Speaker 1: So my guest for this episode, Well, he's been successful
Speaker 1: in every business and broadcast that he's taken on. He's
Speaker 1: also been banned from appearing on CNN and ESPN. When
Speaker 1: he was at Fox Sports Radio, he hosted the most
Speaker 1: successful morning show there and now along with my buddy
Speaker 1: Buck Sexton, he has been tasked with taking over for
Speaker 1: the Great Rush Limbaugh. His name is Clade Travis. He
Speaker 1: is the co host of the Clay Travis and Buck
Speaker 1: Sexton Show. He also founded out Kick. He just sold
Speaker 1: it to Fox for a lot of money. So you know,
Speaker 1: he's doing pretty well in the financial department, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you that much. But before he got into to all
Speaker 1: the media stuff, he was an attorney. He's written best
Speaker 1: selling books. I mean, the guy has just done so much.
Speaker 1: But he's also hilarious. He's incredibly smart, and he's not
Speaker 1: afraid to take a controversial opinion if that's what he believes.
Speaker 1: So this is gonna be a really fun and interesting conversation.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about a whole host of things for him,
Speaker 1: his media career to the insanity of today's world. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask him because he is also a filthy unvaccinated
Speaker 1: person like myself. I'm gonna ask him is he lighting
Speaker 1: up to get his monkey pocks shot soon? Because you
Speaker 1: know that's the next big thing. We're also going to
Speaker 1: talk about dudes pretending they're girls and playing in women's sports.
Speaker 1: How does that change sports? We're gonna talk about all
Speaker 1: this critical race theory and woke stuff in sports as well. Also,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden get his take on the most disastrous administration
Speaker 1: maybe in American history. He's a history buff, so we're
Speaker 1: going to ask him about that again. Clay Travis the
Speaker 1: co host of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show,
Speaker 1: hugely successful, super interesting. This is going to be a
Speaker 1: great conversation. Buckle up and I hope you enjoy the ride.
Speaker 1: So play, I was looking for your bio. How many
Speaker 1: jobs do you have right now? So I saw you
Speaker 1: co host the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, which
Speaker 1: is massive, you know, nationally syndicated all across the country.
Speaker 1: You founded out Kick, Fox, bet Live, Fox News. Am
Speaker 1: I am I missing anything else? Um? I would probably
Speaker 1: say the most difficult one is uh dad of three? Um,
Speaker 1: so three relatively young kids, meaning that you know they're
Speaker 1: not completely out in the world on their own. No,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that's it. You know. I I've
Speaker 1: run out kick, which is a website one of the
Speaker 1: biggest uh you know, sports uh issue websites in the country. Uh.
Speaker 1: Got the biggest radio show in the country, do a
Speaker 1: lot of hits on Fox News. Fox bet Live is
Speaker 1: in its fourth year. That's a sports gambling show. I
Speaker 1: guess I could add, uh. You know, I do travel
Speaker 1: for college football. I'm on the road for fourteen or
Speaker 1: fifteen straight weeks for the Fox uh Sports Big Neon
Speaker 1: Kickoff Show, which is on every Saturday morning, UM on
Speaker 1: the main Fox network affiliate. Uh and uh yeah. So
Speaker 1: so that there's a lot of different jobs out there.
Speaker 1: I love them, but it means every day sometimes feels
Speaker 1: like a whirlwind. And then, like I said, at least
Speaker 1: I've got a fourteen year old, I've got an eleven
Speaker 1: year old, and I've got a seven year old. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, during tomorrow's radio show, I was talking to
Speaker 1: Buck off the air and I'm like, hey, my kids
Speaker 1: had a half day. They finished school tomorrow, UM, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I want to duck out for you know,
Speaker 1: thirty minutes of the radio program to go be able
Speaker 1: to pick him up at the end of their school year,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a big deal. So so yeah,
Speaker 1: balancing guys, I got a seven year old little league
Speaker 1: championship game tonight. Um, so that's on the horizon tonight.
Speaker 1: But see, that's awesome that you do that, because you know,
Speaker 1: my dad was always successful. It worked really hard, but
Speaker 1: family was always first. And he's never missed anything that
Speaker 1: was important. Like I played sports scoring up he you know,
Speaker 1: and I did travel league for field hockey and you know,
Speaker 1: lacrosse and all that stuff, and he always he was
Speaker 1: my coach for basketball, and he never is a single game.
Speaker 1: And I think that's something that probably stands out to
Speaker 1: me with him as my dad than anything else. Have
Speaker 1: just always being present. So I think that's really cool
Speaker 1: that you make time despite the fact that you know
Speaker 1: you've got all these huge jobs in front of you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the question is it's great to
Speaker 1: have success in your career. Um, But ultimately, if your
Speaker 1: kids don't think you're doing a good job as a
Speaker 1: dad or a mom, I would find it really hard
Speaker 1: to be that pleased with any kind of success you
Speaker 1: might have in your professional endeavors. So UM. I also
Speaker 1: just think it kind of puts everything into perspective. I mean,
Speaker 1: every day I give my opinion on a huge variety
Speaker 1: of subjects. UM. People can agree or disagree with it.
Speaker 1: But I've talked with my wife, was one of the
Speaker 1: first people to diagnose this, like, I've fortunately never been
Speaker 1: to therapy, and she said, the reason why you don't
Speaker 1: need therapy is because you get to say exactly what
Speaker 1: you think for three hours every day and then at
Speaker 1: the end of the day like you have no weight
Speaker 1: on your shoulders. And it's why I do think I
Speaker 1: have kind of the best job in America because I
Speaker 1: feel like there is such and I know you know
Speaker 1: this to Lisa, a huge percentage of people out there
Speaker 1: that have jobs where they don't feel like they can
Speaker 1: say what they really think. And that's why the number
Speaker 1: one thing that I hear from people when they come
Speaker 1: up to me what I'm out about, is thank you
Speaker 1: for saying what you say. I agree with a lot
Speaker 1: of what you say, but I don't feel like I
Speaker 1: can be public in the same way that you are, UM.
Speaker 1: And that's why I feel like we have such a
Speaker 1: privilege to be able every single day to share our
Speaker 1: our opinions on a wide variety of topics that are
Speaker 1: of most significance in the world. Well, very blessed and
Speaker 1: and and especially increasingly in today's society. As you mentioned,
Speaker 1: I mean, people legitimately could be fired from their jobs
Speaker 1: if if they talk about their actual opinions, especially if
Speaker 1: they're conservatives. So how do you you know your dad?
Speaker 1: How do you explain today's society to your kids? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's a it's a serious Uh, it's a
Speaker 1: serious question. Um. And so so first of all, I
Speaker 1: say to my kids, and I think this is a
Speaker 1: good advice anyway, I mean, judge dad as they get older,
Speaker 1: based entirely on how I do as a dad, because
Speaker 1: I have kind of a non traditional job and as
Speaker 1: you get older, people are going to say positive or
Speaker 1: negative things about me. But that doesn't really should never
Speaker 1: impact what you think of me, because my job with
Speaker 1: you is to be a dad and my profession doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: But what I tell my kids is, uh, I want
Speaker 1: you to Uh. There's there's a great piece of advice
Speaker 1: that that I picked up on and it sounds simple,
Speaker 1: but when I was a kid, one of my idols
Speaker 1: it was Davy Crockett because I'm a big history buff
Speaker 1: and Davy Crocketts from Tennessee, and I live in Tennessee
Speaker 1: and obviously grew up here, And Davy Crockett's life motto
Speaker 1: was be sure you're right and then go ahead. Um.
Speaker 1: And by the time I share any opinion publicly, I
Speaker 1: have worked through and I think it helps to have
Speaker 1: a legal background. All of the different angles of an argument.
Speaker 1: I could flip and argue the opposite side as good
Speaker 1: or better than almost anybody who is going to attack
Speaker 1: me for my opinions. Um. And that's because I've thought
Speaker 1: through everything, and I just want my kids to be
Speaker 1: confident enough. And I'll give you a little analogy. Um.
Speaker 1: Last year, I guess it was maybe two years ago,
Speaker 1: my youngest kid, who was in kindergarten at the time,
Speaker 1: was playing baseball for the first time, and they were
Speaker 1: teaching them the basis, and you know, here's first base,
Speaker 1: second base, third base, home plate pictures now like all
Speaker 1: the different positions on the field, and the question was
Speaker 1: where is uh where is the pictures mound? And all
Speaker 1: the kids happened to run to home plate, like every
Speaker 1: single kid went to home plate except my son who
Speaker 1: was five and went to the pictures now, uh, And
Speaker 1: I loved that, and I hope it's a metaphor for
Speaker 1: his life as he becomes older. He was confident enough
Speaker 1: that he knew what the pictures mound was, that he
Speaker 1: didn't follow everybody rushing to home plate. And I feel
Speaker 1: like a lot of our culture, Lisa, is people who
Speaker 1: aren't confident enough in their own opinions that they just
Speaker 1: follow wherever the herd goes. And so I'm trying to
Speaker 1: teach my boys what I think is one of the
Speaker 1: most important lessons in all of life, which is think
Speaker 1: for yourself and don't spend a lot of time looking
Speaker 1: over your shoulder to see whether or not people are
Speaker 1: following you. Just make the right decision. And you know
Speaker 1: that that little metaphor of learning the positions on the
Speaker 1: baseball field and being willing to go where everybody else
Speaker 1: was not. You know this, Lisa, A lot of people
Speaker 1: would rather be wrong and be covered by the masses
Speaker 1: than be wrong and be standing out by them selves,
Speaker 1: where you become a target. And I think you have
Speaker 1: to be comfortable with people calling you out. And certainly
Speaker 1: in my industry, I was like the only person in
Speaker 1: the world of sports who was saying, hey, we can
Speaker 1: play COVID safely. Kids are not gonna die if they
Speaker 1: get to play Little League baseball. Um. It was a
Speaker 1: lot uh safer to be a part of the herd
Speaker 1: who was saying, oh my god, we've got to cancel everything.
Speaker 1: But those people were wrong, um. And I would have
Speaker 1: owned it if my opinion had been wrong. And it
Speaker 1: was a significant thing to argue that, hey, kids need
Speaker 1: to be in school, and kids don't need to be
Speaker 1: wearing masks, and we need to be able to play
Speaker 1: every sport. Um. But I think being confident in my
Speaker 1: own opinion and analyzing all the data and everything else
Speaker 1: was what made me comfortable to stand outside of the herd. Uh,
Speaker 1: like my kid did when he was in you know,
Speaker 1: kindergarten learning all the different positions on the field. No,
Speaker 1: you must have been a proud dad with that. And
Speaker 1: I was very lucky because both my parents taught me
Speaker 1: to be independently minded. My I was an attorney as well,
Speaker 1: so I don't know if it's sort of that similar
Speaker 1: mindset that he taught me to sort of game through
Speaker 1: everything and to think for myself and to speak freely.
Speaker 1: So it's very fortunate to have been raised by them,
Speaker 1: as as your parents seemed to be fortunate to have
Speaker 1: been raised by you and teaching them this thinking. But
Speaker 1: you know to your point, Yeah, during COVID, I mean
Speaker 1: we saw such group think. And you know, I kind
Speaker 1: of stuck my neck out there with the vaccines as well,
Speaker 1: because just like you, I was looking through the data.
Speaker 1: A lot of it didn't make sense what we're hearing
Speaker 1: on you know TV. What we were reading did not
Speaker 1: make sense throughout the entirety of COVID. But uh, you
Speaker 1: know even more so with the vaccines, and I saw
Speaker 1: that you are also a filthy unvaccinated person. Are you
Speaker 1: lining up to get Are you lining up to get
Speaker 1: your monkey pocks shot? Anytime soon? I? Um, you know
Speaker 1: this is uh. I I just am so fired up
Speaker 1: about the idea that we've ever required anybody to get
Speaker 1: these COVID shots and cost people their jobs. Um No,
Speaker 1: I never got I Look, I got COVID in November
Speaker 1: of twenty the first time, the alpha version, and then
Speaker 1: I got the remix ohm crow On version in uh
Speaker 1: in January of this year. And um so when I
Speaker 1: got the when I got knew that I had natural immunity.
Speaker 1: I knew that all the data reflected uh, prior to
Speaker 1: delta and omicron and everything else, that there was no
Speaker 1: basis to require me to get the COVID shot, that
Speaker 1: it was worthless. Um. And so not only have I
Speaker 1: made that decision for myself, but I'm not going to
Speaker 1: get my kids the COVID shot right, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: if they become college age or have to do it
Speaker 1: for school related reasons when they're uh you know, getting older. Maybe,
Speaker 1: but my seven year old and my eleven year old, Um,
Speaker 1: I think that's crazy. Uh. And so yeah, I was
Speaker 1: comfortable uh standing out against that. I felt like I
Speaker 1: needed to speak out for a lot of people who
Speaker 1: didn't have that option necessarily because I was fortunate. I've
Speaker 1: got a home studio, I've got the ability to do
Speaker 1: things out of my house. Um. You know, if I
Speaker 1: was a teacher and I needed to make a mortgage
Speaker 1: payment or I needed to take care of my kids
Speaker 1: or a police officer or something like that, I think
Speaker 1: I would have had to do it right. Because most
Speaker 1: people aren't independently wealthy enough, which is why when did
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's in the world say, Hey, this mandatory vaccination work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course you know. And also by the way, holding
Speaker 1: a gun at someone and demanding their cash out of
Speaker 1: their wallet it works. That doesn't make it right, um.
Speaker 1: And so so that that was another example I thought
Speaker 1: of making a decision that was right for me personally uh,
Speaker 1: based on my own health parameters, but also was a
Speaker 1: lot different for a lot of people didn't have that option,
Speaker 1: and I felt like being one of the people who
Speaker 1: was willing to stand up for them was important. Quick
Speaker 1: commercial break more with Clay Travis on the other side.
Speaker 1: Do we engage in groups think as a society more
Speaker 1: today or was it just more pronounced during COVID because
Speaker 1: of the fears. I think we do it more now, um.
Speaker 1: And I think the reason why we do it more
Speaker 1: now is social media UH based siically demands a consensus opinion,
Speaker 1: because if you don't have a consensus opinion, then the
Speaker 1: people who are a part of the consensus opinion will
Speaker 1: come after you and try to tear you apart. And
Speaker 1: I think that has led more people to be afraid.
Speaker 1: And it can be people who are in public figure
Speaker 1: positions like us, or people on Facebook or Instagram or
Speaker 1: Twitter or wherever it is. UM. I think there is
Speaker 1: a rush to consensus, and I think that was epitomized
Speaker 1: by COVID, where I think we rushed to the worst
Speaker 1: possible consensus opinion rather than actually look at the data
Speaker 1: and allow that to to lead us, because I think COVID,
Speaker 1: beyond the shadow of a doubt, the way that we
Speaker 1: responded in the country is our biggest public policy failure
Speaker 1: since Vietnam. And what they both have in common is
Speaker 1: all of the experts told us we had to do Vietnam,
Speaker 1: go to war, or else communism would continue to spread
Speaker 1: and go everywhere, and we were told we have to
Speaker 1: lock down or else COVID's going to overwhelm us and
Speaker 1: overall the hospitals. And I think both of those consensus
Speaker 1: opinions are the most disastrous of the last you know,
Speaker 1: seventy years of American life. Well, I mean it definitely
Speaker 1: tested society, tested people, tested her institutions, tested if we're
Speaker 1: even a constitutional republic. And also just seeing where you know,
Speaker 1: some leaders in the country want to take us, take
Speaker 1: us more to tyranny, but you know a lot of
Speaker 1: people are afraid to speak out because they were worried
Speaker 1: about getting trouble was getting in trouble. As you pointed out,
Speaker 1: I mean you've spoken out in support of ESPN broadcaster
Speaker 1: Stage Steel. She's following a lawsuit against the network because
Speaker 1: she was sidelined because she made comments against her her
Speaker 1: company's vaccine policy, just making a different point of view
Speaker 1: than some people on the network we're espousing, and it
Speaker 1: landed her into a lot of trouble. Talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about that case she's suing. What do you think
Speaker 1: will happen and what are the ramifications of it? What
Speaker 1: do you think it could lead to? Well, big picture
Speaker 1: to me, what it references is I came out of sports, right,
Speaker 1: So I was just your average guy who's a big
Speaker 1: sports fan, um. And increasingly sports collided with politics, um
Speaker 1: and so you had to have an opinion on Colin Kaepernick,
Speaker 1: and certainly COVID really took that to an entirely different level.
Speaker 1: What I saw happening in sports that was scary to
Speaker 1: me was ESPN in particular, which is the big dog
Speaker 1: in sports opinion, was allowing far left wing political opinions
Speaker 1: and encouraging and enabling and rewarding people who embraced far
Speaker 1: left wing opinions, while oftentimes firing people for quote unquote
Speaker 1: conservative opinions. And my big thing is I'm a First
Speaker 1: Amendment absolutist. You may have seen my clips several years
Speaker 1: ago where I went on CNN and said the only
Speaker 1: two things I believed in I've been saying that on
Speaker 1: the radio for a long time was the First Amendment,
Speaker 1: and Booze and CNN lost their mind when I said, yeah.
Speaker 1: But i mean, look, the reality is, when you say
Speaker 1: you're a First Amendment absolutist, it kind of just gets
Speaker 1: lost in the cliche. And so I thought that was
Speaker 1: such a you know, a fun and absurdly uh perfect
Speaker 1: way to epitomize that. And by the way, the funny
Speaker 1: thing about CNN getting so triggered by me saying that
Speaker 1: was Hugh Hefner died shortly thereafter, and they lionized him
Speaker 1: as a hero. And I'm not sure there's ever been
Speaker 1: anybody that supported the First Amendment boogs more than Playboy
Speaker 1: founders U Heffner, So that dichotomy there was really kind
Speaker 1: of fascinating. But I'm in addition to being a First
Speaker 1: Amendment absolutist, I also believe in the importance of content
Speaker 1: neutral rules, right um, and being applying those rules consistently.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm kind of excited if Elon must ends
Speaker 1: up taking control of Twitter, he's going to do what
Speaker 1: I've been arguing should be happening at places like ESPN,
Speaker 1: which is put your policy in place, but don't punish
Speaker 1: someone for not having left wing opinions while promoting people
Speaker 1: for having left wing opinions. If your policy is no
Speaker 1: one can ever talk about politics at all, all we
Speaker 1: want you to have an opinion on in your public
Speaker 1: life is sports. If you're being paid millions of dollars
Speaker 1: and you want to take that deal, you can take
Speaker 1: that deal. But don't fire Kurt Schilling because he questions
Speaker 1: a transgender bathroom bill while simultaneously promoting people who falsely
Speaker 1: alleged that don't say gay bill in Florida, which is
Speaker 1: really the parental rights bill, is saying something that it isn't,
Speaker 1: and you're allowing a moment of silence on your broadcast
Speaker 1: network for it. So really, all I want, you're right,
Speaker 1: you're you're you should have a right too far left
Speaker 1: wing opinions, and people should have a right to far
Speaker 1: right wing opinions, but the policy should be content neutral,
Speaker 1: and what's age steal is pointing out with her lawsuit,
Speaker 1: is that isn't the case, And I believe that's a
Speaker 1: significant battle that needs to be fought in sports media,
Speaker 1: which has been overtaken by this tiny minority of super
Speaker 1: woke journalists who do not reflect the overall vast majority
Speaker 1: of fan opinion. Well, I think she's super brave. I'm
Speaker 1: a fan of hers. Is it so your band from
Speaker 1: both CNN and ESPN? Is that right? That's correct. I'm
Speaker 1: the only person in America, UH, that is not allowed
Speaker 1: to appear on either CNN or ESPN. That's hilarious. See
Speaker 1: you talk about this sort of like distortion that's happened
Speaker 1: in sports news. Is that why you started out Kicked
Speaker 1: back in two eleven? No, not, Actually, it's what OutKick
Speaker 1: has become. But in two thousand eleven, I started out
Speaker 1: Kick because I was I was a huge sports fan.
Speaker 1: I had worked at at CBS Sports dot Com, I
Speaker 1: had worked at dead Spin but where Deadspen went crazy, uh,
Speaker 1: and I had worked at fan House. So I've worked
Speaker 1: at three different big sports media companies. I felt like
Speaker 1: I knew what people wanted to read and that that
Speaker 1: wasn't being covered by the average Uh. The average sports
Speaker 1: site out there. Uh So, I I was comfortable taking
Speaker 1: a risk starting a business. Um and initially, you know,
Speaker 1: sports had not gone crazy in two thousand eleven when
Speaker 1: I started out kick. Uh So, most of your big
Speaker 1: sports debates were about realignment, about you know, what the
Speaker 1: college football playoff might look like in the years ahead.
Speaker 1: Uh There were a lot of sports related sports debates,
Speaker 1: but we hadn't turned into this uberwoke, super political universe
Speaker 1: that has just been tracked by OutKick, And increasingly what
Speaker 1: I saw was without OutKick, there was nobody making the
Speaker 1: arguments that I was making. And so our influence is
Speaker 1: huge because you know, we cover sports for the seventy
Speaker 1: five or eighty percent or more of sports fans who,
Speaker 1: for instance, don't believe that a biological man who decides
Speaker 1: to identify as a woman should be able to compete
Speaker 1: and win women's athletic events. Like the idea that out
Speaker 1: Kick is almost the only sports outlet that is covering
Speaker 1: this and saying, hey, you know what, men should compete
Speaker 1: against men and women should compete against women is to
Speaker 1: be a testament of how broken the overall sports media
Speaker 1: ecosystem is. But that's where we've been led by the
Speaker 1: direction of sports media, which I think has been very
Speaker 1: influenced by social media. But when I started in two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, I never I never would have thought, Hey,
Speaker 1: the greatest women swimmer of all time is going to
Speaker 1: be a dude. I just I mean, that was so
Speaker 1: far outside the bounds of of any kind of legitimacy
Speaker 1: that I never would have seen us getting here. Also,
Speaker 1: it's cool because well, you sold it the Fox, so
Speaker 1: congrats on being rich. But what's neat about is I
Speaker 1: I saw I saw what you wrote about the sale,
Speaker 1: and you talked about kind of coming from humble beginnings
Speaker 1: and that you know, there's a son of two parents
Speaker 1: who never made in a year only in America. Indeed
Speaker 1: you wrote, so, I mean, that's got to be pretty big.
Speaker 1: I'm sure your parents are proud to you know, proud
Speaker 1: of you. Yeah. Look, I mean, it's it's great to
Speaker 1: be in a position where if I didn't ever want
Speaker 1: to have to work again, I don't ever have to
Speaker 1: work again. Um. That gives you some degree of personal freedom.
Speaker 1: But the reality is every single day I jump out
Speaker 1: of bed excited to get to do what I do. UM,
Speaker 1: And you know, there's always that discussion, Hey, what would
Speaker 1: you do if you want a lottery? I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people have that discussion in their lives. You know, Um,
Speaker 1: what would you do the next day? Uh? I basically
Speaker 1: have right. I think I've won the lottery in life
Speaker 1: with what I've been able to do, and I think
Speaker 1: you're in a really good spot. My argument had always been,
Speaker 1: and it's now true, in an ideal world, you would
Speaker 1: like your job so much that if you want a lottery,
Speaker 1: you would just keep doing it. And you know, that's
Speaker 1: what I feel like I've done and that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: So you know you're in a good spot when you
Speaker 1: don't have to work to pay a mortgage or to
Speaker 1: help raise your kids. You've taken care of that, but
Speaker 1: you still love what you do so much that you're
Speaker 1: going to keep doing it. Um, And that's that's where
Speaker 1: I am right now. Well, that's an awesome place to
Speaker 1: to be in. So, you know, congratulations to you. It's
Speaker 1: amazing you. You had mentioned Will Thomas, now known as
Speaker 1: Leah Thomas. You know, what's the point of sports if
Speaker 1: dudes can just pretend to be girls so they can
Speaker 1: win titles and championships. I mean, look, if if the
Speaker 1: reason why we have men's and women's sports segregated in
Speaker 1: the first place is because, let's be honest, women would
Speaker 1: not ever win any championships if men and women competed
Speaker 1: in a co ed competition, right, And they wouldn't even
Speaker 1: really make the finals, right or even be in the
Speaker 1: close proximitty. And that's not me taking a shot at
Speaker 1: women's athletes. It's acknowledging that biology is real. Um. And
Speaker 1: so that is a decision that we made as a
Speaker 1: society intelligently, you know, hundreds of years ago. Uh. And
Speaker 1: certainly that we have allowed to come to full fruition
Speaker 1: here in America, where women have more success and more
Speaker 1: opportunity and more achievement than ever has existed anywhere else
Speaker 1: in the world. And so are we going to destroy
Speaker 1: that by allowing men? You know, one of the scary quotes, uh,
Speaker 1: that was out there one of the pen swimmers, or
Speaker 1: one of the women who was the teammate of of
Speaker 1: this transgender swimmer said, uh. And I'm paraphrasing her quotes,
Speaker 1: so I may not get it exactly right, but told
Speaker 1: out kick, Uh, I hope if I grow up and
Speaker 1: have kids, they're all boys. Because right now it's one
Speaker 1: transgender swimmer, but eventually it's gonna be many more, and
Speaker 1: women's athletics is not gonna exist anymore. And think about
Speaker 1: how awful that is for any girl out there who
Speaker 1: you know. You know how hard you have to work
Speaker 1: to become a college swimmer. You're starting at five or
Speaker 1: six years old, typically early in the morning, grinding away
Speaker 1: as hard as you can to achieve one of the
Speaker 1: highest levels of success imaginable, which is swimming at a
Speaker 1: collegiate level. And you're then going to these girls and
Speaker 1: these women who have spent their whole lives performing and
Speaker 1: preparing for this moment. You're going to allow a man
Speaker 1: who decides he identifies as a woman to set all
Speaker 1: time records in their sports and to beat them and
Speaker 1: to be considered a champion. Just not It's just not right.
Speaker 1: And everybody has to make a choice. Right. Much of
Speaker 1: life is about making choices, and so if you are
Speaker 1: a fan of sports, you have to decide, do I
Speaker 1: believe that women's sports should be made up of women
Speaker 1: and that the champions in those sports should be female,
Speaker 1: or do I believe that men who identify as women
Speaker 1: should be able to compete against them. You can't pick both.
Speaker 1: You have to pick a side. And this is why
Speaker 1: so many people are pretending this story doesn't exist because
Speaker 1: they're afraid in my industry that if they say, oh,
Speaker 1: I only support women athletes being able to compete, that
Speaker 1: they're going to be called anti transgender. And they're afraid
Speaker 1: that if they support transgender athletes being able to compete,
Speaker 1: they're gonna be called anti woman. Well, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to pick a side. And my side is pretty clear,
Speaker 1: and I've been as transparent about it as I could
Speaker 1: possibly be. I believe women's sports should be made up
Speaker 1: exclusively of biological women, period. Now I agree, and I
Speaker 1: just want to be on the side of a common
Speaker 1: sense in the truth. But well, the whole point of
Speaker 1: this podcast. It also rhymes with my last name, so
Speaker 1: that works too. But yeah, very creative. But we also
Speaker 1: all this wote crap has really, you know, poisoned sports
Speaker 1: and really poisoned a lot of the fun of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, just recently, you look at this Tim Anderson
Speaker 1: Josh Donaldson saga. So you've got a guy Tim Anderson
Speaker 1: for the folks at Home White Sox player. He's black.
Speaker 1: He had previously referred to himself as today's Jackie Robinson
Speaker 1: and a Sports Illustrated interview. So then Josh Donaldson, who
Speaker 1: is why he plays for the Yankees. He jokingly referred
Speaker 1: to him to Anderson as Jackie something that he had
Speaker 1: called himself. And now Josh Donaldson is on the receiving
Speaker 1: end of suspension, finds uh. And you know, with future
Speaker 1: being uncertain, does that make any sense to you, Clay No.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of times what I try
Speaker 1: to do was say, let's take away the race related
Speaker 1: components to this story, right, Um, just take it away,
Speaker 1: because so many people are committed to whatever their angle
Speaker 1: is on race relations that they can't think rationally. So
Speaker 1: it just say Lee said that I called myself, uh,
Speaker 1: the next Babe Ruth right, and I was a great
Speaker 1: Major League baseball player and I had just come into
Speaker 1: the league. Comparing yourself to someone of incredible historical relevancy,
Speaker 1: one of the greatest to ever do something is an
Speaker 1: incredibly cocky move to make. Right, Like if you're a
Speaker 1: brand new quarterback and you called yourself the next Tom Brady, uh,
Speaker 1: the first time that you stepped onto the field in
Speaker 1: the NFL, or in college, other people would react to
Speaker 1: that comment, right, and if you let's use it for
Speaker 1: football examples. If you got sacked, uh and had a
Speaker 1: four interception game, it's likely that one of your opponents
Speaker 1: would be like, hey, good game, tom Brady. Right, because
Speaker 1: you called yourself Tom Brady and then you went out
Speaker 1: and you performed in a different fashion, they're going to
Speaker 1: talk about you as branding yourself the next Tom Brady.
Speaker 1: If I called myself the next Babe Ruth, it's not
Speaker 1: crazy to think that on a major league baseball field
Speaker 1: somebody might gently mock me by calling me babe on
Speaker 1: the field, right, That wouldn't be racist. That would be
Speaker 1: using my own words, uh, in a way to make
Speaker 1: fun of me, right, Like, if anyone should be being
Speaker 1: talked about in this story, to me, it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's the idea that you're the next Jackie Robinson. What
Speaker 1: you're comparing yourself to the guy who integrated baseball? Like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing that is anywhere near the level
Speaker 1: of significance to what to what Jackie Robinson did. So,
Speaker 1: if anybody deserves to be made fun of and ridiculed
Speaker 1: in this scenario, it's the guy who in twenty nine
Speaker 1: decide decides to label himself the next to Jackie Robinson
Speaker 1: because you're doing what exactly I mean, that's the crazy
Speaker 1: part to me, If anything, it's super disrespectful of Jackie
Speaker 1: Robinson for a player into to compare himself to Jackie Robinson,
Speaker 1: whether he's black or white. And by the way, taking
Speaker 1: it outside of baseball, do you know what Leah Thomas
Speaker 1: is uh is claimed, it's been written, was saying that
Speaker 1: that the transgender athlete Leah Thomas was the Jackie Robinson
Speaker 1: of women's swimming. That to me is an insult right
Speaker 1: like that should be called out. But at least there
Speaker 1: is something different, something new, that that person is representing.
Speaker 1: I've also heard Michael sam called the Jackie Robinson of
Speaker 1: the NFL because he was a gay, the first gay
Speaker 1: player I believe to come out. All of these are insults,
Speaker 1: insults to me, in my opinion, to Jackie Robinson because
Speaker 1: his significance was so much more uh of an issue
Speaker 1: and so much more of a challenge than what these
Speaker 1: guys are dealing with. But if anybody's gonna be ridiculed,
Speaker 1: it should be the guy who's comparing himself to Jackie Robinson.
Speaker 1: Now that's such a great point. And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people look at this stuff and it really
Speaker 1: is it's you know, it's all b s. I mean
Speaker 1: you look at the NBA. They do all this stuff
Speaker 1: on Black Lives Matter, all this crap about you know,
Speaker 1: social justice, whatever, whatever, and then we see a report
Speaker 1: that NBA owners have invested over or more than ten
Speaker 1: billion dollars in communist China as the country quite literally
Speaker 1: wages a genocide against the weaker population. Yeah. Look, and
Speaker 1: not only that, Uh, the NBA pulled it's All Star
Speaker 1: game out of Charlotte because of a transgender bathroom bill,
Speaker 1: but they are going to play games in the United
Speaker 1: Arab Emirates where if you're gay you can be put
Speaker 1: to death. I don't begrudge least. I've said this for
Speaker 1: a long time. If businesses want to maximize profits by
Speaker 1: doing business and as many different countries in the world,
Speaker 1: and they want to say, look, we uphold American values
Speaker 1: in the in our country, but American values don't govern
Speaker 1: China or Saudi Arabia or or the U a E.
Speaker 1: Or wherever you're going, right, but we're going to try
Speaker 1: to bring our product to those countries. Nonetheless, so long
Speaker 1: as they comply with American law UH in the United
Speaker 1: States and are following laws of other countries, that's fine
Speaker 1: with me. I'm never gonna begrudge a capitalistic organization for
Speaker 1: embracing capitalism. But when you lecture me, and let me
Speaker 1: give you an example, the w w E does events
Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia, that's fine with me, right because the
Speaker 1: w w E is trying to do the best events
Speaker 1: that they can in the United States and Canada and
Speaker 1: Australia and Europe wherever they're doing events, right, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna be upset at the w w E for going
Speaker 1: to Saudi Arabia, even though Saudi Arabia has human rights
Speaker 1: laws that are different than would exist in the United States.
Speaker 1: But when you pull the All Star Game out of Charlotte,
Speaker 1: North Carolina and lecture Americans over transgender related laws and
Speaker 1: individual states, when you put UH left wing slogans on
Speaker 1: your jerseys UH and literally right black lives matter on
Speaker 1: the basketball court UH during the NBA season, and then
Speaker 1: you're going to the u a E where gay men
Speaker 1: and women can be put to death, I'm sorry. The
Speaker 1: hypocrisy is so staggering that it has to be called out.
Speaker 1: You can't have one policy in America and an entirely
Speaker 1: different one in the rest of the world when you're
Speaker 1: lecturing us all on how awful America is. And that's
Speaker 1: why I get so fired up. Stay with us, We've
Speaker 1: got to take one more break, and then back with
Speaker 1: Clay Travis. Don't miss it. So I wanted to ask you.
Speaker 1: I saw that in two thousand and sixteen, you voted
Speaker 1: for Gary Johnson and you voted for Trump. What changed
Speaker 1: for you? It's a really good question. And I've written
Speaker 1: and talked a lot about my evolution in terms of
Speaker 1: my own political opinions. UH like to me, and I
Speaker 1: wrote I was, I think the only person in sports
Speaker 1: media basically who came out. I wrote a long piece
Speaker 1: about why I was going to be voting for Donald
Speaker 1: Trump in I didn't know what to expect. I was
Speaker 1: obviously not happy in with either Hillary or Trump as candidates.
Speaker 1: I thought that entire year, uh in that campaign was
Speaker 1: a total mess. Uh. And I have a lot of
Speaker 1: libertarian beliefs, and so I was willing to vote for
Speaker 1: a libertarian. Now, partly, let me say this, I don't
Speaker 1: really think anybody should vote libertarian in who lives in
Speaker 1: a state where you know what the outcome of your
Speaker 1: race is already going to be. I live in Tennessee, right,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, I knew was going to win. In my
Speaker 1: vote for president really didn't matter. Um. If you live
Speaker 1: in Georgia or Nevada, or Wisconsin, or Michigan or Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: or maybe New Mexico, UH and Arizona and you're voting libertarian, you,
Speaker 1: to me are failing to make a choice that is significant.
Speaker 1: I don't think we talk enough about the fact that,
Speaker 1: even based on the numbers that are out there, Trump
Speaker 1: would have won with ease if libertarians had not been
Speaker 1: on the ballot. Right. Um, and you look at the
Speaker 1: tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who cast
Speaker 1: their vote in those battleground states for a libertarian candidate,
Speaker 1: I think you made an awful choice, and I think
Speaker 1: you're seeing it with Joe Biden. But the things that
Speaker 1: I care about the most, mostly so, are a full
Speaker 1: flourishment of the First Amendment, standing up to China, UH,
Speaker 1: individual uh liberties as it pertained to COVID. By the
Speaker 1: time we got to I was I was all in
Speaker 1: and and and there's a lot of different transition points,
Speaker 1: but for me, the point where I said I can't
Speaker 1: support any Democrat anymore. The Brett Kavanaugh hearings were really
Speaker 1: big for me. I went to law school. I've got
Speaker 1: a legal uh degree, so unfamiliar pretty well, certainly with
Speaker 1: the process of selecting Supreme Court justices. The Democrats have
Speaker 1: gone so far left wing, uh that I feel a
Speaker 1: lot like Elon Musk when he when he shared that
Speaker 1: meme of himself not really having moved. And you've gone
Speaker 1: from you know, over the course of twenty years, Lisa,
Speaker 1: I've gone from a little bit left of center to
Speaker 1: like a right winger. Uh. And it's not because I've
Speaker 1: necessarily moved very much in terms of what I believe.
Speaker 1: It's because the Democrats have lost their minds and have
Speaker 1: gone so far left wing, left wings. So when you're
Speaker 1: talking about transgender when you're talking about people testifying in
Speaker 1: Congress that men can get pregnant and have babies, uh,
Speaker 1: And when you're talking about uh, you know, nine months
Speaker 1: abortions being okay, or you know, there's jokes that justify
Speaker 1: somebody being able to be attacked on stage, which is
Speaker 1: what they're saying now about Dave Chappelle, or even that
Speaker 1: comedians can't make jokes that make people uncomfortable, cancel culture, identity, politics, embrace,
Speaker 1: which is what their Democrat Party represents. I fundamentally reject
Speaker 1: all of that. And you know, I'm frankly stunned that
Speaker 1: anybody could be happy to have voted for Joe Biden
Speaker 1: based on what the first eighteen months have been. I
Speaker 1: said today on the show Leagusa. Um, you know, I
Speaker 1: got lectured for a long time about being on the
Speaker 1: wrong side of history by a lot of left wingers.
Speaker 1: They wagged their fingers at me for being a Trump supporter,
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking of myself, first of all. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was a history major. I may, in a different
Speaker 1: world have ended up getting my PhD in history. I'm
Speaker 1: a I'm a huge American history buff. These people who
Speaker 1: lectured us about being on the wrong side of history
Speaker 1: right now have voted for the worst president in a
Speaker 1: hundred years. I think you have to go all the
Speaker 1: way back to Herbert Hoover to point to a president
Speaker 1: that's been a disastrous this point in their presidency, as
Speaker 1: Joe Biden has been. Um, are all those people now
Speaker 1: recognizing yet that they're on the wrong side of history,
Speaker 1: that they've been lecturing us Donald Trump and would have
Speaker 1: been an infinitely better choice than Joe Biden. And we've
Speaker 1: only had eighteen months and that's already I think a
Speaker 1: virtual certainty. No, I mean, it's really scary. I mean,
Speaker 1: I knew Joe Biden would be bad, but I didn't
Speaker 1: realize anything could be this bad this quickly. It's it's
Speaker 1: actually we'd be airlifting in baby formula humanitarian aid here.
Speaker 1: I never saw anybody arguing that. It's almost a shame,
Speaker 1: you know, just well one saying what he did in
Speaker 1: Afghanistan and then obviously seeing us take humanitarian aid from Europe.
Speaker 1: It's like we're turning into a third World country under Biden.
Speaker 1: It's just it's sad to see is obviously two people
Speaker 1: who love this country to just see the deterioration. It's
Speaker 1: really sad, you know. And we've got a sidekick, Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1: I want to play this clip from her real quick
Speaker 1: and then get your thoughts on it. You know, when
Speaker 1: we talk about our children, I know, for this group,
Speaker 1: we all believe that when we talk about the children
Speaker 1: of the community, they are the children of the community,
Speaker 1: and she was talking about the baby formula and trying
Speaker 1: to get into the US. Has there ever been a
Speaker 1: better communicator? Joe Biden might have picked the only worst
Speaker 1: communicator than him to be his vice president. And I
Speaker 1: think this is, honestly, Lisa a little bit emblematic of
Speaker 1: what one party rule does. Kamala Harris has never really
Speaker 1: been challenged because she came out of California right um.
Speaker 1: And this is a result I think of how awful
Speaker 1: she is at her job and at communication, um, the
Speaker 1: likes of which I'm not sure that we've ever seen.
Speaker 1: And I was one of those people who believed when
Speaker 1: Joe Biden came into office that the idea was clearly
Speaker 1: that he was going to be a one term guy
Speaker 1: and hand the reins to Kamala and right off into
Speaker 1: the sunset as an eighty two year old would typically do.
Speaker 1: Biden has been far worse than I expected, but Kamala
Speaker 1: has been much worse than I expected, even worse than Biden.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why Democrats right now are panicking
Speaker 1: because what I referred too, as you know, we had
Speaker 1: the already weekend that Burnie's presidency of Joe Biden. Um,
Speaker 1: they're gonna maybe have to try weekend at Burnings too
Speaker 1: and drag him across the finish line. Again. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's gonna work because I think Biden is so
Speaker 1: mentally deteriorated. I think most people can see it. Um,
Speaker 1: But this idea is just uh, it's scary that we've
Speaker 1: gotten here. And I always say I don't root for
Speaker 1: a president to be incompetent um, even if he has
Speaker 1: different policies than I might UH want to have advocated for,
Speaker 1: because ultimately we all bear the cost. I think Ukraine
Speaker 1: invasion happened because there was no respect for Joe Biden
Speaker 1: anywhere in uh in Vladimir Putin's mindset. Um. I think
Speaker 1: what happened in Afghanistan happened because Joe Biden is so weak, um,
Speaker 1: and that China will and already is taking advantage of
Speaker 1: us as much as they possibly can, based again on
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's in competence. So I've said before again this
Speaker 1: is coming with a sports analogy. Um. You know, it
Speaker 1: feels like the Biden administration Lisa is tanking for the
Speaker 1: overall number one draft pick, Except when you tank for
Speaker 1: the overall number one draft pick. There's at least a
Speaker 1: beneficial goal. I'm not sure what the beneficial goal here is.
Speaker 1: And I don't even know who you would select from
Speaker 1: the Biden administration and say, hey, in this entire cabinet,
Speaker 1: I would pick insert name here, he or she seems
Speaker 1: like they might be competent as president. I can't even
Speaker 1: think of one. Well, it's like picking the tallest midget.
Speaker 1: You know, Is there anything else you want to leave
Speaker 1: us with before we go? It's just that, despite all
Speaker 1: the negativity of some of this conversation, I'm actually a
Speaker 1: huge optimist um. And the reason why I say that
Speaker 1: is I think when you study American history, you have
Speaker 1: a great deal of humbleness when it comes to understanding
Speaker 1: how much the passions of the moment can often, in
Speaker 1: retrospect UH hide us from the general trajectory of the country,
Speaker 1: which I do think moves in a positive direction. And
Speaker 1: maybe example I'll use we know are going to be
Speaker 1: hard fought, perilous, fraught with difficulty in general. But I
Speaker 1: just want to remind everybody we had an election during
Speaker 1: the Civil War, and we had an election during World
Speaker 1: War two, UH, and we were able to UH do
Speaker 1: the eighteen sixty four and in nineteen forty four, two
Speaker 1: different elections and probably the midst of the most tumultuous
Speaker 1: times in our nation's history. I am confident that eventually
Speaker 1: we're going to come through this. And I think the
Speaker 1: historical analogy I would bring to bear now is Biden
Speaker 1: is Jimmy Carter in the context that the only reason
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter got elected was water game. The only reason
Speaker 1: Joe Biden got elected was COVID. He sold the American
Speaker 1: population on the idea that he would solve COVID. I
Speaker 1: think what we've seen certainly is that was a lie.
Speaker 1: No politician was going to solve COVID. Uh. And just
Speaker 1: as Jimmy Carter got kicked to the curb, I think
Speaker 1: what we are ready for is probably twenty years of
Speaker 1: normalcy um and we had Ronald Reagan that rose up
Speaker 1: to be Jimmy Carter. I think there will be a
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan like nine, eight and four over the next
Speaker 1: and then maybe eight as well over the next several years.
Speaker 1: Because if you remember Bill Clinton one in ninety two
Speaker 1: and in basically running as a Republican, so from nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two effectively Obama in two thousand and eight, over
Speaker 1: a quarter century, we basically had normalcy governing in America.
Speaker 1: I think there's a great craving for that, and I
Speaker 1: think that's where we're did uh on the horizon, Clay Travis,
Speaker 1: this has been a smart and very fun conversation. You're
Speaker 1: a busy man, and I really appreciate your time. Thank
Speaker 1: you for having me, Thanks for coming on the show
Speaker 1: as well to Clay and bought show. We'll have to
Speaker 1: get you on again. You were great. Keep up the
Speaker 1: good work. So that was fun. I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: it as much as I did. You know, Clay Travis
Speaker 1: has obviously been immensely successful in the world of media,
Speaker 1: but he's a really smart, really funny guy. I thought
Speaker 1: it was a ton of fun. I hope you guys
Speaker 1: at home enjoyed it. I appreciate you all listening every Monday,
Speaker 1: every Thursday The Truth with Lisa Booth. Don't forget to go.
Speaker 1: Rate us five stars on Apple, leave us a review.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening, and thanks to my producer,
Speaker 1: John Cassio for working so hard to bring this show together.
Speaker 1: See you guys next time.