Liberals Can’t Get Their Stories Straight # 1014 (Ep 1014)
In this episode I address the astonishing amount of misinformation being put out by liberals, and their media pals, about the border crisis. I also address the continued misinformation campaign about the Trump economy by confused liberals. Finally, I address the media’s efforts to cover this glaring omission in the Mueller probe.
News Picks: We are now living through the longest economic recovery in American history.
The worst economic recovery in American history belongs to Barack Obama.
This is sick. The NY Times publishes a piece which will put Border Agents in danger.
ANTIFA is made up of mostly privileged white dudes.
This thread exposes Mueller’s shenanigans.
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.
Welcome to the Dan Bongino Show.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Happy Tuesday to you there, Dano.
Doing well.
By the way, dude, we missed Bobby Bonilla Day yesterday.
How is that?
For those of you who don't know, for you non-baseball fans, it is the single greatest contract in Major League history.
Bobby Bonilla, who has not played a game for the New York Mets since 2000, the year 2000, gets paid $1,000,002 a year every day.
2000 gets paid a million to a year every day yesterday on July 1st a million to a year until
2035 he negotiated the greatest deal ever you this is that this is it goes to show you how the sports professional
sports Sometimes these guys, right?
He had one year left on his contract, Bobby Bonilla, for $6 million and the Mets said, listen, we want to keep some of that money to sign a free agent, so we're going to defer these payments for the next 30 years.
They figured they'd invest the money, the Mets.
Who did they invest the money with, Joe?
Bernie Madoff!
Bernie Madoff, of course, makes off with the money.
Bobby Bonilla gets a million dollars a year every July 1st.
Happy Bobby Bonilla Day.
You may have seen it trending on Twitter, wondering what that's about.
That's the backstory.
The greatest contract ever.
Guy gets paid a million dollars a year for 30 years to not play baseball.
All right, I've got a great show for you today.
The AOC is just not only doubled but quadrupled down on just, I mean, unbelievable attacks on our law enforcement people at the border.
I'm going to show you a tweet and a response, what she's probably getting at.
None of it's cute, but it's worth your time.
Some other people calling out Bob Mueller for some of the stuff that happened yesterday.
And important, Trump.
The ultimate dealmaker.
Something happened.
He made a move.
He went right in.
He saw an opportunity.
Good for him.
Stay tuned.
Big show for you today.
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All right, let's go!
Yeah!
It was off by like half a second on that one.
Okay, getting right to it.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, you know, she tweeted out yesterday something about, hey, everybody's got a problem that I was a bartender before I was in Congress.
No, nobody has a problem with that.
I don't know what you're talking about.
All work is valuable.
Joe was a musician.
I used to clean mausoleums in a cemetery.
Have we not done shows on that, Joe?
I'm not kidding.
All work is valuable.
There's dignity in work.
I have no problem with you tending bar whatsoever.
Neither do most of my conservative friends.
Good for you, you had a job.
Nothing wrong with that.
The problem we have with you is not that you tended bars, it's that you just don't know anything and you continue to lie.
Now, I am extremely skeptical of her latest... You want to talk about a tweet that you just dropped a bomb on Twitter?
Read this thing she put out yesterday.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
I just left my first Customs and Border Patrol facility.
So she went to a CBP facility to check it out.
I see why CBP officers were being so physically and sexually threatening towards me.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a real tweet.
Officers were keeping women in cells with no water and told them to drink out of the toilets.
This was them on their good behavior in front of members of Congress.
Now, folks, I wasn't there.
But let me just tell you something, having worked as a federal agent before.
I am extremely, I mean like triaging levels of extremely, extremely times 10,000, extremely times 10 million skeptical of this story.
When I was an agent, you got a call, not even from a member of Congress, from a member of Congress's staff, and they said, I'll give you just a quick example.
We used to work treasury check cases, Joe.
Remember when, you know, you used to get treasury checks in the mail for your tax refund?
A lot of it's done electronically now.
Those checks used to get stolen all the time.
The Secret Service used to investigate that.
We hated them.
All the rookies got those cases.
They were a mess.
But they'd get stolen all the time.
I'll never forget one time, this lady, I remember her name, her initials were LL.
I'm not going to say her name.
She called her congressperson at the time and complained, the Secret Service isn't taking my case seriously.
It wasn't that we weren't taking it seriously, it's that we had a thousand of these cases in an eight-person office.
So what happened?
I get a call in from the boss, what are you doing with this case?
Nothing boss, it's case number 60 out of the way, you know, 70 cases you gave me.
Get to it right away.
What I'm trying to tell you folks is if you believe for a second that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a sitting member of Congress, was walking around a border patrol facility and border patrol agents were attempting to, what did she say, sexually threaten her?
That's weird.
Listen, if that's the case, they should be fired immediately.
No doubt.
I'm just telling you, I would be extremely, in Maslow's hierarchy of needs of extremely, this is the peak of the pyramid of extremely skeptical about this story.
I cannot imagine a US government law enforcement officer in front of a delegation of Congress Being sexually threatening towards a man.
Again, if it happened, they should be fired immediately.
It's because I don't disagree with her politically.
If this did not happen, however, and I'm very skeptical, the Border Patrol's recount of this event is that it's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Joe, who was the one being threatening and nasty towards the Border Patrol agents.
If that is in fact the case, AOC must, must issue a public apology.
Must!
Now, Does it tell you something, Joe, that his AOC filed a former complaint?
If she feels like she was physically and sexually threatened, that she put in her tweet, I'm not making that up, that's not a parody account.
If she believes that, Joe, should she not file a criminal report immediately?
I would think so.
Immediately?
Yeah.
Wouldn't you?
Joe, you have significant others in your life who are women.
If that happened to them, would you not tell them, go to the police?
You are physically and sexually threatened.
In a heartbeat.
And of course you would.
So would I. I have two daughters and a wife.
I'd be like, get to the Martin County Sheriff ASAP.
Right.
Why hasn't she filed some kind of report?
Ladies and gentlemen, and on the second line she puts in there, that the people held in the facilities who are here illegally, keep in mind ladies, that's not a justification for treating people poorly.
I'm not suggesting that's happening.
I'm simply suggesting these are people who broke the law.
They have violated U.S.
law by entering the United States illegally, not through a point of entry.
You clearly violated the law.
You are treated like everyone else who breaks the law.
When you break the law, there's not categories of criminals.
There are categories of law-breaking.
When you broke the law in the 7-5 precinct and I was a cop, everybody went to the holding cell in Rikers Island.
You're then adjudicated from there.
In the federal government, you go to the U.S.
Marshals.
You don't get to go to a different cell, excuse me, for stumbling on my words there.
You broke the law!
So David Martosko has an interesting theory about what he thinks Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was talking about.
This is a standard CBP facility.
He says, listen, I'm not sure if it's the same one she's in.
He's very clear on that.
But if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez really meant drinking from the toilet, he has a photo up here.
You can see it on YouTube.com slash Bongino for those on the audio.
It's a standard prison cell with the standard steel toilet and the water fountain is off on the top.
Not convenient, not cute, not pretty.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's a detention facility.
Right.
That's what they look like.
That's what they all look like.
You're not drinking from the toilet.
You don't have your head in a toilet drinking water.
Why would she say that?
Again, I'm not suggesting any of this is cute or pretty.
Lawbreaking isn't either.
I'm simply telling you that her statement that inmates who are being detained because they're here illegally are being forced to drink from the toilet borders on ridiculous and absurd.
Ridiculous!
But this is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
This is what she does.
Big hat tip to the Washington Free Beacon, which does some great videos.
The Washington Free Beacon put out this montage I'd like to play for you.
It's a little over a minute.
This is a montage of Democrats, Democrats and their allies, and Democrats and their media butt kissers, putting together all, this is a montage of their statements about how what's happening at the border, Joe, is not a crisis, so don't worry about it.
There's nothing to worry about anyway, because Joe, don't worry, there's not a crisis at the border.
So now AOC's tweeting, there's such a crisis people are drinking out of toilets.
That is absolutely ridiculous.
But this is the media, just a little bit ago, in this montage by the Washington Free Beacon, suggesting that don't worry, there's no crisis, there's nothing to worry about.
Which one is it, folks?
Here's the video.
He's lied so much about the realities of what he's calling a crisis.
I have never seen a crisis since maybe when you were in New Orleans talking about Katrina that was as openly understood and ignored.
Tonight the president tries to sell a crisis that the facts tell us does not exist.
This entire situation, which many have argued is a bona fide crisis at our southern border, The big scam of the whole address was that there's a crisis.
There's not a crisis.
Those were the powerful words written to describe the humanitarian crisis at the border.
She's already been out lying about a crisis on the southern border.
He's doing a much worse job than Barack Obama and he's created this crisis.
And the word crisis is what this is all about for Team Trump.
He's got to prove that there is one.
Move aside for the moment of the blame on why we are suddenly having this crisis right now.
Manufactured crisis.
Yes, I said manufactured crisis.
It's a crisis and we want to drill down on some of the numbers from this humanitarian crisis.
There is no crisis at the border.
What do you say to the folks on the left who believe that this is not doing enough to deal with the crisis at the border and can help with the deportation?
It's a good bill.
President Trump once again tried to claim there was a crisis at the border.
The fact is Migrant border crossings have been declining for nearly two decades.
But we have to grapple with the real challenges at the border and do more to reduce the number of migrants who feel they need to flee their countries in the first place.
President Trump must stop holding the American people hostage, must stop manufacturing a crisis.
We had never not said that there was a humanitarian crisis at the border.
This is hysterical!
That montage, you may be saying to yourself, wait, what do you mean?
They said it's the same exact people suggesting there's no crisis, then minutes later suggesting there is a crisis.
What is it?
The answer is it's...
Lick your finger, see where the wind is flowing.
This is the Democrats.
They cannot ever tell you the truth.
They are entirely incapable of taking a principled stand because they have no principles.
When President Trump needed money at the border to build the wall and stem the flow of people coming into the country illegally, Joe, And he needed that money, and he said we have a problem, we have a crisis.
The Democrats thought it was to their political advantage to lie to the American public and say there's nothing to worry about at the southern border, folks.
No worries here, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, right?
Then all of a sudden, when the crisis exploded into a humanitarian disaster, which it is now, overcrowded detention facilities, kids having to be detained because parents are bringing them into the country illegally on this dangerous trek, children being trafficked illegally into the country.
Now all of a sudden, the public PR battles being lost by the Democrats.
So now the Democrats have turned around and you have AOC tweeting that it's a crisis, people are drinking from toilet bowls.
What is it?
What is it?
The answer is we know what it is.
It's always been a crisis.
You have never known what it is.
You are big phonies.
Phonies.
Total, complete frauds.
Just disturbing.
How do you look yourself in the mirror as a Democrat?
How?
How do you?
I'm not kidding.
How do you look yourself in the mirror?
Us as Republicans are entirely consistent.
We have never changed our story because our story doesn't have to be changed because it's the truth.
It's bedrocked in facts and data points.
Yours are fairy tales, gaslighting narrative fairy tales made up to win your petty little political fights to decimate our southern border so you can get votes and stay in power.
It's pathetic to watch.
Pathetic.
You should be embarrassed.
Alright, I've got a lot to get to.
Hey, one correction.
Yesterday's show, thank you to people who pointed this out.
That lunatic on Twitter we pointed out who is still a lunatic, that's not a correction.
That Clymer person who seemed to try to justify the brutal attack on Andy Ngo, the minority reporter who was reporting on Antifa.
She does not work for the Hillary Clinton campaign.
It said at HRC.
I should have just clicked on the Twitter handle.
HRC, Joe.
I thought Hillary Rodham Clinton comms.
It's human.
Even worse.
Even worse, Joe.
It's the human rights campaign.
Even worse.
This is the greatest correction ever.
Oh, man.
So it's not the Hillary Clinton campaign.
The woman who is trying to justify an attack, a violent attack on a minority journalist covering Antifa, believe it or not, works for the human rights campaign.
Okay!
Huh?
I didn't know what else to say!
Okey-doke!
Sure!
The human rights campaign!
Nice job!
That human rights campaign, you've really nailed it with Charlotte Clymer.
She's doing a great job there.
That's the greatest correction ever.
One more note, too.
I forgot to mention the beginning of the show.
I will be in for Hannity tonight.
Fox News Channel, 9pm, guest hosting.
Please watch.
Thanks for the strong performance on Friday.
We had a ton of viewers, so thank you very much.
DVR if you can't watch it.
Hannity tonight, I'll be guest hosting.
Alright, moving on.
Don't have a ton to add to yesterday, but it's interesting how now this is catching on about the disaster that this Washington Post gaslighting job was yesterday.
Long and short of it is, yesterday we covered on the show how the Washington Post finally is writing a story, a detailed story, about Joseph Massoud.
You know the story, Joseph Massoud, alleged Russian agent, passed the information to Trump campaign team member George Papadopoulos.
That's the genesis of the whole Russia collusion story, as I'm gonna probably bring up tonight.
If Massoud is not a Russian agent, the Democrats' entire story about collusion, I mean, completely falls apart and becomes an entrapment scheme.
This is why the story is so dangerous.
So the Washington Post is trying to get out in front of this.
So Aaron Maté has some tweets up.
These are really good.
This is worth your time.
Aaron Maté is like, hey, If this guy, Mifsud, because the Washington Post wrote this story kind of insinuating Mifsud is a Russian agent or outing him as a double agent, right?
Equally as bad.
But Mate has this great tweet.
If this is the case, why didn't Mueller tell us this?
He writes, he had no problem citing the FBI's claim that Konstantin Kalimnik has ties to Russian intel and he did his best to suggest Mifsud was a Russian agent without directly calling him one.
Curious that this is claimed now.
And he goes on saying, given Mueller tried to suggest that Massoud and Kalimnik were Russian agents, it's hard to believe U.S.
Intel identified Massoud as a potential Russian agent, but somehow Mueller didn't tell us.
What's going on?
Maté's words, my guess, we're about to learn that Massoud is tied to Western Intel.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!
Yes, sir!
Yes, sir, we are!
Yes, sir-ee!
And this story in the Washington Post is designed to switch the narrative in advance before it breaks that Trump was set up by a Western intelligence friendly or a double agent.
And they're trying to get out in advance that he could have been a Russian agent.
Why Joe?
So all the people involved can say, Hey, look at us.
We got fooled too.
Sorry.
This Washington Post story is pathetic.
The most embarrassing piece of journalism I've ever seen.
Remember, Mueller's report, he talked about Mifsud having Russian connections.
So what the heck does that mean?
That doesn't mean anything.
Russian connections?
Joe has Russian connections.
I went to Russia.
I know people in Russia.
There's nothing illegal about knowing Russians.
The question is, were they operating as an agent of a foreign government?
I'm telling you the answer with Mifsud is no.
All right.
Interesting story yesterday in the Federalist about Antifa.
You know, Joe, what have we heard about this?
By the way, don't go anywhere.
I want to get to this Trump being the ultimate dealmaker.
So this is really important.
This guy has a knack for going in for the kill right at the opportune moment, and the media entirely misses it.
We'll get to that next, so stay tuned.
But interesting story in the Federalist about Antifa.
This is probably the greatest headline to a story I've seen in a long time.
It'll be in the show notes.
Please read it.
It's really good.
It's by David Marcus.
Show notes at Bongino.com.
Subscribe to my email list.
I'll email these stories right to you.
Headline.
Antifa is mostly made up of privileged white dudes.
Holy moly.
In radio Joe, this means stretch it out.
This means headline for the Dan Bongino Show.
Antifa is mostly made up of privileged white Jews.
I'm going to get to these mugshots in a minute.
Jerome Public Record, of course.
These are the Antifa folks who've been arrested.
We'll get to them in a second, but The reason I want to bring this story up again is to show you how you're being misled by false narrators on the left.
And the reason I do this is not just to poke fun at them, although it's very easy to do that, and I'm glad you enjoy the show and we take a comedic angle sometimes, but the show has always been designed, Joe and I, to be your commuting show home.
You can listen to or watch on your television, and the show from day one, Joe and I, our vision of it, our BHAG, our Big Hairy Audacious Goal, were to give you a bunch of facts and data, maybe be funny about it sometimes, serious about it others, but to give you the ability to debate with your leftist friends.
To win.
Maybe not win debates with your friends, but the people listening to those debates, and to change hearts and minds.
That's always been my goal.
So you may say, well how does this story fit in?
It fits in because, ladies and gentlemen, you've been told by liberals, not by sane people, By liberals.
That their whole purpose for existing is one, to coexist and to be compassionate, to fight for the underprivileged, and most importantly, Joe, to fight against the white male patriarchy which has this entrenched power.
And one of their big concerns, they call it critical theory, one of their big concerns fighting white supremacy is white supremacist violence.
So in other words, Joe, you've been told by leftists that they're there to combat violence animated by skin color.
Yes, we have.
And the primary purveyors of this violence, and a critical problem for our society, is white-driven violence.
This is, by the way, this is their nonsense.
That's right.
Okay?
I'm not suggesting there aren't white supremacists.
These imbeciles obviously sadly exist.
But I'm suggesting to you the left is telling you that this is the primary problem in society that must be combated and it's an overwhelming presence and there has to be some kind of social modification through government to fix this.
Yet look at the mugshots of all these Antifa people.
At a time when many on the list is from the piece, at a time when many on the left are rightfully concerned
about far right white violence, why do so many on the left seem so non-plus
by far left white violence?
In most cases, even refusing to acknowledge that's what Antifa is.
Folks, you don't have to be a subscriber to my YouTube, I'm telling you, everybody in the mugshot, actually I can't even tell, but about 18 out of 12 are unquestionably white!
Yeah, you're probably right.
Thank you, Joe!
You're welcome.
Now Joe, does this matter to me and you?
No!
I don't care what color you are!
Who cares?
You punch somebody in the face, go to jail!
I don't care if you're green!
Go to jail!
The point I'm trying to make is we've been told by the left that there's this outbreak of far-right white patriarchal violence, yet every time you get a mugshot of an Antifa guy, it's a white dude beating up on a conservative.
So I thought it was racially motivated.
Why are you not concerned about a bunch of white guys in Oregon beating up on a gay minority Asian journalist?
Andy Ngo, who we addressed yesterday, who was put into the hospital with a brain bleed.
Why doesn't that matter?
The answer, Joe, because this is not about racial violence with the white patriarchy or critical.
It has nothing to do with that.
It is about the left.
And what I said to you yesterday, they have no emergency brake on their ability to attack you.
Or their desire to attack you because they believe in secular, non-God-given values.
A guy, Rick, who tweets, emails me a lot.
I always appreciate feedback, positive or negative, but I felt it was an inappropriately negative comment.
You know who you are, Rick, and I don't mind you sending it to me, but he said, yesterday you commented, you had this 20-minute rant about Antifa and leftist violence, and I love that.
That was one of my favorite rants I've ever done.
Don't miss yesterday's show.
But he said you had no solutions.
I thought the solutions, ladies and gentlemen, were obvious.
Arrest these people.
Why do you think I called out the mayor of Portland and the police chief?
I thought the solution was obvious.
I may have missed that.
He's the only negative email I got.
So I love you, Rick.
Thanks for your emails.
But I think you were the only one who missed it.
The solution is not to pay attention to the color of the people in the mugshots.
It's to enforce the law regardless of the color of the people in the mugshots.
Or their ideology.
You claim to be a conservative and you want to go punch people in the face?
Go to jail.
Sorry.
No sympathy here.
You're a liberal Antifa lunatic who wants to hit people with bike chains and padlocks?
Go to jail!
Enforce the law!
The purpose of yesterday's rant was to explain to you the motivations behind these people so you understand what they're doing so you're not misled into believing this liberal movement has anything to do with compassion or some fight against a white patriarchy.
They are the white patriarchy!
Look at their mugshots!
This is nonsense!
Forget that this identity politics infatuated society is crumbling us.
Gosh, can we get back to kings just judge people by their character?
Is this really that hard?
All right, moving on.
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Okay.
Moving on.
So Trump, I've been talking about this, the ultimate dealmaker.
I'm going to get to this.
Also, I want to get to this.
This month is now we are involved in the longest recovery from a recession in modern American history.
I heard some talking points yesterday on Fox as I was listening.
Everybody's saying, we can thank Obama!
I've got some easy data points for you to debunk the nonsense argument that Obama is in any way responsible for the robust Trump recovery we've seen.
That's all garbage.
But first, this guy's the ultimate dealmaker.
Ladies and gentlemen, this deal with China we have on the table, this potential free trade deal that Trump's been talking about.
He had a meeting with President Xi.
Of China.
This guy has a knack for striking at just the right time.
Listen, what's going on in Hong Kong is very serious.
It's not meant to downplay it.
It should not be a strategic, tactical weapon in any kind of debate because they're fighting for liberty and freedom in Hong Kong.
It's a long story, but it's regarding an extradition treaty to the mainland that the people of Hong Kong have been valiantly fighting.
Basically, it will, you know, The whole one nation, two separate ruling systems will collapse.
Freedom in Hong Kong, which we should all be advocating for, will fall apart if this was passed.
They rescinded it, but now they want the woman to step down who proposed it.
But the turmoil in Hong Kong has caused significant issues over there in China.
It's caused issues that they're going to have a real problem with.
The Chinese and the heavy boot of the surveillance state they run and their socialist government, ladies and gentlemen, can't go on forever.
People, not to wax poetic here, I'm not trying to do that, but people, you're born free.
People yearn for freedom.
Nobody wants to be under the yoke of tyranny.
I think President Trump understands right now is the time to break the back of the Chinese on this trade deal.
Move in now.
They are weakened.
They are weakened by what's going on in Hong Kong.
He's making a move and the Chinese can talk all they want.
All this chatter about, we're not going to make concessions.
Trump naturally sniffs out weakness in these business deals.
I think it's a remnant of him being a New York City builder.
I've told you, all of these Queens guys I grew up with, of which Trump is one of them.
I grew up in Queens too.
Not far from where he grew up.
They have this natural chip on their shoulder, and I don't mean this is a knock towards Trump, but they learn to read people.
Guys, ladies, please, I'm telling you this, I grew up in this.
Queens kids have this knack.
They make the best cops because they can read people like that.
They have a chip on their shoulder because they're never as tough as the Brooklyn kids.
The Brooklyn kids have a natural aura of toughness around them because they're from Brooklyn.
I'm from Brooklyn.
Everybody's scared of you.
Nobody's scared of kids from Queens.
You should be.
Some of the ones I met.
But, serious, I'm not even kidding.
But the Queens kids never have the money of the Manhattan kids.
So they're not poor.
It's kind of a suburb, large portions of Queens.
But they don't have the money or the prestige of the Manhattan kids that have all the connections.
So there's a chip on their shoulder there, too.
Queens kids are always trying to prove themselves.
So they are always, always reading people.
They got this antenna going around.
They're always looking for a weakness.
Trump, I've tried to explain this, the psychology behind Trump before.
That's why Queens guys, like my brother, who was a Democrat for a long time and now is a big Trump supporter, he totally gets it.
He gets it.
My brother's a Queens kid too.
They sense weakness because they have this ability to read people because they're always misjudged.
They're never tough enough, so they got to prove themselves, but they're never prestigious and rich enough, so they got to prove themselves again.
And they read people.
Trump senses an opportunity, some weakness with Xi here, and they are moving in for this deal.
Don't be surprised if he cuts a landmark deal right as the election season's heating up and puts the Democrats on the defensive.
That's the ability of Trump, to be strategically unpredictable and move in at just the right time.
I just want to bring that up.
An interesting note.
I haven't been avoiding the China story.
It's a big one.
It's just been a really stacked news weekend.
And yesterday's show, that Antifa thing, as you can probably tell, I'm still fired up about it.
It was really on my mind.
Please listen to yesterday's opening.
It was important to me.
It means a lot.
Okay, moving on.
So as I said, we are now enmeshed in the longest recovery from a recession in modern American history at upwards of 121 months, is it?
Now, I was watching Fox yesterday and they had a couple liberals on and of course they're going to try to spin this thing as they always do.
And say, oh, well, we can thank President Obama for this.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is nonsense, okay?
I searched around for the best article out there that's short and sweet and to the point.
It's a little older.
It's from 2016.
But can I just say quickly, I think this is the benefit of being on our email list.
I'm not trying to, like, sell you on anything.
But on my email list, you're not just going to get, like, today's news.
You can get that anywhere.
You can go to Twitter.
We do a lot of homework on older stories that are now relevant again.
And one of them is this one up at Forbes from 2016 that I picked out that's very, very well done.
It is definitely worth your time.
It's by Rex Sinkefeld.
Forgive me again if I'm saying your name wrong.
Obama and the Dems' Dismal Recovery.
It's from 2016, but it's worth your time.
And it's worth your time because as this recovery goes on in the Trump administration, more and more Democrats are going to try to credit Obama.
Now, that is categorically false, ladies and gentlemen.
The Obama years, the eight years of recovery, it was actually less than that because the recession waned on into the first couple years of his presidency.
I've said this repeatedly, we have recovered, ladies and gentlemen, from every recession and depression in American history.
Fact.
The fact that we recovered under Obama is not unusual.
We did.
The economy recovered.
It was no longer a recession.
Recovery is not a... I'm not using it as a qualitative term.
I'm using it as a quantitative one.
In other words, a recession.
Negative growth, positive growth is a recovery.
It's the degree of the recovery and the degree of the recession that matters.
It's the margin that matters.
Folks, I can't explain this in strong enough terms how important this is when evaluating economics.
You always use the heat-no-heat argument, right?
In the winter and in the summer, the argument is heat or cool.
Let's say the winter.
But the argument is not heat or no heat.
Of course you need heat in the winter.
You'll freeze to death.
What's the argument, Joe?
How much?
Is 68, 69, 70, 71?
It's the degree that matters, not heat or no heat.
So saying the economy recovered under Obama and making it a yes or no is not a point.
The economy has always recovered under every president.
The real analysis is what degree did the economy recover under Obama?
A little?
A medium amount?
Or a lot?
And the answer is, a little.
Matter of fact, the littlest in American history.
Point number one from this Forbes piece.
Excellent.
Quote, the Obama recovery of the last seven years, remember this was in 2016, remains the worst in post-war American history.
Average GDP, gross domestic product growth, since the bottom of the recession in 2009, folks, was barely above 2.1% a year.
The average, ladies and gentlemen, since 1949, growth rates after a recession,
is well above 4% a year during the previous 10 expansions.
He, he was half of the average.
Not even the best.
Reagan hit 6% growth.
What is it?
6, 5, and 4 in 1984, 85, and 86.
Obama's 2% growth rate during his disastrous presidency was the worst in modern American history.
Again, we have always recovered.
That's not an argument.
We recovered under the Obama administration.
So what?
We've recovered from every recession.
The answer is, how good of a job did he do recovering?
And the answer is, the worst.
He did the worst job in modern American history.
The growth rates are now a point higher under Trump, who's still cleaning up Obama's mess.
Point number two, what did this?
You know, it doesn't do us any good to say, well, Obama's recovery stunk.
Well, why was that?
Well, the author, Rex Sinkefeld here, says, quote, I believe the root cause of the abysmal growth is the huge tax increases imposed by Obama and the Democrats in Congress since 2008.
The most harmful were the increase in the capital gains tax from, remember this, The most harmful were the increase in the capital gains tax from 15 to 20 percent.
Bring that up again later.
It's important.
The increase in the top income bracket from 35 to 39.6, and the new tax of 3.8 percent on investment income in the Affordable Care Act.
The massive increase in the regulatory burden through the ACA and Dodd-Frank bills are also crushing, but unfortunately are harder to measure.
Very simply, The author's explaining why did the Obama recovery stink to the heavens?
It stunk to the heavens because Obama hiked your taxes, took more money out of the free market economy, and put the regulatory burden of red tape crushing load of it on your back.
Very simple.
Yep.
He increased your cost of survival.
You went to work and you paid more money to the government and paid more money to regulators to get off your back.
Simple as that, folks.
Remember that capital gains point, by the way?
Because I've got another thing coming up later.
I teased on yesterday's show at the end about a little thing Trump's proposing that would make a big, big difference for your wallet.
Stay tuned.
I got one more.
More data about just how bad the Obama recovery was.
Trust me when I tell you you're going to hear more of this.
The Obama recovery, it was the worst.
It stunk.
Investment from the Forbes piece.
Weak investment is the signature feature and cause of the abysmal Obama quote recovery.
The aggregate of all investments in the United States is NDPI.
It's basically private investment, folks.
I'm not going to read the whole thing.
Relative NPDI, net private domestic investment, was 7% per year from 1960 to 2008.
7%!
That investment figure.
The average was 7-8% from 1960 to 1990 and 6.5% in the Clinton-Bush years.
For Obama, Joe, that investment figure was an astoundingly low 2% of GDP.
Two!
A third!
Ladies and gentlemen, facts don't lie, Democrats do.
These numbers are awful.
Brutal.
Investment in the economy was awful, taxes were high, the regulatory burden was crushing, and the growth rate was horrible.
Keep that Forbes piece.
Check it out.
It's in the show notes today.
It is 100% worth your time.
And why?
Again, why are we bringing this up?
Because my whole purpose to this show is to give you the mental ammunition you need to fight the good fight, because it is that fight that is going to persuade persuadables to vote for people in power that follow a liberty agenda.
What's the point of this otherwise?
I don't just come on the show to rant because it makes me feel good.
Anybody can rant.
There are shows out there where they rant, rant, here, rant.
Grace, what's the problem?
The problem is you've got to present facts and data so you can make an articulate argument to people.
You're suggesting Obama helped the economy.
How?
He had the worst recovery in modern American history.
Investment was a third of what the average has been from the 60s to the 90s.
A third of what the average was even under Clinton.
GDP growth rates were less than half of the average post-World War II.
What you're saying is not backed up or belied by any facts and data.
You're just making it up.
But liberals are very good at that, as we've seen in the past.
It's pathetic.
Okay, I told you, stay tuned for this Capitol Games.
It's an important story.
A little wonky, but worth your time.
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All right.
I'm a little feisty today.
Yes, you are.
I'm a little sweaty, I noticed.
Yeah.
It's a little hot.
What's going on there, brother?
Why don't you get your AC fixed?
Sorry if my shirt's not... What do you think of the shirt today?
Paula bought this for me.
That's cool.
I noticed it right away.
Viper.
It says Dodge Viper, folks.
For those of you who don't know, Benny, listen, are there any insiders out there?
We have a pretty big audience, thanks to you.
You all are the best.
You know we love you to death here.
Are there any insiders at Dodge who can give me a heads up?
Are they bringing the Dodge Viper back?
Because they stopped making it and I'm horrified because it's always been my dream car.
And I need to know if they're gonna... So if you have any inside info, I don't want to get you in trouble.
Don't, like, get fired from your job.
But if you can, like, slip me an email about when it may come back, I promise I won't share it on the air or anything.
I'd love to know because I would love to get my hands on a Viper.
I don't want to use one.
I'm afraid that people get in accidents with them all the time.
But Paula bought me this shirt.
She's like, you're going to love this.
I said, this is great.
I got to check this out.
Free advertising for them.
They didn't even pay as a sponsor.
Look, they get free advertising.
Who's better than them, right?
Well, they may start, you know?
Getting to my story on the Trump capital gains tax rate.
There's a rumor going around that the Trump administration, story in the Washington Times, it's in yesterday's show notes, please check it out, that the Trump administration is thinking about enacting another bold tax cut.
This story is by Dave Boyer, the Washington Times.
Trump considering cut to capital gains taxes to bolster economy.
Ladies and gentlemen, this would be huge.
We don't do class warfare nonsense here, we do economics and growth policy.
The left will tell you it's a tax cut for the rich.
Don't care who gets the tax cut.
All I care about is they're going to grow the economy, give Americans a more prosperous livelihood, quality jobs and wage increases or not.
I don't care about your class warfare nonsense.
What does this mean?
How is this going to work?
Why would it matter?
Capital gains.
The way the capital gains tax works now, Joe, is it's not indexed for inflation.
So rather than me explain it to you, the Washington Times does it really nicely.
Here's a quick example of what this would do.
Let's say, Joe, a worker, this is from the Washington Times piece, if a worker invested $5,000 a year in the stock market in the year 2000, And that investment had risen to $8,000 last year.
Current law calls for the investor to pay taxes on the entire $3,000 gain.
You tracking?
You invested $5,000 in the market in 2000.
It's now worth $8,000.
You would have to pay taxes now on that entire $3,000 gain.
Well folks, what's the problem with that?
The problem is, quote, most of the gain, about $2,100 of that, it's not a gain at all, folks.
It's due to inflation.
By taxing only the $900 real gain that wasn't caused by inflation, the investor would pay a substantially lower tax.
Nice!
Okay, gotcha.
Excellent!
Yeah!
Why should you pay taxes on money that's solely a reflection of the United States government's awful monetary policy?
You didn't make $3,000.
You made nominally $3,000.
You only made $900.
That's like saying, Joe, think about it, right?
My father, just a quick analogy, maybe it'll make more sense.
It wasn't a hard example.
I don't mean to talk down to anybody, but my father used to tell me this story about this house they owned in Long Island.
He's like, you'd never believe it.
We bought it for $30,000 and, you know, we sold it.
I forget what he sold it for.
I don't know, 300, 400, who knows?
I have no idea.
And ask him when he sold it.
But you think, wow!
Meanwhile, keep in mind, they bought the house in the 70s.
Right.
$30,000.
You made $270,000.
No, you didn't make $270,000.
If you adjust that $30,000 for today, you probably made like $20,000 on the house.
There's an inflation factor that's a result of a monetary adjustment and that amount of money being able to buy less goods over time.
Here's a good way to frame it up for you.
This is a cool one.
$30,000 in 1970 when my dad bought that house, Joe?
Yeah.
What would you say about maybe 10 cars?
You get a car for probably $3,000, right?
Decent car, year old, maybe even a new car, a Pinto?
Sounds about right, right?
$30,000 now, folks.
Could that buy you 10 cars?
Heck no, it'd buy you one.
Why?
I thought $30,000... It's inflation.
The buying power of money goes down over time due to poor monetary policy in the United States.
So paying taxes on money you didn't earn, that's just a byproduct of a nominal adjustment to our money, makes no sense!
Good for Trump!
This would be terrific!
Your pension fund's value would go through the roof!
Some people, naysayers, will say, well, not really because people will start selling stocks because now they know their tax bill will be lower.
And do what with the money, knuckleheads?
Burn it?
Take about how stupid that is.
They're going to sell their stocks because their tax bills are... Yes, and they're going to take the money to the burn pit in the backyard and light it on fire.
What are they going to do?
They're going to reinvest it in bonds, equities, other businesses.
Growing the economy, making those stocks for those companies worth more.
Stop being an economics buffoon, liberals.
Not you in my audience.
Unless you're an economics buffoon liberal listening.
I'm sorry.
But get your head out of your rectum.
That's not how this works.
I gotta sell their stocks.
And do what with it?
Hide it in their mattress?
What is wrong with you?
Good for Trump.
Okay.
I can't believe I'm going to get through all of it.
Yeah, this is important.
So yesterday, not only did I miss Bobby Bonilla Day, the greatest sports contract in American history.
I mean, Bobby Bonilla, did he get over or what?
But yesterday was also a hero of mine, his birthday.
Folks, this isn't going to be one of those long stories.
You may be saying, hero of yours?
Who are you talking about?
It's someone many of you know, some of you don't, but should know.
Thomas Sowell, Who Joe has had to listen to me extolling the virtues of forever.
It was 89 yesterday.
Thomas Sowell is one of the great thinkers of our time, a student of Milton Friedman.
Sowell is a legend.
Thomas Sowell wrote the two greatest books on conservatism, economic liberty I've ever read.
I can't encourage you in strong enough terms to read them.
One is called Vision of the Anointed.
It'll change your life.
It's an older book.
Doesn't matter.
The ideas are universal.
The other's a little more complicated, it's a bit of a slower read, it's a little more detailed, but it is another life-changer called Conflict of Visions.
Again, the two greatest books I've read about conservative economic policy, liberty, just fantastic.
Really, when I say life-changing, I mean it.
I read Vision of the Anointed over two midnights in the White House doing a secret service.
Midnights are hard, you know, when you get off.
The way it works in the White House is, without going into security details, You don't work the whole night.
You work in shifts and you take 40 minute breaks because they don't want people falling asleep.
Right.
So, you know, you don't get to fall asleep when you're on a break.
So, you know, you read a book or something to stay awake.
But it's hard to read on midnight.
These books are amazing.
So in honor of Thomas Sowell's 89th birthday, I had a few quotes here that I pulled off of Google that are just worth your time.
AEI had a nice article, by the way.
Happy 89th to Thomas Sowell, one of the greatest living economists by Mark J. Perry.
He's at Mark J. Perry on Twitter.
Quote number one from Saul.
Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.
Amen!
Brother Thomas!
Preach!
Preach it!
Socialism.
A record so horrible that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.
Quote number two.
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.
What does he mean by that?
I don't want to stab at each one, but this is important.
Hayek used to call it the fatal conceit, the pretense of knowledge.
Ladies and gentlemen, the idea that you know so much that you can organize a system to manage all the variables in a society, i.e.
communism, central planners.
Folks, Do you know how dumb you have to be to believe you're smart enough to do that?
Think about that.
Yeah.
Soul believes real knowledge is understanding your own intellectual limits.
I used the example in the past before.
If you wanted to price a baseball card and got a government bureau together of 20 baseball experts to price that baseball card, ladies and gentlemen, they would probably give you a price that initially may be reasonably close to the market price.
But over time, those two prices are going to diverge.
Why?
If these are the smartest baseball people on earth, how come they can't effectively price a baseball card and predict what people would pay for it?
Ladies and gentlemen, because they can't get into the minds of 330 million Americans who could bid on that baseball card or not.
They don't know why that baseball card might matter.
I'll give you a perfect example.
I like Glenn Davis.
Glenn Davis was a first baseman for the Astros, later on for the Mets.
I also like Don Mattingly.
Mattingly was pretty popular.
Glenn Davis was an all-star, but you know, he had a decent career.
But his baseball cards really aren't in kind of the demand I think they should be.
He was a great player.
That Glen Davis baseball card matters to me.
I may be willing to pay more for it.
How does a government bureaucrat know that?
He has no idea.
He's never met me.
He's never been to a baseball game with me and heard me say, hey, I really like Glen Davis.
It's the pretense of knowledge that government bureaucrats can in any way organize prices in a society and disperse, dispense with the knowledge, excuse me, of 330 million Americans who would bid or not bid on a product is insane.
All right, moving on, a couple more quotes because these are good, again in recognition of Thomas Sowell's birthday.
Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.
This is another Sowell favorite, how liberals, basically the whole essence of liberalism, and you'll read this in Vision of the Anointed or Conflict of Visions, is the fact that liberals are emotion-based, whereas conservatives are fact-based.
We say to ourselves when someone proposes a policy, okay, then what?
That's a soul line.
Then what?
Then what happens?
Liberals will say, propose this policy because it makes you feel good.
It's an emotion-based ideology.
Next one.
This was a Secret Service special, too.
People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.
We had a thing in the Secret Service called DBM.
If you were a DBMer, death by meeting, you were out.
Death by meeting, meaning you love to call meetings.
Why?
Because you probably just want to hear yourself talk.
People who enjoy meetings, no place running anything.
Absolutely right.
All right, just a couple more and we'll wrap it up.
Again, don't miss me on Hannity Night.
If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.
Amen, Brother Thomas.
Sadly.
Next one.
These are some of the finer ones, by the way.
Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.
The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.
And the last one, my personal favorite, the next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask them how many Republicans there are in the sociology department.
Nice work, Thomas Sowell.
Very well done.
Ladies and gentlemen, one of my ideological heroes, one of the great lines ever is, His critique of Helen O'Banion, I believe she's a Pennsylvania welfare secretary, starts talking about women on welfare and he says to her, well, why are you starting the story in the middle?
In other words, how did they get on welfare in the first place?
It's your policies that did that.
One of the great lines ever.
Really great job.
Happy birthday, Mr. Thomas Sowell.
Folks, thanks again for listening.
I really appreciate it.
Please subscribe to my YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Bongino.
Subscribe to our audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio and SoundCloud.
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Try to keep the costs, you know, really light so we can get our sponsors in here and get the show paid for.
Thanks a lot.
Appreciate your help.
I'll see you all tomorrow.
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