Summary:
In today’s episode I address the expanding liberal war on our culture, our economic freedom, and our right to protect ourselves. I also discuss how to fight back and win.
News Picks:
Today’s edition of liberal myth-busting debunks leftist attempts to do damage control regarding socialist Venezuela.
Another terrific piece by Lee Smith addressing the media’s role in the Russian collusion hoax.
This former Trump associate isn’t taking any more garbage from Russian collusion conspiracy theorists.
The Clinton machine’s role in the dossier is worse than previously stated.
This ammunition company is fighting back against anti-gun politicians.
The Left is relentlessly attacking; here are some examples.
Facebook is “ranking” trustworthiness?
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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, live from the NRA convention in Dallas.
Gosh, I love Texas.
I love Florida, where I live.
I'm moving, but Texas is a pretty darn cool place.
So great to be out here.
Thanks for all the hospitality so far.
It's been really nice.
I was walking through the airport and I get off the plane.
I'm like, let me just hit the bathroom quick.
You know, you get the plane goo on your hands and everything.
I'm like a freak about my hands.
I'm like, let me wash my hands.
I'm going into the bathroom and this guy's coming out like right by the door in the bathroom.
He goes, Oh my gosh.
It's Tampon G!
And I'm like, it is!
How are you?
And we're like blocking the bathroom and this guy behind me, you know, everybody's dragging luggage.
I can see he's like, I don't care who you are, brother.
Get the hell out of my way so I can escape this bathroom.
Oh, it was funny.
You better get used to it, buddy boy.
Yeah, it was pretty cool.
So great to be out here.
All right.
I got a lot to get to today.
A lot happened in the last couple of days.
And I'm a little upset about a couple things.
Okay.
You know, upset meaning that it's time for us to start to recognize the fight we're in.
And if you saw the Michael Caputo story about this guy who worked on the Trump campaign, who just unleashed on the United States Senate.
You'll know what I'm talking about.
All right, let's get right into it.
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Okay.
A lot going on.
First, let me get to this Michael Caputo.
Not Mark Caputo, who is a different kind of a sleazebag.
But this guy, Michael Caputo, who is interesting.
He seems like a pretty decent guy, and I want to hat-tip this guy.
What happened with this?
Yeah.
Folks, I've been saying for a while on the show, you know, I use the story of the guy dancing in the park.
Where the one guy gets up, he starts dancing kind of crazy, everybody's laughing, they're laughing at him, kind of like they're all laughing at us.
And then all of a sudden some other guy gets up and starts dancing crazy with the first guy.
And for those of you who missed that show, I've stated to you the importance repeatedly, not just of the first guy who gets up and dances.
But the second guy who gets up and dances with him, who makes it kind of acceptable.
Well, what happens in the video?
It's a pretty famous video.
It's at some music festival.
All of a sudden, the park, everybody in the park is dancing and it turns into one big dance party.
Where's that recognition point?
Where's that crossing of the Rubicon moment where two, three, and four people go, Hey, I'm going to dance with this guy too.
And the next thing you know, what turned into one person, I mean, what started as one person dancing crazy at a music festival turns into five and 600 people having a blast all together.
It's recognition of what's going on.
Like, Hey, this could be fun.
I want to do this too.
I don't believe a lot of people in our, enough of a, Say a majority of the people involved in our movement now have recognized the fight we're in.
This is an existential fight, folks, and I'm going to lay out for you a series of about four or five stories today about just how bad it's getting.
Now, I understand, Joe, I'm probably not explaining this well, but it's important.
Please bear with me today.
When I was in high school, I had a teacher.
He was a good guy.
His name was John D'Orio.
He was a good man at Archbishop Molloy High School.
Now, he was a Democrat.
We didn't share the same politics, but he was a noble guy and I always liked him.
And he said something interesting to the class one day, I never forgot.
He said, one of the reasons you're not going to have a revolution, and keep in mind, he was not talking about violence, that's a leftist thing, gosh, for the thousandth time, Joe, how many times do we have to say this?
He's talking more about a political electoral revolution and a cultural revolution in the country, is because we have a middle class, Joe.
We are one of the few countries in the world that has a dominant middle class.
Now, listen, a lot of European countries have, you know, middle class, but we have a dominant middle class.
The large swath of Americans live in a socio-economic middle class.
Now, that's not a problem, that's a good thing, but being in that middle class tends to breed at points a bit of apathy, where you don't want to recognize the fight you're in.
Here's why.
You're not rich enough to forfeit over a bunch of your assets to a legal team, to engage in fights that aren't, you know, perceived as existential right now to you, but you're also not poor enough where you're desperate enough to get into a fight you don't need to get into.
Does that make sense, Joe?
In other words, you see people attacking the Boy Scouts, you see people and the Boy Scouts acquiescing lately, you see people attacking, I'm going to get into all these stories by the way, you see people attacking this girl in Utah for a woman, I should say she's older, for wearing a Chinese-themed dress.
Did you see this story, Joe?
No, I didn't see that one, no.
This woman in Utah, I think it's a prom or something.
She wears a Chinese themed dress or something like that to a prom and all of a sudden the left goes crazy.
This is cultural appropriation!
They're stealing our culture!
Do you understand, Joe, how when you're in the middle class, you have enough money and enough assets that you live relatively comfortably, but you're not rich by any stretch.
So you're not rich enough to forfeit over your assets to fighting in that fight because you don't see it yet as being existential to you specifically.
Makes sense?
But you're not poor enough that you're desperate, like the people of Venezuela who are eating squirrels and dogs.
John Di Iorio said that and he was right.
Our apathy is kind of, it's a byproduct of being a successful free market capitalist country.
I'm going to present to you a number of stories today that it's time to cross that Rubicon.
That it's time for us to take this fight to the next level.
And again, for the thousandth time, that violence is a leftist thing.
That's not our thing.
I have kids.
There's no end to that.
But there are ways we can fight back.
Story number one.
You know, I'm on a conservative group listserv, and it's pretty good.
It's an email list, and there are some interesting people on there.
One guy this morning brought up a fascinating point.
He was talking about what happened to this guy Michael Caputa.
Now, for a little bit of background on this, Michael Caputo was a Trump campaign associate.
He worked with Trump on the campaign.
Michael Caputo has been bankrupted by legal fees, Joe, involved in this Russia thing.
Michael Caputo has spent, according to his own account, and I will put, please read this, it's such a good piece, it's at the Daily Mail.
I have it up at the show notes today.
Caputo has been forced to spend about $125,000 out of his pocket in legal defees, defending himself against allegations of Russian collusion.
Farcical, ridiculous, absurd allegations with no basis in fact.
And Caputo has been forced to move, he's been forced to sell his house, he's taken money out of his kid's college fund to defend himself against completely spurious, fabricated, made-up charges.
Well, what happened?
Caputo, to his credit, instead of backing down and taking the wuss pill instead, Caputo decided he was going to dance a little bit.
He testifies in front of the Senate committee and in the Senate committee he loses it on him, Joe.
He starts calling out people by name, he tells them I'm not, I don't want to use the Lord's name.
Gee damn you.
All right.
Right to hell.
Did you see this?
I did see that.
He tells him, you all go to hell.
You guys took money from my kids.
You made me sell my house.
And then what does he do?
And this is important.
He starts naming names.
He starts talking about Dan Jones.
Remember the names?
Yes, yes.
You listen to the show the other day about Dan Jones?
Who's Dan Jones?
Dan Jones is a Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein staffer, former staffer, who now, according to multiple press accounts, is leading a $50 million effort, financed by left-wing donors in California and New York, to do what?
To continue to smear Donald Trump on these Russia allegations.
It has not stopped!
So what does Caputo do?
He goes up there and calls them out.
He says, hey, which one of you is working with Dan Jones?
What about you, Senator Mark Warner?
Warner, by the way, Warner's staffers are up there.
Warner issues a statement, oh, this guy's just trying to gain attention for himself.
Warner's panicking now because he knows his name is in the press as part of a smear campaign against Donald Trump.
And Warner tries to play the whole, I'm a bipartisan guy, Joe, I'm a Democrat senator from Virginia, but I'm also, I'm only, I'm a straight shooter.
This is why I have no respect for Marco Rubio, by the way.
Yeah, that's a shtick, man.
Yeah.
It's a shtick.
Because Rubio defends, Rubio's the first one out of the, really, I'm done with Rubio.
Rubio comes out the other day.
Did you hear what Rubio said about the tax cuts?
There's really not a lot of evidence to help middle-class families.
Whatever, dude.
Whatever.
And then he comes out after Mark Warner, those texts.
Those texts where Dan Jones' name and his connections with Mark Warner come up.
What happens?
Rubio says, Mark Warner's a good guy.
Forget Rubio.
Forget it.
I'm done with that guy.
Embarrassed he represents the state of Florida I live in.
But Caputo goes up there and calls him out.
Now, without getting too deep in the weeds on the story, Senator Mark Warner from Virginia was caught in a text exchange trying to arrange meetings between the British spy who put together the Trump dossier, Christopher Steele.
He's on these text messages trying to arrange meetings between Steele and others through a lobbyist, Adam Waldman, who works with a bunch of Russian oligarchs.
Now why am I bringing this up?
Not to go back and re-litigate that story because you've already heard it if you listen to the show.
The point of this whole thing is it's time to start naming names, folks.
Listen, let me give you my experience with Having your name in the press.
That whole thing, you know, any, you know, all publicity in the media, whatever is good, you know, is good.
You just want your name out there.
That's nonsense.
People hate their names in the press.
So I'm going to suggest to you in response to story number one, because here's where the track I'm going to take with the show, Joe.
I'm going to explain to you how the left is taking it to us.
And I'm going to tell you how to cross your own personal middle-class Rubicon and take it back.
It is time to start naming names back.
Now, you have to be careful here.
I want to be crystal clear.
We can't slander or libel anyone, nor would I want to.
I'm not going to do to them what they did to us.
But citing multiple press reports that are out there in the open space and naming these names over and over again is going to do to these people what they did to us.
It is going to make them untouchable later on.
Dan Jones wants to run an operation against Donald Trump, a $50 million operation to slander the President of the United States and anybody who touches him?
Well, you name his name right back.
We should be tweeting this guy's name every day.
What's Dan Jones up to today?
We should be doing exactly what Caputo did.
Name this guy's name over and over and over.
Now.
Why is the left doing this?
I didn't finish my thought on the list serve.
I'm sorry.
I didn't forget where I was.
I just wanted to give you a little background.
This guy brought up a wonderful point.
Here's the problem, Joe.
What Dan Jones and what others are trying to do.
Yeah.
They're trying to make it so that anybody who ever thinks about working on a political campaign for Republicans again, at the president level, the presidential level, the Senate level, anything important, This is what's going to happen to you.
You will be bankrupted.
This guy, Caputo, by all the evidence we have now, has no criminal involvement we know of at this point whatsoever with Russian collusion.
It doesn't matter!
The left is on a search and destroy mission.
God bless this guy for fighting back.
Damn you all to hell, he said.
They want to make it so that if you are talented, you have computer skills, you have political skills, Joe, that you are absolutely going to be, you're not to touch a political campaign ever.
Because the Democrats' lesson is going to be because they're tyrants, they're police state tyrants.
Folks, we got to cross that Rubicon.
I have in big letters, Joe, right here.
It says it right there.
Recognition.
You do.
What?
Because I wanted to say, I just showed it to Joe.
None of this will change until you recognize the existential fight we're in.
We have to get out of the middle class kind of apathy we're in.
Not my listeners.
I'm talking about the rest of the folks out there who are marginally involved in this fight.
You have to recognize you can't be involved on the margins.
You have to be all in.
This is what they're trying to do.
These people are police state tyrants.
The lesson from the Dan Jones incident on Caputo, where they bankrupted this guy who worked for the Trump team.
The lesson there is you touch a political campaign again for the Republicans, this is what we're going to do to you.
The way we're going to fight back, and I'm going to go over this with a couple different examples.
The way we fight back.
Is you name names, you name them repeatedly, these people will be humiliated in public.
You may say, oh gosh, they don't care Dan, trust me, they care.
Is it going to one specific example like yesterday?
Is it gonna, you know, take down these operations?
Probably not.
But remember, the left has been patient.
They've been at it, Joe, for 40 years.
Yes, they have.
Recognition.
Recognize the personal Rubicon in front of you that we have to cross.
And cross it.
There are going to be penalties.
There are going to be penalties.
There is a risk that if you get up and you're that second person to dance, you'll be laughed at, too.
There's a risk.
But it's a risk worth taking.
I would dare say, Dan, there's going to be casualties.
So be prepared.
There are going to be.
I mean, to be fair, really.
Yeah, no, there are.
And I think what, and correct me if I'm wrong, there are going to be people who are going to suffer at their jobs.
There are going to be people who are going to have businesses boycotted.
But folks, I speak from experience.
I'm not here to, I'm not anybody's like spiritual shaman, okay?
I'm not trying to be.
I never was.
But Joe and I speak from experience.
Joe and I had a part ways with a sponsor in the past.
It wasn't easy to do.
I left my job in the Secret Service.
I almost went bankrupt.
I'm there with you.
I mean, that's a true story.
We couldn't even pay for my daughter's braces at the orthodontist.
I'm there with you.
But we're going to have to cross those personal Rubicons.
I've got a number of other stories like this, too, I want to get through, so bear with me today, because there's a bunch of these out there, including the Chinese dress debacle.
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Okay, here's the second story for today.
Now keep in mind the umbrella theme of this show.
There are a lot of people out there who don't, and I don't mean this in any way condescending, they just don't recognize the fight we're in.
Now, the second story of the day is an Andrew Cuomo.
The minute I say that people are like, oh here we go, crazy governor of New York.
Yes, there's another one, believe it or not, another story about Andrew Cuomo.
So the first story was more about a campaign war.
It was about a war on Republican political campaigns, Republican candidates, and a Republican president.
It is about a war to bankrupt anyone that touches him.
They tried it on this Caputo guy, Michael Caputo, and he went up, Joe, and he fought back, and damn it, good for him.
You need to, too.
So the lesson from that is name names.
Name names wherever you can.
Name them on your social media.
If you are a public candidate, you have a public profile, call these people out like we're doing all the time.
The second story is an economic war.
Now, before I get to that, I want to cover it, take it back out to 30,000 feet.
I have another article in the show notes today at Bongino.com.
If you subscribe to my email list, which we appreciate very much, I will email you these articles.
It's a legal insurrection piece that covers another piece by a phenomenal author, Victor Davis Hanson, who is just incredible.
In the piece, Joe, I encourage you to read it.
It talks about how this revolution is already here.
Again, we're not talking about anything violent.
They're talking about a revolution.
On the left side, we are, sadly.
The left is violent.
The left has been violent on college campuses, at Antifa rallies.
They've called for violence at Black Lives Matter rallies.
So this violence thing is really exclusively the domain of the left.
But in the piece, Legal Insurrection, which is good.
It's short, it's sweet, it's excellent.
Read it.
They talk about, Joe, how this revolution is already here.
And what they mean by that is normal protocols on how a civil society is supposed to behave when there are political disagreements, political disagreements on tax rates, on abortion, on whatever it may be.
The rules about how society is supposed to behave have gone out the window.
Yes, they have, Daniel.
They're done, Joe.
Yeah.
Sadly.
The old rules were what, Joe?
You don't like an abortion thing, a gun thing, you don't like, uh, I shouldn't say thing, piece of legislation, I don't mean to minimize it, I'm just trying to, uh, I mean obviously these issues matter to me.
You don't like a tax law, you don't like a school choice law, what do we do?
You go to the polls, you assemble in public, you know, you put up your signs, you know, I'm for school choice, I'm against school choice, whatever it is, and you vote people in and you change the process.
The process is supposed to be deliberate.
The process is supposed to be representative of a representative democracy.
I know we're a constitutional republic, I get it.
But a representative democracy is the essence of a constitutional republic.
Those rules are gone.
They're done.
You understand, this is your personal Rubicon you have to cross.
You all need to recognize That the old rules are now gone.
Joe, the left no longer accepts the legitimacy, the legitimacy of a duly elected government.
None!
They don't accept it.
They don't think Trump is the president.
They have given up all rules of the press.
Free press.
The press is completely in bed with the left advancing a nonsense narrative, which is another story.
If I don't get to it, I'll get to it tomorrow show.
Amazing piece by Lee Smith.
It's in the show notes today.
I may include it in the show notes tomorrow, but if I don't get to cover it today, I'll cover it tomorrow because it's so good.
Lee Smith, who was on my NRA TV show.
By the way, we'll be live tonight in studio.
Sorry, didn't mean to do.
At the NRA studio, so don't miss my show.
We're back.
We were running a best of while I traveled.
We're back tonight, 5 30 p.m.
Eastern Time, NRATV.com.
So we'll be in studio in Dallas, which will be pretty cool.
Maybe I'll have Paula come on here.
What do you think?
You want to come on here and I know, but there's a fascinating piece by Lee Smith about how the old rules of the press to Joe are out the window.
Yes, sir.
And he talks about how the press The whole Russian collusion narrative is a fabrication, Joe, of a propaganda machine of the press deeply embedded in making this story appear true even when it's false.
So, Victor Davis Hanson and the Illegal Insurrection piece that covers it, Joe, they talk about how we have to accept that we're the only ones playing By the rules that the left has already thrown out the window.
We're not dealing with opponents.
We're dealing with enemies.
Yeah, you are.
You're dealing with people who see... Let me rephrase that.
Thank you, Dan.
Listen, I don't want to put words in your mouth.
No.
But I disagree a little bit.
We're not dealing with opponents, you're right.
Okay.
We're dealing with people who see us as enemies.
Oh, thank you.
We don't, because if we saw that we would already recognize the fight we're in.
The problem is, I don't, I think, I get what you're saying, but I don't actually agree.
I think there are people out there who still believe, Joe, and I'm not talking about the Democrat Party, I'm talking about radical liberals.
Let me be crystal clear, there aren't a lot of really good Democrats, they just see the world differently.
I'm talking about the radical left.
There are people out there, Joe, who still believe that the radical left are just politically misguided good people.
They're not.
They are not good people.
They are waging economic wars against you.
They are waging reputational wars against you.
You saw the Caputo story.
The old rules are gone.
Now people think in stories, Joe.
That's always been one of the key features of the show is we use analogies to explain things.
You're in a boxing match, right?
You're in a boxing match, you've been told the rules beforehand.
No rabbit punches, no weights in the gloves, don't bite.
Don't bite like Timothy Tyson Holyfield fight, right?
No biting, no kicking in the knee, no kicking at all.
When I break up the clinch, you guys separate.
Joe, you're 30 seconds into the fight, you've been bit, you've been kneed, you've been kicked, a guy's got razor blades on his gloves, and you're still complaining to the ref.
The ref isn't doing anything.
Remember, the ref now, in this analogy, I should have said this, the ref is the press.
The press is supposed to call it fair, right?
Right, yeah.
They're all about the facts.
You're still complaining to the ref.
Hey, he's got razor blades in his glove.
He just kicked me in the, in the, you know, you know what?
He just bit me and nothing's happening.
And you're still complaining.
We have to get past the point and we have to realize what you said, Joe.
These are not opponents.
This is a guy trying to really harm you.
Yes.
These are not our friends.
Now the Caputo thing, he came to that recognition, which I think relatively early in the game, that he was being targeted, not because they thought he was a Russian colluder, he was being targeted because he worked on the Trump campaign jail.
And he was going to be bankrupted.
He has now decided to kind of throw caution to the wind, good for him, and he just laced into these people at the Senate hearing, and it's on the front page of Drudge, so don't think for a second this is not embarrassing to the people he called out.
Don't think for a second they got a free pass here, folks.
They did not.
All right, sorry, back to the economic course.
So just to bring it out to 30,000 feet, because this is one of the more important shows I've done in a while.
I'm actually kind of proud of this show because I put this together this morning and I was kind of wondering how it was going to go.
And I was taking a shower and I'm like, this is going to be good today.
I even told my wife, I think I had a really good show today.
I'm digging it, man.
David, the Victor Davis Hanson thing and the legal insurrection piece.
The essence of it is we are already in a revolution.
You pretending it's not happening.
You pretending the boxer across from you is not kicking you in the you-know-where, is not biting you, is not rabbit punching you.
You pretending it's not happening is not making it stop.
Us continuing to pretend that radical liberals, oh, they're just politically misguided kids, they'll wake up one day, is doing nothing to stop the aggression.
We have to start fighting back.
Appealing to the referee, who has already been paid off, by the way, that's the media hacks, to break it up.
Hey, he's rabbit punching me.
And the ref's like, I don't see it.
I don't see it.
It's done.
Forget the media.
They're absolutely useless.
They are useless to us.
They're useful to the left.
They are nothing more than propaganda tools.
Okay, sorry for that extended setup, but here's the story about Andrew Cuomo.
So, the governor of New York, far-left loony tune, wacko, he ordered his Department of... Did you hear this story, Joe?
Can't remember.
I heard something about him, but I don't know if this is it.
Came out yesterday.
Okay.
Yeah, I know, like there's so many kooky Cuomo stories.
Like, which one?
He ordered his Department of Financial Services, Joe, And I'm quoting here this word, to urge, urge is the quote, New York financial institutions to be very careful about their dealings with the NRA.
Yeah.
Now, his comptroller, his New York state comptroller has also sent a letter to banks And basically threatening the banks that if they allow gun purchases, they can get reputational harm too.
Folks, what's going on here?
What the left cannot do by legislation, the old rules, Joe, the standard boxing rules, the way we change things, right?
That's why I set the show up this way.
How did we change things in the past?
You don't like rules about guns?
You try to change them.
It's not gonna work.
But, I mean, we're talking about the Second Amendment.
I mean, repealing it.
You get what I'm saying?
You don't like the Second Amendment?
Try to repeal it.
We disagree, we're gonna fight you, you're gonna lose.
But you don't like the rules?
What do you do, Joe?
You enact legislation.
But they're biting me!
They're kicking me!
They're scratching my eyes out, ref!
What is the ref doing?
Nothing.
The old rules are gone.
Recognize you are not in a boxing match.
You are in a fight with a person trying to hurt you.
Andrew Cuomo cannot get the Second Amendment thrown out in New York.
You see where I'm going with this, Joe?
So what is he doing?
He's now using the massive power of state pension funds through his comptroller and the power of government regulation, lawsuits, and threats to intimidate financial institutions that do business with the NRA or allow gun sales.
What do you think that chilling effect that is, Joe?
You have, what is it, the fourth largest state in the country right now?
You have a massive multi-billion dollar pension fund, a comptroller who controls the state of New York, and a far-left governor.
You have them now, what, threatening business with these companies?
If they allow gun purchases, a perfectly legal activity?
We're not boxing anymore, folks.
The boxing match is over.
The fight has begun.
The longer you sit there and pretend and appeal to the ref, the worse it's going to get for you, the more pain is going to be inflicted, and sooner or later, that pain and that damage is going to be too much for you to overcome.
Yeah.
Now, because I don't want this to be a macabre show, I told you the first way to fight back on Caputo.
Here's the way to fight back against this, because I want to give a hat tip to Hornady.
What's Hornady?
Hornady's an ammunition company.
They make excellent.
I'm not a sponsor.
I have no financial relationship.
Welcome to be.
They're not.
The only reason I say that is because, you know, disclosures do matter.
They are not a sponsor of my show, but I do use their ammunition and I think it's absolutely terrific.
Matter of fact, their 9mm ammo is some of the best out there.
What did Hornady say, Joe?
Let me give you a visual on this, Joe.
Okay.
That's what they said.
You see what I'm doing?
It's a little, it's a, you can, it's a finger gesture, folks.
You can probably figure it out.
Can't do that.
No.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We can't do that on the, we don't have a ditto cam in the hotel room.
Not that I know of, at least.
Please, that'd be crazy.
So Hornady has said to the state of New York, Joe, Hey, Daddy-O.
We're not going to sell you guys in New York State Agencies any ammo anymore.
I'll put this, yeah, it's stories in the show notes.
Read it, spread it, send it everywhere.
Now, Hornady may stand to lose a lot of money on this, but I want to ask you, go out, if you're a regular shooter at the range, do me a favor.
Go pick up a box of Hornady ammo.
Because the CEO of that company did the right thing.
He said, you know what?
We may make some money off these New York.
He didn't say he's not going to sell ammunition to New Yorkers.
I want to be crystal clear.
All right.
They said, we're not selling it to New York state agencies.
You want to wage an economic war on the second amendment, people's right to defend themselves and free American citizens exercising their right to protect their families, then gesture again towards the camera for Joe.
We're not selling you jack squat.
How do you like them apples?
Now if the other ammunition companies would get together too and do the same thing, I think this would set a nice example that we realize we're in a fight here.
We're not in a boxing match anymore.
This is important folks.
But the reason I bring it up again today is the bad news is the guy's hitting us with razor blades in his gloves and we thought it was a boxing match.
The good news is we're 30 seconds into the fight.
We're no longer telling the ref what's going on.
And now you're going back to the corner and you're telling your trainer, take these gloves off.
Give me those hand weights.
Why?
I'm putting them in my hand.
So I'm going to smack this guy back with my hand weights.
Now, again, keep in mind, violence is a leftist phenomenon, not ours.
I'm talking about standard legal ways for us to fight back.
It's important.
Because once we throw out our allegiance to big R rights granted by God and our fidelity to higher principles, then all is lost.
Let the left wallow in the mud of pure stupidity, violence and rage.
Let us strategically fight back.
It's important.
Because I believe in the goodness of people and I know you do as well.
Outside of a fringe pocket of lunatics, I believe the majority of Americans at some point are going to wake up and see the left for what they are.
Cultural, economic, and political police state tyrants.
That is all they are.
Now, before I move on to the next story, I want to, I just want to re-emphasize because I had put it in capital letters before.
Recognition.
I need you to recognize this fight.
It's not a self-help series But I understood when I was a Secret Service agent, and I left the job and left behind everything my pension I have no pension people say all the time.
Oh, you know you retire.
I wish I retired.
I have a pension I'd have health care for life.
I left I Recognize the fight we were in You all as evidenced by your dance stories you send me which are phenomenal are starting to get there, too I But if you're that middle-class parent, middle-class mom, middle-class dad, you know, and you've been putting off your role in the fight, the time to join is now.
Whether it's on the economic side, boycotting movies, boycotting bogus Hollywood celebs who attack us.
Not saying all Hollywood, again, people have jobs, good people work there.
I'm talking about the jerks, the people who attack us and our values.
Whether it's showing up at a rally, whether it's petitioning your congressmen, your state delegates, whether it's volunteering at a conservative club or rally, whatever it is, you got to recognize you're not in a boxing match anymore.
You're in a fight.
That recognition matters.
And I'm humbly asking you to embrace that suffering as a gift.
I got an email from a guy.
He did not, it's a very sensitive one.
So I'm going to leave out a lot of the details.
But I answered it yesterday.
I was kind of touched by it.
He wrote the subject line in all caps, which got my attention quickly.
I was getting off a plane in Dallas and the essence of his email was, you know, I was at a point where all was lost and I responded back and if he's listening, which I know he is, I said to him, The minute my life changed was when I recognized that the suffering and the pain and the, oh gosh, they keep coming after us and we know what's good for this country.
And we know, and the fact that why can't we just, why can't we just do something to stop it?
The assault on the, on the free press, the assault on our money, the assault on our kids, the assault on our values, the assault on the Catholic church.
It's so much.
I just want to go into like the woods and get away from it.
Right.
And I sent back that my life changed the minute I learned that that suffering was a gift.
I know it sounds crazy.
It's a gift.
I cannot say this Bernard Malamud quote enough from the book The Natural, you know, the Roy Hobbs story.
Malamud was terrific.
Malamud's quote about how we all live two lives, the one we learn from and the one we live after that.
Once you learn and recognize That the meaning of your life is in the suffering you embrace.
The suffering you embrace and overcome.
Once you realize that and you see that suffering as a gift, as your ticket to this second creation, all of a sudden that pain is not, it's not a burden anymore.
I don't know how to describe it.
It really was a revolutionary moment for me.
It's not a burden.
It's something you welcome.
Matter of fact, Sometimes when I'm in church on Sunday, after communion, I'll ask, you know, let this Eucharistic sacrifice, please Father, strengthen my soul to take on the suffering I know I need to embrace to find you in the second creation.
I'll say that all the time.
Understand these fights, these little fights every day.
The ones I know they say, oh man, I gotta go to store now, pick up some Hornady ammo.
I wanted to go see the Avengers movie, but it's full of people who can't stand, uh, you know, uh, can't stand us and attack us.
These are little acts of suffering you should look for.
Seek them out.
Embrace them.
This is the meaning of your life.
I mean, think about that.
I'm sorry.
I really did not mean to make this some kind of a 12-step program show.
I'm not.
I just think to myself all the time, Joe.
How we look back on prior generations that embraced suffering in mass with such reverence.
I mean, think about it.
We talk about the World War II generation as the greatest generation, right?
You talk about the revolutionary generation, you know, the people who fought under Washington and, you know, at Valley Forge, people who had no shoes in the winter and froze to death, many of them.
We talk about them with such reverence.
But think about how people talk about our generation, the snowflakes, you know, the pampered crowd, you know, the testosterone levels of men are in like the four hundreds on average now.
We have the opportunity to change that through all of our unique small acts of suffering.
We embrace where we take on this fight.
And I just want to applaud people like Caputo.
Damn them to hell.
Good for you.
I want to applaud companies like Hornady.
Nope.
No more.
Not today.
We're not selling you guys ammo anymore.
Eh, but it's a multi-million dollar contract, Joe.
Yes.
Finger gesture.
No thanks.
Don't need it.
Because they recognize they're in a fight.
Another story.
I kind of hinted at it before.
This Chinese dress story.
An utter absurdity.
Tucker Carlson had Kathy Abreu on last night on his show.
Kathy's a far-left liberal.
I met her in person.
She's nice, but she's, you know, has some crazy ideas.
My wife and I are in the hotel room watching Tucker.
We're here, we're watching it.
My wife's looking at this story and, you know, my wife's involved in politics, but obviously not to the level I am.
This is how, you know, we make a living.
Joe and I have to follow this all day.
I mean, Joe does this for five hours a day.
You know, I do it for about two or three.
Paula's watching this story, and let me just give you the story first, because, you know, like I said, she likes Tucker and all, but she's looking, and she goes, this can't be real.
I'm like, no, this is real, this is happening.
A young lady goes to a prom, wears this Chinese-themed dress.
It was a beautiful dress.
I'll be honest with you, I didn't even, I'm not a sartorial cat.
I didn't even know it was a Chinese-themed dress.
I don't know, I just saw it, it looked like a red dress to me.
You know, it was a nice dress, great.
She wears this dress, she takes a photo, and she puts on it, prom.
So some guy on Twitter, this Jeremy Lan or something on Twitter, responds back.
I don't even know who this guy is.
Your... My culture is not your... He curses.
It's not your prom dress.
I'll be honest with you, I don't know what the kid was even talking about.
Apparently this thing was retweeted a hundred thousand times by a bunch of radical kook liberals who were like, this is cultural appropriation!
She's stealing a Chinese dress, this white lady.
Do you understand what's going on here?
[BLANK_AUDIO]
The left is in a cultural war against you to paint you as a bunch of racist, insensitive savages.
What's the problem, folks, for the left?
You are not, Joe, a racist, insensitive savage.
Why?
Because I know Joe, and Joe knows me.
Well, how do I paint Joe and Dan Bongino as a bunch of racist, insensitive savages and this woman in Utah?
You constantly reinvent the rules and find opportunities to be victims and use your helpless, hack, filthy dogs in the press to get your story out there.
What did we find now?
Social justice warrior snowflakes found on Twitter a tweet by some kid nobody knows this guy who tweeted to the girl My culture is not your damn prom dress Joe here's an opportunity to paint another group of people who dress in Chinese themed clothing This they're racist too.
Let's get them and the social justice mob went wild Now, that's the bad news.
The good news is, people like my wife, who's a reasonable human being, you know, like I said, involved in politics, but not to the degree I am, is watching this story last night.
She sees the dress, she sees the irrational, psychotic, insane, tyrannical, despotic response to this, and Cathy Abreu The liberal tried to explain it away on Tucker, and she's looking at me like, This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
By the way, a bunch of Hollywood celebrities who were supposedly woke, W-O-K-E, that's like the leftist word for being like, we're so culturally sensitive and aware.
Tucker was smart enough to play after a picture of Katy Perry, Selena Gomez, and a bunch of Victoria's Secret models wearing everything from Indian headdresses to traditional Indian garb from the country of India, not Native American, both of them.
One with the headdress, one with the country, and then also a picture of Katy Perry in some Asian-themed clothing and makeup.
Are they racist too?
Joe, didn't they culturally appropriate?
They must be racist.
Of course they're racist, by the leftist's own rules.
Right.
What's the catch?
They're not rules.
They're only rules when they can make you look silly.
When they make them look silly, they throw those rules out and invent new rules.
Meaning what?
They're not rules at all, folks.
The whole essence of the term rules and principles is that they're inviolable.
Meaning you violate these rules, you're a rule breaker.
But as you notice, when the left violates the rules, they're not rule breakers because they're woke.
It's only when you do it, Joe, conservatives, that you're a racist fool and some kind of a cretin and Neanderthal.
That's a kick right in the mangoes, man.
Right in the mangoes, brother.
Do you understand though, Joe, how then it's not a rule?
You can't have a rule of mathematics saying this plus this is going to equal this, but only if you're a Republican.
It's not a rule, it's a ploy!
It's a ploy.
It's a tactic.
That's a great way to say it.
It is a tactic.
And the tactic is this.
It gives the patina, the facade, the appearance of order when it is in essence chaos.
Because the left wants chaos.
Because in that chaos they are going to introduce their Their whole government, state, bureaucratic apparatus to take over and cure that chaos and create a fictional sense of order out of a chaos they created.
The left needs chaos all the time.
All the time.
That's right.
Yeah, absolutely.
And how they create chaos is giving... Please, I hope this makes sense.
Nobody likes chaos.
Are we clear, folks?
The left knows this.
So they can't, they have to give the appearance they're operating by rules, even though they're not.
Does this make sense, Joe?
Oh yeah.
So what does the left say?
Oh, we're going to do a boxing match.
It's going to be standard.
We're going to have a referee.
We're going to be in the ring.
And to the outside observer, who's not as involved in politics as you and I are, they see a regular boxing match.
It gives the appearance of order, because nobody wants to go to a boxing match where the rules are fight to the death.
Nobody wants to see a guy die in the ring.
But the left, by hiding the razor blades in the gloves, by biting and not letting anybody see, and the referee going, I didn't see it, I didn't see it, they give you the appearance that this is an orderly boxing match when it is in fact chaos, and it is for them a fight to the death.
And by insisting that there are rules in the boxing match as they're breaking them, Joe.
When the boxer on the right goes and sticks a weight in his glove to fight back so he doesn't get killed in there, what does the leftist do?
He goes to the referee who's already bought off and goes, hey, this guy's got weights in his glove, this isn't fair.
And the people in the audience are like, he's got weights in his glove, cheater!
And you're like, what the?
This guy's got razor blades and he just bit me!
The ref goes, no, no, no.
No, no.
There's no biting.
I didn't see it.
Who's the ref?
The press.
Do you understand what's going on?
The ref is the press.
They are trying to give the appearance of fairness.
Joe, this is fair.
This is cultural.
They give fancy, the fancy words the press and the media hacks apply to this.
Give it the appearance of a rule.
What is the rule?
The rule, Joe, is cultural appropriation here.
Oh, cultural appropriation.
Everybody knows you're not supposed to wear Chinese dresses.
Come on, you conservatives.
You're a bunch of racist, anti-Asian bigots.
And the girl in Utah is like, well, I am?
What did I do wrong?
I just wore this beautiful dress.
Come on.
Come on.
What are you, crazy?
You cultural appropriation.
You didn't know this?
Conservatives, bunch of fools.
They don't even know she's, they just know she's a girl who happens to be white that they wanted to attack in Utah.
But the label, cultural appropriation, gives it the appearance, Joe, of a rule when what it really is is organized chaos on the left.
Now, here's the good news.
What did this young lady in Utah do for the fourth time today, Joe?
Double-barreled middle finger.
There you go.
Young lady in Utah says, hey, go pound sand, basically.
I like the dress.
I'd wear it again.
She danced a little bit.
Small thing.
But make no mistake, this woman's life has been harmed.
The internet is forever, and they will use this against her for the rest of her life as a culturally insensitive person.
But instead of backing down, she double- as far as I know up to this point, has doubled down and said, I would do it again.
Joe, you said it before, there will be casualties.
The casualty for her is for the rest of her life people will Google her name and this is what she'll be known by online, at least until she does something bigger and better in her life.
That's not a knock.
That's just a fact.
I feel for this woman.
But we need to help her out.
And when this happens to you, God forbid, because it will, don't think for a second you're in a boxing match.
Cross your own personal spiritual Rubicon now.
And understand that you could be next.
You could be some young, non-minority student.
I take that back.
You don't even have to be, you just have to be someone they target.
You could be an Asian minority student.
You could come out with dreadlocks or whatever.
Oh my gosh, they're next.
Look at cultural appropriation.
You need to give them the double barrel middle finger too.
Your name could be Kanye.
I mean, again, Kanye, and I brought this up, I don't know Kanye.
I don't think this guy's a conservative.
I don't fall into the celebrity worship bandwagon ever.
But it is a good point, Joe.
I'm not vouching for this guy at all.
Don't know him, never met him.
I don't, I really honestly don't care about his views.
I care about mine and yours.
But it is not an irrelevant point to bring up right now that Kanye West He dared to say something unpopular to the social justice mob about how he liked how Candace Owens think, who's a black conservative, and the media and the left has absolutely lost their minds.
Because why?
He exposed the chaos for what it was.
He exposed the chaos Under the guise of it being a set of rules.
The rules are what, Joe?
The rules are if you are a minority, you must vote Democrat because we will protect you against the evil, indignant, and horrible Republicans, right?
That's the rule.
That's the rule.
That's not a rule.
Go to Baltimore City.
Go to places in Cleveland.
Go to places in California.
And you will see that that rule has instilled chaos.
And the fact that Kanye West, even for a moment, again, I'm not backing this guy, I don't do celebrity worship ever.
Right.
I am just suggesting to you that when Kanye West brings up things like Chicago and the chaos in Chicago, that exposing the fake rules as really a method, methodology and tactic to implement chaos in inner city communities was absolutely Devastating.
To the left.
Hence the unbelievable reaction to Kanye West.
It's a good point.
You know what, I didn't even think to bring that up.
Thank you.
Oh man.
Alright, I got a lot.
I want one more because I've put together quite a few of these today.
Finally, today's show brought to you by our buddies at BrickHouse.
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I get it.
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Hey, by the way, Joe, I'm thinking about doing a show on the weekends, folks, regularly, like a half an hour show about, you know, working out, firearms, self-defense training, that kind of stuff, adding it to our feed.
So I'm thinking about it.
My wife and I are kicking it around, but I figured I'd throw that out there because you all deserve to hear it first.
So I'm thinking, you know, that's something we may do.
All right.
Let me see.
I'm going to get into this a little bit today and then maybe kind of bring it up again on tomorrow's show as well, because it's important.
Another really terrific article up at the show notes today.
Dennis Prager, who is just incredible.
I love this guy.
He does some really great work at the Daily Signal.
Some of his writing, he has PragerU, he has his own radio show.
Prager has a piece up at the Daily Signal in the show notes at bungino.com today.
It describes again what I'm telling you today.
Folks, recognition matters of the fight we're in.
Remember John Deoria, right?
We're all in the middle class, a lot of us, a large swath of us, just based on pure percentages.
Sometimes we forget because we're not poor enough to get desperate, but we're not rich enough to dedicate ourselves to a fight only because we have to survive first.
It's time to get into survival mode.
It's time for us to cross that Rubicon.
Prager has a piece in the Daily Signal today talking about the endless, endless assaults on conservatives everywhere.
He compares conservatives to Christians under attack, or Jews under attack who would have to call themselves Christians in decades and centuries past because they were being targeted for discrimination and worse.
He talks about people being attacked on college campuses.
This Brett Weinstein, this professor who dared to express a view outside of the liberal Joe rules.
Outside of the liberal mainstream.
A professor on a campus who was attacked.
I mean attacked.
The college police, the college campus police told him they couldn't protect him.
He gives multiple examples of people coming up to him on college campuses when he speaks, whispering to him, I'm a conservative.
The only reason I bring this up.
Is because in the past show, The Left, the liberals have taken pride in the fact that they were the renegades.
Remember the old title of the show, The Renegade Republican?
There were a couple reasons behind that.
Liberals have prided themselves, Joe, in being the ones to buck the mainstream.
Joe, now you grew up in the hippie generation, right?
Yeah, man.
Joe, and not only that, Joe grew up in that scene.
He's a musician.
This is why I'm always fascinated by Joe.
Joe should be not only a Democrat, he should be a kook.
I mean, Joe should be the most far left radical nutbag ever.
He's grown up around, you know, I'm not knocking musicians.
I'm just saying the entertainment arena is largely filled with liberals.
Joe is a pretty conservative dude.
Yeah, which is great.
I'm always honored but That wouldn't you agree Joe that in that sphere of entertainers artists Hollywood types?
Academics that they've always prided themselves like we're fighting the man question authority dude question authority just like the bumper sticker on my car I had when I was a kid question of thought and they've prided themselves on being the renegades the rebels, right and Read the Prager piece and I want you to take pride in the fact that you are now the rebels.
You're the underground.
If you're a conservative on a college campus right now and you're starting to stand up, you're starting to puff that chest out a little bit and say, ah, I'm not hiding anymore.
You are the rebels.
You're that guy at your workplace cafeteria in a liberal company.
All of a sudden they're trashing Trump and you step up, walk away, go, you know what?
Not today, fellas.
Not today.
You're the rebel.
You're that person on a college campus.
You're that kid in a classroom, adult or kid, it doesn't matter.
Young man, young lady, and your professor in that sociology class is trashing Republicans, trashing the conservatives, trashing us all.
You stand up and you fight back and if, you know, he hurts your grade, know this.
You were the rebel.
You.
Take pride in the fact that you were the underground.
You had the nerve and the spine and the guts to stand together.
You embraced the suffering.
You embraced the suck.
Embrace the suck all the time.
I know it sucks.
Embrace it.
Love it.
This is your fight.
The left has lost it.
They are the conformists.
They are the man.
You want to talk about fighting a man?
They're the man.
They own the press.
They own academia.
They own the political institutions.
They own the Hollywood elite.
They're all lemmings jumping off a cliff.
You're the one slowing down saying, I'm not jumping off the cliff with these idiots.
Why?
Why not?
Why not?
Look what's on the other side.
Death.
That's what's on the other side.
You're the one fighting the man now.
Read the piece by Prager.
It's really, really good.
Check out the show notes today.
Thanks for tuning in, folks.
I really appreciate it.
I'm going to continue with some more of this tomorrow.
I've got some other stuff, and I do want to hit that Lee Smith piece.
Do me a favor, if you get the chance, read it in today's show notes.
That way tomorrow when we talk about it, it'll make more sense about how the press, the press, was largely responsible for this whole collusion fairy tale.
