Ep. 880 Did You Miss the Latest NeverTrump Attack?
In this episode I address the NeverTrump crowd’s newest attacks on Trump’s “character.” I address why this is a grossly misguided analysis of the Trump presidency thus far.
News Picks:
President Trump stands strong on the border wall.
The Democrats are preparing to blow up the government budget and to rapidly expand spending.
Are the Russians and Chinese listening in on your phone calls?
Texas leads the country, again, in population growth.
Former ICE director slams Nancy Pelosi for her absurd comments on the border wall.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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, the day after Christmas.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Ho, ho, ho!
Day after Christmas.
This is always one of my favorite shows.
I hope you didn't miss yesterday's show.
Please, go check it out, the Christmas show.
We put out a show on Christmas.
I thought it was a very good one, though, on the stock market, what's going on with the economy.
I enjoyed the heck out of it.
So please, if you miss Monday and Tuesday's show, I humbly request you download them and listen to them.
There's a lot of really strong content.
I put a lot of work into yesterday's show, especially the beginning portion, first 20 minutes or so, where we covered the stock market and what's going on with the economy.
Really, really important stuff.
Can't encourage you in strong enough terms to go check it out.
All right.
Yesterday was a good day for me.
My kids had a really great Christmas.
There's nothing better than watching them in the morning.
Those smiling faces as my six-year-old and my 14-year-old ran out of the room.
My oldest one got a gift.
She was crying.
It was just really emotional.
A lot of people emailed me and said, well, what did you get?
I got a copy of Hulk 181.
Yes, I grew up on Marvel Comics.
I think every young boy who grew up wanting to change the world at some point came across Spider-Man or the Hulk, or maybe you were a DC guy.
But Hulk 181 is the first appearance of Wolverine.
I like the anti-heroes, the Punisher, Wolverine, so my wife is very generous.
She did a great job, so I appreciate that.
All right, folks, here's what I want to get into today.
There's been this brewing argument over there, if you're not on Twitter you may have missed this, over the past few days between some traditionally never Trump types and other Republicans out there over if Donald Trump's character, this is their framing of it, I want to be clear on this, over Donald Trump's character or what they perceive to be a lack thereof.
The people who don't seem to like or have much use for Trump anymore.
Is basically a political death sentence for him, if we can get past Trump's character.
Now this has been, listen to me when I tell you this, this has been a hot topic on Twitter.
And the gist of the question is this.
The Never Trump crowd wants you to believe that somehow this man has such a significant character deficit that it's not going to be possible to overcome the political obstacles given this Democrat now majority in the House of Representatives to get things done from this point forward and that we may be in a death spiral for his presidency.
I want to dispute that and dispute that strongly during this show.
All right, before we get to that, today's show brought to you by our buddies at Grove.
Grove.
It's that time of the year again, the holiday season.
The best part is our house is jam-packed with family and friends.
Everybody loves that.
But the worst part is cleaning up afterwards.
Whether it's the kids dropping cranberries, sauce, or food all over.
Or old smelly clothes hanging around.
Nothing cleans the house like Miss Meyers Holiday Scents.
Get Miss Meyers exclusive offer from Grove before it runs out.
Select your favorite Holiday Scents.
I've got this stuff.
It smells awesome.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Iowa Pine, Peppermint, Orange Clove.
You can't beat it.
New customers will get the holiday set when you place your first order of $20.
You get free Miss Meyers Holiday Hand Soap, free Miss Meyers Holiday Dish Soap, free Miss Meyers Holiday Multi-Surface Spray, Grove Collaborative Red Cleaning Caddy, Grove Collaborative Walnut Scrubber Sponges.
Plus, if you spend $39, you also receive a free Grove Stoneware Tray, to beautifully display your new holiday subs.
This is really an eye catcher.
It's beautiful, and the scents are amazing.
Shop Grove before this exclusive holiday offer runs out.
This stuff will all be gone come December.
Don't forget, for a limited amount of time here, my listeners who sign up will get an amazing free Miss Meyers holiday products package, your free 60-day VIP membership, and a surprise bonus gift just for you when you sign up and place an order of $20 or more.
Check out Grove and our special offer at grove.co slash dan.
That's grove.co, not dot com, grove.co slash dan, grove.co slash dan, grove.co slash dan, check it out, you won't regret it.
Alright, folks, here's the issue with this Trump character deficit thing.
Laying out the problem again is this crowd wants you to believe that Trump is some kind of unique threat because of these character issues they point to.
And listen, they point to significant problems.
I understand that.
Significant problems that the left has taken advantage of, whether it's the history with women or others and things like that.
Problems we know, you know, Trump is now admitted to.
And they'll point to these as character deficits that are insurmountable in the face of now what's going to be uh re-energized democrat opposition after the election. Are
we clear on the problem Joe?
This is it largely started with Jonah Goldberg and I don't want to get into like knocking people
personally because it takes away from the core of the argument but it started with Jonah Goldberg
and a couple of others jumped on and said listen this is getting to be a real problem Trump's
character and the democrats are going to use this they're going to use this to beat this guy down.
Folks here's the problem I think it requires a redefinition of what character means.
And I think it's the very me saying that that bothers people on the formerly never Trump side who are now just, I'd say, anti-Trump in many respects.
They say, no, no, character just can't require being redefined.
Character's character and principles are principles no matter what.
And you even saying that is indicating that you're willing to set aside your, you know, your definitions To accommodate this new President Trump.
No, folks, I'm not.
I have repeatedly said on this show over and over, Joe, about you and about me.
And maybe I shouldn't take liberties with you, but I say all the time, Joe, you and I are both men of faith, but we're also sinners.
We're human beings with proclivities toward greed, anger, rage, gluttony, lust, everything else.
And every day is a fight.
Every day, sometimes we succumb, sometimes we get past it, and sometimes you're a better person for, you know, not sometimes, all the time, you're a better person for defeating, you know, for defeating the temptations in front of you.
I get that.
But past sins do not make someone a perpetually weak character individual.
Here's what I mean by this.
What's your definition of character and character that matters, that's important, when it comes to politics?
In other words, in politics, Joe, what is your job?
So just be clear.
I'm trying to knock back this now really exploding argument on Twitter here that this is it, that Trump's character is some kind of a fatal flaw.
But I ask you, what's your definition of character when it comes to someone in a position of power, especially someone in the role of the president in a political system with Article 2 executive powers?
What's your definition of character?
Is your definition of character someone who has never sinned in the past?
Who has sinned in the past, and his sins have been nothing but small little piccadillos here and there.
But who gets into office in an effort to please everyone, constantly goes back on promises he made to people that put in a lot of hard work, door knocking, donations and everything to get that person elected.
I say that because I find it strange that this constant impugning of Trump's character, or what they define as his character, conveniently many times leaves out what I think to be, in a triaging of our value, what's important, what's in the character of a politician, the most important thing many of us should consider first.
An ability to stick to promises you made.
You have to ask yourself in a hierarchy of your needs in a politician, I'm going to ask you a challenging question in a world full of sinners.
Joe, in your hierarchy of needs for politicians in your life, is number one, past behaviors and indiscretions, sinful behavior, which we've all engaged in.
Or, in your hierarchy of needs, is number one a man who has made promises, promises he intends on keeping, and his loyalty is to those people he has made those promises and not to a bunch of insiders in an effort to please them?
What is your priority?
It's a very simple, common-sense question.
I'm picking number two, Dan.
You know, that's pretty straight up.
Yeah, me too!
Maybe it's better served Looking at it outside of the presidency because, and I understand this and I don't mean to minimize this completely, but maybe Joe, in terms of the presidency, you know, we're not a monarchy.
No.
But we still, you know, yearn for leaders.
We do.
We understand that.
And you want your leaders to be men of perceived impeccable character.
That's why it bothers people when they heard the Bill Clinton story, you know, even later on when you hear the stories about the, you know, JFK and, and, uh, you know, the rumors about, about him and his behavior with women.
When you hear about people behind the scenes, stories about Jimmy Carter being not easy to work for and being a dismissive of people around them at times, these rumors are out there.
That's why it bothers people because we yearn for leaders and you want leaders to be men of upstanding moral character.
All the time.
But folks, this is a constitutional republic.
It's not a monarchy.
You are not going to get men of impeccable, perfect character.
And by the way, I'm not even... I don't even want to forget this.
Joe, remind me if you remember later, but I'm just going to write this down, the airplane story.
Because I dispute the fact, I'm not even acquiescing the fact that Trump is a man of generally poor character.
I'm not saying he's not a sinner like you and I. I'm just saying, I'm not even acquiescing that point.
I'm just saying, or conceding that point is a better way to say it, sorry.
Language should be precise.
I don't want to concede that point.
I'm suggesting to you that there are people out there, and there's a growing number of them, starting to believe that Trump's character is so bad, and so tipping the scales on the side of a corrupted character rather than a decent human being, that this is insurmountable in terms of our political goals.
But think about it.
Get away from that system for a minute.
Go into a different system.
Let's go into the medical system.
When you're looking for a doctor to save your life, I mean to literally save your life, you have some form of cancer that only the world's elite oncologist, right, can handle.
It is live or die, and this guy, Dr. Jones, this is your guy.
This is the only guy who understands that specific whatever, metastatic cancer, and you need him to save your life.
If you found out that this guy years ago had had some indiscretions with women, he was married, that he may be generally hot-tempered, But you understood that he had been blessed with unbelievable surgical skills and intellectual abilities to save your life and cure you of that cancer.
In your triaging of needs, in your hierarchy of needs, do you prioritize his moral indiscretions in the past over his skills now to save your life?
As Joe's shaking his head, I think the answer, ladies and gentlemen, is an obvious one.
The answer is most clearly, no!
You do not prioritize his moral indiscretions in the past.
What you care about now is his abilities, his knowledge, his skills and abilities, because your life is at stake.
I segued that way for a reason.
Because now I know some of you may say, See, you know where I'm going with this.
Some of you may say, but our lives aren't at stake.
And when our lives aren't at stake, and this is not a doctor and a cancer problem, I think we should take into account strongly moral indiscretions in the past and use them for our analysis of how we should handle a president now.
That's where you're wrong.
Folks, if you miss the new rules show, Maybe audience archivist Judy, if you can point out the number.
The new rules show.
Judy, give us a hand here.
If you missed the new rules show, this is where you're going wrong.
Where I discuss the new rules.
And the new rules are this.
We don't care.
Now, I was thinking about this all day yesterday.
It's Christmas.
It was a bit of a down day.
We did a show, but I didn't have anything else to do.
I had no Fox Hits or anything like that.
And I thought about how to sum this up to the audience, how we are right now in that scenario with a deadly disease and we need help immediately.
And the only way I could think to describe it was, we're in battlefield morality times now.
The anti-Trump crowd in the left wants to point to things like, well, in the past, he's got a history with women, Joe.
His Twitter's a little more outside the box of conventional focus group tested language we're used to.
It's a little bit rebellious as Twitter.
It's probably not quote presidential language.
This is, this is stuff we should take very seriously.
And the complaints are that Trump is also transactional.
So let me talk about those two complaints and why we are not where people think we are right now.
We are in that stage where we have that virulent cancer and we need this and we need that doctor to survive.
Trump is that doctor to a lot of people.
And maybe this will help the left and the never Trump crowd who are constantly trying to understand why Trump loyalists are the way they are.
Maybe this will help you.
If it doesn't, gaff it off.
That's fine.
But this is an important show.
A show I thought about all day yesterday.
We are now in a battlefield morality times where we're willing to accept a couple of things and let's address two of them.
First, his Twitter behavior.
Ladies and gentlemen, think about this in terms of battlefield morality.
When I say battlefield morality, When you're in a really dangerous situation, I think about, you know, when you talk to soldiers and, you know, how they always had this esprit de corps and the sense of brotherhood, even with people who candidly, and many of them will tell you this is over the course of many, many conversations with people who have been, you know, in the suck and in the fight and have put their butts on the line.
Even people they may have found, Joe, really annoying, fellow soldiers, fellow Marines, they understand that that's their brother on that battlefield, that that's their battle buddy there.
And things you may have found annoying, you know, listen, he brushes his teeth too long, whatever, his tweets are really annoying.
I don't like his politics.
When you're on that battlefield, that person next to you, that person next to you, you depend on him for survival.
And in a fight, a fight for survival, you put aside These small incidental things that would have bothered you otherwise.
You know, it reminds me of Schumpeter, Joseph Schumpeter, and its concept of why capitalism can sometimes sow the seeds of its own destruction.
Because it's so successful, Joe, we have the luxury of caring about things that other people fighting for survival in government-run socialist systems don't worry about.
They don't worry about recycling.
Recycling, they worry about their next meal.
Recycling, the container it's in, nobody cares about that.
So Schumpeter says capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction at times because people become so successful and so rich they have the luxury of worrying about things like things like, you know, compostable food containers.
And then once you start to worry about that, you start to almost sow the seeds of your own destruction because you start to point out problems everywhere.
Well, look at this problem.
Look at that problem.
And is this, you know, capitalism did this.
You lose perspective.
We are in a battlefield morality situation because the left chose this, not us.
Gosh, I hope this show makes sense.
Give me your feedback, because this is really important to me.
The left chose this fight.
The left chose to make this, Joe, not a battle for ideas, but a battle for political survival.
On every front.
It's not good enough on social issues for the left anymore.
It is not good enough for them to win on things like gay marriage, on things like transgender bathroom usage.
It's not good enough anymore.
Now, if you don't agree with them, at least in the case of the Kentucky court clerk, you will be jailed and they will support it.
In the case of the baker in Oregon and Colorado, you will be bankrupted, you will be publicly humiliated.
One wrong comment said in a fit of pique or in a bad mood or at a bad time, you will be humiliated and destroyed on Twitter for everybody to look you up for the rest of your life and point out what a homophobe you are, even if you apologize endlessly.
It doesn't matter.
On the income front, it's not enough for the left to take your money right now.
The left needs to control your business too.
The Obama era was a profound expansion of government power through regulation.
It wasn't enough for Obama to take more of your money through tax hikes.
They had to now force you to do things you didn't have to do in the past.
Force you!
Like buy health insurance.
They had to force you to do it.
It wasn't good enough for them to win and insert government into the healthcare system like they did with the expansion of Medicaid.
That wasn't good enough, Joe.
It was never about a safety net to them.
It was about punishment.
It's about punishment on social issues.
Punishment on the economic issues.
People who dared speak out.
Obama would go after them.
Go after them.
Now you may say, well Trump goes after people on Twitter.
But there's a difference.
The Obama team actually went after people.
Private for-profit colleges that were bankrupted!
The Obama team put them out of business!
Hey, keep in mind, I'm not defen- I don't- I think, personally, all presidents should stay out of, you know, going after private company.
I think it's generally a bad idea.
So, I don't want you to think I'm speaking with forked tongue, but the Obama administration actually went after these businesses!
It wasn't about winning that, you know, private for-profit college was a bad idea because they loved socialist control of education.
They actually bankrupted some of these people.
I know my sister-in-law lost her job at one of them.
This happened on the education front.
It wasn't good enough that Louisiana had a system of school choice.
They were developing statewide post-Katrina that was actually successful.
The DOJ had to go in there and try to take legal action against them to stop it.
This is a battlefield morality we're in now, because the left created this.
And on the battlefield, and in a situation of extreme danger, you don't have the luxury of worrying about things like who Trump was with, what women he was with ten years ago, how the language of his tweets sounds.
You understand we don't have that luxury?
Because we feel like you have inserted us into a battlefield we didn't choose.
And battlefield morality is different than everyday morality.
It is an everyday, everyday life.
Everyday normal life during calm, still waters.
Yes, we have the luxury of policing, you know, every period in common of politicians' tweets.
Yes, we have the luxury then of saying to ourselves, well, you know what, I'm not sure about this guy and this story about this woman and this story about his relationships with that guy.
Do you understand in a situation of battlefield morality, all of that changes?
All of that changes because the area of grey becomes very much black and white.
It becomes about survival.
And there are large swaths of America, Republicans, Conservatives, Libertarians, and even moderate Democrats, who voted for Donald Trump because they feel that they are constantly under attack every day by the left, and a left that does not want to win on the political front, but wants to annihilate your political ideology and take away your freedom in the process.
It has created an entirely different morality.
I get it.
I understand how some of you listening are going to say, no, no, there is no other morality.
You're correct.
You're correct in that respect.
But how that hierarchy of what's important on the moral chain matters is different at times.
Guys, you can't dispute that.
Thou shalt not kill.
Right, Joe?
We know that.
Joe, you're a Christian.
You abide by the Ten Commandments, right?
I try my best.
Right.
But even the Ten Commandments, if you go back, And you do some reading, and you actually kind of study the... I get a lot of emails on this from people who are very interested in this topic.
But does that apply if five guys are involved in a home invasion in your house, holding your family at gunpoint?
I thought it said that.
You understand, like, yes, non-battlefield morality is simple during still waters.
It's not so simple when the waters are turbulent, and it means your survival too.
You know, I'll never forget, Joe.
I used to watch The Walking Dead.
I don't anymore.
Kind of lost interest, but it's an interesting, you know, it's a zombie show, but the interesting thing I always found about the show before I stopped watching, it kind of went off the rails a little bit, is it's not really about zombies.
It's really a human interest story.
The zombies are almost secondary to the story.
I know that sounds strange because the whole thing is about walking dead people who are dead and they come back to life, you know.
But when the world falls apart, Joe, and they have total chaos, there's nothing left, there's no infrastructure, there's no police, there's no law enforcement, no military, nothing.
There's this one episode where Rick, who's like the leader of these human survivors who have made it through all these horrible zombie attacks and all this other stuff, where a rival gang of humans attack them and they have to take prisoner one of the rival gang members.
And they take prisoner, they take them prisoner in a barn and they don't know what to do with them because they're running out of food.
So it's like, do we feed this cat?
Because if we feed this prisoner forever, we're running out of food.
And how do I not feed my baby?
So there's this big debate about what do we do?
We let him go.
He's going to tell the other gang where we are.
They didn't know where they were and they're going to come back and kill us all.
So they can't let them go.
They don't have enough food to feed them at their own expense.
What do they do?
And I find questions like that fascinating as me being naturally inquisitive of human behavior and a one-time graduate student in psychology.
I was fascinated by sociology and psychology.
What do you do?
What is the right thing?
Do you continue to feed this guy even if your kids die?
Battlefield morality like that is different.
It's different.
The answer in a rich society is yes, you imprison him, you feed him, you let him serve his sentence, and then you let him go because we have law enforcement to take care of that.
You don't have to worry about the gang attacking you.
That's not how that world worked.
There's a different hierarchy of needs.
That hierarchy of needs at the top is survival.
Survival is not your primary instinct right now in a rich society.
But it's become political survival and ideological survival and the survival of freedom have become and have leapt to the top of this hierarchical totem pole of needs because the left has imposed this on you, not the other way around.
We haven't imposed this on them.
When we cut our taxes under the Trump tax cut plan, we cut theirs too.
We did nothing to them.
They are, listen to me, they are totally free right now to pay more money in taxes if they wish.
Totally free.
There is nothing that stops them from giving more money to the government.
But when the government imposes a tax hike on you, it is not optional.
Your freedom goes away.
When we institute a school choice plan so parents can send their kids to schools at work and the government comes in and sues to shut it down, your freedom's impinged.
Not when we impose a school choice plan.
You don't like the school choice plan?
Fine, send your kid to the old crappy public school.
No one's stopping you.
When we institute things like health freedom, health savings accounts, that doesn't impact you.
You don't like the healthcare system?
Find another healthcare plan!
But forcing us to join a government plan we don't want to join is an imposition on our political liberty which in this battlefield morality we see as the fight of our time!
Liberty, freedom, these are real things, they're not campaign slogans!
And in a battlefield morality, you have to pick champions and fighters and warriors in the front who may not necessarily be the traditional non-battlefield morality, you know, tokens of generational goodwill.
Flawed men throughout history have, you know, saved humankind from impending disaster and doom.
I don't think they get that.
So just going back to this point number one, we don't have the luxury right now of worrying about tweets and, oh, Donald Trump had a conversation with a kid on Christmas about Santa.
I'm not going to talk, it's a family-friendly show, but it's been the latest left's outrage campaign du jour.
Donald Trump may have said something about Santa that this seven-year-old meanwhile the parents like this is the dumbest thing ever like he talked to the president my kid this is the kind of stuff the left has the luxury of worrying about because they are imposing the battlefield mentality on us and right now through culture through academia and the media Joe they have overwhelming military force on that battlefield And I get that a lot of you object to military analogies, but I'm sorry, forgive me, I'm not diminishing, obviously, the role of our patriots who actually fight for liberty.
I'm saying this because I've heard their stories.
And in hearing their stories, the analogy makes sense to people.
I'm trying to make people understand why this guy... It's not that we've put aside our morality.
We've not put aside our morality in everyday life with our kids and our families.
It's that the hierarchy of our moral needs right now has changed because you imposed a battlefield on us we did not ask for.
I want to get to part number two of this because this is important too.
Let me just get this in.
It's important.
Our sponsors pay for our time here and they love our audience.
Today's show also brought to you by our buddies at BrickHouse Nutrition.
Folks, listen, you know around the holidays we tend to eat a little worse.
Yeah, get a little, a couple extra inches here or there.
You know how it is.
You got family around, all those desserts and cakes and stuff.
What better time to commit, right?
I know John feeling the same way.
I had a lot to eat yesterday.
What better time to commit to a better diet for the new year going forward?
And what better way to do it than fruits and vegetables?
Now, eating voluminous amounts of fruits and vegetables has always been the secret to good health.
Actually, it's not a secret because everybody's told you.
It's only a secret because some people don't do it.
Here's the problem with consuming mass quantities of fruits and vegetables.
They're hard to prepare.
You gotta shop for them and they're perishable.
Don't worry about it.
Why do I say don't worry about it?
Because I got your fruit and vegetable insurance.
BrickHouse Nutrition has that product for you.
It's called Field of Greens.
Go to BrickHouseNutrition.com slash Dan.
That's BrickHouseNutrition.com slash Dan.
Pick up a jar of Field of Greens today.
It is a wonderfully tasting berry tinge powder.
It's real food.
This is not extract.
This is not some junk pill.
It's not some crappy old stuff that's laying around.
This is high quality fruits and vegetables.
Ground up into a fine tasting powder.
It's good for you.
It's good for your family.
I give it to my kids.
My mother-in-law swears my skin looks better and I feel so much better since I've been on it.
This is what you need in your life right now, especially in this commitment we all have during the new year to better health.
Good, high quality fruits and vegetables.
This is your fruit and vegetable insurance and a fine tasting powder.
Put it in water, put it in juice, put it in green tea.
I put it sometimes in V8.
I love it.
It's called Field of Greens.
It's available at BrickHouseNutrition.com slash Dan.
That's BrickHouseNutrition.com slash Dan.
Try this stuff.
It's absolutely spectacular.
Love it.
Best tasting stuff out there.
I must admit your skin is radiant, Danny.
Yeah.
Thank you, buddy.
I appreciate that.
You got the little sun coming in off the side too.
So thank you.
My mother-in-law says that all the time.
You know, it's not, I'm not messing with you folks.
My mother, Miles sends me Field of Greens.
Yeah.
Jars of it.
So I, I don't, you know, I don't have to pay for it.
And my mother-in-law, oh Danny, can I go get some more?
And she goes in the garage and I have a refrigerator in my garage and she takes it out.
I'm not kidding.
I'm not messing.
It's not a joke.
And I, I, you know, knock on wood, I've managed to avoid illness for a while now too.
And it just, I just love the stuff.
It's great.
But thank you Joe.
It's always nice for you to chat.
Oh yeah, certainly Dan.
All right, so getting back to this, just recapping where we were.
There's this big debate about is Trump's character, I use air quotes, a fatal flaw?
I have said no, and I dispute strongly the fact that he's a man of generally low character.
And I've said that we are in a different, we're in a battlefield morality right now.
We're not in standard everyday still water morality times, and we need a champion right now, a champion willing to fight back.
Now, let me just, before I get to part two of this, I just want to challenge the character thing.
I mentioned before, I kind of hinted to it, is character in a politician, is character more Aptly displayed when a politician sticks to promises he made to people even under extreme political penalty or his character best displayed when the politician sells you out but donates money to charity on the side and is generally a decent guy.
No, it's a serious question.
And I think the answer, as Joe and I both indicated, is when I vote a politician into office, I want him to represent values I dedicated my time, money, and activist assets to getting him into office for.
We have been sold out by good... George W. Bush was a good man.
I worked for him.
I'm not going to say we were personal friends, but I was around him a lot.
And I can tell you with no hesitancy at all, His character within himself and his family and in his small sphere of people around him was stellar.
He was a good man.
I watched him shed tears with families of lost police officers, Gold Star families.
I just happen to think the George W. Bush presidency, largely outside of the tax cuts, was a failure.
Because the principles he espoused coming into office, controlling government budgets and other things, he didn't stick to.
It's not a knock on him personally, but we have to learn to segregate the two.
And this battlefield mortality has been put upon us by the left.
And we are in this time right now where it's going to require what we, we don't loosen our rules, but that we change, that we transplant those rules to a different set of hierarchical needs.
Now on the, I said the airplane story before.
Yeah.
Questioning Trump as being a man of poor character.
I am going to question that strongly.
I told you a long time ago.
As you know, I endorsed Cruz in the primary.
When President Trump won the primary, I backed President Trump.
The more I heard about President Trump as I was out there doing my own thing during my campaign, the more impressed I was when he was a candidate.
There's one specific story that comes from my mother-in-law that I just mentioned to her.
But my mother-in-law used to work in an airport in New York, and in that airport in New York, they used to have Trump Airlines.
And there was a story that had gone around that my mother-in-law had heard, it was very true, that Trump used to walk on a lot of these planes himself at the time, and he would make sure he found the people cleaning the planes, not the pilots, not that he wasn't grateful to them too, But he would walk on the planes, find the women or the men cleaning the plane.
And my mother-in-law said he would often give out a hundred dollar tips to them.
Now you may say, okay, Dan, so what?
He gives big tips.
No folks.
I heard a lot of those stories.
I don't have time during an hour long show to tell you all of them, but I'm not spinning your wheels.
I'm not trying to put lipstick on something.
I'm not trying to put a shine on something unnecessarily.
I'm telling you those stories are endless.
People I heard, oh, I worked for the Trump organization.
Oh, were you a middle manager?
No, no.
A lot of people would say, no, I wasn't actually.
I was a doorman in the hotel or, or I was, and well, what happened?
He would always make sure at Christmas he came by and he thanked us for, these are little things that are evidence of a man who's not a guy of poor character.
Now the left's argument and the anti-Trump crowd, just so you understand is, well, he just wants to be loved too much.
Yeah, but, you know, if you listen to Russ Roberts on Econ Talk, you know, it's become kind of a running joke.
Everybody wants to be loved.
Adam Smith, right?
Adam Smith, famous economist, we all want to be seen as lovely.
Everybody wants to be loved.
I thought that was the evidence of character.
Now when applied to Trump, it's not?
I don't get it.
You'll see this all the time in the anti-Trump crowd's criticism of his presidency.
Oh, he just wants to be loved.
I don't understand.
I thought that was the evidence of the past of a man of good character that they do deeds because they want other people to see them as doing good deeds.
Alright, granted, we don't need to make a public spectacle of everything, but the reason I told you the story about the airplane tip show is because Trump didn't make a public spectacle of it.
Those stories at the airport were only told amongst the employees who were there!
Got it.
He didn't go out and get a press conference.
I just gave a $100 tip to the lady on the... I met Trump once.
Not that long ago.
The true story.
At Mar-a-Lago.
We spoke for about 10 minutes.
You know the first thing you... Joe knows the story.
I haven't said this on the show, I don't think.
You know what the first thing he said to me was?
He was sitting at a small table with Melania and I think two others.
Small, there was no room.
He said, hey, why don't you sit down and have some of my crab meat?
I'm not kidding, folks.
It's not just the first thing he said.
They served him his dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
To me, Dan Bongino, he's the president of the United States, I'm Dan Bongino.
He's up here, I'm down here on the political totem pole.
His first time for office, he won the presidency.
My first time running for office, I lost the U.S.
Senate race in Maryland.
He's Donald Trump, the president.
The first thing he said, I kid you not, was, hey, Dan, you know me from Fox.
I'm not making this up.
He had crab meat on the thing.
He goes, hey, why don't you sit down and have some of my crab meat?
It's really good.
You know what else he did?
By the way, there's no public spectacle.
There's no press filming this.
You know what else he did?
He came over to the table later.
I was sitting with about five or six other people.
We were at a different table, obviously.
And he had a manager there at Mar-a-Lago.
I don't know the guy's name.
Ricky, or whatever.
He walks up.
This is not that long ago, folks.
He goes, Ricky!
Come on over!
Ricky!
I'm like, what's he doing?
He's like, hey, do me a favor.
Dessert on me for the whole table.
Now, you may say, oh, come on.
It's just a little.
I don't get it, though.
I keep pointing out these little things that are in public spectacles, and you don't like that either.
Alright, he's a billionaire, so what?
The dessert was free.
It's not that he paid for the dessert, Joe.
I think that's obvious.
It's that he decided to come back to the table and make an appearance.
He's the President of the United States.
To me and my wife, I found that he thanked me for supporting him on TV was a transformative moment for me, folks.
This is not a man of bad character.
He's a sinner, like Joe and I, and I've got news for you.
Everyone listening to this podcast, I'm not trying to insult you, it's just a fact.
Many of us have succumbed to all those sins I mentioned before.
Temptations and ever-present experience in our lives.
Unfortunately, sometimes we fall prey to it.
I have, and every day I pray for forgiveness.
But diminishing this guy's character and saying he's a man of poor character because of, you know, episodes of bad behavior in his life, and his Twitter thing, is insane!
Especially considering the fact, Joe, that when you vote for a politician, you vote for him precisely because you want him to do what he said he's gonna do, and Trump is doing that, by the way, at significant political cost!
Yep.
Significant cost.
Do you know why?
And I'm, listen, I'm going to, I'm sorry, but I'm going to share some stuff and if they're uncomfortable with it, you guys, you know who you are.
You can let me know and I won't do it again in the future, but I think it's important.
I'm a member of a lot of groups and these groups are, some of them are influential.
I don't say it to, you know, you know, be pretentious or pat myself on the back.
I just, I think it's important you understand this.
These people know other people and they talk.
Do you know what stopped President Trump from signing that disastrous budget bill without the border wall funding?
The fact that he got bad advice from people who said that you wouldn't care that much and he found out that you did.
Folks, you can take that check to the bank, cash that check, spend the money, and go invest it.
That is a fact.
You talk to anyone behind the scenes.
He did not expect the backlash amongst you because he was given bad advice by a bunch of swamp rat insiders that said, don't worry, 1.6 billion, we'll get the wall done eventually, don't worry, it's not a big deal, the public won't, you know, won't object to it.
You see what I'm saying, Joe?
When Trump found out To people he talks to, and I'm not going to say who, but people who don't live in the DC bubble, who said, Mr. President, I'm sorry, but I don't know who's telling you that, but the people who voted for you and love you and supported you, they are really PO'd right now.
The president did a U-turn on a dime, and ironically, the Never Trump crowd considers that a bad, an act of bad character.
Because they're so used to you being sold out in terms of long-term political needs and fake DC alliances with bootlicking swamp rats that they were like, oh my gosh, how dare he do this?
That is evidence of good character, of decent character.
Someone committed to promises because they matter to people that support him.
Finally on this.
There are these never-ending complaints about Trump.
That he's transactional in nature, Joe.
That he's not loyal.
In other words, he sees you as politically useful or useless and then scraps you when you're no longer useful to him.
Folks, that is absolutely ridiculous!
Look at the evidence within the Trump business There's as many businesses that he's run.
The complaints about Donald Trump as a boss are limited at best.
You're talking about a guy who's run a billion-dollar enterprise in the most hostile business environment in the world.
Well, I don't want to be ridiculous.
In the United States, at least, I believe.
In New York.
I don't want to be overly dramatic.
It diminishes my point.
In New York, where I grew up, Dealing with union bosses, New York City politicians, mobsters at the time.
This is a guy, you would think there would be people coming out of the woodwork left and right, just decimating this guy.
And outside of people trying to save their own butts with Bob Mueller, who have had questionable histories of lying themselves, Joe, there has been no line of people lining up to sell Donald Trump out.
Joe, you've been in the workforce for a while.
I respect Joe a lot, because Joe's a hard-nosed guy.
Listen, me and Joe, you know, if you're looking for people to be beatified, you're listening to the wrong show, because me and Joe ain't it.
Neither Joe nor I are going to have a saint in front of our name.
But I like scars on people.
I actually enjoy scars.
I enjoy scars on myself, too.
Because that skin toughens up real hard, and then you know what it's like to be cut, and it hurts.
And you don't do that again.
That's why I love jujitsu and stuff.
But this guy has this billion dollar business where you would think...
At some point, if he was transactional only and it had no sense of loyalty to people who had invested their lives in him and his eponymously named business, these Trump Enterprises, if he had sold them out over the years, there would be a lineup of people getting ready to talk to Mueller.
But Mueller's had to threaten people with everything from taxicab confessions to fibbing, every process crime in the world, even to get people to turn on this guy.
And even then, these cases aren't open and shut.
Clearly saying to me, this is not a transactional guy.
This is a guy who sees loyalty, loyalty amongst all, to him as a primary characteristic he seeks in his employees and people around him, of which he will return.
But when you sell him out, he is done with you.
Now, I dispute this transactional label as well, and I'll give you an example.
Transactional meaning, the minute you turn on him, he turns on you.
That's a rumor going around in the White House.
You go on TV and say one bad thing, you're out.
No.
When you are disloyal to him and you do something below the belt, you're done and you're done with him for good.
There's a difference.
Ladies and gentlemen, I know a number of people who have spoken out against various isolated Trump policies who Donald Trump still respects.
I know this.
I'm sure of it.
I can't tell you how I know this, but I know this.
Alan Dershowitz.
Right?
Dershowitz is a liberal.
Dershowitz at times has spoken out against things Donald Trump has done.
Yeah.
But at other times he's defended Trump.
Now if Trump is entirely transactional, Joe, then that wouldn't make any sense.
He would dump him, right?
He's transactional.
I need him.
Oh, now he said something bad, he's out.
But that's not the case.
Andy McCarthy at National Review.
One of the finest legal minds out there right now.
Andy McCarthy is not a lackey to anybody.
Andy McCarthy has been, has written tremendous pieces at National Review defending Donald Trump against the Mueller probe, and Andy McCarthy has written pieces at National Review where he thinks Trump is really screwed up.
I know for a fact Trump still respects him.
Enormously.
Is that, does that, do you understand the definition of transactional?
Because that's not it.
I'll tell you another guy!
Me!
I don't like putting myself in these arguments, but me!
I have a significant problem with some of the stuff that's happened.
Some of you who listen to the shows, I haven't been all on board.
You know, things have changed a little bit now that I see his strategy, but you know the show on tariffs?
I've had some disagreements on the government spending bill he signed.
He's never ever thrown me to the curb.
Ever.
He talked about my book at a rally after that.
He's a guy who respects loyalty and truth.
And truth tellers.
McCarthy, Dershowitz, he sees them as truth tellers.
He is not transactional.
He's a man of decent character who's made mistakes.
But he deals in a business world where loyalty matters and truth matters.
He needs to be told the truth.
He feels like he's being underserved by a swamp hell-bent on not telling him the truth, telling him what's politically expedient, and he respects people on the outside who state the obvious truth to him so he can listen and get a clear-eyed picture of what's going on.
He is not transactional.
He prioritizes loyalty and truth.
There's a difference.
Alright, last read for the day.
We the people, holsters!
These are the finest holsters out there, folks.
These things are gorgeous.
They make a perfect Christmas gift.
You got one of those gift cards that look like credit cards you're looking to spend a few bucks?
We the People holsters design their own holsters in-house.
They are beautiful holsters.
These are custom-fit, precision-molded holsters.
These are not those cheap-in-the-pants holsters you get in the five-and-dimes buff shop store.
You stick it inside your waistband, it rubs up against your waist with the burlap, and you're like, That was the worst thing ever.
Trying to watch a movie, drive a car.
You know what I'm saying, Joe.
Awful.
A horrible, awful feeling.
We The People Holsters has custom-made, precision-cut, beautiful holsters.
Precision-cut to your specific firearm.
It has a clip where you can adjust the cant and the ride.
Therefore, you don't get stuck with that $5 or less cheap, one-size-fits-all crappy holster.
You can adjust the cant and the ride for comfort.
You can also adjust the tension, so when you insert the firearm into this We The People holster, you get that click sound.
You could comfortably know what's here.
You like a little bit of a tighter fit?
You just turn the screw.
Little looser?
Turn the screw the other way.
So easy.
Beautiful.
They have custom-made designs in-house.
They have designs on the holsters.
Constitution, a camo design, thin red line, thin blue line.
They are absolutely beautiful.
They start at $34.
Every holster comes with a lifetime guarantee and free shipping.
But!
If you go to wethepeopleholsters.com slash Dan, that's wethepeopleholsters.com slash Dan, listeners of my show can use promo code Dan, my first name, and get $10 off.
What does that mean for you?
That means the holster will be $24 with free shipping.
$24 for the most beautiful holsters you've ever seen.
Go to wethepeopleholsters.com slash Dan, check them out today.
These make beautiful post-Christmas gifts.
Spend those gift cards, you will absolutely love it.
All right.
Listen, I know I spent a lot of time on this today, but it's an important topic to me because I really think people are grossly misjudging this.
So just to sum up where we were, point number one, is Trump a man of poor character?
I believe the answer to that question is strongly no.
I believe he's a guy who's made mistakes like everyone else, but I believe he's a guy who is intent on keeping his promises to voters that voted him into office.
And that is my very definition and my hierarchy of needs for a politician, of a politician of character.
Plus, I have evidence of, you know, stories in the past of things he's done for people that aren't a public spectacle.
That doesn't absolve anybody of their sins.
They have to handle that with God.
I'm just saying, when you're asking me if a guy's 51% evil or 51% good, and your status for saying he's 51% evil is based on, what, his tweets?
And some behavior he's had in the past?
Have you contrasted that at all with the impact of what he's doing now?
Judges, taxes, regulation, sticking to his promises on the border wall.
That has to matter too.
How are you on your hierarchy of needs?
And do you do that anywhere else?
Remember that example with the doctor?
Secondly, we are not in a situation where standard ethics rules apply.
We are sadly in a battlefield morality moment, which the left has imposed upon us, we have not imposed upon them.
They have made everything this Manichaean moment for political survival, where it's not just you're going to lose, you're going to lose your money and your business.
It's not just you're going to lose on the social issues, you're going to be bankrupted or put in jail.
It's not just you're going to lose for speaking out on Twitter, you're going to be humiliated, you're going to be boycotted, you're going to be put out of business.
Just ask Dave Rubin.
He's a liberal.
The Rubin Report.
Who's now looking into with Jordan Peterson starting a separate Patreon-type operation.
Because Patreon's been kicking people off their platform for not even violating the rules!
It's a battlefield morality.
And finally, these never-ending complaints that he's transactional.
He is not transactional.
He prioritizes loyalty and truth.
I know this.
I know this from people he's dealt with.
I know this from his dealings with me.
I know this from his dealings out there in the political ecosystem, that he prioritizes keeping the people who voted him into office happy, even at political expense to him, and he prioritizes loyalty amongst his crew.
Now, I want to bring this up because of Mattis.
The Secretary of Defense Mattis situation, I've got a lot of emails on it.
Thanks for your feedback, by the way, on the Syria show I did on Monday.
I appreciate it.
A lot of it was very thoughtful.
I got a lot of emails from Aaron, you know who you are, and others.
He's emailed a lot, that's why I remember that name.
But I got a ton of emails.
Many supportive, it was about 80-20 in supportive of my take on it, 20% against.
I respect all very thought out, well thought out opinions.
But I'll be honest with you, it hasn't changed my mind on this.
I am resolute that I think this was the right decision in Syria.
But the Mattis situation, I received a lot of emails on as well.
Jim Mattis is an American patriot who this country owes a debt of gratitude to.
He's done a tremendous job as a career military man.
And when you talk to people who know Jim Mattis, no one dares question the guy's character.
He's an American patriot, no question about it.
And I'll stand by that.
But Joe, Mattis was not elected President of the United States.
Donald Trump was.
That's correct.
And Jim Mattis, for as much respect as I have for him, I have more respect for the fact that he stepped down and he stepped aside.
That is the way to do it.
You have a substantive difference, Joe, as the Secretary of Defense about how our military assets should be handled overseas in conjunction with our allies.
The dignified thing to do is to do what Jim Mattis does, and we should not knock him for that.
Agreed.
Jim Mattis said on principle, I don't agree with this, and therefore I am going to step aside to allow you.
Now, some people would say his resignation letter took some shots at Trump.
Listen, All right, I get it.
I didn't think it was that bad.
I read it a couple times.
You know, I heard a few people say, when I read it the second or third time, I realized it was a total shot at Trump.
I don't really see that.
It was done in the maddest way.
But maddest step aside, Trump has now asked a post-resignation letter to leave earlier.
Patrick Shanahan is going to be the acting Secretary of Defense.
But I want you to remember, Jim Mattis was not elected President of the United States.
The Commander-in-Chief of our military is elected.
He is elected by you, and we elected Donald Trump.
Mattis did the noble thing and stepped aside.
But the agenda for our military as Commander-in-Chief is going to be handled by people who elect the Commander-in-Chief, and that is us.
And if Jim Mattis is resolutely committed To enacting a more globalist vision of our military's role than Jim Mattis is free to run for the presidency himself.
It is no disrespect.
I honor the man's service.
Deeply honor it.
And I mean that.
But Jim Mattis is free to run for president himself.
Donald Trump won.
He won on an outsider's vision of what our government should look like for the next four years.
When he was elected.
Two years now.
He won fair and square according to the rules.
And I respect Mattis for doing what he did.
But remember what I told you before.
Trump expects loyalty and truth.
That's not transactional.
That's who he is.
And you cannot be loyal to a vision you don't believe in.
So all of these people and naysayers out there, Oh!
Chaos!
Everything's falling apart!
Mattis resigned!
He's a good man!
He is a good man!
But this isn't chaos, this is what we voted for.
And now you got a guy, finally, in office, the President of the United States, who actually gives a damn what we voted for, and isn't taking on all of this political water and going, oh man, politically, the media's against me, academia, I better just fold.
The academics are against me, the talking heads are against me, I better just fold and ask Mattis to stay.
He's not doing it!
Because that's not what he promised.
It's not about what he promised Mattis.
It's what he promised you.
That's not transactional.
That's loyalty to you, the voter.
He wants truth.
And you know what?
He got truth.
Mattis gave him the truth.
I think you're wrong.
And therefore, I'm going to resign.
Trump thanked him, put out a tweet saying, I object to his vision of the world, and moved on.
What's wrong with that?
What, you're not used to the truth?
You want to be lied to?
You like being deceived?
You like, what is this, the prestige, that Hugh Jackman movie with the magic act?
That's what you want all the time?
You know, deadly magic acts being played upon you?
He respects the truth and honesty.
Trump gave him the truth.
Mattis gave him the truth back.
Those two things created a friction point that couldn't be oiled.
They couldn't take the squeak out of that friction point.
Mattis did the noble thing and resigned.
Trump did the noble thing and asked him to leave.
And there you go.
Mattis is free to run later on.
Trump is free to run for re-election.
If the American people don't support that vision with Trump as commander-in-chief, we'll have a change in policy.
That's how this works.
How is that transactional?
How is that transactional?
It's an insult to say that.
Man, I had a lot of other stuff to get to.
You know, just one quick thing.
I have some great stories in the show notes.
If you read them today, I'll probably get a head start on tomorrow's show.
I have a lot of great stories in there, especially about the Democrats' agenda going forward, which is really, really ugly.
They're looking to expand government dramatically.
I'm seeing some outrageous nonsense going on about what they plan to do with this new green energy, you know, green new deal nonsense, which is called the non-green new deal, because you'll all be bankrupted.
So check that out.
Hopefully I'll get to that this week.
But I wanted to just leave on this one note today, on a bit of a lighter note, the day after Christmas show.
Did you see this story?
The NYPD cop fighting off five guys with his extendable baton up in New York.
This is unbelievable.
No, I didn't see this.
You got to check out this video.
There's a story up, Daily News has it, just put, you know, police officer in my PD five-on-one.
These five guys who he's trying to remove from a train station decide it's a good idea to try to attack this cop.
This cop, he must be some MMA guy.
This guy goes five-on-one like full-blown, you know, a Regan Machado Cron Gracie style and starts like maybe Moetaibe, maybe Maurice Smith would be better.
He just takes on these five guys.
I've never seen anything like it.
I was a cop in New York for a couple years.
I remember what it was like when you're accosted by a few people.
The first thing in your mind is don't let anybody get behind you.
I just remember that.
Like, you're constantly moving to split the difference so you don't let anybody.
And he does it.
And he fights them off with these thigh kicks to the chest and his baton.
And I only bring it up because it goes to show the epidemic of poor governance in New York City.
Joe, what do you think happened to these five guys that attacked a cop?
How many days in jail do you think they spent?
Ah, probably none.
Yes, probably none is right.
Not only did he spend no, they weren't even charged.
They were right back in the train station.
Unbelievable.
New York City back to the, you know, I grew up there.
I remember the pre Giuliani days.
They were a mess.
It's just incredible.
But I strongly encourage you to check out this video.
I mean, what a heroic guy.
He takes on these five guys, man, and he just displays some Bravado, like I haven't seen in a long time.
So good for you, officer.
Nice job.
You know, I luckily never saw a five-on-one scenario, but I remember getting buckled in half by an ironing board responding to a domestic violence call, which was rough.
The guy literally picked up the ironing board and swung it sideways and buckled me in half.
Thankfully, my partner was a big guy.
This guy, Mike, got his baton out and got this guy off me.
It was just, oh man, it was crazy.
All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in.
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.
Hope your kids did as well.
Please tune in tomorrow, and please, if you don't mind, I humbly request you subscribe to the podcast.
It is free, it will cost you nothing.
You can subscribe at iTunes by hitting the subscribe button, on iHeart by hitting the follow button.
You can follow us at SoundCloud as well.
That's what helps drive us up the charts and helps new people find the show.
