Clay Describes His Red Pill Media Moment

BUCK: “Partisan Divides in Media Trust Widen Driven by a Decline Among Republicans.” That’s the Pew research data that Clay and I are referring to here. Here’s the short version. I’ll toss this one to my man Clay once we get the numbers out here.

Eight in 10 Democrats — 78%, but, you know, 8-in-10, basically 80% — trust the media either a lot or some at the national news organization media. Okay. So we’ll call it 80% to make it an easy number. Republicans, it’s more like 30%. Now, first of all, that tells you so much about our perception in the country.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: By the way, I think you agree the Republicans are the far more receptive group in this case, whether it’s PBS, CNN, New York Times, they’re all agenda-driven, left-wing commie organs. I’m sorry, but it’s true. That’s where we are. My question is, Clay, who are the 30% of the Republicans? They need to listen to the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show because they are not getting the straight scoop from USA Today and CNN.

CLAY: Some of them may consider Fox News to be in that category.

BUCK: Fair point, and they should actually break that out in the data, because that would be the only outlier in “national news organizations.”

CLAY: I said before, if Rupert Murdock didn’t exist, as frustrating as the national media industry is in this country right now, you’ve got the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and Fox in general, Fox News. If Rupert Murdock didn’t exist and those three companies were owned by someone else, think about how much more frustrating it would be. But no, look, I think a lot of people… You’re long-time true believer, right? Like, when you were like 14 years old, you were like —

BUCK: Yeah. I was, like, reading William F. Buckley articles and being like, “He’s the man.”

CLAY: Yes. So I’m a little bit different. And, I imagine, we have a lot of both people in our audience. I had a red pill moment, right? For people out there who are familiar with the phrase, mine was directly connected to the media, and it was because I was in the media.

For those of you out there who don’t know the red pill, go watch the first episode of the Matrix, Matrix 1, phenomenal movie. And I had, as I was in the media, in the sports media, some of you may remember the… Do you remember this, Buck? Did you ever cover it? I’m curious if you did. Do you remember all the protests at Missouri?

BUCK: Yes. Yes.

CLAY: Probably like seven years ago.

BUCK: Mizzou? Is that what you’re talking about?

CLAY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

BUCK: The state university?

CLAY: Yes. The University of Missouri. They had an argument. They had all these alleged racist incidents, including a poop swastika. It was, like, a big story back in the day. The football team got involved. The football joined the hunger protest and everything else. That, for me, Buck, was… Because I knew… I was covering college football at the time, and I knew the University of Missouri very well.

I knew their football team, their coach and everything else. And I saw the way that national media covered that story as if Mizzou was an awful, racist university filled with subhumans, and I said, “This doesn’t comport in any way with what’s going on.” It came out, basically, that that entire story was a farce.

And when I sort of pulled that thread and looked — or took the red pill and looked — behind the way the media covered it in a desperate, desperate hope that there was going to be rabid racism and antisemitism and that that university was a hot bed of hate. And when I actually saw the facts, I said, “I have to start looking behind some of these stories now and paying way more attention.” You can say I should have done that somewhere earlier.

BUCK: Did you switch your party affiliation as a result of this red pill moment?

CLAY: In many ways, yeah. I mean, I would say I was always a libertarian, kind of a middle of the road. I wasn’t a diehard advocate of either party at that point. I was just kind of frustrated in general. But that moment with Missouri, and then as things continued, for me, probably the biggest tipping point was then on top of it the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. They were so thoroughly unfair.

BUCK: I will tell you that I’ve had long conversations with many conservative friends, and I even said this in my view of conservatism in America, that’s when a lot of us — Brett Kavanaugh, actually —

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: — is when a lot of us became wartime conservatives.

CLAY: Right.

BUCK: We realized, “Oh. Okay. This is about the total annihilation of people based upon evil intent in the pursuit of power from the organized, aggressive left —

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: “– and we either meet that full on, or we continue to lose and lose this country.” I think the Brett Kavanaugh moment, in that way… It had a profound impact on me.

CLAY: It crystallized for a lot of people.

BUCK: There were people that you all know from Fox News that I was texting behind the scenes, because I was also in contact with the White House directly during that Brett Kavanaugh situation. They couldn’t believe it. They actually were in true disbelief. And, I mean, some of them — one or two of them actually — were in tears about how ugly what they were doing to Brett Kavanaugh was — I mean, in private would cry when they talked to me about it. These were ladies.

CLAY: I at that point was of the opinion, “I can’t vote on anyone that can participate in a farce like that,” and then obviously covid has just put it on steroids. I mean, all of the insanity. But that’s where it started for me was the, “Wait a minute, how much of what I believe is not true” that I’m getting from the media on a day-to-day basis?

BUCK: You can be Neo and I’ll be Morpheus.

CLAY: (chuckling)

BUCK: I just don’t want to be, like, one of the Agent Smiths or whatever, ’cause those guys are no fun.

CLAY: Yeah, Agent Smith. That first movie, man.

BUCK: It’s amazing.

CLAY: That first Matrix is so good.

BUCK: Top 10 action movies. Matrix 1, top 10 action movies of all time, in my opinion. I think it’s tough to push it out of the top 10.