BUCK: We have the end, it seems, of a long-running saga that Clay and I wanted to address with you for a moment. The Jussie Smollett case. That’s finally come to a judicial conclusion. Jussie Smollett’s gonna spend over a hundred days in prison. We are gonna take a look whether that’s a fair sentence or not just momentarily, but remember, this is Jussie Smollett.
“The guys yelled, ‘This is MAGA country!'” and they poured bleach on him and put a noose around his neck, and then he walked home with the noose still on because he was getting a sandwich on the streets of Chicago at 2 o’clock in the morning in the middle of winter. It was like 30 degrees outside, and two guys wearing MAGA hats were yelling, “This is MAGA country!” or whatever. He made it up, so it doesn’t even matter. Yeah, and the Democrats — including Kamala Harris and Joe Biden themselves — freaked out about this. It was a national news story, big deal. Here is the judge saying: Yeah, you’re a liar, and you’re going to prison.
BUCK: Clay, is this justice?
CLAY: No. Look, I am glad that the judge put him in jail for at least 150 days, five months, whatever the math is there, six months, depending on how exactly you classify it. But I wanted… If you remember, we talked about this. I wanted him to get years in prison, and that would have been in a very aggressive sentence. But I believe what he did, the way that he preyed upon American media’s obsession with race and victimization of race and the degree to which he created further division at a time of great division in this country, the consequences should have been more significant than they were.
I do appreciate the fact that he’s going to have to go to Cook County jail. I think leading him out effectively in handcuffs was significant, and even hearing Jussie Smollett — he tried to throw up — did you see the black power fist as he walked out? Listen to Jussie who immediately says, “I’m not suicidal. I’m not suicidal,” which, by the way, sounds super strange because it sounds like someone would say if they were the mentally stable. Listen to this.
BUCK: Clay, can I just ask: Is it more offensive that he’s claiming to be a civil rights hero or that he’s still saying he didn’t do it? I’m like, which one to you is more mind-blowing?
CLAY: Well, both of them are equal parts offensive, and if I were a judge, on some level when he started to say he didn’t do it, I’d say, “You are still not taking responsibility for the consequences of your actions. So upon further reflection, I am going to double your sentence, and you are now going to spend a full year in prison,” because look, part of deciding what the penalty is, is analyzing whether there is in any way some degree of acknowledgment of wrongdoing, right, whether there is a form of remorse, whether you are apologizing for your actions and acknowledging them.
And when Jussie Smollett is still saying “I didn’t do this,” he is lying, he is delusional, and the fact he throws up the black power fist as he’s walking out, as if he’s some sort of martyr, makes me want to put him in prison for longer. Look, the other thing I would say here, Buck — and I think this is super significant. We hear all the time about how Big Tech is trying to make sure that the truth is out there. You know what’s going on right now? Kamala Harris tweeted this, and I think it’s important, ’cause this ties in with what Jussie Smollett was doing.
He wasn’t crazy in the way that he diagnosed and recognized that if he were the victim of a crime like this, it would be the best thing that ever happened to his career. And what I would tell everybody out there is, be skeptical whenever something you don’t control happens to you and it’s the greatest thing that could ever happen to you. Right? The best thing that could ever happen to Jussie Smollett’s career was that he was a victim of an attempted assault like this because it makes him a victim, it makes him more well known, and here’s what Kamala Harris said, Buck:
These are still up, these tweets, Buck. This is Kamala. No acknowledgment. Buck, you and I are getting tagged all the time. Anytime we say masks don’t work, Twitter police immediately show up and try to give greater characterization of that. That’s still up. There’s no note on it about how it’s not true. Joe Biden tweeted:
CLAY: These are still up.
BUCK: They’re still up, and there’s a reason for it. The price is, you have to be willing to pay for wokeness is looking like a fool. That’s actually part of the obedience that is demanded of the woke. Perfect example: “Men can get pregnant!” You have to say that. You sound like a moron when you say it, right? But if you’re gonna be woke, you gotta say, “Men can get pregnant.”
And with Jussie, it didn’t matter to the people who said it that it was all a lie. They were expected to say it in the moment, and they did. The leftist mind doesn’t care about what’s true. By the way, same with masking and all these other things we talk about. You are expected to be a part of the collective, you are expected to say what you’re supposed to say in the moment, and no one, therefore, afterwards on the left, will fault you for it because, yeah, that was… It’s almost like Biden and Kamala are under orders. There is an identity politics narrative here. There’s an opportunity to bash. What was this really about?
CLAY: Trump.
BUCK: Donald Trump. All the “white nationalism.” All the stuff that they had, all the media: “Oh, here’s the perfect case study of Trump’s white nationalism and the destruction of the country it’s created!” The fact that it was a lie doesn’t matter at all. The only problem from the perspective of Biden and Harris is that it was so sloppy that anybody with an IQ above that of a toaster not only knows now, Clay, but really knew pretty much right away.
I understand, you never want to be caught in that one outlier of like, “I guess this happened” thing, but I looked back on my record on this one. First week of the Jussie Smollett case I’m like, “This guy’s lying.” It was so obvious. I know you saw it as lying too, and do any of the blue checks who got it wrong feel embarrassed? No, not at all. They did their part.
CLAY: Not only do they not feel embarrassed. They’re not even taking down clearly inaccurate tweets but all these social media sites that claim to care about misinformation and disinformation, they don’t even append an acknowledgment, “Hey, by the way, this was a total lie. Like, I would be shamed into taking down the tweet if I were Kamala or Joe Biden. I also wouldn’t anticipate that this is true the moment you hear it.
Again, I would just say this for everybody: Anytime a story like this happens and you go back and you’re like, man. Would being a victim of a crime like this be the greatest thing that could happen to anybody’s career? If the answers yes, then we should be skeptical that it happened. I’ll give you an example, Buck. If you came in and you were, like, “Hey…” I mean, well, let’s take —
BUCK: “A bunch of soy latte drinkers who have Chris Hayes T-shirts on just happened to try to slap fight me in front of the radio studio,” you would know right away.
BUCK: I cannot confirm nor deny, but Paltrow’s not on the list.
CLAY: I don’t even know. Like, it used to be there were Maxim girls or Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover girls. Now there’s like a billion of them on Instagram. So I can’t even keep up with them. Like Pamela Anderson, if you’re around my age. People like, “Oh, Pamela Anderson be incredibly attractive,” Denise Richards back in the day. I feel like there are so many Instagram models now that it’s even hard to keep up with who the famous ones are. So give me a widely renowned, incredible good-looking woman.
BUCK: It doesn’t matter.
CLAY: It’s hard, right?
BUCK: Just go with the story.
CLAY: Yeah. So, and he said, “She hooked up with me! She came over to me; she was like, ‘Hey, let me buy you a beer. Hey, do you want to hang out? Do you want to come back to my place?'” You would say, “You know what,” whatever your buddy’s name is, “I don’t think I buy this story,” right? Maybe it’s possible that supermodels show up at this random bar where you usually have trouble picking up any girls, and suddenly get picked up by this girl who’s super famous and everybody wants to be with, and you guys went back to her place.
Like, you wouldn’t believe it, right? That would be the best thing that could ever happen to that guy, whoever the girl is that he’s in love with. Why would you believe Jussie Smollett when for his life, that’s the best thing that could ever happen to him? And so be — and you would be — skeptical, and I would be skeptical of your buddy who’s trying to tell you the story. And, by the way, it might happen one in a million times that something like this could occur, and you would still never believe it.
BUCK: Can I just throw out there, too, Clay, on the skepticism point here: Jussie Smollett, from what he said of his imaginary attackers — and as we know, it was actually the two Nigerian brothers, and it was all staged.
CLAY: That he had a relationship with sexually, which is even crazier.
BUCK: The imaginary MAGA supporters he talked about. It’s as though Jussie Smollett had never met a Trump voter.
CLAY: Yes.
BUCK: Because there is not a Trump voter in the entirety of the United States of America who — on the streets of Chicago at 2 o’clock in the morning or 1 o’clock in the morning — would yell, “This is MAGA country.”
BUCK: They were wandering around the streets of Chicago with a noose, allegedly, just like trying to find Jussie?
CLAY: Is the coldest night of the year, I think, in Chicago, just on the possible off chance that they were gonna run into Jussie Smollett?
BUCK: I mean, it’s just a few steps away, folks, from, “Jussie Smollett said, ‘Little Green Men came out of a spacecraft wearing Trump hats and they attacked me!'” I mean, it’s just completely nonsensical, and the president and vice president and 95% of blue check news media were like, “Oh, my gosh. This is an atrocity.”
CLAY: By the way, I’m really disappointed that I can’t even come up with a girl. Like, that’s the world we live in now. Everybody’s on Instagram —
BUCK: I would go back to my childhood. My, like, you know, teem crush — ’cause she was my age in Seventh Heaven, remember that show — was Jessica Biel.
CLAY: Oh, Jessica Biel was great. Jessica Biel back in the day, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera. There are all these girls you could point to. I don’t even know who the girl, like, if you were 24 right now, who do you point to? I’m not even sure the answer.
BUCK: I mean, I’m too busy reading history books, Clay. I have no idea.
CLAY: Yeah. Well, maybe a good sign.
From pistachio Crème Brûlée to Brussels Sprouts, is this man ever happy?
Watch Clay and Buck analyze what's different about this Trump transition.
Eric Hovde speaks out over concerns about his race against Tammy Baldwin.
Clay's loving Trump's cabinet picks so far.
The former New York Times reporter explains his transformation.