BUCK: We are going to spend some time talking about the guilty verdict for Jussie Smollett. I want to say there’s some hilarious aspects of this and some encouraging aspects and even some still somewhat troubling ones. We’ll make all of it make sense for you in just a moment here. Five of six counts, Jussie Smollett found guilty, faces a total of 20 years in prison. He’s gonna end up… I’m just guessing. He might get a year, 18 months, something.

They’re gonna give him something much, much less than that. They spent $100,000, a few thousand man-hours trying to track down the real hate crime attackers there. By the way, we’re also gonna get to biggest inflation we’ve seen since — well, price jump we’ve seen — since 1982, I believe, and the worst inflation in 40 years, which I’m pretty sure Clay and I have been telling everybody is coming.

By the way, everyone who’s living in reality. What is it Clay and I say, ’cause we’re on Team Reality? Everybody who sees this for what it is has known this is coming. But, Clay, let me start with this. Before we get into all of the absolutely critical mockery, because that’s the only way there’s accountability for people, not just in the media, but Kamala and Biden and so many others who were all, “Oh, my gosh!

“What happened to Jussie Smollett was an atrocious, atrocious thing!” I saw your tweet on this, and it’s funny because — I’m not trying to get into the whole when you do a three-hour daily show, you have a mind meld situation. But maybe Clay and I have some kind of psychic powers going on here. I thought about this; going through Twitter, I see you say it.

Jury finds Jussie Smollett guilty of five felonies for staging a fake hate crime in Chicago. Look forward to @VP’s apology for this Tweet calling what happened to Jussie a lynching. And for @JoeBiden’s apology for calling this an example of homophobia and racism. pic.twitter.com/JZgx7wMmjV

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) December 9, 2021

We have seen take a positive moment here, a little victory lap for America. We have seen numerous, very high profile — in different ways — politically charged cases. Now, this is a far less serious case. Nobody, including Jussie, was even really injured here, right? We’ve also seen possible murder charges, murder cases. But highly politically charged.

And for anyone who is living in reality, the right decisions have come down now. They’ve come down on Rittenhouse, come down on Arbery, come down on Jussie. This is showing us that all hope is not yet lost, Clay. So before we mock and ridicule — which I know we’re both looking forward to — it’s pretty good days for American justice, I have to say.

CLAY: I agree. And to me, that is the wisdom of our judicial system in general is that 12 people — random citizens — decide. Think about how kind of a revolutionary idea it is if you don’t. Sometimes things you’re so used to you existing, that you don’t sit back and think about how revolutionary and radical the concept is, that we have created and refined and now have, I believe, the greatest judicial system in the history of the system.

And at its foundational element it is the belief that 12 random citizens selected can render justice fairly, impartially, and honestly. And we all put our faith in those judicial systems in that jury. And in three monster cases — where, frankly, the media has been an embarrassment, where many of our politicians have been embarrassments, as you just mentioned — in Kyle Rittenhouse and Ahmaud Arbery and now in the Jussie Smollett case.

Obviously those are different significant levels of crime that are being considered. But in all three cases, the juries got it, in my opinion — based on all the evidence, based on the facts — 100% right. And I believe in this day and age when everybody wants to tear down America, it’s worth sitting back and thinking for a moment how much better our jury systems are — and, as a reflection of that, how much better our common fellow citizens are oftentimes than our leaders and also the media tries to tear down America on a regular basis. I took it as a very positive sign when this verdict came down.

BUCK: Now that we’ve had our —

CLAY: Yes, moment of American pride.

BUCK: — moment of high fives for America when we need to do ’cause Clay and I we come in and hang out with all of you across the country every day and we don’t tell you the gloom and doom thing. We don’t tell you everything’s falling apart and there’s no hope for the future. We identify the battles we have. We try to help the conversation, the debate winning for the good guys. But there’s good stuff going on, there’s bad stuff going on, and on the fun stuff… Let’s make fun of some libs ’cause this is gonna be fun.

I remember that ’cause I got so much heat at the time and I gotta go back in the archives and pull it. But I remember titling when the Jussie Smollett case first broke, within maybe a week or so of the initial doing a podcast, it was Jussie Smollett is clearly lying. (laughing) There’s no way this is true. And it’s just hilarious because let’s take a trip down memory lane, folks, about what people were saying at the very beginning of it.

MAXINE WATERS: He’s a friend! We marched in the Pride parade together. And so I — I — I believed him.

GAYLE KING: A lot of questions in this case, but I know Jussie Smollett is a really, really good guy,.

SARA GILBERT: And the media has really cast so much doubt on his story, which I find so personally offensive.

TAMARA MOWRY: I don’t like that it’s being put out there in the media that this is a “possible” hate crime.

ROBIN ROBERTS: He’s given a detailed account, an account that Chicago police have said has been consistent. He hasn’t changed his story. They also said it’s credible, and also that he has been very cooperative.

SHERYL LEE RALPH: I will not throw him under the bus. Now we can make up whatever we want to make up about it. But he told a lie the same way the leader of this country does every day.

D.L. HUGHLEY: When you use racism and bigotry and hatred and lying for your own selfish end and you’re a young gay black kid, you get indicted. If you do it when you’re an old white guy, you become president.

BUCK: Clay, other than one of those, I only understand what I was even one was saying. But the point is, you had so many sound bites there of people who are even saying if you question this —

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: — if you had any element of doubt in your mind about this, you were a bad person. Let’s reverse for a second here. What are your favorite — and I want to be very clear, ’cause I know you got the tweets we’re gonna come to them. Do you want to read them right now? Go ahead.

CLAY: I’ll read them right now.

BUCK: Go ahead.

CLAY: Because I think that ties in with what we just played. These are still up, by the way. Twitter claims, Buck — everybody out there — that they care about misinformation, that they label some of your tweets. Oh, why in the world would you share this fact about covid! This is misinformation. Kamala Harris still has up on her Twitter account:

.@JussieSmollett is one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I know. I’m praying for his quick recovery.

This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate.

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) January 29, 2019

Still up from Kamala Harris. Joe Biden:

What happened today to @JussieSmollett must never be tolerated in this country. We must stand up and demand that we no longer give this hate safe harbor; that homophobia and racism have no place on our streets or in our hearts. We are with you, Jussie. https://t.co/o8ilPu68CM

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 30, 2019

Both of those tweets, Buck, are still up. They didn’t delete ’em. They didn’t go back and say, “Hey, you know what? Turns out — apologize — I got ahead of myself here. Guy is a liar. He tried to divide America even more so by trying to claim that he was the victim of a hate crime.” By the way, this is also huge evidence, Buck, of how much victimization plays.

Gotta think about why he decided to do this. He knew that being a victim would be great for his career. All I will say to everybody out there is the next time a story comes up and you think to yourself, is the absolute best thing that could happen to — insert person here — that they would be a victim, be skeptical.

Be skeptical when someone claims that the best thing that could happen to their career is becoming a victim, that that actually occurred. I tend to be skeptical in general. Everybody else right now feels like in social media, media, politicians, they have to immediately tell you what happened, what the significance is, “modern-day lynching.” Kamala Harris should be ashamed of many things, but this thing in particular.

BUCK: It’s stunning, Clay, how many people were wrong about this and so wrong about this. Here’s a tweet from Buck Sexton February 17th, 2019. “You know the people have been lecturing us about lying under oath even if it’s just a process crime? So is filing a false, sworn allegation. Jussie Smollett should be charged.” In 2019, folks! Buckster’s got receipts, okay? This was so obvious. I’m not rewriting the history here.

Clay, you knew it. It knew it. It was so clear. Just for a second, I want to ask. I’m glad you read those tweets ’cause I’ve been hammering it. Biden’s just it is not smart. I know people are saying every president they don’t like isn’t smart. I’ve never said Bill Clinton is done. I’ve never said Obama is dumb.

I will admit when Democrats are smart. I just disagree with them. Joe Biden is just not very smart. Okay? Kamala, I think, on this one, she was gonna go with Jussie. It didn’t matter what it was because that was where the politics were for her. I think Biden may have actually believed it. Maybe Kamala believed it.

CLAY: Do you think Biden even had any clue?

BUCK: I don’t know. This is what’s so unfair about criticizing Biden is every time we get him on something, “Does he even know who he is?”

CLAY: I would be stunned if he even knows what accounts are sending out under his name on a day-to-day basis.

BUCK: Here’s the stuff that I was thinking about last night as we were looking at this. When you go back and think about what would have had to have occurred here for this to have been real, I had never heard of Jussie Smollett —

CLAY: Same thing.

BUCK: — and I, you know, sometimes I watch some very prominent liberal shows. I’m a guy who occasionally I’ll watch those real estate extras on bravo I’m gonna tell you the truth I’ll watch whatever I watch liberal shows I’ll watch liberal shows that are… I’m trying to think of what would be one. I watch MSNBC sometimes just ’cause I want to know what they’re saying.

CLAY: By the way, Joy Reid didn’t even mention Jussie Smollett’s conviction on her show last night.

BUCK: Amazing, isn’t it?

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: But I had never heard of Jussie Smollett. So the notion that he was such a high level target for the right because of his criticism of Trump was automatic.

CLAY: Same thing.

BUCK: I’d never heard of this guy before. I hadn’t watched the show Empire. I don’t know how popular that show is with Trump supporters. I can’t speak to that. I don’t know.

CLAY: I will tell you it was not a popular show.

BUCK: (laughing) I can’t give numbers, but, yeah.

CLAY: Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, shows popular with Trump supporters. Empire, not as popular with Trump supporters.

BUCK: Not as popular. What you would have had to have here just for these events to line up you would have two guys who decided out of all of the people they were gonna go after, they were gonna go after Jussie Smollett, who neither you nor I had ever heard of before. They’re gonna wait at 1 a.m. for him. They’re gonna find out where he lives —

CLAY: On one of the coldest nights of the year in Chicago.

BUCK: They’re gonna be freezing their butts off. They’re going to then attack him with a noose but not actually use the noose to harm him in some kind of symbolic gesture. Put it around his neck, pour bleach on his head? I’ve never even heard of this as a thing that somebody would do, and they’re gonna yell, “This is MAGA country”?

CLAY: In Downtown Chicago!

BUCK: This just goes to show you leftists are full of hate and ignorance about the people that they don’t like that they don’t even really know what they’re like. They just know they hate them.

CLAY: He couldn’t even come up with an intelligent fake hate crime, right? None of this added up. You just look at it. I think the Chicago police, they started looking at it, too. Well, Chicago is a major Democratic hotbed, right? So you are going to have two random guys walking around in MAGA hats with nooses in downtown Chicago on the coldest night of the year — waiting, by the way, Buck — hoping that Jussie Smollett (who nobody knows) is going to leave and go to a Subway in the middle of the night?

BUCK: This would be like somebody walking around Santa Monica in L.A. or Williamsburg in New York and screaming about how much they hate all those liberals and like this is MAGA country. You’d get attacked with oat milk lattes flying at your head. No one actually believes this was gonna happen, but people did believe it.

CLAY: They wanted it to be true.

BUCK: We’ve got more on this ’cause if we don’t hold them to account, friends, they’re just gonna do what Joy Reid did last night: Not even talk about it on her show, pretend it didn’t even happen. We won’t let them get away with it.