PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah, some people, they get brought over to the other side for fear. And we can’t have that. We have to fight so strong. Look at me. They go after me with Mueller, with this one, with that one, with impeachment 1, impeachment — I call it the impeachment hoax 1 and 2 — and all of this. All nonsense, made-up stuff. In fact, they were the ones who were guilty. They come after me, New York radical left prosecutors come after me. You gotta always fight.

CROWD: (applause)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: You gotta keep fighting. It’s a disgusting thing. It’s very unfair.

HANNITY: I guess they don’t call politics a blood sport for no reason.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: It’s not that I want to. The country needs it. We have to take care of the country.

CROWD: (cheers, whistles and applause)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I don’t want to. Is this fun, fighting constantly, fighting always? I mean, the country… What we’ve done is so important. When I say, “the greatest tax cuts,” now they want to raise your taxes. They want to double your taxes, and nobody — and the Republicans in the Senate and the House, but the Republicans in the Senate have to fight hard that the taxes don’t get up, ’cause that will be terrible for the country.

CLAY: That is President Trump, 45 himself. I want to remind you he was on this show for an hour. That is with Sean Hannity last night on Fox News, a very well-done event down near the border, Sean Hannity and President Trump. You hear talking there about the New York, as he calls them, radical left prosecutors coming after him. They are coming after the Trump Organization.

“The charges…” So you know — I’m reading from CBS News — “The charges remain under seal.” They may be unsealed as we are sitting talking to you today. If not, I would they by tomorrow we certainly can discuss them in deal but according to CBS News, “They are expected to relate to alleged failure to pay taxes on corporate perks for Trump Organization employees like company cars and apartments.

“Trump himself is not expected to be charge.” The person who will be charged, who has already been taken into custody, Weisselberg, his attorney said that the client, quote, “intends to plead not guilty, and he will fight these charges in court.” I’m Clay Travis, by the way. You’re listening to the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show.

We encourage you to go download the podcast. Right now, Buck Sexton, we are the number 4 podcast in all of news in the country. I want to catch NPR. I want to catch the New York Times. Can search out my name, Clay Travis. Can search out Buck Sexton’s name. Also ClayandBuck.com.

BUCK: I mean, the New York Times has, I think, a thousand reporters and huge legacy. So when we are able to dance on the ashes of their number one ranking, it’ll be a good day.

CLAY: That will be a awesome day for us.

BUCK: I gotta tell you, when Trump was saying that we need to him to fight, it is, speaking of Civil War history, which we did yesterday, it’s a reminder, right, of Lincoln with Ulysses S. Grant. “I can’t spare this man. He fights.”

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: And that’s what, in our hourlong interview with President Trump earlier this week, you just get that sense. I mean, he has that willingness to — and we mean this in political terms, of course — but to throw a punch, I mean, to really go after the other side and also to take a punch, which is another part. That brings me to the legal side of this.

When you see what they did, what the left, the Democrat Party, the corporate legacy media and the deep state, what they did against Donald Trump was like nothing else we’ve seen in our lifetimes. You had two impeachments, as he brings that up. You had a special counsel brought against him.

You had constant media reporting that was meant specifically to undermine, divide, tear apart the White House from the inside, but also to just constantly convince the American people. I mean, there were supposedly serious journals of opinion, places like The Atlantic (which is, you know, left wing loony bin) writing about fascism and how the coming American fascism because of Donald Trump.

I mean, the fascist is the guy who wants to make things great for all Americans and had the lowest minority unemployment in history? You look at the stuff that was being said and the fact that Trump honestly at some points was able to continue without just curling up into a ball in the corner, it was almost superhuman. I mean to go through what he did and manage what he did was crazy.

CLAY: I agree. It was extraordinary. And let me just go back again to the reports from CBS News about what these charges are gonna be, Buck, because I think everybody out there listening to us is going to be rolling their eyes. Three-year investigation, Buck. Nothing coming against Donald Trump. This is, to me, the Mueller report all over again.

What have they found? Their charges are going to be for corporate perks not being correctly charged for tax purposes, like company cars and apartments? You know this, Buck. Living in New York City, it is so expensive, very often, that you need to support your employees and sometimes give them added benefits. This is wildly common. I know this for a fact, Buck, from when I was in college in Washington, D.C.

A lot of the professors would come to teach as guest professors, and they would get better apartments or better living conditions than they might otherwise have been able to afford. This happens all the time, and I’m not saying it’s perfect from a tax code related benefit. But three years… Think about this, Buck! Three years, when you’re telling everybody you’re gonna get Donald Trump, and reporting to CBS News what these charges are gonna be are cars not being appropriately accounted for or apartments.

BUCK: This is Mickey Mouse. This is Mickey Mouse stuff.

CLAY: Minor league.

BUCK: Yeah. This is the equivalent of JV. It’s the equivalent of now bringing a glorified parking ticket against the former president’s company and a guy, Weisselberg, the CFO, I believe, who is getting personally charged with this has been with them since the 1970s so just everyone understands how far back he goes with them. But, you know, there’s a book by the civil rights attorney Harvey Silverglate from a while ago, Three Felonies a Day. I don’t know how if you’re familiar with it.

CLAY: Oh, yeah.

BUCK: Yeah, it’s important for everyone to know about, because he just goes through how many… If somebody was to be an absolute strict textualist and how one could read the law —

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: — there are a lot of areas of the law that people are violating. Exceedingly authorized use of a computer. There’s all these things, and what’s terrifying is you actually look at some of the statutes that these involve, and you can get nailed on some of this stuff in ways that people couldn’t even imagine. I mean, we’re talking about the tax code here. Now companies have gotten better about this. But, you know, for years people were supposed to pay their state sales tax with things they were purchasing online.

CLAY: That’s right.

BUCK: Who was really itemizing that for years? Who goes, “Oh, wow, I owed 63 cents for my state tax on the thing I bought online.” Look, this is super Mickey Mouse kind of stuff. But the point is you can always find somebody. When we say with the tax code, you can get someone if you really want to, you really can.

CLAY: A hundred percent true, Buck, and that goes to prosecutorial power and discretion. And I’ll give you an example from my legal training. I took a course at Vanderbilt Law School taught by David Williams — amazing guy — called 501(c)(3). Buck, you talked about conservative charities being focused, the Tea Party.

BUCK: Nonprofit.

CLAY: The 501(c)(3) organization is part of tax code that those organizations with typically founded under. My mind was blown because before I took that course, I believed that the tax code was a rigorous, scientific process. ‘Cause at that point in time, I had never made any money. My tax returns were super simple. I was an employee somewhere not making very much money.

And I paid tax on a certain percentage of that income, and that was a simple process. When I understood from that course how all of these different organizations are designed and how many of them have adopted, Buck, the mantra of every single organization should pay as little tax as they possibly can… That’s oftentimes what they’re trying to do, right?

You don’t want to give the government extra money. But when I say that you could have 10 accounts accountants look at the tax returns from every one of these major organizations and they would give you 10 different numbers that you owe to pay tax on, that is a sign of how much prosecutorial discretion there is here, because this is an art.

And what they theoretically have decided to charge the Trump Organization with is all total crap. We are talking about parking tickets, basically. And the idea that this was sold that it was gonna bring down Trump and it was a massive investigation, and all the impact? The only reason I believe they’re gonna bring charges at all is because, Buck Sexton, after three years you can’t just throw your hands up and say, “There’s nothing here at all.”

BUCK: And there’s a long and storied history of corrupt politicians and particularly Democrats… Even FDR himself used the IRS to harass publishers who were opposed to his New Deal. He went after William Randolph Hearst. He went after the publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Roosevelt used the IRS to go after political rivals like Huey Long and Father Coughlin.

So this goes back for a long time, and when you start to understand… People will be talking about, “What about Lyndon Johnson and what about Nixon?” Sure. This has gone on. But this is gross, my friends. This is the stuff that we were told wouldn’t happen under a Biden administration.

And I understand this is the New York district attorney and not specifically the federal government doing this. But it’s the same idea. It’s the same application of the State — big S State — in an effort to use the tax code in some way as a political weapon. I still say both the process is the punishment and we only have to burn down one village to send a message to all the other villagers.

You only have to do it one time — or burn down one house, rather, in the village — to send a message. And what you see here is anybody who was thinking, “You know what? I really want to be a part of… You know, I’m a billionaire.” I wish I was, folks.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: You know, somebody else speaking out there, “I’m a billionaire; I really want to get involved in helping build the next conservative media platform, or I want to back Trump all the way in 2024. Do I want the IRS to harass my company for the next four years? Do I want my adult children to suddenly be audited?” These are the considerations that even little Cy Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, he’s gonna make everybody wants to be a part of Trump’s orbit going forward. You gotta think about this stuff. Maybe you take the risk anyway, but it changes that calculation.

CLAY: I think that’s what’s so significant about it, Buck. So far, we haven’t had Trump touched at all.

BUCK: Mmm-hmm.

CLAY: It’s all the people around him who have less resources and who are able to… They’re trying to put the squeeze on them with relatively insignificant charges. I think it’s a great point you bring up. How many people that are wildly talented and would be otherwise interested in going into politics are deciding not to because of the toxicity of everything surrounding the political process.

BUCK: Yeah.

CLAY: I think Trump’s a great example.

BUCK: You got a great life, a great family, plenty of money? You want the goons of the deep state to come after you, the IRS to come knocking on your door? I don’t think so.