Daily Review With Clay and Buck - Feb 21 2025

American foreign policy. WI Sen. Ron Johnson. Trump vs. Maine. The Bud Light backstory.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to today's edition of the Klay, Travis and Buck
Sexton Show podcast. Buck, let's talk a little bit about
this Ukraine United States rupture to the extent we call
it a rupture in a pursuit of a ceasefire. And
there's a bunch of interesting dynamics on this and what

(00:21):
has been happening and where we are exactly as it
pertains to this decision making. And that's a lot of
words to say this. Trump has ratcheted up the pressure
on Zelensky on a level that never existed during the
Biden administration, saying We're not going to give you an

(00:42):
unlimited check. We need now to find a way to peace.
And Elon Musk was asked about this. I'm going to
play a really good description, I believe of Marco Rubio,
who we had on last week Secretary of State, laying
out exactly why the United States is upset with what

(01:03):
Zolensky has been doing in public and where this all
comes from. Uh, but in particular, Elon yesterday was speaking
and said, people say I'm a bought asset of Putin.
He couldn't afford me, which is quite the flex.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Listen to cut six.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
If people like to end this say like, yeah, you
know I'm a I'm a bought.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Asset of Putin. Yeah, I'm like he can't afford me. Yeah,
I think you're worth.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
More than Russia. Think about it. True, by the way,
and that's why it's funny, because it is true.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
That is an incredible flex to be able to put
that out there. And so in a minute here Buck
Marco Rubio sat down and laid out what's going on,
and in essence, it is that Zoleni has been saying
publicly different things than what he's been saying privately. Yes,
And if you are involved in a negotiation on any

(02:09):
subject out there and someone says something different face to
face with you, then they say, then publicly you can
understand where the anger would come from from Trump. And
initially Zelensky has been dishonest with American negotiators, either face

(02:30):
to face or publicly. His story is not adding up.
And so the United States is finally saying publicly, hey,
you don't have a blank check forever. And also, hey,
honesty actually matters when it comes to trying to negotiate
a settlement of some form.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
What do the people who oppose Trump on this want
for Ukraine for the next two years. What is the
end goal that they are putting forward. I mean, that's
where I think the conversation becomes much more clear. There's
a lot of rhetoric about oh, but democracy and standing

(03:10):
with Ukraine and Rush is the aggressor and all this stuff.
All of that is and maybe or maybe and is true.
Whatever the point is, do you want the war to end?
If you don't want the war to end, why and
what do you think is better than that? And what
you really have to have is somebody come forward to say,
I think if we just keep if we give the

(03:32):
Ukrainians another two hundred billion dollars of US taxpayer funding
and money or you know, weapons and money and all
the rest of it, then I think that they'll be
able to defeat the Russian Federation and kick them out
of Ukraine entirely and have all of their sovereignty back.
That's the only really Otherwise what they're saying is nonsense
and really pretty immoral, which is that they don't want

(03:54):
the conflict and the problem play with coming out and
saying that is anybody who understands the the order of
battle of these two sides, what they can bring to
bear men materiel, munitions. Understands that that's just fantasy land stuff.
It's just not going to happen. It would have been
a lot closer to happening over the last two years

(04:15):
if it could happen. And we're getting to the point
now where the war of attrition component of this as
in military age males and beyond, because in Ukraine they're
taking guys who are far older than what we usually
think of as a military age male.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
They've been losing.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
So many people and so many taking so many dead
and casualties and wounded and everything that if someone's going
to run out, it's going to be Ukraine first. The
even scarier thought that maybe some have but won't say
out loud in this country is well, if we just
keep backing them, eventually we're going to have to just
step in and help them hold the line ourselves. And
that's where people really lose their minds, I think rightly

(04:51):
so on our side, because hold on a second, we've
been promised the whole time that would never ever ever happen,
but we've been worried about it happening nonetheless because of
Mission Cree. So Trump is trying to bring this to
an end. Zelenski seems to be talking out of both
sides of his mouth on the issue. You know, I
saw that Ukrainian soldier tear the American flag off his helmet,
and I just pointed this out. I think it's true.

(05:12):
Without American taxpayers, he probably wouldn't have that helmet or
that kevlar to tear anything off of in the first place.
So there's not I understand, they're.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Fighting a war.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
It's a very you know, it's a very horrific thing,
but America has been more than generous to help a
country that I still think, if you're looking at what
is in our strategic interest, who's in control of the
Donbas region of Ukraine really doesn't matter to us very much.

(05:41):
And that is just the cold hard reality of it.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
And what Trump is trying to do now is there
is an expectation that Ukraine has substantial mineral rights and
you're gonna hear this from Marco Rubio in a moment,
and given the fact that we have given Ukraine hundreds
of billions of dollars in American aid, our taxpayer dollars,
Trump is saying, if you want us to help in
this conflict, we should get some of these mineral rights,

(06:07):
and then the United States is incentivized in some way
to help protect Ukraine going forward because we're partners on
a business relationship, and that would theoretically dissuade Russia from
deciding to invade again. Because the real concern Buck is,
let's say you solve this now and then Putin decides, Hey,

(06:28):
you know what I need more territory. You're trying to
resolve this so that it doesn't continue forever. And remember
this all started with crimea, with the way that Barack
Obama responded when Russia decided they wanted to take some
of Ukraine's territory. So I think Marco Rubio, Secretary of State,
does a really good job of laying out exactly what

(06:49):
is going on right now. This was an interview he
did today. Listen.

Speaker 4 (06:53):
Frankly, I was personally very upset because we had a
conversation with President Zelenski, the vice president, and I the
two three of us, and we discussed this issue about
the mineral rights, and we explain to them, look, we
want to be a joint venture with you, not because
we're trying to steal from your country. But because we
think that's actually a security guarantee. If we're your partner
in an important economic endeavor, we get to get paid

(07:14):
back some of the money the taxpayers have given close
to two hundred billion dollars. And it also now we
have a vested interest in the security of Ukraine. And
he said, sure, we want to do this deal. It
makes all the sense in the world. The only thing
is I need to run it through my legislative process.
They have to approve it. I read two days later
that Zelenski's out there saying I rejected the deal. I

(07:34):
told them no way, that we're not doing that. Well,
that's not what happened in that meeting. So you start
to get upset by somebody. We're trying to help these guys.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
Okay, So I think that's a pretty good explanation of
what's going on. And when you have people saying things
to you privately that are different than what they're saying publicly,
you can understand why would be hard to work with them.
And that's really kind of where Trump is. And look,
Marco Rubio took you into the room. It's e jdvain
Zolensky sitting down trying to figure out how to hammer

(08:02):
out this deal. Zolensky agrees to it in private, rips
it in public, and then Trump decides, Hey, I can't
work with this guy. I'm going to tee off.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
You know, it's interesting as well that the expectation somehow
on all of this is that America is supposed to
back Ukraine because it's the right thing to do. Well,
you know, you know, I've got a number of friends
were lawyers. You're a friend, you're a lawyer. I've got
a lawyer in my family. And I've heard from lawyers

(08:32):
before Clay that the most some of their favorite words
to hear as litigators is when someone says, it's the principle.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah, it's a great gig. It's the principle of the thing.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
When you're suing somebody and you're going through legal process,
gets very expensive, very quickly, and because you're not actually
looking at the cold hard reality of what you're supposed
to what you're supposed to get from this situation, you're
just I want this thing because of the way I
feel about it, And we're not supposed to run foreign

(09:03):
policy that way. Actually, And this is where Trump differs
from a lot of the foreign policy can sens us
out of DC in recent decades, particularly with Democrats. Democrats
only seem to like US military intervention when there's no
interest of the United States at stake. You know, it's
you know, we're gonna oh bad things are happening in Libya.
So Hillary is like, yeah, we came, we saw he died.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Remember that.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Like they like to do things where there's some humanitarian
impulse or there's some defensive democracy impulse or whatever. That's
actually not the way we should run our foreign policy.
It should be what is good for America and for
the American people. And that's there's a big fight. And
it's still even among Republicans. Some of them are a
little more quiet about it, but they have the more

(09:45):
neo contendency to get more, to do more intervention, to
get more involved. You know, I mean, how many people
who even know you see, there were seventy Christians were beheaded.
I saw this in a church this week in the Congo.
Should we should we land the eight second airbord and
just start, you know, getting it getting down to business
and protecting people and everything else. You can make a

(10:05):
humanitarian argument that oh my gosh, seventy two people are
beheaded in a church, like, we have to go. It's
a horrible thing, we have to go right away. Well,
the question you have to ask is before we put
Americans in harm way or we start writing huge checks
from the American people, what does this do for America?
And in Ukraine, when I start to hear people talk
about what that what that response would be, I go,

(10:26):
that's not you know, defensive democracy is very vague. Defensive
democracy was Vietnam everybody. I mean, defensive democracy is a
little bit like the principle of the thing when you're
suing somebody, which is you're losing sight of the actual
interests of the individual and deciding that how you feel
about it is more important than the realities on the ground.
And I think that's led to a lot of big

(10:47):
foreign policy mishaps. And in Ukraine it's why the war
has grinded on for two years instead of it should
have gone to within six months. They should have been
trying to negotiate this thing, no ifens or buts in
the Biden administration and bring it to a conclusion. No,
they thought that if we just gave them more stuff,
eventually they would start to they would win. That was
what that was.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
The New York Times is was writing whole pieces.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
Clay every time the fighting season, which is when it's
not as cold there and there's not as much snow
and ice on the ground fighting season WU was started
was all, you know, Ukraine, this time around, they're going
to really kick the Russians butts. And then within a
few weeks it was hmm, actually no, that didn't happen.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
And the question now is how do you end it?
How do you end it? Do we want for American
taxpayers to continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars
as Russia slowly but inevitably inches forward on Ukraine. I
think the hard reality is Ukraine cannot win this war,

(11:45):
and it is self evident to anyone who has looked
at the way this war has gone over the last
really two years. And so there has to be a
negotiated piece in some way. What Trump is offering seems
imminently rational. Hey, we will help you develop mineral rights
so that the United States taxpayer is getting some benefit

(12:06):
for all of the money that we have spent. And
as a result of that, based on that alliance as
opposed to allowing you into NATO, which Russia would see
as a direct provocation. We are then going to have
a security relationship predicated on this business relationship, and the
Ukrainians will have a successful extraction of mineral rights, and

(12:29):
the United States taxpayer will get back some of the
money that we invested here. That seems eminently rational to
me at this point.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
And you look at the casualty figures, I would note
the official Ukrainian casualty figures are thirty one thousand killed
in this conflict. We lost how many Vietnam fifty thousand,
I thousand, Yeah, so, and that went on a lot
longer than this has gone on. But the Wall Street

(12:58):
journals reporting on an internal assessment from Ukraine that they
didn't that's not the official, but that's actually closer to
what they we think is the reality is eighty thousand
killed and four hundred thousand wounded. Eighty thousand killed, four
hundred thousand wounded in three years of this fight or
two to three years.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
Right, they invaded in twenty two years?

Speaker 3 (13:18):
Yeah, yeah, so so it's been three years.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
So this is.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
I just feel like it's so clear that the sooner
you can stop the carnage the better. Uh, because this
is really about terror. You know, this is about a
territorial dispute. Russia is not going the people that say
Russia is going to run over the rest of Europe.
That's I know Zelenski says it, but that's just insane.
So why not end this thing?

Speaker 5 (13:44):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (13:44):
And ended as soon as possible. And and I'm not somebody.
Some people get to the place where they say, you know,
Zelenski's a crook and he's lied, he's taking billions of dollars,
and I just want the war to stop.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
I agree. I'll also point out those numbers that you
just shared, four hundred thousand wounded. A lot of people
survive now that would have otherwise died because of our
advances in medical.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
Technology, lost in armor lost, but it is both legs
and they didn't bleed. It is devastating the rest of
the life that they're going to have. It's fortunate that
their lives were saved, but we're not talking about guys
who took a piece of shrapnel and you'd never know
they were wounded. A lot of these individuals are disabilitated
on a level that you would never have survived in

(14:28):
past years, and so it's going to be very hard
for them to recover.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
We'll take some of your calls. By the way, it's Friday,
eight hundred and two two two eight a two. But
I want to tell you we're talking about how the
war in Ukraine ends. But if you're interested in how
World War one happened, or World War two, or maybe
you're out there and you're like, hey, you know what,
I never really read Shakespeare like I wish I had,
or man Mark Twain, I kind of maybe I got

(14:53):
the cliff Notes out back in the day, and I
didn't really read Huckleberry Finn and some of the other
incredible works out there. Hey, we're talking about the Constitution
all the time. Maybe you aren't as well versed in
the Founding Fathers as you wish you were. Maybe you
didn't spend that much time in history class or literature
class or the history of the world, and you want

(15:13):
to know more about ancient Rome. That's what Hillsdale's for.
You can learn for learning's sake. On your timeline, you
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Maybe you're a late night owl. Maybe you do get
up super early in the morning. And that's your free time.
It's all what's best for you. You can go to
clayanbuckfour Hillsdale dot com, no cost, easy to get started,
Clay and Buck fo r Hillsdale dot com to register.

(15:37):
You can check out all of these great college level
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to expand your depth of knowledge. If you're intellectually curious
at all, why not check it out and see clayandbuckfour
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(15:58):
no grades. You're gonna love it. It's learning for learning's sake.
Clayanbuckfour Hillsdale dot com. One more time, clayanbuckfour Hillsdale dot com.
We are joined now by our friend Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson,

(16:20):
and we're going to dive into the latest on the
budget and the priorities of twenty twenty five in the
Senate with him in a moment. But I actually want
to start with you because I know the conversation about
Ukraine has been very detailed of late, and you have
met with Zelensky before, and I'm curious what your experience

(16:43):
has been like with him and what your thoughts are
on the attempt to bring peace to the region after
almost three years of war.

Speaker 5 (16:53):
Now, so yeah, I was the chairman of the European
Subcommittee when he became President Ukraine. So I was the
only member of Congressant's inauguration in May of twenty nineteen.
Then I went back with Senator Chris Murphy in September.
At that point in time, Presidentcelinsky told us that he
knew he could not dislodge Russia from the Don Boss

(17:16):
or from Crimea, and that he had to do a
piece deal with him. He knew it wouldn't be popular
in Ukraine be so that that's what he had to do. So,
you know, obviously things changed and he was I think
encouraged bribe by the Biden administration to resist Pudin. And
you know, now we've got the three year bloody stalemate,

(17:37):
and I'm completely on board with the what President Trump
wants to do, which is to end the war. There's
no way that Pudin is going to lose that war.
You have to face that reality. You know, none of
us like that reality, but it's just true. So the
do war has to end.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
I think it's fair to say that Zelenski was invaded
by Russia partly because Biden was there and Putin didn't
trust Biden's toughness. Do you think also, there would have
been peace sooner if Biden and his administration had been
open to it, as opposed to what now looks like
the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, both Ukrainian

(18:16):
and Russian.

Speaker 6 (18:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (18:18):
Yeah, I was not in Is Son bull, but you
hear stories of the fact that they were very close
to a peace deal. Have not had a peace deal
then Bidensen born Boris Johnson in there to kind of
blow that thing up. So sure, first of all, the
war never started. We should have told Russia, no, we're
not going to offer Ukraine NATO membership. I think that
probably would have prevented her right there. We could have

(18:39):
probably done more in terms of arming Ukraine early to deter.

Speaker 7 (18:44):
Putin.

Speaker 5 (18:45):
But again, they had a peace agreement, as we're told,
and that got blown up by Boris Johnson at the
best of a Biden. So no, this thing never never
should have started, never should have gone on this long.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
Do you think Senor Johnson appreciate you being with us?

Speaker 1 (19:01):
It's buck.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
Do you think that this is something that President Trump
will be able to bring at least to a cease
fire relatively quickly. Do you think that we could see
it by the summer? I know, I'm asking you to
project out a little bit, but just based on your
sense of Trump and his team and Secretary of Rubio's
capabilities and the realities on the ground here, and you know,

(19:22):
the strategic realities on top of all of that, what
kind of a timeline are you hopeful Trump can achieve.

Speaker 5 (19:30):
Well as soon as possible. Again, I'm not gonna like
the deal. I don't think anybody's gonna like the deal.
You know, maybe Putin will like the deal. You know, again,
this is awful. But every day that goes by, the
deal gets worse because more Ukrainians, more Russian conscripts die,
more Ukraine gets destroyed. So again, I've just been focusing
got in this war. I've been saying that for a

(19:51):
couple of years.

Speaker 6 (19:52):
Now.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
Let's go into the budget situation, long night in the Senate.
A lot of things that are going to be occurring.
What should the our listeners know about where we are
headed with the budget process here in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 5 (20:09):
You have to know the numbers. You know, in Washingt
d C. They don't really like talking numbers much, but
the facts are in twenty nineteen, we spent four point
four trillion dollars. Then we had COVID, went on a
massive by Parson spending spree, spent almost six point six trillion.
And I've said this in the past, no family, if
they had an illness, had to borrow fifty thousand dollars

(20:32):
pay medical bills. If that family never got well, you
wouldn't keep borrowing fifty thousand dollars and spend at that level.
That would be insane. But that's exactly what the federal
government done is done the last five years, we've averaged
six point five billion dollars. Last year, we spent six
point nine This year, we're on a path to spend
seven point three trillion dollars. So four point four to

(20:55):
seven point three trillion dollars, that's the sixty three percent increase,
while our populations go on two point six percent. So
what we need to do is we need to return,
like a family would, to some kind of pre pandemic
spending levels. I've laid out four options. What happened is
the Chairman Graham of the budget me took my option
where I said, use President Trump's own budget for twenty

(21:19):
twenty five. Back before he left office, he projected out
his budget for twenty twenty five. If you'd use his
numbers plus day, social Security, Medicare, and interest, he'd be
spending about six trillion, sixty one billion dollars. That is
what we use in the budget we passed last night
in the US Senate. I've laid on other options too.

(21:39):
If you use Clinton's spending from nineteen ninety eight and
you increase it by population growth and inflation plus this
year's social Security, medicare, and interest said be five point
five billion dollars, and we'd virtually have a balanced budget.
But other words, using Clinton's spending priorities inflate it did

(21:59):
have a balanced budget. If you use Obama's spending priorities
from twenty fourteen, it'd be six point two trillion dollars.
So I've laid up. I tell my colleagues you all
campaign on zero based budgeting, right, We'll never do it,
but this is the next best thing. How about a
five point five for a six point one trillion dollar

(22:20):
based budget. Let's do that. What the House is doing
is they're basically starting at seven point three trillion dollars
and they're suffering death by one thousand cuts because everybody looks,
we can't cut that, can't cut that, can't cut that,
and so the House budget. You know, listen, I appreciate
the difficult nature of this, appreciate what they're trying to do,
but they're basically going from seven point three trillion dollars

(22:42):
and at most they've cut two hundred billion from that
and let end up at seven point one trillion. It's
totally inadequate. It sounds like a big number. We're gonna demand.
We're gonna cut one point five trillion dollars over ten years,
and we So what I messaged to President Trump, I
told this Vice President Vance when he's in lunch this week.

(23:04):
I said, you know, I don't think anybody did voters
for you either or President Trump expect you to be
spending at President Biden's levels. But that, in fact is
what we're doing here. That's what the House Budget does.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
Speaking to Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and a senator,
there's been a lot of noise from Democrats, Senator, senate
colleagues of yours, various Democrat appointee judges, from the federal
bench trying to prevent access to these kinds of numbers
about spending, whether it's at the Treasury Department. I know

(23:40):
the IRS has gotten a visit from DOGE. Do you
think that that's all being worked out and that Trump's
you know, stamp of approval on Elon and the DOGE
team to go in and do this is going to
be respected or because to a lot of people, it
just seems like Democrats are obstructing something that should be

(24:00):
a truly bipartisan which is, let's see if they can
find fraud, waste and abuse, and where they find it,
they should be able to you know, the government should
deal with it.

Speaker 5 (24:09):
Well, Democrats use government to fund their radical left ideology
and they don't want the public to see it, and
so they are resisting it. You know, the good news
is the court so are actually supporting President Trump. I
completely support what Elon Musk is doing. And the narrative
is always unelected. All the bureaucrats that refused to turn

(24:30):
over information to members of Congress and American public, they
are unelected. I have a far greater faith in a
representative from a duly elected president elected to do just
this going in there and uncovering this. Now the trick's
going to be just because Elon Musk and no uncovers
the waste for an abuse doesn't make it go away.

(24:52):
You know, we have to do that through the legislate
of the process. And again that's why I've been supporting
a keep it simple process. You know what the Senate
is doing. Okay, let's first start by giving Trump the
resources he needs to secure the border, defend this nation.
I would actually do a three step process. Next, I'd
come back using that same budget. By the way, in

(25:12):
tasking that we use current policy on taxes, which means
all we have to do is come back a second reconciliation.
Say we're going to extend the current tax code, as
complex as awful as it is. By doing that, we
would prevent a massive automatic tax increase that occurrent twenty
twenty six. Then we come back in the third round

(25:33):
with a fiscal twenty twenty six budget, and that's where
we do all the other stuff. I mean, that's where
you skip fire rational as the tax code. That's where
we take a look at Trump's tax proposals. That's when
we do the pre pandemic spending level it's not going
to be easy. But as you're seeing the House, the
one big beautiful bill is one really complex bill, which

(25:56):
I think is probably one really impossible to pass bill
right off the bat. And President Trump needs the border funding.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Now we're talking to Senator Ron Johnson. You made the analogy,
and I think it's a good one. In twenty nineteen,
we had a four point four trillion dollar budget. Democrats
but also Republicans signed on to blow up that bill.
That budget. During COVID money just flew out. We ratcheted
up the national debt by a massive degree. Isn't there

(26:25):
also a pretty good historical analogy here, Look, we responded,
you know, and you've been on the show a lot.
Much of the government and much of society failed in
responding to COVID. But if you go back historically during
World War II, we ratcheted up spending massively for the
federal government. But as soon as World War two was over,
we dialed that back down and came back to some

(26:47):
form of sanity because we weren't fighting the war anymore.
Isn't it kind of crazy that there's almost no debate
about the budgetary policies that were put in place during
COVID being retracted at all. I don't think most people
even contemplate or discuss this.

Speaker 5 (27:04):
Well, one of the best things the Unit Party has
done is they've transferred to discretionary spending into the mandatory accounts.
So we've increased other mandatory not Social Security, Medicare, or
even Medicaid. We've increased from six hundred and forty two
billion to one point three trillion to twenty nineteen one
thing that this is three omnibuses ago. I asked my

(27:26):
senate colleagues Republican College to say, anybody know how much
in total the federal government spent last year. I asked
the Wash Washington press Corps that nobody knew because we
never talked about it. One of the press guys said, well,
if it was over a trillion dollars, now that's discrashanin spending.
That's less than thirty percent of our budget. So we've
put so much of a federal budget on automatic pilots.

(27:50):
We're supposedly the five hundred and thirty five member boarder
directors of the largest financial area of the world, and
we don't even know in total what we spent now
because our raise that issue three years to go. People
are aware, but they're looking at again. If you start
it seven point three trillion dollars and try and cut
your way through pre pandemic level, you'll never get there.

(28:10):
You have to start at some pre pandemic level baseline. Again,
I've laid out Clinton nineteen ninety eight, Obama twenty fourteen.
I mean even Trump's twenty nineteen. If you inflate that,
you'd only be at six point five trillion. I still
think that's too high, but it's eight hundred billion dollars
below where we are right now, and it's over half

(28:30):
a trillion below where the House is trying to struggle
passing a budget.

Speaker 3 (28:36):
Thanks so much for being with us, Centater Ron Johnson.

Speaker 5 (28:38):
I'm not saying I'm not saying the sat is going
to have a good time or easy time getting down
that level. But at least our budget says six trillion
sixty one billion.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
Okay, Senator Ron Johnson, Wisconsin, Thanks for being with us, sir,
have a great day. Three buses exploded on the southern
edge of Tel Aviv last night, and what is really
police say is to suspect terror attack. Thankfully they were
empty and no one was killed, but it's a reminder
of the constant threat of terror that Israeli citizens are
living under. Understandably, it's left a mark on the psyche

(29:09):
of so many in that country. Case in point, the
Israeli Health Ministry put out a report identifying three million
Israelis who have experienced anxiety, depression and symptoms of post
traumatic stress disorder since the Humos attacks and October of
twenty twenty three. That's no surprise to and following the
events overseas, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has
continued to support those in the Holy Land still facing

(29:30):
the lingering horrors of war and those who are in
desperate need right now. Your ongoing monthly gift of forty
five dollars will provide critically needed aid to communities in
the North and South parts of Israel devastated by the
ongoing war. Your generous donation each month will help deliver
to those in need. Help deliver aid rather to those
in need. You can provide hope during a time of
great uncertainty with your gift. Bless Israel and her people

(29:52):
by visiting SUPPORTIFCJ dot org. That's one word, SUPPORTIFCJ dot
Org or call eighty to eight or eight IFCJ.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
News coming fast and furious, as it sometimes does on Friday,
Buck'll be back with me. He's on his way to Colorado.
Speak to many of you out there. I just played
for you Trump going head to head with the Democrat
governor of Maine over whether men should be allowed to
play in women's sports. I can't believe that that is
the policy that has been adopted by the Democrat Party.

(30:34):
But as we were in break more breaking news Los
Angeles mayor Karen Bass. We talked about her earlier this
week for being virtually absent with the wildfires. In fact,
we played a clip for you where she said they
were doing an investigation into why she decided to be

(30:56):
in Ghana as opposed to in Lost Angelus when there
was deadly wildfires potentially on the horizon. Well, now she
is trying to shift the blame. This just happened in
the last few minutes. Karen Bass announced she has fired
the Los Angeles Fire Department chief, Kristin Crowley, effective immediately,

(31:19):
and she's going to hold a press conference soon. Rick Caruso,
who ran against Karen Bass for mayor of Los Angeles,
has weighed in already. This is what he said on
Twitter slash x. It's very disappointing Mayor Bass has decided
to fire Chief Kristin Crowley. Chief Crowley served Los Angeles

(31:43):
well and spoke honestly about the severe and profoundly ill
conceived budget cuts the Bass administration made to the LA
Fire Department. That courage to speak the truth was brave,
and I admire her. Honesty in a high city official
should not be a firing offense. The Mayor's decision to

(32:06):
ignore the warnings and leave the city was hers alone.
This is a time for city leaders to take responsibility
for their actions and their decisions. We need real leadership,
not more blame passing. That is Rick Caruso, who was
in the runoff with Karen Bass, and you'll remember Elon
Musk came out and said, I think thousands more people

(32:29):
would still have their homes if Rick Caruso had been
in charge instead of Karen Bass. And the evidence for
that is that Rick Caruso was able to keep his
shopping centers in the Pacific Palisades area from burning down
because he had private support to try to ensure that
the flames didn't spread. To his buildings, and the expectation

(32:53):
is that he wouldn't have been in Ghana, and he
might have had the entire LA Fire Department mobilized in
a way to allow them to fight these fires. He
may not have made the cuts, and this is important
and maybe our team can go back and find the audio,
because there was a viral story suggesting that Karen Bass
had fired this fire department chief beforehand, because the fire

(33:17):
department chief said publicly, we didn't have the resources to
be able to to fight this. And so this is
again major breaking news. As the fallout from the LA
wildfires continues, Karen Bass, mayor of Los Angeles, trying to
find someone to blame for the failure of the city
of Los Angeles to respond and protect its citizens' homes,

(33:39):
and so she is now saying the fire chief is fired.
We'll pull that clip because I think this is ultimately
going to come down to an argument over who's to blame.
Was it the fire chief or was it the mayor
who was more culpable in what I think almost everyone
out there, Democrat, Republican, Independent in the LA area and

(34:00):
beyond acknowledges was a completely failed response to those awful
wildfires that came through recently. A bunch of you want
to weigh in, we'll take some of your calls. To
close up the Friday edition of the show. Chris and Sandford, Maine.
I just played the clip of the Democrat governor of
Maine arguing with Donald Trump about whether men should be

(34:24):
able to play women's sports. What do you think? What's
your read on the ground there in Maine for how
this is going to play Trump versus the governor over
this issue.

Speaker 7 (34:34):
First of all, I'd like to thank you guys for
living the dream that Rush knew you guys could.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Well. Thank you so much. We're honored every single day
to sit in front of these microphones and it's a
tremendous privilege to talk with all of you. So thank
you for saying that.

Speaker 7 (34:49):
So one thing I just wanted to touch base on
is this this whole thing about the girls and you know,
being totally overrun by these these guys. Right, it's girls
and guys only two in the world, and the two
in science only.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Shows as only two genders. We agree, by the way,
and most of the audience out there, I would imagine
does as well. There's boys and girls yes, continue.

Speaker 7 (35:12):
And I moved to Maine out of Massachusetts to get
away from the nanny state. I came to Meane because,
believe it or not, there's a lot more of what
I would consider closet Trump supporters up here than you
would like to realize. I've surrounded myself, but it's been
very easy to surround myself that people believe and not

(35:32):
taking this away from the girls that try so hard. Yes,
they get up four or five, six, seven in the
morning to get to these practices, the meats, and they
turn around and they see this guy with a ball
sack beating them.

Speaker 5 (35:49):
They're out of the water first.

Speaker 7 (35:51):
It's not fair. It's just not fair. A friend of mine,
I kind of like to say so, but I've been
supporting a guy called Stewart's.

Speaker 5 (35:59):
Shelf what he is now.

Speaker 7 (36:02):
Him and I have had this conversation. We knew it
was going to come to this right and Janet Mills,
I hope she does exactly what Trump says and has
a good time trying to find a job when she finishes.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Thank you for the call. We'll open up if other
people from Maine want to weigh in. What I would
say in general about this is. It is insane to
me that it has become Democrat Party orthodoxy to support
men identifying as women being able to win women's championships.

(36:35):
And I would implore the Senate to take up this
bill that passed the House. Only two Democrat representatives in
the entire country signed on to a bill that said
you should be competing in all sports based on the
gender on your birth certificate. The fact that the governor

(36:55):
of Maine would be going to war and saying I'll
see you in court because she's refusing to follow a
federal directive is political suicide to me. Now, I will
say this, the reason the Senate needs to act is

(37:15):
the force of Donald Trump's pen and executive order is
strong and powerful, but you also need to undergird it
with the support of Congress because when you pass a
bill that codifies what Trump is saying, to the credit
of the NCAA, they have followed this rule, many states have.

(37:38):
But until the federal legislation has passed, there's going to
be an argument about whether Trump has the executive authority
to undertake this action. I think he does from a
legal perspective, but that's what the governor of Maine is saying.
When she's saying, I'll see you in court. Without Congress
having stepped in and taken this act, She's going to

(37:59):
argue that Trump, you latterly by executive order, doesn't have
the authority to mandate what he is And again the
Senate John Thune, bring this up on the Senate floor,
and I give credit to Trump. To me, this is
a brilliant rhetorical tactical move. He said, is the governor

(38:19):
of Maine here, and he called her out directly to
her face. Let me do I think we still have
that audio, but if you haven't heard it, it's extraordinary
because it crystallized, can be hard to ignore. It crystallizes
Trump's perspective and the Democrat perspective in one SoundBite that
is going to be reverberating everywhere. Let me play this

(38:41):
one more time and then we'll take some calls to
close up the Friday edition of the program. But this
just happened in the White House. Trump versus the Democrat
governor of Maine over the question of can Maine continue
to allow men who identify as women to compete in
athletics in their state? The governor says they can. Trump

(39:03):
says they can't listen.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
The NCAA has complied immediately, by the way, that's good.
But I understand Maine is the main here, the governor
of Maine. Are you not going to comply with it
fer law?

Speaker 3 (39:18):
Well, we are the federal law.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
Well you better do it. You better do it because
you're not going to get any federal funding at all
if you don't. And by the way, your population, even
though it's somewhat liberal orlo I did very well there,
your population doesn't want men playing in women's sports. So
you better you better comply because otherwise you're not getting
any any federal funding.

Speaker 3 (39:38):
See every state.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
Good, I'll see you, and could I look.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
Forward to that.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
That should be a really easy one. And enjoy your
life after governor, because I don't think you'll be an
elected politics.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
Amazing, This is so incredible. Trump set this up. He
knew the governor of Maine was there, he knew that
she was defying him in the White House. That couldn't
have gone any better for him. He just took an
eighty moving towards ninety percent issue that all sorts of

(40:13):
rational people guys sixty six percent roughly of Democrats agree
with Trump on this issue, it's like ninety four ninety
five to five for Republicans. Two thirds of Democrats agree
with him. This according to New York Times poll, it's
not me just like tossing out things eighty percent nationwide,

(40:34):
including roughly two thirds of Democrats. And Maine, to Trump's point,
is not a state that he lost by twenty some
odd points. Maine could vote Republican in twenty twenty eight.
It's up there with New Jersey, Virginia, states, New Mexico
that were not that far away from flipping red five

(40:58):
to six points, kind of there in the margin. You
talk to the Trump team, they say, man, if we
had had the money that Kamala had, if we'd had
the one and a half billion dollars that Kamala raised,
we could have won New Jersey, We could have won Virginia.
We would have been able to be more aggressive in
the way that we spent money. Right now, look at
what's going on. They're trying to flip the New Jersey

(41:20):
governor's race to red. Scott Presler did all the work
to try to flip Pennsylvania back red. He did, but
he's now got a major project underway to register as
many people in New Jersey as possible to flip this back.
How do you flip it back? By being on the
right side of an eighty twenty issue, by being on

(41:42):
the right side of an issue that two thirds of
Democrats actually agree with you on that isn't even remotely political.
Trump has taken advantage of the Democrat Trump derangement syndrome
that they have decided whatever Trump says they oppose and
think about the things that they're opposing. Now, men in

(42:04):
men's sports, women and women's sports, they're opposed to that
wasting fraud in the federal government, shutting down the southern border,
supporting violent criminals. Trump is choosing things that substantial majorities
of the American public agree with him on that aren't
even historically political in nature, being on the right side

(42:26):
of them, and Democrats are crazily lining up to oppose him.
And we just got it crystallized directly from the White House.
It has now become Democrat Party orthodoxy that men pretending
to be women are able to win women's championships. It's crazy.

(42:46):
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We are joined by Anson Frearic's former president at Anaheuser
Busch co founder Strive Asset Management, his new book Last
Call for bud Light, The Fall and Future of America's

(44:20):
Favorite Beer, and Anson, I appreciate you joining us here.
I would submit that the failed Dylan mulvany bud Light deal,
the fact that they send her the bud Light cans him.
Whatever you want to say. Right around the March Madness tournament,
I believe two years ago bud Light sales you can

(44:43):
update me on them. I believe are still down forty percent.
Is this the most destructive ad endorsement product relationship that
has ever existed in modern American capitalism? Can you think
of a worst one? Or is this the worst?

Speaker 6 (45:00):
I mean, Claire, I think this is the worst one.
I mean, maybe you could say that when there was
New Coke, and New Coke came out in the nineteen
eighties and then that plummeted it. Everybody hated New Coke.
The good thing about the Coke executive they should learn
their lesson. They say, hey, we screwed up, We apologize
and they went back to the old formula. And you know,
Coke's doing fine. But that's one of the big problems
here is that this company lost thirty percent of its

(45:21):
sales two years ago. It lost another ten percent of
its sales last year with bud Life. It's still declining
this year. And one of the reasons is that no
one's taking accountability for this. I mean, the CEO is
still there. There's been no apology, and that's why customers
really haven't returned here, which is crazy.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
What would you do. Let's pretend that they came to
you and they said, okay, bud Light is your business.
You have to in some way make it relevant again
for the audience that has abandoned it. Is there anything
they could do that would as you point out, they're
continuing to decline down forty percent. Is the brand dead
no matter what? Or is there a way to bring
it back to life?

Speaker 7 (45:56):
No?

Speaker 6 (45:56):
I mean actually think there's a way to bring this
back to life. And I get into this in in
my book Last Call for Blood Light what you mentioned about.
But I think one of the fundamental problems is is
that this company, Annhezzer Busch. It's no longer American owned.
It was actually purchased by a European company called InBev
about fifteen years ago, and then lots of mistakes were
made over that time period. The in Bev company moved

(46:16):
the corporate headquarters from kind of Saint Louis to New
York City, brought in a lot of foreign executives that
really didn't understand the US consumer. They adopted a lot
of device apology of policies of ESG and DEI. So
a lot of those problems happen. I think a lot
of those go away if they actually sell Annheiser Busch
here in the US back to US citizens. I mean,
sell it to Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway, sell it

(46:38):
to a consortium affirms a Blackstone and Steve Schwartzman's group.
Sell it to one of those. I think the first
thing they can do, which I think would be good
for this European business that hasn't been able to really
understand the US, and it'd be good for the business
here so they could focus more here in the US.
They could bring in American executives, they could bring back
I don't know a lot of the commercials that we
all love. I think even most importantly is that we

(47:00):
could tell their customers that we were sorry, we screwed up,
and that was this old regime. We got rid of it,
and now we're moving forward with you know, kind of
American regime, American values, focused on our customer. We're not
going to get involved in any political silliness. So we
got involved with over the last couple of years. I
think that's the first step.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Why do you think so many brands have ad buyers
and marketing people who have no idea who actually consumes
their product. Isn't that really kind of the essence of
how you make a mistake like this? As you mentioned,
you moved from Saint Louis to New York City. I
knew that bud Light was in real trouble, and I
said this, and it's remained the case. You go around
to tailgates. Now basically no guy who throws a tailgate

(47:40):
at a football game is buying bud Light anymore because
their buddies are going to make fun of them in
the wake of the destruction of the brand. But isn't
this emblematic of larger issues, whether it's with Target, whether
it's with Disney, whether it's with ESPN, the NBA, there
are just a lot of brands out there that have
no idea who their actual consumer is and as a result,

(48:04):
they're completely alienating them.

Speaker 6 (48:06):
Yeah, Claire, I mean you're one hundred percent right about that.
This is not just an Anheuser Busch problem. I mean
Anheuser Busch was the one that was holding the pin
when this whole ESG DEI bubble pop two years ago,
and they were the first time that you saw that
millions of consumers ditched a brand that led to billions
of dollars of loss of shareholder value. And this for
the first time, I think actually was a wake up

(48:27):
call to a lot of the broader corporations. I mean,
you don't get the big rollback and ESG and DEI
that you're seeing right now without the whole budline example,
where you all of a sudden, this is the least
sustainable thing that a company could do was to pander
to a group that wasn't it wasn't necessarily their customer base,
and that they got a brand involved in them that
wasn't authentically bud Light. You know, bud like used to
be about sports and music and bringing folks together, never

(48:49):
got involved in controversial political issues. They lost sight of
that because they had marketing people based in New York
and they used marketing based New York form firms based
in New York City. And then that was like one
of the bigger issues that we saw really across corporate America.
A lot of these firms that were based in Saint
Louis or in Arkansas or Texas, all of a sudden,
they were moving a lot of their headquarters in New York,

(49:10):
hiring New York firms, taking in advice from a lot
of New York based asset management companies. Black Rocks a
good example, who is foicing an ESG and DEI agenda
on them? And so this led to a lot of problems,
and you saw a lot of companies that lost their
way over the last couple of years. I'm actually pleased
to say that there's companies like Disney, they're at least
making the right steps back in the right direction. They

(49:30):
fired their CEO, Bob Chapik, they brought back Bob Biger.
Bob Iger said, we're getting out of politics. We're not
doing it anymore. They've rolled back a lot of their
DEI policies in recent weeks. Are they perfect? No, but
at least that they acknowledged that there was a problem.
I hope we're seeing that more across corporate America. I
think annezer Bushes just a little bit behind the eight
ball on getting there.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
A lot of people said, we're talking to Anson fer
Erics from bud Light, former president there. He's got a
book out last Call for bud Light. Usually people say, oh,
this is not going to last. Two years later, basically
we're still dealing with the continued fallout for bud Light.
Do you think they've been stunned by how toxic their
brand has become? Do you think they ever expected it

(50:10):
to go on this long? Is that why they didn't apologize.
They just kept hoping, Oh, this is going to go away,
Oh this is going to go away, and in the
process their brand just vanished.

Speaker 6 (50:20):
Yeah, I mean one hundred percent that's what they thought.
Because there really hadn't been a very successful i'll call
it consumer boycott previous to this. You know, of course
people were upset when in the NFL. People were kneeling
in the NFL, But what are you going to do?
There's no other alternative on Sundays in the NFL. Yeah,
people were upset at Disney when Disney got involved in
front of rights issues in Florida, but you know, if
your kids want to go to Disney World and not

(50:40):
a lot of alternatives. Bud Light was uniquely susceptible to
this massive boycott really for two reasons. As one is
that they have a commoditized brand, where everywhere there's bud Light,
there's also Miller Lite and cores Light at the exact
same price. And then secondarily, people could actually see the
impact of this boycott. Every single week there's sales data
from retailers like in Kroger in seven to eleven that

(51:02):
gets reported, So every week you were seeing in real
time that bud Light sales were down ten percent, twenty percent,
thirty percent, forty percent. And then with the effect of
social media, you had everybody that was posting photos and
videos online of like the bud Light line at a
baseball game empty and a corese lightline thirty deep, and
so that has just had this big impact on the
business that they didn't realize how susceptible they were because

(51:24):
for ninety five percent of the American population, they can't
tell the difference between bud Light, Miller Lite Course Light.
The only thing that differentiates them is their brand. And
bud Light used to be that fun sports music, backyard
barbecuing kind of like Americana brand that you're talking about
all the guys used to drink at tailgates. Is the
most acceptable brand of the biggest beer brand. And then
when they lost that identity and all of a sudden,

(51:45):
it became this almost like brand like Ben and Jerry's.
Where are they advocating for certain social issues and more
progressive causes by getting involved with Dylan Mulvanium and not
even being able to articulate to the customer what the
brand stands for moving forward. I mean you you remember
that right after this happened, their CEO had multiple botched
attempts of trying to talk about bud Light, never apologize

(52:06):
or a loyal customer base that was called Friday out
of touch, nor talk the more progressive customer base and said,
you know, hey, we're going to be more like Ben
and Jerry's. And I don't know, when you walk in
the middle of a cultural battlefield, they ended up getting
shot at from both sides.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
No, and I think that's a really important part here
about the commoditized brand nature. Chick fil A got ripped
to the high heavens and even people out there that
are super left wing or like you know, I might
not agree with Chick fil A on whatever LGBTQI issue
there is, but they got a great chicken sandwich, and
so I'm going to keep showing up. I love their
waffle fries. I'm not trying to give a free advertisement

(52:41):
for Chick fil A, but I love the brand and
it's hard for me to think of something they could
do that would make me change my decision. But to
your point, for a lot of people who go into
a grocery store or go into a gas station and
are going to grab a twelve or twenty four pack
of a beer, there isn't a lot of different It's
between Miller, Lite, Bud Light, Course Light. I know I'm

(53:03):
gonna get blown up by guys out there, like I
can tell a tremendous difference. I disagree like Guinness, right,
you know when you're drinking a Guinness, you know when
you're drinking a certain type of beer that has a
different flavor and taste. I think for most people, Light
beer is relatively easily replaceable. Let me ask you this question,
and I think that's an important part about why the

(53:24):
boycott works so well. It was an easy change for
people to make. Target smart guy. I really like him.
Jamesduth Meyer now the attorney general in the state of Florida.
One of the first things he's done is file a
lawsuit against Target, going after them for burning up a
great deal of shareholder value, he says, by basically going

(53:44):
all in with the tuck bathing suits, everything else. What
you do now I think is important. But in some way,
is that the effective method to get businesses back to
just saying, hey, can you just serve everybody? Democrat, Republican, Independent,
You don't need to go after this woke agenda. Is
there a lawsuit mechanism in your mind that could be

(54:08):
pursued and should be pursued.

Speaker 6 (54:11):
I mean, there is a lawsuit mechanism, And if you
go back, really the lawsuits that are coming out right
now goes back to really the Civil Rights Act of
nineteen sixty four, which essentially says that you cannot discriminate
based off of a race, sex, gender, national origin, etc.
And a lot of retailers I mean, Target was one
of these, and in the post George Floyd era that
they came out with a lot of essentially racist policies

(54:33):
against certain people. They said that we are going to
hire a certain quota of people that look this way.
Target was allocating shelf space at their stores based off
of race, sex color. That just doesn't make any sense
in the society we're living in. I mean, we live
in a meritocracy. You should be able to put the
products in the shelf that sell. That's the right thing
for the customer, that's the right thing for your shareholder

(54:54):
value as well. I think that's the bigger issue that
Targets facings like why are you pushing forward with a
certain really social type agenda as opposed as putting what sells.
And I think that the bigger issue with Target was,
you know, when you walk into a Target store, their
most valuable real estate is that first big display area
right when you walk in, and when they're putting tuck
friendly bathing suits across every single Target across America, Well,

(55:15):
that's not what the majority of their customer base wants.
And that's not good for shareholders, not good for shareholder value. Yes,
I think the lawsuits, will make sure that they're abiding
by sort of the Civil Rights Act and making sure
that they're not discriminating against people. I think even more importantly,
I think that the American consumer has gone to Walmart's,
has gone to other areas, and Target stock price has
been in the tank over the last year or two

(55:35):
since this controversy. I think what's going to turn around
is again Target recommitting the fundamental principles of serving their customers,
bringing customers back by giving more of the products of
what they want.

Speaker 5 (55:45):
I think that's the more effective way to get this.

Speaker 6 (55:46):
Thing turned around, and consumers again just.

Speaker 5 (55:49):
Vote with your wallets.

Speaker 6 (55:50):
That's the more effective way to get back to serving
all customers.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
The book is the last call for bud Light Anson
for Eric's former president Anhuser Busch speaking with us, last
question for you on a positive side, is every major
brand in America now having meetings on a regular basis
where they say, whatever we do, let's make sure we're
not the next bud Light have. Does the American consumer
sent a huge and important message to corporate America by

(56:16):
not buying bud Light.

Speaker 6 (56:19):
I think they have, and most importantly, I think most
brands right now are having a conversation about just how
do you build trust with the consumer, and you do
it by being authentic. I mean you mentioned Chick fil
A earlier, like I know on Sunday's Chick fil A
is going to be closed. That's like, you know, I
can trust that it's going to be closed. And I
also know this because the family who owns it. I
mean they're like, you know, seven Day Adventists. That's their right.

(56:40):
They can be closed. They can do what they want
to do. They can advocate for policies they want. That's
chick fil A. Let chick fil A be Chick fil A.
That's what makes it unique, interesting and different. And the
same thing with bud Light. Like one of the things
that was just authentic and true about bud Light is
that it was this funny, spratty uh you know, kind
of kind of a inside humor type of brand. Let
bud Light You bud Light, It need to be Ben

(57:00):
and Jerry's by getting involved in every single social issue.
And I think that's more the conversation that's being had.
That's what my book talks a lot about, is about
that authenticity, getting back to trust with brands, building that
back in corporate America, and I think that we're starting
to see the pendulum swing back. I'm optimistic that it
will continue to happen. That'd be good for I think
American businesses, American shareholder capitalism. I think it'll be better

(57:20):
for democracy as well if we're keeping businesses out out
of politics.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
Check it out last call for bud Light Anson Freeriks.
Appreciate the time, have a good weekend.

Speaker 6 (57:29):
Thanks Clai.

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