Ep. 602 This Indisputable Fact Will Drive Your Liberal Friends Mad
More terrific economic news to get excited about.
https://t.co/FQyUZKFTPz
The bull run continues.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/30/us-stocks-dow-record-high-tax-reform-senate.html
No one believes Bill Clinton anymore.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/most-believe-sex-charges-against-bill-clinton-just-13-dismiss-accusers/article/2641939?utm_campaign=Washington%20Examiner:%20Washington%20Secrets&utm_source=Washington%20Examiner:%20Washington%20Secrets%20-%2011/30/17&utm_medium=email
Is the FBI in hot water over the debunked Trump dossier?
https://www.newsmax.com/t/newsmax/article/828897?section=Politics&keywords=dossier-contempt-congress-devin-nunes&year=2017&month=11&date=29&id=828897&aliaspath=%2FManage%2FArticles%2FTemplate-Main
Another government gun grab underway.
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/11/28/hawaii-police-order-medical-marijuana-users-to-voluntarily-surrender-guns-and-ammo
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Get ready to hear the truth about America with your host, Dan Bongino.
All right, welcome to the Dan Bongino Show.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
All right, on with the show.
Yeah, still in Dallas doing The Road Show.
Just got off of Fox & Friends.
A little shout out to Sean over there.
He said he's listening to my show, so I appreciate that, Sean.
Thank you very much.
The show's been doing great.
Thanks to all of you.
I really appreciate the listenership.
We've been rocking and rolling lately.
Again, thanks to you and word of mouth.
We should maybe start advertising, Joe.
Isn't that what they do in business?
You know, you have a product to pet rock.
Maybe we should advertise more people who want to pet rock.
So one of these days we'll start doing that, but word of mouth's been great.
That's why I appreciate it.
And quickly, big shout out to Ron P. You know who you are, Ron.
He sends me great soundbites.
Joe, can you cue up the first one for me?
So this one, for those of you who have been regular listeners to the show, you know my wife loves Donnie Brasco, the movie, and there's a line where Al Pacino, a lefty, is talking to Donnie Brasco on the couch in his house, and the son comes in, lefty son, and he's a junkie, and he says, you know, lefty says to Donnie Brasco, you know, my son's a junkie, and my wife always finds it fascinating that Donnie's response is... Play it again.
What are you going to do?
My wife loves that.
So Ron P sent us in that soundbite.
We'll be using that.
And then we got this other one.
Joe, play the other one.
Yeah.
Which is, of course, from Trading Places.
We don't need, it ain't safe being no jive turkey this close to Thanksgiving.
Yeah.
So thank you.
Funny stuff.
Thanks, Ron.
All right, let's get right to the material.
So, this has really been on my mind, it's bothering the snot out of me lately.
There is a stipulation trying to be inserted into this tax bill at the last minute by Bob Corker is one of them and some GOP senators for a trigger to kick back higher tax rates if in fact expected revenue does not come into the government.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, This is a really bad idea.
Now, let me just say, in the past, I have, just to be clear, because I don't like to step on myself, I have, I am so confident, based on the historical record of tax cuts, that government tax revenue is going to expand, get bigger, for you liberalists who can't figure it out.
Based on the historical record, that I am absolutely confident and sure, Joe, that after these tax cuts, government revenue may take a short temporary dip, but will definitely expand over time, because the economy will grow bigger, and it's just simple math, folks.
Do you want to take 10% of $100,000, or 10% of $150,000?
percent of $100,000 or 10% of $150,000? So even at a lower rate, do you want to take 10% of $100,000
or do you want to take 5% of a million? The answer is 5% of a million.
Yeah.
So tax rate cuts I'm sure over time based on the evidence and you know what I...
I always debate putting this in the show notes because I've done it a thousand times.
Maybe I'll add this one today.
I'm gonna send in the show notes, very easy, easily readable tax tables.
I want you to look at them.
It's really simple.
You can't, it doesn't take a, you know, a degree in Microsoft Excel to be able to read this.
I want you to look at some critical periods in this, folks.
And this is for our liberal listeners.
This is why I titled this thing, you know, a point that'll make your liberal friends crazy.
I want you to ask them this question.
When in American history Have we enacted a tax cut?
A significant one.
I'm not talking like, you know, an excise tax on pet rocks.
I mean a significant tax cut.
Income, capital gains, or corporate.
And the government, the federal government, lost revenue.
Don't tell me about Kansas.
Kansas is doing fine.
They've recovered quite nicely, actually, and that's just a nonsensical case they bring about because of some anomalous tax reform that I think even Kansas, excuse me, would agree was not designed very well.
I'm talking about at the federal level.
When has a tax cut led to decreases in government revenue?
Now, I know you regular listeners hear this all the time.
Some of you may be like, you know, say it again, Dan, people need to hear it.
Some of you may be like, all right, you've said it a thousand times, but folks, this is a critical argument because it buttresses, Joe, does it not, every single thing we're talking about.
Yeah.
If you're a liberal listener right now and your argument is that tax rate cuts are a bad thing because it's going to cost the government money and the government can do better things with your money than you can, And it doesn't, in fact, cost the government money.
Matter of fact, it gives the government more money and a growing economy.
Do you understand your entire ideology is crap, it's garbage, it's bankrupt, it means nothing?
How is what you're saying true?
So I'm asking you, I'm begging you, I'm imploring you to ask your liberal friends this, again, this simple question.
When is a significant tax cut in the federal government, in the history of the federal government, cost the government money?
Now, I'll include the tax tables today.
Keep it up on your iPhone.
That's what I do.
I keep it up in one of my tabs.
You know how the iPhone works.
A lot of you, you have the windows you can open up there.
Hey, by the way, one quick correction not to get sidetracked in yesterday's show.
Thank you for listening.
The presidency is obviously Article 2.
Article 3 is the courts.
I'm sorry I screwed that up yesterday, but I was excited about the point, just like I'm excited about this one.
But I didn't want to forget to mention that.
The tax tables, I keep it on my phone because you can show your liberal friends right there.
Name the year of the tax cut.
What, 1986?
Ronald Reagan?
Where they dump the federal top income tax rate from 70 to 28 percent.
Pull it up.
Say, okay, here's the tax revenue for 1986.
You know what?
I have it right here.
I mean, I can read this.
I didn't intend on doing this to the show, but it's important and I promise I'll get back to this trigger thing in a minute.
But this is, I got to set it up right.
So, taxpolicycenter.org.
I will put this chart up.
It's unbelievably easy to read.
It's not complicated.
Okay, here's the tax revenue, folks.
Let's go back a year before, Joe.
1985, right?
Tax revenue to the government, Joe?
$734 billion.
Major tax cut in 1986.
Matter of fact, one of the biggest tax cuts in American history.
The top marginal rate on income tax, Joe, went from 70 to 28 percent.
So the liberal argument is, oh my gosh, this is gonna, forget it, the economy's gonna fall apart, it's gonna collapse, we're all gonna die!
That's their argument, right?
Right.
Well, what was the tax revenue in 1986?
$769 billion.
Well, what was the tax revenue in 1987 after the tax cut?
Surely it went down from $769 billion, Joe.
Surely.
Uh, wrong.
$854 billion.
Huh.
What was the tax revenue in 1988?
$909 billion.
What was the tax revenue in 1989?
$991 billion.
Folks, it goes on.
And you may say, oh, well, you know what?
You're just pointing out the Reagan example.
Okay, tax revenue went up after tax cuts.
Folks, again, this is taxpolicycenter.org.
I'll put the link.
Just watch, read it, watch it, look at it, own it, smell it, love it.
These are facts.
This is not Dan Bongino's opinion.
Then you say, oh, well, you know what?
The George W. Bush tax cuts, those surely, surely did us in.
They caused massive debt and deficits.
Tax cuts didn't cause the debt and deficits.
Exploding government spending did, because more government money came in, meaning they spent more money.
Joe, are you getting the logic I'm putting down here?
I'm following right along with you.
Yep.
Thank you.
If more government money came in, After the tax cuts, and yet the debt went up.
How is that the fault of the tax cuts and not the spending of more government money afterwards?
Folks, I'm really sorry.
I'm not trying to insult you as the audience.
I mean it.
You're my audience.
I love you to death.
My entire livelihood is producing content exclusively for you.
But I'm asking the liberal listeners here to just logically answer the question.
If we enacted tax cuts, tax revenue went up, the debt and the annual deficits went up as well, then how is that the fault of tax cuts?
More government money came in, not less.
You just spent more than came in.
This is only complicated to liberals who have a tough time at math.
So, getting back to my point here, too, you may say, oh, well, you're cherry-picking examples.
Ronald Reagan.
Let's go to a recent time.
Let's go to George W. Bush.
That surely screwed us over.
Okay.
George W. Bush enacted the tax cuts in 2003.
What was the tax revenue to the government, Joe, in 2002?
1.8 trillion.
Alright.
Okay, so 2003, tax cuts get enacted, right?
It's 1.782 trillion.
They say, oh, it went down.
Okay.
The tax cuts got enacted in 2003, though.
So this proves the point even more.
So the year before the tax cut, it's 1.8 trillion, Joe.
The year the tax cuts are enacted, it's 1.7.
Now look what happens after they take hold in the economy.
2004, 1.88.
2005, 2.15.
2006, 2.40.
2007, 2.56 trillion.
2004, 1.88.
2005, 2.15.
2006, 2.40.
2007, 2.56 trillion.
Folks, gosh, I'm sorry to do this to you, but these are just facts.
You know, I like Shapiro's line.
I wish I would have thought of it first.
Facts don't care about your feelings.
Shapiro's right.
These are just facts with how you feel about them.
And if you're a snowflake and you need a safe room because you heard it, or a safe space, or crayons, or color forms, or a hot cocoa in your pajamas, that you need that stuff after you're hearing these facts.
It's not my problem.
That's your problem.
These are facts.
They're not... facts don't lie.
Facts don't have spin.
Facts are just facts.
The facts are this.
George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Calvin Coolidge, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton enacted tax cuts and government revenue from those specific taxes went up and not down.
Those are facts.
I'm sorry to keep bringing this up on the show but this tax argument is heating up specifically today because the Senate may pass this bill soon and liberals are losing their minds.
They're on Twitter freaking out about the government debt.
You have Republicans freaking out about a trigger.
Now let me get back to that point.
This required a big setup here.
Because a lot of rhinos out there are saying, well, you know, government revenue, Joe, is important, so we need a trigger mechanism.
And the trigger mechanism is this.
The trigger mechanism And I'll put articles about this stuff in the show notes today at Bongino.com or if you subscribe to my email list.
The trigger mechanism being proposed is, if in a few years, Joe, these tax cuts lead to a decrease in government revenue, then this, air quotes here, trigger would be enacted that would automatically instill back the old higher tax rates.
Now, in the past, I have not been particularly annoyed by this idea.
Matter of fact, at some point, I think I may have at least ideologically supported it because I'm so comfortable That this is going to happen, that there's going to be an increase in tax revenue, that I don't even think it's a penalty.
But as I've grown older and a little bit more intelligent, I've realized that Democrats, Joe, will take advantage of anything, and will look for any excuse to take more of your money, and that this is a particularly atrocious idea.
Because they will look for any way to massage statistics and data to find some legal loophole to enact higher tax rates.
So I'm asking the Bob Corkers of the world, with all due respect, what the hell are you thinking?
What are you thinking?
Why are you bringing this up?
Now, I have a proposal to counter Bob Corker, and this is why I wanted to open up with this today.
Get ready for this one, Joe.
If Bob Corker really wants to push this, is Bob Corker willing to add on to his own amendment a reverse trigger?
Do you see where I'm going with this?
A reverse trigger, Joe.
This is a good one.
How about we do this?
We say, okay, Bob, listen, we shouldn't do this, but just as an ideological point, we should say, Bob, how about this?
You want a trigger in case the government, quote, loses money, which is nonsense, it's your money, from tax cuts to enact the old higher rates.
But if the government raises more money, like it did under Reagan or George W. Bush, can we put a reverse trigger that goes to an even lower rate that gives that money back to the people?
What do you think, Joe?
I like it.
I think it's time for our Yeah Guy.
Play the Yeah Guy.
Yeah, well, you know, that's just like your opinion, man.
He's always like, there's never a bad time for the dude.
I mean, I know, I know I'm driving you nuts.
It's just the funniest quote ever.
I think that that'll be sadly Corker's response, but this is what we have to do.
We have to incorporate a reverse trigger with the trigger.
And if we did that, I think Corker would balk.
And I think it's because Corker just doesn't like Trump at this point, and he's looking to throw any obstacle or roadblock in the way of this tax reform.
Now, folks, that's... well, not yet, but this is the good news portion of the show.
Because I like facts, And I like data.
I want to be fair and give you kind of a full-spectrum analysis of what's going on.
There is some troubling news about the economy, too.
So let me just finish up the good news part first, because I shouldn't.
I should have left you with the good news and started with the bad news.
But I have some other stuff I want you to be cautious about, and it's a warning sign for all of us.
You know, we don't want, as Alan Greenspan, I think, once said, was it him?
He said, irrational exuberance, that can always be trouble in an economy.
Here's some more good news.
The third was at the quarter.
3.3% economic growth was revised up in the last quarter.
3.3% GDP growth, excuse me, to be more precise.
That is a pretty big and solid and strong number.
If we could continue it out over the course of the year, Trump will be the first president in nine years now to reach 3% GDP growth because it never happened on an annualized basis for Barack Obama.
Let me repeat that.
Barack Obama's administration never reached 3% annual growth in any year of his presidency.
He's the first president not to do that.
That is, again, a fact.
I know it's a troubling fact, but it is a fact.
Trump has done it now each quarter.
And I'm not saying Trump is solely responsible, folks.
I don't believe the president controls the economy to that degree.
But I am saying that his policies have had a lot to do with this, and this is not coincidental.
He is the first president to do that.
If Trump does that, he's going to be the first president to do it in a very long time, which will be great.
So that's really good.
They revised the numbers up to 3.3% GDP growth.
That's solid.
Secondly, the Dow now crossed 24,000 this morning.
Another good sign, saying that people have some faith in the economy, you know, businesses, bigger businesses that are publicly listed.
24,000 is a pretty good number, and that's the good news.
There is some bad news, though.
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Yeah, big round of applause.
So, folks, again, in the interest of being candid with you and not being Pollyanna-ish like the Democrats were about Obama, there are some troubling signs in the economy.
Something happened recently.
I'm not going to spend too much time on this because I don't want to be hyperbolic or overly dramatize it, but There's been a sell-off in Chinese bonds lately, and people are starting to worry if this is a precursor for over-inflated asset values ahead.
When I say asset values, basically what they're saying is this.
Is the stock market where it should be?
Is the bond market where it should be right now?
Or are we in another bubble?
And if this bubble bursts, are we all in trouble?
Now, it hasn't been a massive explosion in the Chinese bond market.
And, you know, I mean, to be fair, it's worthy of concern.
But it's not the bond market apocalypse.
But it is troublesome.
And here's why, folks.
When interest rates go up in the economy, and this is what has me worried a little bit.
Just follow this.
I'm not going to bore you to death with wonkery.
But you have to understand this.
When interest rates in the economy go up, it's not always a bad thing, but you can have two relatively pernicious side effects.
Number one, when the Federal Reserve or any central bank, whether it be in China or the Federal Reserve here in the United States, raises interest rates, Joe logically It makes the cost of money and the cost of capital higher.
Right.
I mean, if an interest rate's 2% and you want to get, which is, you know, ridiculously low, but say as a business loan, you can get for 2%, which is never going to happen, but, and you can expand your business.
You know, Joe's making computers or whatever.
He needs to get another product line going.
Joe needs a loan.
If Joe's paying 2%, that's, that's nothing.
That's penis.
Joe's essentially getting the money for free.
Right.
If interest rates in the economy were to go up, let's say, you know, let's use a hyperbolic example.
Let's say they go up to 6% and they triple.
The interest costs for Joe now, on any future loans, are dramatically higher.
The interest costs are going to be three times higher, right?
Yeah.
That's a big deal.
So, I mean, this is the obvious point, that when interest rates go up, money and the cost of capital goes up, and it's harder to invest in your business at those higher rates.
Now, the good part of that is people who have capital, you know, older folks who've accumulated assets over the course of their lifetime, Joe, who are lending the money, get a higher interest rate back.
So it's not all bad.
But I just want to give you a fair analysis, and I promise I'll relate this to the story in a second.
But secondly, the second dangerous side effect of growing interest rates in the economy is a lot of people are invested in bonds.
Bonds are just, you know, more securitized asset instruments.
People buy them, you know, government bonds, you buy a business bond, they guarantee you a certain payment at a certain yield over time.
The problem with interest rates is as interest rates go up in an economy, bond prices go down.
For the very simple reason that if I can buy a bond at 2% now, and that's the best I can do, that's going to return me 2%, just like I said the interest rate before was 2%.
If I can get a bond that's going to return me 2%, I'm willing to pay a certain price.
And then all of a sudden interest rates jump to 6%.
All of a sudden, Joe, that 2% bond looks pretty crappy, right?
Right.
Because why would you go buy a bond that was going to give you 2% if you could buy one that'll give you 6%?
So interest rates and bond prices move in the opposite direction.
The problem with that is, as interest rates go up, again, number one, it makes it harder to get your hands on money, but number two, if you're a holder of bonds, you can be pretty much wiped out.
Now, that's kind of what's happening right now in the Chinese bond market as interest rates are rising a bit.
Now, I bring this up because Folks, I told you the good news.
I'm optimistic.
Let me just be clear on this, but be careful because interest rates at this point are not going to go down in the United States.
I think that's clear based on the economic recovery we're in, that the Federal Reserve is going to raise interest rates to kind of tighten up money a little bit out of fear of an exploding bubble economy.
As interest rates go up, there are a lot of bondholders out there, folks, that bought these bonds at very low historic rates.
Many of them could be hurting bad.
They could be hurting real bad.
This is not a small market, okay?
This is a very big market for those types of assets, whether it's government bonds, you know, blue chip companies, or corporate bonds, whatever it may be.
We could be in a little bit of trouble.
Secondly, a warning sign here.
Again, not to scare anyone, but just keep your eye out.
It's not all Pollyannas.
That's what the Democrats do.
The stock market, Joe, right now, I'm a little cautious.
I'm not a financial analyst.
Folks, do what you want.
There are people out there who spend their entire time looking at stock prices, and I'm sure you have some great info.
I'm just telling you, I'll just give you the numbers, and you do what you want.
The stock market now, at least historically speaking, is unusually high.
Using a metric, a pretty standard one, I mean, it's not the most detailed metric out there, but if you use like a price-to-earnings ratio, in other words, what's the price of the stock compared to the earnings show?
Pretty simple, right?
I mean, you don't want a stock where the price of the stock is 50,000 times the earnings of the company.
How the hell are you going to get that money back, you know?
The S&P, the P-E ratio now, the S&P is 25.2.
That's 63% higher than the average.
So again, I'm just saying be cautious.
I think a lot of money, given the artificially low interest rates we've had over time with the Federal Reserve, a lot of money has flowed into stocks because people are chasing that higher yield, Joe.
They're having a hard time finding it with all those low interest rates.
Remember I said people have money benefit from higher interest rates?
Because they can lend it out at a higher interest rate.
But when interest rates are low and you can't lend that money out at a higher interest rate, what do you do?
Well, you have to chase yield somewhere, and I think that yield is fine.
This is not mysterious.
I'm not the only one, obviously, who has this opinion.
But a lot of people have been chasing yield in the stock market, and that yield is the money's flowing in there that would have went somewhere else under more normalized conditions.
Again, is it a catastrophe?
No.
I think the tax cuts will help significantly, and if GDP growth picks up, like I think it will, to 3-4% after these tax cuts, I think there's a darn good chance that the speed of the economy can catch up to all the investment in the stock market, Joe.
Because the price of the stock may then reflect the future growth of the company.
But just be cautious about that.
All right, I've got a couple more stories to get to that are really important.
That's just the be cautious news of the day.
I was on Fox & Friends this morning and I discussed this Trump dossier again.
Folks, I know I've mentioned this to you before, but please, please hear me out on this.
I have a story from Newsmax in this show notes today.
I want you to read.
It's a short one.
It's not long.
It's not boring.
And it's about Devin Nunes, who has been on this dossier thing.
He's a Republican congressman from California.
Nunes has been all over this case, and the critical question he has been asking about the dossier, and just to be clear what this was, this was a Democrat and Republican.
The Republicans, they didn't finance the dossier, the Republicans, but they financed the opposition company that produced it.
The Democrats financed the dossier and just took over the contract.
They bought this document that had all of these lurid, disgusting allegations about Trump that have been debunked by every serious person in the arena.
These are not credible allegations.
A lot of them are sexual in nature.
They're pretty disgusting allegations.
It's been debunked.
It's false.
Everybody knows it's false.
It's not a partisan point, folks.
Everybody understands the document is crap.
This document may, and I want to be clear because again we do facts here, may have made it into charging documents, I shouldn't say charging documents, affidavits in front of a court.
And those court documents may have been used in the unmasking or to start investigations against Trump officials.
Folks, think about what I just told you.
You have a political opposition party, the President, the Democrats, and Hillary Clinton.
Buying a fake set of charges, largely planted by Russian officials, into this dossier.
That fake document is then used to go to a government federal law enforcement agency with massive power.
And it's used as a precursor to start a federal investigation to spy on your political opponents.
Guys, ladies, I mean, I'm really serious when I say this to our Democrat listeners, because I know you're out there.
How does this not scare the heck out of you?
You know, folks, when I was a Secret Service agent, a federal agent, I was in awe of the power we had.
I was in my 20s, my early 20s.
They give you a commission book that says, this is Dan Bongino, he's a federal agent, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
They give you a gun, they give you a badge.
And you have the power to ruin people's lives, folks.
You too, you could take their freedom away if these people are... I mean, I was involved in some of these investigations, and even though I knew, I mean, I remember my first federal arrest.
I remember it well.
I remember, obviously I'm not gonna say his name or what he did or anything, but I remember when we showed up at his house.
It was in Long Island, New York.
And he had no idea, none, that we were coming for him.
His life was over that day, like his life changed forever.
It is an awesome power.
And I mean that in a frightening kind of way as someone who is on the inside.
If we're at the point now where opposition parties, and nothing's going to be done about this, and I'll get to the point of this in the second of the News Mac piece because it's been in development.
I'm not just repeating an old story.
If we're at the point now where the FBI can do this, can rely on political opponents, And just get a bunch of fake information and start investigations on people.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're all in trouble because we are a country that, again, investigates crimes we don't investigate people.
You may say, well, people commit crimes.
Yes.
But we do not start federal investigation based on personal biases and personal dislikes of people.
You cannot walk into a local FBI.
You shouldn't be able to, at least.
Walk into a local FBI office and say, hey, I don't like Dan Bongino.
I'd like you to start an investigation.
They go, oh, and by the way, here's some information I found from his political opponent in the last campaign.
By the way, can you spy on him?
Oh, OK, of course, folks.
Are you going to find something?
Of course.
I probably ripped the mattress tag off once.
You are always going to find something when you target people and you don't target crimes.
The way it's supposed to work is you're supposed to walk into that office, that FBI office, and say, hey, listen.
Someone stole my credit card and all of a sudden they go, oh my gosh, this is unbelievable.
We got this big international credit card scheme.
You see what I'm saying, Joe?
And all of a sudden they find Joey Bag of Donuts who started this whole thing.
But you don't target Joey Bag of Donuts unless you have a crime.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
You don't do that.
Now what's troubling about this, and this is where the development's been breaking, is Nunez has been trying to get the FBI to admit what is the golden question right now.
Yes or no?
Did you or did you not use this political dossier, this political document full of debunked crap information against the Trump team to target a person, not a crime, in an investigation?
Did you use the dossier or not?
And Joe, they won't answer the question.
They will not answer the question.
Do you know how frightening this is?
Now not only may May they have used this and folks if you're asking me for my opinion I'm erring strongly based on their obfuscation here.
Leaning strongly towards yes.
A big time yes.
This is a troubling development.
Nunez has been asking for this stuff and the FBI won't produce it.
They will not give them the documents.
He has had a subpoena this.
This is a member of Congress charged with representing the people.
Who is on a committee looking at this stuff and the Bureau, I don't understand it folks, the Bureau will not provide the information.
This is deeply disturbing stuff that should bother every one of you regardless of your partisan stripes.
How does it not?
How does it not?
Imagine if this were you.
You have a business competitor down the block who walks into the FBI office and says, hey, you need to go investigate Joe's computers.
I think he's up to something.
Well, what is he up to?
Oh, I don't know, but don't worry.
Wait, Joe, here's where it gets interesting.
Don't worry, I'll come back with a dossier in a few minutes.
You go back, you pay a guy, you go, hey, Hey, Bobby, Bobby two times, whatever your name is, Bobby, do me a favor.
Can you go produce a fake email that my competitor wrote about some sexual thing he did in Russia?
I'm gonna go give it to the FBI.
Then you walk back in, you go, hey, FBI guys, I got an email about my competitor.
It says he was in Russia one time and he did this, this, and this.
Oh, okay, let's start an investigation and start spying on him.
Folks, how is what I just said in any way exaggeration for effect or hyperbolic?
What I just told you is what may have actually happened.
This is very disturbing, and I worked with the men and women in the FBI.
They're great.
I do not think at all this was an issue with the rank-and-file.
They are.
They're wonderful.
They're super talented.
They're smart.
We have the best federal investigators in the world.
But I do think someone with a political stripe on them, whether it's an FBI or a DOJ, someone with a big, bold political stripe on their back started an investigation based on politics, not criminality, and they need to be uncovered and uncovered immediately.
And my advice, To the FBI, if you're willing to take it.
I know we got listeners.
You better come clean.
Come clean now.
Stop hiding behind this.
You're gonna be found out.
And if that dossier was used, people, I'm sorry, but people have to be terminated.
Like, fired.
We'll leave the violence for the Democrats.
I mean, fired.
Thanks for clearing that up, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, we got Media Matters goofs who listen and they're so violent they assume you mean, you know, like, terminated like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I mean, fired from your job.
And it's tough for me to say, but you have to go.
I mean, there may be some potential liability there as well.
This is a serious thing.
All right.
It bothers me, folks.
Again, I know, I understand the awesome power.
I'll never forget that guy's look when we locked him up, Joe.
I mean, that thousand-yard stare, like he's just looking right through you, like he has no idea what's going on.
And we got him in the early morning when he was all discombobulated.
It was bad.
I mean, the family was crying.
And even though the guy was a criminal, I mean, he was convicted.
It wasn't like, you know, we got an innocent guy there.
He had done some really nasty things.
I'm only human, you know?
And seriously, I felt awful.
I'm like, gosh, this guy's life is over, even though I knew he'd ruined a lot of other lives.
But I'm just telling you the truth, folks.
I know I probably shouldn't, but I did feel bad.
I felt awful about the whole thing.
And it's an awesome power, and if it's been abused by the Bureau, it's time to fess up.
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Okay, let's see, a couple more stories.
This is important.
So, national reciprocity is coming up again.
Now, for you Second Amendment advocates out there like me who, you know, folks, it's about... I was having an interesting conversation yesterday, and I can't emphasize this point to you enough because it was a brilliant point was brought up.
The Second Amendment really is not about guns.
I didn't even say, of course it is, it has the right to bear arms.
It's not.
It's about freedom, and it's about liberty, and it's about God-given big R rights.
Now, of course, it mentions the ability to bear arms, but the arms portion is just the enforcement of your right, your God-given right, in the government document in form of the Second Amendment, of your ability to protect yourself.
That's a God-given right.
It's not a right granted to you by man.
It may be protected by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Joe, you get what I'm saying?
But it's not given to you by men.
Your right to defend yourself using arms Is is a god-given right.
Now...
It bothers me because, I mean, I've carried a firearm my whole life and I've never seen a firearm actually shoot itself.
It's a tool.
It is a tool for self-protection.
National reciprocities come up again.
Now, I bring this up not because it is kind of an interesting issue for conservative listeners, but it's also an indicator of the rank stench of hypocrisy from the Democrats and the Liberals.
Again, what is national reciprocity?
Well, in essence, simply, If you have a concealed carry permit for your firearm in Florida, national reciprocity would mean like, let's say, Utah, Wyoming, some of them honor them already, I think they do, but even someplace like New York, Joe, would honor the concealed weapons permit that you have in Florida.
Makes sense?
Yeah.
So if you traveled up to, say, New York and New Jersey with your firearm, you wouldn't be arrested.
Now, I'm being honest here.
I'm still troubled as to why this is a controversial issue.
I know why the far left thinks it's a controversial issue, because they just hate firearms, because they want you to have to rely on the government for your protection, because they're obsessed with control.
And one of the primary ways to latch your people to the mechanism of the state, to latch them permanently, is to take their health care, their education, and Joseph, Their ability to protect themselves.
So when you take away guns, you latch people to the state because they need the state for protection.
I think that's obvious.
But, amongst reasonable people, I'm really unsure why this is controversial.
Joe, you have a driver's license in Maryland, right?
Yes, I do, Dan.
Now, when you drive between states, can you be arrested in, say, Virginia, for driving with a Maryland driver's license?
It's not a trick.
No, Dan, I can't.
Thank God we got Joe.
You know what?
It's time for you to play a little Donnie Brasco for us.
What are you gonna do?
The answer is you're gonna drive a Virginia, you're not gonna have a problem at all.
It's not gonna be any issue, right?
Now, Joe, again, not a trick question.
Does the Bill of Rights anywhere mention driving of vehicles?
Matter of fact, when the Bill of Rights was drafted, were there Ford Mustangs?
No, just plain old Mustangs.
They played all Mustangs.
Horses, yes.
They were a good point, by the way, yes.
But they were not Ford Mustangs, correct?
And they certainly didn't have a V8 engine.
They took hay, not oil.
One horsepower, yeah.
One horsepower, exactly.
Just one horse.
Good point, Joe.
So there were Mustangs, just not Ford Mustangs.
So just to be clear, Driving isn't even a constitutional right enshrined by our national governing document, right?
No one would claim seriously that the act of driving a car is a big R god-given right.
It's not.
I mean, your right to protect yourself is.
The right to drive a car obviously is not.
It's not in the constitution because it's not going to infringe Driving is just a way to transport yourself around.
It's not the only way.
There are very few ways, though, to protect yourself against a firearm.
And the right to self-protection, using a firearm to counter a deadly threat, is one of them.
And I think the founders understood the danger of taking that away to people and latching them to the government.
My point in this is very simple.
If driving is protected across state lines, how can you reasonably make the case, if you're even a liberal listener right now that's open-minded, how can you reasonably make the case that a constitutionally enshrined protection, the right to bear arms which shall not be infringed, should not be protected in other states as well?
Your argument makes no sense at all.
It makes none.
Now, I said I would point out the hypocrisy of the Democrat Party and the liberals.
That wasn't even it.
That was me just laying the groundwork as to why I think it's utterly absurd that we don't have national reciprocity.
If you have a firearm permit in Florida, you should be able to carry your firearm in California.
It's ridiculous.
But secondly, what's fascinating to me is, and this is a point I'd love for you to ask your liberal friends, Liberals will conveniently switch and alter and turn the federalism argument on its head, and they won't back up their own principles whenever the argument is convenient for them.
Here's what I mean.
On the immigration argument, Arizona passed an identification bill.
When you were pulled over, you'd have to have some form of identification, and if you were not in the country legally, you could potentially find yourself in legal jeopardy in Arizona if you did not have proper identification to be here.
The bill was not very controversial at all, but the left made a big deal about it and said, no, no, no, no, Joe.
This is a national issue.
The federal government is in charge of immigration, and the state should not be legislating this at all.
By the way, they were total hypocrites on that as well, because when California turned around and said, we're going to do a different thing here.
We're going to make ourselves a sanctuary state and sanctuary cities and all this other stuff.
Do you realize liberals made the exact same argument, Joe, in reverse?
Yeah.
They said, well, immigration isn't exactly a federal argument anymore.
It's a state argument.
California can do what it wants.
Come again?
You just said five minutes ago with Arizona that Arizona can't pass stricter immigration rules because it's a federal issue.
And then when you wanted California to pass a less strict immigration rule, you said it's not a federal issue.
California could do what it wants.
Liberals are hypocrites about everything, folks.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry to break the bad news to you, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but liberals will spin on a dime because they're not principled, they're not grounded in anything.
The house is built on sand.
For them, it's about the acquisition of power.
It's not about the maintenance of principles in the long run, which is the difference between conservatism and liberalism.
Strong conservatives always support the same things.
Economic freedom through tax cuts, education freedom through school choice, healthcare freedom through patient-controlled medicine.
We always support the same things.
It doesn't matter who's in office.
It doesn't matter what their political ideology is.
That is our bedrock.
We support federalism.
We support the powers not delegated to the Tenth Amendment.
Powers not delegated, and the Ninth by the way as well, not delegated to the to the federal government are delegated to the states and the people.
Having said that though, This is not a right to protect yourself, Joe.
Again, not a trick question.
This is in the Bill of Rights.
This is not a right delegated to the states.
Joe, the Constitution.
Not a trick.
Joe, the Constitution is for the United States, correct?
Yes it is, Dan.
Sometimes you say stuff, it's like with this, I don't even know how to describe it, like with this kind of tone and tenor to it, and it's just funny.
You're like, um, yes Dan, yes it is.
In this like overly faux academic voice that makes it really funny.
It's not the Constitution, Maryland has a Constitution, but the Bill of Rights is not it.
That is the federal Constitution for our constitutional republic.
This is a right that should be protected everywhere and yet the Democrats again are making the exact opposite argument.
They're saying well states should be allowed to do what they want.
Do you understand the Constitution?
They can't do what they want when it is in fact an enshrined federal big R right.
Folks this is a really important thing national reciprocity and I'm gonna ask you humbly for a call to action on this.
I'm going to ask that you contact your congressman's office.
Just put in, find my congressman at Google.
They come right up, I promise you.
And I'm going to ask you to ask them where they stand on national reciprocity.
Now, I'll wrap on this.
I will give you the liberal counterattack, because here's what they'll say.
They'll say, well, this is going to be a race to the bottom, because you can go to a state like, I don't know, they'll say Utah, Florida, where there's very few requirements, and New York should be able to say, these are our requirements, and by forcing us to enact Florida's requirements, it's a, you know, quote, race to the bottom.
You hear that term all the time.
But Joe, here's the problem.
Race to the bottom, number one, when they use that, they're using focus group tested terms because the bottom's always bad, right?
A bottom, oh my god.
There is no race to the bottom.
The bottom is your big R right.
The floor is you have a right to protect yourself.
There is no below that.
You can't go to a sub-basement.
That is the ground floor.
The ground floor is we all have a right to defend ourselves.
You can't take that right away.
You can't make it overly restrictive.
You can't make it so that people don't have the same rights in different states when it's a protected federal law.
That's nonsense.
It doesn't happen with driving.
It doesn't happen with anything else.
And if I want to stay alive and I want to protect myself in Florida, I should have the very same right in New York.
And this is a... You can't have it both ways.
You can't say the federal government is all-powerful when it comes to...
Immigration.
But then the states are powerful in immigration when it suits your thing.
And the same thing on gun rights.
You know, we should have a powerful federal government, we should have a big expansive federal government, say you're a liberal, but then when it comes to actual federal rights instituted nationwide by the Bill of Rights for a constitutional republic, our governing document, that no, those rights don't apply nationally.
It's nonsense.
You have the right to protect yourself everywhere.
It's just crap.
So ask them where they are on national reciprocity.
Hey, one more thing on the gun front and I'll wrap it up for the day.
One of the reasons I've always been afraid of, you know, lists and gun lists and federal databases of gun owners, which should freak you out, folks, big time.
Federal database of gun owners, you know, what's the first thing they come for?
The gun owners.
And how would they find you?
A federal database.
You may say again, a lot of you liberal listeners, I know you, I know you.
I mean, I can predict what you're going to say already.
Got a Starbucks fruit cup here.
It's not bad, by the way.
All right, I'm eating a pineapple.
That's good stuff.
You may say this federal database of gun owners, right?
This is, this is, yeah, it's a slippery, you know, the Democrats will say it's a slippery slope.
No one's going to come for your guns, Joe.
They're not, they're not going to track you down on a database.
Oh, oh, you sure about that?
Now, if you go to the show notes today, because I always back up my stuff with stories, you'll see the story at the blaze.
What's happening in Hawaii, Joe?
Hawaii, a bastion of deep blue liberalism.
In Hawaii, there are medical marijuana dispensaries, Joe, that have to register.
They can sell medical marijuana.
So they're on some state government list, like whatever, Joe's Marijuana Factory, whatever it may be, right?
Well, Hawaii recently, they sent letters Off to their medical marijuana dispensaries.
And what do you think was in those letters?
In those letters, folks, was a demand that the medical marijuana dispensaries surrender their firearms.
Oh!
How did they get those names?
Oh, well, the state of Hawaii cross-referenced two lists of recent gun sales and people who are medical marijuana dispensaries and said, oh, by the way, federal law, the use of marijuana, you can't keep your guns, by the way, surrender those babies.
Folks, again.
When are we proven wrong?
We've used slippery slope arguments.
We said a long time ago, you know, well, this is what's going to happen with, uh, you know, with men in the women's room and, and, and activism on that side and social issues and that, all this stuff that we, that, that the Democrats constantly, all your scare tactics, your scare mongering, scare mongering has come true.
Now, is this happening at the national level?
No, because there's no national big database of here's where Joe is and here's where his gun is.
But another reason that you should be able to protect your right to defend yourself, but secondly, Joe, your right to defend yourself should not become some public database searchable file where people can basically target you and either take your gun away or show up in front of your house one day with signs like, this guy's a gun owner.
That's none of their business.
It's your right.
It's the Second Amendment.
It's your right to do it.
Big R right.
All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in.
I really appreciate it.
Please go to bongino.com, subscribe to my email list there, and I'll send you these stories every day conveniently right to your email box.
See you all tomorrow.
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