Speaker 1: Hey, it's Buck Sexton and you're listening to the Carol
Speaker 1: Markowitz Show on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton podcast Network.
Speaker 2: Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show. This
Speaker 2: is not going to be a political show. It was
Speaker 2: important to me that this show be on bigger topics
Speaker 2: and not just news of the day. But the news
Speaker 2: right now is extremely personal to me, and so I
Speaker 2: have to say something about it. On Saturday morning, Israel
Speaker 2: was attacked. I'm sure you've seen the horrifying videos and stories.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to go over any of that. I've
Speaker 2: barely slept since Saturday. The images, they really stay on
Speaker 2: my mind. We're just getting to know each other on
Speaker 2: this podcast, so I wanted to tell you a little
Speaker 2: bit more about myself. I mentioned last episode that I
Speaker 2: was born in the Soviet Union. I'm Jewish, and that's
Speaker 2: actually how my family was able to get out. I
Speaker 2: won't go into the whole history, but I do enjoy
Speaker 2: noting that my family owes their freedom to President Gerald Ford.
Speaker 2: He negotiated for Jews to be let out of the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union because we were being persecuted for our religion.
Speaker 2: We couldn't hold various jobs, live in certain places, and
Speaker 2: so on. I feel like people sometimes don't understand that
Speaker 2: Judaism is a religion, yes, but we are also a people.
Speaker 2: That's why I can take a DNA test and find
Speaker 2: out that I'm Jewish, but you can't similarly take a
Speaker 2: DNA test for other faiths and find out that you're
Speaker 2: Catholic or Muslim or something. So in the Soviet Union,
Speaker 2: we were Jews as our nationality. That's what it said
Speaker 2: on our papers. It wasn't like you could convert out
Speaker 2: of it. Some of you might know Jews from the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union who live in America and refer to themselves
Speaker 2: as Russian, maybe not recently, but then you come to
Speaker 2: find out they were born in Ukraine or Belarus or elsewhere.
Speaker 2: But that's because we were never Russian or Ukrainian or Belarussian.
Speaker 2: We were just Jews. My family moved to Brooklyn, New
Speaker 2: York when I was a small child, and despite the
Speaker 2: fact that my parents were both atheists, because again Soviet
Speaker 2: I went to an Orthodox Jewish school for the first
Speaker 2: eight years of my life. I mentioned that because I
Speaker 2: want to give you some insight into what little Jewish
Speaker 2: kids learn in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: All day.
Speaker 2: We learned about peace. Our songs were about making peace,
Speaker 2: we read books about peace, We prayed for peace. I've
Speaker 2: been lucky in some ways because my ex Soviet world,
Speaker 2: and my politically conservative world, and my Florida world are
Speaker 2: all overwhelmingly pro Israel. So I never fear in speaking
Speaker 2: out that I'm going to lose friends or something. And
Speaker 2: while I noticed the silence of some people I follow,
Speaker 2: I really don't have any in my life arguing that
Speaker 2: murdering babies or kidnapping grandma's is just to be expected.
Speaker 2: And honestly, I know some Jews are angry about it,
Speaker 2: but I somewhat understand the people who are not speaking out.
Speaker 2: If you're not Jewish and you want to stay out
Speaker 2: of it, I get it. You can feel disgusted by
Speaker 2: the images of dead bodies at a music festival but
Speaker 2: not take to Facebook to let your friends know how
Speaker 2: you feel. It's understandable. But I am Jewish and I
Speaker 2: can't stay out of it. I can't be quiet. Those
Speaker 2: dead people are me. I see my children's faces in
Speaker 2: the faces of the kids that were taken. I won't
Speaker 2: pretend otherwise. I can't. Of course, if you comment on
Speaker 2: every single other catastrophe around the world and are suddenly
Speaker 2: silent on this. Yes, we notice, and there are a
Speaker 2: lot of people like that, big time activists for every cause,
Speaker 2: who care a lot about everything except dead Jews. We notice.
Speaker 2: One of the things that is hard about this current
Speaker 2: moment is that people hear your support for Israel or
Speaker 2: just general opposition to rape and slaughter, and immediately imagine
Speaker 2: you're pushing a policy position. I'm sure there are people
Speaker 2: who want the US to get involved in Israel's fight.
Speaker 2: I'm not one of them. I think Israel can handle
Speaker 2: her own business and will understand that you're being lied to.
Speaker 2: If you hear the Jews in general or Israelis in particular,
Speaker 2: are asking for American involvement, it's simply untrue. We're afraid
Speaker 2: right now. I always saw America as a safe haven
Speaker 2: for Jews, and I always referred to American Jews like
Speaker 2: myself as the luckiest Jews in history. But I'm not
Speaker 2: going to lie. It's been a tough few years. There
Speaker 2: was a moment where there were attacks on Jews every day,
Speaker 2: and so many people rush to excuse them. It was
Speaker 2: happening in Brooklyn daily, and even other Jews shrugged. I
Speaker 2: remember Kanye West said Hitler was right, and way too
Speaker 2: many people invited him on their shows to hear more
Speaker 2: about that. It hasn't felt great. If you have Jews
Speaker 2: in your life, understand that they are really going through
Speaker 2: something right now. None of us are functioning well. All
Speaker 2: of us are afraid. Good people have asked what they
Speaker 2: can do and how they can help. There are Israeli
Speaker 2: charities you can support. I've listed some on my Twitter.
Speaker 2: You can check in with your Jewish friends, especially if
Speaker 2: they have family in Israel, which many of us do.
Speaker 2: Another thing is, if you go shooting, offer to take
Speaker 2: your Jewish friend. Silly as that may sound, many of
Speaker 2: us didn't grow up in a shooting culture, and many
Speaker 2: of us are very interested in protecting ourselves but don't
Speaker 2: know exactly how. Listen. I want my kids to sing
Speaker 2: those songs of peace, and i want them to work
Speaker 2: for peace, but I'm also going to teach them how
Speaker 2: to shoot as soon as they are old enough. And
Speaker 2: I'm never going to cower to people who hate us
Speaker 2: for an identity we couldn't shed if we wanted to.
Speaker 2: So that's it. This is a podcast about life and
Speaker 2: this is what's going on in my life right now.
Speaker 2: Coming up next is an interview I did with Clay Travis,
Speaker 2: recorded before the war in Israel began. Join us after
Speaker 2: the break. My guest today is my friend Clay Travis,
Speaker 2: co host of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Speaker 2: and author of the best selling book American Playbook.
Speaker 3: Hi, Clay, how are you, Carol?
Speaker 1: I appreciate you having me on. Yes, I've got my
Speaker 1: own copy. I hope you're enjoying it. It's supposed to
Speaker 1: be a fun read, and so I hope you're enjoying it.
Speaker 1: I hope anybody else who's reading it I am.
Speaker 2: I haven't reached the part where you are insulting the
Speaker 2: Dallas Cowboys yet.
Speaker 1: I'm always thinking, like, hey, can I write an entertaining
Speaker 1: book for people who might not otherwise be interested in
Speaker 1: a politics book?
Speaker 3: And I like to think that I have done. So
Speaker 3: we'll see whether or not that continues to be a case.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm loving it, and you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: let's just get right into it. But you know, you
Speaker 2: mentioned in your book that you are a history nerd,
Speaker 2: and you know this is something that I did know
Speaker 2: about you already. I have two sons, and you know,
Speaker 2: one is a sports kid, you know, a superstar in
Speaker 2: football and nic name every player on every team, and
Speaker 2: the other one is super into history. I've really never
Speaker 2: seen anybody kind of merge those two interests. Do you
Speaker 2: feel like you're unique in that way?
Speaker 3: Maybe? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've always been obsessed with sports and also
Speaker 1: obsessed with history my whole wife. When I was six
Speaker 1: years old, I don't think this is in the book,
Speaker 1: but what I wanted to do for my sixth birthday
Speaker 1: was go to the Alamo. So my dad took me
Speaker 1: to the Alamo. I wanted to go to every Civil
Speaker 1: War battlefield growing up and read everything about the Civil War. Also,
Speaker 1: and when you're kid, I think you think whatever you
Speaker 1: do is normal, and then you get to be an
Speaker 1: adult and you raise your own kids, and you're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: knowing everything about the Alamo when you're six years old
Speaker 1: is not like a normal thing, right, And also simultaneously
Speaker 1: knowing everything about let's say SEC football and Major League
Speaker 1: baseball when you're six.
Speaker 3: But uh, I don't know where that all came from.
Speaker 1: I was always a massive reader, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I would say maybe the reading thing was abnormal, But
Speaker 1: of being obsessed with sports meant that I couldn't be
Speaker 1: any body on the planet who liked sports, and I
Speaker 1: felt like I had always that that dichotomy where you
Speaker 1: could have like sort of a super nerdy interest. As
Speaker 1: I know, I say this in the book because my
Speaker 1: wife still refuses to believe that she married somebody who
Speaker 1: went to Civil warst sleep away Camp and had.
Speaker 3: Kids with them, and.
Speaker 1: Camp scholarship kid to Civil Wars sleep Away Camp is
Speaker 1: a different universe, right, But I do think that that
Speaker 1: that whole aspect to me kind of always felt intertwined,
Speaker 1: and I see it in my kids. My oldest, in particular,
Speaker 1: as a monster sports fan, was also great at debate,
Speaker 1: and whereas I was super interested in the Civil War
Speaker 1: when he was young, he was very, very interested in
Speaker 1: World War Two and he would read everything about World
Speaker 1: War Two, and so I saw that. I don't know
Speaker 1: where that comes from, but I saw that a little
Speaker 1: bit in him, and I said, Okay, this kind of
Speaker 1: is in some way a reflection.
Speaker 3: I think of me.
Speaker 2: Wow, so you have the biggest radio show in the country.
Speaker 2: Did you always want to be in radio?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't look I growing up listened to sports talker
Speaker 1: radio as a young kid. And so when my dad
Speaker 1: would pick me up at school or whatever what we did,
Speaker 1: and we were driving home, and it's funny, I had
Speaker 1: my he just turned nine, but I had my eight
Speaker 1: year old in the car recently, and I was listening
Speaker 1: to sports talk radio and he just reminds me a
Speaker 1: lot of me as well. But he said, Dad, can
Speaker 1: you believe there's a radio station where all they do
Speaker 1: is talk about.
Speaker 3: Sports, Like that's the best thing ever.
Speaker 1: And you know, like he'll just sit there and listen
Speaker 1: to it, and he knows all the players, and they
Speaker 1: got the fantasy football teams and everything else.
Speaker 3: So I was.
Speaker 1: Interested in radio, Like as a kid, I called into
Speaker 1: local sports talk radio to talk about whatever at the top.
Speaker 1: I mean I would sit on wait on hold for
Speaker 1: forty five minutes to an hour or whatever and be
Speaker 1: super nervous. So I was interested and aware of sports
Speaker 1: talk radio. But you know that I went to college
Speaker 1: and then I went to law school, and so I
Speaker 1: thought that I would.
Speaker 3: Do something with the law degree.
Speaker 1: And I had what I would call a quarter life
Speaker 1: crisis where I was in my law firm and I
Speaker 1: was twenty five years old, and I just almost had
Speaker 1: like this panic attack come over me because I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this could be the next forty years
Speaker 1: of my life. So I thought writing that I would
Speaker 1: My goal was to make a living as a writer,
Speaker 1: and in my mind, I knew writing and radio and TV.
Speaker 1: I still think of myself as a writer, even though
Speaker 1: it's a small part of what I do on a
Speaker 1: day to day basis now.
Speaker 3: But that was my love. So I would have said.
Speaker 1: You know, if you've been talking to me when I
Speaker 1: was fifteen, and if you said, Clay, what do you
Speaker 1: want to do when you grow up, if you had
Speaker 1: told me that I could make a living as a writer,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, that's the greatest job in the history
Speaker 1: of the world. And I went and got a law degree,
Speaker 1: but I also got an MFA and thought that I
Speaker 1: would like to teach creative writing, that I would like
Speaker 1: to teach creative writing as the way in which that
Speaker 1: I would make a living. And I taught creative writing
Speaker 1: at Vanderbilt, and I still think that I'm minored in
Speaker 1: creative writing in college. I still think that's probably one
Speaker 1: of the best jobs out there to live on a
Speaker 1: college campus and just get to teach kids writing, creative
Speaker 1: writing in particular. But so I I probably would have
Speaker 1: said at fifteen, what do you want to do if
Speaker 1: I could make a living as a writer.
Speaker 3: Either.
Speaker 1: I would have probably said fiction at that point in time,
Speaker 1: because I'd always been a huge reader. But that's probably
Speaker 1: what I would have thought I would do. I never
Speaker 1: really thought radio or television or anything like that was
Speaker 1: likely to be a career path.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like you've made it.
Speaker 3: So? No? But yes in some ways. Let me explain
Speaker 3: what I mean by that.
Speaker 1: About a decade ago, I was at a minor league
Speaker 1: baseball game Triple A, which is one level below the
Speaker 1: major leagues, and I remember feeling like I was a
Speaker 1: Triple A media talent. I felt like I could be
Speaker 1: a major league player, but I was doing local sports
Speaker 1: talk radio in Nashville. I was running my own website
Speaker 1: at the time, out Kick, but I wasn't a major Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wasn't a major league player yet, but I felt
Speaker 1: like I had the talent to be in the major leagues.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm in the major leagues, and that's
Speaker 1: great because I don't have to worry about paying my
Speaker 1: mortgage or whether my kids can afford to go to college.
Speaker 1: Like those things are great, but I still feel like
Speaker 1: I'm not at the top level performance that I can be.
Speaker 1: So I feel like maybe I'm in major leagues and
Speaker 1: I still can prove that I'm an all star and
Speaker 1: so so I feel like I'm fortunate to be in
Speaker 1: the major leagues, but I don't feel like I've reached,
Speaker 1: you know, the apex ability of what I could could accomplish.
Speaker 2: What's it like living a public life, Like do you
Speaker 2: get recognized everywhere you go? And like what you know,
Speaker 2: any any hate.
Speaker 1: Or it's mostly positive where I live now. Remember I
Speaker 1: live in Nashville, and I think that's probably different than
Speaker 1: if I lived in New York or LA.
Speaker 3: Maybe the reactions would be would be different.
Speaker 1: But I think about it more in the context of
Speaker 1: my kids, because they're getting old enough now where they
Speaker 1: recognize that Dad doesn't have a normal job, and like
Speaker 1: I had a conversation with them the other day where
Speaker 1: I said, Hey, you know, you're getting old enough where
Speaker 1: you may hear people say things about what I do
Speaker 1: or what I say, And I said, that's great. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm fortunate to get to be able to say exactly
Speaker 1: what I think. But I said, all I ever want
Speaker 1: you guys to do is judge me on dad, Like,
Speaker 1: don't let anybody else what they're saying publicly about anything
Speaker 1: that I do. You know me better than anybody who's
Speaker 1: going to write about me. You live in the house
Speaker 1: with me. If I'm doing a good job as dad,
Speaker 1: which is my goal, then judge me on that. Everybody
Speaker 1: has jobs. The job you can be good at.
Speaker 3: Or bad at.
Speaker 1: The praise can come or go. You asked about whether
Speaker 1: I feel like I've made it. What I would say,
Speaker 1: and I bet you've seen this too, is media careers
Speaker 1: are very much like roller coasters. Like you're really high
Speaker 1: up and you think, oh man, everything's going great, and
Speaker 1: then somebody like you'll lose something and you go back down,
Speaker 1: and then you climb your way back up, and then
Speaker 1: I've just seen you know, I've been in media for
Speaker 1: twenty years now, you know, a generation, and I've just
Speaker 1: seen that happen so many times, where you think, oh,
Speaker 1: this is really great, and then you get fired and
Speaker 1: then work you know as hard agin and then you
Speaker 1: know it may not be anything that you did. You know,
Speaker 1: like I started out kick because FanHouse shut down the
Speaker 1: site that I was at.
Speaker 3: I loved it.
Speaker 1: I would have kept doing it for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life. So I just think you have to The
Speaker 1: thing that I would say I'm proud of is I
Speaker 1: think I'm a pretty good dad. I'm not as good
Speaker 1: of a dad as my dad was, he was phenomenal,
Speaker 1: but I think I'm a pretty good dad. And I
Speaker 1: think I'm an okay husband, and I've been married almost
Speaker 1: twenty years, and I think I'm pretty good at radio
Speaker 1: writing and TV. And so when you ask, I think
Speaker 1: it's such a good question. Do you feel like you've
Speaker 1: made it? Here's a way that I would think about it.
Speaker 1: If I could go back in time right now, would
Speaker 1: I change anything? My answer is no, because I'm very
Speaker 1: comfortable with where I am today. That doesn't mean I've
Speaker 1: not made a lot of mistakes. It doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: I'm not incredibly flawed and imperfect like every person out there.
Speaker 1: But I'm very comfortable in my own skin and with
Speaker 1: where I am today, and I wouldn't want to change anything,
Speaker 1: Like I wouldn't want to not go to law school,
Speaker 1: or I wouldn't want to go to a different college,
Speaker 1: or certainly I wouldn't want to, you know, not get married.
Speaker 1: I got married at twenty five years old. Like, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't change anything. I would the only thing I would
Speaker 1: want to have had more kids.
Speaker 3: I don't think. I don't think I'm going to have
Speaker 3: any more. I think we got three.
Speaker 1: I feel happy that we have three healthy and happy
Speaker 1: kids right now. But you know, other than like, I
Speaker 1: would like to have five or six kids because I've
Speaker 1: got the ability to take care of them, and I
Speaker 1: think they're so amazing and so unique as I know,
Speaker 1: you know, as a parent.
Speaker 3: But other than that, I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: There's not really anything in my life that And I
Speaker 1: fought for us to have three, so I feel like
Speaker 1: I won that battle. My wife, I think, would have
Speaker 1: said stayed at two, but I would have had four
Speaker 1: or five or six if the timing had worked out
Speaker 1: a little bit different.
Speaker 2: It's funny because in the book, you say I don't
Speaker 2: think I'm going to have a daughter, and I was like,
Speaker 2: he's thinking about possibly having a fourth.
Speaker 3: Oh. I say to my wife all the time, like
Speaker 3: you're not, you know, I don't think.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, that's a maybe.
Speaker 1: It's a maybe for me, it's a no for her
Speaker 1: so so, and usually mom wins in these battles because
Speaker 1: having a child for me is a lot less work
Speaker 1: than having a child for her, as I will readily acknowledge.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, I would.
Speaker 3: I would.
Speaker 1: I think it would have been cool to have a
Speaker 1: daughter and see what it's like to raise a daughter
Speaker 1: compared to having, you know, three boys.
Speaker 3: I'm very happy to have three boys.
Speaker 1: Thankful that I don't have three girls, trust me, but
Speaker 1: I would like to have had three boys and maybe
Speaker 1: a girl too.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I was going to ask you how
Speaker 2: long you've been married. You said almost twenty years. Do
Speaker 2: you have any advice for newlyweds?
Speaker 3: Oh, that's a good question.
Speaker 2: I mean your co host is a newlywed, have you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: We've not talked about this with Buck.
Speaker 1: I mean because Buck's in a unique spot because he
Speaker 1: didn't get married till after he was forty. And you know,
Speaker 1: men get so set in their ways that I think
Speaker 1: it's actually more challenging for men if they stay single
Speaker 1: for that long to get married than it is depending
Speaker 1: on how old your husband is. I think women are
Speaker 1: way more mature than men. And what I mean by
Speaker 1: that is like a lot of the whole marital process,
Speaker 1: Like I never really just thought about it that much.
Speaker 1: Like I feel like, you know, for instance, the age
Speaker 1: at which you should have kids. My wife just said
Speaker 1: she's two years older than me. She was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going to start trying to have kids now. And like,
Speaker 1: as a man, I think, because you have the luxury
Speaker 1: of like, you could have a kid at sixty, right,
Speaker 1: Probably not advisable, but you could. Like, So, the clocks
Speaker 1: are different for women than men, and so I would
Speaker 1: say women probably need, in my.
Speaker 3: Opinion, to.
Speaker 1: Be more linient with men, particularly early in marriage, because
Speaker 1: they're not what you want them to be. What I
Speaker 1: have come to find out is ye, most men when
Speaker 1: they get married, in my experience, would love for their
Speaker 1: wives to stay the exact same forever, right, especially if
Speaker 1: you're getting married young. We would like, we would like,
Speaker 1: we love everything about you. We would like for you
Speaker 1: to be eternally the exact same way you are right now.
Speaker 1: Every woman basically gets married to a guy in my experience,
Speaker 1: with the idea being he's okay, but I'm gonna you know,
Speaker 1: like you women go into like, hey I'm going to
Speaker 1: rehab this.
Speaker 2: We see potential.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys invest in potential. Men invest in the
Speaker 1: reality of now, and so men are very comfortable I
Speaker 1: think oftentimes into now, and women are very comfortable with
Speaker 1: the He isn't just kind of okay now, but in
Speaker 1: ten years he can be a good dad. I think
Speaker 1: he's going to have a good future. Like that's what
Speaker 1: I'm saying about. You guys see a longer trajectory and
Speaker 1: range than.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of men do. And I'll give
Speaker 3: you an easy example.
Speaker 1: Every man when they get engaged has no idea what
Speaker 1: the next step is. Every woman is like ready to
Speaker 1: figure out every aspect of the marriage within, like in
Speaker 1: terms of the ceremony and everything else where it should happen,
Speaker 1: what the time is, or you know, it gets on
Speaker 1: the phone with her mom and like it's it's like
Speaker 1: the whole apparatus is moving in place. Because you guys
Speaker 1: have all been thinking about it. I can barely even
Speaker 1: you know, like conceive of all the details that were involved.
Speaker 1: So I just think women are way more involved.
Speaker 2: I wasn't one of those women who had thought about
Speaker 2: what her wedding would be like, and that was a
Speaker 2: mistake because you can't figure it out in a short
Speaker 2: period of time. You need those years of planning, like
Speaker 2: which I realized, you know, I realized in retrospect I
Speaker 2: hadn't done. Yeah, so I you know, I think it's
Speaker 2: I think it's the right way to go. That women
Speaker 2: think about it for a long time before and then
Speaker 2: you get to the most expensive event of your life
Speaker 2: and I don't.
Speaker 3: Know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: And the other thing I would say was I was
Speaker 1: very conscious of what I wanted. I wanted good looking
Speaker 1: and super smart. Those were my two criteria, right, and
Speaker 1: I think I went I hit a home run on.
Speaker 3: That, But you got it.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of men focus on the good
Speaker 1: looking and they don't necessarily focus on the like idea
Speaker 1: of hey, you're potentially going to be having children with
Speaker 1: this person, like I want, you know, the offspring to
Speaker 1: also be successful, so you know, and also thinking about.
Speaker 2: What was not pretty dumb?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what kind of mom h your potential significant other
Speaker 1: would be. So I would say two men focus less
Speaker 1: on the immediate Oh she's really pretty, I really like
Speaker 1: her right now, and more on okay, ten years, twenty years,
Speaker 1: what's the trajectory.
Speaker 2: So the potential you want to think about than we do.
Speaker 2: M Yeah, so what do you think are like some
Speaker 2: of our largest societal problems in America, Like, what do
Speaker 2: you worry about for your kids?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So, my thing that I hammer home to my boys,
Speaker 1: and I try to say this every time I go
Speaker 1: talk to young audiences is focus on what you can control.
Speaker 1: I'm big on individual responsibility, but also just the only
Speaker 1: thing you can really control is your work ethic. You
Speaker 1: can't control how the world around you responds to you,
Speaker 1: but I can control that. I work super hard every day.
Speaker 1: So I say, graduate from high school. These are minimum standards,
Speaker 1: by the way, but if every kid could do this,
Speaker 1: I think the country would be far better. Graduate from
Speaker 1: high school, get a job, get married, don't have a
Speaker 1: kid until you're twenty five, white, Black, Asian, Hispanic, gay,
Speaker 1: straight male female. If you do that, your poverty rate
Speaker 1: is zero, no matter how poor your family circumstances were
Speaker 1: for your upbringing, and then you can provide a better
Speaker 1: opportunity for your kids.
Speaker 3: That would be my pitch.
Speaker 1: My concern, and I write about this a lot in
Speaker 1: the book, is that we have allowed identity politics to
Speaker 1: completely take over our body politic. And what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is you'll often hear somebody say, hey, as
Speaker 1: a transgender woman, I believe and I always think like,
Speaker 1: if you put your identity in front of your opinion,
Speaker 1: why should I care your opinions either a valid and
Speaker 1: a good argument or it's not. I don't care about
Speaker 1: the things you didn't control. And I'm concerned that when
Speaker 1: we were growing up, because you're around my age, it
Speaker 1: seemed like what we were taught was most people are
Speaker 1: pretty similar, right, whether despite your background, your common humanity.
Speaker 1: In America, most people are pretty similar. And now I
Speaker 1: think what we're often teaching kids is you're all very dissimilar,
Speaker 1: and that's because of things you didn't choose, as opposed
Speaker 1: to things you did choose, like the idea that that
Speaker 1: your race and your your your gender, to me are
Speaker 1: two of the least interesting things about people.
Speaker 3: The things that you don't the things that.
Speaker 1: You don't choose are are are far more interesting to me,
Speaker 1: so far less interesting to me than things that you
Speaker 1: do choose. And I think we focus on identity over
Speaker 1: everything else.
Speaker 2: So is that solvable?
Speaker 3: Is that? Yeah? I think it is what.
Speaker 1: I think we have to have a landslide election, and
Speaker 1: we have to have somebody who can speak to and
Speaker 1: I think we're starting to see it right, because the
Speaker 1: argument when Trump won in sixteen was oh, he's super
Speaker 1: racist and Republicans are doomed forever to only have white voters.
Speaker 3: And then what's happened.
Speaker 1: Hispanic, Asian and Black voters have actually become more likely
Speaker 1: to vote Republican in twenty twenty and in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two than they were before Trump. Because I think the
Speaker 1: fundamental lie that Democrats and I should say left this
Speaker 1: because there's some Democrats who would reject this, but the
Speaker 1: fundamental lie that Democrats tell is that America is an
Speaker 1: awful racist place and that's simply not.
Speaker 2: True that brown people are dying.
Speaker 1: To literally every day black and brown people die trying
Speaker 1: to get into this country. If this were the most
Speaker 1: racist country out there, their decision to do that would
Speaker 1: make zero syd. So I think that's the fundamental lie
Speaker 1: that Democrats have brought into Then I think it's rooted
Speaker 1: in identity politics because this idea that all white men
Speaker 1: are evil. I used to joke and I still do
Speaker 1: make this joke visually, but like I pick the worst
Speaker 1: time ever to become a rich white guy for basically
Speaker 1: all of American history. If you're a rich white guy
Speaker 1: like everything you were, like you the best person ever,
Speaker 1: and now I suddenly I was poor. My family was poor,
Speaker 1: you know, basically our whole life, and now I'm a
Speaker 1: rich white guy like that? How dare you be a
Speaker 1: rich white guy? You're you've done everything that's wrong with America.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I went to public school. I didn't even
Speaker 1: grow up in a good part of Nashville.
Speaker 2: And here with your best tip for my listeners on
Speaker 2: how they can improve their lives. What's the advice that
Speaker 2: you think people should follow to make their lives better.
Speaker 1: I think it has to be that you completely own
Speaker 1: your own success or failure, and whatever you find that
Speaker 1: you have a skill in that you enjoy spending time in.
Speaker 1: I said, I had a quarter life crisis. Being a
Speaker 1: lawyer's not an awful job. My grandfather's worked in factories
Speaker 1: their whole lives. There are a lot of bad jobs,
Speaker 1: trust me, I know, and a lot of jobs that
Speaker 1: stink and also don't pay well, which is a double combo.
Speaker 1: But I think if you can find something that you
Speaker 1: don't look at the clock while you do over time,
Speaker 1: you will win.
Speaker 3: If you can find a way to do that.
Speaker 1: I looked at the clock all the time when I
Speaker 1: practice law, I couldn't wait for the day to be
Speaker 1: over so I could leave and no longer be required
Speaker 1: to be practicing laws. I don't look at the clock
Speaker 1: when I sit down and write. I don't really look
Speaker 1: at the clock other than to make sure we hit
Speaker 1: time breaks when I sit down to do radio. I
Speaker 1: haven't looked at the clock for this entire conversation that you.
Speaker 3: And I are having.
Speaker 1: That's because I enjoy it, and I think you can't
Speaker 1: fake enjoyment because over time, if you like what you do,
Speaker 1: you will be more successful.
Speaker 3: At that than someone who does not like what they do.
Speaker 1: So if you can mirror your your advocation with something
Speaker 1: that you enjoy spending time doing, you're going to be
Speaker 1: successful in it. I also would say this, figure out.
Speaker 1: If you have a job, look and see what your
Speaker 1: boss's boss does. If you don't think that you would
Speaker 1: like to do what your boss's boss does, then you
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't be in that profession because what are you
Speaker 1: building toward what I think you know? Like in the
Speaker 1: law firm, I'd be like, oh, the name partner, Well,
Speaker 1: he just gets paid more to.
Speaker 3: Do basically the same thing that I do now.
Speaker 1: I was in a small law firm, so I could
Speaker 1: see kind of what they did that wasn't for me.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean I couldn't have been successful at it, but
Speaker 1: ultimately I would have never succeeded like someone who loved it.
Speaker 1: And I think the reason I've had success in media
Speaker 1: is because I genuinely love what I get to do.
Speaker 1: And final way, by the way Carol would be when
Speaker 1: I sold out Kicked two years ago, I feel like
Speaker 1: I kind of won the lottery, and I think everybody
Speaker 1: sits around and thinks, oh, what would I do if
Speaker 1: I won the lottery? How would I spend my life?
Speaker 1: Like everybody has had that fantasy and everybody's played through it.
Speaker 1: That's the entire basis of why the lottery works as
Speaker 1: a business, right, It's that fantasy fulfillment. To me, the
Speaker 1: ultimate answer is I would wake up and keep doing
Speaker 1: what I'm already doing. If you answered that, then you
Speaker 1: are living a life that you can be. I think
Speaker 1: successful and proud and happy in And I felt like
Speaker 1: I had that experience where I woke up, Okay, I
Speaker 1: won the lottery. I've got money, I've got the ability
Speaker 1: to do lots of things. What do I want to do?
Speaker 1: Oh wait, I want to keep doing exactly what I'm
Speaker 1: already doing. I think that's why I ended up winning
Speaker 1: the lottery, because I had already worked myself into a
Speaker 1: place where I was so happy doing what I was doing.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I really love that answer. That's
Speaker 2: some really great advice. I think our listeners should definitely
Speaker 2: listen to that. Thank you Clay for coming on. Loved
Speaker 2: having you, and please come back any time.
Speaker 1: Well, by the way, you are killing it. I love
Speaker 1: reading your columns. You are super talented.
Speaker 3: At your show.
Speaker 1: You probably shouldn't expect to get praised all the times
Speaker 1: by the guests, but I am really impressed with how talented.
Speaker 3: You are the work that you are doing.
Speaker 1: The only negative thing I can say is that your
Speaker 1: poor cowboy fan son is going to be miserable for
Speaker 1: most of his life because he's a Cowboys fan.
Speaker 2: I really hope we play the Titans sometimes.
Speaker 3: Well. Titans fans are definitely my courage.
Speaker 2: Thanks Clay, Thanks so much Clay Travis for joining the
Speaker 2: Carol Markowitz Show. We'll see you again on Mondays and Thursdays.
Speaker 2: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.