Ep. 510 The Future of the GOP Depends on Today's Vote
In this episode I address the Left's continued use of a debunked statistic to claim that 22 million Americans will "lose" health insurance if Obamacare is repealed. http://dailysignal.com/2017/07/24/cbo-says-22-million-people-lose-insurance-gop-plan-facts?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWkRrMlltUm1OR05sT1dVMyIsInQiOiJtSlF6QlQ3MHJXVFdWUkxsWGcrckN4XC9Cc3FjRmZHamZcL1BnY2w3WEFMRk1TN2VqXC9FSUZoZDB3KzBcL1RUNENTdnRRMVM1MzMrMnlETFwvNjU0a0d5eTVcL29wcVF1Z1cybDFtbGRBUDdGVXBCeFhpRDBsMjBFUG5GbEJUbis0aTZwTCJ9 https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2017/07/22/cbo-three-fourths-of-coverage-difference-between-obamacare-gop-bills-driven-by-individual-mandate/#572a38236270 I discuss the possibility of a presidential indictment and a personal pardon and the constitutional arguments for both. https://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2017/07/24/yes-a-president-may-be-indicted-and-may-pardon-himself/ I address a path forward for President Trump with regard to his dissatisfaction with Attorney General Jeff Sessions. http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/343556-cruz-being-considered-to-replace-sessions-report Was Chipotle sabotaged? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-25/the-chipotle-corporate-sabotage-theory-returns Finally, I address the federal government's policies on seizing property from citizens. http://amp.nationalreview.com/article/449670/jeff-sessions-civil-asset-forfeiture-plans-conservatives-should-oppose
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All the Sanders supporters love throwing bombs at me and I throw them right back.
I'm not here to pull any punches, right?
The Dan Bongino Show.
This is the great irony of conservatism.
Even liberals win under conservatism.
Get ready to hear the truth about America.
Are you suggesting you're that stupid that other people can run your lives better than you can, even though the cost and quality of what they buy, quote, for you doesn't even matter to them?
On a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino.
All right, welcome to The Renegade Republican with Dan Bongino.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Always glad to be on The Renegade Republican podcast.
Yeah, by the way, for the regular listeners, and Joe's had to listen to this for a long time now, my long national nightmare with my Chevy Tahoe looks like it may finally be ending.
We're trying to, yeah, I want to, for the, by the way, I'd love some feedback on this.
You all know my email, daniellabongino.com.
Do any of you have a Ford Raptor out there?
The truck, the Raptor, because I love the Raptor.
I'm thinking about buying one, but man, the dealer wants something like $10,000 over sticker.
I'm like, what are you, crazy?
I'm not paying $10,000 over sticker.
So if anybody knows anything about the Raptor, let me know any feedback on it.
I'd appreciate it.
But I love the car.
So I'm thinking, finally, I got to get rid of my Tahoe.
I've had a lot of problems with it.
Well, lately, it's been okay.
But some of you email me still, including our regular emailer, Tom, about the status of the Tahoe.
It's been okay lately, but I still got to get rid of it.
Too many problems in the beginning.
Any feedback on the rap there would be greatly appreciated.
And quickly, some follow-up on yesterday's show.
Again, for those of you binge listeners, for the show you listened to just a minute ago, I was talking about how the FDA, with regards to the Democrats' new party platform, they want to lower drug prices, right?
That's their new party platform, and it was in Yesterday's show and I said it was ironic because the Democrats love big government and FDA, Food and Drug Administration, a government bureaucracy which is enforcing a monopoly which is hiking drug prices and someone emailed me fairly enough and good question they said
You know, well, what are you suggesting here?
That there's no patent protection?
That these companies that come in and, you know, that spend billions of dollars doing research on a drug that they shouldn't have any protection for, and someone could come in tomorrow and just copy it and waste all that money that they did on the research?
And you're right, that would lead to a race to the bottom, because what would happen?
You know, Joe's Drug Company would come in, invent a new type of diabetes drug, And then tomorrow someone would copy it and Joe'd be wiped out because he'd be competed away despite investing all that money in research and you'd get a bunch of free riders.
No, that's not what I was suggesting about how the Democrats love big government and how big government is instituting a monopoly.
What I was trying to get at, and I just didn't have a lot of time, so forgive me, is the FDA right now has a policy where a drug has to prove it's both safe, this is critical folks, you understand this, safe and effective.
Now, you may say, well, what's wrong with that?
Well, folks, why does the FDA, why are they in charge of effectiveness?
Safety?
All right, I get it, if you wanna, but the safety and effectiveness portion, the doctors should be in charge of effectiveness, Joe, you get what I'm saying?
Yeah, quality control, yeah.
If the doctors, right, wanna use compound X, and we've deemed it relatively safe, comparable to the risks, and the doctor, some educated doctor, who's been working out in middle America, but for a long time has used this drug to treat whatever, Upset stomach.
And the FDA says, well, we're not sure it's effective on upset stomach.
Well, who cares what you think?
It's safe.
Now, you may say, what does that have to do with enforcing a monopoly?
Making drug companies comply with safety guidelines and effectiveness leads to, you know, 10, 20 year trials, whatever it may be, that cost billions more, that only benefit big companies who have the money to prove that the product is safe and effective.
Just safety.
That's all we need.
Let the doctors and the medical community decide what's effective.
Does that make sense, Joe?
Yeah.
That's leading to a monopoly of companies that only have the capital to do that.
Small drug companies can't get in the mix.
They can't afford a 10-year effectiveness trial.
That was my point.
I just didn't have a lot of time, so a nice email.
I appreciate it, but that's what I was talking about.
I wasn't attacking patent protection for drugs at all.
I was talking about safety and effectiveness.
You know, you mentioned FDA.
I think that's my new slogan for the Democratic Party.
What's that?
FDA.
What about it?
FDA.
Think about it.
Is that about an expletive at the front?
It could, if you want to think of it that way.
You missed me on that one, which is rare, but until I saw the F part, now it all makes sense.
Maybe I'll take this part out.
No, no, no.
Leave it as funny.
You have that cut.
And the fact that we have to say leave it, it makes it even funnier.
Yes.
You have that cut for me on Obamacare?
I sure do, Dan.
All right.
Today's a big day, folks.
There's going to be a vote and there's a lot of confusion about what's going on.
And of course, that's what we're here for, Joe and I, to clear up the confusion.
A big health care vote today in the Senate coming this afternoon on Obamacare.
The debate, to be clear, because gosh, no one seems to just distill it down to the quick talking point.
The vote today is going to be about opening debate for Obamacare.
It only requires a majority, 51, that's it, or in this case 50 because the vice president will break a tie and it'll be, so we only need really 50 Republicans.
It is only about opening debate.
The initial vote is not to repeal, it's not on the replacement bill, it's about opening debate.
Now, what happens afterwards is different.
Nobody really knows what's going to happen afterwards.
Is there going to be an amendment introduced on a clean repeal?
Is the House bill going to be introduced?
That's what a lot of the complaints have been about, Joe.
The complaints, again, to be clear and distill it down to what you need to know and clear out all the debris, Is that a lot of senators are complaining and saying, well, once we agree, Joe, to open up debate, that's what the vote is for.
Some of the senators are complaining that they don't know what's going to happen next.
Well, what's going to be introduced is the amendment.
Is it going to be a repeal vote only?
Is it going to be the Senate replacement plan?
What's going on?
That's the beef right now.
But the vote today is to open up debate.
Now, Obamacare is on fire today all over the news.
I'm not going to re-litigate the entire Obamacare debate about community rating guaranteed issue.
We don't have time today, but I want to hit one specific point because even Susan Collins, who allegedly is a Republican from Maine, a Senator from Maine, she's not a Republican at all, tweeted out this silly talking point, which I've had to debunk a thousand times, and I don't like to repeat content on the show, but it is absolutely critical you understand the nonsensical nature of this statement.
The Democrats today are doubling down on this, including Republican Susan Collins, that if this repeal or the Senate bill is allowed to pass, that 22 million Americans are going to lose insurance, according to the quote CBO report.
Folks, this is not true, okay?
This is not accurate.
Now, in today's show notes, I'm going to include an article from Forbes.
It's a couple days old, but it's still relevant.
It doesn't really matter.
I'll also include a Daily Signal piece from today, which turned me on to it, so hat tip to them.
The article by Avik Roy is a great one, which talks about how congressional sources have indicated to him that the CBO's methodology for determining, Joe, that 22 million people, quote, we're going to lose insurance, really is not about losing insurance.
It's about, as I've said on prior shows, choosing not to buy insurance when the penalty for not buying it goes away.
Folks, you have to be crystal clear on this.
I'm going to play a sound cut for you in a minute from Avik Roy on this.
The 22 million number of people that are going to, quote, lose insurance if Obamacare is repealed is not losing.
73% of that number, according to the CBO's own prior work on the issue, is due to people choosing not to, is it 16 million of the 22?
Choosing not to buy insurance because the Obamacare penalty for not having insurance would go away under repeal.
What does that tell you?
Ladies and gentlemen, let me quote, Avik Roy sums it up nicely in this quote.
I'll just read to you quickly.
He says, by definition, you haven't been, quote, kicked off your insurance if the only reason you're no longer buying it is that the government has stopped fining you.
No one said it better.
That is not being kicked off insurance.
So the government fine goes away, Joe.
We clear?
Step one, if Obama gets repealed.
You will no longer be fined for not buying insurance.
Step two.
People deem insurance not worth it.
Their insurance.
They think it's crap.
So they stop buying it because the government's not fining them.
That's not being kicked off.
You don't want it.
That's like saying, you know, you got kicked off the Corvette waiting list despite the fact that there was a fine for not being on it.
You don't want a Corvette.
Like if the government instituted a fine for you not buying a Corvette and you had to go to the dealer and get on a waiting list to buy one.
But you don't want a Corvette.
You want a Dodge Demon.
And then the fine goes away and they say, okay, that thing about the Corvette's gone.
You go, you call the dealer, get me off that stupid waiting list right away.
I want to dodge demon.
Were you kicked off the waiting list?
No, you just don't want to buy the Corvette.
Folks, your liberal friends are lying to you.
They're just making this talking point up because they, they're obsessed with misdirection, propaganda and lies.
It's, you know, As I said yesterday, it is increasingly frustrating to argue with liberals who, despite mounds of evidence, factual data, sound bites, government-sponsored reports, it doesn't matter.
They are so immune to the truth.
Unless the truth punches them in the face, they are still, rhetorically, we don't want to do violence like the left, of course, but unless it punches them in the face, they just ignore it as if it's not even there.
The CBO report using their own methodology and data from congressional sources fed to a Forbes writer shows that it's 73% of that 22 million number are people who will choose not to buy insurance because it sucks.
That is not being kicked off.
You're just making that up.
That is a total indictment on Obamacare that it's so bad that if you don't fine people, Joe, they won't buy it.
Now, one more quick point before we get to this sound, and I'll set up the sound in a second.
The CBO, as I've said repeatedly, and please go to the Forbes piece by Roy, Avik Roy.
I will put it in the show notes available at Bongino.com.
And again, it's available in your inbox.
If you subscribe to my email list, I'll email it right to you.
There's a chart in the Forbes piece.
It's extremely easy to read.
Well, the last time we said that, Joe and I got a little crossed out.
Remember that one?
That was a doozy.
That was fun.
There is a very easy, I'm not kidding, an easy to read chart in Avik Roy's piece that shows with different trend lines, CBO estimates.
per year of how many people Obamacare was going to cover, and the actual number Obamacare covered.
Ladies and gentlemen, you can't screw this up.
The CBO estimate, right, in 2010, the CBO projection for how many people were going to be covered by Obamacare now is 21 million.
The actual number is 10.
That's a big miss, Joe.
That's a big miss.
So you said over 21 million.
Let's be generous.
20 million.
And half as many people.
That's a big miss, folks.
That's kind of a big deal, okay?
So not that I don't want to get into a CBO stinks kind of a debate because it really is a non-partisan agency that if you feed them garbage they'll give you garbage and that's exactly what happened in this case.
I don't think the people in there are trying to hurt anybody.
I don't.
I mean they came out with a a research report, what was it, four or five years ago,
that Obamacare was going to cost something like the equivalent of eight million jobs and work hours
and equivalent work hours and the Democrats went wild. And I, in that case, I think they were
actually fed accurate data.
I don't say that because it, you know, it fed into my ideological leaning.
But I think CBO, if you feed them garbage, they're going to give you garbage.
And they were fed garbage in this case, and that's exactly what was spit out.
So, the CBO projections have been way off.
So, ladies and gentlemen, trusting the CBO for Obamacare is just tough, because they're constantly being fed garbage.
But look at the chart, and you'll see how off the CBO's been.
So, let's put that talking point aside a second, but that you shouldn't even trust their reports anyway, because they're being fed garbage.
But on this 22 million number, their own report debunks itself because it says that nobody's losing insurance, they're choosing it.
Now, this is an interesting debate.
It goes on for a little while, but we caught, what is it, about a minute, Joe?
Yeah.
We didn't have time.
It was nine minutes long.
I don't have time.
The debate is in the Forbes piece, the link to the video if you want to watch the whole thing.
But it's very good.
It's on PBS, which is unquestionably left-leaning.
But it's a debate between Ezekiel Emanuel, who I, listen, I Nothing personal, but Ezekiel Emanuel will say anything to defend Obamacare.
He just will.
It doesn't matter how disingenuous the talking point is.
He's the brother of Rahm Emanuel, the former Obama chief of staff, and was one of the architects of Obamacare.
He will never admit there's a problem with Obamacare.
Significant problem.
He's debating Avik Roy, the person I've been talking about from Forbes, who is very smart on healthcare.
I don't agree with everything, all of his solutions to the healthcare crisis, but he's very bright and he always makes an articulate argument.
Now, the clip opens up with Ezekiel Emanuel Reiterating this absurd talking point that 22 million people are going to be kicked off insurance, and listen to Roy just completely dismantle them.
It's about one minute long.
Go ahead.
It is not comparable.
You can't cut $770 billion and say, oh, it's not going to affect anything.
22 million people are going to lose coverage because of this bill.
Novak Roy, how do you answer that?
Yeah, so the CBO estimate, this 22 million number that Zeke is talking about, is largely driven by erroneous aspects of the Congressional Budget Office's methodology.
The CBO believes that 15 million people will drop out of the insurance market in 2018 because they will no longer face a fine for not purchasing coverage, the individual mandate that we all hear so much about.
Ultimately, about $18 million of that $22 million is driven by the lack of a fine forcing people to have coverage.
So it's not driven by a lack of funding.
There's robust funding.
You don't like the message to help individuals buy insurance.
No, but this is a fundamental problem with the CBO's methodology.
It's the reason why Obamacare has an individual man in the first place.
Was that great?
Obama in 2008, he opposed having an individual mandate in his bill and it was only included
because the CBO told him that 16 million coverage, the statistic of coverage, would be affected
Uses Obama's own words and methodology against him.
And what's Ezekiel Emanuel's comeback?
His comeback is, you don't like it?
You attack the messenger.
And that voice of his, which is really irritating.
In other words, which is funny, Joe, because Ezekiel Emanuel's point is that Overcroy is attacking the messenger when he's doing nothing of the sort.
He's using their own words and methodology, which are facts.
To disprove a statement Emanuel made.
And this is what liberals do though.
They attack the messenger, but they accuse you of what they're doing.
It's almost genius.
He goes, oh look, he's attacking the messenger.
By saying you're attacking the messenger, which Roy was not doing, Ezekiel Emanuel is attacking the messenger.
This is what they do.
Notice he never rebuts the point.
Folks, it's on podcast, so I don't need to play it.
You can listen to it again, rewind it, put your finger on the iPhone screen, rewind it, and listen again.
He never rebuts the point.
Now, you can watch the entire interview and you can see his lame attempts to try to circumvent what Roy said, but he never rebuts that point at all.
And just to be clear on what Roy was saying at the end, where that $16 million wouldn't have insurance if it wasn't for the individual mandate, Where that number comes from?
We're figures told to Barack Obama when he didn't want the individual mandate!
I know that's hard to understand.
If I'm losing you, my sincere apologies, but it's critical you understand this.
This is how Roy figured this out, which was genius.
When Obama first started advocating for Obamacare, they were not huge fans of the individual mandate because they knew it would be a tax, and they'd have a tough time defending a tax at election time.
Henceforth, they said, oh no, we're going to call it the individual mandate.
Remember they argued on TV, Obama, that it wasn't a tax?
Oh yeah.
And then argued in court, in the Supreme Court, through their Solicitor General, that it was a tax.
We've done entire shows on that.
Obama knew he couldn't advocate for a tax politically, but he knew legally he had to make it a tax.
They didn't want the tax for that reason, but advocates argued to him That the tax, and in the initial CBO report, the tax show, the penalty, was necessary to get 16 million people to sign up.
That's how Roy comes to his conclusion now, that if the tax goes away, using the CBO's own argument, Joe, that if you don't have the tax, 16 million people won't sign up.
The penalty, right?
You need the penalty to get people to sign up.
Those 16 million people go away.
You can't argue it both ways, folks.
Joe, is this making sense?
You can't argue on one hand that you need a penalty to get 16 million people to buy insurance and then argue on the other hand that if the penalty goes away that 22 million people will choose not to get insurance but it has nothing to do with the tax.
You just said you needed a tax to get 16 million people to sign up!
But Emmanuel never, he never hits that.
He does what every dyed-in-the-wool liberal does.
He goes right to the personal.
You're attacking the messenger!
That's all he has!
He doesn't have anything!
He doesn't have anything!
Oh, it's frustrating being a conservative.
I'm a happy warrior, though.
Generally, I know I sound a little pissed off, but I really am.
I enjoy the fight.
You know, we live in a great time.
You live in the United States, the most prosperous country on Earth, the best time to be alive.
You know, even after eight years of Obama and all this political turmoil going on, it's still a great place.
I mean, where do we get to argue about a Tahoe versus a Chevy, you know, a Ford Raptor?
I was just thinking that.
I mean, seriously, like first world problems.
Man, you want a Raptor and he's charging $10,000?
That's a seriously first world problem.
So thank God for being a United States citizen at this time.
You know, be alive now.
One more thing in this vote today.
If we fail on this vote, folks, GOP is going to have a lot of splaying to do.
So we'll see what happens.
We'll update on tomorrow's show on this vote today.
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All right.
I'm like bursting at the seams.
I have so much to talk about.
I have stories one through eight today, and we're probably not going to get to all those.
Quickly on this one, I have a great piece I'm going to put in the show notes today, a PJ Media by Andy McCarthy, who is just a gift to the conservative movement.
I like Andy a lot.
Andy was a Department of Justice lawyer, intimately familiar with the inner workings and machinations at the DOJ.
And he has a piece out today, and I'm hesitant to talk about this because even talking about it is kind of like a, when did you stop beating your wife question from the left, Joe?
Right.
You know what I'm talking about, right?
I sure do.
When did you stop beating your wife to Republican candidates?
You're like, what?
I beat my wife, and then that's the front page headline.
You know, Dan Bongino says he doesn't beat his wife, and everybody goes, what?
Someone said he beat, that's how they do it.
And I understand even bringing this up, Is it kind of feeding into the left, you know, Trump-Russia impeachment narrative, and I want to do a whole, you know, I've been on Trump-Russia for a long time, I get it, people are frustrated, but I just want to bring it up so we understand the mechanisms of government, because some liberals are seemingly confused on this, and I think McCarthy does a good job of dispelling some myths.
Two quick things.
Number one, yes, a President of the United States can be indicted.
This is McCarthy.
Now, to be clear on this as well, to give fair hearing, there's two sides to this.
McCarthy's not saying he's the dispositive voice on it, but I think he makes a really credible case that a sitting president can be indicted.
And he uses the Constitution, very simply.
In the Constitution, it doesn't say anything about a president not being indicted.
It says if a president is impeached, he can be indicted afterwards, but it doesn't say he can't be indicted while sitting in office.
Indicting this president would be utterly ridiculous.
This Trump-Russia thing is a nonsense, crap story.
It's a conspiracy theory.
But, you know, we're here, I think, on the show to understand government.
You never know.
It may come up later with a Democrat president.
And if the libs are going to bring it up, then maybe we should ask some questions about, you know, well, is Barack Obama going to be potentially indicted for, you know, unmasking if we uncover crimes?
What about Hillary Clinton?
Fair enough, right, Joe?
You want to bring up indictment for sitting and former officials?
All right, let's talk about it.
Secondly, yes, the president can pardon himself.
Now again, I will make the case to you strongly and with passion because I'm really upset about obviously this Trump-Russia thing.
There's nothing for him to pardon.
Except ripping off a mattress tag.
We're all federal criminals, by the way, I assure you.
If someone wants to get you on a tax crime, they will find some IRS law and they will get you.
They'll get you for ripping a tag off a mattress if they have to, Joe.
We're all federal criminals if the government wants you to be.
That's why we investigate crimes and not people.
In other words, if the federal government turns its sights on me, and they wanted to find me, I assure you that, I absolutely assure you they would find the crime.
But we don't do that.
We don't target people.
At least we didn't until the Trump-Russia thing.
But, if the president had to, McCarthy makes a really good case that yes, he can pardon himself.
There are some people that'll argue this, and he says there are only two exceptions in the Constitution for the pardon.
One, it has to be offensive against the United States.
So Joe, the president of the United States can't pardon himself for state crimes.
Does that make sense?
It has to be a federal crime.
So if the state of New York charged him with jaywalking, which is probably next for Trump, seriously, jaywalking, felonious mopery on the open seas, whatever it is, you know, that's coming next.
So if it's a state or local charge, whatever it may be, the president can't pardon himself.
It has to be an offense against the United States.
And secondly, he can't pardon himself from impeachment.
But it doesn't say anything about him not pardoning himself.
So again, that's open to legal interpretation.
There are two sides to it.
Some people passionately argue that he can't pardon himself, but when I have legal questions, I default to Andy McCarthy.
He's been right just about every time that I've had an open question on an issue.
All right, story number three.
I have an interesting idea I want to throw by you all, and I'd love to get your feedback on it.
Again, danielatbongino.com.
Although I'm thinking of changing that email, because producer Joe doesn't get your email.
I have to forward him if you write something nice about producer Joe, and he gets a lot of nice feedback.
So I'm thinking of changing the email, I may in the future, so Joe can read them too.
You do, you get a nice compliment.
Thank you listeners.
Yeah, you get about four or five nice emails a day.
Nice.
Yeah, yeah, that's good.
But I have a plan, and I want to throw it by you, and I'd love your feedback.
Yes, this is kind of about the Trump-Russia thing, so I'm sorry, but it's a way to fix this thing.
It's a way to fix this thing for government.
I want to make this quick.
You can't get away from it.
No, you can't, because it's not really even about Trump-Russia.
It's about the liberal attack on the legitimacy of the Trump presidency.
I think we can all agree, Joe.
It's nothing to do with Trump.
There is no Trump-Russia.
There's no such thing.
It's a made-up story.
So, here's the plan.
And again, please, tell me what you think.
Don't fire Sessions.
One, that's crazy.
I like Jeff Sessions.
I have a disagreement with him on a couple of things.
This government seizure policy, which I'll try to get to today.
If not, I will definitely get to this week.
It's really important we discuss this.
This new policy on government seizures of property, which I think is really not a good idea.
But Sessions is a good man.
Do not fire Sessions.
And one other point on this.
I have a close friend.
I'm not going to say who or I'm not even going to say anymore, but just let's leave it at this.
This close friend knows a lot about what goes on on Capitol Hill.
Very, very smart.
And this close friend, we'll call the source, has said to me, and I trust the source, That the people who want Sessions out right now are using the Russia thing to fire up the president, to get the president to get rid of Sessions, not because they care a hoot about the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory.
This is why this story is important, folks.
But because they know Sessions is tough on illegal immigration.
And believe me when I tell you, this person is extremely reliable.
I've never been steered wrong, and Joe, you know as well as my regular audience here, we don't put something out we can't defend.
That makes sense to me.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, and if we can't, we retract later and correct it.
We've done it a couple times.
I have no problem doing that, right?
Yeah, this source is good and said that the people who want Sessions out, the Trump-Russia thing's irrelevant to them.
This is all about immigration.
So it's actually moderate rhino GOP-ers aligned with Democrats and lib groups who are advocating to Trump to get rid of Sessions.
But Joe, they're going to Trump, they're going, oh man, look, he's weak on this Russia thing.
They don't care about Russia.
You understand what I'm saying?
This is about immigration.
They're feeding Trump's problem with the Trump-Russia thing.
They're feeding him ammunition to get rid of Sessions for entirely different reasons.
So, point number one of the plan.
Do not fire Sessions.
Sessions is a good man.
A couple wrinkles in the program, but we can fix that.
Do not fire Sessions.
Step two.
I hate to say this, but Rosenstein's gotta go.
Now, there's an article in The Hill today, which I will put in the show notes.
It's not subscriber only, so you can all read it, that there's some scuttlebutt out there that Trump is talking about replacing Sessions with Ted Cruz.
Apparently Giuliani's not interested.
Now, I think the addition of Cruz to the Justice Department is a genius move.
Now, obviously Ted Cruz is probably not going to accept anything less than the Attorney General, but What about, given that Sessions has recused himself on the Trump-Russia X-Files conspiracy theory, what if you could convince Ted Cruz to take the deputy spot?
Move Rosenstein out.
Ted Cruz is now responsible for getting rid of the conspiracy theory and moving the, you know, get the- there's nothing there.
I would say to him, show me a crime today or the investigation of an actual- we're out.
We're done with this.
Joe, put Cruz in there as Deputy AG.
He gets the Attorney General spot when Sessions leaves on his own volition later on, right?
I know it's a step down.
The guy's a U.S.
Senator and was a presidential candidate and a more than credible one.
But the country, I think he would be doing the country a huge favor.
You go in there, you end this debacle, you fire Mueller, end this disaster.
There is no crime.
And forget the political fallout by arse.
I don't care about that.
There is no political fallout.
What's the political fallout from this ridiculous investigation with no crime?
Okay, so step one, keep Sessions.
Step two, and there is talk about replacing Sessions with Cruz.
Scrap that.
Ask Cruz, beg Cruz to take the deputy AG spot, take over the Trump-Russia thing, because Sessions is Rucuz himself.
You following me so far?
Yeah, that's intriguing, man.
Yeah, really.
Number three.
On the same day you announce the replacement of Rosenstein with Ted Cruz or someone similar, because I do get that that's kind of, you know, that's the likelihood of Cruz taking that's probably infinitesimally low.
Yeah.
On the same day you do it, Joe, You engage in a radical transparency effort.
And the reason I bring this up is Kushner did himself, Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law, did himself a big favor yesterday.
He did what Don Trump Jr.
did.
I completely understand, again, for our regular listeners, this is an X-Files conspiracy theory, the Trump-Russia thing, there's no such thing.
I get it.
I understand that.
And I understand the initial, completely, the initial Trump Backlash to it, personally, where his take on it, Joe, the Trump administration, was, well, why should we release?
There's nothing there.
It would, Joe, like, I know who you are.
If I accused you of felonious mopery on the open seas, I know there's nothing there.
Like, you don't, you're not a felonious mope, and you're not on the open seas.
For you to radically, like, you know, release your, you know, whatever, you know, your travel records, and you haven't taken any road trips, you haven't been on the seas, You're like, this is a waste of my time.
I'm not paying a lawyer for this.
Why defend myself against something?
I totally get that.
But at this point, this is overtaking the entire country and the liberal media apparatus.
We need to fight fire with fire.
So on one end, you appeal the conservatives and the libertarians and a lot of other people who understand this is a witch hunt, and you just fire these guys, get rid of them, bring Cruz in there, clean the whole thing out.
On the same day, you release everything, Joe.
Just like Kushner and Donald Trump did.
Release the emails, Joe.
Release the meetings.
Release the minutes of the meetings.
Release everything you can on the same day.
That appease... Well, it's not going to appease liberals because liberals can't be appeased.
They're maniacs.
But that way you could say, hey, this special investigation is done.
The investigation, Joe, isn't.
The Congress still has the power to look into this.
The FBI still has the power to look into this.
Here's everything.
You guys have fun.
But this fiasco over here, this special counsel thing, this crap is done.
You understand?
This crap is over.
My friend peeking in here.
I got guests over in my house like peeking and giving me the look here.
This special counsel thing is over.
What do you think of my plan?
Sounds pretty good.
You don't sound too crazy about it.
Well, I don't know if it's going to happen, man.
No, no.
Listen, I... Good idea.
I think so.
Folks, it's the only way to... I don't want to use the word appease.
You're never going to appease anyone.
But it's a way to move on from this debacle, finally.
This thing is a disaster.
Get it done with.
You're not stopping an FBI investigation.
You're not stopping the Congress.
This special counsel thing is a witch hunt.
End it.
Get Cruz in there or someone of like mind.
Get rid of Rosenstein.
End it.
And on the same day, release everything.
Everything.
Emails.
Everything you have.
Put it out there.
All right.
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All right, man, what's next?
Well, you're rolling along pretty good, Dan.
Yeah, I know.
Hey, here's one interesting story, kind of a pop culture almost story, it's become, sadly so, because I really want to get to this government seizures thing, but it's a little more detailed.
So, Chipotle.
Now, disclosure here.
I own Chipotle stock.
Not a lot of it, but enough that it matters to me financially.
So I just want to be crystal clear on that.
I'm not talking about this story for that reason, but I just think it's an interesting story.
I'll put it in the show notes as well.
It's a Bloomberg piece.
There's a fascinating theory about Chipotle.
Now, some of you may have heard there was another food scare at Chipotle.
I think it was a place in Virginia.
And of course, Joe, the stock dumped again.
I don't think they've gotten to the bottom of it yet, but they think it may have been norovirus, which is, you know, what some people call the stomach flu.
It's not actually a flu.
So some people got sick.
Now there's a fascinating piece where this Statistician, mathematician, did an analysis of the food scares at Chipotle and has a theory that it could, could, he's not, he's very clear in the piece that he's not making any definitive statements on it, Joe, that the food scares at Chipotle could be a form of sabotage.
Sabotage.
And it's fascinating because he backs it up and he says two things, Joe, which I found really interesting.
He says, well, before I get to the two things, first he sets it up by saying, just to be clear on how this would economically benefit people sabotaging Chipotle, this is an amazing number, Joe.
There are $459 million of positions at stake available right now that would be affected by the stock price of Chipotle going down.
In the latest food scare that happened, was it last week in Virginia?
$55 million was made in less than one day on the stock going down.
Now, for those of you who understand stock shorting, stock shorting very simply is, and this is way oversimplified, but enough to make sense for the purpose of this conversation.
If you short a stock, you buy the right to sell it at a certain price in the future.
So how would that benefit you if the stock goes down?
Well, if you buy the right to sell Chipotle stock at $450 a share, knowing, Joe, that it's going to go down to $390, you make $60 on each transaction.
And remember, you don't have to buy the actual stock.
You're buying a position.
So you're leveraged pretty high on that.
So shorting a stock can make you a lot of money if you have information that it's going to go down.
Because you don't actually have to put up $400 to buy the stock or $450 and you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
You don't have to put up the actual money.
You're buying a position so you can leverage yourself.
$55 million in one day.
So the guy says two things lead him to believe that it could Be sabotage.
Number one, he says the time of year for noro.
Norovirus is typically spread in the winter, fall months.
Now, for a number of reasons medically outside of the scope of this conversation.
Not August and July.
Not that it doesn't happen, but it's not typical.
It's very unusual, he says, and that's when this happened last week.
And it's July, for those of you who lost track of the calendar.
He said very unusual.
Number two, he said the number of people that typically get sick in a foodborne illness incident, the average is, and you can read the piece, I think he says it's 18 on average for a restaurant.
He said the number of people getting sick at Chipotle is extraordinary.
It's, what was it, 200, 100 in the last one?
It's not 18.
He's like, that's really unusual and it indicates that there may be someone intentionally getting people sick.
In other words, sabotage.
I don't know.
I thought it was fascinating.
And I think in this new social media environment, Joe, where foodborne illnesses become a national story, not a local one.
Remember.
Joe, you and I both know when we were kids, right?
If it didn't happen on the evening news, it didn't happen.
The chances of Walter Cronkite covering an outbreak of food illness, you know, at Chipotle were pretty low.
I mean, we did have Jack in the Box and stuff like that.
But now with social media, a hundred percent of the time, it becomes a national story every single time.
So sabotage is a lot easier.
All right.
One quick thing.
I'm going to wrap it up because I do want to get to this.
I also want to talk about Charlie Gard.
Had a Twitter fight with some Charles Arthur, some guy who claims to be a journalist.
What a joke.
Guy was a total clown.
I suggest you check out my Twitter.
I'll get to that a little bit, hopefully tomorrow.
But this government seizures thing, this is a big problem.
So Jeff Sessions recently instituted a new policy at DOJ.
Let me just explain to you government seizures before I get to the policy.
It's probably a better way to do it.
When you're a federal agent, like I was in my prior career, if I want to take your property, there are two ways to do it.
I can either criminally indict the property or I can go through a civil proceeding.
The civil proceeding is called an in rem proceeding.
Basically in rem means against property.
There is a proceeding against the property, not you Joe.
So if I pull up, pull over Joey Bag of Donuts for drug trafficking, whether I indict Joey Bag of Donuts, prosecute Joey Bag of Donuts or not, I can engage in a civil proceeding against say the $20,000 in cash I found in the car.
Folks that's a big deal because the civil proceeding in order to convict the property Joe in rem again again it's a proceeding a judicial proceeding in rem against property not against a person in order to convict the property in a civil proceeding the standard of evidence for conviction is only preponderance of evidence not beyond the reasonable doubt this has created a lot of problems Joseph because this is an astounding figure don't forget this the government In 2014, the federal government seized $4.5 billion in assets in 2014.
Now, burglars who broke into homes only stole $3.9 billion worth of assets.
Folks, I'm not mean, that's not funny, but the government actually took more property from people than burglars did.
That's an astounding number.
Sessions DOJ released a new memo which is reinstituting a back-end way of overriding states prohibitions against taking property without a conviction.
I get it.
They'll argue this point on legal, you know, legalities.
When I was a federal agent, what you can do, Joe, is if the state has a prohibition against seizing your property unless Joey Begadonis has actually been convicted.
We clear?
I cannot seize Joey Begadonis $20,000 unless he's convicted of a crime.
The feds can seize it.
And engage in asset sharing, Joe, where they give some of the money back, which is a roundabout way of getting around state prohibitions, okay?
The Sessions policy doesn't completely override that, but expands, it increases the volume of asset forfeiture.
And it's an end around that procedure to give money to the states that still have prohibitions around it.
So there's a lot of people not happy with this right now in Sessions, and I'm not crazy about it either.
Now, again, in the interest of not presenting you a problem without a solution, I want to give you a quick solution and we'll bolt for the day here, okay?
I don't have a problem at all with criminally Seizing the property after a conviction, not a charge.
Okay?
So if I convict Joey Bag of Donuts, and it's the state of New York, or the feds, whatever it may be, for drug trafficking, and I can prove in court after the fact, after the conviction, that those were criminally gotten gains, Joe, that those were the proceeds of drug sales.
Someone admits to giving him the $20,000, whatever it may be.
The guilt's beyond a reasonable doubt.
I have no problem with the government taking the money.
So that's step number one.
Forget civil forfeiture, asset forfeiture, folks.
It's a huge mistake.
It's a mistake.
I'm sorry.
I believe in being tough on crime, but I'm also very leery of the power of the federal government.
I'm extremely leery about giving the federal government the power to take items when there's no conviction of a crime at all, in some cases, which has happened.
So, step one, get rid of civil asset forfeiture.
It's a huge mistake.
Number two, I have no problem with criminal asset forfeiture.
Take the property if it's ill-gotten gains.
But, here's the caveat, that those ill-gotten gains, that cash, the car, whatever it may be, can only go in a restitution fund, in a federal government restitution fund.
Now, again, to refute some people, they'll say, well, what if there is no restitution?
What do we do with the property now?
In other words, let's say the Joey Baggadonis crime.
We seized the $20,000 in cash, Joe.
Say there's no victim that's claiming $20,000.
In other words, restitution, I'll give you an example, like a restitution case in the Bernie Madoff scheme.
You had people who wanted restitution.
They wanted their money back.
That's the easiest way to understand it.
In a drug crime, you don't know who the $20,000 belongs to.
What if it was 1,000 people who purchased $10 dime bags?
They're not going to know.
They're certainly not going to walk up to a guy and go, hey, can I get my $10 back for that dime bag with the restitution?
You get what I'm saying?
There may not be a claimant.
So you may say, well what do we do with a restitution fund if there's no restitution to be paid?
You put it in a restitution fund for Bernie Madoff type crimes later so people can actually get some ill-gotten gains from the government.
But the government cannot use it.
Because then Joe, you get what I'm saying?
It's not for government use.
One, it gets the money back in the economy that was taken out of the economy, because we don't want it in government hands, because government will ruin it and spend it on crap like they do everywhere else.
And number two, it disincentivizes the government from taking property for its own personal use, for buying new equipment and all that stuff.
We should not be doing that in government.
This is not a money-stealing enterprise.
So there you go.
Get rid of civil asset forfeiture altogether.
It's a mistake.
You have to indict, convict, and then afterwards get the property.
Property goes in a restitution fund, only available to victims of crime, even if they're not directly related to the crime in question.
All right.
We covered a lot today.
All right.
Tomorrow, I'll try to hit this Charlie Gard thing.
So thanks again, folks, for listening.
Thanks for another great week of listenership.
Last week, we're doing really well.
And please share the show with your friends.
I really appreciate all the kind words in the emails.
Thanks a lot.
See you all tomorrow.
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