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Clay Calls Out ESPN for America-Bashing July 4th Column

5 Jul 2022

CLAY: ESPN, Buck — which is increasingly unreadable and unwatchable because of its wokeness. I woke up on July 4th thinking to myself, “Hey, you know what gonna do? I’m gonna go to the July 4th parade. I’m gonna watch some fireworks, I’m gonna take my kid down to the beach and have a good time with everybody there,” and we did all that. But I woke up early on July 4th and ESPN had published a piece on its main website as its feature essentially arguing that America is awful.

I read it, Buck, and I don’t even know if you read this piece, but it goes through Roe v. Wade. It argues about January 6th. I read it and I thought to myself, “Okay, it’s July 4th. ESPN is promoting this. This is on their main website. Do I to want to respond or not?” Because to the point we were just talking about, it’s the middle of the July 4th weekend, and I decided I’d take a couple of hours and dash off a response to this column. Some of you out there, I hope you’ve read it. If you want to check it out, you can go to OutKick.com. It’s also up on FoxNews.com.

I think it’s up now on SeanHannity.com. Buck, it’s gonna end up being maybe one of the most-read columns that I have ever written before. And the reason why I think it’s resonating to such a large extent is people are sick of our cultural institutions being torn down and that they’re being torn down from places that they shouldn’t be, right? If you go to ESPN.com on July 4th, you’re probably wanting to see one of your favorite basketball teams gonna be playing, maybe you’re following Wimbledon.

Instead, you were forced with, “America is awful,” a 4,000-, 5,000-word piece about why January 6th was the worst thing that’s ever happened to America and why Roe v. Wade being overturned by the Supreme Court is an existential threat to all that exists in America today. I just think there are so many people who want to fight back, and the response to this piece has further encouraged me about four months from now and the coming Red Wave.

There’s a lot of people willing to throw punches, and I think that’s the legacy of Trump. Even if Trump doesn’t become the nominee, even if he’s not president again, he’s changed the Republican Party forever in that, “Hey, I’m not gonna meekly kind of cower and try to be Mitt Romney and worry about what the New York Times is gonna say.” I’m gonna throw back at them harder, and I think that’s important to know we’re in a fight now.

BUCK: One of the primary differences between the mentality of people I find on the right and those on the left in America today is people on the right take pride in being American. People on the left take pride in the belief that they are better than America.

CLAY: Yeah. That’s well said.

BUCK: You see this playing in the Independence Day weekend, the way that they will put these articles out of there, “America’s not so great,” blah, blah, blah. Look, this country means that they’re allowed to say their stupid stuff, but as is the case also with people wearing masks, we are allowed to say they are wrong and it is dumb. And that is our role.

CLAY: And punching back. Actually, when you find out that you’re in a fight, one of the great quotes of all time, “Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” It was Mike Tyson who came up with that quote. You know what we’re finding out? When liberals get punches thrown back at ’em, they ain’t that prepared to be in a real fight. They’re good at mobs. They’re not good at fighting, and they’re losing a lot of battles.

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Fox’s Gianno Caldwell Seeks Justice for Murdered Brother

5 Jul 2022

CLAY: We are joined now by someone who has, unfortunately, had the experience of being a victim of these violent crimes, he and his family. He is Fox’s Gianno Caldwell. I saw you, Gianno, on Sean Hannity’s show last week — I think we were on the same day — telling the story of your brother. And we know this is an incredibly difficult time for you and your family, but we wanted to help you, hopefully, help solve this tragedy for your family. Can you share with our audience — who likely many of them have not heard the story — what happened to your brother and what they can do to help you and your family hopefully solve this incredible tragedy that is symptomatic of so many tragedies that are happening across the across the country now.

CALDWELL: Well, Clay, thank you for having me on and Buck. I’m not sure if he’s in the studio with you.

BUCK: I’m here, Gianno. Thanks for calling in.

CALDWELL: No, thank you for answering my message right away and saying, “Yes, you can come on.” You know, my baby brother just two Fridays ago — it was a Friday morning — I received a call saying that he was outside of a venue in Chicago on the South Side, 114 South Vincent (ph) to be exact, right across the street from a church, unfortunately enough. He was outside standing next to two individuals when a black SUV pulled up, three to four men got out of that car and they began firing. Fifty shell casings were found at the scene.

(sigh) Man, I just got to the point where I can mention this and not profusely tear up. So, thank you for bearing with me. Two or three people hit in total. A young lady hit in the leg, another gentleman or, rather, another guy, I should say. He was shot, rushed to the hospital, surgery, had to have other surgeries performed since then. But my baby brother Christian never had that opportunity to be in critical care, to even have the possibility of life. His life was ended right there. From that point on I recognized — especially after trying to think through what would be the next steps, knowing that there were these men at large who just murdered my baby brother.

Not shot, simply shot or killed, but they murdered him. They stole his life from him. What was I going to do next? When was I gonna make it public? And it hit me right away. ‘Cause I couldn’t sleep. I gotta get out and start doing press because I need to ensure that the men who murdered my baby brother are brought to justice. So I knew immediately I had to post this, and thank God I work for the premier news organization in the world who 30 minutes later after I posted made sure there were articles and started talking about it on shows on Sunday and then doing press Monday and continuing on and on to ensure that there’s justice for Christian.

Our hearts are broken. Our hearts are shattered. We cannot believe this happened to our little brother. But what’s really, really heartbreaking for so many people is, this is something that occurs in the city of Chicago on a daily, consistent basis. You simply don’t know their names because they’re not related to Gianno Caldwell. They don’t have someone with a microphone that can talk about it and hopefully get justice. These individuals had no names! They’re just another count in a daily homicide rate in the city of Chicago, and it is heartbreaking that so many other people have to deal with that. But while I reach for justice for my little brother, I want to reach for justice for them as well. But now I’m here today to talk obviously about Christian, who was murdered and his life was stolen from us.

BUCK: We’re speaking to Gianno Caldwell of Fox News. Gianno, I know that the killers, the murderers here are still at large, and you’ve also asked for anybody who may have tips to reach out to you directly. Do we have any indication as to what was…? Is it believed that any of the victims knew or that Christian knew who these shooters were? Was it a totally random criminal act? Do you have any context for people, ‘cause if there’s anyone out there listening who may know something, that might be helpful.

CALDWELL: Okay. So the individuals again were in a black SUV. Three to four African-American gentleman, dreads. The police have told me that my brother Christian was not being targeted. He was not. Folks are calling it wrong place, wrong time. But the problem is Chicago is, you can be lying in bed sleeping and it happened to be the wrong place, wrong time when a bullet comes through your window or like a senior citizen watering their grass and they get shot, murdered, or just a kid simply being in the back seat of a car at 5 months old.

They’re at the wrong place, wrong team, they’re being murdered! (bitter chuckle) The erosion of life in the city of Chicago has become a desperate level. People do not value life in that city, and that’s a problem. That is a problem that needs to be fixed. There is a need to get tougher on the criminals there. We had a whole two years, probably more than that, where police have been nothing but demoralized across the country. Criminals feel free to commit these crimes. They feel free to murder. They don’t acquiesce to the policies of the law of the land.

They don’t fear that anymore because we have an entire society whose literally turned their backs on the police who are meant to protect us. So, yeah, these individuals in terms of context: African-American men, dreads, they in a black SUV, my baby brother to the best of my knowledge what the police are saying did not know these individuals. He just happened to be there, and he lost his life because he lived and dared to breathe on the South Side of Chicago. This is happening — go ahead.

BUCK: No, sorry. I know it is happening with far too high a frequency. We talked about the number of shootings, over 70 people shot over just this one weekend — 71 shot, eight killed over the Fourth of July weekend — and it’s just unbelievable and awful, the number of people that are losing their lives and that are being grievously injured in this way. Has anyone from either the police department in Chicago or the mayor’s office, Lori Lightfoot’s office, reached out? Given your national profile and the way this story is getting national-level media attention, did anyone reach out to say they’re on it? Has anyone reached out to say, “We’re not gonna let this slip through the cracks?”

CALDWELL: Well, I was the former spokesman for the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, and I’ve spoken with a number of leaders there, and they’ve assured me that the superintendent of police is aware; he’s all over it. I’ve spoken with them directly; I’ve spoken with the detective on the case but not with the superintendent. I’ve not talked to the mayor’s office. We’ve requested a meeting with the mayor’s office. And, you know, it’s just because I work for Fox News, I think that there could be some considerations with them meeting with us or even talking about the case.

I believe that could be a part of it. I don’t have anything to confirm it, but that seems to be a sentiment among what people are telling me. So, no. I haven’t had that opportunity. My only bully pulpit is to be on radio with you guys with your large audience or with Fox News or with the local media driving home the point about my brother’s death and the fact that there’s many, many victims like him in the city of Chicago that are losing their lives daily, absolutely, and it’s something that needs to end.

This is really something that should be telling for the Chicago police or the leaders in the city of Chicago of what kind of environment that has been created there. Just last Friday, Downtown Chicago, there was a mass shooting right down the street from the mayor’s office! We’re talking about blocks. Blocks from the governor’s office. (laughing) If you can’t be safe downtown Chicago, where can you be safe anywhere in the city of Chicago? This is happening in areas that aren’t… It isn’t about black-on-black crime.

It’s happening all over the city, and it needs to come to an end. So if anyone knows any information about my brother Christian’s murder, please call the Chicago police, and I have a number for you here, 312-747-8271. Again that’s 312-747-8271. And if you don’t want to talk to the police, if you don’t want to send it to the police, you may do so by reaching out to me directly on Instagram or Facebook, and that’s @GiannoCaldwell, G-i-a-n-n-o, Caldwell, C-a-l-d-w-e-l-l. Again that’s @GiannoCaldwell, G-i-a-o-n-n-o, Caldwell, C-a-l-d-w-e-l-l.

CLAY: Gianno, your family’s tragedy is overwhelming, I know, to you. I’m sure also that you’re hearing from so many other families that are also with similar issues of — and, frankly, all over the country — and many of them, I think your point is so well made, don’t have the resources to reach out to media and media looks the other way.

BUCK: Yeah.

CLAY: Why is it that so many of these murders that are happening don’t receive any attention at all, and what can we do to change that across America?

CALDWELL: You know what? I’ll tell you, it’s we’re using Chicago as an example. Last Friday night on local affiliate — not a Fox affiliate, but a local affiliate — in the city of Chicago they said, “Hey, three people shot, 18-year-old murdered.” That was it. That was it. So, yeah, there’s not a lot of press attention around these issues because of the frequency. People have become numb to them. “It’s just another shooting. Wow, that’s sad.”

Whether it be in the city of Chicago or Baltimore or Detroit. Even some have become numb to what just happened in Highland Park just yesterday at a parade! There’s folks saying, “Yeah, we need to move on,” and then there’s also people who are disingenuously saying that we need more gun control when there was an assault weapons ban in Highland Park. (chuckles) You already… The gun control was already there and we’re talking about one of the most prominent cities, North Shore cities — in the U.S., actually — in the U.S., but certainly in Illinois.

We’ve become numb to these things because of the frequency. And I think what people need to do is continue to make their voices heard whether it be on social media or even reaching out, if you have a family member who’s been murdered, reach out to that print journalist on whatever website for your local newspaper. Find out who reports on this. Send them an email. Beg and plead for a call with them, tell ’em your story. You gotta reach out to folks.

Instagram, Twitter, whatever medium you might have available to you, use those resources, call those people, and someone eventually will hear you. So you gotta just be persistent. I’m just blessed to be in a place that this is what I do for a living. But what about the others that don’t have that access? This is what you can do. You can just reach out — find them on Twitter, find them on Instagram, find them on Facebook — and someone will more than likely respond to you if you’re persistent.

BUCK: Gianno… Thank you, Gianno Caldwell, for calling in and telling us your story, raising this issue, not just of the tragedy your own family suffered through here for people to hear about and know what this really means but also just the continuous bloodshed in the city of Chicago and the inability of authority it seems to get a handle on it. God bless you. Come back, tell us if we have any updates on this one, and let us know if we can help.

CALDWELL: Please, and thank you so much and you’re helping so much. Thank you, Clay, thank you. Buck, I really appreciate your guys and love your show.

BUCK: Thank you so much, Gianno.

CLAY: Thank you for sharing your story with us.

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Whopper Outpouring of Love for Vegas Burger King Guy

5 Jul 2022

BUCK: Whenever possible I feel like we should tell everybody uplifting, happy stories whenever we can —

CLAY: Positive stories. Yes.

BUCK: — and I really like this one. This is from Las Vegas, Nevada, and there was a Burger King worker who, after 27 years of service without ever missing a day —

CLAY: Thirty, wasn’t it?

BUCK: His name was Kevin Ford.

CLAY: I thought it was 30 years of service. Is it 27?

BUCK: What? It was 27 years of service.

CLAY: Almost 30.

BUCK: So, he finished up and this is rough. Burger King, as his going away present after 27 years of service — or maybe this individual Burger King franchise, whatever — gave him a single movie ticket, a bag of Reese’s Pieces, and a Starbucks cup in a bag.

CLAY: Oh, my.

BUCK: And people felt like, this guy showed up, provided for people, did his job 27 years. So, they started a GoFundMe. I think they were trying to raise, like, a couple thousand dollars to get him a nice gift. As of this morning, it is still going. The GoFundMe campaign for this now-retired Burger King worker, Kevin Ford, is over $320,000.

CLAY: That is one of the examples — there are lots — of why social media can be awful. Stories like these where people recognize that someone has been unfairly treated and respond in this way is pretty fantastic. Certainly, this happens a lot where these GoFundMes are someone’s house burns down or someone has a parent that unexpectedly is killed, and the ability of these to go viral? That is a fantastic story, and I think we need to spend more time talking about the innate goodness of the American people that I think in a social media age often gets ignored.

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Biden’s Super Unpopular and a Drag on Democrats

5 Jul 2022

BUCK: If Democrats have a choice between loyalty and power, they will choose power a hundred percent of the time, everybody. Welcome back to Clay and Buck.

So, this idea that Joe Biden, they voted for him, they’re gonna back him up through the rough times? Not if they think he’s gonna drag the party down. Not if they think that he can’t win the next time around, and Clay likes to go deep diving into the stats. He was sharing some earlier on today, sharing some of the latest poll numbers. I mean, Clay, this is stunning.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: You got Biden job approval — there’s a Civiqs poll over Fourth of July weekend — job approval, 30% approve, 58% disapprove. With independents, 19% of independents approve, 68% disapprove. Independents are not only people who are obviously persuadable to one party or the other. I think they tend to be — and the data would support this — people who are, “What are the results,” right? They’re less ideologically inclined to one side or the other based upon ideas, beliefs, and rhetoric and more, “What’s the price of gas, what’s the economy like, what’s going on that affects me?” If those are your top concerns, Clay, the Biden administration is setting new records of awfulness.

CLAY: New records of awfulness — and, Buck, as bad as 30% approval is, Biden’s actually underneath that in a bunch of battleground states here. Arizona. We got a Senate race coming up in Arizona in November. Right now, they’re deciding who the Republican nominee is gonna be: 26% approval rate for Joe Biden right now be in Arizona. Georgia, big governor’s race and a big Senate race, 26% approval in Georgia — these are states that, ostensibly, Joe Biden won — 29% in Nevada, 30% in Pennsylvania, 31% in New Mexico, 32% in Michigan, 33% in Wisconsin. And, Buck, this one I saw, and it was a record-scratch moment for me. Joe Biden only has a 34% approval rate in New Jersey. New Jersey! Remember, Republicans almost stole the governor’s race there last year. It surprised a lot of people. But if Biden can’t get above 34% in New Jersey, that’s pretty much unbelievable.

BUCK: New Jersey is all like, “Hey, Biden, the price of gas is too high, buddy. It’s too high, too much.”

CLAY: They don’t pump their own gas in New Jersey. Makes it even more expensive.

BUCK: It is getting crazy. The taxes are too high, the pumping gas too expensive, Jersey’s had enough.

CLAY: But these numbers — and, by the way, this is Civiqs, as Buck said. They also had numbers come out in the Monmouth poll today. All of them are reflecting that Biden’s disapproval rating is about to hit 60%. That has never happened in our lives that a president has gotten 60% disapproval.

BUCK: It’s gonna get worse, by the way.

CLAY: It may well get worse.

BUCK: It’s gonna go down more.

CLAY: It may well.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: We’ve been talking a lot about Joe Biden’s numbers and how they’re collapsing, and one of the arguments that the Democrats are still trying to make — did you see this? I’m down in Florida, and Val Demings is running for the Senate against Marco Rubio in what is not going to be a particularly close case, close election. Marco Rubio’s gonna win massively like I expect Ron DeSantis to win massively. We don’t even know who Ron DeSantis is gonna be running against yet. But Val Demings said, “Democrats will be on the right side of history. They’re the only party fighting for democracy!”

Listen to this, and as you listen to this, I just want you to think about it. Everyone who voted for Joe Biden, overwhelmingly Democrat, they lectured us for years that Donald Trump was on the wrong side of history, and they were on the right side of history. As you listen to them still try to make this argument, I want you to contemplate this. They picked the worst president in a hundred years, according to all the numbers. We’re early in history, but the wrong side of you history probably would include picking the worst president in a hundred years. I think that’s the definition of being on the wrong side of history. But listen to Val Demings try to lecture you.

DEMINGS: Democrats will be on the right side of history because it is the Democratic Party! They are the only party right now that are fighting for our democracy, fighting for the middle class, fighting for our seniors, working to protect Social Security and Medicare, lower the costs, and keep us safe. Republicans have taken a — a vacation, or they’re permanently removed from any of those things! Yes, we have the majority in all places, but (sputters) the filibuster, as you all know, has been an obstacle to moving forth an agenda.

BUCK: I mean, this is amazing. It’s a reminder that for so many Democrats the best option for them going into this midterm election cycle is going to be, talking about everything other than what people actually care about. Find a way to make this about “defending our sacred democracy!” You don’t want it to be a referendum on covid policies if you’re a Democrat. You don’t want it to be a referendum on inflation and the economy and any follow-through from Biden based upon what we were all supposed to believe was going to happen. I mean, even some libs out there are saying, “Yeah, just hasn’t really turned out to be this amazing Biden presidency with all these great things happening.”

JACKIE KUCINICH: One of the other things that I think that young man are expressing is, “Yeah, we’re Democrats’ we voted for these people. And what are we getting from it?” They were promised a lot going into this — going into this Democratic controlled Washington. And not a lot has happened. And they’ve said, “Okay, well.” Yes. Kirsten Sinema, Joe Manchin. There are logical explanations to this.” But there were a lot of overpromising happening. And they’re having trouble explaining that to their voters now going into the midterms, and what did they — what did they get for their vote? Infrastructure.

BUCK: By the way, infrastructure and 8.5% inflation! (laughing) Infrastructure and a whole lot of economic decisions and vaccine mandates that, in retrospect, are indefensible, just indefensible.

CLAY: Also, if they had gotten more of what Joe Biden promised, things would be way worse. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema saved the Democrats from, at least for now, double-digit inflation. Buck, I mentioned this in the open to the show. That argument is actually why I’m concerned, and we got a lot of staffers — we got a lot of governors, senators — who listen to this show and their staff do. They’re gonna try to ram through a tax increase before July is over. And it’s under the radar right now because they’re trying to sneakily maneuver it through.

But I’m telling you, they are looking. They know they’re gonna lose the House, and when they lose the House, they won’t be able to change the tax rates. They won’t be able to pass any bills of any sort of substantial magnitude — and they think, if you look at the tea leaves, they probably have a got a chance to lose in 2024, too. So this is their attempt to try and make a maneuver to give to their communist base this tax increase on many Americans out there.

I’m telling you, this is one where Republicans have to draw the line and try to stall. ‘Cause if you can make it through July, then they’re not gonna pass anything I don’t think in August or September as you get too close to the election, but I think they know the Red Wave is coming to such an extent, Buck, that their calculus now is, “We’ve gotta get something else passed because otherwise we’re done. Biden’s election is effectively in the past. There’s no other agenda items to be passed.”

BUCK: And this is where I remind everybody, the system is working as intended.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: Gridlock is good.

CLAY: Especially when it’s a 50-50 country!

BUCK: Most of the time. Right. This is the elected representatives. All this thing about, “Oh, we can’t get our agenda through because…” Well, win 60 Senate seats, libs!

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: It shouldn’t be that hard. You’re so popular, you’re so amazing with your ideas, right? This is exactly the way that it should be working, given the expressed desires through votes of the American people in terms of what the breakdown is in the Senate and the House which is that they can’t get stuff through because their ideas aren’t popular enough. Full stop. They can complain all day about Republicans.

They couldn’t even get through the Build Back Better agenda because of Democrats. So this whole putting it all on the feet of Republicans, it’s just not gonna fly. People realize that, and to change what our expectations are supposed to be after the fact — after all the Biden failures — people can see through that. But, again, Clay, there’s desperation. Honestly, do you even remember what the January 6th hearings were really about a week or so ago in terms of what was the…? There was some young woman who testified, right? (laughs) Who cares!

CLAY: It’s all a sideshow, but I do think that this is where the sideshow can provide them cover, and you know everybody’s gonna be cheering, “Oh, yeah, raise taxes!” The last thing we need is federal government to pass anything right now. Everything that Joe Biden has touched has turned to crap. That’s what I call the Bidas touch. The last thing we need to allow him to do is have even more control, and this is ultimately… The House is gonna happen, right? We’re gonna have the Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Nancy Pelosi’s gonna go back to being a regular congresswoman in some way from San Francisco.

She’s gonna continue to have incredible timing when it comes to the money that she makes on all of her trades, and her husband will probably knock a couple more DWIs between now and the future. But I will say, this is why all these Senate races are so important, because we’re gonna have control of the House. But if Biden still has the Senate, he’s gonna try and ram through a ton of left-wing loon judges — and that could be all the way from the Supreme Court all the way down.

And so if you’re living right now in Georgia — if you’re in Wisconsin, if you’re in Pennsylvania, if you’re in New Mexico, if you’re in Nevada, all of these places where the Senate is going to be decided — you need to be super active and you need to be super active with all of your friends and family. Because we need a check against the awfulness that is the Biden presidency, and a Republican Senate and a House would at least keep things from getting far worse over the next couple of years.

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In Post-Pandemic America, Red States Boom

5 Jul 2022

BUCK: If someone offered you a swap for your house, double its value but in Santa Monica, in California, would you go for it? Double the value of your current house, but you have to live in Santa Monica, California?

CLAY: To leave Nashville?

BUCK: No, no, no. Talking about Florida, Florida, the Florida house.

CLAY: I would not. No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t take it.

BUCK: I ask because this is what people all across America are looking at right now, kind of in reverse, cheaper housing, better housing for them in the red states. Wall Street Journal has a big piece out today that really goes in to the numbers: “Red States Are Winning the Post-Pandemic Economy,” and we’ve been talking about this all along. Of course, states that look at the reality of what we can and can’t do against covid. The truth all along was that basically covid was just gonna rip through the country and you try to protect seniors, get them the care you can, get them shots ’cause for them, at higher risk.

Fine, shots should be their choice but everything else was a total waste. Everything else was a total — and actually worse than a waste. Lockdowns made everything worse. But now we’re seeing the economic reality of this play out. Inflation, of course, very high because of all the just unprecedented spending that was going on, but at a state to state level, the pandemic, as the Journal says here, has changed geography of the American economy. Short version of this. We should dive into this, Clay, because now we’re seeing the emergence — and put aside presidential aspirations for a second — of two state leader titans in their respective camps.

I know people say, don’t call Gavin Newsom a titan. Oh, he’s a slimy, disingenuous titan, but he’s a big deal in Democrat circles. We’ve got Ron DeSantis, you know, it’s like choose your champion, Ron DeSantis, the Republican in Florida, Gavin Newsom in California. We’ll dive into this in a second ’cause Newsom is trying to pick a fight. Unlike Buck on vacation in Asheville, not try to pick a fight. Newsom is. Look at it there: Newsom is trying to pick a fight with Ron DeSantis. But here’s the basic numbers, Clay. I just wanted to hear, ’cause you’re already longtime, born and raised Tennessee.

CLAY: I’m a red state guy.

BUCK: And you’re a red state guy through and through. So, I’ve witnessed this transformation from the perspective of state that has hemorrhaged people. You witnessed the opposite effect. Guess what, everybody? The three states that have lost the most people are — anyone want to guess? Pretty much some of the most Democratic states, really the Democrat stronghold states. New York, Illinois, California.

CLAY: Yep.

BUCK: The states that have got the most residents are (drum roll), Florida, Texas — love Texas — and North Carolina where I was just over this past weekend. You’ve had 46 million people move in the period of the pandemic through February of 2021, Clay — 46 million people have moved. And what we’re seeing is that this is not a temporary phenomenon. This is a change in where people want to live, raise their families, and how they want to be governed.

CLAY: Buck, 46 million, let’s put that in context: 330-ish million people who live in the United States, we’re talking about roughly 15% of Americans have relocated since covid started. And overwhelmingly they’ve moved to red states. I had someone really smart in the financial industry text me the other day, and he said, “I don’t see how we’re not moving towards two different countries.” He’s not somebody who’s, like, a crazy, “I’m trying to draw attention to myself,” outlandish speaker. Someone privately texted me and said, “I feel like we’re almost to the point now,” and I think that 46 million is a part of this, “where if you live in a blue state, you have to just say, ‘Peace out. I’m moving to a red state.’” And, flip side, if you’re a super blue person and you find yourself living in a red state, “Peace out. I’m moving too.” Red is getting redder and blue is getting bluer in virtually every political context. And how does that play itself out is such an incredibly difficult question to answer.

BUCK: I just wish I had taken… I hope I had borrowed money from distant relatives to, like, buy real estate in Nashville and San Antonio and places like that ten years ago ’cause, my gosh. It has just been a crazy ride.

CLAY: When I went away to college and I told people… I went away to college in Washington, D.C., with all East Coast kids who went there. When I told people I was from Tennessee, they were like, “Do you have running water there?” This is like 2000, right, late nineties? It was as if I’d lived that cultural backwater.

BUCK: Did you hide your banjo from them at least for the first few months?

CLAY: Hide the banjo. I had to be like, “Man, these moving stairs are unbelievable!” I’d never seen an escalator before. Now, when I started OutKick in 2011, everybody told me, “Hey, if you’re gonna run a media company, you have to move to New York and L.A.” Now everybody is moving to where I live in Tennessee, and you look around Nashville, The Daily Wire is there, Parler is there, every media it feels like iHeart’s got one of their main studios, our bosses, right downtown in Nashville. Everybody, it feels like, is moving to Florida, Texas, Tennessee, the places they all told us, hey, you can’t live there and make a living in media.

BUCK: Those are places that could rely on… This goes to the heart of what we’re seeing. There was a time when if you want to have certain kinds of jobs or work for certain companies, you had to be there. Now, there’s still some truth to it. The pandemic and remote work hasn’t entirely changed it, but this Wall Street Journal piece does go into how 30% of workers they surveyed are gonna be in some kind of a hybrid model, which certainly means much bigger commute is way more doable, right?

If you’re gonna go in to work once or twice a week, maybe you drive an hour and a half, two hours both ways, you don’t really care if you have two or three days where you’re not commuting at all. But even beyond that now, if you can work remotely for some of the entertainment industry, for investment banking and financial services, for media, news media, I mean, all these things, it changes people’s concepts of where you go. New York City used to basically have this captive audience of, do you want to work at the most elite finance institutions?

CLAY: You have to be there.

BUCK: You had to be in New York City, right, you had to be here. You want to work at Goldman Sachs, it wasn’t like, oh, yeah, I’m gonna work remote from Fiji and, you know, work for Goldman. Now these things are changing. So that’s a big part of it.

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Gavin Newsom Has Florida Envy

5 Jul 2022

BUCK: Gavin Newsom’s poking around. He’s got some Florida envy. He’s poking around down in Florida saying, “Move to California from Florida.” I would love —

CLAY: I’ve been seeing this video, seeing this ad.

BUCK: Yeah. I would love to place bets on what the numbers are here of how many Floridians are gonna say, “Yeah! Send me to the place where the major cities have a special app to help you avoid stepping in human poop or on needles,” because that’s a real thing in San Francisco, which — as you have said — should be the most beautiful city probably in America.

CLAY: Such a jewel.

BUCK: It’s amazing city. They have ruined it. California was an amazing state. You and I grew up in the nineties in America. California was the Promised Land.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: California gave us Ronald Reagan. People forget this. California was a Republican state, solidly, in presidential elections, until about the mid-nineties and massive illegal immigration.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

BUCK: California is a place that I think is just gonna continue to hemorrhage residents. They’ve lost more residents than any other individual state. Gavin Newsom is annoyed about this and living in I think a delusion. Remember that thing, Clay, when he was like, “What’s going on here?” when they had all the trains with the trash everywhere from the thefts going on.

CLAY: As if he were surprised.

BUCK: And he showed up with his hands on his hips, “This is outrageous! Who’s in charge here?” It’s like, “You’re in charge, jackass.”

CLAY: You created this.

BUCK: But here we go. We have Gavin Newsom picking a fight with our buddy Ronnie D. down in Florida, the governor in Florida. Play clip 14.

BUCK: There’s so much here, Clay.

CLAY: There’s no one making that move.

BUCK: California is the most anti-freedom, authoritarian state in the entire country. Start with that. California is where your restaurant could shut down and you could go bankrupt because you couldn’t use the outdoor dining you had set up by their own rules when they changed their mind, but if you were doing craft services for a major movie like, that’s important; so that’s allowed to continue with hundreds of people gathered together eating and being in line. It is such a ridiculous pitch. But look, you can probably run this in Asheville and get some of the blue-haired… There was a lot of… I’d never… What is this when they call it, when people put this thing, it’s like —

CLAY: The big earring hoop?

BUCK: No, it’s not that. It’s a thing that goes kind of in the earlobe.

CLAY: Yeah, right.

BUCK: I don’t know what that’s called.

CLAY: I don’t know what that’s called but I see it a lot.

BUCK: I saw it in Asheville. Anyway, they may move to California, is the point.

CLAY: The cluelessness here, California filled in skate parks with sand to keep kids from being able to skateboard. They arrested a paddleboarder in the middle of the ocean. The cluelessness, and I’m down in Florida; so, watching this, I think it’s also worth pointing out, Buck, in addition to those 46 million people who moved – who’s moving? The people who are leaving New York, Illinois, and California are overwhelmingly the highest earners because they’re more likely to be able to work remotely. Right?

Because if you work in a bar, let’s say, it’s not like your job can suddenly go remote, which is why lockdowns overwhelmingly hurt people who need to live paycheck to paycheck the most. But for many people, it was effectively an experiment. Hey, maybe I don’t need to be in Chicago anymore. Hey, maybe I don’t need to be in New York City or L.A. I can buy a cheaper house in a state with no state income tax, which is huge. Sixteen percent difference in income in California versus Florida.

BUCK: And Gavin Newsom is delusional because by every metric, if you were to line this up — do you ever play the Street Fighter video game, in the arcade?

CLAY: Of course.

BUCK: Wasn’t it amazing? Yeah. The guy with, like, the blond… Not like a Mohawk. He was like a Marine or something. Anyway, Street Fighter, for those of you who know the video game–

CLAY: Mortal Kombat. When I said, “Finish him!” that was Mortal Kombat.

BUCK: If we had DeSantis on one side and Gavin Newsom on the other of the Street Fighter video game, it would not be a close contest, friends. There would be lots of hurricane kicks, and Gavin Newsom would be down for the count. You look at the actual data, economically Florida is about to have a record budget surplus.

CLAY: Yep.

BUCK: Florida has so much money coming into the state, magically without a state income tax, everybody, that they’re setting up huge rainy-day funds to protect state institutions and state governance agencies, et cetera, basic, you know, schools, et cetera, et cetera, so that they’re good to go even if there is a cyclical downturn for Florida in the future. California is hemorrhaging people, okay? They’re losing. So we’ve already run the experiment. California is losing on this one. Florida has won. It just goes to show you, it’s like they’re living in a fantasyland. They’re living in La La Land out in L.A.

CLAY: Well, yes. And this is also perfect example, if truly California was doing better than Florida, markets would reflect that everybody would be moving to California, which people did. California gained population — I believe I’m correct in this, Buck — every year from 1850 (look it up; I believe they became a state in California in 1850) — all the way to 2020. So, 170 years where they only gained population, and they started losing in 2020. And a lot of those people are moving to Florida. They’re voting with their feet by moving to Florida, which is why Florida is now capital of the Republican Party, California becoming more blue. Gavin Newsom versus Ron DeSantis? Not a crazy idea for what 2024’s presidential election could end up being.

BUCK: It’s called the plug, this form of jewelry. I’ve never heard of it.

CLAY: In the earlobe thing

BUCK: The earplug or ear spool. I had to look this up. Yes. It is common in downtown Nashville. I was unfamiliar with this.

CLAY: Yeah, I’ve seen it. I have no idea what it was called. I’m not gonna be adding earplug to my fashion repertoire any time soon.

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Pritzker, Hochul Seize on Massacre to Push Anti-Gun Agenda

5 Jul 2022

CLAY: We’re talking about so many different issues out there, in particular the gun violence that exploded on July 4th north of Chicago, but also trying to put that in context with the overall amount of gun violence that happened in Chicago. Illinois’ governor said to people who say today’s not the time to talk about gun control, no better day; no better time.

Here he is. Listen to this.

CLAY: That’s one cut. I want to play the other one where he essentially lets it be known that Second Amendment rights are in fact on the table to be taken away by continuing this musket discussion which I think — maybe I’m wrong on this, Buck — your idiot governor in New York, Kathy Hochul, was also out with the musket argument.

BUCK: Clay, there’s an important rule. Nothing is too stupid for the governor of New York to say it. Nothing. Just remember that.

CLAY: You may not have liked Cuomo, but he’s not an idiot.

BUCK: No.

CLAY: I really feel like…

BUCK: Cuomo’s a thug. He’s not a moron. Kathy Hochul is a moron.

CLAY: Kathy Hochul is a moron. Here’s J.B. Pritzker arguing about muskets versus guns.

CLAY: I think they would have, Buck.

BUCK: What do they think we were shooting at the Redcoats with, by the way? The same weapons they had.

CLAY: That’s right. That’s exactly what I was gonna say. I mean, I think they would all say that if the people who were trying to beat you in a war for American independence had high capacity guns, that you also should have high capacity guns. But the issue here is, I may have missed it, but I don’t think the Democratic governor of Illinois has regularly spoken out about the violence taking place every day in Chicago. I don’t think he’s been outraged by that gun violence.

I certainly haven’t seen him losing his cool effectively as it sounded like he was doing in that discussion. And the question that I believe is really fascinating is, why not? If you truly care about gun violence and if your goal is to limit it, which I think almost everybody out there listening right now regardless of their politics, would say, “Hey, yeah, I wish there were less shootings. Hey, yeah, I wish there were less murders. Why do we only talk about guns when there are mass shootings, and not when there’s daily shootings?”

BUCK: Well, because — and he got right to this actually at the beginning — that whole “be angry, be angry,” you’ll notice he’s trying to channel the anger of people who are very, you know, emotional at that moment it time, not just in the community of Highland Park, but all across Illinois, all across the country, and then it transitions to we allow this to happen, allow this to happen, he says. No one’s allowing this to happen. That is a vicious and stupid lie. What they’re trying to say is, people don’t care about this who don’t agree with my politics.

The people who don’t want to give up all of their guns are the problem, right? So be angry and then channel that anger toward my political opponents. This is the Democrat playbook. This is why mass shooting, a lot of attention. And of course, they’re also right away saying, “He’s a Trump supporter!” First of all, I don’t even want to get into this. The kid looks like a far leftist, but who knows, and the point is he’s a psychopath so why are we all supposed to sit around and pretend to be amateur Sigmund Freuds here breaking down some psychoanalysis of this maniac.

The kid — the guy — is clearly out of his mind, clearly a lunatic. And yet they try immediately now, they say, “Let’s politicize this! Let’s go with this. Let’s push,” and then I say, “All right. Let’s have a conversation. What would not allow this to happen?” and they won’t actually answer. They’ll say, “Oh, background checks.” We have background checks. Oh, other states need to have stricter gun laws. Why is it that the other states with the stricter gun laws don’t actually have the same levels of gun violence? They’re talking about the red states, of course.

Indiana is where all the guns come from. Pennsylvania, from New York, is where all the guns come from. Why is it that the city of Chicago has worse violence than any city in — I mean, my friend David Harsanyi at National Review made a great database argument on this. Look at San Francisco, Clay, look at Los Angeles. Nevada is next door. You get a gun in Nevada, no problem. Right? You have to go through the legal process, but I’m saying it’s a gun friendly state and yet you don’t have the same kind of shootings even in California cities… Chicago is clearly a specific problem.

CLAY: I really come back to — and maybe this is just ’cause I’ve got three boys myself, and fortunately my boys are still young, 14, 11, and 7. And I know this guy was 22. But where is his family? Same thing happens in Buffalo. These are all young, incredibly troubled boys. Where are the dads? And I mean this on a larger scale. To me this comes back to dads and absent dads. I asked the question earlier in the show, why are we seeing an outbreak of mass shootings and violence from young, very troubled men?

And I put it on dads to a certain extent because I think there are a lot of absent dads, but moms could be involved too. Buck, if you and I can watch a video of this kid, 22 years old. We can talk about what age you want to call somebody a kid, but same thing with the Uvalde shooter, same thing with the Buffalo shooter. If we can look at their social media profile and in five minutes we can say, this kid is mentally unwell, where are the parents? And I say that as a dad of three. I know there’s a lot of people out there who are dads and moms and grandparents and grandmas, but if we, as the general public, can look at these kids’ social media profiles and immediately diagnose that they’re mentally unwell, how absent are these parents that they’re not doing something to try to help their mentally unwell child?

BUCK: It’d be fascinating to hear from someone who deals with, in a clinical practice, deeply mentally unwell and dangerous people, right? You know, 99% of people who have mental health issues, including some pretty serious ones, aren’t a threat to anybody; it’s just a question of them having a fulfilling, happy, stable life. But when you get into that 1% who are either a danger to themselves or others, and that’s, I know, where psychiatrists have a duty to actually —

CLAY: The Tarasoff, yeah, warnings.

BUCK: There are things they actually have to do there. Can’t tell people, you know, oh, I’m planning something horrific and there’s a secrecy around that for mental health reasons. But I would wonder, I think that there might be cases — and I don’t know — there might be cases where you have an individual who is just — I don’t know what to say — an evil person. You know, a psychopath and the parents and maybe hides a bit from the parents because this individual from what we know he was posting stuff. Did the parents know about the posts?

You know, did he just seem like a troubled kid? There are a lot of — when I say “kid” I know he’s 22. He looks — honestly part of — he looks like he’s about like 14 or 15, which is one of the things that I think a lot of people are processing about this too. But other part of this, Clay — and I always preface this. This is a hypothesis. I’m not asserting this as true. But I do believe this is arguably true. I think that the pandemic and the way that we were not only locked down, separated, and immiserated.

But also, the constant fearmongering and the we’re all going to die, I think that it was almost like a forced government panic and nihilism that for people. For people like you, me, our audience, it was annoying, it was oppressive but, we’re gonna roll and do what we can do, right, we’re gonna keep on moving forward. But people who are on that edge, who already were psychologically imbalanced, I think it may have pushed some of them into a place where, you know, the circuitry, the wiring in their brains never really recovered. Again, I’m not a doctor, just a hypothesis, but I don’t think that’s crazy.

CLAY: I think there are many reasons. And social media and the internet in general have made people who are crazy easier able to connect with other people who are crazy and/or encourage them to behave in a crazy fashion. I think there’s so much going on there, the toxicity feeds on itself.

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What Sparked America’s Wave of Violence and How Do We Stop It?

5 Jul 2022

BUCK: Obviously, over this weekend there were shootings that happened, the big shooting Highland Park shooting that occurred, which is getting a lot of attention, and then when you look at the number of people who were also shot in the city of Chicago, Clay, it is mind-blowing.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: We thought there’d be a lot of shootings over the weekend just because historically there tend to be. This was Chicago city, not including the mass shooting that occurred in Highland Park, which I think is a little bit north of Chicago. I don’t know the Chicago area that well. In the city itself, Clay, over the Fourth of July weekend, 71 people were shot, eight were killed — 71 people.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: I remember when I was looking at what’s going on in the war zones at the CIA, if we had had a weekend where we took 71 military casualties —

CLAY: Would have been unheard of.

BUCK: — people would have said, “Oh, my gosh.” It would have been a major battle. We would have been in the middle of the battle of Fallujah or something. That’s a lot of people to get shot over a weekend, and we just had a, quote, “bipartisan” gun bill. A number of senators went along with this, and what did we say? “It’s not gonna stop shootings, and it’s not even gonna stop Democrats from demanding that we do more the next time.” It’s never like, “Okay, we’ve gotten the laws right. We now just have to enforce them better.”

CLAY: Their goal is to end the Second Amendment.

BUCK: Totally.

CLAY: That’s their goal.

BUCK: That’s it, and we know this. So that’s why when we get the moral lectures and the virtue signaling from the Mitt Romneys and Lindsey Graham who went along with it. I hope people remember who went along with this. Not only are we now hearing more calls for gun control, the gun control package that just passed would have done effectively nothing to stop this mass shooting, and clearly didn’t stop the 71 shootings — or 71 people from being shot and eight killed — in Chicago over the weekend.

CLAY: Well, and it’s symptomatic of the overall violence in which this country is descending into. And, Buck, I’m afraid — and I bet you also have this same fear — that, to your point, the shootings overwhelmingly increase in the summer. There are a lot of reasons for that. It’s hot, people are out of their houses, kids are out of school, there’s a lot more free time and free time for idle hands that often creates more issues in many of these cities. We’ve had a lot of police officers retiring. Many of these police officer corps are not strongly staffed right now so there’s fewer officers on the street.

We continue to arrest and return all of these vigilantes who are being arrested constantly for violent acts that are being permitted to go back out in the streets. And, Buck, I try not to name ever the shooters in any of these mass shooting events because I do think that’s the one thing that people who are like us, media, can do to help. But I have to say, every time one of these guys shoots, you look at their social media profile and you can watch bun two-minute video and say this guy — they’re almost always guys — is mentally unstable. And I can’t impress upon you how often this occurs where you watch the video — and even if this kid wasn’t gonna be a mass shooter, you’re like, “This kid is seriously mentally out of touch and something bad is going to happen,” and I watched that guy’s videos and I feel the same way.

BUCK: Clay you look at shooter — and by the way, I agree, yes, I do, with your general position. There’s no need to name. The name, his name, doesn’t matter in a good way.

CLAY: A lot of these guys are trying to get famous —

BUCK: Trying to get famous, that’s right.

CLAY: — so we try not to name them. Obviously if there is a situation where there’s somebody, we’re on air and there’s a mass shooter who’s loose on the city —

BUCK: That’s right. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule.

CLAY: — there are some exceptions, but yes.

BUCK: But so, you look at this individual, the photos of him, and this — and I’m not trying to be, you know, judgmental in a way that goes beyond in instance. But you say, “Well, that guy is crazy.”

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: You look at him, he’s got blue hair, tattoos all over his face. You just look into his eyes — and I mean this — there’s something about the eyes of these shooters. The kid’s a psychopath. All right, he’s 22 years old. He’s a psychopath, and so now we’re gonna have a real conversation. He bought it legally. He’s 22. So, none of the discussions in recent weeks about how we’re gonna stop, unless the position of the left is, “The Second Amendment only covers muskets.” We’re gonna take all your guns, which some of them you see this all over social media. They will say that. It’s crazy.

CLAY: Which I respect, ’cause at least they’re being honest about what they want.

BUCK: That’s the truth, yes, but it’s crazy in terms of a policy ’cause it’s never gonna happen and I think it would lead to I think government confiscation of all firearms would lead to a very, very, very bad state of affairs in the country. Just putting it mildly. But so, none of the things they’ve talked about would have changed the situation with this individual except the mental health angle. Now, let’s look at this. You and I anyone listening could have looked at a photo of this kid and certainly if you sit down and chatted with him and spoke to him a little bit and law enforcement was aware of him —

CLAY: Watch his videos that he was posting on social media; he’s clearly unwell.

BUCK: So what can we do about this? And, now, I ask this because I don’t have an answer, but if we want to have a discussion to stop this. I believe this is the pathway you go down. Are we willing to take someone like this who has, until this instance, until this mass murder, I don’t believe he had ever… Had he broken the law? Was there any criminal record of any kind?

CLAY: Not that I’ve seen.

BUCK: I haven’t seen any criminal record. He had done nothing criminal before this. Are we willing to say, “This guy is a psychopath. We’re going to lock him up for being a psycho under a mental health issue.”

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: And, by the way, how long do we hold him? Is this a life sentence for being a psychopath? And I’m not asking this rhetorically. I really don’t know. But that’s what we’re dealing with. This is someone who was deranged, and there’s seven billion people plus in the world, and there are going to be evil, deranged maniacs. So what do we do?

CLAY: I think it’s a fabulous discussion that an adult country would have. I also think a part of this discussion — and I know there are some exceptions — is, “Why did the mass shooter phenomenon basically start, to a large extent…?” I know you had the shooting from the tower in Texas at the University of Texas, and there are exceptions out there.

BUCK: Yeah, there’s the Scottish school massacre in the nineties and there have been shootings stretching back for a long time.

CLAY: But, by and large, this is something that seems to have started around the time Columbine, right, the early nineties where people just started to take weapons. We had widely available weapons in the United States for hundreds of years. Buck, you know guns way better than I do, but we’ve had high-capacity guns. We’ve had the ability to do this in the fifties and the sixties and the seventies. It didn’t happen, by and large. Why have mass shootings — and again, I want to point out, too, the data that you shared be, 71 people got shot in Chicago. Most of those were not mass shootings. Mass shootings are a small part of the overall acts of violence.

BUCK: It was gang and criminal violence in Chicago, which is 99% or 95% of the murders that are occurring in Chicago on a regular basis.

CLAY: But the way that we cover these, by and large, is a mass shooting, because of the fear factor, right, because anybody can think, “Hey, I’m at a July 4th parade.” What if somebody brings out a gun? We saw a shooting in Philadelphia. We saw the shooting in the Chicago area. Why have the mass shootings, despite the fact that guns were extremely prevalent, like you said, in the fifties, sixties, seventies, and eighties? Why have they started in the nineties and spread? And I’m not claiming to know the answer. I would love to hear from people out there. You can tweet us. You can call in 800-282-2882. Do you have…? I’m sure it’s many things. Do you have a thesis, Buck, on why in the nineties, after 200 years basically of limited mass shootings, why does it happen?

BUCK: The problem — and maybe it would be good to have on the guy that I know who has the data cold, knows the numbers, would be John Lott. So maybe we invite John on to talk about this because when we talk about mass shootings, there’s also a lot of ways they expand the numbers, right? They say it’s two or more people shot. If there’s a gang dispute on the corner and the guy fires off a bunch of rounds, that’s a mass shooting but it’s not a mass shooting in the context of a mass murder by psychopath that you and I are talking about —

CLAY: He was targeted like in a fight.

BUCK: Totally different.

CLAY: You can see that in a shooting. Right.

BUCK: It’s still murder, but it’s a different circumstance, a different situation. We’re talking about these random acts of mass murder shootings, they’re statistically still —

CLAY: Very rare.

BUCK: — and anytime this happens, everyone says, “Oh, how could you say this?” It is a fact. They are statistically very rare. I think that a big part of it is our perception is driven by the access that we all have to constant news and information sources to believe that they are considerably more common than they actually are statistically. And you’re right. I believe there is an incline, even John, I think, John Lott would tell us there’s been a bit of an incline over the last 15 years, but it’s from 12 mass shootings to 15 mass shootings.

CLAY: Right.

BUCK: So you’re talking about a very small number overall, and now you’re asking, how do we stop this? It starts to be a little bit like, how do you stop a super-low probability but high impact event? And that’s incredibly complicated.

CLAY: Yeah. And I don’t know what the solution is, but I understand why events like what happened in Chicago — and, on a smaller scale, what happened in Philadelphia — they capture the public fear in a way that, to your point, Buck, two guys who get into an argument and are 18 years old and end up shooting at each other, that’s a targeted act of violence. You can avoid, in theory, a targeted act of violence that you’re not involved in. You can’t avoid, if some crazy guy decides to start shooting at you from a tall building at a public event like a July 4th parade.

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C&B 24/7: Clay & Buck’s Show Prep

5 Jul 2022

  • FOXNews: ESPN hates America on July 4th, loves woke columnist arrested for choking his wife. For the sports outlet the 4th of July represents a time to roll out woke arguments claiming America is evil – Clay Travis
  • FOXNews: Fox News analyst whose brother was shot in June blames ‘soft’ policies for Highland Park parade shooting
  • Daily Wire: NPR Puts July 4th On The Woke-Wagon, Scraps Annual Reading Of The Declaration Of Independence
  • New York Post: Joey Chestnut manhandles protester before record 15th Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest win
  • NewsBusters: Ashamed of the USA?! Media’s 20 Worst Anti-American Outbursts
  • PJ Media: America-Hating Leftists Should Be Forced to Try the Alternatives
  • BizPacReview: Biden’s not hiding shamed son Hunter: Fourth of July photo ops with ‘pop-pops’ have press gushing
  • MarketWatch: $300,000 raised for Burger King employee who never missed work in 27 years and got mediocre gift

  • FOXNews: Highland Park Mayor: Robert Crimo III’s weapon was ‘legally obtained.’ Illinois mayor says Fourth of July parade shooting a ‘devastating blow’ to community
  • Gateway Pundit: Information Uncovered Overnight Shows Highland Park Shooter, Bobby Crimo, Is Tied to Socialists, Progressives, Antifa and the Occult
  • Daily Wire: Here’s What We Know About The Alleged Highland Park Parade Shooter
  • HotAir: The Uvalde DA is now on the hot seat

  • HotAir: Highland Park parade shooter was “known to law enforcement”
  • New York Post: Highland Park parade shooting: What we know about person of interest Robert Crimo’s social media
  • Breitbart: Two Police Officers Shot During Philadelphia Fourth of July Fireworks Show
  • Breitbart: At Least 71 Shot Over July 4th Weekend in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Chicago
  • Breitbart: More than 50 People Shot over July 4th Weekend in Eric Adams’ New York City
  • FOXNews: Philadelphia shooting: Democrat mayor rips Second Amendment, says only the police should have guns. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said the US should be more like Canada

  • BizPacReview: Ilhan Omar booed off concert stage in her own district: ‘Get the f–k out of here!’
  • The Hill: Now more than ever, Democrats need Hillary Clinton – Doug Schoen

  • UK Daily Mail: The abandoned ski resorts that really did go downhill: ‘Eyesore’ facilities litter the Swiss Alps after Covid and global warming combined to kill them off
  • Breitbart: Poll: Majority of Americans Believe Inflation Is Best Indicator of Recession
  • HotAir: Did a White House “intern” write the ridiculous gas station price hike tweet?

  • Breitbart: WATCH: Gavin Newsom’s Ad in Florida Attacking Republicans
  • Federalist: Why The Racist Left Smears Clarence Thomas As An ‘Angry Black Man’
  • Daily Wire: Protests By Pro-Abortion, Anti-Oil, Climate Activists Mar Events Worldwide
  • FOXNews: Abrams campaign has spent over $450K on private security, despite radical ‘defund the police’ group ties. Stacey Abrams is on the board of a Seattle-based foundation that wants to abolish police, prisons

  • CNBC: Euro slides to 20-year low against the dollar as recession fears build
  • Daily Wire: Dutch Farmers Spread Manure On Streets As New Emissions Rules Threaten To Close Down Livestock Farms

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    C&B’s Pro Tips for Your 4th of July Cookout

    1 Jul 2022

    BUCK: Clay, I put out a little poll, just a quick one, got a couple thousand votes here already. “Independence Day weekend, what goes on your burger if you can only get one?” Ketchup is crushing it at 57%. Mustard at 30%. And just the beef, 15%. So this is where I tell my tips. Do you have some things that you always want everyone to know about the grill? ‘Cause what I always tell everyone is, number one — and this has come from many, many family events and gatherings — I would always say, let’s throw some sausage in the cart, just like that sweet Italian sausage you’ll see at the grocery store, you char that stuff up, it’s delicious.

    So don’t limit yourself just to burger, steak, hot dog. A lot of people like chicken, obviously, too. I’m a big proponent of that salty, delicious Italian sausage or a hot, spicy sausage. The other thing is, guys — and ladies — you gotta season the buns. You gotta do a little bit of butter on the bun that you’ve melted or a little bit of olive oil, some salt and pepper. Don’t just think the bun is the delivery mechanism for your barbecued meat. You want the bun to taste good too. So a little bit of olive oil brushed on there, a little salt and pepper, game-changer.

    CLAY: The age range. Age range of July 4th is a big deal. So make sure there’s a ton of kid and grandkid overlap usually at July 4th. The kids are a total mess, in my experience, when it comes to if you don’t get ’em fed at the right time, right? Like things can be going well, going well. Get started on the grill earlier than you’re expecting to want to get started on the grill. That make sense? Like I feel like as an adult sometimes you think, oh, he everybody’s having a good time. The kids can spiral out of control really quickly. Get going faster than you may have otherwise been —

    BUCK: Yeah, get it going in advance for sure. That makes a lot of sense to me. What is the, at the Travis household, what is the must have grill item, other than the classic burger and hot dog?

    CLAY: I am a monster watermelon fan for the Fourth.

    BUCK: Watermelon?

    CLAY: Yeah.

    BUCK: You and my dad, big watermelon fans.

    CLAY: Big watermelon guy for July 4th. I also think you gotta have beans, right, to go with the chips. I don’t know what it is about being in a cookout, but if you have chips — and I’m a big chips guy, too, I love all types of chips. There’s something amazing about having baked beans that you can dip the chip through.

    BUCK: Ooh. This is a pro tip.

    CLAY: Oh, this is a pro tip. I love, absolutely love — and I don’t know why it is, but it’s always like a July 4th, Memorial Day cookout thing — beans getting dipped into the chips, picking the chip up covered in beans is an all-time great feeling when you’re sitting there nice, frosty beverage and you got the beans covering the chips. This is, I say, a go-to. And also, gotta toss in, like I said, the watermelon.

    We were talking about the Biden administration bragging about saving you 16 cents on your Fourth of July cookout. Brian Kemp — who is running for governor of Georgia and will be beating, hopefully, Stacey Abrams come November — put out his own graphic today. And I didn’t know it was this bad for everything, but I’m looking at it right now. This is according to Kemp for Governor. Ground beef prices since last year, up 36%. Chicken breast prices up 33%. Pork and beans, 33%. Lemonade — Lemonade! — up 22%. Potato salad up 19%. Hamburger buns, 16%. Even ice cream is up 10%, Buck, in terms of the overall costs.

    BUCK: If you can only get one ice cream flavor at this Independence Day weekend, Clay. What is it? No hemming and hawing, what comes to mind?

    CLAY: I would go mint chocolate chip.

    BUCK: Damn, that’s a good one. I go pistachio ’cause I’m fancy like that.

    CLAY: Pistachio is very fancy. I know because we go for ice cream right now almost every night with the boys, and my kids love Superman ice cream, and they like cookie dough ice cream, which, I have to be honest, is the cookie dough ice cream the greatest ice cream flavor that has been invented in our lifetimes?

    BUCK: I think —

    CLAY: I think it is.

    BUCK: Crash here said rocky road, is that your favorite here in NYC, our audio engineering says rocky road. Producer Ali, she goes chocolate chip. Is that mint chocolate chip? Are you with Clay here? Oh, okay.

    CLAY: Regular.

    BUCK: She’s for a regular chocolate chip.

    CLAY: That’s like cookies and cream, right?

    BUCK: No, no. Cookies and cream is different. I don’t know why. They’re just different.

    CLAY: Does everyone agree with me on the show that cookie dough, even if you don’t like it yourself, is the greatest ice cream flavor to be invented in the modern era?

    BUCK: Before I had to go gluten-free for health reasons, cookie dough is by far my favorite ice cream.

    CLAY: Cookie dough ice cream is incredible. I think it’s gotta be the best invented ice cream in the last, what, 30 years. I don’t think… They didn’t have cookie dough when we were kids, did we?

    BUCK: Cookie dough ice cream?

    CLAY: Yeah. Like, how recent is cookie dough ice cream?

    BUCK: I had it in the… Clay you’re a little older, but I had it. (laughing)

    CLAY: Three years older! Buck talks like I’m 19 or 40 years older than him.

    BUCK: You’re riding a chariot to work every day, you know?

    CLAY: I don’t think… I remember kids. Do you remember when kids used to just eat the cookie dough, like before there was cookie dough ice cream, you would sometimes, there were kids that would eat the cookie dough. My mom wouldn’t let me do it —

    BUCK: I will tell you there is a… I had to stop buying it, and I’ve only seen it in few places. They make a gluten-free cookie dough that comes in a blue tub, and it’s called I think Le Pastry or El Pastry or something that I will just eat the whole thing. I will just eat it straight with a spoon out of it and, you know, it is bathing suit season; so I have not bought this cookie dough in a while. I am powerless against the gluten-free cookie dough’s powers. I cannot throw that down.

    CLAY: It is pretty amazing. And I bet there are a lot of women out there that will respond to this. Have you noticed, Buck, that there are — the reason I’m thinking about it is because of you are talking about just like opening the container and eating out of it. I have known a lot of women in my life who, if secretly, they love to just eat peanut butter by itself. You ever eat peanut by itself, like just like get a tablespoon of peanut butter and eat?

    BUCK: I mean, I cannot tell a lie. Yes, I have done that. I’ll do it with almond butter, too, which I like as well.

    CLAY: Oh, yeah. See, I’m a big peanut butter guy. I love peanut butter, but I mix it with graham crackers, graham crackers peanut butter. Phenomenal, phenomenal treat.

    BUCK: My brother’s baked goods company is coming out with a new line of graham crackers so I’ll have to get it.

    CLAY: Oh, really?

    BUCK: Yeah.

    CLAY: I’ll have to try ’em out. I love ’em.

    BUCK: Yeah, Suzie’s Graham Crackers.

    CLAY: Well, I just ran through all of these different price increases on the cookouts for July 4th.

    BREAK TRANSCRIPT

    CLAY: Buck, you are ready to give the people the tease that you have been giving for some time now, which is your impeccably, most important detailed grilling tip, which is…?

    BUCK: I gave them “season the bun,” and I gave them “throw sausage in the mix,” which take that as you will, different kinds of sausage. But when in doubt, wrap it in bacon. I’m telling you, it always works. Scallop, wrap it in bacon.

    CLAY: It doesn’t ever make it worse.

    BUCK: Never makes it worse. You know? You’ve got like a pork shoulder whatever, wrap it in some bacon. You’ve got a flank steak that you’re not sure if it’s really gonna be juicy enough, wrap it in bacon. You’re never gonna be like, “I shouldn’t have wrapped that in bacon.” I’m just telling you. And bacon-wrapped gates, if you want to do something a little fancy as an appetizer, really easy to pull off, really easy.

    CLAY: That actually sounds phenomenal and also is making me hungry right now.

    BUCK: It kind of turned into a cooking show today a little bit. But that happens.

    CLAY: I know. Well, I mean, it’s July 4th and there are a lot of people out there getting ready, celebrating, preparing. So, your beverage of choice, by the way, you can drink tequila, right? Is that what you can drink?

    BUCK: I can drink tequila and wine because of celiac disease; so tequila and wine basically is what I go for. I was never a Big beer drinker, and I will tell you I’ve actually always like cider, which I can drink. I think cider is delicious. I just try not to think about the 300 grams of sugar that I’m drinking.

    CLAY: Oh, I didn’t know. Is cider sugary?

    BUCK: Cider, not always, but of the ciders, it’s like more sugar than Coca-Cola. It’s really high in sugar, if you want to avoid that. Our good friend Jesse Kelly claims to have — we can call him out right now — Jesse Kelly, that he has the best method for cooking burgers on the planet and he stands behind this a hundred percent so we’re gonna to call him.

    CLAY: I’ve had the burger, by the way.

    BUCK: You have?

    CLAY: I’ve had Jesse’s burger, cheeseburger, I think. It’s good. Nothing spectacular.

    BUCK: Oh, wow.

    CLAY: — a little bit, if —

    BUCK: Wow.

    CLAY: If he’s working tonight.

    BUCK: That’s Jesse Kelly on Twitter.

    CLAY: I had the burger. I’ve seen him brag about the burger and how it’s the most amazing burger ever. Burgers are always good. It’s like pizza. It’s really hard to screw up pizza, really hard to screw up chicken tenders. Basically, if kids like it, grilled cheese hard to screw up. If kids like it, it’s because it’s almost impossible to make bad. So, I’m not denigrating the burger. I’m just saying, on a burger taste test, for all the props that Jesse gives his burgers, the burger… What burger did we have in the studio? The Shake Shack?

    BUCK: Oh, yeah, the Shake Shack burger is amazing.

    CLAY: Shake Shack burgers dunked on Jesse Kelly’s burger like balls in the face style, if you think about it, like somebody trying to draw the charge and Jesse Kelly’s just standing there and his burger’s getting dunked on by a Shake Shack burger.

    BUCK: We’re gonna have to have Jessie on. Next Friday or something we’re gonna have to have Jesse on to let him respond to this scandalous attack.

    CLAY: We’ll have a taste test. We should have a taste test. I think almost everybody would go Shake Shack burger over Jesse Kelly burger.

    BUCK: We’re gonna have a showdown here. We’re gonna make this happen.

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