June 10, 2025 • 37 mins
Hour 2 of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show dives deep into the fiscal realities facing the United States, featuring an in-depth interview with Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Broadcasting from Washington, D.C., Clay and Buck engage with Senator Johnson on the pressing issue of federal spending, the national debt crisis, and the future of economic policy under the leadership of current President Donald Trump. This hour centers around the much-discussed “Big Beautiful Bill” currently navigating the U.S. Senate. Senator Johnson, a leading fiscal conservative, outlines the unsustainable trajectory of post-COVID government spending, emphasizing how emergency-level expenditures have become the new budgetary baseline. He contrasts historical fiscal responsibility—such as post-World War II spending reductions—with today’s entrenched budget inflation, highlighting a 58% increase in federal outlays since 2019. Key topics include: The transformation of discretionary spending into mandatory spending during the pandemic. The urgent need for a forensic audit of over 2,600 federal programs to identify waste and inefficiencies. The political and economic implications of Medicaid expansion and its unintended consequences, including crowding out care for vulnerable populations. The strategic importance of border security funding and the fiscal mismanagement surrounding immigration-related expenditures. The role of President Trump in shaping the bill and his interactions with Senator Johnson, including a candid exchange about the senator’s “too negative” messaging. The potential for reconciliation processes to further conservative budget reforms. The broader economic impact of inflation, interest rates, and the national debt, with projections of $14 trillion in interest payments over the next decade. The historical context of U.S. GDP growth, with a sobering reminder that the country hasn’t seen 4% growth since the 1960s. The potential for AI and technological innovation to drive future economic expansion, albeit with caution. Senator Johnson also critiques the lack of economic literacy among many in Congress and underscores the need for a cultural shift in how Americans view federal spending. He likens the current fiscal situation to a family living beyond its means, calling for a return to pre-pandemic spending levels and a long-term commitment to fiscal discipline.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome in our number two Clay Travis buck Sexton Show.
We're up here in Washington, d C. Visiting with many
of our friends in Congress as the big beautiful bill
wins the wines, I guess is the correct word. It's
way through the halls of Congress. It's in the Senate
right now, and Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is with us,
(00:21):
and we are going to do a deep dive on
spending the bill, what should happen from his perspective, and
where we are headed. So for people out there that
really want to dive into some of the nitty gritty
about the economic policies in place, we wanted to bring
you in because I would say you and Ran Paul, Senator,
(00:42):
I think it's fair to say are probably at the
forefront of we are spending way too much money. And
your argument has been that essentially, and you correct me
if I'm wrong on any of this, but I'm trying
to lay it out and then let you make the case. Essentially,
we have embedded the govern mint spending that started with COVID,
(01:02):
that accelerated at a rapid level as the default basis
for budgets going forward, instead of for instance, after World
War Two, drastically dialing back spending. We have allowed that
spending process to become the basis upon which all budget
bills since COVID have been crafted.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Is that correct? How do we fix it? If it
is correct? Well, first of all, welcome to this alternate universe.
Thank y Washington. Do you see you know why?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Both were former residents here, so we we're like reform
swamp creatures.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
You're smart enough to move out? Oh yeah, I come
here part time, But no, I mean you you stated
the case pretty well. We spend four point four trillion
dollars in twenty nineteen, pandemic hits spent six point five,
and we never looked back. And I'm probably saying this
on the show. I don't know of American family. If
they got ill, somebody got ill, they had to borrow
fifty thousand dollars pay for medical bills. If they got
(01:54):
well the next year, they want to keep borrowing fifty
thousand dollars and keep spending at that level. That's exactly
what we've done. So four point four this year will
spend over seven trillion. That's a fifty eight percent increase.
Next year about seven point three and I know these
are a lot of numbers, but that's why I do charts. Yep.
And you know's what's kind of depressing about my charts
as it lays out of a pretty depressing reality. Let
me throw some more numbers under the Bush administration. Eight years,
(02:18):
they averaged deficts to two hundred and fifty billion dollars
a year. Obama came in his first four years one
point three trillion. I mean, that sparked the Tea Party movement.
That's why I came into town. The Tea Party movement
had an impact. And those deficits in his last term
was were five hundred and fifty billion dollars. Trump comes
into office, had to do deals with Democrats. His average
(02:39):
defict was eight hundred and ten. Then COVID hit one
year three hundred three point one trillion dollar deficit. And
again with responsible leaders like we had in World War Two. Okay,
pandemic's over time to return to pre pandemic levels. Eh,
it's not what Biden did. Biden continued to spend again
this year about seven trillion. His average deficit for four
(03:01):
years was one point nine trillion. Okay, wait, so let's
let's jump in right there. Because I think that's very important,
and we have the charts to work with, but all
of our people all across the country or they're trying
to visualize these numbers as we go where yeah, he's
holding it up.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
I wish we had Oh well, yeah, but tell me
this where is the additional money going? Because here's what
happens every time we talk about cutting. And I also
have to bring up some of the objections to the
objections to the big beautiful bill, and I want you
to address those.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
In a second.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
But first, anytime we talk about cutting, we could light
up the phones for three hours straight. Here, how dare
you you want to touch my social security? How dare
you you want to touch my medicare? Well, hold on
a second. If those things weren't being touched at eight
hundred billion or a trillion a year, what where's the
extra trillion dollars give or take that? Now is the
post pandemic spending norm what's that money going? It's literally
(03:54):
across the board.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
And that's why I've laid out with my pre pandemic
levels of spending that analysis where you take actual total alays,
you exclude soci security, Medicare, and interest spend what you
need to spend, and then you plus up all those
other outlays by population growth, inflation. And if you do
that for twenty nineteen, for example, this year, you'd be
spending six point five versus the seven. You know, if
(04:17):
you go back to Clint or a Bomba, you'd be
spending five point five to six point two. Okay, So
again it's across the board, which is why one of
the solutions is we need to forensically audit every line,
every program, like dose is done. Okay, So you're.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Telling me then that there is of that spending increase,
if it's coming from these is it and you're not
going to touch it? Sounds like me like you wouldn't
touch the non discretionary spending, right because that's that's you're
taking Medicare, social Security, and interest.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
You see, that's right, that's part of mandatory. But you
also have Medicaid and we've got to fix the Obamacare
portion of that. Get a trillion dollars of other mandatory spending.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
This is what I mean, where's that other trillion dollars?
That's it's Medicaid and then just everything else.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So what they've done over years because nobody knows they're
doing this because you have these omnivous spending bills, and
just magically they moved discretionary spending into the mandatory accounts.
So during COVID, that other mandatory now social carey, to
medicare or even medicaid. I think went up top to
about two point two trillion dollars. In twenty nineteen was
(05:20):
six hundred and forty two billion, went to two point two.
It's been ramping down last year. I think it was
one point three trillion. This year would be about a trillion.
That's a trillion dollar. You mean discretionary spending is about
one point seven You were.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
A business guy at Trump was and still is in
many ways a business guy. When you say this to him,
what does he say? Because he wants this thing passed
with gusto. He wants this big, beautiful bill, he believes.
I'm sure you've talked about these numbers, right, I'm sure
you talked.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
I was. I was in the White House last Wednesday,
and when my time to talk, I'd pulled out my chart.
He said, by the way, So, by by the way,
I don't see I've seen your last ten appearances. You're
too negative.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Run one of your charts saved the president's life. So
you're is a different chart than yes, actually actually saved
this life. Yes, so one chart saved saved the president's life.
I'm hoping this one saves America. Okay, so what so
he says, what because the argument here is that they
would like to get this bill passed by July fourth
(06:16):
on the Senate side, it's already passed the House side.
Where are we do you think that's likely? How does
this get reconciled?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
What? How?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
How does how does this Senate because it's not just you,
it's Ran Paul, it's others that have this perspective to
not a huge majority, How does this get solved?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
So again, just so, he told me I was being
too negative, and I took that to heart. I have
been pretty generally a very jolly fellow. I will say
I found my face. Okay, but you gotta layout the reality.
So I had a great meeting just a couple of
hours ago with Vice President to Fance and Kevin Hassett,
and that was kind of what we arranged the White House. Okay,
let's let's get in the same page. You know, I
worked all weekend long I wrote this report myself. These
(06:55):
are all my own charts. I'm the account here, right,
But we're gonna let Kevin Hassen his economic team go
through these, you know, check out the numbers. I'm not
sure when we're released this, but that's the first thing
you have to You have to get on the same page.
And I tell the President of the White House is
the first step in solving any problem, so you have
to admit you have one. So again, I have been
too negative because I've been focusing on the macro problem
(07:18):
and I haven't been talking as positively as I should
on all the good things in the big beautiful built
because they're a lot of good thinge things. We fund
the border, we fund defense. This House did a pretty
good job of identifying about one point five trillion dollars
in spending reduction. That's that's good. We extend current taxile,
we take an automatic tax increase off the table, We
avoid default. Okay, those are all great things. My only point,
(07:40):
and I'm sorry I have to make it. It just
isn't enough. Okay. So what I've been asking for always
is a commitment to a to return to a reasonable
pre pandemic level spending and a process to achieve and
maintain it. And now I'm throwing into the method because
one and done won't work. I mean, this is great
(08:01):
progress that we'd be making with one big, beautiful bill.
I don't deny that, but it doesn't solve the problem.
So I'm looking for a forcing mechanism so we come
back in this Congress, not wait, tell winning an election.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
You're telling me this is politically realistic, because that's the
next The next question is because because this is what's
being said. And you know, Stephen Miller is a very
smart guy in this White House. He's been out there
making the case that the objections to this are more
about people making a philosophical argument than operating within the
(08:34):
reality of what is possible, and that if you don't
do it this way, you're going to have to work
with Democrats down the line who don't want to work
with you.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So can you address that again, we can use another
reconciliation process using the fiscal twenty twenty six budget. I
have gotten just basically positive feedback from President Trump's art
and supporters and also my supporters again Republicans. We realize
we have a massive dat DEFROBM other said, Republicans who
won't go along with what you want to do here
(09:02):
is that? I mean, where's the problem. So it seems
so logical to us. I would say, part of it
is marketing. Okay, the House was all folks on getting
this thing done, and you know, they pulled literally they
pulled one point five trillion dollars out of the air.
It really wasn't in context. You know. When I saw that,
I said, you guys have set the bar way too low. Okay,
we need trillions of dollars in long term to get
(09:24):
this thing done. But then they assigned more than half
of that to E n C the committee. All they
can do is Medicaid. So they just opened themselves up.
You're gonna slash Medicaid. And you did make the case.
You realize that what we're trying to do is fix
the Obamacare portion of Medicaid called Medicaid expansion, that pays
when a state puts a buck in for a single
(09:47):
childless you know, working age able bodied adult, the fetal
government puts in nine bucks versus a dollar state puts
in for a disabled child. Fetal government kicks in a
dollar thirty three. That has led to all kinds of distortions.
There's a great artic on the Wall Street Journal. A
father of a seventeen year old artistic child can't get
home care for ten years because he's being crowded out
(10:09):
by single adults that should be worked on in welfare
for a Medicaid, just the big giant. And so you
literally are putting at risk the benefits for the people
that we want to help, both in Medicare and in Medicaid.
So you've got to root out these things. But you
have to make the case, and you can't make it
in five months. So the game plan here, so as
Ice time and Vice President is okay, it's going to
(10:30):
take time. I propose a budget review panel, hire forensic auditors,
take the DOGE team, transfer them over this process a
House of Senate, a White House effort to forensically audit
every all more than two thousand lines of federal budget,
more than twenty six hundred federal programs. So we've never
done it. We've never done it. And even this process,
(10:50):
you'll notice they've exempted most spending, most programs. They focused
on a couple. They get slaughtered in the public opinion
because Democrats, it's easy pickings for them because they have
the press behind them. I mentioned on the Sunning shows,
it's so easy to be a Democrat. You spend your mortgage,
kids future, you never be held accountable by the media.
It's hard doing we're trying to do. The good news
(11:12):
for your listeners is that we're all pretty much on
the same page. We want to fix this problem. We
just are dealing with something that's very difficult to do.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
What's timing look like and how significant is timing from
your perspective? Because the White House has said they'd like
to have this done in the Senate by July fourth,
we know that we don't have a very big majority
in the House, so Mike Johnson, Speaker is going to
have to go back and work through whatever conciliating bill
is going to come out. What to you does this
timeframe look like?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Well, I think most people thought the House run of
the House passed the Centate would water down. I think
the absence is true. I think we're going to make
it more conservative. I think we're going to be doing
even more reductions in terms of spending. And again, I've
got colleagues that are demanding it so and there's some
people who agree with you.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Chip Roy, for instance, a friend of our on the
House side, wants way more spending, right. I mean this
was an issue for Mike spending cuts.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, I mean, I mean they've voted for it because
they kicked can over the House or the Center, hoping
we'd make it more conservative.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
So this part that you talk about the marketing, I'm
just gonna say this. You know, we've had Senator Ran
Paul on the show. We've talked to him, we've heard
about on this and so many issues, and a lot
of the time I just think he's making great arguments.
But in this moment, to talk about how there's too
much money going to the border after ten million illegals
came in under the Obama i mean administration, and to
(12:31):
say that that's where we're gonna we're gonna start to
make the savings happen in a meaningful way, even if
numerically you could start to make I just think it's
malpractice because people and this is about saving the country,
and you know, just to save money when you're trying
to save the country. I think people view the urgency
of the border and the illegal immigration issue as you know,
(12:52):
the policy equivalent of a war, meaning if we don't
do this thing right, we don't have the same America
going forward.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Well, I'm a really frugal guy, and I don't mind
sharpening my pencil on any spending he has chaffering, homemand security.
He should be doing oversight on this. Again, in the
first administration, we've spent six point six billion dollars to
build four and fifty four and fifty miles a wall.
Now they're asking forty six and a half million a
billion just for the wall that's gonna.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Well, we didn't have enough money to finish the wall though,
I remember that was a problem.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
But there's not there's not three thousand and four thousand
miles to have to be built. So again I think
he's got a wall guy here. He's asking the questions,
Can you stay with us a little bit absolutly because
there's some more question but quickly as and then Buck's
got to do a read here time frame July fourth,
any chance in your advice, I think that's I think
that's ambitious. I think I really think in the Senate
(13:41):
we're looking more before August recess, before AUGUSTA and it
has to be done before August recess. Well the time
just you know, descion is going to expire sometime mid
August to late September. So that's part of the pressure.
I mean, that's part what they do. One of the
reasons they bunded this all up is, yeah, I don't
want to see taxes increase. I don't want a default
on the death so it just puts. So I've been
very upfront. I nobody should be surprised. I wrote my
(14:03):
first column on a reasonable pre pandemic level spending an
options to do it in the Wall Street Journal on
January first. So again I've been I've been beating this
drum for a while.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Ron Johnson in the hot seat. He doesn't like it hot.
He prefers it cold. He's from Wisconsin. But we'll keep going. Look,
we're not dealing with this debt.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
You know it.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
I know it, which means that there's those long term
issues of governance and issues with the dollar, and owning
gold is just one way to prepare for that uncertain future.
I've been a gold guy for over a decade. My
dad gave me my first gold coin when I was
in my twenties. He said, you know what, He's a
big gold believer, and I've been a big gold believer
ever since I've been building up my gold reserves, and man,
(14:44):
the price of gold has seen great appreciation in just
the past year, up forty percent. I'm also a big
history guy. Clay likes referred to us as history nerds.
What has there ever been a time when there's been
a civilization of society? They said, you know what, you
know what, I don't need gold, no value in that. Yeah,
there's a reason for this, all right, And that's why
I think you should call the Birch Gold group.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
That's who I use.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Trump administration is doing a lot to try to write
the ship, but they're not going to able to do
at all. And there's a lot more that we have
to look at in the future in terms of the
spending gold makes sense. And by the way, you can
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(15:27):
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(15:48):
com slash buck Well right here in DC to Capitol Hill,
close to the White House with Senator Ron Johnson in studio. Senator,
we'll billo got about a minute and a change here
before we get into the next break, and then we'll
keep you through to talk more about this topic. But
(16:10):
your reaction as somebody who in your own home state,
of course, what happened in Kenosha. Some of those visuals
and images I think reminds people of some of the
rioting we're seeing in Los Angeles. What do you think
about how the President's handled this so far? And what
are the American people seeing in southern California?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Was it Yogi Berra said, it's deja vous all over again. Yes,
this is exactly what Democrat governance did in Wisconsin. He
had Governor Evers. President Trump offered him the National Guard.
He refused it allowed Kenosha to burn for a couple
of days. A couple of people got killed as a result.
Now they're doing the same thing here. Governor Evers actually
signed a letter with the other Democrat governors supporting you know,
(16:52):
Newsom and saying that Trump's making the wrong decision. Not
Trump is making the absolute right decision. What we found
out in Kenosha's once you had the man part of
the National Guard, the violence ended. And that's the whole point.
And what's even more unconscionable about this is the Democrats
are refusing to protect law enforcement. I mean, these guys
(17:12):
put their life on the you know, on the line.
They're willing to serve and sacrifice. And you've got Democrat
politicians who are inciting the protests and the violence. And
what I what I want to do is I want
to I want to thorough investigation. I hope Cash and
I hope Pam BONDI are on this. Who is financing this?
This is their playbook, This is their playbook from summer
of twenty twenty. They're just implementing it a lot sooner
(17:34):
in this Trump administration. Again, this isn't springing up just
by accident. Well, we'll get into this a little bit
more here coming up in a second. I also want
to take some of your calls eight hundred.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
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get us a quick talk back, maybe we can even
play it for Senator Johnson on the air. You can
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Speaker 2 (18:22):
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(18:44):
eight four four eight two four safe.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Hey Buck.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
One of my kids called me an unk the other
day and unk yep slanging evidently for now being hit
being an old dude.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
So how do we ununk?
Speaker 1 (19:03):
You get more people to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
At least that's what my kids tell me.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
That's simple enough. Just search the Klay, Travis and Buck
Sexton Show and hit the subscribe button.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Takes less than five seconds to help ununk me.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Do it for Clay, do it for freedom, and get
great content while you're there the Klay, Travis and Buck
Sexton Show YouTube channel.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
We've got Senator Ron Johnson in here. We love having
him on.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
I just want to ask you this question because there's
no Democrats who have any basic business knowledge. I mean,
it's unfortunate it used to not be that way, But
when you've got people like AOC running around shutting down
back in the day, the Amazon headquarters not understanding how
tax credits work, and it's really economic literacy on many
different levels when you dive into the budget particulars. How
(19:50):
many it could be Democrats Republicans, How conversant do you
think in detail the average United States Senator and con
person is in understanding how the US budget works and
where the money goes. I mean, did you expect to
find way more knowledge before you got into politics, Because
I'll be honest, before Buck and I started doing this show,
(20:13):
I had a lot more faith in the knowledge of
the average politician than I do too.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
I had to tell play there was no So I
think there's a lot of knowledge in that narrow areas
that they focus on. You know, if your appropriations, if
you're chairman of appropriation subcommittee, you know that subcommittee function
pretty well. I'll tell you story about three years ago.
This is in the pandemic, and you know we're sent
spending these massive amountse and McConnell's doing some icky, omimous
deal with the Schumer. All of a sudden, we're for earmarks. Republicans.
(20:40):
We've got a res you know, that's part of our
conference resolution. We're not going to accept your marks. All
of a sudden, we were so I got up, got
up in front of my Republican coy, said, hey, anybody
know how much we spent last year? Dead silence. Nobody knew.
That's crazy because we never talked about it. We're the
largest financial andy in the world. All we appropriate is
about twenty five percent of the budget, about one point
seven trillion. Now the seven trillion that we're going to spend,
(21:03):
so nobody knew. I went up to the washing media,
they're the washdogs, right to ask them the same questions.
It was over a trillion dollars. Now that's just the question.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Now we talk about this when the tea so I
started in media, when the Tea Party got got rolling, right, Yeah,
I'm still more tea priory Republican, and and I just
remember that there was this this whole movement, and I.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Think the I think the debt then was like nine. Yeah,
it was nine when I kind of he was fourteen trillion. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
So let's but let's say it's you know, low double digits,
trillions of dollars.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Now it's going on it's going on seven yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
So, and it's projected to hit about sixty in ten years.
So clearly the math, the math is a problem here.
But I I feel like one of the frustrations we
have is that we talk about this and everybody wants
to fix it, but nobody wants to do the things
in order to fix it, because you know, it's like
telling someone to go on a diet. It's more fun
to just eat chocolate cake every day and assume somebody
(21:59):
else is going to do the work for you. So I
don't know, I don't know how we get people to
get dialed in on this and understand that if you
just keep spending because it feels good to spend, we're
never going to fix the problem.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Well, inside the conference, I'm I'm basically the kid that
says the Emperor has no close. I mean, I just
relentlessly show them my charts to the point there, you know,
you know, ad nauseum. Do they think some impact? I
think now they all know we're spending about now.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
And to the people who vote for you in Wisconsin,
do you think that they really want you to tackle
this problem or does everyone just want to say tackle
it but don't touch anything that I like that's the case.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
We can't think that. I've got some really solid concerners
coming into my office and say yeah, but this is
really this isn't really spending. This is an investment. So
that's the problem. Everybody loves the free federal money, right,
they never look at their spending that you know on
their issue is the problem. It's the other guys spending okay,
And there's there's not a real constituency, there's not public
pressure to get this under control. Again, I would have
(22:56):
thought again, I spent out the Tea Party movement. I
literally did Parise and twenty ten, going this's a fight
for freedom. We're mortgaging our children's future. It's wrong, it's
in moral. It's gotta stop. That's my campaign pledge. But
it hasn't blown up in our face. I will say this,
though we haven't hit an acute debt crisis, we've been
living with a chronic debt crisis now for decades. It's
(23:18):
called the evaluation of the dollar out I laid out
these pre pandemic spending options Clinton ninety eight. A dollar
you held in nineteen ninety eight is worth fifty one cents.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That's a crazy stat I think for most people out there,
basically you've lost half the value of the dollars nineteen
eight and to a certain extent cryptocurrency, everybody kind of
feels it in that arena.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Since twenty nineteen, that dollar is now worth eighty cents.
So again that's that's permanent damage being done. That's the
silent tax of inflation. That's how we are managing this
right now, why it hasn't blown up in our face.
But again, I would consider that a chronic debt crisis
where we're trying to avoid it is a cute one
where all of a sudden you have failure of bond
auctions and we can't borrow money. And now, all of
(23:57):
a sudden, over the next ten years, we're going to
spend fourteen trillion dollars on interest. The eighty nine trillion
will spend fourteen design interest.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
I would submit that a lot of people are feeling
it because mortgage rates have just not come back down.
Right If you're out there listening to us right now,
thirty year mortgage rates around seven percent. If you were
fortunate enough to lock in at two and a half
or three, you're never moving for the rest of your life.
I mean, there's a lot of people out there that
are just and it's completely flumox the housing market because
(24:29):
people should be moving. They have new kids, they got
bigger families, or their kids are going off to college,
leaving the house, and they're not going to sell because
you got a two and a half or eight, or
you got a three, as opposed to guys and gals
out there right now getting married, they're looking around seven
percent interest is historically may not be high, but compared
to the two and a half and how quickly it
went up, I don't know that we've ever seen anything
(24:50):
like it.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Again, that's part of the chronic debt crisis. Yeah, okay,
that's right right right now. According to CBO, we'll be
paying about three point four percent interest on our debt
over the next ten years, but the average fifty year
average for the industruate we pay in debt is over
five percent. So if you start every percent, do you increase,
that adds you know, three hundred and seventy billion dollars
to a debt this year. Yeah, okay, so that's a
(25:12):
massive amount. It's crowding out other spending. And again, if
you hit a dead crisis, where now creditors just say
we're not gonna loan your money even at a high
interest rate. You're gonna spend. You're gonna have to service
that debt. We're gonna have to roll over nine trillion
dollars over national debt this year, nine trillion of the
thirty seven trillion. We've got a refinanced center. You're bumming
me out a little bit. Oh no, I'm not. I'm
(25:34):
not the most. I'm not the most. I will sayative.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Let me say this, if you're not able to see
him on video, you do have a sort of a
happy warrior uh visage face wise, because otherwise I think
you probably would be so dour that everybody's been.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
With his charts.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
He's a little captain wampwomp right now. So let's just take
a moment here.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
By the right. That's what That's why I agree with
pressing Trump when he said, you're right, you're so negative. Yeah,
I know, I'm sorry. I'm sorry trum trying to make
people like Ron. You're womp womping all over the place. Ron,
You're making me sad.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
But what about AI growth and the brilliance of the
American economy starting to at least on its own basically
not entirely grow a out of this because the numbers
don't support that. But at least make it more sustainable
longer term. Do you you know is technology going to
save us? Senator Johnson?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
So I think possibly. You know, there's a great story.
Milton Freedom was in China and they were building this
big canal and everybody had shovels, and they said, what
why aren't she using like equipment? Said, well, it's the
jobs program. At what point Milton Freedom said, well, why
don't you give them spoons? So no productivity is can
can make massive of progress. And AI has gotten Do
(26:48):
we care about that much?
Speaker 3 (26:49):
If I Roe bought servants doing all of our cooking
and cleaning and everything.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
For I will say, you've seen the Jetsons be very
cautious of AI. I learned that as I'm putting my
report together. I use AI a lot. Yes, got great tool,
but as my chief of staff said, it is often
confidently wrong. And I found that out repeatedly in this problem.
By the way, being confidently wrong, it's kind of the
business you're in. Well, not you specifically, but yeah, but
(27:13):
politicians in general are not coffee today. Politicians in general
are not known for lacking confidence in being wrong, especially
as you well know everything COVID that all this spiraled
out of so yeah, Buck asked the question, I think
this is the big picture, maybe a question we can
finish with you on and we appreciate all the time,
and we know there's tons of people out there that
(27:34):
have wanted us to do a deep dive on this.
The growth rate.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
The number one most important thing that could happen to
make everybody the rising tide lift all boats is our
economy has to get growing faster. You've run the numbers.
We haven't had four percent growth since the nineteen fifties. Now,
maybe Buck's right, and I'd love for the AI revolution
to lead to exponential This is a long bomb into
the end zone theory, but maybe some of the catches it.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Now.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
It's a very positive like way of looking at things,
and there are a lot of CEOs, including some of
the ones that we interact with, that are incredibly optimistic
on this. But I do think history matters here. When's
the last time we had four percent growth in this
country in the sixties, nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
And then we had thirties, thirty or three percent growth
in the you know, seventies, eighties, nineties, you know, the
the dot com revolution. But since the turn of the century,
we've averaged two point two percent growth. And you know,
rein Hard and Rogoff wrote about this as time is different,
not once you reach a certain threshold of debt GDP level.
(28:36):
First of all, government is sucking down all that money
out of the private sector. Risk takers can't borrow money,
so that has a negative impact on growth. Again, AI
may be a spark that could overcome all this, but
we could be in that death spiral right now. That's
that's my concern. So this is it. We're like, all right,
(28:56):
great talk, but I said death. I said that. I
said I thought he said I don't know well enough. Well,
I guess again. But like Mith Rodgers hitting the mite
your button, we're seeing what the bond markets is doing.
We can't control long term interest rates. That's going to
be up to our credits if they look at us.
It's not serious about this. I think the bond markets
(29:18):
has been telling that they're going to demand to hire
a hire interest rate to refinance that nine trillion dollars.
That takes more of the money out of what we
can spend out other things as well. So again this
is we're not in a good position right now. We're
simply not. I mean, that's my whole point is, let's
address this problem. The first step in solving any problem
is admitting you have one. And most people aren't. They're
(29:38):
not even aware of it. They're just whistling by the graveyard.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
I'm picturing you right now when your kids come home
from college and you've got the credit card bill in
front of you, and it's like Dad is just sitting
down in front of you and he's like, I just
you know, you got the daughter, you got the son.
They don't understand basic economics, and you're just like, I
don't even understand how you could have spent this money.
That's the way I feel like. You're looking at the
federal government on a day to day basis. You're like Dad,
(30:03):
who's looking at this and just saying this. None of
them a jet ski, yeah, jets. I've said this at
the bar. It's easy to be the parents, says, Hey,
we're going to go to Disney World. It's really hard
to be the parent says but we can't afford it.
You know, we're already in well the other.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Things senat are. Now I'm going to really bum everybody out.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Everybody thinks they're the parent that says we can't afford
Disney World this year, But everybody wants to say, my
kids are going to Disney World. So that's the tough
part of American politics. Senator Johnson of Wisconsin. Always a
pleasure to hang with you, sir. Thanks for being here
with us in studio, Thanks for having in look. I
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Speaker 1 (30:38):
While I'm still laughing about the dad analogy, that is
perfect for you. You should when you run for reelection
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Speaker 3 (32:04):
Hope you all enjoyed that walk into the financial abyss
with Senator Ron Johnson. He's like, guys, the whole country
may collapse, but it's gonna be okay.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
No, it's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine. Look
the big beautiful bill.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
It's big, it's beautiful, and we're looking forward to talking
to more folks here in DC about all the great things.
And Ever admits there are many many great things in it,
and I think that passing it is I think it's
the right move and I think that there's gonna be
a lot that this administration is going to be putting
in motion that should be or or can't fully be
accounted for right now Clay that will affect the revenue
(32:40):
and debt side of things very positively. For example, the
money that's coming in, the hundreds of billions that's gonna
come in on tariffs, and the admission recently that Chinese
producers are actually going to have to eat a lot
of the costs of the tariffs. These are all things
that are going into the pot, things that are going
to be on the on the positive side of a
ledger for us financially. And you know I did mention
(33:01):
that you had had your coffee by the way Crocketcoffee
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(33:21):
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it's fantastic. A use code book, you get an autographed
coffee of the most recent book. You've got one coming
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Speaker 1 (33:32):
So there's gonna be some new books that are coming
out there that we actually wrote.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
And we are going to be going down.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
We're just figuring out when, but we're going to be
heading down to San Antonio in the summer, which is
when I hear is the best time to go to
work on your heat tolerance when you're going.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
To go over it in eighty degrees.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
We're gonna come down and visit the Alamo, obviously naming
a Krock coffee after one of the Alamo legends. I
haven't been since I was a kid, but they are
excited to host us at the Alamo. Now.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
I've never been to the Alamo. I remember the first
time I ever even heard of the Alamo was the
Pee Wee Herman movie. Yes, we were talking about that
a little bit last night.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
I think.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
You'll be surprised by how the Alamo is just right
in the middle of San Antonio, doesn't have a ton
of space that it takes up. But I understand they're
doing some remarkable historical renovations and building out the guest
visitation areas and everything else, and it's supposed to be
pretty extraordinary. So we're looking forward to to getting down
there and being able to visit. By the way, a
lot of you have wanted us to dive into the
(34:30):
so called big beautiful Bill and actually talk about the math.
Here's what I will say. You don't have to agree
with Senator Ron Johnson, you don't have to agree with
Ran Paul. I do think there are relatively few guys
that have spent more time actually looking at where the
money that we spend goes. And we know Elon did
this with DOJE, but Senator Ron Johnson is left now,
(34:52):
but he has a big, massive binder that he's got
that he's just tracking where the money is going, how
it's being spent. And I do think argument that Democrats
have successfully embedded the to a large extent, the growth
of government that they took advantage of during COVID and
just made it the baseline going forward. I think he
(35:13):
makes a strong argument that we should go back like
we did after World War Two. And reassess the growth
of the overall government.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
And the amount of money that is being spent that
is inefficient, but also that is going to welfare and
even within that going to welfare payments, whether through the
medicaid system or others, to illegal immigrants.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
It is vast.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
In New York, we have a pretty good sense the
numbers because the New York City budget was really groaning
under the pressure of it. Of fourteen billion over a
couple of years. That's just the money for emergency immigrant
you know, illegal immigrant money, if you will clay in
a place like California, the medical program out of federal
(36:00):
dollars that get funneled into that. We had Senator Johnson
talking about just medicaid generally, but medicaid for illegals. You
start to see where this money is going. And the
more you follow the money everybody, I think, the more
outrageous it becomes. And how much of this money is
being squandered or spent on things that just frankly shouldn't
be spent on to people who shouldn't be getting the money.
(36:22):
And this is all of our money, and there needs
to be a much more serious look at this. And
you know, the way the Democrats have set this up,
it's just harder and harder to trace the source that
is on purpose, that is.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Meant to be. And this is why you know.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
I'm in Florida and I've lived in New York. Clay
Florida twenty one million people, New York nineteen million people.
Florida's budget basically one hundred billion, New York's budget effectively
two hundred which runs more efficiently too, Yeah, so much
more efficiently. So you have more population and half the
budget in a state with better governance across the board
(36:56):
in my opinion, Florida versus New York. And this is
true of everybody across the country. Your federal dollars are
going to subsidize blue state madness.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
So we'll get in more of this coming up here.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Oh also the Simone bottomone Biles has apologized Buck
Welcome in our number two Clay Travis buck Sexton Show.
We're up here in Washington, d C. Visiting with many
of our friends in Congress as the big beautiful bill
wins the wines, I guess is the correct word. It's
way through the halls of Congress. It's in the Senate
right now, and Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is with us,
(00:21):
and we are going to do a deep dive on
spending the bill, what should happen from his perspective, and
where we are headed. So for people out there that
really want to dive into some of the nitty gritty
about the economic policies in place, we wanted to bring
you in because I would say you and Ran Paul, Senator,
(00:42):
I think it's fair to say are probably at the
forefront of we are spending way too much money. And
your argument has been that essentially, and you correct me
if I'm wrong on any of this, but I'm trying
to lay it out and then let you make the case. Essentially,
we have embedded the govern mint spending that started with COVID,
(01:02):
that accelerated at a rapid level as the default basis
for budgets going forward, instead of for instance, after World
War Two, drastically dialing back spending. We have allowed that
spending process to become the basis upon which all budget
bills since COVID have been crafted.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Is that correct? How do we fix it? If it
is correct? Well, first of all, welcome to this alternate universe.
Thank y Washington. Do you see you know why?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Both were former residents here, so we we're like reform
swamp creatures.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
You're smart enough to move out? Oh yeah, I come
here part time, But no, I mean you you stated
the case pretty well. We spend four point four trillion
dollars in twenty nineteen, pandemic hits spent six point five,
and we never looked back. And I'm probably saying this
on the show. I don't know of American family. If
they got ill, somebody got ill, they had to borrow
fifty thousand dollars pay for medical bills. If they got
(01:54):
well the next year, they want to keep borrowing fifty
thousand dollars and keep spending at that level. That's exactly
what we've done. So four point four this year will
spend over seven trillion. That's a fifty eight percent increase.
Next year about seven point three and I know these
are a lot of numbers, but that's why I do charts. Yep.
And you know's what's kind of depressing about my charts
as it lays out of a pretty depressing reality. Let
me throw some more numbers under the Bush administration. Eight years,
(02:18):
they averaged deficts to two hundred and fifty billion dollars
a year. Obama came in his first four years one
point three trillion. I mean, that sparked the Tea Party movement.
That's why I came into town. The Tea Party movement
had an impact. And those deficits in his last term
was were five hundred and fifty billion dollars. Trump comes
into office, had to do deals with Democrats. His average
(02:39):
defict was eight hundred and ten. Then COVID hit one
year three hundred three point one trillion dollar deficit. And
again with responsible leaders like we had in World War Two. Okay,
pandemic's over time to return to pre pandemic levels. Eh,
it's not what Biden did. Biden continued to spend again
this year about seven trillion. His average deficit for four
(03:01):
years was one point nine trillion. Okay, wait, so let's
let's jump in right there. Because I think that's very important,
and we have the charts to work with, but all
of our people all across the country or they're trying
to visualize these numbers as we go where yeah, he's
holding it up.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
I wish we had Oh well, yeah, but tell me
this where is the additional money going? Because here's what
happens every time we talk about cutting. And I also
have to bring up some of the objections to the
objections to the big beautiful bill, and I want you
to address those.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
In a second.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
But first, anytime we talk about cutting, we could light
up the phones for three hours straight. Here, how dare
you you want to touch my social security? How dare
you you want to touch my medicare? Well, hold on
a second. If those things weren't being touched at eight
hundred billion or a trillion a year, what where's the
extra trillion dollars give or take that? Now is the
post pandemic spending norm what's that money going? It's literally
(03:54):
across the board.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
And that's why I've laid out with my pre pandemic
levels of spending that analysis where you take actual total alays,
you exclude soci security, Medicare, and interest spend what you
need to spend, and then you plus up all those
other outlays by population growth, inflation. And if you do
that for twenty nineteen, for example, this year, you'd be
spending six point five versus the seven. You know, if
(04:17):
you go back to Clint or a Bomba, you'd be
spending five point five to six point two. Okay, So
again it's across the board, which is why one of
the solutions is we need to forensically audit every line,
every program, like dose is done. Okay, So you're.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Telling me then that there is of that spending increase,
if it's coming from these is it and you're not
going to touch it? Sounds like me like you wouldn't
touch the non discretionary spending, right because that's that's you're
taking Medicare, social Security, and interest.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
You see, that's right, that's part of mandatory. But you
also have Medicaid and we've got to fix the Obamacare
portion of that. Get a trillion dollars of other mandatory spending.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
This is what I mean, where's that other trillion dollars?
That's it's Medicaid and then just everything else.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So what they've done over years because nobody knows they're
doing this because you have these omnivous spending bills, and
just magically they moved discretionary spending into the mandatory accounts.
So during COVID, that other mandatory now social carey, to
medicare or even medicaid. I think went up top to
about two point two trillion dollars. In twenty nineteen was
(05:20):
six hundred and forty two billion, went to two point two.
It's been ramping down last year. I think it was
one point three trillion. This year would be about a trillion.
That's a trillion dollar. You mean discretionary spending is about
one point seven You were.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
A business guy at Trump was and still is in
many ways a business guy. When you say this to him,
what does he say? Because he wants this thing passed
with gusto. He wants this big, beautiful bill, he believes.
I'm sure you've talked about these numbers, right, I'm sure
you talked.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
I was. I was in the White House last Wednesday,
and when my time to talk, I'd pulled out my chart.
He said, by the way, So, by by the way,
I don't see I've seen your last ten appearances. You're
too negative.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Run one of your charts saved the president's life. So
you're is a different chart than yes, actually actually saved
this life. Yes, so one chart saved saved the president's life.
I'm hoping this one saves America. Okay, so what so
he says, what because the argument here is that they
would like to get this bill passed by July fourth
(06:16):
on the Senate side, it's already passed the House side.
Where are we do you think that's likely? How does
this get reconciled?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
What? How?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
How does how does this Senate because it's not just you,
it's Ran Paul, it's others that have this perspective to
not a huge majority, How does this get solved?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
So again, just so, he told me I was being
too negative, and I took that to heart. I have
been pretty generally a very jolly fellow. I will say
I found my face. Okay, but you gotta layout the reality.
So I had a great meeting just a couple of
hours ago with Vice President to Fance and Kevin Hassett,
and that was kind of what we arranged the White House. Okay,
let's let's get in the same page. You know, I
worked all weekend long I wrote this report myself. These
(06:55):
are all my own charts. I'm the account here, right,
But we're gonna let Kevin Hassen his economic team go
through these, you know, check out the numbers. I'm not
sure when we're released this, but that's the first thing
you have to You have to get on the same page.
And I tell the President of the White House is
the first step in solving any problem, so you have
to admit you have one. So again, I have been
too negative because I've been focusing on the macro problem
(07:18):
and I haven't been talking as positively as I should
on all the good things in the big beautiful built
because they're a lot of good thinge things. We fund
the border, we fund defense. This House did a pretty
good job of identifying about one point five trillion dollars
in spending reduction. That's that's good. We extend current taxile,
we take an automatic tax increase off the table, We
avoid default. Okay, those are all great things. My only point,
(07:40):
and I'm sorry I have to make it. It just
isn't enough. Okay. So what I've been asking for always
is a commitment to a to return to a reasonable
pre pandemic level spending and a process to achieve and
maintain it. And now I'm throwing into the method because
one and done won't work. I mean, this is great
(08:01):
progress that we'd be making with one big, beautiful bill.
I don't deny that, but it doesn't solve the problem.
So I'm looking for a forcing mechanism so we come
back in this Congress, not wait, tell winning an election.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
You're telling me this is politically realistic, because that's the
next The next question is because because this is what's
being said. And you know, Stephen Miller is a very
smart guy in this White House. He's been out there
making the case that the objections to this are more
about people making a philosophical argument than operating within the
(08:34):
reality of what is possible, and that if you don't
do it this way, you're going to have to work
with Democrats down the line who don't want to work
with you.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So can you address that again, we can use another
reconciliation process using the fiscal twenty twenty six budget. I
have gotten just basically positive feedback from President Trump's art
and supporters and also my supporters again Republicans. We realize
we have a massive dat DEFROBM other said, Republicans who
won't go along with what you want to do here
(09:02):
is that? I mean, where's the problem. So it seems
so logical to us. I would say, part of it
is marketing. Okay, the House was all folks on getting
this thing done, and you know, they pulled literally they
pulled one point five trillion dollars out of the air.
It really wasn't in context. You know. When I saw that,
I said, you guys have set the bar way too low. Okay,
we need trillions of dollars in long term to get
(09:24):
this thing done. But then they assigned more than half
of that to E n C the committee. All they
can do is Medicaid. So they just opened themselves up.
You're gonna slash Medicaid. And you did make the case.
You realize that what we're trying to do is fix
the Obamacare portion of Medicaid called Medicaid expansion, that pays
when a state puts a buck in for a single
(09:47):
childless you know, working age able bodied adult, the fetal
government puts in nine bucks versus a dollar state puts
in for a disabled child. Fetal government kicks in a
dollar thirty three. That has led to all kinds of distortions.
There's a great artic on the Wall Street Journal. A
father of a seventeen year old artistic child can't get
home care for ten years because he's being crowded out
(10:09):
by single adults that should be worked on in welfare
for a Medicaid, just the big giant. And so you
literally are putting at risk the benefits for the people
that we want to help, both in Medicare and in Medicaid.
So you've got to root out these things. But you
have to make the case, and you can't make it
in five months. So the game plan here, so as
Ice time and Vice President is okay, it's going to
(10:30):
take time. I propose a budget review panel, hire forensic auditors,
take the DOGE team, transfer them over this process a
House of Senate, a White House effort to forensically audit
every all more than two thousand lines of federal budget,
more than twenty six hundred federal programs. So we've never
done it. We've never done it. And even this process,
(10:50):
you'll notice they've exempted most spending, most programs. They focused
on a couple. They get slaughtered in the public opinion
because Democrats, it's easy pickings for them because they have
the press behind them. I mentioned on the Sunning shows,
it's so easy to be a Democrat. You spend your mortgage,
kids future, you never be held accountable by the media.
It's hard doing we're trying to do. The good news
(11:12):
for your listeners is that we're all pretty much on
the same page. We want to fix this problem. We
just are dealing with something that's very difficult to do.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
What's timing look like and how significant is timing from
your perspective? Because the White House has said they'd like
to have this done in the Senate by July fourth,
we know that we don't have a very big majority
in the House, so Mike Johnson, Speaker is going to
have to go back and work through whatever conciliating bill
is going to come out. What to you does this
timeframe look like?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Well, I think most people thought the House run of
the House passed the Centate would water down. I think
the absence is true. I think we're going to make
it more conservative. I think we're going to be doing
even more reductions in terms of spending. And again, I've
got colleagues that are demanding it so and there's some
people who agree with you.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Chip Roy, for instance, a friend of our on the
House side, wants way more spending, right. I mean this
was an issue for Mike spending cuts.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, I mean, I mean they've voted for it because
they kicked can over the House or the Center, hoping
we'd make it more conservative.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
So this part that you talk about the marketing, I'm
just gonna say this. You know, we've had Senator Ran
Paul on the show. We've talked to him, we've heard
about on this and so many issues, and a lot
of the time I just think he's making great arguments.
But in this moment, to talk about how there's too
much money going to the border after ten million illegals
came in under the Obama i mean administration, and to
(12:31):
say that that's where we're gonna we're gonna start to
make the savings happen in a meaningful way, even if
numerically you could start to make I just think it's
malpractice because people and this is about saving the country,
and you know, just to save money when you're trying
to save the country. I think people view the urgency
of the border and the illegal immigration issue as you know,
(12:52):
the policy equivalent of a war, meaning if we don't
do this thing right, we don't have the same America
going forward.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Well, I'm a really frugal guy, and I don't mind
sharpening my pencil on any spending he has chaffering, homemand security.
He should be doing oversight on this. Again, in the
first administration, we've spent six point six billion dollars to
build four and fifty four and fifty miles a wall.
Now they're asking forty six and a half million a
billion just for the wall that's gonna.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Well, we didn't have enough money to finish the wall though,
I remember that was a problem.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
But there's not there's not three thousand and four thousand
miles to have to be built. So again I think
he's got a wall guy here. He's asking the questions,
Can you stay with us a little bit absolutly because
there's some more question but quickly as and then Buck's
got to do a read here time frame July fourth,
any chance in your advice, I think that's I think
that's ambitious. I think I really think in the Senate
(13:41):
we're looking more before August recess, before AUGUSTA and it
has to be done before August recess. Well the time
just you know, descion is going to expire sometime mid
August to late September. So that's part of the pressure.
I mean, that's part what they do. One of the
reasons they bunded this all up is, yeah, I don't
want to see taxes increase. I don't want a default
on the death so it just puts. So I've been
very upfront. I nobody should be surprised. I wrote my
(14:03):
first column on a reasonable pre pandemic level spending an
options to do it in the Wall Street Journal on
January first. So again I've been I've been beating this
drum for a while.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Ron Johnson in the hot seat. He doesn't like it hot.
He prefers it cold. He's from Wisconsin. But we'll keep going. Look,
we're not dealing with this debt.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
You know it.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
I know it, which means that there's those long term
issues of governance and issues with the dollar, and owning
gold is just one way to prepare for that uncertain future.
I've been a gold guy for over a decade. My
dad gave me my first gold coin when I was
in my twenties. He said, you know what, He's a
big gold believer, and I've been a big gold believer
ever since I've been building up my gold reserves, and man,
(14:44):
the price of gold has seen great appreciation in just
the past year, up forty percent. I'm also a big
history guy. Clay likes referred to us as history nerds.
What has there ever been a time when there's been
a civilization of society? They said, you know what, you
know what, I don't need gold, no value in that. Yeah,
there's a reason for this, all right, And that's why
I think you should call the Birch Gold group.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
That's who I use.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Trump administration is doing a lot to try to write
the ship, but they're not going to able to do
at all. And there's a lot more that we have
to look at in the future in terms of the
spending gold makes sense. And by the way, you can
invest in gold or you could just have part of
your savings in a gold ira or four oh one
k very solid moves. One of the best ways to
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(15:27):
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(15:48):
com slash buck Well right here in DC to Capitol Hill,
close to the White House with Senator Ron Johnson in studio. Senator,
we'll billo got about a minute and a change here
before we get into the next break, and then we'll
keep you through to talk more about this topic. But
(16:10):
your reaction as somebody who in your own home state,
of course, what happened in Kenosha. Some of those visuals
and images I think reminds people of some of the
rioting we're seeing in Los Angeles. What do you think
about how the President's handled this so far? And what
are the American people seeing in southern California?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Was it Yogi Berra said, it's deja vous all over again. Yes,
this is exactly what Democrat governance did in Wisconsin. He
had Governor Evers. President Trump offered him the National Guard.
He refused it allowed Kenosha to burn for a couple
of days. A couple of people got killed as a result.
Now they're doing the same thing here. Governor Evers actually
signed a letter with the other Democrat governors supporting you know,
(16:52):
Newsom and saying that Trump's making the wrong decision. Not
Trump is making the absolute right decision. What we found
out in Kenosha's once you had the man part of
the National Guard, the violence ended. And that's the whole point.
And what's even more unconscionable about this is the Democrats
are refusing to protect law enforcement. I mean, these guys
(17:12):
put their life on the you know, on the line.
They're willing to serve and sacrifice. And you've got Democrat
politicians who are inciting the protests and the violence. And
what I what I want to do is I want
to I want to thorough investigation. I hope Cash and
I hope Pam BONDI are on this. Who is financing this?
This is their playbook, This is their playbook from summer
of twenty twenty. They're just implementing it a lot sooner
(17:34):
in this Trump administration. Again, this isn't springing up just
by accident. Well, we'll get into this a little bit
more here coming up in a second. I also want
to take some of your calls eight hundred.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Two A two two eight A two and if you
get us a quick talk back, maybe we can even
play it for Senator Johnson on the air. You can
get a question into the Senator yourself. You know, I
know that Father's Day is coming up soon. Moms and
dads have the same instincts that Kerry and I have,
which is protecting your children at any cost, and you know,
especially on your own roof, it is up to you
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(18:03):
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Speaker 2 (18:22):
That includes, of course the.
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(18:44):
eight four four eight two four safe.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Hey Buck.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
One of my kids called me an unk the other
day and unk yep slanging evidently for now being hit
being an old dude.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
So how do we ununk?
Speaker 1 (19:03):
You get more people to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
At least that's what my kids tell me.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
That's simple enough. Just search the Klay, Travis and Buck
Sexton Show and hit the subscribe button.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Takes less than five seconds to help ununk me.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Do it for Clay, do it for freedom, and get
great content while you're there the Klay, Travis and Buck
Sexton Show YouTube channel.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
We've got Senator Ron Johnson in here. We love having
him on.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
I just want to ask you this question because there's
no Democrats who have any basic business knowledge. I mean,
it's unfortunate it used to not be that way, But
when you've got people like AOC running around shutting down
back in the day, the Amazon headquarters not understanding how
tax credits work, and it's really economic literacy on many
different levels when you dive into the budget particulars. How
(19:50):
many it could be Democrats Republicans, How conversant do you
think in detail the average United States Senator and con
person is in understanding how the US budget works and
where the money goes. I mean, did you expect to
find way more knowledge before you got into politics, Because
I'll be honest, before Buck and I started doing this show,
(20:13):
I had a lot more faith in the knowledge of
the average politician than I do too.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
I had to tell play there was no So I
think there's a lot of knowledge in that narrow areas
that they focus on. You know, if your appropriations, if
you're chairman of appropriation subcommittee, you know that subcommittee function
pretty well. I'll tell you story about three years ago.
This is in the pandemic, and you know we're sent
spending these massive amountse and McConnell's doing some icky, omimous
deal with the Schumer. All of a sudden, we're for earmarks. Republicans.
(20:40):
We've got a res you know, that's part of our
conference resolution. We're not going to accept your marks. All
of a sudden, we were so I got up, got
up in front of my Republican coy, said, hey, anybody
know how much we spent last year? Dead silence. Nobody knew.
That's crazy because we never talked about it. We're the
largest financial andy in the world. All we appropriate is
about twenty five percent of the budget, about one point
seven trillion. Now the seven trillion that we're going to spend,
(21:03):
so nobody knew. I went up to the washing media,
they're the washdogs, right to ask them the same questions.
It was over a trillion dollars. Now that's just the question.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Now we talk about this when the tea so I
started in media, when the Tea Party got got rolling, right, Yeah,
I'm still more tea priory Republican, and and I just
remember that there was this this whole movement, and I.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Think the I think the debt then was like nine. Yeah,
it was nine when I kind of he was fourteen trillion. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
So let's but let's say it's you know, low double digits,
trillions of dollars.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Now it's going on it's going on seven yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
So, and it's projected to hit about sixty in ten years.
So clearly the math, the math is a problem here.
But I I feel like one of the frustrations we
have is that we talk about this and everybody wants
to fix it, but nobody wants to do the things
in order to fix it, because you know, it's like
telling someone to go on a diet. It's more fun
to just eat chocolate cake every day and assume somebody
(21:59):
else is going to do the work for you. So I
don't know, I don't know how we get people to
get dialed in on this and understand that if you
just keep spending because it feels good to spend, we're
never going to fix the problem.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Well, inside the conference, I'm I'm basically the kid that
says the Emperor has no close. I mean, I just
relentlessly show them my charts to the point there, you know,
you know, ad nauseum. Do they think some impact? I
think now they all know we're spending about now.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
And to the people who vote for you in Wisconsin,
do you think that they really want you to tackle
this problem or does everyone just want to say tackle
it but don't touch anything that I like that's the case.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
We can't think that. I've got some really solid concerners
coming into my office and say yeah, but this is
really this isn't really spending. This is an investment. So
that's the problem. Everybody loves the free federal money, right,
they never look at their spending that you know on
their issue is the problem. It's the other guys spending okay,
And there's there's not a real constituency, there's not public
pressure to get this under control. Again, I would have
(22:56):
thought again, I spent out the Tea Party movement. I
literally did Parise and twenty ten, going this's a fight
for freedom. We're mortgaging our children's future. It's wrong, it's
in moral. It's gotta stop. That's my campaign pledge. But
it hasn't blown up in our face. I will say this,
though we haven't hit an acute debt crisis, we've been
living with a chronic debt crisis now for decades. It's
(23:18):
called the evaluation of the dollar out I laid out
these pre pandemic spending options Clinton ninety eight. A dollar
you held in nineteen ninety eight is worth fifty one cents.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That's a crazy stat I think for most people out there,
basically you've lost half the value of the dollars nineteen
eight and to a certain extent cryptocurrency, everybody kind of
feels it in that arena.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Since twenty nineteen, that dollar is now worth eighty cents.
So again that's that's permanent damage being done. That's the
silent tax of inflation. That's how we are managing this
right now, why it hasn't blown up in our face.
But again, I would consider that a chronic debt crisis
where we're trying to avoid it is a cute one
where all of a sudden you have failure of bond
auctions and we can't borrow money. And now, all of
(23:57):
a sudden, over the next ten years, we're going to
spend fourteen trillion dollars on interest. The eighty nine trillion
will spend fourteen design interest.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
I would submit that a lot of people are feeling
it because mortgage rates have just not come back down.
Right If you're out there listening to us right now,
thirty year mortgage rates around seven percent. If you were
fortunate enough to lock in at two and a half
or three, you're never moving for the rest of your life.
I mean, there's a lot of people out there that
are just and it's completely flumox the housing market because
(24:29):
people should be moving. They have new kids, they got
bigger families, or their kids are going off to college,
leaving the house, and they're not going to sell because
you got a two and a half or eight, or
you got a three, as opposed to guys and gals
out there right now getting married, they're looking around seven
percent interest is historically may not be high, but compared
to the two and a half and how quickly it
went up, I don't know that we've ever seen anything
(24:50):
like it.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Again, that's part of the chronic debt crisis. Yeah, okay,
that's right right right now. According to CBO, we'll be
paying about three point four percent interest on our debt
over the next ten years, but the average fifty year
average for the industruate we pay in debt is over
five percent. So if you start every percent, do you increase,
that adds you know, three hundred and seventy billion dollars
to a debt this year. Yeah, okay, so that's a
(25:12):
massive amount. It's crowding out other spending. And again, if
you hit a dead crisis, where now creditors just say
we're not gonna loan your money even at a high
interest rate. You're gonna spend. You're gonna have to service
that debt. We're gonna have to roll over nine trillion
dollars over national debt this year, nine trillion of the
thirty seven trillion. We've got a refinanced center. You're bumming
me out a little bit. Oh no, I'm not. I'm
(25:34):
not the most. I'm not the most. I will sayative.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Let me say this, if you're not able to see
him on video, you do have a sort of a
happy warrior uh visage face wise, because otherwise I think
you probably would be so dour that everybody's been.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
With his charts.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
He's a little captain wampwomp right now. So let's just take
a moment here.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
By the right. That's what That's why I agree with
pressing Trump when he said, you're right, you're so negative. Yeah,
I know, I'm sorry. I'm sorry trum trying to make
people like Ron. You're womp womping all over the place. Ron,
You're making me sad.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
But what about AI growth and the brilliance of the
American economy starting to at least on its own basically
not entirely grow a out of this because the numbers
don't support that. But at least make it more sustainable
longer term. Do you you know is technology going to
save us? Senator Johnson?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
So I think possibly. You know, there's a great story.
Milton Freedom was in China and they were building this
big canal and everybody had shovels, and they said, what
why aren't she using like equipment? Said, well, it's the
jobs program. At what point Milton Freedom said, well, why
don't you give them spoons? So no productivity is can
can make massive of progress. And AI has gotten Do
(26:48):
we care about that much?
Speaker 3 (26:49):
If I Roe bought servants doing all of our cooking
and cleaning and everything.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
For I will say, you've seen the Jetsons be very
cautious of AI. I learned that as I'm putting my
report together. I use AI a lot. Yes, got great tool,
but as my chief of staff said, it is often
confidently wrong. And I found that out repeatedly in this problem.
By the way, being confidently wrong, it's kind of the
business you're in. Well, not you specifically, but yeah, but
(27:13):
politicians in general are not coffee today. Politicians in general
are not known for lacking confidence in being wrong, especially
as you well know everything COVID that all this spiraled
out of so yeah, Buck asked the question, I think
this is the big picture, maybe a question we can
finish with you on and we appreciate all the time,
and we know there's tons of people out there that
(27:34):
have wanted us to do a deep dive on this.
The growth rate.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
The number one most important thing that could happen to
make everybody the rising tide lift all boats is our
economy has to get growing faster. You've run the numbers.
We haven't had four percent growth since the nineteen fifties. Now,
maybe Buck's right, and I'd love for the AI revolution
to lead to exponential This is a long bomb into
the end zone theory, but maybe some of the catches it.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Now.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
It's a very positive like way of looking at things,
and there are a lot of CEOs, including some of
the ones that we interact with, that are incredibly optimistic
on this. But I do think history matters here. When's
the last time we had four percent growth in this
country in the sixties, nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
And then we had thirties, thirty or three percent growth
in the you know, seventies, eighties, nineties, you know, the
the dot com revolution. But since the turn of the century,
we've averaged two point two percent growth. And you know,
rein Hard and Rogoff wrote about this as time is different,
not once you reach a certain threshold of debt GDP level.
(28:36):
First of all, government is sucking down all that money
out of the private sector. Risk takers can't borrow money,
so that has a negative impact on growth. Again, AI
may be a spark that could overcome all this, but
we could be in that death spiral right now. That's
that's my concern. So this is it. We're like, all right,
(28:56):
great talk, but I said death. I said that. I
said I thought he said I don't know well enough. Well,
I guess again. But like Mith Rodgers hitting the mite
your button, we're seeing what the bond markets is doing.
We can't control long term interest rates. That's going to
be up to our credits if they look at us.
It's not serious about this. I think the bond markets
(29:18):
has been telling that they're going to demand to hire
a hire interest rate to refinance that nine trillion dollars.
That takes more of the money out of what we
can spend out other things as well. So again this
is we're not in a good position right now. We're
simply not. I mean, that's my whole point is, let's
address this problem. The first step in solving any problem
is admitting you have one. And most people aren't. They're
(29:38):
not even aware of it. They're just whistling by the graveyard.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
I'm picturing you right now when your kids come home
from college and you've got the credit card bill in
front of you, and it's like Dad is just sitting
down in front of you and he's like, I just
you know, you got the daughter, you got the son.
They don't understand basic economics, and you're just like, I
don't even understand how you could have spent this money.
That's the way I feel like. You're looking at the
federal government on a day to day basis. You're like Dad,
(30:03):
who's looking at this and just saying this. None of
them a jet ski, yeah, jets. I've said this at
the bar. It's easy to be the parents, says, Hey,
we're going to go to Disney World. It's really hard
to be the parent says but we can't afford it.
You know, we're already in well the other.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Things senat are. Now I'm going to really bum everybody out.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Everybody thinks they're the parent that says we can't afford
Disney World this year, But everybody wants to say, my
kids are going to Disney World. So that's the tough
part of American politics. Senator Johnson of Wisconsin. Always a
pleasure to hang with you, sir. Thanks for being here
with us in studio, Thanks for having in look. I
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Speaker 1 (30:38):
While I'm still laughing about the dad analogy, that is
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Speaker 3 (32:04):
Hope you all enjoyed that walk into the financial abyss
with Senator Ron Johnson. He's like, guys, the whole country
may collapse, but it's gonna be okay.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
No, it's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine. Look
the big beautiful bill.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
It's big, it's beautiful, and we're looking forward to talking
to more folks here in DC about all the great things.
And Ever admits there are many many great things in it,
and I think that passing it is I think it's
the right move and I think that there's gonna be
a lot that this administration is going to be putting
in motion that should be or or can't fully be
accounted for right now Clay that will affect the revenue
(32:40):
and debt side of things very positively. For example, the
money that's coming in, the hundreds of billions that's gonna
come in on tariffs, and the admission recently that Chinese
producers are actually going to have to eat a lot
of the costs of the tariffs. These are all things
that are going into the pot, things that are going
to be on the on the positive side of a
ledger for us financially. And you know I did mention
(33:01):
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Speaker 1 (33:32):
So there's gonna be some new books that are coming
out there that we actually wrote.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
And we are going to be going down.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
We're just figuring out when, but we're going to be
heading down to San Antonio in the summer, which is
when I hear is the best time to go to
work on your heat tolerance when you're going.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
To go over it in eighty degrees.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
We're gonna come down and visit the Alamo, obviously naming
a Krock coffee after one of the Alamo legends. I
haven't been since I was a kid, but they are
excited to host us at the Alamo. Now.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
I've never been to the Alamo. I remember the first
time I ever even heard of the Alamo was the
Pee Wee Herman movie. Yes, we were talking about that
a little bit last night.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
I think.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
You'll be surprised by how the Alamo is just right
in the middle of San Antonio, doesn't have a ton
of space that it takes up. But I understand they're
doing some remarkable historical renovations and building out the guest
visitation areas and everything else, and it's supposed to be
pretty extraordinary. So we're looking forward to to getting down
there and being able to visit. By the way, a
lot of you have wanted us to dive into the
(34:30):
so called big beautiful Bill and actually talk about the math.
Here's what I will say. You don't have to agree
with Senator Ron Johnson, you don't have to agree with
Ran Paul. I do think there are relatively few guys
that have spent more time actually looking at where the
money that we spend goes. And we know Elon did
this with DOJE, but Senator Ron Johnson is left now,
(34:52):
but he has a big, massive binder that he's got
that he's just tracking where the money is going, how
it's being spent. And I do think argument that Democrats
have successfully embedded the to a large extent, the growth
of government that they took advantage of during COVID and
just made it the baseline going forward. I think he
(35:13):
makes a strong argument that we should go back like
we did after World War Two. And reassess the growth
of the overall government.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
And the amount of money that is being spent that
is inefficient, but also that is going to welfare and
even within that going to welfare payments, whether through the
medicaid system or others, to illegal immigrants.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
It is vast.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
In New York, we have a pretty good sense the
numbers because the New York City budget was really groaning
under the pressure of it. Of fourteen billion over a
couple of years. That's just the money for emergency immigrant
you know, illegal immigrant money, if you will clay in
a place like California, the medical program out of federal
(36:00):
dollars that get funneled into that. We had Senator Johnson
talking about just medicaid generally, but medicaid for illegals. You
start to see where this money is going. And the
more you follow the money everybody, I think, the more
outrageous it becomes. And how much of this money is
being squandered or spent on things that just frankly shouldn't
be spent on to people who shouldn't be getting the money.
(36:22):
And this is all of our money, and there needs
to be a much more serious look at this. And
you know, the way the Democrats have set this up,
it's just harder and harder to trace the source that
is on purpose, that is.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Meant to be. And this is why you know.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
I'm in Florida and I've lived in New York. Clay
Florida twenty one million people, New York nineteen million people.
Florida's budget basically one hundred billion, New York's budget effectively
two hundred which runs more efficiently too, Yeah, so much
more efficiently. So you have more population and half the
budget in a state with better governance across the board
(36:56):
in my opinion, Florida versus New York. And this is
true of everybody across the country. Your federal dollars are
going to subsidize blue state madness.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
So we'll get in more of this coming up here.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Oh also the Simone bottomone Biles has apologized Buck
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