Live from the Patriot Awards in Hollywood Florida on Nov. 17th Dan welcomed a lot of guests. First we talk with the host of the Patriot Awards, Pete Hegseth on why this event is important and what it means to be able to do this. Then we talked with Joey Jones, who exemplifies what the Patriot Awards means, talking about his story, and why it’s important to hear the stories of these patriots. Then, we talk to Dan's dad, about the effects on a family when a member makes the ultimate sacrifice, then he pulls back the curtain on Dan's childhood. Next is Tyrus, talking about his life, wrestling, and how to make the country better. and finally we talked with Dave Rubin about the state of our politics today and why Florida is succeeding under Ron DeSantis.
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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.
Thanks for tuning in to the special Sunday podcast.
We like to feature and highlight interviews from the radio show here, but today's show is extra special.
Today, we're going to feature the interviews we did live from the Patriot Awards.
We got great feedback on it, which you can still watch on Fox Nation, by the way.
We'll get to this first one after a word from this sponsor.
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First up today we talk with the host of the Patriot Awards, my good friend Pete Hegseth, on why this event is important and what it means to be able to do it and honor these Patriots.
I'm not even going to tell you who the guest is yet, but let me ask him a question first and let me see if you can just detect by his voice.
Would you ever guest host my show if I asked?
I would love that.
You would be so awesome.
I would be beyond honored.
You got that on the record, Sabrina?
Paula?
Where's Teresa?
Teresa!
Pete said he would guest host the show.
I want that on the record, okay?
I mean, I can't even believe I'm on the list.
Are you kidding me?
Well, I just gave away who it is.
If you're watching on Fox Nation, you already know.
It's my good buddy, Pete Hegstad.
He's always kind enough to do my Fox show.
And now, because it's the Patriot Awards, which you are hosting for the fourth year in a row, Azaan, tonight.
And, you know, you get a lot of these dopey quotes.
What does it mean to you?
But with this event, really, I know as a veteran yourself, this event has really special meaning for you, doesn't it?
The same way it has meaning for you.
And I'm going to say this a little bit tonight.
When I stand on that stage, my mind always immediately goes to the guys I served with.
You know, you and I get the applause, we get the spotlight, get thanked a lot.
They very rarely get thanked, and so tonight's an opportunity to project that spotlight back toward them.
Whether it's vets, whether it's law enforcement, first responders, people who support them.
So it's my favorite assignment.
Isn't it humbling though?
Super humbling, super humbling.
I did my thing.
You were a veteran.
You did your thing.
And, you know, we both love this country so much, but you're next to these guys and these women who did these just incredibly, almost superhuman things to get these awards.
And you're like, what the hell have I done?
Did I talk for all of you?
Do you ever get that feeling?
Yes, and some are still doing it.
One of the guys you'll meet tonight, wait till you see what he's, you know, we have a disaster on our southern border, but not because of this dude.
And when you see what he does every single day, it blows your mind.
So these great patriots never get the recognition, we give it to them.
It's pretty cool to be a part of.
We're talking to Pete Hegseth, American Patriot, hosting the Patriot Awards tonight.
I'm live here with him.
He was the guest I asked first because he did it last year and he was kind enough to come on and spend some time with us.
So your thoughts, quickly, Pelosi announced today she's not going to run for leadership.
Now, Pete, you know, you're all tatted up.
Yeah.
All right.
Wait, wait.
Again, we have to do this again.
Applause for you.
Again, folks, this is not the Roots Convention.
It's the Patriot Awards.
So Nancy Pelosi is not running again.
Your thoughts?
Okay, thank you.
That's better.
So, had to do that one more time.
We needed a redo.
So, she has been a one-woman wrecking ball for liberty and freedom.
And thankfully, we got some good news.
We won back the house.
It looks like she's finished in that position.
Yes.
You know what?
I was heartened a couple hours ago watching Fox, James Comer and others holding that press conference talking about Hunter Biden and the big guy.
It was kind of the first realization I had of how important that takeover was.
The ability to have other people behind the podium with power, and it seems like they're prepared to do something about that.
Finally.
I mean, but and finally, let's hope the Pelosi era is completely done.
Maybe this is a precursor to that whole era shifting.
Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi.
Problem is what's behind it is worse.
So it's not as if we're gonna, I mean, Hakeem Jeffries or whoever else is coming after Nancy Pelosi, I mean, she was, she's a radical, we know that.
They're like real, real radical.
Yeah, AOC and Corey Bush and them don't even like her.
They don't even like her.
They don't think she's radical enough.
She's insufficient for them.
So yes, don't let the door hit you on the way out, but what's behind you is terrible, so it's a temporary pause to something that's...
I want to get to something I know ticks you off as much as it does me.
It's ballot harvesting.
But I asked Carol Markowitz and Tyrus Bode.
There's an article in the Washington Times by Mark Lotter today about this political realignment.
And he says the obvious.
It wasn't the greatest election for us.
You and I know this.
We're living.
But it wasn't horrible.
I mean, we took back the House and the big gains in New York.
And he's trying to make the point that political realignments happen slow.
California went deep blue over time.
Reagan was a governor there.
You know, New York had a three-term Republican governor.
Now it looks like it's lost.
But his point is between Hispanic voters, Asian voters, working-class voters,
Muslim voters, in Detroit, the school board rebellion, that you're probably three-quarters of the way
through a big realignment over to the Republican Party.
Your thoughts on that?
I think you're right.
I think this last election, even if it didn't go the way we had hoped, was a sanity recognition moment where the left can't hide how radical they really are all the way down to the sexual orientation of your kids, right?
And it hits people right where they're at.
Old allegiances shift over time.
You mentioned ballot harvesting.
Yeah, I'm hot on this.
I am too.
I have not heard you speak on it, so I don't know where you are on it, so I'm just going to come at you with my tape.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let me hear it.
Pete is hijacking the show, folks!
The show has been retitled The Pete Hegseth Show with guest Dan Bongino.
Okay, Pete, you can question me.
I'll be the host.
No, no, I want to know where you stand.
My thought is, obviously it should be election day, it should be voter ID, all those things.
That's what I want.
But if this is how the system's gonna be, if this is the system we got and it's legal, then we better harvest better than them.
Okay?
Everywhere we go, just bags of ballots from people.
This is my producer.
Did I not say that just yesterday?
You said exactly that.
Thank you.
I say the same thing.
Well, we're all a day behind Dan Bongino.
Give me some grace.
Remember we had the caller?
I had a caller yesterday.
I think the name was Chris, or it was a woman.
It was Chris.
And she's like, her point was the opposite.
That, listen, we shouldn't do any of this because we're sanctioning it.
I said, Chris, listen, I love you to death.
I am so with you.
Ballot harvesting sucks.
It is the biggest kick in the junk ever.
I get it.
But it's like, you go into a boxing ring, you think you're in a boxing match, right?
The ref leaves, a cage drops down, and the guy goes, by the way, it's a chainsaw match, and you go, oh no no, I want my gloves!
He's gonna cut your freaking head off!
I agree with you, if we're stuck with this junk system, at least for now, until we can change it.
We damn well better go harvest the hell out of our guys too.
Wait until we do it better than they do, and then they start yelling about voter ID.
Yeah!
I mean, look in Florida.
No, that will happen!
It did happen.
Oh, listen to this.
Here, I'm going to read this to you.
This is a quote from the New York Times.
Folks, New York Times, 2012.
It's so accurate.
When they lost the Bush v. Gore election, right, and a lot of them were mail-in votes from the military, the New York Times crapped their diapers about mail-in votes.
It's right here.
2012, Adam Liptack, error and fraud at issue as absentee voting rises.
I want to read you this last line.
They did a study of mail-in voting.
They said an overall failure rate In mail-in voting of 21%.
This is when we were winning.
So, folks, I'm telling you, Pete is right.
If we're stuck with this crap system, then we better master it, kick their asses with it, and then they'll change their mind.
Bring bags of... Every church, every gun show, every construction site.
I don't care where you are.
We're signing up people to vote, and then we're handing them, you know, here's what we think about the candidates.
Take a look.
What do you think?
Oh, you like that?
Okay, good.
All legal, all above board, can't stand it, but we're gonna do it.
There is no better way to stiff them with this thing than to make it work against them.
But yeah, her point, and I get it, is that ballot harvesting is a disaster.
Because you're right, they are just really good at it.
You know, they've got a lot of the union vote, although we're taking a lot of it.
They've got these activist groups.
And Pete, you know, you and I ran for office, so we've got some perspective on this.
You can vouch for me here.
Money is almost as positive in elections.
I mean, they just crushed us with money.
Every single Senate race, we got murdered with money.
And it matters.
I wish it didn't, but it does.
Well, it does matter, because I went into the polling place in Tennessee where we're voting in person, same day, show your ID.
And I looked around and I realized, Most of the people in here are not Fox viewers.
They're not cable news viewers.
They're not watching the 24-7 news cycle, but they're doing their civic duty to go vote because they're good Americans.
And I realize, but they've been inundated with ads.
So if you're not watching Fox or even CNN or MSNBC, you're watching your local news and you're getting six weeks of bombardment of slick ads that portray people.
That does have an impact over time when people are making decisions on candidates they otherwise know nothing about.
They don't know.
Because they're living their life and leading their family.
It's a matter of pure math, Pete.
We're talking to Pete Hegseth, host of Fox and Friends on the weekend.
You know him, you love him.
He'll be hosting the Patriot Awards tonight.
It's pure math.
So, Talkers magazine estimates this audience is 8.5 million.
My podcast is about a million two.
And my Fox show is a million five.
I get beaten on Saturday regularly by this show called Fox and Friends.
I can't stand the cast, they're just terrible.
Right.
I lose him.
I don't know what's going on.
I want him fired immediately.
It's because our 9 a.m.
guest is so good.
Oh, he's awesome.
And he's very handsome.
He's very handsome and well-spoken, too.
So you do the math.
Like, my audience alone is probably 10, 11 million people.
That's why I tell everyone on the radio show, and I know you do too, that it's not good enough for you to listen.
I love you, my audience, you are ferociously loyal to me and Pete Show, but it's not about us.
You have to go and grab 10 people and vote too, or we're never gonna win.
We just don't have the money to penetrate the market like the left does.
No, and we can't count on election day anymore, because there's any number of excuses why someone may not end up voting.
Oh, my kid's thing went a little long, or I sat in line at the grocery store too long.
Too long.
So they don't.
Or Maricopa County happens.
Or Maricopa County happens and then they go into Box 3 and they're shipped over to Phoenix and they get counted a week later.
Like, who knows?
But when you're walking up to people over a six-week period and reminding them you can vote and all you have to do is just hand it right back to me and I'll make sure it gets to the secret special place.
That beats ballots beat voters.
Because ballots are what they count.
And we have to go at ballots.
And ballots and votes are not the same thing.
I was talking about this piece that's in Conservative Treehouse.
The guy makes that point.
Ballots and votes are not the same thing.
If you master the art of harvesting, and you're going to ship out, according to the New York Times in 2012, listen to this, they shipped out 35.5 million votes in this 2012 piece.
Only 27.9 million were counted.
This is where the guy gets this 21% failure rate.
It's not the same thing.
They've mastered it.
We've got to master it too.
We do.
There's no excuse.
Do we want to win or not?
Yeah.
That's the point.
And it's a realpolitik thing, man.
I'd love the rules to be the way we want them to be, but they're sadly not right now.
They're not.
And we've got kids, man.
You've got more than me.
You've got a lot.
But we all have skin in the game.
By the way, your kids are incredibly well behaved.
Rachel's wedding.
Holy Moses.
They hung in there, they hung in there.
We would have torn that place, that was a beautiful place.
It was a beautiful place, but you know they were playing football outside.
Were they?
Yeah, with another, against some, this is kind of a funny story.
We're at a wedding, they're playing football outside at a country club, and some of the country club kids come up and they're like, oh, in their uniforms and everything, wanting to play.
Messing with the wrong kids.
And my kids, they took them down and then told them, nice fancy pants country club shirt you got there.
Were there any lawsuits involved?
No.
Okay, good.
You're okay.
You're okay.
I tell you what, I would have been playing football inside if it was me at a wedding with my brothers.
We would have torn that up.
Pete Hegseth, we'll see you tonight on Patriot Watch.
You're a good man.
Thanks a lot for coming in.
Folks, there you go.
Always a round of applause for the great Pete Hegseth, folks.
Stay tuned, I got a lot more ahead.
I'll give you the title of that article, too, about ballots versus votes if you want to read it.
We'll be right back.
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That was Pete Hegseth.
Up next, we talk to hero and patriot, Joey Jones, and a surprise special guest after that.
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Here's Joey Jones, who exemplifies what the Patriot Awards are really about, talking about his story in combat.
He lost his legs in combat for us fighting overseas and why it's important to hear the stories of these other Patriots as well.
Then we talk to my father, yes, Dad Bongino, about the effects on a family when a member makes the ultimate sacrifice.
Then he pulls back the curtain on the Dan Bongino childhood.
This is going to be interesting.
Take a listen.
All right, welcome back.
So again, the best part of being at the Patriot Awards is you get the best guests because they're here in person.
This is a real, genuine American hero.
If you're watching on Fox Nation, you're seeing him.
This is a guy I have so much respect for.
I've got limited time, so I want to get right to him.
Joey Jones.
Joey, thanks so much for spending some time with us here.
We really appreciate it.
Thanks for inviting me on.
You could literally have just about anybody you want.
You asked me to come on, so I appreciate that.
Joey, listen, Sabrina, right?
Joey is like at an open invite.
This guy, folks, gave pieces of himself.
I mean, literally, for our freedoms.
And it's always such an honor to talk to you.
So we're at the Patriot Awards.
I mean, obviously an event to you that is extra special meaning, given everything you've given to this country.
I mean, you look at some of the folks.
I mean, Fox & Friends had one of our award recipients on this morning who literally took a drunk driver head-on in her State Patrol SUV to stop that driver from hitting an on-foot race on that highway.
I mean, in her mind in that moment, she probably wasn't going to make it.
And you're talking about a hero.
That's a patriot.
That's somebody that loves their country, i.e.
their countrymen, more than themselves.
Well, Joey, I want to talk about your story for a second.
I got a few minutes with you here.
So, you know, you're in theater, you're an EOD tech, you find your function, Afghanistan, you're in Afghanistan, and you're working on... You know, you said something, you said find your function.
The reason why I said that is that the bomb techs for the Secret Service come from the military.
And at that point, we don't have a chance to do all the things we do in Afghanistan.
We literally walk through a room and we find it or we function it before the VIP comes through.
But think about that.
Wait, folks.
Think about the mission.
Find the bomb or function it while you're there.
Like, nobody asks you to do that in any other job.
Like, nobody asks you if you're pouring concrete at a bridge.
Fix it or jump in it.
Like, it doesn't work that way.
So, this happens and this goes off.
And just describe the moments where people understand the horrors of what you had to go through.
Yeah, well the first thing, you know, I don't have enough time to tell the whole story, but I'll tell you this.
A couple weeks before, I'd showed up just as a guy named Doc Wood had lost both of his legs and been taken away, and the Marines were talking about how Doc Wood was guiding them through helping him out, because he was a corpsman.
He didn't make it.
And I learned that he wasn't trying to save his life, he was trying to keep those Marines calm.
And so my thought was, if that ever happens to me, and as a bomb tech at that point it's not if but when and how bad, could I do something like that?
Could I at least not make the situation worse?
And when you get hit like that on your legs, it doesn't knock you out, you're lucid.
And so for me, it was trying to keep my... So you remember this when it happened.
Absolutely.
You're not unconscious.
And you just try to assess what's happened.
You try to keep yourself calm so that you can keep them calm.
Because the guys that come to work on you need to be calm to help you.
I looked down, my legs weren't there.
I reached up to grab a tourniquet, and when I reached my arm up, my hand stayed in my lap.
It had severed the inside of my arm.
And that's the moment where you're like, okay, I got a punctured lung.
My face is swollen from the inside out.
I'm losing three limbs.
You need to go work on the next guy.
And so, you know, make sure Greer's okay.
So when the guy gets to me, and this is, if I tell a sad story, I tell a funny story.
The guy gets to me, starts working on me, and I say, hey man, I don't know how this is looking.
Let's say the Lord's Prayer.
So it was something like, our Father, who art in heaven, with liberty and justice for all.
And I'm like, we gotta realize.
He understands.
God understands, I'm sure.
It's intent, not execution.
But you know, obviously, we got through it.
Joey, man, that you can find humor in losing both of your legs is a bomb tech.
Really speaks to the man you are.
Really, I'm almost like, having you on the show for me is tough because I'm always so humble.
I always think when I see guys like yourself, no, no, I mean it.
I know you're humble and it's, but I think like, well, what the hell have I done?
Like, I've never taken a bomb blast from my country or anything.
You know what you've done?
You've done a hell of a lot more than a lot of people.
And that's something that you cannot, you CANNOT turn your face away from that.
You gotta be proud of it because it's not about them.
It's not about Joey.
We get all the accolades and all the adulation.
There are tens of thousands of men and women that have done exactly what we've done that we cannot let people forget about them.
Yeah, and that's the purpose, yeah.
Thank you.
See, we've got a live studio for the first time ever.
Joey, I know you've got to run, but I just want to get your thoughts on something.
The missile that landed in Poland.
A lot of mystery about this.
I said yesterday to my audience, I believe nothing, I believe evidence.
And I've heard 25 different stories.
As a bomb tech, it cannot be that hard to figure out where it came from.
There's clearly going to be some shrapnel or evidence left.
Absolutely, 100%.
I don't know if our men and women can get to it.
I would imagine in Poland they can.
I know that we have them in Ukraine already.
My perspective on this is that the way the munitions have changed custody and not been tracked, we're going to have a problem for a decade or more to come.
We have teams of civilians and military out acquiring ordinance off of the black market,
out of places that nothing that we have ever made should ever be.
And the intelligence that can be gathered off that is insane.
So yes, this is quite an incident.
Did Russia send it?
Did Ukraine send it?
Is NATO going to war?
But the long-term repercussion is, what of our ordinance has Russia gotten ahold of?
Because we have not tracked this properly.
And we've had cities exchange who is in charge of it so many times in this war.
There has to be U.S.
ordinance, probably now new stuff, that could end up in the wrong hands, and that's the problem.
And that's why Congress needs to stay on them about tracking this and making sure we know the chain of custody.
And don't we have to be—and it's gotten worse since you and I were kids.
Don't we have to be very cautious of the propaganda war going on?
There's a real war, there's a hot war going on right now.
I tell everyone, 24 hours, just calm down because if you take the first story, you'll probably be... The ghost of Kiev, the island of... Adam Kinzinger fell for that, the ghost of Kiev story.
That's true.
Bad example.
And here's the deal.
None of those take away from the atrocity that's happening to the people in Ukraine.
It doesn't make you against them or even the Ukrainian government.
But as an American, American interests first.
That's our blood and our treasure.
And both of them are on the line right now.
Well, you've given both.
Johnny, Joey, Jones.
Appreciate you both.
Thank you, brother.
Thanks for your service to the country.
Really appreciate it.
See, folks?
I mean, that's a real hero there.
I mean, think about it.
Imagine losing.
Hopefully, you never have to imagine this, but imagine losing the lower portion of both of your legs to an explosive while you're serving in Afghanistan, protecting your fellow troops over there, right?
Your fellow Marines, in Joey's case, right?
And he tells the story on the air, and he finds humor in it.
That's the kind of character these guys have.
It's incredible.
It's a humbling experience.
You know, I'm going to get all choked up, Mike.
But this is why, you know, when I'm on the air, and it's a very limited portion of the audience, and I get it.
I understand, you know, a lot of you are upset about what happened.
I totally get it.
You're not wrong.
What happened, it could have been better.
It wasn't terrible, but it could have been better.
I get it.
But it's guys like Joey, and now does it kind of make more sense, you know, why me and you, why we're so passionate about this place?
There are people who've given everything.
Their limbs, their lives, their families will never, ever be the same.
Ever.
Ever.
Hey, Dad!
Dad!
Dad, hold on.
I'm gonna do something.
Dad!
Come here a sec.
Sit down.
Come here.
I'm gonna put my father on the show.
Yeah, you're on the show.
Say hello to the audience.
How you doing?
I'm going to ask you a question.
I'm talking about a very kind of sensitive topic, but you would know.
When mom lost Greg, you know, when they lost Greg, that changed everything with the family, right?
Yes, it did.
There was a sadness, an air of just sadness that you didn't mention anything, but you knew it was there.
So no one talked about it, but it was always around us.
Yeah, like grandma, right?
So we lost my uncle Greg.
I obviously wasn't alive.
My mother's older brother lost him heroically.
He died, got shot in the back in Vietnam.
I'm not giving up on this country like he didn't either.
And guys like Joey Jones who lost their legs.
Folks, people have given everything, families.
Now, I mean, you probably know grandma, God rest her soul.
Not your mother, obviously, mom's mom.
But you know her better.
You knew her longer than I did.
She was never the same after that.
No, she was never the same.
You know what it is?
We always know of another person,
of something happened to that person, but it never happens
to us, it's always the other until we're the other.
And then all of a sudden it really hits, instead of a story
you're telling about someone else, it's a story you're telling about yourself.
And when Grandma died, again she was your mother-in-law, I mean she was
she died with a broken... it wasn't just like she got over it after...
I mean 20 years later you still couldn't mention the fact that we lost Uncle Greg.
She would start crying like she couldn't take it.
Right, yeah.
It always, again, was an air around it.
Like I said, something unsaid but always there.
So, it's true because it's such a traumatic thing that you just... You're just so sad because now you're that person.
And...
You don't even want people to mention it, of course, because then you relive it, and no one wants to relive that, of course.
I'm talking to the most important guest we've ever had.
He's a very special person.
Very internationally known.
A man of mystery.
He's 008, not 007.
Dad, I got a few minutes.
This is my father, John Bongino.
I did not plan on him being here.
Either did he.
He was talking to Paul.
I'm like, Dad, come on over.
Sit down.
There we go.
So.
Thank you.
Tell the audience a little bit.
We got a few minutes left here.
So you're a natural on the radio, by the way.
Well done.
I appreciate that.
Paul, imagine he sucked and he was terrible.
Dad, get out of here.
You're terrible.
You're killing my audience.
I'll have a podcast next week.
Yeah, he will.
The Kitchen Table with John Bongino.
We'll steal Rachel's name from their show.
So, growing up, right, so the audience has an idea of how I was.
Like, we were down in Smithtown.
Mom said I used to sit in a room a lot and do puzzles by myself.
I was kind of a loner.
Is that true or is she making this up?
Is that gaslighting?
No, no.
Danny was very quiet.
He literally would sit in the living room.
We would give him puzzles and literally hours on end.
Yeah, right?
You thought I'd be shy, right?
And when I played soccer when I was younger, I really sucked, right?
Right? You thought I'd be shy, right?
But he really was that way, this quiet little kid who would just sit there.
So it is amazing what you see now, of course.
And when I played soccer when I was younger, I really sucked, right?
You can tell the audience. I was no good, right?
Yeah, the best part was when they handed out the orange.
Yes, I was first in line.
That was the biggest part of the day.
I was first in line for them oranges and the cold water.
Hey John, I was going to get John Krapinski here too.
That was awesome, the oranges.
But one more thing.
I did a lot of puzzles and I love James Bond movies, correct?
So it wasn't a surprise to you when I wound up in the Secret Service?
No, no, I wasn't surprised at all.
It was almost like you went from one thing... I remember even when you were, you know, in New York, NYPD, you always wanted to go to another level.
You knew that was step one, not the end step.
It was actually the first step.
Wait, wait, one more thing, two more things, because you're in my next book, too, by the way.
I did.
My father just found out.
He's at my next book.
Don't worry.
It's very good.
I promise.
No deep, dark, dirty secrets.
I don't have them.
But a couple of things.
So, do you remember the conversation in Aunt Sue's basement?
We were talking to Jimmy.
Jimmy was staying down there at the time.
That's my other brother.
And I wanted to go in the FBI.
Do you remember you brought me the brochure for the Secret Service?
You're like, Danny, you got to check this out, brother.
Well, you didn't say brother, but you get the point.
Yes, and the reason why they considered them, well I still consider them, the best of the best.
And that's, if you wanted to go to a certain level, that's the way I thought of it.
And just one quick thing, I'm sorry I'm grabbing your time, is when Danny graduated, the head Stafford, Brian Stafford.
Stafford was the head.
And they said, you, meaning them, do the most two important things of anyone in the world.
You protect the currency, because if someone does something with the currency, everyone's going to panic.
And you protect the leader of the free world.
And if something happens to the leader of the free world, not just the United States is scared, the world gets scared because it happened to the leader.
So I remember that.
Graduation and those two things always.
So, yes, I made such an impression.
Teresa!
We got Teresa from Westwood.
Get this guy a show!
Get this guy a show!
Wait, one last thing.
I got about a minute left, right?
We need the John Bongino show.
We're talking to my dad, John Bongino, in an unexpected guest appearance because Joey Jones had to leave a little earlier.
One last question for you.
I got about, I don't know, a minute left.
Who knows?
This is a flexible break.
I'll do whatever.
Mike's like, do whatever you want.
Tell the truth.
When I first left the Secret Service to run for the U.S.
Senate in the deep blue state of Maryland, you thought I was a lunatic, right?
Yes, I did.
Okay, good!
Yes!
That is the most honest answer!
And not a negative.
Yes!
We were in my brother Joe's basement, cleaning out his basement.
He was moving.
And my father's like, you know, the impressionary kid.
My grandparents were savers, right?
They were savers?
Grandpa, grandma, grandpa?
The best.
Loved them.
The greatest people ever.
And if you had a government job, right, you were like a superhero.
And it translated down to my father here.
Meanwhile, I'm a crazy person, like a risk taker.
And my father's like, bro.
Again, he didn't say bro.
He called it dad.
But bro things, my thing.
He's like, you're leaving to run for office?
Like, are you a crazy person?
I'll never forget.
He said to me, Daniel, I think you really need to think about this, son.
Well, you can call me son, but whatever.
The Daniel part stands.
And I said, I'm going to do it anyway.
But you were happy when I won the primary.
I was.
What was amazing about it is usually normal people start at, you know, lower elections, local elections, and move up and up and up.
Danny wanted to start at the Senate.
Yeah, U.S.
Senate.
So I said, why don't you just go for President?
Yeah, yeah, why not?
What about it?
Should Dembacito run for President?
Alright, that wasn't too loud.
We're definitely not running now.
Thank you, you just saved us.
That wasn't loud enough.
That was the Roots Convention again.
Wait, wait, one more show.
Should I run for President?
All right.
My father's getting nervous.
He's like, Daniel, dumb idea.
You got a great radio show.
She's like, Teresa, cut him off immediately.
Hey, Dad, thanks a lot for coming out.
Thank you.
Love you.
Love you.
He listens down in North Carolina where he lives.
All right, folks.
More coming up next.
That was my father, John.
Same last name, obviously, who stole the show.
Up next, we talk with Tyrus, Twitter handle Planet Tyrus, because he's a big guy.
We'll get to that in a second, but let me tell you about our next sponsor first.
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Here's wrestling champion Tyrus talking about his life, wrestling, and how to make the country better.
One of our best interviews ever.
We get a ton of feedback on this.
You don't want to miss this.
Celebrating a genuine American Patriots and not a bunch of Spoiled Hollywood zeros and losers that I couldn't give a, uh, if this was a not family-friendly show, I'd dump another word in there, but I don't really care about them.
Sports guys, alright, you may have earned it a little bit, it's a unique talent, but playing make-believe for a living is not my bag of donuts.
Let me tell you something about a guy who is definitely not make-believe, who not many people want to toy with, who is gracious enough to sit down with us.
My man, Tyrus.
Tyrus, how are you, brother?
Thank you so much for having me, man.
Big fan.
Oh, come on.
Are you kidding me?
So he's got a book out that is a mega monster bestseller.
It was like number one everywhere.
It's called Just Tyrus.
And I said, oh, Just Tyrus?
Like Tyrus?
He goes, no, no, Just Tyrus.
That's it.
So you got to go out and buy that book and you'll hear his story.
So Tyrus, you came from Not in my face.
And I asked you during the break here, I said, you know now, people like, they love your political commentaries.
Does anybody ever give you any crap for that?
Not in my face. Like I said, you get a lot of people on Twitter who take shots and stuff, but I don't put any
weight in it.
I don't read most of it.
They take shots at you?
I mean, you can take a shot at anybody on Twitter.
I'm 6 foot 202.
Right, jack shredded, but again, no one's going to walk up to you and throw a shot at you.
You think you could, like, lift me by the neck with one hand if you needed to?
Yeah, we so chose to.
I also know that you do a lot of MMA, so I'm not going to extend my arm for you to counter and get me an arm lock.
Can you come on my show one time?
We do a segment, you show me how to do a bump in wrestling?
Yeah, absolutely.
I've always wanted to do that.
Can you body slam me?
Yeah, I'll show you how to do it.
You can slam me if we do it right.
Do you ever get hurt in a wrestling ring?
Constantly.
It's simulated combat, but it's still combat.
And the worst part is when you're in with friends.
When you're in with your buddies.
Because we call it potatoing.
And no one hits you harder than your friend.
Really?
Why?
They take some liberties with you?
It's like, when you're roughhousing with your friends, it's just always more physical.
And there's always a little, there's always a little extra pop there.
Really?
Yeah, and then you're like, oh, motherf... Now, let me ask you, I'm not going to put you in a spot to name names or anything like that, but is there, are there some guys in the business where you're like, dude, I just can't get in a ring, you're like, they're just dangerous?
Oh, I'll tell you, yeah, Heath Slater.
One man rocked me.
Really?
Punched me in the face every time we were... Like, for real?
Jabbed, every time.
And it was always... Like, a straight jab, boom, I'd be like, bruh?
Do you jack him back after that?
We had a show on, uh, we had a match on Smackdown Live and he popped me and I said, hey, that's it.
And then he got nervous and he popped me again.
I said, I warned you.
And then I was chasing him like to get hands on him and we weren't supposed to get out of the ring.
And he's like, out of the ring, like, Hey man, I said, I was sorry.
Stop.
And we got in the ring and then we called a receipt.
So the best receipt is never given back immediately.
Right.
You wait.
You just wait for the right moment?
And you wait.
And so I waited.
After my eye, you know, swolled up, and I think it was like three months later, we were wrestling in a show, and I grabbed him, and he was like, hey, what's going on?
It's time for your receipt.
And launched him over the top rope to the floor.
And I remember him in the air going, I said I was sorry!
But that's, uh, we call it a receipt.
But yeah, it's a physical... Honestly, man, most wrestlers, if they're telling the truth, are super conservative.
Really?
Because they travel the world.
No one has to save more money than we do.
No one has to... We have to pay our taxes ourselves.
We're 1099 workers.
Like, we have to stay on top.
And then every state that we wrestle in, we owe taxes to.
So that's why they call Florida the place where wrestlers go to die.
Because everyone ends up living in Florida because of the income tax.
No income tax.
The income tax and the tax breaks, which is great when you're at $10.99 and you can save money.
So nobody has to be more staunch with their money.
And that's why you see a lot of, especially now, like when you look at Glenn Jacobs, what he's doing in Knoxville.
Phenomenal mayor.
I think he's a star of the Republican Party.
Super conservative.
I'm passionate.
LA and I gotta tell you he's big as you but could not have been a more gentle
nice guy I mean I mean the guys in the ring he's Kane he's like this monster
animal guy and then you meet him he's a he's a mayor in Tennessee right yeah and
he's the most soft-spoken gentle guy I've ever seen his work with bringing
trade schools back making education first like he because we travel we see
we know our fan base we know what the needs are and he was a guy that I talked
about this in my book a little bit we used to go in the locker rooms and talk
about what club we're gonna go to or where do you go to eat you know or those
on our single days what what strip club you know like just athlete stuff
He was the guy who came in and was like, what are you doing with your money?
What are you investing in?
Smart.
And are you paying attention to the politics in your career?
Do a lot of guys go broke if they don't handle it right?
Like some of the bigger names?
Just like NFL?
Just like anything else?
Because here's the deal.
Wrestling is just like, especially in the WWE, it's no different than the NFL and the NBA.
You have some guys who'll get an amazing career, will make a ton of money.
And then you have guys that, you know, have a short span.
Three years.
You know, I was in it for six years.
And then I continued in different places.
But there's not always other places to go.
I was lucky I had Impact.
Uh, wrestling overseas and now the NWA, but just like the NFL, when it's over, it's over.
And if you didn't save your money, you don't have anything.
Because when it's gone, it's gone.
Tyrus has the belt with him, by the way.
This is legit, bro.
Yeah, I won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.
This is the most prestigious title in wrestling.
This thing's got some weight to it, man.
I beat Matt Cordona and Trevor Murdoch for it last Saturday in Louisiana.
Thank you.
Staying on top of it, but yeah, when it comes, the worlds are a lot more closely linked than you would imagine.
And so I get texts all the time, like, hey man, you see what Dan's talking about?
No.
You spit fire.
Brother, thank you.
Unapologetically.
And I love that because I'm on a comedy show, number one late night comedy show, and our goal is we want to bring up stuff, but we want to send you home happy.
Because after us, it's time to go to bed.
And you send them home happy.
That's what we do on Gutfeld, right?
And I like the fact that...
I follow you on Instagram, and when you get going... No, it's pretty rough.
I can't control myself.
No, but I'm like, here he goes!
But it's your passion, and it's not BS.
Thank you.
You don't have talking points, and that's one thing I respect the hell about you.
And when I mean talking points, like, you don't have, I have to say this, I have to say this.
Nah, here's my show.
I wrote it this morning.
On the hotel.
Here, Mike, check it out.
This is the show.
I wrote it on the hello paper.
No, but I'm saying that realness resonates, and especially in the athletic world, man.
Guys are like, hey, I'm on them.
We're just trying to figure out when we're going to get you on Gutfeld, man.
Yeah, man.
Let's do it.
We're talking to Tyrus.
Go out and get his book.
It is a number one nuclear bestseller.
It's called Just Tyrus.
T-Y-R-U-S.
Go to wherever you get your books today.
Pick it up.
Everybody loves the book.
Tyrus, you were so right about the wrestling business.
I'm not going to say their names because I don't want to get them canceled or anything, but There are two really prominent WWE guys.
Both of them, within like a week of each other, followed me on a social media platform a while ago.
And they DM'd me.
And I watched one of their specials on A&E.
Right.
And I gotta tell you, you are so right.
The most conservative guys.
They love the country.
They wanna just earn their money and be left to hell alone.
They love our military.
They love our cops.
They love this place.
And they are so offended at the direction of the country.
And it's two of them.
Two really big dudes.
Well, there's... It's...
I would say probably, I would say 85%.
Now, younger guys, I don't know as much about, but my group, which we're starting to get into that point where we're starting to hang it up, a lot of us, I'm probably done at the end of next year, but anyone who's traveled this country, I mean, I've wrestled in every corner, every continent, and that's one of the blessings of being a professional athlete and being in the WWE and NWA and Impact and stuff.
We just see it, so we don't even need...
Mainstream media will paint a picture that's not happening on the ground and you to really get it you got to be in the ground you got to perform and you got to go to a town and you'll see like they're buying tickets to a wrestling show and and you're seeing how beat up the town is you see all the clothes mom and pop shops and that resonates with us and you're like especially uh the pandemic was We saw a lot of people when the new administration came in and that free money started coming out and the embezzlement and the theft destroyed Americans, especially mom and pop shops, because they were getting promised, you know, like they fill out this in Louisiana, this was rampant.
Mom and Pop Shop's trying to stay open.
They have like 50 employees, right?
So they get approved for the PPO.
You're approved.
But it's coming in three months.
And you don't have enough overhead to keep paying everybody.
But you have to keep paying your employees to keep it.
But you're out of money.
So they take a loan to cover their employees and their expenses.
Then they get a letter from them saying, sorry, We don't have any money for you.
You're going to go back in the line.
That happened.
So for every person, I was living it.
I saw it.
My wife ran her company, Sensible Meals, which was the number one food prep company in the country, and she had over 250 employees.
Pandemic hit.
The hurricane hit.
We had to stop business.
She was making sure her employees were paid and covered, right?
And she got the PPO stuff.
And I was like, I'm like, I don't know about that stuff.
Then gets a letter because, uh, that, oh, sorry, the money's not there.
And then, but then you're seeing guys on Facebook I'm talking stacks.
I mean hundreds of thousands of dollars and so what happens is the business go and it wasn't just hers is about 20 businesses just in our area so just imagine the map of the United States right now that's just happening in too small in Mandeville and Hammond Louisiana small businesses are going up left and right we're lucky enough to where I'll make enough money to where we are able to cover expenses just close the business and move on but Everywhere I drove, closed, closed, closed.
And that was the result of that free money because they didn't care who it went to.
And we're still seeing it.
And this is the one thing I'm excited about us getting the house back.
I know Hunter Biden is the thing, but I think the real crimes were committed with the distribution of funds for that free money.
And they set up like this, minorities and women first.
They knew by doing that, that that in itself is discrimination.
It got overturned.
But all those at the front of the list all went home empty handed.
So that is the real crime.
And that's just facts.
That's not me making anything up.
Quick story about that.
So a guy calls me and he says, listen, he's a friend of a friend, law enforcement.
He said they're recruiting people to audit this PPP fund stuff.
There's so much fraud.
He said, do you know anyone, retired law enforcement, come back?
I go, how bad is it?
He goes, brother, you have no idea.
He goes, if someone said to me today 30% of it was fraud, he goes, I'd say you're probably underselling it.
That's how bad it was.
It's higher than that.
Guys were running out, spending $120 to get an LLC, and they got 12 of them.
And he got like 600,000 for each one.
That's insane.
Last question, I got like two minutes left.
So, talking to Tyrus, author of the best-selling book, Just Tyrus, NWA World Heavyweight Champion.
He's got the belt here, weighs like 30 pounds, never seen anything like it.
Who's the most famous person you ever wrestled?
Most famous person I ever wrestled?
I'd probably say Cena.
Really?
Yeah, Cena.
Although, what was it, David Attell one time got in the ring, but he got out really quickly.
But Cena, and most of the celebrity stuff, I was old school and Gorilla Monsoon-like.
Gorilla Monsoon!
And Gorilla wouldn't even give mine a real move.
There's Gorilla Monsoon!
Nope, I wasn't the guy you called if you had a celebrity you were trying to make look good in the ring because I was like, nah, you're in my house.
Have you ever been body slammed?
Oh yeah.
Remember Mark Henry?
Big Show?
Oh, he's a powerlifter.
Some of those big guys.
Big Show can lift you up?
Every guy can.
He was a powerlifter.
Here's the deal.
Anybody can lift me up if I want them to.
What do you do?
You spring in the legs?
You know what?
You don't ask a magician.
Is that how Hulk slammed Andre?
No one was slamming Andre unless Andre wanted to get slammed.
I'm telling you right now.
Is that right?
Hogan was terrified.
This might be the greatest interview we ever did.
If the story of Hogan was terrified in that match because anytime Andre could have changed it and no one would have said a damn thing about it.
That Andre was the truth.
I know, I don't want to get him canceled, but a friend of a friend, I want to get him canceled, told me the same thing.
He said, listen, you didn't piss off Andre in the middle of a match, man.
You didn't piss him off in the back.
If Andre hit you, you knew it, you know?
Yeah, poor, poor Big John Studd, rest his soul.
Oh my gosh, Big John Studd.
Because Vince decided, Vince McMahon, the boss decided to tell him to go out and say he was the one true giant.
Didn't end well?
Andre didn't like that.
Don't toy with Andre.
Vince wasn't getting hit.
But watch a Big John stud match with Andre.
Just go back on YouTube and watch it.
And at some point you'll be like, is somebody going to help that poor man?
And that was a man who was 6'10".
If you don't put this in the weekend podcast, you're fired.
Immediately.
Greatest interview ever.
Anytime, man.
Huge fan.
Keep doing what you're doing, man.
Look forward to your stuff.
I love that you came on.
Buy his book, folks.
Just Tyrus.
What a fascinating interview.
We'll be right back.
That was Tyrus.
Up next is my friend Dave Rubin.
Dave Rubin is a converted liberal.
He has a lot to say on the matter, but let me tell you about our final sponsor first.
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Here's Dave Rubin talking with me about the state of our politics today and why Florida is succeeding under Ron DeSantis.
Folks, I gotta tell you, I've been doing this show for a year and a half.
I'm obviously live here from the Patriot Awards.
That's the background noise.
And I'm really genuinely touched by your feedback on Facebook and tweets and true socials.
I had my dad on before in kind of an impromptu thing and I'm dead serious.
I have never gotten as much feedback from friends of mine, people in the industry who are just like icons to me, who were really touched by that interview with my dad.
Mike, producer Mike, Jim.
So, thank you for all the feedback.
This has been a really great show because I got great guests.
One of them held over for the break.
He was kind enough.
He's the host of a really, really popular podcast.
You know him.
You love him.
You've seen him on Fox.
Dave Rubin, host of the Rubin Report.
Dave, thanks for hanging.
I appreciate it.
Man, this is going to be tough because I've got to follow your dad, man.
Oh, listen, I gotta follow my dad.
Theresa from Westwood's already firing me and hiring my dad.
She's like, this guy, do you want to get fired?
Oh, you go, bro.
She's handing me a pink slip.
Here it is, folks.
Actually, it's a MyPillow ad, but it looks like a pink slip.
Your dad's freaking signing autographs over there.
It's really quite something.
Pink slip.
There you go.
I just turned a MyPillow ad into a pink slip.
Dave, you were a former man of the left, so you understand both sides here.
Yeah.
This election wasn't great, get it?
But we took back the House today.
We got really close.
And you're seeing minority voters and working-class voters move over to our side.
Now, not only a man formerly in the left, but you lived in California up until recently.
I don't think this was the apocalypse, everybody thinks it is.
I think it's the start of something big, a realignment.
Yeah.
Well, look, first off, Just getting the house, even though it's by a razor thin margin, and we all thought the Senate was going to happen.
And I, you know, I, I was a little less bullish on some of the governor's stuff, but I have to say, I'm, I'm surprised that somebody like Whitmer survived this thing.
Like she was just the worst of the worst.
And if people seemingly want more of that stuff.
Michigan was a bloodbath.
Yeah.
We're on, on WJR.
It's an awesome station over there.
It's a legacy station.
Hat tip our WJR crew.
Michigan was a bloodbath for Republicans.
I don't get it.
Tudor Dixon, I thought she was an excellent candidate.
She crushed her in the debate.
It's just, we just have to accept that there's a certain amount of people.
I don't know if it's 40% of America or exactly what it is.
They are going to vote Democrat no matter what, right?
So we have to figure out, how do you get maybe the 10% that can move?
And I think the 10% that can move are actually the ex-Libs.
The people that are waking up, they're going, wait a minute, this is not the Democratic Party of 1980.
And that's me, so...
Wait, what woke you up, though?
I mean, what happened one day where you're like, "Okay..."
And I know me and you have some different social views and that stuff, but that's the
great part about being sane people.
We can actually talk things out.
But when did you say to yourself, "Okay, this modern liberal movement is just bananas.
I'm done with it"?
Well, it's interesting because people say liberal, and this is what my first book was
about, but the progressives are illiberal.
Liberalism means basically you're open-minded, you're willing to find where there is more equality and more freedom.
The progressives have changed equality, obviously, to equity, and they want to rejigger society in their bizarre, racist, sex-focused, identity-focused worldview.
For me, there were a couple things that happened.
The most famous one that you've probably seen, it's been seen probably a hundred million times on YouTube.
I had Larry Elder on my show, legendary radio host Larry Elder.
Epic appearance.
We had never met before.
We sat down.
I said something about systemic racism and he basically beat me senseless.
And I don't know how many people can say this, Dan, but I honestly think I had my best and worst career moment at the exact same time because it was my worst for obvious reasons.
I said something, not ready to battle it out.
I said systemic racism.
He beats me senseless and I had nothing to fall back on.
But it was my best moment.
Because it was not live like we are right now.
It was to tape.
We were going to air it the next day.
My producers all said, we're going to cut that.
And I said, no, we have to leave it.
Knowing that I was going to take a hit on that.
I mean that.
Well, you know what?
It really is.
It takes a lot of courage.
It's a fine line between bravery and sort of stupidity or naivete or something.
But it worked.
It worked.
We all at points in our lives have done and thought things that were wrong.
But really, a lot of people, I think the difference between a good quality character person and others is The bad guys just keep doing the wrong thing over and over again.
Well, it would be like if you were having a radio show with somebody, if you were doing a radio show and they just got you.
They just got you on something.
And then if you, Dan Bongino, were like, you know what?
We're not airing that.
It's then, well, then what are you really doing for a living?
You know what I mean?
You're, you're out there trying to bring truth as much as anyone I know in this business.
And it's like, if you were to just be like, well, that one where I actually screwed that one up or, And that's the one we're not going to let go.
And I know you wouldn't do that.
And I think that's what people appreciate now, because there's just so much BS out there.
The government lies about everything.
Big tech lies about everything.
The politicians lie about everything.
The president lies about everything.
And people are just starving for a little bit of honesty, even if they don't agree with us on everything, which obviously they're not going to.
It's okay.
They have their own thoughts.
does well too. We're talking to Dave Rubin, host of a fantastic podcast called Rubin Report.
Check it out. Dave, having just moved from California to South Florida, you have a really,
really interesting perspective here. A lot of people will tell you California's lost.
Me personally, I don't buy that.
I think it's in a lot of trouble.
I don't think it's lost.
And I say that because where you live now, Miami-Dade, as you well know, was considered lost in Florida for Republicans because it went overwhelming for Democrats forever.
And Ron DeSantis just destroyed Democrat Charlie Crist there.
So it's interesting how things that were lost all of a sudden weren't.
Is California lost?
Yeah, well, it's funny.
I moved two companies to Miami, so I brought a whole bunch of employees, and I know that they all freaking voted for DeSantis, so he's got to be pretty happy with me right now.
But yes, watching Miami-Dade flip is absolutely incredible.
And to your point about lost, is Cali lost?
The problem with Cali is that the machinery is so broken there.
It is so one party state that for people to break through that, look, Newsom just won re-election.
Nobody talked about it, right?
Because it's not even thought of as, oh, we're going to show clips.
Did you play one clip of a Gavin Newsom debate on your show?
Either did I. Honestly, I didn't even know we had one.
Exactly.
Not one clip went viral anywhere because it was just a far gone conclusion.
So I would much rather, people have to vote with their feet.
You must move to a place that is in line with your values.
I get it.
It sucks.
Nobody wants to have to pick up.
We all have family considerations, grandparents, young kids in school, whatever it might be.
But I can tell you from, I am 11 months almost to the day from moving from Cali, my life is 180 better.
Freedom is here.
The stuff that we Talk about for a living.
It's taken root here and we need to be exporting it, but certain places just aren't going to take it.
Look, New York even got close, but it's like now they got, now they got four more years of Hochul and it ain't going to be pretty.
It ain't going to be pretty.
That shocked me.
I knew we had a shot, but quietly residing in the back of my cerebral cortex was, you know, I've been told that before and we've lost by 10, but your thoughts on this theory I have.
Yeah, we're talking to Dave Rubin, host of Rubin Report, now lives in Florida, who knows California politics, believe me, better than anyone, was there for most of his life.
So, I grew up in New York, and I have this theory about this last election cycle, which was decent, but not great.
It's just that the suck hasn't gotten bad enough yet.
Like, in New York, I tell the story all the time, when Giuliani ran the first time, he lost.
Like, people don't know that.
They think he won.
He lost.
He lost by two points.
So, he lost to Dinkins?
He lost to Dinkins!
Huh.
I forgot that.
This is over.
2,000 people got killed last year.
We lost.
Party sucks.
I'm jumping off a bridge.
And you know what?
They didn't, thankfully.
And the next term, four years up, he ran and he won.
Right.
And then he ran for re-election and won by 17 points.
He just needed Dinkins to go in and wreck the place and then finally out of desperation.
So that's your theory.
Is California just not bad enough yet?
I mean, they're crapping in the streets.
Yeah, it is that bad.
But again, the machinery of the state, it's all run by Democrats.
Look, think about it this way.
I think, if I'm not mistaken, there are more Republicans in California than any other state just because of the sheer volume of the state, the sheer population.
But if they have no power, if there is no way that you can do anything in the state, and if the cities only get worse, and you keep giving them more tax money, and they're bringing equity into all of the governmental organizations and institutions, At some point, you want to go, hey, maybe I don't want to be the last guy in Dodge.
And you find out that Florida, the humidity in the summer, it's okay.
We're on a station, I know you know, KABC in L.A.
And again, I'm sorry, you're in Florida now, but you know California politics well.
And folks, it's a national story what happened in the L.A.
mayor's race.
Why does it matter to me?
Because you had a guy, Rick Caruso.
He had celebrities backing him.
Millions upon millions of dollars.
From what I've heard, was a pretty good candidate.
And he's still lost to one of the worst Democrats in Congress, Karen Bass.
Like, it's the weirdest thing.
Well, it's weird, except that there are people who basically think that government is God.
That really is it.
These people think the government is designed to give you things and rejigger society however they want it to be done.
And it simply doesn't work.
I can't believe I don't want to interrupt you, but you said something there.
Again, we're talking to Dave Rubin, used to be a man of the left, has thankfully come over and we agree on a lot of things and we host the Rubin Report.
You know, when I ran for office, you debate all the time.
People come up to you at county fairs, and you just get really good at it.
And one of the things I learned is, you know, never make an assertion, ask a question.
People avoid an assertion, but the brain's triggered when you ask a question.
It almost feels the need to respond.
So I said to a guy once, you just said to me, you know, liberals think government is God, and I believe that.
I've heard it.
But when you ask him simple questions, like, if paying higher taxes is a force for public good, then why don't you do it voluntarily?
Like, I give to charity.
I'm not forced to.
It's because I actually believe the charity is going to do something positive.
Where's the disconnect?
The disconnect is, it's a great question to always ask them.
So you love high taxes.
So then the next question you should say is, okay, if you love high taxes and you live in California, you live in LA, well, what are they doing with your tax dollars?
Are your roads clean?
Are the homeless people off the streets?
Is the crime not out of control?
And then you might be able to get them to go, boy, that is something.
I'm paying all this money in tax dollars.
The whole place is falling apart.
And then they start thinking about it a little bit.
That to me is one of the ways you can get the little red pill, the subtle red pill, to kind of get in there.
But they think that it's just a, if you just give this thing money, because that's always the easy answer, right?
Dan, schools are having problems.
They just need more funding.
They never think it has anything to do with efficiency or competency or anything else.
Look at it this way.
We have no... You're a Floridian as well.
We pay no state income tax.
No, and our roads are amazing.
Our roads are amazing.
Our police officers are well-funded.
Actually, our public schools are way better than California.
So how is Florida doing it?
California gets all of this money and they just want to tax and tax.
So what is it that California has done with that money that is better than Florida?
And I say to people, too, with the Florida schools, like, folks, you got to understand, like, schools in Florida were not really a priority three, four decades ago.
It was largely a retirement state.
So it's not that people didn't care.
It's just, it wasn't a big constituency for like, hey, great public schools.
When young families started moving down, people were like, hey, the schools here aren't that great.
They turned this thing around like that.
And it wasn't money.
Like we don't, we don't even have a state tax in Florida.
Totally true what you're saying.
Think about it.
So Florida has this elderly population and no state income tax.
So they just had no need to do it.
Now there's been this massive demographic shift, right?
And they're doing it right.
And not only are they doing it right, but then DeSantis comes in and he says, hey, first off, we're going to make sure our teachers are paid, right?
That's that's one thing.
But secondly, we're going to get all the woke stuff out of the schools.
So now what is if you were a parent right now and you just didn't want your kid to be infected by all the woke nonsense, but you couldn't afford a private school?
You could send them to a school in Florida and you'd be okay.
The teacher would not be talking to them about gender privately and not bring it to you or giving them another name at school or any of that nonsense.
That's a freaking beautiful thing and it's because we voted incompetent people here.
I got a minute left but I need your perspective on this.
You're very close with the governor.
I know you know the Trump crew too.
I love Donald Trump.
I love my governor, Ron DeSantis.
I do not think primaries are a bad thing.
Obama-Hillary sharpened them up.
Bush-McCain sharpened them up.
Trump versus the world sharpened them up.
I think as long as it doesn't get personal, I think it's a good thing for both of them.
That's the caveat right there, right?
So I'm with you on that.
It should be done publicly.
I would like them to have a sit down and sort of just decide where they're going with this.
And we don't know what DeSantis is going to do.
But I don't want it to go into mutually assured destruction.
Look, I voted for Trump.
I like Trump.
I like his family, all of those things.
My one fear would be that he might take it more in that direction.
And I just hope they can figure it out because the one thing we don't want here is for DeSantis to be so wounded by Trump and then Trump go run for president and lose and now we've lost both of them, right?
As effective leaders.
So what the worst case scenario for us as Floridians is let's say Trump goes ahead and he becomes the nominee and DeSantis stays here as governor.
Guess what?
That's okay too, you know, for us.
And then you figure out the rest of the country.
He is America's best governor.
Oh, he's America's president already in some ways, you know?
The guy's a dynamo.
Yeah.
And the way he just slams the media.
You now, see, I'm so old.
He's a pro.
He's a pro.
But you can vouch for me.
The South Florida media is an absolute horror show.
The Sunset in Old Miami.
They make the Washington Post look like the Wall Street Journal.
Ain't it bad?
It's just crazy that they live here.
Like, what are you doing here?
I know.
It's almost like they're reporting from- You got the world, man, and you want to complain about it.
They're reporting from Mars or something.
Dave, I gotta run.
Dave Rubin.
Good to see you, brother.
Good to see you too.
Host of The Great Rubin Report.
Check out his podcast.
Thanks a lot.
We'll be right back, folks.
That was Dave Rubin.
Thanks for listening to this special Sunday podcast we put together for you live from the Patriot Awards.
You can hear me every weekday across the country on over 300 radio stations.
Just go to bongino.com, click on station finder and find out where I'm on near you.
