Chapter 1: What recent events in Minneapolis are impacting church protests?
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Welcome in, everybody. Thursday edition of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show kicks off right now. We've got Jack Smith hearings on Capitol Hill, bringing some highlights of that. I'm not expecting much to come of it, but it's causing fireworks in our nation's capital, sort of. So we will get into it in a little bit. Trump on the Greenland deal. Very interesting stuff happening there.
He's talking Golden Dome, mineral rights, all kinds of goodies that he believes he has lined up for us via Greenland. And Trump speaking with Maria Bartiromo this morning. Some highlights from that. J.D. Vance is in Toledo, Ohio. Gavin Newsom. We'll talk to our friend Katie Zachariah, a California political and legal analyst, about Newsom.
He got a little bit of a womp womp because they canceled his Davos speech at the last minute. He's saying it's pressure from Trump world. We shall see more and more on all of that. In the meantime, my friends, the big, big news today coming out of, yes, you guessed it, Minneapolis.
Chapter 2: How has the DOJ responded to the Minneapolis church protest arrests?
Minneapolis, Minnesota. We have the following from Attorney General Pam Bondi. This on Twitter or X. Minutes ago at my direction... FBI agents executed an arrest in Minnesota. So far, we have arrested Nikima Levi Armstrong. who allegedly played a key role in organizing the coordinated attack on City's Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. We will share more updates as they become available.
Listen loud and clear. All caps now, Clay. We do not tolerate attacks on places of worship. This, I think... is what many of you have been calling for. And this is a pretty quick turnaround for DOJ, at least, on this kind of an arrest, I have to say. They wanted to make sure they get all this lined up. And this is now, I think, the beginning of more arrests like this.
Although, Clay, now there's going to be a lot of rewriting of history. It was peaceful protest. We were just hanging out in the church. We were asking for directions. You know, it was no big deal. Anti-ice church protester organizer Levi Armstrong was on CNN last night. This is cut one. Here's her claim. This is pre-arrest, by the way. Hit it.
We did not rush into that church. We actually went and sat down and participated in the service. And after the pastor prayed, that is when I stood up and asked him a question in response to his prayer. And then he responded to me.
Chapter 3: What statistics highlight the drop in violent crime during Trump's presidency?
And then I proceeded to ask him about Pastor David Easterwood. And how is it possible for him to serve as both the pastor and the director of ICE for Minnesota? And instead of responding to me, as soon as I said the name David Easterwood, the pastor says, shame, shame. And that is when I let us enchant justice for Renee Good and hands up, don't shoot. So I want to clarify that. We didn't rush in.
We didn't bust in.
Okay, Clay, now it's the big mean pastor was the one who caused the problem. In his church, by the way, trying to celebrate with his congregants and enjoy their connection with God, these lunatics show up. Once again, whether it's BLM with the cops or it's just the leftist agitators with ICE, their main enemy, video footage. Video footage. We saw. We've all seen what happened.
Yes, so credit to the Department of Justice for getting these arrests done in Minneapolis. I've actually seen, which I think speaks to even Democrats being like, yeah, this is probably inappropriate. I've actually seen so far a fairly muted response from Democrats in terms of being opposed to these arrests going on. I mean, I'm sure that there's going to be the usual suspects lining up
but it doesn't feel to me like this is some sort of cross the Rubicon moment for them. And you knew that these activists were aware that they had potentially created an issue because they very rapidly started trying to recharacterize what actually happened, even though we could all see it on video ourselves. And for those of you out there that are not familiar with the FACE Act, for instance,
You know, it was actually designed to stop. If you're wondering where did this law having to do with protecting church services come from, you know what it was actually designed to do for churches, Buck? It was designed to stop white supremacists. This is their thesis when they passed it. It was designed to stop white supremacists, they said, from interrupting black churches.
So, oh, you've got to be careful sometimes with the laws that you put on the books because the precedent that is applied for them can shift as the world changes. Because Democrats today, Buck, we all know, would never pass a law that prohibited protests from taking place in churches.
In fact, they would probably pass a law saying we need more protests inside of churches if you had to ask them to make a choice now. But this law is on the books. And Attorney General Pam Bondi traveled to Minneapolis.
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Chapter 4: How do sanctuary city policies affect immigration enforcement?
And this is what we somewhat talked about yesterday. It's one thing to say arrest people, but you have to tangibly connect the arrest to a crime. And the work that has been done here, I think it's kind of an open and shut case. pretty clearly demonstrates that these individuals broke the law.
And now we'll see whether a jury is willing to convict them in Minneapolis, which I think is an entirely different process. But these warrants, these arrests were signed off on probable cause based on the evidence. And it's pretty significant, I think, that we've already seen a result. I think Pam Bondi deserves credit.
I think the Minnesota lawyers deserve credit and the Department of Justice overall.
Now, here's J.D. Vance, by the way, speaking to this. This was this morning. He's in Ohio, but he was talking about the situation in Minneapolis and just how he's making the point, Clay, that we've been hammering here for days, which is this could all be made so much easier. This could be unnecessary. It is necessary because of the decisions the Democrats have made.
But if they were willing to just give the slightest assistance to federal law enforcement on these issues by just allowing access into their jails, for example, by just giving a heads up, a phone call, an email, hey, you know that three-time violent felon that has an order of deportation? We got him. We just picked him up on something. They could do that, and this wouldn't be necessary.
They refuse. Here's J.D. This is cut 17, and he is speaking the truth about what's really going on here.
I'm headed from here to Minneapolis, where we're going to talk with some of our ICE agents, talk with local officials about how we can turn down the chaos. And my simple piece of advice to them is going to be, look, if you want to turn down the chaos in Minneapolis, stop fighting immigration enforcement and accept that we have to have a border in this country. It's not that hard.
If you look all across our country, what's happened in Minneapolis is happening almost nowhere else in the United States of America. And that's because whether it's in Texas or Tennessee, it's in red states, it's in blue cities.
Even within our country, most people are cooperating with the simple principle that we ought to be able to enforce our immigration laws and get illegal criminals the hell out of the United States of America. It's really not that complicated.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of Gavin Newsom's political ambitions?
I mean, you know, you sit here. I'm seeing none of this in Miami because they don't have the same processes of obstruction in place. They've made they're making this happen is the point.
No, I think that's really important because if you're in a state like you are, Florida, or a state like I am, Tennessee, by and large, there is not this obstruction constantly that is occurring of ICE's ability to do their jobs. And I would say this is one thing you could look at, and maybe Pam Bondi and her team are looking at it in Minneapolis and in Minnesota writ large right now,
If there is tangible evidence of Mayor Fry saying in some way or Tim Walz providing instruction in some way to state or city employees to obstruct ICE's ability to do their jobs, potentially you could have an obstruction charge that could be brought against Mayor Fry or Governor Walz.
This to me is one of the great questions that is out there in general, which is to what extent is there direct evidence of behavior that would constitute a crime on behalf of these individuals who are obstructing ICE? In particular, as I said yesterday, I still think it's one of the great unexamined aspects of the entirety of the immigration era.
How in the world have we allowed the possibility of a sanctuary city to exist at all? Federal law is supreme. So when the president of the United States on immigration-related issues, when the president of the United States says the law of the land is this on immigration, it is undisputedly in his province of authority. And, Buck, do you remember how frustrating this was?
We talked about it a lot. When Biden had the open borders and Governor Greg Abbott in Texas and so many other individuals in Texas said, we've got to have the power to control ingress and egress in our state. And they kept getting slapped down by judges who said, well, it's really more of a federal than a state issue.
If that principle applies, which it does for Biden and for Trump, sanctuary cities are not permissible under federal law. And anyone who is allowing them to occur in theory is violating federal law and their state and local laws are covered by the supremacy clause.
And so you could bring charges in that aspect, which would be applicable, whether it's California, Minnesota, New York, anywhere in the country.
And this is where we got into the discussion yesterday. I'm sure we still have some talkbacks about it from those who just want charges to be filed versus the, hey, let's know why we're bringing the charge approach to these things, which I think is good, because if you bring a charge that is frivolous, especially in a place like Minnesota.
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Chapter 6: How does the political landscape in California reflect broader trends?
Now you have a reasonable chance of a judge seeing this and at least allowing this to go to an indictment phase instead of just it's going to get... Now, it might get tossed out, but... I mean, you're ensuring it's going to get tossed out of your showing up with like we just arrest this person because we don't like them, which, by the way, we actually don't want that happening.
I understand that this is where there's a little bit of you. You don't want to be in a country where you just get arrested because people don't like you. I know the other side has done this with Trump to some extent. But it failed. It failed. And if you want any more proof of that, you can see the mugshot. Did you ever get a mugshot T-shirt? Was that you that got that?
I got a mugshot T-shirt autographed by President Trump. It is in my house. I mean, I think that is an all-timer. Maybe the greatest mugshot's ever been taken, by the way.
The point here is, as far as I see it, Pam Bondi's making the right move. This arrest, this charging of this organizer... Violation of law, it's there, it's real, it's clear, let's go. If you find out that Buffoon Walls was doing something illegal, great, but we have to find that there's a thing that we can credibly say he was doing that's illegal. He doesn't arrest people. I don't know.
I think that's a pretty self-evident truth. All right, this is the month that many of us cut back on expenses because, look, things got a little crazy in December. But I think it's time you should save some money with the easiest thing I can think of. Switch to Pure Talk.
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Making America great again isn't just one man, it's many. The Team 47 Podcast, Sundays at noon Eastern in the Clay and Buck Podcast feed. Find it on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Chapter 7: What is the significance of voter ID laws in California's elections?
Welcome in, hour number two, Clay Travis, Buck Sexton show. Okay. We got a lot going on, as has been the case for the last several weeks. Breaking news, Minneapolis church protesters have been arrested, several of them. There have been charges brought or attempted to be brought against Don Lemon, among others. There were reports from CBS News confirmed by the Daily Wire.
that a judge refused to sign the complaint allowing Don Lemon to be arrested. Jack Smith has been testifying. All three news networks have been covering his testimony. We will play some of it for you. But again, the Minneapolis news, I think, has taken precedence. And maybe the most surprising thing to me about this at all, Buck, is...
No one is out there really defending these individuals who were arrested. In fact... The opposite. And even Mayor Fry, who weighed in and said this is a completely inappropriate arrest. It's the first comment that he has made at all about the protest inside of the church. But it feels like there has been a sort of code red ordered on behalf of Democrats to throw this crew to the wolves.
and not defend them because I think they recognize the optics were so bad. In fact, yesterday, whether we believe him or not, remember Don Lemon said he hadn't even seen the video of the protest from inside of Minneapolis when he was asked, Gavin Newsom was, at Davos about this incident. So it feels like maybe the politics on this are so bad that everybody is running from it.
And I'm stunned, frankly, that there are no coverage on MSNBC of these arrests, no coverage on CNN, because if you remember. But remember when that judge in Milwaukee got arrested for interfering with the ICE proceeding and immediately it was everywhere and they said, oh, my goodness, this is fascism and Trump. And then the video came out of the judge and everybody stopped defending her.
And she was later convicted and she's no longer a judge. I do think this is maybe that where the video came out and Democrats just said, this is such a bad look for us. We're not even going to fight on this ground. Mayor Fry has, but I haven't seen anything of any significant nature from any sort of outspoken national Democrats on it.
Yeah, I think that they've recognized this is a very tough one because, like I said, of the video and the fact that there are specific laws. And do they want to say that those laws shouldn't exist?
you know this is the next level of it is do we want to be in a country where keep in mind if a church isn't protected neither is a synagogue neither is a mosque neither is a you know a hindu temple go down the list anytime you want to get attention for yourself and your lunatic cause you can interrupt a house of worship and cause a riot and shouted everybody and and ruin their religious service because you feel like it but by the way a black church same thing you know if
If you're in the South and you're in a black church, should some maniac, right-wing, left-wing, doesn't matter, be able to just shout down everybody in that black church and intimidate them? Of course not. So the law is actually a good law because we don't want what these morons did.
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Chapter 8: How do recent polling trends indicate the future of the Democratic Party?
But I did want to hit this to off the second top of the second hour because I don't think it's going to be talked about very much. And I actually think it is a tremendous accomplishment, one of the best accomplishments so far of Trump 2.0. I'm reading from Axios Buck. U.S. murder rate hits lowest level since nineteen hundred. I want to repeat that because it should be everywhere.
Everybody should be talking about this. The murder rate in Trump 2.0 year one just hit the lowest level since 1900. Murders fell 21% last year, the biggest one-year drop ever, likely the lowest rate since the year 1900, Axios data says. The decline signals a complete reversal of the COVID era crime wave. Here are a couple of data points inside of this. Aggravated assaults fell by 9%.
Gun assaults and robbery down 22% and 23% respectively. And in some cities, listen to this, Buck. murders fell 40% in Washington, D.C. Do you remember when they told us that Trump surging resources in Washington, D.C. was going to have no impact? 40% in D.C. and in Omaha, Nebraska. Murder down 41% in Denver.
And in general, the national murder rate is down to 4 per 100,000 people, the lowest level it has been at since 1900. This is a really big deal. And I think it's a sign of Trump's endorsement of law and order, and it's having real impact already.
Well, I'm sure it's coming. Minneapolis right now is the focus, as is Greenland and the negotiations at Davos. But I think this White House is probably going to have a press conference in the days ahead where the first thing we hear from Caroline Leavitt is going to be all these stats that you just shared. If they haven't done this already, maybe I've missed some of this.
But they should do that because a few things. One, the administration deserves the credit for making a decision in the face of tremendous And also, this really matters. This isn't adjusting the marginal tax rate for a 12-month period until we figure out what the next appropriations bill is. This is saving people's lives.
And so it's important that everyone understands the old way of, sorry, we just have to have X hundred number of murders in this city or that city because that's the way it is, should no longer apply. What's even more... What's the word? Shocking, but maybe it shouldn't be shocking. Clay, all the people that were opposed to this should now be saying, wow, murders are way down. Trump was right.
We should do more of this. But they won't because they would rather... I don't know how else you could frame this. They would rather more people get shot and killed in D.C., in Memphis, in all these different cities we're talking about.
They'd rather more people get shot and killed because they don't have to see that and deal with it if they don't live there or they don't live in one of the bad neighborhoods that admit that Trump was right and that he's saving lives. Think about that. Imagine that's your moral calculation. Because that's the calculation Democrats all across the country are making.
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