November 12, 2025 • 36 mins
Hour 2 of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show delivers a dynamic mix of cultural commentary, political analysis, and listener engagement, anchored by the trending topic of the U.S. Mint ending production of the penny. The hosts debate the future of physical currency in an increasingly cashless society, citing the high cost of coin production and the shift toward digital payments like Apple Pay, Venmo, and Zelle. They explore the implications for privacy, government tracking, and economic behavior, sparking a lively conversation with listeners about the sentimental and practical value of coins.
A standout moment includes a powerful caller story from a woman who saved over a thousand dollars in pennies to escape an abusive marriage, underscoring the real-world impact of small change and the importance of financial autonomy. The segment blends humor and seriousness, drawing parallels to pop culture references like Breaking Bad and Shawshank Redemption to illustrate the physical burden and symbolic power of cash.
The hour also features a spirited discussion on the rise of viral political figures, focusing on Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Clay and Buck analyze her media presence and messaging style, debating whether her outspoken rhetoric helps or hurts the Democratic Party. They compare her trajectory to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and highlight the growing influence of social media in shaping political narratives.
Additional topics include the decline of unpaid internships, the evolution of tipping culture, and the nostalgia of retail jobs in the pre-digital era. The hosts share personal anecdotes from their early careers, including retail work and internships at major institutions, offering insight into generational shifts in work and compensation.
Toward the end of the hour, Clay and Buck preview upcoming guests for Hour 3, including Steve Yates—fresh off a diplomatic tour in Asia—and Robby Starbuck, who will discuss AI misinformation and its impact on personal reputation. They also share book recommendations, highlighting historical novels like Gates of Fire and Killer Angels, and reflect on their reading habits as they age.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back in Clay Travis buck Sex did show we
may have stepped into a coin loving.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Buzzsaw here, Buck. It is.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
The comments are going to be very, very funny. I
think on this the poll you can go vote in it.
Thousands of you are already weighing in, and the general
consensus is it's close to fifty to fifty on whether
we should be eliminating all coins. The reason why I
brought that up was because today is reportedly the last
(00:33):
day I saw this on Fox News that they are
going to be producing the penny. It definitely costs more
to produce the penny than the penny is worth, and
so in the future, the smallest coin would now be
the nickel.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
And I think.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Going forward, you're going to see more and more arguments about, hey,
do we still need to continue to produce coins. There
would still be coins in circulation, probably for you know,
the next hundred years. I mean, I don't know how
long it would go on. Here's a fun stat for you, Buck,
before we dive into phenomenal messenger for the Democrats, Jasmine Crockett,
(01:10):
what percentage of money that exists in the world today
actually physically exists? What percentage of money fifteen. Good guess
I'm told it's ten. Okay, I was, I was in
the RELs, I was in the rail But yeah, I
think that will blow a lot of your minds out there.
(01:31):
In other words, if you went to the bank and
you have X dollars, and everybody went to the bank
and they have X dollars, I mean this is sort
of a bank run. The physical notes that represent the
vast majority of the wealth in the world, it doesn't exist.
It's just numbers on a computer screen. Only about ten
(01:53):
percent of the dollars in America, of the euros in America,
of all of the different currencies physically exist. That's something
kind of interesting. And the younger you are, young people,
and I sell like an old guy every time I
say that. Young people, and I'm going to be an
old guy. They don't even carry money, I mean, like
(02:14):
the actual physical carrying of money. They have their iPhone,
they pay with Apple Pay, they have credit cards, they
don't physically carry around cash at all. They have Venmo,
they have Zel, they have all these different ways to
share expenses when they're buying, you know, going out for
dinners or whatever else. Concert tickets, it's kind of wild.
(02:37):
We're moving towards a cashlest society already, and I think
we're moving there in really rapid fashion. Much to producer
Greg Chagrin, Well, yes, and I do agree that there
are concerns about not having the privacy and the ability
to just have currency that the government is not tracking
(02:58):
and aware of at all times. Uh, but I don't know, man, pennies.
Not a fan of pennies quarters. I'm a little more
open to a little more. You ever work retail? Did
you ever work at a place where you had to
accept cash, make change, like process transactions. I've done a
lot of retail in my life. Tell everybody Clay, Abercrombie
(03:20):
and Fitch were they only were they only hired good
looking people when Clay did it.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
He loves to remind us all.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
My wife too, is very shy about it. I'm like,
I'm like, so you were hired at the Florida Abercrombie
or you know, Fitch or like the Orlando area or
whatever because you were cute, right, Like, just say it.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
She's like, no, I was a hard worker.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
I'm like, right, right, it was a the retail jobs
that I had, I worked at American Eagle, now famous
because of the Sydney Sweeney jeans. For years I worked
at a company called Media Play in the book section.
The idea of there was you could buy CDs, you
could buy books. Some of you will remember the concept
(03:57):
big box retailer. And then I wore did Abercrombie and
Fitch Pentagon City Mall in Washington, d C. While I
was in college. One of the best jobs I ever
had buck pretty girls walk in. You got an immediate
excuse to talk to pretty girls. It's like, I mean,
that's I'll tell you the truth.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Man.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I got caught up in the world and this was
really common in New York, the world of the unpaid
corporate internship I had, and in retrospect, I got scammed.
I think it would have been way better now. Some
some places I got like I worked at the Washington
Institute for Neary's Policy and they, because they actually had
(04:36):
interns do real work, they paid you like you were paid.
It was you know, it was maybe three or four
hundred bucks a week or something at the time, but
it was like at the time, living in DC with
three roommates over the summer, that was real money. But
I remember other places where I worked, and I did.
I worked at the Council on Foreign Relations as an intern.
They didn't pay, and that place has a huge people
(05:00):
like you far that's the globalist and the illuminati. Yeah,
I was an intern there. Trust me, no one cared,
no one remembered me. They didn't pay, and people were
There was someone who got an actual recommendation from I
think it was the Crown Prince of Jordan or something
for one of those internships. Clay, I mean people would
(05:21):
go all out for these didn't matter, these unpaid internships.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
It doesn't people. I was like, oh, it'll translate a
new a job.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
What I'm saying is, I think your experience of actually
working in commerce and capitalism a much better play for people,
and it establishes something of an economic libido. You're like, oh,
work harder, work longer, more money. An internship where you're
not paid just so you can put it on your resume,
you're actually incentivized to do as little as possible and
(05:48):
get out of there as fast as possible. And I
think they're diminishing the number of unpaid internships in general.
Oh no, it's there are rules against it. Now, there
are rules against it now because it became so exploitative.
Like I did want at CBS even News, but I
got school credit for it, so that seemed like a fair.
But I did summer internships, a number of them, starting
(06:10):
when I was even in high school, where I didn't
get any I didn't get paid, and I was just
basically fetching coffee and making xeroxes so I could put
on my resume that I this was a thing in
the nineties of those of you who are elder millennials.
Not to you old gen X people. Gen X people,
you gotta worry about your creaking joints and bones. The
elder millennials, you know what I'm talking about. You we
(06:30):
all got scammed man, late nineties. It was like Clay,
I worked at a a at a music label for
a summer for a couple months, and it was a
complete waste of my time. This is unexpected. You worked
at a music label for like a month. Yeah, like
an internship, total waste of time. They're like the biggest
I think it was supposed to be all summer. I
legitimly told my parents, like I'm gonna go play tennis
(06:52):
and said, this is a waste of time.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
So, yeah, what was the music label death Row? No, no, no, no,
it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It was actually a music publishing company, so it was
kind of like did A and R and it was
owned publishing, right. Clay was the most boring intern. I
don't even remember. I was like seventeen. It's the worst
thing I ever worst way I ever spent a summer
in college. When I was at GW undergrad, I went
and worked on Capitol Hill as part of being a
student in DC, and that was actually somewhat useful and interesting.
(07:25):
But yeah, there's a ton of those that don't have
any impact at all. I was just thinking nowadays when
you work retail, and a lot of you out there
who work in who work in restaurants or whatever else.
I don't even remember the last time I saw someone
pay in a restaurant with cash. You know, they have
all these mobile devices now where they can come right
(07:47):
to your right to your table and like take all
your money. I don't even remember. A lot of places
won't even take cash now.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
We used to.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
The reason I was bringing it up buck is at
the end of the day at American Eagle, and it
doesn't seem very safe. Now, we would have a big
bag of cash that we would deposit into the bank,
that we would clear out the cash registers with. And
I was thinking about it the other day because if
I tried to explain that to my kids, they wouldn't
even understand. And it was filled with coins, and it
(08:16):
was filled with cash, and we had to tally it up,
and we had to take it, and we had to
deposit it at the end of the day. There's never
any security. I remember thinking, this doesn't make a lot
of sense. There's thousands and thousands of dollars. But that
was what we had to do because the physical encapsulation
of money was such a thing. And remember in Breaking
Bad when he starts to make real amounts of money,
(08:37):
great television show, and he doesn't even know what to
do with all the cash. This is one of the
challenges of the drug trade in general. It's all a
cash business. It takes a lot of space when you
have actual, the physical manifestation of all that wealth. Somebody
can tell me what the This was a famous problem
that Pablo Escobar, the world's drug kingpin back in the
(08:59):
eighties and night nineties and really the original public enemy
number one of the US government in the pre War
on Terror terror era. He had something that they would
call spoilage clay, which was they had so they could
not find a place to put all the cash that
they were making by selling cocaine in the United States,
and so they would store it underground in palettes and
(09:22):
rats would eat it, and they there were some crazy
figure tens of millions of dollars a year. They thought
they were losing to rats eating their cash because that's
how much cash they were making in the illegal drug trade.
One thing that used to exist in New York. It
doesn't really anymore, but there were a number of restaurants
that were famous play for being cash only. Yeah, and
(09:44):
it was basically because it was like they weren't really
reporting all the money they were making. You know, that
was the idea, Yes, but the irs got way better
at calculating the you know, because they can base it
off your invent so what you buy, what are you
buying monthly? Oh, really, you're only making that much, but
(10:05):
you're buying this much. So they have ways of figuring
this stuff out. And instaurants that was huge. They would
avoid reporting the actual dollars that came into the building.
And now obviously you can't do that with credit card,
and a lot of you out there who get tips,
it's way easier to track your tips now in a
credit card era than it ever was when you just
got cash handed to you. Yeah, that's a good point.
(10:27):
That's a very um all right, let's play this. We'll
react to it a little bit as we go forward.
A lot of discussion about what's the future of the
Democrat Party. You've got Span Burger and the governor in
New Jersey who just won Mickey Cheryl I think was
her name, and they're arguing, hey, we're moderates. We know
that's a lie, but they're arguing that's the path mom.
(10:48):
Donnie is clearly on the far left of the Democrat Party.
And then there is an argument out there and it
is interesting that the future of the Democrat Party he
should actually be defined by Jasmine Crockett who charlet Mage
the God.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
You sat with him at a recent fundraising event. We know,
we had dinner.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
We had dinner in can with a group as part
of our iHeart Festival there and it was it was
a great he's a great company, very very very good time. Okay,
so you probably agree with him as I do that. Yes,
the Democrats are underutilizing Jasmine Crockett. She really is a
phenomenal messager for their worldview. They should use her more.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Dadmin Crockett is actually what the Democrats should be leaning into,
like because she is a phenomenal messenger and some people
just got it, like some people just have a different.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Annoying on them.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
She's always on message about something. I was watching her
yesterday and she was she was like, Yo, Donald Trump
is racist and this whole administration is racist, and it
starts at the top. And she just broke down example
after example, and it was so powerful and so provocative,
and you you understood what the root of her issue was.
(12:04):
And she got you by just saying Donald Trump is
racist and this administration is racist, and let me tell
you why, and then you get into all of the issues.
I'm like, yo, you need somebody like Daving Crockett. She
is the most effective messenge that the Democratic Party has
right now, and they need to be using her as
a trojan horse.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Using her as a trojan horse is an interesting analogy there,
because the trojan horse didn't actually work out that well.
Uh necessarily, Uh, depends on it that you're that you're
looking at it from yes. But but the concept of
Chasmine Crockett as a phenomenal messenger buck, I think is
(12:45):
one of the worst takes. If I were actually telling
Democrats what to do. This is where you and I
she is. I went from being an unknown congresswoman to
being talked about right here on one of the biggest,
if not the biggest radio programs in the country. Clay
she has met hurt and it's purely a function of
(13:06):
brand you know, the branding and communication approach that she has.
You know, people were all making fun of aoc the bartender.
She's one of the biggest names in Democrat politics now,
so I we're in a new era. Now you have
to be look at mom, Donnie. You have to be
social media savvy. You have to understand how to go viral.
And to people who say, oh, but the crazy things, yeah,
(13:28):
but they just look look what they did with Biden.
They'll just lie about the crazy things they've said or done.
Or even Kamala Kama's like, yeah, we need transsurgery for
foreigners to coming to the country illegally funded by taxpayers.
And then when it was time, she's like, yeah, no,
we don't need to do that.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
That's all they'll do.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
This is I don't disagree on this. It's great for her,
it's awful I think for the Democrat Party. But to
your point, Buck, you and I were talking about this
off air, there's almost no consequence for crazy anymore. We
aren't crazy enough, Like our opinions are so rational and
reasonable that you actually are incentivized now to be totally
(14:09):
bonkers in everything.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I want to.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Run a psychology experiment where we just do a podcast play.
We launch a new podcast where I just say the
craziest stuff possible that I know will get the most
attention possible, and then we give all the proceeds to charity,
because I think by the way, I think i'd be
funding wings for children's hospitals.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
I think we would be casual.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
It's the craziest thing that we could argue tongue in
cheek for the audience, but it would go megaviral.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
And it's actually a great idea.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
But the only problem is I don't know if it
would be as crazy as some of the things that
I'm hearing these days.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
So I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
I don't know there's some interesting stuff online these days,
just putting that out there. Some of us have to
stay within the facts in reality that we live in,
but it would be nice to be able to just
get as crazy as we want a fun experiment. No
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Speaker 2 (15:16):
I was just.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Mentioning how when I was a young guy and we
used to work in retail, we would leave at the
end of the night. We would leave the shopping mall
where I worked with a big bag full of cash.
But it doesn't seem very safe. Nobody ever really trained us
in this, and we had to go deposit all of
that cash, and everybody was always looking over our shoulders.
Are we going to get robbed? Should we be concerned
(15:39):
about the danger here? Sometimes there's a lot of money
that we were depositing at the end of the day,
and I remember back in the day, one of the
girls would pull out her pepper spray and look, it
wasn't lethal. We were teenage kids, but the pepper spray
made us feel a bit safer. And if you have
a daughter, maybe she's working in retail like I did
(15:59):
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eight two four sa fe you don't know what you
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All right, welcome back in to Clay and Buck. We
got to quick turn around here. I just want to
say it, Clay, Big Penny has come for you. Big
(17:13):
Penny is they are united. There are lots of them.
They're apparently all over the place. In fact, you can't
even get rid of them. You can't even lose them.
They're everywhere. They keep turning up again. Big Penny is
coming after you for and me because I backed you
up on this one, on your coin comments and how
they're not gonna make pennies anymore. We are going to
dive into your thoughts come o up here in a
(17:37):
moment on that, as well as the biggest news stories
of the day, uh and and some other odds and
ends we're gonna get to. So definitely hit us with
those talkbacks, those calls, and yeah, throw your pennies at Clay,
all right. You know that's that's the way we're gonna
handle this one. That's that's how you can show them
your disdain for an end of coinage in America being
(17:59):
practical for a moment here why spend. Speaking of money,
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back in play, Travis, Buck, Sexton show a lot of
you weighing in. This is going to be like the flutes. Buck,
They're coming for me. A lot of you with your flute,
play quarters in your hand, your rolls of pennies. I'm
(19:04):
just gonna say, if someone finds you in the driveway
of your nice, brand new house, bludgeoned and there's a
flute and a handful of pennies next to the body,
we're all gonna know what happened.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
That's right. I'm in potential danger here.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
I want to take this call because I don't even
understand how it's possible. There is a woman, Jin, She
says she is in the southeastern United States. You said
you only escaped your husband because you were able to
save pennies.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Is Jin there?
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Yes, they're good afternoon gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
All right, Jin?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
How many pennies did you save? What did escaping your
husband cost you? What did you buy?
Speaker 5 (19:50):
I bought a lawyer for one thousand dollars as a retainer,
using thirty five jar thirty five court site, last jars
on six shelves in the back of my pantry, all
filled with pennies.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
How many years did it take you to save up
that many pennies? Uh?
Speaker 4 (20:12):
It took me about It took me about two and
a half years.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
So were you thinking the whole time? I'm saving these
pennies so I can afford to divorce my husband. And
what did the lawyer think when his retainer fee is
paid in thirty five jugs of pennies.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
My lawyer was amazing.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
And what I was doing was I was slowly collecting
pennies and other change because he was looking in my
wallet after I would go grocery shopping for my cash.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
And my lawyer was very amazing.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So was this just this is like an incredible story. Yeah,
this is pretty crazy.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
So you hid the coins that you were getting back
as change on like grocery store trips and whatnot, and
as a result, you were able to retain an attorney.
So it's not just pennies you were having quarters, like
just all the change you could get. You were seeing
there change jars. You kept change jars together and you
were able to get a lawyer.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
It was it was thirty five jars of pennies alone
with an addition of mixed change all together, mixed together.
So it was thirty five pennies, thirty five jars of
pennies only and then additional change as well. But it
would for one thousand dollars in just pennies.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
So what would have happened if the if I had
won and there were was now the reality is change
is going to be circulating for the rest of our lives.
What they're doing today is they are just stopping production
of more pennies, so they'll continue to circulate for the
rest of our lives. But what would you have done
if change didn't exist?
Speaker 4 (22:03):
I wouldn't have been able to get out.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Still be married.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Probably.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Wow, Well that's quite a story. I gotta say. Have
you ever seen the Shawshank redemption?
Speaker 4 (22:16):
Patience is a virtue, be virtuous, you know.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
I just remind thank you for calling in clay.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
It reminds me of what Andy dufrayne, right, taking one
little piece of dirt at a time and then he
tunnels out.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Remember that was the.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
It's an amazing part of the story. That's also the
story of Alcatraz. If you visit Alcatraz, the only people
to ever escape from Alcatraz dug their way out through
the back of their gel cell there and they then
climbed on the pipes all the way out. And we
never have figured out what happened to those guys. By
(22:52):
the way, speaking of pennies and coinage and bills, in circulation.
I did check back on this one and according to
Pablo Escobar's brother at the time, who was also his
accountant for the operations of the Mediean cartel's importation of
cocaine and I don't believe heroin, but mostly just cocaine.
(23:14):
In the United States play, their spoilage, which was rats
eating the cash and just physical loss to the elements
of the cash that they were storing, was two billion
dollars a year.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Unbelievable. I mean, just like they're.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Like, oh, a big rainstorm, the cash got wet and
the rats ate some we were losing two billion dollars
a year.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
That's how much cash they had.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
I mean, I think the answer some of you out
there probably wondering why we only go up to one
hundred dollar bills, for those of you that are strongly
committed to cash, it's because they don't want to make
it easier for the storage of money for illicit transactions.
In other words, if we had a thousand dollar bill,
(24:02):
you can imagine how much more money could be stored illicitly.
And there's been talk about the euro potentially replacing one
hundred dollar bill. And you know, because if you're engaged
in criminal activity. You want the largest denomination bill possible
to what's the most cash? What's the most cash you've
ever seen physically present? It's a great question. One time,
(24:26):
ten can I oh, I saw, I saw several million
dollars in cash? One well, you carried back in the
day at the CIA, you guys had go bags filled
with lots of cash, right, can.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Neither confirm nor deny.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
I'm just saying I saw a lot of cash I saw.
I mean, I told you back in the day the
US meant so. I've seen the big palettes of cash
before there. But in terms of physical cash that I've
ever seen, I think it was about ten grand is
the most that I've ever seen physically present one place.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I can just tell you that.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
It's It's funny also when you see these movie and
they're like I need ten million dollars and someone shows
up with like a briefcase. Oh no, no, no, it's
gonna be like Duffel bags. You're talking Duffel bags for
ten million dollars. It's gonna be a bit more than
a a simple valise or a briefcase. That's not gonna
get it done for you. Just throwing that out there
(25:18):
for any of you who are planning like a Bond
villain style, you know bank situation.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, you could just.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Play some of these people that are furious because the
penny's going away, because we're deluged in them right now.
I just think that it's a shame that they can't
actually like as part of the show, you know, throw
pennies at you to show their displeasure, because that would
just be fun.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
But yes, go.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Ahead, let's see. Oh man, so many different ones of
these let's go. A lot of people are saying they
use coins for family fun. This is, for instance, what
Justin from Arizona KFYI double D is saying, I.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Think we should keep the coins.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I'm with your producer.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
We have a thing we call the family fun jar.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
So all of our loose change goes into there, and
when it fills up, we.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Cash it in and go do something fun as a family.
That's a cool idea.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
If you're regularly bringing cash into the house, now have
you ever done that? Where you've it is deeply satisfying.
And I did this for many years. I had a
I had a change jar. I was I had very
little money, and I was working for the government, and
I had a change jar and I would go to
one of those, like Coinstar one of those places, because
(26:41):
also I remember I went once to a bank and
they gave me the little like TUTSI roll things to
wrap them up in, and I did the math on
this in my head. I'm like, this is I'm paying
myself like three dollars an hour in was not good.
So yeah, Coinstar one of those things. But I've definitely
gone out with a buddy of mine. I used to
(27:01):
do this too, and to like get like a Chinese
all you can eat, you know, seventeen dollars with the
coins you have together, and I'm gonna tell.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
You it's very satisfied, very satisfied.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
I would say probably the most common is the going
through I think tolls now tend to also accept credit cards.
But you know that feeling when you're driving and you're like, oh,
I don't have much cash and there's a toll coming up.
Everything else I don't. I don't think I've had very
I'm trying to think of the last time I had
physical possessions of coins. I don't pay cash for anything.
(27:35):
I don't I'm trying to think what's the last time
you paid cash for something?
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Do you remember? I don't. Yeah, I'm trying to think.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Actually, no, oh, church, I got the donation in the
I actually have a like a little cash like box
that every Sunday I just go to for putting in
the cash box at church. I think you can do
a check, like I see, I'm not casting dispersions here, Okay,
(28:05):
it's church. I see some of the older parishioners do checks. Yes,
But to me, I'm like, I'd rather just give them
a you know, give them a bill. So that's the
only place that I've just realized is I have cash
on hand for church and in case we get a
delivery and I have to get I also ow tips
for delivery guys. That's what it is, tip tips for
deliver tips for tips. Is the last time that I
(28:26):
remember giving cash. It used to be when the boys
were younger and we had regular babysitters. Babysitters only dealt
in cash. That was like, oh, I want to get
my haircut. Business when I get my when when my
Cuban Americans, uh put on the Buena Visa Social Club,
give me a tiny coffee and give me fancy haircut.
I'll give those guys cash. So I will also point
(28:47):
this out. My wife just takes money out of my
wallet and and the kids do too sometimes because they
I'm the only person in the house that actually has cash,
so on the rare event when we need cash. But
having said that, I don't remember the last time I
got coins like I do not have physically in my
(29:08):
possession right now.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
I don't think I have any coins.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
You're like a time warp man. You're sitting there with
your actual newspaper made of paper, with your dollar bills
and your kids coming over borrowing twenties from you. This
is like nineteen ninety eight over in the Travis household. Well,
why would you want to leave behind the greatest year
that has ever existed in the history of the world.
I'd like to go back to nineteen ninety eight. The
(29:33):
late nineties were a great time in America.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I will agree with that. I can't. I cannot tell
a lie. It's very important.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
We're going to take more of your calls and thoughts
on this stuff and also get back into some of news.
Interesting we just had the FBI director Cash Betel with
an announcement from the White House press briefing, which I
will discuss with you guys coming up here in.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
A little bit.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
We have Steve Yates. We'll be with us, am I
correct team, right, mister Yates. Yeah, and Robbie Starbuck are
going to be with us in the third hour. Steve
Yates just got back from something like ten days traveling
with a Secretary of Defense, so he is perfectly positioned
to speak about this FBI because it's announcement about China
(30:17):
and the FBI from the FBI director.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
We'll speak to Steve Yates about this.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
He was all over Asia with the Secretary of Defense,
traveling to cover those meetings and those negotiations with President Trump.
And then we'll have Robbie Starbuck on and Clay. He's
got quite a story he.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Wants to tell.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, a degree to which AI, particularly Google, I believe.
But I don't want to step on his story because
I think a lot of you are going to say, oh,
this is ominous, and you could see yourself as being
reflected in what has happened to him. But the AI
algorithm has been seeded to essentially tell awful untruths about
(30:56):
him when you google his name, and I want him
to explain it to you all. But I do think
it's one of the things that we should be concerned
about AI is once AI get seated with something inaccurate,
how do you remove something that is untrue from the
AI ecosystem. I tell you there's there's some scurless, scurless
(31:19):
accusations out there that I am not in fact six
feet tall, that I'm like some version of five to eleven.
This is unacceptable, Okay. Height is a definitive thing we
can doll you know, And I would like the Internet
to accurately reflect that I'm in the six I'm in
the six speed club. That's all I'm saying. All Right,
I'm not make sure. I got to go back on
Wikipedia and check. They like to like to antagonize me
(31:42):
with this nonsense, all right. Every November, as Black Friday approaches,
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(32:03):
end of October it was over four thousand dollars an ounce.
That's a fifty three percent increase. Gold thrives in times
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(32:25):
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Speaker 6 (32:41):
News and politics, but also a little comic relief. Clay
Travis and Buck Sexton find them on the free iHeartRadio
app or wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Welcome back into Clay and Buck.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Like we said, big guests coming up next hour, Robbie Starbuck,
Stephn Yates of the Heritage Foundation, just back from traveling
for almost two weeks with Secretary of Defense over in Asia.
He was in South Korea, Japan, I think it was Gwam.
He was like all over the place. I can't even
remember all the places he was. Stephen was with me
and Taiwan as well, by the way, So this guy
knows what's going on in that part of the world.
(33:16):
Backwards and forwards, Clay, I will tell you, I think have.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
You met Steve before in person?
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Do you know he's been a friend of rock question
for fifteen years now. We go way very beginning of
my media time at the Blaze. He is a totally
fluent Mandarin speaker, so he speaks Chinese like absolutely.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah and all.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
And I mean he's a I don't know, it's very American,
uh you know guy. And I've not heard anyone else
who has his quite his skill level with Mandarin. He
can translate perfectly. It's it's really cool actually because you
don't expect it. You look at him, he looks like
his name is Steve Way before anybody was ever studying Chinese,
(33:59):
he made made the decision to get ahead of the
curve there. He was a missionary in Taiwan as long
as you could ask me this a long time ago
in the eighties. So yeah, that's how far back he
goes Sony. We'll talk to him a bit about there's
a few things. A big announcement today actually about a
new deal with China that the FBI director made.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
We'll speak to Steve about that.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
But VIP email from Don He said, Buck, you mentioned
your favorite history novel of all time? What was the
name of the book. I appreciate it. Your show is
the best. Thank you for all you do. I well,
I want to say the one that I managed. Clay
and I both threw out historical novels different than history books, right,
historical novels that we really really really enjoyed. For me,
(34:39):
it was press Field Gates, Oh that's the author Gates
of Fire, which is a novelized Thermopoli Leonidas three hundred. Clay,
it was Killer Angels, which I went and bought last
night on for my kindle. So I'm going to be
(35:00):
reading Michael Shara. Is that he say his name, Michaels
Shara's Killer Angels. Now I can come back and give
you my review of it, because Clay said that was
his favorite. So Killer Angels, Gates of Fire. I've always
a fire also yesterday so at some point it will
arrive at my house and I will start to read it.
But those are both yes to your point the conversation
we were having yesterday about it, Yeah, so, uh, those are
(35:23):
those are fun. I tend to do novels when I'm
trying to go to sleep. I think it's just so
that's when i'll read more creative stuff. I don't know, what,
did you have a preference with that, Clay. If it's
like the daytime I tend to or even the early evening,
I tend to be more history book or something that's
you know, political. At night is when I allow myself
(35:44):
to do kind of the Lord of the Ring stuff,
you know, I'll read whatever. I usually have one fiction
and one nonfiction going simultaneously and just read whatever I'm in.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
The mood for.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Although I don't know if this is normal. The older
I've gotten, I read way more nonfiction. When I was
a kid, I read way more fiction. I don't know
if that's commonplace for others as well, but I read
way more nonfiction now than I do fiction. Funny, I
just my nonfiction book that I just finished was Last
Days of the Incas, which was very good and so
(36:17):
I'm actually about to start a new nonfiction but my
fiction book that I'm reading is a throwback. It's The
Sky Scott Baker, the Darkness that comes before. But I'm
actually going to put that on hold for a little
bit and get to kill her angel. So bookres by
the way on clayanbuck dot com. They're all under the
Rex tab. You can go check them out.
Welcome back in Clay Travis buck Sex did show we
may have stepped into a coin loving.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Buzzsaw here, Buck. It is.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
The comments are going to be very, very funny. I
think on this the poll you can go vote in it.
Thousands of you are already weighing in, and the general
consensus is it's close to fifty to fifty on whether
we should be eliminating all coins. The reason why I
brought that up was because today is reportedly the last
(00:33):
day I saw this on Fox News that they are
going to be producing the penny. It definitely costs more
to produce the penny than the penny is worth, and
so in the future, the smallest coin would now be
the nickel.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
And I think.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Going forward, you're going to see more and more arguments about, hey,
do we still need to continue to produce coins. There
would still be coins in circulation, probably for you know,
the next hundred years. I mean, I don't know how
long it would go on. Here's a fun stat for you, Buck,
before we dive into phenomenal messenger for the Democrats, Jasmine Crockett,
(01:10):
what percentage of money that exists in the world today
actually physically exists? What percentage of money fifteen. Good guess
I'm told it's ten. Okay, I was, I was in
the RELs, I was in the rail But yeah, I
think that will blow a lot of your minds out there.
(01:31):
In other words, if you went to the bank and
you have X dollars, and everybody went to the bank
and they have X dollars, I mean this is sort
of a bank run. The physical notes that represent the
vast majority of the wealth in the world, it doesn't exist.
It's just numbers on a computer screen. Only about ten
(01:53):
percent of the dollars in America, of the euros in America,
of all of the different currencies physically exist. That's something
kind of interesting. And the younger you are, young people,
and I sell like an old guy every time I
say that. Young people, and I'm going to be an
old guy. They don't even carry money, I mean, like
(02:14):
the actual physical carrying of money. They have their iPhone,
they pay with Apple Pay, they have credit cards, they
don't physically carry around cash at all. They have Venmo,
they have Zel, they have all these different ways to
share expenses when they're buying, you know, going out for
dinners or whatever else. Concert tickets, it's kind of wild.
(02:37):
We're moving towards a cashlest society already, and I think
we're moving there in really rapid fashion. Much to producer
Greg Chagrin, Well, yes, and I do agree that there
are concerns about not having the privacy and the ability
to just have currency that the government is not tracking
(02:58):
and aware of at all times. Uh, but I don't know, man, pennies.
Not a fan of pennies quarters. I'm a little more
open to a little more. You ever work retail? Did
you ever work at a place where you had to
accept cash, make change, like process transactions. I've done a
lot of retail in my life. Tell everybody Clay, Abercrombie
(03:20):
and Fitch were they only were they only hired good
looking people when Clay did it.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
He loves to remind us all.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
My wife too, is very shy about it. I'm like,
I'm like, so you were hired at the Florida Abercrombie
or you know, Fitch or like the Orlando area or
whatever because you were cute, right, Like, just say it.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
She's like, no, I was a hard worker.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
I'm like, right, right, it was a the retail jobs
that I had, I worked at American Eagle, now famous
because of the Sydney Sweeney jeans. For years I worked
at a company called Media Play in the book section.
The idea of there was you could buy CDs, you
could buy books. Some of you will remember the concept
(03:57):
big box retailer. And then I wore did Abercrombie and
Fitch Pentagon City Mall in Washington, d C. While I
was in college. One of the best jobs I ever
had buck pretty girls walk in. You got an immediate
excuse to talk to pretty girls. It's like, I mean,
that's I'll tell you the truth.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Man.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I got caught up in the world and this was
really common in New York, the world of the unpaid
corporate internship I had, and in retrospect, I got scammed.
I think it would have been way better now. Some
some places I got like I worked at the Washington
Institute for Neary's Policy and they, because they actually had
(04:36):
interns do real work, they paid you like you were paid.
It was you know, it was maybe three or four
hundred bucks a week or something at the time, but
it was like at the time, living in DC with
three roommates over the summer, that was real money. But
I remember other places where I worked, and I did.
I worked at the Council on Foreign Relations as an intern.
They didn't pay, and that place has a huge people
(05:00):
like you far that's the globalist and the illuminati. Yeah,
I was an intern there. Trust me, no one cared,
no one remembered me. They didn't pay, and people were
There was someone who got an actual recommendation from I
think it was the Crown Prince of Jordan or something
for one of those internships. Clay, I mean people would
(05:21):
go all out for these didn't matter, these unpaid internships.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
It doesn't people. I was like, oh, it'll translate a
new a job.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
What I'm saying is, I think your experience of actually
working in commerce and capitalism a much better play for people,
and it establishes something of an economic libido. You're like, oh,
work harder, work longer, more money. An internship where you're
not paid just so you can put it on your resume,
you're actually incentivized to do as little as possible and
(05:48):
get out of there as fast as possible. And I
think they're diminishing the number of unpaid internships in general.
Oh no, it's there are rules against it. Now, there
are rules against it now because it became so exploitative.
Like I did want at CBS even News, but I
got school credit for it, so that seemed like a fair.
But I did summer internships, a number of them, starting
(06:10):
when I was even in high school, where I didn't
get any I didn't get paid, and I was just
basically fetching coffee and making xeroxes so I could put
on my resume that I this was a thing in
the nineties of those of you who are elder millennials.
Not to you old gen X people. Gen X people,
you gotta worry about your creaking joints and bones. The
elder millennials, you know what I'm talking about. You we
(06:30):
all got scammed man, late nineties. It was like Clay,
I worked at a a at a music label for
a summer for a couple months, and it was a
complete waste of my time. This is unexpected. You worked
at a music label for like a month. Yeah, like
an internship, total waste of time. They're like the biggest
I think it was supposed to be all summer. I
legitimly told my parents, like I'm gonna go play tennis
(06:52):
and said, this is a waste of time.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
So, yeah, what was the music label death Row? No, no, no, no,
it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It was actually a music publishing company, so it was
kind of like did A and R and it was
owned publishing, right. Clay was the most boring intern. I
don't even remember. I was like seventeen. It's the worst
thing I ever worst way I ever spent a summer
in college. When I was at GW undergrad, I went
and worked on Capitol Hill as part of being a
student in DC, and that was actually somewhat useful and interesting.
(07:25):
But yeah, there's a ton of those that don't have
any impact at all. I was just thinking nowadays when
you work retail, and a lot of you out there
who work in who work in restaurants or whatever else.
I don't even remember the last time I saw someone
pay in a restaurant with cash. You know, they have
all these mobile devices now where they can come right
(07:47):
to your right to your table and like take all
your money. I don't even remember. A lot of places
won't even take cash now.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
We used to.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
The reason I was bringing it up buck is at
the end of the day at American Eagle, and it
doesn't seem very safe. Now, we would have a big
bag of cash that we would deposit into the bank,
that we would clear out the cash registers with. And
I was thinking about it the other day because if
I tried to explain that to my kids, they wouldn't
even understand. And it was filled with coins, and it
(08:16):
was filled with cash, and we had to tally it up,
and we had to take it, and we had to
deposit it at the end of the day. There's never
any security. I remember thinking, this doesn't make a lot
of sense. There's thousands and thousands of dollars. But that
was what we had to do because the physical encapsulation
of money was such a thing. And remember in Breaking
Bad when he starts to make real amounts of money,
(08:37):
great television show, and he doesn't even know what to
do with all the cash. This is one of the
challenges of the drug trade in general. It's all a
cash business. It takes a lot of space when you
have actual, the physical manifestation of all that wealth. Somebody
can tell me what the This was a famous problem
that Pablo Escobar, the world's drug kingpin back in the
(08:59):
eighties and night nineties and really the original public enemy
number one of the US government in the pre War
on Terror terror era. He had something that they would
call spoilage clay, which was they had so they could
not find a place to put all the cash that
they were making by selling cocaine in the United States,
and so they would store it underground in palettes and
(09:22):
rats would eat it, and they there were some crazy
figure tens of millions of dollars a year. They thought
they were losing to rats eating their cash because that's
how much cash they were making in the illegal drug trade.
One thing that used to exist in New York. It
doesn't really anymore, but there were a number of restaurants
that were famous play for being cash only. Yeah, and
(09:44):
it was basically because it was like they weren't really
reporting all the money they were making. You know, that
was the idea, Yes, but the irs got way better
at calculating the you know, because they can base it
off your invent so what you buy, what are you
buying monthly? Oh, really, you're only making that much, but
(10:05):
you're buying this much. So they have ways of figuring
this stuff out. And instaurants that was huge. They would
avoid reporting the actual dollars that came into the building.
And now obviously you can't do that with credit card,
and a lot of you out there who get tips,
it's way easier to track your tips now in a
credit card era than it ever was when you just
got cash handed to you. Yeah, that's a good point.
(10:27):
That's a very um all right, let's play this. We'll
react to it a little bit as we go forward.
A lot of discussion about what's the future of the
Democrat Party. You've got Span Burger and the governor in
New Jersey who just won Mickey Cheryl I think was
her name, and they're arguing, hey, we're moderates. We know
that's a lie, but they're arguing that's the path mom.
(10:48):
Donnie is clearly on the far left of the Democrat Party.
And then there is an argument out there and it
is interesting that the future of the Democrat Party he
should actually be defined by Jasmine Crockett who charlet Mage
the God.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
You sat with him at a recent fundraising event. We know,
we had dinner.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
We had dinner in can with a group as part
of our iHeart Festival there and it was it was
a great he's a great company, very very very good time. Okay,
so you probably agree with him as I do that. Yes,
the Democrats are underutilizing Jasmine Crockett. She really is a
phenomenal messager for their worldview. They should use her more.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Dadmin Crockett is actually what the Democrats should be leaning into,
like because she is a phenomenal messenger and some people
just got it, like some people just have a different.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Annoying on them.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
She's always on message about something. I was watching her
yesterday and she was she was like, Yo, Donald Trump
is racist and this whole administration is racist, and it
starts at the top. And she just broke down example
after example, and it was so powerful and so provocative,
and you you understood what the root of her issue was.
(12:04):
And she got you by just saying Donald Trump is
racist and this administration is racist, and let me tell
you why, and then you get into all of the issues.
I'm like, yo, you need somebody like Daving Crockett. She
is the most effective messenge that the Democratic Party has
right now, and they need to be using her as
a trojan horse.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Using her as a trojan horse is an interesting analogy there,
because the trojan horse didn't actually work out that well.
Uh necessarily, Uh, depends on it that you're that you're
looking at it from yes. But but the concept of
Chasmine Crockett as a phenomenal messenger buck, I think is
(12:45):
one of the worst takes. If I were actually telling
Democrats what to do. This is where you and I
she is. I went from being an unknown congresswoman to
being talked about right here on one of the biggest,
if not the biggest radio programs in the country. Clay
she has met hurt and it's purely a function of
(13:06):
brand you know, the branding and communication approach that she has.
You know, people were all making fun of aoc the bartender.
She's one of the biggest names in Democrat politics now,
so I we're in a new era. Now you have
to be look at mom, Donnie. You have to be
social media savvy. You have to understand how to go viral.
And to people who say, oh, but the crazy things, yeah,
(13:28):
but they just look look what they did with Biden.
They'll just lie about the crazy things they've said or done.
Or even Kamala Kama's like, yeah, we need transsurgery for
foreigners to coming to the country illegally funded by taxpayers.
And then when it was time, she's like, yeah, no,
we don't need to do that.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
That's all they'll do.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
This is I don't disagree on this. It's great for her,
it's awful I think for the Democrat Party. But to
your point, Buck, you and I were talking about this
off air, there's almost no consequence for crazy anymore. We
aren't crazy enough, Like our opinions are so rational and
reasonable that you actually are incentivized now to be totally
(14:09):
bonkers in everything.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I want to.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Run a psychology experiment where we just do a podcast play.
We launch a new podcast where I just say the
craziest stuff possible that I know will get the most
attention possible, and then we give all the proceeds to charity,
because I think by the way, I think i'd be
funding wings for children's hospitals.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
I think we would be casual.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
It's the craziest thing that we could argue tongue in
cheek for the audience, but it would go megaviral.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
And it's actually a great idea.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
But the only problem is I don't know if it
would be as crazy as some of the things that
I'm hearing these days.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
So I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
I don't know there's some interesting stuff online these days,
just putting that out there. Some of us have to
stay within the facts in reality that we live in,
but it would be nice to be able to just
get as crazy as we want a fun experiment. No
matter how safe you think your neighborhood is, there's always
the chance you'll be a victim of a home intrusion
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But it doesn't seem very safe. Nobody ever really trained us
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Are we going to get robbed? Should we be concerned
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about the danger here? Sometimes there's a lot of money
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eight two four sa fe you don't know what you
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All right, welcome back in to Clay and Buck. We
got to quick turn around here. I just want to
say it, Clay, Big Penny has come for you. Big
(17:13):
Penny is they are united. There are lots of them.
They're apparently all over the place. In fact, you can't
even get rid of them. You can't even lose them.
They're everywhere. They keep turning up again. Big Penny is
coming after you for and me because I backed you
up on this one, on your coin comments and how
they're not gonna make pennies anymore. We are going to
dive into your thoughts come o up here in a
(17:37):
moment on that, as well as the biggest news stories
of the day, uh and and some other odds and
ends we're gonna get to. So definitely hit us with
those talkbacks, those calls, and yeah, throw your pennies at Clay,
all right. You know that's that's the way we're gonna
handle this one. That's that's how you can show them
your disdain for an end of coinage in America being
(17:59):
practical for a moment here why spend. Speaking of money,
I want to save you not just pennies. I want
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back in play, Travis, Buck, Sexton show a lot of
you weighing in. This is going to be like the flutes. Buck,
They're coming for me. A lot of you with your flute,
play quarters in your hand, your rolls of pennies. I'm
(19:04):
just gonna say, if someone finds you in the driveway
of your nice, brand new house, bludgeoned and there's a
flute and a handful of pennies next to the body,
we're all gonna know what happened.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
That's right. I'm in potential danger here.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
I want to take this call because I don't even
understand how it's possible. There is a woman, Jin, She
says she is in the southeastern United States. You said
you only escaped your husband because you were able to
save pennies.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Is Jin there?
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Yes, they're good afternoon gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
All right, Jin?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
How many pennies did you save? What did escaping your
husband cost you? What did you buy?
Speaker 5 (19:50):
I bought a lawyer for one thousand dollars as a retainer,
using thirty five jar thirty five court site, last jars
on six shelves in the back of my pantry, all
filled with pennies.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
How many years did it take you to save up
that many pennies? Uh?
Speaker 4 (20:12):
It took me about It took me about two and
a half years.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
So were you thinking the whole time? I'm saving these
pennies so I can afford to divorce my husband. And
what did the lawyer think when his retainer fee is
paid in thirty five jugs of pennies.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
My lawyer was amazing.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
And what I was doing was I was slowly collecting
pennies and other change because he was looking in my
wallet after I would go grocery shopping for my cash.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
And my lawyer was very amazing.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So was this just this is like an incredible story. Yeah,
this is pretty crazy.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
So you hid the coins that you were getting back
as change on like grocery store trips and whatnot, and
as a result, you were able to retain an attorney.
So it's not just pennies you were having quarters, like
just all the change you could get. You were seeing
there change jars. You kept change jars together and you
were able to get a lawyer.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
It was it was thirty five jars of pennies alone
with an addition of mixed change all together, mixed together.
So it was thirty five pennies, thirty five jars of
pennies only and then additional change as well. But it
would for one thousand dollars in just pennies.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
So what would have happened if the if I had
won and there were was now the reality is change
is going to be circulating for the rest of our lives.
What they're doing today is they are just stopping production
of more pennies, so they'll continue to circulate for the
rest of our lives. But what would you have done
if change didn't exist?
Speaker 4 (22:03):
I wouldn't have been able to get out.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Still be married.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Probably.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Wow, Well that's quite a story. I gotta say. Have
you ever seen the Shawshank redemption?
Speaker 4 (22:16):
Patience is a virtue, be virtuous, you know.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
I just remind thank you for calling in clay.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
It reminds me of what Andy dufrayne, right, taking one
little piece of dirt at a time and then he
tunnels out.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Remember that was the.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
It's an amazing part of the story. That's also the
story of Alcatraz. If you visit Alcatraz, the only people
to ever escape from Alcatraz dug their way out through
the back of their gel cell there and they then
climbed on the pipes all the way out. And we
never have figured out what happened to those guys. By
(22:52):
the way, speaking of pennies and coinage and bills, in circulation.
I did check back on this one and according to
Pablo Escobar's brother at the time, who was also his
accountant for the operations of the Mediean cartel's importation of
cocaine and I don't believe heroin, but mostly just cocaine.
(23:14):
In the United States play, their spoilage, which was rats
eating the cash and just physical loss to the elements
of the cash that they were storing, was two billion
dollars a year.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Unbelievable. I mean, just like they're.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Like, oh, a big rainstorm, the cash got wet and
the rats ate some we were losing two billion dollars
a year.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
That's how much cash they had.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
I mean, I think the answer some of you out
there probably wondering why we only go up to one
hundred dollar bills, for those of you that are strongly
committed to cash, it's because they don't want to make
it easier for the storage of money for illicit transactions.
In other words, if we had a thousand dollar bill,
(24:02):
you can imagine how much more money could be stored illicitly.
And there's been talk about the euro potentially replacing one
hundred dollar bill. And you know, because if you're engaged
in criminal activity. You want the largest denomination bill possible
to what's the most cash? What's the most cash you've
ever seen physically present? It's a great question. One time,
(24:26):
ten can I oh, I saw, I saw several million
dollars in cash? One well, you carried back in the
day at the CIA, you guys had go bags filled
with lots of cash, right, can.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Neither confirm nor deny.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
I'm just saying I saw a lot of cash I saw.
I mean, I told you back in the day the
US meant so. I've seen the big palettes of cash
before there. But in terms of physical cash that I've
ever seen, I think it was about ten grand is
the most that I've ever seen physically present one place.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I can just tell you that.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
It's It's funny also when you see these movie and
they're like I need ten million dollars and someone shows
up with like a briefcase. Oh no, no, no, it's
gonna be like Duffel bags. You're talking Duffel bags for
ten million dollars. It's gonna be a bit more than
a a simple valise or a briefcase. That's not gonna
get it done for you. Just throwing that out there
(25:18):
for any of you who are planning like a Bond
villain style, you know bank situation.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, you could just.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Play some of these people that are furious because the
penny's going away, because we're deluged in them right now.
I just think that it's a shame that they can't
actually like as part of the show, you know, throw
pennies at you to show their displeasure, because that would
just be fun.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
But yes, go.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Ahead, let's see. Oh man, so many different ones of
these let's go. A lot of people are saying they
use coins for family fun. This is, for instance, what
Justin from Arizona KFYI double D is saying, I.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Think we should keep the coins.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I'm with your producer.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
We have a thing we call the family fun jar.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
So all of our loose change goes into there, and
when it fills up, we.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Cash it in and go do something fun as a family.
That's a cool idea.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
If you're regularly bringing cash into the house, now have
you ever done that? Where you've it is deeply satisfying.
And I did this for many years. I had a
I had a change jar. I was I had very
little money, and I was working for the government, and
I had a change jar and I would go to
one of those, like Coinstar one of those places, because
(26:41):
also I remember I went once to a bank and
they gave me the little like TUTSI roll things to
wrap them up in, and I did the math on
this in my head. I'm like, this is I'm paying
myself like three dollars an hour in was not good.
So yeah, Coinstar one of those things. But I've definitely
gone out with a buddy of mine. I used to
(27:01):
do this too, and to like get like a Chinese
all you can eat, you know, seventeen dollars with the
coins you have together, and I'm gonna tell.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
You it's very satisfied, very satisfied.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
I would say probably the most common is the going
through I think tolls now tend to also accept credit cards.
But you know that feeling when you're driving and you're like, oh,
I don't have much cash and there's a toll coming up.
Everything else I don't. I don't think I've had very
I'm trying to think of the last time I had
physical possessions of coins. I don't pay cash for anything.
(27:35):
I don't I'm trying to think what's the last time
you paid cash for something?
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Do you remember? I don't. Yeah, I'm trying to think.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Actually, no, oh, church, I got the donation in the
I actually have a like a little cash like box
that every Sunday I just go to for putting in
the cash box at church. I think you can do
a check, like I see, I'm not casting dispersions here, Okay,
(28:05):
it's church. I see some of the older parishioners do checks. Yes,
But to me, I'm like, I'd rather just give them
a you know, give them a bill. So that's the
only place that I've just realized is I have cash
on hand for church and in case we get a
delivery and I have to get I also ow tips
for delivery guys. That's what it is, tip tips for
deliver tips for tips. Is the last time that I
(28:26):
remember giving cash. It used to be when the boys
were younger and we had regular babysitters. Babysitters only dealt
in cash. That was like, oh, I want to get
my haircut. Business when I get my when when my
Cuban Americans, uh put on the Buena Visa Social Club,
give me a tiny coffee and give me fancy haircut.
I'll give those guys cash. So I will also point
(28:47):
this out. My wife just takes money out of my
wallet and and the kids do too sometimes because they
I'm the only person in the house that actually has cash,
so on the rare event when we need cash. But
having said that, I don't remember the last time I
got coins like I do not have physically in my
(29:08):
possession right now.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
I don't think I have any coins.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
You're like a time warp man. You're sitting there with
your actual newspaper made of paper, with your dollar bills
and your kids coming over borrowing twenties from you. This
is like nineteen ninety eight over in the Travis household. Well,
why would you want to leave behind the greatest year
that has ever existed in the history of the world.
I'd like to go back to nineteen ninety eight. The
(29:33):
late nineties were a great time in America.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I will agree with that. I can't. I cannot tell
a lie. It's very important.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
We're going to take more of your calls and thoughts
on this stuff and also get back into some of news.
Interesting we just had the FBI director Cash Betel with
an announcement from the White House press briefing, which I
will discuss with you guys coming up here in.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
A little bit.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
We have Steve Yates. We'll be with us, am I
correct team, right, mister Yates. Yeah, and Robbie Starbuck are
going to be with us in the third hour. Steve
Yates just got back from something like ten days traveling
with a Secretary of Defense, so he is perfectly positioned
to speak about this FBI because it's announcement about China
(30:17):
and the FBI from the FBI director.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
We'll speak to Steve Yates about this.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
He was all over Asia with the Secretary of Defense,
traveling to cover those meetings and those negotiations with President Trump.
And then we'll have Robbie Starbuck on and Clay. He's
got quite a story he.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Wants to tell.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, a degree to which AI, particularly Google, I believe.
But I don't want to step on his story because
I think a lot of you are going to say, oh,
this is ominous, and you could see yourself as being
reflected in what has happened to him. But the AI
algorithm has been seeded to essentially tell awful untruths about
(30:56):
him when you google his name, and I want him
to explain it to you all. But I do think
it's one of the things that we should be concerned
about AI is once AI get seated with something inaccurate,
how do you remove something that is untrue from the
AI ecosystem. I tell you there's there's some scurless, scurless
(31:19):
accusations out there that I am not in fact six
feet tall, that I'm like some version of five to eleven.
This is unacceptable, Okay. Height is a definitive thing we
can doll you know, And I would like the Internet
to accurately reflect that I'm in the six I'm in
the six speed club. That's all I'm saying. All Right,
I'm not make sure. I got to go back on
Wikipedia and check. They like to like to antagonize me
(31:42):
with this nonsense, all right. Every November, as Black Friday approaches,
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Speaker 6 (32:41):
News and politics, but also a little comic relief. Clay
Travis and Buck Sexton find them on the free iHeartRadio
app or wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Welcome back into Clay and Buck.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Like we said, big guests coming up next hour, Robbie Starbuck,
Stephn Yates of the Heritage Foundation, just back from traveling
for almost two weeks with Secretary of Defense over in Asia.
He was in South Korea, Japan, I think it was Gwam.
He was like all over the place. I can't even
remember all the places he was. Stephen was with me
and Taiwan as well, by the way, So this guy
knows what's going on in that part of the world.
(33:16):
Backwards and forwards, Clay, I will tell you, I think have.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
You met Steve before in person?
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Do you know he's been a friend of rock question
for fifteen years now. We go way very beginning of
my media time at the Blaze. He is a totally
fluent Mandarin speaker, so he speaks Chinese like absolutely.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah and all.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
And I mean he's a I don't know, it's very American,
uh you know guy. And I've not heard anyone else
who has his quite his skill level with Mandarin. He
can translate perfectly. It's it's really cool actually because you
don't expect it. You look at him, he looks like
his name is Steve Way before anybody was ever studying Chinese,
(33:59):
he made made the decision to get ahead of the
curve there. He was a missionary in Taiwan as long
as you could ask me this a long time ago
in the eighties. So yeah, that's how far back he
goes Sony. We'll talk to him a bit about there's
a few things. A big announcement today actually about a
new deal with China that the FBI director made.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
We'll speak to Steve about that.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
But VIP email from Don He said, Buck, you mentioned
your favorite history novel of all time? What was the
name of the book. I appreciate it. Your show is
the best. Thank you for all you do. I well,
I want to say the one that I managed. Clay
and I both threw out historical novels different than history books, right,
historical novels that we really really really enjoyed. For me,
(34:39):
it was press Field Gates, Oh that's the author Gates
of Fire, which is a novelized Thermopoli Leonidas three hundred. Clay,
it was Killer Angels, which I went and bought last
night on for my kindle. So I'm going to be
(35:00):
reading Michael Shara. Is that he say his name, Michaels
Shara's Killer Angels. Now I can come back and give
you my review of it, because Clay said that was
his favorite. So Killer Angels, Gates of Fire. I've always
a fire also yesterday so at some point it will
arrive at my house and I will start to read it.
But those are both yes to your point the conversation
we were having yesterday about it, Yeah, so, uh, those are
(35:23):
those are fun. I tend to do novels when I'm
trying to go to sleep. I think it's just so
that's when i'll read more creative stuff. I don't know, what,
did you have a preference with that, Clay. If it's
like the daytime I tend to or even the early evening,
I tend to be more history book or something that's
you know, political. At night is when I allow myself
(35:44):
to do kind of the Lord of the Ring stuff,
you know, I'll read whatever. I usually have one fiction
and one nonfiction going simultaneously and just read whatever I'm in.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
The mood for.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Although I don't know if this is normal. The older
I've gotten, I read way more nonfiction. When I was
a kid, I read way more fiction. I don't know
if that's commonplace for others as well, but I read
way more nonfiction now than I do fiction. Funny, I
just my nonfiction book that I just finished was Last
Days of the Incas, which was very good and so
(36:17):
I'm actually about to start a new nonfiction but my
fiction book that I'm reading is a throwback. It's The
Sky Scott Baker, the Darkness that comes before. But I'm
actually going to put that on hold for a little
bit and get to kill her angel. So bookres by
the way on clayanbuck dot com. They're all under the
Rex tab. You can go check them out.
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