×

Clay and Buck

For a better experience,
download and use our app!

Pelosi Ends Speakership Wishing Us All a “Happy Shwanza”

23 Dec 2022

The awful Nancy Pelosi, who did so much to damage the country and boost inflation, is finally leaving Congress — a rare bright spot as the GOP takes over. She left us all with a hilarious goodbye demonstrating her idiocy.

Tweet us your take @ClayAndBuck — or, if you’re a 24/7 VIP, send us an email.
How do you think we should celebrate the new holiday of Shwanza?

Recent Stories

Get Password Hint

Enter your email to receive your password hint.

Need help? Contact customer service.

Forgot password

Enter your e-mail to receive your account information via e-mail.

Need help? Contact customer service.

Former Congressman Jason Lewis on the GOP

23 Dec 2022

CLAY: We’re going to have Jason Lewis and Todd Herman hanging out with you guys next week, and Jason is a former congressman from Minnesota’s 2nd District, also was a member of the House Budget Committee, and he’s been a guest host for Rush and he’s going to be having a good time with Todd. The book Party Animal: The Truth About President Trump, Power Politics & the Partisan Press. And, Jason, appreciate you joining us right now. And I want to hit you with this. Representative Dan Bishop, who’s done a great job —

LEWIS: Yes.

CLAY: — letting it be known what all is in the omnibus bill, said this new $1.7 trillion omnibus bill spends — and this is crazy, $6 billion per day, $250 million per hour and $4 million per minute every day — until September 30th, when the process will start all over again.

LEWIS: It sounds like a Hunter Biden party.

CLAY: (laughs) Yeah. I mean, the Hunter Biden stimulus package for strippers would definitely be helped here.

LEWIS: Yeah. (laughs)

CLAY: You’ve been through this process before, but the rush job, everything associated with it, did anything surprise you about the way this all went down?

LEWIS: Well, when you get to Congress, Clay — and great to be with you — you know, you look around the room at first at that first caucus meeting and you say, “All these famous people here in Washington, I’m not certain I belong here,” and after about six months, you look around the room and say, “I’m not certain they belong here.” It doesn’t take long to realize what the swamp really is. And that’s why when we had controlled the budget process and did three budget reconciliation resolutions… You know, Mitt Romney said the other day, “Oh, we got to do this entire fiscal year spending blowout because we just can’t trust Republicans in the House to fashion a budget.”

We did it in the 115th Congress. Obama left us a six-month budget. We had to do that one then we did ‘18 and ‘19. And you know what the total discretionary spending was then — $1.132 trillion. You know what it is now with this one? It’s $1.7 trillion. So, over a half a trillion dollars in spending in the matter of a couple of years since the Trump administration, since I served in Congress. This is a total betrayal by Senate Republicans. It is a total betrayal by Senate leadership. And I’ll tell you, it’s nothing new, Clay. Remember when we repealed Obamacare in 2017, we had it done. Two tough votes. People like Dan Bishop stood up there, stuck their neck out, got it over to the Senate, is going to go to conference committee — until John McCain and Lisa Murkowski say, “Uh, thumbs down, we kill that.” The Senate is where all good things go to die in Republican politics and it’s got to change or they’re not going to have any support left, the party is not going to have any support left. So, this year —

CLAY: I hear that from a lot of people and I’m glad you brought that up, but the number-one thing that I am hearing in the wake of this 1.7 trillion being spent is not people angry at Democrats —

LEWIS: Right.

CLAY: — because, look, I mean, they’re doing what they promised their constituents they would do — spend money.

LEWIS: They were put on Earth to bankrupt the country.

CLAY: (laughs) That’s right. But 18 Republican senators went along with this. And as Bill Hagerty just told us, if they hadn’t gotten to 60 — in other words, if only nine Republicans had gone along with it —

LEWIS: Right.

CLAY: — they couldn’t have rammed through this 1.7 trillion. And we would have been able to allow that Republican House to at least have a go at it in the beginning of the year.

LEWIS: In a couple of weeks, yeah. You know, you do a C.R. for a couple of weeks, and then the House Budget Committee has to do three budget reconciliations like we did in 2017 and 2018. It’s not that difficult unless you really want to spend the money, unless you like what the Democrats are doing in the Senate. And it wasn’t just this omnibus spending bill. The Respect for Marriage Act, which basically codified the Hodges decision nationwide, amnesty, voter ID federalizing elections. You had the Dirty Dozen that expanded — led by Thom Tillis of North Carolina; so, Dan Bishop knows a lot of what he speaks.

But you had the Dirty Dozen on the Respect for Marriage bill that expanded into 18 on the omnibus bill. And you know, I think the Republican Party needs to go back and look at Ike’s farewell speech when he said the military-industrial complex and now it’s the national security state. They upped the FBI appropriation Republicans after what we know the bureau has done! These guys like this stuff and they’ve got sort of this national security state apparatus, which is telling them, “Oh, we got to have increases there. We got to have increases in the Pentagon, no audit,” a bill I sponsored. So in order to get that, Schumer says, “Okay that will double social spending too,” and so they come to an agreement that basically puts the next generation of kids on the hook for it, and they’re not going to be able to pay off the debt. We’re going to have a sovereign debt crisis soon.

CLAY: Where does all this go? I mean, because I started the show talking about was the Tea Party began its protest against wild government spending when we had a $10 trillion deficit. That was the number that set off alarm bells.

LEWIS: A $10 trillion debt. Yeah. Right.

CLAY: Yeah. Maybe we have a budget at some point. The way things are going. But now we’re over $30 trillion. And if you look at that in the space of 12 years, we basically added $20 trillion in debt. That’s a roughly, you know, $1.5 trillion a year or so. That means in 20 years we might be sitting at a 60 or $70 trillion debt if we continue at the same pace.

LEWIS: That’s right.

CLAY: God knows what’s going to happen with inflation and overall borrowing costs going up. That just eats up more and more of the federal budget on a year-to-year basis. How does this change? Now what happens?

LEWIS: Well, the vigilantes… We used to call them the Bond vigilantes, you know, and the government would have a blowout. Interest rates would rise because they weren’t printing money and that would rein in the spending somewhat. Well, now, since really Bill Clinton, the glue that’s held this together, has been artificially low interest rates by the Fed. What that did essentially was monetize all this spending you’re talking about. When you have all that fiat money and the Fed is just putting a credit on the Treasury’s checkbook, then soon you’ll have massive inflation and then you’ll get interest rates rising no matter what the Fed does, because they’ll be out of tools. So this is the problem with printing money. It takes off the guardrails of spending, Clay.

CLAY: Yeah.

LEWIS: I mean, if you didn’t print the money, interest rates would either skyrocket or taxes would skyrocket and there would be a revolt. But if you’re printing the money, it’s the worst way to debauch a currency. It’s the worst way to raise taxes on the next generation, and I think the bill is going to come due soon because as rates rise, just interest on servicing the debt a year will be $1 trillion in the federal budget.

CLAY: Yep.

LEWIS: And so it is unsustainable. You’re quite right.

CLAY: Yeah, and it’s terrifying because I don’t think a lot of people understand that. But, you know, when you have a low interest rate environment, the cost of borrowing is effectively limited to a substantial degree, right?

LEWIS: Subsidized. It’s subsidized. Right.

CLAY: Yeah, subsidized, and now you’re dealing with what’s going to have to be, you know, 5% and 6% interest rate. And we just had Bill Hagerty on talking about just what the cost of that interest is, and it’s frankly unsustainable. So I don’t know how it blows up and I don’t know how bad it’s going to get.

LEWIS: We’ll become a Third World banana republic that keeps devaluing its currency. So if you saved up $500,000 to retire, it’ll be worth $200,000. They’ll just devalue it. And it will make everyone poorer. And then if you get, you know, if the Chinese get their way and their currency becomes the international currency, then you’re really going to have a run on the dollar. We are flirting with disaster. We really are. And I don’t think — and that’s why, to your earlier point, Clay, people are so upset with those Republicans. They’re supposed to be the green eyeshade, you know, bookkeepers that keep this thing in check. And they just went over to the dark side.

CLAY: Well, I know you’re going to have a lot of opportunity to talk to our audience next week. We cannot wait for you guys to sit in. We thank you for being willing to sit and talk to our audience. I know they’re going to love hearing from you, and hopefully you can help to continue to bring sanity.

LEWIS: Clay, it’ll be just like a Vikings game in the fourth quarter. You have no idea how it’s going to turn out.

CLAY: Hey, at least your field goal kickers in the playoffs are always reliable.

LEWIS: (laughing)

CLAY: I hope that wasn’t too low of a blow for all the Viking fans out there.

LEWIS: Yeah, right, right. It’s good thing we’ve got low taxes up here. That’s all I got to say.

CLAY: Hey, I live in Tennessee. We got no state income tax. I’m happy with that. We’ll talk. We’ve may be out of power at some point. If that happens, you’ll be back. But, in the meantime, you’ll definitely be back on Monday. And thanks for everything you’re doing for the show. And I know our audience is going to love hearing from you.

LEWIS: Clay, thanks to you. Appreciate it.

CLAY: No doubt. That is Jason Lewis, formerly Minnesota congressperson. I believe you guys are going to have a fantastic time hearing from him because he represents a wing of the House Republicans — and the Republican Party in general — that used to be made up with adults, and there used to be people who made rational decisions, and they used to be men who actually had testosterone.

Recent Stories

Sen. Marsha Blackburn on the $1.7 Trillion Omnibus

22 Dec 2022

CLAY: We are headed up to Washington, D.C. right now where Senator Marsha Blackburn is joining us from the great state of Tennessee. I’ll start here, Senator Blackburn: First of all, thanks for coming on and merry early Christmas to you. I am right now in Key West. It’s 80 degrees. When I land tonight in Nashville, it’s going to be zero. Is this the worst travel decision ever made to leave Key West and 80 for Nashville and zero?

SEN. BLACKBURN: (laughing) Well, there is nothing like being home in Tennessee for Christmas, but I am hopeful that your flight will be able to land, and I am hopeful that my flight from D.C. to Nashville will be able to land and I’ll get home and get to make those cookies and pies and a great big gumbo and fix Christmas dinner for my family.

CLAY: What’s your favorite thing to do at Christmas? Well, you guys sit around and watch any Christmas movies? I know you’ve got grandkids now. Second part of that question: Is it more fun to be a parent or grandparent at Christmas?

SEN. BLACKBURN: (laughing) A grandparent is the best because you get to love on them and give them lots of treats and then let their mom and dad deal with it later. (laughing)

CLAY: Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard.

SEN. BLACKBURN: That is good, but, you know, we do. We have a good time. My husband is taking everybody this afternoon to see It’s a Wonderful Life.

CLAY: Oh, that’s great.

SEN. BLACKBURN: Of course, I’m missing that because I’m here in D.C., but we love to have family dinners and then it’s great to talk about what we’re grateful for, what we did this year that really had an impact on the lives of others, on our own life; what we have been able to share, or how we’ve invested in the lives of others — and so I love hearing those things from my children and the grandkids, their perspective of being able to understand the true meaning of Christmas and the specialness of the Christmas holidays.

CLAY: You are on the Senate floor — or just off it — right now.

SEN. BLACKBURN: Yes.

CLAY: This $1.7 trillion omnibus bill, I believe, if I’m correct, is still, it looks like is going to pass. I want to get the latest there. But I think you guys also just had Senator Mike Lee’s request that Title 42 stay in effect, lose out 50 to 48, if I’m not mistaken. What is the latest on the Senate floor? What is occurring? What can you tell us about the absolute latest there?

SEN. BLACKBURN: Yeah. We’ve got a series of amendments that different members are offering that would improve the language in the bill. There are a lot of things in here that are legislation that really ought not to be in this funding mechanism, and so we’ve had a series of amendments. We’re not winning, we’re making our argument, and we thought that the Lee amendment would pass. Indeed, they had. Two of the Democrats that voted for it changed their votes to no, so that they didn’t have to have to have that debate.

But keeping Title 42, we know from all of our Border Patrol, we know from the mayors and the elected officials down on the border, that is going to be vitally important to them when you look at how this border is being overrun — and this administration, this is a problem of their making. And, Clay, they have absolutely no plan for mitigating this. Zero. None. And what they’re doing is they’re going to turn every state into a border state, every town into a border town. They’re already doing it to Tennessee, saying they’re going to ship these immigrant — illegal immigrants — to Tennessee, 50 at a time.

That’s a busload at a time. At least two busloads per week. And then have them wait out the period of time until they get their asylum claim. These are all single adults and Senator Hagerty and I have written ICE. We are, of course, trying to block this, but we’re also seeking information. Have these individuals been vetted? Do they have a date? Do they have a notice to appear on a certain date? Are any of them criminals? Are any of them on the terrorist watch list?

And we want affirmative in order to protect the people of Tennessee who have clearly said, “We don’t want to be a sanctuary city. We don’t want to establish a sanctuary state.” There are some states like Illinois and New York and others that have said they are sanctuary states, and cities that have declared a sanctuary status. But that’s not us. It is not what Tennessee wants. So, we’re trying to protect our state and keeping Title 42 is going to be an important step.

CLAY: When you see, Senator Blackburn, what happened with 50 migrants — illegal immigrants — on Martha’s Vineyard, and then you see that tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are right now coming across the border in El Paso, for instance. How unfair is it to a governor like Greg Abbott to have to deal with that, for the state of Arizona to have to deal with that? And as you just mentioned, wherever you may be, I think this is important. Every state is effectively becoming a border state. I saw a study where virtually every congressional district in America was right now getting illegal immigrants because as they come across the border — virtually untouched and unrestricted — they go everywhere. And then you can never actually manage to get these people back out of the country.

SEN. BLACKBURN: That is right. And, you know, if you are transporting them to Tennessee or to other states, then you have the ability to transport them back to their home country.

CLAY: It’s a great point.

SEN. BLACKBURN: So just use the trucks to do that. So they’re using the resources that should be used to remove these individuals that have broken the law, that have come over outside of our immigration policies — which are established, which are the rule of law — and they should be sending them back to their home country and say, “Absolutely not. There is a process. You will follow the process. We are a nation of laws. We abide by the rule of law. No, we’re not going to let you come in and get in the queue to enter the country in front of people who are doing this the right way.”

CLAY: No doubt. Now, I’ve been talking in the first hour of this program, and I know this is something that very what troubles you as well. But unfortunately, we don’t control the Senate. But when you see the revelations that are coming out from the Twitter files and you see that the FBI clearly there are receipts that have been published now, didn’t just put their finger on the election of 2020. They put the whole corpus of the FBI on it and said, “We are trying to rig the election for Joe Biden again.” That’s my words. But you look at the receipts, this seems quite clear. What should happen to hold the FBI accountable for what they did in 2020, and how troubled are you by the revelations that you have seen so far?

SEN. BLACKBURN: The revelations are very troubling. They’re troubling to me and they’re troubling to a lot of Tennesseans who have just said, “I cannot believe this actually happened,” and it was so interesting to me this past weekend at home and Sunday at church how many people talked about this, because they want to be able to trust our law enforcement agencies and they look at what the FBI did and they say, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” The intentionality of how they went about trying to sink the Hunter Biden story, the way they set up a division or a group in the FBI.

They’re they were pulled off of other cases and they were moved to deal with telling social media, “Oh, there’s going to be Russian interference. Oh, there’s going to be Russia collusion. Oh, you better watch out, there’s going to be hacked data.” They even went so far as to go to the Aspen Institute and do a gaming session, kind of a war games on this, how they would handle this message. Now, think about that. They were all they were so in on this, they were not spending their time looking for drug traffickers, sex traffickers, human traffickers.

They were not taking their time to push forward on investigating criminal groups, cartels that are working in the United States. But they pulled people off of some of these child trafficking cases or other cases, and, Clay, they put them on this Russia collusion story and making certain they were protecting Hunter Biden and that this didn’t do anything that was going to harm Joe Biden! It’s amazing to me, and it shows you that there is a group in the FBI that feels like there’s two tiers of justice. There’s one for the elites and the preference to people, and then there’s one for everybody else.

CLAY: Last question for you: This omnibus bill, what am I missing? Given that the House is going to be in Republican control in January, in a few days, in a few weeks, why would Republicans allow Democrats to draft an entire bill and take away the power of the House to actually — hopefully — dial this back as soon as a couple of weeks from now? Doesn’t it seem like basic negotiation that you would use one half of Congress that you own to get a better deal?

SEN. BLACKBURN: And we have tried everything within our power and have done everything that we can do to get to a continuing resolution and then give the Republican House the opportunity to weigh in on this spending. And, you know, it looks like this thing’s going to go through in the next hour or so. But what we have to do is hope that it fumbles when it gets to the House, and then we’ll have to come back and hopefully do a C.R. that will carry us through to after the first of the year and let the Republicans take a swing at it.

CLAY: No doubt. Merry Christmas to you, Senator Blackburn. I know you’re working hard today. Hope you get back to your family and hope that Republicans can stand up as best we can against this $1.7 trillion.

SEN. BLACKBURN: You got it. Take care. Merry Christmas.

CLAY: Merry Christmas to you as well.

Recent Stories

Julie Kelly on the Fallout from January 6th

22 Dec 2022

CLAY: We bring in now Julie Kelly, who has been doing tremendous work helping to shine a light on the political prisoners of January 6. She wrote a book, January 6: How Democrats Used the Capitol Protests to Launch a War on Terror Against the Political Right. She has helped to raise money for the Patriot Freedom Project, an organization that I’m happy to have donated to, because they are helping to provide the best possible legal representation for many people who are still — still — under lock and key associated with January 6, many of whom have not yet even had their day in court, have not been tried for crimes. Let’s start there, Julie. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year to everybody out there, including you. How many of these January 6th prisoners are still in solitary confinement, still have not been able to have a resolution of their charges? Where are we sitting right now as we prepare for 2023?

KELLY: Thanks so much for having me on, Clay, and thank you for your donation and support of the Patriot Freedom Project. As you said, it is one of the few funds raising money for lawyers and, more importantly, to support these families, these children whose lives have been completely destroyed, families bankrupted, businesses bankrupted by this retaliatory, vengeful persecution of the Department of Justice. So, thank you. The short answer, Clay, it’s very hard to track because, number one, you do certainly have people who are still awaiting trial and they are in jail.

For example, if jury selection starting this week in the trial — seditious conspiracy trial — for five Proud Boys not accused — only one accused of smashing a window. The other four are accused of no violent crime. Yet they have been incarcerated since January, February, March of 2021. Jury selection started this week. The trial, the actual opening arguments won’t even start until after the beginning of the new year. You certainly have other people who are awaiting trials who have been incarcerated for 18, 12 months as DOJ delays those trials intentionally to inflict more pain.

But the other thing is that this DOJ, this FBI are still arresting people every week. You have new defendants, new people who have been arrested and charged just this week, including for misdemeanor offenses. They are closing in on a thousand total defendants, and the DOJ has warned that they are going to look for a thousand more. Here we are almost two years later; they are still rounding up Trump supporters, destroying their lives, throwing them in prison and ruining their families. It’s really tragic.

CLAY: Do we know how many are in solitary? Because I know the last time we talked, there were still some of these defendants that were in solitary confinement associated with these charges.

KELLY: For the most part, they are in solitary kept in their cells, especially in the D.C. — what we call the D.C. — gulag. So it doesn’t matter where the defendants, where these people are arrested and charged, they’re being they are then transported or held in D.C. because, as you know, Clay, every single trial is happening in Washington, D.C. So that is DOJ and the judge’s justification for keeping them. I get different reports. You know, there is still this is happening in the D.C. jail. I’m getting really horrific reports of what’s happening in a Northern Virginia jail where some of the D.C. detainees were transferred to.

It doesn’t matter really what prison they’re in — and they’re in prisons across the country in indefinite incarceration — they are targeted, they are specifically mistreated. They’re kept away from their families. They’re kept away from their defense attorneys, which, of course, is a constitutional violation on top of the few other constitutional Bill of Rights violations. So I’ll tell you, I just get inundated with stories and it’s almost impossible to cover because there’s so much happening. And then, of course, you have people who are then convicted or take plea deals hoping that the torment will end, and they’re sentenced to years in prison on nonviolent felonies like obstruction of an official proceeding.

It’s just crazy. And the idea that anyone, any Republican in Congress would contemplate giving this Department of Justice a 10% raise, boosting their budget to over $38 billion, giving the FBI a $569 million raise, boosting their annual budget to over $11 billion a year for the first time? You know, this should be cut. This should not even be considered. And yet here you have Republican senators voting to advance the omnibus that would do just that. Give Merrick Garland and this vengeful DOJ — abusive DOJ — and corrupt FBI more money to target Americans on the right.

CLAY: How disappointed are you by how little opposition Republicans in Congress have made to these political prosecutions, and how disappointed are you over how little discussion there’s ever been about this? Because we’re talking about Democrats bailing out people who rioted all throughout the summer of 2020, blatantly and clearly advocating. For them to face no punishment virtually at all, and yet you have these people, many of whom are grandpas, grandmas, relatively nonviolent or completely nonviolent people who walked into the Capitol that are having the full force and might of the United States government thrown at them.

KELLY: I’m just disgusted. I mean, this Republican Party is such a disappointment, Clay, on so many levels. But when you cannot stand up and say, “This is wrong. You are violating the Constitution. This is political targeting of political dissidents. This is what we read about and hear about happening in other countries. This is not supposed to be happening in the United States.” Yes, those who committed violent crimes should obviously be prosecuted. But that’s not what’s happening here. This is a political targeting using the most powerful government agencies we have to crush people, and it’s really just terrifying.

And it is it is appalling that more Republicans are not speaking out. Will they actually proceed with the investigations to uncover a lot of what happened before and on January 6? We know it’s not coming out in the committee reports. They haven’t addressed any of the big questions Americans have. Why was the building and the grounds so intentionally left insecure that day? What happened to the pipe bomber? Where’s the 14,000 hours of surveillance video that would show what happened inside and outside the building that day? How many FBI informants actually were embedded?

We know for a fact, because of these trials, that there were numerous FBI informants in the two alleged militia groups, the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. What were they doing? Why didn’t…? If they had all these assets spread out everywhere before and on January 6, why did this still happen? The committee report doesn’t address any of it, and that’s what’s lingering in a lot of people’s heads and minds. They suspect something really nefarious went down on January 6 and it wasn’t because of the guy wearing the horns or the Indiana meemaw who walked in and took selfies.

CLAY: We’re talking to Julie Kelly, who has been fighting so hard on behalf of the January 6th “political prisoners,” I think it’s fair to call many of them. Julie, you predicted and said on this show for a while that you think Donald Trump is going to be charged by this Department of Justice. The January 6th sham committee has now released their findings. What do you think is going to happen? Do you think it will happen when in 2023? How would you play out where the DOJ is going next?

KELLY: You know, it’s hard to say now because of the special counsel — which of course, is a ruse, Clay. There is no special counsel. He’s not even in the country. This is just to give a head fake that this is now an independent investigation when all DOJ is doing is moving the same prosecutors and investigators who’ve been working on this case — all January 6 investigations since the beginning, moving them over — to the special counsel’s office. There’s nothing independent about it whatsoever. So I you know, they’re already investigating Donald Trump. So it’s not like the committee had to make these referrals, the four referrals.

I think the committee did it in sort of a save-face measure to look like they’d actually produce something besides the ridiculous report that blamed Donald Trump for everything. But look, we’ve talked about this. I feel very strongly convinced DOJ will indict him on two of the four criminal referrals that came out of the committee, which was obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy. I’ve suggested for months that I think those are the two counts that this DOJ will come up with. And I. As far as timing, though, I don’t know. Whenever they think they can get the maximum political benefit of it. They will have no trouble getting a D.C. grand jury to sign off on criminal indictments against Donald Trump.

CLAY: But can I discuss this, Julie? And I don’t know what you would say on this. I feel like Democrats are desperate for Donald Trump to be the nominee in 2024, because I think they want Biden to run against Trump again. Do you think that it would benefit Donald Trump to be indicted in terms of winning the Republican nomination or hinder him, hurt him to be indicted? I don’t know that there’s an easy answer, but the reason why I would ask it, Julie, is the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago definitely helped Trump.

That has many people out there who otherwise might not think he’s the best nominee lined up and said, “This is an unacceptable governmental overreach. Even if I don’t agree with Trump on everything, the FBI shouldn’t be storming the gates of Mar-a-Lago and raiding a former president’s home when he’s a top contender to take on Joe Biden in that election.” How do you think it would play politically if Trump were indicted?

KELLY: That’s such a good question, and I do have a lot of people tell me that they think that they’re doing this to strengthen Trump and make him the nominee and have him run against Biden. The comments, the public comments, though, kind of run afoul of that. They think that especially the insurrection, that he would be precluded by the 14th Amendment then from running for office ever again. So, I’m not really sure the political calculation there. I just really think it’s more a, “Will this backfire?” I think it definitely will for the Republican Party because they’re going to continue to see Trump as the guy — the only guy left, really — who could take on this vicious ruling class and what they’re doing.

Not just to him, but to hundreds of thousands of Americans, what they want to do to all of us, really. So I’m not really sure the political calculation of it. But look, Democrats have told their base that they are going to get Donald Trump in handcuffs. They’ve been telling them that for the better part of seven years. And they want that imagery, right? They wanted for their base. They think it bolsters their party, and I think that they think it will humiliate Donald Trump and preclude him from running. So, I’m not really sure where I land on it. The Democrats want him to run or do they really want to destroy him or both? I’m not sure.

CLAY: By the way, breaking news: The Senate has passed the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill.

KELLY: Wow.

CLAY: So if you thought Republicans were going to stand up against this huge overreach — as you mentioned, Julie, 10% raise for the DOJ, the $38 billion; the FBI, over $11 billion. I think I got those numbers right when you were discussing with me.

KELLY: Mmm-hmm.

CLAY: So, 68 to 29, it passed.

KELLY: Oh wow.

CLAY: Not even remotely close. Tons of Republicans voted in favor of this Democrat bill. So if you think they’re going to stand up for the January 6 political prisoners? Julie, they won’t even bother to stand up to the Democrat Party in the Senate itself.

KELLY: Well, there’s really no difference — you know this, Clay — between Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats. I mean, look at the leader of the party, Mitch McConnell. He’s a complete embarrassment. He is the biggest booster of what’s happening in Ukraine, forking over billions of more dollars to Zelensky. And, you know, there’s just no more… Where you have a handful who say the right thing. But look, when you’ve got… Did you say 68 to 29?

CLAY: Yeah, 68 to 29 is the report that I’m seeing online right now on Twitter. It literally just happened.

KELLY: 18 Republicans then because you assume every Democrat voted for it. So you’ve got 18 Republicans who voted. You had 21 who voted Tuesday to advance this omnibus bill. I’m not sure who dropped off. Maybe Marco Rubio or Tommy Tuberville. Those were a couple names that kind of surprised me. But this is just an absolute disgrace. This party is an embarrassment. It needs to be routed from the top to the bottom, and I’m just not sure how we do it, though.

CLAY: No doubt. Julie, you had a fabulous 2022. Thanks for all the work that you have done. I’m sure that we will be talking to you in 2023. Have a good Christmas and a fantastic New Year until then and keep up the good work.

KELLY: You too. Have great trip to Park City. Love that place.

CLAY: (laughing) I’m looking forward to. It is pretty fabulous. Thank you.

Recent Stories

Why Did Senate Republicans Just Vote for Inflation?

22 Dec 2022

Well, the massive omnibus spending bill has passed the U.S. Senate, with Republicans rolling over to give it a 68 to 29 margin of victory. So if you thought Republicans were going to stand up against this huge overreach, it wasn’t even remotely the case. Lots of them voted in favor of this Democrat wishlist.

This disaster includes a ban on border spending and a raise for the corrupt FBI and DOJ, among other ridiculous giveaways for leftist pet projects.

These are the Republicans who ignored you: Roy Blunt of Missouri, John Boozman of Arkansas, Shelley Capito of West Virginia, Susan Collins of Maine, John Cornyn of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, James Inofe of Oklahoma, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, Mitt Romney of Utah, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, Richard Shelby of Alabama, John Thune of South Dakota, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Todd Young of Indiana.

What do you think the answer is to this betrayal by so many GOP senators? Tweet us your take @ClayAndBuck — or, if you’re a 24/7 VIP, send us an email.

Recent Stories

Bankman-Fried Somehow Posts $250 Million Bail

22 Dec 2022

The Democrat con man who lavished millions on their politicians, PACS, and campaign arms (along with a few bucks to Republicans) says he has no money left, so how is he posting a massive bail now that he’s back on U.S. soil?

Tweet us your take on the FTX-Democrat scandal @ClayAndBuck — or, if you’re a 24/7 VIP, send us an email.

Recent Stories

Clay Throws Down the Gauntlet to the Feds

22 Dec 2022

The FBI, IRS, and other Deep State government institutions love to investigate and audit conservatives, but does anyone in that giant agency have the stones to come on this show and answer some basic questions? Clay has thrown down the gauntlet on Twitter.

What would you ask an FBI honcho about the collusion with Twitter to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story? Tweet us your take @ClayAndBuck — or, if you’re a 24/7 VIP, send us an email.

Recent Stories

How the Twitter-FBI Scandal Ties to Hunter’s Laptop

22 Dec 2022

Clay laid out his case for the connection between the FBI, Twitter, and the suppression of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden story specifically to influence the 2020 election and boost Joe Biden. Oh, and if you question it, you’re pushing conspiracy theories.

We have the receipts, just as we did about J. Edgar Hoover when he ran the FBI, and was snooping for dirt on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on behalf of the Kennedys.

House Republicans must uncover who ordered the Code Red to squash this story to rig the election. This entire scandal — paid for with our tax dollars spent by the FBI to pay off Twitter — makes Watergate look like jaywalking.

Clay opened the phone lines to your opinions on the biggest story of two years ago that’s still unfolding today. Tweet us your take @ClayAndBuck — or, if you’re a 24/7 VIP, send us an email.

Recent Stories

Sen. Rick Scott: McConnell Gave Schumer & Pelosi a Win

21 Dec 2022

CLAY: Joined now by Florida senator Rick Scott. You just heard me talking about the $1.7 trillion bill. Senator Scott. I’m down in your state, Key West, pretty fantastic down here. Buck and I both spend a lot of time in the state of Florida. So we thank you on some level for repping us, as well as many people that are listening across the state of Florida right now. But I got to ask you right off the top, Mitch McConnell said yesterday, “the top priority for Republicans,” in his mind is giving $45 billion to Ukraine. I don’t know any Republican whose top priority right now in the country is Ukraine. Do you?

SEN. SCOTT: No. The top priority ought to be taking care of American citizens. We’ve got to get inflation under control. We’ve got to get rid of this debt. We’ve got to make sure we have a lethal military. We’ve got to make sure we get crime down. I mean, those are the things that people care about. Look, I support making sure that we can help Ukraine be able to defeat Russia with lethal weapons. But it’s not the most important thing we should be doing. And, by the way, it’s a lot of money, and in this bill… We got this bill at 1:30 yesterday morning. It’s three times the size of the Bible. They want to vote on it today. No one — there will not be one person who votes for this bill that — will know what’s in it. There’s no way. You can’t read the Bible that fast in three times the size of the Bible.

CLAY: Now, it’s a perfect example.

SEN. SCOTT: What we do know is there’s a lot of bad things.

CLAY: So, this is what’s so crazy to me. You come from the world of business, and a big part of being successful in business is negotiation — and a big part of success with negotiation is leverage. Tell me what I’m missing here when the Republicans are going to take the House in a couple of weeks. I know you’re close in the Senate at 51-49 or however you want to classify it, depending on how you define Sinema and when Manchin decides to make a switch, potentially. But why in the world would you agree to this bill right before the House comes into the hands of the Republicans? What am I missing from a negotiation strategy here? How would it not be much better for Republicans to control one half of Congress and negotiate something new next year?

SEN. SCOTT: Well, I ran against Mitch McConnell to be the leader of the Republicans in the Senate for this reason. Quit giving in, caving in to the Democrats. Why wouldn’t we want the leadership in the Republican House to negotiate this bill when you consider this is a Democrat bill?

CLAY: Yeah.

SEN. SCOTT: This is a Pelosi-Schumer bill. That’s what this is. It’s not a Kevin McCarthy bill. I mean, he didn’t have any control over it. He’s not going to vote for it. He doesn’t want us to do this. So, 7,500 earmarks, another $1.1 trillion of debt. This is going to cause more inflation. There’s no wins for us. Are there some things that we would vote for in here? Sure. But this is wins for Pelosi and Schumer. That’s who it wins for, not for the American public.

CLAY: So, why in the world is this happening? You… I presume, based on all the coverage I’m seeing — barring something crazy — a lot of senators are going to go along, Republican senators with Mitch McConnell. This is going to pass. They’re going to ram it through the House with a Democrat majority. Why in the world is this being so rushed and are Republicans so eager, so many of them, to sign on here in your mind?


SEN. SCOTT: Because it’s right before Christmas. “We got to get home! You know, there’s a storm coming in the Midwest. We got to get out of here. Don’t worry about voting. Don’t worry about reading things.” This is all orchestrated. This has been orchestrated since I’ve been up here. I’ve been up here for years. Republicans did it; Democrats are doing it. They organize this right before Christmas. “And by the way, if you don’t go along, you know, you must… You know, you’re going to make us all say a prayer up through Christmas. It’s really bad.

“And by the way, government will get shut down right at Christmas!” No, it doesn’t have to get shut down. This is all orchestrated. We should not be doing bills we’ve never read. This should not be… This was negotiated by three people. I mean, not even House Republicans were part of the negotiation in this. So, this is all orchestrated. When McConnell was majority leader, he did the same thing and they tried to cram it down our throats. “Because if you don’t go along, you’re shutting down government!”

No. All we have to do is do a continuing resolution. This should have happened. This is a budget. It’s not the way you would do a budget, but this is their budget. All right? This should have been done before September 30 when the fiscal year started, where a continuing resolution, which is stupid, I mean, it’s saying, “Oh, we’re going to just spend what we spent last year on programs. Maybe we don’t even want to keep funding them.” But why wouldn’t we do a continuing resolution until we get a new Republican House and let them pass whatever spending bill we need?

CLAY: No doubt. And, Senator Scott, what would you say? Because I think there’s a huge majority of my audience and Buck’s audience out there listening right now that is fed up with basically the representation that they’re getting from the Republican Party right now. Coming right out of a midterm where obviously things didn’t go as well as we wanted, but at least we won the House, do we have two political parties here right now when we got an acquiescence essentially to a $1.7 trillion budget? What would you say to people out there who are listening right now that are fed up with basically what they see in terms of Republican opposition against this Biden administration?

SEN. SCOTT: Well, we’ve got a Republican Party outside D.C. We need to have a Republican Party in D.C. We need to have people, when they get up here, do what they said they would do when they run. How many people go home and said, “Hey, look, elect me because I’m going to vote for things I’ve never read before?”

CLAY: (laughs) Yeah, right.

SEN. SCOTT: Nobody does that! “I’m going to vote for things that’s going to raise the debt by $1.1 trillion.” No! “I’m going to cause more inflation.” No! So, what you have to do as a voter is hold people accountable. If I do, you know, I tell people, “This is what I believe in. So, if you voted for me, this is what I plan on doing. And if I don’t do it, you should call and yell at me. So, you’ve got to hold people accountable.

CLAY: So, this passes in your mind, I’m assuming. And then basically, when is the next time that Republicans have any kind of impact on the budget in any kind of substantial way? We’re basically punting for a year, right?

SEN. SCOTT: Oh, no. They’ll do it next year. Here’s the conversation: “Oh, we’re not going to ever do this again. This has got to stop.” And guess what? Next December, we’ll be doing it again. I mean, there’s nobody… I mean, what’s the pressure point? It works. Schumer’s getting what he wants. I mean, Schumer, Pelosi won with this! We didn’t win. They won. All right? So, there was, there’s no pressure point to do this.

I mean, the next big fight is going to be when we raise the debt ceiling, and here’s what they’re going to say to us. “Oh, you have to raise the debt ceiling.” No! Let’s stop spending money and balance our budget and start paying down debt so we don’t ever have to raise the debt ceiling. I did it when I was governor. I balanced the budget every year, all right? I actually paid off a third of the state debt. They hadn’t done that. They didn’t pay off any debt in 20 years when I became governor! You can do these things. We got to just start doing it.

CLAY: Amen. Florida senator Rick Scott, Merry Christmas, appreciate you joining us.

Recent Stories

Joseph Scott Morgan, Host of iHeartRadio’s Body Bags Podcast

21 Dec 2022

CLAY: Something I have been obsessed with — and I know many of you have as well — is the quadruple murder still unsolved now into, I believe, a sixth week since this happened at the University of Idaho. We are joined now by Joseph Scott Morgan, distinguished scholar of applied forensics in Jacksonville, Alabama, former senior investigator with the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office in Atlanta, host of the Body Bags podcast on iHeart. What I’m gonna ask you to do is, if you are hearing questions that come to mind as we are having this conversation, I’m going to try to monitor Twitter. So, you can tweet me @ClayTravis.

If you do not hear me asking questions that you find to be particularly unique or useful here, send me questions and I will ask a few of those as well — again, @ClayTravis right now on Twitter — and we bring in Joseph Scott Morgan. Okay. You were at Fulton County Medical Examiner office. I want to ask you this question just to start. We know that someone walked into this home — armed, it appears, only with a knife — stabbed four people to death, walked back out of that home. We don’t know where the weapon is. We don’t know who did it. Have you ever seen a case like this in your life as a forensic investigator?


MORGAN: No, I haven’t, Clay, and thanks for having me today. I’ve worked… Before I was in Atlanta. I was with the Jefferson Parish Coroner’s Office in New Orleans. So, I’ve worked in two pretty good-sized metropolitan areas.

CLAY: Atlanta and New Orleans, not cities where murder is uncommon.

MORGAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

CLAY: The reason why I’m starting with that question is —

MORGAN: Yes. Yes.

CLAY: — to walk in armed only with a knife?

MORGAN: Yes.

CLAY: I just want to kind of start here because I was having this conversation with my wife —

MORGAN: Yes.

CLAY: — last night because she’s also been following this case.

MORGAN: Yeah.

CLAY: What stands out about that decision is this is someone… First of all, that walking into a strange person’s house is something that most people wouldn’t do. Right.

MORGAN: Yes.

CLAY: But to do it, to me — the more I think about this — armed only with a knife, when, you know there are multiple people inside of that home, it seems like someone who is very comfortable with what they can do with that knife. And that’s why I wanted to start with that question, because even the method — quadruple murders aren’t common, thankfully that often in general, but — quadruple stabbings of what appears to be totally innocent college kids, there’s almost no precedent for stories like these.

MORGAN: No, there’s not. And, you know, you can search as much as you want; you’re not going to find quadruple stabbings most of the time, particularly as they’re isolated in one location, one structure like this, essentially in two different bedrooms, obviously on separate floors. But, you know, the supposition that’s been put forward that this perpetrator is a stranger, perhaps… I know that, you know, it makes for… It’s titillating to hear that because people think about some stranger coming out of the dark. I’m not buying into that. I think that more than likely, this individual, obviously, as you stated, knew who was living there and probably knew of the structure. They may have been inside of this dwelling. It’s an odd dwelling, Clay, to say the very least.

You know, it’s multiple floors, three floors, two entrances and both entrances. One is on the lower ground level where the parking pad is, and then you go up to the second story and there’s another external ground level entry, and then it’s got this kind of switchback staircase. And the house has been added on to over the recent, you know, recent years. So it’s an oddly shaped environment. It’s something, in my opinion, at least the individual would have had been familiar with. And keep in mind, one thing that keeps being pushed forward over and over and over and over again is that this location was a gathering spot for college students off campus. It has been termed as a party house.

CLAY: So when you hear all of that, the other thing here is this doesn’t feel like a random act of violence. It feels like this was targeted in some way. Most people who, again, walking in with just a knife and then committing the murder of four people walking out with that knife… We talked with Nancy Grace a few weeks ago and she said usually… This is a violent act. There’s DNA left behind because a lot of times with a knife, you might end up cutting yourself. We haven’t heard anything about any blood that might belong to someone, potentially a killer in this scenario. Does that suggest to you that this was not the first time that someone may have engaged in violent behavior like this? And also, in your experience, does it happen very often that somebody suddenly snaps and commits a violent act like this? Or are there typically many other violent acts that would have occurred before someone engages in behavior like this?


MORGAN: Yeah, I think that they have a mindset toward violence. It is something that they would be very comfortable with in this environment. And who knows what the rationale was for this. If they were, you know, focused in on these individuals to the point where they were so obsessed that the gore didn’t bother them — and trust me, and trust me: In this situation, considering that these two pair of individuals, these victims, they’re co-sleeping. So this these attacks, if we are to believe what we’re hearing at this point, would have taken place in individual beds.

So you have two people sleeping in one bed. The perpetrator would have been covered in blood, and they’re leaving behind all kinds of trace evidence. But it’s not surprising. We don’t know that yet. This is very… From a forensic science standpoint, from a trace evidence standpoint, this is very, very dense material. This is not something that can essentially be turned around in a couple of days and you’re going to have, you know, evidence that’s just going to say, “Hey, here’s the perpetrator!”

The reality is this: If it is co-mingled — and I’m talking about the blood samples — and yeah, we could have an unknown that could be tied back to a perpetrator — all of this is going to have to be unspooled in order to create a profile, a biological profile on the individual and this takes time. Not to mention everybody else that’s passed through this house that’s left behind things like touch DNA. I mean, all of us that have been college students in an undergraduate situation have been to an off-campus location for parties and whatnot. Lots of DNA is left behind in those environments. So they’re having to make their way through all of this at the laboratory given everything that has come back from the scene.

CLAY: Based on your experience, as you said, in New Orleans, in Atlanta — and we’re talking to Joseph Scott Morgan, who has Body Bags, an iHeart podcast that you guys can all go check out — would it stun you if the killer didn’t leave behind some DNA evidence?

MORGAN: No, I think that it would be impossible for them not to, particularly — and let me give you the measure of that, Clay, as we’re talking about in current context. Years ago, I would say, “Yeah, it’s possible that they might not have been able to pick up on stuff.” But the tests that are being run nowadays are so very sensitive. And when I say touch DNA, I’m talking about things like sloughing dead skin cells, those things, those little particulate things that are left behind in a space. And keep in mind, this attack is very, very intimate. You know, you think about a multiple shooting case where you have some distance between the target and the perpetrator.

That’s not what happened. You have an individual that probably crawled into the bed with these individuals. There’s a lot of touching that’s going on. And plus, the dropping of this knife into these bodies. This is a very intimate circumstance. So even if the individual did not cut themselves, there’s a high probability that they left some trace evidence behind. And keep in mind this. This is fascinating to me. When somebody engages in this kind of heinous act, this is butchery. By the time they get to the fourth person, the fourth victim, they’re going to be profusely sweating. This will completely lead to exhaustion. It would not surprise me to learn that the individual had actually left behind droplets of sweat on the last victim. Their adrenaline is going to be pumping. They’ll be at such a level of excitement in this just trying to keep himself going, there’s going to be elements left behind that can be traced back to a perpetrator, I think.

CLAY: When you hear all this and talking about being able to stab four people to death, including one basically grown man, does that suggest to you that this is a big, strong man; that it would be unlikely that, generally speaking, a woman would be capable of executing these crimes? And other part of this is, they all died. In most stabbings — and again, I’m not an expert on stabbing, but — it seems like there are a lot of people who survive because it’s hard to know exactly where the stabs are going. Does that make sense?

MORGAN: Mmm. Yep, yep, yep.

CLAY: Does this suggest to you that this person, given the fact that they walked in with a knife, had a lot of experience with stabbing, potentially, which is rare, right? Even people out there listening to us right now who might sometimes have a knife with them for protection, most people have never actually practiced. I think Buck said in special — with the CIA, they had some, you know, limited training. But most people haven’t actually practiced ever stabbing someone. What does that suggest to you that all four of these people were killed — and again, that it was four different people and only armed, theoretically with a knife? To your point about the difference between a gun and a knife, I mean, going after four people with only a knife, I would think a lot of people — even if they had violent intentions — would not be comfortable doing that unless they had been trained.

MORGAN: Yeah. And that that that is key here. And remember, the coroner stated in one interview that she did give that the injuries — the injuries, the fatal injuries — were limited to the chest. She talked about that specifically. And I’m not talking about what the parents have said or anything. I’m talking about the interview that the coroner gave, and she said that there was at least one fatal wound to the chest area on these victims. Now, there were some defensive wounds. That gives me an idea that they hung around until they knew that each individual was finished off.

They were purposed — they were purposed in this, Clay — in order to make sure that no one survived, no one was going to be able to identify them. I think the one big ask that people have here and, you know, they’re kind of scratching their heads is that in the lower portion of this home, there were two people that were left alive in a separate living area in their own bedrooms.

CLAY: Yes.

MORGAN: And so I think that that, again, is something — and I’ve toyed with the idea: Was this person actually hiding in the home when both of these parties arrived later in the evening?

CLAY: I want to come back because I’m getting so many questions out there. Do you have time to stay with us and allow me to read some of these questions that I’m getting during the commercial break and bring you in to answer some of them.

MORGAN: Sure, Clay, for as long as you need.

CLAY: Okay. So, Joseph Scott Morgan, formerly of forensics in both New Orleans and Atlanta, is going to stay with us.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: Joseph Scott Morgan, former forensic expert in both Atlanta and New Orleans, discussing the quadruple murder in Idaho. I’m going to hit you with a bunch of questions really rapidly, if I can, because you guys are deluging me with questions. A lot of people want to know, there was a dog there. What does it suggest that the dog was left unharmed to you if anything?

MORGAN: Well, I think the first thing from Jump Street is probably the idea that the dog had been placed somewhere, and they have alluded to that — “they” being the police. They’ve stated that the dog was in a separate room. The curious thing is this: How did the dog not alert to the sound of screaming?

CLAY: Yeah.

MORGAN: Because this is obviously one of the most painful ways to die. Why wasn’t barking heard? Well, maybe no one was awake to hear it, or maybe it couldn’t be heard downstairs. One other thing: That dog, if it is owned by one of the victims, it had access to the body? The dog would be “evidence rich,” I’ll put it that way. I’ll put it that way.

CLAY: How long would it take in your experience to kill four people with a knife like this?

MORGAN: Uh, a lot of that is anatomically dependent, and if there is a strike to a specific organ — primarily the heart — pretty suddenly. However, if these were glancing blows that may have penetrated the lung, could have taken a bit longer. And a lot of it is dependent upon how much of a fight there was. And we don’t know a lot about that at this time. But with a knife, it’s not going to be as quick as, say, for instance, if somebody was shot in the head, for instance. There would be an awareness here. So it takes a few minutes.

CLAY: Also, if there was a fight, we have a suggestion of defensive wounds.

MORGAN: Yeah.

CLAY: The idea would be — and I hate to say this, but — if you’re out there, you want to claw as much as possible, if you potentially are being killed because you get the face, you get… We don’t know what this person was wearing, but if you can get any of their DNA basically on your fingers, even if you die, you could be a witness, right, to who killed you. It’s an awful thing to talk about, but that in a defensive struggle, any ability to claw or create a record, that could be your last opportunity to talk even after your death.

MORGAN: Yeah, and that that is essential. It’s a good point, because most people will focus… In this particular case, I’ve heard a lot of banter about the defensive injuries of the victims, and that is important, obviously. But this perpetrator that’s running around out there — and this is a big a big clue. If they, in fact, were attacked or the victims were attempting to defend themselves, you would look for scratches on the face, the neck, maybe even the eyes, and that would have taken a few days to have healed.

CLAY: Yeah.

MORGAN: I think by now we’re so far down range — as you mentioned, Clay, we’re into the sixth week now — what’s left behind is going to be contained underneath those fingernails and on the palms of the hands, perhaps.

CLAY: How long you talked about the forensic aspect of trying to get the DNA? And you just mentioned we’re into the sixth week. How long would it take in your experience to be able to have a full forensic sweep of this crime scene?

MORGAN: I think that, you know, we’re only thinking about DNA, but we have to also think about other things at the scene, the interpretation of the bloodstains that are there. They’re also putting together probably a trace evidence packet that’s going to include fiber evidence, all those sorts of things, not to mention all the pathological stuff that took place at the autopsy with those examinations, which should be complete by now. I take exception to one thing that the coroner had mentioned about toxicology, where they —

CLAY: Will you save that? Can you come back one more segment with us, ‘cause I got to go to break here, but I want to let you answer that.

MORGAN: Sure. No problem. You bet.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: We are talking with Joseph Scott Morgan, forensic expert, formerly of Atlanta and New Orleans, about the quadruple murder in Idaho into a sixth week, still unclear who or how many perpetrators there might be in this case. Also, Joseph Scott Morgan has a book, Blood Beneath My Feet: The Journey of a Southern Death Investigator. I’m going to get to some of your calls. I am reading all of your messages. You guys have flooded me with DMs, which are not negative comments (laughing) from left wingers telling me to kill myself.

They are actually incredibly great questions that you guys are asking. Also, a lot of VIP e-mails are rolling in, so I want to hit several of these that many people are asking. There are three blondes, Joseph — and I appreciate you spending the time with us; then I’m going to get to some of your calls — three blonde girls who are the victims here. Do we think one of them might have been a target? And when it’s two or 3:00, 4:00 in the morning, it’s hard to know necessarily which of those girls is which, and so all of them get killed. Have you thought anything about that? Because in a dark environment, the pictures that I’ve seen of these girls, it might be very difficult to tell which one is which.

MORGAN: Yeah. That’s one of the reasons — and I’m glad that the caller brought this up. This is one of the reasons that I have, you know, toyed with the idea that the individual was familiar with the environment and had been there before, had visited there before. And also, two things here — and I really want to emphasize this. Two things that will kind of make your skin crawl. The fact that there’s that big panel glass windows on the back, including a slider, that if the lights are on at night, you can stand in a tree line, not be seen, and see everything that goes on in there. Finally — and probably the most horrible — is there was a TikTok video that these young girls, young women made of them imitating one another inside of their space, inside of the home where this took place.

And (chuckles) for a moment, you catch a glimpse into their lives. You catch a glimpse of their personalities, of their descriptions, what they look like. And that didn’t just go out to the people at the University of Idaho. It didn’t just go out to the people in Idaho. Clay, that went worldwide. Anybody that wanted to take a look into their lives at that moment in time could see everything on Tik Tok. They could see the staircases. They could see the common space where the kitchen was. They could see those big windows. Everything in that environment was visible, at least for a second, to everybody out there viewing.

CLAY: Do you think there could have been multiple perpetrators — this is one of the most common questions that we’re getting — as opposed to one person? Would it surprise you if there was more than one person here?

MORGAN: No, it would not surprise me. However, I think that it’s difficult for one person to keep a secret. If you’ve got two that are out there, how is one of them going to keep their mouth shut? And also, you double the probability that you’re going to leave evidence behind. Now, I think from a control standpoint, you’re trying to perpetrate multiple homicides here. And, you know, when you think about how quiet things were allegedly, there may have been one scream that was heard that had been reported. That’s certainly within the realm of possibility. I wouldn’t dismiss anything at this point. I mean, nothing. I’m not striking anybody off the list at this point, and I’m not dismissing any leads at this point. Everything must be explored to exhaustion.

CLAY: A lot of people wonder how on the first floor they didn’t hear the screaming. They weren’t aware of the murders that went on. And so that’s a big topic. We mentioned the dog, also the toxicology on the victims, how drunk they might have been, whether they might have been…

MORGAN: Right.

CLAY: These are college kids, right? They were out.

MORGAN: Yeah.

CLAY: We know they were out probably drinking like many college kids are on a Saturday night, maybe also the first floor as well. They would obviously have run toxicology on the victims. How might alcohol and or other substances that college kids might use impact the toxicology and the investigation here?

MORGAN: Well, if you’re talking about from attempting to defend yourself, it can inhibit your ability to respond. That’s for certain. And I want everybody to go back and look at the food truck video that’s floating around out there.

CLAY: Yeah.

MORGAN: One of the female victims that’s there, you can see she’s kind of got an unsteady gait as she’s walking around.

CLAY: Yep.

MORGAN: I don’t know what to read into that, but I think that that might be possibly as a result of having imbibed a bit that evening.

CLAY: No doubt.

MORGAN: So, yeah, tox is going to be very important, very important.

CLAY: We’re going to go to calls here just momentarily. Want to give you an open opportunity here.

MORGAN: (laughing)

CLAY: What have I not asked you? I used to do this when I would depose witnesses for my last question. Sometimes you get good answers. What do you wish that I had asked you that you haven’t been able to tell our audience about the particulars of this case? What else is out there?

MORGAN: I think the biggest thing right now is ask what we can do to support the efforts of investigators.

CLAY: Yes.

MORGAN: I think that that’s the most important thing. I know that sounds kind of ham handed, but the reality is this this is a tough job. It’s an extensive investigation that is, like I said, so dense in evidence. We have to. Patience is the watchword here. And don’t do anything that’s going to impede these people in any way whatsoever. If you have information, call it in and give it to them. They’re begging you for information. They’ve put up lines. They put up, you know, phone lines. They put up email addresses to send this stuff to. Submit your tips. But don’t get in the way of the investigation. I think right now, at this point, that’s the most important thing.

CLAY: You were in New Orleans and Atlanta. That’s a place where murders occur. The reports are there hasn’t been a murder in seven years in this town, Moscow, Idaho, prior to this. How difficult does that make it for investigators arriving for the first time on this scene? It’s truly an unprecedented crime scene for them. In your experience, how difficult does that make their process of beginning this investigation?

MORGAN: It makes it very difficult because if you’re not used to rolling up on a scene that is this extensive — and, let’s face it, this horrific — it’s a shock to the system and many people listen. It’s even a normal reaction for police to say, “I can’t believe what I just saw,” particularly that are not used to seeing this level of violence and other people will begin to show up — we call them “lookie-loos” — and they want to come in and take a look at the scene. Well, that’s a bad problem. You don’t know who’s coming in and out of the door before the thing is completely locked down and you lose vital evidence that way.

Also, remember, there were other friends. There were friends of these victims that were called to the residence that showed up one by one and were there. So, we don’t know what impact their presence had in the scene as well. Was anything changed? Was anything altered? And, you know, I go back to, I have a real problem with them. There were articles released from the scene because they claimed that they had “sentimental value,” Clay, all right? That walked out the door. That stuff is gone now, forever and ever, amen. I have a problem with that.

We locked down Parkland — or the authorities locked down Parkland — for years down there. After that shooting, they knew who that shooter was. And we still don’t know who did this, but yet things have left the scene because they had sentimental value. I have a problem with that. I wish they just locked the whole thing down and not given anybody any further access to it until the scene can be completed, we see this thing to the end, and possibly to court.

CLAY: There would be a tremendous amount of blood, is it fair to say, for four people to be stabbed to death like this? This this crime scene would have been just totally suffused, drenched in blood. Is that accurate?

MORGAN: Yes, it would, particularly the focal area immediately adjacent where the attack took place. I would refer to that — more than likely, based upon show-of-force injury cases I worked over the course of my career — as supersaturated with blood. It would be awash in blood.

CLAY: The killer or killers would have also been saturated in blood.

MORGAN: Yeah.

CLAY: So is this something where they basically have to burn all of their clothing in order to avoid leaving a trail? I mean, any vehicle they got into, even a trained assassin would have left all sorts of blood evidence in that vehicle as well, right — or, certainly, on the walk.

MORGAN: Yeah, you have transfer evidence, contact evidence, smears. If someone has just blood on their on their forearm… You might not… You know, people don’t think about it. When they walk through a door, maybe they’ll brush up against the facing of their door, that’s stuff that we look for. This person would have had blood on them. I’m just wondering if there were any contact transfers relative to that sort of thing and then their point of leaving the property, were there any blood trails leading out? Does any of it progress on the ground outside of the residence?

Do we have any passive dripping, like from the tip of the blade of the knife, which will see if somebody stands in one place with a supersaturated instrument in their hand, they kind of passively drop down to the floor. And we can read things into that and try to get an idea as to what happened in that moment. So, yes, they would have had certainly trace evidence that was transferred from them on to on to the victims and vice versa as well. It’s… You know, it goes back to Locard’s Principle. It’s over a hundred years old. That says, “Every contact leaves a trace.” That’s our touchstone in forensics, that’s what we live by, and that holds true in this case. “Every contact leaves a trace.” No matter what you do, where you’ve been, where you’re going, you’re going to leave something of yourself behind. And yeah, the person would have been covered in blood.

CLAY: In your experience in Atlanta and New Orleans, we’re now into a sixth week. What do you think the chances are that we capture whoever did this?

MORGAN: I think that there is still a very high probability because, look, we’ve got four victims. That means that you have — just based upon the deaths alone, you have — four opportunities that trace evidence that can be tied back to a potential perpetrator was left on each one of those victims. Your chances, I think, increase exponentially. It all depends. You know, the science is fine. You know, we’re going to call the boys down at the lab, you know, that kind of thing. And we can process all of the biological evidence, the trace evidence and all that sort of thing.

But what this is going to come down to, Clay, at the end of the day is going to be good old fashioned shoe leather. Getting out there, knocking on doors, having interviews. And here’s one of the weird things about this case, one of the odd things, is that, you know, I’m a college professor, and so I understand that a college environment is a transient environment because the people that go to school there don’t live there full time. When people bolted after that word went out that this had occurred, did you know that probably I think they said that less than 50% of the student body returned after Thanksgiving break?

CLAY: Yeah.

MORGAN: And some of those kids are not coming back, and you know if you’ve ever interviewed anybody, an eye-to-eye interview is the most important thing. How much information did those kids take with them that left the campus that the police are never going to be able to have a sit down with them face to face? And time is whittling now. You know, the freshness of their memories, all that sort of stuff is beginning to diminish. They’ve got to get out there, talk to these people, and keep knocking on doors, is what I would say.

CLAY: Last question — and by the way, so many people called in. Our staff has been funneling your questions to me. So, I’m asking everything that people are calling in. Do you think the killer is still in that vicinity or does it feel to you like someone who would have been transient and left the community based on the evidence that is out there in public?

MORGAN: I think that they may have bolted as well, but I think that they had a very strong familiarity with this environment, with the environment of the scene and with this little town in Idaho. And this is not a town you wind up in by accident. It is a town that exists in isolation. It sits along a major interstate highway. But you just don’t show up here by accident. This is a place you have to have a purpose to be. It’s a beautiful little college town where a lot of people have gone to college over the years, and they love it. It’s gorgeous up there. But you don’t wound up there by accident. This person knew this place and they knew it well, and they knew it well enough to single out this one house that’s in this back area of a Fraternity Row that’s kind of hidden and sequestered. I don’t know that the victims were targeted here. I think that the residence probably was. You have to take both of those things into consideration when you’re trying to solve this.

CLAY: Who would you tell? Obviously, Joseph Scott Morgan. We’re going to share your information for people to be able to follow. Who else to you is worth following on this case if people are super intrigued and want to stay up to date on it?

MORGAN: I would say probably Brian Entin more than likely. He’s over at NewsNation. He’s been on top of this. He’s on the ground day after day after day, every single day out there, and probably Angenette Levy with Law & Crime. Both of them are doing stellar work, kind of reporting from the scene. You see them out there. Those are the two people I would direct, you know, to get to get kind of ground — you know, the information from the ground. They’re out there (chuckling), you know, in the cold with their, you know, their headgear on in their heavy coats and all of that sort of thing, reporting from the same day in and day out.


CLAY: This has been outstanding. You were only scheduled to be on with us for one segment. We got so much reaction — and frankly, you can tell by all my questions, I really appreciate the time that you are spending with us. He has been Joseph Scott Morgan, distinguished scholar of applied forensics, Jacksonville, Alabama; a former senior investigator both in New Orleans and in Atlanta; host of the Body Bags podcast on iHeart. Thank you so much, sir.

MORGAN: You bet, Clay, and, hey, Merry Christmas to you, buddy.

CLAY: Merry Christmas to you and your family as well and to everybody out there listening also.

Recent Stories