February 25, 2025 • 36 mins
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is crushing liberal journalists left and right. The Democrat media hierarchy shift. The downfall of Twitter and the rise of X. DOGE email asking for five bullets is causing meltdowns and insubordination. The Philadelphia Eagles are excited to go to the White House. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is worse than Lori Lightfoot. We have fun with audience Talkbacks. Trump is taking his own approach to foreign policy with better results. Star Wars franchise president Kathleen Kennedy fired. Trump surprises WH tour group.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to today's edition of the Clay, Travis and Buck
Sexton Show podcast. All Right, our three Clay and Buck
kicks off now, and our friend Caroline levi Att, the
White House Press Secretary, is crushing Lib's dreams and taking
souls over at the West Wigs a lot of fun
to watch, making them very sad, very sad, indeed, probably
(00:22):
the saddest they've ever been. Some people are saying beautiful
sadness from all the LIB journals and a few things
we mentioned, the White House Correspondent Association, not you know what.
Let's dive into this one first. We've got a few
very newsworthy This is just breaking now. To be clear,
she just was saying this recently. We wanted to bring
(00:43):
this to you. Highlights from the press conference in the
West Wind. Clay and I are going to go out
there and we're going to go hang with our favorite
people in the Trump White House and Pentagon and other
places sometime in the next couple of months. So we're
planning that I do have a child coming, so that
is a thing that I have to be aware of
in terms of our planning and scheduling.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
That's what we're trying to rush around and plan around.
What if the tax day is the do date right
in theory?
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Whoa, whoa? I mean no, the day after tax day? Okay,
it could come a little bit earlier than that. You know,
you don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
He read fifteenth ish is the baby's projected arrival?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah? April sixteenth? Yeah, that's the one. Is tax day
this fifteenth? This year? Sometimes it's later, isn't it? Okay,
well it's the fifteenth. Another day that America. You know
that Rhonda Santis is thinking about removing all property taxes
in Florida. He's trying to get this done, which would
be amazing. I don't know how we'd make room for
all the people that will want to move to this
(01:40):
place and game Tennessee. Yeah, it would be amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
I mean, my property taxes are pretty low, but any
taxes being removed I would be very happy to be
a part of.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
So we'll get into taxes and where they're going as
in the federal bureaucracy and the bureaucrats who don't seem
to do very much as part of this Caroon Levitt
press conference. But first let's dive into this. I think
that the Democrat media for a long time has actually
been more important than the Democrat politicians. I think that
(02:11):
the Democrat media has been calling the shots much more
so and have been able to give a tremendous amount
of lift in the polls, lift and election time to
their side. That's changing. They are on the decline and
conservative MAGA and right wing media are all on the ascent.
(02:34):
And now it's not just in terms of numbers and
viewership that's been true for a long time now, it's
also in some of these structures of I guess what
we'd have to call journalism. And Caroline Levin, who's the
White House Press Secretary, announced this. Clay mentioned it before
the top of this hour that the White House Corresponds
Association will not control who can gain access play twenty four.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
As you all know, for decades, a group of DC
based journalists, the White House Correspondence Association, has long dictated
which journalists get to ask questions of the President of
the United States in these most intimate spaces. Not anymore.
I am proud to announce that we are going to
give the power back to the people who read your papers,
(03:17):
who watch your television shows, and who listen to your
radio stations. Moving forward, the White House Press Pool will
be determined by the White House Press Team. Legacy outlets
who have participated in the press pool for decades will
still be allowed to join, fear not, but we will
also be offering the privilege to well deserving outlets who
(03:37):
have never been allowed to share in this awesome responsibility.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
So mar hierarchy is being changed, Why shouldn't it, Clay,
I love it well. Audience changed in a big way.
We have on this radio program more people who are
consuming us every day than almost any show in the country.
We talked about this earlier.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
When Meghan Kelly ran through the twenty five to fifty
four year old age viewing audience for joy Read.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
She had fifty nine thousand people.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
We have fifty nine thousand of you listening in some
individual cities right now.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
So the millions of people that we.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Are fortunate enough to talk to every single day, we
don't have somebody at the White House asking questions on
a day to day basis, but a lot of news
organizations that have a pinprick of our overall audience do.
And so I think as the media environment evolves, it's
actually incredibly necessary that the people who are asking questions,
(04:48):
have an audience worthy.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Of being being able to ask.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Questions, right, I mean to me, this is the essence
of you don't have an unlimited number of seats. You've
been in that White House press briefing room. It's actually
very small. It looks bigger on television, but the number
of people I don't know. Can you fit one hundred
people in there? Probably not seventy fives.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
It's a small room, relatively speaking.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And so when you have a limited access point to
something that a lot of people would have demand for,
it seems rational to me, Buck to look at the
size of individual audiences of these news organizations and making
a decision about how you reach the largest possible audience
with your message. That seems imminently rational to me.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
She spoke also about something that's getting a lot of
attention from US and across the country, which is the
Elon I should say now second email opportunity for federal
workers who write five bullet points of what they had
gotten done last week. This was this whole concept that
was made famous when Elon wrote the CEO of Twitter
(05:57):
in response to some nonsense email, what have you gotten
done this week? And that that CEO was not long
for Twitter when he did not have a good answer
when Elon took over, because Twitter had become essentially a
social justice organization that was just losing money hand over
fist right. Twitter had become a very poorly run and
(06:18):
very poorly operated entity unless the goal was to suppress
conservative speech elevate liberal idiots. And you know that's what
they were doing, right, And you know, no more dead
naming and used preferred pronouns. And that's what Twitter became.
And now Elon has freed it from those shackles of lunacy.
But for federal government employees, Clay, this is going to
(06:41):
be interesting because a lot of them have not responded.
Caroline Levitt spoke about this. This is cut twenty five.
This is in response to the second Elon email. He says,
if you don't respond to this one, you're actually gonna
get fired. Here's what White House Press Secretary Levitt says,
play T one.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
All the Office of Personnel Management is asking. All this
administration is asking President Trump is asking is for federal
workers who live off of the American taxpayer's dime to
send five bullet points of what they have done in
the previous week. That is all we are asking for,
and so the Office of Personnel and Management sent out
additional guidance last night. Those responses should be directed to
(07:17):
agency leadership, and the President defers to his cabinet secretaries
who he's obviously entrusted to pursue the guidance relative to
their specific workforce. And for some of the agencies that
you've seen who have said, please don't send these emails,
that's send their best interest for that specific agency, and
the President supports that. And let me be very clear,
the President and Elon is his entire cabinet are working
(07:40):
as one unified team and they are implementing these very
common sense solutions.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
What's unfair about this, Clay. You've run your own company
and you've had employees. Would you be okay with people
getting an email from you like hey, what have you
done this week? And they're like, I don't have to
respond to you, sir, No, I would fire them.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And I actually think that having a job at a
place as a privilege, and that your job, when you
work at a place that is designed to make money,
you should be thinking at every moment of every day,
how do I make my boss more money. How do
I make the company more money? That's your job. This
(08:19):
is not a charity. There are plenty of charities out there.
I encourage all of you to donate to them to
do great things. The purpose of any business is to
make money, and if you're not aiding and a betting that,
then you should be fired. In my opinion, I think
a big part of this that Elon has figured out
is that a lot of these people who are cashing
government checks aren't even willing to check their email because
(08:43):
they're working from home.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
They aren't doing anything.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Some of them may have side gigs, side hustles where
they're doing other things. When they claim to be being
paid by the tax payer, we're funding this. Why should
the up? Why should we we're paying all of these
people's salaries. Why should we not expect a high quality
of work in exchange for our tax payer dollars? I
(09:10):
don't know about you, Buck, I would much rather figure out
how to invest my own money and pay a lot
lower tax rate. I think I could create a lot
more jobs all these things. But if I'm having to
pay the rate that I am nearly forty percent, I
want to know that the people that I am paying
for are doing a bare minimum to justify their salaries.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Well, they see, that's I think what you The second
thing you said there is really the framework that we're
working within. You said a moment ago, I think we
can expect high quality work. We should be able to.
But what we're looking at my standard is if I'm
paying for you, I should get high quality work, right you.
But see that's the private sector mentality. That's like startup
(09:53):
running a company mentality. What Elon is dealing with is
what is the second thing you said, which is can
can we expect you to do anything? I am telling
you this is the truth. There are a lot because
I saw it myself, there are a lot of people
within the federal government who don't do anything. They show up,
they sit at a computer, They go on a thirty
(10:14):
minute coffee break. They sit back at their computers, they
read the New York Times. They then go hang out
in the break room for another, you know, forty five minutes.
They sit down, they see if there's any emails. They
then go for a walk outside. I mean, and I
don't mean they're like I knew one guy. This is
common in a lot of these places. There are people.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
If in an office, imagine what these people are doing
from home, right, right, Let's we at least had to
show up when we're That's what I'm saying, like, at
least you had to put forth the effort to pretend.
But a lot of these guys are eating cheetos and
watching Netflix while they're claiming that they're doing taxpayer jobs.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Well, I bet a lot of people and this will
be tight if there were if they were reasonably smart
about their con I bet there are a lot of
federal employees who were working off books somewhere. Think about this.
You get to you get to have your job working
remote at the Department of Commerce or Agriculture or whatever. Uh,
you know, think of an even less important agency, and
(11:12):
you get to keep you get to get your federal
salary and maybe you can go and you can take
a shift as a as a bartender, or you could go.
You know, you start to double dip, right, I mean
this is you have a side hustle, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Like you're an umber driver, right, I mean you're like, hey,
you know what, I'm gonna do something else?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Well, what I'm saying is, if you're smart you're doing
it in cash, because if they find out that you're
doing this on company. The one thing that this they
always told me this, and in the CIA cre true
across the federal government. The one thing that will nail
you as time and attendance fraud. Now that's a lot
harder when you have worked from home, right, But if
you have to be in a facility for your job
and you're out somewhere else doing something else, that is
(11:51):
you can be turned. They don't want to come in
to the office anymore, right, because it makes it easier
to track what's going on. Right, And this is for
all these differents. So but look at the pushback on this.
I mean, look at the and I'll tell you to
my point about the twenty percent in my CIA office,
in the Iraq office, people were staying till two three
o'clock in the morning. People are coming back from their
(12:13):
you know, fifth deployment overseas to a warzone. Like, there
are people doing real stuff in some of these places.
I want to be very clear about that. There are
people that you know, people I had friends who got
very grievously wounded. I mean, you know, this is real stuff, Okay,
but there are a lot of people at these agencies
wh aren't doing squat and that's where you really got
to figure out what's going on.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I don't have an objection to work from home if
you are incredibly productive, if you are able to do
a lot of what you're doing, and a lot of
people are working from home and doing a great job.
Now you have to go out for meetings, all these
different thuff like you just stay at home. But the
idea that it's the default that basically everybody gets to
work from home is no way you can run a business,
(12:57):
and I don't think it's any way you can run
a government. We told you yesterday great news out of Israel.
Over the weekend, six hostages returned. And when I was
in Israel last December, our partner, the IFCJ that's the
International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, they arranged a meeting
with one of the fathers, and as a dad myself
heartbreaking to hear his story, and that's why I was
(13:19):
so elated that his son was released after five hundred
days two birthdays in control by Hamas. But many other families, unfortunately,
aren't going to get to have that kind of amazing reunion.
It looks like a lot of the remaining hostages are
going to be returning in coffins. That's why it's important
we keep standing with our brothers and sisters in Israel.
(13:40):
You can do that as well by visiting support IFCJ
dot org. You see the story about the babies, basically
the two young Jewish children taken from near Oz, one
of whom was ten months old. Saw a video of
the four year old loved Batman running on the ground
in near a place that we visited in the kibbutz
(14:02):
where they were kidnapped from. That's what evil is. That's
what evil does. And your ongoing monthly gift of forty
five dollars will help provide critically needed aid to communities
in the North and the South devastated by the horrors
of war. Provide hope during a time of great uncertainty
with your gift at SUPPORTIFCJ dot org. That's one word,
(14:25):
SUPPORTIFCJ dot org. You can also call eight eight eight
four eight eight IFCJ. That's eight eight eight four eight
eight if CJ. Couple of news stories Buck that I
wanted to hit you with that are good news. And
(14:46):
then we got some talkbacks Philadelphia Eagles. Remember we talked
about this yesterday, the megaviral story about how the Eagles
were going to turn down an invitation to the White House.
I told you I talked to somebody at the White House.
They said no invitation had been extended. They now the
Eagles have said they cannot wait. On paraphrasing, they are
(15:08):
super excited to go to the White House. I think
in many ways, the era of oh, we're not going
to go to the White House because we don't believe
in the person who's there. I think that era in
sports is collapsing. So that news out yesterday, I wanted
to follow up with it one other bit of news?
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Did you see?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Because I just came back from Chicago, so I may
be more fascinated by this than most.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Did you see, Buck.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
What the approval rating is for Brandon Johnson, the mayor
of Chicago who has replaced Lori Lightfoot.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Did you see what his approval rating was? Buck? Oh?
For though I did, I did for those of you
hours about what the rotten tomatoes should be for axel
f on Beverly Hills, cop That is.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
An assault upon the excellent cinematic genius of Eddie Murphy
and the most recent Beverly Hills cop six percent approval.
I've never seen a politician ever have a six percent
approval rating. Chicago managed to do the impossible. They picked
someone worse than Lori Lightfoot to be their new uh,
(16:15):
to be their absolute new mayor. Here a couple of talkbacks.
We've got a guy out there who wants to weigh
in on me saying steak is fairly healthy.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
He wasn't happy with me. I think that's CC at
six and fifty calories. That's a lot of calories. Okay,
hold on, hold on now, let me let me say,
let me explain that voice.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
By the way, Buck, that sounded like, uh, like he
just stepped right out of the the MMA ring, just
choked somebody out.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Maybe I'm saying I'm.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Expected a guy who sounds like that to be calling
in complaining about the amount of calories that a steak
would have.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
So I would say this, Uh, It's important to note
that different steaks have very different calorie counts per ounce.
So your, for example, your surloin is going to be
low calorie. Your filet mignon a little more than the surloin,
but still pretty low calorie all the way up to
when you get to like a New York strip, which
is honestly one of my favorites. Uh, that's higher because
(17:20):
of the marblization of the fat. And then you get
to ribbi. That's that's that's usually going to be the
highest calorie count for most of the standard cuts of
red meat you'd get. And if you get into the
wag you, I mean true wagu stuff, you're basically eating
meat butter, so you don't need much of that stuff.
But are you? Are you a Japanese wag? You a
five guy? I gotta tie you. It's a much VI.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
I love steak, I absolutely love it. It's usually not
steak that makes you fat. It's all of the things
you eat with the steak. It's the quick.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Sides, it's the mashed potatoes and all that stuff with.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Fries, all the stuff that's so good making me hungry
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Code Radio. We're talking here about the situation of Ukraine.
(19:05):
Let's dive into it. First off.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Trump is taking his own approach to foreign policy. And
one thing that I think we should all keep in mind,
whether it's talking about Gaza or Ukraine or anything else,
is he has gotten better results. And I'm talking about
his first term. You can add in a lot of
stuff that's been going on now. He has gotten better
results from foreign policy than the people who are constantly
(19:34):
criticizing everything he says about foreign policy. So when you
look at his record versus the opposition, and that isn't
just Democrats, that's more of the DC swamp foreign policy
consensus think tank foreign affairs subscriber set right. They think
they know better. Meanwhile, Trump's gotten better results. And compare
(19:54):
him to Biden, for example, and it's preposterous, but compare
him to any reason. Compared to the the Obama administration,
foreign policy was abominable. It was awful, Okay, it was
awful in Libya, it was awful in Syria, it was
awful in Afghanistan. I mean, just disaster everywhere. So keep
that in mind. And that's eight years of it. So
(20:15):
here's what Trump love. This is Trump laying out what
the vision's supposed to be. This is cut eighteen play it.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
I've been elected by the American people to restore common
sense to Washington and indeed to the world. And I
believe strongly that it's in the best interests of the
United States, the best interest in Europe, the best interests
of Ukraine, and indeed the best interests of Russia to
stop the killing now and bring the world to peace.
(20:42):
My administration is making a decisive break with the foreign
policy values of the past administration, and frankly, the past
I ran against a very foolish foreign policy establishment, and
their recklessness has led to the death of many, many people.
Under our administration, we're forging a new path that promotes
(21:03):
peace around the world.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
The promotion of peace ending a conflict where hundreds of
thousands of people are being chewed up by artillery fire
and IEDs and drones and all that. And people want
to undermine him in this. Why isn't everyone, at least
right now Clay rooting for success here. I'm even seeing
some Republicans saying that he's selling out Ukraine because the
(21:28):
meat grinder should continue forever.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I don't think people understand how negotiation works still with Trump.
He comes out and he is sometimes outrageous, outlandish in
his proposals and his public commentaries, and it creates a
jumble of uncertainty, and then he comes back in oftentimes
(21:52):
and ends up with a proposal that is not where
he floated, but is actually a very reasonable outcome. And
I just don't understand how people still don't see this,
that this is sort of lack of a better way,
the art of the public deal that Trump has in
some ways perfected, and just right now buck breaking news
(22:16):
Ukraine has agreed to sign a mineral rights agreement to
give fifty percent of future profits for Ukrainian materials minerals
to the United States taxpayer. And this was that people
were saying as recently as that earlier this week, Oh,
look at Trump turn his.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Back on Zelenski.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Sometimes in order to get peace, you have to move
a little bit towards the other side, and then you
come back towards the other side, and you're constantly almost
a seesaw. And you can't just say one side is
bad and the other side is good and find your
way to a negotiated settlement. It doesn't work that way.
(22:58):
And so you have to give some things to Russia,
some things to Ukraine. And I just every time they
say that it's gonna be calamity and it's going to
be a disaster, it feels to me like Trump actually
upsets the prevailing sentiment, disrupts it, and gets us to
a better place that the so called professionals would not
(23:20):
have been capable of getting us too.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Does that make sense? It feels like this happens all
the time. Well, you look at the first Trump administration again,
I think the foreign policy record speaks resoundingly here. What
is the huge disaster? What is the blunder of Trump
foreign policy over the course of four years? Now, you
could say it's really over the course of three years,
because with COVID, foreign relations kind of shut down, at
(23:44):
least in the traditional way, right, I mean, all of
a sudden, everyone was just hunkering down. Although there was
you know, the China virus. I mean, there's a lot
of foreign policy that you could speak of, but there
wasn't really a lot of deal making and stuff going
on in the traditional sense during COVID. But and Trump's
first term, what were the big what were the big
negative what were the big losses? I could sit here
and I could do a three hour show on the
(24:04):
disasters of the Obama Biden foreign policy axis. Remember Biden
was brought in to be Obama's foreign policy brain. True stuff, everybody,
If people forget that, now, Biden's place on the Obama
ticket was He's the foreign policy genius and he's a moron.
All right, Everybody in foreign policy knows that Biden's been
(24:25):
wrong more and more egregiously over the last fifty years
than probably anyone else in American public life. So we
could sit here and go through all those losses. I
think Trump has shown that his to your point, clay
breaking the old molds approach has been successful enough already
in this term in some ways, but I will give
(24:46):
it a little more time, but certainly successful enough in
his first four years that the guy deserves the space
to try to get it done. He's not saying, let's,
you know, start a nuclear war with Russia. He's not
saying crazy things. He's trying to achieve goal that we
should all want, all want, even Democrats, should want the
war in Ukraine to end. And the fact that he
(25:08):
does it through non traditional means only makes sense when
you realize the traditional foreign policy access clay and consensus
got us to this point three years of carnage, no
end in sight, hundreds of billions of dollars, and what
putting Ukraine flags in your bio. You know that that's
that's the big achievement of the foreign policy apparatus. Yeah,
(25:33):
I had to sneeze there for a second. Here's the
other thing that's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Buck, We're now going to have fifty percent of Ukrainian materials,
their natural resources going forward.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
But for Russia.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
For Russia, we're going to get I think buck as
a part of this deal, a huge amount of American
assets that were left behind in Russia during the boycott
in the wake of the Ukraine invasion. I think we're
gonna end up getting back hundreds of billions of dollars
in American company assets as a part of a piece
(26:09):
deal with Russia too. In other words, people say, okay, yes,
the primary goal is we want to end young men,
almost exclusively young men, dying in a stalemated war where
nothing is really changing. Now basically you have two sides
dug in and there isn't much ground being gained in
either direction. And that is where we're going to be
(26:31):
for years and years to come. Appears to be the reality.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Okay, Now Trump is coming in.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
The American taxpayer is potentially going to get back all
of the money that we spent on Ukraine and more
through this mineral rights agreement and the American business entity,
all of those, many of those that had assets in
Russia are going to get back hundreds of billions of
dollars in assets that they were forced to get away
(27:00):
as a part of our boycott of Russia. So we're
going to gain resources from both sides, and we're going
to have far fewer people dying violently in a war. Again,
in an honest world, Trump would get the Nobel Peace
Price for this. Everybody says, we can't have any solution
(27:22):
to Ukraine Russia. Trump comes into office, and right now, Buck,
I would bet by May first, if you asked me,
we will have peace in Ukraine based on what I
am seeing. And everybody told us that Trump coming into office,
they said, Oh, it's not going to change anything. Oh,
there's no way to end this war. I hope the
(27:43):
ceasefire holds in the Middle East. That wouldn't have happened
without Trump. And now we may be close to a
ceasefire and a form of peace in Ukraine, and that
wouldn't have happened without Trump. And let me just say this.
People may say, Okay, what's the negative. Here's something that
I do think could be a negative. Once we take
fifty percent of Ukraine's mineral rights, it actually becomes potentially
(28:09):
a major issue if Russia decides to invade again, because
then not only are they invading Buck, but they're invading
and trying to take away an American asset. And we
may not have boots on the ground. But if those
assets of minerals are worth potentially which seems to be
the report trillions of dollars into the future, certainly hundreds
(28:30):
of billions of dollars into the future, then our economic
interest could actually create an issue with Russia in the future. Now,
the argument against that would be, well, without having to
put boots on the ground, the United States is providing
some form of security for Ukraine through our commoditized interest
(28:51):
in their mineral rights. I do think if you want
to spin out something into the future, what would happen
if Russia tried to take away those mineral rights with
the United States allow that to happen, could not create conflict.
Those are concerns because Russia has invaded multiple times into Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
But in the.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Meantime, this feels to me like a pretty rational compromise
that's designed to try and just get us to a
place where less people are dying.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
It's also a recognition that people and nation states are
really guided by interests. I mean, we can talk about principle,
and principle is a nice thing to have, but ultimately
we're guided by our interests, and our decisions should be
made along what are in US interests. We saw this
even with USAID or US eight. It was for a
(29:40):
lot of people some kind of revelation that it's not
a global charity. It's supposed to pursue and this is
why it got way off its mission. It's supposed to
pursue programs that advance US interests, that also provide you know,
funding and a service to some foreign external entity. But
(30:01):
those things are it's it's not a global charity. It's
not the you know, forty billion dollar soup kitchen fund
for the rest of the world. That's not what it's
supposed to be. And for foreign policy to be run
along interests instead of you know, ephemeral and vague. I mean,
I think ephemeral and vague principle in the context of
war and peace gets you to endless war. Oh, you know,
(30:24):
we can't stop this because if we do, then you know,
the terrorists of one or whatever, then putin the evil
guy has won. Well, what will get us to an
end in this conflict? A negotiated settlement, and a settlement
that brings European peacekeepers perhaps into the mix, so that
they've got skin in the game. And also that brings
(30:46):
US strategic interests in mineral rights and you know, the
fin let's be honest, the financial interest in this. I
think this is the way that we actually should run
our foreign policy, which is to say, yeah, we're getting
something out of this, and if Russia wants to cause problems,
they're causing problems for us. They're not just making us
sad because they're being mean to somebody that's not us.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
We also get many of the benefits that Ukraine wanted
from NATO without the guarantee that we're going to.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Go to war with Russia.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
So it feels like a very reasonable compromise to me,
and something that we were told was impossible and yet
to me, if I were setting a over under deadline
on when I think a ceasefire might take effect.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I would say May first. And the reason some of
you may say, why would you say.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
May first, Because in the spring, when all of this
starts to thaw, maybe April first is even a better example.
That's when the fighting tends to get ratcheted up, which
is why solving it now while it's still very cold, muddy, snowy,
hard to move men in material, now is the time
to get this deal in place and take care of it. Look,
(31:53):
I want to tell you, maybe you're out there in
your history, want to be nerd. Maybe you haven't read
as much history as both and I have read over
the years. Maybe you want to know more about what
caused World War One.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Maybe you've been.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Paying attention to Ukraine Russia and you're cognizant of the
fact this is the biggest war in Europe since World
War Two, and you want to know more about what
happened in World War Two. Heck, maybe you're out there
right now and you're like a little bit like me,
and you sometimes think, hey, I wish I knew more
about the ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans and the
foundations of our government. Can dive into those histories. You
(32:28):
can also dive into the history of the Constitution, federalist papers,
Mark Twain, whatever you are interested in. By and large,
there is a course that you will love at clayanbuck
forour Hillsdale dot com. Let me give you that website.
Just go check it out. For yourself. Forty courses, no
time limits, no grades, just learning for learning stake. You
(32:49):
will absolutely love it to be able to just increase
your overall knowledge. Clayanbuckfour Hillsdale dot com. No cost at all.
It's learned for learning's sake. How much fun would that
be for you? Go check it out see what you're
most interested in on your own time at Clayanbuck for
(33:10):
Hillsdale dot com. Closing up shop here with all of you.
As we've been tracking a lot of different moving parts,
let me give you a positive story here.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Buck.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
I don't know you like Star Wars right, like you
grew up watching all the Star Wars movies, Star Wars
movies and everything else.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Yeah, I would say I like it. I'm not a
diehard fan like I don't where I don't dress up
like Obi Wan and have a lightsaber at the premiere
kind of a thing. But yeah, well I liked it.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
But then also my boys, my three kids were all in,
so I went through it as both kid who grew
up a fan of Star Wars and then dad whose
kids were This is for many of you out there,
a story that's very they have fired. Kathleen Kennedy, she
is the woman who has been blamed for destroying the
(34:08):
Star Wars franchise as they've had to put a pause
in making these movies the revenues collapsed. They basically went
super woke. As many of you know out there who
were fans of Star Wars, She's out so DEI this
sort of woke Disney universe continues to give up the
ghost a bit more every single day. And I give
(34:29):
credit to Donald Trump. By the way, cool video out there.
They opened back up the White House for tours. I
didn't know that it had been closed for years. First
group walking through, Donald Trump surprised them. Really really cool.
Can you imagine getting to go on a White House tour?
How exciting that is. I did it as a kid.
(34:50):
And then the President just comes by and shakes hands
with everybody. Really kind of awesome, I thought, moment, and
we have that cut twenty six that happened a little
bit earlier today.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Listen.
Speaker 5 (35:02):
But I want to thank you very much for coming
the tour is so great to send a good job
first lady who worked very hard and making it perfect.
And I think you gotta really love it. And I
heard you were here, and I said, let's stop by
and say doing it. Very smart looking people, I must say,
very smart. Maybe someday you'd be You'll be here as
the precedent, right, somebody, somebody in this group, as the shads,
(35:24):
have a good time, have a great tour, and you're
gonna give them a special tour. Okay, you're gonna get
a special tour.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Have fun, everybody, Buck, you know this. I think a
lot of our audience has, oh, they started chanting us
say that is just awesome. A lot of our audience
has come to get this. Trump's retail politicking skills are
off the charts good.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
I mean just interacting with people like that. There is
honestly no person on earth that would be more fun
and entertaining to get a White House tour from than
Donald Trump. At really thanks, really, Donald Trump. I mean,
think about what that could go for a charity auction.
Donald Trump giving you a White House tour would be
incredible because he would tell you, you know, slightly off color
(36:10):
and hilarious stories about different you know.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
People that frankly may or may not be true, but
be wildly entertaining. I'm not sure. By the way, Buck,
praise for you as we finish here, the show Junior
in Hicksville, New York.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Hey, Buck, this here is Junior living up in Hicksville,
New York. That's Long Island, and the rest of you is.
It's good to see you eating steak, buddy, instead of
that pistachio business you've been eating. It means that you
eat a steak. You being a man, now you go
and eat that steak. Was always eating steak and pistachio crembroulet.
I can have both sleeve.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Travis and Buck Sexton on the front lines of truth.
Welcome to today's edition of the Clay, Travis and Buck
Sexton Show podcast. All Right, our three Clay and Buck
kicks off now, and our friend Caroline levi Att, the
White House Press Secretary, is crushing Lib's dreams and taking
souls over at the West Wigs a lot of fun
to watch, making them very sad, very sad, indeed, probably
(00:22):
the saddest they've ever been. Some people are saying beautiful
sadness from all the LIB journals and a few things
we mentioned, the White House Correspondent Association, not you know what.
Let's dive into this one first. We've got a few
very newsworthy This is just breaking now. To be clear,
she just was saying this recently. We wanted to bring
(00:43):
this to you. Highlights from the press conference in the
West Wind. Clay and I are going to go out
there and we're going to go hang with our favorite
people in the Trump White House and Pentagon and other
places sometime in the next couple of months. So we're
planning that I do have a child coming, so that
is a thing that I have to be aware of
in terms of our planning and scheduling.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
That's what we're trying to rush around and plan around.
What if the tax day is the do date right
in theory?
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Whoa, whoa? I mean no, the day after tax day? Okay,
it could come a little bit earlier than that. You know,
you don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
He read fifteenth ish is the baby's projected arrival?
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah? April sixteenth? Yeah, that's the one. Is tax day
this fifteenth? This year? Sometimes it's later, isn't it? Okay,
well it's the fifteenth. Another day that America. You know
that Rhonda Santis is thinking about removing all property taxes
in Florida. He's trying to get this done, which would
be amazing. I don't know how we'd make room for
all the people that will want to move to this
(01:40):
place and game Tennessee. Yeah, it would be amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
I mean, my property taxes are pretty low, but any
taxes being removed I would be very happy to be
a part of.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
So we'll get into taxes and where they're going as
in the federal bureaucracy and the bureaucrats who don't seem
to do very much as part of this Caroon Levitt
press conference. But first let's dive into this. I think
that the Democrat media for a long time has actually
been more important than the Democrat politicians. I think that
(02:11):
the Democrat media has been calling the shots much more
so and have been able to give a tremendous amount
of lift in the polls, lift and election time to
their side. That's changing. They are on the decline and
conservative MAGA and right wing media are all on the ascent.
(02:34):
And now it's not just in terms of numbers and
viewership that's been true for a long time now, it's
also in some of these structures of I guess what
we'd have to call journalism. And Caroline Levin, who's the
White House Press Secretary, announced this. Clay mentioned it before
the top of this hour that the White House Corresponds
Association will not control who can gain access play twenty four.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
As you all know, for decades, a group of DC
based journalists, the White House Correspondence Association, has long dictated
which journalists get to ask questions of the President of
the United States in these most intimate spaces. Not anymore.
I am proud to announce that we are going to
give the power back to the people who read your papers,
(03:17):
who watch your television shows, and who listen to your
radio stations. Moving forward, the White House Press Pool will
be determined by the White House Press Team. Legacy outlets
who have participated in the press pool for decades will
still be allowed to join, fear not, but we will
also be offering the privilege to well deserving outlets who
(03:37):
have never been allowed to share in this awesome responsibility.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
So mar hierarchy is being changed, Why shouldn't it, Clay,
I love it well. Audience changed in a big way.
We have on this radio program more people who are
consuming us every day than almost any show in the country.
We talked about this earlier.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
When Meghan Kelly ran through the twenty five to fifty
four year old age viewing audience for joy Read.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
She had fifty nine thousand people.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
We have fifty nine thousand of you listening in some
individual cities right now.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
So the millions of people that we.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Are fortunate enough to talk to every single day, we
don't have somebody at the White House asking questions on
a day to day basis, but a lot of news
organizations that have a pinprick of our overall audience do.
And so I think as the media environment evolves, it's
actually incredibly necessary that the people who are asking questions,
(04:48):
have an audience worthy.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Of being being able to ask.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Questions, right, I mean to me, this is the essence
of you don't have an unlimited number of seats. You've
been in that White House press briefing room. It's actually
very small. It looks bigger on television, but the number
of people I don't know. Can you fit one hundred
people in there? Probably not seventy fives.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
It's a small room, relatively speaking.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And so when you have a limited access point to
something that a lot of people would have demand for,
it seems rational to me, Buck to look at the
size of individual audiences of these news organizations and making
a decision about how you reach the largest possible audience
with your message. That seems imminently rational to me.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
She spoke also about something that's getting a lot of
attention from US and across the country, which is the
Elon I should say now second email opportunity for federal
workers who write five bullet points of what they had
gotten done last week. This was this whole concept that
was made famous when Elon wrote the CEO of Twitter
(05:57):
in response to some nonsense email, what have you gotten
done this week? And that that CEO was not long
for Twitter when he did not have a good answer
when Elon took over, because Twitter had become essentially a
social justice organization that was just losing money hand over
fist right. Twitter had become a very poorly run and
(06:18):
very poorly operated entity unless the goal was to suppress
conservative speech elevate liberal idiots. And you know that's what
they were doing, right, And you know, no more dead
naming and used preferred pronouns. And that's what Twitter became.
And now Elon has freed it from those shackles of lunacy.
But for federal government employees, Clay, this is going to
(06:41):
be interesting because a lot of them have not responded.
Caroline Levitt spoke about this. This is cut twenty five.
This is in response to the second Elon email. He says,
if you don't respond to this one, you're actually gonna
get fired. Here's what White House Press Secretary Levitt says,
play T one.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
All the Office of Personnel Management is asking. All this
administration is asking President Trump is asking is for federal
workers who live off of the American taxpayer's dime to
send five bullet points of what they have done in
the previous week. That is all we are asking for,
and so the Office of Personnel and Management sent out
additional guidance last night. Those responses should be directed to
(07:17):
agency leadership, and the President defers to his cabinet secretaries
who he's obviously entrusted to pursue the guidance relative to
their specific workforce. And for some of the agencies that
you've seen who have said, please don't send these emails,
that's send their best interest for that specific agency, and
the President supports that. And let me be very clear,
the President and Elon is his entire cabinet are working
(07:40):
as one unified team and they are implementing these very
common sense solutions.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
What's unfair about this, Clay. You've run your own company
and you've had employees. Would you be okay with people
getting an email from you like hey, what have you
done this week? And they're like, I don't have to
respond to you, sir, No, I would fire them.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And I actually think that having a job at a
place as a privilege, and that your job, when you
work at a place that is designed to make money,
you should be thinking at every moment of every day,
how do I make my boss more money. How do
I make the company more money? That's your job. This
(08:19):
is not a charity. There are plenty of charities out there.
I encourage all of you to donate to them to
do great things. The purpose of any business is to
make money, and if you're not aiding and a betting that,
then you should be fired. In my opinion, I think
a big part of this that Elon has figured out
is that a lot of these people who are cashing
government checks aren't even willing to check their email because
(08:43):
they're working from home.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
They aren't doing anything.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Some of them may have side gigs, side hustles where
they're doing other things. When they claim to be being
paid by the tax payer, we're funding this. Why should
the up? Why should we we're paying all of these
people's salaries. Why should we not expect a high quality
of work in exchange for our tax payer dollars? I
(09:10):
don't know about you, Buck, I would much rather figure out
how to invest my own money and pay a lot
lower tax rate. I think I could create a lot
more jobs all these things. But if I'm having to
pay the rate that I am nearly forty percent, I
want to know that the people that I am paying
for are doing a bare minimum to justify their salaries.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Well, they see, that's I think what you The second
thing you said there is really the framework that we're
working within. You said a moment ago, I think we
can expect high quality work. We should be able to.
But what we're looking at my standard is if I'm
paying for you, I should get high quality work, right you.
But see that's the private sector mentality. That's like startup
(09:53):
running a company mentality. What Elon is dealing with is
what is the second thing you said, which is can
can we expect you to do anything? I am telling
you this is the truth. There are a lot because
I saw it myself, there are a lot of people
within the federal government who don't do anything. They show up,
they sit at a computer, They go on a thirty
(10:14):
minute coffee break. They sit back at their computers, they
read the New York Times. They then go hang out
in the break room for another, you know, forty five minutes.
They sit down, they see if there's any emails. They
then go for a walk outside. I mean, and I
don't mean they're like I knew one guy. This is
common in a lot of these places. There are people.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
If in an office, imagine what these people are doing
from home, right, right, Let's we at least had to
show up when we're That's what I'm saying, like, at
least you had to put forth the effort to pretend.
But a lot of these guys are eating cheetos and
watching Netflix while they're claiming that they're doing taxpayer jobs.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Well, I bet a lot of people and this will
be tight if there were if they were reasonably smart
about their con I bet there are a lot of
federal employees who were working off books somewhere. Think about this.
You get to you get to have your job working
remote at the Department of Commerce or Agriculture or whatever. Uh,
you know, think of an even less important agency, and
(11:12):
you get to keep you get to get your federal
salary and maybe you can go and you can take
a shift as a as a bartender, or you could go.
You know, you start to double dip, right, I mean
this is you have a side hustle, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Like you're an umber driver, right, I mean you're like, hey,
you know what, I'm gonna do something else?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Well, what I'm saying is, if you're smart you're doing
it in cash, because if they find out that you're
doing this on company. The one thing that this they
always told me this, and in the CIA cre true
across the federal government. The one thing that will nail
you as time and attendance fraud. Now that's a lot
harder when you have worked from home, right, But if
you have to be in a facility for your job
and you're out somewhere else doing something else, that is
(11:51):
you can be turned. They don't want to come in
to the office anymore, right, because it makes it easier
to track what's going on. Right, And this is for
all these differents. So but look at the pushback on this.
I mean, look at the and I'll tell you to
my point about the twenty percent in my CIA office,
in the Iraq office, people were staying till two three
o'clock in the morning. People are coming back from their
(12:13):
you know, fifth deployment overseas to a warzone. Like, there
are people doing real stuff in some of these places.
I want to be very clear about that. There are
people that you know, people I had friends who got
very grievously wounded. I mean, you know, this is real stuff, Okay,
but there are a lot of people at these agencies
wh aren't doing squat and that's where you really got
to figure out what's going on.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I don't have an objection to work from home if
you are incredibly productive, if you are able to do
a lot of what you're doing, and a lot of
people are working from home and doing a great job.
Now you have to go out for meetings, all these
different thuff like you just stay at home. But the
idea that it's the default that basically everybody gets to
work from home is no way you can run a business,
(12:57):
and I don't think it's any way you can run
a government. We told you yesterday great news out of Israel.
Over the weekend, six hostages returned. And when I was
in Israel last December, our partner, the IFCJ that's the
International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, they arranged a meeting
with one of the fathers, and as a dad myself
heartbreaking to hear his story, and that's why I was
(13:19):
so elated that his son was released after five hundred
days two birthdays in control by Hamas. But many other families, unfortunately,
aren't going to get to have that kind of amazing reunion.
It looks like a lot of the remaining hostages are
going to be returning in coffins. That's why it's important
we keep standing with our brothers and sisters in Israel.
(13:40):
You can do that as well by visiting support IFCJ
dot org. You see the story about the babies, basically
the two young Jewish children taken from near Oz, one
of whom was ten months old. Saw a video of
the four year old loved Batman running on the ground
in near a place that we visited in the kibbutz
(14:02):
where they were kidnapped from. That's what evil is. That's
what evil does. And your ongoing monthly gift of forty
five dollars will help provide critically needed aid to communities
in the North and the South devastated by the horrors
of war. Provide hope during a time of great uncertainty
with your gift at SUPPORTIFCJ dot org. That's one word,
(14:25):
SUPPORTIFCJ dot org. You can also call eight eight eight
four eight eight IFCJ. That's eight eight eight four eight
eight if CJ. Couple of news stories Buck that I
wanted to hit you with that are good news. And
(14:46):
then we got some talkbacks Philadelphia Eagles. Remember we talked
about this yesterday, the megaviral story about how the Eagles
were going to turn down an invitation to the White House.
I told you I talked to somebody at the White House.
They said no invitation had been extended. They now the
Eagles have said they cannot wait. On paraphrasing, they are
(15:08):
super excited to go to the White House. I think
in many ways, the era of oh, we're not going
to go to the White House because we don't believe
in the person who's there. I think that era in
sports is collapsing. So that news out yesterday, I wanted
to follow up with it one other bit of news?
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Did you see?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Because I just came back from Chicago, so I may
be more fascinated by this than most.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Did you see, Buck.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
What the approval rating is for Brandon Johnson, the mayor
of Chicago who has replaced Lori Lightfoot.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Did you see what his approval rating was? Buck? Oh?
For though I did, I did for those of you
hours about what the rotten tomatoes should be for axel
f on Beverly Hills, cop That is.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
An assault upon the excellent cinematic genius of Eddie Murphy
and the most recent Beverly Hills cop six percent approval.
I've never seen a politician ever have a six percent
approval rating. Chicago managed to do the impossible. They picked
someone worse than Lori Lightfoot to be their new uh,
(16:15):
to be their absolute new mayor. Here a couple of talkbacks.
We've got a guy out there who wants to weigh
in on me saying steak is fairly healthy.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
He wasn't happy with me. I think that's CC at
six and fifty calories. That's a lot of calories. Okay,
hold on, hold on now, let me let me say,
let me explain that voice.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
By the way, Buck, that sounded like, uh, like he
just stepped right out of the the MMA ring, just
choked somebody out.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Maybe I'm saying I'm.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Expected a guy who sounds like that to be calling
in complaining about the amount of calories that a steak
would have.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
So I would say this, Uh, It's important to note
that different steaks have very different calorie counts per ounce.
So your, for example, your surloin is going to be
low calorie. Your filet mignon a little more than the surloin,
but still pretty low calorie all the way up to
when you get to like a New York strip, which
is honestly one of my favorites. Uh, that's higher because
(17:20):
of the marblization of the fat. And then you get
to ribbi. That's that's that's usually going to be the
highest calorie count for most of the standard cuts of
red meat you'd get. And if you get into the
wag you, I mean true wagu stuff, you're basically eating
meat butter, so you don't need much of that stuff.
But are you? Are you a Japanese wag? You a
five guy? I gotta tie you. It's a much VI.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
I love steak, I absolutely love it. It's usually not
steak that makes you fat. It's all of the things
you eat with the steak. It's the quick.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Sides, it's the mashed potatoes and all that stuff with.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Fries, all the stuff that's so good making me hungry
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(18:14):
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Code Radio. We're talking here about the situation of Ukraine.
(19:05):
Let's dive into it. First off.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Trump is taking his own approach to foreign policy. And
one thing that I think we should all keep in mind,
whether it's talking about Gaza or Ukraine or anything else,
is he has gotten better results. And I'm talking about
his first term. You can add in a lot of
stuff that's been going on now. He has gotten better
results from foreign policy than the people who are constantly
(19:34):
criticizing everything he says about foreign policy. So when you
look at his record versus the opposition, and that isn't
just Democrats, that's more of the DC swamp foreign policy
consensus think tank foreign affairs subscriber set right. They think
they know better. Meanwhile, Trump's gotten better results. And compare
(19:54):
him to Biden, for example, and it's preposterous, but compare
him to any reason. Compared to the the Obama administration,
foreign policy was abominable. It was awful, Okay, it was
awful in Libya, it was awful in Syria, it was
awful in Afghanistan. I mean, just disaster everywhere. So keep
that in mind. And that's eight years of it. So
(20:15):
here's what Trump love. This is Trump laying out what
the vision's supposed to be. This is cut eighteen play it.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
I've been elected by the American people to restore common
sense to Washington and indeed to the world. And I
believe strongly that it's in the best interests of the
United States, the best interest in Europe, the best interests
of Ukraine, and indeed the best interests of Russia to
stop the killing now and bring the world to peace.
(20:42):
My administration is making a decisive break with the foreign
policy values of the past administration, and frankly, the past
I ran against a very foolish foreign policy establishment, and
their recklessness has led to the death of many, many people.
Under our administration, we're forging a new path that promotes
(21:03):
peace around the world.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
The promotion of peace ending a conflict where hundreds of
thousands of people are being chewed up by artillery fire
and IEDs and drones and all that. And people want
to undermine him in this. Why isn't everyone, at least
right now Clay rooting for success here. I'm even seeing
some Republicans saying that he's selling out Ukraine because the
(21:28):
meat grinder should continue forever.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
I don't think people understand how negotiation works still with Trump.
He comes out and he is sometimes outrageous, outlandish in
his proposals and his public commentaries, and it creates a
jumble of uncertainty, and then he comes back in oftentimes
(21:52):
and ends up with a proposal that is not where
he floated, but is actually a very reasonable outcome. And
I just don't understand how people still don't see this,
that this is sort of lack of a better way,
the art of the public deal that Trump has in
some ways perfected, and just right now buck breaking news
(22:16):
Ukraine has agreed to sign a mineral rights agreement to
give fifty percent of future profits for Ukrainian materials minerals
to the United States taxpayer. And this was that people
were saying as recently as that earlier this week, Oh,
look at Trump turn his.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Back on Zelenski.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Sometimes in order to get peace, you have to move
a little bit towards the other side, and then you
come back towards the other side, and you're constantly almost
a seesaw. And you can't just say one side is
bad and the other side is good and find your
way to a negotiated settlement. It doesn't work that way.
(22:58):
And so you have to give some things to Russia,
some things to Ukraine. And I just every time they
say that it's gonna be calamity and it's going to
be a disaster, it feels to me like Trump actually
upsets the prevailing sentiment, disrupts it, and gets us to
a better place that the so called professionals would not
(23:20):
have been capable of getting us too.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Does that make sense? It feels like this happens all
the time. Well, you look at the first Trump administration again,
I think the foreign policy record speaks resoundingly here. What
is the huge disaster? What is the blunder of Trump
foreign policy over the course of four years? Now, you
could say it's really over the course of three years,
because with COVID, foreign relations kind of shut down, at
(23:44):
least in the traditional way, right, I mean, all of
a sudden, everyone was just hunkering down. Although there was
you know, the China virus. I mean, there's a lot
of foreign policy that you could speak of, but there
wasn't really a lot of deal making and stuff going
on in the traditional sense during COVID. But and Trump's
first term, what were the big what were the big
negative what were the big losses? I could sit here
and I could do a three hour show on the
(24:04):
disasters of the Obama Biden foreign policy axis. Remember Biden
was brought in to be Obama's foreign policy brain. True stuff, everybody,
If people forget that, now, Biden's place on the Obama
ticket was He's the foreign policy genius and he's a moron.
All right, Everybody in foreign policy knows that Biden's been
(24:25):
wrong more and more egregiously over the last fifty years
than probably anyone else in American public life. So we
could sit here and go through all those losses. I
think Trump has shown that his to your point, clay
breaking the old molds approach has been successful enough already
in this term in some ways, but I will give
(24:46):
it a little more time, but certainly successful enough in
his first four years that the guy deserves the space
to try to get it done. He's not saying, let's,
you know, start a nuclear war with Russia. He's not
saying crazy things. He's trying to achieve goal that we
should all want, all want, even Democrats, should want the
war in Ukraine to end. And the fact that he
(25:08):
does it through non traditional means only makes sense when
you realize the traditional foreign policy access clay and consensus
got us to this point three years of carnage, no
end in sight, hundreds of billions of dollars, and what
putting Ukraine flags in your bio. You know that that's
that's the big achievement of the foreign policy apparatus. Yeah,
(25:33):
I had to sneeze there for a second. Here's the
other thing that's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Buck, We're now going to have fifty percent of Ukrainian materials,
their natural resources going forward.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
But for Russia.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
For Russia, we're going to get I think buck as
a part of this deal, a huge amount of American
assets that were left behind in Russia during the boycott
in the wake of the Ukraine invasion. I think we're
gonna end up getting back hundreds of billions of dollars
in American company assets as a part of a piece
(26:09):
deal with Russia too. In other words, people say, okay, yes,
the primary goal is we want to end young men,
almost exclusively young men, dying in a stalemated war where
nothing is really changing. Now basically you have two sides
dug in and there isn't much ground being gained in
either direction. And that is where we're going to be
(26:31):
for years and years to come. Appears to be the reality.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Okay, Now Trump is coming in.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
The American taxpayer is potentially going to get back all
of the money that we spent on Ukraine and more
through this mineral rights agreement and the American business entity,
all of those, many of those that had assets in
Russia are going to get back hundreds of billions of
dollars in assets that they were forced to get away
(27:00):
as a part of our boycott of Russia. So we're
going to gain resources from both sides, and we're going
to have far fewer people dying violently in a war. Again,
in an honest world, Trump would get the Nobel Peace
Price for this. Everybody says, we can't have any solution
(27:22):
to Ukraine Russia. Trump comes into office, and right now, Buck,
I would bet by May first, if you asked me,
we will have peace in Ukraine based on what I
am seeing. And everybody told us that Trump coming into office,
they said, Oh, it's not going to change anything. Oh,
there's no way to end this war. I hope the
(27:43):
ceasefire holds in the Middle East. That wouldn't have happened
without Trump. And now we may be close to a
ceasefire and a form of peace in Ukraine, and that
wouldn't have happened without Trump. And let me just say this.
People may say, Okay, what's the negative. Here's something that
I do think could be a negative. Once we take
fifty percent of Ukraine's mineral rights, it actually becomes potentially
(28:09):
a major issue if Russia decides to invade again, because
then not only are they invading Buck, but they're invading
and trying to take away an American asset. And we
may not have boots on the ground. But if those
assets of minerals are worth potentially which seems to be
the report trillions of dollars into the future, certainly hundreds
(28:30):
of billions of dollars into the future, then our economic
interest could actually create an issue with Russia in the future. Now,
the argument against that would be, well, without having to
put boots on the ground, the United States is providing
some form of security for Ukraine through our commoditized interest
(28:51):
in their mineral rights. I do think if you want
to spin out something into the future, what would happen
if Russia tried to take away those mineral rights with
the United States allow that to happen, could not create conflict.
Those are concerns because Russia has invaded multiple times into Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
But in the.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Meantime, this feels to me like a pretty rational compromise
that's designed to try and just get us to a
place where less people are dying.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
It's also a recognition that people and nation states are
really guided by interests. I mean, we can talk about principle,
and principle is a nice thing to have, but ultimately
we're guided by our interests, and our decisions should be
made along what are in US interests. We saw this
even with USAID or US eight. It was for a
(29:40):
lot of people some kind of revelation that it's not
a global charity. It's supposed to pursue and this is
why it got way off its mission. It's supposed to
pursue programs that advance US interests, that also provide you know,
funding and a service to some foreign external entity. But
(30:01):
those things are it's it's not a global charity. It's
not the you know, forty billion dollar soup kitchen fund
for the rest of the world. That's not what it's
supposed to be. And for foreign policy to be run
along interests instead of you know, ephemeral and vague. I mean,
I think ephemeral and vague principle in the context of
war and peace gets you to endless war. Oh, you know,
(30:24):
we can't stop this because if we do, then you know,
the terrorists of one or whatever, then putin the evil
guy has won. Well, what will get us to an
end in this conflict? A negotiated settlement, and a settlement
that brings European peacekeepers perhaps into the mix, so that
they've got skin in the game. And also that brings
(30:46):
US strategic interests in mineral rights and you know, the
fin let's be honest, the financial interest in this. I
think this is the way that we actually should run
our foreign policy, which is to say, yeah, we're getting
something out of this, and if Russia wants to cause problems,
they're causing problems for us. They're not just making us
sad because they're being mean to somebody that's not us.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
We also get many of the benefits that Ukraine wanted
from NATO without the guarantee that we're going to.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Go to war with Russia.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
So it feels like a very reasonable compromise to me,
and something that we were told was impossible and yet
to me, if I were setting a over under deadline
on when I think a ceasefire might take effect.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I would say May first. And the reason some of
you may say, why would you say.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
May first, Because in the spring, when all of this
starts to thaw, maybe April first is even a better example.
That's when the fighting tends to get ratcheted up, which
is why solving it now while it's still very cold, muddy, snowy,
hard to move men in material, now is the time
to get this deal in place and take care of it. Look,
(31:53):
I want to tell you, maybe you're out there in
your history, want to be nerd. Maybe you haven't read
as much history as both and I have read over
the years. Maybe you want to know more about what
caused World War One.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Maybe you've been.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Paying attention to Ukraine Russia and you're cognizant of the
fact this is the biggest war in Europe since World
War Two, and you want to know more about what
happened in World War Two. Heck, maybe you're out there
right now and you're like a little bit like me,
and you sometimes think, hey, I wish I knew more
about the ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans and the
foundations of our government. Can dive into those histories. You
(32:28):
can also dive into the history of the Constitution, federalist papers,
Mark Twain, whatever you are interested in. By and large,
there is a course that you will love at clayanbuck
forour Hillsdale dot com. Let me give you that website.
Just go check it out. For yourself. Forty courses, no
time limits, no grades, just learning for learning stake. You
(32:49):
will absolutely love it to be able to just increase
your overall knowledge. Clayanbuckfour Hillsdale dot com. No cost at all.
It's learned for learning's sake. How much fun would that
be for you? Go check it out see what you're
most interested in on your own time at Clayanbuck for
(33:10):
Hillsdale dot com. Closing up shop here with all of you.
As we've been tracking a lot of different moving parts,
let me give you a positive story here.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Buck.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
I don't know you like Star Wars right, like you
grew up watching all the Star Wars movies, Star Wars
movies and everything else.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Yeah, I would say I like it. I'm not a
diehard fan like I don't where I don't dress up
like Obi Wan and have a lightsaber at the premiere
kind of a thing. But yeah, well I liked it.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
But then also my boys, my three kids were all in,
so I went through it as both kid who grew
up a fan of Star Wars and then dad whose
kids were This is for many of you out there,
a story that's very they have fired. Kathleen Kennedy, she
is the woman who has been blamed for destroying the
(34:08):
Star Wars franchise as they've had to put a pause
in making these movies the revenues collapsed. They basically went
super woke. As many of you know out there who
were fans of Star Wars, She's out so DEI this
sort of woke Disney universe continues to give up the
ghost a bit more every single day. And I give
(34:29):
credit to Donald Trump. By the way, cool video out there.
They opened back up the White House for tours. I
didn't know that it had been closed for years. First
group walking through, Donald Trump surprised them. Really really cool.
Can you imagine getting to go on a White House tour?
How exciting that is. I did it as a kid.
(34:50):
And then the President just comes by and shakes hands
with everybody. Really kind of awesome, I thought, moment, and
we have that cut twenty six that happened a little
bit earlier today.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Listen.
Speaker 5 (35:02):
But I want to thank you very much for coming
the tour is so great to send a good job
first lady who worked very hard and making it perfect.
And I think you gotta really love it. And I
heard you were here, and I said, let's stop by
and say doing it. Very smart looking people, I must say,
very smart. Maybe someday you'd be You'll be here as
the precedent, right, somebody, somebody in this group, as the shads,
(35:24):
have a good time, have a great tour, and you're
gonna give them a special tour. Okay, you're gonna get
a special tour.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Have fun, everybody, Buck, you know this. I think a
lot of our audience has, oh, they started chanting us
say that is just awesome. A lot of our audience
has come to get this. Trump's retail politicking skills are
off the charts good.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
I mean just interacting with people like that. There is
honestly no person on earth that would be more fun
and entertaining to get a White House tour from than
Donald Trump. At really thanks, really, Donald Trump. I mean,
think about what that could go for a charity auction.
Donald Trump giving you a White House tour would be
incredible because he would tell you, you know, slightly off color
(36:10):
and hilarious stories about different you know.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
People that frankly may or may not be true, but
be wildly entertaining. I'm not sure. By the way, Buck,
praise for you as we finish here, the show Junior
in Hicksville, New York.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Hey, Buck, this here is Junior living up in Hicksville,
New York. That's Long Island, and the rest of you is.
It's good to see you eating steak, buddy, instead of
that pistachio business you've been eating. It means that you
eat a steak. You being a man, now you go
and eat that steak. Was always eating steak and pistachio crembroulet.
I can have both sleeve.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Travis and Buck Sexton on the front lines of truth.
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Buck Sexton
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