Daily Review with Clay and Buck - Jan 10 2025

Trump unicorn? Destructive DEI. Should Elon buy TikTok? Andy McCarthy on Trump Sentencing.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome in Friday edition Clay Travis buck Sexton Show. Congratulations
to Notre Dame fans. You can party like it's nineteen
eighty eight. You're in a championship game. Buck may have
no idea what that actually means, but I bet we
have a lot of Golden Domers that are listening. Big
win last night over Penn State. I am in snowy Nashville, Buck,

(00:21):
where we are getting absolutely slammed with what Southerners would
consider to be a massive amount of snow. It's going
to be six to eight inches before all is said
and done. All the schools are closed. If you hear
kids running around and screaming, that's probably going to be
kids in my house that are out and about with
sleds and everything else.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
And so all of that underway.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
We got a.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Bunch of legal happenings that continued fallout of the wildfires
in Los Angeles and the movement by the way of
a lot of sporting events. I mean, but the playoff
game there that the Rams were going to host being
moved to Arizona, in the Lakers games being postponed, I mean,
there's basically continued mess there. Curfew in place, after dark.

(01:09):
There are looting issues that are happening in some of
these neighborhoods with the burned out homes, which is just
absolutely indefensible on top of the indefensible nature of so
much of the response to these wildfires. Will continue to
talk about that. But the story of the day Donald
Trump officially sentenced in the sham New York City case

(01:32):
having to do with business records. And after all of this,
after months of trial, after years of legal wranglings, after
charges being brought in DC and Atlanta, in New York
City and in Miami, effectively all those cases are done,

(01:53):
and the sentencing has now been complete, and they gave
Donald Trump an unconditional discharge, meaning, hey, there is no
punishment at all. We're not even gonna find you. This
case is over. There's no jail time, there is basically
no consequence at all. And I'm seeing buck even left

(02:15):
wingers that hate Trump are sort of facing this existential
crisis of their own creation where they sit around and
they say, wait, nothing actually is happening. After MSNBC and
CNN and left wing legal analysts have gotten them all
gigged up for nine years that Trump was going to

(02:36):
face his day in court and there would be a reckoning.
Actually nothing at all has happened. Judge merchand unconditionally discharges him.
They're trying to dance around and say he always a
convicted felon. I still think this case is going to
get tossed on appeal, I really do. But in the
meantime there are no consequences whatsoever. And in ten days

(02:57):
Trump is raising his right hand and takes over president
of the United States with a full House and a
full Senate behind him.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
I know that a lot of things came together to
make Trump president again, but it is hard at this
point I would argue to look back and not come
away thinking that law fair against Trump may have been
the biggest political own goal we've ever seen. I've you know,

(03:28):
when you look at the numbers after the mar A
Lago raid and after it was clear they were criminally
prosecuting Trump, it was just it was Trump's party. The
Republicans didn't want anybody else, don't want to talk about
anybody else. Primary was a non primary effectively, and now
maybe that would have happened anyway, But I think it's
hard to look at where the numbers were before that
I think that this was something that blew up in

(03:51):
their faces in a way that is truly epic, and
it's hard to imagine. It's hard to imagine anything being
so poorly planned as the four criminal prosecutions of Donald Trump,
all of which came to nothing other than making him
president again. Yeah, you know, and this is really important

(04:13):
because lawfair is the end of the republic. If it
becomes standardized lawfair in politics, that can get rid of
a political candidate because you don't like him means that
we no longer have a free and fair political system,
not not worthy of being called such. And the only
way for it to be defeated really was this, meaning

(04:36):
that going forward, anybody who and it's always Democrats to
do this stuff, but anybody who thinks, oh, I'm going
to take this person off the political battlefield by bringing
some bogus charge, by having some partisan da as, you know,
my so called political hitman. If you will to take
this person and prosecute them, they're going to say, wait

(04:58):
a second, what with Trump? When they did that, Oh yeah,
that was a really bad idea. And it was a
really bad idea because the American people rejected it, and
the American people. As much as sometimes it feels like,
oh my gosh, how can so many people believe this?
And so many people wear masks during COVID and all
these things, we got this one right as a country.

(05:19):
This was a critical stress test of our political system,
and now Donald Trump gets to the rewards.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
I think it's important to go back and think about
what their goal was and to your point, see what
happens with it blowing up in their face. Their plan
was to put Trump that I really think this is
what their their thought process tell me if you disagree
with any of this, buck. I think they thought when
they raided Mara a Lago and began the Lawfair in Earnest,

(05:48):
that they were going to pump up Trump's numbers in
the Republican primary, and that that would make him the nominee,
but that the larger American voting public, that is the
swing voter so to speak, and the anti Trump element,
would actually guarantee to them that there was no way

(06:10):
Trump could be elected once he was charged with crimes.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
So it was diabolical in this respect.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
I think they were right that Republicans would rally around
Trump when the Lawfair began, and I think, to Trump's credit,
he got that right. I think their miscalculation was they
never really thought that Trump would be strengthened with the
so called swing voters of America based on the law

(06:36):
fair that they brought to bear against it. And to
your point, that's where they were wrong in their calculus.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, the failure of analysis from their part was it
would make him the nominee and force and make sure
he lost the election. And instead it made him the
nominee and made sure he won the election, right actually,
and was a major part of it. And we haven't
even added into this the two attempted assassinations of Donald Trump,
the way that they responded to getting shot in the
U Do you remember that, everybody who's just a few

(07:01):
months ago, Trump got shot in the ear. The guy
took an ar round in the ear and basically said,
let's go, let's fight up on the stage while he
had blood dripping down from his head. I mean, it
was a remarkable year in American politics, in American history
last year, and so you know, going into this inauguration,
to say there's a sense of history to it all

(07:22):
and a sense of destiny to it all, I think
is perhaps an understatement and the final collapse play of
the law fair right before it. His victory is absolute.
The victory is complete, top to bottom. They pushed this.
This was the first case they pushed through, so that
then they could let him let him go anyway. I mean,
the whole thing was such a sham. It's like saying

(07:43):
that he was Hitler, which they also never believed.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
It's also the case. And I like to look decades
and maybe even farther than that into the future, what
we lived through in twenty twenty four, that election cycle,
one hundred years from now will be a best selling
book that to the extent that books are read in
the traditional way, which I still think they will. One

(08:08):
hundred years from now, everybody will be dissecting this book
and it'll be a number one best seller, and people
will say, can you believe what that twenty twenty four
American presidential election was like? Long after every single person
here is passed, we will not be around when historians

(08:29):
really write and grapple with the major issues that took
place in this election. I like to go back and
sometimes read books about historic election seasons. I think I
even told you Buck, I did my history thesis on
the eighteen sixty four presidential election between Abraham Lincoln and
George McClellan, which is one of the most staggering elections

(08:51):
in American political history. I mean, think about that. For
those of us who are history nerds and Civil War
history nerds in particular, you had Lincoln's former chief general
running against him in the middle of the Civil War. Like,
I mean, that is like hard to even comprehend what
something like that would look like.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
And so you go back.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
I would encourage people who really are fans of history.
There's a great book about the eighteen sixty four presidential election,
but what we just lived through the twenty twenty four
presidential election. One hundred years from now, Like I'm talking
about that eighteen sixty four election, there will be people
out there saying, man, you got to go read this
new book about the twenty twenty four presidential Like I
had no idea how crazy it was. Like it was

(09:35):
an unbelievable thing that we just lived through. And I
think the biggest takeaway is an important one that you
laid out and we've been talking about for some time
the president now is that if you try to put
your chief political adversary in prison for the rest of
his life, that you actually see that blow up in
your face, and that it works against you electorally. If

(09:56):
it had worked, everybody would start to try to put
in place like this. I think we went to the brink,
but I think the American public thankfully delivered Trump such
a win that a lot of people will say, whoa
wo woe. You don't want to do to your opponent
what Trump did to Biden in twenty twenty four. Let
the voters decide, don't try to put him in prison

(10:17):
for the rest of his life.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
And also it's a reminder that prosecutors can figure out
a million different ways if they want to, if they're
unethical to come up with some way that you did
something that violates the law. A violation of a law
resulting in a criminal prosecution should be a thing that
was clearly bad, that clearly did some harm to a

(10:39):
person or an entity, that is real harm, and that
anyone can hear about and go, well, you shouldn't have
done that. You know you need to pay, You need
to pay the price. Nobody heard about this New York
case who was emotionally psychologically stable through this election and said,
Oh huh, he misrepresented in his business records the transaction
for the legal hush money payment. It was insane. It

(11:02):
was the most absurd case of all of them, and
all of them were absurd, but this one was particularly preposterous.
And I also just think that, you know, we need
to remind ourselves. People can stretch the law to do
a whole bunch of different things. There needs to be
an ethical moral foundation to it. Did this person do
a bad thing? Yes or no? And the answer with
Trump is no, he didn't.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Am I wrong, buck, And we can answer this when
we come back from the break. Thinking in a larger context,
this also may well rep well, I'm curious because we
don't know, but I wonder if this represents the end of,
to a certain extent, the politics of personal destruction where
the American public, because I don't know that anybody has

(11:45):
been attacked more aggressively for personal foibles than Donald Trump has,
maybe in any of our lives. Bill Clinton certainly had
some element. You can argue he brought that along in
the White House, but Clinton actually didn't have any consequences.
Now Trump hasn't had any consequences. Is one of the
legacies of Trump going to be that going back in

(12:08):
time twenty years, forty years, thirty, whatever you want to say,
and wagging your finger and saying he did this that
the American public just doesn't care. Or is Trump such
a unique political talent that he was able to overcome
all that and it would destroy other politicians if they
had similar things in their background. I just I think
it's an interesting way to think going forward. Are we

(12:31):
going to value people not based on their entire worst
thing of history or not? Going forward?

Speaker 2 (12:37):
I think I see the tremendous gifts and also some
of the idiosyncrasies and shortcomings of Trump with some clarity.
I'd like to think so, at least I think on
this score he's almost superhuman, meaning the amount of incoming,
like he's a unicorns in that way. Yes, the amount
of incoming that he can take, the amount of artillery

(13:00):
fire so to speak, that you can throw in his
direction and he just keeps coming. I think it would
have I think it would have broken a lot. A
lot of other people would have said, I want to
play golf. Okay, let's just negotiate this out. Let's figure
this out. But with Trump man, he loves a fight.
He you know, the moment somebody wants to throw a
punch at him, he is he is always down to CounterPunch.

(13:22):
So it's remarkable, and I honestly, today's a day everybody
should everybody who's supported Trump and voted for Trump. His
victory is complete today in a sense. I know, the
inauguration's coming up and there'll be a lot more of this, feeling, Clay.
But the defeat of the law fair is absolute now.
And it's an incredible thing that he was able to do.
And and you know, the good guys won this round,

(13:44):
so you know, go into the weekend feeling good about it.
We'll also talk a little bit more about the analysis
on this, and and of course updates on the wildfires
in California, Lot Clay, a lot of people talking about
Arson now, yeah, which is really really disconcerting. I mean,
not not verified yet, but we'll get into some of
this now. Inflation, my friends, is still a problem. And

(14:06):
here's why. Inflation is tied to government money printing. Look
at how much the debt is. Look At how much
money's gonna have to be printed to pay the automatic
spending we have, plus the servicing of the debt These
are realities, no matter how good doges in the first
couple of years, no matter what Trump does. So it
makes sense to diversify with gold and silver. That's where

(14:27):
the Birch Gold Group comes in. Let me tell you
about Amy. Amy was considering buying precious metals because she
had some uninvested funds sitting in an account from an
old four oh one K rollover. But she's like, what
do I do with this? Well, she heard us talking
about the Birch Gold Group. She said, I know what
I'll do with it. I'll put it into gold and silver.
Text to the number we provided. That's what Amy did,
ninety eight ninety eight ninety eight. That's the number to text.

(14:49):
Use my name Buck, So text Buck Buck to ninety
eight ninety eight ninety eight. And Amy got going with
some precious metals for this four oh one K account.
She feels good about and she was impressed with the
knowledge that Birch Gold Group brought to bear. How do
you protect the value of your savings account from eroding
further because of inflation invest a portion of it in gold.

(15:12):
Call the Birch Gold Group right now this rollover for
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Speaker 1 (15:34):
Slash Buck Saving America one thought at a time Clay
Travis and Buck Sexton them.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Find them on the free.

Speaker 4 (15:44):
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Wildfires in LA continue to burn. They haven't been contained
very much. But what I saw the Pride website Buck saying, hey,
we're so good glad we have a lesbian fire chief,
even though nothing has been done to actually in the fires.
And who is this woman that I think it's a

(16:09):
woman that is in a video yesterday we played for you,
and I do think it's important. I do think it's
really important that LA decided, hey, we have too many
white firemen. And yesterday we played Adam Carolla testifying in
front of the California Legislature saying he had to wait

(16:30):
seven years to become a fireman and if you were
a minority woman and you showed up and you applied
to be a fireman, you got basically automatically put at
the front of the line. And some people say, well,
why does this matter, Why should we be having this conversation. Well,
LA doesn't have enough firefighters, and they don't have enough
firefighters who are able to do the job at a

(16:52):
high level, because in general, in general, the people who
are going to be best at firefighting are big, tough,
strong dudes. I can't believe that this is considered controversial.
But if your house was on fire and you had
choice choice as to who should save your family, and
the options were four women who are five foot four

(17:16):
and weigh one hundred and thirty pounds, and they had
to carry out your family, they had to carry out
your animals, they had to carry out your loved.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
Ones, friend's family, anybody who was in the home, or you.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
Could pick four six foot four dudes who weighed two
hundred and twenty pounds. Is anybody out there saying, yeah,
I'd like the five foot four women to actually save me.
It is important some of these jobs. Men in general
are better able to do the job. Well, this is
a video clip that has gone viral that I just

(17:51):
find completely and totally indefensible. This is the LA Fire
Department Chief Christine Larson. She has talked about whether or
not she can do the job, and she said, and
she says, specifically, am I going to be able to
carry your husband out of a fire? He got himself
in the wrong place? Excuse me, listen to this.

Speaker 5 (18:13):
You want to see somebody that responds to your house,
your emergency, whether it's a medical call or a fire call,
that looks like you. It gives that person a little
bit more ease knowing that somebody might understand their situation better.
Is she strong enough to do this? Or you couldn't
carry my husband out of a fire? Which my response
is he got himself in the wrong place. If I
have to carry him out of a.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
Fire, whoa clay hold on. There's two there's two big
problems here. First of all, I mean, I'll started this
is one hundred percent reel. This is true for real
out there, absolutely real. Okay, So there, this is the
promotion of DEI as a concept on video at the
Los Angeles Fire Department. Okay, the second part first, because

(18:53):
that's one that's the most outrageous people say well, if
I have to carry your husband out, you know, can
I And it's like, well, maybe husband's in a bad
place if I have to carry me was like, that's
what a fire department's for when things go bad. It's
no one's fault. It's a fire. You're supposed to help people.
It's not any man. You didn't do the right thing
with the fire exits or something. I mean, it's the dumbest,

(19:14):
craziest thing, and it's an admission that she obviously can't
also effectively.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
Imagine, like, let me pause here for a sec. Imagine
that you were a doctor and the doctor got the
job that they weren't qualified for, and the doctor said,
can I do open heart surgery on your husband? Well,
he got himself in a really bad place. If he
needs open heart surgery.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
Maybe you should have put the big max down before
he needed a cardiac surgeon. I mean, that's basically the
same logic applied.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Like you're basically bragging to people that you can't do
the most serious parts of the job. And actually maybe
it's your fault if you need the help of the
most serious parts of the job.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
I mean, I can't believe this is real. The second
part of it. I watched it a couple of times.
I think it's the favorite clip guard around the internet
right now. I would also say Clay the first part though,
gets far less attention because the second part is so egregious.
But that first part where she says, when you have
a fire call, you want somebody to respond who looks

(20:17):
like you. No, yeah, that's not a thing. There's no
part of that. It goes, oh, okay, well the cop,
I mean the cop the firefighters showed up. You know,
he's white, so I have this feeling or that feeling
or he's black or here's whatever that is. But see,
it's really central to the whole DEI concept. We need

(20:37):
to have people who look like the people they're going
to serve, because somehow that will make the people that
are being served feel better instead of these are the
best people to do this job that we could find
absolutely anywhere, who will keep you and your property as
safe as possible. Right. I just completely reject what she
starts out what she starts out with there, which is
you want somebody you know the same thing about the cop.

(20:58):
Do you care what color the cop is? Who will
well I mean maybe gender. I do you care what
color the comp is? Rhymes No, you don't. You just
want the best cop.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yes, And you want the baddest asked person to be
able to handle the most significant aspects of the job.
And I just I can't believe that this would be
a promotional video. This is the other part. Both of
those things are awfully wrong. But as part of promotion videos,
you decide what you want to feature. This is my

(21:29):
issue with Christy Nome. You know, if you go back
in time when you write your autobiography, everybody is limiting
the totality of their life into the one volume, and
the stories that you tell are the ones that you
feel are the most apropos and often put you in
the best light for people who want to see your story.

(21:49):
It's important here to understand someone inside of the LA
Fire Department saw these promotional videos and said, oh, we
definitely need to feature this particular part of the interview
that this person, Christine Larson, I think is the name
this person probably set for a forty five minute interview.
For people who don't know how this stuff works, some

(22:10):
of you have probably been involved in promotional videos. Somebody,
an editor comes in and chops this up and says, oh,
that was a really good take. Oh we really like
the way that that you conveyed this. This is a
message we really want to get out there. And then
they chose to feature this. It's not like this was
a live interview and they decided, Oh, sometimes you say

(22:33):
in a live interview things that are not the best
version of what you would like to put out there.
This is the message they wanted to convey. Hey, if
your husband needs to be carried out in a fire,
you're screwed. But man, we hope that you like the
fact that there's a woman firefighter showing up. It's actually
insulting also to a lot of other female firefighters who
may be able to do the job could throw a

(22:54):
guy over their shoulder.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Maybe not that many, but some very few. But yes,
I would be curious to see how that goes. But
but to your point about about the way that this
is presented, this is the DEI firefighter putting forward their
best foot. This isn't an offhand comment at the firehouse
that got caught in some one's cell phone video. This is, Hey,

(23:18):
we want to show you how great we are in
the LA fire Department, and they're putting forward this video
that's supposed to make you think that they know what
they're doing and that they've got this under control. So
clearly not not confidence inspiring, and given what has gone on,
I mean, the the absolute devastation these there's these whole
areas on the Palisades, most notably there are other areas

(23:40):
I know as well Clay. They're not going to be
people aren't going to be able to live there for years.
It will take years to rebuild if they decide to
rebuild in these areas. If some people may just decide
just to you know, to take the insurance money on
the house, all the land and move, I don't know
how that's going to work out. There are huge problems
also with the the insurance you know, the fire insurance

(24:02):
industry in these areas too, and it's you know, California
has weighed in, right, so the California just have you
seen some of this people? There are lots of people
who lost their plans in the Palisades just this year
or in the last year, I should say it's twenty
twenty five now relatively recently, and it's because California puts

(24:24):
all these mandates for you know what level of coverage
there can be, how much coverage, how expensive it can be.
And so then they also have this this state fund
to forget what it's called, there's this fair fair I think,
where that's your insurance of last resort for fire home
insurance and it's nowhere near enough to cover the homes

(24:47):
right they have, So they have a pool that is
not going to be sufficient to cover the damage after
California's mandates made it so that some of the largest
insurers pulled out entirely. And and then you sit here
and you go, this is just again poor manage. It's
poor management of everything, poor management of fire, poor management
of insurance, poor management across the board. You don't want

(25:08):
to be in a state run by Gavin Newsom.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
Can we go to this call because I think Jeremy's
going to speak for a lot of firefighters out there
who just heard the clip that we played of that
LA firefighter. And Jeremy, what's your reaction when you hear
this highly paid LA firefighter saying, Hey, if your husband's
gonna needs to be carried out, he found himself in
a bad spot.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
Four hundred grand clay four hundred grand. Sorry, go ahead, Jeremy.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
I think she's a complete and total moron. Number one,
it is never the victim's fault at all. Yeah, it
is a situation that happened, and I don't care the
house called on fire. You may have been asleep, now
your trap. How is that your fault?

Speaker 1 (25:56):
But isn't that one of the key jobs of a
firefighter would be to get anybody out. And so when
you're saying, oh, he got himself into a bad spot,
I mean, this has to infuriate firefighters everywhere.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
I would think, oh, oh, it completely ticks me out,
because my thing is we do it to save lives,
not property. Lives. Property houses and stuff can be rebuilt.
You cannot get your life back. And another thing that
really aggravated me about her comment was if you can't

(26:34):
carry them out, you drag them out.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yes, sir, yeah, thank you, thank you for calling in, Jeremy.
I mean, Clay, this is where you see the people
that always claim diversity doesn't mean less capable. You know,
when you have a focus on diversity, meaning when you're
hiring for diversity, when you're advancing people for that reason,
it always is shown to be false. They're there because

(27:03):
if your focus is merit, then you don't have to
talk about DEI. So the moment that you're focusing on DEI,
you're not focusing on merit. So these things work. This
is they work, you know, in distinction to each other,
in contradiction to each other.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
But we'll come back in a second. Breaking news I
just saw speaking of DEI Meta, Facebook is ending all
DEI programs in the company. So Zuckerberg said, hey, we're
done with fact checking. This is a headline that I
just got from Axios Exclusive three minutes ago. They are

(27:39):
ending DEI in in Meta, which is big in Silicon
Valley because this has been one of the places that
has most foisted DEI upon us.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
We'll talk more about that.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
I just think of timing is interesting because we're having
the La wildfire discussion in the random fire chief who
says you can't actually do the job. Your husband's screwed
based if he ends up in need.

Speaker 6 (28:01):
Well.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
Also, i'd love to hear from other firefighters when you
hear that audio, what your reaction is. Appreciate the call
from Alabama eight hundred and two A two two eight
A two. And we also need to talk speaking of courts,
big TikTok hearing at the Supreme Court today, Buck, and
it's going to be intriguing to see what they do
about the potential looming TikTok band. We'll talk about all

(28:24):
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(28:45):
memories were digital in nature. That is, people were taking
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Grandma gets them, Grandpa gets them. Everybody's able to look
at those digital photos. They're spread around easily via tech message.
But how many old great memories are you not able
to share because they're not digitized. Maybe they're still in

(29:06):
grandma's attic, maybe they're in your aunt or uncle's control.
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(29:26):
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Speaker 4 (29:49):
With the guys on the Sunday Hang with Clay and
Buck podcast.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
A new episode of Every Sunday.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
Find it on the iHeart app or wherever you get
your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
As we know, Donald Trump was sentenced this morning for
the non crime of a business records ledger issue. The
whole thing we've talked about insane. He was sentenced to
the stiff punishment of nothing, no punishment other than they
can still say he is technically a convicted felon, although

(30:21):
no serious person thinks that Donald Trump committed a felony
or any crime for that matter. I don't know what
it is going to take for Democrats to finally give
it up on this, but in the meantime we'll continue
to follow that, and I think we'll talk to Andy
McCarthy in the third hour about the whole law fair mess.

(30:44):
We've also got our friend Ryan Gradusky whose podcast is
doing great, a lot of you really enjoying it. It's
putting on his full data nerd hat and going into
everything in the world of politics, and it's just sort
of general interest news too. He does a great job
with it's a numbers game. But Clay, I remember the
first time and I came across or heard about TikTok.

(31:07):
It was during the pandemic. Actually, so I was at
home and I looked something like a wooly mammoth. Did
you have the full like no haircut thing for a
long time? I think I went four or five. I
actually cut my own hair for a while, which was
at what ages. Well, during the pandemic, Clay, not as
like a child.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
Oh, I thought you were like talking about like in college,
like you were living and you know, like I'm saying,
when everything was shut down, you could nothing shut down here?
Shut down for like a month. I went and just
went to get my haircut like a normal person.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
So so unfair. I should probably share. I have a
photo where I look like I don't know, I looked
like I grew up in a cave or something or
was living. You couldn't get a haircut in New York.
Absolutely not for months, like I mean, from whatever it
was February, you know, end of February, early March, shutdown
day to June, maybe July. So I mean, think, what

(32:04):
would what would you look like? Clay Travis, always very
well quaffed, mister Clay, what would you look like with
no haircut for six months? Dude? Think about it.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
I probably looked like I did in high school. That's
why I thought I was gonna get ridiculed for my
You know, my kids have my high school yearbook photo
as their backdrop to make fun of me on their phones,
like and Laura does my wife like if you like
their screensaver is my senior class yearbook photo.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
You You and my brother are the same year in
My older brother the same year in school. And I
remember this. There was a time everybody was listening to
Dave Matthews playing their Hackey Sack wearing their birken stocks
and uh, and they would they put their hair behind
their ears.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
That's right, super stars. That was that was a superstyle.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
That was the like I'm preppy, I play soccer and
listen to Dave Matthews and yeah, you know, like that
was the look for a while.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
It was that had to talk your hair behind the ear,
and so I think it would look something like that,
but I still for people who lived in Red States,
what you guys dealt with in New York and California
is like finding out that someone was in a foreign
country because I we shut my gym buck. My gym

(33:18):
was back open, like by the first week of May.
Like they shut down at gym's for like six weeks,
which was stupid. But by May one ish in Tennessee,
if you lived in a normal place, your life was
basically back to normal. May one, twenty twenty. Schools opened
back up in August full go. Now people still had

(33:39):
to wear masks. It was stupid, but it was. There
was very little we COVID existed for like six weeks
and then people were like, yeah, this is stupid, Like
let's kind of go back to normal.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
Case of New York City. My friend in New York City,
they had metrics for reopening gyms and other things. And
when we hit the metrics after all the waiting, to Blasio,
because he's a vile Communis and a little dictator at heart,
just said, yeah, I don't care, We're not opening them anyway.
So he set and.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
He said, you guys had to work out in masks,
which is still crazy to me to think about. Like
in the gym you had to have a mask on.
People would come up to you and yell at you.
On the treadmill.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
If you were on a treadmill without a mask, think
about that, you had to run with your mask on.
It was the dumbest thing in the world. And along
with this and danger, so stupid. Bad for you, by
the way, you're all these fibers and stuff you're in here.
It's horrible. Anyway. I bring it up because that was
when I learned about TikTok, and I remember the first
TikTok video. I'm getting a little nostalgic about TikTok because

(34:37):
it might be rip TikTok here pretty soon thanks to
the Supreme Court, uh well, actually not the Supreme Court
it's a law that's been passed and now the Supreme
Court's weighing in on it. But uh, it was a
shuffle dance which I tried a little bit during COVID.
I did not do very well with that, so uh,
you know, you know, do you know what I'm talking about.
That was one of the big things TikTok went viral

(34:57):
for in the early days, teaching people during COVID how
to do these little dance steps at home. And I
did not go through this universe. We were just not
that home that much. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, mister German
cinephile over here.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
Hold on, you in your apartment by yourself, were learning
how to do dances.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
This is what you were doing in your free time.
I was, you know, like I was trying to pick
up a new hobby. Don't worry about whether it was
dancing or not. The point is that was when I
first saw TikTok. I can't imagine you.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
First of all, I told you this when we first
started doing the show in June of twenty one. Sometime
that summer, I was up in New York and you
were like, oh, you can come see my apartment, and
I walked in, and I was like, I would have
gone absolutely insane if I lived in a city and
they walked down and I had to stay in an
apartment like you're in a high rise apartment building. The

(35:53):
only reason to live in New York City, in my opinion,
is to experience outside of your apartment life of New
York City.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
Well, this is why, this is why people decided. Some
people decided to move because they were so upset. I mean,
New York City absent the use of the city is
it feels like a prison, you know, because you have
no you have no land, you have no outdoor space,
you have no freedom. So yeah, no, it was particularly brutal.
I think it was worse in the I think the
lockdown was worse in New York City than it was

(36:22):
honestly anywhere.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
Else in the entire I think that's probably true because
at least in La Buying large people had land, like
there were a lot of crazy towns. But to your point,
you're basically in a high rise prison if you can't
leave your apartment. A lot of people you don't even
have You did not have outdoor air, like, you didn't
have like a balcony where you could even go outside
and like get fresh air, like it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
Yes, and uh, and I couldn't even get a haircut
for months. So I managed to buy myself a pair
of like Crayola scissors off of Amazon and then just
sit there and try to cut my hair so it
wouldn't be so long as in my eyes anyway. Ah, memories, memories, TikTok.
That's how I learned about it. And then all of
a sudden you get there's some there's some cool content
on there. I'll tell you. There's this guy who takes

(37:04):
a lot of you. You've probably if you haven't seen this.
I think his name is Donnie Dust and he takes
like tools and someone will say, can you make a
tomahawk with you know, a stick in a rock? And
he just does it right in front of you. It's amazing.
There's some cool stuff on there. Problem is it's owned
by China and it's a Chinese spying app or whatever. Right,
that's the problem. That's why everyone's also freaked out about this.

(37:25):
So Supreme Court looks like they're going to uphold the
law after oral arguments this morning, after both Republicans and
Democrats had decided that there was a national security risk
from TikTok, and so they passed this law that said
it has to be sold or will be basically shut
down in the United States. So really it seems like

(37:47):
they got to find a buyer for it. Here, Clay, So,
do you know anybody we got to keep this thing alive.
There is so much great cooking content and actually a
lot of good fitness content on TikTok as well. I'll
tell you. I know, everyone just thinks that they're trying
to steal your data for China, but at least you
can get ads in the process.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
I So here's a Ali just texted us producer Ali
that Elon should buy it. So here is the challenge
as I see it. And we had an actual discussion
about this yesterday, because I don't think this is an
easy answer. You believe that it should basically exist as
is right. As a rough way of describing your position,

(38:27):
my position is, I actually do not believe that China
should be able to own this company, which I believe
is more powerful as a media entity than the New
York Times is, than the Washington Post is, than Fox
News is, than the Wall Street Journal is, whatever media
outlet you enjoy consuming and we would never allow the

(38:49):
four things that I just ticked through to be owned
by a foreigner because of the impact that it could have.
So I think, and you were just kind of hitting
at this, I think that TikTok should be forced to
divest itself of Chinese ownership of its US based assets.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
And then the question beyond that becomes, Okay, who would
buy it?

Speaker 1 (39:08):
And I want an Elon Musk like figure to buy
TikTok because all I want them to do is do
the same thing that now Facebook says it's doing and
that Twitter does, which is just have a content neutral
policy in place where the algorithm doesn't favor anything in
particular of a political bent and everybody gets a fair

(39:30):
playing field. That's my ideal world for where we could
go with TikTok. Now here's the challenge. The value of TikTok.
I would think buck as it inches closer to this
banning date, which is what like January nineteenth, what's the
day when it would And for people who are like,
what does a band look like? My understanding and correct
me if I'm wrong on this is basically the app

(39:52):
would no longer be able to update and therefore it
eventually becomes unusable on iPhones or androids or whatever else
because without being able to update bugs takeover, it becomes
less efficient all those things.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yes, and I mean TikTok It's January nineteenth is the date.
And it's a big platform. I mean, it claims to
have a billion monthly active users globally and claims to
have one hundred and fifty million monthly active users in
the United States. That seems I mean, I don't see
how that's possible, considering that would mean that half the

(40:29):
country is basically on using TikTok at least once a month.
That number strikes me as not really possible. But this
is the number that they This is the number that
they put out there officially. I mean, go google it,
you'll find you'll find that that's what they say. I
think it's interesting because, for one thing, it's because China
owns this. If this was owned by Sweden or the

(40:52):
UK or you know, France or something, I don't think
that there would be this issue. So we clearly put
China in different category of national security concern. And I've
always thought that the spying components of this, or the
ability to spy with This is a little bit overblown
considering that TikTok is actually to the TikTok that we

(41:14):
use is based in the US, and the servers are
based in the US, And people say, well, they could
rout it all back to China. Yeah, the Chinese. The
Chinese can hack into a lot of things, and they
have hacked into a lot of things anyway. But here
we have a major social media platform that seems ripe
for the taking from somebody with very deep pockets, and
I would just love for it to be This is

(41:35):
kind of my takeaway on it, Clay. I would love
for this to be an opportunity to once again push
the Internet more toward freedom and sanity, which is what
we've seen with X and now some up with Facebook.
I would say this too on the Facebook part of this,
which is huge as you all know that Facebook is
moving away from Clay said no more DEI programs. Now

(41:56):
they're going to be far more friendly to conservatives into
politics and the free speech stuff. But is it opportunistic
by Zuckerberg, Yeah, of course, but is it still the
direction I wont Zuckerberg going? And yes, so do you
think Zuckerberg Trump if you had to bet that's so interesting. Yes,

(42:17):
I think, But I don't think he thinks of himself
as a Republican. I just think I think he recognizes
Kamala as a moron, and that the whole Democrat campaign
was a lie, that Diden the whole thing was a lie,
and that Kamala's competent was a lie. And I think
a lot of the tech bros are in that category.
They're not ideologically we'd even get into some of this
on some of the immigration stuff. There's some disputes on

(42:40):
the right. Maybe we'll talk more about that another time.
A lot of the tech bros are not ideologically right wing,
but they are ideologically results in common sense aligned, and
that meant a rejection of the Democrats in this election.
I agree with you.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
I think Bezos and Zuckerberg, in their own private voting
actually voted Trump.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
I really do.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
And by the way, on TikTok, what percentage of our
audience that is listening to us right now? You talked
about the sheer number that they claim. What percentage of
this audience has a TikTok account? I would actually love
to hear from people if you are active on TikTok
and listening to us, what do you think should happen?
And I'm not sure we will get a single call,

(43:22):
by the way, from many of you're listening to us,
is I'm not sure we'll get a single call from.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
Any when he uses TikTok frequently.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
I could be completely wrong, but I would love to
hear from people if TikTok is your preferred social media
site because eight hundred and two eight two two eight
a two, what do you think as a user should
happen here?

Speaker 2 (43:41):
And and also do you use it?

Speaker 1 (43:43):
Because one of the things we think about a lot
on this show is how do we reach audiences in
so many different places? Because it we're in such a
unique world now old school. When Rush started this show,
he built a radio universe. There was no podcasting, There
was no video on demand that you could watch on
YouTube of sit down interviews. It was a very different

(44:05):
media environment. So we're trying to be everywhere, and I'm
just curious how many people that are listening to us
right now TikTok is your preferred social media platform and
what do you think should happen? Because the politics on
this book are actually pretty fascinating Trump is against a
band so and Biden is trying to ban it.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
So.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
I do think this doesn't line itself up naturally with
Republicans believe X and Democrats believe why as it pertains
to what should happen for TikTok, which is why I
think it's one of the most interesting stories out there
right now.

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Speaker 4 (45:28):
Stories are freedom stories of America, inspirational stories that you
unite us all each day, spend time with Clay and
buy find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever
you get your podcasts. We've been talking about the TikTok band,
the President Trump laf Air officially coming to a conclusion
in New York City.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
In many ways, at least we're going to be joined
now by our friend Andy McCarthy. But I also want
to mention in the meantime, I think we have like
one hundred thousand TikTok followers on Clay and Buck Show,
so I should mention that we are active on TikTok. Basically,
if you go on to any social media platform, in
addition to being able to hear us three hours every day,

(46:11):
whether it's TikTok, whether it's Instagram, whether it's Facebook, whether
it's Twitter, you can put in my name, you can
put in Buck's name, you can put in Clay and Buck,
and you will find us on every social media platform
under the sun. I doubt that Andy McCarthy has been
like Buck Sexton, practicing dance moves in his apartment, trying
to get ready for TikTok's celebritydom. Maybe he has he's

(46:34):
a Mets fan. After all, there's not a lot to
dance for, though at least not historically. And Andy joins us,
now we're gonna get into a bunch of stuff. Andy,
Mets had a good offseason. By the way, congratulations on
your owner being so rich he can pay whatever he
wants for anybody.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
It's a nice thing to have.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
But let's dive into some of these legal related issues.
I just I understand that the Trump team is angry
about the fact that a sentence doesn't occurred. But if
you and I had gone on the air when all
this started and said, if Trump is convicted of everything,
eventually it's going to lead to an unconditional discharge, where

(47:13):
effectively Judge Merchant acknowledges that there is no punishment and
there are no consequences other than the process itself for Trump.
I think a lot of people would have called us crazy.
Yet this is where we are. Basically, after all this,
merchand says, Okay, I'm gonna stamp him. He's a felon,
but nothing at all is going to happen to him.
This case is over unconditional discharge. I mean, it's kind

(47:35):
of an unprecedented procedural posture from my perspective. Would you agree,
how would you analyze it?

Speaker 3 (47:43):
Well?

Speaker 6 (47:43):
I think it's the best outcome play for Trump. Now
I say that as someone who's been I've kind of
been pushing against the grain with a number of my
friends who point out, and I do not agree with
this in principle, that this is a preposterous case. Trump

(48:04):
has an excellent chance of getting it reversed on appeal.
But those of us who've been in the biz know
that you can't get to your appeal until you've been
sentenced and the judgment of conviction is formally entered. And
that means this had to happen today if you were
going to get on to the appeal. And I think
a lot of people look at this and say, you know, look,

(48:24):
Trump's got a great chance of winning an appeal. Why
doesn't he just like, let the sentencing happen and let's
get on with it. But the thing is, it's not
my criminal record. You know, It's easy for me to
say on balance, I you know, I think he should
just get on with the sentencing so he can get
on with the appeal. But President Trump is a seventy

(48:45):
eight year old guy who was proud of the fact
that he never had a run in with the law
that left him with a criminal record before, and I
think he's appalled at the fact that he got dragged
through this totally absurd criminal proceeding which couldn't have happened
to anyone else, brought by a district attorney who's notorious
to not enforcing the laws, so it couldn't have been

(49:07):
more clear that it was just a rig political thing.
So I understand why he didn't want to have this happened.
And look, he came within ten days of basically getting
to the point where they couldn't touch him anymore, which
is why they were in such a hot panic.

Speaker 3 (49:27):
To do this.

Speaker 6 (49:27):
But I think when they all stepped back from this,
what they're going to linger on is what you just summarized,
And the way I've been putting this point is this.
Remember that in bringing this case and converting what's normally
a misdemeanor in New York into a felony, what Bragg

(49:49):
claimed was Trump falsified his business records for the purpose
of committing another crime. And the other crime they said
he committed basically, was to steal the t twenty sixteen election.
And I think everybody now knows that if you really
believe this guy stole the most important office on the planet,

(50:11):
all the power of the presidency, how on earth could
you sentence him to no jail, no probation, and no fine.
So I think in the end, it just really shows
how absurd this thing was from soup to nuts.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Andy, do you feel like this has, on the one hand,
greatly undermine respect for the law, But on the other hand,
there's the rejection of lawfare that has occurred at the
ballot box? Right, So, I mean, to me, looking at this,
it seems like this this has been a really bad
time for the law as a general concept and for
the system. But also it's been preserved in another sense.

(50:50):
How do you look at this now that we've gone
through the four criminal prosecutions, we've seen where it all goes,
You know, how do you assess the damage?

Speaker 6 (51:01):
I think it's really bad. I'm thankful that it wasn't
worse because I think the good fortune book that happened here,
which isn't getting enough attention, is the Supreme Court's immunity
ruling if it hadn't been to the immunity litigation, then

(51:21):
Jack Smith would have been able, with Judge Chuckkins help
to rush the j six case to trial. And I
think if they had tried Trump say for two or
three months beginning in April or so of twenty twenty four,
and what that case was about was something that people

(51:43):
are not happy about. Right the January sixth thing. You
can argue, and I have argued that prosecution in the
criminal courts was not the right check on that behavior,
but that's a technical legal argument. That would have been,
you know, two or three months of trial with you

(52:04):
a reminder of that event in the middle of the campaign,
and I think people might have had a different impression
of law enforce of lawfare. What ended up happening was
because the Supreme Court issued first of the immunity litigation,
which Smith didn't anticipate, put the whole January sixth case

(52:25):
on ice, and then when the Supreme Court decided it
in July, it was clear that there was no way
that Smith was ever going to get to trial. And
as a result, in the public mind, lawfare is Bragg's case,
and that's what Trump should always have wanted so I
think it worked out well for Trump because in the

(52:47):
public mind, lawfare is this very abusive use of the
criminal proceedings to invent a case unabashedly partisan as it
was done by Bragg, and break every rule in the
book to get him convicted in the end, and it's
an idiotic case. So I think that was a real

(53:08):
turn off to people and as a result it helped
Trump a lot in the election. But it might not
have worked out that way if he had if it
hadn't been to the immunity litigation.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
Let's wait into the weeds. You mentioned that you think
there might be an appeal that could work. I presume
that could be a multi front appeal in both What
is the second crime that allowed this to be elevated
from a misdemeanor to a felony. That's always been a
bit of a mess in this brag case. Also, how
could presidential immunity, if at all, ultimately weigh in here

(53:43):
in terms of worthies or worthies not official presidential tactics
in some way. What do you think the chance is
if you were setting odds are on appeal for Trump
at this point, not that it matters that much, because again,
there is an unconditional discharge, and there's no actual crime
but a punishment. But two years from now, what do

(54:04):
you think the chances are that we basically have this
entire thing white clean.

Speaker 6 (54:08):
I don't know what a number i'd put on it,
but I would be shocked if this case survives appeal.
And that's because I think it's shot through with reversible error,
even in the bringing of the case in the first place. So,
for example, since you're inviting me to get in the weeds,

(54:28):
I think it's a violation of New York's constitution to
bring the case the way brad Thing brought it, because
the statute that he relied on did not make it
clear and does not make it clear that a state
district attorney has a right to enforce federal campaign law.
Then I think the indictment fails as an indictment because

(54:49):
it fails to state the second crime, so it doesn't
put the defendant on notice of what the crime is,
which is what an indictment is supposed to do.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
I'm sorry to cut you off here.

Speaker 1 (54:59):
In fact, if I remember correctly, didn't they say the
second crime could be any one of three different second crimes,
like they didn't even specify which one you had to
convict on.

Speaker 6 (55:08):
Yeah, you're hitting the one at the end that I
think is the most egregious era of all, which is
that merch On told the jury that they didn't need
to be unanimous on what the other crime was. That
you know, basically there was three choices, but he didn't
even make them choose from those three choices. He told them,
you know, you don't have to tell us which one
it is, and you don't need to be unanimous. And

(55:30):
the Supreme Court, I think cannot have been more clear
that in a criminal case, when you're talking about a
fact that is consequential in terms of what the sentence
will be. And let's remember, this is the fact that
turns the misdemeanor into a felony, right, It's the fact
that turns something that would be you know, zero to

(55:51):
less than a year into a four year felony. When
which one strung together the way Bragg did, we're talking
about like one hundred and thirty years potential of incarration. Right,
So obviously under Supreme Court jurisprudence, the jury had to
be unanimous on what the crime was. Brett and murchad
told them they didn't.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
Have to be.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
Andy. Can you also give us your sense we only
got a couple of minutes. But on the whole TikTok fiasco,
the oral arguments heard by the Supreme Court today, just
what do you make of forcing the sale or shutdown
of this app and the Congress stepping in and all that.

Speaker 6 (56:31):
Yeah, I guess because of the work I've done in
the national security realm over the years, I really thought
this was kind of a frivolous appeal. I mean, I
don't like to throw that word around, although I do
feel like in the age of lawfair of thrown and
around it a whole lot. But this is not a

(56:52):
First Amendment case. Nobody is stopping anybody's speech. What they're saying,
basically is that a hostile foreign power cannot own a
platform for expression in the United States. No one's saying
that somebody else can't operate TikTok the same way. And
no one is saying that if somebody else does by

(57:16):
TikTok and they want to run it exactly the same
way as it's run now, that no one's saying they
can't do that. What they're saying is that a hostile
foreign power can't own a platform like this in the
United States. That seems to me to be common sense.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
All right, Anny McCarthy, everybody, and you appreciate you being
with us as always.

Speaker 6 (57:39):
All right, guys, have a good one.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
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Speaker 4 (58:34):
Sometimes all you can do is laugh, and they do
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Speaker 1 (58:42):
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