April 9, 2025 • 62 mins
China Trade War
Buck Sexton's impending fatherhood and the excitement surrounding the potential birth date. The conversation transitions to a detailed analysis of the ongoing trade wars, particularly focusing on the escalating tensions between the United States and China. Clay Travis discusses the impact of increased tariffs and the strategic leverage the U.S. holds due to China's export-dependent economy. Buck Sexton adds insights into the broader implications of these trade conflicts, including intellectual property theft and the geopolitical strategies at play.
The hosts also highlight comments from notable figures such as Victor Davis Hanson and Kevin O'Leary (aka Mr. Wonderful) who advocate for aggressive tariff policies against China. They explore the rationale behind tariffs and question why many countries, including China, maintain high tariffs if they are supposedly detrimental to economic growth. This segment underscores the complexity of global trade dynamics and the necessity for the U.S. to recalibrate its trade policies.
Trump Tariff Pause and Julie Kelly on Rouge Judges
President Trump to pause tariffs on most countries while increasing tariffs on China, interpreting this move as a strategic effort to isolate China and strengthen the U.S. negotiating position. Investigative journalist Julie Julie on judicial warfare.
Dr. Art Laffer
A detailed discussion with renowned economist Dr. Art Laffer. They explore the complexities of the current trade wars, focusing on the strategic use of tariffs by the Trump administration. Dr. Laffer emphasizes the importance of negotiating free trade deals and explains how the U.S. aims to reduce protectionist barriers imposed by other countries. He argues that trade deficits can be beneficial, as they attract foreign investment into the U.S. economy.
The conversation delves into the economic relationship between the U.S. and China, with Dr. Laffer advocating for the inclusion of China in free trade agreements despite its current protectionist policies. He highlights the potential long-term benefits of integrating China into the global free trade system. The discussion also touches on the economic policies of various U.S. states, with Dr. Laffer criticizing high-tax states for driving away manufacturing jobs and praising low-tax states like Tennessee for their economic success. Clay and Buck analyze Dr. Laffer's segment and give their points of view.
Make sure you never miss a second of the show by subscribing to the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton show podcast wherever you get your podcasts! ihr.fm/3InlkL8
For the latest updates from Clay & Buck, visit our website https://www.clayandbuck.com/
Connect with Clay Travis and Buck Sexton:
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome in Wednesday edition Clay Travis Buck Sexton show. This
one could be Buck becomes a dad today. He is
here with us on potential birthday. We'll see, could be tomorrow.
Do you have a faith Obviously the labor process plays
in here, but do you have a preference April ninth,
(00:24):
April tenth to carry? Is there any sort of cosmological
connection here in any way?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I have no idea. I'm not like that on this.
I barely remember my own birthday, so I'm not the.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Guy to ask about birthday stuff. But yeah, anything in
April sounds nice. So this is a big day all around.
We are continuing the trade wars since we now are
CNBC and Fox Business all rolled into one stock market
flat as we begin the show today, basically unmoved by
(00:58):
and large across the the financial landscape. The S and
P five hundred up a tiny amount as I speak
to you, the Dow down a tiny amount.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Not much movement going on there.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
There is, however, a lot of movement going on in
what essentially is boiling down to the United States versus China.
I would expect Buck, and I'm curious if you co
sign on this that countries like Japan and South Korea
and Australia and England and even much of Europe are
(01:30):
going to get resolved the new trade deals relatively quickly
in the grand scheme of things, that is, over the
next few weeks. And I think those will be beneficial
to the United States. I don't think they'll be transformative.
The real battle here, as we stare down what's coming
is the United States versus China, and how does this
(01:53):
situation resolve itself and how long does it take to
resolve itself. As we elevated our overall tariffs on China
to over one hundred percent, China has responded by increasing
the tariffs on the United States I believe roughly to
eighty percent. Now, given the fact that China has much
(02:14):
more of an export based economy, particularly in relationship to
the United States, than the United States does in relationship
to China, the pain in general should be felt on
China more than it's felt on the United States. That's
the negotiating leverage that Trump is that Trump is banking on.
(02:35):
If there are brilliant people out there who want to
disagree with that, you're welcome to call in eight hundred
two A two two eight A two. But China is
to a large extent and export focused economy, and they
have built a huge trade surplus against the United States.
Now there are certainly complicating factors in that. I believe
(02:56):
China has something like five trillion dollars in United States bonds,
which is it's probably trump card on some level, pardon
the pun from them. What would happen if they start
to liquidate a substantial amount of their treasury some suggesting
that's already potentially occurring, and that might be what's impacting
(03:19):
the bond market in general. Again, these are high level
discussions of exactly what is going to be done, but
so far China and the United States staring at each
other not blinking. Would you co sign on most of
that analysis? Do you think I'm missing anything from your perspective, Buck.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
No, I think that this is ultimately actually about a
China trade wark. I mean, that's really what the which
if you think about it in that context. It also
makes a lot of sense when you look back to
the first Trump term, and this I think would have
been the phase that he entered in twenty twenty had
things gone differently. I think this was always in his mind.
(04:00):
The first phase was just waking people up to what
China was doing, which is truly the greatest theft over decades,
not just of wealth but of intellectual property, which obviously
is wealth in the modern economy, and all kinds of
bad faith efforts and undermining a lot of US hegemony
(04:20):
wherever they can. So Trump has said enough is enough
as it pertains to China. I do think we'll get
deals with the other countries in place. And you know
Apollo Global Management's CEO for those who don't know Apollo
Global Management is it's a big time finance outfit. I
think they're private equity guys. So you know, they buy
huge companies, they turn them around, they sell them stuff
(04:43):
like that. But here is the CEO of that company,
who is I think, saying something again. This is somebody
who manages billions and billions of dollars and has to
be right or else he loses his job, and he's
coming out and saying we need a reset.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
This is cut two.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
US is the second freest trading market in the world
financially after Japan, and is the freest trading market in
the world considering non tariff barriers. Why is that written
in stone. Why shouldn't we be the tenth or the twentieth.
The policies that have been in place since the end
of World War Two are not fit for today.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
I think that's well said. And Buck, I've got a
couple of more here that I thought were well said
that I sent into our producer, Greg because I thought
some of you out there, I understand this is complicated,
and probably a lot of you don't sit around on
a regular basis thinking about, say, tariffs, like you might
think about taxes, or economic growth or any other number
(05:44):
of issues that have been well discussed and debated for
decades in the United States. Here's Victor Davis Hansen asking
a question I thought, Buck, that we have asked, if
tariffs are so awful, how come so many countries have
tariffs in the first place? Why did these exist? I
thought this was well said by him. This is cut three.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
China has prohibitive tariffs, So does Vietnam, so does Mexico,
so does Europe, so do a lot of countries. So
does India. But if tariffs are so destructive of their economies,
why is China booming? How did India become an economic
powerhouse when it has these exorbitant tariffs on American imports.
(06:27):
How did Vietnam, of all places, become such a different
country even though it has these prohibitive tariffs. Why isn't
Germany before its energy problems. Why wasn't it a wreck?
It's got tariffs on almost everything that we send them.
How is the EU even functioning with these tariffs? I
thought tariffs destroyed an economy, but they seem to like them,
(06:51):
and they're angry that they're no longer asymmetrical. Apparently, are
people who are teriffing us think tariffs improve their economy?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
I thought that's what was said.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Well, this is what we've been saying, and we never
get I never hear an answer to this. Yeah, people
just say tariffs are attacks, tariffs are born by the consumers,
Tariffs are bad, Tariffs led the Great Depression. They shout
all this stuff, and I say, why does every other
country have tariffs?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, we're the only ones.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
And when it comes to being outliers, you know, we're
also the country that's supposed to pay the rest of
the world's bills. We're also the country that's supposed to
be the rest of the world's policemen and the world's giant,
world's biggest refugee camp with a wide open border. Right,
there are a number of areas in which the United
States is expected to bear a burden that other countries
(07:36):
are not. Well, are we bearing the burden of being
the only free trade country in the world. I totally
agree when Elon says we should get to zero tariffs
across the board. Yes, that is the goal. That would
be fantastic. It would be so much better. It's a
bit like saying, you know, wouldn't it be nice if
we could get rid of nuclear weapons. Sure, when everybody
else that we're worried about gets rid of their nuclear weapons,
(07:58):
we can get rid of nuclear weapons too.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Why would they keep them? But we get rid of them.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
That's what we've been doing, essentially in an economic front
with tariffs. And I still have not heard any the
answers you might hear about this play or something like, oh,
the French want to protect their wine and their cheese
or something, you know, that's very dismissive of it. But well, no, no,
it's this is on American automobiles. This is on a lot. Yeah,
this is on you know, we're talking about the EU
now and people are saying, all right, well Canada, I
(08:24):
saw this. I'm saying Canada's dairy tariffs don't actually go
in too effect if you hit us until you hit
a certain level.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Well, why have them at all?
Speaker 3 (08:32):
If free trade is so good, why have them at all? Right, Well,
at some level it must be because you're protecting your
own industry, because you recognize that wealth generation comes from
the exchange and the creation and exchange of goods and services.
It's not just we keep printing money to buy stuff
from everybody else. There's a lot of that going on here.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Also, where the companies are base matters. I mean, I
would bet that the reason the Chinese dairy industry is
I mean, sorry, the Canadian dairy industry is protected, is
because they don't want America to be sourcing every element
of the dairy there, right, And so where the companies
are based is foundationally very important. Really, this is going
(09:13):
to boil down to the extent that it has not
already into US versus China. And I've heard some people
out there say that their criticism is actually that we
should just go full bore after China and not focus
on other countries as much.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
This is let's get try to get mister Wonderful on.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
I think we had him on recently, meaning in the
last year or so, if I'm not mistaken, but this
was on CNN.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I thought this was really well said.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
He said we should put a four hundred percent tariff
on China because they're cheaters on the global marketplace.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Listen to cut four one.
Speaker 6 (09:49):
Hundred and four percent tariffs in China are not enough.
I'm advocating four hundred percent. I do business in China.
They don't play by the rules. They've been in the
WHO for decades. They have never abided by any of
the rules they agreed to when they came in for decades.
They cheat, they steal, They steal ip I can't litigate
in their courts. Never has an administration four territory. I
(10:11):
want Chia on an airplane to Washington to level the
playing field. It says, not about tariffs anymore. It's time
to squeeze Chinese heads into the wall.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Now, man, that is aggressive, buck, But I do think
he's saying what a lot of American businessmen believe but
aren't willing to say because they work with China. I
was actually a little bit surprised because I can't imagine
that the business he does with China is going to
be helped by those comments.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
But this is what you have to do.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Sometimes you have to speak out against your own interests
because you recognize the larger interest is important.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Well, I wonder how much business he's really doing in
China currently. That's point one on that. In point two,
mister wonderful Kevin O'Leary likes to get sound bites that
make their way across the Internet ecosystem and other shows
like this one.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I mean a four hundred percent tariff.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
You know, at some point if we push too hard
on China, I know you could say it's a negotiation
tactic book. We don't want to see them completely insane, right,
because they're What we want is for them to improve
their behavior. We don't actually just want to extend a
single finger in their direction and say that's the way
it's going to be going forward, right, we would like
to see China. In fact, China's entrance into the WTO
(11:28):
was premised on them changing their behavior.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
This is the which it's not hold. This is well said. Continue,
it's not that we want to be in a trade war.
You know this is what China has decided to do.
China has and you'll get the Belton Road initiative. It's
it's like a mix of communism, authoritarianism, mercantilism. China has
been rapacious when it comes to trade globally and has
(11:53):
not become any more liberal as it has become a
whole lot more wealthy. China is a was a desperately
poor country, uh really up until the nineteen eighties, and
people forget them, the biggest famine in the history of
the world occurred in China right around nineteen sixty in
world history. Okay, tens of millions of people starve to
death in that country. I think people now we all
(12:14):
think of China as a billion people and a huge
economy and robotics and Ai clay. China has done this
in the last forty years.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
What I think is important about what you said is
because I've heard this argument for sports for a long time. Well,
if we go take our basketball to China, if we
take the Olympics to China, they're going to start to
play by our rules. We will see them democratize, we
will see them join more the Western world. Actually, that
(12:44):
hasn't happened at all. In fact, they've tried to impact
the Western world with Chinese values, and I think you
can see this in a big way. We talked about
this before, but I think it's very important. You know how,
there's no bad Asian guys in movies anymore. Every bad
thing about this, like every James Bond movie, every mission impossible.
The bad guys are always people with kind of a
(13:06):
Russian Ish accent. And if you go back and you
study it, do you remember when they remade the.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Great movie Redbad Dawn. Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
They remade the entire movie because initially China invaded Us,
and then in order to get the movie released in
the time, they had to go back in. This is crazy,
but they did this. They digitally altered the entire Chinese
army to make it North Korea that invaded the United
States because Warner Brothers, I believe, who was distributing the
(13:38):
film or Paramount, was too afraid of angering China by
having China be the bad guys in a movie. And
one of the threats they just made Buck is We're
not gonna let American movies come into China anymore.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
It's play the theft of intellectual property that's been going
on for decades. It's worse than what the KGB was
able to do during the height of the Cold War,
because at least there we have cyber attacks going on
all the time based in China stealing our most sensitive technology.
We have, our universities are penetrated by Chinese agents all
over the place. Everybody knows this, the FBI knows this.
(14:11):
But there's all this sensitivity around actually treating a particular
nationality as a wellspring of adversaries, which unfortunately is the
case with China currently. And some people have just decided
in our government that enough is enough, that this is
not the way it is supposed to or it should
continue on. So this is where the friction is.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Right.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
This is not going to be easy or perfect. It's
only been a few days. I think people need to
strap in. This is not going to get easier anytime soon.
I don't see Trump backing off the China.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Part of it.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
I do hope that as the deals with Japan and
South Korea and the EU get ironed out and there's
a normalization there, everyone realizes, Okay, now we really have
to focus on the big challenge and and there'll be
a clarity about what that really is. But once again, Trump,
even if he's a little sometimes rough on the execution
(15:08):
in the early stages of something, on the big issues,
on the big think, he tends to nail it all.
Speaker 7 (15:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Look, for every gun owner in this audience today, I
got to tell you you should make yourself a member
of the United States Concealed Carry Association. This is all
about protecting your rights to defend yourself legally. If you
end up in court, often it's not just about what
you date, it's how it's interpreted. That's why Clay and
I are both members of USCCA, and we're happy to
welcome them as our newest sponsor on this program. Go
(15:36):
download the United States Concealed Carry Association's Free Guide. You
can do that before you become a member. It provides
tangible information, practical information. Their Concealed Carry and Family Defense
Guide walks you through what to do before, during, and
after a self defense incident, mental prep, legal insights, step
by step training. This guide lays the foundation in fact
(15:58):
legal defense is provided to those members needing it after
rightfully defending themselves in their family Following uscca's instructive tips,
I remember when I did my concealed carry class guys
down here in Florida. The guy told me that of
two of his students who had had to use their
weapons to defend themselves in recent years, both initially face charges.
Both initially face charges mean that's this is what can happen,
(16:20):
and then the charges eventually were dismissed. But you've got
to go with the security and safety of knowing your
rights and having someone who will have your back if
you lawfully defend yourself when it comes to your legal expenses.
Go to go online to USCCA dot com slash buck
to get your free guide today. That's USCCA dot com
(16:43):
slash buck. You can also find this information on clanbuck
dot com right under the sponsors tab.
Speaker 8 (16:49):
Clay Travis and Buck Sexton. Mic drops that never sounded
so good Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
All right, welcome back into Clay and Buck. We've got
some big breaking news.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Julie Kelly about to join us here in a moment,
But first our market maestro here on Clay and Buck.
Clay Travis watching the stock ticker closely. What just happened clay.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Uh Trump has announced a ninety day pause on all
countries for the tariffs other than China. He has increased
the tariff on China to one hundred and twenty five percent.
This is kind of the advice that you and I
were giving if he wanted to focus on China, which
is the real culprit here. How is the stock market?
(17:36):
Some responding, Buck, I hope you guys bought the dip.
The Dow now is up twenty four hundred points, Buck,
that is six and a half percent that it is surging.
The Nasdaq up nearly nine percent. This has all happened
in the last couple of minutes. The S and P
(17:56):
five hundred is up seven percent, nearly four hundred points,
so much of the selloff associated with the tariff battle
has now vanished just about overnight. We tried to tell you,
we said, buy the dips sometimes, don't even look at
(18:18):
stock prices.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Don't panic.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Unfortunately, I know a lot of people sold at the
bottom and now they're going to be buying back in
as the stock market is surging. But I hope you
held on. But that is the absolute latest right now.
Lots of fluctuation, but again, just to kind of put
it in context, the S and P. Five hundred is
(18:40):
now basically trading the same place that it was in August,
and you know it could easily be basically where it
was in September. So anyway, stocks go up and down.
Trump negotiating. Now what we said I think is accurate,
which is this is now just China versus the United States,
(19:04):
and to a large extent, the other countries are now
aligned in favor of free trade. And now we'll see
what happens with China. All right, Buck, we have got
Julie Kelly cued up to talk about many things, but
it wanted to give that updates everybody out there. Yes,
Julie Kelly.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
You all know her from her declassified sub stack, which
you should go subscribe to, and her great book and
her great work. Julie, thanks for being with us.
Speaker 9 (19:32):
Thank you, and Buck, congratulations to you and Carrie.
Speaker 7 (19:35):
You're going to have an exciting evening and probably day tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
I don't know, I don't know if you heard our
friend Jesse's Jesse Kelly said, it's gonna be a tough
twenty four hours for me physically. I need to hydrate,
I need to make sure I get a lot of
get rested. And everyone's freaking out about this, but it's
pretty funny. I'm here for Carrie for anything that she needs,
and we could not be more excited about it. So
thank you very much, Julie. And all right, all right
(20:03):
now I got to get you on what is going
on here. A few things that come to mind and
involve Julie Kelly and her work. Judge Boseburg, this guy
after the Supreme Court comes in and says, hold on
a second, you can't just venue shop. He had a
hearing scheduled. And where is this guy now? It feels
(20:23):
like he's become the Adam Schiff of resistance judges, which
is not a compliment, you know, claim Buck.
Speaker 7 (20:31):
It's amazing to see the same judges who for four
years insisted a mostly nonviolent protest to a government building
on a Wednesday afternoon represent it an attempt to overthrow
democracy and overturn the results of the twenty twenty election.
Keep in mind to Jeb Bosberg routinely in JA six
cases call January sixth an insurrection. That's what you call it,
(20:53):
even for people who are in his core room on
low level misdemeanors like parading in the Capitol.
Speaker 9 (20:58):
But yet here he is.
Speaker 7 (21:00):
Actually trying to overturn the results of the twenty twenty
four elections, sabotage Donald Trump's agenda and by extension, the
seventy two million or so Americans who voted for him.
The Supreme Court is not stopping him. So even though
they just vacated his two temporary restraining orders banning deportation
(21:20):
flights of these illegal Venezuelans covered under the President's Alien
Enemy Zact proclamation from March fifteenth. Even though the Supreme
Court vacated those temporary restraining orders, said that Washington was
the improper venue that these illegals should see habeas petitions
where they are in custody, which is Texas.
Speaker 9 (21:40):
That's not stopping him. You are exactly right, Buck.
Speaker 7 (21:42):
So yesterday he had a hearing scheduled in his courtroom
on a preliminary injunction.
Speaker 9 (21:48):
This is the next natural step after a temporary restraining order.
Speaker 7 (21:52):
This is what the ACLU, who is representing these legal
Venezuelans want, and this would put a longer ban on
these flights. Even after the Supreme Court ruling. Jeb Brosberg
said in April sixteenth, deadline for the ACLU to come
back to him, explain why they're going to continue to
pursue this preliminary injunction and.
Speaker 9 (22:13):
Why they believe that Washington d C.
Speaker 7 (22:15):
Jeb Bosberg's courtroom is still the appropriate place to seek
that relief even though the Supreme Court said very clearly
it doesn't belong in Washington d C.
Speaker 9 (22:25):
Furthermore, we could talk a little bit about this too.
Speaker 7 (22:27):
He is going forward with his contempt investigation against the
Trump administration and officials who he believes to find a
separate court order a verbal order to return planes on
March fifteenth, and we are expecting that opinion from Jeb
Bosberg really any hour, any day, but sometime this week.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Are you even stunned, Julie, Because I gotta admit, I am,
and this is me, being a lawyer. I knew that
Trump Resistance two point zero would eventually emerge somewhere. I
crazy me thought it might come from the Democrat Party
or maybe the legacy media. It feels like, by and large,
the Democrat Party is so impotent that they can't even
(23:09):
put counter arguments out. Meanwhile, legacy media is collapsing as
we speak. I mean, the business models are shriveling up
and dying. Now, we just got all these federal district
court judges behaving frankly in an unprecedented manner getting slapped down.
We had trio of them slapped down by the Supreme Court.
But I gotta admit I didn't foresee them being as
(23:32):
aggressive as they have been. I knew they would be
aligned in many ways against Trump, but I didn't think
we would see it, historically without precedent, attack coming from
the federal district court level against Trump and his administration.
Speaker 9 (23:45):
Did you, I mean in a place I sort of
agree with you.
Speaker 7 (23:50):
I did not as bad as these judges in Washington
DC are, And of course they've been covering them for years,
both the district and Palette Court, and seeing how viciously
and wully and remorselessly they treated January sixth defendants and
the President and his associates as well, I really did
not expect this level of defiance, this level of sabotage,
(24:12):
that is the word that what these judges are doing
uniformally in Washington, d C.
Speaker 9 (24:17):
So I guess I would agree with you. I'm a
little surprised at the.
Speaker 7 (24:21):
Extent to which they are going, which of course they
did for years against Donald Trump in the same DC courthouse,
whether it was Special Council Robert Mueller's investigation and Special
Council Jacksmith, all these proceedings.
Speaker 9 (24:35):
Were handled in this DC Federal Courthouse.
Speaker 7 (24:38):
But to see them line up like little lemmings, especially
behind job Bossburg who's the chief judge, and deny all
of these lawsuits that side with the plaintiffs and all
of these lawsuits who really have no vested interest in
what the Trump policies are, but going to any extent
(24:59):
that they've possibly can these judges to side with people
who are trying to take down the president's agenda and
again emphasize the will of the American people who put
Donald Trump in the White House to do exactly the.
Speaker 9 (25:11):
Disruption that he is doing.
Speaker 7 (25:14):
So yeah, and of course defying the Supreme Court is
a whole other level which we see job Bossberg doing.
But these Democrat judges, as you know, just like Democrat
rank and file voters, do not consider the Supreme Court legitimate.
They are not at all excuse me, I have a
(25:35):
little call. They are not at all chagrin by being
smacked down by the highest Court.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
We're speaking of Julie Kelly declassifizers at the sub stack
and Julie, we need to get her some some crocket
coffee or some tea with honey in it, perhaps even better. Julie,
sorry that you got you got to call. Appreciate you, you know,
pushing through and uh and telling everybody across the country.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
But they need to know about you.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
By the way, I've learned how to pronounce his name Bosberg.
I guess bas I was just reading it off the
or i'd been reading it. I hadn't really heard it.
I want to bring your attention to something else too.
The I'm sure you saw this. The acting IRS Commissioner
is resigning from the IRS because the Trump administration has
(26:21):
said you need to share data from your government, data
about essentially illegals that the IRS has information on for
enforcement purposes. I think a lot of people are seeing,
Julie that for the entity that can lock you up
because you don't give enough of your money as an
(26:42):
American to them, and they get to determine after the
fact what that amount is. To then say, hold on
a second, what do you mean you're going to use
our information for federal immigration law purposes. Just goes to
show that there is this whole mentality even within the government,
that legal aliens are a special protected class.
Speaker 7 (27:04):
That's exactly right. It's pretty stunning to see. And this
is the acting director who I think she took over
in February, and all of these deep staters, everyone in
the administrative state who will go out of their way
to protect they believe that these government agencies belong to them.
They don't believe that these government agencies belong to the
(27:26):
people or certainly should be supervised by the president and
his team. So that's why you see this defiance not
just by the judges, but of course the heads of
these departments and agencies. But of course we are entitled
to this information. I love how transparency and accountability was
such a big cause during Trump's first presidency that.
Speaker 9 (27:47):
Went away, you know, during the second and now all
of a.
Speaker 7 (27:49):
Sudden, we can't have transparency and accountability as he's trying
to clean up and reform all of these corrupt agencies.
So I really commend the administration for their focus, especially
on legal immigration, because as you guys know, that was
one of the top issues that propelled him into office
and they are not backing down at all. But we
(28:11):
as America, as American citizens tax payers, are entitled to
know and we saw this too with the voting roles
and illegals who are on Social Security. This is a
huge scandal with real time implications on our country, on
our national security, on our economy, and certainly on our elections.
(28:34):
So good riddance to the acting IRS director. I'm sure
there's a lot of other qualified people who understand the
cause who will replace that individual, and we'll just.
Speaker 9 (28:46):
Keep pushing forward.
Speaker 7 (28:47):
Intel a judge steps in and stops all of it,
which I'm sure is only a matter of time.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Julie, we appreciate you, keep the fight going and we
will talk to you again.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Have a good weekend. Enjoy the Masters.
Speaker 9 (29:01):
Oh I definitely will. Thanks guys.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
That's Julie Kelly, American Patriots. He's been fantastic with us.
You know, Spring's here and so is the Iconic Masters Tournament.
They have the Part three challenge today, which is super cool.
I know we're on in Augusta. We got a monster
audience there. I bet it's chaotic down in Augusta right
now as we get ready for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
(29:25):
action that for many people, Harold's the return of spring
and summer is on the horizon, and so is Major
League Baseball and the NBA Playoffs and the NHL playoffs.
Whatever sport you love, and you guys know I love sports,
price picks is there for you. You get fifty bucks. Look,
you go right now to prizepicks dot com code clay.
You get fifty dollars instantly when you play five dollars.
(29:48):
Whatever your sport is, whether you're looking forward to watching
the Masters this weekend, maybe you want to watch Luca
returning down to Dallas. Maybe you're still recovering from an
incredible Final four. Maybe you're a big BA s ball
fan like I am watching the Braves and Phillies last night. Hey,
maybe you're a big hockey fan. Whatever your sport is,
price picks has got a game for you. Pricepicks dot
(30:08):
Com code clay. You just pick more or less for
any athlete in any sport, and you can turn your
knowledge of sports into an ability to make yourself a
little bit of money and also have some fun in
the process. You can play in California, you can play
in Texas. You can play in Florida. You can play
in Georgia. Over ten million players right now. Pricepicks dot com,
(30:30):
Code Clay check it out pricepicks dot com, Code Clay.
Speaker 8 (30:35):
News and politics, but also a little comic relief. Clay
Travis and Buck Sexton. Find them on the free iHeartRadio
app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
There's a op ed in the Wall Street Journal, a
win win exit strategy for Trump on tariffs, written by
Arn't Laugher and Steven Moore. Doctor Art Laugher joins us
now renowned economist guy came up with that whole Laffer
curve thing. Brilliant man, he is with us, Thanks for
(31:07):
being here, or I appreciate you.
Speaker 10 (31:09):
My pleasure, my pleasure. It's really fun being with you guys.
By the way, I love it.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
So you're an upbeat You're you're a brilliant guy and
an upbeat guy, and we need that today given what
we're what we're seeing, what we're seeing out there. You're
not a catastrophis. You're not a doom and gloom guy.
Let's just start with this. When people are telling you,
I am concerned about what's happening right now in the markets.
What do you say to them, what's your overall feeling.
(31:35):
I want to get into the win win strategy from
your piece. But first off, an opportunity to tell everybody
don't panic.
Speaker 10 (31:42):
Well, I'm panicking when they tell me that. I screaming
and hollering him on the floor, crying, it's the end
of the world. Let's see it. No, no, you know,
Donald Trump is an extraordinarily competent president. In my view,
he was the single best first term president. I'm just
talking about economics now, just economics, the same bestfort's term
president in US history. If you look at the Tax
(32:03):
Cuts and Jobs Act, it was wonderful. If you look
at Operation Warp speed, unbelievable energy and dependency, roll back
of the Chevron decision, you know, all of these things there.
I mean, it was just unbelievable what he did in
his first term. And he is in his second term now,
and you know, he is competent. He's got all the skills,
(32:25):
He's very knowledgeable in the subject. And I believe this
is me. I believe that he is using the threats
of tariffs and the actual imposition of tariffs to get
these other countries to come and negotiate free treat trade
deals with US. They are far more protectionists than we are.
We are as a country, US probably the lowest tariff,
(32:48):
the lowest protectionist country a major country in the world.
There may be something like sark or Jersey or Guernsey
or something like Monaco or something like that, but of
the big countries were by far the least protectionists. And
how how do you get these other countries that come
to the table and negotiate getting rid of their tariffs,
and you know, you've got to threaten them with access
to the US market. And so that's what he's doing.
(33:09):
I believe now you're going to talk to Trump, and
you got to talk to him because he knows far
better what he's doing than I do. And I'm no
source of special knowledge, but knowing him and knowing all
the trade stuff I do, I cannot believe that he
would do anything that would really hurt America in the
long run by having a trade war.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Okay, so let's dive into this, doctor Laugher, Art Laugher.
We appreciate you coming on. Every time we come on
and talk economics with you. The audience loves it because
you're way smarter about this stuff than we are big
picture here, it seems to me, and I read your
Wall Street Journal editorial. It's posted link at clayanbuck dot com.
Encourage people to go check that out. It seems to
me that Trump is talking about two different things in
(33:50):
many ways as it pertains to a trade war one.
And I think Buck and I are in agreement with
you to the extent that we can eliminate as many
tariffs as possible on trading countries. That's a great thing
because it allows even competition, it allows even movement of
goods with less cost. But China is cheating on the
(34:10):
global stage, and to a large extent, aren't there kind
of two different goals? Because if we eliminated all tariffs
with China, wouldn't that in some way reward them even
more for their cheating? Do you see this as you know,
let's say the European Union, Australia, Great Britain, China, I mean, sorry, Japan,
(34:34):
South Korea, those are kind of fair trade partners in general.
And then you've got China that's in an entirely different universe.
Are we really talking about two different policy perspectives? How
would you analyze that? When it comes to trade relationships.
Speaker 10 (34:49):
I would say that the two of you are wrong,
and China's right in the same category with all the
others cheating. I don't know what the heck cheating means.
If they gave us all their products free of charge,
so we got high quality products at low cost, would
you hate them then and want to bomb them? I mean,
when you look at it from a customer standpoint, when
you go to a store, do you sell them? Please
sell me above retail. I want you to charge me
(35:11):
the most you possibly can for this product. No, No,
we'd like to give it to you, guys.
Speaker 9 (35:14):
No.
Speaker 10 (35:15):
I mean, China is potentially our best trading partner in
the world long term, and I really think that we
need to get trying to into the Free Trade Group.
And if you really think about it for a moment,
do you like your customers and your clients and your
client tell? Of course you do. You know, the one
way of guaranteeing hostilities will occur as not trading with
(35:38):
the country. When you're trying to one, you're a customer,
they're a customer, and it leads to friendships, it leads
to great prosperity, and it leads to eliminating war art.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Can you tell us why do all these so many
of these other countries have and have had long standing tariffs,
and why does China have so many and such aggressive tariffs?
Speaker 10 (36:01):
Well, let me tell you why. It is because these
little countries, I say, little Germany, these types of just
teeny tiny little countries do Yeah, they talk to our
trade officials and so you know, we've got to put
this on for political reason, blah blah blah blah blah,
and the USA's go ahead, please, it's okay, do it.
You know, it doesn't really affect us very much. And
over the years this is built up to being a
really travesty. They now have way more petition, every single
(36:25):
one of them. It's not just one one off with
one tariff. It's cacumulated. And now they have all these
For example, I mean, can you imagine they're two hundred
and fifty percent tariffs in Canada against Wisconsin dairy products.
What I mean, how did that come about? I'm sure
it came about with some deal with some president and
some Prime minister of Canada. You know, we've got to
(36:45):
do this. I'll lose the election if I don't do it.
And they get this, they get this one off exemption,
and all of this is built up, and now Trump
is trying to get rid of it, and quite correctly. So,
I mean, we need to get rid of their tariffs.
Their quote is their non tariff barriers. They're hurting us
and they're hurting them.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
But so why can't China figure out that its tariffs
are hurting it?
Speaker 10 (37:06):
I think it will. I mean, if you remember, I
mean I was the first American to go to China
in nineteen seventy, in October of nineteen seven. I went
with George Hultzen and John Earlick when we did the
pre Kissinger trap. And but then they had one hundred
percent tariff. They had no trade with the outside world.
They were called the Hermit Kingdom. And you know, they
opened up their trade. They saw how the trade by
(37:27):
lowering their trade barriers, by entering into trade, it created
the greatest economic growth miracle in modern history. The Chinese
growth from nineteen seventy to let's say, five years ago
was just a phenomenal period for China. More people were
removed from poverty than in the entire history of humanity
one hundred and ninety thousand years so it's it's really
(37:48):
I think China will understand this, and I think China
will in due course enter into a free trade agreement
with the US as well, and it will be wonderful
when that happens. Believe.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Okay, So let's go into this China relationship in particular,
because you say you see it as as similar to
the EU and the other countries that I laid out.
What does an ideal relationship from your perspective look like
with China when it comes to trade, Because it is
going to be the case that if we had, for instance,
zero tariffs at all, China is going to be exporting
(38:22):
I think four hundred billion is the number that I
saw something like that. The trade imbalance is seismic. We're
going to be buying more Chinese goods than China is
going to be buying American goods. Is that trade imbalance
in any way an issue from your perspective?
Speaker 2 (38:38):
And how would you rectify it? What is?
Speaker 1 (38:40):
In other words, let's pretend that you are Laugher, We're
given a magic wand and you got to solve it.
What would your answer be?
Speaker 10 (38:46):
Now? Would you mind tell me how much it bothers you?
For foreigners wanting to invest in the US because they
think we're the greatest country in the world. Let's imagine
we cut taxes, cut regulations, had stable prices, you know,
no rate, all the correct policies, everyone would want to
invest in the United States. How do foreigners generate a
(39:07):
dollar cash flow to buy us located assets? There are
only two ways they can do that. They've got to
sell more goods to US, and they've got to buy
less goods from US. That's the only way they can
generate that dollar cash flow to invest in the United
States of America. And that's the most wonderful thing. We
built our country from sixteen forty until eighteen seventy on
(39:30):
trade deficits. We imported all of this capital from Europe,
primarily Britain and Holland, and used it with our labor
and with our raw materials, and we became the pre
eminent economic force on planet Earth because of capital investments,
which is a US trade deficit. Trade deficits are great.
I mean, let me ask you, which would you rather
(39:50):
have capital lineup on our borders trying to get into
our country or trying to get out of our country.
You know, if we bring a factory back from Mexico
into the United States and bring all those machines and
all that production equipment by coming across the Mexican US border.
That's a Mexican export and the Mexican trade surplus. It's
a US import and the US trade deficit. It's also
(40:13):
a US capital surplus and a Mexican capital deficit. Trade
deficits are how we bring our capital back to the US,
and I think we should have trade deficits in China
thinks that we're the best country in the world and
they want to invest all their capital in the US.
God bless them.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Okay, so I need I need some help here. Square
in the circle for a second.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
So if good, if trade trade deficits are good, and
all tariffs are bad and self defeating, what what? And
so trade and balance is a good thing. We want
trade and balance. Do you like what Trump is doing
or are you trying to tell him to not do
any of this?
Speaker 10 (40:50):
No? No, I like I'm the biggest fan. I'm his
biggest fan. I think he's negotiating, and I think he's
negotiating to get them to reduce their tariffs against US,
which are larger than our tariffs and trade barriers are
against them, and I think he brings them to the table.
What is it, sixty seventy countries are coming to negotiate.
What are they coming to negotiate? We will cut our
(41:11):
tariffs dramatically. Please just allow us access to your market.
And I think that's just the wonderful thing for Trump
to do, and I think he's going to be very
successful at it. It scares the live in hell how
to be By the way, I'm a wuss, I'm not
a negotier. I'm not a guy like Trump. Trump knows
how to negotiate and he loves doing it, and he's
really successful at it. But my belief is that Trump
(41:33):
deep down is a free trader all the way, and
I think he just really wants to get them to
come here and lower tariffs on their products by a lot.
And he did this in the first term. By the way,
that the Japanese Trade Deal was great for lowering tariffs,
the USMCA was wonderful for lowering tariffs and barriers, The
South Korean deal he did, the one he did with Brazil,
(41:54):
the one he did with Columbia all resulted in better
trade relationships with these countries, and that's what I think
he's trying to do. Now he can tell you otherwise,
and he may well be not doing this, but I
really have full trust in him that he's doing the
right thing, and it's very comfortable.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Let me ask you this. A lot of people listening
in the Midwest. Jd.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Vance obviously wrote his book He'll Billy Elogy, which I restseller.
I'm sure you read it, Buck, and I have read it.
What is the answer for people who feel like the
jobs have been hollowed out in the industrial Midwest? For
people listening to us in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio that got
used to having those jobs that were going to pay
(42:38):
so well to produce American goods, is that an issue?
Speaker 10 (42:42):
I want you to tell the audience where the two
of you are located.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I'm in National, Tennessee.
Speaker 10 (42:48):
Okay, I'm in Nashville too. Now why am I in Nashville.
We are the lowest tax state in the nation, and
earning income is a lot more fun with lower taxes,
lower regulations. We have no death tax, we have no
gift we have no unearned cap tax, we have no
income tax. We have one of the lowest property taxes
in the nation. We have the best spending, we have
the best public services. We don't have a manuaffacturing problem
(43:10):
in Tennessee. All these auto companies are coming in here
in floods. The problem with manufacturing is Detroit, it's Michigan,
it's Ohio, it's Pennsylvania, it's Wisconsin, it's Illinois. These places
are pits. They are anti production, anti prosperity places, and
they're driving all the business out. It's not China. It's
(43:32):
the governments of these states that have made it absolutely intolerable.
Can you imagine opening up a factory in Detroit, Michigan today,
where property taxes are in some places up to fifty percent,
fifteen percent on that where the state income tax, they're
death tax, the reunion. It's a horrible place. Our problem
(43:52):
is with the states that have the manufacturing, and they
are repelling that manufacturing all moss. And that's the problem.
It's not the competition from abroad. And if you don't
hurt me, just look at Tennessee and how we're doing
in Texas and Florida. All of us are doing well
except for those horribly run states.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
All right, Doctor Ard Laffer appreciate your perspective today, sir,
Thank you very much.
Speaker 10 (44:16):
Hey, it's my pleasure in any time. By the way,
it's fun being with you guys, and I love watching
you all the time. You guys are spectacular and I'm
really proud you're in Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Thank you. I need we need to get dinner sometime.
Speaker 10 (44:27):
I would anytime you want. Just give me a call
and it's done, and not even pay for it if
it's locks.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Miss Donald's all right, I appreciate it, Doctor Lav, thank
you so much.
Speaker 10 (44:38):
All right.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
There's no shortage of ways your online identity can wind
up in the wrong hands, but when it happens, your
life is turned upside down. Cyber Thieves open bogus accounts
in your name and rack up huge bills before you
discover the problem. It's important to understand how cybercrime and
identity theft are affecting our lives. Your best defense is
lifelocks online identity theft protection. They're twenty four to seven
systems monitor millions of data points a second for risks
(44:59):
to your online identity. If you do become a victim
of identity theft, A dedicated US based LifeLock restoration specialist.
We'll fix it guaranteed or your money back. Easy to
help protect yourself with LifeLock, join now say forty percent
off your first year with my name. Buck is your
promo code Call one eight hundred LifeLock or go online
to LifeLock dot com and use promo code Buck for
(45:20):
forty percent off. Terms apply.
Speaker 10 (45:22):
You don't know what.
Speaker 8 (45:23):
You don't know right, but you could on the Sunday
Hang with Play and Buck podcast.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
I hope you bought the dip, because if you did,
the stock market is soaring S and P five hundred
up eight percent right now, Buck, I've never seen anything
like it, nearly four hundred points. The Dow is up
twenty five hundred points, NASDAK up fifteen hundred points. As
(45:55):
I mentioned earlier, basically, stocks are priced where they were
in September. I hope a lot of you did not
buy into the frenzy, the left wing panic. I hope
that you bought the dip, and if you did, you
have been handsomely rewarded already.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
I think it's worth noting that Donald Trump on truth
Social did put out yesterday Now is a good time
to buy, so you know he's trying to help.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
He's trying to help.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Yes, I'm sorry, it was no, it was four hours ago,
not last night. Four hours ago, Trump in all caps,
this is a great time to buy. And yes, he
was telling you the truth.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
All right, So let's give you the latest news and
then we're gonna talk about the Art Laugher interview and
the larger tariff battle. So tariffs on China are now
going to one hundred and twenty five percent. And what
I will tell you is, if you go back and
listen to the first hour, and if you go back
and listen to yesterday, we really kind of zeroed in
(47:11):
on the issue at play here. Zero tariffs is actually
a really good idea for Europe, for Japan, for Australia,
for South Korea, for countries that are fairly trading.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
There should be.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Reduced dishonesty, for lack of a better way of putting it,
unfair trade from some of these tariffs. And I think
bucket On a good example that Canada has two hundred
and fifty percent tariffs on dairy because they don't want
American milk, which is not much different than Canadian milk,
(47:49):
to come across their border because we can produce milk
at a cheaper rate than Canada can So they are
protecting Canadian dairy farmers because they want that industry to continue,
as opposed to Canadians being able to go to their
supermarkets and get milk much cheaper because it's coming from
the United States. And look, there are some tariffs that
(48:13):
might make sense. For instance, let's say France, I think
you mentioned this buck, France has high tariffs on wine.
They consider the French wine to be superior to other wines,
and they want French people to be drinking their wine. Anyway,
we can get into the economics basis for tariffs another time,
(48:34):
but basically, there are many countries with which free trade
makes sense, and what Trump is diagnosing is that China
right now is not one of those. And let's listen
to what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant just announced, and we
have that audio right now. Let's go ahead. Here is
(48:57):
cut twenty five about every country out there ninety day
pause because they have not retaliated, but China's going to
be treated differently again Cut twenty five.
Speaker 11 (49:09):
We saw the successful negotiating strategy that President Trump implemented
a week ago. Today, it has brought more than seventy
five countries forward to negotiate. It took great courage, great
courage for him to stay the course until this moment.
And what we have ended up with here, as I
told everyone a week ago there in this very spot,
(49:33):
do not retaliate and you will be rewarded. So every
country in the world who wants to come and negotiate,
we are willing to hear you. We're going to go
down to a ten percent baseline tariff live for them,
and China will be raised to one five due to
their insistence on escalation.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
Okay, So that is that explanation. Then he was asked,
is this a tariff war?
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Now? Is this a trade war?
Speaker 1 (50:05):
And so that was the next question that was asked,
and here was Besant's response, cut twenty six.
Speaker 6 (50:12):
So I's gonna see it now, this trade war is
China versus the.
Speaker 11 (50:15):
Christ Well, I'm not calling it a trade war, but
I am saying that China has escalated. And President Trump
responded very courageously to that, and we are going to
work on a solution with the are trading partners.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
Caroline Levitt, White House folksperson, then came out and said,
what we have been telling you for some time. Don't panic.
You don't seem in the media to be able to follow.
And let's be honest here, Buck, there's also any time
that there can be a panic that works against Trump.
The media stokes the fears, they drive up the terror,
(50:54):
and we tried to tamp that down and tell you, hey,
if you can't you're too emotional, don't look at prices.
But a lot of people out there weren't willing to
do that. A lot of people sold Caroline Levitt cut
twenty seven.
Speaker 12 (51:06):
Many of you in the media clearly missed the.
Speaker 9 (51:09):
Art of the deal.
Speaker 12 (51:10):
You clearly failed to see what President Jump is doing here.
You tried to say that the rest of the world
would be moved closer to China, when in fact we've
seen the opposite effect. The entire world is calling the
United States of America, not China, because they need our markets,
they need our consumers, and they need this president in
the Oval Office to talk to them. If that's exactly
(51:30):
why more than seventy five countries have called Because the
United States of America is the best place in the
world to do business, and as the President has shown
great courage as the Secretary has said in choosing to
retaliate against China even higher.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
Okay, so that is the absolute latest from the White House. Now, buck,
let's dive in with Art Laugher, who wrote a great
piece in the Wall Street Journal. What Art Laugher believes
that there should be zero, zero tariffs anywhere in the world.
He believes completely in free trade. He's a brilliant economist,
(52:05):
and I think sometimes there are going to be people
who come on the show and use the forum that
we have, which is very widely followed by the White House,
as is Fox News, to make arguments to the President.
I think that's why he wrote the editorial at the
Wall Street Journal. I think that's why he wanted to
come on, and I need to go out dinner with
(52:26):
him because he's a brilliant guy. But the idea, and again,
let me just kind of break this down from you
from my perspective, I'm curious if you will agree if
we went to zero tariffs with China. Let's pretend that
China said, hey, we're laying down our arms no tariffs,
the United States said no tariffs too. We would still
have a massive trade imbalance with China, and the massive
(52:49):
trade imbalance means that China produces a lot of goods
and they have a lot of jobs to produce those goods,
and the United States buy and large buys them, but
we don't have the jobs reducing the same amount of goods.
And one of the challenges Trump is trying to rectify
is what's going on in the industrial heartland where the
jobs have been lost. Now, Art Laffer said, and I
(53:10):
do think this is true that Illinois, for instance, has
made awful economic decisions and that has led to jobs
inside of the United States migrating to states that have
made better economic decisions. Where you live Florida, where I live, Tennessee.
That's certainly true, and there is some culpability. But for instance,
(53:31):
Ohio has Republican leadership top to bottom now and it
still has lost a lot of jobs. Pennsylvania voted for
Donald Trump and voted for McCormick, and they have lost jobs.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
Now.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
It's true they have Democrat leadership in cities and many
oftentimes in governorships. But what was your take on that?
What is your take now with rapidly evolving news cycle,
as is often the case with the Trump administration.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
Well, I think this is what's interesting to me is
that the areas where there is some disagreement, I mean,
clearly Art was trying the art of the deal himself,
there by putting full faith in Trump but not agreeing
with some of the principles that Trump has espoused for
a very long time, not just in this in this
(54:19):
recent bout of trade negotiations, but at some level, saying
the things that Trump is saying is a necessary component
of that negotiation process because people have to be people
have to believe that you are willing to do the
things you say you will do. If I mean, let's
(54:39):
be honest, you're making kind of an economic threat. You know,
empty threats. The fastest way to lose all of your power,
lose all of your influence, is to make empty threats.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
Right.
Speaker 3 (54:48):
You know, if you ever shout at somebody you know,
oh I'm going to get you know, you're you'll never
work in this town again, and they can laugh at you,
then you've lost a lot a lot of ground. And
if you say, I'm going to tell you, but really,
I'm going to pause the tariffs next week, and really
I have no interest in taking this to the mat.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
If I have to do, you have no leverage.
Speaker 3 (55:10):
So Trump, some of what he has been saying, I
think has been a combination of the rebalancing that he
wants to achieve, but also establishing the necessary leverage in
the negotiations.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
You know, to.
Speaker 3 (55:23):
Get people leverage is about pushing, right, you push a lever,
pushing people to do the things on the global trade,
in these global trade negotiations that he wants them to do.
Speaker 2 (55:33):
So I think that.
Speaker 3 (55:33):
That is bearing fruit already and really the country when
we're talking about national security concerns, Let's be honest, Clay.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
You know, if.
Speaker 3 (55:42):
France wants to have a ten percent or a twenty
percent or whatever tariff on their chem ombert, you know,
or on their champagne, which is different than sparkling white wine,
as we know, even though Americans may be in the
habit of calling their sparkling white champagne, it's named for
the region, as we learned from Rob Low in Wayne's World.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
But if they.
Speaker 3 (56:01):
Want to tariff cheese, we can live with that. But
if China is going to be providing all of our robotics, electronics,
antibiotics go down the list, that's a problem for us,
a bigger problem than I would if the EU is
doing that, I think we would feel a lot better.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
I'm not saying that that's a.
Speaker 3 (56:21):
Desirable scenario either, but your primary adversary. We have to remember,
China's an authoritarian regime. Okay, it's run by the Chinese
Communist Party. Mal Stong is one of the most evil
people who have ever run any country in the history
of the planet. And he's the founder of modern China. Like,
they got problems over there. This is not this is
not the UK, this is not Australia, right, Not all
(56:42):
countries are equal, and so focusing in the pressure on
China for this makes sense because that's they're not only
the biggest trade you know, manipulator and cheat. And by
the way, I disagree with Art when he says like
China's fine. I mean, this is where we get to
the national security side of things. I don't know if
he's aware of how much IP theft they've engaged in
(57:02):
and how much cyber intrusion they have done, both on
the national security and economic espionage side.
Speaker 2 (57:07):
It's substantial.
Speaker 3 (57:08):
Again, Arts an economics guy, I worked in the CIA.
Speaker 1 (57:11):
He said at the start, he said, like I think
Trump's the greatest, Like he basically said, all I care
about economics.
Speaker 3 (57:17):
Which here's economics, So he does not know anything about
national security analysis in this respect. And China is a
national security threat in trade as well because of the
way that they steal intellectual When I say intellectual property,
I mean think about someone like Elon Musk.
Speaker 2 (57:33):
SpaceX is rockets.
Speaker 3 (57:35):
It's the private company, but it's rockets. You know, you
can do a lot with that technology, right, And China's
stealing technology is a huge problem.
Speaker 1 (57:43):
Am I the only one who's still furious at China
because they let COVID happen. I mean, I know it's
five years ago, and maybe more than five years ago,
based on some of the studies that are now coming
out about when exactly COVID may have started to circulate
in China. But I know much of our fight in
the United States was over Hey, some people want to
(58:03):
put on masks and their morons, and some people want
to shut down schools and their morons.
Speaker 3 (58:08):
And the worst stuff we did to ourselves in this country.
That's my problem. The worst stuff we the worst COVID
stuff was the result of stupid, just stupid decisions made
here in America, and we funded as we know we
funded that lab as well, which not all of it,
but some of it, which was.
Speaker 1 (58:26):
An use the full decision. But my point on it
is China paid no penalty. China unleashed COVID on the
world led to awful I agree with you policy decisions
being made in the United States, but they didn't come
clean about how it got out. They never have told
the full story about anything, and so my inclination is
(58:47):
not to give China the benefit of the doubt on anything.
If anything, I actually am inclined to be more draconian
in the way that we treat them going forward, because
I think we're in a model cold war, and if
China wins, I think the world loses.
Speaker 3 (59:05):
Yes, but you see, this is the point. It's about
more than just correct who can make the cheapest widgets.
It's about more than that with China.
Speaker 2 (59:13):
With the EU, you know, it's about who.
Speaker 3 (59:16):
It's about cheese and beef products and cars and things,
and Trump can work all that out with China.
Speaker 2 (59:21):
It's something else.
Speaker 3 (59:22):
We are not worried about a first strike from the
United Kingdom and them cutting off our critical supplies of
electronics and the things that we would need in order
to fight a modern war. We are worried about that
with China. Okay, So this is why it is in
fact different. It is not just we make stuff, they
make stuff. We have money, they have money. There are
(59:44):
additional factors that complicate the analysis. So we should get
to some of these talkbacks, play some of these calls,
because yeah, we touched on some of that. And look,
I think we should invite Senator Rampaul on soon because
he just thinks this whole thing is completely nuts and
he's a very smart guy, and I think we should
hear him out on this. Senator Rampaul is a very
(01:00:05):
I think I think I might agree with him more
than any senator a greater percent of the time on issues.
I think that's probably true. I mean, there's a few,
you know, Ted Cruz, there's a few, but he's certainly
I know aman Ron Johnson just because I love him.
He's great up there in Wisconsin holding it down, all right.
If you're a member of the USCCA, the United States
(01:00:26):
Concealed Kerry Association, you're getting the benefit of legal assistance
if you are compelled to defend yourself and your family lawfully.
That's just one of dozens of member benefits available to
nearly nine hundred thousand Americans taking advantage of the great
work of this organization. USCCA also just stands with the
Second Amendment and believes in your right to defend yourself
(01:00:47):
and your family. Clay and I are both members of
the USCCA, and this was an easy decision for us.
I conceal carry. Clay is a lawyer, He's got weapons
in the house. He knows that he might have to
or his wife might have to defend their kids. I
have the same consideration here with Carrie. If you're going
to be in a position to defend yourself, you want
(01:01:07):
to have USCCA, meaning if you're willing to defend yourself
under any circumstance, because how it plays out in court
is not necessarily how it played out in reality unless
you have a strong legal defense to make that case
for you. Go check out their Concealed Carrie and Family
Defense Guide right now at USCCA. It lays the complete
foundation for you. If you own a gun or are
thinking about getting your first fireum, you must have this resource.
(01:01:31):
Go online to USCCA dot com slash buck get your
free guide today. All right, let me say it again, slow,
because I know it's a lot of letters. This website
is us CCA dot com slash Buck. You can also
find this information up on the Clayandbuck dot com site
under the sponsors tap.
Speaker 8 (01:01:49):
You know them as conservative radio hosts, now just get
to know them as guys on this Sunday hang podcast
with Clay and Buck.
Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Find it in their podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome in Wednesday edition Clay Travis Buck Sexton show. This
one could be Buck becomes a dad today. He is
here with us on potential birthday. We'll see, could be tomorrow.
Do you have a faith Obviously the labor process plays
in here, but do you have a preference April ninth,
(00:24):
April tenth to carry? Is there any sort of cosmological
connection here in any way?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I have no idea. I'm not like that on this.
I barely remember my own birthday, so I'm not the.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Guy to ask about birthday stuff. But yeah, anything in
April sounds nice. So this is a big day all around.
We are continuing the trade wars since we now are
CNBC and Fox Business all rolled into one stock market
flat as we begin the show today, basically unmoved by
(00:58):
and large across the the financial landscape. The S and
P five hundred up a tiny amount as I speak
to you, the Dow down a tiny amount.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Not much movement going on there.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
There is, however, a lot of movement going on in
what essentially is boiling down to the United States versus China.
I would expect Buck, and I'm curious if you co
sign on this that countries like Japan and South Korea
and Australia and England and even much of Europe are
(01:30):
going to get resolved the new trade deals relatively quickly
in the grand scheme of things, that is, over the
next few weeks. And I think those will be beneficial
to the United States. I don't think they'll be transformative.
The real battle here, as we stare down what's coming
is the United States versus China, and how does this
(01:53):
situation resolve itself and how long does it take to
resolve itself. As we elevated our overall tariffs on China
to over one hundred percent, China has responded by increasing
the tariffs on the United States I believe roughly to
eighty percent. Now, given the fact that China has much
(02:14):
more of an export based economy, particularly in relationship to
the United States, than the United States does in relationship
to China, the pain in general should be felt on
China more than it's felt on the United States. That's
the negotiating leverage that Trump is that Trump is banking on.
(02:35):
If there are brilliant people out there who want to
disagree with that, you're welcome to call in eight hundred
two A two two eight A two. But China is
to a large extent and export focused economy, and they
have built a huge trade surplus against the United States.
Now there are certainly complicating factors in that. I believe
(02:56):
China has something like five trillion dollars in United States bonds,
which is it's probably trump card on some level, pardon
the pun from them. What would happen if they start
to liquidate a substantial amount of their treasury some suggesting
that's already potentially occurring, and that might be what's impacting
(03:19):
the bond market in general. Again, these are high level
discussions of exactly what is going to be done, but
so far China and the United States staring at each
other not blinking. Would you co sign on most of
that analysis? Do you think I'm missing anything from your perspective, Buck.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
No, I think that this is ultimately actually about a
China trade wark. I mean, that's really what the which
if you think about it in that context. It also
makes a lot of sense when you look back to
the first Trump term, and this I think would have
been the phase that he entered in twenty twenty had
things gone differently. I think this was always in his mind.
(04:00):
The first phase was just waking people up to what
China was doing, which is truly the greatest theft over decades,
not just of wealth but of intellectual property, which obviously
is wealth in the modern economy, and all kinds of
bad faith efforts and undermining a lot of US hegemony
(04:20):
wherever they can. So Trump has said enough is enough
as it pertains to China. I do think we'll get
deals with the other countries in place. And you know
Apollo Global Management's CEO for those who don't know Apollo
Global Management is it's a big time finance outfit. I
think they're private equity guys. So you know, they buy
huge companies, they turn them around, they sell them stuff
(04:43):
like that. But here is the CEO of that company,
who is I think, saying something again. This is somebody
who manages billions and billions of dollars and has to
be right or else he loses his job, and he's
coming out and saying we need a reset.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
This is cut two.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
US is the second freest trading market in the world
financially after Japan, and is the freest trading market in
the world considering non tariff barriers. Why is that written
in stone. Why shouldn't we be the tenth or the twentieth.
The policies that have been in place since the end
of World War Two are not fit for today.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
I think that's well said. And Buck, I've got a
couple of more here that I thought were well said
that I sent into our producer, Greg because I thought
some of you out there, I understand this is complicated,
and probably a lot of you don't sit around on
a regular basis thinking about, say, tariffs, like you might
think about taxes, or economic growth or any other number
(05:44):
of issues that have been well discussed and debated for
decades in the United States. Here's Victor Davis Hansen asking
a question I thought, Buck, that we have asked, if
tariffs are so awful, how come so many countries have
tariffs in the first place? Why did these exist? I
thought this was well said by him. This is cut three.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
China has prohibitive tariffs, So does Vietnam, so does Mexico,
so does Europe, so do a lot of countries. So
does India. But if tariffs are so destructive of their economies,
why is China booming? How did India become an economic
powerhouse when it has these exorbitant tariffs on American imports.
(06:27):
How did Vietnam, of all places, become such a different
country even though it has these prohibitive tariffs. Why isn't
Germany before its energy problems. Why wasn't it a wreck?
It's got tariffs on almost everything that we send them.
How is the EU even functioning with these tariffs? I
thought tariffs destroyed an economy, but they seem to like them,
(06:51):
and they're angry that they're no longer asymmetrical. Apparently, are
people who are teriffing us think tariffs improve their economy?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
I thought that's what was said.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Well, this is what we've been saying, and we never
get I never hear an answer to this. Yeah, people
just say tariffs are attacks, tariffs are born by the consumers,
Tariffs are bad, Tariffs led the Great Depression. They shout
all this stuff, and I say, why does every other
country have tariffs?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, we're the only ones.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
And when it comes to being outliers, you know, we're
also the country that's supposed to pay the rest of
the world's bills. We're also the country that's supposed to
be the rest of the world's policemen and the world's giant,
world's biggest refugee camp with a wide open border. Right,
there are a number of areas in which the United
States is expected to bear a burden that other countries
(07:36):
are not. Well, are we bearing the burden of being
the only free trade country in the world. I totally
agree when Elon says we should get to zero tariffs
across the board. Yes, that is the goal. That would
be fantastic. It would be so much better. It's a
bit like saying, you know, wouldn't it be nice if
we could get rid of nuclear weapons. Sure, when everybody
else that we're worried about gets rid of their nuclear weapons,
(07:58):
we can get rid of nuclear weapons too.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Why would they keep them? But we get rid of them.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
That's what we've been doing, essentially in an economic front
with tariffs. And I still have not heard any the
answers you might hear about this play or something like, oh,
the French want to protect their wine and their cheese
or something, you know, that's very dismissive of it. But well, no, no,
it's this is on American automobiles. This is on a lot. Yeah,
this is on you know, we're talking about the EU
now and people are saying, all right, well Canada, I
(08:24):
saw this. I'm saying Canada's dairy tariffs don't actually go
in too effect if you hit us until you hit
a certain level.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Well, why have them at all?
Speaker 3 (08:32):
If free trade is so good, why have them at all? Right, Well,
at some level it must be because you're protecting your
own industry, because you recognize that wealth generation comes from
the exchange and the creation and exchange of goods and services.
It's not just we keep printing money to buy stuff
from everybody else. There's a lot of that going on here.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Also, where the companies are base matters. I mean, I
would bet that the reason the Chinese dairy industry is
I mean, sorry, the Canadian dairy industry is protected, is
because they don't want America to be sourcing every element
of the dairy there, right, And so where the companies
are based is foundationally very important. Really, this is going
(09:13):
to boil down to the extent that it has not
already into US versus China. And I've heard some people
out there say that their criticism is actually that we
should just go full bore after China and not focus
on other countries as much.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
This is let's get try to get mister Wonderful on.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
I think we had him on recently, meaning in the
last year or so, if I'm not mistaken, but this
was on CNN.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I thought this was really well said.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
He said we should put a four hundred percent tariff
on China because they're cheaters on the global marketplace.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Listen to cut four one.
Speaker 6 (09:49):
Hundred and four percent tariffs in China are not enough.
I'm advocating four hundred percent. I do business in China.
They don't play by the rules. They've been in the
WHO for decades. They have never abided by any of
the rules they agreed to when they came in for decades.
They cheat, they steal, They steal ip I can't litigate
in their courts. Never has an administration four territory. I
(10:11):
want Chia on an airplane to Washington to level the
playing field. It says, not about tariffs anymore. It's time
to squeeze Chinese heads into the wall.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Now, man, that is aggressive, buck, But I do think
he's saying what a lot of American businessmen believe but
aren't willing to say because they work with China. I
was actually a little bit surprised because I can't imagine
that the business he does with China is going to
be helped by those comments.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
But this is what you have to do.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Sometimes you have to speak out against your own interests
because you recognize the larger interest is important.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Well, I wonder how much business he's really doing in
China currently. That's point one on that. In point two,
mister wonderful Kevin O'Leary likes to get sound bites that
make their way across the Internet ecosystem and other shows
like this one.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I mean a four hundred percent tariff.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
You know, at some point if we push too hard
on China, I know you could say it's a negotiation
tactic book. We don't want to see them completely insane, right,
because they're What we want is for them to improve
their behavior. We don't actually just want to extend a
single finger in their direction and say that's the way
it's going to be going forward, right, we would like
to see China. In fact, China's entrance into the WTO
(11:28):
was premised on them changing their behavior.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
This is the which it's not hold. This is well said. Continue,
it's not that we want to be in a trade war.
You know this is what China has decided to do.
China has and you'll get the Belton Road initiative. It's
it's like a mix of communism, authoritarianism, mercantilism. China has
been rapacious when it comes to trade globally and has
(11:53):
not become any more liberal as it has become a
whole lot more wealthy. China is a was a desperately
poor country, uh really up until the nineteen eighties, and
people forget them, the biggest famine in the history of
the world occurred in China right around nineteen sixty in
world history. Okay, tens of millions of people starve to
death in that country. I think people now we all
(12:14):
think of China as a billion people and a huge
economy and robotics and Ai clay. China has done this
in the last forty years.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
What I think is important about what you said is
because I've heard this argument for sports for a long time. Well,
if we go take our basketball to China, if we
take the Olympics to China, they're going to start to
play by our rules. We will see them democratize, we
will see them join more the Western world. Actually, that
(12:44):
hasn't happened at all. In fact, they've tried to impact
the Western world with Chinese values, and I think you
can see this in a big way. We talked about
this before, but I think it's very important. You know how,
there's no bad Asian guys in movies anymore. Every bad
thing about this, like every James Bond movie, every mission impossible.
The bad guys are always people with kind of a
(13:06):
Russian Ish accent. And if you go back and you
study it, do you remember when they remade the.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Great movie Redbad Dawn. Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
They remade the entire movie because initially China invaded Us,
and then in order to get the movie released in
the time, they had to go back in. This is crazy,
but they did this. They digitally altered the entire Chinese
army to make it North Korea that invaded the United
States because Warner Brothers, I believe, who was distributing the
(13:38):
film or Paramount, was too afraid of angering China by
having China be the bad guys in a movie. And
one of the threats they just made Buck is We're
not gonna let American movies come into China anymore.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
It's play the theft of intellectual property that's been going
on for decades. It's worse than what the KGB was
able to do during the height of the Cold War,
because at least there we have cyber attacks going on
all the time based in China stealing our most sensitive technology.
We have, our universities are penetrated by Chinese agents all
over the place. Everybody knows this, the FBI knows this.
(14:11):
But there's all this sensitivity around actually treating a particular
nationality as a wellspring of adversaries, which unfortunately is the
case with China currently. And some people have just decided
in our government that enough is enough, that this is
not the way it is supposed to or it should
continue on. So this is where the friction is.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Right.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
This is not going to be easy or perfect. It's
only been a few days. I think people need to
strap in. This is not going to get easier anytime soon.
I don't see Trump backing off the China.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Part of it.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
I do hope that as the deals with Japan and
South Korea and the EU get ironed out and there's
a normalization there, everyone realizes, Okay, now we really have
to focus on the big challenge and and there'll be
a clarity about what that really is. But once again, Trump,
even if he's a little sometimes rough on the execution
(15:08):
in the early stages of something, on the big issues,
on the big think, he tends to nail it all.
Speaker 7 (15:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Look, for every gun owner in this audience today, I
got to tell you you should make yourself a member
of the United States Concealed Carry Association. This is all
about protecting your rights to defend yourself legally. If you
end up in court, often it's not just about what
you date, it's how it's interpreted. That's why Clay and
I are both members of USCCA, and we're happy to
welcome them as our newest sponsor on this program. Go
(15:36):
download the United States Concealed Carry Association's Free Guide. You
can do that before you become a member. It provides
tangible information, practical information. Their Concealed Carry and Family Defense
Guide walks you through what to do before, during, and
after a self defense incident, mental prep, legal insights, step
by step training. This guide lays the foundation in fact
(15:58):
legal defense is provided to those members needing it after
rightfully defending themselves in their family Following uscca's instructive tips,
I remember when I did my concealed carry class guys
down here in Florida. The guy told me that of
two of his students who had had to use their
weapons to defend themselves in recent years, both initially face charges.
Both initially face charges mean that's this is what can happen,
(16:20):
and then the charges eventually were dismissed. But you've got
to go with the security and safety of knowing your
rights and having someone who will have your back if
you lawfully defend yourself when it comes to your legal expenses.
Go to go online to USCCA dot com slash buck
to get your free guide today. That's USCCA dot com
(16:43):
slash buck. You can also find this information on clanbuck
dot com right under the sponsors tab.
Speaker 8 (16:49):
Clay Travis and Buck Sexton. Mic drops that never sounded
so good Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
All right, welcome back into Clay and Buck. We've got
some big breaking news.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Julie Kelly about to join us here in a moment,
But first our market maestro here on Clay and Buck.
Clay Travis watching the stock ticker closely. What just happened clay.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Uh Trump has announced a ninety day pause on all
countries for the tariffs other than China. He has increased
the tariff on China to one hundred and twenty five percent.
This is kind of the advice that you and I
were giving if he wanted to focus on China, which
is the real culprit here. How is the stock market?
(17:36):
Some responding, Buck, I hope you guys bought the dip.
The Dow now is up twenty four hundred points, Buck,
that is six and a half percent that it is surging.
The Nasdaq up nearly nine percent. This has all happened
in the last couple of minutes. The S and P
(17:56):
five hundred is up seven percent, nearly four hundred points,
so much of the selloff associated with the tariff battle
has now vanished just about overnight. We tried to tell you,
we said, buy the dips sometimes, don't even look at
(18:18):
stock prices.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Don't panic.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Unfortunately, I know a lot of people sold at the
bottom and now they're going to be buying back in
as the stock market is surging. But I hope you
held on. But that is the absolute latest right now.
Lots of fluctuation, but again, just to kind of put
it in context, the S and P. Five hundred is
(18:40):
now basically trading the same place that it was in August,
and you know it could easily be basically where it
was in September. So anyway, stocks go up and down.
Trump negotiating. Now what we said I think is accurate,
which is this is now just China versus the United States,
(19:04):
and to a large extent, the other countries are now
aligned in favor of free trade. And now we'll see
what happens with China. All right, Buck, we have got
Julie Kelly cued up to talk about many things, but
it wanted to give that updates everybody out there. Yes,
Julie Kelly.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
You all know her from her declassified sub stack, which
you should go subscribe to, and her great book and
her great work. Julie, thanks for being with us.
Speaker 9 (19:32):
Thank you, and Buck, congratulations to you and Carrie.
Speaker 7 (19:35):
You're going to have an exciting evening and probably day tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
I don't know, I don't know if you heard our
friend Jesse's Jesse Kelly said, it's gonna be a tough
twenty four hours for me physically. I need to hydrate,
I need to make sure I get a lot of
get rested. And everyone's freaking out about this, but it's
pretty funny. I'm here for Carrie for anything that she needs,
and we could not be more excited about it. So
thank you very much, Julie. And all right, all right
(20:03):
now I got to get you on what is going
on here. A few things that come to mind and
involve Julie Kelly and her work. Judge Boseburg, this guy
after the Supreme Court comes in and says, hold on
a second, you can't just venue shop. He had a
hearing scheduled. And where is this guy now? It feels
(20:23):
like he's become the Adam Schiff of resistance judges, which
is not a compliment, you know, claim Buck.
Speaker 7 (20:31):
It's amazing to see the same judges who for four
years insisted a mostly nonviolent protest to a government building
on a Wednesday afternoon represent it an attempt to overthrow
democracy and overturn the results of the twenty twenty election.
Keep in mind to Jeb Bosberg routinely in JA six
cases call January sixth an insurrection. That's what you call it,
(20:53):
even for people who are in his core room on
low level misdemeanors like parading in the Capitol.
Speaker 9 (20:58):
But yet here he is.
Speaker 7 (21:00):
Actually trying to overturn the results of the twenty twenty
four elections, sabotage Donald Trump's agenda and by extension, the
seventy two million or so Americans who voted for him.
The Supreme Court is not stopping him. So even though
they just vacated his two temporary restraining orders banning deportation
(21:20):
flights of these illegal Venezuelans covered under the President's Alien
Enemy Zact proclamation from March fifteenth. Even though the Supreme
Court vacated those temporary restraining orders, said that Washington was
the improper venue that these illegals should see habeas petitions
where they are in custody, which is Texas.
Speaker 9 (21:40):
That's not stopping him. You are exactly right, Buck.
Speaker 7 (21:42):
So yesterday he had a hearing scheduled in his courtroom
on a preliminary injunction.
Speaker 9 (21:48):
This is the next natural step after a temporary restraining order.
Speaker 7 (21:52):
This is what the ACLU, who is representing these legal
Venezuelans want, and this would put a longer ban on
these flights. Even after the Supreme Court ruling. Jeb Brosberg
said in April sixteenth, deadline for the ACLU to come
back to him, explain why they're going to continue to
pursue this preliminary injunction and.
Speaker 9 (22:13):
Why they believe that Washington d C.
Speaker 7 (22:15):
Jeb Bosberg's courtroom is still the appropriate place to seek
that relief even though the Supreme Court said very clearly
it doesn't belong in Washington d C.
Speaker 9 (22:25):
Furthermore, we could talk a little bit about this too.
Speaker 7 (22:27):
He is going forward with his contempt investigation against the
Trump administration and officials who he believes to find a
separate court order a verbal order to return planes on
March fifteenth, and we are expecting that opinion from Jeb
Bosberg really any hour, any day, but sometime this week.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Are you even stunned, Julie, Because I gotta admit, I am,
and this is me, being a lawyer. I knew that
Trump Resistance two point zero would eventually emerge somewhere. I
crazy me thought it might come from the Democrat Party
or maybe the legacy media. It feels like, by and large,
the Democrat Party is so impotent that they can't even
(23:09):
put counter arguments out. Meanwhile, legacy media is collapsing as
we speak. I mean, the business models are shriveling up
and dying. Now, we just got all these federal district
court judges behaving frankly in an unprecedented manner getting slapped down.
We had trio of them slapped down by the Supreme Court.
But I gotta admit I didn't foresee them being as
(23:32):
aggressive as they have been. I knew they would be
aligned in many ways against Trump, but I didn't think
we would see it, historically without precedent, attack coming from
the federal district court level against Trump and his administration.
Speaker 9 (23:45):
Did you, I mean in a place I sort of
agree with you.
Speaker 7 (23:50):
I did not as bad as these judges in Washington
DC are, And of course they've been covering them for years,
both the district and Palette Court, and seeing how viciously
and wully and remorselessly they treated January sixth defendants and
the President and his associates as well, I really did
not expect this level of defiance, this level of sabotage,
(24:12):
that is the word that what these judges are doing
uniformally in Washington, d C.
Speaker 9 (24:17):
So I guess I would agree with you. I'm a
little surprised at the.
Speaker 7 (24:21):
Extent to which they are going, which of course they
did for years against Donald Trump in the same DC courthouse,
whether it was Special Council Robert Mueller's investigation and Special
Council Jacksmith, all these proceedings.
Speaker 9 (24:35):
Were handled in this DC Federal Courthouse.
Speaker 7 (24:38):
But to see them line up like little lemmings, especially
behind job Bossburg who's the chief judge, and deny all
of these lawsuits that side with the plaintiffs and all
of these lawsuits who really have no vested interest in
what the Trump policies are, but going to any extent
(24:59):
that they've possibly can these judges to side with people
who are trying to take down the president's agenda and
again emphasize the will of the American people who put
Donald Trump in the White House to do exactly the.
Speaker 9 (25:11):
Disruption that he is doing.
Speaker 7 (25:14):
So yeah, and of course defying the Supreme Court is
a whole other level which we see job Bossberg doing.
But these Democrat judges, as you know, just like Democrat
rank and file voters, do not consider the Supreme Court legitimate.
They are not at all excuse me, I have a
(25:35):
little call. They are not at all chagrin by being
smacked down by the highest Court.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
We're speaking of Julie Kelly declassifizers at the sub stack
and Julie, we need to get her some some crocket
coffee or some tea with honey in it, perhaps even better. Julie,
sorry that you got you got to call. Appreciate you, you know,
pushing through and uh and telling everybody across the country.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
But they need to know about you.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
By the way, I've learned how to pronounce his name Bosberg.
I guess bas I was just reading it off the
or i'd been reading it. I hadn't really heard it.
I want to bring your attention to something else too.
The I'm sure you saw this. The acting IRS Commissioner
is resigning from the IRS because the Trump administration has
(26:21):
said you need to share data from your government, data
about essentially illegals that the IRS has information on for
enforcement purposes. I think a lot of people are seeing,
Julie that for the entity that can lock you up
because you don't give enough of your money as an
(26:42):
American to them, and they get to determine after the
fact what that amount is. To then say, hold on
a second, what do you mean you're going to use
our information for federal immigration law purposes. Just goes to
show that there is this whole mentality even within the government,
that legal aliens are a special protected class.
Speaker 7 (27:04):
That's exactly right. It's pretty stunning to see. And this
is the acting director who I think she took over
in February, and all of these deep staters, everyone in
the administrative state who will go out of their way
to protect they believe that these government agencies belong to them.
They don't believe that these government agencies belong to the
(27:26):
people or certainly should be supervised by the president and
his team. So that's why you see this defiance not
just by the judges, but of course the heads of
these departments and agencies. But of course we are entitled
to this information. I love how transparency and accountability was
such a big cause during Trump's first presidency that.
Speaker 9 (27:47):
Went away, you know, during the second and now all
of a.
Speaker 7 (27:49):
Sudden, we can't have transparency and accountability as he's trying
to clean up and reform all of these corrupt agencies.
So I really commend the administration for their focus, especially
on legal immigration, because as you guys know, that was
one of the top issues that propelled him into office
and they are not backing down at all. But we
(28:11):
as America, as American citizens tax payers, are entitled to
know and we saw this too with the voting roles
and illegals who are on Social Security. This is a
huge scandal with real time implications on our country, on
our national security, on our economy, and certainly on our elections.
(28:34):
So good riddance to the acting IRS director. I'm sure
there's a lot of other qualified people who understand the
cause who will replace that individual, and we'll just.
Speaker 9 (28:46):
Keep pushing forward.
Speaker 7 (28:47):
Intel a judge steps in and stops all of it,
which I'm sure is only a matter of time.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Julie, we appreciate you, keep the fight going and we
will talk to you again.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Have a good weekend. Enjoy the Masters.
Speaker 9 (29:01):
Oh I definitely will. Thanks guys.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
That's Julie Kelly, American Patriots. He's been fantastic with us.
You know, Spring's here and so is the Iconic Masters Tournament.
They have the Part three challenge today, which is super cool.
I know we're on in Augusta. We got a monster
audience there. I bet it's chaotic down in Augusta right
now as we get ready for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
(29:25):
action that for many people, Harold's the return of spring
and summer is on the horizon, and so is Major
League Baseball and the NBA Playoffs and the NHL playoffs.
Whatever sport you love, and you guys know I love sports,
price picks is there for you. You get fifty bucks. Look,
you go right now to prizepicks dot com code clay.
You get fifty dollars instantly when you play five dollars.
(29:48):
Whatever your sport is, whether you're looking forward to watching
the Masters this weekend, maybe you want to watch Luca
returning down to Dallas. Maybe you're still recovering from an
incredible Final four. Maybe you're a big BA s ball
fan like I am watching the Braves and Phillies last night. Hey,
maybe you're a big hockey fan. Whatever your sport is,
price picks has got a game for you. Pricepicks dot
(30:08):
Com code clay. You just pick more or less for
any athlete in any sport, and you can turn your
knowledge of sports into an ability to make yourself a
little bit of money and also have some fun in
the process. You can play in California, you can play
in Texas. You can play in Florida. You can play
in Georgia. Over ten million players right now. Pricepicks dot com,
(30:30):
Code Clay check it out pricepicks dot com, Code Clay.
Speaker 8 (30:35):
News and politics, but also a little comic relief. Clay
Travis and Buck Sexton. Find them on the free iHeartRadio
app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
There's a op ed in the Wall Street Journal, a
win win exit strategy for Trump on tariffs, written by
Arn't Laugher and Steven Moore. Doctor Art Laugher joins us
now renowned economist guy came up with that whole Laffer
curve thing. Brilliant man, he is with us, Thanks for
(31:07):
being here, or I appreciate you.
Speaker 10 (31:09):
My pleasure, my pleasure. It's really fun being with you guys.
By the way, I love it.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
So you're an upbeat You're you're a brilliant guy and
an upbeat guy, and we need that today given what
we're what we're seeing, what we're seeing out there. You're
not a catastrophis. You're not a doom and gloom guy.
Let's just start with this. When people are telling you,
I am concerned about what's happening right now in the markets.
What do you say to them, what's your overall feeling.
(31:35):
I want to get into the win win strategy from
your piece. But first off, an opportunity to tell everybody
don't panic.
Speaker 10 (31:42):
Well, I'm panicking when they tell me that. I screaming
and hollering him on the floor, crying, it's the end
of the world. Let's see it. No, no, you know,
Donald Trump is an extraordinarily competent president. In my view,
he was the single best first term president. I'm just
talking about economics now, just economics, the same bestfort's term
president in US history. If you look at the Tax
(32:03):
Cuts and Jobs Act, it was wonderful. If you look
at Operation Warp speed, unbelievable energy and dependency, roll back
of the Chevron decision, you know, all of these things there.
I mean, it was just unbelievable what he did in
his first term. And he is in his second term now,
and you know, he is competent. He's got all the skills,
(32:25):
He's very knowledgeable in the subject. And I believe this
is me. I believe that he is using the threats
of tariffs and the actual imposition of tariffs to get
these other countries to come and negotiate free treat trade
deals with US. They are far more protectionists than we are.
We are as a country, US probably the lowest tariff,
(32:48):
the lowest protectionist country a major country in the world.
There may be something like sark or Jersey or Guernsey
or something like Monaco or something like that, but of
the big countries were by far the least protectionists. And
how how do you get these other countries that come
to the table and negotiate getting rid of their tariffs,
and you know, you've got to threaten them with access
to the US market. And so that's what he's doing.
(33:09):
I believe now you're going to talk to Trump, and
you got to talk to him because he knows far
better what he's doing than I do. And I'm no
source of special knowledge, but knowing him and knowing all
the trade stuff I do, I cannot believe that he
would do anything that would really hurt America in the
long run by having a trade war.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Okay, so let's dive into this, doctor Laugher, Art Laugher.
We appreciate you coming on. Every time we come on
and talk economics with you. The audience loves it because
you're way smarter about this stuff than we are big
picture here, it seems to me, and I read your
Wall Street Journal editorial. It's posted link at clayanbuck dot com.
Encourage people to go check that out. It seems to
me that Trump is talking about two different things in
(33:50):
many ways as it pertains to a trade war one.
And I think Buck and I are in agreement with
you to the extent that we can eliminate as many
tariffs as possible on trading countries. That's a great thing
because it allows even competition, it allows even movement of
goods with less cost. But China is cheating on the
(34:10):
global stage, and to a large extent, aren't there kind
of two different goals? Because if we eliminated all tariffs
with China, wouldn't that in some way reward them even
more for their cheating? Do you see this as you know,
let's say the European Union, Australia, Great Britain, China, I mean, sorry, Japan,
(34:34):
South Korea, those are kind of fair trade partners in general.
And then you've got China that's in an entirely different universe.
Are we really talking about two different policy perspectives? How
would you analyze that? When it comes to trade relationships.
Speaker 10 (34:49):
I would say that the two of you are wrong,
and China's right in the same category with all the
others cheating. I don't know what the heck cheating means.
If they gave us all their products free of charge,
so we got high quality products at low cost, would
you hate them then and want to bomb them? I mean,
when you look at it from a customer standpoint, when
you go to a store, do you sell them? Please
sell me above retail. I want you to charge me
(35:11):
the most you possibly can for this product. No, No,
we'd like to give it to you, guys.
Speaker 9 (35:14):
No.
Speaker 10 (35:15):
I mean, China is potentially our best trading partner in
the world long term, and I really think that we
need to get trying to into the Free Trade Group.
And if you really think about it for a moment,
do you like your customers and your clients and your
client tell? Of course you do. You know, the one
way of guaranteeing hostilities will occur as not trading with
(35:38):
the country. When you're trying to one, you're a customer,
they're a customer, and it leads to friendships, it leads
to great prosperity, and it leads to eliminating war art.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Can you tell us why do all these so many
of these other countries have and have had long standing tariffs,
and why does China have so many and such aggressive tariffs?
Speaker 10 (36:01):
Well, let me tell you why. It is because these
little countries, I say, little Germany, these types of just
teeny tiny little countries do Yeah, they talk to our
trade officials and so you know, we've got to put
this on for political reason, blah blah blah blah blah,
and the USA's go ahead, please, it's okay, do it.
You know, it doesn't really affect us very much. And
over the years this is built up to being a
really travesty. They now have way more petition, every single
(36:25):
one of them. It's not just one one off with
one tariff. It's cacumulated. And now they have all these
For example, I mean, can you imagine they're two hundred
and fifty percent tariffs in Canada against Wisconsin dairy products.
What I mean, how did that come about? I'm sure
it came about with some deal with some president and
some Prime minister of Canada. You know, we've got to
(36:45):
do this. I'll lose the election if I don't do it.
And they get this, they get this one off exemption,
and all of this is built up, and now Trump
is trying to get rid of it, and quite correctly. So,
I mean, we need to get rid of their tariffs.
Their quote is their non tariff barriers. They're hurting us
and they're hurting them.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
But so why can't China figure out that its tariffs
are hurting it?
Speaker 10 (37:06):
I think it will. I mean, if you remember, I
mean I was the first American to go to China
in nineteen seventy, in October of nineteen seven. I went
with George Hultzen and John Earlick when we did the
pre Kissinger trap. And but then they had one hundred
percent tariff. They had no trade with the outside world.
They were called the Hermit Kingdom. And you know, they
opened up their trade. They saw how the trade by
(37:27):
lowering their trade barriers, by entering into trade, it created
the greatest economic growth miracle in modern history. The Chinese
growth from nineteen seventy to let's say, five years ago
was just a phenomenal period for China. More people were
removed from poverty than in the entire history of humanity
one hundred and ninety thousand years so it's it's really
(37:48):
I think China will understand this, and I think China
will in due course enter into a free trade agreement
with the US as well, and it will be wonderful
when that happens. Believe.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Okay, So let's go into this China relationship in particular,
because you say you see it as as similar to
the EU and the other countries that I laid out.
What does an ideal relationship from your perspective look like
with China when it comes to trade, Because it is
going to be the case that if we had, for instance,
zero tariffs at all, China is going to be exporting
(38:22):
I think four hundred billion is the number that I
saw something like that. The trade imbalance is seismic. We're
going to be buying more Chinese goods than China is
going to be buying American goods. Is that trade imbalance
in any way an issue from your perspective?
Speaker 2 (38:38):
And how would you rectify it? What is?
Speaker 1 (38:40):
In other words, let's pretend that you are Laugher, We're
given a magic wand and you got to solve it.
What would your answer be?
Speaker 10 (38:46):
Now? Would you mind tell me how much it bothers you?
For foreigners wanting to invest in the US because they
think we're the greatest country in the world. Let's imagine
we cut taxes, cut regulations, had stable prices, you know,
no rate, all the correct policies, everyone would want to
invest in the United States. How do foreigners generate a
(39:07):
dollar cash flow to buy us located assets? There are
only two ways they can do that. They've got to
sell more goods to US, and they've got to buy
less goods from US. That's the only way they can
generate that dollar cash flow to invest in the United
States of America. And that's the most wonderful thing. We
built our country from sixteen forty until eighteen seventy on
(39:30):
trade deficits. We imported all of this capital from Europe,
primarily Britain and Holland, and used it with our labor
and with our raw materials, and we became the pre
eminent economic force on planet Earth because of capital investments,
which is a US trade deficit. Trade deficits are great.
I mean, let me ask you, which would you rather
(39:50):
have capital lineup on our borders trying to get into
our country or trying to get out of our country.
You know, if we bring a factory back from Mexico
into the United States and bring all those machines and
all that production equipment by coming across the Mexican US border.
That's a Mexican export and the Mexican trade surplus. It's
a US import and the US trade deficit. It's also
(40:13):
a US capital surplus and a Mexican capital deficit. Trade
deficits are how we bring our capital back to the US,
and I think we should have trade deficits in China
thinks that we're the best country in the world and
they want to invest all their capital in the US.
God bless them.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Okay, so I need I need some help here. Square
in the circle for a second.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
So if good, if trade trade deficits are good, and
all tariffs are bad and self defeating, what what? And
so trade and balance is a good thing. We want
trade and balance. Do you like what Trump is doing
or are you trying to tell him to not do
any of this?
Speaker 10 (40:50):
No? No, I like I'm the biggest fan. I'm his
biggest fan. I think he's negotiating, and I think he's
negotiating to get them to reduce their tariffs against US,
which are larger than our tariffs and trade barriers are
against them, and I think he brings them to the table.
What is it, sixty seventy countries are coming to negotiate.
What are they coming to negotiate? We will cut our
(41:11):
tariffs dramatically. Please just allow us access to your market.
And I think that's just the wonderful thing for Trump
to do, and I think he's going to be very
successful at it. It scares the live in hell how
to be By the way, I'm a wuss, I'm not
a negotier. I'm not a guy like Trump. Trump knows
how to negotiate and he loves doing it, and he's
really successful at it. But my belief is that Trump
(41:33):
deep down is a free trader all the way, and
I think he just really wants to get them to
come here and lower tariffs on their products by a lot.
And he did this in the first term. By the way,
that the Japanese Trade Deal was great for lowering tariffs,
the USMCA was wonderful for lowering tariffs and barriers, The
South Korean deal he did, the one he did with Brazil,
(41:54):
the one he did with Columbia all resulted in better
trade relationships with these countries, and that's what I think
he's trying to do. Now he can tell you otherwise,
and he may well be not doing this, but I
really have full trust in him that he's doing the
right thing, and it's very comfortable.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Let me ask you this. A lot of people listening
in the Midwest. Jd.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Vance obviously wrote his book He'll Billy Elogy, which I restseller.
I'm sure you read it, Buck, and I have read it.
What is the answer for people who feel like the
jobs have been hollowed out in the industrial Midwest? For
people listening to us in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio that got
used to having those jobs that were going to pay
(42:38):
so well to produce American goods, is that an issue?
Speaker 10 (42:42):
I want you to tell the audience where the two
of you are located.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I'm in National, Tennessee.
Speaker 10 (42:48):
Okay, I'm in Nashville too. Now why am I in Nashville.
We are the lowest tax state in the nation, and
earning income is a lot more fun with lower taxes,
lower regulations. We have no death tax, we have no
gift we have no unearned cap tax, we have no
income tax. We have one of the lowest property taxes
in the nation. We have the best spending, we have
the best public services. We don't have a manuaffacturing problem
(43:10):
in Tennessee. All these auto companies are coming in here
in floods. The problem with manufacturing is Detroit, it's Michigan,
it's Ohio, it's Pennsylvania, it's Wisconsin, it's Illinois. These places
are pits. They are anti production, anti prosperity places, and
they're driving all the business out. It's not China. It's
(43:32):
the governments of these states that have made it absolutely intolerable.
Can you imagine opening up a factory in Detroit, Michigan today,
where property taxes are in some places up to fifty percent,
fifteen percent on that where the state income tax, they're
death tax, the reunion. It's a horrible place. Our problem
(43:52):
is with the states that have the manufacturing, and they
are repelling that manufacturing all moss. And that's the problem.
It's not the competition from abroad. And if you don't
hurt me, just look at Tennessee and how we're doing
in Texas and Florida. All of us are doing well
except for those horribly run states.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
All right, Doctor Ard Laffer appreciate your perspective today, sir,
Thank you very much.
Speaker 10 (44:16):
Hey, it's my pleasure in any time. By the way,
it's fun being with you guys, and I love watching
you all the time. You guys are spectacular and I'm
really proud you're in Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Thank you. I need we need to get dinner sometime.
Speaker 10 (44:27):
I would anytime you want. Just give me a call
and it's done, and not even pay for it if
it's locks.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Miss Donald's all right, I appreciate it, Doctor Lav, thank
you so much.
Speaker 10 (44:38):
All right.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
There's no shortage of ways your online identity can wind
up in the wrong hands, but when it happens, your
life is turned upside down. Cyber Thieves open bogus accounts
in your name and rack up huge bills before you
discover the problem. It's important to understand how cybercrime and
identity theft are affecting our lives. Your best defense is
lifelocks online identity theft protection. They're twenty four to seven
systems monitor millions of data points a second for risks
(44:59):
to your online identity. If you do become a victim
of identity theft, A dedicated US based LifeLock restoration specialist.
We'll fix it guaranteed or your money back. Easy to
help protect yourself with LifeLock, join now say forty percent
off your first year with my name. Buck is your
promo code Call one eight hundred LifeLock or go online
to LifeLock dot com and use promo code Buck for
(45:20):
forty percent off. Terms apply.
Speaker 10 (45:22):
You don't know what.
Speaker 8 (45:23):
You don't know right, but you could on the Sunday
Hang with Play and Buck podcast.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
I hope you bought the dip, because if you did,
the stock market is soaring S and P five hundred
up eight percent right now, Buck, I've never seen anything
like it, nearly four hundred points. The Dow is up
twenty five hundred points, NASDAK up fifteen hundred points. As
(45:55):
I mentioned earlier, basically, stocks are priced where they were
in September. I hope a lot of you did not
buy into the frenzy, the left wing panic. I hope
that you bought the dip, and if you did, you
have been handsomely rewarded already.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
I think it's worth noting that Donald Trump on truth
Social did put out yesterday Now is a good time
to buy, so you know he's trying to help.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
He's trying to help.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Yes, I'm sorry, it was no, it was four hours ago,
not last night. Four hours ago, Trump in all caps,
this is a great time to buy. And yes, he
was telling you the truth.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
All right, So let's give you the latest news and
then we're gonna talk about the Art Laugher interview and
the larger tariff battle. So tariffs on China are now
going to one hundred and twenty five percent. And what
I will tell you is, if you go back and
listen to the first hour, and if you go back
and listen to yesterday, we really kind of zeroed in
(47:11):
on the issue at play here. Zero tariffs is actually
a really good idea for Europe, for Japan, for Australia,
for South Korea, for countries that are fairly trading.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
There should be.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
Reduced dishonesty, for lack of a better way of putting it,
unfair trade from some of these tariffs. And I think
bucket On a good example that Canada has two hundred
and fifty percent tariffs on dairy because they don't want
American milk, which is not much different than Canadian milk,
(47:49):
to come across their border because we can produce milk
at a cheaper rate than Canada can So they are
protecting Canadian dairy farmers because they want that industry to continue,
as opposed to Canadians being able to go to their
supermarkets and get milk much cheaper because it's coming from
the United States. And look, there are some tariffs that
(48:13):
might make sense. For instance, let's say France, I think
you mentioned this buck, France has high tariffs on wine.
They consider the French wine to be superior to other wines,
and they want French people to be drinking their wine. Anyway,
we can get into the economics basis for tariffs another time,
(48:34):
but basically, there are many countries with which free trade
makes sense, and what Trump is diagnosing is that China
right now is not one of those. And let's listen
to what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant just announced, and we
have that audio right now. Let's go ahead. Here is
(48:57):
cut twenty five about every country out there ninety day
pause because they have not retaliated, but China's going to
be treated differently again Cut twenty five.
Speaker 11 (49:09):
We saw the successful negotiating strategy that President Trump implemented
a week ago. Today, it has brought more than seventy
five countries forward to negotiate. It took great courage, great
courage for him to stay the course until this moment.
And what we have ended up with here, as I
told everyone a week ago there in this very spot,
(49:33):
do not retaliate and you will be rewarded. So every
country in the world who wants to come and negotiate,
we are willing to hear you. We're going to go
down to a ten percent baseline tariff live for them,
and China will be raised to one five due to
their insistence on escalation.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
Okay, So that is that explanation. Then he was asked,
is this a tariff war?
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Now? Is this a trade war?
Speaker 1 (50:05):
And so that was the next question that was asked,
and here was Besant's response, cut twenty six.
Speaker 6 (50:12):
So I's gonna see it now, this trade war is
China versus the.
Speaker 11 (50:15):
Christ Well, I'm not calling it a trade war, but
I am saying that China has escalated. And President Trump
responded very courageously to that, and we are going to
work on a solution with the are trading partners.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
Caroline Levitt, White House folksperson, then came out and said,
what we have been telling you for some time. Don't panic.
You don't seem in the media to be able to follow.
And let's be honest here, Buck, there's also any time
that there can be a panic that works against Trump.
The media stokes the fears, they drive up the terror,
(50:54):
and we tried to tamp that down and tell you, hey,
if you can't you're too emotional, don't look at prices.
But a lot of people out there weren't willing to
do that. A lot of people sold Caroline Levitt cut
twenty seven.
Speaker 12 (51:06):
Many of you in the media clearly missed the.
Speaker 9 (51:09):
Art of the deal.
Speaker 12 (51:10):
You clearly failed to see what President Jump is doing here.
You tried to say that the rest of the world
would be moved closer to China, when in fact we've
seen the opposite effect. The entire world is calling the
United States of America, not China, because they need our markets,
they need our consumers, and they need this president in
the Oval Office to talk to them. If that's exactly
(51:30):
why more than seventy five countries have called Because the
United States of America is the best place in the
world to do business, and as the President has shown
great courage as the Secretary has said in choosing to
retaliate against China even higher.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
Okay, so that is the absolute latest from the White House. Now, buck,
let's dive in with Art Laugher, who wrote a great
piece in the Wall Street Journal. What Art Laugher believes
that there should be zero, zero tariffs anywhere in the world.
He believes completely in free trade. He's a brilliant economist,
(52:05):
and I think sometimes there are going to be people
who come on the show and use the forum that
we have, which is very widely followed by the White House,
as is Fox News, to make arguments to the President.
I think that's why he wrote the editorial at the
Wall Street Journal. I think that's why he wanted to
come on, and I need to go out dinner with
(52:26):
him because he's a brilliant guy. But the idea, and again,
let me just kind of break this down from you
from my perspective, I'm curious if you will agree if
we went to zero tariffs with China. Let's pretend that
China said, hey, we're laying down our arms no tariffs,
the United States said no tariffs too. We would still
have a massive trade imbalance with China, and the massive
(52:49):
trade imbalance means that China produces a lot of goods
and they have a lot of jobs to produce those goods,
and the United States buy and large buys them, but
we don't have the jobs reducing the same amount of goods.
And one of the challenges Trump is trying to rectify
is what's going on in the industrial heartland where the
jobs have been lost. Now, Art Laffer said, and I
(53:10):
do think this is true that Illinois, for instance, has
made awful economic decisions and that has led to jobs
inside of the United States migrating to states that have
made better economic decisions. Where you live Florida, where I live, Tennessee.
That's certainly true, and there is some culpability. But for instance,
(53:31):
Ohio has Republican leadership top to bottom now and it
still has lost a lot of jobs. Pennsylvania voted for
Donald Trump and voted for McCormick, and they have lost jobs.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
Now.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
It's true they have Democrat leadership in cities and many
oftentimes in governorships. But what was your take on that?
What is your take now with rapidly evolving news cycle,
as is often the case with the Trump administration.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
Well, I think this is what's interesting to me is
that the areas where there is some disagreement, I mean,
clearly Art was trying the art of the deal himself,
there by putting full faith in Trump but not agreeing
with some of the principles that Trump has espoused for
a very long time, not just in this in this
(54:19):
recent bout of trade negotiations, but at some level, saying
the things that Trump is saying is a necessary component
of that negotiation process because people have to be people
have to believe that you are willing to do the
things you say you will do. If I mean, let's
(54:39):
be honest, you're making kind of an economic threat. You know,
empty threats. The fastest way to lose all of your power,
lose all of your influence, is to make empty threats.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
Right.
Speaker 3 (54:48):
You know, if you ever shout at somebody you know,
oh I'm going to get you know, you're you'll never
work in this town again, and they can laugh at you,
then you've lost a lot a lot of ground. And
if you say, I'm going to tell you, but really,
I'm going to pause the tariffs next week, and really
I have no interest in taking this to the mat.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
If I have to do, you have no leverage.
Speaker 3 (55:10):
So Trump, some of what he has been saying, I
think has been a combination of the rebalancing that he
wants to achieve, but also establishing the necessary leverage in
the negotiations.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
You know, to.
Speaker 3 (55:23):
Get people leverage is about pushing, right, you push a lever,
pushing people to do the things on the global trade,
in these global trade negotiations that he wants them to do.
Speaker 2 (55:33):
So I think that.
Speaker 3 (55:33):
That is bearing fruit already and really the country when
we're talking about national security concerns, Let's be honest, Clay.
Speaker 2 (55:41):
You know, if.
Speaker 3 (55:42):
France wants to have a ten percent or a twenty
percent or whatever tariff on their chem ombert, you know,
or on their champagne, which is different than sparkling white wine,
as we know, even though Americans may be in the
habit of calling their sparkling white champagne, it's named for
the region, as we learned from Rob Low in Wayne's World.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
But if they.
Speaker 3 (56:01):
Want to tariff cheese, we can live with that. But
if China is going to be providing all of our robotics, electronics,
antibiotics go down the list, that's a problem for us,
a bigger problem than I would if the EU is
doing that, I think we would feel a lot better.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
I'm not saying that that's a.
Speaker 3 (56:21):
Desirable scenario either, but your primary adversary. We have to remember,
China's an authoritarian regime. Okay, it's run by the Chinese
Communist Party. Mal Stong is one of the most evil
people who have ever run any country in the history
of the planet. And he's the founder of modern China. Like,
they got problems over there. This is not this is
not the UK, this is not Australia, right, Not all
(56:42):
countries are equal, and so focusing in the pressure on
China for this makes sense because that's they're not only
the biggest trade you know, manipulator and cheat. And by
the way, I disagree with Art when he says like
China's fine. I mean, this is where we get to
the national security side of things. I don't know if
he's aware of how much IP theft they've engaged in
(57:02):
and how much cyber intrusion they have done, both on
the national security and economic espionage side.
Speaker 2 (57:07):
It's substantial.
Speaker 3 (57:08):
Again, Arts an economics guy, I worked in the CIA.
Speaker 1 (57:11):
He said at the start, he said, like I think
Trump's the greatest, Like he basically said, all I care
about economics.
Speaker 3 (57:17):
Which here's economics, So he does not know anything about
national security analysis in this respect. And China is a
national security threat in trade as well because of the
way that they steal intellectual When I say intellectual property,
I mean think about someone like Elon Musk.
Speaker 2 (57:33):
SpaceX is rockets.
Speaker 3 (57:35):
It's the private company, but it's rockets. You know, you
can do a lot with that technology, right, And China's
stealing technology is a huge problem.
Speaker 1 (57:43):
Am I the only one who's still furious at China
because they let COVID happen. I mean, I know it's
five years ago, and maybe more than five years ago,
based on some of the studies that are now coming
out about when exactly COVID may have started to circulate
in China. But I know much of our fight in
the United States was over Hey, some people want to
(58:03):
put on masks and their morons, and some people want
to shut down schools and their morons.
Speaker 3 (58:08):
And the worst stuff we did to ourselves in this country.
That's my problem. The worst stuff we the worst COVID
stuff was the result of stupid, just stupid decisions made
here in America, and we funded as we know we
funded that lab as well, which not all of it,
but some of it, which was.
Speaker 1 (58:26):
An use the full decision. But my point on it
is China paid no penalty. China unleashed COVID on the
world led to awful I agree with you policy decisions
being made in the United States, but they didn't come
clean about how it got out. They never have told
the full story about anything, and so my inclination is
(58:47):
not to give China the benefit of the doubt on anything.
If anything, I actually am inclined to be more draconian
in the way that we treat them going forward, because
I think we're in a model cold war, and if
China wins, I think the world loses.
Speaker 3 (59:05):
Yes, but you see, this is the point. It's about
more than just correct who can make the cheapest widgets.
It's about more than that with China.
Speaker 2 (59:13):
With the EU, you know, it's about who.
Speaker 3 (59:16):
It's about cheese and beef products and cars and things,
and Trump can work all that out with China.
Speaker 2 (59:21):
It's something else.
Speaker 3 (59:22):
We are not worried about a first strike from the
United Kingdom and them cutting off our critical supplies of
electronics and the things that we would need in order
to fight a modern war. We are worried about that
with China. Okay, So this is why it is in
fact different. It is not just we make stuff, they
make stuff. We have money, they have money. There are
(59:44):
additional factors that complicate the analysis. So we should get
to some of these talkbacks, play some of these calls,
because yeah, we touched on some of that. And look,
I think we should invite Senator Rampaul on soon because
he just thinks this whole thing is completely nuts and
he's a very smart guy, and I think we should
hear him out on this. Senator Rampaul is a very
(01:00:05):
I think I think I might agree with him more
than any senator a greater percent of the time on issues.
I think that's probably true. I mean, there's a few,
you know, Ted Cruz, there's a few, but he's certainly
I know aman Ron Johnson just because I love him.
He's great up there in Wisconsin holding it down, all right.
If you're a member of the USCCA, the United States
(01:00:26):
Concealed Kerry Association, you're getting the benefit of legal assistance
if you are compelled to defend yourself and your family lawfully.
That's just one of dozens of member benefits available to
nearly nine hundred thousand Americans taking advantage of the great
work of this organization. USCCA also just stands with the
Second Amendment and believes in your right to defend yourself
(01:00:47):
and your family. Clay and I are both members of
the USCCA, and this was an easy decision for us.
I conceal carry. Clay is a lawyer, He's got weapons
in the house. He knows that he might have to
or his wife might have to defend their kids. I
have the same consideration here with Carrie. If you're going
to be in a position to defend yourself, you want
(01:01:07):
to have USCCA, meaning if you're willing to defend yourself
under any circumstance, because how it plays out in court
is not necessarily how it played out in reality unless
you have a strong legal defense to make that case
for you. Go check out their Concealed Carrie and Family
Defense Guide right now at USCCA. It lays the complete
foundation for you. If you own a gun or are
thinking about getting your first fireum, you must have this resource.
(01:01:31):
Go online to USCCA dot com slash buck get your
free guide today. All right, let me say it again, slow,
because I know it's a lot of letters. This website
is us CCA dot com slash Buck. You can also
find this information up on the Clayandbuck dot com site
under the sponsors tap.
Speaker 8 (01:01:49):
You know them as conservative radio hosts, now just get
to know them as guys on this Sunday hang podcast
with Clay and Buck.
Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Find it in their podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.