The Deep Staters Are Turning on Each Other (Ep 1095)
In this episode, I address the anti-Trump collaborators turning on each other to cover their tracks as Barr and Durham close in. I also address Trump’s latest moves in Syria along with a 2020 election update you won’t find elsewhere.
News Picks:Republicans storm the fake impeachment hearing on Capitol Hill.
The GOP has had enough of the nonsense.
This older article shows the efforts of Obama loyalist Jim Clapper to distance himself from the Papadapoulos/Mifsud scandal.
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 Dan Bongino's show.
Listen, I gotta get right to it today because we're stacked.
I told producer Joe before the show, uh, Paul and I have been squeezing the lemon today.
And everybody's like, Joe was like, uh, no, no squeezing the lemon.
Like we're crunched for time.
I was telling him how, when we did, when we were doing surveillance classes and I was an instructor in the secret service academy, Right, Joe?
I just told you this, I said, you know, squeezing the lemon means when you're following someone and you're in a rush to catch up to them, you run the yellow light.
We used to call that squeezing the lemon, and that's not good because they can usually detect you're following them.
So don't squeeze the lemon if you're ever involved in surveillance.
Welcome to the Dan Bongino Show, producer Joe.
I know!
How are you today, my good friend?
Cranking out the hits for you here at WDBS.
Yeah, cranking out the hits is right.
And as you suggested, I'm reasonably confident they were not talking about Police surveillance in that Led Zeppelin song.
No!
In the XXX rated version of the Dan Bongino Show, which doesn't exist.
Maybe we'll address that another day.
Ladies and gentlemen, an absolutely, we have a lot of fun here, loaded stack show for you today.
We're going to follow up quickly on an opening story about the end of yesterday's show, about how Brennan, Comey and Clapper, they're not necessarily buddies.
No.
Turning on each other slowly because something's happening.
And if you listen to the last two days shows, which a lot of you did, you'll sense exactly what's going on.
All right.
All right, let's get right to it.
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Ladies and gents, as I said to you yesterday, the deep staters are freaking out and panicking.
So we're going to get to that.
I've got a couple of things on Syria.
We don't do a lot of foreign policy on the show, but it's important.
I want to, it's fair.
You understand where I stand.
You've invested time in me.
I want you to know where I stand on Trump's statements yesterday about Syria.
But before we get to that, they're all freaking out.
Why?
Just to kind of quickly recap over the last few days?
Brennan, John Brennan, who has marshaled this whole effort to spy on Donald Trump, did it based on the dossier.
A dossier he did not fully inform the FBI he was aware of.
He told everybody, including the public, he didn't see the dossier until September.
John Brennan said that on tape.
You saw it on our Monday show.
We now know that to be false because in August, he's briefing people up on Capitol Hill about the dossier.
Everybody clear on that?
Why is he panicked?
Brennan's panicked because number one, he based his entire case on a fake document.
Number two, he's been telling everybody he didn't see the document until December.
And number three, the document is in fact a hoax.
Now...
I don't believe John Brennan even told the FBI about his early dealings with this dossier, the Steele dossier and the Simpson dossier.
It's the same thing.
I don't think he told the FBI that, and I think there's quite the rebellion going on.
And Johnny B. is panicked because he's not sure Christopher Steele, who was recently interviewed by Dorham, uh-oh, that Dorham may have some answers about this.
And he's afraid Christopher Steele's not going to stick to the script.
Covered that in the last few shows.
Now, if you ever needed, ever, hard and fast prima facie evidence that Brennan is in a complete meltdown about what's going to happen, let me give you, she's probably going to block me after this, but that's okay.
Always go to the Twitter account of one Natasha Bertrand at Politico, who is a stooge for the Deep Staters.
Anytime the Deep Staters want a narrative out there, they go to fake journalists like Bertrand, pretending to be media people who put out the preferred narrative of the Spygate plotters.
Check out this piece by our good friend, and by good friend I mean not good friend, Natasha Bertrand at Politico.
Trump's quest for vengeance against John Brennan.
Here we go.
You know, I don't even need to show you the rest of the year.
Folks, I'm not kidding.
Whenever you want, if you need a barometer of the level of panic on behalf of Joe's life, because I've told him this a thousand times off and on the air, he thinks it's funny because it's true.
I have nothing personal against Natasha Bertrand.
I don't know her.
Maybe she's very nice.
Professionally, she is a total train wreck.
All she does is rehash tired old conspiracy theories, doing no journalistic work ever to fact-check what they're telling her.
So Brennan clearly is feeding to her now this new narrative, which she dutifully, you know, she works for them practically, reprints.
What's the narrative, Joe?
This is personal.
This is personal.
It's nothing to do with Trump being spied on.
Trump just, it's a quest for revenge, Joe.
Now, this is probably coming from Brennan or his lackeys themselves, right, to Bertrand.
And, of course, she runs the headline.
Folks, I'm telling you, chalk this up as exhibit number one through ten in the, what I'm telling you, is true file.
Brennan is freaked out because he's about to be interviewed.
He's like, I'm not sure what I'm going to be interviewed for.
For spying on the president?
Maybe?
Kind of?
Sort of?
Yeah.
Brennan is freaked out and he's trying to get out to his media acolytes, his bootlickers, you know, his media servants, his servantry.
He's trying to get out to them a preferred narrative that this is personal and has nothing to do with his central role in marshalling the biggest political spying scandal in human history.
Yeah.
That's all that Politico headline is.
Now, why?
Why?
What's going on here?
Well, as I said, he's worried about what Christopher Steele's going to say.
He needs Steele to say two things.
Steele, in fact, wrote the dossier and it was his work.
It wasn't.
We know it was Simpson.
Simpson's wife has already indicated as much in her own Facebook post, which is going to cause him big trouble.
And again, he also needs Steele to stick to the script that he didn't communicate with the CIA or Brennan's people until December because Brennan's on tape saying that.
Big Trouble in Little China.
Remember that movie?
That was a great movie, Kurt Russell.
I love that movie.
Kim Cattrall was in that too, right?
She was the lady from the Mannequin movie.
Folks, this guy's in big trouble, but he's also in big trouble because there's some misperception out there.
And I hinted at it yesterday, but I want to show you an older piece by Deborah Hine at PJ Media to kind of prove my point here in a second.
Clapper, Comey, and Brennan are all Corrupted.
They're all, in my opinion, morally inept, awful, horrible people.
I mean that.
I really mean that.
They're just really bad people who abuse their power significantly.
But that does not mean they're all friends.
And it does not mean... That's why in... I hate to keep mentioning my book, but it's important.
I laid it out this way for a reason.
My new book, Exonerated, the opening few chapters are a timeline of the players.
And in just a few pages, it explains all the players' different motives for doing what they did in a way I promise you've never heard of before.
That's in my new book.
Check it out.
They all had different motives.
Clapper and Comey are simpatico.
They're buddies.
Comey and Brennan are not.
Because, as I explained to you yesterday, I believe Brennan misled Comey.
Misled Comey into believing that the information he was getting in August, as Brennan has already said.
Remember in that clip we played on the Monday show?
Brennan's on with Chuck Todd on MSNBC and says, we were getting information in the summer of 2016 which we pulsed against the FBI.
Folks, he's not telling Comey that that information steals information.
I believe he's telling Comey it's a separate information stream.
And when Comey connects with Steele and the FBI in November, he thinks... Joe, please tell me you're tracking this.
Yeah, I am.
He thinks it's confirmation, Comey, of what Brennan told him earlier.
It's the same information.
Why is this important?
Because in order to advance their theory that this information is true, they engage in a deep state setup using Joseph Mifsud, where they try to set up Papadopoulos in this, the Russians have Hillary's email scheme.
Mifsud is clearly working for a Western intelligence agency or in conjunction with rogue operators, feeding information to Brennan to set him up.
Now, now, now!
Now, now?
Check out this PJ Media piece.
It's an older piece by Debra Hine.
It's from January of 2018.
But, oh, is it worth your time?
And hat tip to the person who sent this to me.
You know who you are.
Obama DNI Jim Clapper.
George Papadopoulos wasn't really a name on my radar scope when I left.
Remember, follow me.
I'm Budsman Hat Joe.
I'm Budsman Hat on.
Clapper and Comey like this.
They love each other.
They idolize.
They go out to dinner.
They think the two of them are the cat's meow.
Each one thinks the other is the same thing.
They think they're wonderful.
These are the Eddie Haskells of a... Hello, Mrs. Cleaver!
They love each other!
Having din-dins over each other's houses.
Quite the bromance.
Why, Joe, do you think Clapper, Obama's Director of National Intelligence, who unquestionably has his foot in the door of just about everything that's going on at Spy Game, why do you think as he left office he would put out a statement back in 2018 A year afterwards, that he didn't know much about Papadopoulos.
Gee, let's see.
Let's think about this.
If you followed yesterday's show, right, what did I tell you?
I told you that the Mifsud operation, the Maltese professor, who's hanging out over in Italy.
Oh, convenient.
Durham and the guys were just over in Italy.
Durham and Barr, those investigating, were over in Italy and they may have heard some tapes about Mifsud and all of a sudden, Joe, the IG report's delayed.
I'll get to that in a second too.
So remember what I'm telling you, Mifsud is a Western plant.
This is an entrapment scheme and a setup.
You may say to yourself, did Comey not know that?
Well, as I said to you yesterday, according to Papadopoulos, Comey's own FBI agents were asking George Papadopoulos to wear a wire against Mifsud, which should point you in the direction That the FBI may not have known that Mifsud was trying to entrap George Papadopoulos in a rogue intelligence operation.
They may have been in the dark on this, too.
I'm not absolving them.
Don't email me.
Why are you giving- There is no pass.
The FBI screwed up.
They know no later than January this is a hoax case.
They've interviewed steel sources.
They know it's BS.
The Bureau screwed up at the highest levels.
No question.
But I'm telling you, they're all getting ready to throw Brennan under the bus.
That's that Clapper's statement.
Do you get it now?
Clapper's distancing himself from Papadopoulos.
I didn't know anything about Papadopoulos because Papadopoulos was set up by who, Joe?
Mifsud!
Who I'm telling you is a Western intelligence asset working with people in Brennan's little small group to set up Papadopoulos.
In other words, Clapper and Comey are getting ready to say, I had nothing to do with the setup.
All right.
The setup was of Papadopoulos.
Why do you think Clapper would say that?
You may say, okay, Dan, now yesterday's show and today's show, you're providing some evidence.
But it's not enough for me.
Yesterday's show, so just so we're clear again what we're talking about.
Brennan's nervous because Steele's gonna rat him out.
Right.
That they were communicating earlier than Brennan said.
Part number two, Brennan's set up of Papadopoulos that I have a little doubt him and his compadres there tried to set up Papadopoulos by using Mifsud, right?
Okay.
I have no doubt they didn't tell the FBI that Mifsud was working with him or little doubt.
All right.
I'm basing this on These data points.
The FBI asks Papadopoulos to wear a wire against Mifsud.
Folks, there's no way they would do that against their own source.
There's no way.
If Mifsud was working with the FBI on this case, they would not have asked him to wear a wire.
Second data point.
They interview Mifsud, the FBI, in January, February of 2017, and they let him go, and they never hear from him again.
Why let him go if he's a Russian asset?
Third clapper, Jim Comey's bosom buddy, all of a sudden in 2018 says, hey, I don't know anything about this Papadopoulos guy when I left.
You mean the same guy who was set up by Mifsud?
Finally, let me throw one more at you.
A little while ago, Jim Comey wrote a ridiculous, absurd, unintentionally hysterical op-ed in the Washington Post.
In that op-ed, Joe, did you notice there's only one person of all the SpyGay plotters, only one, who has ever clearly said that Mifsud is a Russian agent?
Who is that person?
Let's see.
Let's think about this.
Was it Bob Mueller?
No, no.
No, no, no.
Bob Mueller's report says Mifsud had Russian connections.
Meaningless.
Throw that in the garbage.
Doesn't mean anything.
Mueller just put that in there to make it sound suspicious.
Actually, Weitzman probably put it in there.
Did you notice in the Mueller report it never ever claims Mifsud's a Russian agent?
I thought that was the whole thing!
A Russian agent tried to get Papadopoulos Hillary's emails!
I thought that was the whole case!
But one person does very specifically say that Mifsud was a Russian agent.
Or hints at it.
Talking about Mifsud.
Jim Comey.
Why would Comey do that?
Remember what we're talking about?
Was Comey and his buddy Clapper kept in the dark by Johnny B, Johnny Bizzles, Johnny Boombots, Johnny Brennan on a rogue intelligence entrapment operation he was running with Western intelligence friends of his?
Was he kept in the dark about Mifsud and all of it?
Did Comey and Clapper for a while really believe Mifsud was a Russian agent?
Why would Comey write that in op-ed?
Because he believes it?
No, Comey doesn't have the integrity to do that.
Comey's one of the worst snakes in this whole thing.
Comey put that, Joe, and tell me if this makes sense, please.
Comey wrote that in a Washington Post op-ed to throw Brennan under the bus.
Because Comey is gonna stick to his story once it comes out.
Once it comes out how little he did to verify the dossier, he's going to come out and say, well, we didn't think we had to verify the dossier that much because we had this other information from Johnny B. saying that this Papadopoulos was working with this Russian agent.
Johnny B. told us he's not a Russian agent.
Doesn't matter.
Johnny B. is the CIA director.
He told me the dude was a Russian agent.
What do you want me to do?
You get it?
Yeah.
You think Comey's dumb?
He's sleazy.
He's a liar.
He's not stupid.
Comey's putting this into Washington Post to get it on the record that, hey, we may have done a really horrible job in not verifying the dossier we said was verified, but we had other information.
The information that Brendan said he pulsed against us in the summer of 2016.
We were told a Russian agent was reaching out to the Trump team.
We didn't know Johnny B was running a rogue Intel operation.
My bad.
So sad.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah.
Oh boy.
That's the icing on the cake of this.
Three, four day compendium of the Spygate collapse that's happening as we speak.
Now, let me put the cherry on top of the icing on the cake so this makes sense and why I'm talking about it again today.
Because as Katherine Harridge and other terrific reporters at Fox News and some others elsewhere have reported, John Durham, the U.S.
Attorney who's investigating the Spygate scandal, and William Barr, our terrific Attorney General, Apparently took a trip to Italy and came across some information about Ms.
Sood that delayed the IG report.
Conveniently got delayed after the Steele interview, too.
Now, hat tip to Margo Cleveland at The Federalist.
She posits that there's two and only two reasons the IG report was delayed.
Again, I told you what the original reason I believe was.
The Steele interview, where I'm almost positive he throws the CIA and FBI under the bus.
Almost positive.
Two reasons it's been delayed again after the Italy trip.
Either the IG report they found referred some people for criminal prosecution that they found some really nasty stuff in Italy, Joe, particularly about Mifsud.
Okay.
Or reason two, the IG report totally blew it and Barr and Dorham are out there cleaning up the mess.
There's no other reason why this would be delayed.
I'm basically telling you, strap in and get ready.
And as I said to, Paula's gonna freak out, but I said to my publisher today, honestly, there may be a book three here.
Paula's like, no, no!
You have no idea how much work these things are.
Really?
She's like, no.
She's even looking at me now.
She's disconnecting the video if he shows over.
Folks, the last show we're ever gonna do.
It just ended, I thought.
Sorry.
Done.
Oh, man.
I seriously think there may be a book three in here.
No.
That ain't the CBS eye that's looking at you right now.
Oh my gosh.
You have no idea.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right, folks.
I, I got a lot to go.
I still want to get to this serious stuff.
It's really important.
Gotcha, buddy.
This, I don't talk a lot of foreign policy, but this is a very, I mean, literally a deadly serious situation.
I want to get to that.
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Okay, we don't do a lot of foreign policy on the show, folks.
It's really not intentional, it's just so much going on domestically, I prefer to take care of domestic issues first.
But when something happens that really touches my heartstrings, and an issue I think is relevant to you, again, as Joey says, we like to get you the news in an hour.
Everything you need to know.
Everything.
One of the things that happened yesterday that's very important is Trump gave a speech, and in that speech, He was talking about the Syria-Turkey ceasefire that's now going to be permanent.
And he addressed some issues we have had over there in Syria and kind of laid out a model or a template for a Trump foreign policy.
I owe you, owe you, an explanation of how I feel.
Now, I want to say in advance, my position on foreign War, foreign military involvement, foreign interventions, does not have to be yours.
I respect and value your opinions.
My email is on the website.
Feel free to critique and lay out your own opinion.
Many of you have been in the region.
As a Secret Service agent, I traveled around the Middle East a lot.
I don't claim to have... I owe to the experience in the region that a lot of our military officers who spend a lot of time there do.
But I do, in fact, owe you an opinion on my larger ideological leanings and why I think President Trump Has this right?
And some of you may disagree, and that's okay.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Like I said, respect.
I respect what you have to say, but I may feel different than some of you.
Some I may not.
Before we do that and get to it, I want to lay out just what he said yesterday in two clips I find important.
This is the diplomatic reception room.
He gave a speech yesterday.
And in this clip first, he talks about an old principle known in diplomatic circles as realpolitik.
In other words, the world is as it is.
It's not as we want it to be.
And although that sounds obvious, like there's nothing particularly profound about that, It's not obvious.
Sometimes people talk about nation building and other things as if there's some allegiance to the principles of a republic that we have, or even some more direct democracies elsewhere that others have, when some others around the world are not ready for that or don't want that.
In other words, democracy's great, if you want it.
Let's not assume everybody around the world is ready or wants that.
Right.
So I want you to, I'm going to play cut one here, but I want you to listen to the end part of here.
First, Trump starts talking about how the open borders crowd has now become the same endless wars crowd, which is strange because they're driving refugee crises all over the world now, but he ends this Suggesting what I just said, and I'm glad to see that Trump as a business guy is finally starting to get this.
Check this out.
People pushing for these wars are often the ones demanding America open its doors to unlimited migration from war-torn regions, importing the terrorism and the threat of terrorism right to our own shores.
But not anymore.
My administration understands that Immigration security is national security.
As a candidate for president, I made clear that we needed a new approach to American foreign policy, one guided not by ideology, but by experience, history, and a realistic understanding of the world.
Amen, Mr. President.
I couldn't agree with you more on this.
Listen, folks, I'm not naive, okay?
Our soldiers in combat are the bravest men and women we have.
I mean, is there any greater sacrifice than putting your butt on the line for the safety and security of another?
I mean, it almost seems obvious, but to some it isn't.
Having said that, the use of now and I, I mean, I don't mean to, but, but Joe's now got a son in the Marine Corps.
I mean, this is real for Joe.
Like this bleeds for Joe.
Like this is like flesh and blood.
As flesh and blood as it's going to get to any human being on the planet.
I'm just telling you my family was never the same after my uncle was shot in the back in Vietnam.
Never.
Now, again, I'm not naive that we should never make a geopolitical strategic military decision because people will die.
That's not the real world either.
Right.
But engaging in all kinds of flowery talk about nation building and saving this group of people and that group of people, despite their inability to save themselves while putting other people's kids on the front lines, I'm not so sure that's the world we live in.
That may be the world you want to live in.
Folks, there's problems all over the world.
Korea.
North Korea, specifically.
Darfur.
There's issues in Indonesia and Vietnam.
There's issues all over the world.
Some more grave, some less.
Yes, democracy is a laudable goal.
But, again, why aren't we pressuring other countries to move to a full-blown republic?
What I'm trying to get at with that Trump clip there is I think we have a commander-in-chief in office who's been deeply impacted by having agreed at Dover Air Force Base endless planes of American young men and women coming back in flag-draped coffins.
Now, I'm going to play a cut at the end.
Not yet.
I got my final cut.
We're on MSNBC, of all places.
I got one more Trump cut first.
On MSNBC, of all places, that I think drives us home that President Trump is finally, as one of these guys who hasn't grown up in the political process and learned to be immune to this, I guess, is starting to ask real questions.
Like, how many more pounds of flesh for this?
Before that, this is, that MSNBC cut's good.
Yeah.
I think they were even surprised.
Yeah, you saw it.
Yeah, man.
Here's cut number two.
With Trump asking an obvious question.
This was supposed to be a short-term commitment over there.
It has turned into an endless timeline commitment in the region with our kids.
Play cut two.
And all forms of the Kurds, We have been fighting for centuries.
We have done them a great service, and we've done a great job for all of them.
And now we're getting out.
Long time.
We were supposed to be there for 30 days.
That was almost 10 years ago.
So we're there for 30 days, and now we're leaving.
It was supposed to be a very quick hit, and let's get out.
And it was a quick hit, except they stayed for almost 10 years.
Let someone else fight over this long, bloodstained sand.
Folks, I know it's going to stir a lot of controversy, and even some of my conservative friends feel differently.
Again, respect, and I mean it.
I'm not questioning your motives at all.
I'm not.
But I owe you my opinion.
You've invested time in me, and I'm not trying to avoid this topic.
I haven't been.
I only apply the Bongino rule.
I wait 24 to 72 hours to see how a situation is going to play out.
Most of the time, unless it's acute, before we comment.
There's now a ceasefire.
We'll see if it holds.
It's been made permanent.
The Turks have a long-standing beef with the Kurds.
The Kurds have a long-standing beef with both some of their Iraqi governance and some of the Turks on the other side.
The question is, if it was you in the fight, or it was one of your children, is this a fight you would be willing to forfeit your kid's life for?
If the answer is yes, then yes, he should stay in the region.
My answer is clearly, 100%, no.
I'm sorry.
Now, I teased it long enough here, but I want you to watch this MSNBC clip.
Because I think President Trump, having come into this, I believe personally affected by the families and the loss of loved ones he has to experience when he goes to Dover.
He makes these decisions.
There's only one commander-in-chief, and his name is Donald J. Trump.
Only one.
These decisions he's making are costing lives.
Some for a noble cause, some for causes he questions.
Apparently he has this one question he keeps asking a lot of military leaders and he's having a tough time getting an answer.
Check out this clip and you'll see what that question is.
When Trump first came to office and started meeting with his generals in charge of the Middle East and special operations, he asked them all that question.
How do we win?
That's something he's very fixated on, and it's the exact opposite of what we hear from Pentagon leaders when they talk about these long-term commitments to, you know, counterterrorism operations around the world.
Is that not a fair question?
You're sitting there, this plane comes in, You got parents.
I mean, you, you heard the president talk about it.
He's making it up.
Like, ah, it doesn't affect him.
He's just saying that for probably you're a jerk.
If you believe that.
So you got these, these, these flag draped coffins.
You got these parents who've lost everything ever.
It's over.
It's over.
I mean, can you imagine what it was there to even live for?
You got your kid.
You you've loved more than anything in your entire life.
There's nothing you will love.
Like your kid, your kid is dead.
They're getting taken out in a coffin with a flag you get nicely folded up.
Take the flag, give us the kid back.
He's got to stand there, and he's asking a simple question.
What's the win strategy, man?
What's the strategy?
Are we going to win?
Is there a way to win?
What are we doing?
Well, we're engaged in counter-terrorism.
Okay, well, how do we win that?
Does anybody have an answer?
I mean, I have to explain, as President of the United States, he has to explain to these parents what they died for.
How do we win?
There was a clear win and an endgame in World War II.
Candidly, there was a pretty clear win in Vietnam too, but the political will wasn't there to stay in the fight.
In an effort to drive communists out of the region.
We didn't follow through.
There was a clear win in World War II.
What's the win?
Well, we're gonna fight them there so we don't have to fight them- We're fighting them here anyway!
The fighting the mayor has not stopped the fight here!
That's not a deliverable!
It's brewing terrorism overseas.
What?
Terrorism?
Folks, you think this is going to go anywhere?
Now, because I owe you again a little more ideological kind of a bedrock while I planted and built my house on this.
I've always believed in three simple rules and they're not mine.
When it comes to war, and I'd apply them even to conflict, where your kid's skin is in the game.
Or maybe you.
You know Fox Conner is?
He's a very famous military strategist, US military.
He influenced Eisenhower heavily.
Fox Conner had his three rules of war.
I'd apply them to any conflict in general involving our personnel.
Rule number one.
Before you go to war and put your kid's skin in the game, never fight alone.
Ever.
If you have to fight alone, you're in the wrong war.
You know why?
Because if you don't have partners, those partners may turn on you later.
And you might be fighting an entirely different team than the team you walked in on.
Rule number one.
I've always admired Foxhead.
This is very simple, very elegant, and very true.
Never fight alone.
Rule number two!
Never fight for long.
Neither the political will, nor can a nation sustain endless wars.
It was one of the reasons for the collapse of the Roman Empire and great societies around the world by endless conflict.
If you're gonna fight, fight for a reason, fight with partners, fight with a clear exit strategy, and get out when it's over.
Stop changing the deliverable.
Never fight alone, and never fight for long.
But rule number three is the most important.
And regardless of where you stand on this question, and again, I appreciate your emails.
Rule number three is the most important.
Never, ever, ever go to war unless you absolutely have to.
I have not fought in a war.
Many of you have.
Those of you who have, who have been gracious and open enough to share your experiences with me, the horror of it is immeasurable.
I was very offended.
A few weeks ago, I got an email.
I was talking about Fighting, like physical fighting, grappling, and how horrible it is when you're losing in a fight.
And Brazilian jiu-jitsu, not necessarily a street fight or anything like that.
And I got a Facebook message from a guy who unbelievably said, wow, what a way to crap on our military veterans who fought in combat.
Honest to God, folks, I was perplexed.
I had no idea what he was talking about until I read further down what he thought somehow was claiming a Brazilian jiu-jitsu match is worse than war.
Um, sir, I'm sorry, but that you clearly don't listen to my show, like, ever.
It's not even, there's not even a comparison of the two.
No.
I was talking about violence.
I mean, one-on-one violence.
War, mass death, and the atrocities associated with war is pain on a human scale of 1 to 10 of a 10.6.
I only know from listening that, can I just tell you one story?
I may take a point of personal privilege on my show.
I'm not going to say his name or where I know him.
I'll just say this.
I know him from my professional work experiences.
You can probably figure out the rest.
He knows who he is and he listens to the show.
I was working with him one day.
He had been in Gulf War One.
He was a tow missile operator with the United States Marine Corps, finest warriors on earth.
This is, Paula knows this guy.
He's the toughest man I've ever met.
I'm not kidding.
And believe me, I've met some tough guy.
I'm not talking about the best, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, MMA.
I mean, mentally, the hardest human being I've ever met.
Tough to talk to sometimes.
A hard man.
And one day, in what was one of the only times I ever saw him display, candidly, any emotion at all.
He's one of my best friends, but he's not an emotional guy.
He was a TOW missile guy, and the TOW missile operators got to see a lot of action in Gulf War I. It was over quickly, but not for them.
They were there and they were taking out some of the Iraqi tanks.
And so he told me this story about them engaging an Iraqi tank and then watching what happened and men being burned alive and others fleeing in a truck to try to get away, then being hit by rounds that would shred them.
This is the hardest man ever.
You think he was sitting there talking about that with some kind of glee, how fun it was?
This ain't the freaking movies, man.
That guy was haunted by that every day.
He said he could never get out of his head how he disguised these guys who were burned alive and mowed to pieces, how he didn't know them.
They never did anything to him.
How that was the last day of their lives.
And now some kid was then gonna figure out, or never figure out, why his dad never came home.
Many of them don't take care of our dead like we do.
Probably left them there, burning corpses, never to be found.
You think they're taking dental records?
That bothered him for the rest of his life.
To those of you who fought, there's nobody on the planet, no one, I respect more than you.
For what you've had to endure on a pain scale.
There is no greater pain than having to go through that.
And I've been shaped by it ever since, by hearing the stories of others and watching my own family have to live through the pain.
They were never the same of losing one of ours.
I wasn't even alive when it happened.
I was born in 1974.
My grandmother, until the day she died, Was broken over losing her son in Vietnam.
Shapes everything folks.
Remember Fox Connor, even if you disagree.
Never fight alone, never fight for long and never ever fight unless you absolutely have to.
Alright, it's a tough topic to talk about.
We need a little little mental break.
Well, I do have some good news for the rest of the show.
I don't want to leave you on a Thursday here with.
Well, depressed, because it is a tough topic.
Finally, Shaquille O'Neal, somebody steps up and does the right thing in the international fight for freedom.
Gosh, I've been getting so disappointed.
Remember Ted Williams' show?
Ted Williams left baseball to go fight in a war.
Where are these heroes now?
Now we got this clown show, LeBron James, Colin Kaeper, whatever his face is, and others.
You know, it's unbelievable.
So finally we get... So I'm going to get to that in a second.
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Okay.
As I said to you on a lighter note, I don't want to lionize athletes or anything, but my gosh, is it time that one of these guys actually stood up in this fight for freedom in Hong Kong against Chinese oppression and tyranny?
Now, where's this come from?
You know, we had LeBron, which we covered, what, last week, Joe?
LeBron James, NBA megastar, you know, maybe the best player of his generation.
I don't think he was as good as Michael Jordan.
But LeBron, who was suggesting that the Houston Rockets GM, a guy by the name of Daryl Morley, right?
Or is it Morrey?
I'm sorry, I always say his name wrong.
But the Houston Rockets GM, Morrey, had put out a tweet suggesting his support for the fight for freedom in Hong Kong because the Chinese wanted to move an extradition treaty to be able to take people off Hong Kong back to mainland China for reasons that were probably not on the up and up.
So we have the Houston Rockets GM who stands up and sends out this tweet.
He then retracts the tweet later and, of course, gets all kinds of pressure in the NBA.
It was just a mess.
And LeBron, of course, attacks, goes after the Houston GM.
This is a supposedly woke LeBron James trying to defend, you know, all the social justice worries, but won't stand up for basic freedoms.
So here's this little piece of Shaquille O'Neal.
I believe this is on TNT.
This is Shaq.
And saying finally what I think someone needed to be, what someone needed to say.
Remember, I'm not naive here.
I get it.
There are financial arrangements.
I'll explain more when I come back, but I think this is particularly well done.
Check this out.
As American people, we do a lot of business in China and they know and understand our values and we understand their values.
And one of our best values here in America is free speech.
We're allowed to say what we want to say and we're allowed to speak up about injustices.
And that's just how it goes.
And if people don't understand that, that's something that they have to deal with.
But, you know, I just think Stuller was unfortunate for, you know, both parties.
And then you got people speaking when they don't know what they're talking about.
But Daryl Morey was right.
Whenever you see something wrong going on anywhere in the world, you should have the right to say, that's not right.
And that's what he did.
And but again, you know, when it comes to business, sometimes you have to tiptoe around things.
But again, they understand our values.
We understand our values in here.
We have the right to speak, especially with the social media.
We're going to say whatever we want to say when we want to say it.
Good for you.
Yeah, man.
Yes.
I always knew I liked this guy.
It's not hard.
Folks, I get it.
I am not not just like I'm not naive about The necessity sometimes of conflict and violence.
War.
I get it.
I'm not a kid.
I'm not naive.
But I do have reasons for believing what I believe.
I'm not naive about this either.
There are people in the United States who've worked their entire lives and had to generate business with some people in countries, folks who are not on the up and up.
What are we going to do?
Stop all economic activity worldwide because every country on earth has an issue we don't agree with?
I get it.
I get the NBA's in a tough spot.
But when you're in a tough spot, there are certain lodestars we should never take our eyes off of.
And we should always, always stand up for basic principles of freedom and liberty.
Always.
But I don't mind what Shaq said.
Shaq's very clear.
I get it, there are some financial things here, but they need to respect our values like we respect theirs.
When the people in mass or in China are ready for something different, There will be some kind of a political revolt that's happened throughout human history.
It's happening in Hong Kong right now.
When they're ready for freedom, we should be there to back them up and stand up for that.
I get it they're a financial... I'm not suggesting the NBA and every company all over the planet Earth has to pull out from China.
But what Jack said is fair enough.
If we're gonna respect that they have a system that at least some, obviously not all, Bizarrely thinks work for this, the world's largest surveillance state.
I don't know how it keeps going.
They have to respect ours, too.
That's all LeBron had to say.
Instead, what does he do?
He attacks the messenger in one of the more cowardly statements I've ever seen from a sports figure.
Nice job, Shaq.
Yeah, man.
I'm serious.
I appreciate that.
Finally said what he knew.
Again, I'm not asking anybody to be naive here.
Every single business on planet Earth needs to pull out of China tomorrow.
It's not even economically possible.
We can recognize that.
But the Chinese need to respect the fact that we're a free country, and if we want to fight for freedom and stand for people that are fighting for freedom, we're damn well gonna do it.
And we'll tweet about it, and we'll talk about it, and we'll stand up when we need to stand up.
And you can sit down.
Good job.
By the way, I'm sure the NBA was cringing when he said that.
Can't say that, Shaq.
Nike's probably losing their minds over that one.
All right.
This is an important story.
I wanted to get to this.
I was going to get to it yesterday, but such a stacked show.
I haven't done any election 2020 stuff in a while.
It's been like a week or so, but this is a really, really good piece.
It was a Wall Street Journal piece on some good news, bad news for the 2020 election.
I liked it.
Listen, when I say election 2022, I only will address, I promise you have my word, articles that I believe bring something to the debate you're not going to hear everywhere else.
This piece is interesting.
William Galston, the opening in the American voter's mind.
Nearly one third say their presidential vote will depend on the Democratic nominee.
There are two key takeaways from this piece.
So what he's saying, number one, is right now, everybody take a chill pill on the polls on Trump.
You know, poll, Trump's gonna lose by 101.
That's not even possible.
Whatevs!
Everybody, T.O., please time out.
Here's finally a reasonable study by some people who've done some homework.
On a number of voters who are in the, what I'll call, put up a screenshot one from the piece, please.
What I'll call the, it depends vote.
In other words, they may support Trump, but it depends who he's running against.
Listen to this from the piece, this is important.
Among registered voters, 29% say they'll support Donald Trump no matter who the Democratic candidate turns out to be.
So Trump has 30 basically in the bag, Joe.
Right.
40% say they will support the Democrat no matter what.
So the Dems have 40% in the bag.
You may say, uh-oh, it sounds like big trouble.
Eh, time out.
There's a hook to this.
But another 29% say their vote will depend on which candidate the Democrats select.
Among likely voters, the quote, it depends group makes up 24% of the electorate, compared with 43% who are committed to the Democrat nominee and 31% who are committed to Trump, to Mr. Trump.
Now, why is that important?
You may say, Dan, sounds like Trump's in real trouble.
40% of people are committed to the Democrat, no matter who it is, and only 30% for Trump.
And yet the other 30% are saying, it depends who the nominee is.
Well, that's not so much trouble, folks.
It says that there are people who are doing their due diligence and waiting to see what actually happens.
There's nothing wrong with that.
And folks, remember, over time, as long as the economy stays generally strong, generally strong, I love what the Republicans are doing.
This is just so great.
I'll get to that in a second, too.
Eventually those voters will come home and vote their pocketbooks.
Remember, Reagan was down something like 8 to 10 points to Jimmy Carter before he wound up smoking them in the general election.
And Reagan was also showing some weakness with Mondale as well until he won 49 out of 50 states.
So what I'm suggesting to you is don't necessarily panic.
But now you may be saying, well, Dan, that still doesn't get us past the 40% are going to vote for the Democrat and only 30% for Trump locked in.
Well, if it was a popular vote election, maybe.
Check out takeaway number two from this piece, which is very good analysis here.
So the first takeaway is a lot of these voters are just it-depends people.
So everybody stand fast and take it easy.
We don't know who the nominee is.
Time out.
Takeaway number two, quote from the piece, William Galston.
Because Democrats have more wasted votes in solidly blue states than Republicans do in comparable red states, they need more than a plurality of the popular vote to prevail, as they learned in 2016.
Barack Obama's 51% majority and 4-point-plus popular vote edge gave him a comfortable electoral college victory in 2012.
Folks, what does that mean?
You may have 40% of people who think that the Democrat nominee is their guy or woman no matter what, and only 30% for Trump.
But folks, remember, the Democrat nominee is gonna win in states like California with probably 60% of the vote, probably the same in Illinois, and close to the same in New York and Massachusetts and Maryland as well.
Right.
That's not gonna be the case in red, purple-y states.
If Trump wins Arizona, if we can pull one out in Colorado, if he wins Minnesota and Michigan again, He's gonna win probably by a small margin, like he did in Pennsylvania and other places.
Meaning the Democrats can rack up all the popular votes they want in New York and California.
The president's not running for governor of New York and California.
He's running to be the national president.
So what they're saying is even though 40% are locked in for the Democrat nominee, if these It Depends voters flip and come back to Trump if the economy stays strong, That's not anywhere close to the margin they need.
That 40%?
Anywhere close to the margin they need.
Even if they flip a certain percentage of the It Depends voters to win the electoral college.
You may win the popular vote again, but it ain't a popular vote election, folks.
It's not about the number of runs in a seven-game series.
It's who wins four games first.
Right.
That's the rules.
Don't like it?
Too bad.
Move somewhere else where they have a direct democracy and two wolves and a sheep voting for what's for dinner.
That ain't here.
I was just looking at the Fox News coverage of this yesterday with the Republicans.
Good job, by the way, storming the hearing, the fake impeachment hearing.
I have a piece up at the Daily Caller in my show notes about it.
Great job.
They're having this fake impeachment hearing.
They tried to close out Republicans, so the Republicans stormed the room.
Good for you!
Thankfully.
Cajones.
We love that.
Nice work.
Let's see more of that.
All right, folks.
Thanks again.
Really appreciate it.
Please pick up my new book, Exonerated, where I talk about all these players and their motivations, as I discussed in the beginning.
And please subscribe to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Bongino.
