Summary:
In this episode I address the out-of-control Mueller investigation and the weak-kneed GOP response. I also address the long-term liberal plan to silence conservative voices on social media. Finally, I cover the budget fiasco and another company that’s playing politics rather than focusing on business.
News Picks:
Did we really used to tax the “rich” at 90% rates?
No, a Trump appointee did not oversee the raid on his lawyer’s office.
My interview with the Daily Wire.
The Left ruins everything it touches.
Breaking: Paul Ryan is not running for re-election.
Facebook is stocked with former Obama administration officials.
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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.
All right, welcome to the Dan Bongino Show.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Once again, all is well.
Yes, thank you.
Yesterday, for record numbers, yesterday was our most listened to show ever in one day, so I really appreciate that.
Thank you, folks.
And thank you for all your submissions to the dance contest.
Yeah, we'll announce one winner today, and we have five or six more, and we may pick some more.
There were so many that were so inspirational.
To Leanne!
Thank you, Leanne, for your incredibly inspirational story.
You brought my wife to tears.
She said she was going back to school to earn a PhD because she wants to teach in a university.
She was inspired by the show, which is very humbling for me, and wants to go teach conservative values in an arena, the university system, Joe, infested by far-leftism.
So good for you, Leanne.
Appreciate that.
We'll get you out those books.
We're going to start that.
We'll announce a few more winners during the week, so appreciate that.
A lot of breaking news.
Gosh, this morning, turn on the TV.
So Paul Ryan's not running again.
Bombs may be dropping over Syria any minute.
We have what happened yesterday with the Cohen raid.
My head is spinning.
Where to start?
Hey, one more thing before we get started.
Matt Palumbo, who does my Debunk This content on the website.
If you go to Bongino.com and you click on Debunk This, he has some more great pieces.
One of them I'll put in the show notes today, which is a really, really good read.
And they're all short.
We do that intentionally.
It's the myth, Joe, that the tax rate was 90% on rich people.
In the Eisenhower era, Democrats use this talking point all the time and the purpose of Debunk This, folks, is evergreen content to help you argue with liberals who will use these talking points.
You understand, like, I pick things, me and Matt, that I've been challenged on while running for office and while doing commentary on TV Things that I've been challenged on.
Oh, well, damn, what are you, crazy?
Eisenhower taxed the rich at 90%.
Did he?
You sure?
Redebunk this.
That's a nonsense talking point.
That may have been the nominal tax rate.
It wasn't the effective one.
So Matt has a piece up there.
Check that out.
All right.
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Yeah, yeah.
Dry firing.
Yeah.
You, you.
This is a De Niro moment.
You, you.
You know what I'm talking about.
One of these days, folks, we'll let you in on that.
Okay, number one.
Fire Mueller.
Get right into it.
Fire him.
I said it yesterday.
Fire the guy.
I already laid out for you yesterday why.
I'm not going to repeat yesterday's show.
But I will sum it up for you because there's a take-off point on this.
There is no good decision here.
There's only less bad ones.
The less bad one is to fire Mueller.
Now, if you don't, Mueller will take down the entire Trump presidency, because that's what he is intent on doing.
Now, the other option, obviously, is, oh, well, you know, we should maybe let him hang around.
And, well, if we let him hang around, well, that is the, you let him hang around, he's going to take down the presidency.
Don't let him hang around and say, well, he's going to be impeached then, because if you fire Mueller, the Democrats will move to impeach.
They're going to move to impeach anyway.
What is wrong with you?
Are you serious?
Take that off the table.
Oh, the media's gonna get mad.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, Joe, the media's gonna get upset.
Really?
The media's gonna get upset with Trump.
Oh my gosh, they're not upset now.
That's gonna be the thing that upsets them.
I get it.
They're gonna move to impeach anyway.
The guy is clearly conflicted.
I laid out the case for you yesterday.
Please listen to yesterday's show.
It was the most listened to show ever.
But I'm getting some emails back, which I get it, I appreciate them, but Joe, there are people who question it and are saying, and listen, I love Rush, I've been listening to Rush forever.
There's few people in the industry I have more respect for than Rush.
I mean, he is the godfather of this movement.
I mean, Rush, Levin, Hannity, these guys built conservative talk radio.
But some people sent me emails saying, Rush is saying, which he was because I listened to the show, that this is a bad move, that the Democrats want him to fire Mueller.
Listen, I love, I just, I disagree.
There's been a genius in the talk radiosphere, but I disagree.
I don't think they want him to fire Mueller or Rosenstein.
These are the kings of the swamp rats.
So that's one email I got saying, well, they want him to fire Mueller because they're going to move to impeach.
I think they're going to do it anyway.
But one of the second lines of inquiry I got an email, which is reasonable, Joe, there's some people Who think still, which I find a little bit bizarre, that Mueller is a white hat, like a good guy.
That Mueller somehow is really probing into Clinton-based activities based on a lot of what I told you yesterday.
There's some connection apparently between Cohen and Felix Sater, who is a business guy, who may have had some intelligence contacts.
A lot of people believe that, you know, Cohen was a bad guy.
I don't know Cohen.
I'm not vouching for his character.
I'm not even telling you he didn't do anything wrong, Joe.
I'm just telling you this all sprung from an investigation on a person, not a crime.
And if we allow that to happen, you'll be next.
We don't investigate people.
We investigate crimes.
If we know the people, great.
But we don't go and say, I'm going to target Joe Armacost and find the crime later.
My problem with the Cohen raid is they found a person and a crime later.
Folks, please understand the distinction because liberals are not that bright.
They're not.
They keep tweeting me back, but people commit crimes.
What is he stupid?
No kidding, dude.
I'm not talking about Peter Rabbit committing crimes.
I'm talking about in a free constitutional republic where we don't have an abusive justice system, we follow crimes and then find people.
We don't find people and then go find crimes.
Seriously, folks, do you not get that?
I'm not talking to you.
I'm not trying to be condescending.
I'm talking to the liberal goons that listen to my show and send me dopey tweets.
Do you not understand the point I'm making or are you just feigning ignorance?
My problem with the Cohen raid is not that he didn't do anything wrong.
I don't know what he did wrong.
I'm not Cohen.
I've never met the guy.
My problem with the raid is they found Trump and then found crimes.
Not found crimes and then found the people that did it.
Do you not?
Please get that.
The fact that you don't have a problem with it, this speaks to your tyrannical impulse.
It does.
Don't run from it.
Own it.
You're a mini-tyrant.
You want to target people and find the crimes later.
What was it, the communist airline, Joe?
Show me the person, I'll show you the crime?
Yeah.
They don't get that.
Oh, but Gino doesn't think people commit crimes.
Oh, you can't be this dumb.
You seriously can't.
Maybe you are.
I'm not sure.
I don't want to get personal.
I get angry and the show goes off the rails because that's happened before and people don't like it.
I understand.
But folks, this is upsetting that people don't get what I'm talking about.
Mueller, my problem with the raid is they're looking for crimes because they're looking for Trump, not investigating crimes and looking for the people that did it.
Now, why do I dispute theory number two?
Number one, again, the refutation of my fire Mueller approach was, well, that's what the Democrats want.
They're going to impeach.
They're going to impeach anyway.
There's no distinction.
It's a distinction without a difference.
Secondly, Mueller's a good guy.
He's not.
He is not a good guy.
I'm sorry.
How do I know this?
Well... Alright, I gotta be a little delicate here, but... Folks, what he did to Mike Flynn... I've got some good stuff on this from very reliable people.
What he did to Mike Flynn was inexcusable.
Mike Flynn, Trump's national security advisor for a very limited amount of time.
You all know the story.
He was interviewed by the FBI about a conversation with the Russian ambassador.
His telling of what happened during the conversation didn't marry up exactly with the transcript they had because they were spying on Mike Flynn.
Nothing to see here, folks.
Not that that's a big deal.
Of course, me dripping with sarcasm here.
Flynn, it was acknowledged by multiple FBI officials, including Jim Comey himself, that Mike Flynn was not being dishonest in the interview.
I've suggested to you reasons why.
His recollection of the conversation may not have been accurate for a number of reasons.
He was on vacation.
It was late at night.
The FBI agrees, by the way.
Oh, Dan, you're just trying to defend Flynn.
I'm just agreeing with the FBI, Joe.
Yeah, yeah.
Jim Comey himself said they thought Flynn was being truthful.
But what did Bob Mueller turn around and do?
He turned around and charged Flynn, bankrupted him for his legal defense and everything, charged him with lying to the FBI, even though the FBI said they didn't think he was lying.
Please, again, explain to me.
And I'm not knocking people who are doing quality investigative work.
You're free to your own theories too.
I'm not here to bash anyone.
I'm just saying to you, given my...
A good source on this.
I don't know where you're getting that from that Mueller's a good guy.
He was not helping Flynn.
The Flynn thing was not some, you know, Joe triple, quadruple, end around, like four dimensional chess.
I'm telling you, you're not right if you believe that.
I'm sure of it.
I would bet my entire professional reputation on it.
You are not correct.
Based on that alone, I cannot come to the conclusion, and again this is my opinion or Freddie Roan, that Bob Mueller is in any way acting in the interest of the Trump administration or America.
Bob Mueller is looking to take down Donald Trump.
And the reason he is targeting Papadopoulos and Flynn is not because it's some white hat operation.
He's a good guy, and this is really a four-dimensional chess.
And he's giving these people a pass by charging them with lesser crimes.
These people were really infiltrators against the Trump team.
We don't know about Papadopoulos, but we know Flynn wasn't.
That I'm telling you for a fact.
That's not what's happening.
What Bob Mueller is doing is taking down the network of people, Joe, around Donald Trump, trying to get them to flip.
What I find interesting is a lot of people with these theories, and again, it's not a knock, I don't mean this in a jerky kind of way, they've never investigated federal cases.
A lot of them were never federal agents.
Some were, but they have different theories.
I did this for a living.
This is the way you take down what you believe to be a criminal syndicate, Joe.
The problem with the Trump team is there's no crime!
When we work counterfeit cases, and let me just walk you quickly through so you understand why this is so nonsensical.
This theory that Mueller somehow is a good guy.
He is not a good guy.
When you get a guy with counterfeit, here's how these cases would start nine out of ten times.
The bank would call you, Joe.
The bank will call the Secret Service office.
They'd say, you know, if you were the guy who picked up the phone.
I mean, that's literally how it works.
Phone rings.
Hey, someone pick it up.
Hey, agent Dan Bongino here.
What do you got?
Whatever, the Bank of Long Island, we have $500 in counterfeit bills.
We would have to go and pick them up.
The bank would fill out a report.
We would literally go get the bills.
Hey, what happened?
Where'd you get them from?
You know what?
We think we got them from the 7-Eleven on the corner.
What do you do next, Joe?
You go to the 7-Eleven on the corner.
Hey, you guys got video?
Yeah, we got video.
Here's the guy.
Oh, okay, great.
Look at that guy.
Maybe do a little hunting and a little searching around.
Show the picture to some people.
Hey, there we go.
We got the guy.
Look at that.
What do you do, Joe?
You go, you get the guy.
You get the guy.
Get an arrest warrant.
Get an arrest warrant produced on the evidence.
What do you say to the guy?
Where'd you get the counterfeit from?
I got it from Joey Bag of Donuts.
Oh!
Joey Bag of Donuts again.
What do you do next?
You have him make a call to Joey Bag of Donuts.
Joe, you get him on tape.
Hey, Joey, I need 500 more in counterfeit.
Eh, no problem.
And you're like, that's just Joey Bag of Donuts voice.
Joey usually sells it at a discount.
Obviously you don't sell $500 in counterfeit for $500.
You would just use the real $500.
You'd be surprised how many people found that hard to understand when I was explaining counterfeit.
I swear.
Be like, why don't they just sell it for face value?
You're like this.
Dude, you didn't just ask me that, did you?
Why would you sell $500 in counterfeit for $500?
Please tell me you didn't just say that.
I would get that question sometimes.
So, they'll usually sell it at a significant discount.
Okay, you give me $50 in genuine, I'll give you $500 in counterfeit.
You set up the deal, we watch the deal, we arrest the guy.
What do we do next?
Hey, where did you get it from?
The point, not to go on and on ad nauseum, is you flip lower-level people and you get them to work against the big guy.
There's churn.
Being a former Fed, this is obviously what Mueller's doing.
First, he went to Papadopoulos.
I'm not sure what he got.
He may have gotten information out of Papadopoulos, charged him with false statements, but it probably wasn't useful to getting Trump.
Then they move on.
They go to Flynn.
It doesn't matter the order.
Flynn or Papadopoulos.
Flynn.
They get Flynn.
The information they got from Flynn probably wasn't useful.
Why, Joe?
Because Trump's not a counterfeiter.
There's nothing for Flynn to testify against.
That's why I'm sure there's no collusion.
They didn't get Flynn.
What do they go to next?
Manafort.
What do they go to next?
They go to Rick Gates.
What do they go to next?
Now he's at the lawyer.
Next, he'll be arresting Melania for felonious smokery on the open seas.
I mean, seriously, you find the person, I'll show you the crime.
This will never ever stop.
It is so obvious what's happening.
I just don't want you to fall into the trap here of this, that this somehow is a good guy, and we should be patient.
He is not a good guy.
I don't know Mueller's intentions.
I know his history of service to the country, which is noble.
I know what he's doing now is not noble.
I'm sorry.
You don't get a pass for the rest of your life.
And it's driving me crazy, by the way, all of these theories out there about how Trump, I mean, Mueller somehow, he's not a good guy.
I spent way too much time on that.
The reason I wanted to bring this up is I have an article in the show notes today from the Chicago Tribune, which is a little bit of a left-leaning outlet sometimes, but it's a good piece nonetheless, and I encourage you to read it, because it shows to you the weak-kneed, pathetic, grotesque Republican response to this.
Joe, I am so sick and tired of these guys not standing up and having the nerve to do the right thing.
These guys in the GOP Senate, and some in the House, Joe, Absolutely no.
They absolutely know what's going on with Mueller is an abomination to justice.
They know it.
This is not a secret.
These are smart people.
And in order to cater, because they're weak-kneed and all they care about is power, to cater to re-election interests among the so-called moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans.
By the way, moderate Democrats, which don't exist and will never vote for them anyway.
They're coming out with all these statements.
You know, Chuck Grassley.
Are you serious, Chuck?
Chuck Grassley.
Senator out there saying, oh, this would be suicide.
He shouldn't do it.
Tom Tillis from North Carolina.
By the way, if you're in North Carolina, email this guy.
Call his office.
Be cool about it, as always.
Tom Tillis.
And ask him what the hell he is doing with this Trump thing.
Tom Tillis, who co-sponsored a bill, by the way, Joe, co-sponsored a bill to prevent Mueller from being fired by Trump.
Which, by the way, how that would be constitutional is beyond me.
I am not a constitutional attorney.
You don't have to be to understand basic mechanics of the Constitution.
Bob Mueller works for the Department of Justice that falls under the executive branch of the presidency.
That's it.
It's as simple as that.
The president wants, you know, can order Mueller to be fired?
There is no question, whether it's politically savvy, again, I just discussed why some people disagree.
I don't.
I think he should fire Mueller.
But a law to stop the president from being the president?
Folks, that's not even constitutional.
It'll be thrown out immediately.
But Tom Tillis, a Republican, cannot seem to get his head out of his butt and seems more Concerned with the feelings of moderate Democrats who will hate him anyway than he does about doing what's right.
This is just sickening, folks.
It really is.
Will you guys grow a spine, please?
There's no onions on that burger.
None!
A lot of pickles, but there ain't no onions.
We should put that on a t-shirt.
Joe Armacost.
There ain't no onions on that burger.
That's a good one.
You know, it's exhausting, Joe.
I know, brother.
I hear you.
I see you.
Joe, you can vouch for me, man.
When I ran in Maryland, I'm not patting myself on the back, folks, but just a bona fides moment for a minute.
I ran in a deep blue state.
Dude.
And in a deep blue congressional district in a blue state.
And I never forfeited my conservative values.
I ran as a second amendment guy.
I ran as a low taxes guy.
I could have done this nonsense routine too.
Yeah.
Oh, hey man, you know, abortion's really not the destruction of human life.
You know, guns, they're definitely the problem, not people.
I didn't do it.
And you get these guys, he's a North Carolina tell us, North Carolina.
A swingy state, and still, he's just so obsessed with attacking Trump.
It's just disgusting.
Stop Trump from firing Mueller.
This is off the rails, this investigation.
Hey, one more point on this, because I've got a lot to get to.
Yesterday's show obviously took over the whole hour, so I missed a couple stories and news of the day.
There's nothing I like more than making liberals look silly on Twitter, and it happens often because they rarely, if ever, do their homework, Joe.
So yesterday I got a few tweets, and one from some entertainment guy, Johnson, Dwayne Johnson, not The Rock, or not that Dwayne Johnson, but some Dwayne Johnson guy, I think that was his name.
And he's like, you're crazy.
This guy in Southern District of New York, this U.S.
attorney that supervised the raid on Cohen's office, that approved it.
He was a Trump appointee.
Ha!
I got you.
He wasn't.
The Trump appointee, as you'll see from my show notes today, along with that Matt Palumbo debunked this article, that'll be there if you subscribe to my email list.
You'll get all those articles along with the article in the Chicago Tribune about all these weak-kneed Republican senators.
It'll all be at Bungino.com today.
There's a piece I have there from the Washington Examiner.
The Trump appointee recused himself.
Did you miss the news?
A simple Google search would have saved you the embarrassment of tweeting to someone that a Trump appointee was the one who supervises.
He recused himself.
It's called the interweb.
Go check it out sometimes.
Again, I'm just giving you the ammunition on this show to debate with your liberal friends who seemingly invent talking points by the day.
Oh, but the guy who approved Trump's lawyer's raid was a Trump appointee, except the fact that he wasn't.
Joe, that... We brought that up in the show this morning, yeah, exactly.
That's not an opinion.
No.
The guy actually recused himself.
Not an opinion.
Yes, this is not... There's nothing you can say to alter the fact that Jeff Berman The Southern District of New York acting United States Attorney recused himself from the case.
Look at the article.
I may have even included an ABC News article because liberals, of course, if you include anything from a right-leaning outlet, it's factually incorrect.
Of course.
According to them.
So if not, it doesn't even matter.
I just, I can't argue with Dopey.
All right, a lot more to go.
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All right.
What should we get to next?
All right.
Big news yesterday I couldn't get to because of the Pinchuk story.
The budget deficit.
The CBO released a very disturbing... I get it, the CBO.
I understand.
I've bashed the CBO before.
I have no faith in what the CBO says.
They've been wrong on just about everything.
But I don't want to ignore the information they put out because liberals are using it.
And you know, you need to understand that even though the CBO has been historically inaccurate about a number of things, the report is disturbing.
The report is about the budget deficit, Joe, and the budget deficit is ridiculous.
Absurd, outrageous, unsustainable.
It is a tidal wave, red menace coming ashore that is going to wash away everything soon if we don't wake up and smell the Sunday morning newspaper soon and what's inside it.
The budget deficit's exploding to $804 billion by next year.
They're predicting $1 trillion by 2020.
Folks, even if they're off by $200 billion in either direction, you're looking at a deficit between $800 billion and $1.2 trillion by 2020.
That is an absurd amount of money.
Absurd.
The entire budget for the state of Florida is about a tenth of the deficit.
Folks, this is not sustainable.
This cannot happen.
Now, I talked to you about the Impoundment Act and Trump's efforts, which I applaud.
They signed that disastrous omnibus package, which overspent like crazy.
But I applaud their efforts now to look at rescission, the Impoundment Act, or in other words, to not spend some of the money.
From my contacts up on the Hill, it is getting some serious play, this idea that they will take back some of that federal spending.
Round of applause if they do it.
But it better be significant.
Don't make it $100,000 for a trimp on a treadmill study.
It better be billions and it better be significant.
The problem I have with this report, Joe, is one of the parts of it that didn't get publicized.
Because remember, Joe, the left all of a sudden cares about deficits again.
Why?
Because there's a Republican in the White House.
That's why.
That's the only reason, by the way.
If this was Donald Trump, nobody would give a rat's caboose about any of this.
They care about deficit and they should.
They should.
And I want to be crystal clear.
I care about debts and deficits all the time.
Yeah.
Debt and deficits, whether it's a Republican, I've been crystal clear.
Bush spent a lot of money.
Obama spent dramatically more.
And right now under the Trump team, they're spending a lot too.
We don't have.
We got to do something.
I think Trump's aware of the problem.
We'll see what happens with impoundment.
But what was left out of it, Joe, interestingly enough, the CBO analysis was some good news.
Which proves a point I've been making to you over and over and over again.
That the correlation between tax cuts and lost government revenue is nil.
In other words, when you look at tax cuts historically, this is important and critical you understand this.
The Democrats want you to believe that tax cuts lead to lost government revenue.
I'm not a fan of government revenue, let me be clear about that.
But I'm suggesting to you that the math they're using is nonsense.
It's easily debunked.
Let's walk this through rationally and using reason, not emotion, unlike the left.
If tax cuts led to a loss in government revenue, Joe...
I'm not trying to confuse you here.
I'm really not trying to be complicated.
Don't you think we could look historically at tax cuts and look at what happened to government revenue and expect that government revenue went down?
You would expect that.
That's not complicated, right?
You're not an economist, right?
You're not a finance guy.
Joe's the best sound engineer I know.
But he doesn't have to be a math major to figure out what I just told him is basic reason.
If the Democrats' assertion that cutting taxes leads to a dramatic loss, or even a loss at all of government revenue, then you would expect that if we looked at tax cuts in the past, government revenue would have went down.
I promise this will relate to the story in a second.
It didn't!
The Reagan tax cuts.
Shockingly, I've only said this a million times, the Reagan tax cuts, tax revenue went up.
Not only did it not go down, so not only is your point categorically false, That tax revenue went down.
It went up.
You're so wrong.
You're so wrong, you're almost right.
You're like 360 degree wrong, where you're back at being right.
That's how wrong you are.
Tax revenue went up.
George H.W.
Bush tax cuts.
Tax revenue went up.
Calvin Coolidge tax cuts, John F. Kennedy tax cuts, the list goes on and on and on and on and on of tax cuts where tax revenue went up.
Folks, just look it up.
Maybe I'll have Matt do an exhaustive study of this.
It went up.
Just look at the numbers.
Look at the government's own website.
Why I bring this up in relationship to the CBO Report Show is remember after the Trump tax cuts, what were we told?
Man, the rich!
You guys are gonna get over, man!
Crazy rich!
You're the worst!
Government's gonna lose revenue.
That's what we were told.
Yeah.
Even the CBO report, stacked by the way, stacked with leftist Keynesians, shows that tax revenue is gonna continue to go up.
Oh!
That's a shocker!
That's a shocker for every leftist out there that's never done a modicum of homework on the subject.
Tax revenue is going to rise, be about $44 trillion over 10 years.
The problem is, as we've always said, is government spending is going to rise to $56 trillion.
$56 trillion is greater than $44 trillion, folks.
Your deficit comes from spending, not from tax cuts.
This is not complicated to understand.
It's only complicated if you are a radical far-left ideologue who can't do basic mathematics.
Tax revenue is not projected to go down even by the Keynesians, the far-left liberals in the CBO.
Oh man, you can't explain that enough.
It doesn't matter how many times you say it, people will still insist that tax cuts cost the government money.
By the way, they're also predicting 3.3% growth next year, which is a pretty heavy number.
Keep your fingers crossed that that happens.
As I told you, if we can hit 3.5% in 20 years, we can double the economy.
That's in a lot of our lifetimes.
I know in mine, hopefully, if I can stay alive that long.
But 3.5% growth, about 20 years, we double the value of the economy.
Think about that.
The economies were $20 trillion.
In today's money, adjusted for inflation, In 20 years, if we hit those numbers, 3.5%, it'd be worth $40 trillion.
That's a big, big increase.
You cut the debt in half just doing nothing, just not spending any more money.
Okay, that kind of relates to the next story I had, which I was going to get to yesterday, but again, I was so busy with Pinchuk and his Mueller-to-Mueller smokescreen.
I missed it.
So there's a story in Breitbart about this senator, Democrat senator at the state level, state senator from California, a guy by the name of Richard Pan.
Dr. Richard Pan.
This is an interesting story.
And I bring it up and I'll tie it to the tax cut story in a second, but it'll make sense.
So Zuckerberg testified up on the Hill yesterday, Joe.
Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, of course.
Most of you saw it.
Some of you heard about it.
I watched a lot of it live.
And it was interesting.
I don't think it was anything groundbreaking.
I've fallen asleep through half of it.
I thought Senator Cruz asked a great question, which Zuckerberg didn't provide a great answer to about basically the shutting down of conservatives on Facebook, and he didn't seem to have a good answer to that.
He's like, well, we are in Silicon Valley, so there is a It's a liberal bent to our company, but we try our best not to sanction conservatives.
That's crap.
That's just garbage.
The thing with Diamond and Silk, who are deemed, quote, unsafe to the community, is absurd.
We've seen websites like the Daily Wire, a conservative site, their reach get crushed, while the New York Times and NPR, their reach goes up dramatically.
It's garbage.
Facebook is clearly attacking conservatives, right?
But I had said to you on a prior show, Joe, that this was a win-win for Facebook, and it's important you understand this.
Attacking conservatives, and I did an interview with the Daily Wire, that'll be in the show notes today, it's a pretty good interview, check it out.
The article will be in the show notes.
I said to them that attacking conservatives when you're in social media is a win-win for them.
I know it's depressing to hear, but you have to understand the battle we're fighting.
They fully understand, Joe, that conservatives are limited government, small government people who fear government power, like me.
They can attack us at will, because they know we'll never respond when we get in power by saying, hey, let's use the government to regulate Facebook, because it is antithetical to our very existence.
Our very existence is built on a house of small government, big individuals.
Now that comes with consequences.
I'm not suggesting this is right.
I'm not suggesting we shouldn't respond with our own market power.
Please don't misinterpret what I'm saying.
I can't stand what Facebook is doing.
I've been boycotting them all week.
But folks, there's a very serious danger of using government power and introducing government power into the market on our end.
It gives liberals a pass to use that as an excuse later on to increase government power even more.
Hey, look what you guys did against Facebook.
We're going to respond by sanctioning the NRA and everyone else.
As you know, I work at NRA TV.
That's a big problem.
By the way, go check out NRATV.com last night's episode.
It was awesome.
Go to NRATV.com.
I'll be on again tonight, 5.30 p.m.
Eastern, every night.
My show, We Stand.
But check out last night's.
But that's dangerous.
The win-win is that they understand we will never respond.
So basically, Joe, it's a free pass.
If I get to punch you in the face, repeatedly, knowing you're a peacenik and you have no
interest whatsoever in attacking. There's no penalty for me if I'm a violent guy.
Punch, punch, punch, punch, Joe takes it. Number two, I don't think Facebook, Twitter,
or any of the entities they own, Instagram or otherwise, would mind at all
government regulation I want to repeat the show, but this is so important in light of what happened yesterday.
I don't think they would mind at all government regulation that gives them a legal backdrop to discriminate against conservatives.
While saying, oh look, the law made us do it.
Oh hell no!
Hell no!
Hell no is right!
But they love it!
And this is where Richard Pan from Breitbart comes in.
Richard Pan, the Breitbart article, he's not from Breitbart, he's a Democrat state senator.
He introduced a plan in the California State Senate show To fight fake news and to legally, basically enforce that these social media websites employ fact checkers to check their stuff.
Folks, I'm telling you right now, this has been the liberal scam the entire time.
Don't fall for this extensive garbage.
Remember Marv Albert, the Knicks games?
We are in extensive garbage time when the Knicks would be getting blown out.
This is extensive garbage time.
This is exactly what the liberals want.
How would this work?
Let me walk you through it.
Facebook, I don't think cares about this at all.
Number one, they know only they can afford to employ an army of fact checkers.
And fake news detectors.
I said, well, why would they want to do that, Dan?
Why would they want to comply with a government regulation that's going to cost them a lot of money?
Oh, and it will.
Because no other competitor has the money to do that.
Big companies love government regulation.
The banks, a lot of big banks love government regulation too.
Why?
They hire a bunch of lawyers and accountants and they put the small banks out of business that can't afford to hire lawyers and accountants.
Folks, this is economics 101.
There's a myth out there that big corporations don't like big government.
They love it.
Regulatory capture's been around forever.
Then they go, by the way, Joe, then they go and hire the regulators when they leave the government to find a way to arbitrage the regulations only to benefit them.
They love regulation.
It's an expense they can afford that their competitors can't that puts them out of business.
Oh, so what, Joe?
We got to employ an army of fact-checkers?
But we don't have to worry about competitors in the future who can't afford it?
Sounds like a good deal for me!
Yes, sir.
You're damn right!
So that's the number one benefit of regulation.
Again, keep in mind the 30,000 foot.
I'm talking about why Facebook, it's a win-win for them to attack conservatives.
Number one, conservatives won't respond because we don't believe in big government.
Number two, liberals will.
They'll enact laws and regulations that keep competitors out of the business because they're too expensive for anybody but Facebook.
And secondly, here's how the... Joe, fact-checking, dreaded air quotes here, fact-checking will work.
When I was running for office, I was subjected to fact-checkers over and over and over.
And there's nothing you can say, believe me, if you say the sky is blue, a liberal fact-checker will go, actually, it is a lighter shade of chartreuse between the, there is no way a conservative will get his fact checked.
His fact will be disputed because the liberal idea of facts is subjected to their version of what that fact is.
I'll be clear on this in a second.
Let me just explain to you the finalized portion of it with the plant.
The reason liberals are proposing this, it would give Facebook the perfect opportunity to employ Joe liberal fact-checkers, and every time a conservative posts something, and they wipe it out, and a conservative howls, hey, why'd you delete my post?
Hey man, hands off buddy, we're just complying with the law.
Our fact-checkers said it wasn't right.
Well, what about it wasn't right?
Well, now here's how they'll do this.
I got into an argument, this is a true story, with a Washington Post editorial guy.
The guy was the most condescending, pretentious jerk I have ever dealt with.
He was so nasty.
I was running for Senate, he calls me on the phone, they don't even want to meet with me, and it was about their endorsement for the U.S.
Senate campaign in Maryland.
Joke.
Obviously it was a foregone conclusion they were going to endorse Ben Cardin, the Democrat.
They were calling me just to pretend they cared.
The guy on the phone acted like it was an honor that I was talking to him.
He said things on the phone call that were completely inaccurate.
He said to me, we got into this fight about tax cuts, hence why I'm bringing up this because I tie the show together often, why I'm bringing up the CBO report.
He's like, you know, you don't know what you're talking about.
Tax cuts cost the government a lot of money.
They lead to debt problems.
I'm like, wait, time out.
What evidence do you have of that?
He said, well, the deficits exploded in the Reagan years, so did the debt.
Yes, you're correct.
But you're saying that was due to tax revenue, but tax revenue went up.
In other words, spending went up faster.
This is just a matter of basic common sense.
This isn't complex economics.
Tax cuts led to increased tax revenue.
Unfortunately, the government spent more money at a faster rate.
Joe, he either didn't get it, which I doubt, or he did get it and was a liar, which I'm leaning towards heavily based on his attitude.
He was so obnoxious about it, so I cited him the actual numbers.
I said, here's tax revenue in year one of the Reagan administration, two, three, four, I went up to the numbers, and it went up almost every year.
Matter of fact, by the time he was out, it had doubled.
There was one dip they had in 81, but I think it was before the actual tax cut.
But after the tax cut, tax revenue doubled.
It was clear as day.
I think it was $500 billion to $900 billion that it doubled when Reagan left office.
That's just a fact.
This guy argued six different ways from Sunday that that wasn't a fact.
Joe, that is an easily verifiable fact.
Reagan cut taxes.
Did tax revenue go up or not?
The answer is yes.
That's not indisputable.
Well, when you adjust for inflation, they only went up by this amount rather than that, but they still went up.
Yeah, yeah.
But then he says to me, oh, this was another doozy.
He goes, But, he goes, think about it, it would have won up more the tax revenue if Reagan hadn't cut taxes.
Wait, what?
One, that's called a counterfactual, meaning you can never prove that because it didn't happen.
How can you prove what would have happened when it didn't happen?
Joe, just to be clear, this isn't like...
Back to the future, right?
Like we can't, as far as I know, there's no time machine, correct?
No time machine.
Okay, good.
So we're not crazy.
You can't correct the past.
So you cannot ever logically say and expect to be taken seriously what would have happened in the past if something else would have happened because it didn't.
That history's written.
Over.
Close the chapter.
It's done.
Reagan cut taxes.
Tax revenue went up.
His argument to me that I was wrong was that if he wouldn't have cut taxes, tax revenue would have went up more and the debt would have gone down.
Joe, I'm sitting here on the phone.
I'm in my car at the time.
I don't know.
I think I was driving to Western Maryland.
I'm like, this guy can't be this dumb.
I tell you this story not to bore you with campaign tales.
But to show you how fact-checking works.
That is exactly what they'll do.
Someone will put an article up listing a government website showing how tax cuts have not led to decreases in government revenue.
Matter of fact, increases.
And I assure you, the Facebook fact-checkers that Democrat State Senator Richard Pan once employed by California law will find a way to make sure your fact is in fact wrong.
I had a, this lady worked for the Naples Daily News, bar none the worst reporter I've ever dealt with in my life.
Immature, inaccurate, just a complete joker, who would fact check everything I said, which is fine, and she was always wrong and would never correct it.
Or if she issued a correction, the correction was wrong too.
She corrected me on this education spending thing one time and then had to admit later on in a phone call that she was wrong.
There is nothing you can say liberals won't fact-check and make sure you're kicked off Facebook.
Sorry.
Got an itch there.
That is the plan, folks.
Don't fall prey to this nonsense about fact-checking.
Show me the man and I'll show you the crime.
That's right.
Show me the man, I'll show you the crime.
Even without the facts to back it up.
Be like Marie Harf on Fox, who always says, you have no evidence for that.
Despite the fact she has no evidence of Russian collusion.
Next time I'm not outnumbered, I'm going to confront her with that.
Oh, cool.
She says that all the time.
You have no evidence for that.
Well, you keep accusing Trump of Russian collusion.
You have no evidence of that either, right?
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Okay, just quickly, there's a great article up in the show notes today as well from the Daily Signal by Dennis Prager.
I strongly encourage you to read about how liberals ruin everything.
They're a forest fire, folks.
They burn- Joe's laughing.
It's true.
They burn down everything they touch.
But it's a really good piece about how they've ruined universities, art, sports, and religion.
I just wanted to quickly- I've already talked about what they're doing on college campuses, obviously the Colin Kaepernick thing, politicizing sports, their attacks on religion.
Why do they attack religion?
This is- I didn't intend to talk about this, but folks, religion is an objective truth.
Christianity lays out an objective set of Laws we should govern ourselves by.
Moral laws, not necessarily legislative ones enacted by human beings.
If you read the Bible, Jesus was clear in his parables and his stories that he was trying to teach us lessons on how to act.
You know, whether it was render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, the Beatitudes, whatever it may be.
These are objective values.
The left hates objective values.
Not all Democrats, but liberals hate objective values.
Why?
Think about why this is important.
Think about the left's battle for state control.
Minimizing the individual.
To enact state control and to get you to be compliant, the left doesn't want any kind of an uprising, politically or otherwise, against the power of the state.
They have to get you to believe that the state knows better.
But if the state knows better, then individuals can't.
Does that make sense?
If the state knows what's better for you, Joe, what you think has to be subordinated to the state.
But if what you and Christians believe to be objectively true conflicts with the state's values, that has to be wiped out.
They can't have any objective truth.
Objective, meaning not open to interpretation.
Meaning, we believe in this.
Do not kill.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not do this.
We believe in this stuff.
The state, if that conflicts with their values, the liberal values, which is state power, they have to wipe that out.
Everything has to be subjective to interpretation.
And objective values, by definition, are not subject to subjective interpretation by the state.
The liberals hate that.
Hence their battle against religion, to deconstruct religion.
They want you to be compliant.
I guess the best way to say it is they want you to subjugate yourself to the state, not to God.
Big difference.
The Prager piece is really good, but he also addresses something else, and I wanted to bring this up because I was listening to a fascinating Jordan Peterson talk.
He's really good.
He's got some interesting ideas.
He was talking about why the left hates art, too, and why they're constantly in an effort to diminish art.
Remember that disgusting statue of Jesus and a thing of urine or something?
That was supposed to be art?
This is a concentrated effort by radicals on the far left.
To, as Prager says, diminish the uplifting capacity of art.
Art, in the sensible, rational worldview, Joe, is supposed to be something uplifting and beautiful that makes us feel good.
I mean, you look at the Mona Lisa and you think, gosh, that's really an amazing painting.
I mean, I'm using an example we all knew.
There's thousands and millions of paintings and, you know, movies that have been done that are just to transform your life.
They were so good and so well done.
Songs you hear that I mean, Joe's a big musician, but Joe loves music.
I mean, Joe really loves music.
I love music.
I don't play like Joe.
I'm not nearly as talented, but music, sometimes I hear a song, Joe, and it just, like, moves me.
I mean, I heard this...
What's her name?
Karina Hawks or something?
She sings for this group called The Glades.
I think her name is Karina Hawks or something like that, but the band is The Glades.
I heard this woman's voice one day.
I had to tweet it out.
It was like magic.
It was like an otherworldly experience.
But it was uplifting.
I mean, it made me feel good.
Listen, I don't even know her.
She's probably a liberal.
I probably just destroyed her career by saying how great she is.
Seriously.
Because, you know, I don't know her.
So, you know, I have no idea.
Who knows?
She could be a conservative.
But either way, I don't care.
She has a beautiful You know what I'm talking about Joe, music, right?
When you hear a voice and you're like, oh my gosh, does that move you?
An angel's voice, yes.
Oh man!
I'm like, if you don't believe in the power of God, listen to that voice and you will.
Because man couldn't create that, I'm sure of it.
But it's uplifting.
Art is uplifting.
The quality of art is uplifting.
You know, you don't have to be an artist to look at a painting of some beautiful vista somewhere and go, wow.
Look at that.
I couldn't do that, but that is really beautiful.
And listen, I'm not an art guy.
I mean, I don't go to art galleries or anything, but I can appreciate it.
Liberals hate that.
And I heard Peterson, and certainly Prager hits on it in the piece, which I strongly encourage you to read, about how they can't have uplifting art show, because remember, we're all equal.
Dipping a statue of Jesus Christ in urine?
Hey, that's art too, buddy!
What are you, a discriminator against artists?
You know, art to them, the uplifting component, qualitatively, of art, needs to be decimated, because remember, it gives you the idea, Joe, that there's quality levels in art, that there is some objective measure of good art.
Understood.
They can't have that!
Just like there's no objective measure of values outside of what the state tells you.
That's why they hate religion.
It's the same reason they hate art.
The Prager piece is genius.
Uplifting art.
That means, Joe, you and I, you and I, if there's an objective, some component of art that's objective, that means you and I could walk through an art gallery and look at a hundred pieces.
And generally come to the same conclusion about what probably, you know, good art is and what bad art is.
So if you, Joe and I, I'll give you an example, maybe a bit hyperbolic, but to make sense of this.
If Joe and I were to go into a museum and view three pieces, okay, piece number one is this landscape piece done that we're like, it's just, it's really good.
Okay?
The second piece is a pile of dog crap, and the third piece is a statue of Jesus in urine.
Joe and I could come out and reasonably gauge those three pieces, the landscape as being good art, and the other two as being complete total garbage.
Because there's some objective component there.
The left doesn't want that.
Because they hate objective truth.
The state will tell you what's good.
The state will imbue in you a sense of what's good and what's not.
So they attack art too!
And he goes over some other examples of pieces that are supposedly art, Joe, that are really just crap.
In my example, literally.
I didn't intend to talk too much about it, but it's a really good piece, and once you understand the left's destruction of objective truth, and anything that's an objective truth, you'll understand why, what, you know, their whole methodology for attacking faith, for attacking art, for attacking the university, everything is subjective.
It's the whole basis of critical theory.
You know, when you argue facts to the left, that's an objective truth, right Joe?
When I say to a leftist, right?
Yeah.
Hey, Reagan cut taxes and tax revenue went up.
What's the leftist response?
Wait, are you a white male?
No, no.
Critical theory.
Knowledge is only... Folks, they say... Google this if you think I'm making this up.
Knowledge is a construct of power, Joe.
Meaning you're a white male with privilege.
So the knowledge you have... Follow this.
This is critical.
The knowledge you have is not real, it's only a construct of you being in power, and you're only saying that to advance and further your white patriarchal privilege.
You're like, oh my gosh, can you be this stupid?
So you're telling me the government, what, is lying about the tax tables?
Um, no, but you're, this is definitely a critical theory moment, that's a white privilege thing.
Okay, whatever, dude.
There is nothing they won't attack.
Even basic components and elements of knowledge that are easily fact-checked, they will tell you don't exist or are wrong because you, based on critical theory, you are a white patriarchal power vampire and knowledge is simply a construct of power and it's not real.
Meaning it's all fake.
It's all a construct of you trying to advance your power agreements and power arrangements.
I mean, it's seriously, seriously crazy stuff.
All right.
What are we doing on time here?
All right, good.
I got a few more minutes because I wanted to get through that.
I missed these stories yesterday.
Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London.
What a disaster.
This guy continues to embarrass himself.
Sent out a tweet the other day.
I'm not making this up, folks.
I don't know if you missed this.
I think I'm going to cover this on my NRA TV show tonight.
Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, noted liberal.
He says about the knife problem.
Because remember, Joey, I thought it was about the guns.
Yeah, Joe's doing the Michael Myers from Halloween.
The Jason.
The psycho.
What's his name?
Bates Motel.
Oh man, my Aunt Sue.
That movie scared the hell out of her.
She used to tell me all the time, she goes, I couldn't take a shower for months after that scene.
Was it Janet Leigh?
Was she the actress in the movie?
Do you remember?
Yeah, that was it.
I'm terrible with pop culture.
Good job, yeah.
I know I'll get a thousand emails if I'm wrong, which is fine.
But it's interesting because the liberal argument about guns again, which they're always wrong about, has always been, it's the guns, man.
We got to do something about the guns.
Wait, it's not the people?
Are you sure?
Because I have guns in my safe that have never killed anyone.
So how is it the gun?
I mean, I'm just using simple reason.
If the problem is the guns, how come my guns aren't the problem?
Well, because you're a good guy.
Oh, so it's about the people.
No, no, I didn't say that.
It is about the gun.
Yeah, but my guns haven't killed anyone.
Yeah, but you're a good guy.
Yeah, so it's about the people.
Oh, I don't know where to go with this.
Of course you don't, because you're silly and you don't know what you're talking about.
Sadiq Khan tweets out, no excuses.
There is never a reason to carry a knife.
Anyone who does will be caught and feel the full force of the law.
What have we been telling you the entire time?
It's not about the gun.
It's about the people.
It's about evil in the human heart and criminality.
In London, it may be difficult to get a gun, so what do they do?
They stab you with a knife.
Instead, they've seen a dramatic upswing in knife attacks to the point where the mayor of London is trying to ban knives.
But I thought it was about the guns.
So now it's about the knives?
What is it about next?
I saw a piece at the Babylon Bee.
They had Adobe Photoshopped the picture so Sadiq Khan had no hands.
And they said, we are banning hands in London now because they can be used to punch people.
What's next?
Do you understand, folks, how the liberals make our points all the time and can't even acknowledge it?
We said to you, you ban the guns, they'll use the knives.
You ban the knives, they'll use the bombs.
You ban the bombs, they'll use the cars.
You ban the cars, they'll use the fists.
You ban the fists, they'll use the bats.
You ban the bats, they'll use the sticks.
You ban the sticks, they'll pick up metal rebar.
It doesn't matter!
What matters is your ability to defend yourself, hence our Our argument, Liberty Advocates, that we should be able to defend ourselves against evil human beings who will find the tools to attack us no matter what!
But ironically, Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, doesn't seem to get any of this.
I had that article in yesterday's show notes.
If you think I'm making any of this up, he sent that out as an actual tweet.
Again, proving our point that it is not about the guns.
It's about the people and you have to be able to defend yourself.
Just unbelievably stupid stuff.
One last story.
Oh, there it is.
So Bank of America, here we go again, Joe, is apparently pulling out of loans to companies that manufacture, in their words, military-style weapons.
I don't know what that means.
You cannot buy military-style weapons.
They are not commercially available without a very complicated, sophisticated fingerprinting process.
You can't walk in and buy a military-style weapon.
Bank of America, folks, At their old tricks.
You know what to do.
I don't have Bank of America.
I won't ever.
But I would strongly encourage you to dance a little bit on this because, again, it's all about the fight.
Can I just leave this in one note?
Because I said this yesterday and I have two minutes left here.
I really mean this and I hope you take this to heart.
I get a lot of email, upwards of 500 a day.
It's becoming seriously a full-time job for my wife and I. We don't mind.
This show's for you.
But I got a ton yesterday.
People, I'm depressed.
I can't believe this is happening with Mahler.
I can't believe this is happening.
It doesn't seem like we can fight back.
Folks, please, I'm begging you to keep this in your head.
I'm not your preacher, and I'm not trying to be like your motivational speaker, but when I shifted my perspective in life about, I don't know, five or six years ago, from understanding That suffering is the path to true happiness, as Bernard Malamud said in his book.
That Christ showed us the example.
That suffering is the purpose.
I don't mean physically, like you have to go home and like torture yourself.
Let me poke myself with that.
That's not what I'm saying.
Suffering, the fight, that is your sole purpose.
Forget the win.
It's nice to win, but it's not the win.
That is your mission.
That is why we're here.
When you forfeit the idea that unending and eternal happiness is somehow the purpose of meaning.
I don't mean this in a depressing way.
That's shallow.
It is not about skin-deep happiness.
Real fulfillment and happiness comes through the building of character by overcoming and dealing with the suffering.
This is our fight.
This is it.
Our fight is to do these things, to dance with Bank of America.
Our fight is to email and call your congressman.
Our fight is to show up at protests.
Our fight is to post on Facebook even if we have to lose friends.
These are real things that have real consequences.
Our fight is to speak up.
All of these dance stories you've been sending me have been so deeply inspirational.
We had a tough time picking six winners.
We may have to add more.
All these little things, that's what we're here for.
I'll leave you with this thought.
Learn to love the suffering.
I did.
I mean it.
Learn to love it.
Learn to embrace it.
When I go to church on Sunday, after the Eucharist, I say this little prayer.
I say, Father, please help me embrace the suffering so I can join you in the second creation.
That's your ticket.
That is your ticket there.
Your ticket to a greater afterlife in the second creation is your ability to suffer and your ability to build that character through it.
That's real happiness.
Sorry, I didn't mean to go on too long about that again.
I'm not trying to be anybody's preacher.
I'm just suggesting that the fight is what it's all about, folks.
It's not about the win.
And I know when you take a loss, we're like, well, what are we going to do next?
