Daily Review with Clay and Buck - Feb 13 2026

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Welcome to today's edition of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show podcast. Welcome in Friday edition, Clay Travis, Buck Sexton Show. We appreciate all of you hanging out with us as we are taking you into the weekend. We have got a ton to discuss with all of you. Most importantly, that the economic information and indicators that are out there continue to be quite strong. Friday morning, just about two hours ago, the latest inflation read for January came in at 2.4% inflation. That is the lowest core inflation number that has existed since March, I believe, of 2021. That is the very beginning of the Joe Biden administration before the disastrous rise to 9.1% inflation began, which I believe peaked in around June of 2022, if I remember off the top of my head. Some of you out there might be saying, OK, well, what does that mean in real terms? It means that the Fed's target inflation rate of 2% is easily within target. It means that all of the histrionics surrounding Trump's decision to implement tariffs have not led to soaring inflation. And it means that overall the economy is moving in a very, very good direction. And as we sit here midway through February, Buck, what jumps out to me is the most recent GDP rating that we got, the most recent reading that we got on the GDP was 4.4 percent growth. Wages have now begun to outpace the growth of inflation in a fairly substantial way. What you're seeing as all of this kind of works together is the secured southern border is helping to result in significant declines in rent. And I know many of you may be starting to see this as your rent bills come up, as your leases come up, and you're looking around. And whereas in the past, the landlords have been able to just jack rates up at a really rapid pace, that is no longer occurring. In fact, rents have begun to come down. That is the basic law of supply and demand. Buck, what happens when 2 million plus illegals leave the country is the overall demand for rental properties in general begins to decline. So if you pair 2.4 percent inflation, again, the lowest since March of 2021 at the core number, and you pair it with a 4.4 percent GDP growth rate, and you add in that we were at the lowest murder rates since 1900, that we have the most secure border in any of our lives, and that the stock market is at record highs, starting to think that things are pretty great. Now, again, I understand it might take a little while for all of this to start to pull in a direction and everybody feels it across the nation, but the metrics, they are really, really good. It's looking fantastic. Some people are saying the greatest economy of all economies and I think it's only going to get better from here, quite honestly. One of the really important data points here, one of the indicators that you're not going to hear enough about because it's not only good for the economy, but it very much goes to the ideological differences between Democrat and Republican governance, and that has to do with job creation that is actual jobs in the economy versus just creating more slots for bureaucrats in the government. and that's something that Democrats did this and there was a huge surge of this during COVID these what I call low show jobs where you don't really do anything you've just got to be there but you don't do anything there's no show jobs which those are generally illegal or you know if you're in the government those are illegal there's low show jobs though where you have no actual productivity no real metrics and you're just a drain on the actual productive economy Scott Besson spoke about this Clay this is cut to where he's just saying, we're not just creating jobs in general. These are private sector jobs while government jobs are going down. Play two. What was even more impressive about the numbers is the private sector numbers were more than 170,000, and government jobs were reduced by more than 40,000. More than 30,000 of that was federal jobs. We're at the lowest ratio of government jobs to total jobs since 1966. And this is part of President Trump's plan to reprivatize our economy. And I think, as I've said many times, 2025 is about setting the table. 2026 is going to be a banquet for the American people. The economy is taking off. Clay, this is so critical. This is the midterm election, really. This is run up the scoreboard so it's clear. If you want a strong economy, forget about every Trump tweet that you were told was so mean or whatever. You want a strong U.S. economy, you've got to keep the Republicans in charge. Yeah, look, and I building on what Secretary of Treasury Scott Besson said there, and I think we mentioned this earlier in the week, but I want to hammer it home again. We added one hundred and thirty thousand private sector jobs. That's after we take away the fact that we declined government jobs substantially. In fact, Buck, the number of government employees is down over 10% since Donald Trump came into office. We have eliminated roughly 350,000 jobs from people who are funded by taxpayers. So it's not, I think this is really important because people look at the overall jobs and the growth. for everybody out there that's paying taxes, that we have eliminated 10% of the people that we are required to pay for on the federal government's dole. And ideally, what appears to be happening is those people are actually going into the private sector and getting jobs that don't require the federal government to be paying their salaries. So this is a huge net positive for everyone out there. And again, I know it takes a little while for all of the larger macro big picture economic issues to translate all the way through the entire economy. One thing I would say that a lot of people notice every single day is the price of gas is down substantially. And overall, again, gas and rent are actually declining, which is a pretty transformative change. And one other thing we should mention is a lot of times January inflation comes in hot. It comes in higher than people expected because during the holidays, spending is sometimes tough to measure. In January, it sometimes comes in hot. We're actually set up for, as we move into the spring, I think inflation to be back down to 2%, which is the Fed's target. And when that happens, then you're going to get more interest rate cuts, which means your mortgages, which means your car payments, which means everything out there, your credit cards, in theory, everything is going to get cheaper because the economy is starting to fire on all cylinders again. And that will free up the housing market, which has been essentially frozen because so many people got 3% mortgages and are just not going to move, even if it would make sense to move because rates are so much higher than what they got. Here is on that point, Clay, because there's the numbers and then there's what people feel yeah and in politics you got to make um uh both line up there's the good data which we were just talking about the jobs but then it's how expensive does gas feel how's your rent how are the things that matter to you day to day the paycheck kitchen table issues that are really at the heart of american politics and always will be uh because this is something that people feel and they know and no matter what the tv tells them their reality is their reality scott besson's pointing out that we saw real wage growth last year, but it could be great. And this will really go to this point. If you get really substantial wage growth and low inflation in 26, people are going to feel it. This is cut three. Play it. There are two ways to fix affordability. There is bringing down prices and things like energy. Energy is coming down. Energy is a core component of everything for consumers. So as that comes down, we will see the inflation levels come down. But on the other side, it's real income increases. And we've seen real we saw real wage growth in 2025. I think it could be very strong in 2026. And I think the American people are going to start feeling it. There we go, Clay. Yeah, look, and again, I think the big challenge of 2026 is going to be is and are the average voters going to recognize that the trajectory of the economy is very positive or is it still going to feel bad because of the Biden hangover? I think that is the number one question for 2026. And in fact, if you go back and you look, and I like to go back and look at modern recent history, presidential, it took a while for Reagan's economic bona fides to start to hit. 1984, we've talked about it, was an all-time landslide. 1982 wasn't great. And so the beneficiary, ironically, of the policies that Trump has put in place, because Trump can't run again, is not going to be Donald Trump. It's going to be J.D. Vance or whomever the presumptive Republican candidate is going to be, because I think it's going to be impossible to argue by 2028 that everyone can't see that the economy is firing on all cylinders. The tough thing for Trump is he doesn't get to run on that. And we talked about this earlier in the week. Everybody forgets we had the best economy in the history of the country in February of 2020. And then COVID happened. If COVID doesn't exist, then Trump wins, I think, a very comfortable election win over Joe Biden. And he's already out of office. I don't know who would be in office right now. And I think our economy would be in a much better place, obviously. now Trump is having to rebuild the mess that is Biden he's going to fix it again and then somebody else is going to be benefiting going forward take your calls take your talkbacks get into all of it but I got to say another good week in the books for this Trump administration and staying the course right now with a lot of these policies is the smart move and it is amazing we'll start to go back 12 months in time to pull what was being said a year ago by the so-called financial intelligentsia reporters uh and you know the cnbc commentariat the economists quote economists like which economists the ones that hate trump those the only ones that find their way into uh most major newspapers and all the rest they said that this was going to crash out the economy and the economy is kicking ass that's the truth now i understand that doesn't mean that it's perfect that doesn't mean that there aren't still high prices are you know this is we have to level set expectations here but i think you're going to see more and more uh really strong indicators and things are going to start to align even more this year and so the democrats i don't know maybe they'll have to like fake another uh uh you know mass pandemic or something they'll they'll do something they'll come up with some way to explain why things aren't as great as they are um but we'll continue to follow this one very closely my friends the world's softest most luxury sheets come from cozy earth when you sleep on them you feel like you're at a five-star hotel they're available online at cozy earth.com these bamboo sheets are made with fabric that allows you to sleep cooler at night while feeling like you're sleeping on the softest sheets you've ever experienced this purchase is totally risk-free you get a 100-day money-back guarantee and a 10-year warranty because they want you totally satisfied go online to cozy earth.com use my name buck to get a 20 discount and if you get a post purchase survey be sure to mention you heard about cozy earth right here one more time cozy earth.com is the website use promo code buck get your discount on this purchase today cozy earth.com promo code buck buck has got because trust me on hour three is going to be fun hour three is going to be fun we got some great audio uh i i i don't know about you buck but um this is actually a not that this is a bit of a sad aspect we mentioned that james vanderbeek um 48 years old star of dawson's creek and varsity blues uh died um and somebody shared with me it was you uh and then i shared it and so many people were reacting to it varsity blues was a all-time teen and football movie and i bet a lot of you saw it it had a large number of at that time people in their late teens early 20s that were stars in that era it's for people who grew up in the 90s was a big movie i I don think our parents saw it but yeah But that three of the icons of that movie are all now dead uh paul what paul walker that's the guy from uh fast and the furious but he was in this movie he was the star of the furious movies who died in a high-speed car accident and then the billy bob character uh all three of them have passed and um james vanderbeek had six young kids 48 years old and this was his final message and this has gone viral and I don't know how many people have heard this but James Vanderbeek as you mentioned Buck was on team sanity it would not stun me if he sometimes listened to this show and again he had six kids and he I think it was colon cancer which has become very deadly it seems like for a lot of younger men that you wouldn't anticipate Chadwick Boseman, who played the Black Panther, among other roles, also, I believe, died of colon cancer. But here was James Van Der Beek's final message. I thought maybe it would resonate with some of you like it resonated with me when I heard this yesterday. Cut 21. When I was younger, I used to define myself as an actor, right, which was never really all that fulfilling. And then I became a husband, and that was much better. And then I became a father, and that was the ultimate. I could define myself then as a loving, capable, strong, supportive husband, father, provider, steward of the land that we're so lucky to live on. And for a long time, that felt like a really good definition to the question, who am I? What am I? And then this year, I had to look my own mortality in the eye. I had to come nose to nose with death. And all of those definitions that I cared so deeply about were stripped from me. I was away for treatment, so I could no longer be a husband that was helpful to my wife. I could no longer be a father who could pick up his kids and put them to bed and be there for them. I could not be a provider because I wasn't working. I couldn't even be a steward of the land because at times I was too weak to prune all the trees during the window that you're supposed to prune them. And so I was faced with the question, if I am just a too skinny, weak guy alone in an apartment with cancer, what am I? And I meditated and the answer came through. I am worthy of God's love simply because I exist. And if I'm worthy of God's love, shouldn't I also be worthy of my own? And the same is true for you. I just thought that was really very well said for a 48-year-old. And again, he has left behind six very young children. They're the lovely family. But I think for a lot of people out there, because he's relatively young, you don't expect people in their 40s to pass with young families that they're taking care of. And I think a lot of people have been sharing that because it did feel like a very profound revelation from him. And I think a lot of people find purpose, particularly men. I think this is one of the biggest challenges that exists in our society today, Buck, is when you tell men that they shouldn't be providers and that they shouldn't be fathers and they don't have people that rely on them, most men are not at their best. I think that's fair to say. When men act entirely in their own self-interest and they do not have people to provide for, protect, and basically be the strong backbone of a household, I think most men are at their worst. And I thought that evolution in James Van Der Beek's perspective on a lot of people say, oh, I'd love to be in a movie. I don't know. I've done a couple of things in film. it's it's honestly seems really boring to me buck you do the same scene over and over again like this job is way better than going back for your uh your imdb here clay i well i mean i just i i think a lot of people think oh being an actor would be cool and if you've ever been in one of those trailers and you've ever done a scene in a movie or you've ever filmed uh anything i like live television i like live radio because i imagine i probably would like live theater because there is no safety net but the idea of doing the same scene 40 different times from every angle it's miserable like i did not enjoy it at all and i think a lot of people you know he had a great deal of success there but i think what he's recognizing uh is something much more profound than personal success uh yes i just clay clay drawing upon his time as a thespian straight in on this one is very Clay, and I appreciate that. His speech here, or his message here, which I even shared with my own, with my family, I just thought it was really worth hearing, worth watching and listening to. I'm very glad you played it on the air. It reminds me of a memoir that was written by Paul Kalanithi, which you can get. It's short. It's called When Breath Becomes Air, and it's about this absolute top neurosurgeon who finds out right when he's about to sort of hit his peak of saving lives and you know operating on two you know tumors that are the hardest to operate on all this kind of stuff that he has terminal cancer and then the book is really a meditation on being uh being a dad being a you know a man be everything you know father um and it's just really beautifully written and i think that if you're ever looking for something that's i mean you will read it in a weekend for sure um get manufacturing delusion first which comes out on tuesday but it can't be selling other people's books right now but no it's a really if you haven't read when breath becomes air it's a really beautiful memoir and it goes into a lot of these things but he was he was a man of faith uh paul kalanithi so i think a lot of you would uh you know love being a dad love being a husband but it's very honest he's also wildly brilliant that comes across from, you know, he was just, he was like the, Clay, he was like the Stanford neurosurgeon guy, you know, that was the up and coming in California at his, at the hospital and everything else. You know, he's like, he's the guy that you would make the doctor like soap opera or, you know, Grey's Anatomy around as like the super doctor. He was that guy. And so I think it's really powerful to sort of go through his thoughts. He knew he had a year to live, and he wrote this book, and that's what he did for the year. So I would recommend that to you. You can get it bundled with Manufacturing Delusion, which is out on Tuesday. So, okay, there we have that. But I'm glad you played James Van Der Beek. I'm going to tell you something. People used to say all the time when I was in high school that I looked like Pacey constantly. I was told that I looked like Joshua Jackson, and right now I might look more like Senor Joshua Jackson. My haircut is a little Miami. But Joshua Jackson and I, Pacey from Dawson's. People would see me at parties. They're like, yo, it's Pacey. So Dawson's Creek had a really profound effect on my youth. That was a great show, entertaining show back in the day. All right, we will take your calls. It is the Friday edition of the program, 800-282-2882. Our friend Senator Ron Johnson will join us. again a lot of different news stories out there that we will continue to track including and it doesn't seem like there has been very much of an update at all as it pertains to this but we are continuing to monitor and that is the Nancy Guthrie case. So we will keep you updated on that but I want to let you know self-protection inside of your home can make a tremendous difference, especially if you've got kids around and you want to have non-lethal ways to protect yourself. That's what Sabre Home Defense is all about. They've got a Sabre Home Defense launcher that will deliver seven powerful pepper projectiles on impact to more than most competitors. When fear hits and you have to defend yourself, having extra stopping power can change everything, but protection doesn't stop at your front door. When you're on the move, Sabre pepper sprays, pepper gels, and stun guns give you compact, reliable protection. Again, if you've got kids or grandkids around your house and you want non-lethal protection, that's what Sabre is made for. SabreRadio.com, S-A-B-R-E Radio.com, 844-824-S-A-F-E. That's SabreRadio.com, 844-824-S-A-F-E. We just have some updates for you from President Trump, talking about a few issues that we wanted to bring to your attention. Now, the audio on this is not going to be perfection, because it is near Marine One, but we will make sure that you want to play it for you, hear what the President says, the best of our ability. And then we'll talk about some of these issues, because he does discuss, of course, the latest economic numbers. I think the Trumpster's feeling pretty good about, as he should, he feels good and he knew that he would. It is, in fact, a strong economy. Here is Trump on, this is just moments ago, getting into Marine One, the helicopter. This is 24. Play it. Good financial numbers, very low inflation. We've brought costs way down. and the numbers were surprising, except me, they weren't surprising. So the inflation numbers that just announced, as you know, are way down and we have it back in track. We had the worst inflation in the history of our country and now we have very modest inflation, which is what you want to have. Clay, it's all true. This is the reality. And you'll notice, if it wasn't true, this is something you always have to remember about Trump, If what he was saying, if there was a ready rejoinder to it, if there was some other side of the coin that they could focus in on right away, we'd hear it. But no, these numbers are what they are, and they're all trending in the positive direction. Yeah, here's what I tweeted out a little bit ago in the wake of the inflation that Trump just hit. Sometimes I think it is hard because there's such a daily drumbeat of insanity that's happening in the country. It's sometimes hard to think big picture and you get kind of bogged down in the details. But just think about this. We're a little bit over a year into Trump 2.0. OK, 4.4 percent GDP at the end of the year. That's the latest GDP numbers we have. That's extraordinary. 4.4%. And there's rumors, Buck, as we have discussed on this program, that GDP might be 5% or better in 2026, which is unheard of. People say, you know, typically you want 2% or 3%. If you got 5% to get 4.4% is extraordinary. 2.4% inflation, that's the number that just came out this morning, record high stock market, lowest murder rate since 1900, most secure border in history, and a 10% decline in government employees. That's honestly pretty extraordinary for year one. Now, I understand, and trust me, I'm sure the Trump administration understands, there's more work to be done. But if I had told you that we were going to end 2025 at 4.4% GDP, 2.4% inflation, record high stock market, lowest murder rate since 1900, most secure border in history, and a 10% decline in government employees, I don't think that most of you would have believed that was possible. I don't. And by the way, I was asking the question because I do think there is a little bit of a historical echo. 1992 versus 2026. Democrats gained 26 seats in Reagan 1982, the midterm of Reagan. And the Senate basically didn't change at all. And then in 1984, we had the landslide Reagan election victory over Mondale. What did I jot down? But Democrats won the national popular vote in 1982 by 11. So if you had how they do in 86, I think 86 would be a better analogy to where we are now because we're in the second term of Trump. And we just had a huge Trump win. The challenge, I think, Buck, is you got double Reagan terms. So I almost think we got to one term Trumpers. Right. So to me, the analogy Trump won bigger in 24 than he did in 16. So to me, yeah, your 86 analogy is not a bad one. I'm sure that Ronald Reagan lost seats in the House and the Senate because I believe, and this is off the top of my head, I think in the modern era, only in 1998 and 2002 did the party in power gain seats in midterm elections. Usually the party in power loses seats and is on its back foot. Again I think that one of the challenges here 2018 was a rough one for Trump first term unfortunately in the House as we recall And also unfortunately we lost a number Three should have won Senate seats in Georgia alone We gave up three Senate seats in one state that when you go back and look at look at what happened there, it was total own goals by the Republicans in every sense in every one of those. But let's get back to Trump here and what he's saying, because some questions about national security here, about potential strikes on Colombia, Venezuela, and even Mexico against the cartels. This is 25. Let's hear what he said. What about it? Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. It's a very Trump answer. He goes more here, though, Clay. This is 26. He says he's going to have to go to Venezuela himself. That will be really interesting. Play 26. What are you planning to visit Venezuela, sir? I'm going to make a visit to Venezuela. Wait, wait. We haven't decided. Are you from Venezuela? From Colombia, sir. We just had a good meeting with you. We had a good meeting with Colombia. Venezuela still very much remains to be seen how successful the aftermath of the Maduro arrest. It's really a military operation, but they have arrested him. He's in federal court now sitting in federal prison. So we'll see where that ends up going, Clay. But that's something that I think the president is going to have to focus in on and drive some of that policy himself. Not only that, Buck, you're down in South Florida. I'm up on the panhandle, so I'll be in the panhandle for the weekend up in North Florida, which I love it here. But Cuba, we have not talked a great deal about Cuba as a major reverberation of the operation that took place in Venezuela. I don't know if you read this, Buck, but there is so little fuel now in Cuba because Venezuela used to be providing a lot of the oil and gas to allow Cuba to exist. Trump has put pressure on Mexico. and Feinbaum, Scheinbaum. Feinbaum is a friend of mine. Scheinbaum, who's the president of Mexico. Not to be confused with Feinbaum. Very different. Scheinbaum and Feinbaum, two different people. One talks about Southeastern Conference football as a friend of mine. The other is the president of Mexico, Claudia Scheinbaum. He has basically put pressure on Mexico not to continue to give oil and gas to Cuba either, such that the places that fly into Cuba, and evidently there's a lot of Russian tourism and a lot of Spanish tourism. People still go to Cuba from Europe. They don't have enough gas to be able to fly in and refuel at Cuban airports. So they're basically having to fly and refuel in other countries and start to pull their tourists out. In other words, why do I bring this up? Cuba is within weeks of a complete economic collapse. And I don't know that a lot of people have focused on this, but one of the primary impacts of what happened in Venezuela has actually been what's taking place in Cuba. And it is possible, I say possible, that after, what is it, 79 years, basically 69 years, whatever the math is, since Fidel Castro came into power, it's possible that Cuba could be really truly collapsing and freedom could be returning to Cuba on some level. I think it's actually been under the radar. A lot of people focused on Venezuela and there's the oil story there and everything else. But maybe the more immediate outcome might well be the collapse of the Cuban government and some forms of market-based economy returning to Cuba after generations where that was not allowed. And in South Florida, I bet this is a major topic of conversation, but Cuba could be an absolute jewel of the global economy if they would just embrace capitalism. It's a beautiful country. It is surrounded by thriving Caribbean countries that particularly have taken advantage of sort of economic resource allocations, meaning the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands and some of these countries that have allowed businesses to be based there with low tax rates, I think Cuba would explode. And there is an argument that it could be utterly transformative to South Florida in many ways for the economic conditions there because Cuba is in any way embracing capitalism would take off. Have you ever been on a cruise? You ever been on a cruise ship? I have not. I am not a cruise guy. Doesn't surprise me. But I did a, the last cruise I went on was the Disney cruise with my kids. They loved it. Five people in one tiny little cruise cabin. Not ideal. We were all five in the same place. We went right by Cuba so close, Buck, that you could see all of the spires and all of the buildings of Havana as we were passing. If you go look at the cruise industry in general, Royal Caribbean, Carnival Cruise Line, whatever you want to point to, the entire cruise industry by and large, at least based in the South and in Florida, they just circle Cuba. That's all they do. They just go to all of the beautiful islands around Cuba. I don't think people understand how transformative a free Cuba would be. A lot of people have forgotten. Cuba was Las Vegas. Havana was where people would hop on fast boats and head down to Havana. Look at Godfather Part II. That was the whole thing. Hey. I think that we are potentially seeing with Cuba, Venezuela, we'll see what happens with Iran. Again, the echo of the Reagan era with Trump. I don't think most people are realizing how quick the capitulation and collapse of Cuba could really be. We're on the precipice of that happening right now. there will be something really full circle about that moment when the incredible gleaming tower of trump international caracas goes up and trump international havana goes up you know yeah and not not impossible i would even say i give it 50 50 that at some point it happens in both those places i don't think it's crazy at all let me ask you this because i know venezuelans are already having these conversations, how many people go back? America's an awesome place, right? The idea has been, you know, the Cubans toast and they say next year in Havana, all these things. How many people? I know there'd be a lot of cross-collination. I think very few. Yeah. Very few. People don't like to necessarily admit that until they have to make that decision, but America's America. It's pretty awesome here. You know? Yeah. South Florida's really nice. Like, you know, it's, yeah, Venezuela could get better, But Caracas is a long way from being South Beach, my friends. And that's not going to change anytime soon. And Havana, I mean, they basically can't keep the power on in Havana right now at all. But if you're an illegal and you're here, guess what? Be a good time to go back. I will say this. I'd like to invest. I'd like to put a lot. If we could turn Cuba into an actual capitalistic country, the amount of beautiful countryside beaches. It's one of the most beautiful countries, I think, in the world. I mean, Cuba would be if you really kind of put resources behind it. There's a lot of Cuban money. I'm curious how much of that money would eventually go back. You know, the remittances is basically the only reason Cuba has an economy at all right now is people giving money back to their family members who still live in Cuba. So anyway, I just want you to put a pin in that story. I know some of you who are Cuban, South Floridians are paying more attention to it. The biggest impact of what we did to Maduro in Venezuela may actually be occurring in Cuba in the short terms. And we'll continue to talk about that. I know we have a huge listenership in South Florida. Buck and I like to have fun with 80s and 90s throwback. Lots of memories. Guess what? Recorded back in the day on old school camcorders. and lots of us from that generation, VHS tapes, old photo albums, priceless memories. Heck, just about, how about, you thought how cool it would be to share some of your old high school photos with some of your friends from high school? These were pre-digital photos that are out there floating around. They aren't easy to be distributed. That's what Legacy Box can do. They can take your old 8mm, they can take your old family photos that have been hanging on the walls that maybe were in the attic, that were in the garage, and they do a tremendous job. Over 200 technicians, their job is to bring your memories into the 21st century. Legacy Box, simple and safe solution for digitizing old media. You order one of their specialty-made shipping boxes, send off the tapes, film photos to Legacy Box, and their team will digitize everything by hand to ensure your memories are safely handled. You get your original media back, and, man, It's like opening a time machine, time capsule. It's awesome. We've relied on Legacy Box with great results. Memories matter. Your family will love reliving all those great moments. Go to LegacyBox.com slash Clay for 50% off today. They do a great job down in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I've toured their facility. Go to LegacyBox.com slash Clay. It is Friday the 13th. Do not walk under any ladders. Make sure you dodge any black cats in your path. Do not say Candyman and then repeat that same thing several times into a mirror in the dark. What else am I missing, Clay? What are the other rules for superstition, the occult, and Friday the 13th? 13th for those of us who grew up in a certain region i don't think it was well known we were told don't screw around with the bell witch uh have you ever heard of the bell witch uh legend b-e-l-l they kind of based uh you remember the uh uh the movie the handheld uh movie back in the day uh i mean blair real talk here for a second real talk here clay we're friends did you have a banjo growing up like i feel like i did they made the they based the blair witch project to a certain extent on some of the legacy of the bell witch but back in the day when the bell witch was the one that we focused on the most and actually the bell what's the story of the bell witch i don't know anything tell me bell witch is very famous um in fact andrew jackson back in the day went to the home where the bell witch was supposedly haunting. And there's a bell witch cave, which you can still tour. I think it's kind of had a new life on YouTube because there's a lot of these kids, you know this, that go to the most haunted places and just take their own personal YouTube paraphernalia, film it. It's super popular. You know, I know they've done television shows about this, but there's a certain genre of it on YouTube that my teenage boys have ended up following that has gotten a lot of attention. And so there's been, pardon the term, a resurrection of some of these old, you know, sort of ghost stories back in the day that have found a new life on social media, the internet. I think well written. So I'm not a horror genre guy in general. But I and I a lot of it, too. First of all, the older I get, actually, the less I'm okay with, like, really extreme violence in movies and things. I just, I don't want that negativity, like, entering my consciousness and my sphere. So, anything that, I don't like the slasher genre is what I'm saying. The more occult, it's eerie, the writing, that stuff, I think can be very well done. and I think is far more effective as actual horror than the like, you know, guy with like the Friday the classic. They don't really make those movies anymore. But the Slasher films back in the day, Slasher films, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Michael Myers, all that. That was a huge genre for a while because dollars in dollars out, it may still be the case. I know it was the case that horror movies were the most profitable genre of film to be involved in. Think about it. What are your costs? Like fake blood? You know, a hockey mask? Yeah, the Bloom, I think it's Jason Blumhouse has made a, it might be Blumhouse. I've read all about it. You're still right. The horror universe is the most profitable. Let me give you a couple of things here. The Conjuring movies are incredible. Have you watched the Conjuring movies? I have not seen those. I have not seen them. I think you would like them because they're basically, it's about a husband and a wife. They are so well done And it really about their marriage as much but they are basically exorcists They investigating on behalf of religion the idea of evil in the world And I sure they Hollywooded up but they based in reality on this husband and wife couple that this is what they did. They went and they investigated evil, uh, of a, uh, of a vile nature from a religious perspective. And the movies are supremely popular. That actually sounds like it's pretty good. It actually sounds like an interesting premise. They are really well done. I don't know what percentage of this audience would have watched them. They're scary. Was there ever a movie that you watched when you were younger as a kid that was so scary that you had to turn it off or you're like I can't do this? Oh, it's Friday the 13th. I mean, sorry. Really? No, sorry. Nightmare on Elm Street. When I was a little kid because Freddie came to you while you were sleeping. So if you were a kid and you got in bed and you had a wild imagination, like I did, and you would be trying to go to sleep and you would think, I mean, that was what made, I think, the Nightmare on Elm Street movies so particularly well done, was they were going to get you when you went to sleep. So you weren't even safe once you fell asleep. That was the danger. Let me give you The Conjuring a really good, since it's Friday the 13th, Scream movies. I still really like the Scream movies. I think those are more crime thriller than they are horror. There's nothing super nasty. It's really just a serial killer. Yeah, I mean, it's typically stabbing. So, I mean, it's kind of nasty in the sense that you're getting stabbed with a knife. Yes, stabbing is not, I'm not going to say, as a genre. But they're not supremely gory, to your point. So they're coming out with a new Scream, Scream 7. This is the seventh version of it. So I would say, to a large extent, you're right. Would you make a cameo, Mr. Thespian, in Scream 7 if asked? People are coming after me. People think that acting is awesome. That's what I thought. I was like, man, there's nothing cooler than being in a movie. It's really boring. You sit in like your little, you know, on set. You go out. You do the same thing 40 different times from 80 different angles. I was like, this is not as fast-paced as I thought it would be. My mom is going to chuckle right now. But before she had to just do the mom thing full time, when she was early on married to my dad, she she was on a soap opera doctors, which I told you about for a season. She was a she was a cast regular for a season. She was the starring role in a Hallmark movie, Summer of my German Soldier. She was in and I mean, these were real like, you know, kind of. So was she the one who dated the German soldier? Yeah. Yeah. She was the love interest for the German soldier. Yeah. And so she. was in a number of these things so she did she was a working actress like a person that was making a living acting she says his work it's brutal it's a brutal profession because it's so fickle and it was work it's not all the stuff that people think about the like red carpet and everything else that's the very end process that's that's signing the books at barnes and noble my very limited yeah that's yeah my very limited time as involved in doing acting and again i've only done it in the context of being an adult like i was talking about you doing acting you played yourself come on but i played myself but i i have to say i did an incredible job playing the role of clay travis playing clay travis this is hilarious that's really very funny i had never thought that i've only played myself in uh in film and movie uh i don't think i've ever played anybody else with this mustache there's no telling who i could play but my point on it is having done a limited amount of it the idea that we give credence to actors i spent one day in a trailer you know like everybody goes and sits in their trailers or whatever the first time i ever did it and i was like why have i ever cared what anybody who did this for their for a living i'm not saying look there's great you know art that can be produced all those things but the idea that i would I desperately care what somebody who sits around in a trailer and says the same line from 40 different angles thinks about politics. I remember having that revelation where I thought it was way more challenging and impressive of a thing to do until I did it. Clay, this is where I get to remind everybody. This is where the history nerd comes out. Actors throughout history were like a step above clowns and prostitutes. Yeah. And I'm not even sure a step above the clowns. And, like, actors for thousands of years, going back to ancient Greece, were kind of a disreputable bunch. And it was really only with the rise of cinema in the 20th century. And then I would say in our, I think actors and music acts in our lifetime were elevated to their absolute pinnacle of prestige and power. and I think in the last decade we have seen a dramatic decline because there's also so many other ways and so many other people who get famous now because of the online world we live in. So it has dispersed a lot, but I wanted to go back to horror for a second. So you said Friday the 13th movies were scary. What is the... Nightmare on Elm Street, scary. That was the one that I couldn't sleep after watching. Friday the 13th was fine, but Nightmare on Freddy Krueger was the one that I was like, I'm terrified of. Whenever one of these movies would come on, you could just flash it on for a second. and if my dad was around, he was always like, I would just take my double-out book and I'd finish this guy. He was always like, Jason's not that scary. I'd take my 45. That guy would be toast. I'm like, yeah, but that's not really the point. But anyway, tell me, for you, the scariest movie that you have ever seen is? Oh, that's a great question. It really hits the peak of the sort of fear center in your brain when you're watching that movie. For me, there is one. and my mom actually my mom read to be in the movie as the starring role by the way oh wow and I yeah what was the movie for you the exorcist no question number one still by far the exorcist so I watched paranormal activity um and I was afraid to go to sleep after watching it this has probably been like 15 years ago. I was a grown up. I mean, back in the day when I was a kid, it was Freddy Krueger, but I watched, I think it was paranormal activity and my wife and kids. And again, this was like 15 years ago. We're out of the house and I was sleeping in the house by myself. So I went to go watch the movie by myself. My kids were out of town. My wife was out of town. And then I came back home and I turned on every light in the house and I barricaded the bedroom door before I went to sleep that night. As an adult? Oh, yeah. I was probably. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Dude. I was probably. Seriously. I was probably 30. It was about 15 years ago. Now I know why Laura's the one doing all the firearms training. Laura is on the ball with the firearms training. I turned on every light in the house, and I put something in front of the bedroom door. That was 30. I watched the Paranormal Activity movie. It was really, really scary. Wasn't that the most successful financial? Again, there's not the most money. That's like Avatar in these big movies. But dollars in, dollars out as a percentage of profits. Nothing to make, and it was insanely profitable as a hit. uh i always my story about the blair witch project is i was a junior counselor so i think i was like 16 at a at a at a camp in vermont and when it would rain it was all outdoor stuff we had these little when it would rain what do we do we go into burlington we go into town and we go to a movie and the older counselor who was like 19 or 20 who was like the main counselor he was a crazy guy from new zealand who was definitely like a little nuts and he was like Oi, let's go take the kids to Blair Witch Project. And I was like, they're like 14, dude. Like, you really were going to take all these 14-year-old kids to Blair Witch Project? Who were the adult? I was still in a camp. And he almost, I will tell you, he almost got fired and, like, sent home over it. Because I actually, I'm not just saying this now. I was like, I think, I'm not going to say his name, but I was like, I think, dude, this is not a good idea. And he's like, Oi. He basically pulled rank on me. He's like, that's fine. These kids, these boys will be good. Let's go. And I was like, I don't know. Clay, we had to go back to a dark, rainy campsite that night. And the kids, the 13 and 14-year-old kids were shaking like leaves after watching. Oh, I don't doubt that at all. That seems like, by the way, Brian in Florida is with us. He's a former actor. I mean, let me put it this way. If you're a professional baseball player or a basketball player, football player, it's awesome. Right? a perfect that that job is really cool you get to play games golfer whatever it is like i can see why people would aspire to it i've gotten to cover it i've thought to myself this would be something really fun to do i'm not kidding acting i don't think would be a very funny a very fun job most actors are weirdos but brian go ahead yes first of all you guys got me cracking up there and so you brought up jason blum i actually did productions with jason blum but clay i will say I chased both of those dreams. I was a college athlete. I did try to pursue playing major league baseball. I fell short. I was a little older. I came out of high school to the military, but I was doing like modeling down in Miami where Buck is as a teenager, then got into business. And then when I came home from the military, I was like, oh, let me go. I went to junior college in LACC, started playing ball, and then I was doing my Hollywood stuff. And you're so right. Like, I was just caught up in it trying to chase the dream, really, for my family. And then you learn, like, these people are a bunch of communist idiots and demonic. And, like, it was just, yeah, it's not fun. It's not, like, how they put on that perspective of, oh, it's such a – it's Hollywood. No, man, it's brutal. Everything you guys were saying was wanted on the money. And low-key, when I – well, let me tell you, I played on a baseball league with James Van Der Beek. He was very kind. Oh, wow. He was a very humble man. He actually never acted like he was better than anybody. He was a shortstop on our team. I was first base. And so a lot – like you kind of talk to these guys a little, and you – like me, I was kind of open about being a conservative. I didn't care. Like my career ended pretty quick once President Trump was coming down the escalators. I was an avid voice, and Hollywood's like, well, we can't have this crazy MAGA guy in here. And then I ran – when I found out really the undercover is when I ran for United States Congress during the China virus in 2020, and I was never wearing a mask in California, I would have a lot of these actors, like, send me a message, bro, like, that's awesome, man. Like, I can't really come out publicly and support you because my career would be over, but, like, go for it. but you guys are so right. You guys are cracking me up because it is like who I wanted to be a baseball player. That was my, like, like you said, Clay, you're, you're out there playing ball, you're playing a game, doing something you love to do acting. Yeah. It's fun being different characters and different things like that. But like you said, you're sitting sometimes on the set for hours, bro. Like you're seeing, you're seeing like, Oh, let's cut. And then we got to do it again. And then you didn't even get to really get in there. and then you got to wait again for that scene. And sometimes the actor could not even say this stupid line or two, right? Then they got to cut that, and then you're waiting for them to redo the lighting. Or even if you're outside, then you got to wait for the lighting even outside to get. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the call. Look, if you could do a scene one time and be done with it, I would say, okay, this is better. I can understand why doing a Broadway play would be pure because you do it for two hours. That's it. You're gone. But the actual production of movies for people who dream of being an actor in Hollywood and stuff like that, the actual mechanics of it in my limited experience is awful. Look, how many throw blankets are too many in winter? I'm down here in Florida right now. And guess what we have? A bunch of Cozy Earth cuddle blankets. North Florida. It's not as warm as where Buck is down in South Florida. And this is one of the softest, most luxurious items Cozy Earth makes. over Thanksgiving, my sister came in. We had one on the couch. She put it on, like covered herself with it and said, oh my God, this is unbelievable. She went online and bought it right then and there. She had no idea that we did ads for them because cuddle blankets are just that awesome. And by the way, how incredible is the name? Cuddle blankets. Valentine's Day coming up. We can have some fun with that. CozyEarth.com, plentiful qualities, variety of colors, totally risk-free. 100-day money-back guarantee, 10-year warranty. Go online to CozyEarth.com. Use my name, Clay, to get up to a 20% discount on their cuddle blanket. And if you get a post-purchase survey, be sure to mention you heard about CozyEarth right here. One more time, CozyEarth.com, promo code Clay to get the discount on the purchase. That's CozyEarth.com, promo code Clay. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.