Tucker Carlson destroyed this Republican Governor last night for caving to the liberal pressure mob. The video is priceless.
In this episode, I discuss the clip. I also address the growing problem of cowardly corporations selling out conservatives.
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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.
Yeah, Tucker Carlson did it again.
I still don't know why these Republican governors, when they do so many not-so-Republicany Republican-y, is that a word?
Republican-y things go on Tucker's show to get absolutely wrecked.
I don't get it.
But it just reminds me of something I told you a week ago with the Christy Noem Tucker Carlson interview, how that started, that whole thing there.
How Donald Trump changed everything.
How GOP voters right now, after the Trump era, are not going to accept second best anymore.
And we've got our new motto.
Our new motto should be this.
Here, I'm going to pitch this going forward.
Tell me what you think, everyone.
Get ready.
Throw it on a bumper sticker.
No more excuses.
We're tired of your excuses.
Tired, done, finished, not interested.
If you're a Republican and a conservative, shocker, you should do Republican-y, conservative-y type things.
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Welcome to the Dan Bongino Show.
Let's get right to it.
I got that.
Four clips from the Tucker interview last night, Asa Hutchinson, a so-called Republican governor of Arkansas, running for the hills after that one.
And I want to ask a question during the show today.
Should we question everything regarding our almost reflexive response to defend corporations as conservatives?
Because they are most certainly not defending us.
The heck is in my eye there?
All right.
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All right, Joe, let's go.
All right.
Okay.
Joe's very excited.
Yeah.
Putting on the cord here.
Gotta fix that.
I was a little stoked yesterday.
Maybe a little wired up for yesterday's show.
You saw the, I got a little excited talking about the topic, but I'm also excited talking about today's try to be a little calmer with today's show.
So Tucker Carlson is really changing the game when it comes to holding conservatives and alleged conservatives and Republicans to account.
As I said, our new bumper sticker going forward after the Trump era, or maybe in the middle of the Trump era, we'll see what he does in 24, 2024 should be this.
No more excuses.
The corporate, corporatist, bootlicking, moderate wing of the GOP that sells out to the left on everything and constantly is apologizing for not doing Republican things?
We're done with that.
You understand that era has to end.
If we are going to pledge allegiance to liberty and freedom and conservative values in the America we love, that respects and honors those things, then you damn well, if you're gonna seize that banner and run on it, I'm a Republican, you damn well better start doing Republican things.
What do I mean?
Well, Asa Hutchinson, who claims to be a Republican, is the governor of Arkansas, decided it would be a good idea to go on the Tucker Carlson show last night and explain why he vetoed a bill, a veto bill that would have basically prevented the chemical castration of children.
Like, Dan, did you say that right?
Well, here's the Daily Mail.
Longest headline, is that right?
Daily Mail, the headline.
You don't have to read the story.
The whole story is in the headline.
Daily Mail.
This will be in my newsletter today if you want to read it.
Bongino.com slash newsletter.
Kids can't drink beer, but they can be chemically castrated?
Tucker Carlson rips into Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson for vetoing a bill to ban hormone treatments for transgender children.
Megan Sheets, DailyMail.com.
So here's how it went down last night.
Where alleged Republican governor of Arkansas Asa Hutchinson went on the Tucker show to explain why he doesn't, uh, why, I don't know why he thinks the chemical castration of children is a good idea.
I don't know.
I, I, I, I can't figure that out.
You're an adult.
You do you.
Okay.
I am a libertarian in that respect.
You do you.
The things and the reasons we don't allow, even as limited government conservatives, we don't allow children to do some things we allow adults to do is because they're children.
They haven't yet developed a lot of the critical thinking skills to make responsible decisions even the most ardent, I believe, of libertarians would agree with.
We don't allow children to drive cars.
Why?
Why don't we do that?
I'm a libertarian!
I'm not making fun of libertarians.
I'm just saying.
This is what the fake libertarians and fake conservatives like Asa Hutchinson say.
I'm a limited government guy.
Well, should kids drive cars?
That could be dangerous.
Well, why is it dangerous?
Because kids don't have the judgment, the skills, or the physical abilities to drive a car that could hurt someone.
So here's how it went down last night.
Here's the opening clip.
Tucker Carlson versus Asa Hutchinson.
Tucker setting up the problem first.
Check out clip one.
Well, the legislature in Arkansas recently passed a bill that would ban doctors from prescribing so-called puberty blockers, heavy-duty hormones, to children who believe they're transgender.
The law also bans surgeons from physical castration of children.
But the governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, vetoed that bill on Monday.
Legislatures in Arkansas just voted to override that veto, which brings us to where we are right now.
Sure does!
Now, his veto was overridden, but it makes you wonder why a governor claiming to be a Republican in a relatively conservative state would veto a bill.
That would impose upon children or allow the decision to be made to permanently alter the lives of children before they've been through their formative years and can think critically like adults would.
Why would a Republican governor veto that?
Was there some corporate pressure?
Are you just a sellout?
Did you want to...
Gain the loyalty and love of the fawning editorialists in the op-ed section of the Washington Post and the New York Times?
Why did you genuflect and kiss the collective arse of the left in a red state and veto this bill?
What was the explanation?
Well, let's hear it from Asa himself.
Asa Hutchinson, who unbelievably invokes Ronald Reagan in this.
I don't remember where Ronald Reagan supported the chemical castration of children at an early age.
I don't recall that.
Anyone else recall that one on the show?
Anyone?
I hear silence on that.
Here's Asa Hutchinson's response when Tucker asks him, hey, why did you veto this bill?
Seems kind of strange.
Check this out.
This, again, is the first law in the nation that invokes the state between medical decisions,
parents who consent to that, and the decision of the patient.
And so this goes way too far.
And in fact, it doesn't even have a grandfather clause that those young people that are under
hormonal treatments, they have to be cut off from.
If I could just correct you for a second.
This is chemical castration, of course, if you stop puberty and suppress the sex hormones,
you're chemically castrating someone.
So our description was correct.
But let me just ask you, I mean, there are all kinds of, we're talking about minors,
children here, and there are all kinds of things in Arkansas kids in every state are
not allowed to do.
Get married, drink a beer, get a tattoo.
Why do you think it's important for conservatives to make certain that children
can block their puberty, be chemically castrated.
Why is that a conservative value, if you would tell us?
Well, first of all, you have parents involved in very difficult decisions, you have physicians that are involved in these decisions, and I go back to William Buckley, I go back to Ronald Reagan, the principles of our party, which believes in a limited role of government.
Are we, as a party, abandoning a limited role of government?
I, again, I don't know Asa Hutchinson.
I've never met him.
It's not personal.
I don't intend it to be.
And you know I can't stand Republican on Republican on necessary fights, but this is a necessary fight.
There's a lot of feedback on the Kristi Noem thing.
I gave her the chance to defend herself.
I'll extend the same invite to Asa Hutchinson's team if they'd like to come on and a respectful back and forth.
I'm happy to do it.
But invoking Ronald Reagan and limited government in this is one of the most absurd defenses of a veto of a bill which will alter a child's body for the rest of their lives despite a widely acknowledged fact that children are not yet done with their formative mental or physical years.
And invoking Ronald Reagan to defend that veto is one of the most insane things I have ever heard in my life.
We support limited government.
Limited government.
Not zero government.
I am not an anarchist.
I'm not.
You may be.
Again, you do you.
That's fine.
Everybody with all kinds of views, you're welcome on my show.
Communists, anarchists, liberals, conservatives, you want to listen?
Listen away.
I am not an anarchist.
I believe the role of government is defined explicitly in our Constitution.
It should be limited.
But clearly, we should have some role in defending the big R God-given rights of those who can't defend themselves and children, again, in their formative years.
Not fully developed, either psychologically or physically, should not be making decisions or have adults make decisions for them that will transform them for the rest of their lives.
Is this hard to figure out?
This isn't one of those, and I know the left, oh my gosh, you're a phobophobic, it's the phobic phobophobia.
I don't care.
That stuff is just garbage, distractionary nonsense.
You're an adult.
You do you.
You are uncomfortable with, you feel like how you were born.
You're free to make adult decisions.
We're not talking about adults here.
We're talking about children, kids, kids, And an allegedly Republican governor doing a series, again, and we're seeing this more often than not now, of non-Republican-y type things.
Here's another one.
Tucker Carlson, right before this segment here, asks Governor Hutchinson, hey, have you reviewed any studies on this?
Because this seems kind of important.
Is there any evidence that this hormonal treatment, which will alter kids' bodies forever, During puberty or pre-puberty, do you have any medical research whatsoever backing up that this actually has some kind of productive effect on the development of these children?
An important question, you would think!
Check out the response.
Well, I actually reviewed some of that study.
I reviewed the high court decision there, and I think they are different than what you're talking about here.
Sure, there's a lot of unknowns here.
I studied this bill in contrast to what you just said.
I spent a lot of time reviewing cases, meeting with people, listening to the experts, as well as to faith leaders as well.
And I'm a person of faith, but at the same time, I'm a person of limited role of government.
I signed pro-life bills.
I signed many bills that would be looked at as very conservative, but this is one that crosses the line.
There's no need for it.
Hold on, hold on.
I'm sorry, but hold on.
You said there's no need for it, but you just said, you've said that you've seen research that shows The mental health of children who receive puberty-blocking drugs improves?
What is that research exactly?
Well, the research that I've seen shows that these troubled youth, these ones that have gender dysphoria, that they also have depression.
They have suicidal tendencies.
It's a higher suicide rate than others.
And they go to their parents.
The parents go to doctors and they try to deal with this very difficult issue.
I don't think we should deny them health care.
Hold on.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, you're the governor.
You just vetoed this bill.
You said you're familiar with the studies.
No one disputes that children who are asking for puberty-blocking drugs have been recommended by their parents or doctors may be depressed.
That seems very likely.
I think the studies show it.
Cite one specific study that shows puberty-blocking drugs improves the condition.
Does it make children less depressed?
Does it make them less likely to harm themselves to commit suicide?
Just name one study that shows that, please.
Of course he doesn't.
He goes on to cite the AMA, but doesn't cite any kind of a study.
And it's weird because when Tucker asked him about the studies in the beginning, he says, quote, there's a lot of uncertainty and then goes on to cite studies that these children who were involved in this particular procedure have all types of psychological comorbidities, depression, heightened rates of suicide, which is not a comorbidity, it's an act.
So I don't understand.
What are you saying?
You don't have any actual data.
You just said there's a lot of uncertainty.
So if there's a lot of uncertainty, I'm going to guess as a limited government guy, that we inject the government to protect the rights of these kids until they're adults and can make adult decisions like free liberty loving adults.
And if after they're adults through their formative years, they can figure out on their own, That they want to, they, they, whatever they want to do, they want to take hormones.
Let them do it.
But maybe if there's a lot of uncertainty surrounding kids, maybe we should take a step back and prevent people from permanently altering these children's lives in the future via hormonal manipulations in their formative years.
What's, what's, what's, what's strange about that ask?
Why are you so eager to allow medical professionals and others to intervene in the developmental years of children, despite the fact that Asa Hutchinson himself acknowledges, well, there's a lot of uncertainty.
Yeah, I wouldn't want to screw that one up.
Maybe if there's uncertainty, we should all take a step back.
You think?
In my humble opinion, and I think in Tucker's too, Here's the real reason Asa Hutchinson, the governor of Arkansas, may have been influenced to veto this bill to permanently alter the lives of children through hormonal manipulations in their formative years.
Tucker asks a critical question here.
There have been some corporate leaders—oh, we'll get into corporations in a minute.
Corporations, America, freedom, all that other stuff.
Yeah, they're not the same.
We used to associate corporations with capitalism, economic freedom.
Now, corporations are all in on the new America, and it's not an America you're gonna like.
Tucker asks him this question here.
Check this one out.
This field barely existed 10 years ago.
Cases of gender dysphoria, so-called, have increased by thousands of percent in the last decade.
So actually, we can't know the answers to these questions.
The research that we have suggests the opposite of what you're claiming.
You clearly aren't familiar with the research.
And so my question is, have you spoken to any of the biggest employers, the big companies in Arkansas, about this?
Have you taken any calls from Tysons, from Dillard?
From Walmart.
Has anyone from those companies called you about this bill?
Uh, no.
But Tucker, you're saying, first of all, there's no studies.
You haven't spoken to one corporate interest.
No, no, no.
There is not a single study that I'm aware of that shows an improvement in the mental health of children who take puberty blockers, who are chemically castrated.
And you couldn't cite one.
You're not familiar with the research.
You were told by doctors that it's a good idea and you went with it.
But I just want to clarify very quickly.
Have you, and I just want to be clear on this, have you spoken to any corporate interest in the state of Arkansas about this bill?
Tucker, I answered that.
I answered that question, and I said, no, I have not.
Do you have another question?
I'm skeptical, because we've certainly seen across the... Let me just say, Governor, with respect, I'm skeptical.
Well, you can color me skeptical, too, on that one.
Not calling the man a liar, because I don't do that without evidence, but let's just say I'm skeptical.
Very skeptical.
I remember a few good men I object.
No, I strenuously object.
I'm strenuously skeptical.
He hasn't spoken at any corporate interest.
So he just decided on his own to veto a bill.
As a Republican that would do Republican things like protect the liberty of children to live and grow while their formative years are happening and then make decisions as adults.
Kind of weird, no?
Folks, listen.
I don't like talking a lot about my prior line of work because I think it's, you know, hey, look at me.
I used to be a Secret Service guy.
It gets annoying and I totally get that, but I think it's important here.
Because it defines where we are as a Republican movement right now.
You know, cutesy time is over.
You know, cutesy time when Things are going well and we accept rhinos once in a while because, ah, well, they're with us most of the time.
And then we'd have to go out and primary them.
And you know, primaries cost money and we'd have to knock on doors and stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That, that's all.
That's all over that time.
Cutesy time is over.
All right.
You know, when I bring up my prior line of work, because it, as I was telling Guy this morning, it reminds me when You know, when I left the Secret Service Training Division, I was an instructor in the academy teaching the new students, and I went to the President's Detail.
There's a culture shock, because in training, you know, you wait for a new class to come in.
It's a relatively laid-back atmosphere.
You teach a class, you teach another class, you go sit at the desk, put together some new training materials.
It's not a particularly strenuous day.
Weekend's off.
And then you go to the President's Detail, and it is game the mmm on.
There are no weekends off.
You're working midnights.
You're working days.
And if you screw up one little bit, people could literally die and it could change the entire world.
That's not a joke.
It's not a movie.
It's not Mission Impossible 72.
That's the real world.
You go out there on the Presidential Protection Division and screw up an airport side advance and the president gets whacked.
You just changed the entire world because you're a moron.
And you didn't want to do your job.
The culture is night and day.
We're at that culture point now.
We've gone from training years and years of accepting weak Republicans at the local, federal, and state level.
Eh, it's okay.
Things are going well.
It's not too bad.
We're still a great country.
Prosperous.
We are.
Then Trump came in like a hand grenade and blew up the whole system.
We're done with that now.
Now, if you're going to be elected as a Republican, you are going to do Republican-y things.
And if you don't, thanks to people like Tucker, who again, I don't agree with on everything.
We don't share every single idea together.
And I'm not putting Tucker on a pedestal either, but good for him for calling Republican lawmakers on.
And calling them on the carpet and saying, shocker, we're expecting you to do Republican-y things.
We had a mission in the Secret Service.
A mission.
And it was all that mattered.
It was everything that mattered in the Presidential Protection Division.
Nobody cared about your race, your skin color, where you were born, if you were gay, or straight, or transgender, nobody cared.
It was one mission.
And if you didn't like that mission, then go the hell home.
And I'll never forget the first time I was over in a foreign country.
I'm not going to say where.
But I was the lead advance.
And everything was on me.
And it was a dangerous place.
Believe me.
And I was there for three weeks.
And we caught a couple guys who were friends of mine, who I respected.
But they were down at one of the pools and maybe had a drink or two, broke a bottle.
It just looked bad.
I'll never forget I had to bring him in a hotel room and said, you guys got to go home.
And you know what?
It sucked.
It was really hard because I like these guys.
They were good guys.
They screwed up.
They made a mistake.
We weren't drinking during work or anything.
It was after hours, but they screwed up.
They made us look bad.
We're over there to do a mission.
We're not there to party time.
And I said, no, you have to go home.
And the flight home was probably about 20 hours combined.
Three separate flights.
It wasn't an easy flight home.
And we had to fly in someone else.
So another 20 hours back.
And it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.
Because I had to look him in the eye and he's a friend.
They looked at me almost confused.
Like, I can't believe you're doing this.
And I had to look him in the eyes.
I can't believe I'm doing it either.
But the mission matters.
This isn't cutesy time.
People die if we screw up.
Well, the country's going to die if we screw up any further.
I'm very sorry, but it's time to stop putting these people on a pedestal and genuflecting before them.
If we are going to elect you and give you power as Republicans, in red states no less, then you damn well better do Republican things because cutesy time is over.
Or else you're coming in the hotel room with us.
We're going to sit you down and send you home too.
All right.
Speaking of holding people to account, I got another section coming up here about corporations.
Another difficult conversation we're about to have.
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All right.
So folks, getting back to the content.
Listen, like I said, cutesy time is over.
You want to play, uh, you know...
Fiddlesticks, Legos, cutesy time, you do your thing.
But there are, just like Tom, what is it?
Tom Hanks said, there's no crying in baseball in a league of their own.
You know, there's no more crying and there's no more friends in this business.
We are in the business of changing the country and the better, not love for the better, not lionizing and genuflecting before politicians because, oh my gosh, it's the governor and he's a Republican.
Yeah, but is he actually doing Republican-y things?
No, he's not.
So maybe we should get up off our knees and stand up and look them in the eye and say, not today.
I'm very sorry, but not today.
And hat tip to the Arkansas state legislature for overriding his weak veto.
Speaking of which, cutesy time's over.
This is going to be a difficult conversation.
Very difficult.
But I'm going to ask you a question.
Is it time to put a halt to our reflexive, as conservatives, our reflexive support of corporations?
It's not an easy conversation to have.
Corporations and businesses have been the bedrock of prosperity, of growth in this country.
Everything we have, from phones, to pens, to notebooks, to broken gavels I smashed up yesterday.
Cups.
Everything.
I got a cup on my desk.
Everything is made by businesses.
Trying to meet a consumer need out there.
We are the most prosperous country on earth precisely because people, people, corporations are not amorphous blobs of jello.
They are people, contrary to what leftists want you to believe, have had some entrepreneurial idea, have put their money and their livelihoods at risk, and have decided to build things.
Computers, medicines, vaccines, photos.
I was reading a great story the other day about The fight, early fight between Xerox and Kodak.
I love this story of entrepreneurial business in America.
It made us the wealthiest country on earth.
So why is this a difficult conversation, Dan?
If you're saying corporations have been intimately attached to the prosperity we live in right now in the greatest country on earth, then what's so difficult?
Because our reflexive support of corporations and capitalism as conservatives, and I will always support economic liberty, Has, I think, let corporations now take us for granted, as now corporations get on the side of everything America doesn't stand for.
What do I mean?
Let me show you some examples of how corporations in America, who I think reflexively assume Republicans will always back them up no matter what because we believe in economic liberty, have gone against everything we associate America with.
Free and fair elections, a colorblind society.
Corporations are abandoning that now.
You don't believe me?
Here's a CBS News story.
Coca-Cola, Delta, and JP Morgan lead companies in condemning Georgia's voting law.
They did?
Georgia's voting law?
You mean the law that asks for a basic set of identification documents to vote?
Why would a corporation like JP Morgan, Coca-Cola, and Delta, why would they come out against a bill that ensures free and fair elections?
And the attacks on the bill have been racist, as I said yesterday to Juan Williams on The Five, where I was co-hosting.
Have they not?
If you don't support the Georgia bill, you, and you're calling it Jim Crow, you, you are a racist.
You're not a soft racist, as I said yesterday, and I'll say again, you're a hardcore racist.
Because you're suggesting the most racist thing possible, that asking voters to produce some form of identification to vote, a standard worldwide accepted thing.
They ask for fingerprints in some Middle Eastern countries, right?
We don't even ask for that here.
We just ask for a basic ID.
If you're insisting that is an impediment to Black and Hispanic voters, you are a racist.
Period.
You are a racist.
I'm sorry that's hard for you to hear, but if your stance is voter ID is racist, you're a racist because you believe black and hispanic people, you're stereotyping a group of people, are not smart enough to find the driver's license number on their driver's license.
Ladies and gentlemen, that makes you a hardcore racist.
I can't say this enough.
I had a long conversation with someone yesterday about this on the phone, who agrees a thousand percent that it is time to take the fight to the left and their racism.
So why is Coca-Cola, Delta, and JP Morgan using racist tropes to attack this bill?
I would like someone Be a real shame if this happened at their shareholder meetings for Coca-Cola, Delta, and JP Morgan.
I would like a bold board member or a group of shareholders to stand up and get them on the record, the CEOs of these companies and the boards, why they think black people and Hispanic people in Georgia aren't smart enough to find their driver's license number.
Can someone please ask that at a board meeting?
Anyone?
Someone?
Please?
I'm begging.
They're corporations, we should support them.
No, we should support America and what makes Americans more prosperous and free in the future.
And supporting reflexively corporations that are actively supporting racist policies and the destruction of the country in the future, because we can't even have free and fair elections, is not doing anything to support a more prosperous America in the future.
Oh, that's not it.
The CBS story.
There's more.
Corporations selling America out one by one.
Here's one of the biggest clowns in the entire... I mean, on this rock we call planet Earth, there are few bigger clowns and more destructive forces than Jeff Bezos of Amazon.
Who used what could have been a great company in Amazon with good ideas to destroy small businesses.
And Bezos now supports the infrastructure bill and the corporate tax hike.
Here's the headline.
Bloomberg.
Amazon's Jeff Bezos supports the infrastructure bill and the corporate tax hike.
Because Bezos doesn't care!
Bezos is worth what?
90 billion?
100 billion?
Does it even matter?
200 billion?
It's like Brewster's millions.
Except it's Bezos's billions.
You can't even spend that kind of money.
What are you going to buy?
What are you going to buy with a billion dollars?
You're going to buy a thousand million dollar homes?
What are you going to do when you have 90 billion?
Buy 900,000?
What are you going to do?
He doesn't care!
Bezos doesn't care if you're a corporation that's small with less than 50 employees or whatever it may be and you're struggling to survive the coronavirus pandemic.
He doesn't care if your taxes go up at all!
So why should we be helping him?
Why should we do anything to help this guy?
Is there really, is there anyone in corporate America right now more dangerous to the future prosperity of America and competition and small business growth than Jeff Bezos?
I don't know.
It's just a question.
I'd love to hear the answer.
Hollywood, why are we supporting these idiots?
Here's another one, Washington Examiner, Andrew Mark Miller.
Hollywood celebrities call for boycott of Southwest Airlines if it doesn't condemn Texas voting law.
very people celebrities I've been very loosely associate the term with these
people. Hollywood celebrities call for boycott of Southwest Airlines if it
doesn't condemn Texas voting law. By the way the celebrities are the the actress
from Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 or something. Piper somebody and the lady
from Will and Grace.
So I would use that term celebrities loosely.
But again, with Hollywood, we've always reflexively supported them.
Oh, let's get the film industry to Georgia.
Let's give them tax credits.
Why?
Why?
Maybe if Republican governors stuck together now and did Republican things, and we all passed voter integrity measures for free and fair elections, and we stopped the corporate giveaways through unnecessary, specific tax carve-outs for industries, then you know what?
If these businesses want to leave, let them leave all the conservative states all at once.
Go.
See you later.
Amazon, Delta, Coca-Cola, go up to New York.
Pay the taxes.
We don't care.
We're not defending you anymore.
You want to go up in New York?
You want to go up to New York where the tax rates are through the roof?
You want to destroy the value of your company as you gotta flush it down a toilet bowl and give it to New York City and New York State and California and LA and whatever?
Go.
See you later.
We'll free up our workforce down here to do other better things and work for small and medium-sized businesses that actually care about America.
Folks, believe me, I get it.
There's going to be a lot of think tank folks who will strongly object to this show and say, Dan, economic freedom and liberty matter.
We have to support these corporations no matter what.
And ladies and gentlemen, I'm asking you to do, you know, I didn't learn a lot in business school, But I took a few great, you know, Black-Scholes was definitely worth its time.
Net present value equations, figuring out, you know, detailed complicated spreadsheets, K-1s and all that stuff.
Yeah, that was worth it.
But one of the things I learned, I always took with me was a SWOT analysis.
Not SWOT, like, it was a SWOT.
Was that the SWOT?
I'm talking about SWOT.
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.
A way to look at problems.
How to leverage strengths by taking advantage of opportunities.
How to mitigate weaknesses by mitigating threats.
All of that stuff.
I get it.
One of our strengths as a Republican movement has always been supporting economic freedom and the businesses that produce prosperity in the United States.
But I ask you, looking at it through a SWAT lens, what if that's become a weakness now?
What if our reflexive support of businesses has made some of these businesses so big they've taken our support for granted and they are now aiming to weaken the United States by attacking the very things that made us great?
Freedom, liberty, the ability to speak freely.
Some of these corporations are heavily involved in cancel culture, free and fair elections.
You're drowning out small businesses through monopolistic type anti-competitive activity.
What if those very same corporations we supported throughout the decades are now leading to behavior that is antithetical to our very existence as conservatives and our very founding ethos, conservatives, economic liberty, and freedom?
Now, you may say, well Dan, the answer's obvious.
You just made the case.
Maybe we should back away from reflexively supporting corporations.
I'll get to something in a minute that should, because one of the things about this show is I promise I'm going to make you think, because this stuff makes me think.
I'm walking through this on the air, just like you were at home.
Do we support corporations or not?
What do we do?
They're not easy answers.
I'll leave you with some at the end, but I want to get to a reason for pause in a moment to hold back and not just say, screw them, let them hit it all on their own.
Back away from these corporations.
All right.
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Okay.
So getting back to this argument, why this is a difficult conversation.
Because we know the value of American businesses.
We know the prosperity they've brought.
But again, are we at the point now where we've created monsters?
Our reflexive support, they've taken us for granted.
They've taken us for granted like the Democrats have taken minority community support for granted.
They do nothing for the minority community because they don't have to.
Large swaths of black and Hispanic voters reflexively vote Democrat.
We as Republicans reflexively vote for business because we believe business is the engine that drives American prosperity.
But do we have to step back for a minute and say, is this what's better for America?
There's an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal today by Phil Graham and Mike Salon.
They do good work.
Says Biden aims at profit and hits workers.
The 2017 corporate tax cuts triggered the blue collar wage boom.
Higher rates would reverse it.
Here's the emergency break situation, folks.
Where again, some of you may say, well, Dan, the answer is obvious.
Corporations, especially big ones.
I'm not talking about medium sized and small corporations.
You know, not just mom and pop operations, but there are medium sized corporations all the time.
I mean, some of them advertised on the show.
They obviously want to be here and talk to you.
I'm talking about the Amazons of the world who are now clearly using their corporate power to do things that, as conservatives, we don't believe are benefiting the country.
But if we allow Democrats to hike the corporate tax and say, ah, screw these corporations, let them fend for themselves, well, ladies and gentlemen, it's up to us to not be Democrats and to say, okay, and then what?
Democrats never say, then what, ever.
They just say stuff.
Well, our idea is racist.
Okay, then what?
What does that mean?
They don't ask any of that.
They just think in talking points.
Excuse me.
If we hike the corporate tax, here's what's going to happen.
Quote, how much of the benefit of the corporate tax rate reduction during the Trump years, by the way, went to workers?
Well, the CBO study, CBO folks, this is like the Democrats love the CBO, Congressional Budget Office.
Well, a CBO study estimated that 70% of the corporate income tax burden falls on workers.
Digest that for a second.
A 2011 study by Jensen and Mather of the American Enterprise Institute made a strong case that workers bear more than 50% of the corporate tax burden.
But the record income gains in 2019 provide the strongest evidence yet that the corporate tax is a hidden tax on workers.
Listen, I'm here to make you think because I'm here to make myself think.
I'm not here to give you easy liberal talking points.
Voter ID is racist.
Maybe it's racist you said that.
You get the point.
Because we think things through.
We're the high IQ class, not the left.
The left just focuses on emotion.
They don't critically think about anything.
So, if the reflexive response is, screw these corporations, let them figure it out on their own.
Jeff Bezos wants to pay higher taxes, let's just let the Democrats pass a corporate income tax hike.
Problem there, folks, is most of that corporate income tax Hike Burden falls on you.
Because what happens?
Ladies and gentlemen, corporations are made of people.
They're not made of Martians or space aliens.
They're not made from flying squirrels.
Corporations consist of people.
It's not just a bunch of fat cat managers.
Believe me, there's nothing more that I would like than for Jeff Bezos to personally pay the tax hike he wants.
Good, let him pay it.
Sadly, that's not what's going to happen.
What's going to happen is most of the burden of that corporate tax hike is going to fall on the workers.
Because as the business, the corporate enterprise, pays more money to the government, that is less money to distribute to pension funds in the form of dividends.
It's less money to invest back in the business to buy new equipment.
But what does that do?
How does that help the workers?
Well, better equipment makes those workers more productive.
It allows them in a car factory if they have a better assembly line that's more efficient to make more cars per hour, which makes the corporation more money, which leads to higher wages.
That's why when Donald Trump cut the corporate tax rate down to 21%, median middle class wages went through the roof.
Matter of fact, median middle class wages during 2019 alone, as pointed out in that Phil Gramm piece, went up more than the entire eight years of the Obama administration.
I'm not here to give you easy answers.
But I do owe you one.
So Dan, do we back these corporations up or not?
Do we fight against this corporate tax hike or not?
Here's my suggestion for now.
To Republicans too.
Let them fight it out on their own.
We're all going to take it on the chin if the corporate tax hike goes up.
But folks, if Jeff Bezos and the big businesses of the world, if they really want to pay higher taxes, they really want to come out against voter integrity measures and destroy free and fair elections in this country, then we're not looking at a set of good and bad options.
We're looking at a set of bad and worse options.
And I believe the worst option would be, I'm not saying we should vote for a corporate tax hike.
That's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying maybe we as Republicans, maybe we vote against it, but we sit this one out.
I'm talking to you, GOP lawmakers.
When those corporate lobbyists from Amazon and Facebook show up and start knocking on your door, and the Walton family comes calling Asa Hutchinson or whatever they may be, Maybe we should hang up and say, you know what guys?
I'm not going to vote for this corporate tax hike, but you guys can take your lobbying and all your other garbage and you can turn around.
You see, you're facing me here.
All I want to see is your rump walking away and don't let the door hit you in the rump on the way out.
Let them fight it out on their own.
See how much they like it.
They used to be able to knock on the door of these corporations and get an instant response from conservative lawmakers, eager to defend them.
Let them fight it out on their own.
See how they like it.
See what their shareholders have to say as they're paying 10, 20% more of their income to the US government to be flushed down a toilet bowl.
I would never vote for a tax hike ever in my life, ever.
If I was in office and I would never support one.
But maybe jumping on the football field and playing the game with them.
Maybe we should let them play the game by themselves down a few men.
We'll see how they like it.
All right, speaking of government people who never seem to get the story right, I'm going to get to Fauci in a minute, too.
Fauci, here he is again, moving the goalposts again.
Listen, I was more than fair to Fauci, by the way.
I laid off criticism of Fauci, had some medical expertise I don't have for a long time.
But how many times can a human being be wrong?
I mean, seriously, before you start to say, is this guy really an expert or what?
I'll get to that in a minute.
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Fauci's back!
He's back, the Fauci!
Lord Fauci returns!
So Fauci, who is consistently wrong on a lot of things, and you know, I get it, medicine is obviously An interesting enterprise to say the least.
Fact changes, facts change.
The whole idea of science is that science is refutable, right?
That you constantly challenge hypotheses with new and better hypotheses and new and better evidence, right?
The problem I have with Fauci is Fauci says things as if it's dispositive and a conclusion has been reached and then months later changes his mind on that stuff.
So, here's the first video.
Here's Fauci on MSNBC yesterday.
He's puzzled as to why Texas, which scrapped its mask mandate and opened up its businesses, despite the claims to medical panic porn folks out there that, oh my gosh, if you open your states, there's going to be mass death everywhere.
Coronavirus infections are going to go through the roof, despite the fact that Texas opened up.
And liberals, watch, watch for the visuals.
Cases went down, down, they went down.
They, you know, down.
That's the opposite of up, down.
And Fauci just can't seem to explain it.
So he moves the goalposts again.
He says, wait!
Yes, we haven't seen new infections, but they could happen later!
Check this out.
Yeah, you know, it can be confusing because you may see a lag and a delay because often you have to wait a few weeks before you see the effect of what you're doing right now.
You know, there are a lot of things that go into that.
I mean, when you say that they've had A lot of activity on the outside, like ball games.
I'm not really quite sure.
It could be they're doing things outdoors.
It's very difficult to just one-on-one compare that.
You just have to see in the long range.
I hope they continue to tick down.
If they do, that would be great.
But there's always the concern When you pull back on methods, particularly things like indoor dining and bars that are crowded, you can see a delay and then all of a sudden tick right back up.
We've been fooled before by situations where people begin to open up, nothing happens, and then all of a sudden several weeks later, things start exploding on you.
So we gotta be careful we don't prematurely judge that.
Oh, we've been fooled before, alright.
I think he missed the irony of that statement.
Now, one of the things I hope and pray, I mean that, that I deliver to you on this show, it's a lot of stress doing this show.
I mean, listen, first world problems.
I'm no winter's victim.
I'm not a snowflake, but I really do.
I stress out.
It's not about the money or any of that stuff.
Don't I stress out, Guy?
You hear me in the morning.
I stress out because I know you spend a lot of time with me every day.
And it's such a tremendous honor that for an hour every day, you've decided to spend some time with me.
And I freak out about the content because I want to make sure I'm not wasting your time ever.
But one of the things I'm most proud of on this show is I don't try to give you easy answers when there aren't none.
We just did it.
There's nothing I would like more to say to you now.
Screw it.
Vote for a corporate tax hike.
Let these corporations pay.
They want to support the destruction of America?
Let them pay more.
The answer's not that easy, folks.
Sometimes life is bad choices versus really bad choices.
Liberals don't paint the world that way.
Everything's Pollyanna-ish.
What does that have to do with this?
This is what I dislike so much about Fauci's approach to this.
He never considers the alternative.
Nothing with him is couched anymore.
Everything is an opinion that's dispositive until it's not.
Don't wear a mask.
You better wear a mask.
Businesses shouldn't open.
Well, business is open and nothing happened.
Well, something could happen later.
It's never... He doesn't seem to be skeptical of himself.
The fatal conceit, to kind of quote Hayek.
And I ask you, has he ever considered the alternative?
That yes, the idea of a lockdown sounds simple, but number one, maybe people can't lockdown because they have to do crazy things like go to the supermarket and eat.
And secondly, well, what's the cost of the lockdowns compared to the cost of the coronavirus?
Lockdowns, teen suicides, lost productivity due to education loss, jobs lost.
Has anybody ever considered that?
No, not Fauci!
He seems to be constantly on the side of continued lockdowns, despite evidence to the contrary, and despite doing what we do on this show, considering all alternatives.
That yes, maybe the coronavirus really sucks, not maybe it does, but maybe the price of the lockdowns really sucks worse!
Suicides, lost jobs, education.
Has he ever thought about that?
He's supposed to be a scientist.
Here, I'll show you again how he just takes the opposite side, seemingly, on positions all the time.
With no thought given to, maybe I should be a little more deliberate in my comments.
Here's Fauci in 2020 on the situation at the border with coronavirus.
Making some pretty conclusive comments here.
Hey, we should be worried about people crossing the border potentially infected.
Check this out.
You know, I know a lot of Canadians are watching the situation down here in the U.S.
and they're very worried about it.
And there certainly doesn't seem to be a huge appetite, for example, for reopening the border.
But I'm curious, your perspective as a medical expert, is there still a benefit in travel restrictions?
Do they serve a purpose at this point in controlling the spread of the virus?
You know, in some respects, it does.
I mean, if you have an area, a country as a whole, or an area of the country with very, very low activity, obviously there's concern about letting people in from the outside of the countries in which there's a high rate of infection.
Okay.
Fauci in 2020.
More than eager to comment on pretty common sense situation, right?
We have a pandemic.
Maybe we shouldn't let people into the country who aren't screened or maybe carrying this deadly virus into the country.
Pretty common sense, right?
Well, here's Fauci again in the Washington Post.
Paulina Vargas, Washington Post.
Fauci pushes back on GOP criticisms, calling claims bizarre.
What does he mean?
Well, whereas Fauci was more than eager to talk about the border in 2020, gave a pretty common sense answer, here's Fauci now.
Quote, I have nothing to do with the border, the White House chief medical advisor said.
Adding that he acknowledged that there's a very difficult situation at the border, and Biden administration officials are trying as best as they can to solve it.
Sounds like a political statement to me.
Lord Fauci back and forth again.
Maybe be a little more cautious and critical of yourself and your own comments, like we try to do on this show.
Maybe be a little cautious and critical of your political messiahs, like Tucker Carlson was last night with Asa Hutchinson, and not accept anything or anyone reflexively anymore unless they do the things we want, which is supporting freedom and liberty.
Republican ideas.
What I thought were American ideas.
By the way, quick border update here.
These stories will be in the newsletter.
Again, please subscribe to my newsletter.
I strongly encourage you to do it.
Bongino.com slash newsletter.
We send you out five or six of the best stories of the day you need to read.
Washington Times, here's one of them.
Exclusive.
Biden's DHS may restart the border wall construction to plug gaps.
Joe, shocker there, buddy.
Border wall.
Obstacle.
Can't walk through the wall.
But they can climb over it.
Yeah, then they need to bring a ladder.
Yeah, but they can still get over.
Of course they can.
They can blow up the wall.
Then they'd have to bring explosives.
It's an obstacle.
It's an obstacle.
It's not a permanent solution.
Walls work.
You know, I can't say this enough.
You know, simple machines, right?
The incline plane, the lever, the wheel, these things work.
Walls, they've been tested throughout time.
The pulley, you know, you're an archer, you ever see a pulley?
I have one downstairs I use to lift weights with, where I do tree choppers.
These things, Joe, tried and true.
Tried and true.
Levers, The incline, believe it or not, a screw is a form of an inclined plane.
Do you know that?
Crazy!
How these simple machines, wheels, eliminating friction through the whole round shape thing, been around since Fred Flintstone.
Walls, they work!
Obstacle!
But you gotta bring a ladder!
Exactly!
Then you gotta go buy a ladder.
Easier than having to walk straight in, right?
We don't pass You know, we don't pass laws banning street robberies and saying it'll stop every single robbery.
What's the idea of it?
The idea is there'll be a penalty and you'll put a cop on the street to hopefully stop as many as you can.
It's the same principle behind a wall.
You stop as many as you can, you're not going to stop everyone.
Biden just figured that out yesterday.
Restart the wall.
Jets.
Seriously.
We're going to bring in a little panel discussion here.
Can you imagine what these cabinet meetings look like?
I'm serious.
So they're sitting around, there's Joe, cognitively impaired, Joe Biden, he has no idea what's going on, so who knows who's running the cabinet meeting, right?
They're sitting around this table, and they're like, so we've got video, thousands of people are walking into the country every day, and they're walking through at this section of the border where there's no wall.
Joe, Guy, and these are all supposedly 130, 120 IQ people, the smartest among us, and they're sitting there like, What do we do?
What do we do?
And they're looking at it and no one wants to say it, right?
Because you don't want to be accused of being a racist by Delta or Coca-Cola or someone else in the cabinet.
You know, because that's their line for everything.
And they're sitting around and they all know, they're like, in their heads, they're thinking this, what a bunch of dipwads.
Just build a damn wall there and people won't be able to walk through.
But no one wants to say it.
So does anybody have any ideas?
They're all like, uh, Uh, hey Joe, cabinet member Joey Bagadonitz, you know, do you have an idea?
It's like, uh, uh, no, no, nothing here, boss.
Biden's like, but Kamala Harris is like, you have any ideas?
Hey, Maria Bagadonitz, do you have any ideas?
Maria's like, um, can't think of anything, Joe.
Then some brave soul finally gets up and says, hey, I've got this crazy idea.
And it leaks to the Washington times.
They're walking through the sections with no wall, and we have the materials to build the wall.
They're already sitting there.
Trump had them.
Maybe we just build the wall.
And everybody's like, he said it!
He said, I can't believe it!
And of course they all call him a racist.
He gets fired, walks outside and gets tarred and feathered outside the White House right away for stating the evidence.
Can you imagine what these meetings look like?
Come on, man!
These are supposedly the smartest people in the country, sitting in a room, wondering, what do we do?
People are walking through sections of the country where we have no border wall.
I don't know!
What do we do?
Beats me!
Golly!
What a bunch of morons.
I can't figure it out.
Do we have any gizmos in here?
Giz!
Gizmos?
We need some gizmos.
There's one.
There you go.
This is what happens when the first guy in the room speaks up and says, maybe we should finish building the border wall.
Someone goes, And then they scream racist.
All right.
All right.
Back to the serious stuff.
And one more border update.
This is important.
Here's the Washington Times, another.
You know me, I'll go on all night.
Washington Times, Stephen Dynan.
Nothing to see here.
DHS deletes the announcement of the terror suspects apprehended and arrested at the border.
Yeah, why would you want that out there?
Gotta make sure you pull that down.
You know, freedom of the press and a free country and all.
We gotta make sure we engage in Pravda-like estoppo tactics and delete any information that may negatively affect upon the Biden agenda's preferred narrative at the border.
No terrorists coming in.
We apprehended two suspected terrorists.
Delete that press release immediately!
This is it!
It's amazing how we found, you know, a thousand of the dumbest people on planet Earth to all get elected to Congress, the Senate, and work in the executive branch in the White House, and they're all in D.C.
at the same time.
It's amazing.
That's the future right now with these idiots in charge.
All right, enough of the sound machine.
All right, I have to get to these stories tomorrow.
United Airlines put out one of the dumbest tweets I've ever seen in the history of humankind.
I'll get to that tomorrow.
And Governor Abbott of Texas has a really great solution if the dreadful HR1 bill, which will destroy our elections, passes.
I'll get to that tomorrow.
Hey, thanks again for tuning in.
Again, all your phone calls.
Emails, tweets, parlor posts, and Facebook messages to your local radio stations, they are working.
We have had phenomenal interest in the new radio show getting ready to launch on May 24th.
Keep it up.
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