Jesse Kelly Tangles with Clay & Buck Over Those $75 Tequila Shots

CLAY: You may be hearing Kanye West’s Gold Digger in the background there. And, yes, Kanye had an interview with Tucker Carlson. But I think it might as well be the theme song of Jesse Kelly, a.k.a. Kamala Harris in Sacramento in 1996 going out for dinner.

BUCK: Ughhh.

CLAY: (laughing)

KELLY: (laughing)

CLAY: We are joined now by Jesse Kelly, who many of you will hear later this evening. Good to see you. Good to talk to you.

BUCK: Syndicated radio host Jesse Kelly and probably the tallest United States Marine to have ever served. Jesse, what’s up, man?

KELLY: You know, I wish I could say it was good to talk to you guys.

CLAY: (laughing)

KELLY: I even convinced myself maybe this would be fair and even-handed interview and an accounting of the events that happened that night. But as soon as I heard Gold Digger, I knew why it was being played —

BUCK: (laughing)

KELLY: — and I knew that my honor has been besmirched on the great Clay and Buck show. And now? Now we’re enemies, fellas. Now we’re enemies.

CLAY: All right. So the story line — for people who might have missed it — is we went out to dinner as friends. Or you went to, like, a play, right? Where did you go on Saturday night?

BUCK: First, Jesse went to Broadway.

KELLY: (laughing) This is why… This is why I didn’t even want to come on.

BUCK: (laughing)

KELLY: Yeah. Okay. My wife wanted to go see some sorry musical called Chicago. Yes, I took her to Chicago. Okay? I stuffed my 6’8” frame and this tiny, crappy little seat. (crosstalk)

CLAY: Did you have a good seat?

KELLY: I watched. No. Oh, yeah, we. Oh, of course we got good seats. iHeart, God love them, hooked us up with these great seats.

BUCK: It’s the person behind Jesse who always has bad seats, by the way, because they’re staring at the small of his back.

CLAY: So you spend 2-1/2 hours at Chicago?

KELLY: Yes. I went to — (crosstalk)

CLAY: And then when you came out (crosstalk) You went to a musical and then you come out to dinner with us or post dinner, and we go to this hotel, this rooftop. And in order to be seated, you have to order a bottle of something, because it’s New York City. It’s Buck’s hometown. I don’t know what it is, Buck. I don’t know if you notice this. Every time I go in anywhere, they think that I can’t afford anything.

KELLY: (laughing)

CLAY: Maybe I don’t dress well enough. But did you notice…?

BUCK: Usually, Clay, in some of these establishments when they see tattered shorts and flip flops —

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: — they make some assumptions when it’s like 50 degrees outside.

CLAY: I walked… I walked up to the guy at the at the top of the hotel, and I said, “Can we get a table, please?” And he was like, “Well, you know, you have to buy… You know, spend a lot of…” You know, like basically it was like telling me, “Hey, poor kid, like, you can’t afford to be here.” I was like, “Yeah, I can afford to buy a bottle of wine.” So, we sit down, pour wine, and you order your own drink and say, “Oh, I had to get the tequila shots because I did. You ordered your own drink, right? (crosstalk) old fashioned, which I respect.

BUCK: Did Jesse pour the wine into his old fashioned, though? Like, is that a thing Jesse does?

CLAY: Oh, that’s a good question.

KELLY: You know, let’s clarify something here. I don’t drink wine. Okay? I grew up in Ohio, in Montana. I eat Velveeta. I eat Doritos and cheeseburgers. I don’t sip on red wine. So, of course, I ordered my own drink. The tequila shots were to try to make everybody have fun. Have more fun, probably because you guys were bringing us down. (crosstalk)

CLAY: I mean, let me also say this. In defense of Buck and myself, I can’t say who it was, but we’re trying to recruit someone who is in sports media to come work at OutKick. And that was the order that she placed. So, she ordered the red wine. Buck and I, being gentlemen, are like, “Yeah, we like red wine. We’ll drink red wine. We’re civilized.”

BUCK: What was surprising was that as Jesse ordered his old fashioned, I saw a pinky ring on his finger.

KELLY: (laughing)

BUCK: It was amazing.

CLAY: (laughing) All right. So, we’re all sitting there enjoying our red wine — except for Jesse, who has his own old fashioned — and then he just out of nowhere, Jesse is like, “We got to get four shots of the most expensive tequila,” which Bob Pittman, who owns the entire company, has founded, the Casa Dragones, and Buck says to you, Jesse, as I recall, “That’s going to be really expensive.”

BUCK: I think I said, “Jesse, you’re ordering a mortgage payment’s worth of tequila.”

CLAY: Yes.

KELLY: (laughing)

BUCK: I think that… And Jesse was like basically like, “Chop-chop! I’ll take two rounds, my good man.” (laughing)

KELLY: Okay. Now it’s my turn to clarify, because you guys are missing a very convenient detail of this whole thing. Yes, I ordered the tequila shots. Yes, Buck issued a warning that it was expensive. Where I come from, shots cost $2. There’s a special on Friday night. If you tell me there’s an expensive shot, I think we’re talking $15, right? Ten, $15. But did not say they were going to be $75 apiece. If Buck tells me, “Hey, Jesse, watch out when you open the fridge,” I’m going to assume, “Oh, no, there might be a bottle in there that might fall out.” If I open the fridge and a Siberian tiger jumps out and attacks me, that’s not on me.

CLAY: (laughing)

KELLY: That’s on Buck for not disclosing the appropriate amount of detail.

BUCK: That’s a fair point.

CLAY: Were you surprised, Buck, that it was $75 a shot? Even as a New Yorker, did that seem steep to you?

BUCK: No, I mean, that place, it’s actually where I went on my first date with Carrie, believe it or not.

CLAY: Ohhhh. Yeah.

BUCK: That rooftop has some history, so I am familiar. We tried to go somewhere next door and then we went there. And that is one of the more… Look everyone knows who lives in a city anywhere or even a pretty good-sized town of the country, this is like one of the more expensive hotels in the city, and expensive hotels… I mean, you know, I remember I was in a fancy hotel once in France; I ordered a yogurt and it was the equivalent of $40.

KELLY: (laughing)

BUCK: Like, you know, they’ll just charge you anything at these places. But when you’re looking at that… You know, that shelf of booze where everything almost looks like Indiana Jones had to go and find it somewhere else around the world —

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: — and he was being chased by a boulder to get this glass carafe or whatever? You mess with that kind of booze at a place like the Peninsula Hotel and you’re going to pay through the nose.

CLAY: Even I — which we’ve already established was not considered rich enough to even be able to sit at a table up there. Even I, when I looked at the bill and saw that they were $75 each a shot was kind of stunned.

BUCK: Actually, Jesse? Jesse, can I just tell you something? Clay wanted to go full Pretty Woman when they brought the bill and be like, “Big mistake! Big mistake!”

KELLY: (laughing) Now, another little detail that you have not told the Clay and Buck audience is I offered to pay. I even did the thing where I was reaching into my pocket to pull out my wallet because I felt bad because I had ordered the $75 shots, and Clay took advantage of that and paid anyway just so he could come trash me with you guys on this (crosstalk).

CLAY: That could be true. I definitely noticed that I had an advantage. Also at that point, like trying to divvy up the bill and everything else, I thought there was way more value in being able to blame you for ordering the $75 shots than allowing you to pay.

KELLY: (laughing)

CLAY: Plus, I don’t want to throw Aubrey under the bus here, but I’m definitely going to do it. You had already confessed that you were living the high life there because you took her shopping at, like, Saks Fifth Avenue or something, and I figured at that point, I didn’t need to take more money out of your wallet.

KELLY: Well, I didn’t know what Saks Fifth Avenue was. We walked in, we had to get something for her parents as if they… Look, we don’t have to go into the details, okay? You know, maybe we should talk about Buck and his quarter — his dime-size crab cakes.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: Oh, how dare you, sir?

CLAY: It’s a very solid pivot.

BUCK: How dare you?

CLAY: It’s a very solid married man pivot right there.

BUCK: Wow.

CLAY: You see that you’re about to get flattened and you immediately attack someone else. That’s how it’s done.

BUCK: Jesse, cocktail party crab cakes are not supposed to be the size of basketballs. Listen, Paul Bunyan. You got to settle down on this one. There was a carving station with red meat. You needed to go to that first and foremost. Cocktail party passed hors d’oeuvres, small crab cakes? You just got to spear a few of them at a time and eat them like bonbons.

KELLY: I couldn’t spear a few of them at the time. The wife was right there and every time I tried to double up, she told me, “This is a sophisticated place, Jesse. You can’t do things like that anymore.”

CLAY: (laughing)

KELLY: So, this is not on me. Maybe next time, find some adult crabs to make crab cakes. I was starving.

BUCK: I’m just going to tell you, this is an important pro-tip for everybody. If you ever go to a cocktail party and you’re hungry, it is essential where you position yourself in the room, because the food is always coming in from one place.

KELLY: Yes.

BUCK: And the good orders go very quickly. So, you’ve got to find the route of ingress for the crab cakes, for the bacon-wrapped shrimp, for the chicken satay in the peanut sauce. All the above.

KELLY: (pause) I don’t eat peanut sauce.

BUCK: (laughing)

CLAY: So, Jesse, it is interesting. I didn’t know there were crab cakes at all. The biggest issue, and no pun intended here, that came out of Buck’s engagement party was I’m never getting a picture taken with you again.

KELLY: (laughing)

CLAY: I’ve not been… I’ve never… Nobody ever sees a picture of me and says positive things no matter what. I’ve never been savaged for being short in my entire life like I was after that photo went out.

KELLY: Well, it’s not just… Honestly, it’s not my height. There’s nothing you can do about that. It’s my height, and then I’ve been told that my face is really symmetrical. Me and Denzel Washington, we have symmetrical faces. So, it’s not just that I’m above you guys. I’m so radiant, it kind of blows people away and everyone else kind of just fades into the background.

CLAY: (laughing)

KELLY: So, it makes you seem small. It’s really not your fault (laughing).

BUCK: Jesse, I really do appreciate you coming up from Houston, though, for the party, considering when I made the toast and the main photo that everybody saw that’s been circulating —

KELLY: (laughing)

BUCK: — you’re standing in the background and everyone’s like, “Nice toast, Frodo Baggins.”

CLAY: (laughing) Why were you behind him for the toast, by the way? What were you doing back there?

BUCK: You know why he was behind me.

CLAY: Was it intentional?

BUCK: He was going to hold up his hand like, “You must be this tall for a ride.”

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: “You must be this tall to give a toast.”

CLAY: (laughing)

KELLY: No. Once again, I’m made out to be the bad guy. I was behind you because we were talking. You and me were having a discussion. You turned around, took the microphone and started giving a speech. What was I supposed to do, lay down on the floor? That’s where I happened to be standing! (crosstalk)

BUCK: Just pro-tip for everybody. Always tell Jesse during a photo to take a knee. Okay? I’m just telling you.

KELLY: (laughing)

BUCK: Otherwise, you’re not going to be a happy camper.

CLAY: All right. Last question for you, Jesse. Here, you’ve clearly established that you’re the gold digger-Kamala Harris of the Premiere Networks radio family.

KELLY: (laughing)

CLAY: But speaking of gold diggers, do you think that Hunter Biden is actually going to get charged or not with any crime?

KELLY: I believe he will be charged with a crime, and it will be held over Joe Biden’s head. So, you will see Joe Biden after the midterms — I would guess December, January, maybe February, Joe Biden — will resign the presidency claiming some form of illness or something like that. And then you’ll know for a fact they held the Hunter Biden thing up as a way to move Joe out because, Joe is hurting their (crosstalk).

CLAY: You actually think he’ll resign, not just announce that he’s not going to run for reelection.

KELLY: No, no, no. I believe he’ll resign because they need time. You can’t have Joe Biden just say, “I’m not going to run for reelection.” They’re gonna… The midterms are going to have been done. It’s officially presidential campaign season. It’s time to shovel Papa Joe out the back door. He can move on to Delaware and sniff kids and then they’re going to go run Gavin Newsom and maybe Eric Adams, and you know Kamala is going to run. There is no way Dome is not going to run and they’re going to run Rear Admiral Buttigieg and it’s going to be the same group of crazies they ran before.

BUCK: Oh ,man.

CLAY: What do you think the odds are of a Kamala and Mayor Pete combo ticket. What do you think would happen if it were Kamala and Mayor Pete?

KELLY: One, you could make the argument easily that presidential ticket sucks more than any presidential ticket has ever sucked ever. But they’re not going to do that. Dome, everyone hates her, Butt-gig can’t win the black vote. He cannot. That’s why you remember he struggled so much in the primary last time.

CLAY: Oh, you’re right.

KELLY: He was out drinking forties out of paper bags with blacks trying to boost his black support.

CLAY: I saw that picture.

KELLY: It’s one of the funniest pictures I’ve ever seen in my life. I think Gavin Newsom is the guy. As much as I despise him, he’s… Look, let’s be frank. He’s good looking, not as good looking as me, but very good looking. He’s a fundraising juggernaut. He’s a darling to the left. I think Gavin Newsom is the one they want now.

BUCK: You know why Jesse has so much respect for Newsom? Because he’s like over 6’2”. That’s the thing. Jesse’s a heightist.

KELLY: (laughing)

BUCK: So, Jesse. The Jesse Kelly Show, everybody, 6 to 9 p.m. in syndication on Premiere Networks, and Jesse. Just before you go, what are you going to be drinking this weekend?

KELLY: You know what? I’m going to go out and I’m going to get some wine and I might even get some expensive tequila —

CLAY: (laughing)

KELLY: — and I’m going to sit around, and I’m going to drink it and prove to you guys I’m not cheap and I’m not that white trash.

BUCK: The tallest Thurston Howell III I’ve ever seen. Jesse Kelly, everybody. Check out his show. Check out his podcast. Jesse, have a great weekend. Big hug for Aubrey.

KELLY: Be good, boys.