Get to Know Clay & Buck: Mountain Dew and Soccer?

BUCK: Welcome back to The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show. Lines are open, and we are lit in the —

CLAY: Lit! (laughing)

BUCK: — studio here. (laughing) That’s right.

CLAY: Drinking!

BUCK: They are lit up. We are lit.

CLAY: Drinking heavily —

BUCK: (laughing)

CLAY: — to get through Tuesday.

BUCK: (laughing)

CLAY: I know the feeling.

BUCK: It’s early in the day, folks, but we’re–

CLAY: He thinks this is water, but it’s actually been vodka that I’m drinking out here.

BUCK: Clay is drinking Mountain Dew.

CLAY: You were making fun of me.

BUCK: For those who are wondering, “Is Clay a guy from Tennessee?” He loves Mountain Dew.

CLAY: You made fun of me. I have a lot of, I would say, fairly substantially redneck traits, having been born and raised in the Nashville area of Tennessee. And one of the things that I just can’t quit, I love Mountain Dew. Like if I’m out at a restaurant and it’s a chain restaurant and they have Mountain Dew on the menu, I literally feel better about my whole meal.

BUCK: That’s an astonishing —

CLAY: Revelation?

BUCK: — revelation. (laughing)

CLAY: Like, I would order… Like, I’ll give you an example. There’s a restaurant called Stoney River. It’s a steakhouse. I don’t know, they probably with 50 or a hundred of them around the country, right? Chain, steak restaurant. They have — or at least used to have — Mountain Dew on the menu. So, I would be like, “I want a filet mignon, medium rare, and I’m gonna chase it with Mountain Dew.” (laughs)

BUCK: Hopefully, you at least get your steaks medium rare —

CLAY: That’s what I just said.

BUCK: — like a civilized person, right?

CLAY: I just said.

BUCK: All right. All right. Yeah. Not —

CLAY: I’m not a barbarian.

BUCK: Only thing about Trump that I gotta say, I really had a hard time with —

CLAY: He got it well done. He got it well done.

BUCK: — he’s a well-done guy. I love the Trumpster, but the well-done steak? That was a big question mark for me, like, “What’s going on with that?”

CLAY: I feel like people who get their steak well done don’t know that they are basically insulting the steak and everyone who is cooking the steak, right? And they may well have never tried a medium rare — and I’m closer to a rare than I am a medium, right? Like, you want to have some flavor in the steak.

BUCK: Of course. It’s all about not cooking the connective tissue and the juice out of it. But we’ll have to do our grilling tips another day, ’cause I got… Do you cook? I’m actually pretty good in the kitchen.

CLAY: I can’t cook anything.

BUCK: Really?

CLAY: It’s funny, my 6-year-old… We talked about this a little yesterday. So I coach Little League basketball and Little League basketball. We were sitting in the gym recently — this was March, maybe — and one of the first people who listened to my show came up and said, “Man, I’m a big fan of the show,” and he said to my 6-year-old, “What’s it like living with a guy who’s on the radio like this? Is it pretty cool?” And he said, “No, Dad doesn’t even know how to cook cinnamon rolls,” which is all that matters to my 6-year-old.

BUCK: Wow.

CLAY: Like, I can make oatmeal. That’s about the height of my cooking ability for the breakfast in the morning. I can make cereal. But I can’t make cinnamon rolls. Like, that is beyond my understanding. When I got married, when I started… When I first got married, my wife came over to where I was living, and she said, “Where are the pots and the pans?”

Reasonable question. We were gonna cook one night. I didn’t have pots and pans, Buck, and I had not even notice that I didn’t. I’d lived in this place for a couple years, never thought, “Hey, I need pots and pans. If I can’t microwave or I can’t just throw it in the oven and immediately, like a pizza, make it there I’m not gonna be able to do it.”

BUCK: I’m glad. See, this is the ultimate pairing and duo you have here, folks, because I’m not gonna lie: #ChefWolfgangBuck has trended once or twice.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: This is something that pops up on the social media.

CLAY: So what do you make?

BUCK: I — I can’t —

CLAY: Any and everything?

BUCK: I can’t give away all my secrets. This is —

CLAY: What’s your specialty?

BUCK: This is —

CLAY: What’s your specialty?

BUCK: Red meat obviously.

CLAY: Well, is that really a specialty?

BUCK: Yes!

CLAY: I feel like anybody can cook steak.

BUCK: Oh, my gosh. We can talk sous vide. We can talk reverse sear, but this is not a cooking show, Clay, so I have to —

CLAY: I don’t even know what that means.

BUCK: See what I mean? You bust out the fancy French terms and that’s all you have to do.

CLAY: I know. It totally blows my mind.

BUCK: I also, by the way… You brought up the Little League the thing. One day, I’ll tell you. I actually… The first job I ever had… I actually have to correct something from my bio on the show yesterday. The first pay job I ever had —

CLAY: Yes?

BUCK: — was coaching high school soccer at my high school while I was waiting for my security clearance at the CIA.

CLAY: How was the team?

BUCK: We were undefeated, and we were runner-up in the NYC Archdiocese championship. I don’t know, maybe the best soccer team the school had had in, I think, 18 years. No big deal, Clay.

CLAY: How old were you?

BUCK: No big deal.

CLAY: How old were you?

BUCK: Right out of college. Like, it’s that fall.

CLAY: Do you realize that you are losing credibility with the audience massively by being a soccer guy in the first place, right?

BUCK: What do you mean!

CLAY: I’m not anti-soccer.

BUCK: Wow. Wow.

CLAY: I am not anti-soccer in any way.

BUCK: Direct your ire, soccer players, to @ClayAndBuck on Twitter and tell him.

CLAY: What percentage of our audience likes soccer?

BUCK: I mean, not a huge —

CLAY: Right now.

BUCK: — but would it be better if I was a New Yorker who played lacrosse?

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: Then we’d be making fun of my ascot.

CLAY: Look, I would like right now, you to all tweet us — I just want a simple “yes” and “no” — if you’re active on social media. Let me just say, this ’cause I don’t want soccer people comin’ after me, ’cause soccer people —

BUCK: Oh, no, no.

CLAY: No, no. Hold on.

BUCK: You’ve done it. You’ve done it.

CLAY: Soccer people are the most insecure sports fan on the planet, right? In my experience, a soccer guy sits around all the time saying, “How come you don’t talk about soccer? How come you don’t talk about soccer? How come you don’t…?” and then you talk about soccer, and they immediately say, “Oh, you don’t know what we’re talking about! You don’t like soccer like I like soccer.” You can’t make them happy. It is the snobbiest, snottiest of all American sports fans: A soccer fans with a scarf sitting in his Harry Potter hat in the crowd.

BUCK: Snobby? It’s like the most multilingual —

CLAY: In the world —

BUCK: — multiethnic sport on Planet Earth!

CLAY: In the world, it is.

BUCK: (groans)

CLAY: Soccer fans in the world are like Mexican soccer fans throwing urine at people, you know, with the anti-gay slurs. Like they are the absolute, like, massive population, right? Like the everyman is a fan of soccer around the world. In the United States, the American soccer fans is the sports snob. I think a small —

BUCK: Just… I ask the soccer fans in the audience to unleash the Twitter Kraken here and explain… (laughing) explain how it works.

CLAY: I’m actually curious to go in right now. You can find me.

BUCK: Oh, they’re all gonna say that it’s basically like a communist sport.

CLAY: I was gonna say.

BUCK: I know how this goes.

CLAY: I think they’re gonna be saying, “I didn’t like this guy, Clay Travis. I questioned him a lot. But then he said, ‘Oh, you know, I’m not sure you need to be a hard-core soccer guy.'” Now, I will say this. I do… I played soccer. I played every sport kind of growing up. But I love watching the U.S. men’s team play.

And they kicked Mexico’s ass recently, which I really enjoyed — and, by the way, Christian Pulisic is maybe the greatest American soccer player of all time — and I think next year in the World Cup, if people will actually circle back around to, “Yeah, America is a good thing,” it will actually be a lot of fun because we can make a legitimate run.

BUCK: I mean, I just gotta tell you: For those of you whose heads are physically too big to wear helmets for hockey or football… I’m not speaking from a first-person perspective here, but I just want to say, you know, there gotta be other options out there.

CLAY: I’m scrolling in right now.

BUCK: I don’t even want to hear it. I don’t even want to hear it.

CLAY: First, people are taking shots at me. “Please tell me you at least go Diet Mountain Dew.” First, like, you would have less respect for me if I were drinking Diet Mountain Dew, wouldn’t you? At least I’m going, like, this is like a bud-heavy version of Mountain Dew.

BUCK: See, I’m not alienating those Diet Mountain Dew drinkers in our audience, Clay. I refuse to pick sides in the Mountain Dew battles, ’cause I haven’t had Mountain Dew, I think, since I was 12.

CLAY: Here’s all the soccer responses. Like, I can’t even keep up right now with everybody.

BUCK: (laughing)

CLAY: @ClayTravis, @BuckSexton, the soccer responses are rolling in. There are… Again, I think the vast majority of the audience — I also think you would agree. The Twitter responses are more like to like soccer ’cause they’re probably younger. A 75-year-old guy out there is not like, “Yeah, I love Buck Sexton and I love soccer.”

BUCK: Well, I mean, it depends on where they’re from. That’s the thing.

CLAY: Well, that could factor in.

BUCK: You know? I’m sure we got some expats and some, folks… If you’re an immigrant to the United States, the chance… What is the most likely sport for you to love? The most likely, if you move to the United States from anywhere in the world —

CLAY: The world sport is soccer. There’s no doubt. That’s why I said, the elite of America like soccer. The everyman of the rest of the world likes soccer.

BUCK: I just feel like right now, there are all these soccer moms are listening, and they’re like —

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: “Excuse me, sir, Mr. Clay Travis, football is dangerous!”

CLAY: (laughing)