CLAY: The January 6th hearings, which feel like they are never going to end, are currently taking place as we are speaking to you right now, and of course they are receiving a massive amount of coverage. Now, it’s not a prime-time hearing, but it will continue as Democrats are desperately attempting to find something to focus on other than inflation, economic collapse, stock market down 700 points again today.

Sorry for everybody out there with their 401(k). We’ve got unbelievable numbers at the border, the worst ever in terms of crossing the border and got-aways — and, certainly murder continues to skyrocket all over this country, both in rural and city locations. But we want to hit a couple things here. Ron DeSantis has really pointed out I think what we’ve been saying on this program a lot, which is: Who in the world out there is actually still concerned about January 6th? Listen.

MOMENTS AGO: #Florida Gov. #DeSantis refused to discuss Jan. 6 hearings, then accused committee of “beating this dead horse,” blamed the media for “living in a bubble.” Calls for energy hearings. https://t.co/PJvfqlWV3y pic.twitter.com/ZVY9nhJxPw

— WPEC CBS12 News (@CBS12) June 15, 2022

CLAY: Amen. So, that is Governor Ron DeSantis. Now, Liz Cheney, of course, is standing in as the default Republican who is beloved by Democrats now, which is really funny only in the context of Dick Cheney was maybe the most hated Republican in the early twenty-first century. I’m not sure you could have even pointed to someone that Democrats hated more.

But as soon as they start carrying their water, suddenly Cheney family is back in good graces. And what’s interesting about this, Buck, is Liz Cheney is going to get destroyed in her race in Wyoming for the congressional seat that she is going to be absolutely drubbed out of. Even CNN is reporting, yeah, Liz Cheney’s political career, basically over.

HARRY ENTEN: On Cheney, if you go over to Wyoming, look at her disapproval rating —

ANDERSON: COOPER: Uh huh.

HARRY ENTEN: — and essentially what you see is that it has doubled, more than doubled, gone up by 40 points from before she voted to impeach Donald Trump to after voting to impeach Donald Trump.

ANDERSON COOPER: That’s amazing.

HARRY ENTEN: That is amazing. And she is very much unpopular in the state. And if you look at the betting odds, whether or not she’ll win reelection, only about a 10% chance that she will win reelection, according to the betting markets at this point.

ANDERSON COOPER: Wow. I mean, given the political dynasty she’s from, the roots in the state, I mean, that’s incredible.

HARRY ENTEN: It’s incredibly low. It just shows the power of Trump.

BUCK: She’s heading right to an MSNBC contributorship by 2023.

CLAY: I think you’re right.

BUCK: That’s what’s gonna happen. She’s gonna write a book, you know, Standing with Even More Courage or something, and a few hundred people will buy it just to make her feel better. Clay, one part of this whole January 6th absurd hearing situation that I think no one ever really — certainly no Democrats ever — talks about is how, to Ron DeSantis’ point; this happened 18 months ago.

The country’s in the midst of a lot of crises that matter more to everyone in their day-to-day life in this country. Whether the leftists who freak out about this know it or not, it is more important to handle the price of gas, the inflation problems, the border, crime. Those matter a whole lot more to people’s day-to-day lives than reliving yet again, as if we didn’t have enough coverage — as if I we didn’t go through weeks.

I think it even went into a couple of months of the fencing all around the Capitol because, “At any moment there could be another insurrection! Oh, my gosh.” I mean, if they really thought that the guy with the furry hat and the spear was gonna overthrow the government, we have to have a long conversation about the durability of our federal government as it stands now. It’s of course absurd. But one thing that I think never gets brought up at all and really people need to keep this in mind, conservatives and Republicans condemned it. Look, the day of I was condemning this.

CLAY: Same thing.

BUCK: I condemned this as soon as it happened. The riot. It was not an insurrection. Was a riot. Now, people get very upset because it almost sounds like, by admitting you condemned it, which I think almost everyone that anyone listens to or sees on Fox News, did condemn. It was illegal, which is bad, and it also was a huge political blunder for people to do this because of exactly what we’re seeing now with the Democrats running around with it.

But we all said, “Look, protests, fine.” I had friends who were at the protest, you know, not at the Capitol but on the mall and there, protest First Amendment, that’s great. “Breaking the law, rioting, we don’t do that. Our team doesn’t too that,” broadly speaking and so people said that was a mistake, that was bad. Should people be held in solitary confinement, should we act like these are members of Al-Qaeda?

Of course not which is what the Democrats are doing. But now look at the BLM riots. Has any Democrat come out to say that was wrong? It went on for months, folks. It had the backing of major corporations and the entire Democrat apparatus. Has one major Democrat come out to say, “You know when they burn down a police station in Minneapolis…

“When they tried to burn down a federal courthouse in Portland, when they killed dozens of people, when they did billions of dollars of damage, when they broke into stores on my own street in the middle of the night and terrified my neighbors, that was gross. We shouldn’t have done that, that was wrong?” Not a single Democrat has said that.

CLAY: In fact, worse, they bailed out the people doing that. And so this is why the idea 18 months later after over 500 riots associated with BLM which, by the way, led to more deaths, more destruction, lots of small businesses being totally shut down, burned to the ground, and I think the lasting legacy of these never ending January 6th hearings — basically the third Trump impeachment trial — is going to be, Buck — here’s my prediction — Liz Cheney’s gonna get destroyed this midterm, gonna lose her seat, has no hope.

BUCK: We’re never gonna be talking about her again in politics.

CLAY: Here’s my concern. I think they’re setting her to run as an independent as the Lincoln Project-esque candidate to just try — in what could be a close election — to just try to pull away a small number of voters who have that idea.

BUCK: You could be right, but we did have the beta testing of this, if you will, with… I’m not even pretending to forget. I can’t remember his name. He actually… You know who I’m talking about. No, no, you guys remember he ran… He’s from Utah, I think.

CLAY: Oh, McMullin?

BUCK: Yes.

CLAY: Evan McMullin.

BUCK: Yes! They tried this.

CLAY: I think it was Evan McMullin.

BUCK: Yeah, Evan McMullin. That’s right. They tried this, and it was a joke, Clay. It was… Seriously, there were write-in candidates. Like Mickey Mouse got more votes in the election than Evan McMullin.

CLAY: I understand that thing, but if we’re going to be down — and I hope we’re not — in 2024 where at 3 a.m., there’s 10,000 votes separating Wisconsin and Georgia and Nevada and Arizona and all these different states that should be pretty close, my concern is they’re trying to set her up as this Lincoln Project-esque candidate who is the “good” Republican, and look. I went after the Libertarians because to the Democrats’ credit they got the Green Party off the ballot in 2020.

Remember the Green Party took some votes away from Hillary in ’16. If the Green Party had had a name on the ballot, I think Trump would have won because it would have pulled away tens of thousands of voters, ain’t big number but in a tight-margin election, and so I think they’re gonna play dirty, they’re gonna do everything that they can, and they’re gonna try to get Liz Cheney on just to be on the stage, just to be arguing about January 6 forever.

BUCK: I think no one’s gonna be talking about Liz Cheney.

CLAY: I hope you’re right.

BUCK: Within nine months, people will say, “Wait a second. Wasn’t there the lady who was lecturing us?”

CLAY: Isn’t McMullin now, I think, a Democrat candidate in Utah?

BUCK: Yeah, I’m sure. But, see, this is the thing, Clay. People recognize this game. They recognize the apostates from the Republican Party are just frauds, that the Lincoln Project does the bidding of the left and the Democrats, that they’re just playing this game, this pretense of, “We’re the real version of the thing that we constantly hate and try to undermine in every possible way and destroy.“

CLAY: And destroy.

BUCK: Yeah, so I think enough people are wise to it. That doesn’t mean that what you’re saying won’t happen. It could happen. But I think that Liz Cheney is… I mean, she’s gonna get crushed in her home state, which is Cheney territory.

CLAY: Yeah. I know, and I hope that sends her riding off into the sunset. Maybe you’re right; she becomes “the right-wing” in quotation marks MSNBC contributor or CNN contributor ’cause they’re suddenly desperate at CNN to have two different arguments to be made.

BUCK: Do you think that if CNN…? First of all, maybe, Clay, we could reach out. Hey, Producer Ali, could we reach out…? Oh, I don’t you can’t because of Fox contractually. I was gonna say, “We should see if with the new regime maybe your lifetime ban has been lifted.”

CLAY: I would actually love to know that.

BUCK: I mean, yeah, maybe Kim Il-song or Kim Jong-un wouldn’t, but maybe the new totalitarian dictator will allow you to go on air at CNN.

CLAY: People have been listening here for a year — think about how wild this is — I am banned by both CNN and ESPN. You guys listen to me every day. Do I sound like so — I’m the only person in America who is not allowed to appear on either CNN or ESPN. And all of out there listening to right now you’re like, “Yeah, Clay…” You might not agree with everything I guess… The equivalent, it’s like you’re banned from Iran and North Korea. Yeah, certainly a badge of honor but there’s no one else in America who is banned from both those places.

BUCK: But I want to ask you can you imagine if they just brought us on, like, maybe we could sneak it in under the new regime, if you get permission, I think that there are members of the CNN audience who would cry, if they actually heard just what we say. I don’t think it’s a small number, either. I think, “Oh, my gosh. What are they saying?”

CLAY: I would love —

BUCK: “Liz Cheney is the real Republican.” I think they’d cry.

CLAY: I would love to go on The View. I mean, I really would, and to have the crowds booing and to have all the reaction, maybe even Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin and Joy Behar start crying on the stage. I just think it would be an incredible television event if they let one of us going on The View and just debate the topics of the day.

BUCK: I think the over-under… Someone would have to give you really strong odds that either you or I quite honestly would be shouted over and they’d cut to break early.

CLAY: Is that show live?

BUCK: I think so.

CLAY: ‘Cause I was gonna say they would not air the episode. They’d be like, “We had a couple of…” I’m not sure they’d air it live.

BUCK: It happened to me at CNN. I did an interview with Stelter… Oh, this is what we can call a tease: (impression) “Stelter may not be long for his perch at CNN. I don’t know.”

CLAY: Seems like there’s a lot of nervous people at CNN all of a sudden.