BONUS: Daily Review With Clay and Buck - May 20 2025

James Comey went on MSNBC to talk about his Seashells by the Seashore original sin the book is out. And then a couple of crazy stories that we may have some fun with during the course of the program. Robert Griffin, iid, Buck, you saw this story and you were like this and this can't be real. Is in a feud with a guy named Ryan Clark Caitlin Clark and they have had wife attacks. Now anyway, this is crazy. Also, I don't know if you saw this. This is not super serious,

but is a little bit crazy. Bill Belichick and his twenty four year old girlfriend are reportedly engaged. Buck so true love as Spring flowers bloom may well be a foot in the great state of North Carolina with Bill Belichick as the head coach of the tar Heels. Some ladies like granddad Bob, What can I tell you, seventy two year old Belichick, twenty four year old Jordan Hudson. The heart wants what the heart wants, Buck. But we begin, We begin with the big beautiful bill. Trump is up

on Capitol Hill. Here is my prediction before we go through all this different audio. The bill's going to pass. This reminds me a bit of the speaker count votes every time. Else eventually there is going to be a speaker, and it reminds me of the debt ceiling. Oh my goodness, what's going to happen. The government's going to shut down? Oh oh no, And then the debt ceiling gets resolved.

Nothing ever really changes. It's all posturing and negotiation. So that is my prediction of where we are, where we are headed. But let's listen to what Trump said this morning on Capitol Hill before the meeting.

and we got to get it done. Tremendous tax cuts for people, tremendous incentives, tremendous regulation cuts, so all these regulations that are so horrible.

he's very tough to argumber. Remember when we had Junior on at the RNC, if I remember correctly, and he had gotten permission to have a few people over and just got home and there were, like he said, one hundred people at the house and he was just like, all of them have to be gone. Can you imagine being at that party of the high school kid. Trump walks in and he's like, you're all gone, Like he's not the dad, He's not the dad that you wanted

to be rolling kegs in when he wasn't looking. I've just thrown that out there, Like I can tell you know, I met him when I was thirteen or fourteen for the first time, and uh yeah, he was. Nobody was messing with him then and nobody's messing with him now. Okay, the big beautiful bill, it's huge, it's beautiful's get into it. The biggest thing in this Clay and you know I spoke to and you can check it out. It's on

the Clay and Buck podcast network. In the Buck Brief, I spoke to the head of the National Economic Council and I just said, my friend, you are respectfully he's a PhD from Harvard in economics, and I said, you are an econ guy. I didn't want to say nerd, but I mean, I think econ Nerd would be respectfully said here, I said, take me through the whole thing. And so we just sat there and I went through it.

I'll give you some of the highlights of it, and what is in this that really matters to people and why Trump is so excited about it. The first thing is it's one of those if you don't do it, really bad things are going to happen, meaning the tax raises that would kick in, because the twenty seventeen Trump tax cuts are made permanent here, so I know it's confusing, but if the stuff, if you don't do this, they would expire and you would go back to much higher

tax rates. So that would be a shock to the system in a bad way. Right, that's one part of it. You're extending tax cuts. You're extending tax cuts really across a whole range, whether it's for businesses, for individual filers, and the average American family on an annual basis. And again this is from the Chairman of the National Economic Council,

and I said, let's nerd out, buddy. Let's go. It's something like seven to twelve thousand dollars of additional money in the bank for you at the end of the year for the average American household. Okay, that's not I think that's such an important because of say it's for the rich. It's for the billionaires. The Democrats, who rely on their plurality of billionaires to fund their party, are always so upset about billionaires. Right, This has nothing to

do with the billionaires. This is about the average American household. And you're gonna have think about that. If someone told you, hey, you're gonna have an extra ten grand next year at the end of the year, you'd say, wow, that's that's great. Well, that's what this does for the average household. So I think that's really it's Also there's the salt deduction component of this, so there's the cap for this is going to be changed. They're going to deduct more of the

regional taxes from the federal tax bill. That's actually good for blue states. And I think that's probably for some blue state Republicans or purple state Republicans something they're happy to see. The big one. Clay and I said, Wow, they're actually doing this no tax on tips. That that is a real thing. Remember that was so popular and cool when Trump said it on the campaign trail that Kamala for whatever campaign she was running, she was like, yeah,

I think we should have no tax. She just blatantly copied it. It was totally lifted it. Yeah, totally lifted it. She was plagiarizing Trump. One thing that I'm going to say people on the right are annoyed about is the green energy tax credits part of this. The bill's initial tax eliminates tax credits for electric vehicles within two years, phases out credits for low carbon electricity, including wind and solar.

New requirements on these credits, but doesn't totally zero. And there are people that are I'm just gonna tell you what's getting criticized. They're criticizing this for not getting like there should be the whole Green New Deal scam. Stuff should all be completely root and branch taken out. Some Republicans are saying, okay, we had Ron Johnson on yesterday talk a bit about this. They tighten up snap Benefits, which is food stamps. I guess we don't like to

call it food stamps anymore. They're tightening that up so they think there'll be some savings. They're limiting funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which had been Elizabeth Warren's little fiefdom that didn't actually help consumers but was a good way to harass disfavored businesses by Democrats, increases the debt limit for trillion dollars, and then some substantial funding

boost for Pentagon priorities and deportation. So Clay, I think those are the big top lines of where where this thing is, where this thing stands, And the biggest critic is it's over a thousand pages, eleven hundred pages. Just remember that when somebody's like, i've read the bill, you have really yeah you know, yeah, uh, they've read the section of the bill that their lobbyists one and included.

I'm sure, but this is on eleven hundred pages. And the part of it that I think people on the right, conservatives are a little frustrated on is just that it's extending the debts, sealing four trillion dollars and doesn't really have the big meaty cuts that from dose you would have liked to see. That's the part of it. That's but if you're talking about if you're talking about juicing the economy, I mean, this thing I think is going to be rocket fuel for the economy. So that's why

Trump's so excited about it. Look, it's it's not a perfect bill, and the big issue, which if you're around our age, meaning if you're forties or younger, that you're going to have to deal with over the next two generations is the national debts out of control. And the only real way We've told you this before, the only real way to fix the national debt is to address social security and Medicare. And if you look, I believe social Security, Medicare, defense, and the interest. I believe that's

eighty six percent of the entire federal budget. I think that's the number. So even if you eliminated every other part of the federal government, eighty six percent of it would still exist just based on those four things. And unfortunately, as our debt grows, the percentage of interest that we have to pay on that debt grows massively such that we now pay more typically unfortunately now for the debt

than we do national defense. And there is an argument that if you look at history, as soon as the debt expenditures exceed the defense eres your country, your civilization has begun a decline. So wah first segment on Tuesday, No one in the Democrat Party, no one in the Republican Party, really wants to address social security and Medicare, and until those issues are addressed, then there is virtually no opportunity to balance a budget. That's the reality. Now.

I agree with Ron Johnson when he says, like, hey, we should be going back to pre COVID baseline expenditures. That's way better. That's the better solution here in my mind, because we basically have embedded the cost of a growing government from COVID and we're continuing. And by the way, when you have twenty one percent inflation, your expenses are going to go up substantially just to keep pace with the cost of goods. But this is the reality in

which we live. There's also on the good side of things. So I can give you the quick negative overview, not of the bill, but just of the US fiscal trajectory is, uh, we are not stopping this train at all, really, and the next I think four years on the train are gonna be awesome. So there's that, right, I think. I think the Trump administration, you're gonna see everyone's gonna be doing great, and that's fantastic, and you know, that's nothing

to sneeze at. But the other side of it is, we haven't we haven't suffered enough as a country from the overspending. When we've suffered enough, people will want to do something about it, and we this is I almost think it's a waste of time to get into beyond that right now, Clay, because every time we could say we're spending too much money, look at the math, you can just line up. We'll just get calls all day

from everyone saying you absolutely cannot touch my medicare. Okay, that's where we are, and that's what Trump is said. You can't trust if you can't touch Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid. Basically, there's nothing to talk about people. So we haven't suffered enough as a country from the fiscal profligacy, and that means that we just got to keep going and keep on hoping that we grow and grow and grow this economy. We got hundreds of billions coming in from the tariffs,

by the way, which you're hearing. You're not getting a lot of conversation about that right now in the media because the tariffs are going to bring in additional revenue to the government. Remember, we used to fund until the twentieth century, we funded this country's government on tariffs overwhelmingly. I mean, that was that was the primary source so

it is a thing. But yeah, hopefully we can grow grow the economy much faster and find, you know, greater efficiencies that we'll be able to kind of keep riding this thing out. But yeah, I'm with you, it's not even worth the debt bomb. The debt bomb is ticking, nobody wants to fix it, so why whine about it. Trump is doing the best thing he can do for the economy this year, and hopefully that means we lead into better things than the years after it. But yeah,

that's kind of where I am on this. It's also like having the debt ceiling fight. No, it's not even fun to talk about it anymore because they're just going to raise the debt ceiling if I'm wrong, let me know, trying to stir the pot a little bit. Eight hundred and two two two eight eight two. Look, we admired Pure Talk for a lot of reasons here, and not just because they provide the single best wireless service. They

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five zero say Clay and Buck. Dial pound two five zero say Clay and Buck to support veterans and switch to America's wireless company, Pure Talk. Clay and Buck kicks off right now. Thank you for being here with us all across this great land. It was quite a post on X from Aleena Haba, the interim US Attorney for

New Jersey. She wrote on her X account that Congresswoman Lamonica mick Iver had been charged for assaulting, impeding, and interfering with law enforcement when she visited the detention center a couple other members of Congress back on the ninth of May in New Jersey, and then put out a statement from her office Clay, no one is above the law, politics or otherwise. It is the job of this office to uphold justice, impartially regardless of who you are. Now

we will let the justice system work. She had sought a resolution without bringing criminal charges, according to The New York Times, but miss McIver declined. She says, now, this is Congresswoman mick Iver, that the ICE agents created an unnecessary and unsafe confrontation. These charges are entirely political. Of course we knew she was going to say that. But you can see body camera footage released by the Department of Homeland Security shows Representative McIver getting into it, Clay

tussling with members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. One might even say Clay obstructing, perhaps obstructing an official proceed or official law enforcement activity, something that all the cops listing know. Yeah, if they're trying to make an arrest and you're like, no, that's my buddy, and you hip check the cops so that he can't actually put the cuffs on. You're going away too, That's not okay. Now there's a lot. There's a lot going on here, Clay. Right, there's the law

and there's the law and order angle of this. The no one is above the law, which Democrats certainly are familiar with as a phrase because they used to say it with such frequency to justify their absurd prosecutions. Four of them one year never been convicted or charged with the crime in his entire life, almost eighty years. Trump goes without ever committing a crime, and then four in one year that also happened to be the same year

he's running for reelection to be president. Gee, what a coincidence, Almost like finding out Biden's cancer after the election that they had to know about before. Quite a coincidence. But uh, for me, this is they created this environment and I'm happy having we can talk without the immigration piece of this too, Clay, Like, really, they're they're willing to throw their physically throw their bodies in front of ice agents

to stop deportations from happening. Members of Congress, people that write the laws or at least pretend to write the laws. But the law is the law. No one is above it. Democrats made us all believe, or rather made us all hear from them that they believe this, and now they have to live with it. And I don't think they're going to like the consequences because the Trump administration has decided, you know what, we'll take you up on that your terms are acceptable. Democrats. I think this was and is

and this will not surprise you, buck. But what Monica mc ivor, the arrested congresswoman, texted, no one is I mean tweeted, no one is above the law after Trump was arrested. So you know this talking point that they all had of no is above the law. Clearly they thought they were above the law. But it's not a good position to be in when you are arrested to have on the record called your political adversaries out as

being as no one as being above the law. Now do I think that this is some massively violent behavior that she engaged in. No, But I do think that there are countless people who were involved in January sixth that engaged in less than what she did on that day, that were charged with crimes that were hunted down by the FBI that had to plead guilty to minor misdemeanors

and received massive punishment as a result. So, if you put it in that context, what is good for the goose is good for the gander, Which is probably a phrase that I've never used before in the history of radio,

but seems apropos here. And I think what it represents is there have been a lot of you, and I am among them, and Buck is among them that said the only real way we can end lawfair in this country one Trump winning, I think showed Democrats that their idea of putting him in prison for the rest of his life and bankrupting him and trying to use the full apparatus of the Department of Justice against him as well as other state governments in Georgia and New York,

was not a way that was going to be politically beneficial to them, and I think the results of the twenty twenty four election were wildly important for that reason.

But the second part of this is they have to feel the danger themselves of law fair redounding at them as the paying the consequences here, And I'm curious how aggressively the Democrat party will come out and defend her because I will say this Buck remember the judge in Milwaukee that they were saying, oh, like, this is an unprecedented act, and then people looked into it, and then a grand jury in Milwaukee indicted her. That story's kind of vanished. They tried to make a lot of hay

of that. I don't think that the average person, because it's on video, is going to watch this and say, hey, you know what, this woman seems like she's being treated unfairly. You know who's not going to all of a sudden cry big tears for the situation. Tom Holman, I think we could just call it. I think if he had a nickname, like if this was Professor Wrestling, it would be the Enforcer, because I think he is the enforcer

of immigration law. Here he is saying that she broke the law, thiss has cut ten and she's going to be held to account.

is a crime. They don't believe that it's illegal, and so to them, anyone who's being held in a detention facility for immigration related issues is essentially a political prisoner, and therefore whatever they have to do in order to bring attention to or even impede what's going on is morally justified. They and this is what what more and more Americans figure this out, we have greater clarity on

this issue, and we can handle this better. The Democrats do not believe that anyone should be punished for being in the country illegally, and I mean anyone. They fundamentally do not believe that if someone is here, it doesn't matter if they're a mass murderer on behalf of MS thirteen, doesn't matter those crimes. Sometimes Democrats will agree this are bad, like the killing of all the people. Okay, they'll say that's bad. Fine, But the crime of status in the

country is not a crime. To them. They do not believe that there is any infraction worthy of punishment that comes from breaking immigration laws. And that is why you have members of Congress who will throw their bodies in the way and scream about this, and you know, all this mayhem that they will cause around it. It's because fundamentally,

once you understand their view of it. Yeah, of course, like if you and I were sitting here, we're talking about people who are being locked up for absolutely no reason whatsoever in our minds, as we'd say, well, that's a huge problem. We've got to address this. That's what they think about illegals. Yeah, and look, I think the ultimate question here is why Democrats are still floundering to such an extent. They're getting arrested to fight for the

rights of illegal immigrants. They're getting on airplanes to fly to El Salvador to advocate for wife beating human trafficking gang members who should never have been in this country. And I think a lot of regular, everyday Americans are asking the question, why are Democrats willing to fight so hard for people who are not citizens of this country to continue to be able to illegally break the law here?

And I also think that a lot of people are saying that this is indicative of them picking issues that the average American does not agree with. And the only reason this makes sense, the only reason this makes sense is they have a plan to one day make all of these people citizens of the United States and they believe it will benefit them that I mean, is there any other explanation that remotely makes sense for their behavior

right now? And let me just point this out. This is a black congresswoman from New Jersey, right, this is where Lamonica mc iver is from. Do you think the average black constituent, because I bet her district is a majority black district, that would be my guest. Team. You can look that up and I'll correct it. If Lamonica mc iver has been representing a largely white area of

the country, I tend to think that's probably unlikely. Do you think black constituents of Lamonica mc iver feel as if they are being strongly represented by their congresswoman when she is being arrested outside of an ice detention center. Is that advocating for their best interest? I think there are a lot of black residents. We saw this happen, certainly with more black residents in inner city starting to vote Trump. We saw this New York City. We saw it in many parts of the country, of New York

City in particular. But buck, remember all the Chicago Inner City residents who were saying, wait a minute, you're taking over our gyms, our sports bills that our kids are supposed to be able to play on, to give benefits to illegal filling their kids classrooms with correct kids who have a tremendous amount of trauma from the journey, often and speak no English, by the way, overwhelmingly, Look, we have a limited amount of resources that we have to

provide support for underprivileged American citizens. And if your community is feeling like it's underserved, are you looking over your shoulder saying, Hey, these people who've only been here for a couple of months. My families have been here for generations, for decades, and we're struggling to stay ahead. And you're

going to give resources to all these illegal immigrants. I mean, just honestly, I can't imagine that congress Woman La Monica mc ivor that her average constituent says, Hey, this is what I want you out fighting for. This is why we sent you to Washington, d C. And US hard here.

The Marxists left in this country. I mean, I repeat myself, right, but the the the hard left, the true left in America has replaced uh, the you know, the modern Marxists have replaced class solidarity with race solidarity, and so the uh, the street disruptors, community organizers, social justice brigades, if you will, they they now view issues. Remember we talked about this even in the contact of Israel Palestine, like what why why will you have black members of Congress who are

over you know, generally speaking, overwhelmingly pro Palestinian. I mean, you know, make a case if you have solidarity with people who have suffered persecution. The Jews have suffered more than their share of persecution historically. But why do black American congressmen identify with Palestinians Because Palestinians are considered brown,

even though there are Palestinians and I've met them. Because I've been to the West Bank, et cetera, as has Clay now who have red or blonde hair and blue eyes. That's a whole other thing, okay, And you know, are very very much you would think whier Caucasians. But put that aside. They think Palestinians are brown. Therefore, black members of Congress have a Marxist solidarity, but it's based on race with the Palestinians. Same thing with the illegal immigrants.

At some level, what you're pointing out is what you would think Black Democrat members of Congress would focus on first and foremost, which is if they are and a lot of them are in a predominantly African American Black American district. Are illegal immigrants generally making the daily lives of Black Americans better in their neighborhoods, in their schools. Are they helping the resource allocation that those communities get or are they a competition for that? And of course

we know the answer to this. But for the Cameras, racial solidarity with the non white illegal immigrants is where the left, the Marxists, the social justice construct in this country goes. Here's the breakdown, by the way, forty eight and a half percent black district twenty one point four

percent Hispanic, eighteen point eight percent white. So just shy of a majority black district, but a massive, substantial overall number of the population is black, and it is a overwhelming Democrat district by she won in the last congressional race based on what I'm looking to here, eighty one point four percent of the vote to fifteen point six

percent to the Republican representative. So I mean again, we're talking about, in my opinion, someone who is not representing remotely the majority of the citizens of her district, and I would think that would not be favorably received. Maybe some of you are out there listening to us right now in that New Jersey ten congressional district and want two weigh in on whether you think she is representing you well. Eight hundred two A two two eight a two. Yeah,

definitely give us, give us a call. I've been an investor in gold for a long time. We're joined now by James Blair, White House Deputy Chief of Staff aka the Oracle, joining us now. All right, So that's a pretty cool nickname, uh, And I imagine that doesn't stink to be the White House chief of Staff. Deputy that

is known as the oracle. So let me ask you for your predictions, oracle, on how the Big Beautiful Bill is going to go and what should this audience and know about it from your perspective.

First of all, let's talk about the border first and foremost, which nobody's talking about anymore because the President has driven illegal border crossings to zero since he came into office. But this bill funds border enforcement, adds ten thousand new ICE officers, gives them pay raises, gives us everything we need logistically to not only keep the border secure for the president's entire term.

So we're getting the country's fiscal house in order. We're giving people money back in their pocket that they earned. We're deregulating, we're unleashing energy, we're securing the border, were rebuilding the military. We're doing what President Trump campaigned on, plain and simple. So there's still some little issues being worked out with a few guys at the edges, but in the big picture, I think we're right on track and I think we'll get everybody there.

Senate and everything, but more than double. Okay, Congress literally has not done anything like that in over thirty years. So right there, those are the biggest savings that we've ever seen. We're doing something called recisions, which is the stuff that dojes found this bad stuff. We go out of Congress votes on it, and what's called a recisions package that's actually separate from this bill, but then it

permanently pulls out that stuff out of the budget. Okay, there's savings, and then in that and then you know, what's not counted in this bill, and it's just a stupid quirk of how legislative scoring works is tariff revenue. The President is bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars of tariff revenue right now, and that money's not being spent. Okay, that money's not being spent in the big beautiful bill or anything else. That's just money and the treasury that

goes straight to deficit reduction. So some times, you know, when they call it the Congressional Budget Office, which kind of puts out the church, they're not being honest because they don't add in the tariff for revenue and some of the recisions and the different things that are happening, so you're not really seeing.

government out of the way. We're doing that, right, that's partly the President, partly Congress partly doge all of those things combined.

unlock the economy through growth. We're doing that, and then we've got to do spending reductions. It's going to take all three of those things concerted effort over.

they're costing medicaid billions of dollars a year. So these open borders that we have, we have to not only have the border secure, but we've got to get these people out so they stop draining our public resources.

First of all, let's talk about the border first and foremost, which nobody's talking about anymore because the President has driven illegal border crossings to zero since he came into office.

But this bill funds border enforcement, adds ten thousand new ice officers, gives them pay raises, gives us everything we need logistically to not only keep the border secure for the president's entire term in office so we don't have to come back and do this again, but also to deport people and get millions of illegal immigrants out of this country, which is something that a majority of the American people support. Secondarily, it gives us the funding we

need for our military. You know that the President is involved in complex negotiations across the globe to bring peace that's backed up through strength. And it gives us the funding to modernize our military and make sure it's the most lethal fighting force in the world for the foreseeable future. But then the big thing that that does it everyone's

talking about is the tax cuts. This renews the President's historic tax cut from twenty seventeen that was the biggest in history, and then adds more taxes on top everything he campaigned on. No tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime pay. It will be the single largest tax cut for middle and working class

Americans in the history of the country. And it will do that while still generating more than a trillion dollars right now one point seven trillion dollars in savings for the American taxpayer, which is twice as much savings that has ever been delivered by Congress in the last thirty years, and that was almost thirty years ago under Bill Clinton. So we're getting the country's fiscal house in order. We're giving people money back in their pocket that they earned.

We're deregulating, we're unleashing energy, We're securing the border, were rebuilding the military. We're doing what President Trump campaigned on plane and simple. So there's still some little issues being worked out with a few guys at the edges, but in the big picture, I think we're right on track and I think we'll get everybody there.

goes straight to deficit reduction. So sometimes you know when they call it the Congressional Budget Office, which kind of puts out the charge they're not being honest because they don't add in the tariff revenue and some of the recisions and the different things that are happening, so you're not really seeing the full picture. But the fact is this is a huge step in the right direction for getting the country on a better fiscal footing.

So we've got to add revenue. The tariffs are doing that. We've got to cut taxes, we've got to cut regulations the economy through growth, we're doing that, and then we've got to do spending reductions. It's going to take all three of those things concerted effort over a period of time. But if we just stick through it here and we are able to do it for four years instead of two, which means we have to win the House majority back in the midterms, then we'll be able to really be on a great.

any of us can even fathom. And then on the border, look, we've got to ultimately have money to pay for planes and law enforcement to get people out of the country, and that money is coming in this bill, and that is such a critical piece. Everyone needs to understand that illegal immigrants in this hunt level that Joe Biden brought

in are a huge drain on our system. When you talk about the spending, I mean hundreds of billions of dollars being cost by illegal immigrants being in this country and being on public programs are in place for American citizens. When we get them out of the country, that's actually going to lower our spending levels massively without doing a single thing. One of the changes in the Big Beautiful Bill will be getting millions of illegal immigrants off of Medicaid. Okay,

they're costing Medicaid billions of dollars a year. So these open borders that we have, we have to not only have the border secure, but We got to get these people out so they stop draining our public resources. All of this stuff has to work together to get our country on the right fiscal path forward.

fighting force in the world. And that is what really gives us the leverage to sit at the table and demand peace, not only for ourselves and our allies, but everywhere across the globe and the world has been better off when America has been strong in the world, and that is part and parcel. Having a strong military is part and parcel of that effort peace through strength.