Summary:
In this episode I address the real reasons disgraced former CIA Director John Brennan is panicking about the revoking of his security clearance. I also discuss the liberal media’s disingenuous efforts to attack the Trump economic bump.
News Picks:
This Daily Caller piece addresses the George Papadopoulos plea deal.
Why did this government employee lose his security clearance after reporting irregularities about one of the players in the Spygate scheme?
This November piece from the Hill covers the leak investigations going on within the DOJ.
Sara Carter has some interesting new reporting on newly revealed Bruce Ohr/Chris Steele texts.
This Investors Business Daily piece throughly debunks the “Obama handed Trump a strong economy” nonsense.
Denmark is not a socialist country.
The American public trusts Trump, more than the Democrats, on the economy.
Liberals are losing their minds because Jeff Sessions ate in this restaurant.
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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.
We're not gonna make America great again.
It was never that great.
Yeah?
Screw you, you jerk!
[laughter]
[laughter]
We don't do-- this isn't Saturday Night Live.
Like, we don't do cold opens on this show.
But, uh, Joe played that for me.
I've done it before.
That was, that's Joe, but that wasn't actually said, the second part at that event, but that was Andrew Cuomo, liberal joker, clown, hack governor of New York yesterday inciting a firestorm.
America's never gonna win!
And then Joe of course added that in, so I Listen, I have nothing to add to this kind of stupidity.
Nothing.
I just think Joe does a great job pulling movie quotes, making these people look silly all on their own.
Producer Joe, how are you doing?
I'm doing well, Daniel.
Doing well.
This is the new Democrat Party, folks.
This is, sadly, who they are.
I'm not talking about all Democrat voters.
Let me be clear.
I mean that.
I'm talking about the Democrat Party.
It's being hijacked by a bunch of looney toons.
Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, actually said that.
Oh, man.
Well, thank you yesterday for our most downloaded show ever.
Sheesh, the show is just growing so fast.
It is.
Every day we wake up with it.
We're like, I think we'd be happy with X number of downloads and an X number of downloads becomes old by the following week because it's growing so fast.
Thanks to you.
We really, really appreciate it.
You all make the show.
It's all for you.
So thanks a lot.
I got a lot to talk about.
I missed some stories yesterday because yesterday the Rachel Maddow story took over the whole show.
But the media is trying to flip the script on the economy.
Don't let them do it!
Don't let them do it!
They're trying to now give Obama credit but I'm gonna do a thorough debunking and eviscerate this nonsense today because it was the media themselves excusing the Obama economy and blaming it on secular stagnation and other things You know, in other words, Obama's economy was terrible and blaming it on other things in the past.
And we're going to go back and we're going to make sure we do that.
But I have some updates too on yesterday's show, which are pretty fascinating.
All right.
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All right.
So, uh, interesting development yesterday.
First, before we get to the economic stuff.
So George Papadopoulos is our buddy, Papa D, Papa Dizzle.
I told him, don't take this plea.
Do not take this plea.
This guy is clearly now the victim of an ongoing scam to set up the Trump team.
This guy is going, uh, History is going to judge this man far differently.
So Papadopoulos' wife spoke to Chuck Ross at the Daily Caller.
I'll make sure I put the piece up in the show notes.
Please read it.
And thankfully, Joe, this is great news.
This is a fantastic development.
Papadopoulos' wife is saying that That she hopes that George does not in fact take this plea deal for these charges.
Now you know what George Papadopoulos, you know the allegations that he met with this Australian official and disclosed that there was maybe some dirt on Hillary.
I'm telling you the guy was set up.
Do not accept this deal.
Everybody needs to fight back right now.
Everybody.
Mike Flynn too.
It is time to fight back.
The Mueller probe is clearly at this point a witch hunt.
This was clearly a setup.
The Trump team was framed.
It's now becoming obvious and it is the obligation of people involved in this case right now.
Please, I am begging you to not accept these deals.
Please don't do it.
This story is bigger than just the people involved.
This story is about the weaponization of government to target a political campaign and the appointment of a special counsel to later on turn the heat back on the Trump campaign despite the fact that they were the ones victimized by this nonsense.
Mike Flynn, Papadopoulos, they have to fight back.
This is the time.
This is the time now to turn the heat back on the government and make them come to the table with what they've got.
Thank you all for the emails, by the way, to the Rachel Maddow show yesterday, disclosing the fact that Mifsud, I strongly believe at this point, was a US intelligence asset.
I think here's what has to happen.
Let me give you just a simple path forward here.
Discovery motions need to be filed everywhere.
Everywhere, Joe.
If you are Mike Flynn, if you are George Papadopoulos right now, discovery motions have to be filed everywhere.
I want to see everything you got.
This is the United States of America, ladies and gentlemen.
Despite the ridiculous, outrageous comments of Andrew Cuomo, this is still the greatest country in the history of mankind and Damn it, it's worth defending.
The principles of the Constitutional Republic are worth defending.
File discovery motions, file them over and over.
If they are going to prosecute you on a case where they're alleging you lied to them, then make them produce the information.
Make them produce the 302s, the interview summaries by the FBI.
Make them produce everything they have on Ms.
Sood.
If the allegations against Papadopoulos are that he met with Ms.
Sood, This Maltese professor in April that again starts this whole thing by allegedly telling Papadopoulos about some Russian dirt on Hillary and the entire bedrock of the case is that this guy is some Russian asset then darn it make the FBI produce the information that led him to believe as such.
Because I'm telling you Mifsud was not a Russian asset.
Mifsud is linked deeply to Claire Smith of the UK intelligence services the Joint Intelligence Committee.
To the link campus, to the training of European Union law enforcement.
This guy's deeply connected through, you see a bunch of photographs, a bunch of prior contacts.
This guy is deeply connected, Mifsud, to Western intelligence.
Ladies and gentlemen, he's connected to friendlies.
I'm telling you, this guy was set up.
I know this is hard, but we're in a real fight right now, and it's very tough for me.
Joe, understandably so.
Not being in their predicament, whether it's Flynn or whether it's Papadopoulos, it's very tough for me to give them advice.
I'm not going through what Flynn and Papadopoulos are going through.
Understood.
They're under federal charges.
They've got the boot of Bob Mueller on their necks right now.
They're probably being threatened with greater charges if they don't plea out.
I can't say to you, well, I understand what that's like because I don't.
They're probably going to be bankrupted by legal fees.
There's no easy way for me to say to you, oh, don't worry about it.
I get it.
Me saying this is, I can't put myself in your shoes here.
But your fight is a bigger fight right now.
I can only fight the way I know how.
You know, I left my job in the Secret Service, my pension.
Luckily, things worked out in the long run.
But as Joe well knows, they didn't work out in the short run.
No.
Things got tough for me, not as tough as they are for you right now.
But you've got to fight back.
Make them put their cards on the table.
Make them show what they've got.
The exposing of this scandal is a big deal.
It is a huge deal.
And now we're starting to see panics at it.
Alright, moving on.
Because this is important.
It's related, but just please, please fight back.
It is representative of a much larger fight.
People will rally behind you.
People are tired of the Smeller probe.
They are tired of the switch hunt.
They are tired of the attacks on this president.
They are tired of it.
They will rally behind you and right now public opinion matters.
You know, for as much as I can't stand what the Clintons did in office, remember Susan McDougal?
She spent a lot of time in jail defending Bill Clinton at the time.
Listen, I don't agree with Bill Clinton and I don't know what McDougal's involvement was at the time or how much she knew or didn't know.
But the public will rally around you.
Please fight back.
Please do not take these pleas.
Once you accept these pleas, that you plead guilty, that you lied, when we know you didn't, at least in the context of the way the FBI has framed this, our fight gets more difficult.
Because then, Joe, the fight, when we start fighting for you, what do the liberals say?
Well, they pled guilty.
Please, please, please fight back.
This Mueller probe is a disaster.
All right, on that front, John Brennan is panicking.
John Brennan yesterday had his security clearance revoked by the White House.
Yes!
Yes!
Yeah, all the liberals are freaking out.
Authoritarianism!
Tyranny!
Yeah, whatevs.
Yeah, sorry.
Trump, he's a real authoritarian.
Cutting taxes, cutting regulations, and cutting government power.
Yeah, that's the exact opposite of an authoritarian.
Folks, Brennan is panicking.
Why is Brennan panicking?
I have an article, hat tip to Steve, great article he sent in.
On the Hill, I want you to read the show notes today.
From November 14th of 2017.
Why is Brennan panicking, Joe?
Brennan is panicking.
Because Jeff Sessions and the Justice Department have active criminal investigations into 27 classified leaks right now.
Do you really believe John Brennan's fingerprints are not on at least some of those?
Brennan is freaking out for a reason.
Brennan has to know he may be criminally on the hook for some of these leaks if the evidence presents itself that he knew authorized it or, even worse, did it himself.
Brennan is in full panic mode, ladies and gentlemen.
There is a reason he had his security clearance stripped.
Trump is not the dope the liberal media wants you to believe he is.
Trump likely has this information.
There's probably a good, strong chance that Brennan at least has his fingerprints or his agency's fingerprints while he was in charge on one of those 27, if not more, classified leaks to the media.
He is in a world of trouble.
Read the Hill article.
Again, I don't want to get into the... I know it's a flashpoint with everyone.
I'm just telling you on the Take It East front, there are things happening here.
They may not be happening at your pace, I get it, but there are things happening.
I believe that the investigation is about to come to an end on a lot of these classified leaks.
You think Trump just made this up out of nowhere, Joe?
This, hey, we're going to pull classified secret clearances from Comey, from Hayden, from Brennan.
Trump does not do these things impulsively.
He may say some things impulsively, but he does not do these things without deliberating on them.
There's a reason this came up.
The reason is Brennan is probably going to be implicated at a minimum, at a secondary level, in potentially authorizing some of these leaks.
That investigation is most likely coming to an end soon.
But Brennan's freaking out because his fingerprints are all over this.
Don't forget this.
Here's where Brennan's in a world of trouble, folks.
As far back as 2015, The Guardian, a left-leaning UK-based paper, was reporting on Brennan's contacts.
Brennan's contacts as far back as 2015.
The story came out later, just to be precise on that.
The Guardian was reporting on Brennan's contacts with the GCHQ head Robert Hannigan in the UK.
Who is the GCHQ?
Why does this matter?
How does this relate to what's going on right now?
The GCHQ is the United Kingdom's equivalent of our NSA.
They hoover up and vacuum up a lot of signals intelligence.
Why was Brennan meeting with them?
Why was Brennan exchanging information, potentially as far back as 2015, with not only the GCHQ and the United Kingdom, but other countries as well, and information that may have been about the Trump team?
Folks, what happened to Bob Hannigan?
Now, just to be clear, Bob Hannigan is the head of the GCHQ, again, the UK equivalent of the NSA.
Left-leaning papers themselves were reporting on him meeting, flying in, this is all out there on the record, you can look this up yourself, They reported themselves on the GCHQ head Hannigan flying into DC himself for director-to-director level meetings.
What were they talking about?
What was Brennan doing visiting with a foreign intelligence entity while the left-wing media was reporting that they had information on the Trump team they wanted to pass?
Now, you may say to yourself, Why would the left-wing media out Brennan like that?
Oh, no, no, no, you're reading this thing all wrong.
You have to remember, at that time, late 2015, 2016, and certainly through early 2017, don't forget this, because I get this a lot, they go, Dan, I don't understand.
Obviously what Brennan was doing with foreign intelligence was illicit, immoral, and unethical.
Why would the left-wing media outlet, you follow where I'm going with this show?
I get this question a lot.
You're making a mistake.
You're making a A present-time bias error.
You're viewing it through the lens of what we know today, not what was known back then.
In 2015 and 2016, the media is being fed these leaks, these classified leaks, the information that would later become the dossier, Trump is involved in organized crime in Russia, all BS.
They're being fed this.
Ladies and gentlemen, the media hates Trump and they believe this.
They start reporting on Brennan's contacts with foreign intelligence, grotesquely immoral contacts, unethical, and depending on the leaks, potentially illegal, on what he did with the information.
The media was reporting on them.
To buttress their claims about how serious this Russian collusion and Trump's connections to shady figures were.
Do you see my point?
The media's reporting is, look, the Brits and everyone else, they're reporting all this information about Trump.
This is so serious.
Trump is in so much trouble.
Intelligence agencies all over the world are telling John Brennan, the media doesn't know at the time the information is junk, that it's a steaming pile of horse manure.
Now what's the problem?
Now that the information has been roundly discredited and debunked, the source Christopher Steele's been debunked, the information's been debunked, and the information has been roundly criticized as garbage and has been used to spy in a U.S.
court despite being discredited information, now the media cannot go back and unwrite those stories.
The Guardian, CNN.
Do I have to read this CNN headline again?
You know what?
It's always worth reading again because this is that good.
CNN headline.
Here we go.
This is from April 14th.
As far as April 14th, 2017.
They were still reporting this.
Look this up yourself.
British intelligence passed Trump Associates communications with Russians on to U.S.
counterparts by Jim Sciutto, Pamela Brown, and Eric Bradner, CNN, April 14, 2017.
CNN, April 14, 2017.
CNN was reporting on this.
CNN themselves thought they were buttressing the claims that this crisis was so severe that even foreign
intelligence entities were spying on Trump.
They never anticipated later on that this thing was going to turn out to be garbage and that John Brennan was leading them around on a leech.
Does it make sense now?
The listeners can't get enough of that, by the way.
They love that.
Listen to what's going on now and it'll explain why, number one, this is what I'm trying to get to.
Number one, why his security clearance, Brennan, was revoked yesterday.
Secondly, why the media is losing their mind over it.
And third, why the media is actually going to be their own worst enemy here.
His security clearance was revoked because they know what's going on.
Sessions Justice Department has been conducting these investigations since basically early last, late last year.
They've been conducting investigations into 25, 27 classified leaks of information.
Potential felonies.
Read the article yourself.
It's in the Hill.
That's not a right-leaning outlet.
No one's making it up.
Those cases have likely come full circle, Joe.
Because they've come full circle, they likely have a good case against John Brennan.
Therefore, Brennan's case and his security clearance is probably wrapped up.
The security clearance out the window.
The media's freaking out because Brennan's team and maybe Brennan himself were likely sources for them in the past and the media is implicated themselves in writing stories about the illicit passing of information between foreign intelligence and U.S.
intelligence on U.S.
citizens.
They thought they were supporting the claim that Trump was guilty as sin.
What they were really writing articles about was John Brennan's guilty as sin.
Leading around foreign intelligence, getting them to pass them information on the Trump team, information that later turned out to be false.
Brennan's been the puppet master the whole time.
I told you this four or five months ago.
Now they can't retract these stories.
What are they going to do?
Is CNN going to pretend that story doesn't exist?
The big scandal here, the information laundering operation, the spying scandal, and the framing of Donald Trump, the framing component and the information laundering scandal are interrelated.
The framing heavily involves UK assets.
Mifsud, the guy who starts this whole thing with Papadopoulos, is connected to UK intelligence assets.
United Kingdom intelligence assets.
Ladies and gentlemen, Let me just, because I, you know, I don't, it's unfair to you to keep it going.
I go into this in detail in my book, but I'm going to tell you this.
I, listen, I could, we're going to hold it and tease it, whatever.
Let me just get this out there.
When you read the book, it'll become crystal clear that there were two primary motivations based on their own public statements, stuff we know about in the past.
United Kingdom intelligence assets had two probable primary motivations for taking down Donald Trump.
Number one was the policy on torture, or what they call torture, what we would call enhanced interrogation.
These are viable disagreements to have, but this would have caused a real problem with our relationship if what they thought Trump's policy was going to be actually came to fruition.
I know that's a little confusing, but the British had an actual reason, people who were deeply involved and connected to their intelligence community, To get invited would have hurt our information sharing relationship because our posture on enhanced interrogation and their posture on torture had to marry up a bit to keep this information exchange going.
Does that make sense?
Secondly, former higher-ups in British Intel, and this is where our book has information you're not going to find anywhere else.
Former higher-ups in British Intel did not like Donald Trump's approach to the travel ban.
They saw it as anti-Muslim, when it wasn't.
Some of these people, their own public statements indicate strongly that they had an incentive to make sure Donald Trump was taken out.
The real collusion scandal, ladies and gentlemen, is between intelligence representatives and connected people in the United Kingdom and John Brennan, which in turn were used by the FBI and our own law enforcement.
That's the scandal!
Now, making this thing even worse, doubling down on stupid.
Another incredible piece by Rowan Scarborough, who's been doing some just phenomenal investigative reporting at the Washington Times.
It'll be in the show notes today at Bongino.com.
Again, please subscribe to my email list.
It really helps us get the information out there.
The spy that was used, who was deeply connected, again, to UK intelligence sources and the United States, Stefan Halpern, Joe.
So there's a guy, Adam Lovinger, who notices some very shady-looking contracts between representatives of the United States government, very specific offices, and Stefan Halper, who Chuck Ross indicates to his reporting is the spy we used to spy on the Trump team.
This guy's connected to the CIA, through family relationships and a past history of working with them, and to British intelligence.
He goes and he talks at conferences with his British intelligence friends, he's deeply connected to people over there in the United Kingdom Intelligence Service, Halper that is.
So Joe, this is crazy!
A whistleblower, Adam Lovinger, notices that Halper was paid $411,000 from September 26, 2016 through March, until last March.
$50,000 from September 26, 2016 through March until last March.
Wow!
Wow!
What was he paid for?
You know what's really incredible?
That's roughly the same amount of time that the FBI is using the information from British intelligence, Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence guy, and contacts in the United Kingdom, when they're also shuttling information on Trump.
Was Halpern the conduit?
Now, when the contract's exposed, the whistleblower, Joe, has his security clearance stripped.
Instead of them actually looking into this grotesque amount of money paid to this guy, they strip his security clearance.
What the heck are these people hiding?
How deeply, how deep does this intelligence sharing operation between the United Kingdom and the United States go?
Folks, it's time to take a bath on this and come clean.
It is time for Papadopoulos to drop this plea, for Flynn to drop this plea, and make them all fess up with discovery motions on what they've got.
Put your cards on the table.
This Mueller probe is going to be over soon.
Public opinion has turned on this thing dramatically.
Bob Mueller and his team cannot continue this witch hunt forever.
This tyrannical witch hunt.
Violating all the rules of judicial legislative decency at this point.
Doing their own thing whenever they want.
This cannot continue forever.
Discovery Motions, make them bring me information to the table.
Expose what Halper was doing.
Expose who Mifsud was working for.
Expose how deeply the channels between the United Kingdom and the United States were.
Expose Brennan's leaks.
Expose this whole thing.
All right.
Sorry, I spent a little longer on that than I wanted to, but it's an important story, ladies and gentlemen, and it deserves sunlight.
That is, after all, the best disinfectant.
We all know that.
All right.
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All right.
So, moving on to the economy here.
For a moment.
These are important stories I wanted to get to yesterday.
So the new, new, new narrative on the economy is the Democrats are in a real bind on the economy, Joe, and the bind is this.
Their messaging is, is off.
And it's off because they really don't have an easy out.
You think?
Yeah, because what they, here's the thing, put yourself in the Democrat Party's shoes right now on the messaging front.
If they talk the economy up, Whether for better or for, I'm not saying this is right, even though it's a Republican president, but the president, the executive, usually gets credit for the economy.
Again, I'm not suggesting that's even true.
The president could do things to get out of the way of the economy, like Trump's been doing, and let the American entrepreneur take off, and they could do things to slow it down, like Obama did.
But really, it's the American entrepreneur that grows the economy.
Having said that, the president gets credit.
It's just the way it works.
You don't have to agree with it.
It just is.
The Democrats' option one is to be optimistic and talk up the economy, but they can't do that because Trump is in the White House and they can't stand Donald Trump.
They hate Donald Trump.
Oh, you know what?
Folks, I'm sorry.
I missed something.
This is important.
I just want to close.
I'll redo this in a second.
Hannigan.
I forgot to add this before.
Hannigan, the GCHQ, the British NSA guy, that was talking to Brennan at the director-to-director level.
Sorry, I missed this before.
Right after Trump's elected, by the way, he suspiciously resigns.
He says, oh, for personal reasons.
Guy's the head of the NSA.
Out the door like that.
How about that?
How about that?
What happened?
Google it.
Hannigan resigns.
You could read the stories yourself.
They were stunned.
Again, I'm just telling you that's the real scandal.
The exchange of information between the United Kingdom and the United States.
Sorry to throw that in there like that haphazardly, but I didn't want to leave that point hanging.
That resignation is highly suspicious and should open up... That alone you should be very suspicious about.
He was the guy dealing with Brennan.
I wonder what he knows.
All right, forgive me again, getting back to the economy.
So the Democrats, option one, talk up the economy, be optimistic.
They can't do it because Trump will get credit.
Well, what's option two?
Well, it's obvious.
Well, we could talk down the economy, we could crap all over the economy, say how awful things are, and blame it on Trump, run against Trump, drive up his negatives, and there you go!
We win!
Isn't this all great?
Well, what's the problem with that?
The problem is obvious.
Nobody wants a negative message.
Nobody wants a negative-the-economy-stinks message, by the way, when it's getting pretty obvious to people across middle America that the economy is doing quite well.
How do they know that?
Because they're living it.
They're seeing themselves get raises.
They're seeing themselves get bonuses.
They're seeing, in some places, home values go up.
They're seeing their availability of disposable income in their households go up.
People are starting to feel what the economy, a powerful economy, feels like.
And it doesn't feel like it did under Obama.
Believe me, the Democrats know this.
Public sentiment, consumer confidence, right direction, wrong direction polls for the country.
Are all turning in the Republicans' direction, and they know Trump is going to get credit.
The Democrats do not want to be seen like Debbie Downers, so they don't know what to do, so they lash out.
The lashing out takes the form of identity politics.
This is why you're seeing, by the way, this doubling down on Trump's a racist.
Trump's a xenophobe.
He's a misogynist.
This is all they have.
The Democrats don't have a coherent message because they don't really stand for anything but concentrated government power.
The only thing they have, the best way to sum this up is the Democrats at this point can't get you to vote for them.
they can only get you to vote against the other guy.
And they think it's working.
Because when you look at generic ballot polls, Joe, like generic Republican, generic Democrat in the midterms,
you'll see that the Democrats are still ahead by 43% to 32%, and they're up 11 points.
But they're still not at even close to 50% approval in these generic ballots.
It's 43% to 32%.
Now, they're trying to figure out a new track.
Track three.
And here it is.
I'm always here to break the news to you.
We're about two weeks ahead of the cycle.
So I brought this up a little while ago.
This is going to be the new line of attack.
You're seeing it.
You're hearing it now.
It's starting to appear.
We brought this up in a show, what, about a month ago?
That this is where they were going to go with this.
The new line of attack is, well, the economy may be doing well, but Obama did it.
And the media is jumping right on board.
But the media Has to answer Joe just like they will for having reported on the UK intelligence United States John Brennan connection.
Remember they reported on that and they can't un-report on it?
The media reported on the crappy economy under Obama and they tried to excuse it away.
Investors Business Daily piece will be in the show notes today.
This is terrific.
And I quote the New York Times, again which is now alluding to along with the left-wing media, remember the new narrative.
Narrative one, the economy's great, the Democrats can't use it.
Narrative two, the economy's bad, the Democrats can't use it because they don't want to be Debbie Downer.
Narrative three, the economy's good but Obama did it.
Okay.
Investors Business Daily quote.
In fact, the New York Times itself described Obama's economy this way in August of 2016.
For three quarters in a row, the growth rate of the economy has hovered around a mere 1%.
In the last quarter of 2015, in the first quarter of 2016, the economy expanded at
feeble annual rates of 0.9 and 0.8 respectively.
The initial reading for the second quarter of this year released on Friday was a disappointing 1.2%.
So let's just go some of the adjectives here.
Feeble, hovered, mere, disappointing.
This is the New York Times themselves.
The same New York Times whose editorial folks right now are trying to turn a corner and claim that the Obama economy was rocking and rolling.
But it wasn't rocking and rolling in August of 2016 when the New York Times was trying to excuse away the Obama economy.
Wait, I got more.
But the reason I talked about this today, in light of the UK-United States intelligence channel, that is going to be the major, major scandal when this all comes out, Hannigan, Brennan, all this, why Brennan's panicking, why Brennan's security clearance is revoked, is because the media themselves reported on it.
And when you ask questions, understand, I like that, I love your emails, but when you ask questions, well, why would the media make themselves look foolish?
Why would they report on this intelligence channel?
Because they thought it was reaffirming their claims about how serious of a criminal Donald Trump was.
Do you understand that the same narrative applies here?
The same narrative applies with their reporting on the economy.
What's that?
Don't view it through today's lens.
Go back to August of 2016.
The Obama economy is unquestionably stagnant.
The media needs to defend Obama.
The media writes these stories in order to set up a bigger narrative.
The bigger narrative, which I'm going to get to in a second with some other quotes, is that, well, you know what, this may just be the new normal.
Are you tracking, Joe?
Yeah, sir!
Just like the Intel story was written to buttress the claims about how serious foreign intelligence reporting on Trump.
It was fake.
The stories being written about the economy at the end of the Obama administration were stories trying to get Hillary elected, like, ah, don't worry.
It's not Obama's fault.
It's not his policies, Joe.
This is just a new normal.
But now they can't unwrite these stories!
Oh, you think I'm making this up?
Here's more.
Wait, there's more.
On January 27, 2017, after the government reported that GDP growth for all of 2016 was a mere 1.6%, the weakest in five years, keep in mind, this is right as Obama left office, so all your lefty friends, oh Obama, handed him a flaming football of an economy it was awesome we were driving the ball down the field uh it was 1.6 percent the weakest in five years when he handed the economy off to trump please stop the nonsense and stop humiliating yourself you're embarrassing yourself okay the new york times show announced after that that quote
President Trump's target for economic growth just got a little more distant.
In other words, the Obama economy was stagnant.
The Times had to acknowledge it.
But what they were trying to insinuate by writing about Trump is, well, it's not Obama's fault.
This is the new normal.
There's not much Trump's going to be able to do.
Go back and view it through the lens at the time.
The New York Times actually believed this stuff, that it wasn't Obama's fault.
The economy was in a new normal of slowness.
It wasn't going to recover.
And that was the end of it.
The only thing that Obama did to help the economy was leave office.
Leave office.
You're right.
That was the best movie.
Thank God for term limits, right?
I'm still upset at myself for missing your joke the other day.
Oh, that's okay.
I'm still getting emails on that.
I guess people are a few days behind.
Now, in case again you think we're making any of this up, August 2016, the New York Times declared that, quote, The underlying reality of low growth will haunt whoever wins the White House.
Yeah, baby!
This is it!
So now, the article's in the show notes today.
Please, I'm asking you to keep it up on your phone.
Take some screenshots like I do if you don't want to keep the article up on the phone.
Take some screenshots of it, right?
Get those screenshots and show them to your friends when they argue that Obama handed him a wonderful economy.
Take screenshot number one, where the New York Times talks about the feeble, mere, disappointing growth rates.
Screenshot number two.
That the 2016 growth rate was the worst in five years, right before he handed off the economy.
Them also saying there was nothing Trump was going to be able to do about it, basically.
And this one!
The underlying reality of low growth will haunt whoever wins the White House.
But it didn't!
But low growth didn't haunt whoever won the White House.
The growth rate turned around almost immediately.
Wait, wait, one more.
This is in the same article.
So you may say, oh, is it just the New York Times?
Oh no!
Oh no, no, no, no.
By the way, I gotta get Matt Palumbo to do a debunk on this.
This would be great.
The next month shows CBS News reported that quote, with U.S.
economic growth stuck in low gear for several years, it's leading many economists to worry that the country has entered a prolonged period where any expansion will be weaker than it has been in the past.
Wrong!
Not what happened!
All of a sudden Trump gets into office, as Joe said, Obama did us a favor by not passing the torch to Hillary Clinton, right?
And look what happened.
The economy almost immediately turns around, growth rates pick up, they almost double, and now the Democrats are left with, they're sitting there, it's like they just got out of a rainstorm, they're sitting out of the door and they can't figure out how to dry off quick enough, so they're sitting in the door because they don't want to get the the foyer of their house wet.
What do we do?
You guys just stay out there in the rain and the miserable weather you said was happening, alright?
You guys just stay out there.
Don't get the rest of the house wet.
You guys can stay outside.
Don't let them get away with this!
I think one of the things we can offer you in this show... Not to toot our own horns or anything, but...
Having run for office, and Joe having been involved in terrestrial radio for 20 years, having heard every BS line from every politician known to man in the Maryland region walking through the studio at WCVM.
We've been there.
I've seen it.
I've met with a lot of these folks and people who try to sway you either way when you run for office.
I see the BS.
I see how they write about you.
I've been interviewed by the Washington Post and the New York Times and all these folks, Politico.
They're BSers.
They're there for one purpose and one person only.
To protect the image of the Democrat Party.
That's it.
These aren't real journalists, these people.
They will now try to flip the script.
They can't deal with option one because they can't talk up Trump's economy.
They can't deal with option two because they don't want to talk down the economy.
They'll look like idiots.
So option three is going to be Obama did it despite the fact that the media themselves reported that Obama didn't do it.
I love my job.
Oh, it's just frustrating.
I covered this last night at my NRA TV show too.
It is just frustrating dealing with these people every day, but they're so easy.
All you have to do is know basic facts and you'll be fine.
That's it.
All right.
I got a couple other stories I missed yesterday.
I want to get to.
They're really important.
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Okay.
You know, debunking liberal nonsense gets quite easy, but I have another story.
It's in yesterday's show notes, actually, but it's worth you reading.
You may have already seen it.
But Joe, you remember the net neutrality debate?
Oh yeah.
This is something I've been really fired up about, and one of my main objections to the net neutrality debate has been that there are some people who are conservative, who I believe have been sucked into this, believing somehow that the government is going to save us and create a free, fair, and open internet.
I think now, what we've seen going on with the censorship on the internet, You're seeing kind of a revival of this.
Hey, the government has to get involved.
The government has to get involved.
I did the show last week.
I'm not going to repeat it, but I'm telling you this is a huge mistake.
Just look at Democrat Senator Mark Warner's 23-page report on proposed regulations.
Democrat Senator Warner proposed regulations for the internet to show you that the Democrats are suckering you.
I'm telling you they're trying to bait you in to both net neutrality and hate speech and Communications Decency Act proposals online so when the Democrats take over the Senate, take over the House, or take over the Presidency, or God forbid take over them all, there are going to be a massive volume of new quote hate speech stuff which is going to be directed nearly exclusively at conservative online content and these laws are going to be used as vehicles to kick you off the internet.
Folks, there's a reason a Democrat senator put this together.
The reason is not because any of this aligns with conservative values or a free and open internet.
There's a reason the overwhelming majority of people that support net neutrality are Democrats and liberals.
They are hoping and praying for the government to get involved as a primary regulator of internet content as a way to suppress conservative thought.
Now, one of the scams they used in selling you the net neutrality argument, and net neutrality, just for those of you who are unfamiliar with what it is in a nutshell, is...
Net neutrality, they wanted to use Title II to regulate the internet like a public utility.
In other words, their line is a bit is a bit is a bit.
In other words, a bit of information.
That's actually not what it was.
It was a nonsensical garbage thing meant to reduce pricing incentives in the market for basically internet and for broadband content.
So what happened?
It would be like telling airlines, you know, that they couldn't change prices based on seats, based on buying behavior, based on timing.
You need a seat last minute.
It's typically more expensive.
The airlines do that.
Why?
Why would an airline do that?
An airline would do that because they need to plan.
They need to know which routes are filling up, which aren't.
If everybody buys a ticket at the last minute, All the time, the airlines are going to have no idea how many people want that flight or don't up until the last minute.
They're not going to know how to plan.
They like to sell the seats early.
It's the same reason hotel rooms, you know, hotel rooms, they want, you know, these hotel rooms want to plan out, they want to plan out their occupancy.
The internet is priced no differently.
You use a lot of internet, They're going to have to somehow price that out to make the big users and big demanders of the service somehow compensate them for what they're providing.
Now, one of the scare tactics used with net neutrality, Joe, was what?
Was, oh my gosh, if we don't do this, internet speeds are going to be slowed down for everyone.
They're going to throttle us.
These internet companies are going to slow us.
We're not going to be able to watch our Netflix.
Daily Caller article, yesterday's show notes.
Internet speeds are up since net neutrality was dropped.
So just to be clear, the liberal argument was, gosh, if we don't keep this net neutrality, they're going to throttle us, our internet speeds are going to be slowed down.
Internet speeds, Joe, we went from 12th in the world to 6th in the world in internet speeds since net neutrality has been dropped.
Guys, are we even interested in facts anymore?
If net neutrality was designed to, you know, to prevent them from, in other words, if we pass this, this is going to guarantee fast internet speeds.
And if we don't pass, they're going to throttle us and slow us down.
We didn't pass it.
Internet speeds are up.
It entirely debunks and discredits your argument.
The reason these companies, that internet speeds would have slowed down if they passed net neutrality, Joe, is they weren't going to expand broadband.
And investment in broadband was even slowing down because these companies couldn't make their money back for the investment if the government was going to regulate them to death.
This is not a complicated argument.
Please don't get suckered into this net neutrality debate to thinking the government's going to solve your problems.
It is not.
Okay.
Another story I missed yesterday.
Kind of incredible, again, the hypocrisy of the libs on this.
Today is a media, left-wing media coordination day.
I don't know if you missed the story, Joe.
Did you see this one?
So media outlets across the country today are coordinating their op-ed sections, their opinion sections, their editorial sections to write nasty op-eds about Donald Trump.
I don't care.
They're private entities.
They can do what they want.
But I find it awfully hypocritical when Sinclair Broadcasting, which owns a bunch of stations around the country, they had a coordinated... Now, Joe, you're in broadcasting.
You know what must-read stuff is, right?
When you get a thing from... Now, you're a privately-owned station, but ladies and gentlemen, what'll happen is, you know, public service announcements and things like that, right?
Joe, stations, must-reads are nothing new.
Am I right on this?
Nothing new.
Must-read content is as old as television itself.
News stations get it all the time, with PSAs, whatever it may be.
So Sinclair Broadcasting, which owns a bunch of television stations around the country, a while back, you may remember this story, but it points out, again, disgusting, disturbing liberal hypocrisy, right?
Sinclair got a must-read message, which they read in their stations across the country during the show, which was basically about their commitment to real news over fake news.
I didn't even think what was said was controversial.
Joe, the media, the left-wing hacks lost their mind.
Oh my gosh, this is coordination!
Coordination!
Look at these guys!
Sinclair!
Why?
Because Sinclair is a, considered at least, a conservative-leaning company.
So it was a huge controversy then.
Today we actually have editorial columns at major newspapers all across the country openly colluding and agreeing to write nasty Donald Trump op-eds.
Oh, this is not a secret.
They've openly colluded to do this.
And where's the media on this?
Crickets.
Yep.
These people are complete frauds.
They're frauds.
These are not genuine actors.
They are frauds.
They don't care about... The whole point of their argument was on Sinclair.
This is collusion.
This is a conspiracy to put out a coordinated message on must-read stuff, which is, by the way, has happened, as I just said, over and over.
And yet, when liberal media outlets actively collude and don't even hide it, they call for this.
Nobody cares.
These people are complete phonies, folks.
All right.
There's another story in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, which was important, Jason Reilly put it together, about the continued war.
This is important, folks.
This is a topic very sensitive to me.
I have said over and over that I think the greatest untapped resource in the United States are some of our failing cities.
When you drive through cities, and I've lived in a lot of them, that's why, and you just see the The despair and the poverty and the deprivation and the crime.
You think to yourself, my gosh, what happened here?
One of the reasons it's always been sensitive to me is I worked in them as police officers in one of the worst precincts in New York City.
And I always remember driving through Baltimore when I lived in Maryland thinking, what happened to this place?
You know, back in the 1950s, Baltimore's median income was above the national average.
Baltimore's median income now is 22% below the national average.
Joe, you've driven through Baltimore.
It's tough.
It's a tough place, folks.
You get out of the Inner Harbor and start going through Baltimore and driving through, you see poverty and despair all over the place.
It's sad to watch, it really is.
Folks, the Democrats have done this.
It is their liberal far-left policies that have absolutely destroyed any chance that people in the minority communities in some of these inner cities will ever have at the America you and I have.
You know that John Edwards, who was an unethical, horrible actor, In the political scene, the vice presidential candidate under John Kerry, right?
John Edwards did say one thing, though, that made sense.
Although it didn't make sense like he thought it would make sense.
He said there are two Americas.
You know what?
He was right.
There are two Americas.
But John Edwards helped create it.
Sadly, minority communities in Black and Hispanic America and some of these struggling cities will have no chance at the economy you have, will have no chance at the education system a lot of us have, will have no chance at the quality health care system a lot of us have.
Why?
Because these cities have been run into the ground by liberals.
So Jason Reilly wrote an interesting piece yesterday about another battle against minority America in America's cities.
New York has gone to war With Uber.
Listen, I'm not gonna, I'm not a fan or not a fan of Uber or Lyft or any of them.
They've made some decisions I disagree with too, especially getting involved in some of the political stuff.
I'm just telling you that New York is at war again.
They've been at war against school choice for minority children, against job opportunities for minority children, by taxing the hell out of their citizens.
But Uber, Here's the core of the article.
Reilly says this, Joe.
Reilly, again, who happens to be black and doesn't matter to us, but matters to the left, of course, because that's all they care about is identity politics and the melanin content of your skin.
Black New Yorkers have had a hard time for years getting a cab in New York.
That's true.
That's a fact.
I know.
I'm not going to give you these testimonials.
I can just tell you, I've heard them.
I've heard the stories.
They have.
And we should not deny that.
They've had a tough time.
Getting around New York outside the buses and trains has been difficult historically for a lot of black New Yorkers.
Riley writes this in the piece.
He's been a victim of it himself.
We can't pretend it didn't happen.
It did.
It does happen.
I'm not, you know, claiming every taxi driver is a racist.
It's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm just saying there are real stories of real people who've had problems getting cabs in New York who happen to be black.
Uber has largely eliminated that problem for working class minority black and hispanic folks inside New York.
You queue up the app, get in a car, you go back home.
It has solved a huge transportation problem for black New Yorkers.
So what does the New York City Mayor do?
Oh, he puts a cap on the number of new Uber and Lyft vehicles they'll allow in New York.
Why?
Because he was given a bunch of money by the Taxi Commission who lobbied him to get this thing to go away.
Listen, I get it.
I understand.
The business world is tough.
Creative destruction happens all the time.
I get it.
I'm just telling you that the war against minority Americans in America's big cities will never stop by the Democrat Party.
Almost everything they do.
Rent control, which drives up rent, doesn't drive rent down.
Drives up rent because it decreases the supply of available rental and living units in a community.
Why?
Why does it do that?
The same reason net neutrality drives down the availability of broadband.
Because net companies, internet companies, broadband companies can't make any kind of a revenue stream because the government's regulating them into oblivion by controlling their income.
The same thing happens with rent control.
People don't want to build new housing units because rent control prevents them from making any revenue from the housing units.
What do you think they're gonna do?
Build it out of their own goodwill?
Are you crazy?
Rent control drives up rents, doesn't drive down rents.
Uber!
People who were getting rides are now going to have to wait extraordinarily long amounts of time in New York to get back to some of the communities they live in because de Blasio decided to put a cap on it.
The war on cops.
The war on cops which disproportionately affects minority communities where crime is running rampant.
You've got cops hesitant to get involved in discretionary situations because the mayor, a lot of these police commissioners and police folks who become, sadly, a lot of them at the political level, not the rank-and-file level, who refuse to back up their cops when it matters.
Leaving these people in these communities prey Pray to the wolves in their communities.
The education system where they don't back up any more school choice and allow families of young black boys and girls who want just an opportunity at the education system you and I had a chance at.
They're not allowed because liberal politicians get in the way, hold out their hand and say, stop, not here, not in our community.
You're going to go to this crap public school because we told you, not because you wanted to.
This is a shame.
This is a sin.
This is a stain on our country.
If we could just rescue our big cities, Detroit, Chicago, St.
Louis, portions of New York, Portions of California, if we could just rescue.
Cleveland, our big cities, which have heavy minority populations.
Ladies and gentlemen, the economic battery, the education battery, would be fully recharged.
We are draining down the battery of large portions of our population who live in these places that have absolutely no opportunities like you have.
It is grotesquely unfair.
Listen, I'm not suggesting to you Republicans have all the answers or that everybody needs to go out tomorrow and vote en masse for the Republican Party in these cities.
Why am I not saying it?
Because it's not realistic.
I'm just telling you the people you have in there now are clearly not the answer but are absolutely clearly the problem.
Uber.
This is it?
This is what de Blasio, this is his new war?
Almost everything these liberal politicians do is a boot on the neck of minority communities who deserve better.
You are American citizens too.
This is not news.
You deserve the exact same opportunities we have too.
The fight extends to you too.
Fight back.
Do not accept this second class city status.
Let's be honest.
If this was happening anywhere else in middle-class communities in America, they would be storming city council sessions in the state houses.
But because it's Democrats running these large cities, it almost becomes, oh, you know what?
This is just the way it is.
It's not the way it is.
You deserve better, too.
All right, folks.
I haven't really ranted in a while.
I just get a little upset.
You deserve better.
I remember walking the streets as a cop in the 75 precinct in East New York, Brooklyn, down Sutter and Pennsylvania Avenue and thinking, gosh, it doesn't have to be this way.
These kids deserve better.
They deserve a shot.
This is our job as conservatives.
We believe in big R rights granted to all.
We don't judge people by the melanin component of their skin, their creed, religion, race, none of that stuff.
That's a liberal thing.
These families deserve a shot.
We somehow, somehow have to get into these communities.
I hope Donald Trump's the vehicle to do that.
Is black approval is up?
Is that black voter approval is up?
I think it's up to close to 30% now.
Please, just take a look at the other side, some other ideas, because the ideas in there now are not working.
All right.
Thanks again, folks, for tuning in.
I really appreciate it.
Please subscribe to the podcast.
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Not just the downloads, but the subscriptions drive us up the charts.
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I'll see you all tomorrow.
Thanks a lot.
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