BUCK: What do we think the second year of the Biden regime is gonna look like, given what we’ve already seen? I actually wrote at BuckSexton.com, “Biden Will Be Even Worse in Year Two.” I wrote an editorial making my case ’cause, Clay, here’s my thought on this… I want to run this by you. Oh, wait! First off, before we get to that, here’s Nancy Pelosi’s assessment. Can we do the Pelosi assessment on Year One, and then I want you to take my thesis that Year Two is gonna be even worse for him but play clip 8.

PELOSI: (slurring) Today we (unintelligible) a proud anniversary. One year ago today, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn in as president and vice president of the United States.

CROWD: (smattering of applause)

PELOSI: Since that historic day, we have seen one of the most impactful first years of a presidency in modern times.

CROWD: (silence)

PELOSI: In modern times. Getting shots in the arms of millions of people, putting money in pockets, delivering the best year of job creation on record.

CROWD: (silence)

PELOSI: Working together —

BUCK: Okay. We can put a pause on it. First of all, she’s right in that it’s the most impactful first year in the same way that Chernobyl was very impactful. It was impactful for the surrounding community, Clay.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: But I think it only gets worse for him. Inflation? Tell me what you think here? Inflation gets worse, I think, as political capital dwindles. I think the Build Back Better plan is dead on arrival, and people are gonna realize that he’s done a horrible job managing the pandemic. Plus, we might have a war with Russia and Ukraine.

CLAY: So, I think the only advantage he might have in Year Two — and it’s been almost impossible to predict. But if we’re correct that basically everybody gets Omicron, and presuming that we don’t end up with a new variant that is even worse, that is, something that is much more deadly version of covid, that we end up going in that direction going.

I think that his one advantage is, it’s hard for me to believe that covid is going to be worse in July and August and September as people come out of their summer breaks and as they start to look towards the fall. And so, I don’t think it’s gonna be accurate. But, Buck, I could see an argument where he says, “We vanquished covid. That was the first battle that we had to win,” and that he takes credit for it.

Now, I think the natural biology of the virus is such that there’s virtually nothing that we’ve done that has been impactful at all — and in fact, you might be able to argue that the data reflects that the choices we made actually prolonged and made covid worse. In fact, I think there’s a strong element of that. But that’s the only thing that I can look towards going forward, and it’s not anything that he’s doing.

But he might try to argue, “Hey, we finally beat covid” and therefore things are gonna be better there. I don’t think they’re gonna get anything really passed in Congress for the next year, and I think that, frankly, is gonna become the case for 2023 and 2024 once you have a Republican House and probably a Republican Senate. But covid is his only saving grace, I think, for the midterms if he’s able to argue, “Hey, we finally beat it.”

BUCK: Well, I’d be so curious to see how they’re gonna try to balance this. Because I think that is their only play. So you’re right. I mean, there’s no way they’re not gonna say, “Look! We got you through covid!” But can they really say that if they’re also telling us — ’cause remember, people are getting tired of this crap. They’re finally saying, “Enough is enough. I don’t think the commies putting the fifth shot in my kid’s arm is something I necessarily am willing to go through, even if I was on board for Fauci Year One and most of Year Two.”

I think people are getting tired of it. So if they line it up for a fall where, you know, what are they gonna do? They’re gonna say, “We’re done with shots, no more masks on planes”? Are they really gonna — ’cause I think if they let that stuff linger, their narrative is gonna be more challenging for “we vanquished the virus” folks ’cause it’s gonna be, “Well, you have to keep us in charge or else the virus will come back,” something like that to justify continued restrictions.

But beyond that, they’re also obviously very nervous, Clay, and this has come up with the way Jen Psaki’s had to go around explaining that Joe Biden thinks this election, you know, will probably be legitimate. Josh Hawley — who we just had on recently, Senator from Missouri — points out, Democrats, Joe Biden included, clearly do not accept elections that they don’t win. If you’ve got clip 7 for me that would be fantastic.

SEN. HAWLEY: What I heard is what Joe Biden said loud and clear, which is he’s already making excuses for why he’s gonna did lose in November. Democrats don’t accept elections that they don’t win. I mean, it happened in 2000, it happened 2004, it happened 2016. (chuckles) Now it’s gonna be 2022. I mean, if Joe Biden thought that his party was gonna win these elections then all would be fine. But he thinks — and because the polls suggest — he’s gonna lose them, his party is gonna lose them, the House and the Senate, and therefore they’re illegitimate. I mean, it’s dangerous, it’s wrong, it’s ridiculous, and everybody knows it’s ridiculous, and yet there he is out there saying it.

CLAY: I think that’s well said, and it’s also emblematic of how nervous they are that he’s already making those arguments. And what’s amazing about it, Buck, as soon as I saw that during the presser on Wednesday, that’s exactly what they went after Donald Trump for. So, the arguments that Biden is making — and I saw the Wall Street Journal ding him pretty aggressively — actually undercuts his voting rights play.

Because he’s arguing that the only way democracy can be saved is if there are laws that are passed that are beneficial (theoretically) to Democrats, which is not anything that the average independent out there is gonna buy into. And to a larger context, I was amazed by how little discussion there has been over the things that are the most impactful on the American public.

For instance, Buck, do you know there wasn’t one single question during that press conference about the murder rate, about the border issues — or about, really, inflation in any kind of nitty-gritty detail? And we talked about this I think earlier this week, Buck, where many people out there judge how things are going in the country based on how much it costs to fill up their gas tank, their car.

And we’re talking about moving towards a $100 barrel of oil. That’s the prediction that many people have for what might happen in 2022. Well, if you’re not addressing that, then a lot of the other things that you might be doing don’t cut through the noise. And I think it’s indicative of how out of touch much of the press corps is, that there wasn’t a question about the murder rate. There wasn’t a question about gas prices, really.

There wasn’t a question about the border at all, and he took questions for two hours. And yet if you’re an average American out there, you feel like in many ways the Democrat Party is trying to address issues that don’t seem of paramount importance to you, whether it’s the voting rights bill, whether it is many of their priorities right now. And so, I think that goes to the essence of the difficulty that Biden’s gonna have.

To your point on things maybe get worse, I think he is gonna have a lot of difficulty connecting with the larger American public ’cause he’s not a great communicator. And what happened with Barack Obama after he got whipped in 2010, and what happened with Bill Clinton after he got whipped in 1994, was both of those guys were able to find a way to answer for their behavior and be more moderate and lead to their reelection. I don’t think Joe Biden has that skill set. I’m not sure he ever had it, but I certainly don’t think he has it now.

BUCK: I don’t think he has the skill set. I also think his party doesn’t have the desire. We have to look at what the Democrat Party actually is today. A lot of them… Look at their response to all of this. We’ve got… Look at problems: Inflation really high. What does the Democrat Party want to do? Spend trillions more federal dollars, right? What’s the problem that we have at the border right now? Tons of illegal immigration. What does the Democrat Party want to do?

Essentially stop all immigration enforcement and allow even more people to come in illegally. Same thing with all the covid restrictions. It’s not working. It’s making people not only miserable — and increasingly going through real psychological duress because it’s been now two years of this craziness. They want to double down and do even more extreme stuff after the less extreme things didn’t even work.

They look at things that you and I and the rational people listening to this program across America would take and say, “Okay. This failed and we need to do something differently.” They look at it and say, “We didn’t do enough.” I mean, this is just… The Democrat Party of today is just one long loop of, “Real communism has never been tried,” except it’s, you know, “Real Democrat leftism has never been tried.” It’s never that they’re wrong.

CLAY: And, Buck, I think we have to talk about, too, I know the election is not until November. But if you look historically what happens with many different Americans out there is in June and July and in August — when it’s summer, when the kids are out of school, when everybody’s busy — there isn’t a great deal of focus on what’s going on in the larger public policy arena.

So, we’re coming up now on the end of January. We’re probably talking about Joe Biden having to get things done February and March, or 2022 is out the window in terms of making any sort of substantial altercation in the trajectory of America. And so while we can say, “Hey, it’s still 10 months until November and Election Day,” the reality is summer people dial out. You come back after Labor Day and it’s officially election season. You got 60 days.

Well, they’re not doing anything in Congress then. Things have to change in a hurry in order for public perception to be altered just based on the way everybody’s pay attention. I don’t think that’s very likely at all to happen. And so, yes, things can change, but they really need to change in February and March. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like there’s any substantial alteration of what we have seen occurring likely in February or March. I just really don’t.