Daily Review with Clay and Buck - Mar 12 2026
3/12/202658 mincomplete
0:00This is an iHeart Podcast.
0:02Guaranteed human. Welcome in, everybody.
0:05Thursday edition of the Clay, Travis, and Buck Sexton show.
0:10Known to many as Clay and Buck.
0:13That starts right now. And we got so much to get to.
0:17Let me just give you a little bit of an outline before we dive into
0:19all the biggest stories today.
0:20Uncle Bill, Bill O 'Reilly, joining us.
0:22Hour two. Talk to him about how this whole Iran war thing is going.
0:27And the SAVE Act, SAVE America Act, have that discussion.
0:31Senator Eric Schmidt will be with us.
0:35And we will also have Senator John Cornyn with us.
0:38I would say to any of you who have, we have a lot of Texans
0:41who listen. Texas or California, well, those are the two biggest states by population, so
0:46it's not really that surprising.
0:47But it's either Texas or California is our biggest state for listenership.
0:51So we have a lot of Texans, and we love all of you.
0:55Not all of you are huge Cornyn fans.
0:58Some of you perhaps are.
1:00Send us your questions for Senator Cornyn, and we will see if we can get
1:04a couple of them to him on the air today, as he is in this
1:08primary, this contested primary, wondering if there will be a Trump endorsement.
1:14That's a lot of eyeballs on this one.
1:16So we will get to that.
1:19So we have three guests today, two senators, Uncle Bill, and now we can get
1:23into some of the news of the day.
1:25Clay, little Mo, as Clay calls him, Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has issued
1:33a statement. But he is, well, someone has issued a statement on his behalf.
1:38He is apparently in a coma and missing a leg.
1:40So he got hit in one of these airstrikes, and they are putting him forward
1:45as the future of Iran.
1:49That certainly goes to what level of pressure the leadership of Iran is under, that
1:55even their next up at bat is having to have statements released from others around
2:02him because he's in a coma from an airstrike.
2:05So essentially, the next person who raises their hand in Iran and says, I'm going
2:10to continue the Islamic revolution in this country, and I shall continue to fight against
2:15the great Satan and the little Satan, probably going to get blown up.
2:19That is where we are right now, at least while these hostilities, these aerial campaign
2:24continues. Clay, oil price has surged a bit, and there are concerns as well.
2:31After two tankers were attacked and, I believe, are on fire in the Strait of
2:38Hormuz. So they're continuing to try to go after the oil, the global oil industry,
2:45as their choke point, as their way to hit back at us.
2:49Also, Trump monitoring Iranian terror sleeper cells.
2:53A lot of concern about that, and I think rightly concern about that.
2:59And we shall discuss that.
3:01So, Clay, I mean, first one up here, we are in another day of this
3:08aerial campaign. We now know that Mojtaba is in a coma.
3:13Little Mo is having a tough one.
3:15What do you think about the latest here with the attacks on oil shipping and
3:22trying to make this a global environmental and economic catastrophe to get this to stop?
3:28That's clearly the Iranians' play.
3:29Yeah, I think it actually is going to make President Trump angrier, and I think
3:34it's actually going to result in a worse outcome for Iran than if they allowed
3:39the oil to transit without issues at all.
3:42And I'm pulling up to check the oil price as we speak right now because
3:47it has been probably the number one story that is out there.
3:51And it's hanging right around $90 a barrel.
3:54And you say, okay, Clay, where does that compare?
3:57It was around $65, if I remember correctly, before this war started.
4:03And now it's right around $90.
4:05It went all the way up to $120 Sunday in the opening hours of the
4:13market, beginning with danger and fear.
4:17And so then it crashed all the way back down to like $75.
4:21It's come back up to around $90.
4:22It's bounced around a lot.
4:24And I think the question is, how safe is the Strait of Hormuz?
4:29And what does that mean for overall pricing of oil and gas?
4:35Now, President Trump has released, I think it's 180 million barrels is what I saw
4:40from the Strategic Reserve. There's 400 million worldwide being released.
4:44My understanding, Buck, is that that takes a couple of weeks to actually come into
4:50the marketplace as a whole because it takes a while for all of those barrels
4:56of oil to reach the marketplace.
4:58Yeah, I stand corrected on that one.
5:00Chuck Schumer said do it, and Trump's actually doing it.
5:02Now, the Democrats are going to hit him for having to do that.
5:04But the oil shock seems severe enough that some effort to soften the blow to
5:12your wallets, essentially, is underway.
5:14So there you go. Chuck Schumer giving some good advice to his opposition.
5:20Hey, Clay, even a broken clock.
5:23You know, so I'll take the.
5:24yell on that one trump's doing it this is cut 17 on gas prices trump
5:28last night at joint base andrews hit it there's a timeline on when you're planning
5:33to tap the strategic petroleum reserve a timeline of when that could happen we're going
5:37to be doing it very quickly and then we'll fill it up we'll fill up
5:40our reserves you know if you remember i filled them up and then i had
5:45a deal to go at the highest level a level that's never been and schumer
5:50and the democrats for 25 and it was turned down you remember that peter almost
5:55before your time but not quite but it was uh we had a deal at
5:5925 think of that 25 a barrel and the democrats turned it down we're going
6:04to fill we're going to tap it out like it's never been but they turned
6:08that down and now it's a lot higher clay trump of course saying democrats had
6:14no foresight on this issue not a surprise but there's enough of a jolt to
6:19the oil markets that there's serious and and immediate action being taken to stabilize things
6:25yeah look and i i think this is where the the average american is going
6:30to feel to the extent we do anything going on with iran is in oil
6:36and gas prices and i i would just point out that two years of oil
6:41and gas prices coming down by and large was not a story that is almost
6:47i i watch these television broadcast of the news almost every day for at least
6:52three hours every day uh while i'm talking to all of you i have never
6:56seen cnn or msnbc do a story on boy president trump has really brought down
7:03gas prices during his tenure in office never seen a story about gas prices going
7:08down for a year and a half and now gas prices have gone up for
7:12a week and it's the lead story on msnbc and cnn and by the way
7:17buck it vanished when oil and gas prices went back down to 75 now that
7:22they've come back up to 90 we're back to covering oil and gas prices again
7:26and they put the picture of the oil and gas prices in the corner of
7:30the screen right now the talk talking point on cnn is oil and gas prices
7:35and talking point on msnbc is oil and gas prices so i do think when
7:39it's a good story right for the year and a half that the prices came
7:42down not one mention of it for the one week they've gone back up oh
7:46my goodness this is a story that we have to cover well as we know
7:51journalism in america has fully uh fully morphed into it's not about what you should
7:57know it's about telling the audience what they want to know yeah what they want
8:01to hear what they want to watch uh and that's certainly the case over at
8:04at cnn at msnbc at ms now it's the case at fox too i don't
8:09live in some delusional world i mean fox is going to have a right of
8:12center point of view but there's more there's so much more honesty about that i
8:16mean their prime time lineup are opinion hosts cnn still pretends cnn still pretends that
8:22they're just journalists they're just anderson cooper could vote either way who knows does he
8:27love trump does he hate trump oil prices important today unimportant yesterday i wonder why
8:32i also think this is important um and i think it has been under discussed
8:37and it continues to be under discussed you can criticize fox and you can criticize
8:43uh them you know they have 66 of the news audience whatever the heck it
8:47is 60 on any given day bigger than msnbc and cnn combined their entire business
8:54is based on advertising so their audience response responds to things and they cover it
9:01that used to be the overarching uh uh way that everybody made money now the
9:07new york times makes money washington post makes money off subscriptions and that's a very
9:11different business model because subscribers want to be told that their worldview is correct when
9:17you're pegged to advertising you're trying to reach the biggest possible audience because that's how
9:22you get paid we get paid based on advertising so the bigger the audience is
9:26the more money this show makes uh we're not making money off subscriptions the new
9:32york times subscription changes the calculus of how the business is run and i was
9:36just looking this just came across the the line buck new york times has stunned
9:41me has doubled the number of journalists that employees in the last 10 years they
9:46have 2300 journalists now doubled what they had just 10 years ago and that's to
9:54serve subscribers it's not to provide the best possible uh outcome uh to uh to
10:00the media ecosystem i also think that there's and this has been the case for
10:04a long time this has been an argument that i've been making since before i
10:07was in media there's a fundamental honesty with fox news that it which which i
10:12think is part of why the audience is so uh durable uh sticky if you
10:18will i mean stays with fox watch there's a fundamental honesty about yeah of course
10:22like the opening model like jesse waters isn't sitting there like i don't have any
10:25opinions i'm just i'm just presenting the objective news like that's insane these other channels
10:31have been doing this game of we're just we're just news yeah by the way
10:34same thing with abc news and these other things same thing with though they're just
10:38lying they're just lying to people and eventually the lies got to be too much
10:41but back to the oil price situation uh i think clay again this is going
10:47to be relatively short term uh and as long as that's the case it will
10:52be fine here's energy secretary chris wright though we've had him on the show very
10:56interesting guy this cut 18 he's saying look the biden administration was playing all kinds
11:01of politics with this and not even using it for this is an emergency situation
11:05they were just using it to try to try to goose the numbers to look
11:09better play 18 we have about 415 million barrels in storage right now very unfortunately
11:15the biden administration drained almost 300 million barrels out mostly the lower gasoline prices for
11:21a midterm election without disruptions in energy flows that's not what the spr is about
11:26the spr is about this when we have short -term disruptions and flows to replace
11:31those flows but dana we will simultaneously sell this oil in the near term when
11:36it's needed and buy long -term oil meaning say 12 months down the road and
11:42we'll pull out 170 million barrels and we'll put back in 200 million barrels in
11:47the next year so we'll actually have more oil in our spr a year from
11:50now than we do today okay that's the responsible way to use it there you
11:56go again and what i i think is so important about this is the only
12:01reason this isn't a major huge transformative danger for us is because we actually produce
12:08so much more oil this is where the energy superpower of the world you want
12:12you want to know why your grocery prices aren't skyrocketing and they're on oil lines
12:15go thank an oil man go thank somebody who works for texaco or whatever i
12:20mean that's because in the 1970s for those of you who lived through it we
12:25were able to be held hostage effectively both literally in the sense of what happened
12:30with iran with our uh with our embassy there but they were able to hold
12:35us hostage those of you who remember lining up and having difficulty getting oil and
12:39gas heck buck i'm reading right now i love reading about world war ii you
12:43know that during world war ii americans were restricted to four gallons of gas a
12:48week so people barely drove anywhere because of the huge shortage and the amount of
12:53gas oil and gas we needed in order to fight that war um at least
12:57they were in iowa where i'm reading about the anyway i i love all this
13:00but the reason we now have energy independence is because we have unleashed the full
13:07uh economic spirit capitalistic success of our oil and gas industry in a way that
13:13frankly didn't exist in the in the 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s for those
13:18of you who remember the first goal for this is an utterly different era and
13:23i want to tell you uh as we come up on the era that we
13:28all experience the 25th anniversary of 9 -11 uh tunnel the towers is having an
13:35incredible uh part of trying to make sure that we all remember everything that happened
13:41on september 11th 2001 going back 25 years ago i'm going to be participating in
13:47a bunch of different events to help raise money and awareness for this event uh
13:51and tunnel the towers is committed to helping veterans achieve stability and independence uh and
13:57we believe no veteran uh should ever be left behind and that is what tunnel
14:02the towers is working on every single day join us uh in donating 11 a
14:07month and help you can even give car or land or other things that you
14:13may have as assets and you want to give back to those who have been
14:17putting their lives on the line to help keep us safe whether it's soldiers whether
14:20it's first responders whether it is uh law enforcement they're taking care of everybody frank
14:26siller's organization does phenomenal work i'm going to be with them later this month uh
14:31down in south florida for a big fundraising event that they're doing uh and i'm
14:36going to be with them later in the year helping to raise money and helping
14:39to raise awareness as we uh honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice on 9
14:45-11 25 years ago today 25 years ago now coming up head to t2t .org
14:52that's t the number two t .org t2t .org making america great again isn't just
15:00one man it's many the team 47 podcast sundays at noon eastern in the clay
15:07and buck podcast feed find it on the iheart radio app or wherever you get
15:11your podcasts welcome in hour number two uh thursday edition clay and buck we appreciate
15:18all of you hanging out with us as we are rolling through the program here
15:23we are joined now by our friend bill o'reilly who has a brand new show
15:28debuting we'll do it live which is one of the most viral internet videos uh
15:35of uh of news history i i would suggest um and i love that you're
15:41playing on the uh the virality of that moment what do you remember from that
15:46did like did you remember that clip when it sort of started circulating on social
15:52media or was it so long ago that you had totally forgotten about it well
15:58i was 12 years old so i figured the statute of limitations might have run
16:02out on it um this is a great story my whole staff turned on me
16:07um so i was anchoring inside edition and as i mentioned i was barely a
16:13teenager and a tech crew couldn't get uh their act inside edition and as i
16:18mentioned i was a great story my whole staff turned on me um and i
16:18was a great story my whole staff turned on me um and i was a
16:19great story my whole staff turned on me um and i was a great story
16:19my whole staff turned on me um and i was a great story my whole
16:19staff turned on me um and i was a great story my whole staff turned
16:19on me um and i was a great story my whole staff turned on me
16:19um and i was a great story my whole staff turned on me um and
16:20i was a great story my whole staff turned on me um and i was
16:20a great story my whole staff turned on me um and i was a great
16:20story my whole staff turned on me and i was a great story my whole
16:20staff turned on me um and i was a great story my whole staff turned
16:20on me and i was a great story my whole staff turned on me um
16:20and i was a great story my whole staff turned on me and i was
16:20a great story my whole staff turned on me and i was a great story
16:20my whole staff turned on me annoying and i uh dropped a couple of f
16:24-bombs and he said we'll do it live uh which we did and that was
16:29that and then years later when i became uh uh let's say notorious on fox
16:36news somebody sold that clip oh wow to a far left website for a large
16:42amount of money and uh they put it out in the viral world and it
16:49has become um worldwide and when i was in iceland i had people yelling at
16:55me we'll do it live and of course i threw snowballs back at them um
17:00so anyway we're looking for a name for this long form program we're going to
17:06do i hate to call it a podcast because podcasts are basically two guys sitting
17:12in a basement smoking pot that's not what we do okay it's a long form
17:18uh interview with somebody you care about and somebody who's not a phony and will
17:24tell the truth the first guy is rob schneider that drops today and schneider uh
17:30goes through how he suffered in his career because he supports donald trump and he
17:38talks about jimmy kimmel i mean it's fascinating stuff i've never heard before but anyway
17:42my staff you're all younger we have a great name for this show i said
17:47okay what is it we'll do it live they all started to laugh so not
17:54only did they turn against me but they won i surrendered i said all right
17:58i don't care what i call a damn show but i didn't drop any f
18:02-bombs i gotta tell you uh bill we we all we love we love the
18:07name the audience loves the name it's a great it's a great name that clip
18:11of you is one of just like the 10 greatest viral and that was it
18:15was released pretty early on in the viral internet game so it really had resonance
18:20but we'll do we'll do it live i mean that line has probably been translated
18:24into 150 languages now i know i it's unbelievable if i had known it would
18:30go like that i would have done it many more times oh can we can
18:35we can we you guys have a couple of bleeps here but the uh the
18:38team wants to play it a little throwback here bill inside edition he's just a
18:43teenager he just started shaving and here he is on inside edition play it tomorrow
18:47and that is it for us today and we will leave you with a i
18:51can't do it we'll do it live okay no we'll do it live do it
18:59live i can i'll write it and we'll do it live oh wait is that
19:06okay that that's we'll do it live there you go bill everyone knows the clip
19:09it's a lot of fun by the way guys i really appreciate it you're welcome
19:13we got we got you we got you yeah so um that's gonna be a
19:18great series you never should go check it out bill orreilly .com um i i
19:22there's no i gotta say hard turn here bill because we're going we're having a
19:25fun trip with you down nostalgia lane there but now we gotta focus in on
19:29you know world peace fixing america all that stuff for a second how concerned are
19:34you you're a balls and strikes calling guy how concerned are you with this campaign
19:39in iran oil price spike does trump really know what the end game is here
19:44do you feel like uh this is going according to plan or are you getting
19:48worried about it well anytime it's military action i'm concerned um from the very beginning
19:56of the uh adventure if you want to use that word um it was a
20:01huge risk the president's aware of it uh if it goes his way he uh
20:09will i think catapult himself into the top area of the presidential sweepstakes which is
20:17important to him his legacy if it doesn't then the republicans are likely to lose
20:22the midterm so a lot on the line there's not one modern president who would
20:26have done this maybe teddy roosevelt but he wasn't a modern guy um but even
20:32teddy might have uh said you know it's just too much uncertainty here so the
20:39thinking was that iran is not going to stop developing a nuclear weapon even though
20:47we hit them in june of 2025 they have other places where they're developing this
20:53and they admit it it's not like he said she said and in the last
20:59negotiation with whitkoff in geneva switzerland the iranian foreign minister basically look we're gonna we're
21:06not gonna stop we're gonna develop this nuclear weapon and we don't care what you
21:10think that was it for trump that was the end and then the president waited
21:18for an opening the opening came when the israeli intelligence massad pinpointed the ayatollah and
21:2525 of his thug cronies we're all going to be together on a saturday morning
21:30in a specific place in tehran that information got to president trump he said okay
21:35uh we'll let the israelis wipe them off the face of the earth which happened
21:40and then we'll follow up and destroy the infrastructure of iran's ability to wage offensive
21:46war which is underway right now now and which will succeed now the unintended consequences
21:52are how much pain is that going to cause the world economically and the other
21:59unintended consequence is that a lot of the media the worldwide media not just america
22:06is rooting against america they want iran to win which is absolutely shocking to me
22:14because this is a murderous nation this is the third reich light they killed 30
22:22000 of their own people a few weeks ago 30 000 and you're rooting for
22:29them to win you want trump to be humiliated that's what you're putting forth on
22:33cnn the new york times and others that's what you want really think about it
22:40that is really a tipping point now president trump himself believes what he wants to
22:45believe and he is convinced that uh the united states and israel will wipe out
22:51iran's ability to wage offensive war i believe that is true but the uh economic
23:00um outcome is cloudy and that could mean the democrats win the midterms in november
23:07and that's what we're looking at right now bill you may have talked to president
23:12trump and actually given him this advice if you did or if you were asked
23:18what should victory look like here what would you suggest to president trump given where
23:25we are right now we've wiped out certainly a lot of the uh air force
23:30a lot of the navy a lot of the military uh capabilities of iran are
23:35gone we'll see whether or not mojitaba uh the the sun here is or is
23:42not alive and able to take power but what would you say to president trump
23:46is an off -ramp here what should an end uh in hostilities look like from
23:51a united states perspective well i did talk to the president about it in a
23:57one -on -one phone conversation uh he called me i don't i never call him
24:03i mean that's not my job and he's a president i'm not going to intrude
24:06and uh he said uh what would you do and i said i'd negotiate it
24:11in uh down to the fact that uh there'll be routine expectations inside iran and
24:20they're not to develop ballistic mystical capacity you have to downgrade revolutionary guard and you
24:27have to become a nation that does not wage war constantly or finance terrorism that's
24:35a negotiation degree of that then you would help them rebuild their economy the problem
24:41is that iran will say they'll do it and then they won't do it we
24:45all know that but that negotiated settlement i think still could happen but they're going
24:52to have to experience a lot of pain before the iranians get to that place
24:57and so no one can say when that will end i mean it's like asking
25:04general patten you know when he's up trying to uh defeat the nazis in baston
25:10how long is this gonna take general you know i mean come on it's war
25:13i think those questions are ridiculous and stupid and immature and designed to produce gotcha
25:19results and that's all the american president well how long how long nobody knows and
25:26the american people it's just we are a soft society uh we don't want to
25:30uh be inconvenienced to pay more money for anything and then you know you got
25:34to hate trumpers so it's very complicated but i think what will happen is that
25:40iran will come back to the table and there'll be some kind of an agreement
25:45to neuter them as a state -sponsored terrorist outfit hey bill uh well first off
25:54everyone make sure you uh check out first episode today of uh we'll do it
25:59live which is up on billoreilly .com go watch the show it's got uh rob
26:04schneider uh who i give a lot of credit to for being a hollywood guy
26:07who's been right wing and right wing for a long time uh bill one more
26:11topic for you before we got ahead into the break uh so we'll do a
26:14kind of shorter version on it but this save america act we're getting so much
26:19from everyone listening about talk more about the save america you got to push the
26:23save america act and and i get it and i agree with it and i
26:27wish it would pass but i also feel like majority leader thune plus about four
26:33or five other senators aren't going to pass this thing so what are we supposed
26:37to do i mean do you think that is there a world in which there's
26:40enough pressure enough phone calls on these senators i you know i don't think you're
26:43getting uh mcconnell and murkowski and they're not going to vote for this thing mcconnell
26:50will murkowski won't but you need 60 uh to get it to the senate floor
26:55they're not going to get that soon knows it uh he'll put it up for
26:59a vote next week but this hurts the democratic party big time because 79 of
27:05the american public and that includes a lot of democrats obviously want voter id and
27:11all the socialist countries in europe have it and there's no avenues to talk about
27:15them so that they were worried about that and they're going to push a moment
27:15not to have it. So the Republicans are going, yeah, we know we're not going
27:19to get it through the Senate.
27:20It's already passed the House, as you guys know.
27:23But, you know, the damage that the Republicans, that the Democrats are going to do
27:27to themselves may be worth it.
27:29And that's the way our system is.
27:32So you need 60 votes to get it to a vote on the floor in
27:36the Senate. Now there's an effort to knock out the filibuster.
27:39I don't think that's wise, but that could happen.
27:42And the American people understand that in order to diminish voter fraud, you've got to
27:49prove that you're an American citizen, which is the federal law.
27:52Do you believe these reports that McConnell is stalling it, that, you know, you say
27:57he'll vote for, but. No, he's barely cognizant.
28:02The guy's just limping to the finish line.
28:05I mean, he doesn't have any presence at all.
28:08Murkowski is not really a Republican.
28:11Okay. And she hates Trump so much that anything Trump supports, she'll oppose.
28:17I don't expect any other defections.
28:20Even crazy Rand Paul. I mean, you just can't.
28:24But the Democrats, I mean, that's a bad hill for them to stand on.
28:31Bill O 'Reilly, check it out.
28:33We'll do it live. We appreciate the time and good luck on the new show.
28:38Always fun talking to you guys.
28:40Thanks for having me. That's great work.
28:43And he's going to do it live.
28:44Bill O 'Reilly. Look, few organizations do more to create a bridge between the Christian
28:49and Jewish populations than the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
28:54The IFCJ has been doing this for a long time, firmly established in communities throughout
28:59Israel and Ukraine. Just to name two countries where help is needed most right now.
29:04This is a humanitarian organization.
29:06When I was in Israel, we helped to put together food bank deliveries.
29:11We saw the bomb shelters that they built.
29:14We even saw the hospital that they had built that could be flipped so that
29:19everything was underground in the event of danger.
29:23They need your help right now as people more and more are under siege in
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29:33to the vulnerable there in Israel under fire.
29:37Call 888 -488 -IFCJ. That's 888 -488 -IFCJ.
29:44You can join us in donating at ifcj .org.
29:49That's ifcj .org. Stories of freedom.
29:54Stories of America. Inspirational stories that unite us all.
29:59Each day, spend time with Clay and Buck.
30:02Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
30:08Third hour of Clay and Buck gets going right now.
30:11We're joined by Senator Eric Schmidt of Missouri now.
30:15Senator, thanks for stopping by.
30:17Good to be with you.
30:19Let's start with the save act, sir.
30:21We have so many people who are paying close attention to this.
30:26A lot of listeners all across America who are saying this seems like a must.
30:30This seems so straightforward, so necessary as a law.
30:35And of course, Democrats oppose it.
30:37Is there any realistic path forward for this?
30:41What is the best outcome as you see it for the save act that's realistic?
30:45What do you want to happen?
30:47Well, we need to get on it.
30:49And the hope is that next week we will actually be on the Senate floor
30:52with the save act. I think that'd be.
30:54And by the way, spend some time on it.
30:56And I'm a supporter of this talking filibuster idea.
30:59I think that's what people think happens in Washington in the United States Senate.
31:02They think of Jimmy Stewart holding the floor.
31:06And the Senate, the old line is that operates by unanimous consent or exhaustion.
31:10And I think the Democrats should have to own this and earn it if they
31:13want to block the idea that you have to be U .S.
31:16citizen to vote. You have to show an ID to vote that we're not going
31:18to allow mass mail -in balloting scams.
31:21We're not going to allow transgender surgery for minors.
31:24And we shouldn't allow boys and women's sports, men and women's sports.
31:28That's what this will do.
31:29And those are common sense proposals.
31:30They're 80 -20 issues. They might be higher than that.
31:33And I think it's really important, most importantly, for protecting the election security and regaining
31:38the trust of the American people.
31:39So my hope is that we're on it.
31:42So if we go to the talking filibuster, there have been all sorts of different
31:48reports that I have read about what that actually looks like, what that means.
31:54What do you anticipate a talking filibuster would look like?
31:58And how does it end?
32:00How does it progress? So you got to get on the bill.
32:04And if we take the House bill and forgive me if I get in the
32:07weeds, but since you asked the question, so the House bill, it only requires 51
32:12votes to get on it, right?
32:14So we can take the House bill that's been passed, and then it is before
32:17the Senate. And then at that point, amendments are in order.
32:22I'm working closely with the White House on this, Senator Lee.
32:26Amendments would be in order.
32:27So that version that came over has two provisions.
32:30It doesn't have the male -in piece.
32:31It doesn't have the transgender piece.
32:32It doesn't have the men and women's sports piece.
32:34So we would be able to amend it.
32:36And then at that point, and that's a majority vote when you're on amendments.
32:41And then at that point, we need.
32:43need to get to a final vote.
32:44And one way you can get to the final vote is that you just run
32:46out of Democrats that want to hold the floor for hours and hours.
32:50Now, the commitment from the Republican side is that we need to make sure we
32:54hold a quorum for the whole time that this happens, meaning if a Democrat says,
32:58hey, I know the absence of a quorum, meaning there's not enough people in the
33:01chamber, there have to be 51 Republicans that are there to maintain the quorum.
33:05So this is something that used to happen.
33:08I think the Senate's got kind of lazy with the way we do it now,
33:11where you just come in and you clock in a vote and it gets you
33:14to 60. So this is about holding the floor, voting on amendments for a period
33:19of time. That's how it would play out.
33:22Now, speaking of the floor, I believe you've been on the Senate floor asking for
33:27unanimous consent to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the next two weeks.
33:33Where does that stand? I assume Democrats are either have blocked it or are going
33:37to block it. Yeah, they blocked it.
33:40So basically, the Democrats are blocking funding for Homeland Security.
33:44So the irony here is they left 15 million people in this country.
33:48Some of them are terrorists.
33:50Many are murderers and even more violent criminals, but they're defunding Homeland Security.
33:55That's what their position is.
33:56So they're blocking our efforts to fund it because they're having a temper tantrum about
34:01ICE. What it's really about, guys, is they don't actually think we should enforce our
34:05immigration laws. They don't like the result in 2024.
34:09They don't care that American mothers and daughters are being raped and murdered by illegal
34:14immigrants. And ICE has a job to do.
34:17We've set out what their job is in our laws that have been passed, passed
34:20by Republicans and Democrats and enforced, by the way, by Republicans and Democrats in previous
34:24administrations. But what we saw with Joe Biden was unprecedented.
34:27He threw open the border.
34:28Millions of people are here.
34:29President Trump ran on deporting those folks.
34:31And here we're at where we're at.
34:32They don't like the results.
34:33So they just wanted to fund ICE.
34:35That's what this comes down to.
34:36So in the crosshairs that in the mix, they're in that DH funding bill is
34:39TSA, the Coast Guard, all these agencies that outside of ICE and the Democrats are
34:44blocking funding because of Trump derangement syndrome.
34:48OK, let's you're breaking down everything going on in in that context.
34:53We're hearing about hours and hours that everybody's having to stand in line.
34:59And at some point, especially with it being spring break week, people just look around
35:03and they're angry. You may not be paying attention to what's funded and what's not.
35:08We've got an alleged shooting that you may or may not have seen that took
35:12place in West Bloomfield, Michigan.
35:15Reports are that the shooter is believed to be dead.
35:18We know what happened in Austin, Texas, where unfortunately a couple of people were murdered
35:22by what appears to have been a deranged lunatic.
35:26And we know in New York City, there were just a couple of IEDs thrown
35:29that fortunately did not go off but could have killed many people.
35:34Isn't it absolutely beyond the pale absurd that we would be in a situation where
35:40I think the number right now is 300 some odd TSA agents have just said,
35:44hey, I've got to quit.
35:45I've got to find a new job or I've got to make money right now
35:47that Democrats would be refusing to fund these individuals.
35:51It's crazy. I mean, it's so stupid, Clay.
35:54I don't. I mean, I've seen a lot of stuff in politics.
35:57I've seen a lot of argument.
35:57It's just so dumb. But they're obsessed there.
36:00First of all, they hate President Trump.
36:03And that manifests itself in many different ways.
36:06But they thought they had some moment, I think, in Minneapolis that they were going
36:09to be able to ultimately prevent law enforcement from doing their jobs by overloading them
36:15with burdens that they can't, you know, we can talk about what those are.
36:18But basically, it would it would render ICE unable to deport people.
36:23That's what they want. And so they are willing to hold all of this hostage.
36:26And now the legacy media will go along with it.
36:29And they'll create some issue about some negotiation on this.
36:32But it's very simple. Republicans just voted just now voted to fund TSA to fund
36:40ICE to fund Secret Service to fund the Coast Guard.
36:43And the Democrats have voted no.
36:45It's that it's not that complicated.
36:47It's stupid, but it's not complicated.
36:50Senator Schmidt with us now.
36:52And Senator, I think that this war in Iran, or whatever, we haven't really come
36:58up with something other than a word to call it, I guess, this overseas aerial
37:01campaign against the Iranian military, definitely acts of war going on.
37:06The president seems very confident that this is both achieving its objectives and will be
37:12limited in scope. And he is in charge of that scope.
37:15What's your sense as to how this is going so far?
37:18And what's your confidence level that this will be wrapped up, say, by the end
37:22of the month? Yeah, I mean, I think the president's committed to to accomplishing the
37:28objectives as he laid out.
37:29And essentially, in a nutshell, the nuclear program that we, you know, had a devastating
37:34blow to with the B -2s out of Missouri, by the way, last summer, Iran
37:38was basically creating this missile shield, this conventional ballistic missile shield to protect it for
37:43their future ambitions. And that's being wiped out now.
37:46So that's really the mission.
37:47We had a briefing earlier this week.
37:49They're ahead of schedule on that.
37:51And I think the president's committed to doing this.
37:54He understands the concerns that people would have about having another forever war in the
37:58Middle East. I don't think he wants that.
38:00But he's committed to this mission.
38:02I think they're accomplishing that right now.
38:04Much less seriously. I saw you Friday at the president's college sports roundtable.
38:10And I know you have introduced a bill alongside of a Democrat colleague that would
38:17help to rectify the mess that is college athletics.
38:20What would it do? Are you optimistic that it can be a solution?
38:24Look, it's the first bipartisan bill that's been introduced on this measure.
38:28I think that's a significant development.
38:30To set the stage, college athletics right now is very chaotic.
38:35In college football, by and large, for years has essentially been the cash cow that
38:40funds all the non -revenue sports, women's sports, Olympic sports, even sports like baseball that
38:45don't really generate revenue, save a couple of schools here or there.
38:48Because of the new system that we have right now, you know, it's just a
38:53matter of time. And I think that time is pretty soon where you're just going
38:56to start seeing all that programming dropped and all those scholarships drop for people who
39:00can change their lives. So what's the solution?
39:02I was skeptical, Klan Buck, about Congress.
39:04If you had asked me this two years ago, I'd be, why is Congress considering
39:08anything here? But the truth is, Congress is the only entity on the planet that
39:11can grant antitrust exemption to some governing body to set some rules, transfer rules, eligibility
39:16rules, agent rules, things that they can't do right now because of lawsuits have basically
39:21rendered the NCAA feckless. They can't do anything.
39:23So we can do that.
39:24But I don't think you solve the governance problem or the challenges in college sports
39:28without revenue to basically pay for these sports, right?
39:32These non -revenue women's sports, the Olympic sports that we all love.
39:35And so our proposal, Senator Cantwell and I from Washington are that, look, the NFL,
39:39the NBA, MLB, they all have antitrust exemption to collectively negotiate to pool their media
39:45rights. And to just give you a statistic, the NBA has half the audience of
39:50college football, but twice the revenue.
39:52The NBA generates about $8 billion, college football is about $4 billion, but they have
39:56twice the eyeballs every week.
39:58And so, you know, the SEC and Big Ten are big players in that.
40:00But what we could do is our bill says, look, you can pool your media
40:03rights. We respect the conferences that are going to bring in the lion's share of
40:06the revenue. But that bargaining will be great for fans because think about it.
40:11With the NFL, there's different channels.
40:13There's a Sunday night game.
40:14There's a Monday night game.
40:15Sometimes there's a Thursday night game.
40:16College football, the interest is growing, and you can actually have a system here where
40:21Fox and ESPN, all of them are bidding, bidding, bidding, bidding, bidding up those dollars
40:25that can protect those sports.
40:26It'll be great for the fans.
40:28How optimistic are you that this thing is going to pass?
40:32I think this component is key.
40:34I don't think you can just do the governance piece and get to 60 votes
40:38in the Senate, right? I think there has to be a carrot here where everybody
40:42feels like they're growing. So if you're a school that's been kind of left behind
40:45on some of this stuff, on the revenue that's been generated for the conferences, they're
40:49doing exceedingly well, there's a reason for them to do it.
40:52I think, and look, I'm a Mizzou guy.
40:53I love Mizzou. They're in the SEC.
40:54I love SEC football. I think they're going to do well in this model too.
40:57So I'm optimistic that the next phase, the House is probably going to, Clay, vote
41:02on something next week, just the SCORE Act, which is just the governance piece.
41:05I think the thing at the White House last week added momentum.
41:08I think we're going to be hopefully the next step in the Senate is a
41:11hearing in the Commerce Committee where I serve on, and this will be heard out.
41:15And I think that's where the work will be done to try to fight a
41:18compromise to literally save college sports.
41:20If we don't get this done this year or maybe next year, but I think
41:23this year is very important, I think the landscape looks different forever.
41:26And if we fix it, or I should say we give them the tools to
41:30fix it, I think it changes things for the next 50 years.
41:33It will be great for fans.
41:34Good stuff as always, Senator Eric Schmidt of Missouri.
41:37We appreciate the time. Good luck on getting all that taken care of.
41:41All right, guys. Thanks. Awesome.
41:44All right, let's see here.
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43:13News and politics, but also a little comic relief.
43:17Clay Travis and Buck Sexton.
43:19Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
43:24Welcome back in. Clay Travis, Buck Sexton show.
43:28I want to update you guys on the latest.
43:31This is from Fox News, and I just sent it, and let me make sure
43:37that I read this. correctly uh authorities say the shooter involved in the attack at
43:43temple israel that's outside of detroit michigan found badly burned after crashing a village into
43:49the uh crashing a vehicle into the building which then caught fire armed security engaged
43:58in a shootout and fatally shot uh the would -be attacker also cnn reporting and
44:04this may be why he was badly burned that the vehicle was filled with explosives
44:09so that would explain a lot here because you would have somebody who tried to
44:15create a vbied a vehicle -borne improvised explosive device essentially a car suicide bomber and
44:23the bomb didn't go off making bombs is fortunately harder than a lot of people
44:28think it is especially if you've never done it before near miss it seems clay
44:31looks like no casualties no good guy no good gal casualties in the synagogue only
44:36this guy taken out right that's right um and again this now suggests austin new
44:42york city detroit virginia all with the same motive uh that is a violent terror
44:49attack uh we bring in now senator john cornyn of texas uh he is with
44:55us we got a bunch to get into with you senator we appreciate the time
44:58uh let's start with this primary runoff against ken paxton in late may president trump
45:04has said that he is going to endorse but has held off on endorsing do
45:10you expect him to endorse you what do you what impact do you think the
45:14president's endorsement in texas would have well i've told the president that i thought his
45:20endorsement would be very impactful and i would be delighted if he chooses to endorse
45:26uh endorse me in the race uh so far he he's not done that and
45:31um you know people ask me well what what's he going to do and my
45:36usual response is there's only one person on the planet who knows the answer to
45:40that and it's not me so we are not uh we're we're continuing to uh
45:45work hard toward that may 26 runoff and uh if the president decides to make
45:51an endorsement that would be that'd be great news senator cornyn appreciate you being with
45:56us uh my understanding is and feel free to correct any part of this because
46:00there's a lot of senators and i can't know everything that all of you have
46:02ever thought or said but my understanding is that you've long been in the past
46:07a defender of the senate filibuster rule so a 60 vote threshold for most legislation
46:13but that you just recently published why the save act matters more than the filibuster
46:19am i right is is that where you are now is that really is that
46:24a major departure a major change in your feeling about the filibuster and what brought
46:28you to this because you're going to have some critics who say well this is
46:32just because you're up for re -election and you want to seem like you're going
46:35to give the base what it wants well the filibuster has stopped a lot of
46:41really bad legislation when the democrats were in charge uh they proposed packing the supreme
46:47court making puerto rico and the district of columbia states and getting uh two democratic
46:54senators each and permanently changing the country so the the filibuster has has worked well
47:01uh stopped bad stuff but we're in much different times now and uh what uh
47:08with the trump derangement syndrome and the polarization up here in congress uh democrats just
47:14reflexively oppose everything that trump has proposed or that republicans want including paying the the
47:22transportation security agency uh agents and the federal emergency management agency they didn't do anything
47:28wrong but they're the people being punished now by this second uh shutdown of a
47:34significant part of the federal government so um i would i long for the day
47:39when you would have these two political parties who were obviously have different priorities and
47:46different uh ideas about how to govern but where there is still the possibility of
47:52finding some common ground and working to build consensus i think that's good for the
47:57country when we can do that because any short -term measures that one party or
48:02the other uh passes uh can change the next time the the congress slips so
48:08i would call this a really kind of an evolution of my of my views
48:13um that fit the times i don't think it's okay for us to just tell
48:17my constituents in texas we can't get anything done because the democrats won't cooperate and
48:23we know as the president has pointed out that when the shoe is on the
48:26other foot when they're in the majority they will they will blow up the filibuster
48:31immediately so i've said i'm open to the talking filibuster which we hope to use
48:37on the save america act and uh potentially other reforms as well we're talking to
48:44uh senator john cornyn of texas he's in a runoff against ken paxton attorney general
48:49of texas on may 26th we know that one of you will be running against
48:53james tallarico who frankly seems like a very far left wing and radical nominee for
49:00the democrats uh do you believe that you would beat tallarico worse than ken paxton
49:06And is that one reason why you would argue people should vote for you in
49:12this upcoming runoff? Yes, that's exactly right.
49:17I will be at the top of the ticket as the nominee.
49:21And in 2020, last time I ran, I won by 10 points, which means that
49:26not only will we keep the Senate seat in Republican hands, but it will help
49:30down -ballot races, including these five new congressional seats that were drawn as a result
49:35of redistricting to hopefully help keep the majority in the House.
49:41The attorney general has so much political baggage that I think it's an open question
49:47whether he could actually even win.
49:49So thus the prospect or the possibility of actually losing a red state Senate seat
49:57in this election. And even if he were to win by the skin of his
50:01teeth, I would think he will not win by a margin that will help down
50:06-ballot. And it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to try to salvage him
50:11and salvage this red seat.
50:13So that is part of the argument that we've been making.
50:16And I know the president and his team are fully aware of.
50:21Okay, so let's say that you weren't the nominee.
50:24Let's say Ken Paxton won or vice versa.
50:27Would you campaign heartily for whoever the Republican nominee is?
50:32And do you expect that he would campaign for you in order to make sure
50:36that this seat, as you just laid out, doesn't end up in Democrat hands or
50:40doesn't even end up hopefully competitive so that there's not having to be a ton
50:45of money spent on it?
50:46In other words, you win.
50:48That's great. You're going to be working hard.
50:50Do you expect his endorsement?
50:52If you lose, will you endorse him?
50:55Well, first of all, I expect to win.
50:57But to answer your question, I've worked most of my adult life trying to build
51:03the Republican Party, both at the state level and at the national level.
51:08My first statewide election was in 1990 when we still were basically a divided state.
51:16We had a Democratic governor that year, Ann Richards, for example.
51:20But to answer your question, I would support the Republican ticket.
51:26I think that's that's the best answer I can give you.
51:30Speaking of Senator Cornyn of Texas and Senator, why would you be better?
51:38I mean, a lot of times it comes down to for some people trying something
51:43new. You've obviously been in the Senate for quite some time.
51:45Why would it be better to have you representing Texas than Attorney General Paxton?
51:52And how would you address any critics that you have who say that you're not
51:57as MAGA when it counts as you'd like to appear at election time?
52:02Because we get a lot of emails, a lot of callers.
52:04And this is something that we here wanted to give you an opportunity to just
52:07lay it out there for everybody.
52:10Well, thank you. I think a lot of this has to do with personalities and
52:15temperament. I spent 13 years of my life as a judge and then as attorney
52:21general before I got to the Senate.
52:23And I always like to tell people I'm conservative.
52:26I'm just not mad about it.
52:28But the point is what what the what what you've done.
52:33And that's one reason why in Texas, in our advertising, we pointed out that I
52:38have voted with the president.
52:39Ninety nine point three percent of the time that was that's a better a better
52:44number than Ted Cruz, the junior senator from Texas, by the way.
52:48And secondly, you know, we need somebody who can be effective for the state.
52:53So when the governor called me and said, look, Texas taxpayers have had to step
52:57up and pay eleven billion dollars to help secure the border when Biden wouldn't.
53:03He called me and we worked with the Texas delegation to get that done.
53:08And so we are expecting a nice check from the federal government to the Texas
53:13taxpayer of eleven billion dollars.
53:15It takes some experience and relationships to be able to get that done.
53:20And I think I think my effectiveness on behalf of 32 million Texas is something
53:27that separates me from the attorney general.
53:29We're talking to John Cornyn, senator from Texas, runoff May 26th.
53:34When you looked at the results, you won the primary in the first go around.
53:40You had the most votes.
53:41Were you surprised by that?
53:43Did you expect it? What do that what does that outcome tell people about Texas?
53:49Well, I would I would there's nothing's guaranteed, but I was optimistic that I would
53:56win. And that was you know, there have been a lot of trash, what I
54:00call trash talk, including the attorney general who said he could win without a runoff.
54:05And obviously that didn't materialize.
54:07So, you know, we've been only about 11 percent of registered voters voted in the
54:13Republican primary. Thankfully, people who didn't vote in the primary can vote in the runoff.
54:20But, you know, a lot of this has to do with motivating your voters and
54:24getting them to the polls.
54:26In the end, winning elections isn't all that complicated.
54:29It's about who gets the most votes.
54:31And we simply worked hard.
54:34to try to encourage as many people as we can to vote in the Republican
54:39primary. Even so, the Democrats outvoted us, which should be a warning shot across our
54:45mouth. Senator, you know, we got a lot of emails because we asked for questions.
54:49And, you know, for example, I'll just let you address this.
54:52We have one VIP who wrote in and said, I believe Senator Cornyn voted against
54:56Pete Hegseth for DOD secretary, now secretary of war.
55:00You voted yes for Pete Hegseth, if memory serves.
55:02Am I correct on that?
55:03Correct. Yeah. It's interesting. Some of the questions we get are actually not fair to,
55:10just to call balls and strikes here, Senator, they're not fair to your record.
55:13People seem to think for some reason that you have voted not 99 % of
55:17the time with Trump. Yeah.
55:20Well, the president knows what my record is, and he calls me a friend.
55:24And there was some indication that he was prepared to endorse me after leading in
55:30the primary on March the 3rd.
55:32And, obviously, as we said, the timing of that, and if it happens, is entirely
55:37up to him. But I think the president views me as an ally and somebody
55:42who supported him, and I think he appreciates that.
55:46You know, I was there on the front lines during the confirmation of three new
55:51Supreme Court justices when we passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017.
55:55I was the whip who helped get that across the finish line.
56:00And so a lot of the campaign is about reminding people about what my record
56:05is and, frankly, disabusing people of some of the falsehoods that are out there.
56:09So I appreciate you giving me an opportunity to address that.
56:13Senator Cornyn, thank you for coming on the show and taking our questions.
56:16And Godspeed to you, and we'll talk to you soon.
56:20Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
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57:21The Team 47 Podcast. Trump highlights from the week, Sundays at noon Eastern in the
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