Daily Review with Clay and Buck - Apr 23 2026

4/23/202663 mincomplete
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0:33T's and C's apply. Welcome, everybody, to the Thursday edition of the Clay Travis and
0:39Buck Sexton Show. Coming to you live from New York City.
0:42Clay, out in Nashville area, Tennessee.
0:46New York, New York, here I am.
0:48Clay, it's still standing. Still a thing here.
0:52Actually, a lot of construction going on.
0:54Big buildings going up here in midtown Manhattan.
0:56We'll talk to you about the biggest news of the day.
1:00Virginia gerrymandering throwdown. Circuit court judge in Virginia has blocked certification, said it is unconstitutional
1:10what they have done in that state.
1:13We do have to come to some kind of a understanding, I think, about what
1:20we're going to do with these gerrymandered states.
1:22Because if they're going to do what they've done in Virginia, now it just means
1:26every time around you're going to have a flip -flop of basically all of the
1:32districts for our side, none of the districts for you.
1:34And this is a huge, huge issue, a huge fight.
1:38Florida redistricting. That could be very interesting.
1:41Now, there's a couple of approaches to this.
1:43One is the fight fire with fire, which is what Indiana did not do, as
1:48we have talked about. Another one would be, I guess, hoping that this can be
1:53fixed within the system, within the court system.
1:56I don't know about that.
1:58We shall discuss all of this, though.
2:00I've also got the White House, Caroline Leavitt, addressing a whole bunch of things on
2:05Iran. On continued fallout from the Southern Poverty Law Center indictment.
2:12Let's remember, they've been indicted.
2:13This isn't just like an expose of journalism or something like that.
2:17They have been indicted on this one.
2:20Speaker Johnson, by the way, Clay, says we are on track to win in November.
2:24So he's coming from the Clay Travis School of Optimism.
2:28Not going to be a sad face today.
2:30But I actually want to start with this for a second, if I could, because
2:34we're still trying to get to a resolution on Iran, an agreement about what the
2:41future will look like. This is what Trump put out on Truth Social.
2:44Iran is having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is.
2:48They just don't know. The infighting is between the hardliners, who have been losing badly
2:53on the battlefield, and the moderates, who are not crazy moderate at all, but gaining
2:59respect, is crazy. We have total control over the Strait of Hormuz.
3:04No ship can enter or leave without the approval of the United States Navy.
3:08It is sealed up tight until such time as Iran is able to make a
3:12deal. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J.
3:14Trump. They're still boarding ships and doing stuff.
3:20So there's problems still in the strait, Clay.
3:22How do we fix this?
3:23Fix it, Clay. Well, I think one of the biggest challenges is just what Trump
3:28addressed there. And this is why earlier in the week I was saying, you know,
3:32if I were giving him advice, maybe don't high -step into the end zone on
3:36negotiation, on social media. We don't know who's actually able to lead this country right
3:42now. And it seems to me that there is an element of the IRGC that
3:47wants to be in control.
3:48And then there are more traditional political leadership that has been trying to negotiate a
3:55deal. And I think, Buck, the reason why we didn't have an actual meeting so
4:00far and have not had one is because Iran is kind of in its own
4:06internecine power struggle right now.
4:10And we're not exactly sure who's going to emerge as the leader.
4:14And in the meantime, I think this is super significant.
4:17The military of Iran has been utterly eviscerated, right?
4:22They don't have an air force.
4:23They don't have a navy.
4:24They don't really have any sort of ability to fight back in any kind of
4:29significant way. But economically, I think this deserves more discussion.
4:34They are going to lose the ability to store the oil that they pump within
4:40the next couple of days.
4:42And a lot of you big oil guys and gals out there will understand this.
4:47But, Buck, for people like me who have to do research on this, Iran has
4:52the ability to store a limited amount of oil and gas in its country because
4:59it's constantly flowing and shipping all of the oil and gas.
5:03And some of you will remember this during COVID when suddenly the price of oil
5:08and gas went negative because there were no facilities to store existing oil and gas.
5:15And so I think it went to like minus $20 a barrel, if I remember
5:19correctly, Buck, back in the day in the early shutdown days of COVID where people
5:23started to panic and said, I don't...
5:24My goodness, there is nowhere to put the oil that is arriving because the amount
5:29that's being used has collapsed.
5:31Iran is going to be in even more difficult economic straits within a couple of
5:37days than they are in military straits.
5:40And let me also, and I'd be curious, by the way, open phone lines on
5:43this because some of you are real oil and gas experts.
5:47The other part of this buck that I think is significant is evidently when you
5:53stop pumping, you can do significant damage to your oil and gas infrastructure.
5:59In other words, it's not just that they have to stop pumping because they have
6:04whatever it is, 16 million barrels of oil that they can store without being able
6:09to ship it. And then after that, they don't have anywhere to put it.
6:12It's that when you stop the pumps, typically, and again, oil and gas guys, big,
6:19big Texas cowboys, y 'all can call in and explain this better probably than I
6:23can. But I don't think the media writ large is really doing a very good
6:28job of explaining exactly how destructive economically this blockade that we have put in place
6:35is for Iran. Now, you can argue, as some will, well, Iran has got a
6:41high pressure point, a high degree that they are willing to take.
6:46That might all be true.
6:47But the Iranian economy, in terms of export dollars coming in, remember, they had this
6:54initial protest in December and January, Buck, in Iran, where tens of thousands of protesters
7:00were killed. It wasn't based on religious law.
7:03It was based on market based economics because inflation so out of control in the
7:09country. I can't even imagine that there really is hardly a functional economy in Iran
7:13right now. And so I think the pressure point on Iran economically is even more
7:20significant than the pressure point militarily, which is saying something.
7:23So you're not phased by any of this at all.
7:25Captain Captain Clay is like full steam ahead.
7:29Get the cannons ready. Whatever we got to do, we shall just go at the
7:34enemy. I'm kind of mixing together some of my historical favorites here.
7:39But Lord Nelson, you know what I mean?
7:41Oh, yeah. You're just like, just go right at them.
7:43Just don't even don't even wait.
7:45The price of oil and gas has largely stabilized, meaning the marketplace writ large has
7:52gotten used to the Strait of Hormuz being closed.
7:54It has not gone to two hundred dollars a barrel.
7:57There are lots of different conduits through which oil and gas is being shipped.
8:02President Trump has said, and this is true, the United States is actually bathing.
8:07The oil and gas guys are in money because suddenly other countries that typically don't
8:15typically don't do this are deciding to buy from the United States.
8:22And so I just think a lot of people are not recognizing that economically this
8:27blockade, if anything, largely strengthens the United States since we are in that exporting country
8:33and makes our assets more valuable.
8:35And the stock market is setting record highs.
8:38So I don't think economically we're struggling at all.
8:40Caroline Levitt here. This is cut 11.
8:43She is laying it down very similarly, saying, look, they got this.
8:48We have all we need here, all the cards.
8:51Play 11. Obviously, there's a lot of internal fraction and internal division, which, again, just
8:56proves the effectiveness of Operation Epic Fury in the first place.
8:59Their regime and many of its leaders for nearly five decades have been wiped off
9:03for the face of planet Earth.
9:05So, again, the president's offering them a little bit of flexibility because we want to
9:08see a unified proposal to the president's very strong proposal.
9:12And he's made his red lines very clear.
9:14Again, the United States maintains control over this situation, leverage over the Iranian regime.
9:19Not only have they been significantly weakened and obliterated militarily, but they are losing economically
9:25and financially every single moment that passes with this blockade.
9:29So the president is going to continue to lead the free world, to run the
9:33United States of America as we await the Iranian response.
9:37She seems very confident that this is all fully in hand for the United States,
9:42Clay. So with that in mind, I guess the status quo, which is a strait
9:48that is not really open, certainly not open for the Iranians, but also not open
9:52because other people don't want to take the risks, that continues until Iran bleeds out
9:57enough economically that they are going to come and have some kind of a deal.
10:01Trump is saying the problem is the leadership is so fractured internally because we did
10:05decapitate their leadership that it's tough to even understand who would make that deal.
10:10So looks like this is going to be the situation.
10:13But I might just add now we're going to be in a game of waiting.
10:17This is going to take some time.
10:20Well, look, I mean, the challenge is when you decapitate an entire country's leadership, you
10:27lose the ability to know who exactly you're dealing with.
10:31And we've talked about this on the program.
10:32I think it's very important.
10:34If you negotiate with the United States, that is potentially going to get you killed
10:39in Iran. So this is why I have looked at this and read about it
10:45and just try to think about it from a game theory perspective a great deal.
10:48I don't see how this ends without us.
10:52seizing the nuclear dust from iran and i think we're going to have to go
10:56in i think we're going to have to do the cinematic scope scale taking of
11:02their nuclear dust and i think we're going to have to bring it back to
11:05the united states i don't see how it's going to end in any other way
11:10i don't think iran has the ability militarily to come after us i understand people
11:15out there get nervous about this concept but once we have that then i think
11:20we could theoretically uh negotiate with them but again look i understand it's frustrating that
11:26gas prices went from three dollars a gallon to four dollars a gallon um and
11:31that is frustrating i get it but economically the stock market is hitting record highs
11:37oil and gas guys in texas are now incentivized to produce even more oil and
11:42gas and here's where i would say iran may be losing out long run buck
11:47now everybody in the middle east is saying let's figure out other ways that don't
11:52rely on the straight of hormuz to get the oil and gas out of the
11:56middle east and that's going to be more pipelines that's going to be more cross
12:00-country uh cooperation i just think iran is running a game plan that would have
12:07made sense in 1985 and maybe in 1995 but this is where the united states
12:13becoming a net oil and gas exporting country why drill baby drill has been so
12:19effective the economics of this are just flipped on its head and iran thinks it's
12:23still 1995 or 1985 and i think what you're seeing the markets react and show
12:29us is it's really not that impactful honestly like uh they don't have the ability
12:37to curtail global commerce as much as they thought they did and i think the
12:42markets are recognizing that's why we're seeing record highs in the united states for the
12:46stock market even as we're engaged in this with iran and it's also why oil
12:51and gas prices have largely stabilized they've even come back a little bit as the
12:56shock to the system is not as as significant as maybe many anticipated inflation just
13:03chips away at the value of the dollar our dollar has lost 48 of its
13:08value in the past 25 years now compare that to the value of our other
13:11currency gold it's up more than 700 in the same time period that's why purchasing
13:15gold with some portion of the dollars you've made makes a lot of sense millions
13:19of americans have already done it over the last 20 years gold has increased 700
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14:10learn hang with the guys right there when you need them most clay and buck
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14:45wise app or visit wise .com t's and c's apply welcome in hour number two
14:50clay travis buck sexton show uh we've been talking about the latest in iran uh
14:56we have been talking about the virginia judge uh in the circuit court blocking the
15:02map that would give 10 democrat seats one republican seat how that might implicate florida
15:08going forward all of that we are continuing to monitor uh as uh different stories
15:14uh continue to move out there we should mention stock market yet again setting record
15:21highs across much of the uh of the country this week um whether it's the
15:26nasdaq whether it's the dow whether it's the s p 500 uh oil prices remaining
15:32relatively constant not moving very much although they're up a couple of percent today as
15:38we await news about what might be happening in iran buck and i both talked
15:42a lot about uh the latest implications there and where we might be headed but
15:48i wanted to hit and we were just talking about how judges have come to
15:52occupy i think would you would you sign on with this thesis buck judges right
15:58now are more powerful maybe in terms of narrative cycle than we have ever seen
16:06in the history the modern history of the country i mean if you think about
16:09the whole 2024 election the trump criminal charges the trump civil charges what a state
16:17like colorado could or could not do when it came to Trump being on a
16:21ballot, obviously the fallout of Dobbs, so many other cases out there.
16:26In general, would you agree with me?
16:29And obviously everything that the judges were ruling surrounding COVID, and now everything that they've
16:35been ruling surrounding presidential powers.
16:37I don't know that there's ever been a time where when I look down at
16:41my phone, at any given moment, a judge can issue a ruling that completely redirects
16:48our entire national political discourse.
16:51I'm not sure we've ever seen anything like this.
16:53You sign on to that idea in general that the power of judges to influence
16:58the direction of the country feels like it is ascendant in a level that has
17:02traditionally not been the case.
17:04Well, yeah, it's become a standard joke in the Trump era that Donald Trump thought
17:09he was going to have a Big Mac and a Diet Coke for dinner, but
17:12that a Ninth Circuit judge put in an injunction, right?
17:15That this has become a farce where the way that you can stymie your political
17:22opponents or rather the way that an ideology in this country can stymie political opponents
17:26is through any hashtag resistance.
17:30No one uses hashtags anymore, I guess.
17:32Any resistance. Remember when that was a thing?
17:35I was never. You were never a hashtag guy, were you?
17:38Not really. I was always like, that seems like not.
17:41I did them for fun, for fun, like just kind of make fun of the
17:44fact that hashtags existed, you know, like as kind of comedic elements, but that was
17:48really the sum total of it.
17:50But the resistance judiciary in Trump's first term and now in his second term, it
17:56is very much the case that they view themselves as a bulwark against Trumpism.
18:02And they specifically do things, I think, knowing they're going to be overturned, but they
18:10don't care and they have lifetime appointments.
18:11And so they stop policy instead of interpreting law and the actions of government with
18:18regard to the Constitution. So, yeah, that's a big thing.
18:22Usually those federal judges that do all this stuff, they can get overturned.
18:26And it's a lot easier to stop.
18:29I think it's harder for a federal judge to just create a new law out
18:34of whole cloth the way the Supreme Court did with, say, the right to privacy
18:38and Roe v. Wade. Fortunately, we have a good court right now.
18:41Can you imagine this conversation if we had a six?
18:45Imagine if we had six Katanji Brown -Jackson, Sotomayors, and Kagans.
18:51For generations. For generations ahead of us.
18:54I think the Constitution would be fully unrecognizable.
18:57I should say the way that all this went would be we wouldn't know what
19:03country we were in. I mean, it would feel entirely different from where we are
19:06now as a regime of law.
19:08And we've got problems now, but I think it would just any pretense that we
19:13still have a Constitution would just evaporate.
19:17Yes. Okay. So here is why I want to prelude this.
19:22Let's have some fun with this, and I hope that they're not soon to be
19:26a sponsor. Buck, have you ever flown Spirit Airlines in your entire life?
19:32Of course. You know, of course.
19:33The best flight when I was still living in New York and I was coming
19:37out to visit you, the best Friday flight from Nashville for my schedule was Spirit
19:42Airlines. And I have to tell you, their fancy first seat on that plane was
19:47pretty spacious. It's like a lazy boy recliner.
19:52I have been on Spirit Airlines.
19:54As a general rule, I fly, you know, Buck flies a lot too.
19:58I've flown pretty much every airline.
20:00If you ask me to tell you what the worst airline I've ever flown was
20:05in the modern era, I would say Spirit Airlines.
20:08Now, they have like just basically a Greyhound -style model of the overall business.
20:15For those of you who have not flown it, you pay $40 or something to
20:19get on the plane, and then you end up paying $250 for your flight by
20:22the time you actually are able to get bags checked and everything else.
20:26I mean, I just don't like particularly that style of process.
20:31This just happened to me out recently with my son last year.
20:36We were traveling Spirit because, to Buck's point, it was the best one to fly
20:42somewhere, I think, from California to Denver.
20:45And when I got up to the check -in point, we each had a backpack.
20:50We were traveling very, very light.
20:52And they said, I'm sorry, you're going to have to pay $100 to carry on
20:56each of your backpacks. And I was just in disbelief.
21:01They said, no, no, when you buy your ticket, in order to carry on a
21:04bag, you have to buy a ticket for the bag to carry on.
21:08I'm not talking about check -a -bag.
21:09And if you haven't bought your carry -on ticket, then you get charged.
21:15I think it was $100 for two backpacks.
21:18Well, but, you know, Clay, I know you do a little bit of at -home
21:21boxing, so at least think of the possibility that you might get to put your
21:25skills to use on your next Spirit Airlines flight.
21:29Things can get a little testy there sometimes.
21:31Yeah, I boxed this morning, three days a week, nine rounds.
21:34So, with that in mind, Spirit Airlines had actually agreed.
21:40I think this is a really significant story that should get way more attention.
21:44Spirit Airlines, Buck, I don't know if you followed this case.
21:47I was... Following it, Spirit Airlines had agreed to be purchased by JetBlue, another low
21:52-cost, in theory, airline. And I believe the purchase price team, you guys can correct
21:58me if I'm wrong on these details, but my recollection is purchase price was around
22:02$3 .8 billion. The Biden administration sued and said, no, this will be ultimately less
22:12beneficial to the overall consumer if we allow this merger to take place.
22:17They sued and said that it was going to be an antitrust violation, that it
22:22would be bad for consumers if Spirit and JetBlue merged.
22:26Spirit argued, to their credit, if we don't merge, we're going to go bankrupt.
22:33A federal court judge who is over 80 years old had a trial, ruled, hey,
22:41you know what, the Biden administration is right.
22:43We shouldn't allow this merger to happen.
22:46It's going to hurt consumers if it does.
22:49Within a few months, Spirit Airlines filed for bankruptcy.
22:54So if you owned Spirit Airlines stock, you got completely wiped out.
23:00It went into bankruptcy. And now, having come out of bankruptcy, it is preparing to
23:06go into bankruptcy again. And they are talking about the United States government taking a
23:13substantial ownership stake in Spirit.
23:16But to try to keep, I think they have around 10 ,000 employees to try
23:20to keep the entire airline from shutting down.
23:23Buck, question for you, and I tweeted about this earlier.
23:26When a judge gets things this wrong, shouldn't he be fired?
23:31Like, Spirit's argument was, if we don't do this merger, we're going to go bankrupt.
23:36Joe Biden's team said, no, Americans are going to suffer.
23:40Spirit has to stay independent.
23:42The judge said, I agree with Joe Biden's antitrust team.
23:46Issued his ruling, and Spirit immediately filed for bankruptcy.
23:50Now they are preparing to file for bankruptcy again, and the United States government, Trump's
23:55team, is talking about trying to bail out this airline from basically ceasing to exist.
24:01All of this comes back to, yes, Biden was wrong.
24:04Of course he was wrong.
24:05But this judge, his job is to analyze both arguments, and he was 100 %
24:12wrong because immediately, upon issuing his ruling virtually, Spirit actually went bankrupt.
24:22This is, and some of you may be experts on this, and you're welcome to
24:25call in. Some of you may be shareholders of Spirit who lost billions of dollars
24:29in this transaction. My point on this is, when judges are bad, we need to
24:34do a way better job of getting rid of them.
24:37And this judge, who was over 80 years old at the time that he got
24:41this case, 1 billion percent got it all wrong, and now we're dealing with double
24:47bankruptcies, and the United States government is potentially going to have to bail out Spirit
24:52Airlines, the worst airline, in my opinion, in America, and ensure that it still exists.
24:57And so I just am kind of fed up with this, because even as a
25:01lawyer, I look at this and I say, how in the world have we ended
25:07up in a situation where there are no consequences?
25:10This is a business case, but every one of these judges now, I know we've
25:15talked about it on the program before, Buck, but all of these judges that are
25:18letting violent predators back out onto our streets, and there's no consequences for them, and
25:24they've got lifetime tenure, and they've got incredible pensions, we need to fire more judges.
25:29I'm sorry. I'm really kind of fed up with judges who objectively get rulings wrong,
25:37and there are consequences, both business and criminal, from their awful opinions.
25:43Well, they're a little bit like professors, though, right?
25:45They're supposed to be able to do whatever and not be subject to the pressures
25:49of opinion. Tenured professors, the kind that can be complete lunatics for decades on campus,
25:56and there's no consequence for them, that's the idea behind lifetime appointments.
26:01They're allowed to do what they want to do without really, unless they, I mean,
26:05we used to impeach, we have impeached judges, it used to be done more, usually
26:09it was for drunkenness on the bench, if you go back and check that out.
26:12So if you're a judge and you had to be really poorly behaved in order
26:15to lose your job. No, you had to show up sloshed.
26:18You know, you had to show up after you had finished off a couple of
26:21bottles of Kentucky bourbon, and then they would say, you know, maybe this judge isn't
26:26so good, also for corruption, as in taking money.
26:29I don't really know how much I'd have to look and see.
26:34Removing somebody for being an idiot?
26:36The problem with removing any government employee for being an idiot is you won't have
26:40any government employees left. This is a big challenge.
26:43It's rare, you know, look, I understand sometimes, trust me, better than anyone, two lawyers
26:48make a really good argument, but Spirit, to their credit, said, if we don't do
26:52this merger, we're going to go bankrupt.
26:54And the judge looked at all the evidence and he said, ah, that's not true.
26:57And then a couple of months after his ruling, they went bankrupt.
27:00And now they're going to go bankrupt again.
27:01When you objectively get something wrong, and remember, Biden's administration, of course, was wrong about
27:07this, and the end result may end up being that you and me and all
27:12of the taxpayers out there are going to now bail out Spirit Airlines.
27:15because otherwise this whole company might just cease to exist.
27:19Well, it also reminds me of what a little coward John Roberts is by keeping
27:23Obamacare alive, by saying that a tax is a penalty and a penalty is a
27:26tax. Really, the subtext of all this was it's not, and he actually, this came
27:31out in the opinion too, it's not the job of the Supreme Court on Obamacare
27:35to save people from the disastrous, disastrous legislation that's clearly not going to work and
27:41that's going to just further destroy the health care system and make it unaffordable and
27:46incredibly expensive and all the waste and everything else.
27:49So they won't step in with a heavy hand to do smart things.
27:53They won't step in to save our ass, but they will step in to mess
27:57things up. That seems to be clear as well when it comes to it, certainly
28:01this Spirit Airlines merger. So I just feel like you're just a Southwest guy.
28:08I didn't have a bad experience on Spirit.
28:10Look, I'm not a diva.
28:12I fly Southwest Airlines everywhere.
28:15I mean, legitimately, this is not, I'm not kidding.
28:19I actually get a handshake.
28:20I do get a, let me say this, a lot of Southwest Airlines pilots and
28:24staff are big fans of this show.
28:26It's like every time I get on a Southwest Airlines flight now, they come out.
28:29We index super high with pilots, not just because my father -in -law is one,
28:33but we, this show, a lot of pilots.
28:36Pilots, cops, truckers, who else is, in terms of career pathways, are at the very,
28:44we got a lot of military.
28:46Oh, yeah. I mean, but that's...
28:47A lot of coaches. Coaches.
28:50Sports, athletic coaches, for sure.
28:52I think that's definitely the case.
28:52So I fly Southwest everywhere.
28:54I think they have a very good business.
28:56But I just, I get frustrated when, I wasn't a Spirit Airline shareholder, but when
29:01they had merged with JetBlue, the Spirit shareholders out there were going to get paid.
29:06Now they're going to, they lost billions of dollars, and now we're on the hook
29:10as a government, potentially, to bail them out.
29:12When they did the Obama bailout of GM, they just decided to screw over the
29:18bondholders. They just said, you know, oh, you have a contract that says that you're
29:22first in line for, sorry.
29:24Judge says no. Better for the Obama administration and the unions if we just wipe
29:30you guys out and restructure it as we see fit.
29:32They just broke contract law because they felt like it.
29:35Yeah. So, yeah. This is what happens, folks.
29:38All right, let's talk about something that's really positive, and that is the work that
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29:43This nonprofit saves so many unborn babies day in and day out.
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30:29Donate $28 today to help a mom like Linda, a mom -to -be like Linda.
30:35Pick up your phone, dial pound 250, and say baby.
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30:42One of you has had a great year, a great quarter, whatever it may be.
30:46$280. Think about that. $280.
30:48It's tax deductible, and that would be 10 ultrasounds for people like Linda who are
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30:57Are you pro -life? Take action.
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31:12It's like having your house at the perfect temperature all the time.
31:16Preset Clay and Buck on the iHeart app.
31:19Third hour of Clay and Buck kicks off now, everybody.
31:21I'm here in New York City.
31:23Joining me in studio for a conversation with our man Clay is Rafael Mangual, head
31:28of research for the Manhattan Institute's Policing and Public Safety Initiative.
31:33Rafael, great to have you.
31:35You always do so much great stuff on crime, criminal justice.
31:39I feel like we should have had the, Clay, the Law and Order, you know,
31:41the dun -dun that they play.
31:43Yes, yes. Great audio all -timer there.
31:48So good. That should be Rafael's intro music here, but he knows the crime scene.
31:51He knows what's going on.
31:53Let's start. Actually, I'll start you on the happy side for a second before we
31:57get into some of these recent incidents that show where the system is still massively
32:01failing. Just give us the top -line hits of how much some of these Trump
32:06federal initiatives in places like Memphis, D .C., we've talked about.
32:10And by the way, anywhere else, where are we seeing, in addition to D .C.
32:14and Memphis, if anywhere, really serious decreases in violent crime?
32:20We're seeing lots of decreases across the country in serious violent crime, particularly homicides, shootings.
32:25Those are going down in cities across the country.
32:28Memphis and D .C. are standouts because they were targeted by the federal government with
32:31these task forces. So you have a multi -agency task force that has been deployed
32:36in all these cities along with the National Guard aimed at really keeping public order
32:39in streets and addressing warrants.
32:43backlogs is in the case in memphis making arrests just doing good old -fashioned policing
32:47in places that need help and when that happens what you see is the crime
32:51goes through the floor so memphis is seeing more than a 40 decline in crime
32:54since the memphis safe task force kicked off last september really outstanding actually did two
32:59days of ride -alongs with them a few weeks ago and it was just incredible
33:02to watch them operate what were they saying to you about i mean these are
33:05the people truly on the front lines of public safety in memphis clay and i
33:09have talked about the numbers we have our friend ben ferguson he got shot at
33:12in memphis yeah you know on his front porch yeah so it's a rough town
33:16memphis has long been one of the most dangerous cities in america i mean for
33:2020 years straight it has consistently been one of the most dangerous cities in america
33:24what these guys are telling me i mean these agents are doing two -week stints
33:27in memphis right they're getting rotated from around the country coming in and doing two
33:31weeks stints the most fascinating thing that they all told me and a lot of
33:34them you know did service in minneapolis was that there was just it was night
33:39and day in terms of what the public's response were they were getting thanked everywhere
33:43they went they were getting stopped in the street people were saying how grateful they
33:47were to have them and it just it makes you understand just how bad the
33:50crime in what was the deal in minneapolis for them they were just people in
33:53minneapolis people were yelling at them throwing things at them spitting at them you know
33:57standing outside their hotels and banging drums and flashing lights into the rooms i mean
34:02just basically trying to make their lives miserable if they got you know caught while
34:05off duty out at a restaurant they would get heckled and screamed at unbelievable i
34:09mean it was it was wild actually uh there was one agent who actually got
34:12kidnapped in minneapolis uh you know uh during trying to make a car stop the
34:16guy took off with him in the car um and he was just like you
34:20know it's a much more dangerous city in memphis but the fact that we have
34:24public support makes this an exponentially more desirable um assignment was it a huge deal
34:30to you thank you for coming on with us that we set a theoretically 125
34:34year low on murders last year and i assume we're hopefully trending down even a
34:41little bit more i know in memphis and dc for example the numbers have collapsed
34:44even more compared to last year if we really i'm just kind of curious you're
34:48a you look at this you follow it all the time if we had a
34:52true commitment to a goal of driving down murders how low do you think we
34:57could drive them down and what would that policy need to look like in order
35:02to drive them down oh i think we could probably get them down another 50
35:05if we really committed to it and i think the policy that we would have
35:09to enact is really sorry to cut you off that would mean that around 10
35:12000 people which is a pretty big number sure uh would continue to live if
35:17we could drive this down to kind of contextualize for people there's around 20 000
35:21murders a year so you think we basically could save 10 000 lives sorry to
35:25cut you off but what would that look like yeah yeah no i think we
35:28can and the reason i say that is because when you look at the homicide
35:30problem that still exists in this country it is consistently characterized by repeat offenders meaning
35:35that the people who are committing these offenses are individuals who are running through the
35:39system time and again and they're getting turned right back out into the street that's
35:42a policy choice right we don't have to continue to release these people so when
35:46you see stories of individuals who committed some heinous crime he's got 10 20 30
35:50prior arrests what that tells you is that the system is doing a pretty good
35:53job of identifying who the problems are but the rest of the system isn't operating
35:58as a backstop to keep that individual off the street if we committed to some
36:01kind of sort of habitual offender uh enhancement system where you know whether it's three
36:07strikes or five strikes or ten strikes and you're out and we consistently kept these
36:10people off the street for a long time that would pay massive dividends you just
36:15mentioned that most people who commit murders have been arrested many different times do we
36:18have a sense for what the profile of a typical murderer would look like he
36:24i know it's a he it's almost typically been arrest how many times how old
36:28he is i'm gonna let you actually address this we probably my guess would be
36:32he's black right based on the statistic who is the typical person who commits a
36:37murder in the united states today because to your point it's not as if we
36:41need to be worried about 75 year old asian guys right like the window of
36:45who commits crimes is what and looks like what right so it's it's normal the
36:49median homicide offender in the united states is going to be someone who's uh black
36:53male mid -20s maybe late 20s who's going to have somewhere between 10 and 12
36:57prior arrests in their criminal history um likely multiple convictions um and a good chunk
37:03of them are going to have an active criminal justice status meaning that they are
37:05currently out on bail probation or parole or you know pretrial release of some other
37:10kind if not bail um so again these are i want to make it clear
37:15these are people whose profiles match also the profiles of the homicide victims right the
37:20the homicide victims are are coming from these exact same demographic it's a lot of
37:24young black men exactly right been saved exactly right so i you know it's it's
37:28funny because when conservatives talk about you know the demographic profiles of criminal offenders you
37:32know liberals always jump on them and say well hey you're being racist you're playing
37:35the race card you're you know uh uh playing up these stereotypes or these tropes
37:39but the reality is is that these same profiles are the people who are absorbing
37:43the bulk of the crime problem right i mean the if you look at you
37:46know new york city for example where we are right now consistently every single year
37:50that we have data for going back to 2008 95 plus percent of all shooting
37:54victims are black or hispanic almost all of the males yeah wasn't there recent data
37:57that of the shootings in new york as well 300 and something of them in
38:01the last year there were two white or three white shooters over yeah it's a
38:06it's a it's a it's a super minuscule number right it's like it's it's almost
38:09non -existent right almost non -existent When you look at the perpetrators for shootings, it's
38:13like 96, 97, 98%. And Rikers Island is 90 -something percent.
38:18I know this from when I was in the PD.
38:19I think, by the way, this buck, what he just building on, sorry to jump
38:23in, but if black lives truly did matter, to build on your point, if we
38:28cut the murder rate by 50%, we would actually be saving overwhelming numbers of black
38:35lives. That's something we hit.
38:36I mean, he totally agrees, Raphael's saying this, and that is the case.
38:40Can I blow your mind with a statistic on you?
38:42Because we've actually already cut the homicide rate 50 % in our recent history.
38:45From 1990 to 2014, the homicide rate in this country was reduced by 50%.
38:50There's a great study looking at the effect of that decline on life expectancy broken
38:55down by race. That decline added 0 .14 years of life expectancy to the average
39:00white male's life, but it added a full year of life expectancy to the average
39:04black male's life. So you are exactly right, Clay, to suggest that if we reduce
39:09homicide 50%, the beneficiaries are overwhelmingly going to be black males who are currently dying
39:14from gun homicide at a rate that is 10x that of white males.
39:17Now, talk to me about shifting a little bit, but still in the criminal justice
39:20zone here. This situation in, we have turnstile jumping in New York.
39:26It's been a big problem for a long time.
39:28BART, which is the San Francisco light rail, their mass transit train set up.
39:34I've never actually taken it, but I've read about it.
39:36They decided that enough was enough in San Francisco, and they put up plexiglass so
39:41that you had to pay to get in.
39:43What did this result in?
39:44Because I think it's an incredible story, actually.
39:46It's wild. I mean, it is resulting in an estimated additional $10 million in annual
39:51income for the system, which is important because more people are going to be paying
39:54their fare if they want to get in.
39:55But the most important thing that it has resulted in is in a 41 %
39:59decrease in crime within the BART system last year.
40:03That is amazing, and it's enormous.
40:05And what that tells you is that there's a massive overlap between the sort of
40:08people who jump the turnstile to break into the system without paying and the kind
40:12of people who cause and wreak havoc within that system after they hop that turnstile.
40:16Well, Clay, and this is just, you know, it's also, by the way, I read
40:19in that analysis that the amount of time spent cleaning up graffiti, cleaning up just,
40:24you know, people leaving, like, you know, stuff everywhere, you know, human waste, you know,
40:28needles, exactly. Like, not, you know, not leaving a sandwich wrapper, but leaving, like, real,
40:32you know, biohazard stuff. All of that results in less city man hours spent.
40:40So you're saving money on that, and you're getting more money in.
40:42You're having less assaults. And yet Mom Donnie here in New York, his big thing,
40:45Clay, addresses Rafael, wants to make the buses free.
40:49Yeah. Everybody can get on the bus.
40:50And everyone says, this is going to be mobile homeless shelters, Mom Donnie.
40:53He wants to make the buses free, but his rationale is actually kind of wild.
40:56He thinks that making the buses free is going to reduce crime on the buses
41:00by, according to his calculations, 35%.
41:05Now, of course, that's the exact opposite of what reality is, right?
41:09I mean, he obviously doesn't understand how these things work.
41:12Actually, I think he does.
41:13He's just cynical. Ideologically. Yeah.
41:16You know, and he knows what he's doing.
41:17But the reality is, is like, I mean, we learned this in the 1990s in
41:21the New York City subway system.
41:22If you start enforcing the law, you raise the transaction costs of coming into the
41:26system without paying, you make it less likely, the system gets safer.
41:30It becomes more attractive to law -abiding people who will then flood into the system
41:33and use it more, and that makes the city more attractive.
41:35If you take the central public transit system that is the lifeblood of a city
41:40like New York and you allow it to fall into the hands of vagrants, of
41:44open -air drug users, of homeless encampments, of criminals, then it's going to be less
41:50attractive. That's going to make the city less attractive, and it doesn't work that way.
41:54You need to get that part right, and it's just simply a matter of political
41:57willpower. Sheridan Gorman, we talked about this yesterday on the program.
42:02We could point to a bunch, Lake and Riley.
42:04What does the data reflect about illegal immigrant crime?
42:09Because we always hear, oh, you know, the illegal immigrants commit crimes at a much
42:12lower rate. That might well be true.
42:14But if we had no illegal immigration at all, we would have a zero crime
42:18rate from illegal immigration, which seems ideal.
42:20What does the data reflect from your perspective on cases such as these?
42:24Yeah, I mean, there's just not enough data.
42:25That's the real problem in the people who make this claim confidently about illegal immigrants
42:30committing crime at a lower rate.
42:31I mean, it's not that they necessarily shouldn't be believed, but we have to understand
42:35that those analyses are based on only a handful of jurisdictions that make that data
42:39available. Most of the country is not tracking the immigration status of the people that
42:43come into contact with the criminal justice system.
42:45So we don't have systematic data to suggest this.
42:48Moreover, it's kind of silly to aggregate a group as broad and diverse as illegal
42:54immigrants together and suggest that, you know, they have one crime rate and they all
42:57have the same likelihood of committing a criminal offense.
43:01Right. Those that group has different subgroups that will offend criminally at wildly different rates.
43:06So maybe illegal immigrants as a whole don't commit crime at a higher rate than
43:11Native Americans do, but maybe illegal immigrant males between the ages of, you know, 18
43:16and 25 who cross the southern border illegally as opposed to overstaying a visa from
43:21South Central America or Mexico.
43:23Maybe they have a higher criminal offending rate than most other Native American subgroups.
43:29Um, last question for you.
43:31I love this moment, Buck.
43:32We could, I mean, maybe do a entire deep dive on this because I think
43:36the data matters. You mentioned earlier, and it's so.
43:38true that anytime you talk about crime and you point out the truth which is
43:42young black men both commit and are victims of crime at statistically infinitely higher rates
43:48than their per capita population would be there's big discussions about racism and oh my
43:53goodness how dare you have this conversation is that conversation actually occurring more frequently now
43:59or are the so -called censors or racism screamers are they still diluting our ability
44:05to have honest discussion about where crime is and who the victims are yeah i
44:08do think that there is some uh sort of fatigue on the part of the
44:12public uh with regard to this debate i mean we were all treated to uh
44:16firsthand examples of what happens when you know the other side of this debate gets
44:20to make policy um and that was the massive crime spike that we saw in
44:242020 and persist through 2021 and 2022 we're finally starting to get things on the
44:28right track in part because the political posture of the country has changed on this
44:32issue you have seen a lot of state legislatures rolling back some of their prior
44:36criminal justice reforms in places like louisiana and tennessee adopting new tougher laws in places
44:42like even colorado with truth and sentencing or california with prop 36 you're seeing a
44:47lot of progressive prosecutors around the country over the last several years lose their races
44:51lose their re -election bids um so i do think that there's less tolerance uh
44:56for that line of argument uh within the american public and that i also think
45:00explains at least in part why we are enjoying some success on the crime front
45:04we need to get you back on because i think the idea of driving down
45:08murders to 10 000 in a year is one that should be universally embraced and
45:13we have the ability to do it and clay is very anti -murder yeah he's
45:17very anti -murder clay is he's not afraid who hears it he doesn't like the
45:20murders wants them very low very low nobody hates murder more than me thank you
45:24for the time this was awesome thank you well great stuff man as always appreciate
45:29you being here with us and uh i love reading your stuff at the manhattan
45:32institute so thank you it means the world appreciate it mother's day just around the
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46:49buck this podcast is brought to you by wise the app for international people using
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47:18wise .com t's and c's apply welcome back in to clay and buck we've got
47:22a lot of talk backs a lot of calls that we want to get to
47:26um oh boy a lot of people wanting to speak about weed what is what
47:32is with you know it's just amazing to me guys it's not good for you
47:37okay i don't you can keep doing this thing of oh i have a friend
47:40who's so successful with the it's not a good thing it's not the terror it's
47:44not the worst thing i know people who have smoked weed and led relatively when
47:49i say i'm sorry not smoked like everybody has not everybody but a large percentage
47:53of the population has at least tried i've tried marijuana um gosh sounds so weird
47:59saying it out loud uh but i've tried marijuana we're talking about people who use
48:04marijuana daily yes i'm talking about the people that i see in line at the
48:08cannabis shop on the corner here at you know thursday morning 9 30 in the
48:13morning going into the cannabis shop to get their weed like this is not good
48:17it's not good for them it's not good for anybody else but people get very
48:20uh very prickly over over the weed situation and by the way we would say
48:25the same thing look i like alcohol more than you do i think if you
48:30are drinking alcohol every day it is not a good decision to make period and
48:36i think the data is going to show that and certainly if you're having three
48:40or four drinks a day that is not a good choice to make health -wise
48:45similarly smoking marijuana every day is not a good thing to do i'm a big
48:49moderation guy in in general with life right um it is good to uh in
48:55my opinion it's okay you shouldn't eat birthday cake every day birthday cake when your
49:00kids have a birthday or you have a birthday it's really good but if you
49:03ate it every day you'd probably be in a pretty rough health position There are
49:07lots of things that are enjoyable that, if done every single day, would not leave
49:12you in a very good position.
49:13I think people get offended when you tell them that, but that's certainly true about
49:16marijuana, alcohol, birthday cake, all sorts of things.
49:20Yeah, I would also say don't compare yourself to people who are ultra elite in
49:26one way and particularly in, like, entertainment and say, well, they, yeah, they can do
49:32a lot of things and get away with it because they have a particularly, whether
49:36you're talking about athletes now or you're talking about people who are, you know, comedians
49:43who are very successful or whatever, a lot of people can get away with things.
49:45It still doesn't mean it's a good idea to do it.
49:48It still doesn't mean it's going to help you because most people don't have extreme
49:52talent in one area. We have an array of talents, and we try to make
49:55the best of them, and making better decisions day to day, you know, we're all
49:59just a collection of our decisions ultimately.
50:01So making better decisions day to day for yourself is going to also have ramifications
50:05for your family and everything else.
50:06So just encouraging smart behavior.
50:08I like the cake point, by the way, the chocolate cake.
50:12I love a good piece of chocolate cake sometimes, but you shouldn't build your diet
50:16around chocolate cake. And you shouldn't have chocolate cake twice a day.
50:20And you definitely shouldn't think that the key to your happiness is eating as much
50:24chocolate cake as possible. Okay.
50:26Yeah. It's about moderation. It's about understanding.
50:29And all these things factor in.
50:31So that's something. All right.
50:32So I'm in New York.
50:33Tell me about this because you're up on this one.
50:37Yeah. Mom Donnie the commie likes to do the class warfare thing.
50:41We've all seen that. But now it may be biting.
50:45Oh, here we go. Ken Griffin pushes back after Mom Donnie features his $238 million
50:50penthouse in a tax the rich video.
50:53So now Ken Griffin. Let me read you some of these quotes.
50:56Go ahead. Yep. Because this is Ken Griffin.
50:59We didn't really talk about the video in specific, but just as we were talking
51:03about off air. Ken Griffin is like Mr.
51:05South Florida now, by the way, doing a ton of investment in Miami.
51:09So we love bring all that Ken Griffin money down to South Florida.
51:13It's going great. And by the way, he's in South Florida because he was in
51:17Chicago. And so many people at his Chicago area business he felt were living unsafely
51:23that he redirected his location to South Florida, which is far safer.
51:29So Mom Donnie, you and I were talking about this off air, is now talking
51:32about taxing people who have second homes in New York City.
51:36And he did a video taunting Ken Griffin outside of his New York City home,
51:43doxed him in many ways as to where he was living.
51:46This is an email that just came out today.
51:49The Wall Street Journal reporting, we're about to commence the redevelopment of 350 Park Avenue,
51:55creating 6 ,000 highly paid construction jobs, supporting the creation of more than 15 ,000
52:02permanent jobs in Midtown, New York.
52:05The project, if we move forward, will entail more than $6 billion of spending.
52:13It continues, Buck. It's shameful he used Ken's name, talking about Mom Donnie, as an
52:20example of those who supposedly aren't carrying their fair share of burdens.
52:25Associated with New York City's often costly and wasteful spending.
52:29This is an email sent by Citadel.
52:32In doing so, the mayor has once again manifested the ignorance and disdain of the
52:37elite political class toward those who have been consistently committed to building one of the
52:43greatest cities in the world.
52:44He said over the past few years, Citadel principals and team members, including non -residents,
52:51have paid $2 .3 billion in city and state taxes.
52:58And he said Griffin himself, Buck, has personally donated $650 million in charitable gifts to
53:08support New York City. We have 2 ,500 colleagues who have chosen to build their
53:13careers here. We understand our hard work and success will on occasion make us targets,
53:19but it should not diminish what we are doing.
53:22We should be applauding Ken for spending millions in New York City, not attacking him,
53:28said Bill Ackman. This is a big deal, Buck, because when you are targeting people
53:33for what they're doing in the city, I'm going to be honest with you.
53:37If I was Ken Griffin, I'd be like, peace out, bye, Mom Donnie.
53:41You handled all this $5 billion shortfall that you have.
53:45You put my family in a more dangerous situation by taunting me outside of my
53:50building. After a health care CEO was executed on the streets of New York City,
53:56I'm sorry, I would be like, I'm out.
53:58You were talking about this off air.
54:00If where I live, if a local politician showed up in front of my house
54:04and said, Clay Travis lives behind here, he's not paying his fair share, I would
54:10find a new place to live.
54:11I wouldn't want to own property there.
54:13We have the clip, actually, of Mom Donnie's little class warfare video taking a swipe
54:18at Ken Griffin. Play it.
54:19When I ran for mayor, I said I was going to tax the rich.
54:22Well, today, we're taxing the rich.
54:24I'm thrilled to announce we've secured a pied -à -terre tax, the first in New
54:28York's history. This is an annual fee on luxury properties worth more than $5 million,
54:32whose owners do not... live full -time in the city.
54:35Like for this penthouse, which hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin bought for $238 million.
54:40This peer -to -tear tax is specifically designed for the richest of the rich, those
54:44who store their wealth in New York City real estate, but who don't actually live
54:47here. Most of the time, these units are sitting empty, since, again, they don't actually
54:51live here. This is a fundamentally unfair system that hurts working New Yorkers.
54:55Now, it's coming to an end.
54:57I believe everyone has a role to play in contributing to our city, and some
55:01a little bit more than others.
55:03Clay, he's, it's tough to know.
55:06You know, we just had Rafael Manguel on, who is a brilliant guy.
55:09We really enjoy talking about crime.
55:10I wanted to keep going, too.
55:12This is when I wish we had like a three -hour podcast instead of having
55:14a break for commercials, just to be able to go through.
55:17We'll have him back again, because there's so much more to talk about.
55:20But the Mamdani, is he ignorant of economics, or is he malignant and just lies
55:29or pretends not to know more?
55:30I think it's the latter, which is actually worse.
55:32I agree with you, because I don't think it's possible to be as dumb about
55:36these things as he is.
55:37It's his preferred state. He would rather just push through things that hurt everyone, as
55:46long as they are rhetorically focused on his class warfare targets, people like Ken Griffin.
55:52Let me just say, his whole premise here, that storing money in New York City,
55:57but not living there is bad.
55:59That is, that is exactly what you would want if you were trying to deal
56:04with a high city budget.
56:05You want people that have a minimum of services and put a tremendous amount of
56:12money into the local economy.
56:13They're not even there. Great, because they're still having to pay taxes on the residents.
56:19They're still putting that money into real estate here, which has an effect on all
56:24the other real estate in that building, in that neighborhood.
56:27Investment, development, growth, these are good things.
56:31This is why we are now a country of people who have so much entertainment
56:36that we don't even know what to do for entertainment, who have so much food
56:40that our biggest problem is keeping our mouths closed and not shoveling in more delicious
56:45food, that have so much clothing that fast fashion or casual fashion, as in buy
56:50it, wear it once, is a huge multi -billion dollar industry unto itself that have
56:55so much money in the automotive industry that now we're getting to a place where
56:59we're going to be competing over whose car self -drives, gives them a massage, and
57:03reads them a bedtime story first.
57:05We are so rich in this country, actually, on the whole, and people are like,
57:10no, gas is expensive. Yeah, I'm talking about compared to 50 years ago or 100
57:15years ago. Because of capitalism and because of mechanisms that allow people to put money
57:22into things, get a return, create growth, and put capital to work in ways that
57:27are efficient, effective, and grow things.
57:31And Momdani just sits there and he just wants everyone to be an unhappy, malcontent
57:40leech on the system. That was incredibly well said.
57:44Let me also build on it a little bit.
57:46Ken Griffin, I think what is significant here is, Ken Griffin, there are tens of
57:53thousands of people, both employed directly by Citadel and that make money at Citadel and
58:00therefore employ way more people.
58:04If they just decide, you know what, we're out?
58:07Buck, think about this, and it doesn't get enough discussion.
58:09Every person who is worth, let's say, and a lot of these Citadel guys and
58:13gals are, let's say each of them is worth $10 million on average, right?
58:18$10 million in assets. Every $10 million asset guy or gal who leaves the city
58:24probably takes 20 jobs with them.
58:28I'm just saying, when you think about what they're doing with their lawn services, what
58:32they're doing with their health care, what they're doing with their kids schooling, what they're
58:36doing with restaurants and bars in the area, the penumbra, the periphery of spending that
58:44is directly connected to these guys and gals of high income, it is devastating to
58:49a city when they leave.
58:51And if I were Ken Griffin, I would just say, I'm done with you guys,
58:55all right? I'm taking all my assets to a state and a city where I'm
58:59not going to have to worry about whether people come after me.
59:01Buck, I was just telling you in real life, this has consequences.
59:04I would never base a company outside of my home state of Tennessee now.
59:08I wouldn't. Because I don't want to see happen to me what happened to Trump,
59:13where somebody decides they don't like my politics and they're going to try and bankrupt
59:17one of my companies because it happens to be located in a blue state.
59:21Or what happened to this guy in California who's a lawyer and they decided they
59:25didn't like the fact that he repped Trump and so they're going to try to
59:28take his law degree. I got a law degree here in Tennessee.
59:31I don't have to worry about it.
59:32I'm in a red state.
59:33I think you're going to see more and more people with resources say, screw you
59:37guys in blue cities, blue states.
59:39I'm not risking my financial future with the leaders that you're picking and the culture
59:44that you're creating. I'm out.
59:46And the people who are going to lose out are the people that think that
59:49taxing the rich is going to save them.
59:51There are secretaries. I guess we call them executive assistants now.
59:55There are secretaries at Citadel who make 200 grand a year, Clay.
59:59Oh yeah. This is what people also don't think.
1:00:01about in this stuff talk to some of the local um you know even here
1:00:06in manhattan in midtown the the guys who operate the uh like the shwerma carts
1:00:11like the kind of halal meat carts these different things do they like the finance
1:00:14bros or not well yeah because they'll pay 15 or 20 bucks for some uh
1:00:18some some rice and some quickly uh you know seared chicken or beef or whatever
1:00:23there are so many things that are tied in to the elements of the economy
1:00:28that mom donnie is is and he's really stigmatizing it too and that's the that's
1:00:33the thing he's you're the bad guy you know yeah it's not that they can't
1:00:37take the financial hit on the streets where a ceo was murdered for being wealthy
1:00:42he's not saying yeah by the way like right right where we are here in
1:00:46midtown um the the attitude isn't hey ken griffin you're super successful we really appreciate
1:00:54this we really think we need to get you to pay a little more because
1:00:57you can afford it but we're thankful and we appreciate it it's you greedy fat
1:01:02cat with your pied -a -terre and your private jets and everything else we're taking
1:01:07more from you because you're the reason that we don't have better schools you're the
1:01:12reason that we don't and it's actually the opposite he's funding all of that he's
1:01:18funding the schools he's funding the police department without him without the top one percent
1:01:23of earners in and really the top point one percent of earners clay this place
1:01:28collapses in a year and mom donnie's got problems with those people anyway it's it's
1:01:33it's madness uh right now there are so many voices in our culture that are
1:01:37loud and that are pushing women in one direction one they can never come back
1:01:40from and they're pushing toward abortion and there's only so much that you can do
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