The Dan Bongino Show - Ep. 529 Popping the Media Bubble

Episode Date: August 21, 2017

In this episode: The far-Left's entire political strategy is premised on making you believe that their fringe positions are held by a majority of Americans. Hint; they're wrong. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/democratic-hopes-for-big-2018-win-fading-confederate-statue-backlash/article/2631934?utm_campaign=Washington%20Examiner:%20Washington%20Secrets&utm_source=Washington%20Examiner:%20Washington%20Secrets%20-%2008/21/17&utm_medium=email   The D.C./Media Bubble is reading Trump all wrong. Again! https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-pershing-and-persuasion-1503091778   I'll debunk the premise of this study showing the economic performance of Democrat and Republican presidents. https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/democrats/2016/6/the-economy-under-democratic-vs-republican-presidents   Democrats are celebrating a minimum wage study showing it will cause tens of thousands of job losses?  http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Beat/2017/Minimum-Wage-Study-Authors-Estimate-Job-Loss-Figure-Will-Be-Cut-in-Half-After-Error-Fixed/   Is the Secret Service bankrupt? https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/08/21/secret-service-cant-pay-agents-because-trumps-frequent-travel-large-family/529075001/   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. All right, welcome to the Renegade Republican with Dan Bongino. Producer Joe, how are you today? Man, I want to be sedated. Yeah, I know. A lot of news going on. I know, let's get right to it. No time to waste. So big solar eclipse, full eclipse day for people in large swaths of America. Everybody's excited.

You know, I can only imagine. I was thinking about this this morning before I was getting ready to prepare the show here. I was thinking, imagine, you know, hundreds of years ago, we didn't have the scientific data we had now. Imagine all the if liberalism existed back then, how committed they are to lying to all of us. They would have told us like it was a sign that we all needed to raise taxes or something like that, like school choice was a terrible thing or that the apocalypse was coming because Donald Trump is president. Don't you think?

Look, there's this big black disc in the sky. It's blocking out the sun. Donald Trump is the president. We all everybody needs to repent. Now we're all going to die. I mean, you can only imagine what the liberals would have said if we didn't have mounds of scientific data showing us exactly what's going on in the sky so have fun put your glasses on don't hurt your eyeballs may watch out for your kids don't let them stare at it so uh all right moving on to some hardcore stuff it was a really big weekend and um

you know i i read a a really the theme of today's. Just let me sum it up before we get started is going to be, you know, the liberals again lying to you. I mean, studies coming out, research coming out, anecdotal data coming out on multiple stories this weekend about things liberals are telling you that are just not true. And I read a piece this weekend that spurred me to Monday's show. And the piece was in The Wall Street Journal was called Trump Pershing and Persuasion. And I'll put the piece in the show notes.. It was called Trump, Pershing, and Persuasion. And I'll put the piece in the show notes, but it was a fascinating piece. I tweeted it out with a big, like, must read, please check this out, because I found it fascinating. The entire premise of the piece was something we've been talking about for a long time. liberalism and the entire far left their strategy joe is premised on the fact that they need to make you believe that their fringe positions are widely held and that you're in the fringe and you're in

the minority absolutely now i have multiple cases of this i'm going to point out today and i have of course you know dated research and articles to back it up because unlike liberals we don't uh talk out of our cabooses on this show but it was really an incredible piece and the premise of the piece was was was just that but they use the pershing tweet and what happened in charlottesville as an example of how what the elite dc bubble thinks is going on in america and what's actually going on in America are two completely different things that almost never ever marry up now for those of you who missed it I assume most people know what happened in Charlottesville but in case you missed it there was obviously a person died tragically some guy was associated with this this neo-naazi group ran down a woman. Everybody kind of knows what happened.

Antifa showed up. There was a rally by some Ku Klux Klan members and some other people who showed up in support of a statue. And there was a conflict. Now, in response to that, Trump had pointed out that, listen, there were people on both sides looking to cause trouble. Now, it's just factually correct i mean no one's saying either side was right matter of fact both sides if you espouse violence are wrong just by showing up if you're there committed to committing violence i think everybody gets that right that's not that's kind of common sense stuff only the liberal media doesn't get it but when trump pointed that out the

liberal media had a total meltdown now after the terror attack in Barcelona, again, if you missed it, there was a vehicle that ran down people in the street. Another savage decided to mow people down, another hostile vehicle attack. And Trump responded with a tweet indicating that we should take the Pershing strategy. The Pershing strategy was an American military officer who in the Philippine War, it was alleged that, now, some people say the story's been debunked, but it was alleged that he lined up in the Philippines

a bunch of 50-some Muslims, killed 49 of them, told one of them to go back and tell them what happened. Now, you may say, well, what happened? He killed 49 of them. Well, supposedly, they dipped the bullets in pigs' blood and buried the dead bodies with pigs. And Trump said, well, maybe we should try this them. Well, supposedly they dipped the bullets in pigs' blood and buried the dead bodies with pigs. And Trump said, well, maybe we should try this strategy.

Now, with that backdrop, this story will make sense. The point the guy makes in the piece is, it's an incredible one. He says, you know what, let me just read what he says here. This is the author of the piece. And this guy does strategic research in focus groups and sees what america's thinking he says we think it's a clinical case of mass hysteria one of the strangest we've ever seen it's not about the event itself in other words charlottesville to the media folks joe it's about trump's reaction to the event because he's

the most famous and fascinating man who's ever lived and what we've called the trump infamy ecosystem profits from exploiting that strange fact. And he says it's not even about whether Trump is a racist. It's self-evident that he is not because there's no evidence that he is. Just as it's self-evident that his campaign didn't conspire with Russia to hack the election. His sin is that he has failed to express his outrage

at the event in a particular way. And he goes on to say that that way doesn't align with the D.C. identity politics mold. In other words, an identity politics, when something happens that's supposed to inflict some kind of strategic damage upon the right, like a Ku Klux Klan rally, which is absurd. These people are not with us. These people are racist. They have nothing to do. The Ku Klux Klan was a Democrat organization that you're supposed to respond a specific way. The point the guy makes is that Trump didn't respond in that way. So the DC bubble thought, oh my gosh, this is catastrophic. He's going to lose. He's going to get his butt kicked. This is horrible. Look how terrible Trump is. But the polls don't

show any of that. So I opened up the show telling you the premise of this is that liberals want you to believe that a fringe idea, a fringe idea, in other words, right wing Ku Klux Klan. That's not us. We have nothing to do with these people at all. They want you to believe that that fringe idea and the response to that, that we're supposed to accept blame for this and apologize for them, not just condemn them. That that fringe fringe ideas is covered by mainstream America.

But it's not that's not showing up in the polls at all matter of fact he brings up another interesting point about trump's pershing comment joe now they say well it's been debunked and trump put out a tweet about dipping bullets in pig's blood that never happened this has been debunked whatever and the dilbert creators quoted in the piece that comic dilbert who's a Trump supporter and he says it doesn't matter if the story's real or not about Pershing that's not the point he says and he makes it it makes a really really good point here he says the point of this is that the American public whether the story is true or not understands that Trump is willing to take a harsh line on terrorism, whereas others

are not. And they see that as the qualities of a leader. Folks, I'm just quoting, whether you agree with the tweet or not, the indications through the polling data is that the media's response to Trump and what's happening in the real world are not the same thing. I can't tell you this enough. They're not the same thing. They're lying to you.

I can't tell you this enough. They're not the same thing. They're lying to you. That is not the mainstream American position at all. My gosh, Trump really gaffed in Charlottesville. Oh, my gosh. Trump really blew it with that Pershing tweet. You think that you think that you get what I'm saying, Joe, like they think that in the media. But that's not what the data shows.

That's just not. I mean, they are going to continue, continue to blow it when they do this survey and polling data predicting the downfall of Trump. Trump's going to go away. He's going to be impeached. He's going to resign. He's terrible. Everybody hates him. That's just not what's happening.

All right. Moving on. There's another piece in the Washington Examiner today. A really good one, I might add, about polling on the Confederate statues issue. And it was in Paul Bedard's Washington Secrets. I'll put it in the show notes again, available always at Bongino.com. And you can join my email list and I'll send you these articles. I pick out the doozies every day. If you subscribe to my email list, again, available at Bongino.com. All right, the Washington Examiner piece is fascinating because, again, the left's entire strategy, Joe,

The Washington Examiner piece is fascinating because, again, the left's entire strategy, Joe, is believing in fringe ideas. Men in the women's room, women in the men's room. We have to tear down our statues. We should vandalize statues, rip it all down. We should rename Washington, D.C., as Michelle Malkin said this weekend, Obama City. I mean, name it all after Democrats. Get rid of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, everyone. You name it. Hamilton, Madison, Adams, everyone, you name it.

Hamilton, Madison, wipe them all out because they were all flawed people. Rip down Confederate statues everywhere. The left strategy is that this fringe position is shared by the majority of Americans, and if you don't share this position, Joe, you're in fact a maniac. You're the crazy guy. This is the whole premise of modern liberalism. Now, again, you would think that would show itself in the polling data, just like the Charlottesville response. If it was so terrible, like the media told you, Trump's response that is to Charlottesville, Joseph, you would think that the polling data would show a decrease in his approval ratings.

It actually went up again you would think if trump's pershing tweet was so awful oh my gosh how could he send out this story about what happened to muslims in the philippines uh so how this is so terrible you would think his polling data would go down it didn't it went up you don't have to agree with it. I'm not defending or not defending. I'm telling you what is. If you decide to accept what is or not, that is totally up to you. But understand, if you don't accept what is, you're living in a world that isn't. In other words, a fantasy land, which is constantly the D.C. bubble.

Now, the Confederate statues thing. Again, a fringe position that we should rip down Confederate statues. We should attack the founding fathers. America is an international disgrace. We should wipe clean its history. This is the fringe position on the left that they want you to believe is shared by the majority of Americans. Washington Examiner piece, show some polling data. What does the polling data show, Joe?

Show some polling data. What does the polling data show, Joe? Even 40% of black Americans and Democrats think that tearing down Confederate statues is a pretty stupid idea. Black Americans and Democrats. In other words, you barely have a majority of black Americans and Democrats that think this is a good idea. Forget about Republicans and independents who think it's the dumbest idea ever. Tearing down a Confederate statue is going to do nothing to solve the urban decay we've seen in cities run by liberals for decades. For decades.

It is not going to solve one crime. It is not going to get one ounce of drugs off the street. It is not going to create one job. It is not going to create a better health care system. It's not going to fix a hospital. It's not going to get a poor child's root canal. It's not going to create a better health care system. It's not going to fix a hospital. It's not going to get a poor child's root canal, a root canal. It's going to do none of that. But it is going to do one thing. It's going to keep the liberal base angry. Now, folks, one of the ongoing threads in this show from the beginning has been the idea that when you understand that liberalism, liberalism festers in anger.

It needs anger. It needs anger because it has nothing else. Now, whether you're a Republican or not is not my concern. I frankly don't care. You're all adults. You can pick your own political party affiliation and judge your own candidates. I have pointed out problems with the Republican Party frequently. They're failing us right now.

But at least good Republicans, conservatives, and principled libertarians out there understand that our entire ideological bedrock is based on very consistent things. And even though those things can be hard to explain sometimes, economic liberty, the benefits of it, they are hard to explain. Healthcare liberty, education liberty, we're consistent. We don't change our minds. The good ones. No good Republican I know

has changed his mind on Obamacare, on tax cuts, economic liberty, school choice, anything. Liberals don't have that. Notice I didn't say Democrats. Liberals don't have that, Joe. Right. Their entire ideology

is an ideology of distraction they have to distract you from the greatness of america because the greatness of america was was um our greatness whatever you judge greatness as a common sense person right our economic prosperity our system our health care system our our education system, whatever it may be, our level of freedom. Anything that succeeded has always succeeded because of liberty and freedom. The left needs you to distract that from you. They have to distract you from the greatness of America compared to everybody else in the

world. So what do they do? They always point out its flaws. Always. They need to keep you perpetually outraged and keep and keep you focused on america's mistakes not its successes its successes are obvious joe people people immigrate to the united states and emigrate from their home countries here they come here you know we don't we have to keep what we have to build walls to keep people out from coming in illegally it's not the other way around

we don't build walls to keep people in, like other countries have to do. They have to distract you liberals because they have nothing to sell you. They have nothing to sell you other than we need to abort children, rip down and kick inanimate statues. Kicking statues, Joe. Kicking statues?

This is what we're doing now. We're kicking statues. We have to kick statues, hike taxes, grow government, take away your liberties. We have to kick statues, hike taxes, grow government, take away your liberties. We have to put people in jail who don't bake cakes for gay weddings. That's their entire, this is their fringe position. So in order to keep people perpetually angry, they have to

constantly fabricate and refuel the aggravation machine. And the aggravation machine today is Confederate statues, even though the position is clearly a fringe position. It's barely got a majority of black Americans and Democrats who think this is a good idea. But you have to fuel the outrage machine because the outrage machine keeps people distracted at all times. and Trump's refusal to play along with the identity politics agenda and his refusal to acknowledge his role in the Ku Klux Klan, which is zero, by the way, his refusal to play that game has the media pissed because in the past, Republicans would go,

oh, yes, yes, this is us. We did this. We're very sorry. We didn't do any of this. This is not us. I mean, I saw a great video at Prager University this weekend, Joe, about the the mythical you that, oh, what happened is the party switched. All the racist Democrats became Republicans, and that's why the South voted Republican. But think about it.

Does that make any sense? Think about the overall picture. Does that make any sense at all? So what you're telling me is, as the United States has become an unquestionably less racist, more open and diverse society, especially in the South, right, Joe? Yeah. It has voted more Republican, but you're making the case

that as it's voted more Republican, the racist Democrats became Republicans? Does that make any sense to you? It makes no sense at all. The Southern strategy is a myth. It's a lie told to you by Democrats to make you believe the racist history of the Democrat Party, their KKK allegiance, their dominance of the South when it was racist. And as it subsided, it became more Republican. They want you to believe that it doesn't exist.

They want to wipe the stain of the Democrat Party and its history of racism clean. party and its history of racism clean. Now, to be clear, unlike what Democrats do to us, I really mean this sincerely. I am not associating today's Democrats with the bull con or Democrats of the South at all. But if you're going to acknowledge history, at least acknowledge it honestly. Acknowledge honestly that the history of the South was a history of Democrat racism, not Southern racism. It was Democrat racism. That's the real history of the South and the Ku Klux Klan.

And the simple fact of the matter is as the Democrats started to subside and relinquish power and it became more Republican, the South became more diverse and more open into the flourishing society we see today you trying to pin your your uh you know the the democrats racist history on republicans it's just you lying because you have nothing else to say again dem's lying to you and making it out that a fringe position is held by the majority of the public it's just not true this confederate statue thing is fringe position is held by the majority of the public. It's just not true.

This Confederate statue thing is not a position held by the majority of Americans. You're just making it up. Okay, a couple other stories I saw this week, and it came out. I get a lot of viewer email, and I really appreciate it. I read every one. It's danielatbongino.com. Really great stuff that comes in. A lot of good articles.

And I got an email this weekend from a gentleman. He sent me a piece, and I'll put it in the show notes. It's a research piece done by Alan Blinder, who is a PhD economist. He's left-leaning, and I don't really trust his work because I've read his op-eds in the Wall Street Journal. And I think they're ideological, not scientific or or particularly well thought out to be candid um but he did write a piece and i don't want to i don't want to um i don't want to just sweep it away without analyzing it because the piece is interesting and the the email said hey what do you think of this can you debunk this and the premise of the piece was that the economy does better under democrat presidents and republicans and i've seen this piece come out in various forms

from various authors in the past and i want to say that the research and the numbers that blinder puts in the piece which again will be in the show notes on the charts are not inaccurate of democrat presidents under under some democrat presidency economy has done quite well and just to be clear how we're measuring how well the economy did, they're measuring it by percentage of GDP growth average of each year of the presidency. Now, folks, what's the problem with this piece? Again, the Democrats will tell you because they're disingenuous and they'll lie to you. They'll say, oh, that means Democrat policies are better for the economy than Republican policies are. Therefore, you should vote Democrat. Now, I'm going to make the case to you that although the piece of the numbers in there

are not inaccurate, this is the problem with getting lost in that bubble without looking at the actual policies. In other words, Joe, getting lost in the label rather than what actually happened. What I find fascinating is the data is skewed by a couple of presidencies. Kennedy Johnson, of course, Kennedy has been tragically assassinated into his term. But the Kennedy Johnson years and their averages, by the way, and the Clinton years. Now, you know what's fascinating what democrat policies during those years that you would associate with liberalism are you going to pin on the growth like what what do you what actually did it well what they don't tell you when what blender leaves out of the piece but he does say i'll give him credit he says these results should be interpreted with caution i'll finish the quote in a second after because it'll make more sense what he doesn't tell you specifically in the piece is that John F. Kennedy, during the Kennedy years, cut the top marginal tax rate from 90 to 70 percent, which as Larry Kudlow has pointed out numerous times, was the largest take-home pay tax cut we've seen in decades.

Think about why that is, Joe. You may say, well, how's that? If Kennedy cut the tax rate from 90 to to 70%, but Reagan cut it from 70% to 28%, wasn't Reagan a bigger tax cut? Reagan was a bigger percentage point tax cut. But when you think about it, the actual amount of money in your pocket increased under Kennedy even more. The reason is very simple. If you were making, if your dollar, say last, say you're relatively wealthy and your last dollar of taxes was taxed at 90%, right? So you were only taking home 10 cents because the government took 90%. And Kennedy cut it to 30%.

You now are taking, excuse me, to 70%. You're now taking home 30%. So you went from 10 to 30, a pretty big jump. Think about that. Now you go in the Reagan years, if you were taxed at 70%, you were taking home 30 cents on the dollar, but at 28%, you were taking home, listen, it depends a little bit, but 70 cents, 72, depends on what marginal tax rate you have, but you get it. So you went from 30 to 70, but it's a bigger jump from 10 to 30 than from 30 to 70 you get it. So you went from 30 to 70, but it's a bigger jump from 10 to 30 than from 30 to 70 cents take home. So you actually made more of a percentage increase

in your take home pay under Kennedy than you did under Reagan. Again, the numbers fluctuate a little bit because we're talking about marginal tax rates. In other words, these aren't flat tax rates. It's not that I don't understand the math. I don't want to give you hard numbers like that was every dollar. Marginal tax rates means the last dollar earned. So if the tax rate came in at, say, $250,000 or more, and you made $251,000, you were only taxed at 90% on that last $1,000 over $250,000. So that's the only reason. But Kennedy's tax cut was bigger.

So it's interesting from a take-home pay perspective that he leaves that out of the analysis. And he only tangentially refers to it also under the Clinton years. Folks, listen, not everything that happened under the Bill Clinton years was an exclusively far-left policy initiative. After we got rid of Hillary care, there were some things that happened in the Clinton years that were largely conservative-based policies. Thanks to the new Gingrich Congress and a lot of what Republicans pushed Clinton to sign. You had welfare reform. You had government spending as a percentage of GDP, historically low, in modern times, at least. We were spending about 19% of GDP under the Obama years. It was 24. So I just, I say to the author of this piece and the guy who sent it to me, great piece. Thanks for sending it.

You're asking all the wrong questions when you say, well, I just read this piece and the economy has done better under Democrats than it has in the Republicans. You should be asking yourself what policies, not what party. If the policies that the economy has done better under were the Reagan year tax cuts and the Kennedy year tax cuts, because those were two significant jumps in GDP growth, then the common thread, Joe, is tax cuts. It's not Democrat versus Republican. Also, the economy did very well in the Clinton years. Was it the welfare reform? Was it the control of government spending? I mean, let's be candid. Now, again, to be fair to Blinder, he says this. He says the results should be interpreted with caution since numerous external factors can impact the economy, including demographic trends, the strength of foreign economies and actions by the Federal Reserve.

So, you know, just to be to be clear on this, he's not. He's not saying, you know, with 100 percent certainty that it was just the D in front of their name that did this, but he doesn't get specific and detailed enough. that did this. But he doesn't get specific and detailed enough. And that always bothers me because it leads people to believe that, yes, in fact, electing a Democrat is better for the economy. When if you notice, by the way, in the piece, in the research piece, the last Democrat we elected, Barack Obama, that did not pursue a centrist agenda, Joe, and did not pursue almost any conservative policies at all. You'll notice that Obama's growth is historically low compared to other presidents. So it kind of refutes the entire piece. So just check that out. I got it and I was like, wow, this is good. I got to cover this during the show because it points

out how liberals like to spin your wheels all the time. They want to tell you something that's not true and get you to believe a fringe position is in fact shared by the majority of Americans. In this piece, the fringe position is that far left liberalism is somehow good for the economy when the evidence is overwhelming that is in fact it isn't that's just nonsense all right um last week we talked about this uh this article in the journal about randy weingarten this piece really pissed me off man big time randy weingarten who's the head of the american federation of teachers who is I mean, the woman's a disgrace. She is a total disgrace.

I cannot believe what she's doing. She is so adamant that minority children in struggling school districts should not have a school choice because she's the head of a teacher's union. I don't blame teachers. I blame this woman and her union representation. That last week, she tried to point out the fact that school choice leads to greater racial segregation. So, as if on cue, again, this weekend, I'm home,

I'm doing some research for the Monday show, and Cato, I'm on their email list, Cato shoots over its weekend articles, and the first article is, does school choice lead to greater racial segregation? They must have read the same piece I did about how, again, how Randy Weingarten is now trying to paint people

who support school choice as racist, which is absolutely unbelievable. It's so beyond the pale, but it's just typical for liberal kooks because they don't care about kids. They care about themselves. They care about union fees and keeping their union going.

So Corey DeAngelis did this piece at Cato, which is really good. And he quotes Weingarten, who said vouchers increase racial and economic segregation. So that's a quote from Weingarten. So in case you think I'm making any of some. Now, Joe, this is fascinating. Here's a piece. Here's the Cato piece, which will give you the actual numbers again. So you can argue with your Looney Tunes, wacko liberal friends who will say things to you that are factually incorrect to make sure that kids stay in schools that are failing. He says, as he pointed out in a policy forum about school choice of the eight rigorous empirical studies existing on the subject of racial integration in school choice, Joe.

Seven of them show that school voucher programs, get ready, can't wait for it, increase racial integration within the United States. Wait, wait, wait, what? Wait, what? Wait, wait, wait, let me read that again. So Randy Weingarten, the head of the AFT, American Federation of Teachers Union Hack, just called you a racist for supporting school choice and said it leads to racial segregation so let's read let's get the pencil in there pencil in the tape for the tape deck for you young kids spin it around because you don't want to waste the battery on the cassette recorder young kids are listening right now going what the hell is he talking about older folks know i know joe knows all right let's read that again of the eight rigorous empirical studies existing on the subject,

seven of them show that school voucher programs increase racial integration within the United States. He even has a table. Here you go, folks. For those of you on the Facebook Live, the table is in the Cato piece, which will be in the show notes. Louisiana, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Washington, all of these studies done show that racial integration increased. In other words, schools became more diverse after school choice. Now, why would hack Randy Weingarten liar disgrace to humankind? Why would Randy Weingarten lie?

she does what liberals always do because she wants you to believe that a fringe position that poor black kids and Hispanic kids should be kept in struggling schools because it benefits union membership. She wants you to believe that that position is accepted by the majority of Americans, despite the fact that most black Americans support school choice. So what does If you object to that position, Joe, you're a racist. Ode to our good friend Tom Marr, God rest his soul, who used to say that all the time, much better than I did. Of course you're a racist. She doesn't have anything else. She doesn't have anything else to support a fringe position other than making you believe that the people who support the mainstream position of school choice are racist. That's all she has. That's all the entire Democrat Party has. That's all they have. They are married to identity politics and Trump is not playing the game and it is driving the media insane.

driving the media insane. Trump was supposed to accept the Confederate statues argument that if you object to taking them down, you're a racist. If you object to school choice, you're a racist. If you in Charlottesville, if you don't acknowledge that Republicans are the Ku Klux Klan, you're a racist. They think this is the majority of America, but it's not. It's not the majority of America. It's just you in D.C. That's it it is only you in the dc

bubble you're the only ones who believe this nobody is buying your bs now weingarten here's what she did though because democrats aren't i don't want to say let me take that back liberals not all democrats liberals aren't dumb, Joe. Weingarten did try to fudge a little bit of data. In other words, when they make stuff up, what they usually do is they'll cherry pick. Let's say there's 100 studies on school choice, and there's one study that shows a result. Let's say school choice led to a one-point decrease in math scores.

If the 99 other studies showed that school choice had a 100% improvement in math scores, it doesn't matter. They'll pick that one. And they'll say, look, the data. Look at the data. They'll ignore the rest of them. So what Weingarten did is quite clever here

because she's a hack. And this is what hacks do. She pointed to some international studies, not the United States, because joe if we're talking about school choice in the united states we clearly want to see the results in sweden not the united states right i mean that makes sense to you right of course it doesn't because joe i mean joe didn't get a lot of sleep he's been up all morning he works hard but i know joe joe's always frosty for my show and even at your semi frosty level right now, you could probably figure out that researching school choice in Sweden.

Yeah. While ignoring results in the United States that point to the opposite premise of the one you had. That's probably a pretty stupid thing to do, but not for liberals. Yeah. But not for libs show for libs. It's a genius thing to do. So what happened?

And this is how they always, that's why I love the debunking section of the show. Yeah. What she's using is a study in Sweden which correlated school choice programs and racial segregation, not integration. And what they found is that there was a correlation between the implementation of school choice

and the segregation of certain schools. But here's the key. Again, even schools but here's the key again even here's the catch so you may say well the sweden study proves she's correct school choice happened and then school segregation happened number one the correlation the correlation does not equal causation i can't go into it but uh you know i've done it a thousand times. Just because two factors change at the same time doesn't mean they're causal. But even their own researcher in that study said, by the way, folks, we did not control for a massive influx of immigrants into Sweden during the time of the school choice study. Oh, oh, oh.

So even your school choice study overseas doesn't control for immigration. And what do immigrants do generally? They tend to send their kids, Joseph, to schools where they where immigrants will coalesce into certain specific communities. So the school choice had almost nothing to do at all with the fact that schools became a little more segregated in Sweden, acknowledged even by the author. But let Randy Weingarten, lying hack from the unions, from the teachers unions, let her go out there and say that that school choice leads to racial segregation, despite the fact that the research in the United States points to the exact opposite factor. Are these people incredible?

Folks, I get it. I will never tell you who to vote for, okay? It's not my bag of donuts. You are all smart people. I have liberals listening to the show, conservatives, libertarians, and I really respect a lot of your political views. And I had a liberal guy email me a couple weeks ago.

Remember, Joe, we talked about it. It was a very respectful email. Disagree with me on net neutrality. I said, I responded back. He knows that he's probably listening now. I said, thanks a lot for your email. A lot to think about here. What I don't respect are lying liberals.

And Randy Weingarten is a liar because she's not dumb. It would be very easy for me to say, oh, she's so stupid. She's not dumb. She's a smart woman who is lying and manipulating you to get you to believe that the United States is a racist country and all she has is race to get you to believe that her fringe position is in fact shared by the majority of Americans

when it is total, complete crap. It's garbage and it's bunk. She is completely making it up. What a disgrace. All right, folks, today's show brought to you by our buddies at CRTV. I'm very proud to work at Conservative Review. We have one of the best, if not the finest, conservative network out there.

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And our lineup of programs is always increasing. We're always looking to add new talent. We've got a lot of great stuff coming in the future. So give us a look, CRTV.com. I would really appreciate it. All right. Another story I saw in the vault this weekend. I still follow Maryland politics.

Oh, goody. Yeah, yeah. Joe lives up in Maryland, and I lived there for a while, ran for office there. And I still follow it because there's a lot of interesting things. By the way, the Republican governor in Maryland, Larry Hogan, who I have a lot of respect for, is taking a beating right now. And I hate to say it, I think justifiably so. His decision to fall prey to the mob with the taking down of statues, you know, with all due respect to Larry, I was a big supporter and I think he did a great job winning in a Democrat

state, but really just an awful decision. And I can't say enough about it. I think it was just terrible. But Maryland politics is fascinating. I was on one of their email lists this morning, and a piece came out in Bethesda Magazine. You may say, gosh, why are we getting this kind of a national show? Why are you covering that? Because again, it's an example of how far the left is falling. Joe, this piece was comical. I'm just going to cover it quickly and move on to a Secret Service story, which is going nuclear right now. But the premise of the piece was this. A minimum wage research story, which we covered a couple weeks ago

in Montgomery County, Maryland. Joe, the numbers were wrong. The Democrats are celebrating this. Now, we covered this a couple weeks ago. The Democrat county executive, Leggett, Ike Leggett, Montgomery County, Montgomery County, Maryland, which is a very liberal county. They call it occupied Montgomery County over there. The Democrat county executive commissioned a study on minimum wage, and he wanted to see the effects of what a $15 minimum wage per hour would be by 2022.

So the study came out and it showed, Joe, that minimum wage was going to cost 47,000 jobs by 2022. The liberals went into a panic, full meltdown mode. We covered it on the show. I don't know if this came up at your show at CBM or whatever, but they were in a full-blown panic. They were like, what are we going to do? What are we going to say? What minimum wage is supposed to increase? Jobs supposed to increase take-home pay? How are

you going to explain to people it's going to cost 47,000 jobs? 47,000! I'm not laughing. It's not funny. But folks, it goes to show you again, a fringe position that forcing employers to pay more money they don't have is somehow going to lead to more employment, which is economically one of the dumbest things I've ever heard in my life. Remember, minimum wage only became a political issue when economics went out the window,

when politics took over. You go back to the research decades ago, the research was crystal clear on this. Ask employers to pay more and shockingly, they will hire less employees. This was not shocking to anyone 50 or 60 years ago. It's only now because it's become a political hot potato. So and it's even worse after the Washington study we discussed

a couple weeks ago showed devastating effects. The Bethesda magazine piece today, they're correcting the research show. They're like, no, no, our numbers were a little off due to the way they asked the questions of employers in the survey. It's not going to cost... Get ready. It's going to make you

feel a lot better, Armacost. It's not going to cost 47,000 jobs. Okay? So, at ease. It's only going to cost 23,000 jobs. All right. No big deal. Okay. There you go. That's great. Don't worry, folks. Minimum wage hikes in Montgomery County, Maryland. They said it's only going to cost half as many. So

only 23,000 people are going to lose their jobs. And liberals are sad. Joe, I kid you not. I will put the piece in the show notes, even though it's a liberal magazine. They're ecstatic. They think this is the greatest thing ever. They're like, we knew the study was flawed. We knew it. It was flawed. Oh, this is great. We're only going to lose 23,000 instead of 47,000 jobs. Good job, fellas. Nice job, Libs.

You're only going to cost, basically, Yankee Stadium on a not-so-busy night fits about 23,000 people in on maybe a Tuesday night or so when it's a game nobody's interested in. Everyone in that stadium is going to lose their job in one county in Maryland. And they're all celebrating because it would have been twice as many. It would have been maximum capacity a weekend game against the Red Sox, 47,000. But it's only

half the stadium is going to lose their jobs now. Really nice job, Libs, again. Getting you to believe again a fringe position. Just un-freaking-believable, man. You've got to watch my language. Hey, you scared me for a second. Yeah, I know. Especially since we're doing Facebook Live,

and Joe can't do editing on Facebook Live. Not yet, at least. All right, so last story of the day. Hold on one sec, Joe. I've got to grab something. Sorry, I had to reach back and grab something. And my elbows from the jujitsu, you can see it on my Facebook Live.

My elbows don't bend much because I'm getting armbarred a lot. I got tooled again this weekend by this guy I roll with. Oh, he's so good. He's a brown belt now in jujitsu, and he's just dominant. I mean, the worst thing in the world, folks, if you've never wrestled or done judo or sambo or brazilian jiu-jitsu the worst feeling in the world is having some dude on top of you who's a grappling monster who you just can't get him off you can't get him up it's like having like a car sitting on the guy only weighs a buck 80 i'm 230 pounds and i was like yurka man i can't get this guy he's a he's uh i think he's checked he just told me again but

it's very refreshing to get your butt kicked because you learn not to make a lot of mistakes. All right, but getting back, sorry. I don't mean to distract you with my personal life or jujitsu, but yeah, I got armbarred a lot. So my elbows were a little swollen. So I couldn't reach the book.

USA Today is a story outing. I'll put in the show notes. And it's, it's getting a lot of, a lot of press out there. As a matter of fact, I got an email from CNN this morning asking me to come on. Oh, by the way, folks, sorry not to get distracted, but I will be on Outnumbered on Fox on Thursday, this coming Thursday.

Outnumbered, 12 noon. Make sure you tune in. They asked me to come on and talk about it. And the story is this. Trump travel profile and the number of residences and the large size of his family is causing the Secret Service to basically go bankrupt and they don't have any money

to pay their agents. Folks, I have a lot of problems with the piece. I'm not knocking USA Today. But shockingly, USA Today has some conservatives over there. I know it because I communicate with one of them regularly. The premise of the story though, it's not wrong.

The Secret Service is going bankrupt. Now, just to explain what's going on here, and if you'll allow me, I know some people get annoyed. I don't promote my stuff often, but this is my new book, Protecting the President. You see, I show you the cover.

Joe, are you watching that? No, but I'm imagining it. You said, oh, yeah. I thought you were watching it on Facebook Live. So my new book, it's available right now for pre-order on Amazon. I'd appreciate it if you go out and buy it. If not, I totally understand.

But the book is about the downfall of the Secret Service and what happened and how it happened. And I cover this topic in depth. Some of these stories are going to blow you away because you would think in an area like this, so nonpartisan that the President of the United States needs to be protected, that there would be bipartisan support. But what's happening right now in the Secret Service is they have a pay cap. Here's how this works. And I get it.

So it's a lot of money. So before, let me just preface this. I get this is a lot of money. The Secret Service agents are capped at about $160,000 a year, depending on cost of living things and stuff like that. They can't make more than that. That's a ton of money. I get it.

This isn't a wow, wow, they don't make enough money thing. What happens, Joe, is if you work a lot of overtime, you can't make more than that pay cap. It's a hard cap, no matter what. Right. So if you're working 16 hour days, six and seven days a week, you will make $160,000 because your salary plus what they call LEAP, law enforcement availability pay, where they get a 25% bump, and the overtime, you will make that money, say, right now, it's, what are we, in August? The year's not even over.

The agents biweekly are already capped out. So they can't get paid for any more overtime because if they were to get paid for any more overtime after August, whatever the date is today, whatever, August 20th, I don't even know the date. If they get paid any more overtime, they will go over the cap. You get what I'm saying? So now they work 16-hour days and they get paid for eight.

Now you may say, oh, what are these guys whining about and these women agents? They're making $160,000 a year. I would kill for that. Folks, I totally 100% get it. It's a lot of money. But here kill for that. Folks, I totally 100% get it. It's a lot of money. But here's the problem. Again, I'm just giving you reality.

If you choose to accept it or not, it's your call, not mine, okay? There are other agents in the federal government who work for the FBI and the DEA and others who make about the same money, $140,000 to $160,000 because they're journeymen, GS-13s. If you're a Secret Service agent working quite literally in some cases two and three times the

hours, why would you stay in the position if you had a family, if you could just transfer somewhere else and work like a normal person? I'm just telling you what happens. They're having a mass resignation problem in the Secret Service because agents are saying to themselves, listen, I have this skill set. I can apply somewhere else where I can work normal hours, 40 to 60 hours a week, rather than 80 to 120 sometimes, where I can work normal hours and get paid the same money. They're leaving. Now, you may say, well, I'm sure there's hundreds of thousands of people willing to replace them.

Maybe. But folks, again, we live in the real world, not liberal fantasy land. In the real world, what winds up happening is it's not that there aren't people willing to replace them. I'm sure there are people who'd love to be Secret Service agents. The problem, Joe, is they can't. The requirements to get into Secret Service are very strict. And just being candid here, they eliminate a lot of people. I was a recruiter for a long time.

So it's not that people don't want to do the job. It's that they can't. When we were polygraphing people, I remember at one point, we were eliminating 18 out of 20 people on the polygraph alone. Whoa. Then you get, yeah. Then you get to other people who had physical problems, medical problems. They didn't have the proper eyesight.

They couldn't pass the shooting requirements. They couldn't pass the physical. Some failed the written test. It's not a matter of, you know, there aren't people. There are obviously patriotic Americans who would fill the role tomorrow. It's that many of them, sadly, cannot meet the requirements. Sometimes there was a history of drug use in the past. They don't have the people.

You need the numbers to back it up? They hired 800 people last year, the Secret Service. They only netted 300. The employee workforce, Joe, added 800 people, the workforce, but they only have 300 additional people at the end of the year than they did before. Why? Because more people left. They hired 800. They only have 300 more employees. Folks, I'm just telling you that I'm not suggesting that they need to get paid $500,000 a year. I'm not suggesting any of that. I'm just trying to lay out to you from experience, and I cover this in detail in my book, Protecting the President, how this is leading to a massive brain drain in the Secret Service. Now, rather than talking about massive pay raises and

all this other stuff, because I really don't, I'm sorry, but I don't think we could justify paying people $300,000 a year in the federal government. It's going to be a really tough sell because it's taxpayer money and taxpayers don't want it. The way to solve the problem is this, because I don't want to leave you with a, oh, well, it stinks and this is the pay problem and whatever, move along. I talk about it in a book in a little more detail, but the way to do it is to do what conservatives have been talking about for years. We have to streamline the government combined agencies. Why the hell do we have an alphabet soup of federal agencies right now?

FBI, DEA, NCIS, Secret Service, BATF, it goes on and on and on. Why? And liberals will tell you, and some conservatives, frankly, say, well, it's because we don't want a national police force. Folks, we already have a national police force. Every violation of civil liberties we've seen has happened under an alphabet soup of federal agencies.

The unmasking scandal, the Patriot Act. How has that helped you? You don't need a national police force. What you need is one law enforcement agency, one intelligence agency, and one internal affairs agency that reports to Congress, is vibrant, robust, and well-sourced, and oversees the other two. We are wasting a ton of money. The Secret Service, we need more people, we need more money. No, you don't. One quick story I'll leave the show with to show you what kind of crap this is.

They don't need more people and more money. They need to join up and marry forces with the FBI, DEA, cross-train and cross-pollinate. That way they wouldn't have such a manpower crisis and wouldn't have to pay all the overtime. Quick story. When I was an agent in the Baltimore field office, I heard a story, and I'm not going to say he told me it, but we had a lot of extra space in our Baltimore field office in the Secret Service off Pratt Street. The FBI needed extra room. Someone told me they offered the space to the FBI. They saidatt Street. The FBI needed extra room. Someone told me they offered the space to the FBI. They said, listen, we have a whole hallway.

I mean, it was a large space we weren't using. You guys have it. They said, no, no, no, we can't do it. They wound up renting a whole separate space altogether, taxpayer money, totally down the tubes. Folks, again, that's an isolated example, but it's epidemic in the federal government, total waste of assets.

Combine these federal agencies, let's get it done. And this is just, you know, the USA Today doesn't harp on that because they don't see it from the bigger picture. They got lost in the smaller arguments. All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in. I really appreciate it. And if you wouldn't mind going to iTunes and reviewing the show, we jumped last week from 250 reviews to, I think now we're at like 330 or something. So thank you all. It means a lot to me. You all are great. I read all the reviews and I'm really flattered. Thanks a lot, folks. It means a lot. 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.