June 29, 2025 • 25 mins
May Mailman, Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Policy Strategist talks about the SCOTUS wins and the latest on the Big, Beautiful Bill. Florida Senator Rick Scott describes President Trump’s bold action to bring peace to the Middle East.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Team forty seven with Clay and Buck starts. Now.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
We are joined now by Senator Rick Scott, who is
working on the big beautiful bill which Trump would like
to have signed by July fourth. So we'll get to
that in a sec. But first, Senator Scott, what have
you thought of President Trump's diplomacy in the Middle East
and how this has all played itself out so far.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Well, I was with the President when he announced the
ceasefire yesterday and he was, of course, this is very happy. Look,
I'm proud of decision he made that a lot of
people probably would have a very difficult time making. But
it's going to preserve our safety and the safety of
(00:50):
people throughout them, not just an Israel, but throughout the
Middle East. So the decision he made to stop the
importons in a round with a big deal and then
to work to work to get the ceasefire happening. It's
I mean, if look at what this guy has done.
I mean, you know people up here they own and say,
oh he wants you know, he wants to go to war.
(01:11):
This is the last person who wants to go to war.
He doesn't like war, he wants peace. He doesn't want
he doesn't want anybody you know killed now he doesn't know.
His job is to defend our freedom and defend the
safety of American citizens. But I'm very proud of him,
and and I hope this this is fire works and
(01:33):
the ranst An opportunity. Now they can decide to be
a normal country or they can continue to be a country.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Senator Scott, can we get you to can we get
you to call back on a We got to try
to sell connection here again in a second, because I
claim I don't I can't pick up about half of
what he's saying there.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, he's breaking it out. Let's get him, Let's get
him back. But what he's talking about is he says
he was with President Trump for the announcement of the
ceasefire yesterday, and when he get we get him back in,
we will ask him about the decision and the timeframe
of the so called Big Beautiful Bill, which is the
crown jewel of the Trump legislative plan.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
I do think a point here, Clay, is that the
fact that Trump is in a position knowing what he knows,
and a lot of conversations clearly with our allies in
Israel about how things are going that Israel was able
to degrade Iranian nuclear and conventional military capacity so much
is just indicative of how fast these operations were able
(02:29):
to achieve the success that they needed. Senator Scott, thanks
for calling back. What is next you think, though? So
if the ceasefire holds, what are the administration's hope for
next steps and what are the priorities so we can
get to a more peaceful and stable Middle East?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Well, I think we've got to continue to do what
President Trump did his first term is just continue build
relationships with all the countries to say, look, let's all
get along, let's all figure out how do we all
build our economies. Let's make sure that we all respect
the sovereignty of true uh, and let's build our economies
which helps all of our citizens. And so uh. The
Abraham Accords were a big deal and that we need
(03:08):
to expand them. But yeah, look, I think all of
us hope for peace. All of us hope you know,
you know, we we want we want peace in in
in Iran and everywhere. We don't want who wants to
go to war? I mean that, you know, I served
in the military. I didn't you know, I didn't I
had zero interest in going to war. I know, I
(03:29):
wanted to send the freedom of this country. So hopefully
that's what's going to happen. It's up to Iran, though,
it's it's they're you know, if you look around the
world around the world, who are the destabilizing groups. Well,
in Latin America it's Cuba. UH. In the Middle East
it's Iran. UH. In Asia it's China and North Korea,
(03:49):
and then in the europe area it's Russia. I mean
they I don't know why they want to, you know,
to cause havoc and people dying. I mean, we all
have children, are grandchildren, and why do they want the
people pe people people's lives at risk. I just don't
get it, but they do. Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Let's go into the decision being made on the big
beautiful bill. So Trump and you just said you were
with him yesterday. I'm sure you got the absolute latest
as UH as this process plays itself out, wants this
to be done by July fourth. UH. Senator John Thune
I believe, has said that he's not going to allow
anybody to leave and go on their July fourth break
(04:28):
until this is passed.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
What's the timeframe?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Are you optimistic the Senate is going to deliver a
bill before we get to the July fourth holiday.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
I'm very optimistic that we'll get there. Now we're not
there yet. The you know, we have we have to do,
and we should and I believe in the Trump agenda,
so we ought to be doing those things. The other
thing prisident Trump wants is he wants to bounce budget.
We just passed thirty seven trained dollars for the debt,
(05:00):
thirty seven tradion dollars. So we've got to figure out
how to get our spending under control. We've had a
fifty three percent increase in spending since COVID started, and
the House bill cut less than two percent of it.
So we still have a lot of work to do
in the Senate. So that's what we're working on. We're
working hard to find other ways to save money because ultimately,
(05:21):
every American taxpayer is going to pay for this fiscal insanity.
Let me give you something to think about. So if
we were we were running around two train dollar deficits, right,
so if we said everybody's just going to pay there,
you know, everybody's all the taxpayers. You pay your share
to cover that deficit just for this year, not the
depth thirty seven trillion. How much of a tax increase
(05:42):
would the American public? See, what do you get? What's
your guests?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Oh? I mean in order to pay our share?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I mean, if it's thirty seven trillion dollars and we
have roughly.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Three hundred No, just the deficat, Oh, just the deficit,
just this just not the thirty seven trading.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yeah, eighty eighty percent more eighty pikes. Okay, I could
be another number. You know how they always say how
they say, oh, just tax the rich, you know, just
tax the rich. Okay, So what if we took it,
took the income of the rich, and we said, at
what level could we stop? We take one hundred percent
(06:21):
of their income? Could we stop at ten people make
ten billion dollars a year or ten million dollars year
or one million dollars year? Where would we where would
we stop?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
It have to be like ninety five percent all their income.
What's you're going it have to be like ninety five percent.
It's a crazy stat because the top one percent pay
something like forty percent of taxes already. I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
It's one hundred thousand, Yeah, it would take one hundred
percent of the income of individual filers that make one
hundred thousand are Enjoint filers make one hundred and eighty thousand,
one hundred percent. Our corporations and they say change charge
of operations were our corporations don't make two tree those year.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
This is this is where I'm reminded of Senator Scott
that and this is true. This is a New York
Post and New York Times figure that I've seen before.
The average New York City public school janitor makes over
one hundred thousand dollars a year. Yeah, it's about one
hundred and five one hundred and ten grand. So for
anyone who thinks that tax the rich is going to
actually deal with it, As you're pointing out, it's just
people who work, and you have to take all of
(07:24):
their money, all of the money of people who work
all and so all of their income. But then what
do we do. I start to get a little frustrated here,
Senator Scott, because everyone gets all, we've got to do
something about the spending, But then we can't do anything
about the spending now, And we really can't do anything
about the spending that's automatic in the future either because
(07:45):
people get upset, so then we don't want to do
anything about the spending. It feels like we just go
in this circle all the time. You ran a big business,
you're a very successful guy in the private sector. How
do how do we actually fix it?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
I'm probably the only guy that since done this. I was.
I became a governor in a budget deficit, and guess what.
We reduced spending and we bounce a budget. We did
it every year. You know how you do it exactly
the way you did it. You look at say how
much is my income. I'm not going to spend more
than that. I will never vote for a tax increase.
(08:16):
I cut taxes over one hundred times. And guess what happened.
I built the economy that allowed us have records spending
for the things we care about. So what we've got
to do is say to ourselves Step one, we've got
to get back to normal spending. This. You know we're
past COVID. I mean we I mean we did increase
it fifty three five years.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
But where is all that money going?
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Senator? Like this is why I keep looking at this saying,
hold on, you know, here, here's a stat that I
think is jaw dropping to give a sense of just
how much waste there can be. New York City Senator,
because we're gonna be talking about the mayor's race in
a second. In the last ten years has increased its budget.
It's spending thirty five percent. And my family lives there
(09:03):
and I was living there until a couple a couple
of years ago. My point is that all services have
gotten worse, every quality of life metric has gotten worse.
But the budget's thirty So the federal government, where is
all this money going that we were spending on COVID?
Is it all just going to like Medicaid programs, which
are just massive welfare.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
It's every it's it's it's everything, and so everybody says
it says, oh, oh, it's it's Medicare and social Security. No,
it's not. If you took if you took Clinton's budget,
his last budget was balanced, and you raise raised it
based on population, raised the based on inflation. Okay, and
then we said that's what we're going to spend, we'd
(09:41):
have a balanced budget. It's everything. Everything has increased, and
there's no accountab. There's no accountability. So this is all fixable.
But guess what. When I was governor of Florida, there's
four thousand lines of the budget. I could read every
line in the budget if I asked for it. Here,
we don't do budget, we do spending bills, so I
(10:02):
could look at spending mills. So I said, I wanted
to say, give me all you know, six thousand lines
of the federal budget. It's impossible, So how do you
ever do it? And then the other thing that people say, well,
don't I don't want to do it. So what they're
telling you when people say they don't want to balance
a budget, there's the other thing they're saying to you
is I don't care that your taxes go up. They're
(10:25):
saying they don't care that inflation is going to get worse.
They don't care that intrates are going to go up.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Senator, That's what they're.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Saying to you.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, look, all of this is true, and you know
better than anybody. I mean, you actually have you know,
basic economic common sense, which is something you can't say
for most senators and congressmen and women unfortunately. But it's
also Look the difference between a two and a half
percent interest rate on a mortgage and a seven. It's
completely plumux to the entire housing market, frozen it so
(10:55):
many different ways. But to build on what you were
saying when you were gov of Florida, I imagine Florida
has a balanced budget requirement, as basically every state does.
That is, the state can't go into debt like the
federal government they do.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
They do here's it. So here's Florida had had added
it to its debt every year for twenty years, over
a billion dollars. So these states would have a balanced
budget amendment. They just borrow. There's very few states. I
paid off a third of state debt right when I
was governor, but very few states have no debt. They
(11:34):
borrow money. So they say they balance a budget, they
borrow money, and then they then you know, they're pension
plans underfunded and blah blah blah. So we have overspent
at every level of government, local government, state government, and
the numbers are staggering, the increases in the last ten years.
And so this is going to come home to hurt us.
(11:57):
I mean, have a president that's trying to build the
best economy in the world world. I mean, we've got
a hot country from the place that somebody wants to invest.
But if we don't get our fiscal house in order,
then what's going to happen interest rate? What's going to
happen inflation? And what's going to be left of the
revenues we do collect When we're paying now over a
trillion dollars in interest out of we're going to collect
(12:19):
without the tariff money, we're gonna collect probably five and
a half trillion dollars. We're spending over twenty dollars now
just an interest expence.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
And that's a problem.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah. Yeah, So hopefully I believe we're gonna get a
bill done, but we've got a lot of work to
do to get our fiscal house in order. I know
the President's committed to it. I'm committed to doing everything
I can to help this president.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
When when is this bill gonna get done? In your mind,
when are we actually going to have a big, beautiful
bill to celebrate.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
It'll be some time before the fourth I mean, people
are gonna get you know, the anticipation. Anticipation was that
we're going to finish and go on a week recess
over the fourth on Thursday. So every day we're here
past Thursday, it's going to put a lot of pressure
on people to finally make a decision of what we're
going to do. But there's a lot of work left
to do. They've got to go through this process to
see if we can even put in the bill which
(13:07):
called in bird Bath. So we're still having some of
that stuff today. So but I'm optimistic. Well, you know,
I don't know what dale get done. I'm of course
I'm staying here to get it done.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
All right. Senator Rick Scott, thank you so much. Appreciate
you being with us.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
All right, takes care, have a good day, bye bye.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
This is Team forty seven with Clay and Buck.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
We are joined now by May Melman, Deputy Assistant to
the President, Senior Policy Strategist.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
That's a heck of a title. But what we want
to have you on is to.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Talk about the evisceration of left wing arguments that came
out from the Supreme Court today, and I want to
start with this. I kind of broke down the legal
background here of why these cases were important, but a
lot of people out there are going to focus sometimes
on the inner relationships between the justices. Amy Cony, Barrett,
(13:59):
You've read a lot of Supreme Court opinions in law school,
I did two Amy Cony Barrett absolutely destroying Katanji Brown
Jackson's descent in the district court judge ruling case really
kind of made me go, wow, you don't see this
go this hard a lot? Did it stand out to
(14:20):
you two as this looked like Amy Cony Barrett's just
kind of fed up with Katanji Brown Jackson as a
judge more so than and even in just this case.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
Yes, this was incredible. I think the legal term is
a bench slap, but that is exactly what happened. So,
you know, the three liberal justices did dissent and said
that they think that universal slash nationwide injunctions are perfectly legal,
but two of the justices so so do my arn
(14:54):
Kagan basically gave legal reasons saying here's why I think
judges have this legal authority. And then Justice Jackson wrote
a dissent that was completely unhinged from any law and
just said that she thinks that it's a good thing
that judges basically follow Trump around and tell him what
he's doing is wrong, that that's like a net good
(15:16):
for society. And Amy Cony Barrett, who is as you know, like,
if the conservatives in the world have a complaint with her,
it's that she's not bold, she's not brave. She kind
of goes with the flow a little bit too much.
That was not the case today. She wrecked Justice Jackson
and said, basically, you are acting on constitutionally. What you
(15:39):
want has no basis in the constitution. You want a
roving like king judge to decide whatever you think is
the law. And that's crazy. And so it was. It
was beautiful to see. Now.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Also, go ahead, Clay, Oh, I thought clever was jobbing.
It may there are some other decisions that have that
that came down as well. What are your takes from
the White House perspective on, for example, parents being allowed
to opt out for religious objection reasons from reading material
that has a lgbt q I A plus plus plus
(16:15):
plus agenda.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
Yeah, so this was a huge one. Also, it's not enough.
I will say schools should not have this crap in
them to begin with, the fact that it exists means
we have a lot of work to do. But at
the bare minimum, if a parent says that they have
a religious objection to schools indoctrinating their kids, then schools
(16:41):
have to accept that. And the fact that this Maryland
school didn't. I'm frankly shocked it wasn't, And I know
because it is that egregious of a violation of religious
liberty and justice. Alito, you know, he's he's a funny guy.
I guess he put he caught and pasted some of
the pages from this book. And this is not about
(17:03):
celebrating that different people have different viewpoints. This was indoctrinating
kids to say that trans identification is wonderful and beautiful,
and that entire nations they praised us as princes and princesses,
entire nations would celebrate gay marriage, but obviously flies in
the direct face of all major religions.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
This is an incredible series of wins. President Trump has
been stacking a lot of series of wins. Are you
impressed that the court has been willing to apply the
law as consistently as they have and actually give him
all these wins and not get involved? Because what's so
important about this and I said it off the top
(17:49):
one day the president of presidential power is going to
apply to a Democrat president in a significant way. The
same thing is going to apply here when it comes
to nationwide injunction, there will be a Democrat president who
also benefits from this precedent.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
These are the.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Right decisions, But I guess maybe I've just gotten so
used to the Court playing politics and trying to be
cutesie that I didn't think they were actually going to
be as willing to uphold the law and issue these
clear precedents as they have been. Does it surprise you
or you also skeptical in some way?
Speaker 5 (18:25):
I am surprised. Nationwide injunctions is something that the justices
have all hinted that that they need to address for
such a long time. It's obviously such a big problem
if you ask district court judges, circuit court judges. There's
been books written on at law review articles. It's been
such a big problem, and yet there's never been this.
(18:47):
They haven't stepped up and stopped it. There are a
lot of illegal things that happen all the time that
the Supreme Court has just kind of said, whatever, we're
not going to deal with it. And I think conservative
maybe it was during Obamacare, you know, maybe thereafter, where
just if the decision was hard, if it was going
(19:08):
to be hard, then you kind of figured they weren't
going to do it. But I think actually Justice Roberts,
even though that's what he cares about the most, is
like preserving the Court's legacy, preserving his legacy, and not
not beclowning the court. And I think he's concerned that
too many conservative rulings would beclown it. I think there
(19:32):
is you know, when when a good ruling comes out,
my hope would be that all those times we've been disappointed,
all those times, we hope that they'd do something that
they wouldn't, that it would lend to credibility here. And
I think that's what Justice Chief Justice Roberts would hope
to And of course that's not the case. Justice Roberts
might as well go for it every single freaking time
(19:53):
because the left is not going to be more appreciative
now than otherwise. But you know, in his mind, I
think that's what he hopes is like that people are
going to respect this because of all the times that
they've held back in the past.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Speaking of may mailman from the White House and tell
us about where the big beautiful bill stands. Right now,
I'm hearing some complaints from a number of different quarters
about the Senate Parliamentarian getting to weigh in here, and
this is something to do with tradition, not actually something
that is a has the force of law, the Constitution,
(20:29):
and things are being stripped out by the Senate parliamentarian.
What the heck is going on with that? Specifically some
NFA National Firearms Act provisions that would allow people to
buy suppressors like myself who like to go shooting and
not blow out their ear drums.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
What's going on here?
Speaker 5 (20:45):
May Yeah, this is the swampiest of the swamp thing
to understand, and it's very frustrating, but it's going to
come down to a pretty big political question. So reconciliation
is a process that deals with mandatory spending. So it's
not it doesn't create Hey, here's fifty billion dollars for this,
(21:08):
here's fifty billion dollars for that, but rather various programs.
What are different levers that you can change. We're not
messing with this, but something like it would be the
retirement age. If you change that, you're not actually creating
a new program. You're basically amending an existing program for
budgetary reasons. So you can only do those sorts of things.
(21:29):
And yet that's a pretty big leash because basically there's
a lot of levers that you can touch for budgetary reasons.
So we had a few things that we really cared about.
That if you're going to spend Medicaid money, that you're
not going to spend it on transgender surgeries for minors.
That if you're that there's a fund for companies to
help make energy more litigation proof. Basically a lot of
(21:53):
different fixes, and the Senate Parliamentarian basically said all of
those things are too much in policy and not much
in effect. The leavers of funding now the Senate parlamntarian
who elected this person, Who is this person? Who cares
about this person?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Nobody is.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
It's not a real This is purely, as you said,
tradition to take that person's ruling and treat it as
the word of God. And yet Senate Republicans love doing that.
Oh man, they love traditions so much. So I think
the real question is do they uphold tradition? Do they
say the Senate Parliamentarian's ruling saying these things are two
(22:28):
policy wise, like you said, on everything from the Second
Amendment to transcender surgeries all the way down to energy
policies all the way down, or do you say you
know what, No, I know how to read. I know
what is budgetary versus policy, and we the Senate, we're
going to make our own independent decisions. So that's why
all at the end of the day does boil down
to a policy choice.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
May Melman, Deputy assistant to the President's senior policy strategist. Okay,
big decision as it came to federal district court judges
and whether they can enjoin the President from being able
to act.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
That's a huge win.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
It also implicates in some way the decision about birthright citizenship,
which at some point will likely reach the Supreme Court.
Now I know I'm asking you to read tea leaves
here because it is not directly addressable, But I said
on the show a little bit earlier that it made
me think the Supreme Court may be more open to
(23:26):
the President's interpretation of the birthright citizenship amendment analysis than
I thought.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Is that a crazy take?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Or would you sign on potentially with that take, with
the understanding that we're trying to predict something that hasn't
yet happened.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
So I don't think it's a crazy take. I think,
on one hand, we knew that the Supreme Court was
going to be skittish to address this issue because it
is such a big issue, and so that made it
a really good vehicle to focus on nationwide injunctions. Right,
this is something that the Supreme Court is going to
move heaven and earth to just focus on that procedure
vehicle and not just say, oh, you know what, let's
(24:03):
just dive into the substance and said and forget about
the process. So this is something that they would love
to avoid thinking about for a little bit. Now, it's
a it's difficult because even though birthright citizenship is terrible policy,
and the United States is unique in the globe in
offering it, other countries don't say, oh, you were here
(24:26):
to visit you know, a Disney World equivalent like now
you're child's a citizen. That's not a thing anywhere else.
But at the end of the day, there are some
bad court rulings in the past that have interpreted the
Fourteenth Amendment to basically give that. Now, past court rulings
that are bad are overturned when they need to be.
But it's a big decision. It's a weighty decision. So
(24:48):
I think you're right. Actually, maybe if they knew for
sure they hated this, they would have just said so.
But they seem to want to avoid it. And that
avoidance I think either indicates willingness or it indicates true openness,
and they're just trying to bide their time to make
such a big ruling.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
May we appreciate it? I got a hot take here.
I'm actually pretty pleased with the Supreme Court. I don't
know that ever gets said very often. I bet a
lot of people in the Trump team are as well.
Have a good weekend, Good July fourth. We appreciate the time.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Thanks for listening to Team forty seven with Clay and Buck,
Team forty seven with Clay and Buck starts. Now.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
We are joined now by Senator Rick Scott, who is
working on the big beautiful bill which Trump would like
to have signed by July fourth. So we'll get to
that in a sec. But first, Senator Scott, what have
you thought of President Trump's diplomacy in the Middle East
and how this has all played itself out so far.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Well, I was with the President when he announced the
ceasefire yesterday and he was, of course, this is very happy. Look,
I'm proud of decision he made that a lot of
people probably would have a very difficult time making. But
it's going to preserve our safety and the safety of
(00:50):
people throughout them, not just an Israel, but throughout the
Middle East. So the decision he made to stop the
importons in a round with a big deal and then
to work to work to get the ceasefire happening. It's
I mean, if look at what this guy has done.
I mean, you know people up here they own and say,
oh he wants you know, he wants to go to war.
(01:11):
This is the last person who wants to go to war.
He doesn't like war, he wants peace. He doesn't want
he doesn't want anybody you know killed now he doesn't know.
His job is to defend our freedom and defend the
safety of American citizens. But I'm very proud of him,
and and I hope this this is fire works and
(01:33):
the ranst An opportunity. Now they can decide to be
a normal country or they can continue to be a country.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Senator Scott, can we get you to can we get
you to call back on a We got to try
to sell connection here again in a second, because I
claim I don't I can't pick up about half of
what he's saying there.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, he's breaking it out. Let's get him, Let's get
him back. But what he's talking about is he says
he was with President Trump for the announcement of the
ceasefire yesterday, and when he get we get him back in,
we will ask him about the decision and the timeframe
of the so called Big Beautiful Bill, which is the
crown jewel of the Trump legislative plan.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
I do think a point here, Clay, is that the
fact that Trump is in a position knowing what he knows,
and a lot of conversations clearly with our allies in
Israel about how things are going that Israel was able
to degrade Iranian nuclear and conventional military capacity so much
is just indicative of how fast these operations were able
(02:29):
to achieve the success that they needed. Senator Scott, thanks
for calling back. What is next you think, though? So
if the ceasefire holds, what are the administration's hope for
next steps and what are the priorities so we can
get to a more peaceful and stable Middle East?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Well, I think we've got to continue to do what
President Trump did his first term is just continue build
relationships with all the countries to say, look, let's all
get along, let's all figure out how do we all
build our economies. Let's make sure that we all respect
the sovereignty of true uh, and let's build our economies
which helps all of our citizens. And so uh. The
Abraham Accords were a big deal and that we need
(03:08):
to expand them. But yeah, look, I think all of
us hope for peace. All of us hope you know,
you know, we we want we want peace in in
in Iran and everywhere. We don't want who wants to
go to war? I mean that, you know, I served
in the military. I didn't you know, I didn't I
had zero interest in going to war. I know, I
(03:29):
wanted to send the freedom of this country. So hopefully
that's what's going to happen. It's up to Iran, though,
it's it's they're you know, if you look around the
world around the world, who are the destabilizing groups. Well,
in Latin America it's Cuba. UH. In the Middle East
it's Iran. UH. In Asia it's China and North Korea,
(03:49):
and then in the europe area it's Russia. I mean
they I don't know why they want to, you know,
to cause havoc and people dying. I mean, we all
have children, are grandchildren, and why do they want the
people pe people people's lives at risk. I just don't
get it, but they do. Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Let's go into the decision being made on the big
beautiful bill. So Trump and you just said you were
with him yesterday. I'm sure you got the absolute latest
as UH as this process plays itself out, wants this
to be done by July fourth. UH. Senator John Thune
I believe, has said that he's not going to allow
anybody to leave and go on their July fourth break
(04:28):
until this is passed.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
What's the timeframe?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Are you optimistic the Senate is going to deliver a
bill before we get to the July fourth holiday.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
I'm very optimistic that we'll get there. Now we're not
there yet. The you know, we have we have to do,
and we should and I believe in the Trump agenda,
so we ought to be doing those things. The other
thing prisident Trump wants is he wants to bounce budget.
We just passed thirty seven trained dollars for the debt,
(05:00):
thirty seven tradion dollars. So we've got to figure out
how to get our spending under control. We've had a
fifty three percent increase in spending since COVID started, and
the House bill cut less than two percent of it.
So we still have a lot of work to do
in the Senate. So that's what we're working on. We're
working hard to find other ways to save money because ultimately,
(05:21):
every American taxpayer is going to pay for this fiscal insanity.
Let me give you something to think about. So if
we were we were running around two train dollar deficits, right,
so if we said everybody's just going to pay there,
you know, everybody's all the taxpayers. You pay your share
to cover that deficit just for this year, not the
depth thirty seven trillion. How much of a tax increase
(05:42):
would the American public? See, what do you get? What's
your guests?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Oh? I mean in order to pay our share?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I mean, if it's thirty seven trillion dollars and we
have roughly.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
Three hundred No, just the deficat, Oh, just the deficit,
just this just not the thirty seven trading.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yeah, eighty eighty percent more eighty pikes. Okay, I could
be another number. You know how they always say how
they say, oh, just tax the rich, you know, just
tax the rich. Okay, So what if we took it,
took the income of the rich, and we said, at
what level could we stop? We take one hundred percent
(06:21):
of their income? Could we stop at ten people make
ten billion dollars a year or ten million dollars year
or one million dollars year? Where would we where would
we stop?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
It have to be like ninety five percent all their income.
What's you're going it have to be like ninety five percent.
It's a crazy stat because the top one percent pay
something like forty percent of taxes already. I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
It's one hundred thousand, Yeah, it would take one hundred
percent of the income of individual filers that make one
hundred thousand are Enjoint filers make one hundred and eighty thousand,
one hundred percent. Our corporations and they say change charge
of operations were our corporations don't make two tree those year.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
This is this is where I'm reminded of Senator Scott
that and this is true. This is a New York
Post and New York Times figure that I've seen before.
The average New York City public school janitor makes over
one hundred thousand dollars a year. Yeah, it's about one
hundred and five one hundred and ten grand. So for
anyone who thinks that tax the rich is going to
actually deal with it, As you're pointing out, it's just
people who work, and you have to take all of
(07:24):
their money, all of the money of people who work
all and so all of their income. But then what
do we do. I start to get a little frustrated here,
Senator Scott, because everyone gets all, we've got to do
something about the spending, But then we can't do anything
about the spending now, And we really can't do anything
about the spending that's automatic in the future either because
(07:45):
people get upset, so then we don't want to do
anything about the spending. It feels like we just go
in this circle all the time. You ran a big business,
you're a very successful guy in the private sector. How
do how do we actually fix it?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
I'm probably the only guy that since done this. I was.
I became a governor in a budget deficit, and guess what.
We reduced spending and we bounce a budget. We did
it every year. You know how you do it exactly
the way you did it. You look at say how
much is my income. I'm not going to spend more
than that. I will never vote for a tax increase.
(08:16):
I cut taxes over one hundred times. And guess what happened.
I built the economy that allowed us have records spending
for the things we care about. So what we've got
to do is say to ourselves Step one, we've got
to get back to normal spending. This. You know we're
past COVID. I mean we I mean we did increase
it fifty three five years.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
But where is all that money going?
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Senator? Like this is why I keep looking at this saying,
hold on, you know, here, here's a stat that I
think is jaw dropping to give a sense of just
how much waste there can be. New York City Senator,
because we're gonna be talking about the mayor's race in
a second. In the last ten years has increased its budget.
It's spending thirty five percent. And my family lives there
(09:03):
and I was living there until a couple a couple
of years ago. My point is that all services have
gotten worse, every quality of life metric has gotten worse.
But the budget's thirty So the federal government, where is
all this money going that we were spending on COVID?
Is it all just going to like Medicaid programs, which
are just massive welfare.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
It's every it's it's it's everything, and so everybody says
it says, oh, oh, it's it's Medicare and social Security. No,
it's not. If you took if you took Clinton's budget,
his last budget was balanced, and you raise raised it
based on population, raised the based on inflation. Okay, and
then we said that's what we're going to spend, we'd
(09:41):
have a balanced budget. It's everything. Everything has increased, and
there's no accountab. There's no accountability. So this is all fixable.
But guess what. When I was governor of Florida, there's
four thousand lines of the budget. I could read every
line in the budget if I asked for it. Here,
we don't do budget, we do spending bills, so I
(10:02):
could look at spending mills. So I said, I wanted
to say, give me all you know, six thousand lines
of the federal budget. It's impossible, So how do you
ever do it? And then the other thing that people say, well,
don't I don't want to do it. So what they're
telling you when people say they don't want to balance
a budget, there's the other thing they're saying to you
is I don't care that your taxes go up. They're
(10:25):
saying they don't care that inflation is going to get worse.
They don't care that intrates are going to go up.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Senator, That's what they're.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Saying to you.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, look, all of this is true, and you know
better than anybody. I mean, you actually have you know,
basic economic common sense, which is something you can't say
for most senators and congressmen and women unfortunately. But it's
also Look the difference between a two and a half
percent interest rate on a mortgage and a seven. It's
completely plumux to the entire housing market, frozen it so
(10:55):
many different ways. But to build on what you were
saying when you were gov of Florida, I imagine Florida
has a balanced budget requirement, as basically every state does.
That is, the state can't go into debt like the
federal government they do.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
They do here's it. So here's Florida had had added
it to its debt every year for twenty years, over
a billion dollars. So these states would have a balanced
budget amendment. They just borrow. There's very few states. I
paid off a third of state debt right when I
was governor, but very few states have no debt. They
(11:34):
borrow money. So they say they balance a budget, they
borrow money, and then they then you know, they're pension
plans underfunded and blah blah blah. So we have overspent
at every level of government, local government, state government, and
the numbers are staggering, the increases in the last ten years.
And so this is going to come home to hurt us.
(11:57):
I mean, have a president that's trying to build the
best economy in the world world. I mean, we've got
a hot country from the place that somebody wants to invest.
But if we don't get our fiscal house in order,
then what's going to happen interest rate? What's going to
happen inflation? And what's going to be left of the
revenues we do collect When we're paying now over a
trillion dollars in interest out of we're going to collect
(12:19):
without the tariff money, we're gonna collect probably five and
a half trillion dollars. We're spending over twenty dollars now
just an interest expence.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
And that's a problem.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah. Yeah, So hopefully I believe we're gonna get a
bill done, but we've got a lot of work to
do to get our fiscal house in order. I know
the President's committed to it. I'm committed to doing everything
I can to help this president.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
When when is this bill gonna get done? In your mind,
when are we actually going to have a big, beautiful
bill to celebrate.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
It'll be some time before the fourth I mean, people
are gonna get you know, the anticipation. Anticipation was that
we're going to finish and go on a week recess
over the fourth on Thursday. So every day we're here
past Thursday, it's going to put a lot of pressure
on people to finally make a decision of what we're
going to do. But there's a lot of work left
to do. They've got to go through this process to
see if we can even put in the bill which
(13:07):
called in bird Bath. So we're still having some of
that stuff today. So but I'm optimistic. Well, you know,
I don't know what dale get done. I'm of course
I'm staying here to get it done.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
All right. Senator Rick Scott, thank you so much. Appreciate
you being with us.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
All right, takes care, have a good day, bye bye.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
This is Team forty seven with Clay and Buck.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
We are joined now by May Melman, Deputy Assistant to
the President, Senior Policy Strategist.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
That's a heck of a title. But what we want
to have you on is to.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Talk about the evisceration of left wing arguments that came
out from the Supreme Court today, and I want to
start with this. I kind of broke down the legal
background here of why these cases were important, but a
lot of people out there are going to focus sometimes
on the inner relationships between the justices. Amy Cony, Barrett,
(13:59):
You've read a lot of Supreme Court opinions in law school,
I did two Amy Cony Barrett absolutely destroying Katanji Brown
Jackson's descent in the district court judge ruling case really
kind of made me go, wow, you don't see this
go this hard a lot? Did it stand out to
(14:20):
you two as this looked like Amy Cony Barrett's just
kind of fed up with Katanji Brown Jackson as a
judge more so than and even in just this case.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
Yes, this was incredible. I think the legal term is
a bench slap, but that is exactly what happened. So,
you know, the three liberal justices did dissent and said
that they think that universal slash nationwide injunctions are perfectly legal,
but two of the justices so so do my arn
(14:54):
Kagan basically gave legal reasons saying here's why I think
judges have this legal authority. And then Justice Jackson wrote
a dissent that was completely unhinged from any law and
just said that she thinks that it's a good thing
that judges basically follow Trump around and tell him what
he's doing is wrong, that that's like a net good
(15:16):
for society. And Amy Cony Barrett, who is as you know, like,
if the conservatives in the world have a complaint with her,
it's that she's not bold, she's not brave. She kind
of goes with the flow a little bit too much.
That was not the case today. She wrecked Justice Jackson
and said, basically, you are acting on constitutionally. What you
(15:39):
want has no basis in the constitution. You want a
roving like king judge to decide whatever you think is
the law. And that's crazy. And so it was. It
was beautiful to see. Now.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Also, go ahead, Clay, Oh, I thought clever was jobbing.
It may there are some other decisions that have that
that came down as well. What are your takes from
the White House perspective on, for example, parents being allowed
to opt out for religious objection reasons from reading material
that has a lgbt q I A plus plus plus
(16:15):
plus agenda.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
Yeah, so this was a huge one. Also, it's not enough.
I will say schools should not have this crap in
them to begin with, the fact that it exists means
we have a lot of work to do. But at
the bare minimum, if a parent says that they have
a religious objection to schools indoctrinating their kids, then schools
(16:41):
have to accept that. And the fact that this Maryland
school didn't. I'm frankly shocked it wasn't, And I know
because it is that egregious of a violation of religious
liberty and justice. Alito, you know, he's he's a funny guy.
I guess he put he caught and pasted some of
the pages from this book. And this is not about
(17:03):
celebrating that different people have different viewpoints. This was indoctrinating
kids to say that trans identification is wonderful and beautiful,
and that entire nations they praised us as princes and princesses,
entire nations would celebrate gay marriage, but obviously flies in
the direct face of all major religions.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
This is an incredible series of wins. President Trump has
been stacking a lot of series of wins. Are you
impressed that the court has been willing to apply the
law as consistently as they have and actually give him
all these wins and not get involved? Because what's so
important about this and I said it off the top
(17:49):
one day the president of presidential power is going to
apply to a Democrat president in a significant way. The
same thing is going to apply here when it comes
to nationwide injunction, there will be a Democrat president who
also benefits from this precedent.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
These are the.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Right decisions, But I guess maybe I've just gotten so
used to the Court playing politics and trying to be
cutesie that I didn't think they were actually going to
be as willing to uphold the law and issue these
clear precedents as they have been. Does it surprise you
or you also skeptical in some way?
Speaker 5 (18:25):
I am surprised. Nationwide injunctions is something that the justices
have all hinted that that they need to address for
such a long time. It's obviously such a big problem
if you ask district court judges, circuit court judges. There's
been books written on at law review articles. It's been
such a big problem, and yet there's never been this.
(18:47):
They haven't stepped up and stopped it. There are a
lot of illegal things that happen all the time that
the Supreme Court has just kind of said, whatever, we're
not going to deal with it. And I think conservative
maybe it was during Obamacare, you know, maybe thereafter, where
just if the decision was hard, if it was going
(19:08):
to be hard, then you kind of figured they weren't
going to do it. But I think actually Justice Roberts,
even though that's what he cares about the most, is
like preserving the Court's legacy, preserving his legacy, and not
not beclowning the court. And I think he's concerned that
too many conservative rulings would beclown it. I think there
(19:32):
is you know, when when a good ruling comes out,
my hope would be that all those times we've been disappointed,
all those times, we hope that they'd do something that
they wouldn't, that it would lend to credibility here. And
I think that's what Justice Chief Justice Roberts would hope
to And of course that's not the case. Justice Roberts
might as well go for it every single freaking time
(19:53):
because the left is not going to be more appreciative
now than otherwise. But you know, in his mind, I
think that's what he hopes is like that people are
going to respect this because of all the times that
they've held back in the past.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Speaking of may mailman from the White House and tell
us about where the big beautiful bill stands. Right now,
I'm hearing some complaints from a number of different quarters
about the Senate Parliamentarian getting to weigh in here, and
this is something to do with tradition, not actually something
that is a has the force of law, the Constitution,
(20:29):
and things are being stripped out by the Senate parliamentarian.
What the heck is going on with that? Specifically some
NFA National Firearms Act provisions that would allow people to
buy suppressors like myself who like to go shooting and
not blow out their ear drums.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
What's going on here?
Speaker 5 (20:45):
May Yeah, this is the swampiest of the swamp thing
to understand, and it's very frustrating, but it's going to
come down to a pretty big political question. So reconciliation
is a process that deals with mandatory spending. So it's
not it doesn't create Hey, here's fifty billion dollars for this,
(21:08):
here's fifty billion dollars for that, but rather various programs.
What are different levers that you can change. We're not
messing with this, but something like it would be the
retirement age. If you change that, you're not actually creating
a new program. You're basically amending an existing program for
budgetary reasons. So you can only do those sorts of things.
(21:29):
And yet that's a pretty big leash because basically there's
a lot of levers that you can touch for budgetary reasons.
So we had a few things that we really cared about.
That if you're going to spend Medicaid money, that you're
not going to spend it on transgender surgeries for minors.
That if you're that there's a fund for companies to
help make energy more litigation proof. Basically a lot of
(21:53):
different fixes, and the Senate Parliamentarian basically said all of
those things are too much in policy and not much
in effect. The leavers of funding now the Senate parlamntarian
who elected this person, Who is this person? Who cares
about this person?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Nobody is.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
It's not a real This is purely, as you said,
tradition to take that person's ruling and treat it as
the word of God. And yet Senate Republicans love doing that.
Oh man, they love traditions so much. So I think
the real question is do they uphold tradition? Do they
say the Senate Parliamentarian's ruling saying these things are two
(22:28):
policy wise, like you said, on everything from the Second
Amendment to transcender surgeries all the way down to energy
policies all the way down, or do you say you
know what, No, I know how to read. I know
what is budgetary versus policy, and we the Senate, we're
going to make our own independent decisions. So that's why
all at the end of the day does boil down
to a policy choice.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
May Melman, Deputy assistant to the President's senior policy strategist. Okay,
big decision as it came to federal district court judges
and whether they can enjoin the President from being able
to act.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
That's a huge win.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
It also implicates in some way the decision about birthright citizenship,
which at some point will likely reach the Supreme Court.
Now I know I'm asking you to read tea leaves
here because it is not directly addressable, But I said
on the show a little bit earlier that it made
me think the Supreme Court may be more open to
(23:26):
the President's interpretation of the birthright citizenship amendment analysis than
I thought.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Is that a crazy take?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Or would you sign on potentially with that take, with
the understanding that we're trying to predict something that hasn't
yet happened.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
So I don't think it's a crazy take. I think,
on one hand, we knew that the Supreme Court was
going to be skittish to address this issue because it
is such a big issue, and so that made it
a really good vehicle to focus on nationwide injunctions. Right,
this is something that the Supreme Court is going to
move heaven and earth to just focus on that procedure
vehicle and not just say, oh, you know what, let's
(24:03):
just dive into the substance and said and forget about
the process. So this is something that they would love
to avoid thinking about for a little bit. Now, it's
a it's difficult because even though birthright citizenship is terrible policy,
and the United States is unique in the globe in
offering it, other countries don't say, oh, you were here
(24:26):
to visit you know, a Disney World equivalent like now
you're child's a citizen. That's not a thing anywhere else.
But at the end of the day, there are some
bad court rulings in the past that have interpreted the
Fourteenth Amendment to basically give that. Now, past court rulings
that are bad are overturned when they need to be.
But it's a big decision. It's a weighty decision. So
(24:48):
I think you're right. Actually, maybe if they knew for
sure they hated this, they would have just said so.
But they seem to want to avoid it. And that
avoidance I think either indicates willingness or it indicates true openness,
and they're just trying to bide their time to make
such a big ruling.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
May we appreciate it? I got a hot take here.
I'm actually pretty pleased with the Supreme Court. I don't
know that ever gets said very often. I bet a
lot of people in the Trump team are as well.
Have a good weekend, Good July fourth. We appreciate the time.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Thanks for listening to Team forty seven with Clay and Buck,
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
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