In this episode I ask the question, "Is it time for a third-party in politics?" With the Republican Party consistently letting voters down, is it time to move on? https://shar.es/1TYpVQ The Republican Party better get its act together because we may be looking at another recession. This piece sums up the reasons why. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/why-soaring-assets-and-low-unemployment-mean-its-time-to-start-worrying-1499247003 Here's another troubling reason the economy is sputtering along and you're not getting a raise. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-slow-wage-growth/
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Anything run by liberals will be run into the ground, burned, stepped on, gasoline poured on it and burned again.
Get ready to hear the truth about America.
They're arguing about things and debating how quickly they can deconstruct the greatest country in the history of mankind and all of the ideas and norms that have gotten us here.
On a show that's not immune to the facts, with your host, Dan Bongino.
Alright, welcome to The Renegade Republican with Dan Bongino.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Glad to be here, Dan.
Ready to go.
Yeah, ready to go, too.
A lot of news to cover.
Let's get right to it.
By the way, just on a personal note, no deal yet on the Ford Raptor, but I cannot thank you enough, my awesome, terrific, fantastic audience, for all of the feedback.
You guys are great.
And ladies, I asked for feedback on the Ford Raptor truck.
I get about 100 emails from people.
Telling me about everything from how it can run a little hot in the air conditioning to how wonderful it is in the desert.
So thank you very much.
It means a lot to me.
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All right.
So yesterday, Joe, as predicted, the Republicans sold you out.
Again, if you're a binge listener, and I love the dichotomy in the show between the binge listeners and the daily listeners, because I get emails for both and I can tell right away what you do if you binge listen or if you listen every day.
I said yesterday, The Republicans were going to sell you out on a clean repeal of Obamacare.
The vote came up yesterday.
So just to be clear, for those of you who missed it, who have busy lives, a vote was held in the Senate to repeal Obamacare clean.
Just get rid of it.
And what happened?
As I predicted yesterday, I said it would fail because the Republicans have no guts.
They have no cojones.
It did fail because seven Republican turncoats voted against The bill.
So it didn't even like fail by a sliver, Joe.
You know, we have 52 Republican senators.
We did not get anywhere close to 52 votes.
And folks, I sometimes you just hope and pray that you're wrong.
But sadly, we very rarely are on the show because the Republican Party will take every opportunity to sell you out.
And I ask you again, as I said on Fox and Friends hit this morning, for those of you see it, you know, what's the point?
What's the point?
You know, the Republican Party, you know, I tweeted this out yesterday and I meant it and I want this, well think about what I'm about to tell you.
The Republican Party is useful when you don't need them and useless when you do.
You know, you need a post office named after someone, they're great.
You need a resolution out there about How, you know, infants are adorable and puppies are cute.
They're perfect.
They'll send that out for you, no problem.
You need a resolution praising our veterans, you know, thank God for our vets, right?
And our military servicemen.
Yeah, they'll do the resolution.
But folks, frankly, those things are all easy.
Everybody loves their veterans and our military men because they deserve it.
Everybody thinks babies are cute.
You know why, Joe?
Because they are!
Everybody thinks puppies are cute.
You know why?
Because they are!
Okay?
That's useless stuff.
You need a post office named after, you know, Jackie Robinson or whatever, they'll do it.
Great!
He was a brave man.
He gets a post office named after him or something.
You'll see a resolution out of Congress, no problem.
But, things that actually, you know, really will make a difference in your lives.
Those things are all great, those other stuff, but things that will make a difference in your life.
Tax cuts, repealing the dreadful Obamacare, getting your kid a decent education.
That stuff, they abandon you every time.
They can't decide on a budget.
They can't decide on tax cuts.
They can't decide on Obamacare.
So what's the point?
So, you know, I complained a lot yesterday.
Let me just get to some solutions instead of whining about it, because I'm so pissed off right now that we could go on for the entire show complaining about how the suck level of the Republican Party, which is off the charts.
I'm going to ask you a question.
This goes to you, Ormacost.
All right, Bongino.
Is it time for a third party?
Now!
Okay, go ahead.
Wait, before I get, before I set this, I want to give you the pros and cons.
All right.
Because I don't know, I honestly don't know where Joe stands on this.
I've never had this conversation with him.
Nope.
I've never, I've never, I don't preface the content, I don't talk to Joe about the content before the show intentionally because I want the show to sound like a natural conversation that it is.
Here are the pros and cons of this, and let me be clear on it too.
In my second book, The Fight, I wrote an entire chapter telling you how bad of an idea third party is.
Having run for office a number of times and having repeatedly been exposed to the machinations that go on behind the scenes, I always thought third parties were a bad idea, and here's why.
First, let's lay down the markers here.
Why do we need political parties in the first place?
And why do we need, specifically in this case, the Republican Party?
Let's talk nuts and bolts.
Well, number one, you need it for ballot access.
Folks, in states, like where Joe lives in Maryland, where I live in Florida, the Republican Party, they have ballot lines.
In other words, on every single general election, because of the number of votes that party gets, not the person, but the number of votes the party gets, Because the person will change on each ballot, obviously not the same person running every time.
They will have a dedicated ballot line.
Now you may say, what are you talking about?
That means in the general election, whoever wins the nomination by that political party, in this case the Republican Party, Joe, will be on the general election ballot.
Right.
I don't know if you know this, but you can't just get on a general election ballot in a lot of states.
You have to get a certain number of signatures.
And you know, Joe, why do you think that is?
I mean, it's pretty simple.
Yeah.
Because let's say you have a Let's say you had a, you may say, well, that's not very democratic.
Well, folks, really, are you sure?
Because let's say in Maryland, right, they had a, and Maryland's one of the worst, I know the Maryland election laws pretty well.
Yeah.
To get on the primary ballot, I think it's like a $270 fee or something like that, which is not, well, you may say, well, anybody should be able to get on a primary ballot.
Are you sure?
Because if that's the case, Joe, Maryland is 5.6 million residents.
If there was not some barrier to entry for credibility.
Oh, yeah.
You could see a hundred thousand people on the ballot.
In that case, that's not democracy at all.
Because what happens?
You go in the booth, you see a hundred thousand names, you're like, oh my god, I have no time to sort through all this.
So what states do, and I agree with by the way, is they set some barrier to entry for credibility.
They'll say, let's say it's money.
So in Florida, it's a ten thousand, I think it's ten thousand.
You have to put ten thousand dollars in some form of like donor money up front.
Folks, that's not a lot.
Honestly, if you can't raise $10,000 and you want to run for Congress or the Senate or the governorship, seriously, you're not serious.
I mean, can we both agree on that, Joe?
Yeah.
In a race, a congressional race, it's going to cost a million, two million to win because you're going to need to put together, it's a business, getting elected.
Sadly, politics will become a business too, but getting elected is a business.
You have to open up a very serious operation.
To get on there, you need to spend about $10,000 to get on the ballot in Florida.
In Maryland, it's $200.
But the problem with $200-something, it may have gone up.
But the point is that in Maryland, anybody and their mom can get on the ballot, and it creates these really long primary lists.
It's not democracy at all.
So having a Republican Party that in a general election at least already has a ballot line makes it real easy because then what happens Joe you have a primary you have an entry fee to get into the primary which shows you're serious you have credible candidates and then you have a winner and then you have a spot in the general election ballot which guarantees that at a minimum when someone goes to vote the Republican Party will have a name in the pot.
Easy peasy.
Easy peasy.
Easy, what is that, cover girl commercial?
I forget.
But I always get the pop, I constantly get the pop culture stuff.
I just have no time to watch TV or commercials anymore.
But that's, yeah, easy peasy, beautiful cover girl.
That's got to be it, right?
If not, just email me.
People always do.
They always correct me anyway.
So they have ballot access.
Okay, number two.
So the Republican Party is beneficial because they already have a line in the general election.
Number two, money.
After you win the primary.
So let's just talk generals for now.
Let's move along from the primary.
I told you about the money to get on the primary ballot, which is a barrier to entry for credibility.
Now in the general, you have a ballot access, you also have money.
So once you win the Republican primary, you're going to get the support of a lot of Republicans who don't know you, don't know you from Adam, but know you are a Republican because you won the Republican primary.
And folks, let me be completely candid, because I want to give you the pros and the cons.
I don't like people, oh, let's get a third party, and I don't think of the ups and downs.
When I won the Republican primary for Congress and the Republican primary for the United States Senate in the state of Maryland, there are Republicans who donated to me who didn't know me, but they knew I won the primary, they knew they were Republicans, and they figured because I had that label in front of me, that was the imprimatur from the party that I was good to go.
And they donated money.
So I'm not going to sit here and say I did not benefit, and I still don't benefit in some respects, from being aligned with the GOP brand, okay?
So again, just to put out the positives.
So ballot access money, also there's voter lists, there's other things that come along with being a Republican Party nominee.
When you win the nomination, they have access to voter data and other things that you probably wouldn't get if you were an independent candidate.
So those are the pluses that's why we need That's why we need a Republican party.
Sorry, I'm going to move on to the next topic.
Also, another downside for a third party, to be clear on this, is we could split the vote in local elections without name ID.
Now, here's what I mean by that.
If you were to run a candidate as an independent, right, so you have a Republican running, Joe, a Democrat running, and an independent, but the independents are conservative, but he's running as an independent.
What you will have is, and this is what I warned against in my second book, is you have a coalesced Democratic Party, which even in swing districts, let's say it's 45% of voters, okay?
So let's say it's a swingy district.
You may say, well it's a swing district, why isn't it 50% Democrat voters?
I'm being nice here to try and make the case.
Say it's 45% of the voters will vote Democrat no matter what.
You now have 55% of the voters left.
So you say, okay, great.
We're a Republican candidate.
You know, we could win or 45% vote Republican and 10% are open for, you know, up for grabs, right?
So you have, you know, 45, 45 and 10 in the middle.
Well, what do you do?
You split that, that basically at 55%.
You split it in half.
Yeah, they're gone.
We have no chance of winning because half of 55 is not greater than the 45% that are going to vote Democrat.
You follow what I'm saying?
Sure do.
So you split the vote.
That's always been a problem.
But, but here's the problem.
Here's where you, here's where we overcome this.
So now we have the, you know, why we need the Republican party.
Why is it, why it would be technically a quote good thing.
Okay.
Ballot access, money, and you'd split the vote otherwise.
But if you had a, and this is where I'm going to, I'm almost refuting my own second book.
So if you bought my second book, go line through that chapter and say, Dan Bongino's changed his mind because I'm starting to slowly change my mind in this third party thing after we were sold out by Obamacare.
That's the genesis of this whole thing and the tax debate, which we're losing on because we're just not winning on anything.
So there's no purpose to having a party that loses all the time and sells you out, right?
I'm a little hesitant to say this because I don't know who's listening and I have a feeling someone in the Trump administration does, a friend of mine, because I get some strange emails after my shows.
You'll find out.
Yeah, I'll find out today.
I think Trump should leave the Republican Party.
I know this sounds crazy.
I know a lot of you may be shaking your heads.
I'm expecting some viewer listener email on this.
Maybe some positive, maybe some negative.
I think Trump should lead the exit from the Republican Party.
I say that because, Joe, this is why I set this up strategically the way I did.
Go ahead.
I gotcha.
You see where I'm going with this?
Yes, I do.
All of those things I told you are assets are completely wiped out if Trump Leads the exit from the Republican Party.
All of it.
Let's go down the list.
We needed the Republican Party.
I don't mean to sound all over the place, but we needed the Republican Party for the reasons I laid out.
The reasons we don't need the Republican Party anymore?
Because they're absolutely useless on the ideological and legislative front.
They can't do anything on tax cuts.
They can't do anything on spending.
They can't do anything on the deficit.
They can't do anything on federal funding for abortion.
They're nothing.
They can do nothing.
They can't get anything done.
So we don't need them.
Trump, if he were to lead the exit from the Republican Party, ballot access is guaranteed.
He's the President of the United States.
That's what I knew.
Yeah.
He's the president!
Folks, if Donald Trump dumps the Republican Party today and runs for re-election as an independent, I promise you, his name will be on the ballot.
You tell me what it takes.
Because remember, each state, just so we're clear about how federal elections work, there is not a national standard for ballot access, even in a national election.
Digest what I just told you.
There is no United States standard for ballot access.
Every state has its own standards, even for the presidential race.
So for Maryland, it may be whatever, $270.
So Trump, I am pretty sure, Joe, I don't think we need Jay Zabicus for this.
No.
But I'm pretty sure Trump can afford $270 in Maryland to get on a bet, you think?
I'd help him out if he needed it, yeah.
Joe, listen, Joe and Armacost and I aren't rich, but Joe, we'll split it.
Joe, we'll split it.
We'll throw it out as a donation.
I don't even know if that's legal, by the way, but we'll try it, okay?
So Trump can get on the ballot in Maryland, no problem.
In Florida, I think it's $10,000 or whatever it may be.
Forgive me, it's been a while since I've ran, thank God.
I'm not running again, ever.
I still think Trump can win the wing to 10,000.
A little bit more than 270, but I'm pretty sure Trump's okay.
In other states, it's a certain amount of signatures.
So let's say, whatever, in Ohio.
I have no idea what Ohio is.
Just let me be clear on that.
But say it's 200,000 signatures.
Trust me when I tell you that's no problem for Trump.
They'll get that in two weeks, easily.
So Trump will have no problem getting on the ballot as an independent.
Okay, so ballot access.
We don't need them.
No point.
Move along.
Okay, secondly, money.
I'm pretty sure Trump's okay with money.
Number one, Trump is a billionaire.
Now, what level of billionaire?
We can all dispute that, but nobody disputes that the man is tremendously wealthy and has been a business success, okay?
He's had some failures, but he's had obviously a lot more successes than failures.
Money's not going to be a problem.
Also, Joe, outside of his own self-financing, Trump is It's an extremely prolific fundraiser.
I know that sounds crazy, but the RNC and the Trump campaign are raising boatloads of money.
Yes, they are.
A lot of people, and you know this, Joe, from Callers and Your Morning Show there, WCBM, they're very passionate about Trump.
I'm sure you hear it all the time.
He will have zero problem raising money.
And finally, voter data, again, a total non-issue.
Trump had a really tremendous voter data operation, despite the fact that the Clintons painted his campaign as a bunch of technological idiots.
So I ask you this then, Joe.
Alright.
Now, because I asked you a question beginning of the show and it's now 15 minutes, you still haven't been allowed to answer.
And I've been thinking about it.
Okay, given what I told you the pros were to having a Republican party.
All right.
And the pros are to having Trump leave the Republican party and run as an independent, do you think it's time for a third party?
Well, I'll preface what I'm going to say by telling you I'm a registered unaffiliate in Maryland.
I'm unaffiliated.
That's independent.
Yes.
I think I would like to have the Republican Party hang around.
I would like to keep it simple and have two parties.
But they haven't done a damn thing for me.
They're not doing a damn thing for me or anybody else that votes Republican.
So what's the sense in having them?
What's the point?
That's the point.
So yeah, it's probably time.
Trump can bring a whole bunch of folks with him, and that's a great time to start a third party.
And by the way, it's a good point.
People who voted for Trump in the last election, a lot of them, a good swath of them, are not Republicans, Joe.
You and I both know this.
They are either Democrats or like, Joe, in Maryland, you can't register independent.
He's right.
You have to register unaffiliated, right?
A lot of unaffiliated voters, folks, they couldn't give a damn about the Republican Party, but they do care about Trump.
Now, Let me let me add another and I'm going to move on in a second because this is important this is a very serious conversation we need to start having if we need to start dumping the Republican Party.
I don't take this casual this conversation casually or lightly.
If Trump's going to do it though he can't do it alone.
Well he can but I wouldn't invite let me rephrase that he can do it alone.
I don't think it would be smart.
Now, a lot of you are going to laugh at this when I say this, I'm sure.
But hear me out.
Again, I think these things through.
I promise you.
I put a lot of homework into this show for you.
My audience is my world.
You're everything to me.
Outside of my wife, kids, and the Lord Almighty, well, He comes first.
I mean this.
You are everything to me.
I say this to my wife every day.
I put in hours and hours of show prep to make sure I never waste your time.
I've thought this through.
He shouldn't do it alone.
He should go grab Mike Lee, he should go grab Rand Paul, and he should go grab Ted Cruz and say it's our turn to start something new and fresh.
Now, I know a lot of you are laughing going, you're insane, and I know exactly what you're going to say.
You're gonna say, well why?
Trump's not really a conservative, and Mike Lee is unquestionably a conservative, Ted Cruz is unquestionably a conservative, and Rand Paul is unquestionably a conservatarian.
Actually...
He's more of a liber-tervative?
Liber-servative?
What would that be?
I say that because conservatarian is, which I would describe myself as, a conservative with libertarian tendencies.
Rand Paul is more of a libertarian with some conservative tendencies.
Make sense, Joe?
Yeah.
Can someone email me?
I love my audience.
You guys are great.
Is it a liber-servative?
Can someone give me something that makes sense?
Because that sounds ridiculous.
No, seriously, danielappogito.com.
Send me something because maybe I'll send it over the Rand Paul campaign.
A liber... You can't say... You know what I'm saying?
You need something that flows off the tongue, right?
Conservatarian flows off the tongue.
Maybe liber-servative.
Who knows?
But Paul is a libertarian conservative.
I get it.
I know your complaints.
You're going to say, well, why would any of them go along with that?
Folks, I'm here to tell you as well, knowing some of these guys personally, That they like each other.
They're very nice guys, all of them.
They've been very good to me and they're very loyal and good people.
But I know they have differences too amongst themselves.
What I think Trump should do is come out tomorrow and be honest.
He should say, listen, I'm a business guy.
I am now sadly in the business of disgusting politics, which I hate.
I'm not used to this.
But during my time in the business of politics, the broken business of politics, I have come along and figured out that conservative values are the best way to advance the country forward.
I understand some of you don't agree with me, but that's where I'm going.
Now, I don't agree with these three senators on everything, and I know they don't agree with each other on everything, which they don't, folks.
They don't believe me.
Lee, Paul, and Cruz do not agree on everything.
Just look at that last Obamacare debate and the Cruz amendment, right?
Mm-hmm, yeah.
But I'm telling you as a businessman that these three senators have a model for success going forward.
I agree with 80% to 90% of the time.
The Republican Party is lost.
I don't agree with them even 50% of the time anymore.
Me and these three senators are going to go forward, we're going to found the Freedom Party, the Liberty Party, whatever it may be, and we are going to advance good, solid, conservative values, advance the economy, the healthcare system, fix the education system, and if these other Republicans want to leave that shell of a party and come along, you're welcome, but here's our platform, and they lay it out.
They lay out five or six things they all agree on, Say, there are other things here each individually we agree on, but this is the core stuff we're going to move on.
Taxes, school choice, pro-life, second amendment, bedrock principles.
What do you think, Joe?
I like it.
I mean, he needs some help.
He could use some help.
It's going to be tough to do it alone.
Of course, and I spent more time on this than I wanted to, folks, but it's critical we start to move the ball on this going forward.
I am willing to evolve my own positions when I think I made a mistake, and I really think I made a mistake not calling for a new party.
I really do.
And there is no better person on the planet right now.
None.
To make a deal about the platform of a third party going forward than Donald J. Trump.
None!
Go grab Lee, go grab Paul, go grab Cruz.
Go into the house, grab a few members of the house, some Louie Gohmert, some other people looking for something different, and make it happen.
Make it happen yesterday.
All right, I got a lot more to get through, so let me move on.
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Okay.
Now, just to kind of reset the show a little bit as well, one of the reasons I opened up today with the topic of should we all consider a third party and here's how it should happen is because it's not just the Obamacare thing yesterday, although that was, in my humble opinion, the biggest Political sellout in, I don't know, 50, 60, 70 years.
I can't even, I can't think of a bigger sellout than a Republican party that ran for, since Obama, you started the Obamacare debate on repealing Obamacare.
They all ran on it, Joe, and then failed to do it yesterday when, you know, when it was right in front of them.
I mean, it was right there.
You had one job.
You had one job.
I was messing with my friend yesterday.
I got this cop friend of mine down.
We were police officers in the academy together.
We've known him forever.
And he called me.
And on the Florida Turnpike down here, I live off the Turnpike.
And the thing about the Florida Turnpike is down in Southern Florida, you miss an exit show, you might as well go to Miami.
Because the next exit is literally 18 miles away.
So he missed the exit and he called me and he's like, I just added 40 minutes on my trip.
I said, you had one job.
You had one job.
Get off the right exit.
That's one job.
122.
There you go.
Just get off the exit.
How do you miss the exit?
With GPS, it's like, you are approaching the exit in one mile, in 0.9 miles, in 0.8 miles, in 0.5 miles, in 100 feet, in 50 feet, in two feet.
Get off, you idiot, right now!
You can't miss the exit.
You had one job.
Just one.
He missed it.
Well, GOP, you had one job.
Repeal Obamacare.
That was it.
You had one job.
One job.
You couldn't even do that.
By the way, a guy emailed me yesterday, said we should start a ringtone.
It was great.
It was the funniest thing ever.
He goes, you need Dan Bongino ringtones.
You know when we go, he loves when we say, what?
He thinks that's funny.
He wants a Dan Bongino ringtone.
What?
That would be good.
Good idea.
Maybe we should start that.
But here's another broken promise.
The Republicans, and I'll put this in the show notes today.
It's an article in Bloomberg.
The Republican Party can't even agree on the tax cuts!
Oh my god, Joe!
Joe, this is a bunt!
For those of you who don't play baseball, you know what a bunt is?
A bunt is when you don't even have to swing the bat.
As it was described by my baseball coach, Coach Stan, who I haven't mentioned in a long time, a long time ago.
That was the last time I mentioned Coach Stan, he's a great guy.
All you have to do is catch the ball with the bat.
You don't even have to hit it!
It's a bunt!
Everybody supports tax cuts in the Republican Party, even moderates.
They can't even get that done!
So there's an article in Bloomberg today, and here's a quote from the piece which is going to blow your mind because it describes up the absolute futility of the pathetic, disturbing, broken, feckless, spineless, cowardly Republican Party.
Talking about Paul Ryan, who by the way is a very nice guy personally, but I don't get it anymore.
What's going on with him?
It says about a tax cut, It says, Ryan has insisted that a tax overhaul must happen in 2017 since 2018 midterm elections could complicate the task.
Now, why am I reading that quote?
That's a rather mundane quote.
No, no, no.
Oh, there's a lot in there.
You may not have picked up on it, but oh, there's a whole lot in there.
So they have to do the tax cuts now because someone could get elected in 2018 and the midterms are unelected.
And that could complicate the task?
What does that mean?
Let me translate the DC talk.
Thank you.
We're cowardly backing off tax cuts because Democrats are going to use the tax the rich class warfare against us.
And if we do it now, we think they'll forget it by 2018 before the election.
But if we cut taxes right before the election, someone's going to run an ad saying we did tax cuts for the rich and Republicans may lose our seats.
Why?
Why?
For the ringtone people?
Come again?
Really?
So now let me get this straight Joe.
Now we've already forfeited the argument that tax rate tax rate rate cuts will cost the government cost quote the government revenue and are is a is a uh we're throwing we're throwing a bone to the rich?
So we've already capitulated the argument?
How stupid is this party?
Instead of going out and making the case, which is an easy case to make, that money in your pocket, Joe, money in people who are wealthy, money in people who are the middle class, money in people's pockets, will eventually filter out into the economy in the form of economic growth, as has been shown repeatedly over and over.
John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, over and over and over again.
We're already capitulating the argument and we're afraid in 2018 because it could quote Complicate the task because there are elections coming up?
Folks, it's over.
It's over.
No, I mean it.
The Republican Party, it's over.
They've already capitulated two major things, even though they had one job.
Magically, they had one job and they've lost two.
They've screwed up two jobs even though they only had one.
They screwed up Obamacare, which was a major capitulation to what?
To the Democrat idea, Joseph, that the government somehow has a solution for healthcare.
That's all this is, Joe!
Is it not?
All this is under Obamacare, by refusing to repeal Obamacare, is a capitulation to the far-left Democrat idea that the government has a solution for healthcare when the government broke it.
That's all it is!
It's nothing more.
They'll say, we've capitulated one of our party planks, that economic freedom and liberty work and can fix health care.
We've already capitulated that, so the Republican Party has no purpose anymore.
Goodbye.
But even worse, they've capitulated point number two, that tax rate cuts in the economy will benefit the economy and will benefit the middle class.
Ironically, even if those tax cuts go to high earners, because what do high earners do with the money, Joe?
Joe, do you think they burn it?
No!
So if you're, Joe, let's say, let's just, let's play rich people for a minute because we're not, but let's play that.
Let's say you and I are $10 million earners each.
That would put us in the top 1%, right?
Okay, Dan, I believe so.
Is that your Thurston Howell?
Yes, it is, Dan.
Yeah, so Joe gets a tax cut.
Joe, now Thurston, if I were to give you, say you pay $4 million in taxes and we give, A tax rate cut, right, Thurston?
And you get a million dollars back.
What would you do with the million dollars?
Would you burn it?
I would invest it.
I would spend it.
Oh, thank you, Thurston!
You don't need Jay's ad because Thurston just summed it up.
Folks, a lot of these 10 million dollar earners, those evil rich people using the sick, deranged dialogue of the left, are going to go out and invest that money in their business.
Which will grow the left, just like that.
And they will invest in the business, which will grow the business, which will make the business more capable to hire more employees, which will make the employees more capable to pay taxes and to finance the government that the left loves so much.
If they don't invest it, what else will they do?
As Thurston adequately and correctly said, he will spend it.
But what if he buys a new yacht?
Who cares?
So what?
Thurston buys his second yacht.
Who do you think built the yacht?
Who do you think built it?
There are people who work, who pay taxes.
Who do you think built the damn yacht?
What do you care if this guy's got another yacht?
What do you want him to do?
You want to kill him?
What do you want to do?
You want him to burn the money, you idiots?
Oh my gosh, are they stupid.
This is ridiculous.
We've already capitulated the argument.
This is insane.
Now, I bring this up for another, I have, I'm not even going to get to him.
I have so much stuff.
It's just like, I'm serious.
I'm like overwhelming material.
There's a great piece about section 702, the spying on the government.
I'm going to get to at some point too, maybe tomorrow's show, but there's so much material out there, but wrapping up in a neat little ball, this, this argument.
We don't need the GOP.
Trump can start a third party.
He's the only one who could start a third party.
We don't need them because they have capitulated the ideological fight on government, on government and healthcare, and they've also capitulated the ideological fight on the economy, thinking that rich people, when they get a tax rate cut, will go and burn the money, which is imbecilic.
And if you listen to my show regularly, I've already quoted to you data from Stephen Moore about how rich people and tax revenue went up after the tax cuts, okay?
Right.
This is the kind of stuff, we're already capitulating the facts, the data.
It's really disturbing.
So, we don't need a party.
Trump should get a third party going.
He should start it with Mike Lee and them.
We don't need a party because we forfeited the ideological fights.
And why is this important now?
Well, here's why.
I will put in the show notes today a piece from July 5th.
So, it's about two weeks old.
Going on three weeks old.
From Greg Ip, who does really, really terrific work.
He wrote a really great book.
Forgive me, I can't remember.
Where is it?
I have it somewhere.
He wrote a really great book I like.
I forget the title of it, but Greg Ip wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal that should really scare the snot out of all of you.
And, you know, I don't like to do this on the show.
I don't want to leave you with a macabre topic, but the piece is a little bit disturbing.
And the gist of it is, is it time to worry about the economy?
And my answer to you would be yes.
And I'm bringing all of this up, third party and all this other stuff, because the GOP is not worried one bit.
They care about one thing, Joe, and that is re-election in 2018.
Nobody cares.
But here's a couple of data points from you, from the Greg Ip piece, which I think should have you all saying, Okie-doke.
Stock market's good.
Unemployment's generally good.
I would have my Spidey sense going ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding right now.
Okay.
He says, the low cost to hedge against what they call major market moves or what's known as implied volatility.
You may say, well, that's not a bad sign.
In other words, people aren't spending money, Joe, right now to insure themselves against a market downturn.
So you may say, well, what?
I don't get it, Dan.
Like, so what?
If people aren't concerned about a market downturn, why are you?
Well, because when implied volatility...
Or people not insuring against, and basically they're comfortable, Joe.
It's like not insuring yourself against a hurricane risk because you haven't had a hurricane in 20 years.
That's usually when the hurricane happens.
And now you're looking at potential catastrophe.
So low volatility or low implied volatility or not a lot of insurance out there or hedging against, hedging's a better term, against major market moves should not, you don't mistake that for a second.
For the fact that it couldn't happen.
Just like people in Florida who if there hasn't been a major hurricane down here in 10 years, that doesn't mean we won't have one next week.
Okay?
Number one.
That's like the weakest argument.
That's why I started out with this.
But number two.
Interest rates can only go up, Joe.
I'm gonna have to get through these quickly.
Interest rates going up.
I don't want to be simplistic like liberals, but it can be a bad sign for the economy.
Why is that?
It's very simple, Joe.
If you're Joe's t-shirt company, Joe's t-shirt company wants to invest in this wonderful new t-shirt line he knows there's a lot of demand for, but Joe doesn't have the capital right now.
Joe has two ways to do it.
He can do it equity finance.
He can go public and get money from You know, from people who want to buy stock in a company, or Joe can issue a debt.
He can issue a bond issuance and they can buy bonds in a company.
Well, when interest rates go up, that means Joe is going to have to pay more interest on those bonds.
And if Joe can't afford to pay 10% interest on a bond, it's a lot, but you get what I'm saying, Joe?
When interest rates go up, it costs Joe and Joe's t-shirt company more money to finance an expansion of his business.
Not a good thing.
I don't want to be overly simplistic.
Can mean that that's not a good thing.
But interest rates are very low right now and will go up.
There's very little room on the downside.
That's bad sign number two.
Bad sign number three.
And this one was not in the Greg Ip piece.
I'm pulling this from another Bloomberg piece.
I'm crossing them over because I want to make sure you get the full picture.
He says, well, listen, you know, what about employment?
We're at full employment right now.
This could get worse.
We're not at full employment.
Here's the problem.
There's another article in Bloomberg I'll put in the show notes right now, and Ip knows this.
I'm not attacking him.
He just doesn't cover this part in the piece.
We're not at full employment, Joe.
Right.
There's a piece in Bloomberg titled, why aren't you getting a raise?
And the piece is crystal clear.
You're not getting a raise right now because although the unemployment, the top line unemployment number is low, the U6 number Joe, which is people not looking for a job, but who would take one.
So they're out of the workforce.
They're not looking actively, but they take a job if it came up.
It's at 8.6.
We may say, what does that mean?
Folks, that's really high.
The last expansion, it was at 7.9, almost a point lower, meaning there are a lot more people not working.
So you may say, what does that have to do with this?
Well, because there are a lot more people not working and not actively looking, they're not competing for your job.
Well, if they're not competing for your job, there's a pool of people out there who could flow into the workforce tomorrow as wages start to creep up to compete away your job.
There's a reserve of workers out there is what I'm getting at Joe.
An army of unemployed people who are not actively looking but will take a job when the right price comes up who will immediately compete away your job if you get a raise.
So let's say Joe, let me make this super simple and I always get feedback on this.
I know a lot of people think I'm wrong but I'm absolutely convinced this is why wages are not going up in a recovery as they should be.
Joe has a unique talent at WCBM.
Joe's a sound engineer who has a unique skill set.
Let's say, Joe, you walk into CBM tomorrow and say, I want a $10,000 raise.
Right.
Or I'm leaving.
I'll tell you right now, knowing Joe's skills, CBM would be in a lurch big time.
I'd be in a lurch.
If Joe said, I want $10,000 per show, I'd be in a lurch too.
In a super hot labor market where there's no reserve of sound engineers on the sideline, Joe, who aren't looking, but will take it at the right price, okay?
So in a perfect world, a super competitive labor market, where there's no sound engineers left, what does WCBM do?
They gotta pay you the 10k!
Yep.
Or they have no show!
Now, in a hot economy, but a hot economy with a high U6 rate, in other words, people who are sound engineers who are unemployed but not really looking right now, what does CBM do?
They go, $10,000?
Armacost, are you out of your mind?
They put out a job thing, go looking for a sound engineer.
Let's say Joe made $100,000.
I don't know what he made, but let's say he makes $100,000.
Now he wants $110,000.
What does CBM do?
They put out a job opening for a hundred thousand all of a sudden that sound engineer Joe quote wasn't looking.
Yeah.
So you know what I'll take it goodbye Joe see you later.
Exactly.
In a hot job market that guy's not there.
They either pay Joe the 110 or sayonara see you later.
They have no morning show.
That's the point that's why you're not getting a raise.
So these are some warning signs on the economy right now that, you know, and you may say, well, why is that a warning sign?
Well, just to kind of double down on that, you have to ask yourself again, the why?
Why is there, and this is where I think this is a problem for the economy, why is there an army of unemployed people out there not looking but who will take a job if the right one comes up?
Folks, it's because the entitlement state and the safety net has grown to such a point that people don't have to.
You get an Obama phone, you can get Section 8, you can get SNAP, you know, food stamps, you can get unemployment for 6,225 weeks.
You see the point?
The growth of the entitlement state under Barack Obama has forced onto the economy, one, a cost because taxpayers are paying for all these benefits.
So now, Joe, your raise is being taken up by tax dollars where you're working to work to pay for people to not work, to frankly not compete for your job.
This is a problem, folks.
This is a warning.
This is not the sign of a healthy economy.
The sign of a healthy economy is not an army of unemployed workers who are not taking jobs that are available.
That is not a good sign.
Okay, a couple quick things and then we'll move on to a couple other bad signs here.
I'm sorry if that was a little circuitous, but it's a critical point I need you to take away from this show.
Stocks right now are trading at 22 times past year's earnings.
This is from the Greg Ip piece.
22 times.
That's a near historic high.
Wow.
Here's a big trouble sign.
Corporate debt.
Joe's t-shirt company borrowing money to open up a new t-shirt line.
Corporate debt, Joe, is a share of economic output?
Is at levels last seen before?
The last two recessions.
Okay, here's one more and I'll leave you with this.
Inflation's low right now.
Generally a good sign.
Depends on the reasons, but let's use simplistic liberal thinking just for a second.
Inflation's low, but so is growth.
Now here's the problem.
Low inflation can be a good thing, but now liberals, you can tune out for conservatives and libertarians.
This is the intellectual part of the show.
Low inflation is generally a good thing.
But low inflation is not necessarily a good thing, Joe!
When growth is low, too.
Now, why would that be?
You may say, well, why would we want inflation?
We don't.
I am for a stable dollar.
That's why I used to do reads for Birch Gold.
Because I'm a big believer in it.
I'm for a stable dollar.
But folks, if Joe's t-shirt company has taken out a boatload of debt, I just told you, Joe, corporate debt is a share of output.
The money you owe is at the highest levels of spend since the last two recessions.
If you owe a lot of money and your company's not growing, And inflation's low.
Inflation would eat away that debt and would actually benefit you.
I'm not suggesting inflation's a good thing.
Be very careful.
But I'm saying low inflation with high growth is awesome.
That is, I mean, that's the best thing you could want.
High growth, low inflation.
Low inflation, low growth with a ton of corporate debt?
What does that mean?
Inflation would eat away the value of the dollar, but it also would eat away the value of corporate debt.
Does that make sense, Joe?
Yeah.
If inflation means the dollar you spend is worth less, which is what it means, it also means the dollar you borrowed is worth less too, which is good for you if you owe a lot of money, right?
Understand.
If you have a lot of debt, which companies do right now, and you're not growing to pay off the debt, and inflation isn't eating away the value of that debt, folks, you're going to have a lot of companies, if the stock market takes even a little bit of a dip, and the economy turns out, we're not going to be able to pay that debt back.
This is a bad sign.
I'm not trying to scare anyone, but let me just wrap the whole show now up for you.
Those warning signs should be a Paul Revere moment for the GOP right now to get something done on Obamacare and taxes.
Because if the stock market crashes and we go through even another mini-recession, Joe, we are going to lose 30 to 40 seats in the Congress and we're going to lose the presidency.
So, folks, I'm begging you, to anyone who knows members of Congress, Congress members who listen, or the staffers, the warning signs are there.
They are living in an environment now, Joe, where they think, oh, we'll be okay, the economy's motoring along, people are going to vote for us.
It may not be.
It is time to head off the impending tidal wave of bad news now.
Get the tax cuts, get the economic growth, and get all those warning signs out of the way
so companies can grow and the inflation rates won't matter and they can start making money
and we can start moving forward.
Man, I have to tell you, the show gave me a little bit of a headache today
because I wrote this thing out to make it legible and I put little arrows to direct myself
where I needed to go because I wanted to make sure I left you with a coherent thought.
Get a third party.
Time to dump the Republicans.
They forfeited the ideological fight.
They're sitting pretty right now thinking economic growth is going to be terrific and it's going to get them reelected.
I just gave you the warning signs as to why the economy may crash again.
Please pass on to them those warning signs and let them know that they need to do something now.
to head off a potential recession around the corner.
All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in.
I really appreciate it.
Don't miss tomorrow's show.
I do want to get to this spying thing because there's a piece in the Wall Street Journal with a guy, he sounds like an educated guy, very educated guy, but he has it all backwards on government spying.
I want to give you a little perspective from the inside how it really works.
All right, I'll see you all tomorrow.
You just heard the Dan Bongino Show.
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