Welcome to today's edition of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show podcast.
Welcome everybody.
Tuesday edition of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show kicks off.
Now.
It is big, it is beautiful, and it is now law.
The Big Beautiful Bill has just moments ago passed in the United States cent Okay, I know Trump has to sign it, but you know it's happening. Trump's going to sign this big beautiful bill. So the Big beautiful Bill has gone through. It will be on the President's desk.
This is huge. It is huge.
We will get into some of the final items that were in this. We will discuss some of the no votes. There were some no votes. We'll also talk about how Elon Musk, formerly of DOGE fame pretty unhappy with the situation here of the five trillion dollar debt ceiling rays.
I think there's still potentially bucked a little bit of drama because I think the House will now have to come back and agree to some.
Of the.
Side I got ahead of myself there too excited, too excited, So there will there will be some drama that's in reconciling. It's going to go through the House has already passed it. It's going to go through. But thank you for the yeah.
Sorely for me for the nerdy edition where there will continue to be drama. First is that going to take though? I don't know, I I I just we have not spent a ton of time on the minute by minute because we knew that this was going to pass and it will pass on some level. Uh, but they still
have some maneuvering. I think Trump wants it by July fourth, right, is the ideal day that he would sign it, which is Friday, And so I imagine that they are hoping that the House will sign off on the changes made by the Senate at some point in time in the next several days. But that's the timeframe. Uh so that is the last drama to be had before this thing is officially signed an underway, which.
Is not gonna be It's not gonna mean drama.
I mean they're gonna you know what I mean, Like, come on, what's the drama gonna be, Clay, Someone's really the Republicans aren't gonna actually do the thing that they've already said they were gonna do. I don't I don't see it, but yes, procedurally speaking, they have to reconcile it, right, So the house as the set of the set, it says, how's that? Okay, So let's get into what is in the big beautiful bill, which I do believe is its official is its official name.
I'm just seeing now.
I think it happened so recently, Clay, that all the the news sites live and in real time here are still updating.
Past as we came on the air like that is, yes, the second absolute latest breaking news.
That's why I got all excited. Okay, so it was happening in real time. We got to open the show with, ah, it has past. The said it fifty one fifty, and jd Vance had to step in to uh write, Jade Vance, I'm reading this in real time because it just happened. Just you understand, this wasn't like an hour. What happened seconds or minutes ago. Three Republicans ran Paul of Kentucky, Tom Tillis of North Carolina, not running next year. Susan Collins of Maine joined Democrats to vote against the bill.
Paul opposed the legislation's five trillion dollars debtlimit, et cetera. Okay, so Susan Collins. Not a surprise. Rand Paul being Rand Paul, Trump's probably gonna have some truths for him that are not very nice. And Tom tillis here. Lisa Murkowski was the final piece. She backed the bill after discussions with Thune twenty four hours of motions and amendments. Senate Republican leaders altered the bill right up to the final moments.
So this was this was down to the wire, everyone to get the things they wanted to get into in here. Hundreds of billions for border security, national defense, increased budget deficit by about three point three trillion through twenty thirty four. Yeah, look it's I'll tell you, the White House is very excited about this.
I think the economy is going to look.
Really good as a result of this, or rather, there's going to be a lot of good things that happened. Clay, we knew it would get through. Yeah, tie breaking vote from JD. Van So it was a close run thing here. We knew it would get through. It's getting through now. Okay, the House reconciles it on their end. What are your thoughts as we sit here and bask in the glow of MAGA another win up on the board.
So I think the big question is going to be how fast can the economy grow? So, now that this bill is done, the ability to grow the economy is how we end up keeping from having to massively increase the overall debt, and so that is my biggest question.
Can we get this economy moving at three percent growth doesn't sound found outrageous to me, but it is better than we have been growing the economy over the past decade or so fifteen years on average, And so to me, the biggest question out there is how fast can we grow the economy? To me, the secondary question on this is can we get the FED to lower interest rates? Our interest rates are about two percent above where the EU is right now at four point twenty five four
point five. You guys can correct me in the studio if I get the percentages wrong. I think the numbers need to be around two and a half frankly where the EU is. If that were to happen, then mortgage rates and theory are going to come back. That would unlock the housing market, which is I think the most frozen aspect of the American economy right now. So many of you got the two and a half or three
percent fifteen and thirty year mortgages. Congrats, but it's been several years and we accelerated those so rapidly that lots of people are unwilling to sell their homes or move despite changing life circumstances, because the difference between a two and a half and a three and a seven percent mortgage rate is so massively substantial. If that starts to get unfrozen, then I think a lot of the other aspects of the economy will start to fire on all cylinders.
So the House Freedom Caucus, I was asking, who's going to cause drama here? I was all excited, like, Okay, this is finally happening. We're looking at a holiday coming up here, a great holiday weekend. Country's kicking ass. Things going really well. House Freedom Caucus says, and this is as of the last twenty four hours. House budget framework was clear. No new deficit spending in the One Big
Beautiful Bill. The Senates version adds six hundred and fifty one billion to the deficit, and that's before interest costs, which nearly double the total. That's not fiscal responsibility, that's not what we agreed to. The Senate must make major changes and should at least be in the ballpark of compliance with the House Budget Framework.
Uh, are they really going to do this? Are they going to do this?
I think they're gonna be some drama associated with this, and I think ultimately everybody if.
The drama is just so they get attention and then they let this go through, they're just being annoying. I'm just gonna say this because we've already We've already had this discussion.
I get it. This is the best you're gonna get. And there's people out there who are gonna say, Look, Rand Paul's right about the deficit. I think he is. Chip Uh, Chip Roy is right about the deficit. I think he is. This is the best bill that's going to pass and you just saw. I have yet to see anyone come up with a bill that could get passage in the Senate and the House and do as much of this bill does. Politics is the art of the possible. I get people out there that are upset
about the debt, the deficit. I am Look. The reality is nobody wants to address the fact that entitlement spending, Social Security, and medicare make it virtually impossible to largely restrict the size of the federal government, and as soon as you mentioned that, we get flooded, and every politician does with Hey, that money is mine, I want it back.
And so the structural issues we have at play here, and this is a challenge, and I don't want to be the want walk guy, but the structural issues we have in play is there are way more older people now than there are younger people in many advanced countries in the world, and entitle what programs are predicated on there being way more younger people than there are older people. And if you are around our age, the math doesn't add up for us to get the Social Security dollars
back that we put in. And that's just the reality. Without adjusting based on retirement ages, based on just looking at population tables, I presume that I'm going to get virtually nothing from Social Security. That's me. I'm forty six. You know, people can start taking social Security. I think it's sixty two, so I'm not that far away. Well, I don't think it's going to be there. This is why I find the whole thing frustrating.
And I appreciate that Rand Paul wants to Senator Paul wants to have his voice heard on this, and mathematically he's right, but politically he's wrong because no one's going to do anything about this right now, and there's no willingness among the American people, even people who say they want to tackle the debt to do it.
It's like having a debt ceiling fight.
It's a fake fight because we always raise the debt ceiling and then if they default, they don't really Rather there's discussion about default, they're not really going to default.
So it just becomes tiresome and you lose. It's the boy who cried wolf.
You lose public interest, and I think that yeah, until people want to talk about entitlements just to keep spending the money we have to spend to achieve the priorities of the Republican Party. If we don't have a secure border and we don't deal with the illegal immigration issue, we Medicare and social security in thirty years is going to be the least of our problems because we're not gonna have a country any more.
So.
The hundreds of billions of dollars that are going toward border security and the deportation efforts of the illegals who pile them. Under Biden it's absolutely essential. A lot of the things that are covered in the big beautiful bill are going to be I believe rocket fuel for the economy. Growth is also really important. Remember nobody's factoring in that Trump wasn't I should say, factoring in Trump's tariffs into
financial and fiscal matters for the country. It's already one hundred and twenty billion dollars and it's just getting going. So you know, there are other pathways maybe that could be considered here that might make the situation better. Now that I mean I did, I'll say, I know that Trump had to sign it, so I've forgotten.
Now the House has the reconcile on their side for a second, and I.
Think they're just gonna do what they did. We're gonna get a bunch of windy speeches about the debt, the debt, the debt, and then they're gonna and then they're gonna vote for it. I don't understand what's We all get it. We all understand there's nothing else to be said until until you want to deal with entitlements. Everybody, you don't want to deal with the debt. End of story, full stop, end of conversation, And nobody wants to deal with entitlement, so let's just do what we can to achieve the
agenda we've got. While Trump's running things.
I think that there's going to be a recognition that entitlement spending is out of control and everybody's gonna have to get their benefits cut. And we should have We should have a real conversation about social Security and the fact that it's actually not a very good deal and most Americans just don't really look into it because it's
been established for a long time. The government takes your money, they give you a three percent return roughly on it, and if you die, this is all you'll never get it.
You know that this is all falling on deaf ears. People love their people love social Security, and you know what the problem is, Clay, the lunatic communists who are certainly right now sitting around a lot of them praising the Mom Donnie wing of the Democrat Party. They're not going to get into what you're talking about. They're just gonna tell people bull they're taking your social Security, and then you lose, and then the communists are in charge
and then they ruin everything. So this is truth, is the political reality of America right now, and Trump sees it, and I that's why I have my patience for this thing and my patients even for beyond. Yeah, of course, hear it out, make the case, tell everybody the numbers. But standing in the way of the Trump agenda because you say that you're not getting the cuts you want. You're not getting the cuts. Okay, it's not happening. You're you're not You're not actually going to deal with the dead.
It's thirty seven trillion dollars, it's not happening.
How many people do you think even understands so security. What percentage of the American population?
I mean, they know that they get money when they're when they're older, and they needed it. I mean that's all they care to know. But the fact that it's an awful deal.
And if you got to keep your own money and you just put it in index funds.
You would people don't trust themselves. People don't They would spend it. People would spend it on a jet ski and then they'd say, oh, but I need help now.
And you know this is this is the problem. People want. Everybody wants somebody else to pay for their stuff.
Realizing that they're the ones paying for the stuff they think is coming from other people.
I think the biggest challenge is it's so embedded now that most people don't even examine the underlying concept, which is basically a big pyramid scheme, and it's predicated on there always being way more young people than there are old people. And we're not in that era anymore.
Clay, the average person pays in to medicare less than half of what they take out of Medicare in terms of the.
Actual cost of their care.
But if you tell anybody that you're going to change Medicare, you know what they say, I paid for that. It's not welfare, it's an entitlement. I've paid for it. I deserve it. Okay, Well, if I give you money for one ice cream cone, but you keep giving me two ice cream cones, you're going to run out of ice cream cones. Nobody wants to hear it. And honestly, I'm excited about the border. I'm excited about saving the country. I'm excited about the Trump agenda being funded. You know,
I'm with Stephen Miller on this stuff. Man, Like, we got to save the country now, so we'll figure out the debt later. When people want to have big boy conversations about it, they don't actually the America answer you want to have the conversation.
The answer then becomes the growth rate is everything, yep, because the growth rate of the country is what can turn this into a net positive bill. So if you are optimistic on AI, if you want to unleash individual American meritocracy, if we ever got the country growing at four percent again, all of these issues vanish basically, right a four percent a year, four percent a year, four percent a year. We're growing at like one point five
percent a year, one point eight percent a year. The overall growth rate of the American economy is the key. If overall spending is not going to be addressed, and there doesn't seem to be a political will unfortunately, as you and I believe there should be. If you look at just the basic books, the political will isn't there to address the spending.
And so we live in a match to understand understand. It's not convincing Republicans to tackle the debt. It's dealing with the fact that Democrats will call you heartless, you know, ruthless, throwing old ladies off their medicare and taking away social security from hardworking Americans so they can seize power and act like communist maniacs. That's the problem. So this is it's not just like we're having to talk on our side.
And also the concept of cut, which the media I think does a poor job of slowing the rate of growth, is not a cut. It's still a growth. But they have managed to create this idea, well, we're going to dial back to growth of the of the of the overall spending, and that is seen as a cut. Oh, you're cutting spinning. No, spinning is still growing, it's just not growing at the same rate. And honestly, I think a lot of this is just communication failure. I don't
think people know the details. I think a lot of people don't care to know the details.
Spoiler alert.
It's going to pass and Trump's gonna end up signing it, and everyone who's chirping about this from the Congress in the meantime is going to go along with what's basically there.
Just throw it out there for everybody.
But the debt is not being dealt with, that is for sure. And that is why the Bricks conference is so interesting. It's going on next week right around this time for zill Russia, India, China. You know what they're trying to do. Get off the dollar as the world's
reserve currency. Why does that matter, Well, that would be a huge lifestyle change for all Americans if that happens, and as it happens over time, it means that we can't fund the things that we fund right now with money printing the same way because other countries aren't going to buy our debt and we can't just print our way out of whatever our problems are. This is why you need to take action now, and not everything can be solved by this Trump administration. The debt is not
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The Senate has passed the big beautiful bill that happened right at the start of the first hour of today's program that will now go back to the House. End result is going to be passage. Seems to be I would say general happiness over this passing, but also a I don't know that I've picked up on this before, a demand for perfection in bills, the likes of which I have not seen in the past. All bills passed
by Congress are imperfect. Many of them are, unfortunately awful, which is why in many ways I would just like less government. I think most of you out there would like less government. Just get out of the way and let individual excellence triumph, which is how you get the economy growing. But this bill, I think will aid substantially in getting the economy growing. It will provide certainty on tax rates, It will further shut down the southern border.
It is imperfect, as all acts of Congress are, but I believe the net benefits are very much in a positive direction. Now, for those of you out there that are concerned about government spending, you're right, the government spending is out of control. There is not, however, the political will to address government spending, either on the Democrat or the Republican side. It doesn't exist. If you argue for it. In cutting government spending, cutting entitlements, all these things, you
don't get elected. And to Buck's point, eventually communists take power, and they spend more money, and they tax you at a higher rate. So I don't know who the great communicator is going to be that can actually sit down. I feel like in many ways, back in the day, some of you will remember this Ross Perrot used to just buy commercial time in nineteen ninety two, and he had his.
Western can it finish?
He had his lectern, and he had his like a pointer, and he would stand there and just make the case as a executive would about how government spending was out of control. I think Ron Johnson is right on this. I think Grand Paul is right on this. We have allowed embedded spending excess to be continued from COVID. I agree with all of it. The political will to address
it isn't there. And Democrats this is where they win a lot of these arguments because they have established the definition of a cut is actually slowing the rate of growth. I've never heard of this being applied anywhere else.
This is really this was true Republicans in the Tea Party era trying with there was that. There was a huge fight, and it was about slowing the rate of the increase of spending. It was about spending less of a of a you know, bringing the trajectory of increase spending down just a little bit and in the decrease in the increase. Yes, and this was a huge political fight back in the Tea Party days a decade ago.
So yeah, I you.
Know, I don't want to be I don't want to be dismissive or cynical about it. But usually when I say that, it's because I'm about to be. We just haven't suffered enough. People haven't spent enough. They haven't seen enough of their grandchildren not living up to the you know, the quality of life that they themselves had. Or we haven't seen enough money going to paying interest and having that crowd out private spending. We haven't seen enough of the tax raises that eventually are going to be a
part of trying to stabilize this. Like you know, that's or or or happiness, because we're going into a holiday weekend and I already have holiday brain going on here a little bit or clay. We find ways that AI and productivity and growth are so profound that it's it's a something of a fiscal miracle, right. I mean, we become so productive and so efficient as an economy that we're able to grow our way, if not out of it, grow our way to continued stability with it.
That's a possibility as well.
I don't think that that's There are people who believe that AI is going to be more transformational than even the Internet has been fixed. Without that for a second, so no one really knows what that means in terms of how much wealth. You know, people think of wealth as zero sum, and it's not. Now I'm barring from Naval ravakand he's a very smart guy. Status is zero sum. Wealth can actually be something that is real and that is broadly shared. We're all a lot richer than the
richest people were in the fifteen hundreds. Why is that right? The world has gotten a lot wealthier, not just individuals. Status is a different thing, that's zero sum. So I just don't know if we've reached the point. I don't think we have reached the point of the country where we want to tackle the problem. Maybe we want to see if we can grow our way out of it, and that's where we are. So any noise to the contrary right now is unfortunate, just that noise.
I think the are argument that might cut through from a communication perspective is if you put on ten pounds of weight every year and then suddenly you only put on three. You're getting fat slower, but you're still getting fatter. And the whole idea that slowing the rate of an increase or slowing the rate of growth as a cut is one of the most pernicious I think realities that has been allowed to exist in the way we even
have conversation. This is where the left does a better job with language, because defining a cut as something that actually leads to something being greater is really what they do in essence, because what it means is once they get the money spent, they never dial back from the money that has been spent. They embed it.
It's also it's like revenue versus taxes. They don't use the word tax really if they can avoid it. They'll say revenue because revenue is just money the government has which is good and goes to investing.
That's what I'll also say, we need.
To invest more in the following programs because investing sounds good. What they mean is take your money under the threat of fine, zan or imprisonment and put it into things that the government decides, our payoffs for the constituents that they need to pay off. That's what it actually is, But they play games with the language. I say this to Clay offline, I mean off air, I'll say it to all of you. It's the same thing. When you
talk about minimum wage. Minimum wage is economically a flawed concept. It does not work the way it is intended to work. It never has, it never will, doesn't matter. People like it. And if you say don't pay minimum wage, you know what happens.
You lose.
So it's very hard and you could say, well, I'll just convince people, make a better argument.
You can convince some people.
Can you convince enough people that the communists who are just going to shout you're a fat cat? They play the politics of envy, the mom Donnie routine like this mom Donnie stuff is none of this is new.
It's the same thing with Bernie Sanders.
Did you see Bernie Sanders sitting down with Joe Rogan recently? I might add talking about the the lawsuits.
That Trump is filing.
You know what Bernie Sanders does whenever he's cornered with a stupid argument, he pretends he doesn't know the details.
This is what he does. He does this with economics too, I might add, well, you know that'll have the fects and the figures on that, so I can't get into it.
Then the no, it's because his arguments are trash clay. But Bernie Sanders, Mamdani aoc, they're all doing the same thing, which is ignoring history, ignoring math, and telling people they have a secret sauce, a secret formula that's gonna make everybody feel like they're getting enough and they're good enough and everything is fine. It is always a lie, but it's a very appealing lie.
Something that Trump is going to focus on buck that I'm starting to see attention on that I think could be transformative. Okay, we've talked now. The big beautiful Bill is eventually going to pass in some fashions, pass the Senate, past the House. They have to reconcile them. But I don't think it's going to suddenly blow up. There's going to be some form of a bill that passes. Okay,
so that is now moving forward in the agenda. There is now and I think this is going to be potentially transformative momentum to not count illegal immigrants for purposes of the House seats. Have you seen this? This could
be hugely important and it's structural and it's massive. First of all, we need a new census because I think they screwed it up, and it would change the way that the twenty twenty eight election map is set up because it would mean that even if Democrats won Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. The electoral votes are not there to allow them to be able to win two seventy to two sixty eight. Unfortunately, the electoral college not going to be shifted. It doesn't
appear till after twenty thirty. But what no one talks about that I think Trump could get behind, and this could be really important too, is they count illegal immigrants for purposes of House seats, and the number is roughly seven hundred and thirty or seven hundred and forty thousand. Congressmen represent individuals. If you said, hey, we're not counting illegal immigrants at all for purposes of House seats, this would mean that the House was not winnable for Democrats.
They may win the House back in twenty twenty six, but structurally, if if I were now the Trump team and I were giving them advice on something that I think would be transformative in the illegal immigrant space, it would be let's make it clear that you cannot count illegal immigrants for purposes of redistricting House seats and districting House seats, and this would probably knock at least ten
Democrat seats out of control. Why in the world should these people be counted, and it be the case that Democrats benefit overwhelmingly off of people that are not citizens, not them voting, but just then being counted for census purposes. This means that big cities and blue states that have encouraged illegal immigrants to come into their locations would be dialed back in their impact, and this would have a
substantial impact going forward. I think it's one of the big things that I would say, Hey, now that we got this done, let's focus on that.
Well.
It also goes to the perception people have, which I think is in this case correct, which is that the system is rigged because if you're a political party that is benefiting from violations of law, you are benefiting in terms of, you know, cold hard facts of power when it comes to leveraging something that is the mass violation, the zero violation of American law. That's not the way the game is supposed to be played, all right, The
refs have been paid off. This is a problem, and as you point out, a substantial and a big one by the numbers. So yeah, this is why I keep saying though with the big beautiful bill, the illegals situation, this is why Trump won this is the number one reason in my mind that Trump won the election as convincingly as he did. I know, there's other stuff, there's a million things. Okay, it's always you're taking a snapshot of the way that one hundred and fifty million people
decided to click one box or the other. But immigration is the single issue that I think motivated more people to get behind Trump. And this has to start getting fixed right now because what we saw under Joe Biden that is truly unsustainable if you want to consider this to be America going forward, not in fifty years, in five years, you can't have another ten million illegals pile into this country on top of the illegals that are already here and think that this is still going to
be what we've thought it is. And Clay, it's already having a huge political effect as we see give all these cities that are trying to thwart federal law enforcement. Well that's because the political power of the illegal constituents in those cities is huge.
And they know that they have to try and preserve it. We'll take some calls on this, and we'll take some of your cars. We don't have any guest scheduled today eight hundred and two eight two two eight A two. You can always talk back lots of emails rolling in will dive into some of those because a lot of you have big.
Takes on all of that as well. Play wants to cut your Social Security, so calling and yell at them.
Decision. This is why I get, This is why I don't have to run for elective office. I can actually tell you the truth as opposed to having to lie to everybody and be like, hey, it's a magical world. Everybody's gonna get more money than you ever put in and there's not gonna be any consequences. Hey, yay, everybody gets ice cream every day for meals. Let's eat birthday cake every day for breakfast, and you're not gonna get fat.
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The big news the day at the top of the show, just to recap, right as we came on air, I mean, within moments, the Senate had passed on a fifty one to fifty vote, the Big Beautiful Bill Jdvay.
It's had to be the.
Tie break on that one. Tom Tillis, Rand Paul, who's the somebody else didn't get Oh Collins didn't vote for me. So yep, that was what happened there. Now, thank you play for the catch. It goes back to the House side before it goes to the President's desk for signature. The House is gonna there's gonna be some squawking from the Freedom Caucus about it. I don't think they're going to sabotage the Trump agenda at this late moment on the big beautiful bill, but.
They're gonna be.
They're gonna, you know, look, they're allowed to have their say on it, and they will. So that will be a thing that occurs in the next few days and we're probably gonna get to a signature before the holiday. Hopefully that is how this will go. So that's the big news. And then we had the most interesting visit of the day was Donald Trump going down to Alligator Alcatraz, which is in o Choppy, oh Choppy, Florida, which is near Everglades City, which I can tell you is not
really much of a city. It is really middle of Nowheresville.
I think o Choppy, uh is.
It has one hundred people something like that lives and lives in the in the It is unincorporated territory, so it's not even I think a township per se. It's quite small. But that was the one if you're wondering, it wasn't Lake Okachobe. I know Lake Okachobe. O Choppi was the new place. So that's where they have this airstrip that is a place to put illegal migrants, illegal
aliens before they are deported. And Trump is saying, if you try to run from the gators or swim from the gators, it's going to be a bad day for you. So there's all that going on, and then he got into Kami, Mom, Donnie, do you have anything in the alligator Alcatraz. The team is saying that all you have to do is be able to not zigzag but outrun the nearest person to you, which is that is always true,
and that is mean. That's very mean. Clay would Clay would not leave me behind to get eaten by gators, right, Clay? Probably correct?
Yes, I would be Again I've said on this program before, I am prepared to save anyone from an alligator attack. If you see me near a swamp, I've got your back. So uh, just don't go in the water. But if they come out of the water, like in Crocodile Dundee, I know that's crocodile versus an alligator, then I'll be like mc dundee right there to protect you. By the way,
that movie also still a lot of fun. If you've got kids and you want to watch some movies during the July fourth holiday, whether it's not great, maybe you're sitting around. We've been watching all the Harry Potter movies in the Travis household and there's still really good, So props JK. Rowling. I think she may have a future in this creative industry space. But that alligator Alcatraz thing, and I think I know we said it last hour, but I do think it's so important. Trump and DeSantis
are a whale of a team. And I know Ron DeSantis only has whatever it is, a year and a half left basically as the governor of Florida, but I would not be surprised if DeSantis ends up in some form or fashion as a part of Trump two point oh cabinet. And what I mean by that is there's constant doing these jobs takes a lot. So so far we have had pretty great stability in Trump two point
oh cabinet universe. But at some point some of these guys, probably after and gals after the midterms, are going to start to say, Hey, I want to do something different. I'm burned out two years of going full speed doing X, Y or Z. There's something else that I want to do. It wouldn't shock me if Trump comes back to DeSantis. Remember there was some talk about Desantus potentially being the Secretary of Defense when it was uncertain about whether hegg
Seth was going to be confirmed. And that's another example of jd Vance breaking a tie fifty to fifty in the Senate. Jd Vance gets the vote to get heg set then and Pete has done a very very good job. Since this is also an example in the big beautiful Bill, you've got jd Vance breaking the tie. This is why having a little bit of a buffer in the Senate fifty three forty seven. Uh man, it would be great to be up to fifty four or fifty five or fifty six as it pertains to where we're headed on next.
But the Trump DeSantis relationship very strong, and I think it's important to point out that by and large, most of you out there who voted Trump, I really can hardly point to anything in the first six months and say, hey, I think Trump could have done a better job on this. Politics the art of the possible. So I understand that people are saying, oh, this is my number one issue, and this hasn't been addressed completely to the ability that I would like. You can't make people do what there
is not the political will for them to do. So you and Ibuck, we talked about this somem earlier, were very troubled by the national debt. When the Tea Party got its start, national debt was ten trillion dollars. National debt is soon going to be forty trillion dollars. That's untenable. But until there is a political will to address it, and you can't solve it by increasing tax rates, that doesn't work. Ultimately, I think you're going to have to
dial back spending. This is inevitable, but that political will is not there yet. So in the meantime you have two options. You can either whine and complain, and some people are choosing that because it's not kick your legs, scream like a child, have a temper tantrum, or you
can do what you and I are talking about. Now, Hey, this bill is going to pass, and now it's time to try to figure out how do we grow the economy as rapidly as we possibly can to help to lead to a surplus through growth as opposed to a surplus through cuts. That is the new hope, and to me, if we can get it to three four percent growth, everything changes.
Yes, So that's the case for optimism, and I agree with you on that. The case for optimism is not that everyone's going to see the wisdom of Iran sorright Ran Paul's math and make massive changes to the biggest spending programs and priorities of the United States government now and.
For the last well all of our lifetimes. So yeah, that's not going to happen.
Trump just has the economy so juiced and so in fuego, that's some very good things can happen. What will make things a lot worse is if the commedi mom Donnie is able to take control. Trump spoke about this. There's a marine one noise in the background, but we wanted you to hear this. This is cut seven. This is look. Even President Trump's winning and we all see this. This is concerning when somebody gets the wind that is back in someplace as important as New York City play it.
I think he's terri book.
He's a communist.
The last thing we need is a communist. I said there will never be socialism in the United States, so we have a communist. I think he's bad to and I think I'm gonna have a lot of fun with him watching him because he has stick up right, but with Joney to get his funny and so what, he's not going to run away with anything. I think he's Frankly, I've heard he's your total nutjob.
I think the people who.
In New York are crazy. He said they go this route.
I think they're crazy.
We will have a communist in the for the first time, really a pure true communist. He wants to operate the grocery stores, the department stores. What about the people like that? I think it's.
Crazy, Yeah, Clay, it is crazy. And I understand that there's this sense that it's limited to New York. But AOC and Bernie Sanders, they co sign really all of this stuff, and they're the Democrats that have the most currency with the base. And it is a Democrat party that came within a few hundred thousand votes of Trump, even after lying about Biden's dementia and putting forward the
worst candidate in our lifetime in Kamala Harris. So I mean, I would argue even worse than the dementia guy, which tells you a lot. So we have to take this Seriously, people ask how does the Democratic Party come back?
It's not hard.
They were close even in this election and aggregate numbers. When you really look at it, there are a lot of people who are voting Democrat no matter who they put forward, no matter how crazy the idea is. And Mom Donni, I think is just a symptom of that larger malady.
And again I'm gonna keep hammering it. If there is not a coalition that arises to all come together to oppose Mamdanni. If you have Eric Adams running as an independent, Andrew Cuomo running as an independent, uh, and you have a situation where Curtis Sliwa is the Republican that trio
is going to assure that Mam Donnie wins. So the only way in New York City rejects Mamdanni and has some form of sanity in terms of who it's selecting as its next mayor is if there's a understanding that they cannot all run and there is a coalition of opposition that comes together to try and defeat Mam Donnie.
My concern is everybody's going to look out for their best interest, meaning we're going to get more attention if you stay in the race, and everybody else loses, and there isn't a coalition brought together to come against him. And I think what Trump is talking about in general is the opposition that he sees from all these sanctuary cities as the process is underway to deport so many different people is a direct opposition to the federal government
and should not be acceptable. And at some point, I think there's going to have to be a test case of someone, probably a mayor that is one of these sanctuary cities that is directly defying federal law, and we're going to have to have the court's rule about whether or not that is permissible or appropriate, because I don't understand we made this argument, and the Supreme Court has
set it quite clearly. The President of the United States is in charge of border related policies, immigration, all of those things. How can we allow all of these individual cities and certainly governors of states, But it's really being driven more by mayors of cities that have decided that they are sanctuaries. How can we allow them to directly defy federal law. At some point that conflict is going to have to be resolved in some way by the larger court system. It feels inevitable to me.
Well, get some calls and some talkbacks coming up here in a second. I want to hear from all of you before Clayon and I sent off for the holiday. And like I said, Tutor Dixon and tomorrow Brian Mudd in the next day got great guess hos, We've got live shows coming up for you with fantastic content.
But clay is going to be on the beach. I might even get to the beach, and it's fun. I live.
You don't to the beach.
I don't really get to the beach very often, which is weird considering I live next to one of the nicest beaches in America. Some would argue for an urban beach. For an urban beach, okay, don't.
Be like, well, what about Tahiti or what about you know.
The Seychelles one of the nicest urban beaches anywhere in the world. So yeah, I should get to the beach too. We'll talk about it. Take some calls eight hundred two two eight eight two. Dedicated first responders and service members like US Army Major Scott Smiley have paid a high price serving our nation and communities. Friends like You have shown your gratitude for Scott's service and sacrifice not only
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We're having a great time. We appreciate you being with us. Want to remind you to please.
Subscribe to the Clay and Buck podcast network because you're gonna want to have stuff to listen to as you are cleaning the grill in preparation.
For cooking on the grill, which is the thing you should all do.
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But if you want someone to listen to, or if you're going to be out there, I don't know, on the boat, in the yard, whatever it is, listen to Clay and Buck podcast Network. Fantastic people there, David Ruther for Tutor Diiction, Carol Marco. It's lots and lots of great people to listen to. And like we said, Tutor Dixon'll be in for us tomorrow and our friend Brian Muddle being for us the next day after that. So
you got great shows coming up your way. We have a wow lot of talkbacks and a lot of calls, a lot of good things going on here. Joe from Let's Take HH, Joe from Mesa, Arizona.
Hey Joe and Mesa.
I was trying to explain to my friend just like why most of America doesn't even care about the deportations that are happening, and he flipped out on me and was saying that I needed to admit that I hate every other race other than my own anyways. So in the end, they're just totally brainwashed and there's nothing you can do.
The law either matters or a dozen has nothing to do with race, has to do with being a rule of law society.
Clay.
Yeah, and look, I think that a lot of people are dialed out and just randomly buy into all of the historyonics. I mean, I think a perfect example of this is, you know we're going to hit right now. The stock market is up again today for another high.
It was only two months ago that they were telling you that everything was going to collapse and that you needed to make sure that you sold all your stocks, and that we were headed for basically a nuclear winter and from an economic perspective, and it just hasn't happened. And so I think the total fear there is it works on a lot of people, and they are aware that emotionally they can play on people's failings as it
pertains to that. Basically we have next up here, a lot of Lord of the Rings nerds in this audience.
Oh we didn't get we said we were gonna do the movie thing.
Yeah, that's why I thought, of times I was doing my research here New York Times Best Now, this is a little bit of a frustration because.
People don't pay.
It's like when you had a teacher that said, make sure you read the instructions for the exam before you take the exam. It's the best movies of the twenty first century. So anybody who's jumping in with Braveheart or you know which I love and would be my overall choice, overall favorite movie all time. That's nineteen ninety eight, I think,
or six or I forget when to nine? I don't know, but it was definitely in the twentyeth twenty two zero, twenty eighth century, twenty first century best Movies of the twenty first century.
This is the New York Times list that came out. We got a producer.
I got all of you to tell me your picks, and I thought they were pretty solid. And let's say all of you, I mean our team in New York, New York team. Let's start with you, Ali, Producer, Ali, what was your best movie of the twenty first century? You had time to think about this, so you're on the hot seat now if you forgot what is it?
Oh no, I'm totally on the hot seat. I had gone with Gladiator, but I had the years all wrong. Yeah, I don't think it came about hold On Gill two thousand. Ye, it counts in the New York Times list, it does, because that's that's technically the twenty eighth century. They have it down at ninety two, so they are counting anything that's two thousand and beyond.
Well, that's an outrage.
First of all, the fact that they're counting it and they're putting it at ninety two is an outrage because Ali, I'd be it would be a top fiver for me, top fiver for sure.
They put Parasite at number one a foreign.
Film, as the best movie of the twenty first century, which which I think is mad at producer Mike.
What was yours? You had a good one?
Dark Knight? Well you dark Knight or was that Greg? What does producer Mike say, producer dark Knight.
Dark Knight. Yeah, he was Dark Knight.
Solid. I can't I can't quibble with that. I have watched that movie probably one hundred times. I enjoyed the Dark Knight. He really brought back people think now all the Batman franchise, huge franchise that was. It was on the ropes after a couple of really bad Batman movies that bombed big time, including one with I think the girl from Clueless was in it, Alicia Silverstone.
There was a George kloe No, don't even remembers.
George Clooney played Batman and it was such a bad movie that people don't even remember that he was Batman. So there, so the Dark Knight was came back from The Batman Begins and The Dark Knight both great, great options. Remember twenty first century, we're looking at Clay, what was yours?
I broke it down trio meaning because to me, there is there's a difference between a kid movie, there's a difference between a comedy, and there's a difference between a dramedy drama. So I went with I agree the whole Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight, that that is really phenomenal, well done up I think was the best of the Pixar movies. Up If You Up is so well done. And then I think the funniest movie of
the twenty first century, I think it's old school. I just think it is absolutely hysterical funny.
Well that's not even a category. And now you're making up categories funniest.
You think Old School is the funniest movie of the twenty first century.
What's funnier than Old School?
I mean, I think forty year old vision is funnier than Old School.
Forty year old version is very funny. Super Bad is very funny. Like there's a series of four or five movies. I think that you could argue, I think the combination of Will Ferrell Vince Vaughan is tough to be. Wedding Crashers also really really funny and well done. But I think you have to consider what again, best doesn't mean. Citizen Kane is a phenomenal movie. We talked about yesterday.
Shindler's List is a phenomenal movie. It's hard to sit down and just be like, hey, let's have some popcorn and watch Schimdler's List.
Well, this is this is like how I feel about The Pianist p I A N I S T. To be clear, the pianist is a or the pianist maybe some people.
Say it that way.
Is I think a perfect movie, meaning it is incredibly well done, and every aspect of it, from the acting to the writing, to the to this sound, you know, to the soundtrack to the I think it's a perfect.
Movie, but it's intense.
It's World War Two, it's you know, it's a Jewish guy who's trying to flee the you know the at one point it's his neighbors and the Nazis. And The Pianist is an incredible movie, but I can't say it's my favorite movie because if the Dark Knight trilogy or the Lord of the Rings movies are on, I'm watching those instead of The Pianist. I'm just I'm not gonna lie and be that guy, which brings me to I think they're private producer, Greg, what was your pick?
You didn't give us. You didn't give us your We're.
Trying to help you, by the way, for the holiday weekend, everybody, if you haven't seen any of these, we're giving you great recommendations for I would argue The Lives of other is a pretty perfect movie, although it is German Languge, which U and that is twenty first century, but again, it's not a You still haven't even watched that, have you? You and Laura haven't watched the Lives of Others and you have? Okay, maybe that one because it's foreign language.
I can see Laara being like Clay. Don't don't you know, don't torture us. You guys haven't watched Hacksaw Ridge, which is insane because that was I gave you that assignment a long time ago.
That movie would be fair. To be fair to me. I barely see anything. I watch stuff with my kids, which is why I've been watching Harry Potter.
I watch hundreds of hours of college football, hundreds of I was.
Gonna say, and I watch a lot of sports. Let me give you an underrated movie that I think seems even more contemporary than it was when it came out. Minority Report.
Ah suck No.
I'm telling you go back and watch it now. In an age of AI, it seems eerily prescient in terms of its foreshadowing of where producer.
Greg is gonna weigh in.
He was a he wanted to get in on this, Producer Greg, best movie of the twenty first century.
If you were making this New York Times list, what's number one? Dark Knight?
I'm with, I'm with, Oh your Dark Knight got you? I thought I thought we had double Dark Knight. That's a Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker is the best bad guy performance that uh that I think you ca it's that it's the No country for old men with what's his name? Uh, you know Lvier Bardem, Javier Bardem and Hans Gruber in die Hard, which was the first time that guy was.
Ever in a movie, which is still amazing, The Dark.
Knight, knowing that Heath Ledger was going to in some way kill himself. Like I watch it now, and you're right, the performance is incredible, But when I watch it, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, in order to become this good, he had to go to such a dark place and it felt to me like a lot of people who are actors and actresses, it's not actually that talented, you know what I mean, Like there are
lots of people who are whatever. Heath Ledger, that was actually an artistic performance as the Joker, but I think it led him into a world where his brain like almost broke.
You know.
He went into the darkness, went into the darkness too much.
That has happened with people that get too into a role, A lot of people very high in Because I saw a lot of comments about this because I was on I was on with Will Caine and Carol Markowitz on Will's show on Fox Play and that's where this got some attention. A lot of people have as their top movies. I would say the ones that I saw the most. For all of you, all of you out there, I
say the one that I saw the most. As a number one choice was either There Will Be Blood or No Country for Old Men for best Movie the twenty first century. I view those as both excellent movies, but it also goes in that category. There Will Be Blood for me is like watching a masterclass of acting. Like obviously Daniel d Lewis is phenomenal and the performances are.
But do I care about anybody in this story? Really No? Do I like anybody?
Really no?
And then I think that unfortunately, No Country for Old Men again very well made, and I'm not saying it's not a good movie. I'm just saying, you know, if it's on, am I gonna watch it? It's so bleak and kind of nihilistic for me. So I can't get too excited about either one of those as a top ten of the twenty first century. They're both excellent movies, to be clear, but they're not movies. I've only watched each of those maybe twice, which for me is not very many.
I also, to me, when it's a book being made into a movie, I think the excellence of the movie in many ways reflects the book. And Cormac McCarthy is probably the greatest author now I'm really gonna get people fired,
probably the greatest author of the last thirty years. And I know he died a couple of years ago, but if you look at his production in terms of his talent, and you go all the way back, he moved eventually his fiction to basically the border with Texas and Mexico, but he started off as a Tennessee based writer, and I think he's probably the most talented writer in America
in the last thirty years. And so No Country for Old Men is a novel by him, and I think it just reflects the world that he created on the screen and is actually an illustration of his excellence as a writer more than it is as a film. Does
that make sense? Like if you said, hey, the Great Gatsby, which it isn't and it's been made multiple times, most recently with Leonardo DiCaprio, If you said The Great Gatsby is the best movie that's ever been made, I would be like, well, it a phenomenal novel, and so to me, I strip out anything that isn't an original movie as a great movie. Does that make sense to us as a reflection of the of the book?
More than one talkback here before we get into more talkbacks and calls to close us out. AA podcast listeners Zeb from Texas play.
It, play in book. This is Zeb from Texas Love your show, listen to you every day since she took over for us. Ditto maybe hey, listen, I'm so disappointed in the Yellow Question producer Greg after he's led you right so many times. Minus Tirith is the capital city have gone door after ausc Eliath was destroyed by the Orcs and the Battle of Saaron, Trust your man.
I just this is the nerdiest thing that has ever been said on the show, which is I just love I love it.
We have listeners who clearly clearly have a twelve gage across the backseat of the car, have a stetson on and cowboy boots, and they're lecturing us about Minas tirith as this of gon As the capital of Gondor after Osilius, of course, was destroyed by the Orcs and the Battle of Sauron. That is that is our that is our Texas audience rolling around in a pickup ready for any hovelinas they have to take out.
But you get Lord of the Rings wrong and they're dropping knowledge on you.
The correction yesterday that I read is the nerdiest thing that's ever been said on the show. That talkback in Buck's analysis of it is the second nerdiest thing that's ever been said on the show. In the meantime, I want to tell you about what you want to make sure you do. It's take care of your family. With
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