The Dan Bongino Show - Ep. 521 A Genuine Crisis

Episode Date: August 9, 2017

In this episode I address: Are we dealing with sane people in the North Korean crisis? http://conservativehq.com/node/26215   www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/28/north-korea-may-have-resumed-counterfeiting-operation/amp/   Why do some people still believe a weak US dollar is a good thing? https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-is-wrong-a-weak-dollar-doesnt-make-a-strong-economy-1502233493   Please stop using this debunked statistic about paid family leave. https://www.cato.org/blog/paid-leave-figures-are-misleading?utm_source=Cato+Institute+Emails&utm_campaign=76c807d88a-Cato_at_Liberty_RSS&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_395878584c-76c807d88a-143016961&goal=0_395878584c-76c807d88a-143016961&mc_cid=76c807d88a&mc_eid=3fd7404a34   Some astonishingly bad numbers on Obamacare. But, liberals won't care.  https://ballotpedia.org/Scott_Rasmussen's_Number_of_the_Day   SPONSOR LINKS: www.BrickhouseNutrition.com/dan www.PrepareWithDan.com   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dan Bongino. I have an obligation to come on the air with data and material and research. I can't just say, trade stinks. Thanks for tuning in. The Dan Bongino Show. Let's jump right in because we have no time for nonsense. Get ready to hear the truth about America. When I was a young man, I don't remember it being sexy to want to allow a nanny state to control my life.

On a show that's not immune to the facts, with your host, Dan Bongino. Alright, welcome to the Renegade Republican with Dan Bongino. Producer Joe, how are you today? Hey man, doing well. Glad to be here with you. Starting something new today with Facebook Live in today's podcast as well, episode 520. So, always on the verge of uh breaking through new technological barriers except for the fact that facebook live's been up for a while gosh a lot to talk about yesterday you know with the media coverage you would think we were on the verge of uh nuclear annihilation after yesterday i mean i don't i'm obviously not laughing at what's going on it's

just all right let's take a deep breath about this entire situation the north koreans we've had an idea about their nuclear capabilities for a really long time. So we're going to get into that. A couple of really good, strong stories I read today, one in the Wall Street Journal, about a bit of a misguided economic approach we're taking right now. I want to discuss that, too. But let's dig right in. Today's show brought to you by our buddies at BrickHouse Nutrition.

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That's BrickHouseNutrition.com slash Dan. Pick up a bottle of Dawn to Dusk today. All right. On the North Korea thing, there's a couple interesting angles I wanted to take on this. What I don't want to do is I don't want to harp on coverage you've already seen yesterday. It's been a 24-hour news cycle about North Korea. And for those of you who missed it, sometimes I get emails, they say, hey, don't dive right into the story. I didn't see it. Okay. Some of you may have super busy lives. Apparently, the Washington Post broke the story that the North Koreans are now able to miniaturize a nuclear weapon to fit on top of an ICBM, a delivery vehicle, an intercontinental ballistic missile, which would deliver that weapon to the United States. It can hit Hawaii. It can hit the continental United States. So, you know, obviously that's a major development, a major breakthrough,

and rightfully so was, you know, was the subject of, again, nearly 24 hours now of consistent news coverage. Now, to not retread all that stuff, there's a couple points I wanted to hit on this. And the first one is a friend of mine, George Rasley, who writes at Conservative HQ, brought up a fascinating point that, Joe, you and I have discussed before. Do you remember a while ago when I brought up, and Rasley wrote this in the past, where he said that one of the lessons, this is important, folks, one of the lessons of foreign adversaries and, frankly, allies who just picked up strategic lessons from the initial Gulf War, one of the lessons they learned about the United States was never go to war with the United States without nuclear weapons. Never go to war with the United States without nuclear weapons. The butt whooping we gave the Iraqis in the Gulf War, in both of them, in the Gulf War, was a lesson to foreign adversaries about, one, the technological prowess, the strategic prowess,

and the just raw power of the U.S. military. Ladies and gentlemen, you can't fight us. You can't beat us. There is no close second. You don't have the economic capability to produce a military or the technological capability or the advanced training our people do. So here's an interesting quote, and it's in a piece that George has up at conservative HQ dot com, which I will put in the show notes today. Always available upon Gino dot com conservative view.com. And if you want my show notes, email to your inbox with the articles, just go to Bongino.com and click subscribe, join my email list and I'll email them right to you. But he quotes this Indian chief of staff from the Indian military, the chief of staff for the Indian army,

Joe. And he says exactly that. They say, he asked him, they said, well, what are the lessons you learn, you know, from the initial Gulf war?

And he said, and I quote, don't fight the Americans without nuclear weapons. And Raz, George draws a really interesting kind of parallel there. He says, well, if that's the case, and he believes it. So, and I do as well, never fight the United States without nuclear weapons because you're going to be destroyed and quickly that those who are pursuing nuclear weapons show are

probably doing so. Why? Because they have some goal of fighting the United States. I mean, I don't mean to oversimplify the situation, but why else would you pursue nuclear weapons other than as an insurance policy against the United States military power because you plan on doing something

against the United States? So again, not to beat the North Korean topic to death, but just something to keep in mind. I'm not an interventionist on a mass scale. I think a lot of you understand that. My conservatarian leanings are strong in this respect. But we have to be reasonable about this. And I know you've said to me, Joe,

before yesterday's show, you were concerned about the North Koreans north koreans and you were you said that yeah and joe doesn't really say a lot to me before the show about issues because we're always talking about technical stuff but he's like listen this is really bothering me and i think the question we're all asking is is this guy kim is he a reasonable person i don't i don't mean intelligent i don't mean smart i mean is he a rational maximizer trying to rationally maximize his own situation to use an economic term meaning is he that dumb to launch a first nuclear strike against the u.s as they're threatening in guam understanding joe

right as any reasonable rational maximizer would that it will result in his immediate annihilation and likely the annihilation of his entire country by the United States. If he were to launch a first strike nuclear, a nuclear strike against the United States, everybody gets that, right? Joe, you get it. I get it. Kim would not, his regime would not survive an attack on the United States.

But the question is, does he care? That's the only question. Is this guy a rational maximizer? Is he reasonable? Again, not smart, not moral, not ethical. Is he reasonable? And the answer I think a lot of people would give you is, I don't think anybody knows anymore. So that's the problem I have with this.

And I think that's why we have to look at this with open eyes and escape our, you know, whatever, our libertarian box, our conservative box, our interventionist box, our neoconservative box and say, listen, I'm a dad first. If this guy's serious about a first strike against the United States, which again, I'm not sure he is. I don't want to over-dramatize the situation. We have to look at this differently. Talk about a loose cannon. Yeah, I really, no kidding. Yeah. For all Facebook live listeners talking, but Joe said, talk about a loose cannon. Yeah, really. One other angle on this North Korean story that I hadn't brought up in the past for a number of different reasons. But my prior job when I was a Secret Service agent, just to show you how deranged this regime is, I remember early in my career. Back then was, by the way, considered very sensitive information.

And the only reason I'm putting it out there now is because it's really not anymore. There's a Wikipedia page. There's an article in, what is it, the Telegraph that I'll put up in the show notes today. It's an older article from 2016 about the North Koreans and counterfeit. Now, how does this relate to me? When I first got on the job with the Secret Service back in 1999, again, this was considered like highly sensitive information. There was a bill bill joe a hundred dollar counterfeit bill yeah that was almost impossible to detect now it was one of the remember the small heads the small

head bills before we got into the big heads you know Those small head bills, there were $100 bills in circulation that were, and let me tell you, when you do counterfeit like a Secret Service agent does every single day, you can see counterfeit show like that. You don't even need to, you just look, you go, yeah, that's whatever the Columbian, you know, P-note, you know, well, those are printer notes, but the Columbian, the 1894 series, whatever it may be, you can detect it like that. You know, they allNote, you know, well, those are printer notes, but the Columbia, the 1894 series, whatever it may be. You can detect it like that. You know, they all have numbers and stuff. That's not the year it was made, but the classification. These bills were nearly impossible to detect, the counterfeit hundreds.

And it was a big mystery who was producing them. Well, not in 1999, but when they first showed up, Joe. And you had to send these bills to headquarters in order to verify they were in fact counterfeit. That's crazy. Think about that. A guy who's doing counterfeit his entire life has seen everything from like photocopied notes, which anybody could pick out to, you know, at the time, Colombian counterfeit, which was really, really good. You've seen everything. And even they could not pick the notes out. They had to send them to forensic forensic experts and headquarters. That's how good these notes were. It came out later on. And again, now it's widespread knowledge.

It's not, you know, classified info anymore. There's probably the North Koreans who were state sponsoring this. And, you know, one of the conclusions was that there was no way this bill could be produced by regular run of the-the-mill counterfeiters. The United States currency at the time had a lot of security features, Joe, that would have cost millions and millions and millions of dollars just to develop the technology to produce it. Who has that kind of money to produce counterfeit? If you had that kind of money, Joe, you wouldn't need a counterfeit. So just again, another angle of this to show you how deranged the North Koreans were that they were actually developing their own printing press for U.S. currency to make sure that they had hard currency, even though it was counterfeit, to go buy stuff, to shuttle across

the border, to bring back to give out as gifts. They would use the counterfeit U.S. currency as hard currency, buy things in other countries, ship them back into North Korea, and their leaders would give them out as gifts and stuff. But this stuff was a big, big, big problem. So I'll put an article from The Telegraph in the notes. They read it. It's actually a pretty cool article, even though it's from last year, about what the, you know, it's called the super dollar or the super note. And yeah, it was huge. I mean, I remember. Yeah. If it was so good, what tip you guys off that it might be counterfeit? Just real quick.

What tipped us off that it was counterfeit? If I remember the story correctly, this thing circulated for years before anybody picked up on it. And there was a super savvy banker somewhere. And for obvious reasons, I can't say what it was, but there was a feature on the bill that if I told you guys, you'd be like, no way they saw that. No way. Like you needed a microscope to see it, but it was a little bit off from the regular note. And even I remember because sometimes we would get these suspect notes and they would say, is this, you know, a super note? And you'd be like, I don't know.

I have to send it to headquarters, even with a microscope. So yeah, but it was this one thing on the back of the note, not the front. And yeah, some bankers saw it. And I remember everybody was freaking out according to the story I heard that, wow, what the hell is this?

This is like some serious counterfeit. So good question, Warren McCust. You always bring it. All right. So story number two today. John Tamney has a really great op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. It may be subscriber only. I'll include it in the show notes anyway. It's a really good piece. It talks about, listen, I respect the president and I support his agenda when it aligns with conservative values, which thankfully has been often. So, you know, I really appreciate a lot he's been doing. You know, sometimes we have some disagreements. You know, the trade thing keeps coming up.

I think he's a little wrong on trade, but it's OK. I mean, you know, we're both both going to defend what we believe. But one of the things I have to disagree with him on, and I know I'm going to get a little bit of negative email. That's fine. I'll defend my position and, you defend yours, but I'm always going to be honest with you, is the president has been talking a lot about the benefits of a weak dollar. And in case you think I'm making this up, here's a quote Tammany puts in the piece from the president. He said, and this is President Trump last month, he said, lots of bad things happen with a strong

dollar. Now, to be clear, to set the premise on what we're talking about, because this is a really critical issue, folks, and I think a lot of people are looking at this the wrong way, not only the wrong way, in an economically catastrophic wrong way, and I'll explain my position in a second. The strong dollar is just the idea that the United States dollar, the Federal Reserve note, what we would consider an actual dollar, greenback, is strong relative to other currencies, meaning your dollar buys a lot of stuff in foreign currency. Let's say, I mean, it's a relative term, but let's say 10 years ago, one dollar bought one yen in Japan. A strong dollar would mean whatever a dollar buys 10 yen now. I mean,

that's a really, really strong dollar, but you get the point. I'm just trying to give you, explain what I mean by strong dollar, because sometimes people say that and they just move on without explaining the premise here. Now, folks, let me say this in unequivocal terms. I have to disagree with the president on this. The weak dollar is not a good thing. Now, when I say that, I mean that on the margin. There are things, of course, there are going to be benefits, isolated benefits in some industries to a weak dollar. If you have a company that exports, right, you export, and 90% of your items are home-based dollar-denominated stuff, so you're an exporter that doesn't import a lot of stuff,

yeah, of course you're going to benefit from a weak dollar. And we discussed this last week a little bit, but I have to readdress it because it keeps coming up because the president keeps mentioning the benefits of a weak dollar. And, you know, we discussed this last week a little bit, but I have to readdress it because it keeps coming up because the president keeps mentioning the benefits of a weak dollar. And frankly, and candidly, folks, I don't think that's true. That would benefit you, though,

if you are an exporter only, which is rare. And I'll get to that in a second. Well, why is that? Because if, you know, if your dollar's weak, that means other people's currencies are strong. So they're buying more with their money and they can buy more of your stuff because your stuff is sold in dollars. So a weak dollar means a strong foreign currency, which allows people in foreign countries to buy more stuff with their

yen or renminbi or whatever it may be. Make sense? Yeah. But the problem is that's a very limited approach and I'll get to that. So point number one, the premise he's trying to set in concrete here is that a weak dollar is a good thing. A strong dollar, to quote him, creates bad things. It would make exports cheaper. The problem with that is that, folks, what's an export anymore? You may say, well, made in America, we export stuff overseas all the time. Right, right. Okay, you're right. more you may say well made in america we export stuff overseas all the time right right okay you're right but some of the stuff we export overseas is a good chunk of it are imported

items into the final export so tammany writes about a couple things one of them sensitive to me right now he says hey you know the f-150 truck? I just bought a Raptor. By the way, this car kicks all over the place. I saw it. Yeah, I know. Oh, man, I love this car. Ford, you did a great job with the Raptor. I've been driving it. It started getting broken in right now.

But the F-150, Joe? A Raptor's a kind of F-150. One third of it is imported parts. So if you're saying, oh, no, we're exporting to foreign countries, and a weak dollar's good because it makes their currency stronger so they can buy more Raptors. Yeah, but a third of the parts in the F-150, a third of the parts have to be bought from foreign countries with a weaker dollar. It doesn't make any sense. Not only that, you may say, oh, that's just one car.

No, the Jeep Wrangler, the Ford Turus these all have one third of their parts are imported um another point tamney makes which is a brilliant one and i i know we've covered on this show before is that it makes energy more expensive as well we still even though we're producing a lot of uh hydraulically fractured oil in the country right now through fracking and natural gas. We import a lot of oil still and a lot of petroleum products, folks. If we are buying it with a weak dollar, it's costing us more in work to get it because we have to pay with more dollars to get the same oil because the dollar is weak. Now, Joe. Yes.

Energy. Is that kind of a component of just about everything we do? Just about. Yeah. I mean, listen, you and I, outside of eating and breathing and functioning, we're not sucking up a lot of energy to do the podcast. I have a Mevo camera running. I have a computer running. I have an iPad. We're not eating up a lot of energy, but everything, even a service oriented industry like what Joe and I are in, in content production, we're not, Joe and I are busting our butts on an assembly line like, you know, America's hardworking manufacturers. We're not.

I like what we do. I appreciate it, but I appreciate their manual labor. But their work requires a lot of energy. My point, folks, is that energy is built into the price of every product you buy everywhere across the country so if we weaken the dollar and we increase the cost of energy how is that going to make our products cheaper for other people to buy overseas or not the answer is it's not going to make them cheaper it doesn't make economic sense uh listen i get i understand what's going on the white house there are competing interests.

There are some manufacturing-based industries that do export, and maybe their product, Joe, is, say, 95% domestic-made. They would benefit, there's no question, because foreign money can buy more of their stuff. The problem is the overwhelming numbers of companies in the United States do not have products that are exclusively made here what they call them this has a name if you want to sound economically pseudo-sophisticated because i hate these terms it's called the you know the breaking up of the global supply chain meaning there there really aren't any exports and imports anymore i know i discussed this last week but it's important to hammer home because there's a re-emphasis right now in the White House on weakening the dollar.

This is a really bad idea. Okay, so just to hammer home point one, they'll say, oh, it makes exports cheaper. No, it doesn't. It increases the cost of energy, and it doesn't define what an export is. What if an export has one-third imports? How's it going to make it cheaper? It doesn't make sense. Here's a second point.

What's it called? You want to make our exports cheaper. This is, and Tammany brings this up as well. It's another great point when we discuss on the show constantly, the idea of productivity. You really want to make our exports cheaper in an economically efficient and more rational way? Then we need to focus on investment productivity. Forget about making our products cheaper by cheapening the currency. By the way, Joe, we're all paid in. We are paid in US dollars. Why would you by cheapening the currency. By the way, Joe, we're all paid in. We are paid in U.S. dollars. Why would you want to weaken the currency? Ladies and gentlemen, exports are nothing more than the price we pay for imports. You have to understand that concept to understand the nuance of trade policy. Exports are the price we pay for imports.

If countries around the world want to sell us stuff for peanuts, frankly, if they want to give it to us for free, we should take it. And I always use the example of two islands. If you have Island A and Island B, forget the whole country analogy because it tends to confuse people based on the numbers. If you have an island of people, 100 people live on Island A, and it's the end of the world, and 100 people on Island B, an island of people, 100 people live on Island A,

and it's the end of the world, and 100 people on Island B, and Island B produces food and guitars and housing products and whatever, and fishing poles, and they want to ship them over to Island A for free. Why would you not take it? Now you don't have to build that stuff. You can do other things.

You can go do the Thurston Howell thing, and remember Gilligan's Island? They always had exercise bikes and stuff. Everything was made out of coconuts. Gilligan, that's my ask card. That's right. Right. I mean, that's what you can do instead.

You now have more time to produce other things. It's the whole idea of competitive advantage, right? Right. Just because we can make stuff doesn't mean we always should. Folks, it's a really insane idea. You want to make our exports cheaper. What we should be doing is allowing people to sell us stuff cheaply so that we can take American workers, invest in them, and allow them to produce more output with the same amount of input. We should, by investing in an assembly line, Joe, and allowing them to make Ford cars cheaper and allowing them to make, you know, Chevy trucks cheaper and allowing them to make Jeep

Wranglers cheaper. I mean, American, good American products, whatever, a carrier, whatever it may be. You know, we had that carrier thing where they moved their plant. Allow them to make products cheaply here by investing in assembly lines that allow them to make more products at a cheaper price. Technology enables you to do that. That's why a flat screen tv you can get for 250 bucks companies figured out a way through investment in their product lines how to make these products cheaper that's the way you make them cheaper you don't do it by cheapening the dollar that's silly it's just not gonna work

and then finally one more point i'm gonna move on to a different story i saw that's really interesting remember we're paid in dollars, folks. You are paid in dollars. You're not paid in yen. You're not paid in red minby. You're not paid in krona. You are paid in U.S. dollars. Cheapening the currency you're paid in that allows you to acquire products and services

you need is never going to be the way to economic prosperity. I'm sorry. So I'll put the Tamney piece in there. It's a really good one. But it does kind of explain away why this emphasis on how a strong dollar brings about bad things is just not accurate, folks. I'm sorry. Economically, it doesn't make a lot of sense. All right.

Another story I saw today, which was interesting because it hammers home this abuse of statistics that goes on when people are trying to make a political argument. Now, I don't know this woman, and I know she doesn't work for a left-wing think tank, so I'm not sure. I'm sure her intentions were pure. I think she may have just kind of skewed it a little bit. AEI's Abby McCloskey is a piece in Cato. I don't know the woman. Again, I'm not trying to impugn her motives here, but there's a quote. She has a 12% of private sector employees have access to paid family leave from their employer. And everybody kind of freaked out over this statistic. Like, I'm getting a lot of comments on Facebook Live. Hey, Christina, how are you?

Folks, this family leave thing. This is another push. Again, I'm not trying to harp on the White House today and hammer them. But this has been a big push by Ivanka to push for paid family leave. And the statistic everybody's throwing around is this statistic. The one I just told you, 12% of private sector employees have access to paid family leave from their employer. People are freaking out over it. Oh my gosh, only 12%. Well, there's a great piece in Cato that debunks this completely and says, well, that doesn't comport with reality. It doesn't make sense. And this just goes to show you how sometimes statistics can be abused

by, by the way, folks, I'm not saying just by liberals, although they do it a lot, but by people of any party who want to advance a narrative. I think this is a very bad idea, by the way, to, and Ivanka's pushing this, to push for a government program for mandatory paid family leave. I think it's a very bad idea. I don't think the government is going to solve the problem. I don't think the government has the capability or the intellect to solve the problem. And using this statistic is wrong. Here's why. In the Cato piece, the author indicates that surveys of this, when you actually go out

to the workplace and ask people, hey, have you taken family leave to take care of, you know, on paid family leave, take care of family member, whatever, birth of a child, 63% of people say, yes, we have. So wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Time out. Throw the red flag up for review, right? If only 12% of the workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, which by the way, you should already be like, oh, okay, it's a government kind of entity.

So that you should always be skeptical. But if only 12% of people have family leave, how come 63% of people in a survey say they took paid family leave? It doesn't make sense. There's always a kicker. Here's the kicker on this one. The BLS is using the definition of leave to mean leave only usable for paid family leave.

So in other words, Joe, let's say you and, God forbid, you have a family health crisis over there, and Armacost wants to take a leave from his WCBM job in the morning. Joe, you may have carried over from last year, 20 sick days, five sick days, I don't know, 10 sick days, 30 vacation days. You may say to the job, listen, I'm going to take some time off. I'm going to spend some time with little Joe. I'll be back in two weeks. Okay, great. They clap.

Thanks, Joe. I hope you're okay. Have a nice time. Thanks for your hard work. See you in a couple of weeks, right? No, no, no. But that's not counted with the BLS. The BLS is no, it has to be specifically for paid family leave only. It can't be sick time. It can't be vacation time. It can't be anything else, Joe, which is ridiculous. Joe, if you use your leave and you're getting paid while you're on leave and you're still taking care of your family, what do you care how they categorize it? No, I'm cool with that. Of course you're cool with it.

I know you're cool because you're cool with it because you need the paycheck, you need your job, and you need a job to come back to while you also, because I know Joe loves his family, you need to take care of your family first. Right. So the whole point of this thing is this is, again, the government. And again, I'm not trying to pile on the White House today. I mean, I just think this is a really bad idea. This is the government finding a problem for a solution. You know, when I was in the Secret Service, it was the same way. You had a bunch of options.

There was leave you had. There was sick leave you had. The NYPD has an unlimited, when I was a cop, has an unlimited sick leave policy. If you're taking that to take care of a child, it's out there. The solutions are already out there that, Joe, free people are making agreements with free employers to make it work for them. The government's not going to be able to fix this. I'm sorry. The government's just going to exacerbate the problem and make it worse, as it always does. So I'm going to put that piece in the show notes.

I strongly suggest you read it, not just because it debunks lefty arguments about only 12% of people. I mean, it's just a family leave, which is just wrong. But because it shows you, again, government statistics. Be very, very careful what you read. You know, this morning, I wanted to talk for some reason. I had this, i was like i paid family leave let me try and then i saw kato i'm like oh perfect this kato piece is terrific all right today's show also brought to you by our friends at my patriot supply gosh what a day to

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In case you're unaware of what an EMP would do, by the way, an atmospheric detonation would knock out most of our power grid. And we don't have the capability right now to produce transformers on a mass scale. I don't mean transformers like the movie, Transformers, more than meets the eye. I'm talking about electric transformers that are required to get energy into your household. We don't have the capability to produce them on a mass scale. I don't know if you know that. And a lot of them aren't protected with those Faraday type cages. You would have no electric for potentially years.

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I have four people in my household, so I have quite a few boxes in my house. Go grab it. It's just $99. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Being prepared matters, right? Yeah. Go to preparewithdan.com. That's preparewithdan.com and pick up your one month

supply of emergency food today it's breakfast lunch and dinner it lasts 25 years that's a really really long time i will be old and decrepit potentially not even alive by them but people get upset when i say that although i say it all the time because i'm falling apart as we speak right now all right so uh last story of the day I saw, which, again, it just speaks to the futility of the left advocating for this failure that is Obamacare. And I hate to keep talking about the Obamacare topic because I know it gets to be a nuisance. But it's not just like when I mentioned the Clinton surplus and it drives people wild that Bill Clinton never had a surplus. But liberals will insist they do. And it's not about the Clinton surplus.

It's just about the media insisting something happened that didn't happen that anybody can look up. I keep talking about the failures of Obamacare because it's just epidemic of how liberals will defend the failed idea, no matter how much information comes out about how failed that idea is. Matter of fact, just looking now, I took a screenshot of another interesting piece by Cato today. But on Drudge, they have a Rasmussen poll. And Rasmussen, the number of the day, Joe, 6.5 million people are now paying the fine for Obamacare. So think about that. I want to emphasize to you, Libs, and to conservatives out there, the sock level of Obamacare is now off the charts so badly that I don't understand how liberals still with a straight face without a smirk can defend this abomination.

So Rasmussen's number today, 6.5 million people in the United States are now paying a fine to not have to buy Obamacare. Think about this, Joe. People apply to the IRS, by the way. You know this as well as I do. People will do just about anything to avoid paying their tax load. They will. I'm not talking about tax evasion criminally. I'm talking about tax avoidance. Some people will donate to charity to get out of a tax load. I mean, most people donate to charity because they like charity, but let's be honest. Some do it because it's good tax benefits do it. Some people will buy muni bonds

to avoid the tax load on that. People will do just about anything to avoid paying higher taxes. Joe, there are 6.5 million people in a country of only 300 plus million who are paying the IRS extra money to get out of buying this crap sandwich known as Obamacare. That's number one from Rasmussen. Here's number two.

15 million people would drop Obamacare if it was legal to do so. Folks, do you understand we're talking about right now over 20 million people? We're talking about nearly 10% of the population of the United States. And by the way, very few have been actually subjected to Obamacare because remember, it was for the individual market, right? So of that, you're talking an overwhelming number of people that would pay or would do anything to get out of this thing tomorrow they would pay a fine to the irs and 15 million people would drop it tomorrow if they wouldn't have to pay the fine because it sucks that bad and yet they still argue for it but those are old numbers there's another piece in there

another uh quote in the piece from rasmussen i'll put it in the show notes again as well, the Rasmussen piece. It's a good one. By a health policy analyst named Bob Lazewski. Forgive me, Bob, for saying your name wrong. I might have butchered it, but it seems pretty straightforward. Joe, listen to what I'm about to tell you, because again, this just shows you the futility of this disaster.

Bob Lazewski, health policy analyst. He says, 40% of those eligible for subsidies have signed up for coverage. In what other business or government program would such a desired acceptance rate, by those it was intended to serve, be considered a success? Think about the number I just opened up that with. 40% of those eligible for subsidies. Folks, the program sucks so bad that only four out of 10 people who are being given money by other taxpayers to buy a product, to buy an Obamacare compliant insurance plan in the individual market. If you get a group of 10 people and you're giving them taxpayer money, other taxpayers money saying here it is. It's free to you. It's not free to other taxpayers. But it's free, Joe, you're giving away.

You have your program is you have a new business in, say, Pet Rocks. And you're sitting on a street corner and people are walking by and you're giving it to them free and they still don't want it. That might be a clue that your product really sucks. Or you're in a store and you're in the bread aisle and every item is for sale in the bread aisle, except this one item. They're like, free bread right here. And everybody bypasses it and goes to pay for the bread. That might be a sign that the bread really, really stinks. But not to libs. The fact that you can't give six out of ten people money to buy Obamacare.

The fact that 6.5 million are paying a fine to not buy Obamacare. And 15 million people would drop it tomorrow if it was legal to do so, none of this is a clue to you at all? Are you ever open to an alternate viewpoint at all? Or are you just so committed to your blind allegiance to Obama and his failed program that you will say anything to keep this thing going? I mean, it's an abomination.

Now, look at this. I'm watching, I got Fox on in the background. Insurers to withdraw from Obamacare marketplace, Aetna, Anthem, Harkin, Humana, Minute Man Health. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. I mean, it's just insane. Some guy just tweeted my Facebook. He said, stop yelling into the mic, you freak. That's the benefit of doing a Facebook Live. No, you don't listen to my podcast, clearly. All right. One more point I wanted to make on Obamacare.

It's a really great piece in Cato. Again, I'll put this in the show notes as well. Folks, Obamacare is not the Affordable Care Act anymore. And you're like, what are you talking about? Of course it is. The Affordable Care Act was the legislative name for Obamacare. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Folks, the original Affordable Care Act no longer exists. What is Obamacare now is not the Affordable Care Act. And in the piece in Cato, he talks about, I'm not going to go through all of them, but he talks about 16 ways Obamacare, as we know it, the original Affordable Care Act is not Obamacare now. original Affordable Care Act is not Obamacare now. It's a completely different thing. So when you say to liberal, you say to your liberal friends, you know, who defend the Affordable

Care Act or Obamacare, you should ask them, which Obamacare are you talking about? Today's Obamacare? You're talking about yesterday's Obamacare? You're talking about the Obamacare that actually passed? So here are a couple of things. Allowing Congress to remain in the FEHB from 2010 to 2014, something we brought up repeatedly. There was a congressional exemption for Obamacare. The FEHB, by the way, is the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. I was in it my last job. It's actually a pretty well-run program because the government doesn't run it.

It's paid for by government tax dollars, but federal employees can pick their own program. Congress was allowed to stay in that when they were supposed to buy their insurance as per the Affordable Care Act from the exchanges, but that didn't happen. So again, the Affordable Care Act no longer exists as we originally know it. The bevy of exemptions, Sebelius, Kathleen Sebelius, former HHS Secretary under Obama, issued unions and other firms from various regulations. So again, if you're a big believer in the Affordable Care Act, which one? The one that forced unions and organizations to do these A, B, and C? Or the one where they were all given exemptions? The one that forced Congress to buy Obamacare from exchanges?

Or the one that exempted them from doing so? Which one do you support? I mean, you can't even argue with liberals because the goalpost keeps moving. She says in the piece, the threats Sebelius made to insurers who spoke publicly and truthfully about the cost of those regulations. I remember that one. Sebelius soliciting funds for Enroll America from companies she regulates. This was basically Kathleen Sebelius, the HHS secretary under Obama, was looking for funds to advertise for Obamacare from the health industry companies she actually regulates.

Nothing wrong there, folks. Folks, let's not call that a government shakedown, you know, because that's not what it is. That's just the government. You know, they're gently asking because, you know, nothing's going to happen, of course, if you say no. Let me see some other doozies here. The Supreme Court rewriting the individual mandate 2012. Again, which Obamacare do you support?

The one where Obama went on TV in an interview with a major network news channel and Obama said that the individual mandate was not a tax. I know we have that sound cut. Yeah, we do. Yeah, we have that. Where Obama actually, I think it was with George Stephanopoulos, and they asked him about the penalty for not buying Obamacare. He said, is that a tax? Oh, no, no, no, it ain't a tax. That's what he said. His words, not mine. Then the Solicitor General went to the Supreme Court and argued for Obamacare, argued that the individual mandate to make it constitutionally, quote, acceptable, argued that the individual mandate was a tax. Folks, again, which with it? Which one is it? If you're defending Obamacare, is it the Obamacare that said the individual mandate was not a tax like Obama himself said? Or are you defending the Obamacare they defended in the Supreme Court that argued that the individual mandate was in fact a tax? Which one? Macho Man cuts, you got to keep those on instant standby for the future.

That's why I sent them to you. Joe this morning, he knows I love Macho Man Savage. Don't know. Joe, you got to have those. Once in a while, we won't overdo them, I promise. But once in a while, Joe pulled up an, oh, yeah. And you pulled up an, oh, no, too right. Oh, no. We need that because that would be perfect right now for this segment.

I should have told you before the show. But good job on that nonetheless. Thank you. Okay. A couple more. Let's see. Obama's illegal if you like your health plan. Fix grandmother plans exemptions.

In other words, remember if you like your plan, you could keep it. They always knew that you couldn't keep your plan. They rewrote a lot of obamacare to make sure you could not keep your plan it was all nonsense so again which one do you support all right just two more we'll move on the obama administration making illegal csr payments folks this one is important it keeps coming up you have to understand that the liberals right now are arguing for a policy these cost-sharing reduction payments, they are monthly payments from you, the taxpayer, to health insurance companies.

Liberals are actually advocating for this, and sadly, the Trump administration so far has continued these payments. Folks, I get it. It's going to disrupt the insurance market, but you cannot argue on one hand that the evil health insurance companies, as the liberals argue, by the way,

these evil health insurance companies are destroying the country, and on the other hand, argue that taxpayers should be sending them monthly payments. Listen to yesterday's show or the day before we go into this a little more. Finally, let's see the Obama administration illegally diverting reinsurance payments from the Treasury to insurance companies. This one was a killer. killer. The Treasury, there were payments, reinsurance payments that were supposed to be made from insurance companies making money under Obamacare to companies that were struggling.

Well, what was the problem, Joe? Again, this is how Obamacare was written. So which one do you support, that one or the one where the reinsurance payments were taken from the Treasury? Now, you may say, wait, you just said that reinsurance payments were designed under Obamacare to come from insurance companies making money in a flow to insurance companies that were struggling to, quote, Joe, stabilize the markets. But what happened, Joe? Well, what happened was nobody was making money. So the Treasury had to come in and backfill that. Those payments were supposed to be made back to the Treasury when money was being made by the insurance companies, which, by the way, Joe, did not happen. It didn't happen. Those payments haven't been made. So again,

which Obamacare do you support? Folks, these numbers are devastating. And it's really, really, it's difficult. It's getting difficult right now to argue with liberals about which Obamacare they support, why they support it, because they don't seem to be reasonable anymore. They seem to be too concerned with defending political ideology and the legacy of Barack Obama rather than actually defending the economic effectiveness, financial effectiveness, and healthcare arena effectiveness of Obamacare. It's really a disgrace. It's why I get frustrated dealing with these folks.

All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in. I really appreciate it. I will see you all tomorrow. You just heard the Dan Bongino Show. Get more of Dan online anytime at conservativereview.com. You can also get Dan's podcasts on iTunes or SoundCloud. And follow Dan on Twitter 24-7 at DBongino.