Weekly Review With Clay and Buck H2 - KY Sen. Rand Paul
3/21/202637 mincomplete
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0:32Lenovo, Lenovo. Welcome back in.
0:36Hour number two. Clay Travis, Buck Sexton's show.
0:39Wednesday edition of the program.
0:40Senator Rand Paul will join us on the bottom of the program here at the
0:45bottom of the hour. About 1 .35 on the East Coast.
0:49And we may have some fireworks coming out of that.
0:52We have got a bunch of different storylines that are worth paying attention to.
0:59But, Buck, I wanted to start.
1:01There seems to be... I know we haven't talked much about Iran lately.
1:06But, meaning in the first hour.
1:09We've talked a lot about Iran over the past couple of weeks.
1:13The degree to which Israel has infiltrated the top echelon of the Iranian leadership.
1:25They took out another couple of guys overnight.
1:27Not a good time to be in Iranian leadership.
1:31And, Buck, did you see this story?
1:34I read this, it was the New York Times, that top Mossad agents are now
1:42calling Iranian leaders and saying, we know who you are, we know where you are,
1:48and we will kill you if you do not immediately stop supporting this government.
1:57And, they are now able to...
2:00I mean, can you imagine what that's like with everything going on?
2:04To have your phone ring, pick it up, and it's a Mossad agent.
2:08And, he's saying, hey, just want you to know, we know exactly where you are.
2:12And, we are willing and able to take you out.
2:16And, I saw, and I was reading in the Wall Street Journal this, and I
2:19thought you would appreciate this.
2:21The degree to which Israel is able to now target individuals, one of the guys
2:27was killed sleeping in a tent in a park where he thought he could not
2:36be found, and they were able...
2:39Sorry, I said it's the New York Times.
2:41Here is the quote from the Wall Street Journal, front page story.
2:44The journal reviewed the contents of one call between a senior Iranian police commander and
2:51an agent of the Mossad.
2:53Can you hear me? A Mossad agent can be heard speaking in Farsi.
2:57We know everything about you.
2:59You are on our blacklist, and we have all the information about you.
3:04Okay, the commander said in the recording.
3:06I called to warn you in advance that you should stand with your people's side.
3:11And, if you do, you will...
3:13And, if you will not do that, your destiny will be as your leader.
3:17Do you hear me? And, then the man responds, brother, I swear on the Koran.
3:22I'm not your enemy. I'm a dead man already.
3:25Just please come help us.
3:29I'm curious what you think, just from an operational standpoint, that Mossad would be so
3:35embedded that they would be able to be calling individuals and letting them know you're
3:41next on our list. Impactful, non -impactful, how do you see this going?
3:46Well, it shows how much they've mapped out the human terrain, even, inside of Iran
3:52and have an understanding of command and control and the ability to directly...
3:57It's one thing to know who's in charge.
3:58It's another thing to say, oh, you're in charge?
4:01Boop. Not anymore. Or, who's up next?
4:03Yes. That's a whole other level of capability in a battlefield situation.
4:10And, I think, will this be...
4:14You know, I don't know.
4:15I mean, this is where you get into, do we think that this will be
4:19enough to start to push things toward a new future for the Iranian people?
4:24Well, Clay, I just, I've seen this play out in...
4:28No, you could say, well, look what happened in Egypt with the Arab Spring, although
4:32that didn't really turn out the way everybody was hoping in some ways.
4:36It's possible that this starts to have a domino effect.
4:41It's hard. It's an uphill battle.
4:43You still have a lot of people that are even lower.
4:45Like, here's the problem. How far down the chain of command do you have ideological
4:52hardliners who don't want an end to the conflict with Israel?
4:58I mean, they obviously don't want to get bombed continuously, but, you know, they want
5:01to continue the Islamic revolution that Khomeini began.
5:06How many, how deep does it go?
5:09I don't think anybody has a really good answer to that.
5:11You know, remember, this is a country that we haven't had the kind of day
5:15-to -day interaction and news coverage with you have in a lot of other places.
5:19Our insights into Iran are always limited by the fact that it's a totalitarian...
5:25uh malocracy a dictatorship of sorts and we don't have open access to what's going
5:32on and we haven't for wow what's the math 40 something years so that's where
5:37it is right now i think um with the israelis a lot of this is
5:42also they know people that were involved in very bad stuff against israel they they
5:47know who was making sure that hezbollah was trying to kidnap or kill israelis they
5:53know who was working with hamas i mean they have a pretty good sense of
5:57all of that and it's score settling time for a lot of them after a
6:01long time here's the other part of that article that i wanted to hit you
6:04with because i did think it was interesting um israel they say this is according
6:08to the wall street journal got a tip from ordinary iranians they're saying i don't
6:13know if this is just disinformation or designed to make people even more uh nervous
6:17that iranians are now calling in location of people in the country to get taken
6:24out but the guy's name uh solamiani solamani um i don't know if he's related
6:29to the guy that we took out before uh they say i'm reading was holing
6:33up with his deputies in a tent in a wooded area in tehran um and
6:39they've now taken out so many of the physical locations that the guys have gotten
6:45nervous about being in any sort of intelligence uh building right because there's been so
6:51many of these taken out guys hiding out in a tent in a park in
6:54iran with his uh subordinates they took them all out uh so he thought hey
7:00maybe i can just hide out in this tent presumably he's trying to avoid all
7:05detection and they were still able to take him out um and every morning when
7:11i wake up i check the news and it feels like iran has had another
7:16leader taken out to your point i think the challenge is how far down do
7:20you have to go and how long does it take right because if let's say
7:24you have to knock out the first 300 people on the on the list of
7:29commandos before you get to people who want to negotiate i think the iranian perspective
7:34is america in particular is going to run out of interest in continuing this and
7:40so you just kind of have to hold on until the actual attacks end up
7:45ending right that's the i would imagine that's the best strategy of the iranians right
7:50now they're really hoping i mean the the irgc and and what's there of the
7:55iranian regime still in place to whatever degree that's the case uh they're just hoping
8:02that domestic political pressure helps bring a faster end to this as in trump doesn't
8:09want to burn too much political capital and so he'll say all right we've done
8:12we've done enough we've showed them who's boss so to speak uh what is oil
8:17now clay it just spiked up right we and the israelis hit a gas field
8:22in iran now yeah i think that's their entire goal at this point is to
8:26make the price of oil and gas go up high enough that the united states
8:30decides to pull back um i'm hitting it right now 97 a barrel it got
8:36up to 120 um the crude oil futures that i'm looking at right now is
8:41up about a dollar 50 today at 97 it spiked to 120 last week uh
8:47and uh and so far it's around 97 it was a couple hours ago it
8:51was 110 dollars so according to the journal right now i'm looking at so i
8:54mean it definitely has had a bit of a run -up uh wow can you
8:58imagine being uh on an oil trading desk right now you know oil futures and
9:02everything that's no every time there's a new tweet every time there's a new tweet
9:06you're reacting to try to figure out what the legitimacy of it is um and
9:11uh and and all of uh all of those angles all right we told you
9:15we would play this so i wanted to update you on iran that is the
9:18latest uh that is going on there uh let me hit you with uh this
9:22this was center mark wayne mullen on this program let me make sure i want
9:27to get the date right the team uh went and tracked it back down so
9:30we're gonna have can i throw something out there while you're looking this up i
9:33just want everyone to know we're as soon as senator mullen is through his confirmation
9:36hearing hopefully at that point he'll be dhs uh secretary or we believe he'll be
9:41dhs secretary we'll invite him on the program want to hear about what his priorities
9:45will be and he's welcome to also respond to this uh senator rand paul situation
9:50because we're having senator rand paul on today so we're you know this is a
9:54this is a big public fight between two republicans they both should be able to
9:58have their say i think senator rand paul is going to be a no vote
10:01we'll ask him this i think he's going to be a no vote on uh
10:03on mark wayne mullen i don't remember senator paul taking shots at mark wayne mullen
10:09on this program doesn't mean it didn't happen uh but but this is for sure
10:14mark wayne mullen this is back the team pulled this november 17th 2025 i remember
10:21this conversation vaguely i'm actually interested to hear it as well mark wayne mullen taking
10:27shots at uh senator rand paul over drug boat strikes uh again a few months
10:33ago three four months ago uh cut 30 i'm going to just pivot back for
10:38a second to the drug boat strikes 21 so far over 80 people killed senator
10:45rand paul your republican colleague is very against these uh he has recently said things
10:50like call her rand as a republican colleague pretty loose lips so i mean he
10:56is a republican colleague i mean you know we can we can talk about how
11:00you feel about that but he definitely is a republican senator so what do you
11:04think about the concerns about legality when it comes to these strikes that's well within
11:09within his constitutional authority to do so and uh and so for rand paul to
11:15quote that what i always say is say okay give me in the constitution where
11:18it's not in his authority to do that pull out the part that rand paul
11:22is talking about but this is the same rand paul that it doesn't vote with
11:27republicans to open government he he just recently was trying to uh support his plan
11:33to enhance thc levels uh for consumption uh in drinks because he thought it was
11:40good for kentucky's not joking good good for kentucky's um uh industry for hemp industry
11:46uh this is the same rand paul that is constantly looking for an opportunity to
11:50run against the president united states and so he's looking for an opportunity anytime he
11:56can to distance himself i would be a lot better off if rand paul just
12:00called himself what he is he's a libertarian i'm perfectly okay with that but he
12:04can't get elected as a libertarian in kentucky so he decides to run as a
12:08republican um you know i i have more respect for thomas massey than i do
12:13rand paul and because at least thomas massey owns who he is rand paul is
12:18just whoever he feels like to be that day so uh this is i again
12:24buck i think you nailed it this is not a political disagreement at this point
12:28it's personal so uh there have been fireworks from the dhs confirmation hearings rand paul
12:33we played you some cuts from that uh and senator paul will be with us
12:37at the bottom of the hour and we'll hear from him uh what he wants
12:41to uh what he wants to say how he wants to respond and all of
12:45you guys can uh can judge that as well um we're just talking about the
12:49situation that is going on right now in uh in the middle east in israel
12:54in iran everywhere and our friends at the international fellowship of christians and jews make
12:59a tremendous difference when it comes to helping people in their time of need whether
13:03it's building new bomb shelters uh whether it is setting up uh food banks whether
13:09it is even putting a hospital in a parking garage beneath a beneath the hospital
13:15itself to protect everyone all of the patients from the dangers of missiles that might
13:22arrive all of these things are tremendously important they have to do with just protecting
13:27the innocent in particular all over israel and it's what the international fellowship of christians
13:33and jews does uh we would like for you to join uh us as well
13:37i've seen the work that these individuals do it is fantastic it is phenomenal it
13:42is truly life -changing for so many people there and if you have the opportunity
13:47we would love for you to join us and help support the ifcj at ifcj
13:54.org i know the organization i know the work that they're doing 888 -488 -IFCJ
14:00that is ifcj .org one more time ifcj .org you don't know what you don't
14:10know right but you could on the sunday hang with clay and buck podcast welcome
14:15back into clay and buck we're supposed to have senator rampaul joining us in a
14:19few moments and i think a lot of you're going to want to hear it
14:22because things got very testy let's be honest things got a bit personal up on
14:27capitol hill on the in the hearing for dhs secretary nominee senator mark wayne mullin
14:34so we will hear from uh the other senator senator paul about where he stands
14:39on all this i also think depends on how much time we have we can
14:42talk to him a bit about the save america act which i know a lot
14:45of you have questions or um thoughts on i should say more thoughts than questions
14:49like why the heck aren't they passing this uh clay and i are not senators
14:53uh so we can't vote for it but uh doesn't look like it's going to
14:57happen uh for a whole range of reasons we've discussed on the show let's get
15:01to some of your thoughts here uh the let's start with um uh b kenneth
15:07from melbourne florida hit b one question i'd like to ask grand paul is why
15:12did he decide to go to soft on this guy after he about killed him
15:16i mean quickly not pressing charges never heard anything about it anymore you know we're
15:24all supporting you grand paul and we want to see this guy prosecuted for assault
15:31and you weren't having it why is that i'll have to look up i thought
15:37that there was a prosecution and the guy got punished yeah he was charged by
15:41authorities and convicted for the 2017 attack ran didn't press charges himself but he expressed
15:47satisfaction with the felony conviction and jail time that the individual served but he only
15:52served 30 days in jail so i mean you know he was the guy was
15:58was uh prosecuted felony and convicted went to prison i had to pay ran paul
16:03580 000 in damages i i don't i don't think uh i don't think it's
16:08a fair line of criticism to say ran paul didn't you know what what i
16:12mean they go after him and he had to pay what else is supposed to
16:15happen yeah i agree i think he should have got more time in prison personally
16:19for an assault like that i mean i agree i think you know look it's
16:23funny actually clay i was even texting with a friend of mine yesterday who's a
16:25long time violent violent felony prosecutor in new york uh district attorney's office there i
16:31was asking him about something that happened where a guy punched a guy we didn't
16:34talk about this story 55 year old who like punched a 55 year old fell
16:38and died hit his head and in these things they get very into the specific
16:45facts uh like was it completely unprovoked did they square off did the guy raise
16:51his hands did the other guy raise his hands was it a sucker punch did
16:55he you know is it a senior citizen all these things come into the equation
17:01uh because people a lot of people who have never been involved in physical violence
17:05don't realize uh first of all how ugly it gets quickly and also how it
17:10can escalate into something very dangerous even more so than either party wants it to
17:16uh i had a friend who was in college and someone that he knew got
17:19punched on stairs fell back hit his head slipped into a coma and died oh
17:23so that stuff can happen when i was in college a kid's in georgetown got
17:27into a fight georgetown one kid punched the other when he fell he hit his
17:31head and he died it was a huge story when i was an undergrad um
17:35you know there's a when you're a lawyer a young lawyer you just you study
17:40a case it's basically like the thin skull plaintiff case um and for those of
17:46you out there that probably have not heard of this case one of the things
17:49that they examine is to what extent are you liable when someone has a unique
17:55physical condition which you didn't know about this thin skull plaintiff my recollection died uh
18:00because of it uh what should not have been a death blow uh but to
18:06the point you're making buck when you strike someone you don't really know what the
18:10overall outcome is going to be and the outcome can be deadly even for things
18:15you don't think are particularly deadly in nature yeah and rand paul almost died from
18:20that attack on him and that is established by the medical records so um these
18:24are you know this is these are the facts of that case but he did
18:28bring it so uh rather they did bring felony charges and the person was convicted
18:32uh we'll talk to assuming he has time for us here because obviously a lot
18:36going on capitol hill we're supposed to talk to senator paul coming up and we'll
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19:32welcome back in clay travis buck sexton show appreciate all of you hanging out with
19:37us across the country we are joined now by senator rampaul of kentucky and uh
19:43senator you've uh made quite a bit of news earlier today in the uh the
19:47dhs hearings of senator mark wayne mullen and i guess we just can start off
19:52here with a with a question i don't know that you've officially said one way
19:56or the other based on the questions it doesn't sound like you're going to be
20:01voting for him to be head of dhs uh and if is that true and
20:06if so why will you be voting against him you know i guess i'm concerned
20:11about anger issues uh someone leading ice and border patrol issues that uh basically advocated
20:18and celebrated the violence that was committed about me i was attacked from behind several
20:23years ago six ribs broken three of them separated completely damaged my lung multiple pneumonias
20:29had part of my uh lung removed nearly a year year and a half later
20:33and i guess i don't think that's funny i also don't think that that's something
20:37to be celebrated and i wonder if someone thinks that that is to be applauded
20:41should they really be in charge of ice and cvp who i think they need
20:46a better role model also has a history of brawling i mean he got up
20:50during a committee hearing threatened uh someone who was testifying said he would jump over
20:54the table and follow up interviews he said yeah people just deserve to be sometimes
20:59be punched in the mouth he said well yeah there's historical precedent for this you
21:03know we had dueling and we've had canings and so i asked him that today
21:08and he said oh yeah we've had dueling and i said well you realize it
21:11was illegal 170 years ago it's certainly illegal now but it was illegal even back
21:16then and frowned upon and people actually had to travel either to other states or
21:21countries to do dueling because we disapproved of it even 170 years ago but the
21:26fact that he would still think that we should settle our political differences through violence
21:31i think makes him um really unfit to hold any kind of position like this
21:35so i will vote against him senator paul uh just to be clear because we
21:40played some of the back and forth audio uh senator mullen has never apologized for
21:46what he said is that correct that has never happened he called me and wanted
21:51to have a discussion and he said well he said what he said today i
21:54hope we can decide our political differences well our political differences are you know we
21:59disagree on funding refugee welfare i'm against giving any more money for refugee welfare i
22:04would end the programs he's for it that's a political difference but if i say
22:08that i wish harm on his family or i wish harm on him that's not
22:12a political difference that's an advocation for violence and frankly i've been on the receiving
22:17end of violence and i just don't think it's good for our country and it's
22:20not a good example for somebody who leads law enforcement where there have been some
22:24questions about the use of force and so no he's never apologized he was given
22:29a chance today i think a normal person would have taken that chance and apologized
22:34instead he continued to have this bizarre rant that somehow when he was in the
22:40house of representatives he told this to my face because he's you know such a
22:43macho guy i don't think i ever met the guy when he was in the
22:46house i don't remember ever meeting with him and i certainly would remember if someone
22:49walked up to me and told me that i deserved to be bushwhacked you know
22:53in my yard so no i i've never i'd never met him before he got
22:57to the senate and he's never said it to my face but it's interesting what
23:00he took umbrage with he took umbrage with the fact that i called him a
23:03liar but he didn't ever come out and say oh yeah you know i was
23:07angry about this vote and you know in retrospect maybe i shouldn't have you know
23:12thought that it was a great idea that this violence was committed against you um
23:17but it's that it's his brawling in senate committees it's his referring to dueling and
23:22caning i asked him if he knew who charles sumner was i don't think he
23:25does but charles sumner was caned nearly to death he was caned till he was
23:30unconscious and the reason that with it it kept going as one of uh preston
23:35books colleagues from south carolina came over with a gun and he kept the other
23:38i always wondered you know why the senators not intervene the reason they didn't intervene
23:42to help him he was unconscious bleeding from the mouth bleeding from his ears his
23:47skull being crushed by this guy with the cane and nobody helps him but it's
23:51because some another thug uh friend of preston brooks was holding a gun to the
23:55senators keeping them at bay so but he brings this up as a justification he
24:00brought it up again today he says well yeah there is dueling and i said
24:04well yeah it's been illegal for 170 years including at the time even when they
24:09had dueling in the 18th uh early 19th century most time it was illegal and
24:14most time they went to some kind of venue to escape being caught doing doing
24:17because it wasn't approved by most people senator paul can i ask you do you
24:21have any sense that there are any other republicans who have serious concerns about this
24:27confirmation of the dhs secretary or is it your sense that you stand alone among
24:33republicans on this probably on the committee i will be the only one um you
24:38know frankly i suffered for a year or two with this had part of my
24:41lung release i do take it kind of personally i do think though it's more
24:45of a generalized problem because i think his resorting to fists and his idea that
24:49people sometimes just deserve to be punched in the face i think that kind of
24:54attitude would worry me where we you know this is what we had with bovino
24:58when bovino was up there in minneapolis it was a disaster because he's marching around
25:03with a bulletproof vest brandishing his weapons and showing how tough he is and everybody
25:07got this sort of macho complex up there tom homan who's not a shrinking violet
25:12went to it and said if any agents misbehave they'll be punished and he started
25:16pulling people off the street so they weren't uh in public confrontation every day you
25:21really haven't seen it in the news and that's sort of what good leadership would
25:24be but i don't know what kind of leadership you get from a guy who
25:28advocates fighting in a um you know in the middle of the senate hearing why
25:33some people why isn't tom homan the dhs secretary by the way i mean that's
25:37a whole other yeah no i mean i think that's an interesting question uh senator
25:40rampaul with us right now talking about the mark wayne mullen uh hearing and his
25:44potential taking over the dhs many people in this audience i i guarantee you senator
25:50paul and i'm sure you're going to hear it from the people you represent in
25:53kentucky will say democrats are wrong on so much why fight internally here over who
26:01the president wants as dhs secretary how would you respond to that question or that
26:07criticism you know i've supported virtually all the nominees christy noem came forward i did
26:13hers in record time even though mullen i don't think don't like and don't think
26:18he's fit and really i think he's just a person but i've i've gotten his
26:23nominee done uh quicker than any other nominees ever gotten it so i'm giving him
26:27fair treatment in the sense that he got a hearing in less than two weeks
26:31he's going to get the vote tomorrow and in all likelihood he'll be approved but
26:35the thing is is you know if this if this were you i mean do
26:40you have uh you know it would it be your conclusion to say well yeah
26:45he did say the assault i mean it was justified but i'll just kind of
26:48let that go and not say anything about it well i don't think there are
26:50many people that would let it go um i'm kind of uh actually surprised that
26:55more people don't see the glorification of violence as a real danger of having someone
27:00lead ice who really thinks resorting to fists is the way we hear this real
27:05you know it's this is a bad way to do we used to do it
27:07the right way with dueling and caning and um you know when i first read
27:12the story of charl sumner i was horrified by it i wasn't i never never
27:16crossed my mind that these were the good old days these were the days when
27:19men were men and they'd you know crush each other's skull with with sticks um
27:24i don't know that never would have crossed my mind but that apparently is his
27:28point of view and even when confronted with it both privately and in public he
27:32refuses to apologize doesn't back down and says basically yeah he's come it's completely understandable
27:39that i was attacked from behind you know six ribs broken lung damage multiple pneumonias
27:45part of my lung removed um i don't know i don't get that i guess
27:49i'm not willing just to say oh let's let bygones be bygones you know we're
27:53all adults here well if you want bygones be bygones you might start with an
27:57apology for what he said what happened to your attacker we had a couple people
28:02asking us and buck and i did a quick research we're live on the air
28:06i'm sure you know uh was he severely punished punished to what you thought he
28:12should have been that level or what was the result of that case initially they
28:17all the judges in kentucky recused themselves which created a problem because then they have
28:21to look for a judge they found one in detroit who came down and uh
28:26prejudged the case and gave the guy 30 days the government appealed it and went
28:31to the sixth circuit and this doesn't happen very often appealing a criminal uh a
28:36ruling of a judge because it was outside the sentencing parameters and didn't meet the
28:41minimum and they came back and gave him another 10 months so he served about
28:44a year uh he lost a civil suit uh he's a convicted felon um hopefully
28:50is not voting anywhere in the country anymore and um hopefully has received some punishment
28:56for this but you know it was this reported from the very beginning and everybody's
29:00oh yeah it's just a dispute between embers i'd never talked to the guy i
29:04mean i talked to maybe 10 or 15 years before we're gone a lot our
29:07kids used to carpool but there was no personal animus that i knew of between
29:12the guy other than that i learned that he was a hater of donald trump
29:15and a hater of me politically when we looked at his online presence but wasn't
29:20like we'd ever had words so really um i don't know those who think it's
29:24either funny or should be justified um i think are sick people frankly senator ran
29:30paul with us now and senator if i could i mean i think we've covered
29:32uh pretty uh in pretty good detail here what happened today in your exchange with
29:37mark wayne mullin uh we are in the midst of what we have been telling
29:40everybody is a war and thousands of people are dying and it is a big
29:44deal um i i know there's been a little back and forth on what we
29:47should call this and it's you know uh there seems to be a little bit
29:51of a minimization uh feeling around it in some quarters um my sense is and
29:56this is i'm speaking for myself and clay can weigh in with his sense this
30:00is just going to end sometime in the next couple of weeks and we're going
30:03to say mission accomplished with having destroyed the iranian military what what do you make
30:08of all of this i mean i know you're not for it but what's what's
30:12the goal here as you see it and and what are the lessons that we're
30:15learning as we go you know i think the sooner it's over the better war
30:20really isn't good for you know us as a people not good for those who
30:24die and really it needs to be um the last resort not the first resort
30:29i think this war was a war of choice and um i i didn't agree
30:33with the choice now whether they call it a war or not sounds legalistic but
30:38it's it's a way of getting around the constitution the constitution says that congress initiates
30:43war or declares war now the president's legal counsel the office of legal counsel argues
30:49that you'll you'll will tell you when it's a war but we have to wait
30:52a while and we'll add up the casualties we have to know the duration the
30:56extent and the scope of the war to tell whether it's a war or not
31:00and i guess the problem with that kind of argument is that if congress is
31:04supposed to initiate or to war you can't tell whether it's really a war until
31:09a number of dead you know it would be sort of congress coming after the
31:14fact and then declaring war after the war is over you know with the iraq
31:18war we declared war in advance we didn't know how many would die but we
31:21ended up i think losing about 4 400 soldiers and maybe 10 or 20 000
31:25uh significantly wounded but we we did actually authorize it you know i had some
31:30complaints with george w bush but he came to congress made the case and they
31:34authorized it and uh same thing after 9 -11 and i would have voted for
31:39the 9 -11 you know the response after 9 -11 because we were attacked that's
31:43when we really you know should have a war but uh i don't think we've
31:48done it in a constitutional way i think in the end it's it's really this
31:53isn't the primary reason to oppose it but i think it's also going to be
31:56very very damaging for the republican ability to hold on to either house or senate
32:00in the fall because um of the economic repercussions i think oil prices go up
32:06quickly i think they're sticky on the way down and as more infrastructure is damaged
32:11over there as the people are having more trouble getting ships through because of insurance
32:16and danger i don't think that quickly resolves itself so even if the war ended
32:20in a week or two i think you could still have you know pricing uh
32:24increases that could last well into the election last question for you this is a
32:29vip email um and i'm going to read it from one of our listeners matt
32:33you probably have heard versions of this quite a lot 80 of all americans support
32:38voter id i'll be extremely pissed off and deflated if the save act fails fails,
32:44especially if it fails due to GOP infighting.
32:47I think the country is doomed if we can't get voter ID passed.
32:52That's a VIP email from Matt, one of our listeners.
32:55What's going to happen with the SAVE Act?
32:57What should happen in your mind?
32:59You know, I'm for it.
33:00I'm a co -sponsor of it, voted yesterday to get on it.
33:03We got on it with 51 votes.
33:05I am told by leadership there are not 51 votes to perpetually stay on it.
33:10You know, the whole idea of the talking filibuster, that there aren't 51 votes to
33:14do that. I'm also told that one of the sticking points of doing citizenship part
33:19that you might get 53 of us, you might even get a Democrat or two
33:22if it just did citizenship.
33:24When it adds in the mail balloting, forbidding mail or discouraging mail balloting, which I
33:29am for, I think that's really almost as important as the citizenship part because I
33:33think people cheat through the mail -in balloting more than any other form of voting.
33:37But the problem is, is you have these Western states.
33:40I mean, Utah has, everybody gets a ballot in the mail.
33:43They may get multiple ballots.
33:45Arizona's the same way. And they've had Republican legislatures out there, but they haven't done
33:49anything about it because, frankly, Republicans out there like mail -in balloting.
33:54Same with Oklahoma, I mean, not Oklahoma, Alaska.
33:58And so, while I am, you know, my state, I helped, you know, get the
34:02state legislature, encourage them to pass.
34:05And almost everybody votes in person.
34:07It's like 98%. It's a felony if you lie out your reasons for needing to
34:11vote by mail. So, almost everybody votes in person.
34:15We have paper ballots. We keep the paper ballots.
34:19And I think we have pretty secure elections.
34:21We have IDs to be shown.
34:23So, some states do it and some don't.
34:25There's about five Republican states that don't.
34:27So, while I have voted for the national and will continue to support the national
34:30coalition, really, we ought to have as a party, getting the five or six Republican
34:36states that do mail -in balloting, convincing them at the state level not to do
34:40it. But I think it's because this bill has gotten so large and have added
34:45things to it, you won't get any Democrats on it.
34:47And the only way probably to pass it right now or to convince more Republicans
34:50and some Democrats is actually to narrow the focus to maybe just the citizenship part.
34:56Senator Rand Paul, appreciate you making the time for us, sir.
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35:57News and politics, but also a little comic relief.
36:01Clay Travis and Buck Sexton.
36:04Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
36:09Welcome back in to Clay and Buck.
36:11Look, we're going to get into a little bit more about the Iran situation coming
36:16up here in a few minutes.
36:17I also would like to talk about Clay, if we can make time for today,
36:20the amount of money that's spent by New York City on homeless individuals.
36:24Yeah, this is a crazy stat.
36:28And we're at the point now where some of these bureaucracies, these non -profits that
36:34are funded with taxpayer dollars, we'd be so much better off just giving $80 ,000,
36:40which is what the number is, to people who are homeless every year.
36:44Yes. But then people who are working hard for $80 ,000 would say, wait a
36:48second. Often for less than $80 ,000.
36:52Right. Yeah. I mean, people who are working hard for $50 ,000 are saying, hold
36:56on a second. You're going to give homeless addicts $80 ,000?
37:00Well, no, we're not giving homeless addicts $80 ,000.
37:02We're spending $80 ,000 per homeless addict and they're not stopping the homelessness.
37:08What the heck is going on?
37:09So I think that's an important story to get into in New York.
37:12It's elsewhere as well. And we'll take your thoughts on the Rand Paul.
37:16Look, it's a feud. Rand Paul, Mark Wayne, Mullen.
37:18Let's call it what it is.
37:20Where'd he come down on that one?
37:22Talkbacks, emails, light us up.
37:23Be right back to you.