things would have to
(13:17):
get for you to finally say this is my breaking point.
For a lot of people, the COVID restrictions was the
breaking point. If you're still in New York after five years,
six years of COVID going into next year, then I
just don't understand how this is going to finally be
the tipping point that sends you off into a new horizon. Look,
(13:38):
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Speaker 3 (14:28):
You don't know what's you don't know right, but you could.
On the Sunday Hang with Clay and Buck podcast.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
Welcome back in Clay Travis Buck Sexton Show, We're going
to be joined by Senator rand Paul at the bottom
of the hour. I was out yesterday. I wanted to
mention this. So many of you said nice things, and
I appreciate it. My uncle Kenneth died at the age
of eighty four, and I was at his funeral in
(14:56):
East Tennessee. And he was a Vietnam Vet and worked
for Buck thirty years for South Central Bell, going around
working on phone lines all over the Chattanooga, Tennessee area.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
And he was just such an amazing.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
Guy, And I know there are many also Vietnam or
veterans out there that are listening to us right now.
And I know somewhat that has changed in the past
couple of decades about how we've responded to the people
who fought in that war. But I actually think we
(15:37):
should be doing a better job of saying thank you
to everyone who fought in that war. Certainly when they
came back, they were not embraced. It wasn't their choice
to go to that war. It wasn't their choice to
be putting their lives on the line, but they were
willing to answer when the country called. And my uncle
(15:58):
is representative of that generation.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
You know.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
He worked on helicopters, served in Vietnam. And as I
was at his funeral yesterday, he was supremely healthy for
eighty three and a half years, just got very sick
in the last six months with cancer. But I wanted
as they had the flag at his casket and as
(16:23):
they were talking about his service there at the funeral,
I wanted to just think about that, say thank you
for the responses that people have shared out there in
the audience, but bigger than that, say thank you to
everyone out there listening to us right now, that is
a Vietnam War vet, because I think in many ways
(16:44):
we have largely neglected saying thank you for everybody out
there who put their lives on the line in that war.
So thank you for everybody. He had an amazing life,
phenomenal guy. I feel honored that I had the forty
six years of my life to be able to experience
with him. He was as good of an uncle as
anybody could be. And it's a holiday season comes up.
(17:08):
I would just encourage all of you, you know, hug
and kiss as many friends and family members as you
can because we don't know when the holiday is going
to be the last one that we get to spend together.
So hopefully we all have a lot more. But last
Christmas was our last Christmas with him. Didn't know it,
And just would encourage everybody out there to say thank
(17:29):
you to the Vietnam Vets in your life, and also
to make sure that you don't neglect saying thank you
to anybody out there that is a member of your
family that you may not get to spend another Christmas with.
All Right, hopefully that wasn't too negative, but I just
wanted to say thank you Buck. We got Senator Rand
Paul who's coming up here in a moment will feed
(17:50):
us all the latest info from Capitol Hill.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
There's a lot you learned from living in DC in
the past and covering politics day to day and being
in the media world. And what you see is that
financial power often comes from political connectivity, and the insiders
have a head start. But we're changing that. That's why
I started Money and Power and e newsletter that's totally
separate from this program. It's something I'm really committed to, though.
(18:16):
Just like this radio show, Money and Power is a
newsletter meant to give everyday Americans access to the kind
of fast moving intelligence that you used to stay locked
behind closed doors.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
My team and I monitor.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
DC for every move, every spending bill, executive order, and
keep a close tab on what's happening out there in
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(18:47):
join Buck dot com paid for by Paradigm Press. Welcome
back in here to Clay and Buck, and we have
Senator Rand Paul with us.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Senator Paul, appreciate you being with us. Let's just jump
right into this.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
So now we have an embargo going or actually a blockade,
I'm sorry, a blockade going on of ships carrying oil
from Venezuela. We have a flotilla the likes of which
the Caribbean has not seen in quite some time of
US naval and other military power. We have a effectively
(19:21):
an ultimatum from a duro. Is this regime change?
Speaker 3 (19:24):
What's going on?
Speaker 6 (19:26):
It looks like it's going to be regime change. It's
sort of regime change in the process. Personally, I think
that war should be a last resort, that we should
try to attempt to avoid war, and that we should
act in a way that we have to go to
war when we have to defend our country. So war
should be in self defense. And this to me is
(19:49):
an offensive war. It's a war because we don't like
the government of Venezuela. You know, I don't like socialism.
I wrote a book called The Case against Socialism. In it,
I open in the beginning the book talking about gangs
in Venezuela looking for food because the economy's so desperate
under socialism, but at the same time, we could probably
list two dozen countries around the world that have either
(20:11):
authoritarian rule or authoritarian socialist rule. And I just don't
think it's the job of the American soldier to go
around and spread freedom at the point of a bayonet.
So now I'm not for this war, and I think
it ought to be voted on by Congress that presidents
under the Constition don't have the power to initiate war
without approval of Congress.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Where we're talking to Senator r and Paul, and there
are a ton of things going on out there as
we finish year one of Trump two point zero, what
would you if you were giving a letter grade, given
the fact that exams are going on all over the
country right now, what letter grade would you give President
Trump and his administration on year one two point zero?
(20:54):
And what do you think should be the top priorities
when Congress returns to action in in January of twenty twenty.
Speaker 6 (21:01):
Six, Let's say a triple plus on controlling the border.
And in fact, they did so well and did it
so quickly that they've actually forgotten to tell the American
people they did it, so it's become accepted you know,
just everybody expects now the border is controlled, But this
was a border that Biden was letting millions of people
cross unintended, many of them a danger to our community,
(21:25):
and a lawlessness at the border. He came in and
within three months controlled that. I think the mistake is
they've moved on to other things instead of promoting and
telling the people about what a good job they did
on the border. On maintaining the tax cuts that I
supported back in twenty seventeen, a triple plus, great idea
(21:46):
to continue those tax cuts. On spending and deficit, you know,
about the same grade that all parties get. You know,
Republicans and Democrats have historically been terrible with the debt,
and I think the debt continues to accumulate it an
alarming rate. We now have over a trillion dollars in interest.
So I think they can do much better on spending
and debt. But on the taxation level, pretty good and
(22:09):
on the border great.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
Now.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
You have been very vocal Senator Paul about these strikes
on suspected or alleged narco boats and mostly the Caribbean,
also some in the Eastern Pacific off the coast of Mexico.
Are there other Senate colleagues on the Republican side who
share your concerns.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
And what would you like to see?
Speaker 2 (22:32):
What would the administration have to do, this White House
have to do for your concerns to be allayed regarding
these strikes.
Speaker 6 (22:41):
You know, one of the questions I've been putting forward
is are they armed? I mean, we have a long
standing tradition, not just here but around the world among
civilized people that we don't shoot unarmed people. So, you know,
some questions came out, do we shoot shipwrecked people when
people were clinging the wreckage, and it's actually part of
our military law that we don't. We also usually don't
(23:02):
shoot unarmed people. So these boats that are alleged to
curing drugs, probably a lot of them do have drugs.
I'm not disputing that most of these boats don't have
the capability to even get to the United States. They
can go about one hundred miles and after be fuel.
So a lot of these drugs, if they are drugs,
are being distributed by unarmed people into some of the
(23:22):
Lower Caribbean islands. What we've done historically for crimes is
we capture you and prosecute you. It's difficult work, it's
not easy, but that's what we have always expected, and
Coast Guard interdicts these boats routinely, still does. And the
ratio of boats that have drugs to those who don't
is about one in four of every boat that's boarded
(23:44):
doesn't have drugs. So that's a pretty high airr rate.
To expect that we're going to kill unarmed people based
on an air rate of about one in four being
picking up the wrong people. So I'm absolutely opposed to this.
I think that you know, there are are some on
the Republican side who uneasy, but most voices have been
somewhat tamped down on the Republican side on any policy
(24:08):
if they disagree with the president. But I think that
makes us weak as a country. I think we all
need to be big enough to be able to have
criticism even within the party.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
What should happen on healthcare? I know you and the
President have been going back and forth on some disagreements
and issues, but there's talk that maybe the government's going
to shut down again. In January, I saw where Chuck
Schumer refused to say that he would not shut down
the government again. Tell me if you think I'm wrong, Senator,
but it feels like to me that a big part
(24:38):
of the twenty twenty six Democrat plan as they get
ready to run in the midterms, is going to be
shutting down the government arguing that Republicans all want to
take away everybody's health care and they want everybody to die.
I mean, we all know how this is going to
play out. It seems kind of clear to me what
should happen, what will happen in the world of healthcare.
Speaker 6 (25:00):
On healthcare, President Trump and I have a great deal
of agreement. We work together in the first administration to
craft an executive order that the intention was to allow
people to buy insurance across state lines, and insurance as
part of a co op or a collective like Sam's
Club or Costco. The problem with the executive order is
(25:20):
the problem we all often have with executive orders is
the law's not changed. We try to bend the law
through an executive order, people sue in court. So all
the Democrat ag sued. They tied it up in court
and never really got to have its full effect. But
I've communicated with the President in the last couple of
weeks and he says he still favors this policy that
I've been pushing, and mine would basically cost nothing, didn't
(25:44):
cost the taxpayer or anything. Just makes it legal to
buy a cross state lines and makes it legal for
anybody that wants to collect people together, particularly groups that
already exist like Amazon, Costco or Sam's Club, to buy
insurance as a group. What would happen is and really
have no more individual market. So if you're an accountant
and you have three employees you buy insurance for, or
(26:06):
maybe you're a construction guid and you got one hundred employees,
why would you want to buy insurance on your own?
Why not join a private collective that negotiates better prices.
And I think we could really drive prices down if
you just take the subsidies that we're currently giving to
insurance companies and you give those subsidies to people's health
savings accounts. I think that's just a distinction without a difference.
(26:28):
You're still giving away money we don't have, and it's
still going to all wind up in an insurance company's pocket.
So my association health plans would bring prices down. The
other thing I would do is I wouldn't give taxpayer
money to health savings accounts. But I would let everyone
have a health savings account. Right now, only ten percent
of insurance plans sold. Is it legal to have health
(26:49):
savings account? People on Medicare cannot have health savings accounts.
I would let everybody in America have health savings account.
I get a thing I got to do to think
about this is think about how many kids have braces.
I had three kids that all had braces, but I
did it with pre tax money through my ol Sami's account.
It's not fair that only ten percent of the public
gets that we should let that great benefit accrue to everyone.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
It's being the Senator Ran Paul of Kentucky and Senator
Affordability is the big catchword for what is a focus
of twenty twenty six policy and politics. People are already
projecting that the mid terms will take affordability into account
in a major way. And affordability is really just kitchen
table economics, right. This is a concept that we've been
(27:36):
dealing with for as long as American political parties have
been vying for attention and power. But what do you
see as the ways that the administration and to the degree
Congress well I'm not sure Congress is going to be
able to.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Do much on this.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
But what do you see as the best way forward,
especially on the housing issue, because it's so complicated, so important,
and it has gotten too expensive for the average American
family to be able to afford the median.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Home in this country. What can be done? What should
be done?
Speaker 6 (28:10):
Well? Pipbuf to realize, the price of things goes up
because of the value of your dollar shrinks. So part
of the reason that President Trump won this last time
around was because it was becoming unaffordable to live under Biden.
Biden had about twenty percent inflation in four years, and
wages rose less less rapidly. So if you add in
a little bit of inflation under Trump plus the twenty
(28:31):
percent under Biden, it's about twenty five percent inflation over
the last five years. That twenty five percent. Unless your
wages went up twenty five percent, you've all gotten four.
So people are being squeezed it. Things are less affordable
because of the value of the dollar. Why does the
dollar lose its value because of the debt? The debt
is bought by the Federal Reserve. They buy it by
(28:52):
introducing new dollars into circulation and devalues of the dollars
we have. That's what price inflation is. It's not a mystery.
It comes from debt and then the printing of money
to pay for the debt. So I think they need
to explain it better and explain where inflation comes from,
and then you combat it basically by introducing balanced budgets
and less debt. Now, the problem is both parties are
(29:14):
terrible with debt. You know, Biden was terrible with it,
but really the previous Trump administration added eight trillion, then
Biden added eight trillion. We're on target to add another
eight or nine trillion under this administration. So we have
to do a better job at controlling debt and affordability.
With housing, part of it's the loss of the value
of the dollar, but part of it also is controls
(29:37):
that forbid you from you know, raising or improving the
value of things like rent control in New York is
a disaster. It's why you have no apartments and none
of them get fixed up because if you can only
charge four hundred dollars to live in Manhattan, guess what,
there's no money left over to do any of the repairs.
And so these apartments are just decaying in New York.
(29:58):
But people need to I realize that rent control in
New York is the same thing they have in Venezuela.
That's why they have no food. So when you have
price controls, it's a variation of socialism. And they've just
elected a socialist mayor in New York. So I think
they're going to have to get a lot worse before
it gets better, until hopefully the young people of America
will see socialism for the disaster that it is.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
What is the one start? Yeah, no, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I was going to say, what is the one thing
Senator Paul that if you could get President Trump to
really dial in and focus on, for him to spearhead
and try to accomplish next year in advance in the midterms,
what would it.
Speaker 6 (30:35):
Be proposing a budget that balances, proposing to spend less money.
The hard and difficult part of that equation, though, is
that most of the money are entitlements. Two thirds of
the spending of governments entitlements, one third is military and
non military discretionary. That's what we vote on. The hard
(30:57):
part about the deficit is the deficit's about two trillion,
and the budget that Congress votes on is about two trillion,
so you get actually zero out. And I'm not proposing this,
but if you had zero military spending and zero discretionary
welfare spending, you'd balance your budget, which means basically the
taxes that come in are equivalent to all the mandatory
programs without the discretionary programs. So we are really buying
(31:22):
the eight ball. And this gets worse over time. I mean,
it's going to become an escalating problem that will at
some point spiral out of control. And it's fixable now
if you do something. We gradually start fixing the entitlements.
But the President, as many of his predecessors have said, oh,
I'm not going to touch entitlements. It's the third rail,
(31:43):
so we're going to stay away from that. And then
when we had the discussion over the Big Beautiful Bill,
some of us tried to fix medicaid in that bill
and say, look, they got to at least have the
same formula for the states that we once had where
the states pay part, federal government pays part. Instead Obamacare,
I had all these people to medicaid and said, oh,
the federal government will pay the whole thing. And those
(32:04):
people are still on and because it was free or
virtually free to the states, the state said, sure, we'll
welcome more people in Medicaid, and more people join Medicaid.
Everybody's gotten on food stamps. We served Coca cola to
people on food stamps. We served ding Dongs, twinkies, donuts.
I mean, it's just candy. You can buy candy on
(32:24):
food stamps. So we've got to do more on having
government live within its means.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Senator Ran Paul, appreciate you, sir. Merry Christmas, and we'll
talk to you in the new year.
Speaker 6 (32:36):
Same. You guess.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
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Speaker 2 (32:39):
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Speaker 1 (33:51):
US and Politics, but also a little comic relief Clay
Travis and Buck Sexton.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Find them on the free iHeartRadio app wherever you get
your podcast. I saw this this morning as I was
getting ready for the show, and I absolutely loved it.
There is a one hundred and one year old patriot
who got up. He's a World War two vet and
he was singing the praises of President Trump, and I
(34:21):
thought to myself, We've got to make sure that everybody
out there hears this. This man's name is Bill Dillon.
This is the Champions for America second Annual Galas celebration.
He said he'd like to get back and return to
military service for President Trump. Listen to this enthusiasm, cut one.
Speaker 6 (34:48):
Than this.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
A little bit difficult maybe to hear that.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
I don't know why, because I could hear it perfectly
on my phone, but he is up and he says,
I'm one hundred and one going on one hundred and two,
and if President Trump would let me, I'd put on
the uniform and go fight for him today. And so
I just thought that was awesome and wanted to make
sure I shared it before we rolled into the holiday.
(35:43):
A lot of awesome things going on. I know, sometimes
we focus on some negative things, and there's a lot
of awesomeness out there.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Buck, can we come back.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Let's uh, let's dive into a little bit more on
that Brown University shooter. What's going on there? And Scott
Bessen is pointing something interesting out that is, as millions
of people have left the country who were here illegally,
something extraordinary starting to happen. Basic economics are at play.
(36:13):
Rints are starting to come down across much of the country.
It's amazing how that works. We'll talk about some of that.
Plus we've got Katie Zachariah scheduled to join us at
the bottom of the hour, and it is Buck's final
hour of the year.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
She's up next, Actually she's up until she's up in
a few minutes. You're talking about California and all the
good things going on or not so good things going
on over there.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Stick around.
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