Sean Hannity Show - Net Neutrality Explained - 12.18

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Dec. 19, 2017 - Sean Hannity Show

01:37:52

Net Neutrality Explained - 12.18

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	All right, welcome to the Sean Hannity Show.
	I'm Dan Bongino at DeBongino on Twitter, filling in again for Sean.
	Thank you to everyone for having me back and all of you listening on it.
	Hope you like it.
	Got a good show for you today.
	Before we get to that, on a very serious note, we had a really horrible situation out there in the state of Washington with this train derailment.
	Here's just a quick news update on what we have regarding this.
	So two cars fell onto I-5.
	They don't have a cause yet.
	Some interesting Twitter traffic out there about suspected causes, but there's been no official cause yet for this tragedy.
	Looks like six people have died.
	Maybe more, obviously, in an incident like this.
	That's always subject to change, given on the condition of some of the folks on the train.
	Looks like up to 70 plus casualties.
	Again, cause unknown.
	As we hear more during the show, if we get any news updates, we will most certainly put them out.
	So, yeah, God rest the souls of those folks and their families.
	I hope they have the strength to get through this really tough time.
	So if we get more, we'll let you know.
	Big news day today.
	Outside of that, Trump just concluded what I thought was a really spectacular speech, folks.
	Now, of course, none of that will be covered by the media.
	They'll cover a story about how he likes extra salt on his french fries.
	He prefers Old Bay on ice cream.
	He gets two scoops of Old Bay ice cream while everyone else gets one.
	Or it'll be some ridiculous story about how he watches Fox and Friends in his pajamas or something like that.
	They won't cover any of the substance of the speech because they barely do ever, and it's pretty sickening.
	So I want to get into some of the core things he put out in the speech and some of the accomplishments throughout the course of the show.
	The Trump administration has really has to hang their hats on that have been completely ignored by the media in the course of their Russia, Russia, Russia, BS nonsense garbage narrative, which I think is sickening me and everybody else out there outside of the whole liberal ecosystem.
	So one of the things I pulled out of this speech he just gave, it was a national security speech about our national security strategy to set it up properly and to be a little bit more precise here.
	about our ongoing under the Trump administration, our ongoing national security strategy.
	And one of the things he brought up, which I think is fascinating, especially for the Russia, Russia, Russia crowd out there.
	Marsha, Marsha, Marsha.
	Remember that?
	The view of Brady Bunch watching when I was a kid?
	I used to love that show.
	The Russia crowd out there is he called out Russia and China specifically as challenging our national interests, both our prosperity interests and our national security interests.
	Now, to all the nutbag, looney tune, kooky liberals out there, does this sound like, again, a president who is deeply involved in a collusion conspiracy to destroy the United States from within?
	Like he's walking around in the background with Boris Karloff and maybe David DeCovney and Jillian Anderson doing some horror movie X-Files Morph.
	He called them out in a nationally, most likely internationally televised speech, the Russians and the Chinese, for challenging our national interests, our wealth interests, our prosperity interests, and our national security interests.
	Does this sound like a guy who's some kind of Russian appeaser?
	I mean, to our liberal listeners, and I know we have them.
	I know because I'm on Twitter and I get your crackpot responses to all this stuff.
	I have to deal with it all day.
	I mean, does that make any sense?
	Like, how do you, I don't understand.
	Like, when you look in the mirror and you try to reason with yourself as a sane human being, does that make any sense to you that this guy's some big colluder with the Russians and just gave a speech on our national security interests and our strategy going forward?
	And he makes a point to specifically call out Russia.
	Folks, you know, you can obviously sense a bit of frustration in my voice.
	You know, I do this every day.
	This is my job, conservative content.
	It's really getting frustrating now dealing with the liberals and their fascination with this.
	We have had a litany of positive news, good things that have happened on the economic front, on the tax front this week, on the court appointments front, on ISIS getting stomped all over the world.
	And this fascination with this Russia thing is just infuriating.
	Let me go through a couple of things.
	I had a bit of a bit of a checklist here about the positive good news.
	You're probably hearing very little, if anything, about, again, because the media and their liberal acolytes, these boot-licking media liberals who are just obsessed with kissing up to the liberal elites and their Hollywood buddies, won't tell you the truth.
	Did you know we've had two consecutive quarters of 3% GDP growth since the Trump administration took office?
	Two consecutive quarters.
	Keep in mind, this is from an administration where most of the liberal elites in the media and liberals said, oh, if Trump's elected, the stock market's going to crash.
	Who was it?
	Was it Krugman?
	The tweet's still out there.
	Paul Krugman, the New York Times, a fake economist.
	He put out there, someone's got a screenshot of it, I'm sure, somewhere, of Krugman.
	I'm pretty sure it was him saying that we would never reach 3% growth or that, no, the stock market was going to crash.
	That was it.
	If Trump got elected.
	Now, listen, I'm not one of these, I prefer more to focus on economic growth and stock market numbers because those can, you know, the stock market can fluctuate for a number of reasons.
	But we've had two consecutive quarters of 3% GDP growth in the country.
	Folks, under Barack Obama, I know Sean talks about this all the time, but it's a fact.
	We had the worst recovery from a recession in post-World War II history.
	We never reached 2% growth annually ever.
	Ever under Obama.
	Do you know he's the first president in American history to never reach that target number of 3% GDP growth?
	That's been the historical average, meaning if you're a reasonable person, he was a below-average president when it comes to economic growth.
	But you'll hear almost none of that because they're so taken and in love and married to and in bed with this false Russia narrative as a means and a vehicle to discredit the duly elected president and to drain his political bank account, folks, that they will not allow you, these media folks, to hear about anything else.
	Including today, as I said during this national security speech, where he directly put forth a national security strategy going forward in direct, in direct contradiction to a president who was somehow in bed with Russia and taking Russian interests before America.
	That's ridiculous.
	It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
	Second, folks, Gorsik, the appellate court judges, circuit court judges.
	We are seeing a boatload of high quality, strong originalist, constitutionalist judges getting appointed to the courts.
	Folks, it pains me to tell you this, all right?
	But unfortunately, we live in a society now where black robe judges have become the new legislators of our time.
	Obviously, that was never the function, that was never the idea of how mechanically the country was going to move forward under the founding fathers.
	Judges were supposed to rule on the legality and constitutionality of the law, not rewrite the law themselves.
	We've seen that change.
	I don't agree with it.
	But unfortunately, through eight years of Barack Obama appointments and some terrible Republican appointments to both the Supreme Court, the appellate courts, and the circuit court level, we have had judges now who take it upon themselves to legislate from the bench.
	Trump gets into office, and in conjunction with a lot of people, some outside folks, he took some good advice, and I applaud him for it.
	He appoints finally some conservative originalist judges, and we're finally starting to get back some semblance of law and order on the bench, not legislating from the bench.
	Originalists who actually read the law and make their decisions based on what the four corners of the bill say.
	They don't try to read people's minds.
	Red tape disappearing.
	Disappearing in droves.
	Trump, I saw a piece of, was it the Daily Signal today?
	They said that since he's got into office, something like 644 regulations have been wiped out, 200 have been put on hold, and another 700 have been like permanently delayed.
	These are red tape regulations that are going to allow bureaucrats to have their say over your life.
	Let me just tell you a quick interesting story here.
	So I was at an event once.
	Sorry, I just got to, yeah, my iPad timed out on me for a second there.
	I was at an event once with this very smart guy.
	He used to be the Howard County executive, this guy, Chuck Ecker.
	He was an interesting guy.
	And I'm at this event, and I'm asking him about regulations and the power of government and the bureaucracy and why the bureaucracy just never stops growing ever.
	And he said something to me I never, ever forgot.
	He said, you know, Dan, he said, remember this.
	The bureaucracy will always grow because there's absolutely no power in yes.
	In other words, there's no power in a government bureaucrat showing up to your house and telling you you can do something.
	There's only power in them telling you they have the regulatory power to tell you no, and why is that?
	Well, it's very obvious when you think about it.
	Then you have to do something to get to yes.
	You know, what business guy wants to go into a business negotiation knowing the other party's going to say yes all the time?
	It's good for you, but it's terrible for him, right?
	The government wants to be able to say no to you.
	That's the principle of their negotiation to get your individual liberty away.
	They want to be able to say no.
	That's their power to say no to you, to say, time out, review.
	We're going under the hood for review.
	That's what regulations are for.
	It's the growth of the bureaucratic discretionary state.
	Who would have thought that Trump, who was, listen, let's be honest, was not a doctrinaire conservative, but as when he ran for office, who would have thought Trump, of all people, would have understood that?
	He gets in office and starts wiping the slate clean.
	Did you see that press conference they gave the other day?
	Those, no, you know, a lot of it's for TV.
	We get that.
	I mean, he does a good job at that kind of stuff.
	But he puts up this mound of regulations and paperwork they got rid of.
	The Federal Register is shrinking for the first time, meaning the power of yes is back because the government's eliminating regulations that give it the power to show up to your house and tell you no.
	This is the first president in a very, very long time to understand this, to finally get it.
	That the power of the state's not just through laws, not just the power to tax, not just the power to send your kid to a school they want to send you your kid to, even if it's a crap school.
	It's not just the power to take your money to tell you what kind of health care you buy.
	It's also the Waters of the United States rule where they tell you what kind of stream you can have in your backyard or the joint employer standard where they tell employees their franchises even when they're not or that they have to pay, you know, if they have to capitulate to these union demands even when they have nothing to do with the employees other than some weak relationship, do like a consulting type thing.
	These are all ways for the government to tell you no that Trump, of all people, figured out.
	But you're not going to hear any of this stuff because they're obsessed with this Russia scandal.
	All right, I got to take a break.
	If you want to give us a call and chime in, 1-800-941-7326.
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	I'm Dan Bongino at DeBongino on Twitter.
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	All right, welcome back to the Sean Hannity show, Dan Bongino, at DeBongino on Twitter, out of the bullpen, filling in for Sean.
	Time I fill in, I think of that.
	Was that dazed and confused Matthew McConaughey when he's like, all right, all right, all right.
	Was that was a movie, right?
	Someone tweet me or Lauren, you remember that?
	Did you see that?
	I remember him saying it at an awards show.
	That's his thing, right?
	Yeah, I don't know if it's from a movie as well.
	It is, right?
	I thought so.
	Someone will tweet me, I know.
	All right, so before the break, I was talking about how Trump just wrapped up his speech, his national security strategy speech, which I thought was a good one.
	And listen, folks, I'm not a cheerleader for anyone.
	I get it.
	Liberals are going to say, yeah, you're a conservative.
	Of course, you're going to support the president.
	I support him, yes.
	But I'm not a cheerleader for anybody.
	But it was a good, solid speech where he, by the way, called out international adversaries like the Russians and the Chinese on multiple levels.
	And it just seems to be entirely counterintuitive to a reasonable person that if he's some kind of colluder with the Russians, that he would give a speech basically going after the Russians.
	But, you know, liberals with the, you know, the fax vaccine.
	It's like when they're kids, they're vaccinated, like mumps, measles, rubella, typhoid, fax.
	The fax vaccine goes right in.
	It's a painful shot, but they all get it.
	They're seemingly immune to common sense.
	So it's a good speech, but none of that will be covered.
	So in the last segment, I went through some of the accomplishments, and I ended up with the red tape, the assault on red tape that this administration is undergoing right now, and I applaud them for it.
	The Trump administration, like few administrations in the past, has committed wholeheartedly to action, not talk.
	Talk is cheap.
	Anybody can talk.
	It's action that changes the world.
	They said, no, I want you to repeal two regulations for everyone we pass.
	And from what I read in a piece in the Daily Signal this morning, it looks like they're going to up the ante to repealing three regulations for every regulation they put forward.
	Folks, this is a big deal.
	This is a real cost in your life.
	Compliance costs, compliance costs.
	I'm just talking about the hard compliance costs, not the soft ones.
	You may say, well, what do you mean?
	I mean hard compliance costs, like getting a lawyer, getting an accountant to have to get around or comply with the bevy of government regulations.
	That's the hard money.
	But what about the soft money you have to deal with?
	What about the lobbyists that use soft money to influence the path of government regulations so that those regulations don't hurt their companies, but do hurt you because you don't have a lobbyist?
	What about that?
	What about the distorting effects of that on the economy?
	Folks, he deserves a round of applause for this.
	I've even seen some liberals cautiously, and I'm emphasizing the cautiously portion of this on Twitter, because you never want to be caught as a liberal on Twitter defending the president being reasonable because you will be Hester Prin.
	You'll have the scarlet letter stamped on your head.
	You'll be thrown out of community you live in, thrown out of your college.
	You'll be forced out into the desert all by yourself for 40 days and 40 nights.
	But folks, even liberals are starting to acknowledge that stuff is getting done while they have been distracted with this absurd, outrageous Trump-Russia scandal, which I'll address later with Mark Meadows, Congressman Meadows, and Congressman Jordan who'll be on later.
	And I'll also have Chris Hond coming up later, Liberal, I like personally.
	He's a good guy, but he's just, his ideas are just a little crazy.
	But we're going to debate that too.
	So I'm not giving you any advice, liberals.
	You want to keep wasting your time on the conspiracy theory, you know, Russia X-File story.
	Go right ahead.
	But while you guys are all distracted, we're rocking and rolling.
	All right, welcome back to the Sean Hattie Show.
	Dan Bongino, contributing editor over at Conservative Review at DeBongito on Twitter, filling in for Sean.
	If you want to give us a call and contribute to the show, liberals, conservatives, liberals, by the way, feel free to call.
	Lauren, right?
	I will let you through.
	Lauren will not, as long as you're not totally, completely insane, we will let you through.
	You want to argue with me?
	You think I'm crazy?
	Give us a ring.
	1-800-941-7326.
	1-800-941-7326.
	Conservatives, too, of course.
	We don't want to hear 452 kooky liberal callers throughout the show.
	But you are welcome to call and challenge me on anything because unlike liberals, conservatives can back things up with reality and facts, not just fantasy land, Teddy Ruxpin nonsense like our liberal buddies who live in a place we'd all like to live.
	Money grows on trees.
	Government officials are these benevolent forces in our lives.
	Yeah, it's just awesome.
	I want to live there.
	Gosh.
	Must be nice to be a liberal.
	So the premise of the show here has been so far, the news that's getting ignored while the media relentlessly, again, focuses on this Russia nonsense, which, again, is fine with me.
	You want to keep doing it?
	Go right ahead.
	I am absolutely convinced that there's no there there.
	I'm convinced that there's nothing there.
	I'm convinced because I've seen absolutely no evidence whatsoever, despite leaks about everything.
	You think I'm kidding?
	We've had leaks.
	I'm not making this up, folks.
	These are legitimate stories.
	They're not legitimate stories, but they're legitimate in that they've run.
	We've heard stories about how Trump watches the morning news in his pajamas or like a bathrobe or something.
	That was a real story.
	We've heard leaks about his proclivity for Diet Cokes and McDonald's.
	Yeah, that actually happened.
	We've heard stories about just about every one of his personal likes and dislikes.
	But it's amazing we've heard no stories about actual evidence that this Russian collusion thing exists.
	So while you've been distracted, we've had two consecutive quarters of GDP growth, explosive job growth, a growing stock market, which I'm always cautious about, to be fair.
	We've had ups and downs in the stock market under all presidents.
	We've had terrific, terrific, with a capital T appointment or appointment in one case to the Supreme Court and appointments to the appellate courts and the circuit courts, which are moving along at a nice pace right now.
	Listen, I'm not a huge McConnell fan.
	I think that's out there, but I got to give them credit for at least that.
	They've at least picked up the pace a bit on the Supreme Court, excuse me, the appellate court and circuit court nominations and getting through them.
	Red tape.
	The cutting of red tape has been amazing.
	But here's another one that I think is going to be transformative in the future going forward that the Trump administration will get, not only will not get credit for, but will be attacked for.
	So in case you missed it, last week, Agit Pai from the FCC, they voted on getting rid of the net neutrality rule.
	Now, net neutrality is one of the most comically named government initiatives you're ever going to see.
	There's nothing neutral about it, okay?
	Some conservatives magically got suckered by this thing.
	I don't know how.
	I don't get it.
	I mean, introducing the government into via, what is it, Title II, to control the internet as some kind of a common carrier, allowing the government to control the internet is the antithesis of every single thing conservatives and libertarians stand for.
	There's a small number of them, granted, but there were even some conservatives that defended this thing.
	Now, they didn't wipe out net neutrality.
	What they did is they got rid of the Obama 2015 rule.
	We already had net neutrality.
	It was just being enforced by the market.
	What they did is they simply Ajit Pai and the FCC, which is kind of funny, by the way, because they always accuse Trump of being an authoritarian, which is fascinating that he's always decreasing his own power.
	The FCC voted to decrease its influence over the process and basically turn complaints back over to the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, where they were before Obama decided to stick his foot in the internet and decrease broadband access and everything like this.
	Folks, I say this is really important because the net neutrality thing is indicative of the political, national political dialogue going on right now.
	The people who oppose it hardly even know what it is.
	I get into these fights on Twitter about net neutrality.
	Now, I'm not claiming to be the architect of the internet, unlike Al Gore, okay?
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Remember Joe Pesci?
	That was now that I know I have.
	That was Joe Pesci.
	That had to be one of the lethal weapons.
	I am not the, I'm not Al Gore.
	I didn't invent the internet.
	But I know a good amount about how net neutrality works.
	It's a scam.
	It's a total scam.
	Liberals are suckering you to allow the government to determine basically price caps and price rates and to determine who they can go after and not go after to you know content-wise, content content producers.
	It's a scam.
	It's a total scam.
	It's fascinating, too, as someone pointed out to me that when net neutrality was instituted in 2015, and the supporters of this thing are hysterical, by the way.
	The supporters, they're like, hey, listen, net neutrality, we need this because there's such a problem on the internet with throttling and all this stuff.
	Really?
	The internet was fine, was fine up until what?
	Barack Obama got into office, then we magically found a problem with the internet.
	So they passed this net neutrality rule.
	And what's fascinating is the first thing the government goes after is they go after zero-rated plans.
	Now, I don't want to make your head spin.
	I want to get too wonky about any of this stuff.
	But this is an interesting and very telling point about how the government works and why liberals love net neutrality.
	The myth about it was: oh, we have to get the government involved.
	We have to because rich people are going to get a fast lane to the internet.
	Oh, what?
	Rich people are, you mean, are going to get to pay to download 762 hours of Netflix a week if that's even possible?
	That was their point.
	That, oh, rich people are going to get a fast lane.
	What do you mean a fast lane?
	They're going to actually pay for the services they use.
	But that's not what happened.
	Net neutrality gets through under Obama.
	Liberals cheer.
	They love this thing.
	Government, government.
	They love government.
	And the first thing they went after are these zero-rated plans.
	Zero-rated plans, for those of you who know what it is, they are, you can probably, you probably get an idea in your head right now of how this would work.
	But for those of you who never heard of this, zero-rated plans are basically these combo plans that give away access to certain websites for, you know, using air quotes here for free.
	So if it was, say, whatever, an ATT, say it was ATT in Disney or something like that or whatever.
	ATT could say, hey, we're not going to charge you for data if you download these Disney movies as a way to, you know, incentivize people to, you know, to use their products.
	This is nothing dramatic.
	There's nothing wrong with it.
	It basically gave you a free product.
	And doesn't that tell you for a second, like, isn't that a clue something's wrong?
	That that was the first thing the government went after.
	It didn't go after the evil rich people.
	I'm using that term sarcastically, obviously.
	That's not what they did.
	They went after middle-class and basically lower-income folks who were getting access to websites or content for free.
	That was their first fight.
	I mean, you thought the government was going to fix the internet?
	The government, the same government that couldn't operate a website for Obamacare despite having unlimited assets, the same government that screwed up the student loan market, the same government that bankrupted your Social Security, the same government that's operating a bankrupt Medicare Medicaid program.
	That's the government you're talking about?
	The same EPA that blew that copper mine out out west?
	This government, that one, right?
	Thank God for our military.
	We'd have really almost nothing to hang our hat on for government.
	But you want them to operate the internet because, of course, they have the expertise to do that, folks.
	This was a major, major success under the Trump Trump administration last week and his appointed folks in the FCC.
	This was a major success because now in the future, these companies, the ISPs and the content producers, the internet service providers and these producers, don't have to worry about the government getting in their way.
	They can give you products you want, they can give you faster products you want, faster access and content you want, and they can tailor it to you instead of tailoring it to the government.
	And that's my point.
	That's the point I was trying to make before when I did the opening segment and the second block of the show when I talked about red tape and regulations.
	That's what the government passionately wants, and liberals through government passionately want more than anything, is they want the power to tell you no.
	Don't you understand that?
	They want to regulate not to allow you to do things.
	They want to regulate and put a rule in front of you to not allow you to do things.
	That empowers them, not you.
	It also empowers the lobbyists who then have to buy the politicians off.
	There's nothing to buy off if the answer is yes.
	Broadband provider wants to build broadband into whatever.
	East Tunafish, Ohio, go right ahead.
	But no, you got to go to a government regulator first.
	And what happens?
	Of course, there's got to be some lobbyists involved.
	There's got to be an influence peddling operation.
	That's how this works.
	That's why liberals want the government into the internet.
	Don't get suckered by this.
	And what's you know what's fascinating about this, too?
	Not to beat a dead horse on this net neutrality thing, but it's a huge accomplishment of this administration last week, scrapping this thing.
	Folks, this entire thing started with net neutrality.
	Well, I shouldn't say the entire thing.
	Let me be fair.
	A good portion of the public pressure to institute government control of the internet through net neutrality was generated by Netflix and the idea that, oh, Netflix, I was watching Netflix and they slowed down my movie and the government get the government.
	They're going to fix it.
	Don't you find it interesting that in this last round of voting, even Netflix kind of cooled down a bit?
	And as it turns out, as I saw in a Wall Street Journal piece the other day, Netflix is like, well, you know, we worked out some of that stuff with the internet service providers ourselves now that we're big enough.
	Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, you did.
	You worked that stuff out on your own.
	You mean what the rest of the world calls liberals, this is going to be tough.
	What the rest of the world calls the free market.
	So Netflix grew, grew their company, economic growth, right?
	Not what's not socialism, that nobody owns the means of production in Netflix within the government, right?
	So Netflix grows their business.
	They grow their business to such a point that they have more influence in their sphere, their economic sphere, which where they operate in.
	They then leverage the power of their new economic wealth and prosperity to negotiate better deals with these internet service providers, all without the government babying them along.
	Do you see the hypocrisy here?
	Folks, it's ridiculous.
	The whole thing was premised on the fact that a bunch of 18-year-olds couldn't watch The Punisher on Netflix fast enough.
	And now, even Netflix is like, yeah, yeah, we worked it out.
	Don't worry about it.
	All that stuff about the government.
	Yeah, whatevs.
	We live in the craziest world ever.
	All right, I got to take a break.
	Please give us a call if you want to comment 800-941-7326.
	1-800-941-7326.
	If you want to send me some nasty tweets, I'm at DeBongino on Twitter.
	Comments too, whatever.
	I take them all.
	All right, we'll be right back.
	All right, welcome back to the Sean Hannity Show.
	Dan Bongino at DBongino on Twitter.
	Contributing editor over conservative review in for Sean.
	You know, I'm looking at the call screen up here, and I was talking about net neutrality.
	And it always, you can never tell who's calling.
	Typically, if you mention things like tax cuts on the air in a conservative program like this, the people who are going to call against it obviously are going to be liberals or Democrats.
	It's rare, if ever, you're going to get a conservative to call.
	But when you mention net neutrality, like I said before the break, it's so bizarre.
	Like I consider this one of Trump's biggest accomplishments so far to his appointees, the elimination of this dopey net neutrality rule because it was just introducing the government into controlling the internet.
	You never know because there are people who get scammed by this all the time.
	Now, maybe I'll take them after the next hour, but it's just interesting.
	I'm watching up on the screen.
	Oh, net neutrality stops providers from being biased.
	What?
	Stops providers from being biased.
	I mean, are you serious?
	You understand right now, right, that Facebook, Google, Twitter, that these companies promote stuff that benefits their company, not you, right?
	That's called the free market.
	You're aware of that, right?
	That content producers do this right now.
	So you want to destroy internet service providers on the allegation, by the way, and weekly presented at best that they're discriminating against people, which by the way, the FTC can already handle that.
	But you have no problem with Facebook voluntary, you know, doing it on their own, suppressing some content, promoting some other content.
	Folks, I do that Twitter, I don't know what it's called, the promotion thing.
	I pay like $99 a month.
	I don't know exactly how it works, but I give them the money for it.
	I don't know why.
	But I give them $99 a month and they promote some of my stuff.
	Oh my gosh.
	Oh, that's so unfair.
	Is Twitter being biased?
	Seriously, I'm dead serious.
	I'm asking you, supporters of net neutrality, a serious question.
	I paid more money than you.
	You were on Twitter for free.
	Some of you.
	Some of you may be involved in the service as well.
	But I'm guaranteeing you, the overwhelming majority of listeners out there on Twitter do not pay what I pay on Twitter.
	I'm making the service make money and a better platform for you to operate it for free because I'm willing to pay.
	Am I getting a rich fast lane?
	Am I discriminating against you?
	That's garbage.
	It's total crap.
	That's a dopey liberal talking point.
	Well, I'll get to him in that.
	But listen, coming up in the next hour, don't miss this.
	You know, maybe I'll bring this up to Chris Hahn.
	We got our friend Chris Hahn coming up.
	Be a good debate.
	Those are always fiery, me and him.
	We've got a lot of experience shredding each other on the air.
	So you're not going to want to miss that.
	I'm going to ask him about that.
	Trump Russia.
	Maybe we'll hit him up at net neutrality and these tax cuts.
	Important stuff all of it.
	I'm Dan Bongino at DeBungino on Twitter.
	We'll be here.
	All right.
	Welcome back to the Sean Hannity Show, Dan Bongino, at Debon Gino on Twitter.
	Filling in for Sean.
	I'm a contributing editor over at Conservative Review.
	Always happy to be here.
	Love the audience.
	Love the crew.
	Thanks for having me.
	All right, let me get right to this because I love these debates.
	It's one of my favorite guys on the left, my good buddy Christopher Hahn, radio host.
	Chris, how are you today?
	I'm doing good, Dan.
	That was a fun debate we had on Saturday night.
	Yeah, it was, but I got to say, you remember the movie Goodfellas, where what was it?
	When he comes back and he tells him to do the Shine Box thing, go get your Shine Box, Tommy.
	And he says, you know, you hurt his feelings.
	Robert De Niro goes, you hurt his feelings a little bit.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
	You hurt my feelings a little bit on Saturday, a little bit.
	You took a shot at my books.
	It's okay.
	First of all, first of all, I was only joking.
	No, I know.
	I'm messing with it.
	Set yourself up for it because you use that line every week.
	I know.
	I know.
	I do.
	I know.
	I do need some new material.
	You're right.
	You feel like you're going to fly up to give me $100.
	You didn't fly up to do the shot.
	I was in the studio with the judge.
	You could have been.
	You know, people ask me all the time.
	They're like, do you really like Han?
	Because he seems like a nut.
	Like the lady at church told me the next day.
	I go to church down here in Palm City.
	She goes, is he really?
	I said, no, he's a nice guy.
	He's just crazy.
	Like, his ideas are just nuts.
	Listen, I got limited time with you, so let me get to this.
	I know you do.
	I'm sure you do.
	All right.
	So this tax thing.
	All right.
	Listen, it's not the best tax bill in the world.
	Let's just get that out of the way.
	But I'm not going to make the perfect the enemy of the good.
	I'd like to see, personally, I'd like to see better performance on the income tax side, but we're dealing with the reconciliation process.
	Here's the problem I'm having with this tax bill.
	Liberal whackadoodles out there are saying things that are, in fact, not true and are utterly crazy.
	Like we had Tim Ryan, who projects himself to be a moderate, by the way, on Fox and Friends this weekend, saying things about the tax bill that were completely nuts.
	And I got to get your take on this.
	One of the things he said is, well, this should appeal to the conservative audience.
	This is him talking at Fox.
	He says, you know, we're going to be borrowing money for the Chinese to pay for a tax cut.
	Chris, explain to me in the audience from a liberal perspective, please, how not taking my money forces the Chinese to pay anybody anything.
	I don't get it.
	Well, what he's referring to is the $1.5 trillion hole in the deficit the tax cut's going to have, right?
	That's a scam.
	You got to take the money.
	We got to take the money from somewhere.
	I don't know if we're going to get it all from the Chinese.
	I think that gets overplayed a little bit, where they only have 50% of our debt.
	We could have a whole conversation about that.
	But we will have to borrow it from somewhere.
	Why?
	What makes you say that?
	Why would we have to borrow?
	If you have a $1.5 trillion deficit, unless you're going to cut $1.5 trillion worth of services, which nobody has suggested that they're going to do, or if you're going to take money out of Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security, which nobody will get away with doing.
	Yeah.
	Look, this is what happens every couple of years, right?
	The Republicans do a massive tax cut.
	The deficit goes up.
	The Republicans get voted out of office.
	Democrats come in.
	They raise taxes, which is the responsible thing to do.
	They get voted out of office for raising taxes, and the cycle continues.
	Yeah, and they screw everything up.
	And let me ask you a question.
	And I've asked you this question before.
	So you have no, I'm serious.
	You have no excuse for not getting this right.
	You have had the last time I filled in for Sean, they said, who do you want for a guessing?
	Go get Han.
	So that was like a month ago.
	So you've had four weeks to prepare for this.
	If you get this wrong, I will never be able to forgive you.
	You're telling me now you're taking the seat, you're basing that $1.5 trillion alleged shortfall based on the tax cuts on the CBO numbers, correct?
	Of course.
	Okay, CBO, which is wrong about just about everything.
	Forget the CBO for a second because we could argue all day about that.
	They are almost never right.
	But I'm just going to ask you a simple question.
	This is a ground ball for you, man.
	Tell me a tax cut, a major federal tax cut.
	Reagan, Clinton on the capital gains side, Coolidge, Kennedy, George W. Tell me a tax cut that, quote, cost the government money and some shortfall had to be made up.
	Go.
	Tell you a tax.
	How about the Bush tax cut?
	Chris, the books tax cut.
	No, no.
	Hold on.
	Hold on.
	The Bush tax cut led to a doubling of our national debt because we went to war and we didn't pay for it.
	He's the first president in the history of this country to fight a war while giving a tax cut, not asking people to participate in the war effort.
	Oh, Chris.
	I realize seriously.
	I like you, and I'm going to try to save you further embarrassment.
	You were guarding the president.
	I was working in Congress when that was going down.
	Where were you at Schumer?
	I was with Schumer at the time.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I was guaranteed the president.
	Okay, I'm going to save you some embarrassment.
	Sean has a big audience, so I don't want you to say things that are not true.
	The George W. Bush tax cuts.
	I'm going to make a deal with you on the air.
	You know, I said on the Judge Janine show, I said, listen, I will fly up and I'll give you $100 right now if you can show me any evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians.
	I will fly up to New York right now.
	I will book a plane and deliver another $100 if you can show me how in the years immediately following the Bush tax cuts, the government lost money.
	That is how confident I am that you are absolutely wrong.
	I can give you the exact numbers, as a matter of fact.
	The government after that raised hundreds of billions of more dollars in tax revenue.
	Yes, there were deficits.
	You're not wrong.
	But that wasn't due to a tax revenue problem.
	That was a government spending problem.
	So by your logic, you're suggesting then that we should cut taxes and cut government spend.
	I thank you.
	You came over to the conservative side, right?
	But Dan, look, it is the conservative way, and it has been a plan of the conservatives since Reagan to starve the beast, right?
	No, not necessarily.
	But here's the thing.
	And if that's what they want to do, I think they've got to be straightforward about it.
	They've got to say, look, we're going to cut spending and we're going to cut taxes as a result.
	And then the American people then could make an honest assessment of whether that's what they want to do.
	This is the first time in the history of tax cuts where a majority of Americans don't want to see the bill go through because it's not a good question.
	No, that's not true.
	I just saw the latest poll.
	You're absolutely wrong.
	The 47% disapprove that the others either have no opinion or don't care or approve it.
	So while it may be accurate to say a plurality.
	It's a poll out of a dozen polls.
	But Chris, listen.
	But that's not right.
	You'd be accurate if you said a plurality disapproved.
	But Chris, here's my problem with the public polling on this thing.
	You know, public polling does not dictate public policy.
	You know, for years in the Obama administration.
	You're right, but I don't think that the authors of this bill have been straightforward to the American people.
	The plan for this bill is to make government so small that you have to make some cuts because there's not enough money.
	You've got to choose between deficits and cuts.
	Unfortunately, Chris, you know.
	Unfortunately, what happens is they never choose to make the cuts and they run up the debt.
	And it is not just Democrats that do it.
	It is Republicans.
	George W. Bush did it.
	Ronald Reagan tripled the size of international debt.
	It happened.
	The only president that tried to reduce the debt was Bill Clinton in our lifetime.
	So there's a real issue here as far as what are we actually doing.
	And I think people just need to be upfront about what they're doing.
	That's where I call it.
	Well, if really what you want to do is cut taxes and shrink the size of the government, just say that and let the American people make a choice based on that.
	All right.
	Here's my beef with what you're doing here because you're doing what, and I'll give you credit because you're a skilled debater here.
	What you do is you do these non-sequiturs.
	You are.
	You're good because you manipulate the audience, whether knowingly or unknowingly.
	I don't mean that as a qualitatively bad thing, but you do by creating one line of logic and then a completely disconnected line of logic and acting like they're the same.
	Here's what I mean.
	You bring up some fascinating points.
	You go, well, Reagan tripled the debt.
	Listen, the debt went up significantly under Ronald Reagan.
	You win, points stipulated.
	But what you fail to say is you then try to make it, you relate it to a completely different line of reasoning about tax cuts.
	Chris, it is a matter of fact, not a matter of Chris Hahn's opinion, that the Reagan tax cuts doubled government revenue.
	That clearly, if you're a sane person who believes in arithmetic, could not have contributed to the debt.
	How does the government getting double the amount of money contribute to the debt?
	Now, if your point was, and you were looking to be fair on this, was that, okay, Reagan cut taxes and we spent a whole ton of money we didn't have, I'd say, all right, you're being intellectually honest.
	And then you make it even worse by saying, oh, and Bill Clinton, you're right.
	Bill Clinton never balanced the budget, by the way.
	That's nonsense.
	That's totally not true.
	He got close in 2000.
	He got within $18 billion.
	That's a fact.
	So I will give Bill Clinton credit for that in conjunction with Gingrich and the Congress.
	But again, are you suggesting we go back to the $1.9 trillion we spent in the Bill Clinton years?
	Because I'm game for that.
	Trump, you want to cut the government?
	That would require us cutting the government in half.
	So it's like you're making the argument for tax cuts and cutting government spending.
	Let me just start with the Reagan point you made, okay?
	What Reagan's intention was to do was to cut both the government spending and cut tax.
	What he did was he cut tax and he increased government spending.
	And even I don't see your point on revenue doubling.
	That's not true.
	That's not accurate.
	Here's the numbers.
	Wait, let me give you the number.
	Folks, any listening audience, look this up and tweet.
	What's your Twitter handle?
	At Christopher Hahn.
	At Christopher Hahn, H-A-H-N.
	Tweet him now.
	If I'm wrong, here's the revenue numbers, folks.
	I'm at the Bongito.
	Sean has millions of listeners.
	Here's the numbers.
	When Reagan got into office in 1981, when he was sworn in, right?
	The revenue was about $500 billion.
	When he left office, I think it was $909 billion.
	Folks, look it up.
	Hahn is wrong.
	Tweet him on it.
	Tweet him at his Twitter account.
	Tell him he's wrong because I'm telling you what you're saying is true.
	By the way, inflation was 6.5%.
	Tax receipts were still up 26% after inflation.
	You're totally wrong.
	The receipts went up 26%, but government spending went up 100%.
	Yes!
	You're making my point.
	But that's the what I'm trying to say is Reagan had the intention of cutting government spending, but he wasn't able to do it.
	Just like Trump wants to cut government.
	Trump, I don't know what Trump wants to do.
	In fact, I heard today Trump's going to propose a $5 trillion infrastructure bill.
	Now, I'm all for that, by the way.
	I support it 100%.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	Timeout.
	Lauren, did you get this on tape?
	Christopher Hahn, noted progressive, just said you agree with Donald Trump on something?
	This is fascinating.
	I think we need a massive infrastructure infusion in this country, and I agree with him.
	I saw his tweet today where he said we spent $7 trillion in the Middle East, and meanwhile, Rosen.
	I agree with that statement 100%.
	Oh, my God.
	Oh my gosh.
	Okay, and look, Dan, you know this about me.
	I will agree with him when I agree with him, and I will disagree when I disagree with him.
	Not here to bash the president.
	I'm here to present a progressive point of view.
	And I do believe that this country needs to spend money on infrastructure.
	The problem is, if we're cutting taxes and spending money on infrastructure, how are we going to pay for it?
	We're going to pay for it through more debt.
	And I spent the last eight years on Fox News and on this show with Sean, with you, with others, debating the deficit spending that was going on under Obama, which was mostly due to the Gulf Wars that Obama didn't start.
	So, you know, we got to be intellectually honest.
	All right, I only got like 30 seconds left.
	So just one quick thing before I let you go, because I know this is what typically happens with me and you debate.
	I say, hey, we're going to talk about all this stuff, and we never get past the first question.
	My $100 bet is still on the table.
	Have you been able to produce a scintilla of hard evidence that Trump himself colluded with the Russians to alter the terms of the election?
	Anything?
	I am not the special counsel.
	I am just a jerk.
	You got nothing.
	You know it.
	Brother.
	If I was the special prosecutor, I might have a case to make.
	I will comment on whatever case you make.
	I love you, Mebby.
	You got nothing.
	You got nothing.
	I'm coming in studio sometime with the judge on Saturday.
	It'll be a lot more fun.
	You know it, man.
	All right.
	Hey, thanks for coming on.
	I appreciate it, folks.
	That was Chris Hahn.
	I'll talk to you soon, buddy.
	Make sure you go tweet him that he's wrong, too.
	I'm Dan Bongino in for Sean.
	We'll be right back.
	All right, welcome back to the Sean Hannity show.
	Dan Bongino, contributing editor of a conservative review, filling in for Sean, coming out of the bullpen, throwing spitballs left and right.
	That was always fun.
	I always enjoy having Chris on.
	You know, listen, I think he's wrong on a lot of things.
	Obviously, Chris Hahn, who we just had as a guest, he's very liberal, but there's no need to ever make it personal.
	People ask me all the time, they're like, You like him?
	I'm like, Yeah, I like him.
	He's just crazy.
	He's just wrong on stuff.
	All right, quick update on a very serious note: there's an article up by Drudge now from the New York Post saying that the Amtrak derailment in Washington, which caused six deaths and 70-plus fatalities.
	I promise you and I would update you if I saw anything interesting.
	And it appears now that there are some reports that there was an object on the tracks.
	Now, what does that mean?
	They're not really saying much.
	It means it was an object on the tracks.
	You can probably fill in the blanks.
	You're free to speculate.
	I'm not going to use Sean's microphone to do that, but be irresponsible.
	But that's certainly not a good sign.
	And one of the other things they're saying is it's highly unlikely that it was some kind of mechanical breakdown or physical breakdown of the track structure because the track in that section is relatively new.
	So, you know, PJ Media has got a report out there as well about some threats that were posted in the past.
	I'm not making any of this up.
	This is all out there for you to read and see yourself by some groups who had threatened to put some objects and concrete and the like on tracks to disrupt train traffic.
	So, folks, this is obviously pretty serious stuff.
	I mean, I'm not here to lecture anybody.
	You can figure that all out on yourself.
	You know, people died.
	Obviously, it's serious.
	But what really disturbs me about this is when political groups that do stuff like that, we don't know that they were involved in this at all.
	But even threats like that, I've said over and over as a former Secret Service agent that you don't know what kind of seed you may be planting in someone else's head.
	It's really dangerous stuff to be talking like that.
	I mean, we can have a civil discourse, as you just saw with me and Chris, you know, in the country without threatening that kind of stuff.
	It's really entirely inappropriate, obviously.
	So if I get more, I will let you know throughout the show.
	And at the top of the next hour, if Congressman Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows, I'm really looking forward to this.
	I like these two guys.
	They're really strong, solid conservatives.
	They generally do the right thing up there in Congress, unlike most of these other guys.
	And I want to talk to him about a couple of things: Trump Russia, the tax cut plan as well, and see where we can go with this.
	So, just to sum up where I was with Chris and the point I was trying to make, I mean, he's obviously not on the air anymore, but regarding the tax cut plan, because it fits in the larger narrative of the show.
	Good news that's getting left behind by the media.
	Just quickly, here's the point: the point is that while it's fair to say national debt, annual deficits, spending money the government doesn't have is a problem.
	I get it, absolutely.
	We're conservatives, we stand for lower levels of government spending.
	The problem I'm having with the debate is when you say things like, Well, we're going to borrow money of the Chinese to pay for it.
	If you don't rob me of my money as the government, there's nothing to pay for.
	If a guy walks down the street and doesn't mug me and steal money from my wallet, I don't owe him anything.
	It's our money, ladies and gentlemen.
	You don't owe the government anything more.
	You've given them tons of money and they've thrown it all away.
	They have.
	It's just a fact.
	All right.
	We don't owe them anything else.
	All right.
	I'm Dan Bongino.
	Give us a call.
	1-800-941-7326.
	Pure.
	All right.
	Welcome back to the Sean Annity Show.
	Dan Bongino at DeBongino on Twitter in for Sean.
	If you want to give us a call and join the show, 800-941-7326.
	That's 800-941-7326.
	Hey, one correction before I was giving the update on the derailment in Washington, the train derailment.
	Real tragedy out there.
	There were six deaths and 70 injuries.
	I think I said six deaths and 70 fatalities.
	So 70 injuries, six deaths.
	Thankfully, let's try to get that out there straight.
	So I'm sorry about that.
	My apologies.
	I'm just trying to keep up with the story as the story evolves.
	So, again, there's some breaking news about an object on the tracks.
	If we hear anything else about it, I will put it out there as the show progresses.
	All right.
	Before the break, I was talking about the tax bill with Chris Hahn, who is a progressive.
	And, you know, listen, they've still, what's bothering me about them is Congressman Tim Ryan, who again, he is a Democrat, he portrays himself as a moderate.
	Was on Fox and Friends this weekend, and he was going back and forth with Rachel Campostuffi, who is a solid conservative, and they were debating the bill.
	And he said at one point, this line, which is really irritating me, he said, Well, we're going to have to borrow this money from the Chinese to pay for it.
	Folks, it's your money.
	This is not the government, do you understand?
	Like, the government doesn't produce anything.
	It doesn't.
	The entire business model, if there were one for the government, is the taking of money from others.
	It doesn't produce anything.
	The government doesn't do it.
	It doesn't have a value-added business model.
	That's too wonky.
	Let me just explain it in kind of common sense terms so this makes sense here.
	When you have a company like Apple or Samsung or IBM or Coca-Cola, it doesn't matter, whatever it is.
	You take a series of inputs, sugar, water, you know, CO2.
	You take those inputs, you recombine them into a product that's your product, in some cases proprietary, in some cases commoditized, and then you sell it for a higher cost than the inputs.
	Obviously, you wouldn't make any money.
	If the water, the carbonation, and the sugar and the coloring for the Coca-Cola, whatever cost you a dollar and you sold it for a dollar, you wouldn't make any money.
	The whole business model is to add value.
	The government doesn't do that.
	The government just takes.
	It takes from you.
	Now, it takes for you for some very legitimate purposes, our military, our court system.
	That's why we have a constitution to clearly delineate and line out what the mass consensus role of government was supposed to be.
	Military, courts, things we all agree on.
	The problem now is the government's non-value-added model where it just takes and takes and takes, is it's starting to take for you for services that don't add value at all.
	In other words, things like, you know, when we had extended unemployment insurance, folks, these things don't add value.
	They take.
	Now, you may believe as a liberal these things are good.
	I'm not making a moral or ethical argument to you.
	I'm not.
	I'm making an economic argument to you.
	These things don't add value.
	They don't.
	You may think they're right.
	You may think it's benevolent of us to do it.
	I think after a point, I disagree.
	I think it incentivizes people to not work, as a matter of fact.
	But you may make the point as a lib, oh, gosh, you know, this is great.
	We got to take care of people and pay them not to work.
	There is no economic question that that doesn't help, okay?
	It doesn't help.
	Paying people to not produce something is not a way to grow an economy.
	And this is what's just nonsensical about this argument they make about, oh, we're going to have to borrow money to China to pay for tax cuts.
	What do you mean, pay for tax cuts?
	What are you talking about?
	It's our money.
	I never got that.
	All right, let me take a call here.
	Let's see.
	What about Chris from Wisconsin?
	Chris, what do you got for us?
	Hey, Dan, why not stop paying out tax refunds to people who don't pay taxes to begin with?
	Oh, listen.
	You don't have to argue with me.
	You're preaching to the choir.
	I mean, we haven't, right now, Chris, we have an earned income tax credit and we have refundable tax credits where people get money who don't pay into the system at all.
	I mean, I agree.
	I think it's pure insanity.
	I mean, it's redistribution through the tax code at its worst.
	I mean, it's remember, it's not like we don't have a safety net as is.
	We have Medicaid.
	We have SNAP benefits.
	We have all kinds of unemployment insurance.
	You know, we have Obama phone-type programs.
	We have Section 8 federal programs for rent.
	It's not like we don't have that.
	Do we really need the tax code as well to take money from people and give it to others?
	I mean, I agree with you, Chris.
	It's a redistributionist scam, and I object to it strongly.
	But what are you going to do?
	Have a half percent sales tax, and everybody pays federal income tax at that point.
	It's only $150 on $30,000 of income.
	What are you talking about?
	The fair tax?
	No, if you were to put in, yeah, if you did a half percent sales tax across the board for everybody, it's $150 on $30,000 spent in a year.
	Yeah, I mean, the problem they've always had with the national sales tax and the idea of it is, you know, the incentive is, listen, I'm a fair tax supporter.
	Let me just say that.
	And it's not exactly a sales tax, so I don't mean to oversimplify it for the purposes of this conversation.
	But the problem you're always going to have with a national sales tax is obviously tax avoidance, which you get a lot of right now.
	I should say tax evasion.
	Tax avoidance actually isn't illegal.
	Tax evasion is.
	People avoid taxes all the time.
	They give money to charity.
	They put money in their 401k.
	That's tax avoidance.
	Tax evasion is a scam.
	But the problem with a national sales tax is the potential for black markets and tax evasion is great.
	And it's been an issue.
	Although I am a supporter of the fair tax, it works a little bit differently than that.
	So I appreciate the call, Chris.
	And I do agree with you that the button bill, I wouldn't say it's a big redistributionist scam.
	There's one good thing about the tax bill that I really like, and that is the wiping out of the 35% rate now, folks, at the business level.
	Now, the Democrats' talking point on this, which I think is absurd and silly, and if Trump gets this through, by the way, and signs this, this is fitting with the theme of the show.
	This is going to be a big deal, in addition to his regulatory reform, getting rid of net neutrality, two quarters of 3% growth, 3% GDP growth, Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, conservative justices on the appellate court, the elimination of red tape.
	This has been a big, bold first-year agenda.
	And I think the president, you're free to criticize.
	Obviously, it's a constitutional republic.
	Everybody has the First Amendment right to criticize their leaders.
	But being candid, I think he's taken an unbelievable amount of abuse.
	And he's had a pretty darn good first year.
	Now, as I was saying, I think one of his big moments here, if he can get this through, is going to be the cutting of the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21%.
	Folks, we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world right now.
	Now, to be fair and give you the information that others, what liberals specifically want to take, that's not the effective rate.
	Companies have deductions and things like that, so they're not exactly paying 35%.
	The point is, even depending on which kind of calculation you use, even the effective rate, in other words, the rate they actually pay businesses in America, is still unusually high compared to the rest of the world.
	It is ridiculous that American companies are being incentivized to outsource their production.
	Remember, I'm not talking about offshoring.
	I'm talking about outsourcing.
	Those are different things.
	Companies who offshore stuff, you know, let me give you a quick example.
	I don't have any issue with an American company building a factory in China to sell products exclusively to Chinese consumers that wouldn't sell in the United States.
	You shouldn't either.
	It's great for the American company.
	It builds a profit base in another country and the products wouldn't sell here.
	So a perfect example would be, you know, say you go to another country, wherever it may be, and the steering wheel on the car is on the, you know, on the right side rather than the left.
	The car has different emission standards in that country.
	That's going to be a car tailored for that market.
	If an American car company goes and builds a car in a foreign market offshore for that market specifically, that's not a problem.
	The problem most Americans have is with outsourcing, taking jobs that could be produced here, would be more effective to be produced here, and then shipping those jobs overseas where the labor is cheaper.
	But the Democrats ignore the hard reality of this, that when you have places like, you know, Ireland that are, what, 12% corporate tax rate, other countries that are getting super competitive, the Canadians who have a far lower, the Canadians, I mean, liberals love the Canadians.
	They think the Canadians are the, I love the Canadians, great.
	But Liberals love the Canadians because of their socialist health care system there, their national health care system.
	They love the Canadians, but they don't want to acknowledge that the Canadians even have a far more competitive business atmosphere than we do.
	When businesses have to pay 35% of their revenue to the federal government and then can move overseas and pay 20, 15, even 12%, folks, they're going to take it.
	This is common sense.
	This isn't complicated stuff.
	Why is this hard for liberals to understand?
	This is not complicated.
	And then they'll tell you things that are just economic nonsense, total garbage and not true.
	I heard a guy argument the other day on a cable news show that goes, oh, these businesses, they're getting off.
	They're going to pocket the money.
	They're going to pop it.
	Who's going to pocket it?
	No, fair question.
	Who's going to pocket it?
	You have a business out there, whatever.
	Apple, IBM, Samsung, 4G, whatever they are, LG, who cares?
	You think there's like a Mr. IBM?
	Like there's a corporate tax cut from 35 to 20%, and Daddy Warbucks, Mr. IBM with the bespectacled look and the handlebar mustache and that cigarette with the big long stick they put out of their mouth and the cigarettes at the end and the top hat he puts it in his pocket.
	Folks, what do you think businesses are?
	No, it's a serious question for our liberal listeners.
	And again, you're free to call in 800-941-7326 and challenge me.
	I'm open to anything.
	What do you think businesses are?
	They're groups of people.
	Look at the groups of automatons, groups of Thundercats.
	Thundercats.
	Oh, remember that?
	That was a great one.
	I used to love that show.
	That show rocked.
	What do you think that?
	Martians?
	Businesses are just groups of people.
	Managers, employees, customers that exchange money and they all produce a product.
	When you cut their taxes, notice I said there, not its.
	When you cut their taxes, the money has to go somewhere.
	You can spend it on the business.
	You can give it out to shareholders.
	You can give it out to the employees.
	You can put it back in the bank and the bank loans it to someone else.
	But folks, an Econ 101 student can understand that the business doesn't take the money and throw it on the campfire.
	I was watching Castaway last night with that Tom Hanks movie with my daughter.
	Fire.
	Look at what I have created.
	Remember that scene?
	He's got the palm frawn.
	Fire.
	I have created fire.
	What do you think the businesses do?
	Start a fire and throw the Ben Franklins in there?
	They throw the money in the fire?
	The money has to go somewhere.
	So liberals, your point is if we cut business taxes, what?
	You'd rather give the money to the government because they know so much better what to do with it?
	What more thing on this?
	This one always cracks me up in a sad, kind of tragic way.
	Like that really sad clown we've all seen somewhere, right?
	You know, they say these things that are so nonsensical.
	Like I heard Nancy Pelosi say, we're not going to be able to engage in critical investments.
	Wait, what?
	Come again, Nance.
	Critical investments.
	So you're telling me that American businesses, the smartest, most entrepreneurial employees, managers, and businesses in the world are right here in America.
	Nobody doubts that, by the way.
	You're telling me that they don't know what to do with their money, and it's better to give it to a bunch of government bureaucrat fat cats, many of which have absolutely zero experience in business, and they somehow know better what to do with American money than the actual businesses that made it.
	That's like a hashtag imbecile thing.
	You really believe that?
	That 435 members of Congress, I'm telling you, the overwhelming majority of which have zero experience in creating successful businesses.
	Nothing personal, fellas and ladies, just the way it is.
	They're going to invest your money better than you can.
	And you buy that.
	I got a bridge down here in Palm City I can sell for you super cheap.
	Come on now.
	I'll give it to you for a buck.
	You've got to be kidding me.
	All right, I'm Dan Bongino.
	Give us a call.
	1-800-941-7326.
	1-800-941-7326.
	If you want to send me a tweet, I am at DeBongino on Twitter.
	We'll be right back.
	All right, welcome back to the Sean Hatton Show.
	Dan Bongino in for Sean.
	If you want to give us a call, 1-800-941-7326.
	I will get to some of your calls in the next hour.
	We also have Congressman Mark Meadows and Congressman Jim Jordan.
	Two, I promise you, of the good guys.
	I know, folks, you know, it is a swamp up there.
	It's very disappointing watching the stench that MEs from D.C., but these are really two of the good guys, very principled guys.
	Like them a lot.
	Every time I have the pleasure of guest hosting for Sean, I try to have him on.
	So we'll get from them the progress of the tax bill.
	I also want to ask Congressman Jordan about this Trump-Russia fiasco.
	And here's a critical question.
	Was the steel dossier, the fake dossier put together by Trump, paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton?
	Was that the insurance policy one of the lead FBI investigators in the case was texting his mistress about?
	Remember, he wrote in one of the texts, you know, that insurance policy we addressed in case Trump is elected, like we can't take that risk.
	That's the big question.
	And a lot of good, solid conservative thinkers are starting to put two and two together about that now and ask that critical question.
	And I know Congressman Jordan's been all over that.
	Was the steele dossier the insurance policy?
	Folks, if it was, we are in a whole mess of a constitutional crisis right now because you have an opposition political candidate who funneled money to an intermediary through Russian intelligence to provide bad intel on their political opponent, in this case, Donald Trump, who was then spied upon and may have, if the connection is made, that may have been some kind of, quote, insurance policy in case he was elected.
	Unbelievable stuff.
	You couldn't write it in a spy novel and get it published.
	They tell you you were nuts.
	I'm Dan Bongino at DeBongino on Twitter.
	Again, if you want to give us a call, 800-941-7326.
	All right, welcome back to the Sean Hattani Show.
	Dan Bongino filling in for Sean at DeBongino on Twitter.
	If you'd like to give us a call, we'll take your calls later in the hour.
	1-800-941-7326.
	Comments and criticisms accepted, whatever.
	If you want to tweet me, go right ahead too.
	I read them all.
	All right, joining us now.
	I'm really excited for this segment.
	We have two of my favorite congressmen up there on the Hill doing God's work up there, Congressman Jim Jordan and Congressman Mark Meadows.
	Gentlemen, welcome.
	Thank you so much for joining us.
	You bet.
	Dan, great to be with you.
	Thanks so much.
	Yeah, well, you guys are great.
	You know, every time I get the opportunity to fill in, I ask me who I want.
	I say, well, it's obvious.
	You got to go get Congressman Jordan and Meadows.
	You guys tell it like it is.
	I'll start with you, Congressman Jordan.
	You've been terrific on this Trump-Russia special counsel, I think, asking the critical questions.
	And I really appreciate the way you've kind of gone after it.
	And I think, and I'd like to get your take on this because I saw you on the, I watched it live.
	I saw you ask what I think right now is the most critical question, frankly, in American politics, and that's not a hyperbolic statement.
	And that question is, was the Trump dossier, the fake, largely debunked dossier, used to spy on innocent Americans?
	I mean, this, I saw you ask that question.
	Why can't we get an answer on this?
	I do not know why, but I think you're right.
	There are two fundamental questions.
	Did the FBI pay Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, and then did that dossier?
	Was it the basis for securing warrants to spy on Americans, this disproven, discredited fake news dossier?
	I think that is likely what took place based on the fact that Peter Strzok is the guy who was head of counterintelligence at the FBI, the guy who ran the Clinton campaign, or well, that's a protein stuff, ran the Clinton investigation, ran the Russian investigation.
	I think he's got his fingerprints probably all over that application taken to the FISA courts.
	So to me, like you say, Dan, those are the fundamental questions.
	Let's see if we can get an answer to those.
	That's why we need to subpoena Mr. Strzok and bring him in and ask him straight up.
	Did you do that?
	Yeah, Congressman Meadows, I'm going to get your opinion on this in a second.
	I just want to follow up one thing with you, Congressman Jordan.
	You know, as a former federal agent, this was my line of work for 12 years as a Secret Service agent.
	I took very seriously, obviously, my commitment to the country.
	It was not a partisan commitment.
	I proudly protected the life of Barack Obama and his family.
	I'm not looking for any pats on the back from anybody.
	That was my job.
	That's what the taxpayer paid me to do.
	I love doing it.
	It was a wonderful job.
	Never once did it enter my mind that he was a Democrat I was protecting.
	You know, he was my president.
	I disagreed with almost every policy he stood for, but he was the president of the United States.
	Can we all agree?
	I mean, that this would be an unbelievable breach of that, you know, the wall of the Constitutional Republic, which protected us against an overreaching government.
	If a political campaign can essentially pay Russian intelligence to plant information that's then used in a court to spy on people who no longer have constitutional protections, this is insane.
	Well, I mean, first of all, Dan, thank you for your service.
	And you're right.
	I think the vast, vast, vast majority of people who serve our country have that same attitude.
	But this happened, I believe, with the key people at the top of the FBI.
	Now, think about this.
	Donald Trump had to beat the Republican establishment.
	He had to beat the Democrats.
	He had to beat the elite national media.
	And now we also know he had to beat the FBI and the DOJ.
	That's unbelievable.
	When you look at that one text message we got last week that we're, I'm afraid we can't take that chance.
	We need an insurance policy where Peter Strzok is writing to Lisa Page.
	Yes.
	That is unbelievable.
	An insurance policy because the American people might pick the guy we don't think should be the next president.
	That from the top people at the FBI, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, that's what's scary, and that's why this is so serious.
	And we had better get the answers, which is what Mark and I and others are determined to do.
	Nah, you guys have been terrific.
	Congressman Meadows, I'd like to get your take on the insurance policy.
	Again, I'm pretty sure you, I, most of the reasonable listeners in the audience would agree, and rightfully so, as I said on a cable appearance this weekend, if there was an email in 2008 or a text or whatever, Twitter, DM, or Facebook message between two senior FBI officials responsible for investigating some of the most powerful people in our government, and they exchanged a private message, not meant for public eyes, talking about an insurance policy in the event Barack Obama was elected, this country would have exploded.
	And I know you as well would have been like, wait, wait, wait.
	This is a bridge too far.
	These are political disagreements.
	We are not going to abuse the monopolistic power of force the government has against our political opponents.
	I mean, is anything I said wrong?
	No, you're exactly right.
	I guess one of the concerns that I have is here we have an attorney general who spoke to a Russian ambassador and because of that recused himself.
	And yet we have people within the FBI and the Department of Justice who have done a lot more than that and not recusing themselves.
	And they're talking about insurance policies and the like.
	You know, here's the interesting thing is when we start to look at the dates of those text messages, they seem to correspond with other information that was coming out in the New York Times.
	It seems, you know, if you look at August 15th, there was all kinds of information about starting to get leaked to the New York Times about that timeframe.
	Additionally, what we see is that you start to see the direct involvement of the FBI and the Department of Justice with Christopher Steele and a follow-up to that.
	And so it is very troubling because that insurance plan that they were talking about seems to be something that was coordinated at the very highest levels with the FBI.
	Yeah, and Congressman Jordan, I don't want to speak for you, but I assume you'd agree that nobody has an issue with anyone having a political opinion.
	I mean, listen, I was in the Secret Service, had a political opinion.
	It sent it to dominate my life, so I left and ran for office.
	It didn't impact my work at all.
	But that's not the issue here.
	The issue with this insurance policy is the possibility that that may have involved some actual action against the Trump team at the time.
	I mean, that's the problem, correct?
	No, you're exactly right.
	As I said in committee, if you kicked everyone off the Mueller team who was anti-Trump, there wouldn't be anybody left on the team.
	That was a good line.
	You're exactly right.
	That one text message shows intent to carry out a plan to thwart the will of the people.
	And that is what is scary.
	You cannot have the FBI working with some people at the highest level of the FBI, working with the Justice Department, to go after one political party's nominee just because they feel like that's not the person they want to be president.
	And this super agent guy, Peter Strzok, who thought he was James Bond, the guy who ran all the Clinton investigation, interviewed Mills, Aberdeen, Clinton, interviewed Mike Flynn in the Russian event, did all this stuff handpicked by Mueller to be on his team, subsequently removed from that team.
	This guy thought he was the greatest guy in the world, and he was single-handedly going to save the world from President Trump.
	That cannot happen when you're talking about the top people at the FBI, and everything seems to point to the fact that it did happen.
	We've got to answer that question for sure.
	Did it actually happen?
	That's why we got a subpoena Strzzok, Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe, Bruce Orr, and his wife, all five of those people need to be in front of the Judiciary Committee as soon as they possibly can.
	You think it's going to happen?
	I do.
	I mean, we need the documents.
	We need to subpoena them, bring them in for depositions, and then we need to put them on the same witness stand that Rod Rosenstein sat on last week and asked the same tough questions.
	And maybe under oath, they'll start giving us the answers that we haven't got this far.
	Yeah, we're talking to Congressman Jim Jordan from Ohio 4 and Congressman Mark Meadows from North Carolina 11.
	Congressman Meadows, if I can switch gears for a minute to the tax bill.
	You know, listen, it's obvious there are always going to be, you could always make improvements.
	You're dealing with a tough process, reconciliation.
	And, you know, just a quick story for me.
	I was in an airport as we can flying back from New York.
	I'm in LaGuardia, and a guy sees me, recognizes me, runs up, and he says, Dan, Congress is not doing a good enough job explaining why they're limited procedurally by the bill.
	In other words, you'd like more.
	I know, Congressman Jordan, you'd like more.
	We'd love the Reagan rates.
	Let's go down to 28% on the income side.
	But he said, I wish Congress would do a better job of explaining that they're limited by the process and by de facto, by default, the Democrats, who will never get 60 votes.
	We're not going to get one Democrat for this tax bill.
	I'm asking you as a friend and as a leader of our ideological movement, can you just spread the word up there that these guys have to do a better job of explaining?
	Like, yes, we want more.
	But right now, this is good.
	This is what we can do now, and no Democrats are helping us.
	I've been saying that for some time, and you're exactly right.
	We do, as a party, very poorly on the messaging side when we're really about cutting taxes for hardworking American taxpayers, whether they're in Ohio or North Carolina or California or wherever they may be.
	And so this is all about really doing the right thing.
	Is it perfect?
	No.
	But I can tell you, there will be some amendments put forth to actually perfect some of this.
	We'll see where the Democrats are there.
	This procedural motion, as you talked about, could only be done with Republican-only votes in the Senate.
	We do have enough votes in the Senate to make it happen.
	I think Susan Collins and Mike Lee have both said that they're a yes.
	So that, along with Rubio and Corker, I think the only one left remaining is probably Jeff Flake.
	So there will be enough votes that hopefully on Tuesday night they will vote it out of the Senate.
	It will be sent to the president.
	And by Wednesday, Americans will be putting more of their money back in their own pocket.
	But we do have to do a better job on messaging.
	You know, an exit question for both of you.
	I'll start with Congressman Jordan.
	My humble opinion, I want your take on this because you guys are living this every day.
	I think the liberals up in Congress, their biggest fear about this tax bill, because they're in panic mode.
	Nancy Pelosi said it's comically, like it's Armageddon.
	Everybody's going to die all the time.
	They're going to die, Obamacare.
	You're going to die.
	Everybody's going to die all the time with the liberals.
	But I think their biggest fear, and the reason for the melodramatic rhetoric, is I believe they are genuinely afraid that this is going to juice the economy.
	We're going to hit possibly 4%, maybe even 5% growth, and they are going to be left there never having voted for this, Congressman Jordan, and saying, what are they going to do?
	What are they going to tell Americans the new jobs and raises they're getting aren't real?
	What are they going to say?
	No, no, you're 100% right.
	Think about it.
	The economy has already grown at over 3.5% the last couple quarters.
	We didn't even get close to that with the Obama administration.
	So it's already starting to turn up and move at a great pace.
	If we can get to four, four and a half, closer to five, oh my goodness, the job creation and more importantly, the wage increases that hardworking Americans haven't had for so long.
	I do believe, just like you, that is going to happen.
	And the sooner we get this passed, like Mark said, the better for the American people.
	Congressman Meadows, you don't, I mean, you think, as I do, that they're really afraid because they know this thing's going to work and they're going to be left holding the newspaper on the Sunday newspaper on Monday morning.
	Well, it's worse than that.
	If Democrats can control the American taxpayers' dollars here in Washington, D.C. and spend it on their behalf, then they're in control.
	The minute they let go of that control and put it back with moms and dads on Main Street, they lose power.
	And so that's what they're afraid of.
	They're afraid of losing power and trusting the American people to spend their dollars more wisely than we spend it here in Washington, D.C. That's a pretty low bar.
	They can do that easily.
	And I'm here to tell you that it will be truly transformational when the president signs this in.
	We will see an economy take off like we've never seen before.
	Hey, guys, thanks so much for joining me.
	You really, too, are the good guys.
	And I know I speak for a lot of people when I say, you know, thanks for doing the right thing and standing up.
	You know, it's hard to do the right thing.
	It's easy to do the easy thing.
	So thanks a lot.
	We appreciate it.
	Thanks for joining me.
	It was great to be with you.
	Thanks so much.
	Thanks, Congressman.
	All right, folks, that was Congressman Jim Jordan and Congressman Mark Meadows.
	Really appreciate it.
	There are some good guys left up there, I promise you.
	All right, give us a call.
	1-800-941-7326.
	I'm Dan Bongino in for Sean Hannity.
	We'll be right back.
	All right.
	Welcome back to the Sean Hannity Show, a little festive Christmas music.
	I just said Christmas.
	Liberals are freaking out.
	They're running for their safe spaces right now.
	They're running for the color forms, the Teddy Ruxpin dolls, the Crayolas, those wipey markers you can wipe down.
	What do you call those thingies?
	You put them on the board.
	You know what I'm talking about.
	They're drawing pictures.
	Where do they go?
	Dry erase.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	It's on the radio.
	You got to think quick.
	Thank God for Lauren.
	She's in my super easy.
	That was all Ethan, actually, but he was just off my hand.
	That was you?
	It was me, but you could take credit.
	Go ahead.
	Oh, thank you.
	Well, he's telling me to take credit for it.
	Dry erase.
	That's right.
	My daughter loves those, by the way.
	She seems to think, though, that the problem with the dry erase thing is once we told her they were dry erasable, she thinks they're erasable everywhere, like the walls, my Ford Raptor, my car.
	So yeah, it's a problem.
	Your car?
	Yeah, yeah.
	The walls in your car?
	That's really bad.
	Yeah, yeah.
	It's, yeah.
	Yeah, it's painful.
	I shouldn't have just now.
	I'm reliving it in my head.
	Like, oh, gosh, what just happened?
	All right, we had a call before he dropped off, but he had a point he wanted to bring up, and I want to bring this up too because it's a really critical point.
	I want to get into it after the break, too.
	So, don't you dare go anywhere.
	Just like Macho Man.
	Oh, yeah.
	Remember that?
	The WWF guy?
	I love that dude.
	Question was: What's going on with Sessions?
	What is why is he not basically the gist of it was, why is he not doing anything?
	Folks, I'm going to throw something out there for you.
	You know, in my last line of work, when I used to be a Secret Service agent, when we do presidential protection missions overseas and things like that, once in a while, you know, you'd be working with a foreign government and you'd get some maybe press people who were overzealous and they'd want to publish some information about the trip.
	I'm trying to be very cryptic as you could tell by my hesitation here.
	Trust me, I know what I want to say.
	I just am thinking of the way to say it.
	That's a trick in radio, by the way.
	I mean, you don't know what you want to say.
	Like you talk really slow and delay it.
	But I actually know.
	I'm just trying to think of a way to frame this.
	So, in order to kind of canary trap people, in other words, find out who a leak could have been on an operation, you maybe feed some bad information.
	You get what I'm saying?
	Like, yeah, this is going to be the motorcade route we're going to take with the president.
	We're going to make a right on F Street.
	And really, you're not.
	You're going to make a left on E Street or whatever it may be.
	And then you tell another guy something else.
	You tell him, you know, you tell another guy, we're going to make a right on G Street.
	And then you tell the other guy, no, no, we're going to go straight on Independence.
	And you go on and on, and you tell them this fake information.
	And all of a sudden, you'll see a piece of information appear in the paper and it'll say the president's going to go straight on Independence Avenue.
	Line up and you can see him right there.
	What does that help you do?
	Well, it's obvious.
	It helps you find who the leaker was because you only gave that wrong piece of information to one person.
	I'm going to say this, and I'll give you a quick example after the break of what I'm talking about, but be careful jumping down Sessions' throat too early on this.
	I think the recusal was a bad idea on the Russian investigation.
	I'll say that in advance.
	But everybody I know who knows Jeff Sessions knows him to be an unbelievably good, patriotic, God-fearing man.
	I don't think we know the whole story.
	And all I would say is just give it some time on them.
	I'm not so sure there's not a canary trap going on right now to out the leakers within the government.
	All right, welcome back to the Sean Hannity show.
	Dan Bongino at DiBongino on Twitter, contributing editor over at Conservative Review, filling in for Sean.
	If you'd like to give us a call, 800-941-7326.
	So before the break, I had said, be patient.
	Just for us, I'm asking as a favor to the millions of Hannity listeners out there.
	He would say, let not your heart be troubled.
	Be patient for a moment with Sessions.
	Again, stipulated.
	The recusal, I think, was a bad call.
	He did nothing wrong.
	He met with the Russian ambassador, like every member of the Senate has done repeatedly.
	There's nothing wrong with that.
	I think it was a bad call.
	But I'm not so sure for all the Jeff Sessions, who, you know, for those, you know who he is, obviously some may an IZ attorney general or some people like, well, what is he doing?
	Why isn't he going after the House IT scandal and the leakers and all this other stuff?
	And we have the Hillary email scandal and or Bruce Orr and Strzok and all this stuff is going on.
	And the only thing everybody wants to focus on is this Trump-Russian nonsense, which no one can seem to find any evidence on.
	I'm telling you, I'm not so sure that behind the scenes there isn't something going on.
	Now, as a former investigator myself, here's my evidence.
	I owe you that, right?
	If I was presenting some kind of a criminal case or something in court, I have to produce evidence.
	Here's mine.
	Don't you find, and forgive me, Ethan, I know you heard this during a cable news appearance, so you're going to hear it again.
	But the listeners may not have.
	Here's my evidence.
	Don't you find it a little bit odd, let's say, that the three media fake news stories, by the way, there have been hundreds of them, but the three most prominent ones of the last few weeks, just about every mainstream media outlet got it wrong, but not only got it wrong, they all got it wrong at almost the same time, and they all got the same fact air quotes there wrong.
	Huh.
	What was that?
	Was that the Arsenio Hall show?
	Things that make you go, hmm, right?
	That doesn't make you a little curious as to how that may have happened.
	Now, folks, let me ask you something.
	You have this House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
	Don Trump Jr. goes there to testify.
	And immediately, all of a sudden, stories start appearing in mainstream media outlets.
	And the core portion of the story is not wrong, but there's one critical detail that's off in different tellings of the events, meaning one telling that's truth and one telling that's false.
	I promise I'm going to tie this up for you.
	Don't lose me.
	In other words, Don Trump Jr., he testifies, and we find out that WikiLeaks tried to contact him on email to give him an encryption key to some treasure trove, whatever of Democrat data.
	He never, by the way, Don Jr. never answers the email.
	That's not even in dispute.
	You would think that would be enough to say, okay, case closed.
	Goodbye now.
	But the critical detail, all these media outlets get wrong almost at the same time is they get the date wrong.
	They say it's September 4th.
	Now, why is that critical?
	Because if he was given that, Don Jr., that is, that encryption key to this treasure trove of classified data that was stolen and only Don Jr. had it.
	By the way, he never answered the email.
	And the information was still, you know, cryptic and held in WikiLeaks vault, whatever, then that would be kind of a big deal, even though Don never answered, Don Jr. never answered it.
	The catch is the September 4th date was wrong.
	It was September 14th.
	The data had already been made public.
	What do you need?
	An encryption key for the internet?
	Folks, news flash.
	You can go to Google.
	You don't need an encryption key.
	You could have found this stuff yourself.
	So your story's what?
	Did Don Jr. got spammed by WikiLeaks?
	That's your breaking news?
	Now, that's not it.
	So that's story number one.
	The story was correct.
	WikiLeaks did spam Don Jr., right?
	But the date was wrong.
	And they all got it wrong.
	The left-wing media hacks.
	Story number two, the Deutsche Bank story.
	There was a September story?
	Was it Reuters that broke it initially?
	Or a couple people reported this thing.
	I was even on the air.
	I was doing outnumbered when it came out.
	We were like, wow, Trump's bank records are being looked into at Deutsche Bank.
	Now, someone was looking into Deutsche Bank bank records, but they weren't Trump's.
	The story wasn't all false, but there was one detail, just like in the Trump Jr. email story, there was one detail that was wrong.
	And the detail was a critical one, just like the date in the WikiLeaks story.
	This time, it was the fact that, yeah, yeah, they may be looking into some stuff for Deutsche Bank, but it ain't Trump.
	In contrast to how the mainstream media reported it.
	Third story, and this is critical.
	This is the famous Joy Behar one.
	Joy Behar from The View when she, ah, she had that meltdown.
	It's the greatest thing ever.
	So many solid memes that have gotten me through rough days created after.
	Thank you, Joy.
	If you're listening, Joy, and I know there's a good possibility.
	We love you.
	America loves you, Joy Behar.
	You have given us so much joy and pleasure.
	Gosh, I love you.
	So Joy Behar has a meltdown on The View because she gets this breaking news.
	Remember, folks, the story she gets is not false, but a detail in it, and this is the trap, is, or I think, comes out on the air with the card.
	The producers, they're like, this is great.
	Mike Flynn was told while Trump was a candidate to reach out to the Russians.
	Ah, everybody loses their mind.
	This is amazing.
	This is so wonderful.
	The liberals are so excited.
	We got him.
	We finally got Trump.
	Turns out the story wasn't false.
	Mike Flynn was asked to reach out to the Russians.
	When Trump was the president-elect, he was the national security advisor.
	In other words, Mike Flynn was doing his job.
	What?
	That's your story?
	Wait, let me get this.
	That's all you got.
	Let me get this straight.
	You've got nothing else.
	So your stories are what?
	Someone's looking at the bank records for someone other than Trump.
	Don Trump Jr. gets spammed a lot.
	And that Mike Flynn was doing his job when he was appointed national security advisor.
	Those are your three breaking news.
	We got them now stories.
	Again, I'm going to pose to you a question and paint a picture for you here.
	Don't you think that's a little strange?
	I'm just going to ask you this.
	Don't you think it was possible that those stories may have been deliberately planted by people looking to outleters?
	Folks, I'm telling you, if you're a media person out there, I think you're getting played for suckers.
	Now, there's a lot of good media outlets out there.
	Most of you are suckers, though, unfortunately.
	The media is generally terrible.
	Mainstream media is awful.
	The liberal media is just a virus in America.
	They plant misinformation.
	You know, you have low-information voters.
	I think you have misinformation voters.
	They're misinformed by the media.
	It lies to them all the time.
	They just propagate leftist fairy tales because that's what they do.
	They've grown up that way.
	They don't know any different.
	But I'm just going to throw out there to you that I'm not so sure the DOJ and the national intelligence infrastructure isn't right now setting a trap to outleters who are leaking classified information.
	So bottom line is just hang tight.
	I'm not so sure all is bad right now on that front.
	Having said that, the guy who started this whole thing, who called before, hung up, but we got him back because we do have him back, right, Lauren?
	He is there because that would be embarrassing if I said that and he wasn't.
	But Lauren, who is incredible at getting people back, we have Bob from Ohio back on the phone.
	Bob, I just want you to know you changed the entire course of the Sean Hannity show today by calling in because I had no intentions of talking about this subject.
	But go ahead, make your point.
	I'd love to hear what you got to say.
	Yeah, well, here's an alternative theory.
	Suppose all the data that's been collected since like right after 9-11 for national security.
	Right.
	Suppose someone decided to weaponize that.
	They weaponized the guy.
	They weaponized the Justice Department.
	Would have somebody weaponized that and used it to blackmail someone like Jeff Sessions.
	And I know he has a squeaky, clean image, but maybe loved ones around him or something.
	They could, you know, try to manipulate him that way.
	Nobody did something like that.
	Let me tell you something.
	Seriously, I'm not kidding around with you.
	Five years ago, when I had just left the Secret Service, I would have said, Bob, you're crazy.
	With all due respect, you're out of your mind.
	No, seriously, I would have said it with, I don't mean it as a personal insult, but I would have thought it was a nutty theory.
	But I mean this.
	As someone who's been through now and lived through as a conservative commentator, the IRS scandal, the AP phone targeting scandal.
	Bingo.
	I mean, I have friends, you know, Becky Gerritson and the Wetumpka Tea Party.
	I mean, people who were targeted by this stuff.
	Five years ago, I would have said, Bob, you're a little nuts.
	You may need to see a Sigmund Freud-type psychologist.
	But now, I can't tell you with certainty that the theory you just threw out there, that the metadata collection could have been used somewhat nefariously.
	I can't tell you with certainty that no way that I don't think it did.
	I just want to be clear.
	I don't think it did, but I can't tell you with absolute certainty that what you said is insane.
	I can't.
	And that in and of itself is insane in a constitutional republic.
	Did you sub for Kill Mead show last week?
	No, no.
	I thought maybe it might have been you, but it's I heard a segment where they had a estate rep from Wisconsin on there, and they launched a false investigation against her and collected all of her email and text messages or whole family and tried to use it.
	They were going to use it against her.
	Oh, the John Doe investigation in Wisconsin with the Club for Growth guys in the walk.
	Oh, yeah, that story's a.
	I haven't, I didn't even touch that phone.
	I didn't even get to the Hezbollah thing.
	There's so much news breaking today.
	But yeah, that was a big deal in Wisconsin.
	A John Doe investigation, early morning raids, kicking down doors.
	It was the stuff was incredible.
	But, Bob, I got to run.
	I appreciate the call.
	Thank you very much.
	You changed the entire course of the Hannity Show.
	And, you know, one quick tidbit from Bob's call.
	That's interesting that there's another person out there radio who has a voice this disturbing, just like mine.
	That's fascinating.
	Someone sounds like me.
	I feel really, really bad for you.
	I'm serious, man.
	This is definitely, I have a face for radio and a voice for nothing.
	So I'm serious.
	I hope you like the content, but I definitely don't have the most elegant voice out there.
	An opera singer, I will not break.
	All right.
	I want to take another call.
	Let's go to Chase in Vermont.
	We got enough time for him.
	Yeah.
	Chase, what do you got for us?
	Hello.
	Hello.
	My question: we got to go back to, you know, we're talking about the new tax bill and when the liberals come because living in Vermont, I think I'm one of two conservatives here.
	Yeah.
	How do you stay up and rest surrounded by?
	Listen, I love Vermont.
	I'm not a knock on the people.
	The people are really nice.
	But I grew up in the Northeast, in Maryland and New York.
	And I can't take it anymore.
	I mean, how do you surround yourself with liberal policies all the time?
	Doesn't it drive you nuts?
	Well, to be honest with you, there's a lot of closetive, closet-headed conservatives in Vermont that they just won't open their mouths.
	But you just, it's a beautiful place.
	My daughter's here, so I'm here.
	It is.
	So I need a little help with what you were saying before about Chase.
	I'm here for you, brother.
	Fire it at me.
	What do you got?
	Okay.
	You know, you said that when the liberal comes at you and says, well, my God, you're going to be, you know, put a trillion and a half dollars on the checkbook.
	And then you talked about how, you know, that it was our money, not the government's.
	But I need, but why aren't we putting a trillion and a half?
	What is your argument back to them on that?
	I need some substance there.
	Perfectly fair.
	Here's the only question you have to ask your liberal friends when they say, tax cuts, we're going to add a trillion and a half to the deficit.
	Here's the question.
	The question is at a setup like Dom DeLuiza as a cannonball run.
	You say to them, tell me a tax cut, a federal tax cut in American history.
	You name the tax cut.
	The Bill Clinton capital gains tax cuts, the Reagan income tax cuts, the George W. Butching income tax cuts, the Kennedy income tax cuts.
	Tell me a major tax cut at the federal level in American history that has cost the government $1 in revenue.
	Tell me.
	And then just sit there.
	Chase, here's the thing.
	Just sit there and wait because they're going to tell you this.
	I'm going to give you the answer in advance because it just happened with Chris Hahn.
	We debated.
	They're going to say, well, Reagan blew the deficit wide open.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	Yes, that's correct.
	The Reagan years, because a lot of Democrat spenders in Congress want to spend a lot of money.
	We did have increased deficits.
	We've had increased deficits since post-World War II.
	That has nothing to do with tax cuts.
	We have not had a significant tax cut in American history that has, quote, cost the government anything.
	They have actually raised revenue for the government, Chase.
	That's a fact.
	And I'll tell you what.
	I'm going to do you this favor, Chase, because are you on Twitter?
	Yes.
	You are on Twitter.
	Okay.
	Because I like you, I ordinarily don't do this.
	And I may be able to do it during the break.
	If not, I will do it at the end of the show.
	I'm at DeBongino on Twitter.
	I'm not trolling.
	I got a lot of followers.
	I'm not trolling for followers, but I am going to tweet after the show.
	Let me take a little reminder here.
	All right.
	I'm just writing a note here, folks.
	Sorry, you're not supposed to talk like that on the radio, but what the heck.
	I'm going to post a tax tax tables.
	They are really easy to read.
	You don't have to have like an economics degree.
	You don't have to be experienced in Excel.
	I'm going to post a tax table, and I want you to download the link.
	It's just quick.
	It's a safe link.
	It's from like the tax foundation or something or tax policy center, whatever it is.
	And I want you to look at the Reagan years, the Kennedy years, the Clinton years, and the George W. Bush years.
	And I want you to keep it on your phone.
	And I want you to then show it to your liberal friends and say, show me where the tax revenue went down after the tax cut.
	They are going to look at you in utter bewilderment because there's going to be absolutely no way to show it because tax revenue did not go down.
	It went up.
	I'm telling you, they're going to and they're going to lose their minds.
	They may have to seek psychiatric help after that.
	Does that help, Chase?
	But the biggie, the biggie, though, is that the spending went bozo after the spending went crazy.
	That's the problem.
	Listen, Daddy Yo, got to run.
	I will do you that favor because I love you.
	You're a great call and I really appreciate it.
	I'm going to send that link out.
	I'll try to do it now, but I got to take a break.
	I'm already late.
	I'm Debongino at DeBongino on Twitter.
	My name is Dan Bongino, not Debon Gino.
	We'll be back after that.
	All right, welcome back to the Sean Hannity Show.
	These last segments are always tough.
	I like doing this.
	I don't get to do it every day like Sean.
	It's always an honor to sit in, and I really appreciate it, folks.
	I'm Dan Bongino.
	I tweeted that link out, by the way, to the tax tables.
	And have some fun with your liberal friends.
	My recommendation is you keep it up on your phone all the time.
	I don't ever let it, I don't ever shrink the, you know, shrink the thing away or X out or I leave it up all the time, right?
	Or print it out and just highlight the years of the tax cuts and say to your liberal friends, look, you just show me.
	Go ahead, show me where the tax cuts cost the government money.
	Carry it with you everywhere.
	You will give your liberal friends conniption fits.
	I promise you.
	Hey, thanks to everybody out there for all your tweets, all your phone calls, and thanks to Lauren, Ethan, Linda, Jason, and the team.
	I really appreciate it.
	It's always a great honor.
	And of course, Sean to fill in here.
	It's only one of the largest radio shows in the entire world.
	It's not as stressful as it seems, though.
	Lauren and them make it really easy.
	So thank you very much.
	I appreciate it, folks.
	If you want to give me a follow again, I'm on Twitter at DeBongino.
	If you want to pick up a copy of my latest book, it's called Protecting the President.
	It's available on Amazon and in bookstores by me, Dan Bongino.
	And I hope to see you all soon.
	Merry Christmas.
	And even to the snowflakes.
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