September 3, 2025 • 36 mins
In Hour 3 of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, the hosts are joined by Ben Shapiro, founder of The Daily Wire, for a wide-ranging and high-energy conversation covering cultural politics, free speech, gender ideology, and the future of American cities. This hour blends serious political analysis with sharp humor and viral stories, making it a standout segment for listeners interested in conservative commentary, media censorship, and urban policy.
The hour kicks off with a critique of Coldplay’s Chris Martin, who awkwardly welcomed Israeli and Palestinian fans on stage during a concert. Shapiro calls out the performative virtue signaling and highlights the broader trend of leftist anti-Israel bias in entertainment and media. This leads into a discussion of Western cultural decline, including the arrest of British comedian Graham Linehan for tweets deemed offensive by UK authorities. Shapiro warns that free speech is under siege, and that the U.S. must use diplomatic and economic leverage to push back against censorship in allied nations.
Shapiro also introduces his new book, “Lions and Scavengers: The True Story of America and Her Critics,” which explores the divide between builders (lions) and destroyers (scavengers) in society. He argues that every individual must choose daily whether to contribute positively or tear down institutions like family, faith, and property rights. The book is positioned as a cultural manifesto for those defending Western civilization against radical progressivism.
The hosts and Shapiro then tackle the Malcolm Gladwell reversal on transgender athletes, debating whether his change of heart is sincere or opportunistic. Shapiro advocates for forgiveness and accountability, emphasizing the need to incentivize truth-telling in public discourse.
In a lighter segment, Clay is challenged to attend Kamala Harris’s book tour in Nashville wearing a “The Future is Female” shirt and a man bun, in homage to Matt Walsh. Shapiro jokingly declares it a “biblical obligation,” adding humor to the political banter. The trio also debates whether Kamala Harris will run for president in 2028, with Shapiro predicting she won’t.
The conversation shifts to the Democratic Party’s masculinity crisis, with Shapiro suggesting that Democrats have alienated “normal dudes” by embracing feminized politics and denying biological realities. He calls for a return to unapologetic masculinity and common sense, citing Trump and JD Vance as examples of authentic male leadership.
The hosts also discuss the New York City mayoral race, speculating on reports that Eric Adams may be offered a role in the Trump administration in exchange for dropping out. They analyze the political dynamics between Curtis Sliwa, Andrew Cuomo, and Zoran Mamdani, warning that Mamdani’s far-left agenda could be disastrous for the city. Buck argues that Adams, despite his flaws, played a key role in exposing the illegal immigration crisis under Biden, and that his stance deserves recognition.
The hour wraps with a viral story from Jacksonville, Florida, where a five-year-old boy snuck out to get breakfast at Chick-fil-A, sparking a humorous discussion about fast food favorites and parenting. The hosts use the story to highlight the value of police body cams and the everyday heroism of law enforcement.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Third Hour clay En book kicks off now, and we
are joined by Ben Shapiro, the founder of the Daily
Why Ben Shapiro podcast. New book Lions and Scavengers, The
True Story of America and her Critics, released yesterday. Ben,
appreciate you joining us, Thanks for being here, A lot
(00:21):
to talk to you about, Thanks for taking the time.
Really appreciate it. Well, let's I want to dive into
this one. I feel like you're I feel like you're
gonna have pretty sure you're gonna have some things to
say on this. Uh, not not hard to find topics
they to talk talk with you about. But cold Play, Now,
we could sit here and we could just make jokes
about how cold Play somehow went from cool to the
(00:42):
band that even people who love Nickelback feel comfortable making
fun of. Now, I think I think that's fair. But
Coldplay had a concert going on, and Chris Martin, the
lead singer of Coldplay, brought some people up on the stage.
Now we have this sound, we have this audio. Let's
let everyone here. So this is the lead singer of
cold Play in front of I don't know sixty thousand people,
(01:04):
one hundred thousand, whatever it is.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
However, many people are in this arena, and here's how
it goes. When he invites some just people listeners on
the stage of them play it. Oh, I thought I
thought we had this one in the mix. I'm sorry,
producer Mark, tell me which one we have this uploaded
as when you get a second, uh and and there
(01:28):
we go. Let's play it.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Where did you from Israel?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Okay, very grateful Haubans like treating you us regardless of
why you cal football.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Thank you for being hiding for dring and.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Thank you for.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Well those troves, so just for everyone.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
It's kind of hard to hear that audio a little bit,
but the lead singer says, you're here as humans. Thank
you for being here as humans, and also thank you
to all the Palestinians in the audience. That's kind of
a weird way to approach this.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Ben.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
Yeah. Well, as I've said, you know, the Yiddish word
for him is schmuck. He's terrible. I mean, when your
second worst decision actually is marrying Gwyneth Paltrow, you know
things are going wrong for you. But Chris Martin doing
this routine here. Can you imagine any other group of
people that he would do this for truly, think of
the situation we're reversed. You have a couple of people,
he calls him up on stage. He says, where are
(02:34):
you from? And they say the Gaza Strip, and he says, well,
I just want to make clear you're humans. So first
of all, Chris Martin is not the person who gets
to bestow humanity upon you. Chris Martin that he's.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Not a cold Play fan.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
We've got here with mister Shapiro, but go ahead, yeah,
now Coldplay sucks. But also the idea that he's going
to like knight you as a human because you have
come to a cold Play concert and then to immediately
swivel and say, oh yeah. And by the way, the
people who are on the other side of the war
from the people the year on the side of and
who initiated, you know, the worst massacre of Jews since
the Holocaust, we got some of those in the stadium
(03:08):
as well, And I just want to acknowledge it. If
this were at Palestinians and they came up said we're
from the Gaza Strip. Can you imagine a situation in
which Chris Martin then turns around and says, and also
to all the Israelies in the audience, and it's cont
for all the Israelis and that we're so happy to
see you here, No way in hell. It just shows
you that default leftism at this point has just turned
(03:28):
to a sort of anti Israel pro hamas Gaza sympathetic stands,
and that that's why he feels uncomfortable. I mean, that's
the real question we should be asking, is why does
he feel so damn uncomfortable? Like who cares He's got
a couple of fans they come from Israel. If I
were giving a concert and somebody came up and they said,
I'm from Russia, okay, when you started lecturing them aout
the Russia Ukraine War, it's bizarre.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
We're talking to Ben Shapiro.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Ben.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
We were talking the last hour about the Graham Lenahan
situation in England. Five of the armed officers waiting for
him as he comes off the airplane over tweets that
the British government deemed worthy of investigation. How do we
fix this? Because I think Western civilization if we are
in the position where countries that should be natural American
(04:15):
allies are sending police to investigate tweets and I'm not
talking about tweets where you say, hey, I'm going to
kill the president of the United States. Obviously, direct threats
of violence are different, but clear jokes.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
How do we fix this well, I mean, I think
that there are definitely levers of pressure that we can
exert on the UK. I think that obviously we have
a lot of the military cooperation, economic cooperation with the UK,
and President Trump is very fond of using leverage in
a lot of these different situations, up to and including
things like, for example, tariffs, and I don't think that
would be a bad policy here saying to the UK, listen,
(04:50):
we cannot do proper commerce with the country that by
the way, we'll actually pass laws that have an effect
on American commerce because whatever is the free speech code
in Britain, which apparently does not include bad old tweets.
If that is the standard, they will apply that to
tech companies in the United States. They'll apply that to x,
they will apply that to Facebook. This has been like
a very hot and fraught topic for the tech companies,
(05:12):
the social media companies. How do you even operate in
countries in Europe that have different speech standards? If it
is now going to be a prosecutable offense if you
tweet something, then how exactly is Twitter supposed to set
its policies for the United States your point? And so
I do think that the government does have some areas
of leverage here, but it does more deeply speak to
this cultural rot at the heart of Western civilization. Now
(05:36):
that the kind of importation of people who hate the
principles of the country and then a pandering to precisely
those principles. Because the same exact country that is now
prosecuting a comedian for making bad tweets over over trans
topics is the same country that covered up, you know,
actual Muslim grooming gangs in the UK, and that is currently,
by the way, attempting to now import apparently thousands of
(05:57):
gozzins from the Gaza Strip. That's something that wasnnounced by
Event Cooper, the Home Secretary, literally yesterday. So good luck
to civilization that is so intent on committing suicide.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
My goodness, talk to us, Bend if you would, about
the book which I know just came out yesterday, and
it's got a premise that this audience is going to
want to hear about lions and scavengers. The true story
of America. Walk us through a little bit of this.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
Sure, So this is the basic idea, is that humanity
at this point is divided between lions, people who wish
to build, who wish to uphold and strengthen important institutions
like family, church, bounce of power, private property. Those are
the lions, the people who wish to build and make
the world a better place. And then there are scavengers,
people who are creatures of envy who just want to
tear everything down. They see problems in their life, they
attribute it to the systems that they've actually benefited from,
(06:43):
and then decide they want to tear it down. And
one of the points that I make in the book
is that this isn't just a question of populations and groups.
It's also a question inside the human heart. That every
morning we all have to get up and decide whether
to be a lion or a scavenger. We all have
problems in our life. We decide to attribute that to
some outside conspiracyatorial malign force and then tilted windmills and
make our life for us, or do we decide to
(07:04):
get up and actually make our life better by taking
the duty bound moral action. That's ay a civilization that
takes the lions, the innovators, the defenders of the civilization,
the people who build the social fabric, and then basically
attacks them because they are too successful, because they're the
oppressors or the exploitative. Is a civilization doomed to failure?
And I think that we are as a civilization facing
(07:27):
that possibility.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Ben, how should we handle Buck and I were just
talking about this, and I do think in the wake
of COVID and in the wake of so much cultural shift.
I'm sure you saw Malcolm Gladwell come out and say, hey,
basically I got everything wrong on the trans issue. Of course,
men shouldn't be able to compete in women's sports, but
(07:50):
he said at the Sloan Conference at MIT the exact opposite.
A few years ago, on a panel, I shared that
there were direct consequences for me and my media company
when it comes to companies that would advertise with us
or not because I said the truth that men shouldn't
be able to compete with women. But if you are
on the wrong side of that issue or any issue,
(08:12):
public statements like gladwill, how should we take them convenient
and real? Or is this an attempt to acknowledge that
all humans get things wrong, and sometimes we should publicly
point that out.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
So you know, I think that forgiveness is usually the
better alternative here, magnanim magnanimity in victory I think is
probably the best alternative. But now he's in a trust
but verify situation. If we run up against another one
of these things and Gladwell takes the wrong side of it,
then I think it's fair to ask him the question,
are you doing this because of the public pressure that
you are receiving, because obviously you've done that before. I
(08:48):
think it's better. We actually want to incentivize people to
do this right. Just as a movement. We want to
incentivize people to come forward and say I got it wrong.
I never should have caved to this sort of pressure,
and we want to create incentive structure so they don't
cave to the pressure again. If we just kind of
take their apology and then bootstomp them, then what we
are actually doing is encouraging people not to reverse themselves,
not to correct the mistakes of the past.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Well, Ben, I have a couple of just grab bag
but important questions to throw your away as well, And
remember everyone Ben's book has just come out yesterday and
it is Lions and Scavengers. So Ben, first of all,
because you would have some experience with this, because of
your friend and colleague, mister Matt Walsh. Kamala Harris is
going to Clay's hometown of Nashville to give a book tour,
(09:32):
and the audience seems very the audience of the show
is very convinced that it is Clay's duty. I would
argue his duty to wear a Future is Female t
shirt and put his hair up in a Matt Walsh
homage style man bun and go to the VIP section
of the Kamala book tour event in Clay's hometown of Nashville.
(09:52):
Where do you, sir, as also someone who spends a
lot of time in Nashville, come down on this issue.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
I mean, I'm shocked that you're even asking the question
of cour course, he has a moral, perhaps a biblical
obligation to tell you that. Actually, I would say that
he may be consigned to the everlasting flames of hell
if he doesn't. I think that that's on the table.
If he doesn't do this, I think that that pretty
clearly he has to do it.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
No, I just I just wanted Ben to get on
the record with millions of people listening, Clay that this
the future's female t shirt. We know what the future
is of this mission. And now Ben has weighed in
heartily on the side of the audience and yours truly,
which is I think this needs to happen.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
And God himself, God himself. I'm not sure where it's
actually written in the Bible, but if you have to bet,
put it in Leviticus. H five hundred dollars is the
cheapest ticket to go watch Kamala Harrison Nashville, which I
still can't believe, and it goes all the way up
to twenty seven hundred play you're super rich. Give me
a break.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
One more thing on this though, Ben, because because help
us with this, Clay and I have a little bet going,
we're not gonna be able to solve it for a while.
Is Kamala Harris going to run again for president? We
will mark this down. We will have this clip for
you when you come back in a few years, and
we know the answer. Is she going to on again?
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Or was it too disastrous?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And she even she knows it.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
Yeah, not in twenty twenty eight. I mean there are
so many wineries in California, she has to get through first.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
That's a good line, all right.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
So here's a here's a big, big picture of question.
This is what my book, which is out in November,
that I've spent a lot of time grappling with. I know,
you've got young kids, I've got the three boys. How
do Democrats, like, let's leave aside a big structural issues
that they clearly have, but how do Democrats get back
(11:32):
to where men, just normal dudes, do not see their
party as a party of feminized absurdity? How do they
get back to where a regular guy who wants to
have a beer and go watch a game would vote Democrat?
Because I think that's the biggest issue that they actually face.
Leaving aside the particulars of what their policies are, what
(11:54):
would you think they need to do?
Speaker 5 (11:56):
I mean, the fact that we even have to ask
the question means that there's not really an easy way
out for them, because that's like, how do you cosplay masculinity?
And the answer is, I mean, you really don't have
to if you're just a dude. So how about you
start with men should not play in women's sports? Duh?
Men are not women, and a rama manual actually is
now coming out and saying that, how about you, like
just go act in the world as a man and
(12:16):
get caught on camera acting in the world as a
man unapologetically. You don't have to ask President Trump or
Jdvans what it's like to be a man, because they're
just doing kind of man things, which doesn't that's I'm
not even talking about, like picking up heavy weights and
walking around bare chested or something like being a normal dude. Actually,
isn't that difficult for those of us who are dudes.
But Democrats seem to have a very tough time with that,
(12:36):
and they keep apologizing for it. By the way, got
to give you big credit right there at Clay for
pumping your own book in a spot where you're supposed
to be pumping mine. That is a bold movie. I
didn't know was going to call you out for that,
but I'm glad he did. I'm going to say this,
I'm glad he's got a book. Ben has got a book,
Scavengers and Wines. I encourage you to all buy it
while you're there. My book is called Balls.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
It's not out till November, but you could pre order
it and you can buy them together, which seems like
a brilliant idea. By the way, Bucks got a book
out in January. Can get three books at one time.
It's just brilliant.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
It's just the brilliant spundle of one line.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
You know better than anybody been. You have to be
shameless to cut through the noise and always be closing.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
Buddy.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Oh yeah, the books one last thing for you. Also
helping us settle another bet, the greatest fictional children's series
of all time, Chronicles of Narnia or the Little you
Know Wizard Boy Books by Harry k Rowling.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
Harry Potry Potter. So, I mean, honestly, I'd go off
off the board. There's a there's a series called the
Edward Eager series that is fantastics from the fifties that
that's worth three. But you gotta go Chronicles of Narnia boom.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Having said that, Travis.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
I mean, does its religious? Thematics? Come on? I mean,
you're learning like you're reading about lions.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
It's cool and they're both are wrong. It's good. I
enjoyed it, but Harry Potter's better, doesn't jk Rowling deserve
a lot of credit she's a billionaire. She did need
to step into the gender identity battles, but she just
couldn't keep her mouth shut because she saw this as
being foundational in many ways. I find her to be
one of the true heroes. We talked about the comedians
getting arrested in Britain, but I find her to be
(14:14):
one of the true heroes actually right now, totally unexpectedly.
I never would would have anticipated this occurring. I totally
agree with this. I mean, she really did not have
to put herself out there, and the fact that she
did and then she's on Twitter every day defending it
in the most aggressive way.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
She's awesome. Like, really, kudos to her.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Ben Shapiro's book is out and it is Lions and Scavengers,
and get yourself a copy and maybe pick up other
books as you go. We'll leave it up to you,
but go get Lions and Scavengers. Ben, thanks for making the.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Time for us.
Speaker 5 (14:44):
Thanks guys, appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
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Speaker 6 (15:41):
You know him as conservative radio hosts, Now just get
to know them as guys on This Sunday Hang podcast
with Clay and Fuck.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Find it in their podcast feed, on the iHeartRadio app
or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome back in thanks
to bench Birou. A book is out right now. Well,
we got a lot to dive into, but let me
set the table for this story that is just starting
to percolate on the social media streets, reports that the
(16:10):
Trump administration may be offering New York City Mayor Eric
Adams a job in the administration in exchange for which
he would potentially drop out of the mayor's race. That
would still leave Sliwa and Andrew Cuomo, but it would
potentially make Mom Donnie a little bit more of a
(16:30):
potential target here.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
I look, first of all, if i'm Eric Adams advisory
team or whatever, yeah, take it. You're not gonna become
You're not gonna be mayor, You're not gonna win. You
have the worst numbers of any of the candidates right now,
I think, including Sliwa, or at least I believe it's
very close. And now Sue as a Republican, so it's
not a slight on him, but I'm just saying he's
not gonna be He's not gonna be mayor either. The
(16:55):
fact that Andrew Cuomo, though is supposed to be the
savior here Clay as a New Yorker who was living
in New York during Cuomo's tenure as governor, that's very
that's a very tough pill to swallow isis he will
be marginally better than Mam Donnie on a few things.
He was a horrifying governor during COVID, horrifying.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
All of that is true. I do think this is
one of those situations. Trump and Cuomo have known each
other for fifty years, So whatever they might say publicly,
I think this is an example of somebody that Trump
feels like he knows, and even it's a sign of
how bad Mam Donnie is. That Cuomo could be the
(17:39):
savior in any situation. But it appears that Eric Adams
is on the verge of dropping out. What does Curtis
Slee would do? What should he do? We'll talk about
that when we come here.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
You should if if Cuomo manages to be the last
guy left, he should offer sleiwa, you'll be my deputy
mayor in charge of police and you know, police relations
and and public safety, something like that. I wonder if
you'd take it. On days you need energy, you need chalk,
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Buck on a massive discount on a subscription. Go check
it out Chalk dot com. Welcome back in to play
and Buck. Very interesting news year at breaking We're just
discussing about Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City
and Martha's hardest city. Of course, my former hometown and
in many ways always my hometown, that he is being induced,
(19:16):
perhaps by the Trump administration, to drop out of the
mayor's race, that he absolutely will not win. Like he
he definitely won't win. He's he's not even close to
the to some of the other contenders, namely Mamdanni and Cuomo. Guys,
tell me if if whether Sliwa or or Adams has
(19:37):
more support in the polls right now, I'd be interested
to see that, because if you're a Republican, a lot
of them are gonna are gonna go Sliwa, right So,
I think Adams might be in last place right now
of the of the candidates that anyone's heard of. There
might even be some other candidates in the mix. So
I'm not watching it as closely as I used to
because I don't live in New York. But we're paying
attention here, of course on Clay and Buck to the
(19:59):
broad strokes of what's going on. And here's what I
what I think you'll see. Clay, this is a reminder
to everybody that Eric Adams. We're talking before about whether
something is opportunistic or something is in earnest when someone
says I was wrong or I when they're willing to
speak out against the dominant narrative when it was very
(20:22):
important for the nation. Eric Adams, he's not a good mayor, Okay,
I don't think he's he's not a malignant mayor. Like
he's not Deblasio, who just tried to you know, he
he was like a malignant tumor on the city of
New York. Deblasio tried to do everything he could to
(20:43):
undermine New York City. In my opinion, I was living
there when he was mayor, right, I think Eric Adams,
you know, I was not really up for the job
in a lot of ways. But I think that he
was trying, you know, he's trying to back the police more,
trying to do things better. But on the issue of
illegals in New York City. This really elevated it because
(21:04):
he was the first major voice of any city in
America who was a Democrat to come out and say, hey,
this is a problem and this needs to stop, Like
we can't just allow these people who need a tremendous
amount of resources, who do take resources from the you know,
from the rest of the American public. Thirty percent of
(21:26):
emergency room visit it's twenty percent of all hotel rooms.
I mean you start to look at these numbers, right,
it's and this factored Clay into I think the broader
narrative about how bad Biden's ten million plus illegal you know,
jail break into America was. And I think that you
saw one. The Democrats went after Adams to make an
(21:46):
example of him with this corruption case about the airline
ticket upgrades or whatever with tururkeysh airlines air The funniest
job they could give him would be ambassador to Turkey.
Trump does have a decent sense of human or if
he made Airy Adams the ambassador to Turkey, it would
be absolutely hysterical. We probably have an ambassador to Turkey already,
(22:07):
So whoever that is, I apologize, but I do think
the comedy value of him in Turkish airlines, you know,
would take care of him. But yeah, like the corruption
they went after him for was absurd. Yeah, and you
look at actual Democrat corruption out there that they're willing
to turn a total blind eye. Do you look at
Hunter Biden selling half million dollar paintings. Okay, like we
(22:28):
know that they'll do anything for power and sort of
pretend that flight upgrades. My point here, Clay, is that
Eric Adams was now maybe he saw down the line
that there was an opportunity here that's playing four D
chess a bit that there could be this situation playing out.
I think it's more likely that he just realized this
(22:49):
is a mess. They're making a mess of my city
with this illegal influx problem that's been going on with Biden,
and he played an important so, you know, if they
could find the right spot for him in the administration,
I think that he performed an important national public service
even if he wasn't a very good mayor by speaking
the truth about illegals.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
I also think they would have to find a job
for Curtis sliwa And I understand that everybody says I'm
not leaving the race, I'm all in for it, And
I understand why Sliwah would say I'm the better option
than Cuomo. Look at how bad Cuomo was during COVID.
This guy doesn't deserve the job. But if there's anything
other than one actual opposition to Mamdani, Mamdanni wins. So
(23:36):
you have to rely upon people to do what may
be not at the peak of their own best interest
in order to advance the City of New York's best interests,
and a lot of politicians aren't willing.
Speaker 5 (23:48):
To do that.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Just to be clear, I mean, I'm basically right on this.
I knew I was directionally right. Adams is the weakest.
Sliwa has more support in most of the polls because
he's the Republican and there's a decent number of Republicans
in the five boroughs, he has more support than Adams
the clay. That's another way of saying the existing mayor
(24:10):
of New York is doing the worst in this mayor election.
So whatever job the Trump administration's thinking of offering Eric Adams,
it's probably a pretty good deal for Eric Adams.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
May not even need a Trump job. To be fair
to Eric Adams, I would think there are a lot
of people in New York City who could hire Eric
Adams to come work inside of their company, pay him
way more than a government job pays. To effectively be
a lobbyist in New York City. I mean, the guy has,
whatever you think about him, the guy has tons of
connections to help get things done in New York City.
(24:45):
And for some of these billionaires that are out there
that really desperately care about the future of New York City,
having at Eric Adams one of a thousand people on
their payroll is not a bad decision either. By the way,
same thing could be said about Curtis Sleiewa. If you
look at the gambling markets right now, zoorun, Mom Donnie
eighty percent chance of being elected mayor of New York City,
(25:09):
Andrew Cuomo eighteen percent, Eric Adams less than one percent,
Curtis Sliwa less than one percent. So what the markets
are telling us here is it's Cuomo or it's Mom Donnie,
and basically nobody else has a chance.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
I know, Mom Donnie is a mom. Donnie is a
Kami and the stuff he's saying Cuomo's awful, though I don't.
Cuomo is the guy behind I know. I focus on
the COVID part of this, and you know him doing
the Oh, let's do a press conference. Let's talk about
Cuomo chips. If you're gonna sit at a bar, you
need to order food like he went through all I
(25:48):
was watching these day in and day out. Yeah, and Clay,
he's the Jim Break Emmy do.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
At that they gave him a special Emmy for his
press conference.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, of course that. It was musty TV in New
York at the time because of the theatrics around all
the things that he was demanding we do. And I
would just say, yeah, that was bad. But also he
was the the jail break guy, the jail break bill
up in Albany, the no cash bail. A lot of
the criminal justice problems that New York then had to
(26:22):
deal with then just sort of disorder and decay on
the streets were directly pushed by Cuomo. So I mean
he is Yeah, he's not a communist, Okay, So would
he be better for the business environment? Sure, you know,
are there I recognize, But man, is he not an
exciting alternative even based you know, he's better than Mamdani,
(26:43):
but barely, is what I'm saying. Like, it's not great
if he becomes the mayor. It's not like New Yorker
should celebrate it that much.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
And this is where I come back to the argument
I've made related to New York City's mayor. Let him
make a bad choice, all right.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Nashville, Man, that's enough, that's enough out of you.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
I want Mom Donnie to be one of the faces
of the Democrat Party in twenty twenty six. And if
that means that we have to pick an awful leader
for New York City, why should all the same people
of New York have to band together to protect Democrats
from the choice that they made.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
And now I know how you Alabama football fans feel.
Clay just when he's just poking you to poke you, you
know what I mean, He's just sort of poking the
bear here. We don't want New York to have a
communist mayor who ruins the place. It's going to be very,
very bad for a lot of people, and and it
could spread. You think the big miss, uh, it was
(27:41):
the Bush phrase misunderestimated?
Speaker 3 (27:43):
I did there, the big.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Underestimation underestimation, Thank you misunderestimated. It's fun to say, like
great biga, Yeah, is it a word? I know it
is not a word, but it's not a word miss.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
And the point to underestimate, the combination of the two
is kind of makes sense or to create Yes, yeah,
I agree.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
You know Bush Bush was a you know, it was
a wordsmith by accident. So I would say the the
problem we've seen in a lot of these cities. Look
at Chicago, perfect example. You could have argued, Lori Lightfoot,
you need to have Lori Lightfoot's administration, which is anti
cop business as usual for the corrupt daily machine of Chicago.
(28:27):
Go down the list all this stuff, and then people
will figure it out, Clay. They went even crazier with
the next mayor.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Yeah, they did so. And I just think New York
City might need to might need to Sometimes you got
to let the kids make the bad decision.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
W or listeners, do you hear this? He wants He
just thinks that you need to feel the pain. He
thinks that you need to like, uh, like Bruce Wayne's
parents in Gotham, watch your back when you're going to
a Broadway show, you know, and this is not the
way we want it.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
I I appreciate everybody who is smart enough not to
vote for Mom Donnie. They're already listening to us. A
lot of them know, they're nodding along right now, saying
sometimes experience is the best teacher, and sometimes Democrats need
to experience the consequences of their own choices in order
(29:19):
to recognize that it's a poor decision. You can only
tell people for so long. And I was reading, I mean,
this is actually super sad. I was reading over the weekend,
getting ready for the show this week. The number of
people out there that are landlords. You know, they want
to talk about freezing rent. You know what doesn't get
frozen most of the time. Property taxes. So the number
(29:41):
of landlords, I mean some of you who own buildings,
they think they try to turn it into oh, everybody's
so rich af their landlords. They had to give The
New York Times credit a really good profile on a
woman in the Bronx who was a landlord. Can't afford
to pay her mortgage because they won't allow her to
raise the rent. But yet her property taxes keep going up,
(30:04):
and so she actually is losing money based on what
she's allowed to charge her residence and the property basically
makes no sense. And so this is the reality of
when you stop people from being able to charge the
rents that they should, sometimes you are creating situations where
(30:26):
the loss basically goes straight to the property owner in
exchange of the renter.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
This is why Ron DeSantis, and this is very important
for the state of Florida and governed DeSantis, I think
is completely correct on this and this should be getting
more attention. This is why Ron DeSantis is trying to
get through the state state legislature in tallahassee a change
in the way. I mean, look, it's trying to end
property tax There's some more specifics to it, but probably
(30:52):
you have in Florida right now. And there's a lot
of people on fixed income here, a lot of retirees here.
We all know that. And you have property value who
have because of supplying demand, gone up dramatically, but they
do it as a percentage of your assessed value.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
So you get all these Floriding you get all these
people that are like I was living in a you know,
a three or four hundred thousand dollars house, and I
was perfectly happy, and maybe even my mortgage was paid off.
Now I have to pay taxes on a one point
two million dollar house. Yeah no, I mean, or the
state will take my home. How is that fair? You're
renting your house now from the state. It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
This is what Californians had to deal with and why
they basically put in place I think. I mean, the
propositions have passed that don't allow property values to be
raised at you know, exorbitant rates relative to your point.
There's a lot of people who bought homes. I mean,
this is sadly one of the results of the fires
(31:49):
in Los Angeles. A lot of people were living in
those homes for decades. They could never have afforded them.
If they were buying them in real time, house burned
down and basically nothing is getting rebuilt there. I mean,
have you seen some of the helicopter footage of I know,
the immediate aftermath of the natural disaster. Eventually the attention
(32:11):
kind of goes away. By and large, they have not
been able to get back to building those homes back
to where they were. I mean, it's just sadly what
one party rule has created is everything is broken, much
of it in California. Look tomorrow, we've got the NFL returning.
We were talking about this. I was talking about it
(32:33):
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Speaker 6 (33:37):
Cheep up with the biggest political comeback in world history
on the Team forty seven podcast. Play in Buck Highlight
Trump Free plays from the week Sundays at noon Eastern.
Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Welcome back in Clay Travis buck Sexton show Let's send
you off into your Wednesday with a fun story is
up at clayanbuck dot com. But in Jacksonville, Florida, a
five year old boy woke up before his parents did
on a I think it was a weekend and decided
(34:14):
that he was going to go get himself breakfast at
Chick fil A. Walked still dressed in his bedclothes down
to Chick fil A, where the police were called, showed up,
found the kid said, hey, where do you live? Where's
mom and dad? The whole thing is on the body
(34:35):
cam that has been released from the Jacksonville Police Department.
They show up at mom and dad's house. They ring
the doorbell. Mom and dad have no idea the five
year old has left the house. And it is quite
the funny positive story. It goes to Bucks point about
in general they much more seriously, but they had a
(34:57):
shooting in Florida and they tried to say, oh, this
was unjustified. Every time, it feels like the actual body
cam comes out, by and large you see that the
police are justified in actually doing a pretty good job,
and this one much less seriously, is a fun story.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, it's up at clanbuck dot com. You can check
out the video there. Clay also shared it. It's gotten
millions of views there. I just it's it's funny to
me because I feel like I remember one time trying
to go to trying to walk to school when I
was way too young to do so, when I was
a kid. I think I got one block and turned around.
You know this is a thing that sometimes happens, but
that this kid actually showed this video. If you actually
(35:34):
showed up in the Chick fil A, yes, five years old.
He's just a little guy showed up in the Chick
fil A. He's very excited to get his chicken sandwich.
I suppose or does Chick fil A do a specific breakfast?
I don't know enough about you. Oh they Oh.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Yes, they got your great chicken. I mean again, they
should really sponsor the show. But they've got a great
chicken biscuit, They've got a very specific they got the
hash Browns Circle hash Browns, not like the big ones
like mc donald's. Uh, Chick fil A is flawless all
day long. But yes, they have a specific breakfast offering.
Are they? Is?
Speaker 5 (36:07):
That?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Is it all in? Your favorite your favorite fast food
chage chick.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Not even not even a close second. The number of
times I'm driving on a Sunday and I think, man,
I'd like to get Chick fil A and then realize, oh, Sunday,
they're not. They're they're closed, especially after a college football Saturday.
Maybe a few drinks the night before. Chick fil A
is by far my favorite. You have a favorite.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Uh yeah, yeah, I mean I can't have gluten obviously,
so that makes Chick fil A a little more complicated. Although
I love their grilled nuggets and their waffle fries are phenomenal,
so I do eat Chick fil A. I'm a big fan.
I know it's gonna make me sound like Kami Mamdani Clay,
but I'm a shake shack guy. I love shake shack,
just a little left wing, little left wing politics at
the top there.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Unfortunately, gotta go Chick fil A. We love all of you.
Thanks for hanging with us. We'll be back tomorrow with
you On Thursday,
All right.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Third Hour clay En book kicks off now, and we
are joined by Ben Shapiro, the founder of the Daily
Why Ben Shapiro podcast. New book Lions and Scavengers, The
True Story of America and her Critics, released yesterday. Ben,
appreciate you joining us, Thanks for being here, A lot
(00:21):
to talk to you about, Thanks for taking the time.
Really appreciate it. Well, let's I want to dive into
this one. I feel like you're I feel like you're
gonna have pretty sure you're gonna have some things to
say on this. Uh, not not hard to find topics
they to talk talk with you about. But cold Play, Now,
we could sit here and we could just make jokes
about how cold Play somehow went from cool to the
(00:42):
band that even people who love Nickelback feel comfortable making
fun of. Now, I think I think that's fair. But
Coldplay had a concert going on, and Chris Martin, the
lead singer of Coldplay, brought some people up on the stage.
Now we have this sound, we have this audio. Let's
let everyone here. So this is the lead singer of
cold Play in front of I don't know sixty thousand people,
(01:04):
one hundred thousand, whatever it is.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
However, many people are in this arena, and here's how
it goes. When he invites some just people listeners on
the stage of them play it. Oh, I thought I
thought we had this one in the mix. I'm sorry,
producer Mark, tell me which one we have this uploaded
as when you get a second, uh and and there
(01:28):
we go. Let's play it.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Where did you from Israel?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Okay, very grateful Haubans like treating you us regardless of
why you cal football.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Thank you for being hiding for dring and.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Thank you for.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Well those troves, so just for everyone.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
It's kind of hard to hear that audio a little bit,
but the lead singer says, you're here as humans. Thank
you for being here as humans, and also thank you
to all the Palestinians in the audience. That's kind of
a weird way to approach this.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Ben.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
Yeah. Well, as I've said, you know, the Yiddish word
for him is schmuck. He's terrible. I mean, when your
second worst decision actually is marrying Gwyneth Paltrow, you know
things are going wrong for you. But Chris Martin doing
this routine here. Can you imagine any other group of
people that he would do this for truly, think of
the situation we're reversed. You have a couple of people,
he calls him up on stage. He says, where are
(02:34):
you from? And they say the Gaza Strip, and he says, well,
I just want to make clear you're humans. So first
of all, Chris Martin is not the person who gets
to bestow humanity upon you. Chris Martin that he's.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Not a cold Play fan.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
We've got here with mister Shapiro, but go ahead, yeah,
now Coldplay sucks. But also the idea that he's going
to like knight you as a human because you have
come to a cold Play concert and then to immediately
swivel and say, oh yeah. And by the way, the
people who are on the other side of the war
from the people the year on the side of and
who initiated, you know, the worst massacre of Jews since
the Holocaust, we got some of those in the stadium
(03:08):
as well, And I just want to acknowledge it. If
this were at Palestinians and they came up said we're
from the Gaza Strip. Can you imagine a situation in
which Chris Martin then turns around and says, and also
to all the Israelies in the audience, and it's cont
for all the Israelis and that we're so happy to
see you here, No way in hell. It just shows
you that default leftism at this point has just turned
(03:28):
to a sort of anti Israel pro hamas Gaza sympathetic stands,
and that that's why he feels uncomfortable. I mean, that's
the real question we should be asking, is why does
he feel so damn uncomfortable? Like who cares He's got
a couple of fans they come from Israel. If I
were giving a concert and somebody came up and they said,
I'm from Russia, okay, when you started lecturing them aout
the Russia Ukraine War, it's bizarre.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
We're talking to Ben Shapiro.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Ben.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
We were talking the last hour about the Graham Lenahan
situation in England. Five of the armed officers waiting for
him as he comes off the airplane over tweets that
the British government deemed worthy of investigation. How do we
fix this? Because I think Western civilization if we are
in the position where countries that should be natural American
(04:15):
allies are sending police to investigate tweets and I'm not
talking about tweets where you say, hey, I'm going to
kill the president of the United States. Obviously, direct threats
of violence are different, but clear jokes.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
How do we fix this well, I mean, I think
that there are definitely levers of pressure that we can
exert on the UK. I think that obviously we have
a lot of the military cooperation, economic cooperation with the UK,
and President Trump is very fond of using leverage in
a lot of these different situations, up to and including
things like, for example, tariffs, and I don't think that
would be a bad policy here saying to the UK, listen,
(04:50):
we cannot do proper commerce with the country that by
the way, we'll actually pass laws that have an effect
on American commerce because whatever is the free speech code
in Britain, which apparently does not include bad old tweets.
If that is the standard, they will apply that to
tech companies in the United States. They'll apply that to x,
they will apply that to Facebook. This has been like
a very hot and fraught topic for the tech companies,
(05:12):
the social media companies. How do you even operate in
countries in Europe that have different speech standards? If it
is now going to be a prosecutable offense if you
tweet something, then how exactly is Twitter supposed to set
its policies for the United States your point? And so
I do think that the government does have some areas
of leverage here, but it does more deeply speak to
this cultural rot at the heart of Western civilization. Now
(05:36):
that the kind of importation of people who hate the
principles of the country and then a pandering to precisely
those principles. Because the same exact country that is now
prosecuting a comedian for making bad tweets over over trans
topics is the same country that covered up, you know,
actual Muslim grooming gangs in the UK, and that is currently,
by the way, attempting to now import apparently thousands of
(05:57):
gozzins from the Gaza Strip. That's something that wasnnounced by
Event Cooper, the Home Secretary, literally yesterday. So good luck
to civilization that is so intent on committing suicide.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
My goodness, talk to us, Bend if you would, about
the book which I know just came out yesterday, and
it's got a premise that this audience is going to
want to hear about lions and scavengers. The true story
of America. Walk us through a little bit of this.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
Sure, So this is the basic idea, is that humanity
at this point is divided between lions, people who wish
to build, who wish to uphold and strengthen important institutions
like family, church, bounce of power, private property. Those are
the lions, the people who wish to build and make
the world a better place. And then there are scavengers,
people who are creatures of envy who just want to
tear everything down. They see problems in their life, they
attribute it to the systems that they've actually benefited from,
(06:43):
and then decide they want to tear it down. And
one of the points that I make in the book
is that this isn't just a question of populations and groups.
It's also a question inside the human heart. That every
morning we all have to get up and decide whether
to be a lion or a scavenger. We all have
problems in our life. We decide to attribute that to
some outside conspiracyatorial malign force and then tilted windmills and
make our life for us, or do we decide to
(07:04):
get up and actually make our life better by taking
the duty bound moral action. That's ay a civilization that
takes the lions, the innovators, the defenders of the civilization,
the people who build the social fabric, and then basically
attacks them because they are too successful, because they're the
oppressors or the exploitative. Is a civilization doomed to failure?
And I think that we are as a civilization facing
(07:27):
that possibility.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Ben, how should we handle Buck and I were just
talking about this, and I do think in the wake
of COVID and in the wake of so much cultural shift.
I'm sure you saw Malcolm Gladwell come out and say, hey,
basically I got everything wrong on the trans issue. Of course,
men shouldn't be able to compete in women's sports, but
(07:50):
he said at the Sloan Conference at MIT the exact opposite.
A few years ago, on a panel, I shared that
there were direct consequences for me and my media company
when it comes to companies that would advertise with us
or not because I said the truth that men shouldn't
be able to compete with women. But if you are
on the wrong side of that issue or any issue,
(08:12):
public statements like gladwill, how should we take them convenient
and real? Or is this an attempt to acknowledge that
all humans get things wrong, and sometimes we should publicly
point that out.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
So you know, I think that forgiveness is usually the
better alternative here, magnanim magnanimity in victory I think is
probably the best alternative. But now he's in a trust
but verify situation. If we run up against another one
of these things and Gladwell takes the wrong side of it,
then I think it's fair to ask him the question,
are you doing this because of the public pressure that
you are receiving, because obviously you've done that before. I
(08:48):
think it's better. We actually want to incentivize people to
do this right. Just as a movement. We want to
incentivize people to come forward and say I got it wrong.
I never should have caved to this sort of pressure,
and we want to create incentive structure so they don't
cave to the pressure again. If we just kind of
take their apology and then bootstomp them, then what we
are actually doing is encouraging people not to reverse themselves,
not to correct the mistakes of the past.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Well, Ben, I have a couple of just grab bag
but important questions to throw your away as well, And
remember everyone Ben's book has just come out yesterday and
it is Lions and Scavengers. So Ben, first of all,
because you would have some experience with this, because of
your friend and colleague, mister Matt Walsh. Kamala Harris is
going to Clay's hometown of Nashville to give a book tour,
(09:32):
and the audience seems very the audience of the show
is very convinced that it is Clay's duty. I would
argue his duty to wear a Future is Female t
shirt and put his hair up in a Matt Walsh
homage style man bun and go to the VIP section
of the Kamala book tour event in Clay's hometown of Nashville.
(09:52):
Where do you, sir, as also someone who spends a
lot of time in Nashville, come down on this issue.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
I mean, I'm shocked that you're even asking the question
of cour course, he has a moral, perhaps a biblical
obligation to tell you that. Actually, I would say that
he may be consigned to the everlasting flames of hell
if he doesn't. I think that that's on the table.
If he doesn't do this, I think that that pretty
clearly he has to do it.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
No, I just I just wanted Ben to get on
the record with millions of people listening, Clay that this
the future's female t shirt. We know what the future
is of this mission. And now Ben has weighed in
heartily on the side of the audience and yours truly,
which is I think this needs to happen.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
And God himself, God himself. I'm not sure where it's
actually written in the Bible, but if you have to bet,
put it in Leviticus. H five hundred dollars is the
cheapest ticket to go watch Kamala Harrison Nashville, which I
still can't believe, and it goes all the way up
to twenty seven hundred play you're super rich. Give me
a break.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
One more thing on this though, Ben, because because help
us with this, Clay and I have a little bet going,
we're not gonna be able to solve it for a while.
Is Kamala Harris going to run again for president? We
will mark this down. We will have this clip for
you when you come back in a few years, and
we know the answer. Is she going to on again?
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Or was it too disastrous?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And she even she knows it.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
Yeah, not in twenty twenty eight. I mean there are
so many wineries in California, she has to get through first.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
That's a good line, all right.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
So here's a here's a big, big picture of question.
This is what my book, which is out in November,
that I've spent a lot of time grappling with. I know,
you've got young kids, I've got the three boys. How
do Democrats, like, let's leave aside a big structural issues
that they clearly have, but how do Democrats get back
(11:32):
to where men, just normal dudes, do not see their
party as a party of feminized absurdity? How do they
get back to where a regular guy who wants to
have a beer and go watch a game would vote Democrat?
Because I think that's the biggest issue that they actually face.
Leaving aside the particulars of what their policies are, what
(11:54):
would you think they need to do?
Speaker 5 (11:56):
I mean, the fact that we even have to ask
the question means that there's not really an easy way
out for them, because that's like, how do you cosplay masculinity?
And the answer is, I mean, you really don't have
to if you're just a dude. So how about you
start with men should not play in women's sports? Duh?
Men are not women, and a rama manual actually is
now coming out and saying that, how about you, like
just go act in the world as a man and
(12:16):
get caught on camera acting in the world as a
man unapologetically. You don't have to ask President Trump or
Jdvans what it's like to be a man, because they're
just doing kind of man things, which doesn't that's I'm
not even talking about, like picking up heavy weights and
walking around bare chested or something like being a normal dude. Actually,
isn't that difficult for those of us who are dudes.
But Democrats seem to have a very tough time with that,
(12:36):
and they keep apologizing for it. By the way, got
to give you big credit right there at Clay for
pumping your own book in a spot where you're supposed
to be pumping mine. That is a bold movie. I
didn't know was going to call you out for that,
but I'm glad he did. I'm going to say this,
I'm glad he's got a book. Ben has got a book,
Scavengers and Wines. I encourage you to all buy it
while you're there. My book is called Balls.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
It's not out till November, but you could pre order
it and you can buy them together, which seems like
a brilliant idea. By the way, Bucks got a book
out in January. Can get three books at one time.
It's just brilliant.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
It's just the brilliant spundle of one line.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
You know better than anybody been. You have to be
shameless to cut through the noise and always be closing.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
Buddy.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Oh yeah, the books one last thing for you. Also
helping us settle another bet, the greatest fictional children's series
of all time, Chronicles of Narnia or the Little you
Know Wizard Boy Books by Harry k Rowling.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
Harry Potry Potter. So, I mean, honestly, I'd go off
off the board. There's a there's a series called the
Edward Eager series that is fantastics from the fifties that
that's worth three. But you gotta go Chronicles of Narnia boom.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Having said that, Travis.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
I mean, does its religious? Thematics? Come on? I mean,
you're learning like you're reading about lions.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
It's cool and they're both are wrong. It's good. I
enjoyed it, but Harry Potter's better, doesn't jk Rowling deserve
a lot of credit she's a billionaire. She did need
to step into the gender identity battles, but she just
couldn't keep her mouth shut because she saw this as
being foundational in many ways. I find her to be
one of the true heroes. We talked about the comedians
getting arrested in Britain, but I find her to be
(14:14):
one of the true heroes actually right now, totally unexpectedly.
I never would would have anticipated this occurring. I totally
agree with this. I mean, she really did not have
to put herself out there, and the fact that she
did and then she's on Twitter every day defending it
in the most aggressive way.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
She's awesome. Like, really, kudos to her.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Ben Shapiro's book is out and it is Lions and Scavengers,
and get yourself a copy and maybe pick up other
books as you go. We'll leave it up to you,
but go get Lions and Scavengers. Ben, thanks for making the.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Time for us.
Speaker 5 (14:44):
Thanks guys, appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
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Speaker 6 (15:41):
You know him as conservative radio hosts, Now just get
to know them as guys on This Sunday Hang podcast
with Clay and Fuck.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Find it in their podcast feed, on the iHeartRadio app
or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome back in thanks
to bench Birou. A book is out right now. Well,
we got a lot to dive into, but let me
set the table for this story that is just starting
to percolate on the social media streets, reports that the
(16:10):
Trump administration may be offering New York City Mayor Eric
Adams a job in the administration in exchange for which
he would potentially drop out of the mayor's race. That
would still leave Sliwa and Andrew Cuomo, but it would
potentially make Mom Donnie a little bit more of a
(16:30):
potential target here.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
I look, first of all, if i'm Eric Adams advisory
team or whatever, yeah, take it. You're not gonna become
You're not gonna be mayor, You're not gonna win. You
have the worst numbers of any of the candidates right now,
I think, including Sliwa, or at least I believe it's
very close. And now Sue as a Republican, so it's
not a slight on him, but I'm just saying he's
not gonna be He's not gonna be mayor either. The
(16:55):
fact that Andrew Cuomo, though is supposed to be the
savior here Clay as a New Yorker who was living
in New York during Cuomo's tenure as governor, that's very
that's a very tough pill to swallow isis he will
be marginally better than Mam Donnie on a few things.
He was a horrifying governor during COVID, horrifying.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
All of that is true. I do think this is
one of those situations. Trump and Cuomo have known each
other for fifty years, So whatever they might say publicly,
I think this is an example of somebody that Trump
feels like he knows, and even it's a sign of
how bad Mam Donnie is. That Cuomo could be the
(17:39):
savior in any situation. But it appears that Eric Adams
is on the verge of dropping out. What does Curtis
Slee would do? What should he do? We'll talk about
that when we come here.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
You should if if Cuomo manages to be the last
guy left, he should offer sleiwa, you'll be my deputy
mayor in charge of police and you know, police relations
and and public safety, something like that. I wonder if
you'd take it. On days you need energy, you need chalk,
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(18:10):
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(18:53):
Buck on a massive discount on a subscription. Go check
it out Chalk dot com. Welcome back in to play
and Buck. Very interesting news year at breaking We're just
discussing about Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City
and Martha's hardest city. Of course, my former hometown and
in many ways always my hometown, that he is being induced,
(19:16):
perhaps by the Trump administration, to drop out of the
mayor's race, that he absolutely will not win. Like he
he definitely won't win. He's he's not even close to
the to some of the other contenders, namely Mamdanni and Cuomo. Guys,
tell me if if whether Sliwa or or Adams has
(19:37):
more support in the polls right now, I'd be interested
to see that, because if you're a Republican, a lot
of them are gonna are gonna go Sliwa, right So,
I think Adams might be in last place right now
of the of the candidates that anyone's heard of. There
might even be some other candidates in the mix. So
I'm not watching it as closely as I used to
because I don't live in New York. But we're paying
attention here, of course on Clay and Buck to the
(19:59):
broad strokes of what's going on. And here's what I
what I think you'll see. Clay, this is a reminder
to everybody that Eric Adams. We're talking before about whether
something is opportunistic or something is in earnest when someone
says I was wrong or I when they're willing to
speak out against the dominant narrative when it was very
(20:22):
important for the nation. Eric Adams, he's not a good mayor, Okay,
I don't think he's he's not a malignant mayor. Like
he's not Deblasio, who just tried to you know, he
he was like a malignant tumor on the city of
New York. Deblasio tried to do everything he could to
(20:43):
undermine New York City. In my opinion, I was living
there when he was mayor, right, I think Eric Adams,
you know, I was not really up for the job
in a lot of ways. But I think that he
was trying, you know, he's trying to back the police more,
trying to do things better. But on the issue of
illegals in New York City. This really elevated it because
(21:04):
he was the first major voice of any city in
America who was a Democrat to come out and say, hey,
this is a problem and this needs to stop, Like
we can't just allow these people who need a tremendous
amount of resources, who do take resources from the you know,
from the rest of the American public. Thirty percent of
(21:26):
emergency room visit it's twenty percent of all hotel rooms.
I mean you start to look at these numbers, right,
it's and this factored Clay into I think the broader
narrative about how bad Biden's ten million plus illegal you know,
jail break into America was. And I think that you
saw one. The Democrats went after Adams to make an
(21:46):
example of him with this corruption case about the airline
ticket upgrades or whatever with tururkeysh airlines air The funniest
job they could give him would be ambassador to Turkey.
Trump does have a decent sense of human or if
he made Airy Adams the ambassador to Turkey, it would
be absolutely hysterical. We probably have an ambassador to Turkey already,
(22:07):
So whoever that is, I apologize, but I do think
the comedy value of him in Turkish airlines, you know,
would take care of him. But yeah, like the corruption
they went after him for was absurd. Yeah, and you
look at actual Democrat corruption out there that they're willing
to turn a total blind eye. Do you look at
Hunter Biden selling half million dollar paintings. Okay, like we
(22:28):
know that they'll do anything for power and sort of
pretend that flight upgrades. My point here, Clay, is that
Eric Adams was now maybe he saw down the line
that there was an opportunity here that's playing four D
chess a bit that there could be this situation playing out.
I think it's more likely that he just realized this
(22:49):
is a mess. They're making a mess of my city
with this illegal influx problem that's been going on with Biden,
and he played an important so, you know, if they
could find the right spot for him in the administration,
I think that he performed an important national public service
even if he wasn't a very good mayor by speaking
the truth about illegals.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
I also think they would have to find a job
for Curtis sliwa And I understand that everybody says I'm
not leaving the race, I'm all in for it, And
I understand why Sliwah would say I'm the better option
than Cuomo. Look at how bad Cuomo was during COVID.
This guy doesn't deserve the job. But if there's anything
other than one actual opposition to Mamdani, Mamdanni wins. So
(23:36):
you have to rely upon people to do what may
be not at the peak of their own best interest
in order to advance the City of New York's best interests,
and a lot of politicians aren't willing.
Speaker 5 (23:48):
To do that.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Just to be clear, I mean, I'm basically right on this.
I knew I was directionally right. Adams is the weakest.
Sliwa has more support in most of the polls because
he's the Republican and there's a decent number of Republicans
in the five boroughs, he has more support than Adams
the clay. That's another way of saying the existing mayor
(24:10):
of New York is doing the worst in this mayor election.
So whatever job the Trump administration's thinking of offering Eric Adams,
it's probably a pretty good deal for Eric Adams.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
May not even need a Trump job. To be fair
to Eric Adams, I would think there are a lot
of people in New York City who could hire Eric
Adams to come work inside of their company, pay him
way more than a government job pays. To effectively be
a lobbyist in New York City. I mean, the guy has,
whatever you think about him, the guy has tons of
connections to help get things done in New York City.
(24:45):
And for some of these billionaires that are out there
that really desperately care about the future of New York City,
having at Eric Adams one of a thousand people on
their payroll is not a bad decision either. By the way,
same thing could be said about Curtis Sleiewa. If you
look at the gambling markets right now, zoorun, Mom Donnie
eighty percent chance of being elected mayor of New York City,
(25:09):
Andrew Cuomo eighteen percent, Eric Adams less than one percent,
Curtis Sliwa less than one percent. So what the markets
are telling us here is it's Cuomo or it's Mom Donnie,
and basically nobody else has a chance.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
I know, Mom Donnie is a mom. Donnie is a
Kami and the stuff he's saying Cuomo's awful, though I don't.
Cuomo is the guy behind I know. I focus on
the COVID part of this, and you know him doing
the Oh, let's do a press conference. Let's talk about
Cuomo chips. If you're gonna sit at a bar, you
need to order food like he went through all I
(25:48):
was watching these day in and day out. Yeah, and Clay,
he's the Jim Break Emmy do.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
At that they gave him a special Emmy for his
press conference.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, of course that. It was musty TV in New
York at the time because of the theatrics around all
the things that he was demanding we do. And I
would just say, yeah, that was bad. But also he
was the the jail break guy, the jail break bill
up in Albany, the no cash bail. A lot of
the criminal justice problems that New York then had to
(26:22):
deal with then just sort of disorder and decay on
the streets were directly pushed by Cuomo. So I mean
he is Yeah, he's not a communist, Okay, So would
he be better for the business environment? Sure, you know,
are there I recognize, But man, is he not an
exciting alternative even based you know, he's better than Mamdani,
(26:43):
but barely, is what I'm saying. Like, it's not great
if he becomes the mayor. It's not like New Yorker
should celebrate it that much.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
And this is where I come back to the argument
I've made related to New York City's mayor. Let him
make a bad choice, all right.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Nashville, Man, that's enough, that's enough out of you.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
I want Mom Donnie to be one of the faces
of the Democrat Party in twenty twenty six. And if
that means that we have to pick an awful leader
for New York City, why should all the same people
of New York have to band together to protect Democrats
from the choice that they made.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
And now I know how you Alabama football fans feel.
Clay just when he's just poking you to poke you, you
know what I mean, He's just sort of poking the
bear here. We don't want New York to have a
communist mayor who ruins the place. It's going to be very,
very bad for a lot of people, and and it
could spread. You think the big miss, uh, it was
(27:41):
the Bush phrase misunderestimated?
Speaker 3 (27:43):
I did there, the big.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Underestimation underestimation, Thank you misunderestimated. It's fun to say, like
great biga, Yeah, is it a word? I know it
is not a word, but it's not a word miss.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
And the point to underestimate, the combination of the two
is kind of makes sense or to create Yes, yeah,
I agree.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
You know Bush Bush was a you know, it was
a wordsmith by accident. So I would say the the
problem we've seen in a lot of these cities. Look
at Chicago, perfect example. You could have argued, Lori Lightfoot,
you need to have Lori Lightfoot's administration, which is anti
cop business as usual for the corrupt daily machine of Chicago.
(28:27):
Go down the list all this stuff, and then people
will figure it out, Clay. They went even crazier with
the next mayor.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Yeah, they did so. And I just think New York
City might need to might need to Sometimes you got
to let the kids make the bad decision.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
W or listeners, do you hear this? He wants He
just thinks that you need to feel the pain. He
thinks that you need to like, uh, like Bruce Wayne's
parents in Gotham, watch your back when you're going to
a Broadway show, you know, and this is not the
way we want it.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
I I appreciate everybody who is smart enough not to
vote for Mom Donnie. They're already listening to us. A
lot of them know, they're nodding along right now, saying
sometimes experience is the best teacher, and sometimes Democrats need
to experience the consequences of their own choices in order
(29:19):
to recognize that it's a poor decision. You can only
tell people for so long. And I was reading, I mean,
this is actually super sad. I was reading over the weekend,
getting ready for the show this week. The number of
people out there that are landlords. You know, they want
to talk about freezing rent. You know what doesn't get
frozen most of the time. Property taxes. So the number
(29:41):
of landlords, I mean some of you who own buildings,
they think they try to turn it into oh, everybody's
so rich af their landlords. They had to give The
New York Times credit a really good profile on a
woman in the Bronx who was a landlord. Can't afford
to pay her mortgage because they won't allow her to
raise the rent. But yet her property taxes keep going up,
(30:04):
and so she actually is losing money based on what
she's allowed to charge her residence and the property basically
makes no sense. And so this is the reality of
when you stop people from being able to charge the
rents that they should, sometimes you are creating situations where
(30:26):
the loss basically goes straight to the property owner in
exchange of the renter.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
This is why Ron DeSantis, and this is very important
for the state of Florida and governed DeSantis, I think
is completely correct on this and this should be getting
more attention. This is why Ron DeSantis is trying to
get through the state state legislature in tallahassee a change
in the way. I mean, look, it's trying to end
property tax There's some more specifics to it, but probably
(30:52):
you have in Florida right now. And there's a lot
of people on fixed income here, a lot of retirees here.
We all know that. And you have property value who
have because of supplying demand, gone up dramatically, but they
do it as a percentage of your assessed value.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
So you get all these Floriding you get all these
people that are like I was living in a you know,
a three or four hundred thousand dollars house, and I
was perfectly happy, and maybe even my mortgage was paid off.
Now I have to pay taxes on a one point
two million dollar house. Yeah no, I mean, or the
state will take my home. How is that fair? You're
renting your house now from the state. It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
This is what Californians had to deal with and why
they basically put in place I think. I mean, the
propositions have passed that don't allow property values to be
raised at you know, exorbitant rates relative to your point.
There's a lot of people who bought homes. I mean,
this is sadly one of the results of the fires
(31:49):
in Los Angeles. A lot of people were living in
those homes for decades. They could never have afforded them.
If they were buying them in real time, house burned
down and basically nothing is getting rebuilt there. I mean,
have you seen some of the helicopter footage of I know,
the immediate aftermath of the natural disaster. Eventually the attention
(32:11):
kind of goes away. By and large, they have not
been able to get back to building those homes back
to where they were. I mean, it's just sadly what
one party rule has created is everything is broken, much
of it in California. Look tomorrow, we've got the NFL returning.
We were talking about this. I was talking about it
(32:33):
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Speaker 6 (33:37):
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Speaker 3 (33:52):
Welcome back in Clay Travis buck Sexton show Let's send
you off into your Wednesday with a fun story is
up at clayanbuck dot com. But in Jacksonville, Florida, a
five year old boy woke up before his parents did
on a I think it was a weekend and decided
(34:14):
that he was going to go get himself breakfast at
Chick fil A. Walked still dressed in his bedclothes down
to Chick fil A, where the police were called, showed up,
found the kid said, hey, where do you live? Where's
mom and dad? The whole thing is on the body
(34:35):
cam that has been released from the Jacksonville Police Department.
They show up at mom and dad's house. They ring
the doorbell. Mom and dad have no idea the five
year old has left the house. And it is quite
the funny positive story. It goes to Bucks point about
in general they much more seriously, but they had a
(34:57):
shooting in Florida and they tried to say, oh, this
was unjustified. Every time, it feels like the actual body
cam comes out, by and large you see that the
police are justified in actually doing a pretty good job,
and this one much less seriously, is a fun story.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, it's up at clanbuck dot com. You can check
out the video there. Clay also shared it. It's gotten
millions of views there. I just it's it's funny to
me because I feel like I remember one time trying
to go to trying to walk to school when I
was way too young to do so, when I was
a kid. I think I got one block and turned around.
You know this is a thing that sometimes happens, but
that this kid actually showed this video. If you actually
(35:34):
showed up in the Chick fil A, yes, five years old.
He's just a little guy showed up in the Chick
fil A. He's very excited to get his chicken sandwich.
I suppose or does Chick fil A do a specific breakfast?
I don't know enough about you. Oh they Oh.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Yes, they got your great chicken. I mean again, they
should really sponsor the show. But they've got a great
chicken biscuit, They've got a very specific they got the
hash Browns Circle hash Browns, not like the big ones
like mc donald's. Uh, Chick fil A is flawless all
day long. But yes, they have a specific breakfast offering.
Are they? Is?
Speaker 5 (36:07):
That?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Is it all in? Your favorite your favorite fast food
chage chick.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Not even not even a close second. The number of
times I'm driving on a Sunday and I think, man,
I'd like to get Chick fil A and then realize, oh, Sunday,
they're not. They're they're closed, especially after a college football Saturday.
Maybe a few drinks the night before. Chick fil A
is by far my favorite. You have a favorite.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Uh yeah, yeah, I mean I can't have gluten obviously,
so that makes Chick fil A a little more complicated. Although
I love their grilled nuggets and their waffle fries are phenomenal,
so I do eat Chick fil A. I'm a big fan.
I know it's gonna make me sound like Kami Mamdani Clay,
but I'm a shake shack guy. I love shake shack,
just a little left wing, little left wing politics at
the top there.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Unfortunately, gotta go Chick fil A. We love all of you.
Thanks for hanging with us. We'll be back tomorrow with
you On Thursday,
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