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CLAY: Maybe by Friday we will have a resolution on what’s going on on Capitol Hill. All sorts of drama surrounding what’s going on with the infrastructure bill and with the budget bill. And there’s been a debate on this since the summer about whether they were paired tandem, whether they were going to be going together or not. And Nancy Pelosi not happy this morning when she started to get her strategy question. Let’s play cut 9. Oh, Nancy, the Speaker of the House, she ain’t happy.

REPORTER: Why get mad at members — why twist the arms of moderates — if this is not gonna move anywhere.

PELOSI: What are you talking about! We have a responsibility to uphold (sputters), in effect, the full faith and credit of the United States of America. That’s what we have to do. These members have all voted for this last week. So, if they’re concerned about how it might be in an ad? It’s already in an ad. It’s already in an ad! So let us get every confidence, every step of the way, that we will do that. We cannot predicate our actions in the House on what could happen in the Senate. I have no patience for people not voting for this.

BUCK: Oh, Nancy! Spicy there.

CLAY: No doubt.

BUCK: Look, she knows that this is it is not going according to plan so far, and it’s pretty straightforward. The bill is too much money. It’s 4.5 trillion. The break apart of the bill that everyone’s been using as the reference of 1 trillion for infrastructure and 3.5 trillion for the spending, right — the Green New Deal. By the way, Clay, I’m still trying to find out what “tree equity” is. I know it’s in the bill. I’m trying to find someone who explains what that is.

CLAY: I’m so sick of these trees being racist against each other. I mean, it just infuriates me.

BUCK: Pelosi has to know at some level that there’s nothing to be gained — if you’re Manchin or Sinema there’s nothing to be gained — by going along with the whole thing. So if they’re being responsible, which we’re talking about Democrats; so that’s a big if, they’re obviously not gonna go along with the whole package.

And why not break down the 3.5 trillion into component parts? We can see what’s going on here. They’re lying about things like, “It’s gonna cost zero.” No one thinks it’s gonna cost nothing. What does that even mean? You’re spending $3. 5 trillion dollars but there’s no cost? No. It’s gonna cost the American people 3.5 trillion. You’re just saying…

Rather, Democrats are promising it’s only gonna be rich people paying for it. It’s just a massive bill that’s over 2,000 pages that no American is reading this bill. No one know what’s in it except for the various special interests and all the different groups that cobble together the pieces of it and get their paid-for, lobbyist-wined-and-dined members of Congress to put this in there.

And, you know, we have to pass it to find out what’s in it. We all know that. That’s the Democrats’ favorite thing. Clay, if these are such good ideas, why aren’t they taking it piece by piece and saying, “Let’s spend 500 billion on this; let’s have a vote. Let’s spend 50 billion on that; let’s have a vote.” They try to do it all at once as a means of hiding in plain sight the socialist agenda of the Democrat Party. That’s what’s happening.

CLAY: Let’s go prediction time, right, ’cause it’s kind of difficult to forecast exactly what’s gonna happen. Nancy Pelosi is saying she’s going to have an infrastructure vote on Thursday. That’s tomorrow. We already have it passed in the Senate. My prediction, Buck — I’m curious to how you would analyze this — is I think infrastructure passes.

I think they will manage to get that through the House, and then I think once it passes, I think Joe Manchin — who, by the way, we invited on the radio program, senator from West Virginia. Declined 30 seconds after they got our request.

BUCK: Were you a little surprised? Look, we know Fauci’s going to sleep at night; he’s checking under the bed. (impression) “Is Clay Travis under there? Is Buck Sexton in the closet waitin’ for me?” He knows. He knows that that would be… Look, it would be a respectful interview, but we’d ask him real questions which he doesn’t usually get. Joe Manchin, I thought he’d at least give it some consideration.

CLAY: So here’s what I’m reading on that, Buck. I think what Joe Manchin wants to have happen is he wants the 1st trillion infrastructure to get passed and then he’s going to say, “I’m not there for the 3.5 trillion. I want to put a pause on this entire budget process and see what the country looks like in 2022 as we come out of covid. Do we need this stimulus?

“What does inflation do?” I think he’s gonna be the dad, all right? The dad of the country. I think this is Joe Manchin’s role, and he’s gonna sit there and look at it and say, “Okay. Instead of trying to come up with the family budget right now, let’s wait and see where the country is as we move into 2022.” Because I do think he’s very afraid — and I think it’s a valid fear — that if we spend all of this money, the inflationary pressure that is already present is going to explode to an even greater degree if we do the 3.5 trillion on top of the covid and the infrastructure.

BUCK: You know who really doesn’t like their gas prices being very high, their rent prices going up, their savings going down in value? People who work for a living and don’t have a lot of assets, haven’t already accumulated wealth. So if you’re the senator from West Virginia, there are a lot of folks there are who are just trying to make ends meet, trying to pay their mortgages and rents.

CLAY: It’s the state that voted for Donald Trump more than any state in the union.

BUCK: And yet they all understand that if you’re gonna spend trillions of dollars and make the dollars that they are getting paid by their employers less and make their rent and their food and their gas costs go up, what exactly are they getting from this Biden administration? You start to look at the quid pro quo, and you realize it’s not a good deal for a lot of folks who probably voted for Biden last time around.

By the way, Clay, I don’t know if you saw this one. Gallup, as of today, Biden began his presidency… This is according to Gallup, folks. This isn’t even like Rasmussen which leans a little right. According to Gallup, Biden began his presidency with a 61% approval rating among independents. We’re eight months in; that approval rating among independents: 37%.

Democrats are heading toward midterm shellacking. They are heading for an absolute wipeout unless they can turn this ship around. The only real mechanism they have other than “the insurrection” is this spending bill, something like this where they pay off a lot of constituencies and spread around a lot of money. They know it.

CLAY: I think the only way they don’t get a tidal wave is if covid basically goes to zero, and then Joe Biden is able to argue, “I solved covid. I told you I would do it.”

BUCK: Right. What are the chances that you and I are sitting here in June of 2022 and covid is way, way down everybody’s like, “Oh, covid, it’s not that big a deal,” and then the serology testing comes out and shows 60, 70% of America got covid, and so all this stuff we’re talking about, “Oh, we’re gonna mitigate! We’re gonna mask. We’re gonna do all these things!” Well, we actually just got to herd immunity, but we did it through the most painful, economically disastrous and depressing mechanisms possible because of Fauci.

CLAY: (impression) I think there’s a decent chance of that. I really do.