January 20, 2023 • 36 mins
Allowing the Dobbs SCOTUS leaker to skate sets a dangerous precedent. Buck said he has some experience with serious leak probes from when he was in the CIA and notes about the current situation, "I don't think they really wanted to catch the leaker." Chris Wray does Davos, praises FBI collusion with Big Business. The real story on the debt ceiling. Clay asks, "What comes after trillion?" Paul Krugman calls GOP "economic terrorists." Nikki Haley looks like she's making a run for president in 2024.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to today's edition of the Clay Travis and Buck
Sexton Show podcast. Welcome in Friday edition Clay Travis buck
Sexton Show. We have got a bevy of stories to
dive into throughout the course of this program with you
the debt ceiling fighting, maybe the misconstruing of that as
a fight. The Supreme Court essentially going to allow whoever
(00:23):
leaked to the Dabbs opinion and put a legitimate target
on all of the conservative Supreme Court justices. They are saying, Hey,
we just don't know who did it. What do we
think about that? Shannon Breen will join us in the
next hour, and it's actually where I want to start
right now. Buck. I read this report that was issued
on the full investigation surrounding the leak of the Dabbs report. Buck,
(00:47):
and one of the things that I thought was interesting
was they required everyone to sign an affidavit under penalty
of perjury that they had nothing to do with the
leaking of the Dabbs affidavit and everyone signed that. It's
almost like, you know, you're trying to catch somebody by
their refusal to sign that affidavit as a sign that
(01:09):
they may have done something that would be improper. But
one aspect of the report that I thought deserved some
discussion because it leads me to what I think likely
happened here. First of all, it doesn't sound like they
even questioned the Supreme Court justices, so they immediately considered
all of them to be above reproach. But they did,
(01:30):
in the questioning determine that several different employees of the
Supreme Court discussed the Dabs ruling and their understanding of
that draft ruling with their spouses or their significant others.
Here's what I think happened, and I'm curious how you
would analyze this. First, it's I think it's an awful
(01:51):
precedent that we are not catching whoever leaked this opinion,
because it sets in motion the possibility for their contentious
cases in the future, the idea that you can do
this and get away with it. And I think it
may well happen again in another contentious case. And so
(02:11):
given that this directly led to an assassination attempt on
a Supreme Court justice in Brett Kavanaugh, and has led
to consistent protests outside of Supreme Court justice's homes, which
the federal government and the state governments in both Maryland
and Virginia, and also the District of Columbia. Again, the
federal government don't seem at all interested in curtailing and
(02:33):
stopping Buck. I think someone was smart here. They got
a printed copy of this proposed ruling. They brought it home,
They discussed it with their spouse, They put it down
on a table and said, I can't do anything with this.
I am duty bound under my Supreme Court responsibilities and
(02:54):
code of ethics. But you, meaning the spouse, meaning the
significant other, are not similarly constrained. I think, based on
reading this report, that's likely the way this got out.
One of those people, maybe it was a clerk, maybe
it was an employee, brought home this ruling, this proposed
(03:16):
draft opinion, and put it on the table, discussed it
with a significant other, and the significant other took it
straight to Politico. Because I'm thinking about it also from
Politico's perspective, if you got this like Buck, if you
and I suddenly got a story of this significance dropped
on our front doorstep, yeah, we would significantly question whether
(03:40):
we were getting set up with something that was an
elaborate hoax, an elaborate fake. Right If your spouse works
in the Supreme Court, and they say, this is the
draft of the biggest Supreme Court decision in certainly a decade,
and perhaps many people would argue much longer than that. Yeah,
you're gonna think that that's real. By the way, I
think you're It's interesting because I have some experience with this.
(04:01):
I was in the CIA during a number of leak
probes because of the War on Terror, and you know,
people will remember now some of the you know, the
various revelations things like waterboarding and things that we now
all talk about. There was a time, you know, people
discuss a black site somewhere, all these things, all these
(04:23):
discussions that became very very public. Initially, there was a
huge surge within the intelligence community of out of outrage
internally at how can anybody betray our trust by telling
you know, Washington Post, you named any of these entities
about this. And it's funny you brought up the signing
of the affidavit under penalty of perjury. You know, that's
(04:47):
very rarely are those things prosecuted, but it does have
some legal teeth. It's different in an intelligence community context
because immediately with the serious leak you're talking about federal
statutes under the Espionage Act where people ken get sent
to prison for decades and that half for decades, not
just for you know, a year or two. So I mean,
obviously depends on the severity of the league and what
(05:08):
people uh, you know, what was exposed and the intent
behind it. But the polygraph is always one of the
things that that they want to go for right away
for obvious reasons. Anyone's read a spy novel and knows
when they do counterintelligence work, they'll start saying, all right,
we're gonna poly everybody. And what they're really just the
easiest thing is when someone says, I'm not taking I'm
(05:29):
not taking a polygraph. All that like trying to turn
around when you see a DUI checkpoint, right Like if
you if you see one of the in ahead of
you and you're like, oh, I'm gonna make a quick
U turn, cops are immediately like, yeah, let's go stop,
let let's go check on that pretty good sign that
you're telling on yourself in some way. I mean, my
my uncle who was a was a law enforcement officer
(05:49):
LAPD and actually Savannah PD as well. Um. He told
the story once that he was at a. You know,
there was a time when Savannah had a lot of shootings.
It was a pretty pretty island city. It's now as
you know, I'm like a huge Savannah Superfanily was like beautiful.
I love it. I'd go any chance I can, and
I do love it. But he was there in the
nineties when things are rough, and I remember he said
(06:10):
he was at a he was out of shooting, and
he just did the usual because people had gathered it
was broad daylight. People had gathered around. There's a body
they're you know, coordinate it off with the caution tape.
He says, did anybody see anything? And he says there's
one guy who just yells, look, I didn't. He says,
I didn't kill nobody. Guy puts his hands up, So
I didn't kill nobody. Turns out Clay that guy when
(06:34):
they continued to question him because they were just you know,
the question wasn't did you get it, It was to
the whole crowd, did anyone see anything? Yeah, I didn't
kill anybody. Turns out I didn't kill anybody. Actually, you know,
he needed a lawyer up. So you know, when you
see these investigations, there's a lot of ways they can
they can go forward in this regard or you know,
in terms of the tactics and the procedures they can use.
(06:55):
I just think that they're they're My two takeaways from
this are one, I don't think they really wanted to
find the person. Now I'm not saying they didn't go
through the motions and they would have accepted it if
they had found out, but I think they don't. They
didn't really want to find the person because it would
only add to my number two takeaway here, which is
certainly one end of the ideological spectrum just reviews the
(07:18):
Supreme Court now as a weapon of politics and power
and has no respect for it whatsoever, and was willing
in this moment, was willing to try to change a
Supreme Court decision. You know, we talked about changing the
refusal to accept election results and a threat to our democracy.
This was effectively a sabotage of the Supreme Court, which
(07:42):
let's all remember in two thousand, Supreme Court has decided
how an election will go. So you could even make
an argument that the sabotage of the Supreme Court goes
to the ultimate level of our government. This was massive
and I think the ramifications of this will last a
long time, and it's very hard for anybody to make
the case now that the Supreme Court hasn't just become
(08:05):
entirely now politicized in a way that is irretrievable. And
I think that's where we are, and I think the
justices all kind of know that. Do you agree with
me on the because I think if you assess the
overall landscape and kind of contemplate what you know, the
only way Politico runs with this is if they know
(08:27):
that it is a very reliable way that it came
into their possession right, So it has to be whoever
was there, Tipper has to be like, I brought this
directly from my wife's kitchen table. She is the Supreme
Court clerk for insert justice here, or my husband is
the long time you know, secretary of the Supreme Court,
(08:52):
and I'm just tossing it and he brought this home
and you can look him up. But it can't be
from us. You know, you're gonna give us anonymity associated
with how you got sourcing on this. But there's so
many elaborate fakes. Politico was one hundred percent right right.
This was an accurate draft opinion. Everything that they reported
(09:12):
around it was true, and I don't blame Politico for
running with the story. From a journalism perspective, this is
a big deal, right, but also claim, I mean it didn't.
It doesn't really when they when they talk about in
this draft that you mentioned, or the document, the twenty
pages that the Supreme Court put out about the investigation,
(09:33):
they're really I mean conspiracy to commit an offense against
the United States or to fraud the United States. Very vague,
very broad. That would be a tough one power to
punish contempt of the court. Okay, maybe maybe you could
get it. Here's the question I have. Yeah, you're right,
unlike and you're raising an interesting point because when you're
working at the CIA like you did, everybody knows if
(09:56):
you lead documents you're in real serious trouble because there
is a criminal specifically designed to address that. Why wouldn't
Congress now pass a law that says, if you leak
a Supreme Court opinion, you are facing severe criminal That's
what I mean. I mean you effectively, I think, have
to treat Supreme Court drafts. As you know, it's illegal
(10:16):
to leak someone's tax returns. Notice, how the Trump tax
return thing where they for years Clay they were obsessed with.
This appeared the ultimate nothing burger was the Trump tax returns.
But because there's nothing specific here, there was a degree
of good faith that the Supreme Court system relied on
here from the people. It's small, not a lot of
people have access to it, and someone violated that good faith.
(10:40):
But all the different statutes that they lay out here
corruptly endeavoring to influence, intimidat, or impede an officer of
the court, these are broad. They'd be kind of tough
to bring. They don't have the teeth that I think
that you would need to get a full fledged, full
scale little investigation and prosecution going of someone like this.
(11:02):
And you have to wonder, I mean, did they put
a Supreme Court justice or really several Supreme Court justices
in jeopardy with this action in the CIA? What is
what is the thing that more than anything else people
think of as this is why we have to pre
classified spies like you know, background and then put them
on the chopping ball. You know, and anybody who's ever
(11:24):
seen any spy movie knows if you know, the bad
guys find out the identity of somebody who's spying for
the US government. That could cost that person their life,
It could cost that person's family their lives. So the severity,
the seriousness is very clear. Hence the reason for the
statutes that protect that information. Um those by the way,
they've had to clarify, even if those statutes have become
(11:45):
even more more solidified and legally aggressive over time. But
when you look at this, there's really I don't think
there's gonna be much consequence for the person who did it,
other than getting fired and then going on the book,
you know, getting the book deal and the the speaking tour.
This person, this is another part of this, is a
(12:06):
hero to the left, a hero to the left. They
there is no contempt for this individual from anybody who
was upset about the dabb's decision. They all think, hey,
nice nice try, nice nice shot here, Sorry it didn't
work out. That's why I think that the House Republican
should introduce a bill making this a definite crime with
(12:28):
significant consequences going forward in the event that someone does it.
Because to your point, even the perjury potentially in signing
the affidavit in the middle of the investigation, while it
might have legal consequences. You might lose your ability to
practice law. Is it that big of a deal when
you get a multimillion dollar book deal to write the
story of how you fought to try to keep Roe v.
(12:50):
Wade the story? I mean, now make a movie about you.
We'll make a television series about you. Yeah, ask getting Live?
Would you rather be the hero in the next you know,
Aaron Spelling drama that's picked up by Netflix. But how
you try to save a woman's right to her own
body or whatever? I think Aaron Spelling's dead? But oh,
I'm sorry the day I mean Beverly Hills nine Dynasty,
(13:15):
I think if I remember. But but yeah, because that
might have been confusing folks like, fuck, why do you
think that would be the right? Yeah, to a documentary,
who've done it on the on the leak of the
Supreme Court document But yeah, I would just wonder we'll
ask Shannon Bream about this. I would just wonder whether
there's any motivation at all to finally make this a
criminal offense, because I think it should be a criminal defense.
(13:38):
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(14:46):
From the front lines of truth, Clay Travis and buck Sexton,
you ask for miracles, THEO I give you the FEI
great Diehard reference. My favorite, maybe my favorite line in
that movie. Looks like we're going to eat some more
FBI agents. I mean, that is an incredibly well delivered line.
(15:07):
So we got FBI director, which is why we're thinking
of it. FBI director Christopher Ray talking at Davos, which
is just so interesting me the FBI director would even
be at Davos. What is he doing? But he's there,
and you're gonna want to hear this. He was praising
the collaboration in the FBI between public and private sector
(15:31):
play one. The sophistication of the private sector is improving,
and in particularly important, the level of collaboration between the
private sector and the government, especially the FBI, has I
think made significant strides. Pretty much every technology we could
talk about today we see both great opportunity but great
(15:52):
great dangers. So I think it's it's interesting Clay that,
given we've seen FBI Twitter suppression of free speech collaboration,
and understand that the FBI has probably also done the
same thing with Facebook and with Google and YouTube and
everything else, we need to start drawing much more bright
red lines between the effectively our own secret police and
(16:16):
what's going on here with big tech and the private
sector in general. I agree percent with that, and I
think that's one of the big things that the House
Republicans can and should do with their new majority. Think
about the tone deafness of this buck. If you are
already under fire for all of the unconstitutional, potentially entanglements
(16:40):
and directions and censorship that you have been leading the
charge on as it pertains to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, all
the big tech companies YouTube, then you get on a
jet and fly to Davos and go to the World
Economic Forum. It's a level of tone deafness that is
also I think symptomatic of arrogance. It's like when Hunter
(17:02):
Biden traveled cross country to Washington, DC to get on
Air Force one to fly to South Carolina for the
Biden family vacation. It's like putting your eye in the
face of everyone and being like, I'm not at all
concerned about what this looks like because my power is
so absolute. Thumb in the eye of I am the
(17:24):
face of what was thumb thumbing? They yeah, yeah, yeah, Um.
It just feels like such a flagrant, like double middle
finger to any critics to even go to Davos and
then to brag about how well you work with the
private sector. I mean, it's like a evil villain in
(17:44):
a Marvel film would be undertaking that role, and it
just ties in. I think with how much many of
these people truly believe they are above the law, that
they are protected and it doesn't matter what they might
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with Clay en Buck dot com. Welcome back in Clay
(19:07):
Travis Buck Sexton show. This debt ceiling battle is going
to count four months of account for months, I would say,
of news media stories before ultimately it gets resolved spoiler
alert without the United States defaulting and collapsing as a business.
(19:30):
Just just gonna let you know there is going to
be a resolution at some point. Now, what's become increasingly
clear is there are actually lots of Democrats, particularly in
the Senate, that seem willing to negotiate on this debt
ceiling related issue. And if that is true, then there
(19:53):
is a pretty good amount of leverage that Republicans have
here if Republicans remain steadfast. But buck the story here
on the debt ceiling is to me really missing the
bigger story, which is You've talked about this yesterday, and
I was reading the Wall Street Journal this morning. They
have a graphic I'm going to tweet it out for
(20:14):
people to look at. We had a five trillion dollar
national debt at the beginning of two thousand, right, which
means for our nation's entire history, from seventeen eighty three
when we became an independent country until twenty twenty, we
had built up a five trillion dollar national debt. Since
(20:37):
two thousand, we have taken a five trillion national debt
and it is now over thirty one trillion. So in
the space of twenty years, roughly, we have added over
twenty five trillion dollars two hour national debt. And that's
an average, rough math of over a trillion dollars a
(20:58):
year that we are adding to the national debt. And
I think we're on pace so far this year to
add around a trillion and a half dollars to the
national debt. And it got me thinking several things. One
you may know the answer of this, what comes after trillion?
You know, you go million, billion, trillion without looking it up. No,
(21:19):
I have to look it up. I don't know. No, No,
I'm gonna guess. Is it gazillion? Is that a real
thing that's made up? One? It's a quadrillion, So it's
trillion is like try so quadrillion like four? So you
have to look it up. I've been almost no one
out there knows because we keep And the reason why
I bring this up is I don't think it's crazy
to believe that in the lifetime of many of you
(21:42):
out there listening, and maybe in the next generation when
you start to factor in the rate of interest payments
and how much that's going to balloon and expand our
national debt, we're rapidly advancing towards a hundred trillion dollar
national debt. Buck Well, I think it's I think it's
worth asking if there's no downside to the dead, why
(22:05):
care at all? Because what's interesting is when you bring
this up, people say, oh, Republicans complained about the dead.
It's not a big deal. You know, you'll hear this,
and whether it's Paul Krugman at the New York Times
or any other leftist economists out there who will offer
up their credentials as a means of covering up for
the very basic and straightforward reality of this is about math.
(22:27):
It's about numbers, and it's a really big number that
does have implications for everybody and for the economy. The
same reason why you can say to people, well, if
you don't think that, you know, money printing is bad,
why not just give every American. I know, they just
said that they should give every African American five million
dollars in reparations. You know in California. You know that
(22:49):
would be on a smaller scale, but you could give
every American just a million dollars or five million dollars.
What's the downside? Well, we know that you would effectively
destroy the entire value of the currency itself. So we
know that can happen. And I wonder at what point
we're at that stage with the debt where you talk
about what could go wrong here? What are the bad
things from I do this with immigration with people, illegal
(23:10):
immigration with people all the time, because also it's not
a big deal or like you know these are you know,
it's a nation of immigrants, and we need the dreamers.
And I say, okay, is there any downside? Let's talk
about the downside first. Is there any downside? And once
they but there's a downside, you say, well, obviously the
downside is exacerbated by an increase in the numbers. Right,
So if you can establish that something bad happens in
(23:30):
some level, the more of that you have, the more
of the bad side you're going to have. If you
can establish with the debt that you're going to have
increasing payments on the money you've already paid, and that
that brings the number up even more, Yes, and that
this is going to crowd out private investment, private spending
in the economy. This is going to be a burden,
a debt burden that future generations are going to have
(23:51):
to service for things that they get no benefit from,
and the political instability that comes from that. And we
can agree on all of those things. Forty trillion trillion
sounds like a lot of money to me. Clay, Yes,
And you mentioned Paul Krugman. I'm glad you did. His
New York Times editorial this morning refers to Republicans who
(24:11):
are opposed to raising the debt ceiling as economic terrorists.
Oh my headline, Yes, literally in the print newspaper headline.
I don't know if they've changed it digitally online. I
meant to take a picture of it and tweeted out,
but yes, my newspaper this morning. I'm sitting there reading,
as I do every morning, the New York Times and
(24:33):
then the Wall Street Journal or vice versa, you know,
old school, old man print school copy, and I just
to know what everybody's saying. And Paul Krugman says that
you can't negotiate, that these are economic terrorists in the
Republican Party who are attempting to question the amount of
money that's being spent. And so I think what we're
(24:55):
gonna get, Buck, I think we are moving towards an era.
This is my theory. Clinton and Newt Gingrich hammered out
a budget that actually ended Remember that we had a surplus,
like we were actually bringing in more money than we
were spending, and our national debt actually started to go down.
(25:17):
And I think that was like ninety seven, ninety eight,
ninety nine. More of my argument, Buck, that the late
nineties were the greatest moments in American history. And then
in the two thousands, nine eleven happens, budgets get blown up,
and since then, we've basically allowed ourselves to believe one
crisis after another justifies as much spending as as as
(25:40):
we feel like we want to toss out there, right,
And Joe Biden was willing to spend five trillion more
dollars even though it took us to double digit inflation.
And so I wonder if there's going to be a
sort of acknowledgement of, hey, this is a big issue
and we have to resolve it, and the debt ceiling
(26:02):
is really just a prelude to a more substantive conversation
about a much bigger issue. Interesting in this exchange in
the New York Times, I'm seeing they had an opinion
section piece where they had I think it was a podcast.
They did a transcript of it and a naked case
that for this is from this transcript for Republicans. The
(26:23):
showdown in twenty eleven, they're from your previous debt ceiling
fights was the signal achievement of the Tea Party staring
down President Barack Obama and forcing the cuts associated with
the Budget Control Act. It validated one of the animating
forces of the right over the past decade that the
party's failures are a result of weak, feckless leadership and
if they fight, they win. For Democrats, this is a
(26:46):
guy Donovan saying this. For Democrats, including Joe Biden, who
as Vice President had a front row seat to that deal,
it was evidence of why you should never negotiate under
these circumstances because it enables and encourages more hostage taking. So,
you know what I think is interesting about about how
they frame this is that Clay Okay Republicans the Budget
(27:06):
Control Act. For people who actually remember the Budget Control Act,
and I'm going to say this is part of why
I think the Tea Party started to lose a little
bit of steam. The Budget Control Act was a reduction
in the amount of increase in federal spending. Yeah, it
wasn't actually a net decrease in all federal spending. The
Budget Control Act was we were going to increase it
(27:29):
by you know whatever. It was a few percentage points,
which in the context of a multi trillion dollar federal
budget is a massive amount of money. We're gonna drop
that down a little bit. So instead of increasing the budget,
you know, three percent, we're going to increase increase at
two point five percent or two percent. I forget what
the numbers were, but that's what that huge fight was
over a decrease in the increase. Yes, well, and that's
(27:52):
well said. And remember for you know, just back of
the envelope math here, and I'm far from an economist,
but the amount that we have to spend on social
security and medicare continues to grow, and it's growing now
much faster because the cost of living increases have to
take into account the massive rate of inflation. So we're
(28:13):
getting a big hit there to our budget. Simultaneously, we
are hitting monster numbers as it pertains to the five
percent soon to be five percent, I believe overall interest rate,
you know. And Buck, this is one of the things
that I think Trump floated that was brilliant, that got
(28:34):
almost no attention. Trump said, Hey, why wouldn't we go
ahead and refi our And again I don't know all
of the economic you know, involvement here, but he said,
why wouldn't we lock in the rate of our national debt,
the money that we have borrowed at like zero or
one percent interest when that was the rate, instead of
(28:58):
allowing it to float almost like you know, if you're
a if you're taking out a mortgage and you've got
a three percent mortgage. One reason the housing market has
frozen is a lot of people have a three percent
mortgage and they're like, why in the world would I
move and take a seven percent mortgage. It's going to
cost me way more money, even if I like a
new house better. Why wouldn't we have locked in if
(29:21):
it's possible? And Trump floated the idea, and I thought
it was brilliant our national interest rate, like you would
lock in a mortgage when the rates were really low.
I know this will sound sweeping because it is, and
it's not true in all cases, but I think it
is fair to say that our political leadership class, whether
it's in the White House or in Congress, is generally
(29:45):
mathematically and financially illiterate. Well, yes, there's that too, not
all of them, obviously, but a lot of them. And actually,
one of the things that Trump brought to the table
was an understanding of certainly business on the financial side
of things. And this is to this day, I said,
around and go, no one ever gives Trump credit for
the fact that the Biden trade policy visa each China
(30:06):
is the Trump trade policy. Remember they were saying he's
gonna start a trade war, he's gonna destroy the economy.
People like Krugman, by the way, saying that Trump was
right on that stuff. Yeah, and it is funny. You're right,
Biden hasn't even touched it. And you know what the
reality is, if Biden had come in and just continue
to run all Trump policies in every facet, the country
(30:29):
would be infinitely better off in every single arena. Really
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thirty two sixty nine. You get to know the guys
outside the issues. Sunday hang with Clay and Buck a podcasts,
fight it on the iHeart app or wherever you get
your podcasts. Welcome back to Clay an Buck. It is Friday.
You want to take your calls eight hundred two eight
two two eight eight two. Light up those lines, my friends,
(31:51):
and now we talk a little bit of twenty twenty
four stuff here. Sometimes it's gonna be in the background
because it's it's a big deal, as we all know.
And there are some names. Well, we talked about Biden,
is you going to run? Is it gonna be Kamala,
Is it gonna be possibly Gavin Newsom or even somebody
else on the right. There are two names to get
a lot of attention, Donald Trump, former president and the
(32:14):
only named candidate so far or official candidate so far.
On the Republican side, people talk about the governor of Florida,
RHN de Santis a lot Nicky Haley, though Nicky Haley
is also someone who could very well. And I think
we'll make a run certainly. And here she is, play
clip ten. Are you going to run for president? Well,
(32:36):
I'm not going to make an announcement here, but when
you're looking at a run for president, you look at
two things. You first look at does the current situation
push for new leadership? The second question is am I
that person that could be that new leader? Yes? We
need to go in a new direction. And can I
be that leader? Yes? I think I can be that leader.
But we are still working through things and we'll figure
(32:58):
it out. I've never last to race. I said that,
then I still say that now. I'm not going to
lose now. But stay tuned. It sounds like you're close.
It sounds are we getting to the exploratory committee stage here?
I think stay tuned, Clay, And when you have a
framework for your thinking that you can rattle off like
that about a decision. You've probably already made the decision. Yeah,
(33:20):
she's gonna run, I think buck And you can also
see some of the Trump people are attacking her for
running because I think this would be one of the
people that they consider to be an ally that would
be stepping into the arena. I don't think the Trump
people consider DeSantis to be an ally. I don't think
they consider at this point, certainly Mike Pence to be
(33:42):
an ally. But I've seen a lot of sniping about
Nicky Haley, which also means to me, she's gonna run.
I'll just say this in when you assess this race.
To me, I understand why the Trump people could be
upset that she's running. If you're a Trump you want
as big of a field as possible. If I'm Trump,
I want twenty people running for this nomination because I
(34:05):
think Trump's third, let's say it's a third of the
Republican base that is just die hard, like they're not
even going to consider anybody else. I don't think that
that third moves and it makes it hard for him
to beat. If that's true, do you think Nicky Haley,
let's say there are more than let's say there are
(34:25):
four or more candidates? Four more candidates, just to put
it out there. Who knows what the number would meant? Well,
wasn't it. Were there nineteen Republicans who ran twenty nineteen
and ran against Trump? Yeah, yeah, let's say there's more
than four. So there's a good there's a group. Do
you think Nicky Haley can get to double digit support
in the GOP? Well, I think her play is that
(34:46):
South Carolina is one of the early states if I
were if I because the Democrats are talking about starting
now in South Carolina. There's a battle over what that
would do to New Hampshire in Iowa. But I think
Nicky Haley's play is is I'm gonna dominate in South Carolina.
You heard her say she's never lost a race? Where
did she win all those races? South Carolina? And that
(35:08):
could catapult her into the upper tier. But is she mind?
I think is she playing? Hopefully she won't say that
she considers rself a top tier candidate because we know
how that worked out for a Kamala remember that. Yeah, well,
obviously I'm a top tier candidate and then Kamala. I
don't think she ever broke She also dropped out before
a single vote happened, So that is not an endorsement.
(35:29):
I bring up the Kamala comparison just because you know
she didn't do very well but became the vice president.
Is Nicky Haley playing for a vice presidential slot? I
think that is an intriguing play to me. I look
at it and say, whoever is the nominee? I think
the vice president should be in a state that that
(35:50):
vice president can help deliver, bring something to the table
with y yes. So I don't see South Carolina is
voting for the Republican. So maybe she wants to be
Secretary of Day. Maybe she wants to be in a
cabinet in some way, and that could be part of
what she brings to the table. But I would be
very surprised if she is in that top tier. But again,
if I'm Trump, I'm like, hey, I want twenty people
(36:14):
running again, because you ain't beat me. If there's twenty,
if there's two, if there's three, If it's de Santis
versus Trump, I think that's a much more difficult battle
for him. If it's Trump versus eighteen other people, Trump's
gonna be the nominee. Don't get any ideas play. You've
got a job here, buddy. All right, we're busy. I've
got a big year ahead of us. I could I
can get Could I get one percent? Could I get
(36:36):
one percent? I'd be happy with one percent because some
of those guys who run don't even get one percent. Oh,
you get you get some, you get some electoral College,
you get some delegates. Can I think I can do
well in Tennessee, But many get into one percent the battle.
Like I said, you're busy. I'm busy. I'm walked in
Welcome to today's edition of the Clay Travis and Buck
Sexton Show podcast. Welcome in Friday edition Clay Travis buck
Sexton Show. We have got a bevy of stories to
dive into throughout the course of this program with you
the debt ceiling fighting, maybe the misconstruing of that as
a fight. The Supreme Court essentially going to allow whoever
(00:23):
leaked to the Dabbs opinion and put a legitimate target
on all of the conservative Supreme Court justices. They are saying, Hey,
we just don't know who did it. What do we
think about that? Shannon Breen will join us in the
next hour, and it's actually where I want to start
right now. Buck. I read this report that was issued
on the full investigation surrounding the leak of the Dabbs report. Buck,
(00:47):
and one of the things that I thought was interesting
was they required everyone to sign an affidavit under penalty
of perjury that they had nothing to do with the
leaking of the Dabbs affidavit and everyone signed that. It's
almost like, you know, you're trying to catch somebody by
their refusal to sign that affidavit as a sign that
(01:09):
they may have done something that would be improper. But
one aspect of the report that I thought deserved some
discussion because it leads me to what I think likely
happened here. First of all, it doesn't sound like they
even questioned the Supreme Court justices, so they immediately considered
all of them to be above reproach. But they did,
(01:30):
in the questioning determine that several different employees of the
Supreme Court discussed the Dabs ruling and their understanding of
that draft ruling with their spouses or their significant others.
Here's what I think happened, and I'm curious how you
would analyze this. First, it's I think it's an awful
(01:51):
precedent that we are not catching whoever leaked this opinion,
because it sets in motion the possibility for their contentious
cases in the future, the idea that you can do
this and get away with it. And I think it
may well happen again in another contentious case. And so
(02:11):
given that this directly led to an assassination attempt on
a Supreme Court justice in Brett Kavanaugh, and has led
to consistent protests outside of Supreme Court justice's homes, which
the federal government and the state governments in both Maryland
and Virginia, and also the District of Columbia. Again, the
federal government don't seem at all interested in curtailing and
(02:33):
stopping Buck. I think someone was smart here. They got
a printed copy of this proposed ruling. They brought it home,
They discussed it with their spouse, They put it down
on a table and said, I can't do anything with this.
I am duty bound under my Supreme Court responsibilities and
(02:54):
code of ethics. But you, meaning the spouse, meaning the
significant other, are not similarly constrained. I think, based on
reading this report, that's likely the way this got out.
One of those people, maybe it was a clerk, maybe
it was an employee, brought home this ruling, this proposed
(03:16):
draft opinion, and put it on the table, discussed it
with a significant other, and the significant other took it
straight to Politico. Because I'm thinking about it also from
Politico's perspective, if you got this like Buck, if you
and I suddenly got a story of this significance dropped
on our front doorstep, yeah, we would significantly question whether
(03:40):
we were getting set up with something that was an
elaborate hoax, an elaborate fake. Right If your spouse works
in the Supreme Court, and they say, this is the
draft of the biggest Supreme Court decision in certainly a decade,
and perhaps many people would argue much longer than that. Yeah,
you're gonna think that that's real. By the way, I
think you're It's interesting because I have some experience with this.
(04:01):
I was in the CIA during a number of leak
probes because of the War on Terror, and you know,
people will remember now some of the you know, the
various revelations things like waterboarding and things that we now
all talk about. There was a time, you know, people
discuss a black site somewhere, all these things, all these
(04:23):
discussions that became very very public. Initially, there was a
huge surge within the intelligence community of out of outrage
internally at how can anybody betray our trust by telling
you know, Washington Post, you named any of these entities
about this. And it's funny you brought up the signing
of the affidavit under penalty of perjury. You know, that's
(04:47):
very rarely are those things prosecuted, but it does have
some legal teeth. It's different in an intelligence community context
because immediately with the serious leak you're talking about federal
statutes under the Espionage Act where people ken get sent
to prison for decades and that half for decades, not
just for you know, a year or two. So I mean,
obviously depends on the severity of the league and what
(05:08):
people uh, you know, what was exposed and the intent
behind it. But the polygraph is always one of the
things that that they want to go for right away
for obvious reasons. Anyone's read a spy novel and knows
when they do counterintelligence work, they'll start saying, all right,
we're gonna poly everybody. And what they're really just the
easiest thing is when someone says, I'm not taking I'm
(05:29):
not taking a polygraph. All that like trying to turn
around when you see a DUI checkpoint, right Like if
you if you see one of the in ahead of
you and you're like, oh, I'm gonna make a quick
U turn, cops are immediately like, yeah, let's go stop,
let let's go check on that pretty good sign that
you're telling on yourself in some way. I mean, my
my uncle who was a was a law enforcement officer
(05:49):
LAPD and actually Savannah PD as well. Um. He told
the story once that he was at a. You know,
there was a time when Savannah had a lot of shootings.
It was a pretty pretty island city. It's now as
you know, I'm like a huge Savannah Superfanily was like beautiful.
I love it. I'd go any chance I can, and
I do love it. But he was there in the
nineties when things are rough, and I remember he said
(06:10):
he was at a he was out of shooting, and
he just did the usual because people had gathered it
was broad daylight. People had gathered around. There's a body
they're you know, coordinate it off with the caution tape.
He says, did anybody see anything? And he says there's
one guy who just yells, look, I didn't. He says,
I didn't kill nobody. Guy puts his hands up, So
I didn't kill nobody. Turns out Clay that guy when
(06:34):
they continued to question him because they were just you know,
the question wasn't did you get it, It was to
the whole crowd, did anyone see anything? Yeah, I didn't
kill anybody. Turns out I didn't kill anybody. Actually, you know,
he needed a lawyer up. So you know, when you
see these investigations, there's a lot of ways they can
they can go forward in this regard or you know,
in terms of the tactics and the procedures they can use.
(06:55):
I just think that they're they're My two takeaways from
this are one, I don't think they really wanted to
find the person. Now I'm not saying they didn't go
through the motions and they would have accepted it if
they had found out, but I think they don't. They
didn't really want to find the person because it would
only add to my number two takeaway here, which is
certainly one end of the ideological spectrum just reviews the
(07:18):
Supreme Court now as a weapon of politics and power
and has no respect for it whatsoever, and was willing
in this moment, was willing to try to change a
Supreme Court decision. You know, we talked about changing the
refusal to accept election results and a threat to our democracy.
This was effectively a sabotage of the Supreme Court, which
(07:42):
let's all remember in two thousand, Supreme Court has decided
how an election will go. So you could even make
an argument that the sabotage of the Supreme Court goes
to the ultimate level of our government. This was massive
and I think the ramifications of this will last a
long time, and it's very hard for anybody to make
the case now that the Supreme Court hasn't just become
(08:05):
entirely now politicized in a way that is irretrievable. And
I think that's where we are, and I think the
justices all kind of know that. Do you agree with
me on the because I think if you assess the
overall landscape and kind of contemplate what you know, the
only way Politico runs with this is if they know
(08:27):
that it is a very reliable way that it came
into their possession right, So it has to be whoever
was there, Tipper has to be like, I brought this
directly from my wife's kitchen table. She is the Supreme
Court clerk for insert justice here, or my husband is
the long time you know, secretary of the Supreme Court,
(08:52):
and I'm just tossing it and he brought this home
and you can look him up. But it can't be
from us. You know, you're gonna give us anonymity associated
with how you got sourcing on this. But there's so
many elaborate fakes. Politico was one hundred percent right right.
This was an accurate draft opinion. Everything that they reported
(09:12):
around it was true, and I don't blame Politico for
running with the story. From a journalism perspective, this is
a big deal, right, but also claim, I mean it didn't.
It doesn't really when they when they talk about in
this draft that you mentioned, or the document, the twenty
pages that the Supreme Court put out about the investigation,
(09:33):
they're really I mean conspiracy to commit an offense against
the United States or to fraud the United States. Very vague,
very broad. That would be a tough one power to
punish contempt of the court. Okay, maybe maybe you could
get it. Here's the question I have. Yeah, you're right,
unlike and you're raising an interesting point because when you're
working at the CIA like you did, everybody knows if
(09:56):
you lead documents you're in real serious trouble because there
is a criminal specifically designed to address that. Why wouldn't
Congress now pass a law that says, if you leak
a Supreme Court opinion, you are facing severe criminal That's
what I mean. I mean you effectively, I think, have
to treat Supreme Court drafts. As you know, it's illegal
(10:16):
to leak someone's tax returns. Notice, how the Trump tax
return thing where they for years Clay they were obsessed with.
This appeared the ultimate nothing burger was the Trump tax returns.
But because there's nothing specific here, there was a degree
of good faith that the Supreme Court system relied on
here from the people. It's small, not a lot of
people have access to it, and someone violated that good faith.
(10:40):
But all the different statutes that they lay out here
corruptly endeavoring to influence, intimidat, or impede an officer of
the court, these are broad. They'd be kind of tough
to bring. They don't have the teeth that I think
that you would need to get a full fledged, full
scale little investigation and prosecution going of someone like this.
(11:02):
And you have to wonder, I mean, did they put
a Supreme Court justice or really several Supreme Court justices
in jeopardy with this action in the CIA? What is
what is the thing that more than anything else people
think of as this is why we have to pre
classified spies like you know, background and then put them
on the chopping ball. You know, and anybody who's ever
(11:24):
seen any spy movie knows if you know, the bad
guys find out the identity of somebody who's spying for
the US government. That could cost that person their life,
It could cost that person's family their lives. So the severity,
the seriousness is very clear. Hence the reason for the
statutes that protect that information. Um those by the way,
they've had to clarify, even if those statutes have become
(11:45):
even more more solidified and legally aggressive over time. But
when you look at this, there's really I don't think
there's gonna be much consequence for the person who did it,
other than getting fired and then going on the book,
you know, getting the book deal and the the speaking tour.
This person, this is another part of this, is a
(12:06):
hero to the left, a hero to the left. They
there is no contempt for this individual from anybody who
was upset about the dabb's decision. They all think, hey,
nice nice try, nice nice shot here, Sorry it didn't
work out. That's why I think that the House Republican
should introduce a bill making this a definite crime with
(12:28):
significant consequences going forward in the event that someone does it.
Because to your point, even the perjury potentially in signing
the affidavit in the middle of the investigation, while it
might have legal consequences. You might lose your ability to
practice law. Is it that big of a deal when
you get a multimillion dollar book deal to write the
story of how you fought to try to keep Roe v.
(12:50):
Wade the story? I mean, now make a movie about you.
We'll make a television series about you. Yeah, ask getting Live?
Would you rather be the hero in the next you know,
Aaron Spelling drama that's picked up by Netflix. But how
you try to save a woman's right to her own
body or whatever? I think Aaron Spelling's dead? But oh,
I'm sorry the day I mean Beverly Hills nine Dynasty,
(13:15):
I think if I remember. But but yeah, because that
might have been confusing folks like, fuck, why do you
think that would be the right? Yeah, to a documentary,
who've done it on the on the leak of the
Supreme Court document But yeah, I would just wonder we'll
ask Shannon Bream about this. I would just wonder whether
there's any motivation at all to finally make this a
criminal offense, because I think it should be a criminal defense.
(13:38):
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(14:46):
From the front lines of truth, Clay Travis and buck Sexton,
you ask for miracles, THEO I give you the FEI
great Diehard reference. My favorite, maybe my favorite line in
that movie. Looks like we're going to eat some more
FBI agents. I mean, that is an incredibly well delivered line.
(15:07):
So we got FBI director, which is why we're thinking
of it. FBI director Christopher Ray talking at Davos, which
is just so interesting me the FBI director would even
be at Davos. What is he doing? But he's there,
and you're gonna want to hear this. He was praising
the collaboration in the FBI between public and private sector
(15:31):
play one. The sophistication of the private sector is improving,
and in particularly important, the level of collaboration between the
private sector and the government, especially the FBI, has I
think made significant strides. Pretty much every technology we could
talk about today we see both great opportunity but great
(15:52):
great dangers. So I think it's it's interesting Clay that,
given we've seen FBI Twitter suppression of free speech collaboration,
and understand that the FBI has probably also done the
same thing with Facebook and with Google and YouTube and
everything else, we need to start drawing much more bright
red lines between the effectively our own secret police and
(16:16):
what's going on here with big tech and the private
sector in general. I agree percent with that, and I
think that's one of the big things that the House
Republicans can and should do with their new majority. Think
about the tone deafness of this buck. If you are
already under fire for all of the unconstitutional, potentially entanglements
(16:40):
and directions and censorship that you have been leading the
charge on as it pertains to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, all
the big tech companies YouTube, then you get on a
jet and fly to Davos and go to the World
Economic Forum. It's a level of tone deafness that is
also I think symptomatic of arrogance. It's like when Hunter
(17:02):
Biden traveled cross country to Washington, DC to get on
Air Force one to fly to South Carolina for the
Biden family vacation. It's like putting your eye in the
face of everyone and being like, I'm not at all
concerned about what this looks like because my power is
so absolute. Thumb in the eye of I am the
(17:24):
face of what was thumb thumbing? They yeah, yeah, yeah, Um.
It just feels like such a flagrant, like double middle
finger to any critics to even go to Davos and
then to brag about how well you work with the
private sector. I mean, it's like a evil villain in
(17:44):
a Marvel film would be undertaking that role, and it
just ties in. I think with how much many of
these people truly believe they are above the law, that
they are protected and it doesn't matter what they might
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with Clay en Buck dot com. Welcome back in Clay
(19:07):
Travis Buck Sexton show. This debt ceiling battle is going
to count four months of account for months, I would say,
of news media stories before ultimately it gets resolved spoiler
alert without the United States defaulting and collapsing as a business.
(19:30):
Just just gonna let you know there is going to
be a resolution at some point. Now, what's become increasingly
clear is there are actually lots of Democrats, particularly in
the Senate, that seem willing to negotiate on this debt
ceiling related issue. And if that is true, then there
(19:53):
is a pretty good amount of leverage that Republicans have
here if Republicans remain steadfast. But buck the story here
on the debt ceiling is to me really missing the
bigger story, which is You've talked about this yesterday, and
I was reading the Wall Street Journal this morning. They
have a graphic I'm going to tweet it out for
(20:14):
people to look at. We had a five trillion dollar
national debt at the beginning of two thousand, right, which
means for our nation's entire history, from seventeen eighty three
when we became an independent country until twenty twenty, we
had built up a five trillion dollar national debt. Since
(20:37):
two thousand, we have taken a five trillion national debt
and it is now over thirty one trillion. So in
the space of twenty years, roughly, we have added over
twenty five trillion dollars two hour national debt. And that's
an average, rough math of over a trillion dollars a
(20:58):
year that we are adding to the national debt. And
I think we're on pace so far this year to
add around a trillion and a half dollars to the
national debt. And it got me thinking several things. One
you may know the answer of this, what comes after trillion?
You know, you go million, billion, trillion without looking it up. No,
(21:19):
I have to look it up. I don't know. No, No,
I'm gonna guess. Is it gazillion? Is that a real
thing that's made up? One? It's a quadrillion, So it's
trillion is like try so quadrillion like four? So you
have to look it up. I've been almost no one
out there knows because we keep And the reason why
I bring this up is I don't think it's crazy
to believe that in the lifetime of many of you
(21:42):
out there listening, and maybe in the next generation when
you start to factor in the rate of interest payments
and how much that's going to balloon and expand our
national debt, we're rapidly advancing towards a hundred trillion dollar
national debt. Buck Well, I think it's I think it's
worth asking if there's no downside to the dead, why
(22:05):
care at all? Because what's interesting is when you bring
this up, people say, oh, Republicans complained about the dead.
It's not a big deal. You know, you'll hear this,
and whether it's Paul Krugman at the New York Times
or any other leftist economists out there who will offer
up their credentials as a means of covering up for
the very basic and straightforward reality of this is about math.
(22:27):
It's about numbers, and it's a really big number that
does have implications for everybody and for the economy. The
same reason why you can say to people, well, if
you don't think that, you know, money printing is bad,
why not just give every American. I know, they just
said that they should give every African American five million
dollars in reparations. You know in California. You know that
(22:49):
would be on a smaller scale, but you could give
every American just a million dollars or five million dollars.
What's the downside? Well, we know that you would effectively
destroy the entire value of the currency itself. So we
know that can happen. And I wonder at what point
we're at that stage with the debt where you talk
about what could go wrong here? What are the bad
things from I do this with immigration with people, illegal
(23:10):
immigration with people all the time, because also it's not
a big deal or like you know these are you know,
it's a nation of immigrants, and we need the dreamers.
And I say, okay, is there any downside? Let's talk
about the downside first. Is there any downside? And once
they but there's a downside, you say, well, obviously the
downside is exacerbated by an increase in the numbers. Right,
So if you can establish that something bad happens in
(23:30):
some level, the more of that you have, the more
of the bad side you're going to have. If you
can establish with the debt that you're going to have
increasing payments on the money you've already paid, and that
that brings the number up even more, Yes, and that
this is going to crowd out private investment, private spending
in the economy. This is going to be a burden,
a debt burden that future generations are going to have
(23:51):
to service for things that they get no benefit from,
and the political instability that comes from that. And we
can agree on all of those things. Forty trillion trillion
sounds like a lot of money to me. Clay, Yes,
And you mentioned Paul Krugman. I'm glad you did. His
New York Times editorial this morning refers to Republicans who
(24:11):
are opposed to raising the debt ceiling as economic terrorists.
Oh my headline, Yes, literally in the print newspaper headline.
I don't know if they've changed it digitally online. I
meant to take a picture of it and tweeted out,
but yes, my newspaper this morning. I'm sitting there reading,
as I do every morning, the New York Times and
(24:33):
then the Wall Street Journal or vice versa, you know,
old school, old man print school copy, and I just
to know what everybody's saying. And Paul Krugman says that
you can't negotiate, that these are economic terrorists in the
Republican Party who are attempting to question the amount of
money that's being spent. And so I think what we're
(24:55):
gonna get, Buck, I think we are moving towards an era.
This is my theory. Clinton and Newt Gingrich hammered out
a budget that actually ended Remember that we had a surplus,
like we were actually bringing in more money than we
were spending, and our national debt actually started to go down.
(25:17):
And I think that was like ninety seven, ninety eight,
ninety nine. More of my argument, Buck, that the late
nineties were the greatest moments in American history. And then
in the two thousands, nine eleven happens, budgets get blown up,
and since then, we've basically allowed ourselves to believe one
crisis after another justifies as much spending as as as
(25:40):
we feel like we want to toss out there, right,
And Joe Biden was willing to spend five trillion more
dollars even though it took us to double digit inflation.
And so I wonder if there's going to be a
sort of acknowledgement of, hey, this is a big issue
and we have to resolve it, and the debt ceiling
(26:02):
is really just a prelude to a more substantive conversation
about a much bigger issue. Interesting in this exchange in
the New York Times, I'm seeing they had an opinion
section piece where they had I think it was a podcast.
They did a transcript of it and a naked case
that for this is from this transcript for Republicans. The
(26:23):
showdown in twenty eleven, they're from your previous debt ceiling
fights was the signal achievement of the Tea Party staring
down President Barack Obama and forcing the cuts associated with
the Budget Control Act. It validated one of the animating
forces of the right over the past decade that the
party's failures are a result of weak, feckless leadership and
if they fight, they win. For Democrats, this is a
(26:46):
guy Donovan saying this. For Democrats, including Joe Biden, who
as Vice President had a front row seat to that deal,
it was evidence of why you should never negotiate under
these circumstances because it enables and encourages more hostage taking. So,
you know what I think is interesting about about how
they frame this is that Clay Okay Republicans the Budget
(27:06):
Control Act. For people who actually remember the Budget Control Act,
and I'm going to say this is part of why
I think the Tea Party started to lose a little
bit of steam. The Budget Control Act was a reduction
in the amount of increase in federal spending. Yeah, it
wasn't actually a net decrease in all federal spending. The
Budget Control Act was we were going to increase it
(27:29):
by you know whatever. It was a few percentage points,
which in the context of a multi trillion dollar federal
budget is a massive amount of money. We're gonna drop
that down a little bit. So instead of increasing the budget,
you know, three percent, we're going to increase increase at
two point five percent or two percent. I forget what
the numbers were, but that's what that huge fight was
over a decrease in the increase. Yes, well, and that's
(27:52):
well said. And remember for you know, just back of
the envelope math here, and I'm far from an economist,
but the amount that we have to spend on social
security and medicare continues to grow, and it's growing now
much faster because the cost of living increases have to
take into account the massive rate of inflation. So we're
(28:13):
getting a big hit there to our budget. Simultaneously, we
are hitting monster numbers as it pertains to the five
percent soon to be five percent, I believe overall interest rate,
you know. And Buck, this is one of the things
that I think Trump floated that was brilliant, that got
(28:34):
almost no attention. Trump said, Hey, why wouldn't we go
ahead and refi our And again I don't know all
of the economic you know, involvement here, but he said,
why wouldn't we lock in the rate of our national debt,
the money that we have borrowed at like zero or
one percent interest when that was the rate, instead of
(28:58):
allowing it to float almost like you know, if you're
a if you're taking out a mortgage and you've got
a three percent mortgage. One reason the housing market has
frozen is a lot of people have a three percent
mortgage and they're like, why in the world would I
move and take a seven percent mortgage. It's going to
cost me way more money, even if I like a
new house better. Why wouldn't we have locked in if
(29:21):
it's possible? And Trump floated the idea, and I thought
it was brilliant our national interest rate, like you would
lock in a mortgage when the rates were really low.
I know this will sound sweeping because it is, and
it's not true in all cases, but I think it
is fair to say that our political leadership class, whether
it's in the White House or in Congress, is generally
(29:45):
mathematically and financially illiterate. Well, yes, there's that too, not
all of them, obviously, but a lot of them. And actually,
one of the things that Trump brought to the table
was an understanding of certainly business on the financial side
of things. And this is to this day, I said,
around and go, no one ever gives Trump credit for
the fact that the Biden trade policy visa each China
(30:06):
is the Trump trade policy. Remember they were saying he's
gonna start a trade war, he's gonna destroy the economy.
People like Krugman, by the way, saying that Trump was
right on that stuff. Yeah, and it is funny. You're right,
Biden hasn't even touched it. And you know what the
reality is, if Biden had come in and just continue
to run all Trump policies in every facet, the country
(30:29):
would be infinitely better off in every single arena. Really
think about it. In the meantime, I gotta tell you
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That's my pillow dot com. Eight hundred seven nine two
(31:30):
thirty two sixty nine. You get to know the guys
outside the issues. Sunday hang with Clay and Buck a podcasts,
fight it on the iHeart app or wherever you get
your podcasts. Welcome back to Clay an Buck. It is Friday.
You want to take your calls eight hundred two eight
two two eight eight two. Light up those lines, my friends,
(31:51):
and now we talk a little bit of twenty twenty
four stuff here. Sometimes it's gonna be in the background
because it's it's a big deal, as we all know.
And there are some names. Well, we talked about Biden,
is you going to run? Is it gonna be Kamala,
Is it gonna be possibly Gavin Newsom or even somebody
else on the right. There are two names to get
a lot of attention, Donald Trump, former president and the
(32:14):
only named candidate so far or official candidate so far.
On the Republican side, people talk about the governor of Florida,
RHN de Santis a lot Nicky Haley, though Nicky Haley
is also someone who could very well. And I think
we'll make a run certainly. And here she is, play
clip ten. Are you going to run for president? Well,
(32:36):
I'm not going to make an announcement here, but when
you're looking at a run for president, you look at
two things. You first look at does the current situation
push for new leadership? The second question is am I
that person that could be that new leader? Yes? We
need to go in a new direction. And can I
be that leader? Yes? I think I can be that leader.
But we are still working through things and we'll figure
(32:58):
it out. I've never last to race. I said that,
then I still say that now. I'm not going to
lose now. But stay tuned. It sounds like you're close.
It sounds are we getting to the exploratory committee stage here?
I think stay tuned, Clay, And when you have a
framework for your thinking that you can rattle off like
that about a decision. You've probably already made the decision. Yeah,
(33:20):
she's gonna run, I think buck And you can also
see some of the Trump people are attacking her for
running because I think this would be one of the
people that they consider to be an ally that would
be stepping into the arena. I don't think the Trump
people consider DeSantis to be an ally. I don't think
they consider at this point, certainly Mike Pence to be
(33:42):
an ally. But I've seen a lot of sniping about
Nicky Haley, which also means to me, she's gonna run.
I'll just say this in when you assess this race.
To me, I understand why the Trump people could be
upset that she's running. If you're a Trump you want
as big of a field as possible. If I'm Trump,
I want twenty people running for this nomination because I
(34:05):
think Trump's third, let's say it's a third of the
Republican base that is just die hard, like they're not
even going to consider anybody else. I don't think that
that third moves and it makes it hard for him
to beat. If that's true, do you think Nicky Haley,
let's say there are more than let's say there are
(34:25):
four or more candidates? Four more candidates, just to put
it out there. Who knows what the number would meant? Well,
wasn't it. Were there nineteen Republicans who ran twenty nineteen
and ran against Trump? Yeah, yeah, let's say there's more
than four. So there's a good there's a group. Do
you think Nicky Haley can get to double digit support
in the GOP? Well, I think her play is that
(34:46):
South Carolina is one of the early states if I
were if I because the Democrats are talking about starting
now in South Carolina. There's a battle over what that
would do to New Hampshire in Iowa. But I think
Nicky Haley's play is is I'm gonna dominate in South Carolina.
You heard her say she's never lost a race? Where
did she win all those races? South Carolina? And that
(35:08):
could catapult her into the upper tier. But is she mind?
I think is she playing? Hopefully she won't say that
she considers rself a top tier candidate because we know
how that worked out for a Kamala remember that. Yeah, well,
obviously I'm a top tier candidate and then Kamala. I
don't think she ever broke She also dropped out before
a single vote happened, So that is not an endorsement.
(35:29):
I bring up the Kamala comparison just because you know
she didn't do very well but became the vice president.
Is Nicky Haley playing for a vice presidential slot? I
think that is an intriguing play to me. I look
at it and say, whoever is the nominee? I think
the vice president should be in a state that that
(35:50):
vice president can help deliver, bring something to the table
with y yes. So I don't see South Carolina is
voting for the Republican. So maybe she wants to be
Secretary of Day. Maybe she wants to be in a
cabinet in some way, and that could be part of
what she brings to the table. But I would be
very surprised if she is in that top tier. But again,
if I'm Trump, I'm like, hey, I want twenty people
(36:14):
running again, because you ain't beat me. If there's twenty,
if there's two, if there's three, If it's de Santis
versus Trump, I think that's a much more difficult battle
for him. If it's Trump versus eighteen other people, Trump's
gonna be the nominee. Don't get any ideas play. You've
got a job here, buddy. All right, we're busy. I've
got a big year ahead of us. I could I
can get Could I get one percent? Could I get
(36:36):
one percent? I'd be happy with one percent because some
of those guys who run don't even get one percent. Oh,
you get you get some, you get some electoral College,
you get some delegates. Can I think I can do
well in Tennessee, But many get into one percent the battle.
Like I said, you're busy. I'm busy. I'm walked in
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