In this episode I address the good, the bad, and the ugly in the budget deal and the emergency declaration for the wall. I also address Joe Biden’s role in the Spygate debacle. Finally I address Amazon leaving New York. News Picks:
Here’s the latest on the budget deal.
This piece addresses the emergency declaration for the wall and the likely ramifications.
Senator Graham demands that Andrew McCabe appears before the Senate to explain his role in the coup attempt against Trump.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is celebrating a major economic loss for New York.
This Ukrainian official is knee-deep in the scheme to take down the Trump team.
Big government is the problem, regardless of the political party involved. This McGurn piece addresses this point.
Copyright Dan Bongino All Rights Reserved.
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Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino.
All right, welcome to the Dan Bongino Show.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
It's Friday!
The famous Joe Armacost Friday intro.
A little road show for me.
I'm up in the Trump International Hotel in D.C., which, listen, I get it.
I'm not like an unbiased observer here when it comes to the Trump Hotel, but what a place, man.
Gosh, this is perfect.
Yeah.
It's ridiculous.
I'm used to staying in New York City hotels, I was telling Joe before the show.
And, you know, they're small, they're all small.
Even the expensive ones are like the size of your bathroom in your house.
But this place is amazing.
So, yeah, there's a little bit of a roadshow today.
I got an important meeting today.
I'll probably figure it out.
I ran into one of our listeners in the hotel lobby, I think his name is Chris, yesterday.
He's like, dude, what are you doing here?
So, we'll talk a little bit about that on Monday.
Pretty cool stuff.
But I got a lot to get to with the deal last night.
I also have something I haven't addressed in a long time with the audience, Joe.
The Joe Biden connection to this whole Spygate, Manafort, Russiagate collusion thing.
Joe Biden, you notice Joe has managed to escape any scrutiny on this?
No, no, that all ends now.
We've hit this before, Joe and I. Yes, we have.
But to save you from having to dig through our entire library to find it, now that Joe Biden's getting ready to announce his run for president, let's bring Joe Biden in the mix, too.
Isn't this going to be special?
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All right, first.
The Border Deal.
I like that.
We need to incorporate that more.
Let's go through it this way, because we've given you now three, four days of commentary on it.
You're going to see it all day on the news, and I don't want to waste your time.
So I want to break it down very simply this way.
Let's do, rather than the old movie, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, which I was very familiar with, let's go from The Ugly, The Bad, and The Good of the Deal.
Listen, it's a bad deal, okay?
I said that last night on Hannity's show.
Hannity said it.
Trump said it.
Everybody knows that.
People are emailing me like crazy.
Dan, it's a bad deal.
Yes.
Joe, I don't know what... Folks, I can't respond to all... Yes, you are correct.
Let me just... Can I do a blanket reply all to everybody who emailed me how bad this deal is?
You are right.
Let me give that a second to sink in.
You're never supposed to have silence on the radio.
Let's give it three counts.
In fact, am I making this clear?
It is a bad deal.
It's a bad deal.
It's a bad deal.
Yes.
My only point to you in return.
Is given the advantage, the significant advantage, politically and tactically, the Democrats have in the House, given that they run the House, what are the other options?
I've given you them.
The other options are to fight in the sequester when it comes to December.
And the options are an emergency declaration, which I don't like, I've been candid about, but it appears Trump is going to go with.
So let's start with the ugly first.
Here's the ugly part of this that I really think is going to be very troublesome.
I discussed this last night on the Hannity Show.
Ladies and gentlemen, Section 224 of the deal is deeply disturbing.
Section 224 of this budget deal last night appears to be some form of a backdoor amnesty.
What does it do?
I'll read to you the portions that matter here.
Section 224.
Then I'll translate it for you, Joe.
None of the funds provided by this Act, in other words the Budget DLS 9, or provided by any accounts in the Treasury of the U.S.
derived by the collection of fees, may be used by the Secretary of Homeland Security to place in detention, remove, or refer Or initiate removal proceedings against a sponsor, potential sponsor, or member of a household of a sponsor or potential sponsor of an unaccompanied alien child.
Okay, let me translate that from, you know, appropriator-ese and government-ese into what that means in common sense terms.
Yeah, what that means ladies and gentlemen is If you come across the border with an unaccompanied child and claim to be that person's sponsor, which has a very loose definition in this, that no funds can be spent to deport, remove, or even refer you for removal, that's a big, big thumbs down in this.
It is unquestionably a poison pill.
The Democrats threw that in there.
I think, though, that now it's ugly.
Listen, I just put it in there.
We're doing it in reverse.
The ugly, the bad, and the good.
Not the good, the bad, and the ugly.
This is the ugliest portion of the whole thing.
Now, the Trump administration and some DHS officials are stating, and I'm getting this from some folks, some pretty solid sources on this.
That the DHS is very clear on this, that this sponsor thing is not going to be some open-ended way, basically, Joe, to, say, grab a kid and say, hey, come with me to the border.
I'm going to claim your sponsor.
And now we, you know, we have an amnesty.
Now, you know, is that going to get tied up in court too?
Probably.
But it's bad.
It's ugly.
I don't agree with it.
It should have been stripped out.
But this is the bag of garbage the swamp gave Trump.
This is the deal the Republicans in the Congress agreed to.
It's not Trump's deal.
You may say, well, just don't sign it.
Okay, well, what do we do then?
You understand, ladies and gentlemen... Let me hold off on that, because that's going to be... I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.
Let's just leave it at this.
Section 224 of the bill...
Creates an avenue to basically bring an unaccompanied kid with you.
Say, hey, I'm a sponsor and you can't be deported.
Okay?
Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies and everyone goes.
Yes, exactly.
Very good.
There never has been more an appropriate time for that song.
Yes, that's exactly what's going to happen.
And it's going to create incentive to track kids through this very dangerous journey across the desert to our border.
So that's the ugliest portion of it.
Here's the bad portion of it.
Again, that's the worst, the ugly part.
But the bad portion of it is there's also a stipulation that you have to consult with local officials before you build a border wall in any specific area.
Excuse me, had to drink some coffee there.
Now, these roadshows are always a little different.
Of course, what's that going to do?
That's going to tie up in either some form of litigation or bureaucratic morass, the construction of walls in areas where politicians who don't like Donald Trump are going to use it as some kind of a cudgel to say, look, I'm going to fight this wall and the budget deal opens up for consultation, my avenue to talk about it first, and I'm going to tell them no wall, not here, at no time at all, and Trump can go pound sand.
Bad.
Bad stuff.
Also bad.
The fact that it's only 1.375 billion dollars, which is way short of the 5.7 billion dollars Trump needs to construct that 230 plus miles of border wall that he needs to secure the areas that the border security experts have told him he needs to secure to make the border adequate, the safety somewhat adequate.
Okay.
The good.
Ladies and gentlemen, I don't mean to sound hyperbolic or ridiculous here, but I don't know any other easy way to say it and sum it up.
Trump is all you have left.
He is.
He's all you have left.
You know, you know, I've tried to been an impartial observer of this and listen, I know it's true because I get nasty grams from really, really pro-Trump people and moderate Republicans who like the show.
They like the economic stuff, who object sometimes when they think, uh, you know, they think I'm going overboard for Trump.
I don't, I don't think I am, but I, like I said, I give my email out for, for you all to, you know, for you all to read.
It's info at Bongino.com.
Send it to us.
We read it.
We listen to it all.
Having said that, I mean this, Trump is all you have right now.
How many politicians do you know at that level, the President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, that signs a deal he acknowledges two days ago is terrible?
You may say, what does that mean?
He's weak?
No, who does that?
Everybody gives you the focus group tested talking points about, oh, this is not a, this is a wonderful deal.
And this is that he's, he's telling you straight out.
In other words, he's acknowledging to you that the bag of horse manure that the Republican rhinos in Congress and the swamp rat Democrats in Congress sent them is a terrible deal.
There are some good Republicans left, but very few folks.
The good part of this, Is it's going to avoid what's going to be an unquestioned political disaster if this continues.
He doesn't have leverage right now.
I don't know an easier way to get this out.
He doesn't have leverage.
What do you do?
I mean, when you look at a war scenario, right?
Look at some kind of a combat scenario.
I'm trying to think of when we used to do, maybe you'll say use of force scenario.
I don't like war because war is a unique stain on humankind.
But when you look at, say, a use of force scenario, we used to do AOP as assault on principle in the Secret Service.
There were times in the Secret Service we would harden up, right?
In other words, we would pick a pre-designated hard room for our protectee.
You know, windows, cinder block walls, and we would reinforce that room, and we would fight to the death at that room.
There were other times we would have an escape route, and we would take the escape route, which we would clearly mark.
There are scenarios that dictate hardening up, and there are scenarios that dictate you flee and live to fight another day.
Folks, there is no leverage for him right now.
I don't know any- I'm not gonna lie to you, to- let's just, uh, don't screw it and give him all- there's- there is no leverage.
He has- do you understand he's all you have?
That's how I opened up the good part of it.
You may say, what's good about this?
Because there is another fight here.
The fight's not over.
Everybody's like ready to throw in the towel.
Oh, it's already capitulated.
It's done.
Capitulated?
We just got a report today that medical, Joe, healthcare costs are rising at the lowest rate they've risen in years now due to Trump's ridding of the individual mandate and the expansion of plans outside of Obamacare.
We just found out prescription drug costs are rising at the lowest rate.
The economy added 304,000 jobs last month.
Even though he took a massive political beating on the House side in the midterms, we still have the Senate, and there are elections coming up, and this bill, however sucky it is, and believe me, the suck level is high on this, it only lasts till December, and there is some border construction money, and he's all you have.
He doesn't have warriors right now on the Republican side, outside of very few principled people, the Mike Lees of the world.
Uh, you know, I like Massey on the House side.
These guys, outside of these guys who are actually willing to stand on principle, there are very few guys up there in the Congress, you know, maybe you got the Jim Jordans and others, the good guys, Mark Meadows, who are willing to do anything about this.
What do you want him to do?
He has no leverage.
I'm genuinely curious.
I'm not saying this to be, I don't like to insult my audience.
It's not like, uh, you guys are no better.
You guys are, I don't, you guys are, you guys and ladies are very smart.
Your emails are great.
I'm just asking you, what do you want him to do?
He's in an executive position, the most powerful executive position in the world.
They lost a midterm election.
They cannot get a budget bill with everything they want through the House.
They can't.
They simply do not have the votes.
If he had a Republican, a coalesced Republican group behind him that would be willing to stand fast in the event of a government shutdown, I would say, alright, let's at least test the waters again on this and shut this down, okay?
He doesn't have that.
What am I trying to tell you?
Folks, if the government shuts down again, the Republicans in the Congress and the House are going to override his veto and sign an even worse bill than they have now.
Think about how that looks.
You think this is some kind of a loss?
Wait until you see that loss later.
This guy's all you have right now.
The President.
He's all you got.
He's not putting lipstick on this.
He's not out there trying to gloss it off as the greatest thing ever.
He's been acknowledged this is a crap bill.
Sean Hannity, you know, friend of mine, friend of the president's as well, was on TV last night on the same hit I was on, Joe.
I was on the same show.
We both said the same thing.
I called it a steaming pile of horse crap.
He called it a terrible, bad bill.
Well put.
Very eloquent.
I don't know what other way to say it.
The only good news here is Trump understands it, and he understands the political tactics here are sometimes you harden up, and sometimes you have to get out of dodge and live to fight another day.
He has no strategic tactical path out of you.
I know that bothers you.
I admire the fact that my listeners and his supporters are so passionate, but don't give up on the guy now, folks.
We've still got the December fight, we've still got the economy booming, we finally got the control on some health care costs, and we've got the chance in December through the sequester to make significant cuts in government spending.
One more thing on this and I'll move on because it'll be a lot of analysis today and I got a lot to get to.
There is no question that Trump has the power to declare this national emergency he's declaring actually right now as we speak.
There's no question, the 1976 National Emergency Act, he can declare a national emergency.
That will not be fought in court.
Are we clear on that?
Just because this is bifurcated.
And I have a piece up.
I'm not a huge fan of roll call, but they have a very, very well done piece I have in the show notes today at Bongino.com.
And again, subscribe to my email list.
I'll email this stuff right to you.
It's a very good article, about a thousand words, take you about maybe seven, eight minutes to get through.
But it's very well done and it's not overly partisan about where this is going to go in the courts now that Trump's going to declare a national emergency for the border funding.
His ability to declare the national emergency will not be challenged.
Bill Clinton declared 17 of them.
George W. Bush, I think it was like five or six.
Obama, you know, declared multiple national emergencies.
It's bifurcated.
That part's fine.
The second part of it is the money, the moving the money around to finance the construction of the wall, Joe, under the national emergency.
That's where we're going to have a problem because the president is not an appropriator.
That's why I'm not crazy about this.
It has a strong potential to get tied up in court.
But they have left the president with no other options.
And remember, this only lasts until December.
Having said that, if he gets started on the 1.375 as a, you know, quote, down payment on the wall, and gets that wall moving, Joe, I said last night on the Hannity Show, and I'll say again, how bad do you think it's gonna look, optically speaking?
Remember, snapshots and soundbites, folks.
That's all politics is, are pictures and soundbites.
That's projection of power, is getting the best pictures and the best soundbites you can get.
How do you think it's gonna look in court?
Right through the election season, Joe, As presidential candidates are declaring, the Democrats in court fighting the construction of a wall that's already being built as caravans keep coming in.
Not gonna look good.
Now, again, is this some big victory yesterday?
No.
The ugly and the bad parts of this deal far outweigh the even minor goods we have.
The minor good, again, a little bit of construction here.
The Democrats have now put themselves firmly on the side of open borders, and now we've got people on the record.
Listen, Trump is all we have left.
I'm just asking you not to bail on this guy now, folks.
It's the right fight.
He is all you have left.
He understands this is a terrible deal.
It's not a mystery.
Okay, I want to move on.
So there it goes!
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Okay.
So yesterday, another hilarious meltdown on the far left.
And by hilarious, I mean tragically hilarious.
I mean that it's one of those, like, sad clown hilarious things.
You know the sad clown, Joe?
It's not like the clown at the four-year-old's birthday party who's having a good time and everybody's laughing and all the kids are watching him do his thing and make the balloons.
This is like the sad clown.
You're all like, you feel bad for him.
So, Amazon pulled out of New York yesterday.
They were going to put a second headquarters up in New York in an area I know well near Long Island City.
It was estimated to bring anywhere from probably 20,000 to 30,000 jobs, possibly more, into New York City.
It was going to be about a $5 billion investment.
Am I a big fan of taxpayer subsidies?
No, I wish every state would just level the playing field and have a low-tax environment, not just offer carve-outs for specific companies.
Having said that, though, the question about Amazon and its role in New York, that it was going to be some kind of a net positive, was an easy one.
To bring 5 billion in investment and 25 to 30,000 jobs to an area, there's no question even the externalities themselves would probably pay for these carve-outs in the tax code.
Which again, I don't agree with.
But this was a net good.
70% of New Yorkers approved of this deal.
So Amazon, in response to some comments by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and yeah, to some union pressure.
I'm glad we're not on video today for that one.
So Joe's having a pretty negative response to this, too.
Amazon decided to pull out.
Apparently, I'm getting from a friend of mine, you know who you are, who sends me information on what happens in the workplace all the time, as a hint, if you follow me on Twitter, he's very familiar with this stuff, said that the real story behind Amazon pulling their headquarters project out of New York was pressure to unionize Amazon from union interests, who were stunned That Amazon pulled out, Joe.
In other words, they thought this was a done deal.
They were going to come in, come to the table, force Amazon to unionize, pressure them over time, and then Amazon, once they built the place or committed to it, would be forced to stay.
They were shocked when Amazon came in and basically gave them the double-barreled middle finger and said, okay, we're out, see you later.
That's what I'm hearing.
That it was it was AOC had a little bit to do with it, but it really wasn't all her.
It was a union stuff and a lot of you're trying to push them into unions.
Now, having said that, ladies and gentlemen, I got emails yesterday and texts from friends of mine who are in unions in New York.
Remember, I grew up in New York.
I grew up in Queens.
I spent most of my adult life there before I moved to Maryland and Florida.
I still have a lot of friends who are, you know, local three who are carpenters, steam fitters, tin knockers, you know, bricklayers, you name it.
All the way up and down the line.
Plumbers.
And they are FURIOUS!
FURIOUS!
Now, is Donald Trump going to win the state of New York in the next election because of this?
Nah, let's not be ridiculous.
That's probably a difficult road to hoe right there given the population of New York.
Lurched far left.
Having said that, though, it's decisions like this that get middle class union workers, even non-union workers who are laborers, get them on the record.
Now, I don't care what the top levels of the union brass are telling you.
The guys on the ground doing the jobs.
There are two groups of people that are furious.
The laborers.
I got text yesterday.
You know what?
I'm going to read to you one.
This is not a joke.
This is an actual text.
I'm not going to tell you who it's from, obviously.
This is a text.
Yeah, this is real.
Yesterday, 5.36 p.m.
Eastern Time, text comes in.
This is one of like 20 I got.
Can you believe these moron Dems killed the Amazon deal?
Lost a ton of construction jobs.
So I wrote back, idiots, they cost the city billions.
He writes back, unbelievable, in capital letters.
I'm so pissed.
Folks, that was one of many.
So again, for 2020, I know the deal yesterday wasn't great.
This is not a great day in the Trump presidency.
He understands it.
But ladies and gentlemen, sometimes you harden up.
You take the president under attack into the hard room and you defend that hard room to the death because your avenues out have been closed off.
Sometimes you head to the motorcade and you live to fight another day.
I don't know any other way to tell you that.
Yeah, the new rules are we win, you lose.
Those are the new rules.
But the new rules are not engaged in a nihilistic, self-destructive political exercise that will result in massive electoral losses in 2020 and the rapid demise of the republic.
That's not the way you fight these fights.
His avenues here to harden up to get to the hard room have been closed off because he doesn't have a Secret Service protective political team around him that has his back.
He just doesn't.
Most of the Republicans up on the hill on the Congress and the Senate side are ready to stick it to Trump and override his veto of a budget bill and pass the worst deal humanly possible.
This Amazon thing is another black eye for them.
Now let's get the Democrats on the record for open borders.
Let's get them on the record with this awful deal.
Let's not try to cover up what it is.
Trump should come out and do at his press conference what he's doing.
Call it what it is.
It's a terrible deal.
It's the deal that Democrats want for America because they don't want it for America.
This is a self-destructive party.
You can't play chicken with a suicidal political party.
Call them out for what they are.
But this AOC thing at Amazon, you know, I think it's gonna really ding her up as well.
I think the fact that she was celebrating the loss of all these jobs yesterday is ridiculous.
Now, hat tip to the listener who sent me this.
Thank you very much.
You know who you are.
Yesterday I had mentioned, in light of Ocasio-Cortez and now the Democrat Party celebrating the loss of jobs and the investment of capital in New York City, yesterday I had cited... Yeah, you can get... Say hello, baby.
This is my little daughter.
She's in the room.
Say hello to the audience.
Bye!
What are you doing here in Washington?
I'm going to see Donald Trump.
My daughter, she's in the hotel room with me.
Did you hear that?
Yeah.
She talks really well.
She's the best.
I love my girl.
But, a hat tip to the listener, yesterday I had cited this Milton Friedman thing.
We're talking about Amazon, the investment, just to be clear, we're going with this so you don't think I'm, you know, segwaying it to some unrelated topic.
Milton Friedman, the great economist, God rest the man's soul, a man, Capitalism and Freedom is one of the greatest books you can ever read by Milton Friedman.
It's hard to be a conservative without reading that book, it's that good.
Friedman was great at debating.
He was, him and Thomas Sowell, would just annihilate liberals at every opportunity.
Now this is from either the early 80s or the 70s.
Speaking about, there are a couple different things.
Friedman won on the Phil Donahue show.
Phil Donahue was a noted liberal.
And in light of what happened with Amazon and liberals' confusion about basic economics, capital investment, and jobs, this is Phil Donahue asking Milton Friedman about Greed!
The same thing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is accusing Amazon of corporate greed.
Play that cut.
When you see around the globe the maldistribution of wealth, the desperate plight of millions of people in underdeveloped countries, when you see so few haves and so many have-nots, when you see the greed and the concentration of power... Did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism?
And whether greed's a good idea to run on?
Well, first of all, tell me, is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed?
You think Russia doesn't run on greed?
You think China doesn't run on greed?
What is greed?
Of course, none of us are greedy.
It's only the other fellow who's greedy.
The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests.
The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus.
Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat.
Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way.
In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history, Or where they have had capitalism and largely free trade.
If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that.
So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear.
That there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle To the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.
But it seems to reward, not virtue, as much as ability to manipulate the system.
And what does reward virtue?
You think the communist commissar rewards virtue?
You think a Hitler rewards virtue?
You think, excuse me, if you'll pardon me, do you think American presidents reward virtue?
Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed, or on the basis of their political clout?
Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest?
You know, I think you're taking a lot of things for granted.
Just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us.
Well, I don't even trust you to do that.
That is one of the greatest clips.
We've played it before, probably two years ago plus.
Yeah.
But folks, I know it's long.
Joe has a general policy of trying not to run clips more than a minute, minute and a half, but that's worth it.
That is worth every second of it.
Two quickies from there.
First, greed.
What society doesn't run on greed?
What person is not born with an inherent sense of greed?
I mean, you talk about the seven deadly sins, you know, gluttony, all these, they're all bedrocked in this human greed.
And secondly, at the end, he references, you know, maybe Federalist 51, if men were angels, right?
We're not angels.
We are naturally, sadly, you know, we're sinners.
We're all sinners.
And when you give people power, it tends to magnify our worst assets.
What capitalism does rather than socialism Is it puts an emergency brake on the worst instincts of human beings.
You have a legal system where you can sue and secondly if you don't like a product you are not in fact forced to buy it.
Which has forced many quote greedy companies out of business over the years who tried at the expense of a long-term business plan to maximize profit the short term and were rapidly put out of business.
Virtue.
And then he brings up the fact that, oh, you think politicians reward virtue?
Like, what kind of an idiot was this guy, Donahue?
Virtue.
We should reward virtue.
Then he goes, you think the Soviet communists rewarded virtue?
Like, are you an imbecile?
They killed hundreds of millions of people between China and the Soviet Union.
Okay, one more clip from Friedman.
Because this relates specifically to the Amazon debacle in New York, pulling their headquarters out, and Ocasio-Cortez ridiculously celebrating this epic disaster in New York.
Ladies and gentlemen, capital matters.
Money matters.
Factories matter.
The investment in factories via money and wealthy people who have that money matters.
But this lady who then goes on to question Milton Friedman in this segment seems to be confused and she equates somehow income inequality with capitalism.
And Friedman has to set her straight.
play that cut why is it we have so many a million years and everything in the
united states and we still have so many impoverished people who try to
get up into the world why is it we have this lack of money where people who can't
support themselves decently and get a decent job where all these big men are up on top making oodles and oodles
of money they don't need it
they can only eat that much eats in a sleep in a bed. And what do you suppose they do if they don't eat it and don't
don't use it what do you suppose they do? They hoard it they hoard it and invest it. You mean they put it under
their pillows? That's right, no they keep investing it. Investing it in what? That's right.
What are they invested in?
Well in oil and everything where I mean all these other people
What are they invested in? Don't get off the subject. What are they invested in?
Well they invested in a lot of different things that the little people need
Well, do they invest it in factories?
Yes.
Do some of that money end up in machines?
Yes.
Do those factories and machines provide ordinary working people with jobs or not?
What do you suppose the productivity of this country would be and the wage rate would be if the total amount of capital in this country today was what it was 100 years ago?
Where do you suppose the improvements in productivity come from except from the investment by people of their savings?
But let me go to your fundamental question.
First place, nirvana is not for this world.
There is no paradise.
Of course we've got a lot of people who are poorly off.
But if you look at it over time, if you get a sense of proportion, The well-being of ordinary people has been the main thing that has been improved by economic progress and economic growth and development.
And most residual hard cases of poverty today are the result, again, of a failure of government.
Why do we have a black teenage unemployment rate in 30 to 40 percent?
Because of two failures of government.
One, a failure to provide decent schooling.
Which is a governmental responsibility.
Has been, whether it should be or not, it has been.
And second, because of a minimum wage rate.
Which prevents those kids who haven't had decent schooling from getting jobs at low pay at which they can earn the skills on the jobs that would enable them to rise to higher pay.
If you look at the sources of poverty, you will find most of them are derived from what I regard as wrong-headed government policies.
So, two takeaways from that.
Utter brilliance by Friedman.
One of the, a guy I, I mean I can't, there's not enough accolades out there, but two takeaways from that.
Number one, there's always going to be income inequality.
There is no paradise as he adequately states.
Accurately states, excuse me.
There's no paradise.
There's always going to be people who are less, relatively speaking, less well-off than people who are wealthy or even middle class.
Always, no matter what, in any society.
Because there's no perfect way to organize society, to equally distribute assets, without creating incentives for others not to produce those assets as you take them away to redistribute them.
But the point he tries to make is that even though there are going to be people always who are less well-off than others, the people who are less well-off in economically free countries are far better off than people who are at even the highest levels of the income structure in socialist countries.
In other words, our poor are richer than socialist countries' wealthy.
Now, if you look at the piece I wrote at FoxNews.com and yesterday's show notes, Matt Palumbo even put some data in there to back that up.
The poorest states in our union are richer than some of the middle class.
The poorest states in the union, the average incomes in those poorest states are higher than some of the wealthier enclaves in European countries, some of the wealthiest European countries.
So capitalism produces so much wealth that yes, there are people, relatively speaking, who are going to be poorer than others, but those poor are still better off than people in socialist countries who are largely starving to death.
So he brings up that point.
But he also brings up another point about capital.
How capital and the accumulation of savings through successful enterprise is not flushed down the toilet.
The lady says, well, they hoard it.
And he goes, what do you mean they hoard it?
They put it under their pillows?
She goes, no, they invest it, meaning they put it in banks.
And what happens with it in banks?
Well, then other people use it to start their own businesses and get rich themselves.
Ladies and gentlemen, is this complicated?
And the answer is, of course it isn't.
That's what happens with the typical flow of capital.
One more point.
Let me add a third point.
He says, he brings up another accurate statement there, that when you look at the pockets of hard poverty in the United States, do you find it oddly coincidental that those pockets of hard poverty, Joe, are strictly isolated areas almost exclusively controlled by big government policies?
Notice I didn't say Democrat policies.
I said big government policies.
Right.
William McGurn wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal a long time ago.
We used to cite often.
It was right after the riots in Baltimore City after the Freddie Gray incident.
McGurn wrote this piece comparing Martin County, Kentucky and Baltimore City.
Martin County, Kentucky is a county that largely voted for Mitt Romney in the presidential election.
Baltimore City voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama.
They are both pockets of hard poverty in the United States.
McGurn says, you know what I find oddly coincidental about these two places?
They are both dominated by extreme government intervention in the economy.
Social entitlement programs, minimum wage programs, welfare programs which incentivize people not to work after a certain day, people who are able-bodied and willing.
These are two places that are struggling right now due to big government policies.
You know, I don't have the piece still around, but it was a really good piece.
Maybe I'll try to find it, stick it in the show notes today.
But it is big government that creates those hard pockets of poverty, but the woman didn't understand that.
She seemed to think that it was capitalism that was creating these hard pockets of poverty.
That is entirely, entirely inaccurate.
Okay, those are worth addressing today after the Amazon deal.
I like to keep my money in my socks!
Thank you, Saul.
I know Saul does.
Joe, of course, going back to the jerky boys there.
You grew up in New York, you knew about the jerky boys.
They lived not too far from me, those guys.
They were pretty funny with their phone calls.
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All right.
Let's get to the down and dirty on Joey B.
I'm talking about my brother, Joe Biden.
Joe Biden!
How has this guy managed to escape any type of scrutiny in the Russiagate-Spygate scandal?
Now, he has it with us, but we mentioned this a while ago and it's time to bring it up again now because Joe Biden, as you've probably heard, is considering throwing his name into the presidential campaign sweepstakes because he wants to be elected the next president.
So, let's get to Joe Biden.
Now, for those of you who've read my book, Spygate, where I cover this, please pick it up if you haven't.
We had another good week of sales.
I guess the word of mouth is starting to spread.
We actually, Joe, after, what is it, three, four months or something in release?
Yeah.
We had our second best week ever in sales last week.
Did you know that?
All right.
That's cool.
Yeah, the book is really going crazy, so we appreciate that.
But we cover this a bit in the book with Biden, and he's got some connection here to this scheme.
Let me read to you a headline first from the Washington Post and kind of tease where it's going with this.
Biden arrives in Ukraine to show U.S.
support as crisis with Russia continues.
April 21st, 2014.
So just to be clear, Joe Biden takes a trip to Ukraine To discuss US support as Ukraine's crisis with the Russians was going on.
You know, Crimea, the invasion, we had all that stuff going on, which you're all aware of.
What else happens in April of 2014?
Now, I bring this up, Joe, because the You know, the Republicans are always accused of having, especially Trump, suspicious connections with the Russians.
What about these suspicious connections?
In April 2014, Joe Biden's son, Hunter, joins the board of a company called Burisma.
So let's just be clear, Biden takes trip to Ukraine, April 2014, a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, Joe Biden's son, probably for a very nice salary, Hunter, gets a spot on Burisma's board.
Now, the owner of this board, the owner of this company, Burisma, where Hunter Biden's son is appointed, conveniently right around the time he takes a trip to the Ukraine, but let's not worry about those connections.
Let's just worry about the fact that through someone, through someone, through someone, a Republican once had a shot of Russian vodka.
The owner of the company, Mikola Zlochevsky, has a very strange connection himself, Joe.
So the owner of this company that hires Hunter Biden, a Ukrainian company, right around the time Biden goes to Ukraine, he's pretty well connected to Viktor Yanukovych.
The head of the Ukrainian government, who, by the way, is being investigated, excuse me, Manafort was being investigated, Trump's former campaign manager, for his connections to some lobbying efforts done on behalf of Yanukovych.
Now, this guy Zlochevsky is a comrade, let's say, of Yanukovych.
He was one of his government ministers.
This is the guy who owns a company that hires the vice president's kid after he takes a trip over there.
So let's be straight on this now.
Let's be crystal clear about what's going on.
Because again, it's the connections.
They say they have no direct evidence against Donald Trump for his collusion with the Russians, but they always seem to insinuate, Joe, that it's circumstantial stuff.
Why is that the only circumstances that matter?
Why don't circumstances that reflect poorly on the Democrats, why are they almost never brought up?
Why are they never probed and probed and probed, and why isn't a collusion scandal being alleged here?
Well, because they're Democrats.
Yanukovych is the guy Manafort was lobbying for, this pro-Russian Ukrainian, the head of government in Ukraine, who Manafort was lobbying with, and with the Podesta group as well.
Manafort was locked up and is being charged for failure to register as a foreign agent.
But keep in mind, one of this guy's buddies, the same guy Manafort's lobbying for, that he's being charged for, this guy Zlochevsky, manages to hire Joe Biden's kid, right during the time Biden takes his trip to Ukraine.
Now, here's what's even more suspicious about this, folks.
So follow me here.
All right.
Biden goes to Ukraine.
Biden's son, Hunter, gets hired, a Ukrainian gas company.
He gets hired for a nice position on the board.
The guy who owns the company was a minister for this head of the Ukraine government that's being investigated for connections to Manafort, or Manafort's being investigated for connections to him.
What happens right after this?
Zlochevsky's Burisma and the Atlanta Council signed a cooperative agreement.
This is a headline from Burisma Group, published January 19, 2017.
The largest gas producer in Ukraine, Burisma, forges relationship with the new U.S.
administration.
The Atlanta Council of the United States and the Burisma Group have signed a cooperative agreement.
You think they're trying to make good?
You think they sense something's wrong?
What does that tell you, folks?
Follow me.
Zlochevsky hires Biden's kid right after this trip, right during the time Joe Biden takes his trip to Ukraine.
Zlochevsky has this natural gas group in Ukraine.
Zlochevsky's group conveniently signs this cooperative agreement with the Atlantic Council.
Why does the Atlantic Council ring a bell, folks?
Think.
Think this through.
The Atlantic Council, the Chief Technology Officer, Dmitri Alperovitch, these were people, excuse me, the Chief Technology Officer for CrowdStrike, Dmitri Alperovitch, sits on the Atlantic Council.
CrowdStrike was the company that looked at the DNC servers and indicated that it was a Russian hack that did it.
Folks, again, I'm making connections for you that the liberal media and others won't make.
Now, is there any direct evidence that there was a quid pro quo in here?
Not yet.
But if we're going to play fair is fair, we're going to play by the same set of principled rules with an unbiased referee, and the referee is saying that suspicious meetings and contacts with the Russians should matter, then why doesn't specific meetings and connections with foreign officials in Ukraine, why do none of those connections matter?
The answer is because they're Democrats and it's a protected class.
Now, this gets better.
Biden goes to Ukraine.
Biden's son gets a board seat on a Ukrainian gas company.
The head of the Ukrainian gas company is a friend of a former head of government in Ukraine that was working with Manafort.
Manafort gets charged.
Biden seems to have gotten a pass.
Hunter Biden seems to get a pass.
This same gas company that Biden's kid is working for then signs a cooperation agreement with the Atlantic Council.
Sitting on the Atlantic Council is one of the guys who runs the company that analyzed the DNC servers and said it was
the Russians that did it.
All very suspicious connections. These people all appear to know each other. It gets even better folks.
Chuck Ross piece in the Daily Caller.
Nellie Orr, this is recent, told Nellie Orr, Bruce Orr's wife, Bruce Orr is a DOJ official, Nellie Orr is his wife
working for Fusion GPS.
Nellie Orr told lawmakers in October that one of Fusion GPS's sources was a Ukrainian parliamentarian, Sergei Leshenko, whose government had accused him of illegally meddling in the 2016 election.
Folks, this Ukraine connection is deep.
It's in my book.
It's very detailed.
It's footnoted extensively in my book.
The Ukrainians clearly had an interest, some, in making sure that Donald Trump was not elected president.
The Ukrainians were working with Alexandra Chalupa, a former DNC official, to get negative information out through the press, through people like Isikoff and others, to get negative information out into the press about Donald Trump.
Read the book.
It's documented extensively.
The Ukrainians did not want Donald Trump elected.
But again, foreign collusion, Joe, doesn't matter when all the connections go to Democrats.
So let me just sum this up because I want to cover another thing too before we're done with the show today.
Let's divorce ourselves from the Russian collusion hoax for a minute.
Let's talk about the Ukrainians.
Biden takes a trip to Ukraine.
A former head of government's buddy then hires Biden's kid to sit on a board of a gas company.
That gas company later partners up after they find out that the Democrats lost the election with the Atlantic Council.
On the Atlantic Council sit a number of former Obama administration officials.
On the Atlantic Council sits Alperovitch, the CTO of CrowdStrike, the company that told everybody that the DNC, her service, was hacked by the Russians.
We then have the wife Of a number four DOJ official, Bruce Ohr, who's working with Fusion GPS and others to get the dossier into court.
The wife admits that a Ukrainian lawmaker, Serhiy Leshenko, was a leading force, quote, behind the release of the so-called Black Ledger, which accused Paul Manafort of receiving illicit payments from the Ukrainian government.
By the way, this Black Ledger has never been verified at all.
The Ledger led to Manafort's firing from the Trump campaign, but its validity remains in dispute.
Folks, one of the real scandals here is the Ukrainians' involvement in this.
Ukrainian officials like Leshenko and others.
That's the bell for the hotel room.
There you go.
We're ringing like crazy.
Ukrainian involvement through DNC officials.
One of the real scandals here is their effort to get the Trump team dirtied up as much as possible while suppressing their connections to the Biden team.
So here's the takeaway and we'll move on.
Some entrepreneurial reporter out there should be asking themselves immediately, how did Hunter Biden get that seat on Burisma, this Ukrainian gas company?
How did he do that?
And if the people connected with that company are connected with Yanukovych, who's considered, you know, a dangerous person to be involved with, at least according to the Manafort indictment, why isn't Biden's connections there?
Why aren't those being looked at?
I think we know the reason.
Because Biden was Obama's vice president.
It's a protected class.
Check that out, folks.
Chew on them apples.
Okay, I filled in for Mark Levin the other day, and I'm going to wrap this up with this one.
I got a lot of questions about this.
Some of you regular listeners already knew it, but some of you didn't.
I covered Skolkovo, and some of you wanted me to just readdress that quick.
The Skolkovo project is another shady connection.
And the only reason I'm bringing this up again is because with the Trump campaign, everything seems to be about connections, not evidence.
But again, when you point out connections between Ukrainian involvement in the election and Biden, nobody seems to be interested.
But what about Clinton's connections to the Russians herself and himself, Bill Clinton, too?
Ladies and gentlemen, the Skolkovo project is an absolute disaster.
It is all about Skolkovo.
I keep saying that.
Skolkovo was a Russian technology product in a technology corridor.
They wanted to emulate Silicon Valley in the United States over in Russia.
So what did they do?
They instituted this technology corridor type project where they tried to attract U.S.
tech companies over there.
The problem with Skolkovo, according to our own intelligence officials, is that Skolkovo was being used as a front for Russian intel to steal our deepest, darkest technology secrets to use in dual application technologies and military technologies.
The Russians wanted to steal our tech.
They wanted to steal it to build weapons used to kill us.
Like the hypersonic missile.
What's the problem with Skolkovo?
It's not necessarily news, Joe, that the Russians have been trying to spy on us.
What is news is that they tried to take it right in front of our faces and under our noses with the help of US officials who just anxiously filled in the void, patted them on the back and said, you guys go get them.
Hillary Clinton supported the Skolkovo project, a Russian technology theft project used to create military weapons.
She spoke openly about it, ladies and gentlemen.
She supported this thing.
She advocated for it.
Hillary Clinton, the head of the Skolkovo project, Viktor Vekselberg, was a Clinton Foundation donor.
Hillary Clinton, 10 of the 27 companies that signed on to Skolkovo were Clinton Foundation donors as well.
Bill Clinton took a trip to Russia for $500,000 paid for by Renaissance Bank, a company deeply involved in the Uranium One deal.
He took this $500,000 speaking fee.
His team emails the State Department and tries to ask for permission for a meeting while Bill Clinton is over in Russia, a meeting with someone very, very interesting.
That meeting is with Viktor Vekselberg, again, the head of the Skolkovo Project, a project that our own intel people have now acknowledged was an effort to steal our technology to build weapons against us by the Russians.
They are covering this up, ladies and gentlemen.
The Skolkovo Project, this is all out there.
It is available on the internet for any entrepreneurial researcher to go out there and look at.
Again, it's in the book, Skolkovo, Skolkovo, Skolkovo.
So just to sum up this last section, we'll let you rock and roll for the weekend here.
If connections to foreign officials are suspicious, why isn't anyone looking into how Hunter Biden got his job at Burisma?
Conveniently, at the same time, his father was developing new relationships with Ukrainians who later came back and targeted Donald Trump, using DNC officials to leak information about the How Manafort was paid off and Manafort was working with Yanukovych.
Well, Yanukovych's buddy hired Biden's kid.
If Yanukovych was such a bad guy as they claim, listen, I'm not a fan of Yanukovych, but if Yanukovych is a bad guy, why is he only a bad guy when it comes to Manafort?
What about Biden's kid?
And secondly, the connections to Skolkovo are there for anyone to see.
Check them out.
Clinton wanted to meet with Vekselberg, the head of Skolkovo, Bill Clinton, while he was being paid by the Russians to be over in Russia.
Vekselberg donates to the Clinton Foundation.
He's running the Skolkovo project.
You're telling me he doesn't know about Russian intel efforts to use that technology corridor to steal our stuff?
Hillary Clinton openly advocates for the Skolkovo project.
Openly!
Folks, you understand what they're hiding?
They're hiding their involvement, not ours.
It's their involvement with the Russians and the Ukrainians that has created a significant, significant problem for them, and the whole purpose of the Mueller probe appears to be today to scrap, bury, and sweep underneath the carpet the Democrats' deep, dirty, disgusting connections to foreign officials that unquestionably interfere in our election.
Everybody knows the Ukrainians were deeply involved in our election.
Everybody who's followed this case closely.
And the connections go to the Democrats, not the Republicans.
All right.
One last thing I neglected to mention in the front, forgive me.
We were talking about the emergency declaration for the wall.
I just want to take about a minute and just tell you where the money is.
Here's where the money is going to come from according to the latest reports for the wall.
So the 1.375 according to the bill that looks like it's going to be signed today.
The DHS looks like they can get $8 billion from this emergency declaration if the courts don't overthrow it.
Some of the money will come from the Treasury forfeiture fund, some from DoD counter drug funds, and some from the MilCon budget, the military construction budget.
So we'll see what happens with that.
We should probably have some further additional announcements today.
And, you know, don't miss the show on Monday.
Today's a big day for me, so I'm really happy to be up in D.C.
And thanks for this.
Sorry we're not going to have any video clips today.
It's a road show.
But Joe, of course, will always put together a top-notch audio product.
Please subscribe to the show, folks.
Go to iTunes if you have an iPhone, your podcast app, and click the subscribe button if you don't mind.
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Thanks a lot.
Have a really wonderful weekend, and I'll talk to you all on Monday.
