April 12, 2024 • 37 mins
Memphis cop shot and killed by criminal who was just released without bail by Soros prosecutor. Memphis leads list of 5 deadliest cities in America. Ben Ferguson, co-host of Verdict with Ted Cruz joins Clay and Buck to discuss crime in his hometown of Memphis. Aftermath of O.J. Simpson death.
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to today's edition of the Clay Travis and Buck
Sexton Show podcast. Welcome in Clay Travis Buck Sexton Show
Friday edition of the program. We're going to try to
have some fun, keep you entertained, hopefully make you smarter
as we roll through this program on this Friday and
take you into the weekend. I imagine a lot of
(00:20):
you like me sneaking a peek at the Masters that
is taking place right now down in Augusta underway, beautiful weather,
there a lot of you. I bet we'll have a
master's nap on Saturday or Sunday. You ever have a
master's nap before? Buck, you even know what I'm referring to.
Put on the golf and it's just like they have
(00:41):
the birds in the background, like the kind of soft
melodic tones. It's not very loud. It's amazing how often
I fall asleep sometimes sitting watching the Masters coming down
the home stretch on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. The master's
nap is a tradition in the Travis house, and I
bet in many of the households out there across the country,
(01:04):
we got a bunch of different stories, talk about tons
of fallout from the OJ Simpson death. You may be
stunned by some of the things that you hear us play,
because some of the commentary was just absolutely crazy. Buck.
Even even our conversation, I thought, hey, we're gonna hear
some wacky stuff. It was even worse than I anticipated.
(01:29):
But there was a story that I saw this morning
in the Wall Street Journal about the number of black
men that are interested in supporting Trump, and I want
to dive into that here in a little bit. But first,
this story out of Memphis is unfortunate. It's getting a
lot of attention. It's happening far too often. A Memphis
(01:49):
police officer was shot and killed in the line of duty.
He was shot and killed by a suspect that had
been arrested for a violent crime and released with no bail,
a teenage suspect Memphis. I'll tell you a little story
about Memphis here in a minute, because I do think
the city of Memphis is in the midst of real challenges.
(02:10):
But here is cut one describing what happened the three
police officers who were shot, one of whom is passed. Listen.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
A total of three officers were struck by gunfire tragically,
one of our officers lost his life. That officer is
Joseph McKinney. One suspect was eighteen years old and the
other suspect is seventeen years old. The eighteen year old
suspect was arrested in March twenty twenty four by MPD
(02:42):
and a stolen vehicle with an illegal modified semi automatic
weapon with a glock switch attached. The block switch converted
the weapon to a fully automatic machine gun. He was
also charged at that time for two stolen vehicles and
having a programming device commonly used to steal cars. The
(03:05):
suspect was released at that time without bond.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Okay, this is the I believe the Memphis Police chief
that you heard speaking there. We certainly extend our condolences
to officer Joseph McKinney who was killed. I am so
sick of this happening, not only obviously with police officers,
violent perpetrators arrested. She said he was arrested in March
(03:34):
buck last month. You heard what he was arrested with.
That's fairly significant. Three stolen cars, I think she said,
a semi automatic handgun that had been illegally modified to
basically turn into a machine gun, as she described it,
zero restraint at all. He's right back on the streets.
(03:55):
And I think she was making a point of saying
that because I think there's so many police out there
that are beyond frustrated themselves. You and I have yelled
this from the rooftops. We know who's going to commit
violent crime. The police know who's going to commit violent crime.
We are continuing to allow violent perpetrators to be arrested
(04:18):
and put right back out on the street to wreak
havoc and rain down holy hell upon innocent people. And
I don't understand how people aren't aren't sick and tired
of it. Do we know how old these suspect is.
I think they said eighteen for the one that he is,
so he's an adult, Okay, because one now I think
I think the eighteen year old was shot and killed
in this incident. I believe team can look that up.
(04:39):
There's another seventeen year old involved, but I think the
eighteen year old who had been arrested with the semi
automatic handgun and stealing cars, I believe he was shot
and killed in the altercation.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
One of the problems that they're having in some of
the high crime cities is that the gangs, and a
lot of this is gang activity, it's organized criminal activity,
especially with things like carjackings of say the drug trade.
Is they have fifteen and sixteen year olds do some
of the worst stuff because they assume that they will
be let out and there'll be no consequences, and they're right. Unfortunately,
(05:11):
the city of Memphis in last year had four hundred,
about four hundred homicides. That's unbelievable for a city memphisize. Yeah,
that's a mess. That's a war zone. Memphis with four
hundred homicides. To put that into context, if Memphis were
the size of New York City, it would have over
(05:33):
four thousand, over four thousand murders. If you took the
same per capita homicide rate of Memphis and you put
it into a city of eight million people, it'd be
like forty five one hundred murders something along those lines.
That is warez level. I mean, that is like a
Mexican drug cartel shooting gallery of death and despair. Why
(05:55):
aren't they making the city of Memphis should have absolutely
no prime priority other than making the streets safe. I mean,
when I say no, other than I'm sorry, no priority
higher than making the streets safer and bringing the crime
rate way down, because it affects everything else. It affects
the schools, it affects property values, it aff it affects
(06:15):
everything else. I've actually was approached by someone years ago saying, hey,
do you want to invest in Memphis real estate because
it's a great town, has a lot.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Of things going for it, you know, cultural lead.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
And I looked at the crime rate and I just said,
I'm worried about this place, and the crime rate has
just been trending in the wrong direction. But this is
true of a number of different cities, and the one
unifying characteristic they all have when it comes to the
response absolute democrat control. Yeah, no chance of a Republican
being the mayor. No chance of a Republican or you know,
(06:47):
a right leaning police commissioner or prosecutor. It's Sorosda's left
wing Democrats, and people are dying because they just refuse
to admit we're right. The only way to stop this
is to stop the criminals and lock them up. Everything
else is a waste of time.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
To put that into context to what you were saying,
and maybe our team can look it up. I think
the murder rate, we got a lot of people listening
in New York for instance, I think the murder rate
in Memphis is ten times what the murder rate right
now is in New York City. And people in New
York City are fed up with.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Crime, Well, New York City has eight point six million people,
and someone can do a spot check. I mean, I
don't live there anymore, so I'm not as up on
the stats, but I think New York probably had between
three and four one hundred homicides last year would be
my guess. Maybe got into the low five hundreds, but
three or four hundred, I would think. And it's thirteen
(07:42):
times the size of Memphis. So yeah, it's more than
ten x the hoh side rate.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
For people out there who are fed up with New
York crime, think about the fact that Memphis has ten
x the crime the murders that this city does. By
the way, the eighteen year old was shot and killed
in this confrontation with the police where two other officers
were wounded.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I mean I read a lot about New York three
hundred and eighty six homicides steet between three and four hundred,
So there.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
You go, So you're talking about twelve thirteen X. Then right,
like the amount of homicide in Memphis, Memphis has more homicides, and.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
That's Crimphis has more homicides. Memphis has six hundred thousand
residents and more people, more people murdered than New York
City with eight point six million residents. That's putting into
context for everybody how dangerous that city is.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Okay, So I told you this off air because you
were asking, because we were talking about the Memphis situation.
When I was a kid growing up, Memphis and Nashville
had a rivalry. And if you are around my age
in the eighties and the nineties, like many states do,
for instance, Houston and Dallas have a rivalry. Inside of
that state, two decent sized cities in one state will
(08:57):
often have a rivalry which one is better. In the
eighties and nineties, you could have had a debate, Oh,
which one is going to be better, Nashville or Memphis.
Nashville has skyrocketed, and so many people who are successful
in Memphis now have just given up in Memphis and
moved to Nashville. And a part of me thinks that
(09:17):
the governor buck when we talk about those numbers. We're
talking about twelve and thirteen ex New York City, and
we talk about crime in New York City and how
fed up with crime people in New York City are.
I feel like the State National Guard almost needs to
get called into Memphis and they just need to start
patrolling the streets. I mean, when you're talking about the
(09:39):
level of violence and homicide that is going on right now,
and you've got totally innocent people. I think we've talked
to I think our name Eliza Fletcher, the mom who
went for the jog and got murdered by somebody else
who shouldn't have been out early release. And I believe
we talked about a doctor, if I remember correctly, who
was just out with his walking a kid in a
(10:00):
park in Memphis and somebody walked up and just shot
him in the side of the head. Totally innocent. We're
talking about people who have done completely nothing wrong at all, right,
They aren't engaged in some sort of illicit criminal activity
where they're in a gunfight over that, not drug dealers
shooting at each other. We're talking about completely innocent people
that cannot go about their life on a day to
(10:20):
day basis in a city like Memphis. And by the way,
Memphis is not alone. Right we talked about Kansas City
is setting all time highs, Washington, d c. Is setting
all time highs for murders right now.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Philadelphia recently it was either last year or the year before,
all time all time high including the nineties, including the seventies,
all time high it was about seven hundred murders in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Remember how buck everybody cared about that shooting at the
Kansas City Chiefs Victory Parade until they found out that
it was just you know, young inner city residents shooting
at each other. They thought when it was a mass shooting,
they were like, when are we going to do something
about gun control? When are we going to take action?
This is unacceptable. Then you find out that it's just
a couple of young black kids shooting at each other,
as happens all the time in Kansas City, where they
(11:03):
just set a record high in murders. Story vanished. Nobody cares.
And you mentioned over four hunt. I mean that that
number of Memphis murders. The reason this is story is
because a police officer lost his life and two other
police officers got shot. These are two black kids in
Memphis and one of them gets shot and dies. It
doesn't even make a blip on the radar. Nobody even
(11:25):
pays attention. But we got a murder rate there twelve
or thirteen x. What's going on in New York City.
There are many cities like this. It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
So, I mean, I'm just looking this up on the
fly because I was going to say, who wants to
bet that the chief prosecutor for Shelby County, which I
believe covers Memphis.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Am I right on that one? You know the county
is better?
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Yes, that's right, Yeah, the chiefs the chief prosecutor that
includes Memphis. I was just gonna say, I bet he's
a Soros funded DA and he disputes this publicly because
that's become a real problem for people. But according to
what I'm seeing here from Action five News, it's not
(12:09):
that he didn't get money. Well, he got money from
a pack that Soros gives money to. Right, so he's
a left wing guy. Obviously, he says, the People for
Fairness and Justice Group is a local independent pack that
made independent expenditures. It's through the slush fund everybody. He
is a Soros DA. Of course, he's getting money from
(12:32):
organizations that are passed throughs for Soros funding. And I mean,
isn't it such a tragedy, Clay, that we can know
that without knowing it?
Speaker 1 (12:43):
You know. The first thing, it's not like I type
this guy's name in and they're.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Like, oh, no, he's a he's a law and order
guy and he really believes in, you know, defending the
hard working people of Memphis against the criminal element. No,
it's him pretending he's not a Soros da because the
money passed through some NGO from Soros's hands before it
made its way to him, and now a lot of
people die. I you know, you wonder at what point
(13:09):
people just become fed up? And that's been I think
one of the only surprises that I've seen in like
the last four or five years is that some of
these cities. I would have thought, Clay, they would have crossed.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
The threshold already, and they haven't. They had, They just
not enough.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
People have suffered enough to realize that those who tell
you the police are the enemy, and they're locking up
too many people and we don't need to have quality
of life crimes in force. They're the reason that these
places are turning into shooting galleries, and there are so
many funerals of young people being killed on the streets.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
There was a November shooting of a Saint Jude researcher.
My our team looked it up. A doctor walking in
a park who had just moved to Memphis was shot
and killed. I mean, Saint Jude's a fabulous hospital. They
do incredible work. There's so many great institutions individuals in Memphis.
I can't believe that they've let the city get here.
And by the way, I was just looking up Buck
because I was curious. When we come back, how about
(14:02):
I hit you with the five highest murder rates in
the country, because I think some of these cities may
somewhat surprise people, and I bet they have in common
some of these Soros prosecutors that are allowing violent perpetrators
to get back out onto the streets with no significant
consequences associated with it. Just infuriating to see this happen
over and over and over again. I want to tell you,
(14:25):
as we roll into the weekend, a lot of you
gonna be looking for something to do. I said, I'm
gonna be falling asleep watching The Masters on the Couch.
I might also go check out the movie Civil War,
fictional portrayal of our country in turmoil. I was reading
this morning in the Wall Street Journal and the New
York Times movie reviews of Civil War. It is now out.
It has a very high rotten Tomato review. It's not political.
(14:48):
There are no particular sides. As we said, Texas and
California are aligned. Alex Garland in particular made the decision
not to make this a specific pull political movie and
instead just wanted to tell the story of what a
modern day civil war might look like. Caston includes Kirsten Duntz,
Jesse Plemons, many others. You can go see it on
(15:10):
iMac Imax. Written and produced by A twenty four directed
by Alex Garland. This is interesting. I was looking up
Alex Garland. Remember the book The Beach that they turned
into a Leonardo DiCaprio. He initially started as a novelist.
Alex Garland did wrote that book The Beach that turned
into a movie. Now is a screenwriter and this is
(15:32):
his latest films. You know that. I didn't know that either.
It's pretty cool. I liked The Beach. Actually, it was
a really good, pretty good watch. Yeah, I thought it
was a pretty good movie back in the day too.
I think it was. They can correct me if I'm wrong.
I think it was the first movie Leonardo DiCaprio did
after Titanic, so he was a otherworldly star after playing
Jack on Titanic. I think the very first movie he
did after Titanic was The Beach, which was the novel
(15:54):
Alex Garland wrote. Now he's got Civil War. You can
go check it out. We'll tell you whether or not
I was correct in that collection or not when we
come back. I'll give you those five cities by the
way with the highest rate of murder. But go check
out Civil War modern day version. What would it look
like in theaters today? From the front lines of freedom
and truth? Clay Travis and Buck Sexton.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Welcome back in Play and Buck. People fired off about
this conversation, understandably. So we have a lot of listeners
in Tennessee, a lot of listeners from Memphis. We may
even have a friend of ours, a fellow radio host
who has lived in Memphis for many, many years, owns
businesses there, joining us shortly a special mystery guest. But
I want to dig into this a little bit more
and we'll take your calls on it as well, eight
(16:38):
hundred and two eighty two to eight, eight to two,
because it really is way past time for cities that
have just lost control of violent crime on their streets
to just forget about the politics and just do what's right.
Forget about the fact that, yes, the Republicans and the
right and talk radio have been this all along, going
(17:01):
all the way back to the not even just the
pre COVID era, but Clay, you can go back and
see stretching back now, I would say to the first
you know, BLM riots and all this sort of anti
police movement, there's all a terrible idea, and there's been
a lot of suffering that has happened as a result
of the bad policies that came out of this. None
(17:22):
of the policies have been good. No one has been
helped by any of this. So we are going to
dive into that here. Coming up in just sec I'll
give you a preview. I'll hit you with those five
cities actually when we come back. But Memphis has more
murders than LA Chicago and New York City.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Think about how much bigger those cities are. New York
obviously the biggest city in America, La second biggest in
Chicago's third biggest. I believe Memphis has more murders than
all three of those. Pretty unbelievable. And I'll give you
the five cities in twenty twenty three with the highest
murder rate per capita, because obviously you have to factor
this in by the size of the city. I'll do
that when we come back.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Every My Pillow product is in stock and available exclusively
on the website MyPillow dot com. They've got a twenty
five dollars extravaganza sale going on right now. You're gonna
want to take advantage of it. Make sure you use
our names Play and Buck as the promo code. You'll
find items like the My Pillow with the all new
Giza fabric for just twenty five dollars each, or their
(18:24):
two pack multi use My Pillows for just twenty five dollars,
six pack of towel sets for the same price just
twenty five bucks. Dozens and dozens of items all at
that price point. Get yourself some sandals since summer is
just around the corner, or upgrade your dog's bed like
we did with Ginger. She went from a little small
size one to a media one. Because my ginger's ulk
grown up. She absolutely loves her MyPillow dogbed. Just go
(18:47):
to my pillow dot com click on the radio listener
special Square for these twenty five dollars deals. That's my
pillow dot Com. Click on the radio listener special Square
promo code clayand Buck free shipping on orders over seventy
five dollars.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Welcome back in Clay Travis buck Sexton Show. Appreciate all
of you hanging out with us. About to be joined
by Ben Ferguson, who has He's a co host of
the Verdict podcast with Ted Cruz. Also spent a lot
of time in Memphis, and he's got some stories for us.
But I wanted to hit you at this buck. Here are,
according to twenty twenty three per capita data, the five
(19:22):
deadliest most dangerous cities in America. Memphis is number one,
New Orleans number two, Baltimore number three, Detroit number four,
Philadelphia at number five per capita five most dangerous, deadly
murder ridden cities in America. And Ben Ferguson joins us. Now, Ben,
(19:43):
I've spent a decent amount of time in Memphis because
I'm just up the road in Nashville. I don't know
how much time you spent in Memphis. Were you born
and raised there? How much time do you spend there?
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Dad born and raised my whole life there, and my
parents are still there, all my staff that runs my show,
and my show is still out of Memphis, and I
split time obviously between there in Texas. But I mean,
these numbers, as scary as they are, it's not even
shocking enough to how bad it is in Memphis right
(20:15):
now because of an Activistya. That's basically said, I got
elected because I took Soros money. I got elected because
I'm in favor of prison reform and bell reform, and
I'm going to let out criminals. Part of this is reparations,
he believes is it's like it's like the OJ thing yesterday,
right OJ. Yeah, we know he killed some people, but
(20:37):
it was payback for Rodney King, and it was payback
for you know, he deserved to get out because there's
a way to kind of right wrongs of the past.
That's Moulroy's mentality. I'll give you an example. I had
a dear friend of mine that was that was murdered.
It was a mentor of mine. It was murdered in Memphis,
and they basically said, we don't have the resources to
find the murder. After a couple of days, we have
(20:58):
to move on. You have a this is last year's numbers.
You have a seventy six point three percent chance of
getting away with murdering someone on Memphis Enna C Now,
why do I give you that stat because that's what
percentage went unsolved of the murders in Memphis last year.
So you basically three out of every four people that
(21:18):
are killed, you're gonna walk and you're gonna get to
do it again and they will not catch you. Let
me give you another example of what happened just a
few weeks ago. There was a woman who was shot
four times by her boyfriend. The boyfriend was out back
on the streets of Memphis, had gotten cashless bell in
essence because he was poor, which is part of this
(21:41):
radical agenda of George Soros, while she was still in
life saving surgery at the MED, which is a Level
one trauma center. So imagine you're the police. You catch
the guy that shoots this woman, right, you risk your
life to catch a gunman, and then you rush this
woman in the hospital to try to save her life.
She's still in surgery, and that guy's back out on
(22:01):
the street to Memphis. This is what's happening all over
the country is that they're basically saying, we want you
to not go to jail. We want to let criminals
out of jail that are in jail because we're playing
this race card, which sourus Is said is very clear
the intent here, and people like Steve Moreroy are saying,
I don't lock you up unless there's a dead body.
If you shoot somebody and they're still alive, you're going
(22:23):
to get out for maybe one hundred dollars or less.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
It's unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
We're speaking of Ben Ferguson, our friend and a co
host of The Verdict podcast with Ted Cruz. Ben, I mean,
I know you owned a barbecue joint in Memphis for
many years, a firing range for many years. I mean
you've been tied in with the business community there as well.
You grew up there and you yourself had to use
(22:47):
a firearm in defense of your life.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
What happened, Yeah, there was the Mid South Fair and
I was leaving the fair with my best friend and
it was a gang initiation. I was the target of
the gang initiation called having blood in the gang. And
how it works is they pick a target that if
someone they want to kill, and then that means that
if you ever get caught doing a crime, you're not
(23:10):
going to flip or nark on other gang members because
they know when and where you killed somebody, which is
what having blood in the gang is. Luckily, I had
a firearm with me. I was able to shoot back
and save my own life. But what's even more shocking
is they ended up catching the two.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Guys both we've been sorry, hold on, hold on, so
so but they fired at you.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Were they in a car? I mean, what how did
this go down?
Speaker 4 (23:34):
So they yeah, so they I walked out of my
best friend's house. It was there were blue lights that
were basically ricocheting in the windows where we were. We
were that close to fair where they were directing traffic
down the street. Two houses down they were charging twenty
dollars to park in their driveway and their front lawn.
So that's how close you were to law enforcement directing traffic.
(23:56):
Two guys got out of a car, they started walking
towards us. Before I could draw they had lifted their
guns up and both of them racked the round and
their semi automatic epistols so that you knew that it
was real and you knew there was a bullet in
the chamber. They hit us in the face, slammed us
up against the car. Now, luckily from riding the rides
that night, I had my keys, my wallet, and my
(24:17):
cellphone in my front pocket. They never reached a round
back and that was the blessing, because if they would
have felt my gun, I don't know what would have
happened before I could get it. And so there was
families that were walking by us with kids and strollers.
And the guy had the gun to my head and
he put it down to my side and he told
me to shake his blanking hand. And I had to
shake the hand of the guy that is, you know,
robbing me and putting a gun literally to my head.
(24:39):
And as they turned to walk away, and this is
how you get blood in the gang, they granted each other.
They're about five feet away. They turned around, they raised up,
and I'd pulled my gun behind my leg and I
raised up and we started shooting. And luckily, for the
grace of God, I was not hit. My friend was
not hit, and those two gang members took off running
as they were shooting at us, and the police came
(25:02):
and they were like, okay, like we actually didn't even
call nine to one. We ran down the street. And
this tells you about the mentality of the police and
how I think just down Trott and they are. They're
in Memphis right now. Depending on whose statue look at,
they're either nine hundred to fourteen hundred police officers below
what they should be. And I ran to a police
(25:24):
officer and I looked at him. I said, I just
got shot that and I mean, I'm shaking, and he said, yeah,
we heard the gunshots. And he looked at me and
he said, that's not my job. I'll call somebody. Didn't move,
didn't react. He said, literally, that's not my job. Now,
my dad's in law enforcement. Full disclosure, it's been a
law enforcement most of his career in Memphis, So you
can imagine my shocks seeing a police officer tell me
(25:44):
that's not his job. And now I understand why he
said that. He's not going to go die, because if
he goes and grabs those guys, they are going to
be right back down the streets, which is exactly what
happened clam Buck. They ended up catching them two weeks later.
Not only did they catch them, I had to go
test at a parole hearing for a prior attempted murder
charge against one of the two guys. The gang members
(26:06):
came to two oh one Poplar, which is the courthouse,
got in the elevator with me and my friend and
threatened to murder us in the elevator, full on scuffle
I'm talking of fight. We got out of the elevator
at the courthouse. We're able to open the doors. We
then they held us for an hour and a half
and we were told by the judge after they held us,
(26:28):
they said, hey, just say you know, this is normal
they this is what they do. They come and they
antimidate witnesses so they won't testify against them. They basically
run the court system down here, and they have great
attorneys that take care of them and protect them. And
that's how the gangs work in Memphis. And this is
who Steve Moulroy basically works for. He takes his direction
as the Soros da the from these gangs. It's no
(26:51):
different than a cartel. And then they both got plea deals.
I was never asked as a victim of the crime.
I got a letter in the mail. No one called
me from the DA's office to say they were going
to do the deal. So I go to the mailbox.
Imagine this has happening to you. You then been your life threatened.
They know your address, they've told you that if you
testify against them, they're going to murder you. And then
(27:11):
you get a letter in the mail from the DA's office.
It says they've pleaded out five point six years and
four point seven years for these crimes where the only
reason why you're alive is because God protected you. You
shot back and you saved your own life in essence,
and God protected us. It was amazing because when you're
shooting five feet away, how do you not get hit? Right?
Speaker 1 (27:32):
It's a blessing.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
But that's what happened. And sure enough they went to
prison and they got out early, and they committed future crimes.
It's a revolving door. But if you're a police officer now,
and this goes back to defund the police, and I've
witnessed it firsthand. If you can't deliberately defund the police,
what they're now doing, and these deactivist DA's and Molroy
(27:54):
and others are doing, is they're basically saying the cops,
you're an idiot if you go risk your life to
lock someone up, because we're going to let them right
back out. So the police officers are being defunded because
the judges and the and these activist das are basically
mocking them. So why would you want to risk your
(28:15):
life to lock up a bad guy if you know
that you're not actually locking him up. This is the
reason why you're down nine hundred to twelve hundred and
thirteen hundred officers in Memphis and other places like New
Orleans and Baltimore and Detroit and Saint Louis. It's you.
You literally make the police go insane to the point
where they say, Okay, I'm not going to die or
(28:37):
risk my life dying to lock someone up who's not
actually going to be locked up, because we're not locking
up bad guys. It's a revolving door. And now you
look at bail in Memphis. There's a large population. Memphis
is poor, and they you come in, they say do
you have any money? And you say no, and they go, okay,
well we're going to let you out for shooting this
guy for one hundred bucks and they walk out.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
The same day. Okay, so you've work's been done. We're
talking to Ben Ferguson. You hear him on Verdict. You
grew up in Memphis. I grew up in Nashville. You
probably remember, as I do. There was a rivalry between
those two cities in the eighties and the nineties over
which city was better. Now, Nashville has skyrocketed, it's boomed,
Everything is going pretty fantastic here. Memphis has fallen by
(29:20):
the wayside. Let's pretend you suddenly got basically dictatorial powers.
What would have to happen for Memphis to get fixed?
What needs to happen? As a longtime Memphian, what do
they need to do that they're not doing now?
Speaker 4 (29:34):
Yeah? I told that the Shelby Kenny Sheriff ran for
mayor and I sat down with them. I said, I
would give you unlimited free advice because I want you
to win. And I said if I was, you know,
I had people when I lived that said then you
need to run. You need to run. And I genuinely
thought about it, pulled a petition once. But what I
realized was I was white, so I wasn't going to
get elected, and I was a Republican, so I wasn't
going to get elected. And I told him, I said,
(29:54):
you're a Democrat, You're African American, you care about this city,
and you know the crime. I said, what I would
do is I would say a meetia number one. I
would declare a state of emergency with crime, and I
would have a curfew for eighteen and under immediately in
the city. I would then immediately tell the citizens, I'm
leaving Memphis every day to go recruit police officers and
(30:14):
other cities until we get the numbers at twenty percent
above what we need them to be. Until we get
this city baf you lockdown and the criminals understand, this
is not the city you want to commit a crime in,
because we're coming after you. And I said in third,
you immediately go to Nashville and you go to the
governor and other elected state reps and state senators and
you say, I need truth and sentencing laws. I need
(30:36):
a three strikes you're out program. That doesn't have to
be a full strike for shoplifting. That can be a
half a strike, right, It can be sensible law enforcement,
but you basically say, I'm going to have to go
around you. And then, most importantly, if you want to
change a city, you've got to get rid of these
judges that are activist judges that believe their job is
not to hold people accountable, if they believe their job
(30:57):
is to basically right the wrongs of the past ass
and to let African Americans that are committing these crimes
out of jail because it's basically payback, like we just
heard about from with O. J. Simpson, Well, you deserve
to get out because the wrongs of the past and
Rodney King, and you go after these judges. The biggest
problem we have now in these cities is most people
(31:18):
don't know who their judges are. I'm guilty of that.
I think you guys probably don't know who your criminal
court judges are, and they're no longer. They're no. This
is more important than any other position in your city
is your judges. Because there are judges that see people
that commit heinous crimes, that rate people, that beat people,
that that that shoot people, and they don't die. These
(31:40):
medical professionals say their life and they say, okay, are
you poor? Yes, Well then you get to walk out
in here today, We'll see you later, and they commit
more crimes and they laugh and mock the police. But
I told them, I said, you have to basically be
a psychopath in fighting crime for your first year in office.
And if you want to change, you're going to have
(32:01):
to go and find good officers and pay them incredible
salaries and bonuses to get them to come protect your city,
because they're not going to do it for what you're
paying them now. And they're not going to do it
if they're going to let these people out of jail
immediately when you lock them up. And he looked at me,
He's like, Okay, I think you're right. He but I
don't know how that's going to play with the Democratic Party.
(32:22):
And I'm like, there's enough people here that don't feel safe.
People don't feel safe in my hometown of Memphis, and
I love that city, but it's not safe.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, it's Ben.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Look, really appreciate your perspective on this one. Exactly what
we wanted to dive into with you so we can
really know what's going on there. Ben Ferguson, Everybody check
Out Verdict with Ted Cruz and Ben Ferguson, Ben my friend.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
We will talk to you soon. Thanks for joining us,
Thanks for having guys.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Look, I'm a big believer in the right to bear arms.
You want to be able to defend yourself, defend your home,
and you also want to be factically proficient, right and
so you want to have the right tools for the job.
That's where Bear Creek Arsenal comes in. Bear Creek Arsenal
is a company you might not have heard of before
in the firearms industry, but you should because, let me
(33:09):
tell you, they make incredible products. I just took one
of their I just took one of their ars, and
I'm going to be out at the range with it
this weekend. I'm also going to be picking up a
pistol from Bear Creek Arsenal telling you how that goes.
But so far, I'm telling you these are incredibly well
made firearms that are at a really competitive price. Bear
(33:32):
Creek Arsenal. They are for a wide range of premium
calibers at a fraction of what the competition does. So
how does Bear Creek do it? No middleman fees? That's
how I've got some of the super expensive handguns and
ars out there, and I've got Bear Creek Arsenal. Let
me tell you, Bear Creek Arsenal can go toe to
toe with the most expensive rifles on the market, and
(33:52):
you're getting it at such a better price. Go online
to Barcreekarsenal dot com, slash buck. That's Bear Creek Arsenal
dot com. Slash buck. Use my name Buck as your
promo code for ten percent off your first order. That's
Bear Creek Arsenal dot com. Slash buck. Use my name
Buck and get ten percent off your first order.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Sometimes all you can do is laugh, and they do
a lot of it with the Sunday Hang. Join Clay
and Buck as they laugh it up in the Klay
and Buck podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app or wherever
you get your podcasts. Welcome back in to play in.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Buck.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Really interesting conversation there with our friend Ben Ferguson about
situation of Memphis. But I didn't even realize until we
did the research for today's show that it's the per
capita most violent city in the entire United States last
year in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
That's that's a.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Grim, a grim reality for that city. We will take
some of your calls, get some of your vip emails.
Next hour, we are going to be having a discussion
about the some of the analysis around the oj death situation,
Ojay's passing, and how people were responding to this, and
(35:07):
how it's a remindering of Clay. I was watching all
those old video clips of people who were reacting in
real time. I mean, I had forgotten that they're like
Oprah's audience for exytes, Oprah's Audience live. This clip was
going everywhere and you had a lot of you had
(35:28):
a lot of black audience members who were crying tears
of joy. Yes, in that clip. I I had never
seen that before.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
That was new.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
You know, maybe there were it's just a it sort
of pans around the crowd quickly, so it's not a
you know, scientific pull, but it was shocking to And
there's other video too of people cheering the Oja verdict
and not just those who are out at the court.
We're gonna do a little refill on our Crocket coffee
in this break thank here. By the way, Crocketcoffee dot
(36:01):
com America's coffee. It's absolutely delicious Frontier Spirit. I got
it in my hand right here. You need to need
to fuel up Clay. What else you got in mind
for us?
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Yeah? Look, first of all, go to Crocketcffee dot com.
Over one hundred thousand dollars in sales. You guys are amazing.
We thank you for all the great support you have
given us going into the weekend. Maybe you got a
lot of chasing around. Maybe you want to avoid falling
on this, falling asleep on the couch while watching the Masters.
We'll talk about that in the third hour. I want
(36:32):
to dive into this Wall Street Journal story that is
super fascinating Black men and how much they are supporting
Trump in the seven toss up states. Super fascinating data.
Do we buy that it's going to remain the case
in about six and a half months when voting starts.
We'll discuss that and more. Gonna have some fun with
you too on the Friday edition of the program. By
(36:54):
the way, I was right the Beach first movie after
Titanic for DiCaprio. Bet you didn't have that on your
big card today.
Welcome to today's edition of the Clay Travis and Buck
Sexton Show podcast. Welcome in Clay Travis Buck Sexton Show
Friday edition of the program. We're going to try to
have some fun, keep you entertained, hopefully make you smarter
as we roll through this program on this Friday and
take you into the weekend. I imagine a lot of
(00:20):
you like me sneaking a peek at the Masters that
is taking place right now down in Augusta underway, beautiful weather,
there a lot of you. I bet we'll have a
master's nap on Saturday or Sunday. You ever have a
master's nap before? Buck, you even know what I'm referring to.
Put on the golf and it's just like they have
(00:41):
the birds in the background, like the kind of soft
melodic tones. It's not very loud. It's amazing how often
I fall asleep sometimes sitting watching the Masters coming down
the home stretch on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. The master's
nap is a tradition in the Travis house, and I
bet in many of the households out there across the country,
(01:04):
we got a bunch of different stories, talk about tons
of fallout from the OJ Simpson death. You may be
stunned by some of the things that you hear us play,
because some of the commentary was just absolutely crazy. Buck.
Even even our conversation, I thought, hey, we're gonna hear
some wacky stuff. It was even worse than I anticipated.
(01:29):
But there was a story that I saw this morning
in the Wall Street Journal about the number of black
men that are interested in supporting Trump, and I want
to dive into that here in a little bit. But first,
this story out of Memphis is unfortunate. It's getting a
lot of attention. It's happening far too often. A Memphis
(01:49):
police officer was shot and killed in the line of duty.
He was shot and killed by a suspect that had
been arrested for a violent crime and released with no bail,
a teenage suspect Memphis. I'll tell you a little story
about Memphis here in a minute, because I do think
the city of Memphis is in the midst of real challenges.
(02:10):
But here is cut one describing what happened the three
police officers who were shot, one of whom is passed. Listen.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
A total of three officers were struck by gunfire tragically,
one of our officers lost his life. That officer is
Joseph McKinney. One suspect was eighteen years old and the
other suspect is seventeen years old. The eighteen year old
suspect was arrested in March twenty twenty four by MPD
(02:42):
and a stolen vehicle with an illegal modified semi automatic
weapon with a glock switch attached. The block switch converted
the weapon to a fully automatic machine gun. He was
also charged at that time for two stolen vehicles and
having a programming device commonly used to steal cars. The
(03:05):
suspect was released at that time without bond.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Okay, this is the I believe the Memphis Police chief
that you heard speaking there. We certainly extend our condolences
to officer Joseph McKinney who was killed. I am so
sick of this happening, not only obviously with police officers,
violent perpetrators arrested. She said he was arrested in March
(03:34):
buck last month. You heard what he was arrested with.
That's fairly significant. Three stolen cars, I think she said,
a semi automatic handgun that had been illegally modified to
basically turn into a machine gun, as she described it,
zero restraint at all. He's right back on the streets.
(03:55):
And I think she was making a point of saying
that because I think there's so many police out there
that are beyond frustrated themselves. You and I have yelled
this from the rooftops. We know who's going to commit
violent crime. The police know who's going to commit violent crime.
We are continuing to allow violent perpetrators to be arrested
(04:18):
and put right back out on the street to wreak
havoc and rain down holy hell upon innocent people. And
I don't understand how people aren't aren't sick and tired
of it. Do we know how old these suspect is.
I think they said eighteen for the one that he is,
so he's an adult, Okay, because one now I think
I think the eighteen year old was shot and killed
in this incident. I believe team can look that up.
(04:39):
There's another seventeen year old involved, but I think the
eighteen year old who had been arrested with the semi
automatic handgun and stealing cars, I believe he was shot
and killed in the altercation.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
One of the problems that they're having in some of
the high crime cities is that the gangs, and a
lot of this is gang activity, it's organized criminal activity,
especially with things like carjackings of say the drug trade.
Is they have fifteen and sixteen year olds do some
of the worst stuff because they assume that they will
be let out and there'll be no consequences, and they're right. Unfortunately,
(05:11):
the city of Memphis in last year had four hundred,
about four hundred homicides. That's unbelievable for a city memphisize. Yeah,
that's a mess. That's a war zone. Memphis with four
hundred homicides. To put that into context, if Memphis were
the size of New York City, it would have over
(05:33):
four thousand, over four thousand murders. If you took the
same per capita homicide rate of Memphis and you put
it into a city of eight million people, it'd be
like forty five one hundred murders something along those lines.
That is warez level. I mean, that is like a
Mexican drug cartel shooting gallery of death and despair. Why
(05:55):
aren't they making the city of Memphis should have absolutely
no prime priority other than making the streets safe. I mean,
when I say no, other than I'm sorry, no priority
higher than making the streets safer and bringing the crime
rate way down, because it affects everything else. It affects
the schools, it affects property values, it aff it affects
(06:15):
everything else. I've actually was approached by someone years ago saying, hey,
do you want to invest in Memphis real estate because
it's a great town, has a lot.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Of things going for it, you know, cultural lead.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
And I looked at the crime rate and I just said,
I'm worried about this place, and the crime rate has
just been trending in the wrong direction. But this is
true of a number of different cities, and the one
unifying characteristic they all have when it comes to the
response absolute democrat control. Yeah, no chance of a Republican
being the mayor. No chance of a Republican or you know,
(06:47):
a right leaning police commissioner or prosecutor. It's Sorosda's left
wing Democrats, and people are dying because they just refuse
to admit we're right. The only way to stop this
is to stop the criminals and lock them up. Everything
else is a waste of time.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
To put that into context to what you were saying,
and maybe our team can look it up. I think
the murder rate, we got a lot of people listening
in New York for instance, I think the murder rate
in Memphis is ten times what the murder rate right
now is in New York City. And people in New
York City are fed up with.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Crime, Well, New York City has eight point six million people,
and someone can do a spot check. I mean, I
don't live there anymore, so I'm not as up on
the stats, but I think New York probably had between
three and four one hundred homicides last year would be
my guess. Maybe got into the low five hundreds, but
three or four hundred, I would think. And it's thirteen
(07:42):
times the size of Memphis. So yeah, it's more than
ten x the hoh side rate.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
For people out there who are fed up with New
York crime, think about the fact that Memphis has ten
x the crime the murders that this city does. By
the way, the eighteen year old was shot and killed
in this confrontation with the police where two other officers
were wounded.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I mean I read a lot about New York three
hundred and eighty six homicides steet between three and four hundred,
So there.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
You go, So you're talking about twelve thirteen X. Then right,
like the amount of homicide in Memphis, Memphis has more homicides, and.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
That's Crimphis has more homicides. Memphis has six hundred thousand
residents and more people, more people murdered than New York
City with eight point six million residents. That's putting into
context for everybody how dangerous that city is.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Okay, So I told you this off air because you
were asking, because we were talking about the Memphis situation.
When I was a kid growing up, Memphis and Nashville
had a rivalry. And if you are around my age
in the eighties and the nineties, like many states do,
for instance, Houston and Dallas have a rivalry. Inside of
that state, two decent sized cities in one state will
(08:57):
often have a rivalry which one is better. In the
eighties and nineties, you could have had a debate, Oh,
which one is going to be better, Nashville or Memphis.
Nashville has skyrocketed, and so many people who are successful
in Memphis now have just given up in Memphis and
moved to Nashville. And a part of me thinks that
(09:17):
the governor buck when we talk about those numbers. We're
talking about twelve and thirteen ex New York City, and
we talk about crime in New York City and how
fed up with crime people in New York City are.
I feel like the State National Guard almost needs to
get called into Memphis and they just need to start
patrolling the streets. I mean, when you're talking about the
(09:39):
level of violence and homicide that is going on right now,
and you've got totally innocent people. I think we've talked
to I think our name Eliza Fletcher, the mom who
went for the jog and got murdered by somebody else
who shouldn't have been out early release. And I believe
we talked about a doctor, if I remember correctly, who
was just out with his walking a kid in a
(10:00):
park in Memphis and somebody walked up and just shot
him in the side of the head. Totally innocent. We're
talking about people who have done completely nothing wrong at all, right,
They aren't engaged in some sort of illicit criminal activity
where they're in a gunfight over that, not drug dealers
shooting at each other. We're talking about completely innocent people
that cannot go about their life on a day to
(10:20):
day basis in a city like Memphis. And by the way,
Memphis is not alone. Right we talked about Kansas City
is setting all time highs, Washington, d c. Is setting
all time highs for murders right now.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Philadelphia recently it was either last year or the year before,
all time all time high including the nineties, including the seventies,
all time high it was about seven hundred murders in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Remember how buck everybody cared about that shooting at the
Kansas City Chiefs Victory Parade until they found out that
it was just you know, young inner city residents shooting
at each other. They thought when it was a mass shooting,
they were like, when are we going to do something
about gun control? When are we going to take action?
This is unacceptable. Then you find out that it's just
a couple of young black kids shooting at each other,
as happens all the time in Kansas City, where they
(11:03):
just set a record high in murders. Story vanished. Nobody cares.
And you mentioned over four hunt. I mean that that
number of Memphis murders. The reason this is story is
because a police officer lost his life and two other
police officers got shot. These are two black kids in
Memphis and one of them gets shot and dies. It
doesn't even make a blip on the radar. Nobody even
(11:25):
pays attention. But we got a murder rate there twelve
or thirteen x. What's going on in New York City.
There are many cities like this. It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
So, I mean, I'm just looking this up on the
fly because I was going to say, who wants to
bet that the chief prosecutor for Shelby County, which I
believe covers Memphis.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Am I right on that one? You know the county
is better?
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Yes, that's right, Yeah, the chiefs the chief prosecutor that
includes Memphis. I was just gonna say, I bet he's
a Soros funded DA and he disputes this publicly because
that's become a real problem for people. But according to
what I'm seeing here from Action five News, it's not
(12:09):
that he didn't get money. Well, he got money from
a pack that Soros gives money to. Right, so he's
a left wing guy. Obviously, he says, the People for
Fairness and Justice Group is a local independent pack that
made independent expenditures. It's through the slush fund everybody. He
is a Soros DA. Of course, he's getting money from
(12:32):
organizations that are passed throughs for Soros funding. And I mean,
isn't it such a tragedy, Clay, that we can know
that without knowing it?
Speaker 1 (12:43):
You know. The first thing, it's not like I type
this guy's name in and they're.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Like, oh, no, he's a he's a law and order
guy and he really believes in, you know, defending the
hard working people of Memphis against the criminal element. No,
it's him pretending he's not a Soros da because the
money passed through some NGO from Soros's hands before it
made its way to him, and now a lot of
people die. I you know, you wonder at what point
(13:09):
people just become fed up? And that's been I think
one of the only surprises that I've seen in like
the last four or five years is that some of
these cities. I would have thought, Clay, they would have crossed.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
The threshold already, and they haven't. They had, They just
not enough.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
People have suffered enough to realize that those who tell
you the police are the enemy, and they're locking up
too many people and we don't need to have quality
of life crimes in force. They're the reason that these
places are turning into shooting galleries, and there are so
many funerals of young people being killed on the streets.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
There was a November shooting of a Saint Jude researcher.
My our team looked it up. A doctor walking in
a park who had just moved to Memphis was shot
and killed. I mean, Saint Jude's a fabulous hospital. They
do incredible work. There's so many great institutions individuals in Memphis.
I can't believe that they've let the city get here.
And by the way, I was just looking up Buck
because I was curious. When we come back, how about
(14:02):
I hit you with the five highest murder rates in
the country, because I think some of these cities may
somewhat surprise people, and I bet they have in common
some of these Soros prosecutors that are allowing violent perpetrators
to get back out onto the streets with no significant
consequences associated with it. Just infuriating to see this happen
over and over and over again. I want to tell you,
(14:25):
as we roll into the weekend, a lot of you
gonna be looking for something to do. I said, I'm
gonna be falling asleep watching The Masters on the Couch.
I might also go check out the movie Civil War,
fictional portrayal of our country in turmoil. I was reading
this morning in the Wall Street Journal and the New
York Times movie reviews of Civil War. It is now out.
It has a very high rotten Tomato review. It's not political.
(14:48):
There are no particular sides. As we said, Texas and
California are aligned. Alex Garland in particular made the decision
not to make this a specific pull political movie and
instead just wanted to tell the story of what a
modern day civil war might look like. Caston includes Kirsten Duntz,
Jesse Plemons, many others. You can go see it on
(15:10):
iMac Imax. Written and produced by A twenty four directed
by Alex Garland. This is interesting. I was looking up
Alex Garland. Remember the book The Beach that they turned
into a Leonardo DiCaprio. He initially started as a novelist.
Alex Garland did wrote that book The Beach that turned
into a movie. Now is a screenwriter and this is
(15:32):
his latest films. You know that. I didn't know that either.
It's pretty cool. I liked The Beach. Actually, it was
a really good, pretty good watch. Yeah, I thought it
was a pretty good movie back in the day too.
I think it was. They can correct me if I'm wrong.
I think it was the first movie Leonardo DiCaprio did
after Titanic, so he was a otherworldly star after playing
Jack on Titanic. I think the very first movie he
did after Titanic was The Beach, which was the novel
(15:54):
Alex Garland wrote. Now he's got Civil War. You can
go check it out. We'll tell you whether or not
I was correct in that collection or not when we
come back. I'll give you those five cities by the
way with the highest rate of murder. But go check
out Civil War modern day version. What would it look
like in theaters today? From the front lines of freedom
and truth? Clay Travis and Buck Sexton.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Welcome back in Play and Buck. People fired off about
this conversation, understandably. So we have a lot of listeners
in Tennessee, a lot of listeners from Memphis. We may
even have a friend of ours, a fellow radio host
who has lived in Memphis for many, many years, owns
businesses there, joining us shortly a special mystery guest. But
I want to dig into this a little bit more
and we'll take your calls on it as well, eight
(16:38):
hundred and two eighty two to eight, eight to two,
because it really is way past time for cities that
have just lost control of violent crime on their streets
to just forget about the politics and just do what's right.
Forget about the fact that, yes, the Republicans and the
right and talk radio have been this all along, going
(17:01):
all the way back to the not even just the
pre COVID era, but Clay, you can go back and
see stretching back now, I would say to the first
you know, BLM riots and all this sort of anti
police movement, there's all a terrible idea, and there's been
a lot of suffering that has happened as a result
of the bad policies that came out of this. None
(17:22):
of the policies have been good. No one has been
helped by any of this. So we are going to
dive into that here. Coming up in just sec I'll
give you a preview. I'll hit you with those five
cities actually when we come back. But Memphis has more
murders than LA Chicago and New York City.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Think about how much bigger those cities are. New York
obviously the biggest city in America, La second biggest in
Chicago's third biggest. I believe Memphis has more murders than
all three of those. Pretty unbelievable. And I'll give you
the five cities in twenty twenty three with the highest
murder rate per capita, because obviously you have to factor
this in by the size of the city. I'll do
that when we come back.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Every My Pillow product is in stock and available exclusively
on the website MyPillow dot com. They've got a twenty
five dollars extravaganza sale going on right now. You're gonna
want to take advantage of it. Make sure you use
our names Play and Buck as the promo code. You'll
find items like the My Pillow with the all new
Giza fabric for just twenty five dollars each, or their
(18:24):
two pack multi use My Pillows for just twenty five dollars,
six pack of towel sets for the same price just
twenty five bucks. Dozens and dozens of items all at
that price point. Get yourself some sandals since summer is
just around the corner, or upgrade your dog's bed like
we did with Ginger. She went from a little small
size one to a media one. Because my ginger's ulk
grown up. She absolutely loves her MyPillow dogbed. Just go
(18:47):
to my pillow dot com click on the radio listener
special Square for these twenty five dollars deals. That's my
pillow dot Com. Click on the radio listener special Square
promo code clayand Buck free shipping on orders over seventy
five dollars.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Welcome back in Clay Travis buck Sexton Show. Appreciate all
of you hanging out with us. About to be joined
by Ben Ferguson, who has He's a co host of
the Verdict podcast with Ted Cruz. Also spent a lot
of time in Memphis, and he's got some stories for us.
But I wanted to hit you at this buck. Here are,
according to twenty twenty three per capita data, the five
(19:22):
deadliest most dangerous cities in America. Memphis is number one,
New Orleans number two, Baltimore number three, Detroit number four,
Philadelphia at number five per capita five most dangerous, deadly
murder ridden cities in America. And Ben Ferguson joins us. Now, Ben,
(19:43):
I've spent a decent amount of time in Memphis because
I'm just up the road in Nashville. I don't know
how much time you spent in Memphis. Were you born
and raised there? How much time do you spend there?
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Dad born and raised my whole life there, and my
parents are still there, all my staff that runs my show,
and my show is still out of Memphis, and I
split time obviously between there in Texas. But I mean,
these numbers, as scary as they are, it's not even
shocking enough to how bad it is in Memphis right
(20:15):
now because of an Activistya. That's basically said, I got
elected because I took Soros money. I got elected because
I'm in favor of prison reform and bell reform, and
I'm going to let out criminals. Part of this is reparations,
he believes is it's like it's like the OJ thing yesterday,
right OJ. Yeah, we know he killed some people, but
(20:37):
it was payback for Rodney King, and it was payback
for you know, he deserved to get out because there's
a way to kind of right wrongs of the past.
That's Moulroy's mentality. I'll give you an example. I had
a dear friend of mine that was that was murdered.
It was a mentor of mine. It was murdered in Memphis,
and they basically said, we don't have the resources to
find the murder. After a couple of days, we have
(20:58):
to move on. You have a this is last year's numbers.
You have a seventy six point three percent chance of
getting away with murdering someone on Memphis Enna C Now,
why do I give you that stat because that's what
percentage went unsolved of the murders in Memphis last year.
So you basically three out of every four people that
(21:18):
are killed, you're gonna walk and you're gonna get to
do it again and they will not catch you. Let
me give you another example of what happened just a
few weeks ago. There was a woman who was shot
four times by her boyfriend. The boyfriend was out back
on the streets of Memphis, had gotten cashless bell in
essence because he was poor, which is part of this
(21:41):
radical agenda of George Soros, while she was still in
life saving surgery at the MED, which is a Level
one trauma center. So imagine you're the police. You catch
the guy that shoots this woman, right, you risk your
life to catch a gunman, and then you rush this
woman in the hospital to try to save her life.
She's still in surgery, and that guy's back out on
(22:01):
the street to Memphis. This is what's happening all over
the country is that they're basically saying, we want you
to not go to jail. We want to let criminals
out of jail that are in jail because we're playing
this race card, which sourus Is said is very clear
the intent here, and people like Steve Moreroy are saying,
I don't lock you up unless there's a dead body.
If you shoot somebody and they're still alive, you're going
(22:23):
to get out for maybe one hundred dollars or less.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
It's unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
We're speaking of Ben Ferguson, our friend and a co
host of The Verdict podcast with Ted Cruz. Ben, I mean,
I know you owned a barbecue joint in Memphis for
many years, a firing range for many years. I mean
you've been tied in with the business community there as well.
You grew up there and you yourself had to use
(22:47):
a firearm in defense of your life.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
What happened, Yeah, there was the Mid South Fair and
I was leaving the fair with my best friend and
it was a gang initiation. I was the target of
the gang initiation called having blood in the gang. And
how it works is they pick a target that if
someone they want to kill, and then that means that
if you ever get caught doing a crime, you're not
(23:10):
going to flip or nark on other gang members because
they know when and where you killed somebody, which is
what having blood in the gang is. Luckily, I had
a firearm with me. I was able to shoot back
and save my own life. But what's even more shocking
is they ended up catching the two.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Guys both we've been sorry, hold on, hold on, so
so but they fired at you.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Were they in a car? I mean, what how did
this go down?
Speaker 4 (23:34):
So they yeah, so they I walked out of my
best friend's house. It was there were blue lights that
were basically ricocheting in the windows where we were. We
were that close to fair where they were directing traffic
down the street. Two houses down they were charging twenty
dollars to park in their driveway and their front lawn.
So that's how close you were to law enforcement directing traffic.
(23:56):
Two guys got out of a car, they started walking
towards us. Before I could draw they had lifted their
guns up and both of them racked the round and
their semi automatic epistols so that you knew that it
was real and you knew there was a bullet in
the chamber. They hit us in the face, slammed us
up against the car. Now, luckily from riding the rides
that night, I had my keys, my wallet, and my
(24:17):
cellphone in my front pocket. They never reached a round
back and that was the blessing, because if they would
have felt my gun, I don't know what would have
happened before I could get it. And so there was
families that were walking by us with kids and strollers.
And the guy had the gun to my head and
he put it down to my side and he told
me to shake his blanking hand. And I had to
shake the hand of the guy that is, you know,
robbing me and putting a gun literally to my head.
(24:39):
And as they turned to walk away, and this is
how you get blood in the gang, they granted each other.
They're about five feet away. They turned around, they raised up,
and I'd pulled my gun behind my leg and I
raised up and we started shooting. And luckily, for the
grace of God, I was not hit. My friend was
not hit, and those two gang members took off running
as they were shooting at us, and the police came
(25:02):
and they were like, okay, like we actually didn't even
call nine to one. We ran down the street. And
this tells you about the mentality of the police and
how I think just down Trott and they are. They're
in Memphis right now. Depending on whose statue look at,
they're either nine hundred to fourteen hundred police officers below
what they should be. And I ran to a police
(25:24):
officer and I looked at him. I said, I just
got shot that and I mean, I'm shaking, and he said, yeah,
we heard the gunshots. And he looked at me and
he said, that's not my job. I'll call somebody. Didn't move,
didn't react. He said, literally, that's not my job. Now,
my dad's in law enforcement. Full disclosure, it's been a
law enforcement most of his career in Memphis, So you
can imagine my shocks seeing a police officer tell me
(25:44):
that's not his job. And now I understand why he
said that. He's not going to go die, because if
he goes and grabs those guys, they are going to
be right back down the streets, which is exactly what
happened clam Buck. They ended up catching them two weeks later.
Not only did they catch them, I had to go
test at a parole hearing for a prior attempted murder
charge against one of the two guys. The gang members
(26:06):
came to two oh one Poplar, which is the courthouse,
got in the elevator with me and my friend and
threatened to murder us in the elevator, full on scuffle
I'm talking of fight. We got out of the elevator
at the courthouse. We're able to open the doors. We
then they held us for an hour and a half
and we were told by the judge after they held us,
(26:28):
they said, hey, just say you know, this is normal
they this is what they do. They come and they
antimidate witnesses so they won't testify against them. They basically
run the court system down here, and they have great
attorneys that take care of them and protect them. And
that's how the gangs work in Memphis. And this is
who Steve Moulroy basically works for. He takes his direction
as the Soros da the from these gangs. It's no
(26:51):
different than a cartel. And then they both got plea deals.
I was never asked as a victim of the crime.
I got a letter in the mail. No one called
me from the DA's office to say they were going
to do the deal. So I go to the mailbox.
Imagine this has happening to you. You then been your life threatened.
They know your address, they've told you that if you
testify against them, they're going to murder you. And then
(27:11):
you get a letter in the mail from the DA's office.
It says they've pleaded out five point six years and
four point seven years for these crimes where the only
reason why you're alive is because God protected you. You
shot back and you saved your own life in essence,
and God protected us. It was amazing because when you're
shooting five feet away, how do you not get hit? Right?
Speaker 1 (27:32):
It's a blessing.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
But that's what happened. And sure enough they went to
prison and they got out early, and they committed future crimes.
It's a revolving door. But if you're a police officer now,
and this goes back to defund the police, and I've
witnessed it firsthand. If you can't deliberately defund the police,
what they're now doing, and these deactivist DA's and Molroy
(27:54):
and others are doing, is they're basically saying the cops,
you're an idiot if you go risk your life to
lock someone up, because we're going to let them right
back out. So the police officers are being defunded because
the judges and the and these activist das are basically
mocking them. So why would you want to risk your
(28:15):
life to lock up a bad guy if you know
that you're not actually locking him up. This is the
reason why you're down nine hundred to twelve hundred and
thirteen hundred officers in Memphis and other places like New
Orleans and Baltimore and Detroit and Saint Louis. It's you.
You literally make the police go insane to the point
where they say, Okay, I'm not going to die or
(28:37):
risk my life dying to lock someone up who's not
actually going to be locked up, because we're not locking
up bad guys. It's a revolving door. And now you
look at bail in Memphis. There's a large population. Memphis
is poor, and they you come in, they say do
you have any money? And you say no, and they go, okay,
well we're going to let you out for shooting this
guy for one hundred bucks and they walk out.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
The same day. Okay, so you've work's been done. We're
talking to Ben Ferguson. You hear him on Verdict. You
grew up in Memphis. I grew up in Nashville. You
probably remember, as I do. There was a rivalry between
those two cities in the eighties and the nineties over
which city was better. Now, Nashville has skyrocketed, it's boomed,
Everything is going pretty fantastic here. Memphis has fallen by
(29:20):
the wayside. Let's pretend you suddenly got basically dictatorial powers.
What would have to happen for Memphis to get fixed?
What needs to happen? As a longtime Memphian, what do
they need to do that they're not doing now?
Speaker 4 (29:34):
Yeah? I told that the Shelby Kenny Sheriff ran for
mayor and I sat down with them. I said, I
would give you unlimited free advice because I want you
to win. And I said if I was, you know,
I had people when I lived that said then you
need to run. You need to run. And I genuinely
thought about it, pulled a petition once. But what I
realized was I was white, so I wasn't going to
get elected, and I was a Republican, so I wasn't
going to get elected. And I told him, I said,
(29:54):
you're a Democrat, You're African American, you care about this city,
and you know the crime. I said, what I would
do is I would say a meetia number one. I
would declare a state of emergency with crime, and I
would have a curfew for eighteen and under immediately in
the city. I would then immediately tell the citizens, I'm
leaving Memphis every day to go recruit police officers and
(30:14):
other cities until we get the numbers at twenty percent
above what we need them to be. Until we get
this city baf you lockdown and the criminals understand, this
is not the city you want to commit a crime in,
because we're coming after you. And I said in third,
you immediately go to Nashville and you go to the
governor and other elected state reps and state senators and
you say, I need truth and sentencing laws. I need
(30:36):
a three strikes you're out program. That doesn't have to
be a full strike for shoplifting. That can be a
half a strike, right, It can be sensible law enforcement,
but you basically say, I'm going to have to go
around you. And then, most importantly, if you want to
change a city, you've got to get rid of these
judges that are activist judges that believe their job is
not to hold people accountable, if they believe their job
(30:57):
is to basically right the wrongs of the past ass
and to let African Americans that are committing these crimes
out of jail because it's basically payback, like we just
heard about from with O. J. Simpson, Well, you deserve
to get out because the wrongs of the past and
Rodney King, and you go after these judges. The biggest
problem we have now in these cities is most people
(31:18):
don't know who their judges are. I'm guilty of that.
I think you guys probably don't know who your criminal
court judges are, and they're no longer. They're no. This
is more important than any other position in your city
is your judges. Because there are judges that see people
that commit heinous crimes, that rate people, that beat people,
that that that shoot people, and they don't die. These
(31:40):
medical professionals say their life and they say, okay, are
you poor? Yes, Well then you get to walk out
in here today, We'll see you later, and they commit
more crimes and they laugh and mock the police. But
I told them, I said, you have to basically be
a psychopath in fighting crime for your first year in office.
And if you want to change, you're going to have
(32:01):
to go and find good officers and pay them incredible
salaries and bonuses to get them to come protect your city,
because they're not going to do it for what you're
paying them now. And they're not going to do it
if they're going to let these people out of jail
immediately when you lock them up. And he looked at me,
He's like, Okay, I think you're right. He but I
don't know how that's going to play with the Democratic Party.
(32:22):
And I'm like, there's enough people here that don't feel safe.
People don't feel safe in my hometown of Memphis, and
I love that city, but it's not safe.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, it's Ben.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Look, really appreciate your perspective on this one. Exactly what
we wanted to dive into with you so we can
really know what's going on there. Ben Ferguson, Everybody check
Out Verdict with Ted Cruz and Ben Ferguson, Ben my friend.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
We will talk to you soon. Thanks for joining us,
Thanks for having guys.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Look, I'm a big believer in the right to bear arms.
You want to be able to defend yourself, defend your home,
and you also want to be factically proficient, right and
so you want to have the right tools for the job.
That's where Bear Creek Arsenal comes in. Bear Creek Arsenal
is a company you might not have heard of before
in the firearms industry, but you should because, let me
(33:09):
tell you, they make incredible products. I just took one
of their I just took one of their ars, and
I'm going to be out at the range with it
this weekend. I'm also going to be picking up a
pistol from Bear Creek Arsenal telling you how that goes.
But so far, I'm telling you these are incredibly well
made firearms that are at a really competitive price. Bear
(33:32):
Creek Arsenal. They are for a wide range of premium
calibers at a fraction of what the competition does. So
how does Bear Creek do it? No middleman fees? That's
how I've got some of the super expensive handguns and
ars out there, and I've got Bear Creek Arsenal. Let
me tell you, Bear Creek Arsenal can go toe to
toe with the most expensive rifles on the market, and
(33:52):
you're getting it at such a better price. Go online
to Barcreekarsenal dot com, slash buck. That's Bear Creek Arsenal
dot com. Slash buck. Use my name Buck as your
promo code for ten percent off your first order. That's
Bear Creek Arsenal dot com. Slash buck. Use my name
Buck and get ten percent off your first order.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Sometimes all you can do is laugh, and they do
a lot of it with the Sunday Hang. Join Clay
and Buck as they laugh it up in the Klay
and Buck podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app or wherever
you get your podcasts. Welcome back in to play in.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Buck.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Really interesting conversation there with our friend Ben Ferguson about
situation of Memphis. But I didn't even realize until we
did the research for today's show that it's the per
capita most violent city in the entire United States last
year in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
That's that's a.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Grim, a grim reality for that city. We will take
some of your calls, get some of your vip emails.
Next hour, we are going to be having a discussion
about the some of the analysis around the oj death situation,
Ojay's passing, and how people were responding to this, and
(35:07):
how it's a remindering of Clay. I was watching all
those old video clips of people who were reacting in
real time. I mean, I had forgotten that they're like
Oprah's audience for exytes, Oprah's Audience live. This clip was
going everywhere and you had a lot of you had
(35:28):
a lot of black audience members who were crying tears
of joy. Yes, in that clip. I I had never
seen that before.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
That was new.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
You know, maybe there were it's just a it sort
of pans around the crowd quickly, so it's not a
you know, scientific pull, but it was shocking to And
there's other video too of people cheering the Oja verdict
and not just those who are out at the court.
We're gonna do a little refill on our Crocket coffee
in this break thank here. By the way, Crocketcoffee dot
(36:01):
com America's coffee. It's absolutely delicious Frontier Spirit. I got
it in my hand right here. You need to need
to fuel up Clay. What else you got in mind
for us?
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Yeah? Look, first of all, go to Crocketcffee dot com.
Over one hundred thousand dollars in sales. You guys are amazing.
We thank you for all the great support you have
given us going into the weekend. Maybe you got a
lot of chasing around. Maybe you want to avoid falling
on this, falling asleep on the couch while watching the Masters.
We'll talk about that in the third hour. I want
(36:32):
to dive into this Wall Street Journal story that is
super fascinating Black men and how much they are supporting
Trump in the seven toss up states. Super fascinating data.
Do we buy that it's going to remain the case
in about six and a half months when voting starts.
We'll discuss that and more. Gonna have some fun with
you too on the Friday edition of the program. By
(36:54):
the way, I was right the Beach first movie after
Titanic for DiCaprio. Bet you didn't have that on your
big card today.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.