EIB 24/7: Clay & Buck’s Stack of Stuff

22 Jun 2021

LEAKED DOCUMENTS from Iowa School System show Teachers are FORCED to classify ‘Make America Great Again” as a type of “racism” & “white supremacy.”

This is done through MANDATORY Critical Race Theory training FORCED on teachers at taxpayer expense.

Trump won Iowa by +9 points pic.twitter.com/6xEuVJpv7g

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) June 22, 2021

Should @HerschelWalker run for Senate against Warnock in Georgia in 2022? Vote in the @clayandbuck poll today.

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) June 22, 2021

#ClayandBuck opened the first show with a pledge to you.

For the full clip and more content visit our site at https://t.co/y1FOlb8Q4p pic.twitter.com/6NZAMRewwy

— clayandbuck (@clayandbuck) June 21, 2021

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Exclusive Video: Clay & Buck Speak to EIB 24/7 Members

22 Jun 2021

In this exclusive video, Clay and Buck speak directly to EIB 24/7 Members about everything in store for subscribers — as well as their hopes for the show and their mission to keep up Rush’s fight to preserve America.

Watch the Video:

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Clay’s Take: Covid Response Was Our Biggest Failure Since Vietnam

21 Jun 2021

BUCK: One thing that we know is that science is not consensus, and certainty is not fact, that you should always leave open the possibility with new evidence, new data, that you should change your conclusions. And if you have imperfect, highly imprecise data, you shouldn’t pretend you know everything, which is exactly what has happened at various stages of the pandemic in this country and the expert class, the blue-check MDs.

Let’s be honest: The Democrat lockdowners, they’ve acted like they’ve known everything at every stage. Ron Johnson was asked about this — Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin — on Sunday when it came specifically to some of the medicines people are talking about, “Well, do we know more about Ivermectin now? Do we know more about what was the truth of the hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin situation from the early days? Do we have full data on it?”

Here what he said.

JOHNSON: Dr. Fauci happened! Media arrogance. Social media censorship happened. But we all know that Dr. Fauci, he’s not a modest man. You know, if you questioned what he did, apparently you’re questioning science itself but you can look at how he stage-managed the covid crisis and call it anywhere close to a success. Six-hundred thousand people died? Trillions of dollars of economic devastation?

He ignored early treatment. He probably helped sabotage the use of some of these things. And you have to understand that Dr. Fauci, people in the health agencies, the media, the social media they will never admit they were wrong on this because, if they do, they’re gonna have to admit that literally hundreds of thousands of people didn’t have to lose their lives but for their censorship, their arrogance, and Dr. Fauci’s mismanagement.

BUCK: Oh, Dr. Fauci is science, though, Clay, and, if he were here, he’d say (impression), “Clay, where is your mask? I can feel your unvaccinated droplets hitting me in the face.”

CLAY: That’s a pretty good Fauci impersonation. I’m not gonna lie. But this is, to me, probably the most infuriating part of this entire process is the fact that we haven’t been able to have a real debate about the appropriate responses. We failed. I believe that our response to covid is the single greatest American failure since the Vietnam War.

I really do.

And what I hope is that in the same way that we got an accounting of the Vietnam War — and that was the best and the brightest who put us in the Vietnam War as well — I hope we’re gonna get a full accounting of all the failures that we saw in covid. I fear that we will not, because it will make people like Fauci and the left-wing mask mafia looking like the idiots that they are. And it will actually hold them accountable. And they’ll have to be recognized for all of the errors that they made and why they’re so significant.

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Buck Says They’re Rewriting History as WHO Flips on Vaccinating Kids

21 Jun 2021

CLAY: Big story out there. Now, I don’t know how much you can trust the WHO. They clearly have carried the water for China a lot. They initially gave us totally flawed information out of Wuhan, China, about how prevalent covid was, where it came from.

Like many of you — or most of you, I would imagine, listening right now, maybe almost all of you, because I think most of you have functional brains — the evidence all supports the idea that covid came out of a Chinese lab, that we were probably using American dollars to do gain-of-function research, that some of that money would have come from the NIH with Dr. Fauci’s fingerprints all over it.

One of the big questions — and we’re gonna get into being as honest with you every single day as we can, and I’ll talk about this from a father’s perspective because Sunday was Father’s Day. One of the big questions out there has been as kids under 18 years old are now eligible for the vaccine, what should be the choice that you make as a parent? And I’ve got three kids, Buck, 13, 10, and 6. I care about them more than anything in the world.

I don’t want them to get vaccinated because the data reflects that they are not in danger from covid, and that, if they get it, they will be fine. I’m more afraid, frankly, of this vaccine and it being rushed and the fact that why would you give it to children? My kids have all been in-person in school. We have, fortunately, been able to weather covid I think better than almost anywhere in the country here in my home state of Tennessee.

But I’m not gonna give my kids the vaccine, and I know there are a lot of parents and grandparents out there listening to us, aunts and uncles, who have young kids as well. And I feel like it has become an anti-vax argument to say that you don’t want your kids under the age of 18 to get the vaccine and I think that’s fundamentally unfair. Because every parent out there cares, every grandparent cares more about their kid than anything.

These are real decisions that we’re making.

I got my kids vaccinated from measles, mumps, rubella, all of the things that are tangible threats to them. But there’s a lot of evidence. Germany, not exactly known for its irrationality… German scientists have come out and said kids under 18 shouldn’t get the vaccine, and now the WHO — and I know, again, there’s questions about whether or not you can trust them. But, Buck, the WHO came out and said they don’t support vaccination for anyone under the age of 18.

BUCK: Always with this, Clay, there’s a lack of the next step in the conversation too. There’s the rewriting of history which we’ve talked about where we’re supposed to forget that what I often refer to as the Fauciite consensus, the blue-check expert —

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: — MD class have been not only wrong, but obviously deeply politicized in a lot of the recommendations here. I mean, all you have to do — and I just came from New York City — is walk around. You will see people double masked in 85-degree weather outside by themselves.

CLAY: How is Nashville comparable to New York City in your experience?

BUCK: I walked into hotel here and the people at the front desk had no masks on and I thought I was in some alternate universe all of a sudden.

CLAY: It is amazing.

BUCK: You still require masks at the coffee shop on my corner in New York, you still have masks required in every grocery store everywhere, and this is despite the fact that New York City, for example, has a 70% give or take vaccination rate, among the highest in the country, this has become a political branding exercise and religious belief really for a whole lot of people, which you and I saw when we used to talk about this over a year ago now.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: Because it was an object that people wanted to show off to people. “Oh, I’m… I wear masks all the time. I wear them on the treadmill,” all the rest of it. And when we go back and look at so many of the decisions whether it’s the shutdown of schools, which never should have happened, or now the masking. After Fauci said, “Don’t mask,” then it was, “You should mask,” and then it became, “Double mask!” As we know, the whole thing became absurd.

We’re now being told that you have to get vaccinated no matter who you are across the country. That’s where the Biden administration is. Everybody’s gonna get vaccinated. They don’t even talk about how there could be a need for boosters, which would mean that we would have to also run this process again.

CLAY: All the time.

BUCK: So if you think that it’s a one-and-done, I need someone to explain to me — and I’m someone who’s seen a lot of the bad policies here coming — why we’re not gonna have to go through this, you know, year in and year out. And the return of Fauciism with masking during flu season. If you think that they’re not already gearing up for this, we actually have President Biden at the White House on Friday talking about — you guessed it (impression), “New variants, folks! New variants.”

BIDEN: (whispering) The new variant will leave unvaccinated people even more vulnerable than they are a month ago. This is a serious concern, especially because of what experts are calling the Delta viruh…. (sputtering) Uh, the Delta variant. It’s a variant that is more easily transmissible, potentially deadlier, and particularly dangerous for young people.

BUCK: Now a few things. One: I guess we’ve moved away from the South African variant —

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: — or, you know, the U.K. variant whatever it was they were saying before. But also, Clay, the story over the weekend — Daily Mail had this — was that there are all these experts now who are saying these red states are gonna get it and they’re gonna get it badly, if they don’t just bend the knee and get vaccinated across the board. Everybody! Man, woman and child across the board.

CLAY: And what’s the biggest issue here that isn’t being talked about to me is I went to my local grocery store last week and I got an antibody test. It was 25 bucks, took 15 minutes, get my finger pricked. They come out and they say, “Hey, you’ve got covid antibodies.” I never tested positive for covid. I had one day in the last 18 months where I had a fever, a Sunday.

I worked from home for the next eight to 10 days. I didn’t go get tested. It was the middle of November, and the testing sites were totally overwhelmed. I’ve had the flu before. I’ve had a lot of other illnesses. I’ve never gotten tested for the flu. I felt fine. One day had a fever; the next day I was fine. Okay? So I went and got tested for the antibodies. One of the things that the experts don’t seem willing to acknowledge is we know that there are over a hundred million people who have had covid. I’m one of them.

BUCK: You’re one of them.

CLAY: I’m one of them.

BUCK: Yep.

CLAY: We have right now in our blood, antibodies, many of us do. The same thing that you would get if you got the vaccine except a natural version. Rand Paul, senator from Kentucky, talked about this. He is a doctor, unlike a lot of other people who claim to be doctors out there, the blue checkmark brigade as I call them. I’ve made the decision that I’m not going to go get vaccinated now because I’ve already had covid.

Other people could make other decisions. But when I have the antibodies in my blood, I would literally be going to get a vaccine to get antibodies in my blood. I feel fine, I feel healthy, and I understand that everybody should be able to make their own decisions about whatever they choose to do for their own health.

Additionally, as a parent, I have to sit back and look at my 13-, my 10-, and my 6-years-olds and say, “Okay, what am I going to do for them?” And the answer is not a damn thing. Because I look at the data, and if they get covid, they are under infinitely more risk… This is true. For people under the age of 18, you are under infinitely more risk of death from the seasonal flu than you are from covid.

Look at the data. Covid is drastically overrepresented with people who are senior citizens. If you’re a senior citizen and you’re listening to us right now, I’ve said this to my own parents, “I would encourage you to go get the vaccine. You are in a greater danger from covid.” You don’t have to listening to me, but that’s the advice that I gave my parents. That’s the advice that I gave the elderly family members in my family.

BUCK: Same advice I gave my parents who are vaccinated.

CLAY: Yes. My parents are too. That’s the same thing: You don’t have to listen to us. We’re not telling you that you have to do anything. But for kids, I’m not doing it, Buck. And it’s crazy to me that there’s not even a real discussion about this in the United States when the WHO and Germany are both saying, “Hey, we don’t believe kids under the age of 18 need to be vaccinated at all.”

Certainly not really young versions of that, right? And this ties in with college kids and everyone else. If you’re in your teenage years, you’re in your twenties, you’re in your thirties, unless you have major health-related conditions, you’re gonna be fine if you get covid. And this has been my argument. I know, Buck, you got into this as well.

When this whole debate started, I said look at the stratification of ages. And if we were making intelligence, rational policy decisions, we would have isolated the elderly and the severely unhealthy and told them to stay away from modern society and let everybody else go to work.

BUCK: This is what the Great Barrington Declaration of thousands of doctors and scientists said.

CLAY: Which everybody tried to shut down —

BUCK: Oh, they absolutely did.

CLAY: — and pretend didn’t exist.

BUCK: And that’s why “the science,” which Fauci has doubled down… I want to come back to Fauci as the science.

CLAY: He’s such a… He’s a clown.

BUCK: He’s referred… He said, again (impression), “If you don’t like me, you don’t like the science.” So let’s —

CLAY: He went to your high school, though, by the way, right?

BUCK: He did. He went to my high school. He’s like the one that high school loves. Me, I don’t know.

CLAY: Yeah. You’re the black sheep.

BUCK: Yeah. But we’ll come back into this, because here’s what I want all of you to understand. This hasn’t gone away, folks. I just flew here. There are still all these regulations and all these rules.

CLAY: Don’t get me started on airports and airplanes!

BUCK: It’s crazy, and unless we go and say, “What did we get wrong here?” I’m telling you, even if where you live… If you’re breathing that free fresh air without two or three masks on your face and a plastic bag over your head and whatever else is going on. But finally, if you’re breathing that fresh air in Texas, in Florida — in any state that’s not basically New England, New York, or California — the federal government, the Biden administration, they’re not done with you on this one yet.

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Rush’s Timeless Wisdom: The Constitution

21 Jun 2021

CLAY: Buck, you know, I think it’s a really good omen. Our show is debuting on the anniversary of when the U.S. Constitution became the official framework of our government.

BUCK: June 21, 1788, Clay. That’s when New Hampshire became the ninth of 13 states to ratify it. Rush spoke of the Constitution often, as we all know, with great admiration, with awe, with reverence. The show will continue to feature Rush’s wisdom as it relates to the present day, so we thought it appropriate to start with these words from Rush.

RUSH: The U.S. Constitution limits the role of government in everyday life.

The founders of this country realized that the natural tendency of human beings with power is tyranny. They knew it. They realized it. They built in checks and balances to assure that we didn’t have tyranny, and that, if we did, it was gonna take a long time to pull it off. They knew what human nature was. They had studied it from the beginning of time. And it is truthful to say that the natural tendency of people with political power is tyranny.

That is what is so miraculous about our country. We’ve been around 200-plus years, and we have had a piece of paper, essentially, the Constitution, that everybody has sworn allegiance and fealty to, amazingly. It would have been not difficult at all to rip it up at any time in the past 200 years. There have been people that tried. There have been people that wanted to. But in the end, we somehow — and I believe it’s because we are a nation blessed by God. We have survived where other people on this planet have not.

Something about the sheer, raw decency, goodness of power as defined and expressed in our Constitution has intimidated even the worst of bad actors into leaving it alone. Until now. Now we have arrived at the moment where the Constitution no longer frightens the people behind Joe Biden. The Constitution no longer threatens them. The Constitution no longer intimidates ’em. But you know why? Because they believe that a significant portion of the American people have no idea what the Constitution says.

They believe that a majority of the American people have no idea what the Constitution’s about. They believe a majority of Americans have no idea what the Bill of Rights is. If you don’t know what the Bill of Rights is, then how can you be upset over losing it? And, to a point, they are right. We do have… Because of so much ignorance in our education system, we have literally lost the education system and pop culture.

CLAY: It’s amazing to think about how we have entered into a world — those are Rush Limbaugh’s words — where so many of you listening to us right now feel terrified to say what you think about covid, or to say what you think about any subject in the world right now. I’ve always argued — and this is me putting my lawyer hat on, Buck — that the single most valuable asset we have as a society is our embrace of Western civilization.

What Rush is really talking about there, for anybody who studies history — and I know you’re a history nerd like I am, Buck — is our government represents the best approximation and analysis of all of Western civilization, the best things that we could pull from all of history to create the most — even while it’s imperfect — just form of government that has ever existed in the history of the free world.

And much of what I see going on on a day-to-day basis now, Buck, is really not just an attack upon American values. It’s an attack about all of Western civilization, which is the foundation, essentially, of all freedom in the world. And it’s so maniacally insane to me that saying, “Hey, maybe we should learn from the Greeks and Romans.

“Maybe we should learn from all the Entitlement values, as we did to create the best form of union that we can…” “Oh, but wait a minute, those are a lot of white guys. We can’t listen to them anymore.” That’s kind of the world that we found ourselves in, and it scares me. We talked about this when we started the show.

I don’t only think — and this is one of the great things about being a father and a parent — your worldview expands from, “Hey, what’s going to happen during my life.” And one day, you’re gonna find this out, Buck. And immediately when that kid arrives you start thinking about, “Hey, long after I’m gone, what world are they going to inherit?”

And we’ve been talking to you for over two hours, and we’re gonna be talking to you hopefully for years. But that’s where my motivation to take on this challenge with this show with you, Buck, came from, thinking about. How do we pass on the values that have driven the success of this country to the next generation?

I know there’s a lot of people, a variety of different ages that are listening to us right now. You’re 39. I’m 42. God willing, we got a couple of generations ourselves where we can continue to influence things and continue the battles that Rush fought. But, man, I’m already thinking about what is coming for that next generation, for my 13-year-old, for my 10-year-old, for my 6-year-old?.

I’m not worried so much about my life. I’ve had a great life. But I am concerned when Western civilization itself is under siege and when the foundational documents of our country — which have allowed us to be the most successful country and the best beacon of freedom that’s ever existed in the world — is now under assault. That’s why I’m here, candidly. And I know that’s a big reason why you’re here, too.

BUCK: I think the recognition that everyone should have is that the left in this country and in the broader West and around the world in so many ways, is intentionally kicking at the load-bearing walls of Western civilization. They do this knowing what the eventual goal is. There are reasons why they are trying to undermine and attack the family, religious belief.

Whether it’s a question of your ability to practice freely, not just under covid, but in general. They try to eliminate separation of the genders. We’ve all seen this. They’ve tried to eliminate gender, essentially, as a concept, as a meaningful, organizational principle of our lives and how we interact with each other.

CLAY: It’s going on in the Olympics right now, Buck.

BUCK: They’re undermining fundamental freedoms that we thought we all held dear and had in common in this country, but doing so openly because, unfortunately — and I think the show, while we are going to be fighting for you, we are also going to be a reminder of what the left has accomplished so far and where they think they are in this whole process.

They feel ascendant. You could point to elections, and you can point to the back-and-forth of power. But, if you look at the culture, if you look at some of the foundational principles that holds our country together, that actually keeps us as one people, those are under assault from open borders.

Those are under assault from an anti-constitutionalism that is essential to the left-wing view of America today, because restraints on government power mean that you can never actually get to the utopia that the leftists, the authoritarian Democrats — really, increasingly obviously the Marxists.

I even have friends who say they have “a communist ethos without communist economics.” That’s essentially what we’re facing in so many ways from the Democrat Party today. This is a real challenge and a real fight, because, if you look over the last 20 years — put elections aside for a moment — you’re asking that question about your children and many other people listening to this show: “What does the future look like for their kids?”

CLAY: And grandkids.

BUCK: And grandkids. And it’s going to be, on a current trajectory, a very different place. I don’t think we should lapse into a fatalism about that. I think there should be an understanding that we can go back to founding principles. We can go back to true unity. I know that world has been turned into a laugh line by the Biden administration, which tried to unify for by five seconds after he was sworn in.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: But that’s one of the things. We will both be serious, Clay, about the scale of the challenge — and, honestly, the threat — to our Americanness that we face. But also be happy warriors in this fight because we know the great news for us is that we have so many millions and millions of people across the country in this house that Rush built, so to speak, that know that they have to stand with us at the barricade. They know that they are in this together with all of us.

CLAY: You guys are the tip of the spear. Buck and I are gonna be out there in front of the line, but you guys are the tip of the spear. And what is encouraging to me… I think the “happy warrior” phrase is a good one I like to use too. What is encouraging to me is, Buck, we’re on the side that’s going to win. We are. I firmly believe that. I’m a huge optimist.

I think if you study American history, over time, rationality, logic, reasonableness wins. Right now, it’s not. And there have been periods throughout American history where irrationality, fear, fearmongering, unfortunately race-baiting, identity politics, cancel culture, all of that rolls together. And for a short period, it can look like that side is going to win.

But I think what ends up happening — and I can already see it rising up — is there is a strong reaction coming on the other side. In 2022, I think Republicans are gonna take back the House and probably the Senate, and with the right nominee in 2024 — which we’ve been talking about already — I think that Kamala Harris is gonna get her ass absolutely kicked.

Destruction. Without covid, without covid happening, Donald Trump wins a landslide in 2020. We can get into all the different permutations of voting and everything else. But if covid doesn’t happen, Buck — and I think you’re with me here — Trump wins Minnesota. He wins Pennsylvania with ease. He flips, I think, Nevada. I think he flips New Mexico.

We’re talking about a destruction — and I think what the Democrats have reaped here is they have convinced themselves that identity politics and cancel culture is their route to power. And I think in 2022 and in 2024 Western civilization’s gonna rise up. And all the reasonable, logic, rational people out there are gonna kick some serious ass. And guess what? We’re gonna be here with you enjoying that ass kicking.

BUCK: I remember that 2010 election. I remember in 2008-2009, everyone thought that it was going to be a fundamental transformation of America. Now, some of that may have been accomplished over the ensuing years. But there was quite a big pushback, and it led to a whole movement, and there might be another movement, Clay, to your point about the midterms.

And part of that, I think, is because of exactly what Rush said: The genius of the Constitution is that understanding of human nature. And even at that point, it does to me and to Clay right now — feel like freedom is not just under assault, but perhaps is beginning to die out.

CLAY: All of Western civilization, Buck!

BUCK: There are embers for the conflagration to come, that all we have to do is just breathe a bit more into the Constitution and those fundamental precepts of American life, and it can all come back, and that’s part of our goal here.

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Lawyer Clay Explains the SCOTUS 9-0 Slap Down of the NCAA

21 Jun 2021

BUCK: I just want to tell folks what happened, and then I’m gonna let Clay explain why this is a big deal. Um, I can’t say the Biden version of that. It’s a big deal, okay? “The Supreme Court of the United States has unanimously affirmed a ruling today that provides for an incremental increase in how college athletes can be compensated, and also opens the door…” This is on ESPN.com right now. “It also opens the door for future legal challenges that could deal a much more significant blow to the NCAA’s current business model. Clay, 9-0 slapdown.

CLAY: (chuckles)

BUCK: Why does this matter so much?

CLAY: So, big picture. What I have argued for years is I’m a robust capitalist, right? I believe in the market. I want you and me and all of you out there with us to make as much money off of our talents as we possibly can. That’s what’s so strange about the way that college athletics is set up right now, Buck, because your talents — in particular in football and men’s basketball, which is where all the money is made.

You aren’t able to be compensated for your own talents. So, it can lead to ridiculous situations. I’ll give you an example. A lot of people probably are familiar with the name Johnny Manziel. He won the Heisman Trophy, played at Texas A&M, went on and was a first-round draft pick, did not have a great NFL career.

When he was in college, when he showed up at class or when he was around campus, people would show up with Sports Illustrated magazines with his picture on the front and ask him to sign those. As soon as he signed those, they would then take ’em and put ’em on eBay, put ’em on wherever they could sell them, hundreds of dollars.

You or me could have shown up on that college campus with those magazines, taken it to Johnny Manziel, gotten his autograph, sold it for as much money as the market was willing to pay for it. If Johnny Manziel himself sold his autograph, he was not eligible to play college football. I’ll give you another example.

Todd Gurley, good running back, played for the Rams, played at the University of Georgia. He sold his own jersey that he got for a bowl game — his own jersey that he wore that he was not gonna wear again that was his property — and some cleats that were told that he was not gonna wear anymore. He autographed them.

They found out that he did that he was suspended I believe it was six games. Everybody out there listening right now is saying, “Wait a minute. The Johnny Manziels and Todd Gurleys of the world didn’t even have the right to make money off of their own autograph, but if somebody else got their autograph, they could immediately sell that?”

That does not strike most people as being responsible and fair and just in America, in a country that embraces capitalism marketplaces. It doesn’t seem right. So this lawsuit effectively challenged the overall consensus benefits that were going to athletes, and it was determined to violate antitrust law.

Now, this is just the first domino that is starting to knock down all the other dominoes, right? The big significant factor here, I would say, is what Brett Kavanaugh wrote it. You remember Brett Kavanaugh the guy that all the blue checkmark brigade out there were furious that Brett Kavanaugh could ever become a Supreme Court justice.

BUCK: They lied about this guy a lot, by the way.

CLAY: Yes.

It doesn’t matter what is in your background.

BUCK: But I don’t mean to derail us from this.

CLAY: Brett Kavanaugh filed a concurring opinion. This was a Gorsuch opinion, 9-0, as you mentioned. But this paragraph, I think, is particularly significant from Brett Kavanaugh writing in a concurring opinion. And, by the way, if people out there who are like, “Why does your opinion matter?” I do have a law degree as well.

So as I used to say on my sports talk radio show, “Let me put my lawyer hat on here and sort of analyze this from a legal perspective why it matters.” To me, this is the essence of not only thinking about what the news is now but thinking about how the news is going to go in the future. This is Brett Kavanaugh:

“To be sure, the NCAA and its member colleges maintain important traditions that have become part of the fabric of America — game days in Tuscaloosa and South Bend; the packed gyms in Storrs and Durham; the women’s and men’s lacrosse championships on Memorial Day weekend; track and field meets in Eugene; the spring softball and baseball World Series in Oklahoma City and Omaha.”

By the way, that’s going on right now; it’s fantastic, the College World Series.

“The list goes on. But those traditions alone,” and I’m reading from Brett Kavanaugh, his concurring opinion, “cannot justify the NCAA’s decision to build a massive money-raising enterprise on the backs of student athletes who are not fairly compensated. Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate.

“And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The NCAA is not above the law.” The big story here, Buck, is I think the NCAA’s days are numbered — and the NCAA, of course, manages all college athletics. And there are gonna be so many lawsuits that spiral out of this, because basically in college athletics, there are only really two sports that produce revenue and are profitable.

BUCK: And only a small percentage of schools overall, too.

CLAY: That’s right. Men’s basketball and football. And a small minority, tiny, like one or two — the UConn women, sometimes the University of Tennessee women. Big women’s basketball programs might break even or make a little bit of money. But all the money comes from the Ohio States, the Alabamas, the Oklahomas of the world rolling all of their cash — primarily from football — into the rest of the college athletic ecosystem.

So the challenge here — and this gets really complicated. But under Title IX, male athletes and female athletes have to be the same number of scholarships but also receive all the same benefits. So in theory in the socialistic system the starting quarterback for the Alabama Crimson Tide has the same value as a women’s lacrosse player.

We know that’s not true in reality, but they get the same benefits. How is that gonna play out going forward? It is a monumental and a massive question, and the Supreme Court saying that right now the NCAA is violating antitrust law puts the NCAA on the short list here, I think, in terms of what its long-term longevity is gonna be.

BUCK: It’s gonna be quite a thing when women’s field hockey —

CLAY: Those lawsuits are coming.

BUCK: — is saying, “We want an 80,000-person stadium and salaries and benefits too.”

CLAY: There’s no doubt.

BUCK: That’s gonna happen.

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Clay and Buck Open Their First Show

21 Jun 2021

CLAY: You are listening to The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show live from our studio in Nashville, Tennessee. We appreciate all of you, wherever you are listening in this great country or this great world, and we know that we are stepping into the time slot of one of the greatest individuals to ever do radio — if not the greatest individual that has ever done radio — in the history of this media.

And that’s why we’re consistently not ever going to say that we are replacing Rush Limbaugh because no one is ever going to replace Rush Limbaugh. But what we are going to do is continue the fight that Rush Limbaugh fought so eloquently and so spectacularly for so many years because we know that all of you out there listening right now, there is an element of fear in this country that I think for generations we have not ever actually had to deal with.

And I think there’s a huge number of you out there right now listening to us who have picked up your phones at some point in time, thought about sending a tweet, thought about posting something on Facebook, thought about sending something on Instagram, but you are so terrified about what might happen if you share your actual opinion that you didn’t do it.

And if you haven’t had that thought, I guarantee you that you’ve had that thought about your kids or your grandkids or someone in your family and worried that, if you actually say what you think, you are going to find yourself in the midst of a cancel culture storm. And we are here… This is one of the great things about the platform that we have.

As Big Tech is strangling down and circumscribing what everybody can say and what they can’t say — as there is an overwhelming atmosphere of censorship that is descending across the country and continuing to grow — Buck Sexton and I are so incredibly excited and so incredibly grateful to be able to talk to all of you every single day and help to fight the battles that Rush Limbaugh fought for generations, for decades.

And we are going to be the voice for many people who do not feel like they have a right to share their voice. And we are going to be the absolute most honest show, I believe, anywhere that you are going to find in radio or any other medium. And one of the reasons that this show is going to continue to be so powerful is, in an era when so many people — whether it’s YouTube, whether it’s Google, whether it’s Amazon, so many places out there are keeping you from being able to be exposed to the truth and to the facts.

Radio… It’s an old medium, Buck, but it’s one of the most reliable out there. We’re gonna be able to talk to all of you directly and help to make — I really do believe this — the country a better, smarter place and maybe (just maybe) we’re gonna be able to, I believe, to win a lot of the battles that matter going forward.

BUCK: Now, some of you may have heard my voice before, and I bring it up just because I had the incredible good fortune seven years ago, in 2014, to fill in for the late, great Rush Limbaugh and then a number of times afterwards. I bring it up because one thing that Clay and I have been absolutely dedicated to from the very beginning here is that we understand that there’s a mission.

We understand that there is a fight ahead. It will be hard to think of a more difficult time in living memory in this country for conservatives to feel like they’re getting a fair shot in the marketplace of ideas — and, in this culture war, we’re not seeming to just cede ground every day. And what was Rush? Well, he was a valiant warrior for his cause.

But he was also, in military parlance… I know there are a lot of you out there who are current or former military. He was the great force multiplier. Rush Limbaugh is the reason I do talk radio. Rush Limbaugh is the reason so many others across the country are even in this medium. He was the one that we all looked to. He was the leader of this movement, and there’s a whole generation now — or multiple generations, really — of people who are taking up the fight for conservatism because of what Rush Limbaugh stood for and what he meant.

So, we show up here in this studio together, Clay and I, every day trying to do honor to that memory. And we understand that this is something that is sacred to all of us and to all of you. We will be your advocates in this. We will be the people who try to spread the message of conservatism across the country and continue on that work of Rush as a force multiplier, as somebody who inspired so many others.

It was a huge break in my career and a huge moment in my life when I got to sit at the mighty EIB Mic seven years ago. I couldn’t have thought of a time that here I’d be sitting with Clay — and now on hundreds of stations across the country — trying to take up the mantle, trying to continue on in that fight.

My great hope here is that we will make all of you proud, that we will make the memory of Rush proud, and we’ll do everything that we can to fight for this country that we love so very much. And you will be a critical part in that process. Your phone calls, your emails, your notes to us.

We want this audience to feel as interactive as possible with us throughout the course of this show because we are here to represent you, to speak for you, to connect, to make sure that you understand why we’re showing up every day, what this mission really is all about — and we’re gonna do our darn best. And with that, Clay, I think everyone should know a bit about who Mr. Clay Travis is and who I am, ’cause we’re also gonna have fun here.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: I mean, there is the overarching mission, but there’s gonna be this whole other component of two guys who have a whole lot of interests and background that they either bring to this or they share, and we want everyone to understand why it is that we’re doing this every day.

CLAY: No doubt. A really happy Father’s Day — late, I guess I should say, happy Father’s Day to everybody out there. I spent my weekend coaching Little League baseball. I have three boys — a 13-year-old, a 10-year-old, and a 6-year-old. I care desperately not only about what’s going on in the country for the adults out there.

But I think a lot more now about the country through the eyes of my three kids and what we are going to leave to them and all the other younger guys and girls out there who are growing up right now in one of the most tumultuous times in certainly modern American history. Some of you have been listening to me for a while.

For the past six years I’ve been doing Fox Sports Radio mornings 6 to 9 a.m. all over the country, and so for everybody who’s coming in that has been listening to the Outkick the Coverage show that I’ve been doing those past six years, welcome back to this show. I think we’re gonna continue to have a lot of fun here as well.

And a lot of you read and/or have been paying attention to the content that we put out at a website called Outkick.com, which Fox recently bought and we’ve been fighting a lot of these battles over the past several years. Buck, one reason I was so comfortable making the transition from sports talk radio to this show is because sports has basically become politics in many ways, and certainly in the covid era.

We did three months, four months basically of sports talk radio with no sports going on. And a lot of that discussion was about, “Hey, we have to get back to playing sports. We have to find a way to play college athletics. We can’t allow the Ivy League to dictate everything.” I fought hard for the Big Ten to be able to play, for the Pac-12 to be able to play, for the NFL and NBA and the NHL and Major League Baseball to find ways to play amidst this covid mess.

And so we already got a couple of sports stories we’re gonna dive into today. Supreme Court issuing a major ruling on NCAA. We’ve got a trans athlete qualifying for the Olympics. Sports has become integrally intertwined, in many ways now, with the world of politics in particular. And I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun, Buck, because you’re coming in, hey, six years in the CIA.

You know what it’s like on the ground in many ways in so many of these issues that we’re gonna be talking about. You’re far more informed than a lot of people who go on television, and certainly a lot of people who come on the radio and try to talk about it.

BUCK: Yeah, just by way of quick background for everybody listening in case you didn’t get it, I think I maybe filled in for Rush about a dozen times back in the day starting in 2014. But I’ve also been doing a show syndicated through Premiere Radio Networks from 6 to 9 Eastern for the last five years. My math on this may be off, but I think it’s the last five years. I got into this business, Clay, because of that sense of mission, quite honestly. I was in the CIA because of 9/11.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: And so I went over —

CLAY: You’re a New Yorker.

BUCK: A New Yorker, born and raised in New York City — unmarried but, as I keep telling my parents, I’m working on it. Getting closer. So no kids, no marriage for me quite yet, but I’m working on it. But, anyway, I joined the CIA because of 9/11. It was the first thing I wanted to do so as soon as I got out of school. I joined the CIA.

CLAY: ‘Cause you were how old when 9/11 happened?

BUCK: I was a sophomore in college. So I joined CIA, the Counterterrorism Center ended up deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan, and I came back and spent about 18 months with the NYPD intelligence division, which will come into some of our discussion today —

CLAY: Oh, yeah.

BUCK: — about domestic terrorism.

CLAY: And we’ve got a mayoral election in New York tomorrow, basically, right?

BUCK: That’s right. A big, big election that has implications for the whole country in terms of the politics and the narrative. I know New York City politics may not be at the top of everybody’s mind, but what it shows about crime. So I’m a New York native. We’ll get into some of that. I joined conservative media because — God bless him — Glenn Beck found me. Just basically heard about me. I’d never done a word about media never published a single anything. And Glenn said, “Don’t go to business school and become a Wall Street guy,” which was the plan.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: “Come work for me out of the CIA,” and I went right out of government work to start at The Blaze with Glenn and then syndicated radio. I managed to fill in for Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh on radio. I’ve been doing political talk radio now for going on almost 10 years. So that’s what I bring to this and that’s my focus — and certainly on the national security side, Clay and I are gonna be having a lot of fascinating discussions here.

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21 Jun 2021

The most recent straw poll for 2024 Republican candidates had these four guys as the top vote getters. Who is your top pick of the four for 2024?

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) June 21, 2021

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Vote in Clay’s GOP 2024 Straw Poll

21 Jun 2021

CLAY: I just put up, by the way, a poll question — Buck Sexton and I, we’re gonna get into this in a little bit. You can go vote @ClayTravis also @ClayandBuck go follow us on Twitter please. We’re gonna try to punch back on social media and actually win some of these battles occasionally.

But the most recent straw poll for 2024, these top Republican candidates were the top vote-getters: Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Mike Pompeo. Which of those four would be your preferred candidate right now in 2024?

The most recent straw poll for 2024 Republican candidates had these four guys as the top vote getters. Who is your top pick of the four for 2024?

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) June 21, 2021

That will be interesting to unpack, as we move throughout the first hour of this program. I’m curious to see how you guys are voting in that.

Clay and Buck

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