The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton ShowWelcome in Clay Travis Buck Sexton show.
The winds keep.
Getting stacked and we haven't even gotten the official inauguration of Donald Trump yet. We're gonna have some fun with you here on this Wednesday, one week before Christmas. I know many of you out there are super excited for Christmas, a lot of kids starting to get out for the holiday season, and it is a fun time across the nation as we are a little bit more than one month from Donald Trump or raising up the right hand and being sworn into office. As I don't believe we've even said on this program, we will be up in Washington, d C. For the inauguration from the Clay and Buck Headquarters Studios in Washington, d C. It should be a lot of fun. We're gonna be celebrating bringing you all the sights and sounds of the nation's capital as Donald Trump takes back control. There are a lot of stories to get into. We're gonna dive into all of them. But breaking news from the Wall Street Journal this morning, in conjunction with breaking news I believe from Variety magazine, the culture Wars were finally starting to win some battles. Buck and I've got a sort of roadmap here that I want to run us through your home state of Florida now or your relocated home state. Buck has become a frontline winner in this culture war, and let me kind of give you a roadmap. Let me explain what I mean by that if you haven't heard. The decision to settle the ABC News defamation lawsuit filed by Trump against ABC News and George Stephanopolis over them accusing him of having been adjudicated guilty of or alibel for rape was settled for fifteen million dollars and the decision went all the way up to CEO Bob Iger. Why did they settle this case? It made it past summary judgment. That means it was going to go to trial probably and it was going to be going to trial in the state of Florida. Oh yeah, the state of Florida won by thirteen points by Donald Trump. Where Ron DeSantis has absolutely kicked Disney's butt all over the place in the wake of their don't say gay rebellion against the State of Florida. Remember, basically, Disney bent the knee to DeSantis and the State of Florida and effectively said you were right, we were wrong. That comes along with this news story. Again, I think this is significant. First of all, the fact that it even happened is a sign of how broken our culture had become. But the fact that we're now starting to get winds stacked, I think is significant. Buck Disney has decided to eliminate a transgender storyline from an upcoming series that it was making, called Win or Lose. The show was about a co ed middle school softball team, and there were eight episodes, each one centered on the off the field life of one of the characters. There was a transgender character that was going to be featured in this children's programming. Disney says they have decided to pull that because, quote, when it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own timeline and terms.
Buck.
This is effectively Disney saying Ron DeSantis, you were right. We apologize for all that don't say gay bs. We are bending the knee to Trump DeSantis and to reasonable rational parents out there that don't believe animated programming should be addressing issues of sexuality. This is a big win. I think it's important to celebrate wins.
There's huge change of foot right now and we are seeing it and it is positive.
It's very encouraging.
I would just say to put in context, Clay, what a difference it is now with Disney in tone and action. Remember just a couple years ago we were doing the show together, so it's definitely been the last few years. The Disney Chief Creative exec whatever her official title was, who said she had a pan sexual child and a transchild, Well, the lotto odds of that, I mean, she might as well go out and do a scratch off ticket, because wow, the chances of that just happening to be the case for somebody is infinitesimal. And she was talking also in the context of the need to push more LGBTQIA plus you know, I think we might even actually get to a place where we don't have to use that acronym anymore because they're different. By the way, Why put all of these people together. I've had conversations rec with a couple of friends of mine who are gay, and they despise the fact that the trans and pan sexual and all these different identities are always linked now to the gay community, as if this is the same thing. They said, No, they have their thing, they've got something else going on. We have something else going on. So you can talk about this now more openly. But I think Clay your your ABC Stephanopoulos point. This is really really critical right now for the Trump movement. We've talked a lot about this, the deep state. They're continuing resolution by the way Congress will get to that. They want to just do what they've done, and people are paying attention now. But there's also the border, which we've talked about a lot. Here's the question, Clay, and it's a big one, and I think the ABC News one goes to this. And also Trump now suing and Seltzer, the polster in Iowa. I don't know if we've mentioned this. I don't think we've mentioned this yet on the show. He's suing the Iowa pollster who was off by seventeen points something like that with her last poll before the election. What is the proper response, Clay, to the law fair that has been done against Donald Trump?
What is the proper response?
Sorry, go ahead, no, I say it's a fantastic question. I mean to continue, but let's just think about some of the things they have done to him. What should Trump and the new administration do in response to the not just for criminal indictments, the absolutely ludicrous four hundred million dollars or something whatever that I can't even remember the number. It was hundreds of millions of dollars that New York State brought in his settlement against him.
Were the banks that worked with him? Said, we were paid on time, made money, and everything was great. What do you talk? How is that fraud?
Everybody's happy except the Democrat partisan attorney general. The New York City case as well, Clay, so many instances of this is what does Trump do? They keep saying, we're afraid of thetribution. Well, there should be justice, and to some people that may look like retribution. I think that's what I said. Here's what a lot of people are missing. I think buck where he's filing these lawsuits, the biggest part of law fair against Donald Trump was blue cities and blue states went to war with him. Where did they bring their cases? New York City, where the jury is overwhelmingly rigged against Trump, Atlanta, Georgia, where the jury is overwhelmingly rigged against Trump, Washington, d C. Where the jury is overwhelmingly rigged, against Trump. Where did the case collapse? First Florida when they had to move the case relating to classified documents from Washington, d C.
To Florida.
I don't know that many people out there in the general public spend much time thinking about this, but lawyers spend a great deal of time thinking about this. Where your case is heard and where where it is filed matters monumentally. Red state and red cities have been nowhere near as aggressive in using the law to go after their political enemies as Democrats have been with blue cities and blue states. Why did the case get settled the fifteen million dollars ABC News Because I think it was filed in Florida and they were terrified of the jury there.
Let's think about some of the defamation suits. That's what I'm going through.
Where's he where he's filing now Buck Iowa? He won by sixteen Gannett's going to be really nervous about this.
This is It's so important though, that people understand the context of these actions. Clay Ejene Carroll brought a suit only possible because they changed the statue to limitations in New York so she could bring the suit. A suit that Trump, no person could really defend himself against he growthed me in an apartment store thirty five years ago. There's no footage, there's no evidence, but I say so, and now in a jury hates me, so they're gonna go along with this. Then Trump says I didn't assault or rape this woman and she's lying, you know. He says she's lying, and then he is sued for defaming her. I mean, so, now if you are, if you are civilly accused of something that could never be criminally proven, and you say no, I'm not guilty of that. That person is lying about me, you can be sued for whether what was the judgment?
There wasn't it.
It was a very I can't remember all these judgments against Trump. The Egan Carol defamation suit was very substantial.
It's garbage, and remember millions. Not only it's not only that they got the judgment, it's that they freaking change the statute of limitations to allow the judgment to occur.
Yes, I mean you and me are I'm sorry it was five to five million.
I said ten. It was a five million dollar judgment. But I'm just saying this is for you saying I didn't rape that woman. She's lying. Now you can be sued for five million dollars. They have weaponized the law in ways that we are just beginning to come to grips with. And I think the ABC thing you're picking up on Clay goes right to this.
You have to fire back, and I've been arguing this for a long time. You have to make the other side fear what you might do to them too, And that's the only way I think you come back to a measure of justice. At some point, it becomes so corrupted if one side thinks that they can walk up and punch you in the mouth over and over again, and you're just gonna turn the other cheek every time and say, boy, I really wish you hadn't punched me in the mouth. This is really you really are being mean to me. Boy, you're being a hypocrite. Sooner or later, words don't work. And I mean, everybody who's ever dealt with a bully knows bullies respect power, they respect fear. They have to think that they might get punched back in the mouth at some point in time, and if they don't, then they will continue to take advantage of you and I think we're finally getting a spine and throwing some punches.
Play Rudy Giuliani, who saved my hometown and to whom I will always be grateful, And millions of New Yorkers, even some a lot of Democrats feel the same way, grateful to what he did for New Yorkers, for fellow Americans. He lost a one hundred and forty eight million dollar defamation suit for what he said about two election workers. Now, look, should he have said that. No, apparently it was all untrue. But but you know, put aside for a second. It's basically one hundred and fifty million dollar judgment and they're enforcing against Rudy Giuliani's destitute now because he made a claim. They said it was unfounded, it was contentious, it was political, and they brought it in a jurisdiction that's going to crush anybody Trump associated. We to your point, if we do not, if our side does not take action to show that this is a mutually assured law fair destruction in America. That you know, they so to speak, fire the nukes like the old Soviets. We fire the nukes and everybody loses if we don't establish that precedent.
They just keep doing this. Look at this, Steve Bannon had to go to federal prison. What did Steve Bannon do.
Nothing that Eric Holder didn't do. By the way, when he was Attorney general, did he go to federal prison? Enough is enough, they say, Clay. They're worried about retribution. Everybody who voted for Trump and sees what's going on should say there's no retribution. There is a reckoning, though, there is a righteousness coming.
This is huge.
I don't know that most people have recognized, I mean, basically Disney, what they just did Buck is they said, yeah, DeSantis was right alllong when he said we shouldn't be teaching gender ideology to kids in schools. The whole fight, This is why they filed the lawsuit, everything else. Now they have completely bent the knee. For those of you out there who have been saying, Okay, how do things change sooner or later? You have to start to stack wins. And we are stacking wins on a level frankly that we haven't seen in this culture in a long time. And I know many of you I think it's important. I know you've said this on the show, and I think it's important to echo it. You got to celebrate some wins every now and then. You can't just be upset about how things are going. You have to start to stack victories of your own. And we are doing that. And I think this is seismic culturally what Disney has just done. They said DeSantis was right. They settled with Trump. Disney is going back to trying to be a company that, guess what, just makes movies that your kids would like to watch, which is what they should have been doing all along.
This Trump win across the board, Clay is lighting up the scoreboard.
For sanity right now, and it's a notable thing this holiday.
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Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Mike drops that never sounded so good. Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome back in Clay Travis buck Sexton show. Another news story and I think it ties in with what we are talking about. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the TikTok appeal of it potentially being banned in some way in the United States starting after the first of the year, and I want to tie that in with what's going on with the settlement that we saw in Florida and the bending the knee from Walke Disney because I do think it's part of a larger societal move where we're going to get a new First Amendment case at some point at the Supreme Court. But Buck my understanding, and you correct me if I'm wrong on this. I was doing my reading on the TikTok case this morning when when they talk about a ban effectively what it would mean, and let me start with this, what percentage of our audience do you think is on TikTok? Fifteen percent less and five So I understand it's a small minority of you, but as you get ready for Christmas holiday season, your kids and grandkids are almost certainly on TikTok. So this is maybe a conversation that that that some of you end up having associated with this. So my understanding, Buck, is when they say ban, what this law would actually do. It's like it can't remove TikTok from your phones, but effectively it doesn't allow TikTok to continue to update its algorithm, meaning that I believe they have one hundred and seventy million viewers in the United States or or people who downloaded the app. So basically half the country has a TikTok account, and we have a clay and buck TikTok account. By the way, I have one. I haven't posted in a long time. Do you post anything on TikTok.
I go on TikTok to as to be a viewer, but I don't really post on TikTok.
It's you know, I don't have time.
So what it would do is stop allowing the app to update, and that would effectively render it obsolete, because all of these apps have to constantly have new tech updates in order to function effectively. Okay, so what's going on here? The Supreme Court is going to hear this case. One reason, according to the Wall Street Journal, that Disney settled their case that's ABC News paid fifteen million dollars to Donald Trump, is Bob Eiger was afraid of getting in front of a floorida jury and potentially getting hit with a verdict that could cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars.
But also, yeah, I just wanted to We didn't mention this. Look what they did to Fox.
Yes, that's why that's where it ties it in, right right, Yeah, Look look at the size of the Fox on what was it eight hundred million? It was huge, almost eight hundred million dollars and the reason why Fox settled was they were afraid of jury and Delaware, which would have not been sympathetic to them, could have given a verdict that was massively huge beyond that, and ultimately they felt like they were going to prevail on the First Amendment, but they would then have to take it all the way to the court and it could take multiple years. And this TikTok case has the potential to re evaluate in a substantial way potentially First Amendment law. The reason why I bring this up is Disney is getting ripped for settling this case, and again the victory is substantial. But I want to play a couple of these cuts from you, Lawrence Tribe, who used to be somebody who's actually committed to the First Amendment.
He is completely bonkers on Twitter. I mean, you can see this guy has lost his mind. He's a Trump. He is a Trump Stage five derangement fellow.
So here is he reacting to this cut eighteen.
He's losing it a little bit. But listen, but it was a week lawsuit.
He was destined to lose it. But rather than basically be on the wrong side of Donald Trump, Disney, the company then owned ABC obviously put pressure on ABC to cave. And that's it's a terrible precedent because it means that whenever a media outlet is part of a conglomerate, the business interests of the owner can induce that media outlet to silence itself. And when that happens, those who would criticize the leader of government, those who would criticize the president or the government, yeah, are basically chilled. And that is the beginning of the end of democracy.
He's completely wrong here.
And notice what he doesn't say that George Stepanopolis was wrong. Trump filed a lawsuit because George Stepanopolis on his program incorrectly said that Trump had been adjudicated civilly liable for rape.
He was not.
In fact, the jury said he was not culpable, he was not liable. So what Lawrence Drive is not saying here is actually, George stephanopbol has put his employers in a bad position by saying something that was untrue on television. And in fact, we should want fewer people saying things that are untrue on television. Here's Chuck Todd. He said, oh, this is a gut punch for all of media.
How so Stephanopolis was wrong.
Listen, this was stunning to me and absolutely a gut punch to anybody that works at a major media company, because I think it does set a it sets a precedent that is going to be very difficult. It's going to be very difficult to get from get out from under potentially. I just you know, I think the risk of losing this suit was five percent, right, ABC, ABC, So you know this was a decision to buy off the.
That pr Okay that he's wrong too. I think they would have lost this suit. Now they may have won the appeal. But here is something that's really important. George Stephanopoulos has the right to say anything that he wants about Donald Trump. He can say I believe Donald Trump is a rapist. Now the evidence doesn't support that based on that case. What he can't say is that a court said Trump was a rapist because that didn't happen. There is a big distinction and a lot of people don't understand this between opinion and between fact, and this is what the essence of this case is, right.
I mean, we could sit here, remember Keith Oldman's worst person in the world thing. We could say that in media, the worst person in the world in our opinion or I says for me, the worst person in the world may in fact be Keith Olberman. That's an opinion. But you can't say that. Let's say some person is adjudicated a murderer.
Or a Julia.
You can't say someone's a child molester according to court record when that's a lie, because then you can destroy anybody's reputation. You could destroy any person in the public.
Sphere that there's that like. Keith Oberman is a good example. I believe iHeart distributes Keith Oberman's podcast. One of You sent me a clip where Keith Oberman, and by the way iHeart distributes this show, Keith Oberman called me a racist neanderthal. I think now I would, by you know, an awful human being, like a bunch of different insults from Keith Oberman distributed by iHeart. Now, I have a thick skin, and I think Keith Oberman should be able to say truly awful things about me, but he shouldn't be able to say to your point, Clay Travis has been adjudicated to be a rapist or a child molestor if he said that about me, I don't know that I would spend the time filing a lawsuit on it, but he would be liable for those things because it's actually untrue. Whereas his opinion, you guys can listen to maybe some of you agree, maybe somebody you think I'm a trogola dyte, awful, misogynist, racist, Like you're entitled to have that opinion. You can't say a court has determined it to be true. That's what Stephanoppolis did. He screwed up in a big way and his company is paying because of that.
Well, also, this comes after years, you know, I think the context here is important, Clay. This comes after years of them saying with impunity and I think, with a degree of political efficacy, the most awful things about Donald Trump imaginable, Yes, you know, saying, for example, they could say, oh, well he's a racist. Now that's basically an opinion, right, And of course the Democrats do. They call anybody they want a racist, and they try to ruin somebody in the public sphere, and they.
Try to destroy their reputation.
They know that a lot of the people they say this about are not racist, but you know, whatever, that's an opinion.
But when they say things like Trump is.
An agent of Russia, a Russian asset that's accusing and effectively of.
A crime, a crime of treason.
Really, and you would wonder what is the society coming to if you can say these things with total impunity and there's no repercussions whatsoever. Why not just lie about everybody in the most egregious way all the time. There actually have to be lines here. That's why defamation and slander and libel are on the.
Books for good reason.
Yeah, and this is why. And I actually maybe we should do a deep dive. I'll even sit down and talk to a bunch of nerds, legal nerds on this, because some of you may be super interested in it. I am, and a lot of legal stuff makes my eyes roll back into my head. I'm like, this is the most boring thing ever. The way in which we define the First Amendment in a social media era has to be recalibrated, because back in the day, Buck, when New York Times v. Sullivan happened, your name only appeared in the newspaper typically if you were a normal person, not a public figure, on the day you were born and on the day you died, Right, that was pretty common in the nineteen forties, nineteen fifties, sixties, that kind of era, so most people were not quote unquote public figures. In this day and age, I would argue of social media, almost everyone is a public figure at all the time. And I think we should have a standard that is difficult to define, but should apply kind of evenly between everyone, because all of us are modern day public figures. What should be able to be said in a public forum about someone should not be different, in my opinion, in the way that it is in New York Times v.
Sullivan. And also, we don't have this.
Print publication era where everybody has tons of hours to get ready. There are lots of errors that happen.
I hoped.
Remember the Nicholas Sandman case, that young kid who was wearing the Make America Great Again hat? I remember Lincoln Memorial steps. They totally turned him into a racist, awful human being. He got attacked unfairly. He'd done nothing wrong. In fact, he was a victim when the full context of the video came out. He's a kid on a freaking class trip to Washington, d C. On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. We don't know what the settlements he got because they weren't public. Somebody needs to take a case all the way to the end degree and really have a new precedent set. So that's to me what the significance is of this fifteen million dollars that Trump got from ABC News. It's ABC News recognizing stephan Ovelis was totally wrong. I think buck then behind the scenes they were about to get the depositions, I think they would have found out how biased ABC News is against Trump. There would have been a lot of discovery that would have embarrassed that network. That's why Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, which owns ABC News, I believe, made the decision to settle this case.
So I look, I understand for some people who are seeing what's going on here, I mean the you know, the Seltzer lawsuit, I don't. I don't think that's going anywhere because her defense is just going to be I'm I'm an idiot, or you know, I was an idiot on this issue.
I screwed up. I don't think a.
Poll unless they can prove that you were kind of colluding behind the scenes to misintentional manipulation of the pole would be the only way it would.
Be really tough. It's not impossible.
I think it's really really hard to prove that a polster was doing something that's legally actionable in a civil context. That said, the stuff that they've been getting away with when it comes to Trump and doing to Trump.
That's why I think the Egen Carol suit and the Rudy.
Giuliani suit in Atlanta, you know, and these they're bankrupting their political enemies with with nonsense. I mean, in what universe do you have one hundred and fifty million dollars judge for two women who based on their current earnings and they're not going to make five million dollars over the.
Next thirty years.
Clay, Yeah, so you're you know, so you're giving them one hundred and fifty million dollars. That's not even gonna happen because Rudy Giuliani has already been bankrupted by all the lawfair against him. It's it's monstrous what they've done with the law, and it has to be set right. And I think just to bring this full circle through their initial discussion, which is it doesn't the way out of this is not, well, we're not going to do mean things to them, it's what are our principles, what are our what are our legal and ethical responsibilities to the system who violated those and what will their punishment be that, you know, other otherwise you're just in a one way war. Otherwise, you know, the Republicans are like pacifists, and the Nazis are rolling in with their pens, are saying, well, this is really easy, Like you can't have a one way war.
So this needs to be done.
This needs to be part of the incoming administration's agenda. You know, the Christmas holiday is a celebration of life. You have an opportunity to share that same gift with a pregnant mother and her unborn baby. Just imagine during this holiday season what a young woman with an unplanned pregnancy, feeling alone, is going through. But that's a reality that Preborn is seeing each day, and Preborn ministries are operating nationwide straight through the holidays because they want to save as many tiny babies as possible and help as many moms to be become moms as possible. That's through this beautiful process of starting with the ultrasound. You know, I just had Carrie doing her ultrasound update a few days ago and we basically cheer up. We see the little photo of little baby, little thumb, and the whole thing was amazing because when these moms who are being told all this stuff UF are being lied to about oh you know it's it's uh, you know this, this is gonna be fine. You're never gonna regret this, all the pressures out there in society, when they meet the baby via ultrasound, it's overwhelming that their choice is going to be for life. I mean, the numbers speak to this, and this is how Preborn is saving lives every day. So this Christmas season, could you donate twenty eight dollars for an ultrasound? Twenty eight dollars goes right to the ultrasound goes right to saving tiny babies lives. What could be more in the Christmas spirit than that to donate? Dial pound two five zero say the keyword baby. That's pound two five zero, say baby. Or you can go online go to preborn dot com, slash buck that's preborn dot com, slash b u c K sponsored by Preborn.
Cheek out with the guys on the Sunday Hang with Clay and Buck podcast, a new episode every Sunday find it on the iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts.
We've got Pocka bell cannon going on here? Is that a Is that a Christmas tune?
That just this was just from weddings? That's what I'm I mean, that's what I usually think of. I was like, Clay, what's going on over here? Is this a Christmas?
And twenty years? I don't know, it's Laura Laura bailing. Yeah, that's that's really interesting. I've never I wasn't expecting us to come into a wedding march.
So yeah, anyway, I'm pretty sure that was PoCA Bell's caton and uh, interesting tunes be like, look, we love our Christmas, our Christmas cheer, we love our Mannheim steamroller, and uh, getting into all the holiday spirit. So indeed a lot of that going on. Let's we're going back into Grinch mode here. I just had to say that to make sure everyone feels like we're getting into the Christmas spirit. But now I'm gonna take us out of it by getting into Grinch mode and talking bottom dollar brass tax about the debt, the deficit, government spending, and.
All the rest of it.
Let's just let's just set the table before we dive into this, and I texted our our buddy Vivak Ramaswami, super busy him and elon trying to save the country.
I get it.
I told him anytime he wants to come on and talk about this, you know, we'll we'll make it happen. You know, I think a lot of people right now are kind of gearing up to take some time off before because once we hit in January, I mean, that's when it's you know, everything is imminent, full steam ahead. A little bit of a lull right now, but not for Congress because they're trying to ram this thing through. You know, that's very classic Congress move. Let's lay out clay what this is, and we can we get into the details a little bit. The Wall Street Journal has this deal to avert government shut down includes one hundred and ten billion dollars in disaster and farm aid. It is a sprawling package. It is fifteen hundred pages. The proposal would extend current government funding until March fourteenth, which is moving this down the line until the next Congress would would decide how much money to allocate the federal agencies until September thirtieth, the remainder for the remainder of the fiscal year. So there's one hundred and ten billion. Like I said, Disaster and Farmer leave fifteen hundred and forty seven pages. Don't only leave out those forty seven pages. It is a terrible night for the taxpayer. Congressman Burchett of tennessee your homesteak, Clay saw this. People are not reading this. Vivike I saw was tweeting about this. I can never you know, posting on X. I still I wish we could use some of the tweet language, even though I know X is a far better platform. Viveke was on this and he's saying, look, he's actually reading it, which.
Is isn't that funny?
First, let's start with that the bill to spend hundreds of billions of dollars of your money. To actually read that thing for the people who are doing it is like a revolution tionary idea, right or for anyone to do that is, no one expects that they're actually reading this whole thing. Why is that, Clay? This should be twenty pages long. This should be a clean spending proposal. Shouldn't be all this stuff they do the cr It just becomes an excuse. Everybody throws their goodies in there, their pork in there.
This is the mess.
This is why there's no accountability. There's no stopping this runaway spending. And Republicans are they going to go along with this? Is this what we're heading for? Once again, it's disconcerting.
All of the time these arguments happen. And again I'm going to be super grinch here. There is no magic bullet. The only way for the government to balance its budget is to address Social Security, Medicare, and our massive federal deficit, which is eating more and more of the budget every year. If you cut everything from the budget except Social Security, Medicare, the interest on the debt, and defense, we would still have a massive federal deficit.
And people anytime you mentioned social security, people get fired up.
I'm sure that we are deluged in emails from people talking about Social Security. It's a broken system, okay, people who are bucking mind's age and I pay in a.
Massive amount of social Security.
The math doesn't add up for us to be able to get back what we put in.
The only way.
Social security worked for as long as it did. Again, these are cold, hard truths that most politicians won't tell you because they're worried about getting re elected. And the easy thing to say is I'll never t your social Security, I'll never touch your Medicare. That's what they all say, because they just push it down the line. The reason it worked is because when they started it, the America was a very, very young country and most people didn't live to the ages where they would be able to catch Social Security checks. Now America is very much of an aging country and we have far fewer workers relative to retirees, and as the baby boomers are all retiring, the number of younger people in this country doesn't exist to make.
Social Security work. That's the truth.
Most politicians will not tell you that. They all run around and say, I'm going to balance the budget. It's impossible to balance the budget without addressing Social Security and Medicare, and look that deserves and should be a huge part of our national discussion. Nobody will touch it because every president only gets eight years and then it's on to the next guy. And the reality is this is a ticking time bomb that's gonna explode in like twenty years.
I am, by the way, Merry Christmas, everybody.
I was gonna say you are growing green fur in real time, mister grinch.
But every time we have this happens every time, Buck, Every time one of these continuing resolutions comes up, people get.
Mad and they're like, what are we doing?
It's gonna get solved, and the solving is we're gonna take on more debt and it's gonna be greater than thirty six trillion dollars and most people are not gonna pay attention again until there's a continuing resolution in a year.
We are the problem, yes, that's what. Not me and Clay or Clay and I or Clay and me. No, Clay and I. I am not the problem. Clay is not the problem. Okay, we are not. People would say we are the problem. So but that's what I would agree with you. That depends, yes, right, yeah, But I mean we, the American people, when it comes to this, are the problem. And we go through this exercise because we all say, oh my gosh, the dead team.
Check me on. This.
Tea Party is a peaceful political revolution in America in circa what twenty ten, Not the original tea party, different, different kind of tea party, but the Tea Party comes out twenty ten. I think that the deficit is twelve trillion or something.
I think it was ten trillion. That was the number that finally people panicked on ten trillion. We are at thirty six trillion dollars right now, everybody. So if at ten trillion, you know, my dear friend Glenn Beck can get one hundred thousand people out on the mall and try to bring people into Congress who are prepared to handle the problem.
What do we do at thirty six trillion?
Not that much longer, you know, a decade and change after that, thirty six trillion dollars. And it's because every time we talk about it, everyone agrees is a problem, and then we say, well, how do we fix the problem, and we would get one hundred angry calls from people saying, but I've paid into Medicare my whole life, and you can't touch it now. No one's obviously, people shouldn't get medicare. That's a horrible bait and switch, and that shouldn't That's not what anyone's suggesting exom when anyone's talking about it's not necessary, that's not.
What you need to do.
But there are reforms, there are changes to some of these programs that could be made without leaving people who have paid into them high and dry. That would change for the future, that would have a dramatic impact on the budget.
And the question is do we have the political will to do it?
And Clay this time around, I think the answer is still Unfortunately, if this resolution goes through, this r goes through, the answer is no, we don't have the political will. And then what we're on is a conveyor belt to the edge of a cliff, and by the time we all agree it has to be fix it will be too late to fix it in a way that does not result in massive economic devastation and tremendous loss of financial stability and prosperity for the future. So, you know, we can pick, we can pick our poison. And I think we know what we're doing right now. You know, we're we're drinking the eggnog and worrying about the calories tomorrow totally.
And we're going to be one hundred trillion dollars in debt. And most politicians will not tell you any of this because if they do, and they try to address it to bucks point, the American public overwhelmingly rejects the idea that you should even talk about the problem.
It's like, to your.
Point on the on the drink the egnog, we're about the calories tomorrow. It's like being wildly obese and getting mad when somebody says, maybe you should eat a little bit less, And that's that.
It's the unfortunate reality.
Whether you're Democrat, Republican, independent, nobody talks about the ticking time bomb of the entitlements and the fact that in the next twenty to forty years this is going to blow up into an even larger issue. Now, that doesn't mean that there isn't incredible amounts of graft inside of our government, that we shouldn't have far fewer federal employees than we do. It's just that you can't. The analogy I used to use is, yeah.
No, I don't want to interrupt.
You tell me the analogy, and then I'll tell you the feedback we're getting right now from this conversation in real time.
I'm sure people are mad at us for even bringing it up. But here it's like saying we've got to go on a diet, but you can only lose weight in your right arm, like you can't fix your body by only addressing issues in the right arm, the whole body has to be addressed. That's the reality of our budget depths. That are we getting deluged with people who are mad about like anytime you mention it, yeah, of course.
Yeah, vip Cynthia, quit calling social security and entitlement. It is not welfare. We paid in all our working lives and are just getting your money out back. I didn't even think I did I even did we say social Security is entitlement. I don't even I was talking about Medicare, which is a.
I think again the way that you classify this, it's an entitlement, meaning the money has to be spent out. In other words, every year they don't vote on Hey, what are social Security and medicare going to be?
Right?
It's an automatic entitlement inside of the government. That's an accurate phrase. I don't know why she's upset about that, but in other words, it has to be spent. It isn't a line item. Every year social Security grows at a certain rate, every year, Medicare grows at a certain rate adjusted for inflation, and it isn't addressed. It's not like it's a part of the larger budget resolutions. It's an entitlement that's accurate. I don't know what that a quibble with term. Well, it's very straight it's very straightforward.
I mean you either.
Address I mean, Medicare is the big one that will actually just that just continues to blow a massive hole through the budget every year. So you can address Medicare, and you can address some ways social Security, and a little bit of defense spending too, you could probably throw in there as well. That's the one that Republicans generally don't want to talk about, although there are Republicans who love defense spending and then they go work for Lockheed or sit on the board there, or become lobbyists for it. But you know, we either care about this or we don't. And I kind of think that a lot of Republicans ever reached the point where they say everyone wants to everyone wants to say they care about the debt, nobody wants to actually deal with it. Everyone wants to spend, everyone.
Wants to say Santa Claus is real.
It's just he's the guy who's paying all the bills for the government that we don't actually have the money for. So we print the money, which debases the currency, which means everything gets more expensive, which means grandchildren. Right now of people who are receiving these programs are going to be in a less well off country than they would have otherwise been because paying the interest on the debt is going to be massive. But you know, man, this this is our this was our grinch segment. You know what spend spend like, there's no spend like, there's no tomorrow. Everybody, forget about it. What's the difference. Let's go to one hundred trillion. Let's ride that train. Let's ride off the end of the cliff because we all are owed it, right, We're all owed it.
Let's do it.
I want Medicare and Social Security too, exactly as they are.
Yay Mary Christmas. By the way, Mary christ was everybody. I'll just point this out. Also, I'd prefer the government didn't take our money, like let you invest for retirement on your own instead of taking I think the Social Security program in general is wildly under discussed, which has ballooned our federal government and oftentimes is not actually what I personally would choose. I don't want the government to take my money when I'm young and healthy and then give it back to me. If I happen to live to be seventy five, I'd rather keep all my money all the time. I think I can use it better than the government. Maybe that's just me. Look when severe weather reeks havoc on our ability to stay in touch with each other, Rapid Radios has a solution for it. Rapid radios walkie talkies are modern day versions of an age old way to stay in touch. Rapid radios allow you to connect with family, friends, employees, all via a nationwide LT network for your connection. It's a one way, button, one touchway of staying in touch. With a rapid radio's walkie talkie. You can talk to one family member with the push of a button, or every family member at the same time, and the distance between you and the intended connection point doesn't matter. It can be anywhere in the US, so you can talk to relatives and friends close by and far away. For a limited time. Go to rapid radios dot com. You'll be up to sixty percent off on that product, free ups shipping for Michigan, plus a free protection bag.
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US and politics, but also a little comic relief Clay Travis at Buck Sexton find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome back in Clay Travis buck Sexton Show. Appreciate all of you hanging out with us. A lot of people. Well, we got some talkbacks? Shall we play some talkbacks here?
Buck?
Let people react to some of the comments that we have had so far. This is from Tampa. Unidentified Tampa listener. By the way, when you reach out through and you leave a message for us, you might want to use your name and so we don't have to say unidentified as if you're a UFO, but this is a Tampa listener, has a has a take.
Listen.
The elephant in the room is term limits. You have these politicians that have been there for years. They promise everything they put jump into the budget just to make their constituents happy. We really need term limits that would help cust the budget.
I I don't disagree in general with the idea of term limits, and we've said on this show for some time, Buck, don't. I don't think you should spend like Joe Biden did fifty years in government. Government should be something you do, not something that is your job. For your entire life. The problem with term limits in general is we all can go vote for whoever we want in Congress every two years or in the Senate every you know, six year terms, but every four years pretty much there's a Senate race in your favorite your home state.
They serve terms. So the whole point is the accountability comes for reelection. And some of these Republicans, I think, is where people get so frustrated. In particular, they just play the same game. You know, I don't know, maybe there's a deep state republic I mean a deep red Republican senator, deep state Republicans and a deep deep red Republican senator who you know goes along with the DC consens us a lot, but he shows up on Fox News once in a while a few good things, and everyone forgets and they keep elected him, electing him, And there's a whole bunch of these where, you know, I just want to say, like, why why is there a cent Why is Senator Cornyn able to represent the great state of Texas. Why is James Langford representing what is the Oklahoma right? And he's the guy who went along with the idiotic border bill in the election year, which is all just to give cover to Democrats. Well, people in Oklahoma are going to vote for James Langford again probably, or at least they voted for him in the first place. You know, we got to take accountability, man. The the the end of accountability is the end of doing any good things in government because no one's ever responsible for anything.
So that's that's how I feel about it.
Let me also hit this h since we're playing grinch here, let me also hit this social security concept in general, because I think a lot of times people don't really examine things because they just have always been there. So security is an awful, I think construct that eventually has to explode. And the reason why that is just follow me along here, and by the way, you can reach out and explain if I'm not understanding something basic. But I'm just trying to explain people in a couple of minutes. What goes on here. They take, meaning the government does a set portion of your paycheck from the moment you start getting a job, and they say we'll give this back to you when you get old. When they take your money, they don't allow that money to grow at its natural rate. If you just bought say s and P five hundred index funds and reinvested it. You would make over time eight or nine percent over the course of that time. And by the way, the reason why compound interest works and why you should invest I'm giving you a little bit of a tip is what I do every ten years, your money should double if you invest it decently. If you just buy index funds and what touch it, just every ten years, it should double.
Okay.
They give you instead of what you would actually earn on your money, they give you a rate of return, which is basically inflation, and typically inflation is two or three percent if you have a decent person in charge of the economy, not Joe Biden, right, and then you only get it if you and or your spouse are alive when you get to that age. That's an awful freaking deal, and most people just accept it because it's always existed for all of our lives. And now it's going to implode because it was always predicated on the idea that there are more young people than there are old people.
But if you look at the distribution.
Of ages in this country, we are soon going to have an aging and graining population. And this is not unique to the United States. This is happening all over the world, buying large except for Africa, and so the math doesn't add up because there aren't enough young people to pay for old people's retirement. But the deal itself is a bad one for everyone. And if you're out there and you actually labor, that as you work with your hands, you are physically doing a hard, physical job as opposed to like what you and I do, Buck, or you just sitting talking to a mic. But if you're out there listening to us right now and at the end of the day you're tired physically because of your labor, you actually get the worst deal of all because your average age, your average length of life is lower. So poor people don't live as long as rich people. So you're taking the money from poor people and you're using it to pay for rich people's retirement.
Nobody talks about.
It them Budsman here at Clay, But we are vocal court athletes, sir, so you know, let's give us.
But do you know sometimes this is where having kids is so interesting, because kids come to the world with open eyes and they think, like, is this the right thing to do? Young people in general, the older you get the less you question, by and large, whatever system you find yourself in.
This is this is about psychology, not about math. That's the problem. And the psychology is people want to know that when they're old, the government will be there for them. That's what this really comes down to. It's the same way that no matter how many times we go over minimum minimum wage and it doesn't work the way that it's intended. People like minimum wage because they like the idea of people being paid a decent wage for their labor, and they don't trust the market and they worry about exploitation.
So it's emotional.
So I can tell people that you know, by setting the minimum wage, if you set it too high, here's what happens. People lose jobs automation know. Yeah, we can go through some million times people like it and the thing and this is why a little bit of this is kind of you know, sticking our hand into.
The blender on this issue a little bit. Thanks Clay.
Right before Christmas, he's like, let's let's antagonize some of the pro soles.
Well, this cr is going on and people get fired up every year and they're like, we gotta do something about this.
And then the CR gets passed and nothing.
The truth is, you know, I actually saw this, this clip of Believe It or Not Ben Affleck. I saw him discussing I know this is gonna sound like a diversion, but like Trump, I'm weaving.
I'm weaving. It's gonna make sense.
The ben Affleck very astute on AI and what we'll do for the entertainment industry. I don't know if you've seen that clip as well, but he's he can dial into things. He does understand. He does not understand the Middle Easter or politics, but he understands AI in the context of movies, and he also understands suffering in the context of somebody who struggled with alcohol. Yeah, and I saw this clip of him where he just said, you know, there's all this stuff, and he said, I give respect to twelve step programs.
I give respect to AA. It's very helpful for people.
He's like, the fundamental truth is you will change when you have just suffered enough, when you've decided I'm and for him, the point was, my alcohol abuse is hurting my relationship with my kids and that cannot continue. I have suffered enough. I will change with some of these issues of structural finance and the debt and the yearly deficit everything. I think we haven't suffered enough, and so we won't change because we haven't suffered enough. And I know that this is not satisfactory for people because anyone who looks at the numbers, so security runs out, I should say it's insolvent, doesn't run out. In twenty thirty five medicare, people say I pay into medicare. Most people take out twice what they pay in. Okay, that's not mathematically sustainable, but I just, man, we haven't suffered enough. We haven't seen the interest on the debt become one of the you know, the third largest budget items, bigger than even the Pentagon. We haven't seen what that does to household income. We haven't, So I hate to be the bear of manam I'm taking your grinch roll right now. The truth is Americans haven't suffered enough from the overspending, so we're not going to do anything about it. The only thing that can save us is if Doge starts to rack up some wins on the small stuff and people realize this is doable. The alternative more suffering until we want the suffering to stop, and it may be too late to stop it.
Here's the other downside on this, buck, how many people lack the ability to understand basic economics, so they're not They may recognize the result, but they're not aware of how to fix the situation. That's a bit like everybody understands that prices are out of control. When you go to the grocery store, you feel it. When you drive through a fast food restaurant, you feel it. But how many people understand what's necessary to fix that. That's my concern. And even on the suffering, you can suffer but not understand how to rectify the suffering. On the analogy with Ben Affleck, if you're an alcoholic, at some point you look at the alcohol and you say, that is doing this to me. I'm not going to touch it anymore. It's a rational response. Most people can understand that. My concern is we don't teach basic economics very well to the average kid in America, and so a lot of people don't have the tools to understand how to rectify economic failure in the country and then hold people accountable who are making the choices that cause it. That's my concern.
Something that you know, I try to I wish I whoa ginger. Sorry about that.
That scared me. I thought it was a rooster ginger. Just right.
She snuck under the radio table. She's being such a little peaceful, little snuggle bunny under the table here, and someone came in the front door and she just jumped up like a watchdog. Sorry about that, everybody, that kind of caught me. She's been napping peacefully at my feet the entire show. You know what, when we come back, I think Ginger is saying, enough, you clowns, stop talking about this sad stuff. Let's talk about Christmas at holiday cheer and take some of your calls, hopefully nice ones and you know, meaning nice about us, but maybe not. Well we'll get into all that coming up in a second. Fellow gun owners, some eve been asking me. I was glad they've been asking me on next to like, Hey, I'm seeing you. You're really dialed in on your shooting these days. What's going on?
People?
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Play Travis and Buck Sexton telling it like it is. Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
