In this episode I address the continued attacks on conservative voices and the efforts to suppress honest political debate. I also discuss some positive news about the economy that you may not be hearing about.
The hysteria to label everyone Russian “bots” may lead to liberals as well.
Was Michael Moore “colluding” with the Russians?
Was Barack Obama a “deficit cutter”?
Are we looking at strong economic growth ahead? Read this brief piece.
A Trump bump in approval ratings? Absolutely.
Why the war on guns has failed.
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Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino.
Alright, welcome to Dan Bongino's show.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Oh, and the fun continues!
It just doesn't end, Joe.
And now it's coming from people, you know, we...
People at a network I do work for.
I'm not a paid contributor over there at Fox, but now I get a guy at Fox taking a shot.
I can't believe it.
It never ends, folks.
It is really incredible.
Really.
What are you going to do?
What are you going to do?
Remember we used to use that one a lot?
What are you going to do?
Oh, boy.
All right, folks, I got a lot to get to today.
It's just that, you know, you probably tell them a little.
It's just that it never stops.
The attacks never end.
If you're a conservative, God forbid you have a different viewpoint.
You are, you know, you're supposed to shut up at all points and never open your mouth again, because that's what liberals want.
And I got a lot on that today.
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All right, folks.
McCarthyism is in full effect.
This is where we are now.
You remember the old Joe McCarthy?
It's not really a great analogy because it was different historical times, but it's a term the left has used against us for a long time, as many listeners have indicated to me.
But understand that this is what's happening right now.
There is an ongoing effort to shut every conservative voice up right now.
I got Howie Kurtz at Fox now coming after me from an appearance I did on Tucker saying that somehow I suggested somehow that these students who were speaking out didn't have the right to speak.
I don't know what to say, folks.
This is a media critic, Howie Kurtz, who apparently did not even watch the media portion that he's trying to cover.
I know, Joe's giving me the look like, is this a real story?
I'm not kidding, folks.
It's up in media right now.
Howie Kurtz denounces Fox News guests for comments on Parkland shooting.
He's insinuating that I said at any point that these kids who were traumatized by this Should not be allowed to speak.
Did he listen to my show?
Did he listen to the show I was even on?
I know, I'm thinking the same thing, Joe.
What is this?
I wish we had a ditto cam for that one.
What are you even talking about, Howie?
You're a media critic!
That is not what I said.
Matter of fact, I said specifically during the Tucker Carlson piece that these kids that were traumatized by this had a very valuable voice and that the point about the signs missed was the part where I think they could be the most valuable.
My critique was that of the media that was highlighting the supply side measures of this.
This was as simple as saying, oh, gun control and all this was going to go away.
Are we not allowed to talk anymore?
No, I'm serious, man.
Are we not allowed to talk?
We're not allowed to have an opinion about anything ever.
You empathize with people?
It's fake.
Oh, it's all fake.
You guys just want kids dead.
Kids speak out.
You celebrate them speaking out.
You say, listen, I think these kids who were traumatized by this could have something really interesting to add to the debate about what the signs were missed and the mental health debate.
I think on gun control, I have a different opinion.
All of a sudden, he's trying to shut them up.
Can we talk anymore?
You don't say anything, you're not sympathizing.
You say anything, it's fake.
You open your mouth on Twitter, you're a Russian bot.
You don't open your mouth on Twitter, look at these cowards they're hiding.
Do you realize there's nothing we can do?
Folks, the truth is on our side.
But I, again, I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer.
I actually have some good stories today I want to talk about, too, because I'm trying to lighten up the mood in light of everything that's going on a little bit and try to frame the stories so that, you know, we can get a bit of an emotional break from the trauma of the last couple weeks.
But this is getting harder and harder to deal with, folks.
I mean, every day you're either a Russian bot, you're either a coward, or you're an accomplice to murder.
This just doesn't end.
This is why I begged and pleaded yesterday with you to please follow us, support us, spread the word if you can, because otherwise there's no way for us by ourselves, Joe and I, to withstand the onslaught.
We have a good following, okay?
But this is not, the following is not good enough.
And it won't end with us.
No.
No, it won't end with us, Joe.
It'll go on to Ben Shapiro next, and someone after that, and next thing you know, you'll be stuck again with Joy Reid and Joe Scarborough as your sources of information.
I have a story in the show notes today.
Please check them out at bongino.com to show you how ridiculous this is.
Because now, Joe, the new line by the left, if you speak out, if you say anything that doesn't toe the line right now, If you say anything at all, you are now a Russian bot.
Interesting.
An article up at the show notes today, who was one of the favorite targets of Russian bots and retweeted her stuff often?
Joy Reid at MSNBC.
I didn't use that name just haphazardly.
Is Joy Reid of MSNBC, is she a Russian bot too?
So that was one of their favorite targets for retweets to get their information out.
Is Joy Reid a Russian colluder?
What about Michael Moore who showed up at a rally that's now strongly believed to have been promoted by Russians who were interested in sowing chaos.
Michael Moore of far-left liberal fame.
You know, Michael Moore with all those movies that he did.
All of a sudden is he a Russian Batu or is it just conservatives?
What about the Clintons who now, you know, we found out over the course of this Uranium One investigation took millions, hundreds of millions in speaking fees from people associated with deals involved with the transfer of uranium to the Russians.
Are they Russian bots too?
Folks, do you understand this is not going to end?
I need you to fight.
This is a call to action for you.
Please.
Please fight back.
Follow us.
Spread the word.
Spread the word about the show.
If you choose.
I'm not pressuring anybody.
But this is getting bad.
And it's going to get worse.
They see the strategy.
And you know what they do, Joe?
They smell weakness, and they smell weak Republicans out there, and I'm gonna ask you this, and I'm gonna move on.
Do you believe in what we're doing or not?
Do you believe in the Second Amendment?
Do you believe in the Bill of Rights?
Do you believe in the right to speak out?
If you believe it, this is the time to do it.
Follow, spread the word, stand up.
If you're afraid of losing friends on Facebook and Twitter and other forums on speaking out, folks, we're losing the country.
Please.
I'm really, I'm humbly asking for your help.
We need it.
Please spread the word.
Okay.
A lot going on.
Let's get to a different story for now.
Here's the bottom line.
There's a Holman Jenkins story in the Wall Street Journal, it's very good, and it's about John Brennan, the former CIA director's pressure, potential pressure, on the FBI, how this could be a story, to initiate an investigation.
Now, for those of you who listen to the show, you know it's a really big deal because the Central Intelligence Agency, as I said, Does not have a law enforcement mandate.
They cannot go and arrest people.
Joe, we didn't know.
A lot of people don't know that.
The CIA, they're not cops.
They're not law enforcement officials, okay?
They're not police officers.
They don't have arrest powers.
They are an intelligence gathering entity.
Now, Brennan goes and briefs Harry Reid in August of 2016.
This is important.
John Brennan, the CIA director under Obama, briefs Democratic Senator Harry Reid in August.
Some of the information then makes it into a letter from Harry Reid to the FBI requesting a criminal investigation, because remember, the CIA can't do that.
Where does the information come from?
Well, a lot of that information was in the dossier.
Why is this interesting and what's wrong here?
What's wrong is that John Brennan later says in a hearing, I believe in December, that he doesn't know anything about the dossier, that he's unsure of the details of the dossier, to be more precise.
Well, how is he unsure of the details if the briefing information that he gives to Harry Reid all of a sudden makes it into a letter where some of that information about the dossier appears in the letter in a request to investigate?
I've told you this is the next shoe to drop.
This is very suspicious material here.
The CIA should not be pressuring people, especially the FBI, to engage in law enforcement operations unless there's some significant, you know, hey, listen, we got an intelligence, you know, intelligence feed on a potential terror attack.
There may be a need to make an arrest, of course.
But against political opponents, this is very strange.
So John Brennan, a former CIA director, is running for the hills.
But Jenkins brings up an interesting point.
You know, I said the other day, and some other outlets picked it up, Joe, I don't know if you noticed, I saw it on Hannity, and Limbaugh picked it up too, how the indictment of the 13 Russians is curious, because for all the talk in the indictment about the involvement in the election by the Russians in an attempt to meddle, for all the talk about that, folks, they don't actually charge the Russians with donating or making financial contributions in a way to distort the election.
They don't charge them with that.
And I had said to you based on the piece I put in the show notes that I thought that was quite curious and I think it speaks to some involvement with the Hillary Clinton campaign and Russians that may be, let's say, they may not look good for the Clinton campaign.
I think Mueller may be afraid.
Does this make sense, Joe?
If you listen to the show the other day, it will.
They did not charge the Russians with basically election fraud based crimes.
Uh, based on that they charge him with wire fraud and conspiracy.
And I think it's because the involvement of Hillary and the Russians is a little more intense than we're being led to believe.
And if Mueller sets a precedent, Joseph, that...
That, you know, Russian election fraud and Russian election money and Russian attempts to influence the political process, if they charge him with that specific crime, I think Hillary is in fact in more trouble than we've been led to believe.
And I think that may be why they didn't do that, because Hillary seems to always get a pass.
They're like the Teflon Dons of politics.
Here's the problem, Jenkins says, listen, The CIA has a lot of information, Joe.
They obviously have information we don't know about, of course.
I mean, I think that goes without saying.
They have a level of clearance Joe and I don't have.
We're not read in on skiff-type programs anymore, right?
This is not a skiff, this is a podcast.
But I was an SCI cleared Secret Service agent for a while, and they probably have a lot of info.
And the interesting angle he brings up is that they probably have information on Steele's contacts with the Russians as well, that may be a little bit more extensive, folks.
Now, this is really troubling, because Steele's a foreign agent himself.
Remember, just because Steele used to work with MI6, the British intelligence outfit, and they are a friendly country to us.
I want to be clear on that.
But that doesn't matter.
He is still a foreign agent.
He is not a U.S.
citizen.
I don't want to put words in Jenkin's mouth, but it's interesting how he says if they have more information there and his extensive contacts were, you know, we don't know about them.
I mean, what level of involvement does Hillary have with the Russians, folks?
This could be more frightening than we know.
And I think in those 30,000 emails that are missing, which I don't believe are missing, by the way, there may be some more information there to uncover a more extensive web of contacts between Hillary and Russians.
We already know about Skolkovo, which I told you about the other day.
Which was, sorry, the Silicon Valley.
I think I said Silicon, thank you for all the corrections.
Silicon Valley of Russia and how these companies that were investing over there, something like 17 of the 28 companies, made donations to the Clinton Foundation and the FBI found later on that these attempts to establish this tech hub, Joe, in Russia were really attempts to steal dual-use technology for potential Russian military use.
These companies donated to Hillary Clinton.
Now, the CIA must have some intelligence on this.
They must have something on Steele's contacts there.
And if those contacts are a little more elaborate, who was financing those Russians?
And are those Russian networks involved also in some attempts to influence Hillary Clinton while using Christopher Steele to attack Donald Trump through the dossier?
It's a really interesting story.
Unfortunately, I can't put the story in the show notes because it's subscriber only.
But I thought I'd bring it up, because there may be some information there we don't know about, and I just think that may change the tide of this case if it becomes public.
And I think it's time that, as long as it's not sources and methods, that the public's entitled to know.
So just to be clear, what I'm saying here is, I think the indictments against the Russians may have been written in such a way to minimize Minimize the crime of trying to influence politicians in the United States, precisely because Hillary's contacts with the Russians through Steele may have been more extensive than we know at this point.
Does that make sense, Joe?
It's important I get that out there.
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Okay.
Another thing I want to talk about.
This is a great piece I will have in the show notes from the Washington Times.
Joe, it's back again.
You're going to be like, please, Dan, why do we have to do this again?
We have to because you know how these things work.
Yes.
They continue to creep.
Remember this story about Obama being a deficit cutter we used to address all the time so much so even some of the listeners were like, all right, we get it.
It's happening again, folks, because the Democrats want to paint Obama as some big deficit and debt cutter, and they want to paint the Trump team... I know, Joe's shaking his head like, really?
Is this thing coming back?
It is.
Great Washington Times piece that entirely debunks this.
Now, one point in the piece, to be clear, in the Times, which will be in the show notes.
It does say that... Sorry, I get distracted a bit here.
It says that the Clinton team ran surpluses, which we know the Clinton surplus is not in fact true.
They didn't run surpluses.
There was never a surplus in any year based on standard accounting measures.
But it's a good piece otherwise, and it says a couple things I want to get out there.
Number one, let's debunk the myth that Obama cut the deficit by 60%.
Okay?
This is done using Absolutely tortured statistics, and it's done in a way to deceive you into thinking that Obama and his team were somehow fiscally responsible.
Let me explain how they do this, because technically speaking they're not inaccurate, but they're doing it hoping you're confused by the difference between debt and deficits.
Yeah.
When Obama comes in, and forgive me if you've heard this before, but when Obama comes into office, his first year deficit, and to be fair, this is not entirely attributable to him, the first year fiscal policy obviously has some remnants left over from the prior administration, but let's just stick with the first year to show you how they get the number.
His first year deficit, meaning the amount of money the government spends in contrast to the amount of money they take in, is 1.4 trillion dollars.
Folks, that was a record by far.
It was an astronomical amount of money.
I mean, a staggering amount of money.
Now, the year prior under Bush, and again, I'm just, to be fair, Bush does have something to do with that first year because there's some bleed over, so I'm just trying to be fair, but The last year of Bush, the deficit, Joe, is $459 billion.
Right.
So $459 billion, first year of Obama, $1.4 trillion.
Now, when Obama leaves office, the deficit is $438 billion in 2015.
So I'm not even going to talk about it, because 2016 actually goes up a bit.
But folks, I'm straining to even give their team the benefit of the doubt, not because I want to do that, but to show you the absolute rank absurdity of their argument, how silly, in fact, it is.
It's an insane argument, OK?
Obama's last year in office, the deficit is almost as high as the highest deficit Bush ever produced at $459 billion.
His was $438 billion when Obama left.
So if you're going to think about it that way, yeah, technically the deficits did go down under Obama from $1.4 trillion to $438 billion.
The point I'm trying to make is that they're using that statistic as a way to manipulate you into thinking that this was somehow some fiscally responsible policy.
Folks, Obama's smallest deficit is the smallest deficit of any president in American history is up there with the largest ever.
His smallest deficit, his largest, is by far the largest ever at $1.4 trillion, but it requires you to understand, or I think they're trying to manipulate you, they're trying to confuse you by saying that he's a deficit cutter to insinuate that he's fiscally responsible when Barack Obama is in fact the president responsible for the largest accumulation of debt in American history.
There's not even a close second.
Obama accumulated between, you know, $9 and $10 trillion in debt over the course of his presidency.
It's a staggering number.
Staggering.
There's not even a close second, folks.
Now, the debt is the accumulated debt over time.
If I owe $50,000 on a credit card I've been using for 10 years, that's the debt.
But if next year I take in, say, $100,000 in revenue and spend $150,000, my next year
deficit, accounting deficit, is $50,000.
So they're using this 60% number to insinuate that there was some kind of fiscal responsibility.
Now, having said that, folks, I am not absolving in any way Republicans of their role in running up big deficits.
The deficits were quite low in some of the years of the Clinton presidency.
They almost balanced the budget in one of those years, as a matter of fact.
Almost.
They never did.
I'm not saying that.
I'm simply saying to you that media outlets' attempts to propagandize you by insisting that he was some kind of a massive deficit cutter and therefore his budgets and his zeal for enhanced government spending were somehow a form of fiscal responsibility are utterly outrageous and completely ridiculous.
So please don't buy that nonsense and read the piece in the Washington Times for some comparison so you can see the numbers yourself.
You don't have to take my word for it.
I hope and pray you don't go and seek out other sources of information too, but that's how confident I am that this stuff is complete garbage and bunk.
Okay, another thing.
Thanks to a listener out there.
I had spoken about an article.
I don't know, two, three shows ago, by Jonah Goldberg.
It turns out it was at Town Hall, not National Review, but it's a really good article.
It'll be at the show notes today, and I really encourage you to read it.
Remember the article, Joe, we discussed about the war on smoking and how the federal government and...
You know, the industries out there and basically American interests that wanted to get you to stop smoking were very successful because they understood smokers and they understood, you know, everybody had a smoker in their family and they understood how to talk to them.
And I suggested to you that in the Goldberg piece, one of the good takeaways from it is that You know, the left is going to fail on the gun issue because they make no attempt to understand us, ever.
They just don't know gun owners.
They don't know the language.
But, you know, people had a mom, a cousin.
Goldberg, someone found the piece.
It's a really good piece.
I encourage you to read it.
It'll be at the show notes.
Thank you to the listeners who sent it in.
But that'll be in there.
I didn't mean to spend a lot of time repeating a story I already talked about, but it's a good piece about the psychology of getting people to move in a direction and how to get people to do things, and how I think this gun control debate, and I'm using air quotes because there's not a debate, as you've seen, it's just an effort to silence the rest of us, is going to fail because they're not interested in what we have to say, they're just interested in shutting us down, as you've seen with all this Twitter stuff going on and all this other... I mean, it's just, it's wearing me down, folks.
It really is.
It's just total nonsense, what's going on.
All right, another important story, because the liberals are celebrating over this, and the redistricting debate is coming about again.
You may have heard the story in Pennsylvania where the Democrats overturned, because they're elected judges, and Democrat elected judges basically overturned overturned the Pennsylvania congressional map to make it
more favorable to the Democrats. Now, you may say, well, the legislature in Pennsylvania made it
more favorable to Republicans. Okay, you may not like that, but that's what the law dictates,
Joe. The legislature draws up the maps, not the courts. I think this case may go to the Supreme
Court eventually. We'll see. There is a redistricting case, ironically, I was involved in that's
headed to the Supreme Court.
But I just want to explain to you quickly for your liberal friends who talk about this, that the redistricting problem and the Democrats' argument about not having political representation is a function of their own choices.
Now, yes, does gerrymandering exist?
Of course it does, absolutely.
Do Republicans, when they're in power, try to get more seats at the state and federal level by carving up lines?
Of course.
Do Democrats do the same thing?
Of course.
I mean, it happens all over the place.
Now, I'm just trying to explain to you, though, that the disadvantages of being a Democrat right now have more to do with geographic concentration than anything.
Here's what I mean by that, folks.
Republicans tend to spread out a little bit.
They spread out between urban, suburban, agricultural-type communities.
They tend to live in geographically different spaces.
Democrats, of course we're not talking categorically, but Democrats don't, Joe.
Democrats tend to concentrate in places like big cities.
So what winds up happening?
The concentration of Democrats gets quite intense.
So what you'll have is you'll have a district in say New York City or Washington DC where literally, I get it, I know it's not a stat, just play the game for a minute, where Hillary Clinton gets 98% of the vote or 94% of the vote.
So what happens?
Joe, this is not complicated math, but 51% is enough to win, correct?
Yeah.
50 plus 1, right?
I mean, in races where it's a plurality, you may need even less than that in some primaries.
You only need 51 out of 100 votes to win.
You don't need 98.
The problem is, Democrats choose to collectively live in cities.
So what happens, Joe?
You have these races, 90-10, you know, 95 Hillary, 5% Trump, and they have what the Democrats, at least, are calling wasted votes.
They're not wasted, they're just people tend to live.
Your vote still counts, it just doesn't add to the win.
It just buffers the margin of the win, right?
But it still counts.
The Democrats are suggesting that these wasted votes are somehow a result of Republican gerrymandering and packing them into districts.
But yes, some of the lines have something to do with that.
But folks, there's simply no way, if you're a Democrat in Manhattan, for Republicans... Say the Republicans take over New York.
There's just going to be no way to carve up Manhattan in a way to significantly make a difference.
You may get one Republican seat out of it, Joe, but you get what I'm saying?
There's just not enough Republicans in Manhattan for you to, what, slice a building in half and say, you guys on the left side?
It's just not going to work.
The concentration of Democrats and what they call the wasted votes is too intense.
Republicans spread out a little more.
So whereas Democrats are winning seats 95-5, 90-10, Republicans are winning seats 52-48, 55-45, and they're just barely getting by.
But it gives them a number of more seats because the way they're spread out.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
So I just, I'm not suggesting again that we're not, there's not a partisan interest here in carving up districts in a way to benefit either party.
That's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm just telling you that the majority of the problem, even if you were to engage in a massive countrywide redistricting, Democrats, it's where you live.
I mean, I'm not telling you to move out to increase your political or decrease your political clout.
I'm just saying as a result of your decisions, you're having a tougher time representing yourself outside of the big cities.
I'm telling you, you hear it on this show first.
We tend to focus on issues here.
I think you may not see that much in the mainstream media, but I'm sure we're going to filter their way into the conversation.
Be very careful about the talking points.
Oh, it's all Republican gerrymandering.
Listen, one, Democrats gerrymander too.
That's the takeaway.
They gerrymander too.
I've seen it in Maryland.
I was a victim of it.
Lost the congressional seat by one point.
That was held by a Republican before they gerrymandered it by 20 points, Roscoe Bartlett, and then they put a bunch of Montgomery County Democrats in the district and the district was lost.
So I've been a victim of it.
But secondly, yes, partisan carving up of districts happens on both sides.
But number two, the Democrats are concentrated in ways Republicans aren't.
And it's almost impossible for them to spread their influence.
You can't move a guy who lives in Manhattan to a district in Staten Island.
You can't do it.
There's just no way.
They're not contiguous.
It's impossible to do.
That's why they're having the problem.
It's important you understand the distinction there.
All right.
I got a couple more good ones today, so don't go anywhere.
Some optimistic stories, finally.
Hey, last one today.
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All right.
Some good news.
So let me see.
Oh, I'm getting so many emails and texts.
It's like overwhelming.
Joe, I'm sorry, by the way, to torture you today in the show.
So folks, Joe is one of the finest, I mean, this producers here in the business, but I have tortured him on today's show.
You may sense it throughout the show.
I have been, I am, it's been rough.
My sincere apologies.
Everybody tweet Joe, at Joe Haas with a Z1, if you like the show, and thank him for doing about two hours of edits on today's show.
It's been kind of tough.
Yeah.
Oh, poor guy.
He's like, take a nose of my Joe, please.
That one, this one, that one.
All right.
It's the good news, folks.
Council of Economic Advisors released their growth forecast.
This is really, really good news.
And it looks like everybody's starting to come around to the new growth reality, what the left calls secular stagnation.
In other words, this was a theory that... Let me explain this the right way, because if you don't get this, you're not going to understand a lot of the left's rhetorical nonsense in the games they play.
The left, at the end of the Obama administration, was desperate to explain away the paltry growth rates.
Just to be clear, folks, Obama's growth rates during his time in office, measured by GDP, were some of the lowest in history.
Matter of fact, he's the first president in American history to not reach 3% growth in any year of his presidency.
Those are troubling numbers.
The left needed an excuse, so they started a bandy about this theory of secular stagnation.
Secular stagnation was a far-left liberal economic talking point, and the idea, Joe, was that, well, you know what, this is the new normal, low economic growth, and the gist of it being everything that's been invented has been invented, and this may just be the way one and two percent may be the new normal for the future.
By the way, that's not Barack Obama's fault.
That's them saying it, not me.
Just so we're clear, bud.
Now, interesting.
Trump's only in office a year.
Council of Economic Advisers comes out and says, hey, growth for 2018, Joe, looks like 3.1%, which kind of says to the secular stagnationists, no thanks, have a nice day, but thanks for playing the game.
Not to mention, Joe, it also says we may be looking at 3.1% through 2020.
Now, my opinion, folks, I think after the tax cuts, I think that's a low number.
I think we could hit 3.5.
Now, remember, remember the rule of sevens for you finance people?
Your investments double in 10 years?
That works for economic growth as well.
At 3.5%, in 20 years, the real economy would double.
If we can hit 3.5% in our lifetimes, I'm 43, by the time I'm 63 years old, you will be looking at a real economy that doubled.
I mean, what's the average median income?
$45,000, $40,000 or something?
If the economy were to, in fact, double, the median income would be $90,000, $80,000 in real money in today's dollars, folks.
This is impressive.
Now, they're forecasting $3.1 in the report, but again, I think it could get higher.
If we can keep this going for a good, strong period of time, again, in our lifetimes, we could be looking at an even more vibrant, robust economy.
I think there's a good reason to smile.
You know, the Council of Economic Advisers, Is everything they say gospel?
No, of course not.
But I think the fact that the secular stagnationists, you know, oh everything that's been invented has been invented and the government's gonna be the source of growth in the future.
I think we can finally start to put some of them out to out to pasture their theories and say, hey, listen guys, really, this is obviously garbage and nonsense.
Now, corresponds with another Rasmussen poll, which I'll put in the Show notes today, I'd like you to take a look at where Trump approval has now popped to 48%, folks.
Now, you may say, well, you know, figures are relative.
What was Obama's at this time in his presidency?
Obama's was 45.
So folks, the arguments about Trump, how his approval is historically low and people can't stand Trump, are not really based in reality.
Now, I'm not a big believer in the polls anyway, because obviously they failed horribly during the Trump election, Joe, but I find it interesting that even the polls the liberals are trying to use are so dramatically skewed that they're painting a really ridiculous and unnecessarily bad portrait of where Trump stands.
To be clear what I think this is about, I think this has a lot to do, folks, this has a lot to do with the fact that people are actually seeing the results in their own paychecks.
You know, it's very difficult.
We saw this with the Reagan years.
Yeah.
When you engage in a tax-cutting program, now if we can accompany it with government spending it'd be even better, but one of the things about government spending that government spending cuts And government spending in general that doesn't have a hugely positive effect on approval ratings is it's not seen as real money sometimes.
If I don't explain this right, stop me.
But I think the way it works is people assume government debt is somehow not going to hit them.
Because it hasn't right away.
I told you about interest rates.
Interest rates as they go up because people won't lend us money as we get farther and farther in debt.
We'll be the canary in the coal mine.
But the reality is, Joe, they haven't yet.
I mean, interest rates are still very low.
Matter of fact, they're historically low.
And people aren't going and getting car loans at 19%.
They're not getting mortgages at 15%.
And I don't wish that to happen.
I think it's going to, sadly, if we don't get our spending situation under control.
The point I'm trying to make, Joe, is that it hasn't hit people in the wallet.
So people, it's not going to affect approval ratings as much as it should because people don't see an instant impact from it.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
With tax cuts, and we saw this in the Reagan years when he cut the top rate from 70 to 28 percent, people saw immediate income effects in their own paychecks.
You're seeing that now with people getting bonuses, with people getting raises.
This is really dramatic stuff.
And I think that's what's leading to this corresponding bump in Trump's approval ratings.
And if we can continue the economic growth, as James Carville is alleged to have said to Bill Clinton once, it's the economy, stupid.
I think the Democrats are going to have a really difficult and hard time.
Combating the Trump economic powerhouse that's been created since the secular stagnationists and the Obamites have left office.
They're going to have a really tough time explaining it away.
I mean, what are you going to say to people if they get a job at, you know, $70,000 and $80,000 a year and they were working for $40,000 and $50,000 before?
What are you going to say to people if they get a $2,000, $3,000 bonus?
What are you going to say to people if they get a promotion?
You know, what are you going to say to people when their kids get a job?
Are you going to be the crumbs and collusion party forever?
I mean, is that going to be your Democrat campaign slogan for 2018 and 2020?
Crumbs!
Crumbs!
Economic crumbs!
This is all crumbs!
Thousands of dollars is not crumbs!
Collusion!
Collusion!
Is this the best you've got?
Folks, I think they're in a lot of trouble if they continue this stuff.
I don't think there's a viable path forward electorally.
Remember, Reagan won 49 states.
The only state he lost in re-election was Minnesota, which was Mondale's home state, and he only lost that state by a couple of thousand, I think it was 3,000 votes, because his economic plan was so popular.
He won Maryland, New York, California, so the economy, and I'm not giving Democrats advice, I'm just saying, if this is going to be your campaign plan going forward, good luck.
That is a complete loser.
All right, here's a story I saw yesterday at the Wall Street Journal which I thought was interesting and it just speaks to what I was talking about yesterday, Joe, during the show about how the conservative economy may be the only path forward.
The story's about this growth in a la carte type programming.
It's not so much about cord cutters, cord cutters meaning people who disconnect from cable, But it's about the growth in Netflix and HBO and podcasting, and it's a really good story.
And it says that, listen, a lot of these people who may have been cable talents before, or entertainers, who wouldn't have been given a platform on whatever, ESPN or Comedy Central, whatever it may be, are now starting their own shows.
And they're selling them to Netflix and other places, and they're doing quite well, and people are listening and watching.
It applies to me.
I mean, this show is called the Dan Bongino Show.
I always joke with people, it's amazing they found a guy named, you know, Dan Bongino to host the show called the Dan Bongino Show.
I know it's a horrible joke.
My wife hates it, but for some reason I can't stop telling stupid jokes.
But the show, that's what this is.
It's a la carte.
It's on demand.
You get it on demand.
It's free to you.
We hope to keep it that way for a long time.
But this is growing as a platform.
And one of the examples I give is the guy who did that show Talk Soup on, what was it, on E or whatever it is.
He's on Netflix now and he has this really low budget show.
That's him talking about it, not me.
And he said at one point, he jokes, he goes, if we're not the lowest budget show on Netflix, I'd be astonished.
But the show apparently does pretty well.
I don't know the guy's name, doesn't really matter.
I bring this up.
Because folks, even in a la carte programming, in the future, the distribution networks are going to matter.
And this is where this war on conservatives and libertarians is not going to stop.
If the distribution channel now is cable, and let's say the Dan Bongino show, like, no, we're not going to do that.
We're not going to have the Dan Bongino show on cable.
Why?
Well, he's a conservative.
You effectively have cut me off from doing that.
It's going to be up to places like Netflix and HBO to provide alternate kind of counter-programming the liberal stuff as well.
Why do I bring up HBO?
I'm not targeting anybody here.
I'm just saying HBO just picked up Pod Save America, which is a very popular podcast done by some former Obama officials.
And let me say, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I am not being silly or ridiculous about it.
Congratulations to the guys who started Pod Save America.
They are liberals.
They're leftists.
Nice job.
You put together a business model.
People like your product like people like ours.
And unlike a lot of liberals out there, and I'm not saying the Pod Save America people are calling for any kind of a boycott or anything like that, but a lot of liberals are.
They just don't want conservative voices.
I applaud them.
HBO just picked them up, Joe.
I don't know what they're going to do, like a video version, I guess, of Pod Save America.
I'm not really sure.
But I applaud them.
Again, I vehemently disagree with their political views, but America's a vibrant, flourishing country where ideas should be able to flourish.
My complaint is that I can guarantee you, Joe, I guarantee you that if our political—keep in mind, we may not be as popular as Pod Save America, but I assure you, we're not far away.
This show that Joe and I put together, thanks exclusively to you, has gone bonkers.
I'm almost positive that if we were to approach HBO and to say, hey, you know, did you guys entertain this for doing a video show, that one of the, I don't want to speak for them in advance, but I think it would be an issue that our show was political, but conservative political.
My problem with the whole thing is the default position is liberalism is acceptable and conservatism isn't.
It's a free market.
I can't be clearer about this.
As I said yesterday about Twitter, they're free to do whatever they want.
It's their company.
Facebook too.
So is HBO.
They're free to pick up and not pick up whoever they want, Joe.
Netflix as well.
I'm just saying, us as consumers, we have to find a way to bypass this.
And I think the way to circumvent and bypass these distribution networks, am I clear?
You get what I'm talking about here?
Netflix and others in the future is going to be to go to subscriber-only models that are funded by you, and you go and pick out what you want.
You go to NRA TV, you go to Bongino.com, you go to CRTV, And you pick out the programming you want, and you pay for the programming.
It's the only way to put it on.
If I could do it for free and was independently wealthy, I'd be more than happy to do it.
But again, I applaud these guys.
I just wish the favor would be returned on our end, because folks, as I said to you yesterday during the show, and I'll tell you again today, I don't bore you with a lot of the internal details.
Some of them actually aren't even that boring, but I don't want to share too much sometimes because I don't want to give anybody else ideas, but the pressure going on behind the scenes to silence a lot of conservatives out there is really dramatic, and at some point, we are really desperately going to need your help.
I mean, it's happening at conferences.
Did you see this thing?
Oh, I'm sorry, folks.
One more story.
I didn't mean to get off track, but this is important.
It's even happening in relatively conservative areas.
The NRA is having their convention in Dallas.
Yeah.
Dallas, not exactly a bastion of liberalism.
Now, to be clear, a lot of Democrats in Dallas, no question about it.
But there are political officials in Dallas pushing for the NRA to move their convention out of Dallas.
Yeah.
Folks, it doesn't stop.
I mean, if Planned Parenthood wanted to have its convention in New York City, listen, I absolutely object to everything Planned Parenthood does, but Planned Parenthood should speak out.
They can have a convention if they'd like.
I mean, you're not going to see me telling Madison Square Garden or wherever they were to do it that, yeah, you guys can't host these people.
This is the battle that's going on behind the scenes.
I mean, if we can't even host a convention in Dallas, then folks, you know, We're in a world of trouble, and this is the kind of stuff I need you to be on the lookout for, and that is why I desperately need your support, and I need you to spread the word about the show.
Again, my sincere apologies for asking you for favors.
We try not to do that.
We try to just provide you a show and be low-maintenance, but there's a really sincere and tough battle going on behind the scenes, and I could use your help in advancing the cause, folks.
And thanks to everyone who has supported us and the show.
Please go to Bongino.com, check out the show notes today.
I think you'll like me.
I have some good selections.
And please spread the word and join my email list.
I'll send these articles, as always, right to your inbox.
I really appreciate it.
Thanks, folks.
If you're at CPAC, by the way, please come say hello.
