In this episode I address recently surfaced FBI emails and texts which expose the depths of the attacks on the Trump team. I also show some disturbing videos which address the scheme. I discuss and debunk the liberal’s silly economic messaging and, finally, I address the China trade war. News Picks: Devin Nunes demands information from the FBI and the intelligence community about Joseph Mifsud.
Hillary Clinton hilariously claims that the presidential election was “stolen” from her.
The FBI suspected the CIA was behind the media leaks in the Spygate case.
How many spies did the Obama Administration use against the Trump team?
Poor Americans are benefiting most from the strong Trump economy.
Democrats are all in on confiscating your firearms.
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 on this fine Tuesday morning?
Well, it is a fine, fine Tuesday, Daniel.
So glad to be here, sir.
Yeah.
So corny.
You have the corniest intros ever.
I love it.
I get a kick out of it.
I laugh at it.
Every day it's something new with you.
Every day it's some new intro, new accent, new character, whatever.
Very well.
Very well done.
We like it.
It's a nice flavor to the show.
Hey, I've got a lot for you today.
This is going to be a debunk-a-thon today.
We're going to hammer some liberal narratives that are going to be used throughout the 2020 election.
Some economic ones, some education ones.
So don't go anywhere.
It's going to be really good stuff.
I promise you I'm not going to find anywhere else.
But I want to open up today talking about Again, we're going to have to employ the Nunes translator because more... I hate to overuse this word, Joe, but even you saw the clip before that we've used before and you were like, this is good stuff.
So don't go anywhere.
More explosive revelations.
All right.
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All right, let's go!
Okay, so explosive revelatory piece yesterday and the Daily Caller and elsewhere I like the Daily Caller's work.
I sent out a tweet last night by the way Chuck Ross from the Daily Caller.
I'm not even kidding when I say this and I'm sorry I left out Sarah Carter last night wasn't my intention I was just sending out a tweet Chuck Ross, John Solomon, Byron York, Sarah Carter, who else?
Molly Hemingway and others.
If they're not being considered for the Pulitzer Prize, or one of them, there are many of them, given their exposing of the Spygate scandals, Kim Strassel and others, the prize is absolutely worthless.
So I like to give the Daily Caller shoutouts.
They've been doing some great work.
Here's a piece from yesterday that is just incredible, right, by Chuck Ross.
Peter Strokes suspected CIA was behind the inaccurate media leaks.
So Stroke, the lead investigator for the FBI, suspects that the entire time the CIA and John Brennan were running this and were behind the media leaks used to foster the Russian era.
Listen, ladies and gentlemen, none of this part is new, but the text and the emails we saw yesterday in a letter sent from the Senate over To the IG's office.
Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley sent a letter over to the IG's office with some stuff we saw yesterday.
Some texts and some emails from Peter Strohk.
It explains to you what I've been trying to hammer home on this show forever, in perpetuity for eons now.
This is not about Russiagate, Spygate, Conspiracygate.
This is Obamagate.
There you go.
The Russia story, the collusion hoax, I have insisted to you from the start, was a cover story to hide a bigger scandal.
The Obama administration's use of the United States intelligence infrastructure, the intelligence community, to spy on and attack globally political opponents.
The Russia story was a cover-up, also known as, Joe, what is the phrase we would call, you know, basically a backup plan for something in case of an emergency.
An insurance policy!
No!
Where have we heard that?
Kind of like, where have we heard that?
Exactly!
Where have we heard that before?
From the same FBI investigator, Peter Stroke, texting his FBI companion and girlfriend, Lisa Page.
We need an insurance policy.
The Russia collusion story was the insurance policy to get Trump out of office to cover for a scandal bigger than Donald Trump.
The Obama administration was spying on political opponents, more than just Donald Trump.
This is the scandal.
Now, from the Daily Caller piece, Chuck Ross' piece, which will be in the show notes today, please read it.
This is important.
Peter Stroke, again, lead FBI investigator in this Trump case, suspected CIA employees were behind inaccurate leaks to the press regarding possible Trump campaign contacts with Russia, according to an email Stroke sent in April of 2017.
Listen to this email.
I'm beginning to think the agency, he's talking about the CIA, got info a lot earlier than we thought.
Oh, who's been saying this forever now?
And hasn't shared it completely with us.
He's talking about the FBI.
So just to be clear, he thinks the CIA got information very early in this case and was hiding it.
He goes on.
I know, sound familiar?
Might explain all these weird, seemingly incorrect leads all these media folks have.
Would also highlight the agency, the CIA is what he's talking about, as a source of some of the leaks.
Folks.
Got the info a lot earlier than we thought.
I'm almost hesitant to bring this up because I know the feedback from the audience is going to be negative, but it's okay.
I'm only here for the truth.
I mean that.
Listen, I'm not virtue signaling anybody.
I'm not trying to be fake Jim Comey.
Jim Comey, always puffing his chest.
Captain Morality, the biggest zero in this whole thing, Jim Comey.
But I am interested in the truth in stopping this from happening again.
I have insisted for a very long time to you that the FBI, they had it in for Trump.
Point completely stipulated.
This cabal at the top, Comey, McCabe, Baker, Page, Stroke, in some ways maybe Price Step, had it in for Trump.
I have no doubt about that.
None.
I believe they were baited in, though, by the CIA and John Brennan, who I have a note here, was the ringleader of this entire thing.
Brennan is Obama's guy.
He is Obama's, he's a political hack pretending to be the head of the CIA.
He's the nominal head of the CIA, but Brennan's real job for Obama, listen to this, We are on episode 974, it's maybe one of the most important things I tell you.
Brennan's real job is not to run the CIA.
Brennan's real job for Obama is to be his hatchet guy.
And to use the CIA as a political opposition research tool, not an intelligence gathering tool.
That is Brennan's job.
Brennan's job is then, because remember, I don't care what you've seen in the movies, the way the real world works, the Central Intelligence Agency has absolutely zero law enforcement powers.
None.
They cannot arrest anyone, they are not GS-1811s, they have no arrest authority at all.
The FBI does.
Please understand the distinction, and I think many of you see where I'm leading here.
Brennan needed to stop Obama's political opponents.
It was an ongoing effort to use him and his foreign partners he developed overseas, friendly U.S.
intelligence friends of his who had similar positions overseas heading their intelligence agencies, to develop dossiers of information on Barack Obama's political opponents.
This stroke email is critical because it leads me to believe That although they hated Trump...
Some of them are going to go to jail, I believe, for criminal leaks.
They were unquestionable co-conspirators in the biggest political spying scandal of our time.
Point stipulated.
Please, I'm not defending this cabal at the top of the FBI.
I'm simply telling you the truth that I believe Brennan was the one pushing this on to them because he didn't have the law enforcement tools he needed to enhance the spying operation when his init... Yes!
When his initial operation to unmask people and use intelligence tools to essentially wiretap U.S.
citizens, when that fell apart because suspicion started to develop and they wanted to enhance their spying, he needed the courts.
And the only people who can swear out warrants in courts are 1811's federal law enforcement officers, and other classifications of federal law enforcement officers, who raise their right hand in front of a judge.
The CIA cannot do that.
Stroke's email is very telling.
That he thinks the agency may have had info a lot earlier than we thought.
In other words, what Stroke is saying is, How the heck long has the CIA been doing this?
That's his email.
Read it yourself.
It's not mine.
I didn't send it.
I'm not putting words on his computer keyboard.
Peter Stroke typed that email to his FBI colleagues.
Now, keep in mind, there's a distinct possibility, let's not be naive, that Stroke sent that email in April to CYA himself.
You get it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's no question he's a co-conspirator.
None.
I'm not absolving the FBI.
I'm not saying, oh, they were duped and they had good intentions.
They did not.
They did not.
But there's no question anymore amongst serious people who've looked at this, who've nailed this case from the start, That John Brennan and the Central Intelligence Agency and others in the intel community had weaponized that community on behalf of the Obama administration to attack his political opponents and were using the FBI for their law enforcement tools to be able to spy further through the FISA courts.
Man, that's pretty strong, dude.
It's pretty devastating, isn't it?
Yeah, I'd say.
This is the scandal.
Joe, we've only said this now for a year and a half.
The real scandal Is not the Russian collusion hoax.
The Russian collusion hoax that Trump was colluding with the Russians was a cover story, an insurance policy later on, fostered through fake dossiers and media people who were being leaked information, like the Stroke email says, by the CIA and others, to cover up a spying operation and make it seem legitimate.
That way when Brennan and others got busted for manipulating the tools of global intelligence to use as a political opposition research firm for Democrats in the Obama administration, they could say, oh, well, look, we saw all these media stories about Russian collusion, so what we were doing was legit.
But it's not just about collusion.
All right, cue up that audio video of Devin Nunes.
I cannot play this press conference enough, okay?
This is March of 2017.
Keep in mind the timeline.
Donald Trump has been in office for less than a few months.
It is almost immediately after Donald Trump appoints his intelligence czar, DNI Dan Coats, and he is confirmed.
So Donald Trump finally has some control over the intelligence community.
Just days after Donald Trump regains control of the intelligence swamp, Joe, Devin Nunes is invited over excellent Republican congressman from California who has been all over this case.
Oh yeah.
Just days after Donald Trump starts to rein in the intelligence swamp by appointing his own guy, Nunes is invited over to the White House complex, this is important, by a source.
Why would he be invited by a source to the White House complex?
Because, again, I'm sorry to have to repeat this for our longtime listeners, but our new listeners will not get this.
Nunes had to go to the White House not because it was a political decision, but because the way intelligence is compartmentalized in the federal government, it is not connected to the open internet.
There are certain pieces and tidbits and snippets of intelligence that are held in specific computers in specific locations that can only be accessed by going to those specific locations.
The reason Devin Nunes is invited right after Trump gets a hold of the intelligence community by a source over to the White House is because this information was available only to the White House.
Not saying it was created at the White House.
I'm saying it was delivered on a silver platter that exists only in the White House now.
On their specific computers.
Nunes is invited over.
Remember what we're talking about.
Do not lose the lead of the story.
Brennan is a puppet master of an intelligence community in an Obama administration that is not doing intelligence.
They are doing politics for Obama, using every tool they have.
Foreign partners, unmasking, spying on political opponents.
It is not about Russia.
It is about spying.
Russia's the cover story.
Don't get roped in.
So my book is called Spygate and not Russiagate.
Nunes goes to the White House.
He meets with a source.
A little bit later, he goes out in front of the cameras and he gives one of the most important press conferences I would strongly debate to you in modern U.S.
history.
Here's one of the first things he says at this press conference, and pay close attention to every single word of this.
This is March of 2017.
I recently confirmed that on numerous occasions the intelligence community incidentally collected information about US citizens involved in the Trump transition.
Details about U.S.
persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little or no apparent foreign intelligence value, were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.
Third, I have confirmed that additional names of Trump transition team members were unmasked.
And fourth and finally, I want to be clear, none of this surveillance was related to Russia, or the investigation of Russian activities, or of the Trump team.
Oh!
Folks... You need a translator?
Again, goosebumps.
Yes, please Joe, and I activate the Noon Yes Translator.
Initiating Noon Yes Translator, Dan.
Thank you, Dan.
I love how she calls me Dan.
She sounds like a female Kit from Knight Rider.
Thank you.
We'll call her Kat, okay?
Not Kit.
Thank you, Kat, the NuNes translator nicknamed Kat.
We appreciate that.
Let me translate for you what Devin NuNes was saying there.
Thank you, sir.
The story we have been told the whole time is that the spying happened, and this is the Democrat story to this day, to this minute, That the Obama administration spied because they were concerned the Russians had infiltrated the Trump team and were attacking our democracy.
Nunes is clear as day that he just went to the White House and looked at a bevy of intelligence, unmasked, raw-type intelligence, disseminated widely throughout the intelligence community, specifically on Trump team members, that was not about Russia!
Or, as Tucker Carlson would say, Russia!
Was not about Russia.
Does the insurance policy make sense now?
The whole Russia story was a cover job insurance policy.
To cover up a massive government spying scandal under the Obama administration that Peter Stroke in his email is clearly alluding to.
As I said, I believe there's an element of CYA here that Stroke is trying to cover his own butt because he realizes he's now a co-conspirator in this.
That he was the insurance policy.
He wasn't suckered into it, he hated Trump.
He willingly took part.
But there's no question the CIA pushed them into opening this investigation.
None!
Remember Brennan's August meeting?
Over on Capitol Hill.
Where he goes over and he starts briefing people up on Capitol Hill.
He says, oh, I didn't know anything about the dossier.
He may not have, but he certainly knew about the Steele information.
Christopher Steele's information.
He briefs the Gang of Eight and Harry Reid in August.
All of a sudden, Harry Reid magically writes a letter to the FBI.
You need to open up an investigation because of this, this, and this.
And it's all information that came from Steele?
Brennan is the puppet master.
He's the ringleader.
It is clear as day.
The Guardian piece.
Read the Guardian piece.
We put up all the time.
The Guardian.
Here's the headline.
Luke Harding.
April 2017.
Ladies and gentlemen, a month after that Noon Espresso I just played.
British spies were the first to spot Trump team's links with Russia.
Here, here's the sub-headline.
GCHQ, the equivalent of the British NSA, is said to have alerted U.S.
agencies after becoming aware of contacts in 2015.
In 2015.
2015?
2015.
Who's the president?
Barack Obama.
Donald Trump isn't even running for president yet in portions of 2015.
Dan, if I may, are you saying that Brennan might have been working the FBI to some degree?
Yes, exactly!
Okay, thank you.
Yes, Brennan is working as far back as 2015, and I will debate strongly even earlier with foreign intelligence partners.
Forget, wipe Trump's name out for a minute in Russia, because it confuses everybody.
Brennan is working with foreign intelligence partners who have his job overseas.
The United Kingdom and others to circumvent U.S.
surveillance and spying laws to spy on basically Barack Obama's political opponents.
That's not an issue if you're not a U.S.
citizen.
I'm sure it happens all the time.
The problem here is what Nunes clearly states in that presser is that U.S.
citizens were unmasked.
And when Brennan can go no further and develop no more additional information from unmasking and every tool he has with his foreign partners, he employs domestic tools.
Our courts.
To get FISA warrants.
To legalize the spying.
Nunes talks about it all the time.
My Nunes translator number two.
He talks about it all the time.
Nunes says, and that's what led to the legal spying, what I call Plan B, what he calls legal spying.
The use of domestic tools to spy on Obama's political opponents.
This is only the biggest political scandal in human history.
They weaponized, in your name, your intelligence agency to spy on your candidate, others, and Barack Obama's political opponents.
Now, a clip, of all the clips we've played, Joe, I think this one gets the most play ever.
This may be the tenth time, maybe more.
We've played this cut.
A former Obama Department of Defense official, Evelyn Farkas, who goes on MSNBC and basically exposes the whole scam that Nunes just talked about in that presser.
Farkas goes on MSNBC and is asked about Russia.
Again, it's only a cover story, the collusion hoax, to cover up their spying.
And Farkas, in one of the most candid, frankly unbelievably stupid media appearances I've ever seen in my life, She gives up the entire scam to MSNBC in this now infamous cut.
I was urging my former colleagues and frankly speaking the people on the hill, it was more actually aimed at telling the hill people, get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration.
Because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior people who left.
So it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy, that the Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence.
So I became very worried because not enough was coming out into the open and I knew that there was more.
We have very good intelligence on Russia.
So then I had talked to some of my former colleagues and I knew that they were trying to also help get information to the Hill.
This is great!
This is great!
She says, I was worried that the Trump administration, incoming administration, was going to find out how we were getting information.
Did you notice the article up on the screen when Farkas started?
That she's on the air to talk about?
It's a key part of that, that everybody always focuses on what Farkas said, and not the fact that she was actually on MSNBC with Mika Brzezinski, known anti-Trumper, to discuss an article.
In the article on the screen, if you go back and rewind that, On the YouTube, or if you're listening on the audio, specifically in the piece, it says that the British and Dutch allies were basically feeding information about Trump.
There it is.
Thank you.
American allies, including the British and the Dutch, had provided information describing meetings between Russian officials, Putin, and associates of President-elect Trump.
Ladies and gentlemen, none of this is illegal.
The fact that people who may have worked in the Trump orbit had business dealings in a foreign country isn't even remotely illegal.
No one has ever been charged or even alleged that there was a crime on that.
So she basically says in this hit, That yes, we were worried that when they found out foreign governments were feeding us information on our political allies, that they would shut it down.
The most candid, honest media appearance you will ever see by an Obama administration.
Now, Joe and I were kind of, you know they tell you on radio, never say we were talking off the air, because it's not on the air, so who cares?
But you know, Joe and I's conversation before the show are interesting, and are airworthy, Because I rely on Joe to tell me what's confusing, what's not, and what he finds illuminating.
Listen, Joe's an engineer, he doesn't have time to read through all these documents.
My job's to produce the content, his to produce the show.
So before the show, we were talking about why she did this.
Yeah.
Why she basically goes on the air and gives up the whole cookie jar.
Oh, your answer was great.
We were produced, and folks, having, I say this with no air of pretension at all, this is not one of these like, hey, look at me, I'm on TV.
I promise you, I don't care, I'm not saying that at all.
When you do television, when you do it a lot, it becomes a job like anything else.
This is important.
It's really critical to understanding this cut.
When you do television a lot, it's a job.
I don't mean that in a pejorative kind of nasty way.
It's a job.
It just becomes routine.
There's a camera, you're looking at it.
It's the same camera I go on Fox with.
You go on, the nerves die down after appearance number 500, and you just kind of do your thing.
I mean, Joe was on the radio for 30 years.
I promise you when he did his characters on WCBM, he wasn't like sweating about it.
You just do it.
After a while, it's a J-O-B.
Or J-O-B-B if Joe Biden was spelling it, right?
You just do it.
Farkas did a lot of media, but she wasn't a regular.
Farkas now is probably looking for some kind of job or to stay prominent.
She's on MSNBC.
It's her moment.
I know the feeling, because I remember when I first started doing TV.
You feel like you have to say something profound every time.
Bingo, Dano.
Right?
You've seen it with radio guests I'm sure.
I'm so glad you're saying this.
Right?
They get in your studio when you're at CBM and they've thought about this all day and you can tell it's scripted what they're saying.
After a while you just start doing it on TV and it's natural.
Like a Mark Stein or someone who goes on and Stein goes on and he's just funny because he's funny because he just is.
He just comes out, he's just witty.
But you can tell, like the guests for the first time, they've coached themselves through this hit.
They know every word they're going to say.
She came in there thinking she was going to be like, I am going to expose how deeply the Russians were in bed with them.
And as she gets into talking about this article about the Russians and how they get the intel, she sees this interest from Mika Brzezinski and she just keeps going and going, not realizing she's essentially interrogating herself on TV.
She got lost in the moment.
She saw the sparkles in Mika's eyes.
Wow, this is interesting.
She notices nobody's cutting them.
When you're on TV and you're saying something dumb, they cut you right off.
No, I'm serious.
They do.
A host on any good show, if it's just something stupid, they'll just cut you right off.
Mika Brzezinski's sitting there like... And she's like, I better keep going.
And let me just talk about how we got the information, because it's going to sound so cool.
I'll sound like Wyatt Earp.
Never realizing she was giving up the cookies the entire time.
I'm telling you, bank on it.
It's that simple.
That is exactly what happened.
It is that simple.
Yep.
How many times?
And then you get a guy who walks out of the studio afterwards, and they get lost in this really hot interview, and all of a sudden they walk out and they got that, uh oh, did I just say that on the air?
It happens all the time!
Oh crap, what did I say?
She got lost!
No skilled TV person on the Democrat side would have gone on TV and given up that kind of information.
None.
They're all very diplomatic about how they handle things.
I don't mean nice or morally upstanding, but when you watch Brennan and Clapper, they handle the media totally differently.
Everything's in code.
The corpus of intelligence.
I didn't see the dossier until December.
When did you see the Steele information?
Oh, that's a whole other story.
They're very diplomatic on how they handle their answers.
Not Farkas.
Don't ever forget that cut.
All right.
Got a lot more to go.
Spent a little more time on that than I planned, but it is so important.
Just to tie this up, it is a spying scandal.
That's what they're covering.
The Russia story was the insurance policy.
Forget Russia.
It was a hoax.
It was a hoax story developed to cover for the Obama.
Oh, look why we were spying.
The Russians were colluding.
They weren't.
Okay.
How do we get out of the spying thing now?
You don't.
Too bad.
It's true.
All right.
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Okay, one last story on this and I want to move on to the debunk-a-thon here.
Byron York is another excellent piece of the Washington Examiner.
I strongly encourage you to read it.
It's in the show notes today.
For those of you asking about the show notes, they are the best articles I find on the internet every day.
They are on my website at bongino.com.
If you just click on the menu, it'll say podcasts.
If you go to podcast, the show notes are attached to the shows every day.
If you subscribe on my website to my email list, which I encourage you to do, we only send out five, six emails a week when I'm going to spam your inbox, we will send you these articles.
This is a great one.
Byron York.
No question there was spying on the Trump campaign, but how much?
Great piece.
From Byron York's piece.
Again, the spying argument is over.
Again, just kind of doubling down on what we talked about before.
We know there was spying.
The Spygate story is the story.
But as York indicates in his piece here, it's not just the fact that there was spying.
It's how many spies.
He writes in the piece.
Excuse me, there was also speculation about other possible FBI surveillance, but the Halper operation and Page FISA case were the only ones definitely known.
So Barr was saying, this is key, let me set this up, what he's going to follow up with.
What York is saying is, so we already know that a human intelligence asset, a spy, Stefan Halper, was sent to go get information from the Trump team.
We also know that FISA warrants were used to spy on the Trump team.
But what Barr is saying, and this is an excellent, excellent point by Byron York.
He says, so Barr was saying, if the FBI really took the Trump matter seriously, if they thought it was a threat to the Republic, would that be all they would do?
No other wiretaps or surveillance?
No other confidential informants?
Nothing?
Given that Barr's already looking into the question, his phrasing suggested he suspected there was more.
Now, if you read the piece, what he's referring to is Bill Barr, at his testimony up on Capitol Hill, had indicated that he was surprised at how minimalist the operation was.
Right, right.
Some of you may be confused.
You may be saying, wait, wait, wait, Dan.
You just told us that this spying operation by the Obama team was this huge big scandal.
Now you're saying Bill Barr was up on Capitol Hill surprised about how small the operation was?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
That is not what I'm saying.
I'm saying Bill Barr, Joe, air quotes, Was surprised by how small the operation.
Do you get where I'm going with this?
Sure.
Oh yeah, yeah.
What he's saying up on Capitol Hill is, listen you dopes!
Not you in my audience, the people up on Capitol Hill.
This isn't the end of it.
It wasn't just Halper and the FISA warrants on Carter Page.
These people told us that the Russians were attacking our democracy to overthrow a U.S.
election.
You think it was just these two?
Page and Halper?
Go back to the headline of the article.
There's no question they were spied on, the Trump team.
None.
Amongst reasonable people.
The question, how much?
How many spies were there?
Joe, for the umpteenth time.
Do you really believe, ladies and gentlemen, Bill Barr was surprised, air quotes, how small the operation was?
Or do you think Bill Barr is dropping a hint that you're gonna be surprised when you find out how non-minimalist, how maximalist the operation was?
I would air on the latter.
I'll go with dropped hints for two.
Hundred.
Dude, Barr is laying it out right now.
He's dropping breadcrumbs for entrepreneurial people interested in the truth.
Again, that doesn't include the mainstream media out there who want to get to the bottom of this.
This is a bigger footprint than we've been led to believe.
Again, circling back to story one, the story here is the spying scandal, not Russia.
That was an excuse Moving on.
Great piece in the Daily Signal today.
Starting a debunk-a-thon here.
You know, I can't get over these.
I appreciate all the fine feedback from you, which matters a lot to me.
I know a lot of you like the economics angle to the show, and our earlier episodes, we were really, really heavy.
I love economics.
I have a passion for it, always have.
I always say I'm an economist by desire, not by trade.
My degree was in finance, not economics, but I'm just fascinated by it.
I love it, and I always have been.
The allocation of scarce resources, right?
But I love how the Democrats weaponize economics and weaponize stupidity.
And they make arguments that are so easily debunked by facts and research that if you do even a basic amount of homework on any of their talking points, you will never lose an argument with a leftist.
I have been doing debates on cable news.
I'm now exclusive to Fox, but I used to do CNN and MSNBC.
The clips are all out there on YouTube.
And I can honestly tell you I have never been uncomfortable in a debate.
Whether I've won or lost the debate is up to you.
I don't really care.
There's no scorecard out there.
It's not like a boxing match.
But I can tell you, candidly speaking, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I've never been uncomfortable in an economics debate with a leftist.
Because they never ever have the facts on their side.
So the Daily Signal has this piece out, which is great.
The new leftist talking point is this, that the poorest Americans and the middle-income Americans, Joe Biden threw this talking point out the other day at his speech, they're not benefiting from the Trump economy, they're being left behind.
Now, I debunked one component of this yesterday.
The component I debunked of this yesterday was that This was benefiting the managerial white-collar class at the expense of the blue-collar class.
If you go back and listen to yesterday's show, I threw out some numbers showing you that it's the opposite.
That production-level employees' wages are now growing faster than their supervisors'.
So the talking point first that You know, working-level, dirt-under-the-fingernails employees' wages are growing slower.
It's just inaccurate.
It is just not right.
I don't know any other way to say it.
There's no debate you're going to get into with your leftist friend that is going to make that fact a non-fact, okay?
It is a fact.
We now know production-level employees in the United States' salaries are growing faster than their supervisors.
So forget that talking point.
It's not true.
That's all you need to tell them.
And nobody's going to research it on the internet and make you look stupid.
They won't even bother.
They usually just call you a racist or something.
Right?
You're a racist.
We haven't done that in a while.
Tom Marr.
God bless the man's soul.
He was a radio host in Chelsea.
He used to say, you're a racist.
That's all they do.
From the Daily Signal piece.
Here's quote number one from the piece.
Now, talking point number two, right?
That this is not better.
So first, it's production level employees aren't making as much and the supervisors are doing well, right?
That's not true.
Talking point number two.
Minorities, women are all being left behind by the Trump economy.
Not true.
Quote, Daily Signal.
In April, the unemployment rate for Americans with a high school degree fell to the lowest rate since the Great Recession.
Unemployment for workers with disabilities fell from 8% to 6.3% over the last 12 months, the lowest level since 2008.
Hispanic unemployment is the lowest it's been since 1973, also when the measure began.
Black unemployment remains close to historic lows, climbing slightly since the end of 2018.
Folks, Black unemployment close to historic lows, Hispanic unemployment the lowest since 1973, Americans with disabilities with a high school diploma, production level employees, wages going up, unemployment levels going down.
Do you understand if you have these basic simple facts in your repertoire and your cabinet of ideas, you will never lose a debate with a leftist.
They, ladies and gentlemen, they make stuff up.
They just make it up.
Somebody tells them in a focus group that saying that you've been, tell Americans they've been left behind by the Trump economy, that just saying it is going to make a political point, but it's not based in reality.
It is just not true.
I don't know any other way to tell you that.
The very class of people the Democrats are running on to help are actually benefiting from Trump, not Obama's policies.
There's another piece here.
About wage growth.
So we just talked about historically low unemployment for the very groups the Democrats are trying to pander to.
In the past year.
Quote from the Daily Signal piece.
Again, it'll be in the show notes.
The title of the piece, by the way, is poorest Americans are benefiting most from strong economy.
Here's a quote.
In the past year, wage growth was 6.6% for the 10th percentile of workers.
That's workers with the lowest incomes, according to the annual report of the Council of Economic Advisors.
Listen.
So, takeaway number one.
The lowest wage workers in the economy, the ones the Democrats are claiming you're being left behind, their wages grew 6.6%.
You may say, well Dan, that doesn't sound right.
People at the top of the income distribution must be getting richer.
Uh, no.
That 6.6% is quote, double the 3.3% growth rate for workers at the top of the income distribution.
Folks, nothing they're telling you is true.
I know liberals' math is hard, I get it.
6.6 is literally double 3.3.
The poorest workers' wage gains are twice in percentage ratio, not in real money, in percentage, which is what matters.
If a guy makes $100,000 a year and gets a 3% raise, it's more money than a guy who makes $20,000 a year and gets a 6% raise.
But the point is, the percentage growth is what matters because it's based on the skill level and the wage growth and the productivity.
Wages are growing at a faster rate.
Oh my gosh, Joe, nothing, nothing they tell you is true.
It is so frustrating.
But again, listening to liberals, but so easy to debate them.
And one more quick thing before I get this last ad here.
You know, sometimes when I'm out on the road, I run into people or when I'm in the gym and they say, you know, I debate Chris Hahn a lot and other liberals and Marie Harf and others on the network.
On Fox, and they say, you know, oh, that must drive you crazy.
And I think they're surprised often when I say, no, it doesn't drive me crazy at all.
I actually love those hits.
Right, Paula?
Is that not my favorite thing to do?
I said that to you once, didn't I?
You did, you did, you did.
You say that often to me.
You'd be like, man, that debate last time must have drove you nuts.
Folks, candidly, it doesn't.
It's my favorite appearances because I know the facts are on my side.
I'm telling you, I've never come off the air and said to my wife, my office is right next to our bedroom.
I go to bed after the hits, you know, Laura Ingraham and Hannity at Slate on Eastern Time.
Go to sleep.
I never ever walked in there and be like, man, I got smoked on that.
I'm telling you, take it what you want.
Obnoxious, pretentious guy.
I'm just telling you the truth.
The facts are never on their side.
I am not blessed with some Superman-like IQ.
I just read.
That's all you have to do to debunk a leftist.
It is so simple.
All right, lastly today, another great company.
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Okay.
Next, China.
I would be remiss if I didn't talk about China.
I got a few emails yesterday.
Dan, you gotta talk about what's going on with the tariff war with China.
How'd you miss that?
I didn't, ladies and gentlemen.
There's just so much news on a Monday.
I've got the whole week to get it out.
A couple interesting pieces in the Wall Street Journal today about China.
One of them I found fascinating is Trump's China brinksmanship.
The incentives for a deal are overwhelming on both sides.
Good piece.
There's a couple follow-up pieces after that.
I'm not going to put them all in there.
But ladies and gentlemen, here's my take on what's going on with China and why Trump is in a really good position right now.
You know, when I was doing commentary from Vietnam on the North Korea, the North Korea's second North Korean summit in Vietnam, I brought up the point often that it's interesting how media figures are so biased against Trump that they can't see the obvious.
I'm going to tie this to China in a second, but it makes sense and I want you to consider what I'm about to say because it's important.
Little background.
So right now, Donald Trump is threatening by Friday to impose a 25% tariff on a volume of Chinese goods into the country.
Tariffs, you know what they are.
They are taxes imposed at the border on Chinese goods that come into the United States.
Makes those goods more expensive.
It also makes those Chinese goods less competitive.
Now, it is a tax.
Let's not dispute the economic obvious points about what a tariff is.
But it makes those Chinese products basically more expensive, and people buy less of them.
If you have $100 to spend on goods, those Chinese goods you got that said made in China were $100, now they're $125, and you have $100, you're going to seek, Joe, an alternative.
Substitution effect, also called in economics.
You're going to seek a substitute, something else.
Now, Donald Trump would like those to be American-made products.
Sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn't.
There's things called comparative advantage, absolute advantage, beyond the scope of this podcast.
Today we've covered it in past shows, but I want to hit this China thing because this 25% tariff at the border on Friday, if they don't agree to a new China trade deal, will be devastating for the Chinese economy.
Now, it's not going to be peaches and cream for us either, but it's interesting.
Even the Wall Street Journal, which, listen, they are not Hardcore conservatives.
Let's be candid.
They're Chamber of Commerce Republicans.
They are.
I enjoy their stuff.
I'm not knocking.
It's just who they are.
They are almost universally against tariffs.
But it's interesting.
I'm starting to see a different thread, even amongst the, you know, Bush Republicans, let's call them, the moderate class, that's starting to recognize that Trump may be on to something here.
Including me, folks.
I mean, the economics of tariffs are not very good.
But the piece basically says this, and this is where I'm going to tie this back to North Korea.
It was kind of a non sequitur, but I had to set it up that way.
You know, when I was in North Korea, I was saying now, Trump is so strategically unpredictable.
He just does things nobody's used to.
His tweets, the way he handles foreign policy, His ability to flip on a dime and not consider the political ramifications.
Ladies and gentlemen, to be candid right now, the politically correct thing to do with Trump is to dump the tariff threat, let the Chinese goods come in tariff-free, make them cheaper for U.S.
consumers.
Mason, why doesn't he do it?
Because Trump recognizes the very unique threat China poses globally to our economy by not selling us cheap goods, which is good for us.
We want stuff cheap.
We don't want more expensive stuff.
The problem is they are stealing our stuff over there.
Yes.
They are engaged in an intellectual property war where they are stealing our stuff, creating global instability, hollowing out a manufacturing base by stealing our stuff.
They are creating a bevy of regulations for companies that go over there saying, if you come over here and build here, Ford or whatever, you're going to have to share your company secrets with us.
How is that fair trade?
Donald Trump is starting to understand, along with the Wall Street Journal and a lot of even, you know, libertarian leading economists who may be coming around to this too, that the long-term threat posed by China's ruthless theft of our intellectual property, our entire capital stock of our brains, our economic wealth is up here, our software code, our business ideas.
If China keeps stealing this, we won't have anything left.
Yes!
So Trump has figured out that if he is strategically unpredictable, exactly like he was with the North Koreans, sends out a tweet one day, hey, Kim Jong-un, the negotiations are going well, I like what he's doing, and I think we may be able to get to denuclearization, the next day, deal's over, sorry.
The American media doesn't get how that is so valuable.
And the journal, even in the journal piece, alludes to the fact that, hey, this guy's strategic unpredictability may be getting China back to the table because they have no idea what he's going to do.
He may actually, against his own political interests, because again, tariffs are taxes, institute a tax on the border of 25% against Chinese goods, against every ounce of political advice he's getting.
And the Chinese believe he's telling the truth.
Or may believe.
Nobody else would do that.
I find it interesting because the media always fears—pay attention to this part—North Korea angle number two.
How Trump's strategic unpredictability—nobody can figure out what he's going to do—benefits him in foreign policy, even with the North Koreans.
He's gotten a lot of concessions, others haven't.
Taking a little backtrack now, but give him time.
But his strategic unpredictability is the same strategic unpredictability the media cites with Kim Jong-un for being so dangerous.
In other words, we don't want to mess with Kim Jong-un, Joe, because he's so unpredictable.
So let me get this straight.
Unpredictability is a benefit with a North Korean tyrant who we shouldn't mess with and should let him do his thing.
But when we have a president who's not tyrannical at all, he's a democratically elected president of a constitutional republic, when he's strategically unpredictable, this is a bad thing.
Trump, he's so uncouth, he's all over the place.
No one knows what he's thinking.
Yes!
Thumbs, what has two thumbs and agrees with Donald Trump?
This guy!
Yes!
The Chinese knew in the past that all of these efforts to institute tariffs were bluffs!
They knew it!
They're bluffing.
They're not gonna do that.
No president's gonna hurt his electoral chances.
You now see how the Chinese are gonna have to come to the table?
They are going to have to come to the table because they rely on exporting products to us more than we rely on importing products from them.
You may say, well, that doesn't make sense.
It's the same thing.
It's a tautology.
No, it's not.
We can find substitutes elsewhere.
Do you understand that?
The United States, it'll cost, it's not free.
The United States can find rubber dog toys and anything else elsewhere.
The Chinese cannot find a market like the United States elsewhere.
Nobody has our money.
Nobody has our prosperity.
Nobody.
They need us.
We want their products, but we don't need them.
And it is that strategic unpredictability by Trump that has forced the Chinese back to the table because they think he may really do this tariff.
No other politician would have done that.
Not at the level Trump's talking.
I don't want to make it out like no politician has instituted a tariff before.
But not to the degree that it would impact... Ladies and gentlemen, there's no question it's going to impact our economy.
The stock market discounts future profits is a reason it went down yesterday and went down in the opening today.
Because they're afraid that, you know, product costs are going to go up because Chinese importers left tariffs on it.
But I'm telling you, it is this unpredictability that is ultimately going to break the back of the Chinese on this and get them to stop stealing our stuff.
Which is the only way to move forward.
OK, one last story for the day.
You know, it's again, it's so easy to debunk liberal garbage.
I mean, I just wake up every morning in my head with what liberal nonsense talking point we get at the bunk today.
So, you know, the liberal media and their liberal Democratic allies and their interest groups, they'll always tell you they're not doing something when in fact they are doing something.
And it's always called the conspiracy theory.
You know, spying on the Trump team, you right wingers, bunch of conspiracy theorists.
When do we get an apology for that, by the way?
I'm not expecting it, because the media is not an honest group of, you know, people anyway, so I don't even worry about it.
But one of the big, quote, conspiracy theories the right always engages is, the left is coming for your guns.
That's a conspiracy theory!
They don't want your guns, what are you, crazy?
We're not worried about law-abiding gun owners.
Okay, you sure about that?
Cory Booker, senator from New Jersey, serious, credible presidential candidate.
Cory Booker.
Americans should be, quote, thrown in jail if they won't give up their guns.
Washington Examiner piece by John Gage.
May 6th, 2019.
May 6th, meaning yesterday.
Is that today or yesterday?
What's today's date?
What's today's date, Paula?
7th.
That was yesterday.
Okay, May 6th.
Sorry, I'm losing track of time.
I thought that was a conspiracy theory!
He says it in a piece, it's fascinating what he has to say.
Quote, Cory Booker, don't worry folks, this is all a conspiracy theory.
Nobody's coming for your guns except the Democrats.
Quote, again, we should have, this is Cory Booker speaking, we should have a law that bans these weapons.
But what?
Wait, what?
I thought nobody was coming for your guns.
And we should have a reasonable period in which these people can turn in these weapons.
This is not possible.
This clearly is a made up quote from Cory Booker.
It's not.
Right now, we have a nation that allows, in streets and communities like mine, these weapons that should not exist.
Saying later that if they don't comply with these reasonable periods that they could be thrown in jail.
Folks, again, I don't do nonsense here.
I'm just quoting a very serious, credible candidate for the president who is currently a U.S.
Senator in one of the biggest states in the country, New Jersey.
Tell me again, how are all the conspiracy theories?
What conspiracy theory air quotes have we been wrong on?
The Democrats want your guns.
Swalwell, the other, the goofy guy from California, who comically is running for president, too.
He's another one that wants to take your guns and throw you in jail if you don't turn them in.
Don't worry, Joe.
They're going to give you a reasonable period to turn your firearms in.
Oh, thank you so much.
Yes.
And I say this.
No.
We didn't do anything wrong.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
We have a fundamental right to bear arms.
It's a big R God-given right to defend ourselves and our family.
We are not giving up that right.
And ladies and gentlemen, I'm telling you right now you will see civil disobedience on a mass scale if something like this is instituted.
We've already seen it in liberal states where they've instituted gun registration.
You know how many people have registered their guns?
Yeah, close to about 0% of people.
We've seen it with standard capacity magazines being outlawed.
Oh, you have to turn yours in.
You know how many people turn them in?
Approximately none.
You will see civil disobedience on this on a scale you have never seen before.
You're gonna throw people in jail?
Well, you know where I live.
My address is probably out there on the internet.
You're gonna have to come for me and others first.
Am I gonna fight you?
You gonna put us all in jail, though?
How's that gonna look?
Fools.
We're all conspiracy theorists, though.
Amazing.
All right, folks, that article, again, is in the show notes today.
Please check it out, read it, pass it along to your liberal friends and say, I thought you said you weren't coming for the guns?
What happened?
All right, thanks again for tuning in.
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