BUCK: Look right now at the polling that shows this is an Emerson — I’m sorry — a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

CLAY: Right.

BUCK: Yeah, by Emerson. Okay. Whatever. Donald Trump —

CLAY: Reuters/Ipsos came out today.

BUCK: Donald Trump is up in Ohio in a theoretical matchup against Joe Biden 14 points, 53-39. In Pennsylvania, theoretical matchup, Donald Trump 47-42 against Joe Biden, up five points. In Georgia, Donald Trump, 51-46 for Joe Biden, up five points. This poll was just completed. So, someone’s gonna have to explain to the Democrat side, hold on a second, if “Trump is a threat to our democracy” and all this other stuff, why is it that his numbers are looking so good right now against the sitting president who has the power of the incumbency and everything else?

And I think this is an important contextual point, Clay, for why the DOJ released last night this staged photo. For those who might have missed this, Trump was a special master. And we will update you on this story, we will handle the story. We will not obsess over the Mar-a-Lago documents because Clay and I both see this as increasingly intentional distraction by Democrats to try to “make this about Trump and the documents” and not about the economy, the border, crime, areas where the Democrats are so very vulnerable.

You might have seen this. There’s a photo out now. It was put out in the DOJ filing and one of the addenda. Is that the plural of addendum? Addenda, right? Is that right? It’s not addendi.

CLAY: That sounds like a CIA word —

BUCK: Yeah.

CLAY: — sitting around talk about addendums and addendas a lot.

BUCK: That’s pretty much all we did in the CIA was talking about addenda and Precis and, you know, summaries and things like that. Anyway, you’ve got all these documents, secret SEI, secret SEI splayed across the floor to show how serious this is. There’s also in the boxes like TIME magazine covers and other things that you can see.

But they’re including this as an exhibit. I mean, Clay, for one thing, this is very clear. The FBI went in there and they staged a photo. I mean, they actually laid out classified — their cover sheets; so everyone understands, these go on top of the classified material so you can’t see the classified material. This is a handling procedure for classified information. And so, they have all these classified cover sheets out.

It’s like when they raid a drug — a drug lord’s den and they take, you know, the — remember in the nineties? I feel was all MAC-10s, everybody had MAC-10s in the drug trade and TEC-9. That was the other. They had all these guns and drugs on the table. In this case, it is cover sheets and we’re supposed to look at this and say, “Oh, my gosh. It’s so reckless.”

We still don’t know what’s in there. We still don’t know how they’d adjudicate the then president’s ability to declassify these documents as he saw fit. And I just think that they want to obsess on this. Yet another, the walls are closing in on Trump story, because the Biden bounce, the rebound, it’s already fading very rapidly.

CLAY: Dead cat bounce. Sorry, for all the cat people out there. So, this staged photo is pretty indefensible because we know they spent over nine hours at Mar-a-Lago, and what they’re clearly intending to show is, look how reckless Donald Trump was. There are all these classified documents strewn about on the floor. In the New York Times story that the Department of Justice leaked to be able to continue to put these stories out there there’s an interesting line where it said no sort of charges are imminent.

I don’t think there’s going to be charges in this case. I think it is almost entirely a Trumped-up distraction, and I think Republicans need to stop obsessing over every little detail here. Leave it alone. And if you are a big Trump person, I would encourage you to come out and vote, send a message about what you think about the FBI raid. But it’s not going to be the determining factor in any Senate battle. And so, I think this increasingly is a massive distraction.

And, Buck, what I would say — I might have misspoke there — you were giving off, I think, a bunch of those Emerson poll state by state results. Today a Reuters/Ipsos poll came out showing that Joe Biden has hit a new low, I believe, in their poll at 38% approval. And if it’s not a new low, it’s close to his new low, and it’s down substantially from the last two weeks or so.

And I think what’s happening is, I think Biden has stepped all over himself with the student loan debt move. I think that that is overwhelmingly, for people whose votes are up for grabs, not registering well for him. Certainly, a lot of Democrats have ripped him for that as well. I think every time Biden speaks it helps Republicans. I don’t think what they think. They put him on the road and he calls anybody who voted for Donald Trump basically a Nazi.

Yesterday he’s talks and he says that police got killed on January 6th, and if you want to stand up to the government you better get an F-15 ’cause your guns are not gonna be enough. All of these things play into exactly what Republicans are talking about. If anything, Biden’s approval, Buck, went up when he was on vacation for basically a month and when he got covid and nothing was being said by him, basically.

And look. To be fair, gas prices have come back from 5 to 3.75 or whatever they are on an average all over the country. I think they’re 3.75 by my house. And I believe as you break this down, the more Biden gets on the road, the worse it is for Democrats because he doesn’t have a good sales pitch and his incompetence shines through.

BUCK: If he didn’t have the excuse of covid for the Biden-in-the-basement presidential run, I don’t think he would have been able to pull it off because so many people would have seen that he is decrepit. I mean, he’s not in a physical, mental state to be leading the most powerful, wealthy country on earth. It’s a crazy idea that this would be the guy, unless all you’re relying on are the constant stories about how, you know, “Trump is worse than Hitler” and the media gets to run with this.

And what was the narrative about Joe Biden? This is what’s so frustrating. Democrats win elections — and put aside the cheating and all that stuff for a second. Every time I say this, people, but don’t you — yeah, I’m like, yeah, guys, what do you want me to do? Like, I know they cheat but there’s only so much I can talk about the cheating. Democrats win elections, though, by lying to people about who they are and what they really believe.

And this is something that everybody has to remember. The Democrat Party is the anti-cop party. They’re the Soros prosecutor party. They are the lockdowns because teachers’ unions to want have their employees stay at home while your kids are suffering party. They’re the tell social media to ban people that disagree with the narrative party. I mean, these are all just the realities of what we’re facing these days.

And now that we’re going into election time, what do we have? Oh, we got Joe out there, you know, on the trail, rolled up sleeves, aviators, “Hey, man, I’m just here eating apple pie. I’m just like you. You know, yeah, Hunter got paid millions by China to do nothing. That’s not influencing peddling, man. I’m just — no joke. I’m just out here making jobs for people.” I mean, it’s appalling. Who votes for this buffoon? Even Democrats know that this is ridiculous.

CLAY: Democrats didn’t vote for him; they voted against Trump. And that’s why I think Republicans — Trump is going to get his opportunity. In the 2024 race, if you are a die-hard Trump person, go balls-to-the-wall as hard as you can to get him elected if he wins the Republican nomination. We’ve had Trump on this show a lot. We think he was a good president. We voted for him.

But this election’s not about Trump. And Democrats are desperate to try to make it about Trump. That’s why they raided Mar-a-Lago, I really believe, was to put Trump front and center on the midterms. Look. The midterms are not a referendum on Donald Trump. He hasn’t been in office for two years. The midterms are a hundred percent a referendum on what Joe Biden has done as president.

Do not allow the midterms — everybody out there listening to us right now, you can defend Trump and say you don’t think the FBI should have done the raid. But this — a midterm cannot be a referendum on what might or might not be going on at Mar-a-Lago. It’s gotta be a referendum on the border, on crime in the country, on the fact that we’re dealing with 40-year-high inflation.

On the fact that your family, every time you go out to the grocery store or to pay for gas, is getting a default massive tax increase because of Joe Biden’s failed economic policies, not to mention what’s going on in Ukraine, our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Everything that Joe Biden has touched as president is worse than it was before he got there.

BUCK: Joe Biden, in what was flagrantly unconstitutional as well — let’s remember that. The Supreme Court did have to say, you can’t do that.

CLAY: Yep.

BUCK: Joe Biden, in a flagrantly unconstitutional move, after terrifying people about their relatives who didn’t want to get the shot, he wanted millions and millions of people across the country to be humiliated and fired from their jobs for refusal to get a covid vaccine that they did not need and that didn’t do a damn thing to stop the spread. I don’t know what else to say other than if anyone supports that party that Joe Biden represents, just knowing that, they’re hurting the country at this point. They really are.

I mean, you have to hold people accountable. That was the most egregious, authoritarian act in my lifetime of any president. And does anyone care? People are sitting around and saying, “Oh, but, you know, I mean…” I know this audience cares but, you know, do the independents out there who are thinking about voting for Democrats care?

Do the Democrats listening to this who think, you know, maybe it’s gotten a little too crazy, do they care? I mean, honestly, people need to get fired up. And one thing I’ll say about Biden, no matter how stupid, no matter how dishonest, no matter how ridiculous, he’s going on offense, Clay.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: Our team could take a lesson or two from that one. Go on offense. Make the case. Make your Democrat opponents, wherever you are across the country, explain why, you know, transgender surgery for 14-year-olds without parental consent is a great idea. But make them defend these points. Make them actually have these conversations in public.