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Verdict with Ted Cruz

Bonus: Daily Review with Clay and Buck with Ted Cruz

13 Jan 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What are the implications of dropping core inflation to 2.6%?

0.031 - 3.577 Unknown

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.

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4.399 - 29.554 Clay Travis

Welcome back in to Clay and Buck. Trump right now is in Michigan. He's going to be giving a speech in Detroit, Motor City. That's right, right? It's Motor City. Yeah, it is. Yeah. My wife's hometown. She's up there right now. I wish I could speak to it with tremendous fondness, but I have never been to Detroit, Clay. So I should probably go check that place out.

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29.594 - 32.618 Clay Travis

Never been in the city of Detroit before. So I'm going to go see.

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Chapter 2: How could capping credit card interest rates impact low-income Americans?

33.279 - 34.521 Clay Travis

I might bust out my rhymes.

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34.561 - 44.574 Buck Sexton

Maybe better to put on the target list, especially in the summer. But I've spent a lot of time in Detroit. It's a better city than I think it gets credit for. This is like what I said about Chicago.

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44.995 - 68.721 Clay Travis

Carrie and I, my first ever time in Chicago, I went in May and it was 75 degrees and crystal clear skies. And everything was fantastic. And I'm like, I think I did it. Like, I don't know. I don't need to go back to Chicago in January now. I had perfect Chicago in May. So maybe I'll go to Detroit this summer. But Trump is there right now. And he's hoping to get the American people.

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69.081 - 73.245 Clay Travis

And obviously his administration is very much focused on the economy.

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Chapter 3: What role does financial literacy play in consumer protection?

74.146 - 85.831 Clay Travis

And there are some challenges going into this. Of course, there's always going to be economic challenges. No one's ever going to be. This is one thing I just want to say, Clay. No one's ever going to wake up and be like, you know what's perfect? The American economy.

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86.091 - 105.15 Clay Travis

I mean, you can be grateful for the fact that America does have the best, most dynamic wealth generation machinery for any nation state, for any political entity in the history of the world. I'm like, we should remember that. But there's always going to be things that... You want to change that aren't working right. There's always going to be problems.

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105.41 - 115.186 Clay Travis

OK, that's why we have a government that has to handle these things. They don't do a good job, but at least theoretically, that's what they're supposed to be doing. I think Trump is, though, doing on the economy a good job.

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115.227 - 127.407 Clay Travis

I think he knows that it's absolutely critical for the American people and also for the upcoming midterms, because his agenda becomes, let's just say, a lot harder to implement than

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Chapter 4: How does the Trump administration's economic agenda address affordability?

127.623 - 139 Clay Travis

If they lose control of the House of Representatives, they will impeach Trump a third. I don't even think you and I can have a bet on this one, right? You agree they're going to impeach Trump a third time if they win the House, right? You agree with that?

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140.262 - 151.775 Buck Sexton

100% they're going to impeach him. I always wish they would just do it and not even tell us why. Be like, we're just impeaching him because he's so awful. Just get it over with.

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152.095 - 171.46 Buck Sexton

I just feel like the whole concept of impeachment, if you don't have any pathway to 67 votes, which I don't think by and large there will be in any of the lives of any of the people listening right now, then all of it's just a big sham and a big sideshow. It's theater. The first two words. Yeah, it's just non-impactful.

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172.402 - 185.997 Clay Travis

It's like a vote of censure or something. It's sending Trump... It's the congressional majority sending Trump a strongly worded letter that he will not care about one bit. But anyway, I think that on the economy, we all know that...

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Chapter 5: What are the key arguments in the Supreme Court case on transgender athletes?

186.415 - 211.138 Clay Travis

affordability is a big challenge. And there's some polling out there that says that he's at a rough spot right now with the economy. Now, essentially, you look at what the things are that he could do. You and I haven't discussed this yet. Capping credit card interest rates at 10%. I'm... I'm of a few minds on this, I would say.

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211.358 - 235.845 Clay Travis

And I want to hear what you... Clay and I haven't... Sometimes we're texting our ideas back and forth about things. So I'm just going in on this cold. On the one hand, I think credit card companies have had far too much lobbying power. They've had Joe Biden doing their bidding in Delaware, for example, for longer than I've been alive. The fact that they can charge a 30%... Oh...

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236.112 - 241.621 Clay Travis

All right, well, we're going to have to put a little pin in our credit card discussion. We're going to come back to it. All right, Clay, can we make a promise we'll come back to it?

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Chapter 6: How does Jennifer Sey view the impact of gender identity on women's sports?

241.641 - 242.482 Buck Sexton

Yes, we will return.

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242.502 - 254.14 Clay Travis

I jotted it down. We have an esteemed caller has joined us, Senator Ted Cruz of the great state of Texas. Senator, it's been a while. Happy 2026. How are you doing?

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255.021 - 264.886 Senator Ted Cruz

I am doing fabulous, and you'll appreciate I'm doing particularly well because I – I enjoyed last night the Texans whipping the Steelers' ass. That just brought great joy to my heart.

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264.906 - 265.607 Buck Sexton

That was a beatdown.

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266.588 - 290.492 Senator Ted Cruz

It vindicated, as a little kid growing up in the 70s in Houston, the 79 and 80 AFC championships are still wounds that have not healed. As the greatest Oilers team we ever had with Earl Campbell crashed into the Pittsburgh Steelers. So I feel like we got a modicum of justice and revenge for – for a decades-old wound.

291.093 - 298.328 Clay Travis

Well, as I know, we have a massive Houston audience and are number one consistently in the slot, Senator Cruz.

Chapter 7: What strategies are being discussed to support protests in Iran?

298.708 - 316.017 Clay Travis

Whatever the people of Houston root for, I root for. So if it's the Texans, I'm on board. Talk to us, if you would, on the serious side of things. Actually, can I get, it's a longer discussion. I want to ask you about Iran, obviously. I know you're going to have a lot on that.

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316.057 - 332.737 Clay Travis

And I'm getting people reaching out to me saying, family members, friends of mine, either themselves or they have friends or family who are in Iran, are desperate for some kind of help. We'll get to that in one second. It's a smaller thing, but affordability is a huge thing. The credit card 10% cap, what do you make of that, Senator?

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332.757 - 337.382 Clay Travis

You take a very straightforward approach to finances and the American people's budgets.

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338.273 - 351.438 Senator Ted Cruz

Look, we've tried that approach in the past. Both Nixon and Carter tried an approach very similar, and it didn't work. When you cap prices, what you end up doing is you exclude a whole bunch of people from the market. So you know what?

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Chapter 8: How can technology assist in modern resistance movements?

351.478 - 371.448 Senator Ted Cruz

If you're rich, if you have great credit, a cap of 10% does not limit your ability to get credit because you've got good enough credit that, frankly, you're not paying 10% anyway. The people that will get hurt by a 10% cap are people who are low income, people who are struggling to get credit, people who have bad – people who have a record of defaults.

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372.068 - 394.197 Senator Ted Cruz

And if you cap it at 10%, what it's going to mean is they're not going to be able to get any credit cards at all. Basically, you're taking away credit cards from every person for whom the credit risk is greater than a 10% rate justifies. And look, for many people, if you've got a higher interest credit card – You're doing that because you got bills. Maybe you got to pay rent.

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394.217 - 412.104 Senator Ted Cruz

Maybe you got to pay by groceries that week. Maybe you got to pay for your kid to get braces. And if you can't get a credit card, it will drive every one of those people to an even worse credit option, whether it is a payday loan or whether it is a loan shark down the street.

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413.066 - 420.357 Senator Ted Cruz

And so I think the law of unintended consequences is really quite significant here, and I think there are a lot of downside risks.

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421.315 - 444.336 Buck Sexton

Okay, let's go into Iran and what's going on in the country right now. President Trump earlier today had a very aggressive statement that he made. And I see Ambassador Mike Waltz just tweeted in the last little bit, the Iranian people are chanting death to Khomeini rather than death to America. Freedom is in the air thanks to President Trump's leadership.

444.316 - 453.488 Buck Sexton

If President Trump called you, and he may well do it, and said, what should I do? What is the appropriate tact to establish here right now? What would you tell him?

454.53 - 473.074 Senator Ted Cruz

Well, listen, I think what the president is doing right now is exactly right. We are at a moment of history, an incredibly consequential moment. I think there's a very real possibility that in the next 90 days we will see the regime in Iran fall, and I think we could see the regime in Cuba fall.

473.628 - 501.576 Senator Ted Cruz

Those two together, if both oppressive dictatorships fell, would utterly transform the geopolitical frame worldwide. In Iran, we are seeing millions of people standing up against the Ayatollah Khomeini. And I think we could see that regime fall within weeks and even days or even hours. It could fall today. It is that precarious.

502.113 - 526.068 Senator Ted Cruz

And I got to tell you, Clay, the reason for that – let's go back a few months ago to the 12-day war. One of the things I said at the time is that I predicted that the regime, I believe, would likely fall as a consequence of that because there are real-world consequences to losing a war. Losing a war is not just a communications problem. It's not just a messaging problem.

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