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 percent 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 percent 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% inflation, again, the lowest since March of 2021 at the core number, and you pair it with a 4.4% GDP growth rate, and you add in that we're 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, 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. 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, too, 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 we're 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 percent 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. And in politics, you've got to make them 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 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 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 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 gotta 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 uh 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 economists quote economists like which economists the ones that hate trump those are 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 or 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. 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CozyEarth.com, promo code Buck. it is friday friends so let us all hear from you and let's talk about all the things that are on your mind today uh and we're talking about a victory lap here for president trump on the economy so far it has been a very strong first year in this trump administration and it really makes sense too how could anyone be surprised by this first of all look at the broad 30 000 foot view data points that you could bring to bear clay for example okay trump's first term how how did the economy look then oh it was really good wasn't it all right cool who's been in charge the last four years a bunch of lightweights pretending to be Joe Biden and move his flaccid wrist around or use the auto pen so that they can get policies through and it's not even really the guy that quote won the 2020 election. That's not even who's in charge. Of course things are going to be better now. It would actually be bizarre. It would shake my economic foundation or shake my sense of economics to its foundation if things weren't going much better now than they were under Joe Biden. So this is as we expected it would be. But with all this going on, you still have the nonsense on Capitol Hill. Here's White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. Clay, we're heading to a partial government shutdown now. Play six. President Trump has been and always will be on the side of the American people. He wants our government to remain open. And unfortunately, it appears that Democrats are barreling our government towards another shutdown for political and partisan reasons. The White House has been very much engaged with Democrats in serious discussions and negotiations over immigration enforcement policy. In fact, we have not only sent counter proposals, but actual legislative text to Capitol Hill in the hopes of coming to an agreement to avoid this shutdown. But Democrats have left Washington. This is where they are making their stand, Clay. This economy, this all ties together. This economy is too good for it to be the centerpiece of Democrats attack on the Republicans right now. So it's all the pretty shooting and ice and, the street agitators of the Democrat Party. They are distracting, and they're relying on the fact, again, that a lot of people haven't felt the work that has been done yet. And trust me, I get it. I was having a conversation with friends the other day about just how frustrating cost of goods is. And I went through the Dairy Queen line recently, and I was buying food for, I think it was like six kids. We had a bunch of kids over at the house. Everybody's getting ice cream, everything else. $84. I spent $84 at the Dairy Queen. Now, again, Dairy Queen now has, like, they have hamburgers, so it was not just ice cream. They don't have caviar on Bellinis, though. I mean, this seems a little excessive. This is what I'm saying. Every time you go through the drive-thru at a fast food restaurant, If you're a mom or you're a dad or you're a grandma or you're a grandpa and you're buying for multiple people, things cost too much. And this is the nasty part of Joe Biden's inflation. Inflation doesn't ever go negative. The best you can do is go back to where you were before Joe Biden came into office. Think about this, Buck. When Joe Biden came into office, inflation was 1.9%. Inflation is now back down to 2.4%. If we just eliminated the Joe Biden era, right, and we never went to 9.1%, my $84 or whatever the heck it was that I just spent at Dairy Queen wouldn't have happened because the difference between 1.9% inflation and 2.4% inflation is largely negligible and your average person is not going to notice on a year-to-year basis that change. But you notice when it went to nine and the multi years that it has taken to get back to where we were when Joe Biden came into office. Remember back in Men in Black, Buck? Remember the memory stick that they had where they could just erase? For those of you out there that remember the movie, they basically had a stick so that you didn't know that aliens existed. They would hit you with the memory stick and your brain memory of all of it would be washed. It's like a form of technological brainwashing, the kind of thing that's addressed in my book, Manufacturing Delusion, how the left uses brainwashing, indoctrination, and propaganda against you, which comes out on Tuesday, everybody. Buy the book. We need it for the entire Biden era. We need it all erased. Everything would be infinitely better. A gold medal this year is worth roughly $2,100 in the Olympics. By comparison, in 2022, they're worth about $700. That shows you how much gold's value has increased in four years now imagine you own your own gold in an IRA or 401k account if you bought it four years ago it would have gone up by 300 in value that why you want gold as part of your retirement savings I rely on Birch Gold Group for my gold purchases and transactions they work with people every day making gold a part of your retirement plan The price of gold increases when investors countries and central banks purchase gold when there money printing going on. This all lines up, my friends. The gold thesis remains strong. Birch Gold is there for you. They can convert an IRA or 401k into an IRA in gold or just send gold to your home. Text Buck to 98 98 98 today birch gold will hook you up text buck to 98 98 98 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 48 years old star of dawson's creek and varsity blues died and somebody shared with me it was you 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 or early 20s that were stars in that era it's for people who grew up in the 90s was a big movie i don't think our parents saw it but yeah um 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 Fast and the Furious movies who died in a high-speed car accident. And then the Billy Bob character, all three of them have passed. And James Van Der Beek 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 Van Der Beek, 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. 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 just a, 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 honestly seems really boring to me, Buck. You do the same scene over and over again. Wow, you're going back for your IMDB here, Clay. Well, I mean, 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 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 is something much more profound than personal success. Yes, I just Clay, Clay drawing upon his time as a thespian straight in on this one is is very Clay. and I appreciate that. His speech here or his message here, which I even share 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 operating on 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 a dad, being a man, everything, father. 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 Get Manufacturing Delusion first which comes out on Tuesday but 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 Paul Kalanithi so I think a lot of you would love being a dad love being a husband but he'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 that was the up-and-coming in California at the hospital and everything else. He's the guy that you would make the doctor soap opera or Grey's Anatomy around as 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 i would recommend that to you um 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 vanderbeek i'm gonna tell you something people used to say all the time when i was in high school that i look like pacey ah constantly i was told that i look like joshua jackson and right now i might look more like senior joshua jackson uh my haircut is a little miami but uh joshua jackson and i Pacey from Dawson's. People would see me at parties 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. Alright, 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 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, two 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. Crash as the DJ is fascinating. Crash, what was this music that you were just playing a second ago? Because it sounded a bit like music from the movie Sucker Punch, which I don't know who else has seen that movie. Yeah, whatever. I think that actually is from the movie Sucker Punch. Clay, have you not seen Sucker Punch? No, I don't know anything about Sucker Punch. It is a weird movie. It is a weird movie with some memorable scenes and sequences in it. I would actually go so far as to say I think you would enjoy the movie. Perhaps I will send you a clip. But I think it is in that movie. What's the name of that band again, Crash? You're educating us here. Bjork. Clay, had you ever heard of Bjork? I think she's from Iceland. Yeah, I've heard of Bjork before. I mean, I think she was popular in like 1998 or something. Am I right about that? Like when the world basically peaked when everything was perfect. I think that was probably the time when I remember her being super popular back in the day. I'm learning something new about this. She was popular and from Iceland before Iceland was a popular place to go. Now people want to take vacations all the time to Iceland. And it's super interesting to see how that place has exploded. But yeah, she was popular back in the day. And do we have anybody up on the call screen or the VIP, Clay? Because my call screen just disappeared for some reason. I'm not seeing it. What do you have? Or do you just want to talk? We can just have a conversation. We can just talk. We'll open up the phone lines, by the way. 800-282-2882. I'm in Florida, so I don't have my call screen. Oh, yeah, you don't have the call screen either. Okay, Tim, Tim. They're yelling at us. Tim, you're on. Hey, you guys. Hey, Tim from Minneapolis. Can you guys hear me okay? Yes. Yeah, so I was driving down the road. I've never, I listen to you guys periodically, but the actor you had on who made a comment about, you know, he got diagnosed with cancer and obviously passed away. But that hit home with me, and I just got to say that what it really sums up or comes down to is the fact that if you don't have your health, none of it matters. So he came to this revelation. I've been through it. I lost a wife to cancer. I raised two kids on my own. So I just get choked up hearing about stuff like that. So it really hit home with me when I heard that. Yeah, it was powerful. It was powerful. Well, we're glad you're here. How are the kids? The kids are good. They're grown now. So they lost their mom about 10, 11 years ago. So the last one's just graduating from college. So that's good. But, yeah, that just, like, hit home. So, like I say, I tell people this all the time. If you don't have health, you don't have anything. Nothing else matters then. Thank you. And we're glad that you overcame cancer, and congrats to getting those kids through college. Thank you so much. I was going to say there's a saying that the healthy person has 1,000 wants, the sick person has one, and I think it is very true. It's a very tough thing to deal with when you have a really serious illness. And our thoughts and prayers go out to anybody out there right now who's dealing with an illness of any kind. Amy in Greenville, North Carolina. Hey, guys. I just wanted to mention that I'm a mom. I have two kids. I'm in the grocery store two, three times a week. And the prices keep going up and up and up. They're up over where they were two years ago. And Clay, you're 100% right. When you go to the fast food restaurants, it's just crazy. And I just wanted to say I'm really, really concerned that if we don't do something, I know Trump can't work miracles, but if we don't address this in a significant way before November, I am very, very concerned. Thank you for the call. This is the challenge. I understand it because I feel it, and I know everybody out there feels it. You're angry when you see what things cost. the challenge. And this is why, you know, we talked about this historically, and I think we took some calls on it back in the day. For those of you who are old enough to remember what the Jimmy Carter era was like, this is why I go to Reagan and I use it as somewhat of a proxy for what's going on with Trump right now. If you go back in time and you and I've had to study it because obviously I don't remember it. But inflation went to I think it was 15, 16, 17 percent in Jimmy Carter in the one term that he got. And then Reagan gets elected in 80 and everything starts to get better. But if you go look at and guys pull up the data on this, because I do think it's interesting. You go look to what happened to Reagan in 82. People didn't feel yet in their lives the changes that Reagan had put in place to resolve the problems of Jimmy Carter. And if we accept Biden as a echo of the Jimmy Carter era, which I think is a fair approximation, it unfortunately took until 1984 for everybody to realize, oh, my goodness, Ronald Reagan has put the right economic policies in place and I'm benefiting and he won a landslide election then. But in 1982, if I'm remembering correctly, I think Democrats punched back and won races. races. And so, again, that's my concern about 2026 is it's so soon the anger is still there of Biden and Trump is getting tarred with some of that anger. We had Courtney was on the line and she dropped. And I just wanted to note that what she was apparently going to say is she's excited for Trump's lower interest rates to kick in. Slash. She absolutely loves the show and listens every day. So, Courtney, I'm going to share that message with America. Where'd you go, Courtney? I should probably have like kids or a job or something she had to do, but we appreciated the sentiment and we will we will take compliments all day here. Never too many compliments. So thank you. And now, but I do think that what they are saying in essence, Reagan administration in 82 suffered from high interest rates. And as a result, the outcomes were not good. And Mark in Shawano, Wisconsin, really fast, Mark. Yeah, I just want to talk about the economy a little bit. Everybody's complaining about prices, grocery stores. And like you went out to fast food, you're going to pay a pretty good price because you got to realize these kids are getting 17, 18, 19, 20 bucks an hour now. But if you go to the grocery store, I'm just talking about my little Midwest town. I can get eggs for a buck a dozen. I can get a ham for 99 cents a pound. I can get butter for 250 a pound. I mean, prices now are cheaper than they were, you know, three years ago. Thank you for the call. Look, prices are down. They're starting to go around 2% a year. People are going to get used to it. The impact of Biden, thankfully, is being wiped out. We'll talk about that and more when we come back. Thanks for hanging on Clay and Buck. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.
