CLAY: We want to start with blatant hypocrisy. Buck, you well remember Joe Biden ran his presidential campaign with the promise that he would not send mean tweets, that he would restore decorum and honesty, and that he would bring forth a culture of common humanity to the White House. Now in the past couple of pressers he has been caught insulting reporters.

I was told when Donald Trump insulted reporters that the entire republic was under siege, that the First Amendment was under assault. Most Blue Check Brigade members loved this. If you missed it, Joe Biden yesterday afternoon caught on a hot mic calling Fox News reporter Peter Doocy a stupid SOB. I think we can say it, right? I’m not sure. Anyway, let’s listen to the audio cut here.

DOOCY: Do you think inflation is a political liability ahead of the midterms?

BIDEN: It’s a great asset. More inflation. What a stupid son of a bitch.

BUCK: Oh. Oh. Oh.

WATCH: Joe Biden calls a reporter asking about inflation a “stupid son of a bitch.” pic.twitter.com/1QiJzZs6HY

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 24, 2022

CLAY: So Joe Biden, stupid SOB. Now, we need to get the clip also, Peter Doocy interacting with Jesse Watters. Did you see that clip, Buck, where they…? We need to play that at some point too ’cause it’s pretty funny.

Peter Doocy, not only way smarter than Joe Biden, also way funnier. Well played here: pic.twitter.com/kXlewjXJ2K

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) January 25, 2022

But Doocy later went on Sean Hannity, said that Biden later called him and told him it was, quote, “nothing personal, pal.” Listen to this.

DOOCY: Within about an hour of that exchange, he called my cell phone and he said, “It’s nothing personal, pal,” and we went back and forth, and we were talking about just kind of moving — moving forward. And I made sure to tell him that I’m always gonna try to ask something different than what everybody else is asking. And he said, “You’ve got to,” and that’s a quote from the president. So I’ll keep doing it.

BUCK: Clay, he asked something different by asking a question that isn’t meant generally to prop up the failing Biden regime.

CLAY: (laughing) Yeah.

BUCK: That’s how he differentiates himself from the rest. I’d say this too. Notice how on the right, we have a sense of humor about this. Biden… I’ve said this before on the show. He’s actually not a super nice guy. This is all mythology they created around him in part to make it seem like he’s just likable and he’s kind of like a Mr. Magoo character when he says things that are absurd or starts mumbling.

But, you know, he’s lovable, good old Scranton Joe. That’s just not true. He’s actually been a pretty rough and below-the-belt guy, hitting below the belt for a long time. And it’s something that you see playing out right now with Peter Doocy. You see everyone on the right is like of course the hypocrisy from the journos comes out right away, that you see they’re saying things like, “Oh, well, it’s not as bad as Trump,” whatever. Is it okay when a president says this stuff or not?

Is it okay when a president goes off? You know, we also recognize that this is the regime and Peter Doocy is sitting there asking real questions and that’s going to upset the establishment, that’s gonna upset the apparatus, and so that’s what ends up happening. By the way, it is personal. He doesn’t like Peter Doocy ’cause he asks real questions and makes Joe Biden look dumb, so it clearly is personal. Joe Biden is not a smart man. We all know that. So that’s also kind of adding insult to injury.

CLAY: Well, and —

BUCK: Just say you’re sorry, you know what I mean? Just say you’re sorry.

CLAY: The other thing I would add… First of all, I don’t care. Right? I understand some people out there can be offended. Buck and I… I try not to curse in my real life as well. Certainly, we can’t curse on the radio show.

BUCK: Really?

CLAY: By the way, it doesn’t mean that at some point we might not curse, right? Occasionally. Have you ever cursed on the radio before accidentally?

BUCK: No, but I cannot tell a lie to this audience. Salty language in my life off the air is not something that I shy away from.

CLAY: Yeah. And I have cursed a couple of times. I’ve been on the radio now for 15 years or whatever. I’ve accidentally cursed — never angrily at someone, just something funny happens and you’re like, “Oh, that was [blank]ing brilliant,” right, as an adjective. Anyway, so I’ve cursed a couple times and I have a drop button and I can’t promise that I might not curse on here, but I try to — ’cause I can’t curse on television, can’t curse on radio.

I try to avoid cursing in my real life as well, not to say that I’m perfect on it. But it doesn’t bother me that the president would curse. I’m not bothered by that. What bothers me, however, is the inconsistency of the reaction to it. And this is something that is consistent to me, Buck. I always think — for purposes of argument — as if I am a lawyer and as if I am a judge who is putting out opinions, and there has to be a precedent.

There has to be a foundation upon which you build what you stand for, otherwise you’re just blowing in the breeze, and you are biased, and you’re gonna swing wildly from one direction to the other. So, when the Brian Stelters of the world say that the First Amendment is under attack when Donald Trump calls somebody an SOB, and then they love when Joe Biden does it and they enjoy it, and they’re like, “Oh, it’s a great joke.” Well, that is bias, right?

So, if you’re not going to be consistent in the way you apply it… We saw all the Democrats grab their pearls and fall onto their fainting couch like, “Oh, my gosh. How can the republic recover? The president has cursed a journalist!” I didn’t care then, and I don’t really care now. But I just want there to be consistency here, and the lack of consistency probably doesn’t surprise a lot of you. But when Trump sent a mean tweet, the republic was under siege. When Biden curses a reporter, it’s just, one, the reporter might deserve it — which is what most of the blue checks said — and, two, it’s not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.

BUCK: It’s one of these moments where we have to remember we already know that the journos are in the pocket of the Democrat Party. They are the Democrat Party. It’s really just playing games to pretend otherwise. The journos are clearly Democrats. But I do think it’s worth it for us to at least occasionally point out the obvious hypocrisy, as we’re doing right now, with the way that they pretend in one moment to be guardians of the First Amendment, to be the fourth estate, the ones that are protecting our democracy, right?

And then the second, that somebody who falls within their ranks very clearly — Peter Doocy is a journalist or is doing journalistic activities day in and day out — they forget about all that because they really are playing for a team. We know this. This is not a surprise to any of us at all. It’s not a surprise to anyone listening to this program. But we do point it out just because I think it’s necessary in case anybody is still on the fence out there.

In case anybody’s wondering, “Is modern journalism effectively an extension of the Democrat Party and largely premised upon the fraud that they’re objective?” the answer is “yes” to both of those questions. (chuckling) They are dishonest. And I also feel like the more time we spend — so we won’t do much of it today — on anything other than the continued just failures and spiraling of the Biden administration.

Clay, I think they would rather have to have a Biden beer summit with Doocy, anything other than talk about the economy, talk about Ukraine, talk about the border. Although I think they like talking about Ukraine. We’ll get into that. But all these other areas of failure on the domestic policy front, what are they gonna say at this point, right? The Build Back Better agenda? We’ve heard the talking points a million times.

CLAY: I will say, too, I think you’re a hundred percent right, and I wonder on some level whether this was intentional by Joe Biden, because I know he apologized, I know people say it’s a live mic. First of all, you presume most of the time I think, if you’re president, that the mic is live. Shouldn’t be hard to avoid accidentally saying things into a mic. Just presume that your mic is always on. And this is a problem with Biden in general.

He always seems to be kind of mumbling into the mic as the press is being escorted out? Say whatever you want, but presume the mic is going to be on. And I wonder on some level, too, remember, this just happened, what, on Friday, I think, that, Buck, that we had the president denigrate a female reporter and say that her question was stupid, and he got accused by some people of sexism based on that.

I wonder on some level whether this was an intentional opportunity to insult Doocy, because Doocy here was directly asking a question that was connected to the briefing that they just had, which was about inflation. So, Biden said he didn’t want questions on other subjects. But here he was directly being asked about inflation, which, frankly, is probably the single biggest issue going on in this country right now in terms of its impact on voters.

BUCK: I remember there was an episode… I didn’t watch much of The West Wing because it was the liberal alternative presidency during the Bush years and I recognized it as such. But I saw a few episodes ’cause people kept talking about it, bringing it up, long time ago. You remember, what was the president, Martin Sheen? What was his name again?

CLAY: Jedediah Bartlett or something like that.

BUCK: Jartlet or something? What was it?

CLAY: Bartlett was the president.

BUCK: Jed Bartlett! There we go.

CLAY: Jed Bartlett, yeah.

BUCK: Jed Bartlett. Jartlet, Bartlett, something like that. But I remember there was something where he refers to one of his opponents, and it’s on a hot-mic situation. He refers to one of his opponents as like a 9mm brain in a .45 caliber world or something like that, and the whole gag for the episode is, like, he knew the mic was on. He just wanted to say something and pretend like he didn’t say it. And I think at some level Biden wanted to say this.

He knew he was standing in front of the microphone a room full of people. He didn’t think the mic was off. He didn’t think no one was gonna hear this. But he wanted to take a shot, and it’s because you know what this does, man? It galvanizes the Democrat left journos. They go, “Yeah, he’s still one of us! He hates the actual asking of real questions by opposition, so he’s one of us.”

CLAY: I also think it is a sign that Biden is feeling the pressure associated with everything raining down on him right now. Even Joe Biden who tries to convey the sunny optimism, in the moment his response on the inflation question (laughing) to me belied a great deal of frustration. A lot of people are focusing on the insult. But to me the sarcasm of, “Yeah, it’s a great thing.” you know, they try to pretend it’s “transitory.” The reality is it ain’t going away, I don’t think, anytime soon. And I think they’ve recognized that now.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

BIDEN: (montage) Ask the right questions! … What a stupid son-of-a-bitch. … Come on, man. … That’s like saying, you know, before you got in this program you take a test where you’re taking cocaine or not, what do you think, huh? Are you a junkie? … Go back and read what I said. … Why why why why why why why why why why you get nervous, man. … That is an interesting read in English. I assume you got in the Journal because you like to write. … Have a higher IQ than you do, I expect. …That’s not true. You’re saying things you do not know what you’re talking about. No one says that. Who said that? Who said that? … Don’t poke that in my face, okay, buddy?

Joe Biden really doesn’t like it when you ask him questions. pic.twitter.com/xP63JkOai3

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 25, 2022

BUCK: Welcome back to the Clay and Buck show. Just a little taste there of Joe Biden. Such a grandfatherly, calming, uniting figure. Unless you ask him a question he doesn’t like, then he calls you a dog-faced pony soldier or challenges to you a push-up contest. Or just basically calls you an SOB in front of everyone. So, we’re not gonna do the whole… The libs actually cry about all this stuff, and then when something like this happens. They say, “See? The Republicans…”

No, we don’t care. We actually don’t really care. We think it’s almost amusing to watch them try to pretend we’re a bunch of snowflakes the way that they are. But I gotta say Clay, at some level there’s also, I think, an understanding that this Biden regime — this Biden administration — is just in rough shape. They’re not able to get it done on a whole variety of fronts, and so Joe Biden is getting more irascible; dare I say, a little bit more —

CLAY: There we go. SAT word.

BUCK: — “get off my lawn” than people might have anticipated on his side of things because what’s he gonna point to right now?