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Clay and Buck

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Disney CEO Grovels in Woke Struggle Session

8 Apr 2022

BUCK: The fight with the activist left over transgender children specifically and how the White House is going right into the center of this battle, that’s something we will be discussing here for sure in just a moment. It’s pretty stunning as you watch it play out. Nancy Pelosi complaining aloud it seems, reports of it that the far-left members of the Democrats in Congress are just making the usual Democrat head fake too hard to pull off.

All the Marxist stuff, the trans agenda stuff, the older Democrats want to play that stuff down in the election year. They don’t want the American people to really think about that before they go in and cast their votes in a midterm election where inflation’s already very high. The border’s wide open, which we all know. Border is a total mess right now. We’ll talk about that, too, updates on it.

They’re trying to say, “Well, we can’t really tell if when we get rid of Title 42 it’s really gonna cause a surge.” Yeah, they can, actually. They’re just lying to you, and we’ll have more on that in a moment. But first this is pretty remarkable, ’cause Disney — as we all know, Clay — is the company that is probably most associated, I would think… I mean, you’re a parent. I’m not yet.

But it’s most associated with the entertainment that you can trust your kids with. Disney movies safe for the whole family, good family fun. And we’ve seen these videos. Gotta hat tip Chris Rufo for getting them out there. He’s the one has sources inside Disney who is feeding these videos. Before I get to the CEO one, Clay, did you see the Disney executive who referred to herself as, uh…. “biromantic asexual”?

CLAY: Yeah, I don’t even know what some of these terms are now.

BUCK: (laughing) I was gonna ask you. I mean, you’re a smart guy. I had never heard that one. Had you heard that one? I had never heard that one.

CLAY: I have no earthly idea what in the world that represents, and they’re just making stuff up now. It’s not like I’m clueless. I’m not 85 years old and have never heard any of these terms at all. I don’t even… I can’t even imagine having to sit through this entire crazy Disney ritual humiliation, it felt like, basically of Bob Chapek, their CEO.

Because his contract, Buck, is up next year, and this feels like they have just ordered effectively a hit on this guy, and they’re going to try to find somebody else. And how crazy is the CEO that they are going to end up putting in place? Look, Disney is the quintessential — for many of you out there listening right now, this is a quintessential — Middle America, pro-America, kid-driven company.

And they’ve lost their minds with this woke agenda to the extent where I know a lot of people out there who are listening to us right now are thinking, “Hey, do I really want to spend all the money to take my kids to Disney World? Is there somewhere else?” I saw where people are pushing to take your kids to Dollywood, which is in my state of Tennessee, because it’s a more wholesome environment. Would you have ever believed, Buck, that Disney — even Disney, which is directed at children — would go this woke? It’s really kind of unbelievable that we’re here.

BUCK: What it proves to us is that the wokeness, the mind virus of wokeness — and I still really love that Elon Musk description, which is essentially wokeness gives vicious, nasty people an excuse to attack people and pretend that they’re virtuous for doing so. It gives unhappy, unkind, vindictive individuals some kind of virtuous armor to use while they go on attack against people.

And this is also reminiscent, I think, of the Maoist struggle sessions, right? This was from the Cultural Revolution in China. There would be denunciations, public denunciations that people would be expected to do of themselves and then, Clay… They would march people out into the town square or city square, whatever, and then their friends, their neighbors, even their family members would be told to come out and first the individual would have to say:

“I’m sorry that I am not enough of a friend of the revolution, and I betrayed the revolution’s principles and I’m disgusting. I hate myself for it,” and then all of their friends and family members would have to get in on it too. This was the way you had to prove your purity and fealty. Listen to… That was under Maoist China. This is a real part of history within living memory, close to living memory. And here is Disney CEO Bob Chapek groveling in struggle session fashion. Play 18.

BUCK: I mean, they might as well invite a bunch of school kids to come out with little sticks and hit him and say, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” ’cause that’s what they did in the struggle sessions in China.

CLAY: This idea — and I’m just gonna continue to repudiate it. This is what I wrote in my most recent book. This idea that corporations should take sides on every single political issue is just complete madness to me. I don’t understand if. I don’t… I think we’re gonna see — I really hope — a massive swing back in the other direction where companies are gonna come out and say, “You know what? We’re just trying to serve everybody.

“And the idea that we want to wade in on incredibly contentious issues, in what is effectively a 50-50 country, and be constantly fighting political battles when we are a for-profit corporation, to me, is absolute insanity,” and it’s been allowed to… This is the Trojan horse analogy that I think applies very well here, too, Buck. This idea that you allow… It starts off relatively minor, right?

You’re gonna allow in these “diversity” and “inclusion” people, give them a job title where all they care about is diversity and inclusion, and what do you think they’re gonna find? They’re gonna find issues with diversity and they’re gonna find issues with inclusion, because if they don’t find those issues, then their jobs aren’t protected. So they come in; they start looking around.

They start tearing up the existing infrastructure and arguing that you have to reform yourself in order to, in some way, justify why they have their jobs. Think about it, Buck. There’s never a diversity and inclusion person who shows up and says, “Hey, you know what? Everything’s perfect here,” because then they don’t have job security. They have to find flaws in the diversity and inclusion universe.

They tear apart everything, they don’t build anything back, and effectively they are the Trojan Horse. We’re allowing all these people into our institutions. They are coming in with no goal to build anything except to destroy the existing infrastructure — and every corporation and every major government entity is falling victim to the same problem.

And this is all happening not because it’s necessary, Buck, but because spineless leaders like Bob Chapek at Disney are afraid of what those D&I people are going to do. If they become the target, they’re gonna lose their jobs. They’re not doing what’s best for the company, they’re trying to do what’s best to preserve their job.

BUCK: This is not a new strategy, either. We call them D&I positions right now all through corporate America and also in bureaucracies, in the CIA where I used to work — which, as an organization, I think its brand as just unfortunately gone down. What everyone thought of it before, if they thought it was nefarious, at least they thought it was semi-competent and serious when it was doing its nefarious stuff and now they’re just like, “What is going on over there?” And I do not have good answers other than it’s a mess if you’ve ever seen folks out there, The Hunt for Red October, great movie, Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin… Well, Alec Baldwin.

CLAY: This is before he killed somebody.

BUCK: Well, in the early stages of the move Sean Connery kills somebody on the sub who is the political officer, the commissar, and this was a reality all throughout the Soviet Union. Whether you were working in a printing shop or you were in a military unit or you were on a submarine, there was someone assigned to make sure that you never committed an act of “wrongthink.” That was that person’s entire job.

Of course, in the context of The Hunt for the Red October, the slimy, grotesque Soviet apparatchik is the first one to go and everyone’s like, “Yay!” But the reality here is that you have ideological commissars all across corporate America, all across the federal bureaucracy and even down into the school system which I think is where we should probably go on this next, Clay, because at this phase — and you see all these parallels, right?

We just talked about Bob Chapek doing a struggle session. How many people have we seen even if they say something very mild or they’re just insufficiently committed to the cause, they go on these apology tours and they bend the knee. “I’m so sorry! I’m not enough of an ally.” It’s never enough, of course, because the nature of this mind-set, this really totalitarian mind-set that has taken over the left in this country, and really, I think was the purpose or the goal all along.

This has spread all over our cultural and political institutions, certainly within our media institutions, and now in the school system. And we should talk about this. Clay, you mentioned this to me. We coordinate right beforehand our favorite things we want to talk about. We’re both saying, “In New Jersey, this is madness.” They’re doing exactly what they say they’re not going to do or is not happening; therefore, the Florida bill is anti-gay.

Notice they’ve tried to do that. They’ve tried to mobilize the gay community against a bill that just says no gender identity for toddlers, essentially. It’s so dishonest, the “don’t say gay” aspect of it. Doesn’t say “gay” in the bill, never mind doesn’t tell anyone not to say gay. So, they lie about it, Clay, and then we see in the school system in New Jersey — other places too, by the way; we’re just gonna keep digging — they are teaching gender identity.

Megyn Kelly on her show… I know the school where she pulled her son out of very well. It was a rival school to mine growing up in New York City. She said straight up they were pushing trans ideology on her second or third grader saying, “You may think you’re a boy, but are you sure? You might be a girl.” To second graders! Adults are doing this, folks. I know it sounds crazy because it is. But notice how they’re not actually denying that this ever happens. They’re just saying it’s bigoted when you talk about it.

CLAY: We’re gonna talk about it, because I do think it’s significant. It’s amazing how quickly the conversation shifted from, “This is not even going on in schools,” right? That was the initial response to the Florida situation to now New Jersey coming out and basically saying, “Yeah, we’re teaching gender identity to second graders.”

BUCK: Just want to buy time to figure out what the talking points were gonna be, that’s what it feels like, because they are doing it.

CLAY: It completely justifies the Florida bill for anybody out there — and I think it’s the vast majority of parents — who think that kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and third graders should just be learning basic educational methods. Learn how to read, learn how to do arithmetic, learn the basics of education. We don’t need to be indoctrinating these kids in sexuality. But that’s what’s going on right now in New Jersey.

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C&B 24/7: Clay & Buck’s Show Prep

8 Apr 2022

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Read Buck’s Latest Opinion Piece on Fox Nation

8 Apr 2022

Read Buck’s latest opinion piece at FoxNews.com:

Fox News: Biden Is Creating the Worst Illegal Immigrant Crisis Ever
“The ongoing flood of illegal migrants is about to turn into a tsunami.”

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Clay Crushes Lab Coat Tyrant Over Lockdown Lunacy

8 Apr 2022

Clay appeared on Jesse Watters Primetime to discuss the desperate attempts of Anthony Fauci to dodge blame for how often he was wrong, blame President Trump for his failures, and keep hope of the extreme lockdowners alive.

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Great Question! University of Chicago Student Slams Stelter

7 Apr 2022

BUCK: We started off today, Clay had this clip of a young man at a U Chicago conference on disinformation, which is actually getting a fair amount of attention, ’cause I think the establishment journos believe that they’re gonna get to tell everybody else what the disinformation is. Not so fast. A young man in the audience asking Brian Stelter of CNN about some disinformation courtesy of CNN. Listen to this one.

BUCK: Oh, we don’t have his answer.

CLAY: Did Stelter respond? I mean, first of all —

BUCK: Hold on. Wait. We have Stelter’s answer. Just real quick. I was waiting for that. Go ahead.

STELTER: Time for lunch.

CROWD: (laughs)

STELTER: I think my honest answer to you is that I think you’re describing a different CNN than the one that I watch.

BUCK: Yeah, right.

STELTER: Possible right-wing narrative about CNN. With regard to “the regime,” I think you mean President Biden. The last time I spoke with a Biden aide, we yelled at each other. So, that’s the reality of the news business that people don’t see —

BUCK: We can stop. Stop. The little propagandist Stelter, “Oh, it’s not the same channel.” Give me a break. Clay, knockout punch from that first-year. CNN, down for the count.

CLAY: I want to send my kids to the University of Chicago just based on those two questions that I heard. Bravo, University of Chicago and those kids. Those are absolutely stellar questions holding people in power accountable for what they’ve said! I mean, bravo!

BUCK: They’re listening to this show. We got youth all over America that are Clay & Buck youth. We’re gonna be good to go!

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With KBJ Confirmed, Abortion Cases Take SCOTUS Center Stage

7 Apr 2022

BUCK: It is official. The Senate has confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson by a 53-47 vote. Three Republicans.

CLAY: You got it right.

BUCK: I gotta come up with some name. You’re Nashville Nostradamus. I’m like, I don’t know, somebody. The Michelangelo of Manhattan, but I’m not painting a Sistine Chapel. I gotta come up with something cool to say about my ability to predict the future. But maybe start, the Magician of Manhattan? I’ll figure it out.

Anyway, point is, I got it: Three Republicans did vote for Ketanji Brown Jackson, which is what I had assumed would happen. And, you know, Clay, now we’ll see. Already I think there’s a lot of political preparation for this next Supreme Court session decisions to come out, which just now coming up fast.

CLAY: Two months.

BUCK: Two months out. Jared Polis, the governor of Colorado, has signed the most radical abortion bill explicitly saying that you can terminate a pregnancy up until the moment of birth in the Colorado bill. My friend David Harsanyi at National Review wrote a very good piece on this yesterday. And you’re going to see other things, other places where Democrats in the state legislatures are deciding to try to codify it in advance of…

They’ll try to codify the full spectrum, at a state level, as a sort of companion to Roe, Clay, because they’re gearing up for what they think could be a sweeping… We don’t know. It could be a sweeping decision. I know we’ve gone back and forth with predictions on that one. But it’s gonna be a lively Supreme Court session — on a number of fronts, by the way.

CLAY: No doubt, and those opinions will be coming out in June, and then Stephen Breyer will step down at the end of June — and, most significantly, they’ve already said they’re going to hear the Harvard admissions case dealing with discrimination against Asians. That is the allegation, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, because she was on “the board of overseers,” I think is what they call it at Harvard, has already said she’s gonna recuse herself from that decision. So, only eight justices will be deciding affirmative action as it pertains to Harvard.

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Missouri AG Eric Schmitt on Suing Biden Over Title 42

7 Apr 2022

CLAY: We’re joined now by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt to talk about the chaos at the border that is looming as Title 42 will be repealed and removed as law by May the 23rd, I believe it is. Attorney General Schmitt, appreciate you making the time. What is going to happen come the repeal of Title 42, and what legally can be done to fight the decision of the Biden administration? Take us into that story, if you would.

SCHMITT: Yeah, I think, Clay, you’ve seen waves and waves of illegal immigration since Joe Biden’s taken office. We have an open and porous southern border, and we’ve had a lot of challenges there, and you see the coverage — not on mainstream media, but you’ll see certain outlets where it is covered. But the repeal of Title 42 which was a Trump-era policy, which allowed…

Essentially, because of covid, the Trump administration put this in place to turn away illegal immigration, in many estimates about 50% of all those turned away are because of Title 42 and Border Patrol agents are able to apprehend folks. That’s going away. You know, if he filed a lawsuit, but that currently is going away next month, at a time when you’re gonna see a seasonal increase anyway and the settlements are that it will double the numbers of people coming in here illegally.

You’ve seen the waves and waves. This will be a tsunami of illegal immigration. Exaggeration aside, what we’re about to see a month from now, we’ve not seen this before. Now, Missouri and Texas filed a lawsuit on the Remain in Mexico policy last year. We took that to the Supreme Court and won. We’re fighting to the Biden administration to get that reimplemented.

We’ve also filed a lawsuit — Missouri and Texas have filed a lawsuit — to finish the border wall. That’s another piece that, you know, again you look at what was working under President Trump, we had a secure border and Joe Biden on day one, you know, stopped funding for the border wall, essentially paid contracts to not put it up. I’ve been down there. There are literally 30-foot high sections that are rusting on the ground, the migrant protection protocols, Remain in Mexico is working, he eliminated that. We’ve had to go to court, and so now we’re gonna go to court on Title 42. It’s just a mess and it’s gonna be worse.

BUCK: Attorney General Schmitt, it’s Buck. I was hearing early on that even after the Biden administration had to give way to the sanity of the Remain in Mexico protocol, that their whole plan was essentially to just slow roll it, and in the early stages they were putting — I think the number that I heard, this was some months ago, but it was — dozens of people through it. Do we know, has that continued on? Has that been their plan, or have they actually been using that program in a way that shows that they will at least obey a judicial decision on it?

SCHMITT: No, they slow walked it. You’re right, Buck, and in fact the Border Patrol agents expressed a lot of frustration when I was down there. You talk to them one on one, and a lot of the tools that they’ve had at their disposal have been taken away the other thing they did was slow walked they claimed that they had to, you know, renegotiate with the Mexican government.

This is the United States of America. President Trump was able to do this pretty quickly. They could have too. So they’ve slow walked it at every turn and in fact later this month, guys, we’ll be back at the Supreme Court I think it’s April 24th. It’s that Tuesday, the last Tuesday in April. We’ll be back in front of the Supreme Court, Missouri and Texas will, because we got a TRO in the preliminary injunction, but this is now for the whole shooting match.

They’re bringing that back now to the Supreme Court so we’ve had those wins. We expect — well, we’re hopeful — that we’ll be able to, you know, have that be a final order and force them to implement it more effectively. But this Title 42 is the newest piece, right? They held back on this ’cause I think you even see Democrats, Joe Manchin and people are talking about Title 42 — revoking that or rescinding that — is gonna be a disaster.

So, you know, this is on purpose. There’s no accident about this, and there are things… You know, I’ve been down there twice. The cartels are running the show. One law enforcement official told us when we were down there, me and some other AGs, a help you million dollars a week is the value of the human trafficking. I’m not even talking about the drug trafficking that’s happening. The human trafficking.

And people ask, “Why is Missouri filing this lawsuit?” Well, every state’s a border state. Because the drugs and the crime and the human trafficking, it doesn’t stop in El Paso; it doesn’t stop in McAllen. It ends up in Nashville. It ends up in St. Louis. It ends up in Ohio. It ends up in New Jersey. So these cartels have networks throughout the country that they’re running drugs and people, and it’s very dangerous. And we don’t know who these people are, we don’t know where they’re coming from. It’s a national security problem as well.

CLAY: Attorney General Schmitt, you just hit on something that I was gonna ask you about, which is, what is the impact of all these Democratic senators who are coming out and saying, “Hey, we disagree with the Biden administration decision here”? Because you could have potentially five to 10, even, as many Democratic senators saying, “Hey, we don’t support this.” Is there any kind of legal impact of a eventual vote that could take place in the Senate, and how would it impact Biden’s abilities when it comes to this regulation and how might that impact your lawsuit?

SCHMITT: Well, I think one of the bigger issues — and I think, Clay, when I was on the show and we were talking about the OSHA mandate; Missouri was the first state to file a lawsuit we took to the Supreme Court and won on the OSHA mandate — the same issue there is the same issue here which is a runway administrative state, right, that’s not accountable to anyone and trying to — and this is a much bigger problem.

But as it relates to this I think the pressure from Democrat senators could get the Biden administration to think twice about empowering, essentially, the CDC and Homeland Security be moving forward with this the because as they seek to, you know, unravel Title 42 they could back away from that. Now, we’re going into court to say, “Look. First of all, you haven’t even done it the right way. You haven’t had a notice-and-comment period,” which is a very technical term.

“But also, you’re not weighing — it’s arbitrary and capricious, ’cause you’re not weighing — the downside with what you perceive the upside to be of this massive wave of illegal immigration.” So that’s the nature of our lawsuit. But there’s political pressure, there’s no doubt, that could be applied to get the Biden administration to reverse course. And, as I said, this is — not that there’s ever a good time to do this, this is — the worst time to do this because you’re gonna see a seasonal surge anyway.

So you’re gonna have double the numbers. If you have 7,000 a day, you’re gonna have 18,000 a day, by many estimates. So this number is gonna be… IT could be half a million more per month. This is just not what a sovereign country does. You know, we got lectured all the time by the CNN types about the sovereignty of other countries’ borders. We have a southern border right now that is completely porous and open, and that’s not good for our country.

BUCK: We’re speaking to the attorney general of the great state of Missouri, Eric Schmitt. What do you think this does to the Democrats in the midterms, Eric? It feels like… Clay and I were trying to figure out before, the political angle of kicking the border more wide open than it already is. It’s already bad. Border Patrol will tell you that last year was pretty much the worst year in memory in terms of lawlessness, illegality, cartel exploitation, all of it. They think this year is gonna be worse. What do you think the Democrat plan is here?

SCHMITT: Well, I can’t answer that. It’s not by accident, and maybe they think it’s gonna reshape the electorate. But I think what’s also interesting is, you look at these border counties in places like Texas, they’re getting more and more red. People don’t want lawlessness in their communities. They don’t want this illegal activity. They know that the cartels are running the show.

In El Paso, schools get shut down all the time because of the illegal immigrants streaming across and they happen to be near the border. So schools get shut. People don’t want to see it. I think there’s a reckoning coming, guys, on a whole bunch different fronts. You’ve seen this in school board elections. You’ve seen it in Virginia. I mean, San Francisco (chuckles) recalled school board members because they want to rename George Washington High.

This stuff is nuts. The American people know it’s nuts and I think that cycle they’re gonna pay the price. They should. And we’re not having traditional political debates in this country about tax rights and entitlement reform. They’re talking about adding states to the union, they’re talking about packing the Supreme Court, they’re talking about federalizing elections, they’re talking about opening up the border. They want to fundamentally change this country forever. My hope is, my prayer is that there’s enough people who understand we gotta save America in every election, in the primaries and the general in 2022.

CLAY: AG Schmitt, last question for you. You mentioned the arbitrary and capricious nature of the decision as it pertains to Title 42. While simultaneously saying that covid, it’s not safe for people to be in airports or on airplanes without masks, the same agencies are saying, “But it is safe enough to limit the rules that were put in place for covid at the border.” How do you reconcile the disparate treatment there? Does that provide any avenue of appeal for you as well?

SCHMITT: Yeah. No, it’s definitely a fact, right, to point out. But I think it also points out the just purely political nature of all of this. And so, you know, for me I think when I was on the show last time, we were talking about I’ve sued, you know, 45 plus school districts in Missouri. We sued OSHA for the vaccine mandate. The CDC in particular and Anthony Fauci have completely weaponized that agency for political purposes.

These so-called public health experts are nothing more than political operatives. And here we go again, right? We’ve got… They want to encourage illegal immigration so it’s not an issue, but you still… But Americans still have to wear masks on planes. I mean, this stuff is nonsensical, but the good news is I think people see it, but there’s no question those issues will be relevant in our lawsuit.

BUCK: Attorney general.

CLAY: Outstanding stuff as always. Yes.

BUCK: Thanks so much, sir. Appreciate it.

SCHMITT: Hey, guys, yeah, and I didn’t even mention: I’m at Cardinals opening day, so I found a quiet place to do the interview. I was a little nervous about that so I’m glad we could do it without screening Cardinal Nation in the background.

CLAY: Hey, enjoy it. It’s a good day with the Masters back, Tiger is on the course, Major League Baseball opening day for a lot of places as well. We got a good affiliate in St. Louis. Appreciate them and enjoy the game up there.

SCHMITT: Love what you guys do. Take care.

BUCK: Thanks so much, sir.

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Come On the Show and Defend These Votes, Senator Romney

7 Apr 2022

CLAY: As we start the third hour here, there will soon be an official vote to put Ketanji Brown Jackson on the Supreme Court to replace Justice Stephen Breyer. That is going to happen, it appears, within this hour, and the vote will be 53 to 47 with three Republicans joining every Democrat to vote in support of her nomination. Susan Collins, Republican of Maine — we talked about this earlier in the week, Buck.

I don’t have an issue with Susan Collins’ decision because she has staked out the principle that you should defer to the president when it comes to his choice for the Supreme Court. Same position she took with Brett Kavanaugh, with Amy Coney Barrett, with prior Democratic nominations, and now with Ketanji Brown Jackson. You can disagree with that. I actually think Susan Collins has proven that that is her principle, and I respect her for standing on it.

Lisa Murkowski out of Alaska, who is up for reelection this year — and, Buck, Alaska has an interesting ranked-choice voting process, which makes me believe that this is a directly political decision by Lisa Murkowski. I find in terms of the Supreme Court her decision not to vote for Brett Kavanaugh to be such a bad choice that I personally if I lived in Alaska would not vote for her for the Senate because she got it, in my opinion, 100% wrong on Brett Kavanaugh.

BUCK: Unforgivable. Unforgivable. Sorry.

CLAY: No, no. You’re right, which is why I’m not inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt on this decision. But the guy that is making the worst choice — the person who has, I believe, become an embarrassment to the state of Utah that he represents — is Mitt Romney. And we went off on him a couple of days ago, but I’m still fired up about it, Buck, because not only is he voting for Ketanji Brown Jackson, he voted against the removal of the mask mandate.

He declined to vote on whether or not Joe Biden should be able to put in place a vaccine mandate — and this is so incredibly significant, Buck — he voted against Ketanji Brown Jackson for a prior judicial appointment, and now he’s supporting her for the Supreme Court, which makes no sense. He didn’t think she was entitled to sit on the federal judiciary for a much less significant role, and now he thinks she is for a more significant role! It’s nonsensical.

BUCK: You remember one of the really tough moments for John Kerry when he was running for president was, “Well, I voted for the Iraq war before I was against it.” You know, he had that whole line.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: And then you had people at the pro-Bush rallies, saying, “Flip-flop, flip-flop. ” That became — and I remember the media tried to say… It was John Kerry tried to say that we need to have more nuance and then everybody started saying that “nuance” was just a fancy French word for flip-flop. It was great. Like flip-flop was… I think people were actually carrying them around too at some of these rallies. This is Mitt Romney doing essentially the same thing. He was against Ketanji Brown Jackson’s elevation to the federal bench before he was for it or yes, against it before he… I can’t even keep it straight.

CLAY: He was against it. Now he’s for it.

BUCK: Now he’s for it. Thank you. He’s against it. Now he’s for it.

CLAY: That’s the opposite of what Lindsey Graham did and some people have been in the left-wing press critical of Lindsey Graham. But let me say this. I actually understand that on some level because you can say, “Well, for a relatively low-level judicial appointment, I’m willing to give her a chance to see how she does,” and then based on what her record is you now believe she’s not entitled to get a promotion to the Supreme Court. That is easier to understand for me than she doesn’t deserve the low-level job but now she deserves the high-level job.

BUCK: There’s a logical consistency at play there that, yes, I think it’s also more political. We’re gonna be realistic and honest with everybody always. Yes, I think it’s more politics than, you know, Lindsey Graham is saying, “Well, at that level, the federal bench is…”

CLAY: It’s easier to defend that trajectory than the one Romney took.

BUCK: The Romney defense is absurd. The Mitt Romney defense makes me just… I still sit here saying, “I can’t believe this guy was the Republican nominee,” and he was. But then you think, well, he was the governor of Massachusetts and then he moved to like a $50 million mansion on the beach of San Diego and now he’s the senator from Utah. I will say, though, one thing that we do I think pretty well is we hold — we try to hold — the right to account here when necessary.

I like to think of it like we’re coaches, right? We want to win the game, but you’ve coached; I’ve coached. Sometimes you gotta tell the team, you know, get your stuff together, boys, you gotta get out there and you gotta do a better job, right? On the other side of this, though, we should point out, that’s the Mitt Romney aspect of this. Republicans were… First of all, a lot of people are voting against Ketanji Brown Jackson. They don’t care they’re gonna be called racist for this.

CLAY: The left well, yeah.

BUCK: They don’t care, but more importantly — ’cause that’s just nonsense. But more importantly, they really asked some questions and they decided that they were going to give a real confirmation hearing. In this era of hyper-politicized Supreme Court appointments, Republicans didn’t entirely roll over. I will say, a little bit of a surprise to me, actually, the fact that they really pushed.

The issue of being soft on child pornography sentences really did get a national conversation here about this justice. Ted Cruz was very vocal — among others, Josh Hawley and others — about how she may be the most left-wing, activist judge of all time. I do think it’s really hard to get more left wing than Sotomayor but let’s just say it’s at least possible.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: So the Republicans, they didn’t have it the votes so it’s gonna be easy. They’re not gonna be making a deciding vote one way or the other, but they made some noise on this one. They actually put up something of a fight. Maybe it was just optics, but at least they didn’t roll over.

CLAY: What about Marsha Blackburn’s “What is a woman?” question, which, to me, crystallized how illegitimate the conversation has become as it pertains to transgender activism in so many different levels. But I also want to give Mitt Romney a chance to explain himself on this vote.

BUCK: Should we invite him on the show, Clay? Should we invite him on? Everyone listening, you guys cannot change the dial if we have Mitt Romney on to explain himself, all right? That’s the deal.

CLAY: If Mitt Romney wants to come on and defend the last three votes that I all disagree with — and I bet, Buck, a lot of our audience disagrees certainly with the mask mandate vote as it pertains —

BUCK: Our phone calls lit up like a Christmas tree on Monday.

CLAY: Yeah. The fact that he also voted to decline to show up — I don’t know what his excuse was, but declined to show up — to vote against Biden’s vaccine mandate. And now he’s going to vote in favor of Ketanji Brown Jackson after first being against it. Here is Mitt Romney explaining his John Kerry flip-flop-like decision.

ROMNEY: In the prior confirmation, was concerned that she was outside the mainstream. And as a result of our meeting for an hour together and reviewing her testimony before Congress, I became convinced that she’s within the mainstream. She’s also highly qualified, intelligent, a capable person, and I wish her the very best.

CLAY: Okay. So all this says to me is — and I’m saying this as a lawyer, all right? Mitt Romney did not do his homework on the first vote when he opposed her, because that’s really what this tells me. He’s saying, “Oh…” First of all, you talked to her for an hour? I’m sorry. You’re giving her a lifetime appointment? If you can’t do a decent job of being a likable person in a one-hour meeting, you are, first of all, probably socially maladroit on many different levels.

But to say, “Oh, I talked to her for an hour.” Well, Mitt Romney, to my knowledge, is not a legal scholar. So what kind of conversation is he having? It’s not like he’s probing in a sophisticated way her understanding of the Constitution. And, again, he said, “I now believe she’s in the mainstream.” So you thought she wasn’t in the mainstream, her opinions are certainly not in the mainstream, and then you change your mind and decide to vote for her?

So either you did a shoddy job in your initial vetting of her when you voted against her or you are doing a shoddy job now because there should be some consistency in your opinion of her as a jurist given that you are now promoting her to lifetime tenure and giving her the greatest job — in terms of influence — that a lawyer can have in this country. So I’d love for Mitt Romney to come on this show and attempt to explain all three of those votes because I think our audience would like to hear, particularly because, Buck, we’re number one in Salt Lake City, and I imagine a lot of his constituents are listening right now.

BUCK: Tucker on his show earlier in the week was also calling out the governor, I believe Governor Cox of Utah for —

BUCK: Transgender. You’ve had a number of people. You had the governor of South Dakota say she would sign something about transgender sports and then did not. You have, I think, the governor of Mississippi —

CLAY: Kentucky.

BUCK: — or is it Arkansas? One of those.

CLAY: Arkansas. It was Arkansas went against it.

BUCK: The governor of Arkansas went against it. Sorry, Mississippi. My bad. Governor Mississippi.

CLAY: (laughs) We had the governor of Mississippi on. He’s probably listening right now, like, why, “Why you throwing me under the bus?”

BUCK: But now the governor of Utah also, and then was overridden by the state legislature, right?

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: So it is important that people what actually happens in some of these states where you think it would just be, ’cause here’s the thing: You never get this… I have to point this out. Blue states, Gavin Newsom or… I was gonna say Cuomo. Cuomo. But it’s actually Hochul.

CLAY: Your girl Hochul.

BUCK: Thank you. My own state governor. Blanked on her name. I still think of Cuomo as the governor.

CLAY: By the way, she may have some trouble in your state. Have you seen some of the poll numbers coming out? Like, there’s some Republican support. She doesn’t have, it doesn’t seem like, a lot of support right now in the Democrat Party.

BUCK: I would hope that Democrats, even Democrats in New York City at some level recognize that, like, ruining the state is a bad idea. Just put aside the politics.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: Causing hundreds of thousands of people to flee in terror at your awful policies. Maybe you want to change that around. Call me crazy. But going back to the initial point out here, Clay, you never get governors in deep blue states going against their base and either vetoing or signing or whatever legislation that enrages Democrats.

But somehow Republican governors — and this is, by the way, corporate interests. What this is just bending to corporate interests within their state, primarily, and also the donor class but those things are obviously very much tied together. Yeah, even Republican governors, they like to be invited to the fancy clubs and get the big checks for their campaigns.

CLAY: It’s why you need people who just really don’t care? I mean, I hate to say it, but stand up for what you believe in — and if people disagree, so what? I just don’t understand what you care, right? Like, if people decide they hate me because of my political opinion and they don’t want to hang out with me, that just makes my life easier, right? If there’s fewer people who want to hang out with me, I’ll hang out with the people who like me the most.

I just don’t understand this. And, by the way, the state of Kentucky, the governor who’s a Democrat… Overwhelmingly the Kentucky legislature passed a bill to require high school athletes to compete against their birth certificate sex. Boys compete against boys; girls compete against girls. The fact that they even have to pass this bill is crazy to me. The Kentucky governor vetoed it too.

Now, he’s a Democrat, but the governor of governor of Kentucky being a Democrat, he’s actually closer to a Republican than some Republicans are, right? I mean, he is as far to the right as you could be. It’s just… I know there’s a lot of people in Kentucky fired up about this and I expect the legislature which passed it on a bipartisan basis is gonna overrule him, too. But the fact that it happened in Utah, the fact that it’s happened anywhere else — that a Republican governor would not sign this bill — is, I believe, an embarrassment given what’s going on right now.

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Dan Hoffman Says Putin Needs Victory in Ukraine by May 9

7 Apr 2022

BUCK: We are gonna spend some time now updating you with the latest from the war in Ukraine. How is this going? What is the reality of the Russian pullback from around Kiev? Is it just regrouping for another round of assault on the capital city there? How is the Biden administration handling all of this? We’re joined now by Dan Hoffman. He’s a former CIA station chief. Dan, thanks so much for being here.

HOFFMAN: Yeah. Thanks a lot for having me on the program.

BUCK: Let’s just start with your 30,000-foot view of where is Putin vis-a-vis where he is expected to be at this stage, and how would you assess the Ukrainian resistance is holding up against the Russian onslaught?

HOFFMAN: Yeah. So, we’ve just gotten into the seventh week of this war, which Vladimir Putin called it “a special military operation” when he launched it. I think Vladimir Putin expected to defeat Ukraine quickly, decapitate the government in Kiev, and install his own puppet regime. Well, thanks to those brave Ukrainian freedom fighters, that’s not the way it turned out.

President Zelensky mobilized the West, which has supported Ukraine with — not enough, but some — military assistance that is helping Ukraine stay in the fight. But this is all about those brave Ukrainians fighting for freedom and liberty and democracy against a ruthless enemy. And this is where, you know, the geopolitical fault line is right now between democracy and dictatorship. It’s in Ukraine.

We fortified our support to NATO members. That’s part of the Biden administration’s three-pronged strategy, which also includes economic sanctions against Russia and military assistance to Ukraine. But Ukraine, that’s where the fighting is. And there’s no country that’s done more than Ukraine has to defend, deter, and counter Russia, which is what NATO was established to do in the first place.

But the big concern for me was testimony yesterday from General Milley, who said he thinks this conflict might last years. I think he’s right. If we’re lucky, if this is where the Biden administration continues to go in terms of their support of Ukraine, but we don’t have years. How many more atrocities do we want to witness on Ukrainian soil? How many more cities like Bucha or maternity wards like the one that the Russians bombed in Mariupol? How many times do we want to see that? There’s a moral and ethical component to this. We need to up our ante in supporting the Ukrainians so we can end this faster, not allow it to continue on.

CLAY: Dan, thanks for coming on the show. What about leaving Ukraine and going to Russia? I know you’ve spent a lot of time analyzing the situation in Russia. Reports are that Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings, to the extent that you can rely on anything in Russia, have actually increased during this war. Do you buy that? How much internal political pressure do you think is on Putin inside of Russia?

HOFFMAN: Yeah. So those polls are notoriously inaccurate, because if you ask somebody what they think of the war, it’s either, “I love the war,” not a war, “special military operation,” or they’re going to jail if they’re lucky. So, I don’t really think that — that really tells us a whole lot, but I also don’t think Vladimir Putin is under threat from the Russian population writ large.

I mean, he’s repressing them pretty seriously. They’re not allowed to protest. There’s no free media in Russia — and the only ones who could potentially cause Putin any trouble is his own inner circle, if they decide that they just don’t want to take the orders from the KGB guy in the Kremlin anymore to inflict these atrocities on Ukrainian citizens. Maybe not for that reason but because they want to send their kids to school in the West and they want to continue to steal whatever money they can from Russia’s export of hydrocarbons and other natural resources. Maybe that will motivate them. But that’s kind of, you know, a replay of the failed KGB coup against Gorbachev has to be lurking in Putin’s mind, and so he’s gonna do everything he can to prevent that from happening.

BUCK: We’re speaking to Dan Hoffman, former CIA station chief. Dan, what do you think Putin is trying to get at here? Meaning, what would be an end state where he’d be willing to stop the onslaught in Ukraine? Is it just the east and the south and the land bridge between them in Ukraine? How do you see this coming to a conclusion?

HOFFMAN: Yeah. So I think that’s an incredibly insightful and important question that I’m sure that the Biden administration, key members of the administration are asking our intelligence communities right now. What are Vladimir Putin’s plans and intentions? My reading of this is that Vladimir Putin has gone so far and committed such atrocities against Ukrainian citizens — which brave, very intrepid journalists from Fox News where I work and other networks have recorded, thank goodness.

There’s so much of that that I just think Vladimir Putin is in this thing, he’s a gotta win and he needs an immediate win before May 9 which is, of course, a big day in Russia, the day they celebrate the victory over Nazi Germany and he needs to show success. And whatever he can show, he’ll add a lot of Russian propaganda to that. But I think longer term…

Russia withdrew 20 battalion groups back to Belarus to resupply and refit them. And he’s sending mercenaries groups from Syria, the Wagner group and Chechens, into Ukraine. I just feel like he still wants Kiev. I don’t know that… His ultimate goal has not changed. He definitely wants to fortify the position in the east. He wants a complete land bridge all the way to Crimea. He wants Odessa and the besieged Black Sea city of Mariupol. But I don’t think he’s given up on Kiev, and that’s gotta be the concern. We haven’t… We need to win this, and right now I think we’re kind of allowing Ukraine to stay in the fight and not lose it.

CLAY: Dan, they have been battling in eastern Ukraine since 2014. As you referenced, this battle now could go on for years. How long is the United States — let’s be frank — going to care that much if we end up in some sort of really aggressive and ugly stalemate? Already you can see Ukraine slowly move outside of the national news cycle in the United States. How long are people going to remain committed to paying attention to this conflict, and what is that impact in terms of the political pressure that the attention can bring to bear?

HOFFMAN: Well, I think that’s over to the Biden administration. You know, the president needs to get up on his bully pulpit and explain to us why Ukraine matters, why defending Ukraine’s independence matters. Right now, President Zelensky has kind of been doing that job for everyone in the West. He’s the one who is on eloquently spoken about defending liberty and freedom and democracy, the things that we hold near and dear.

He’s the one who awakens the West out of this post-Cold War slumber that we were in. I think that the Ukrainians are sacrificing right now with their lives, and it’s like they are ready to go to the very last civilian, forget about the last, you know, of their soldiers, and I think we’ve gotta continue to support them —

BUCK: Can I just ask, ’cause said that. I just want to know. In terms of doing more, clearly the Biden administration is giving some weapons. What…? Is it just a volume issue? Are there some weapons or some interventions that you think would be a game-changer on the battlefield? What is more?

HOFFMAN: Yeah. So I think they need more Javelins. They need more Stingers. They received some T-72 tanks from the Czech Republic. They need more of those. They need more drones. We should have given them MiGs, and we still should do that. They need air defense, the S300 systems. Those are still there. They’re in Slovakia. Slovakia wants something to take the place of those S300s. We need to do that as well.

These are massive war crimes on Ukrainian civilians, and we gotta do something to stop it because that’s the right thing to do morally and ethically. But also, we can’t let Vladimir Putin win. We can’t reward his aggression. That puts those NATO member states especially on Russia’s border, especially the Baltic states among others at grave risk. That’s a few, of among many, reasons I think why this matters but if American citizens are wondering why this matters, well, then there’s a failure of communication on the part of the Biden administration to explain it properly.

CLAY: Good stuff. Dan Hoffman, former CIA station chief in Moscow. We appreciate your time. Hope to talk to you again soon.

HOFFMAN: Sounds great. Take care, everybody.

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Stacey Abrams Got Rich by Losing an Election

7 Apr 2022

CLAY: Herschel Walker has opened up a four-point lead on the Reverend Raphael Warnock in the state of Georgia. Also we got Stacey Abrams, who we should have mentioned this earlier in the week, but I wanted to hit this. Buck, I know you saw this because we talked about it off air. Stacey Abrams, four years ago when she ran for governor of Georgia, had a net worth of $100,000.

She now, as she runs for governor again, has suddenly got a net worth of $3.1 million. Now, I’m a capitalist. I believe you should be able to make as much money as possible based on your talent. But what Stacey Abrams did was sell her popularity that she gained by refusing to concede the election in Georgia and became a multimillionaire.

Not based on creating a new business, not based on building something that didn’t exist before, just by selling access that she gained from her political career. So, question for you, Buck, here. Is Stacey Abrams’ political career over if she loses again as the governor of Georgia, or will they come up with another excuse and continue to make her the patron saint of the Democrat Party?

BUCK: Clay, if she loses again, it’s because they cheated and stole it from her again. I think her speaking fees only go up. Instead of being, at one time, fake governor, she’ll be like, “I have been the fake governor of Georgia for how many years now?” I do think that that’s what’s gonna end up happening here.

CLAY: If you question the legitimacy of all this, “Oh, assault upon our democracy,” just know that Stacey Abrams never conceded, and became one of the faces of the Democratic Party and became a multimillionaire in the process. She needs to lose again.

BUCK: Hillary basically didn’t concede. Not for a while.

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