The Dan Bongino Show - Ep. 621 Government Predictions Gone Horribly Wrong

Episode Date: December 28, 2017

Media credibility is collapsing. Here are the hard numbers. The media’s negative coverage of Trump is getting worse. Here’s how the tax plan is going to impact the middle class. It’s unbelievable what some federal employees are making compared to the rest of us. Trump’s court appointments have been stellar. Here are the numbers.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

get ready to hear the truth about america on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host dan bongino all right welcome to the dan bongino show producer joe how are you hanging in there db sorry about the delay folks you had about a five minute delay we had a major technical malfunction but when you're dealing with as much equipment as we are eventually someday something goes wrong but luckily we're okay now. So let's get right to it. Hey, by the way, I am unbelievably sore right now. I just want to put that out there.

I finally start, for those of you who've been tracking my progress on my stem cell injection, I took eight weeks off from lifting heavy and I just got back to lifting yesterday. I wouldn't call it heavy. I would call it lifting. It was actually pretty pathetic. Some of the 12-year-olds in the gym were like, dude, you need a spot on that?

It was bad, but I got to moving some weights around yesterday, finally, and I am so unbelievably sore today. It's incredible. I can barely move my wings. So I'm hurting a little bit, but my brain is good and crisp for the show so um i read a piece this morning in uh in the wall street journal which is fascinating i wanted to just quickly hit on this net neutrality thing again because a lot of people are confused about it there's just a really good piece in the journal today that shows you how confused most of the confused people are about net neutrality there's an article today that lays out this war going on right now joe between google and otas you know what otas are well when i was in the secret service they were

other treasury agents you know sometimes if we had a lot of details in town for the un protective details we would ask the atf and customs to give us their agents so we'd say bring in some of the otas right that is not what google's at war with in this case. OTAs are online travel agencies. And the core of the story, the essence of it is this, that Google is now taking over the online travel market and it's really starting to hurt some of these smaller online travel agencies and some of these hotels because what's happening is

some of these travel agencies are they're they're buying up search terms like as they point out in the article like houston hilton right which is in turn taking away business from houston hilton because some of these bigger online travel agencies are bidding up the price and some of the smaller ones can't all of the details of it although agencies are bidding up the price and some of the smaller ones can't. All of the details of it, although interesting, are irrelevant to the point of the story. The point is Google is making you pay basically to get on the front page of their search, which is unsurprising to no one. I mean, you can pay sponsored ads to get on the first page of a Google search. So, if someone wanted to buy up the Dan Bongino show,

and, you know, like me, and put it on the first page of search, which it would probably wind up anyway, obviously, but if you were a smaller show, let's say you had a podcast called, you know, the online laboratory show, where you talk about online laboratory results. You're like, what?

I'm just thinking because I have laboratory results next to me. I'm pretty healthy, by the way, folks. You can pay to get that on a sponsored ad on the front page. Why am I bringing up any of this? Because one of the things, I wake up every morning again committed to debunking liberal nonsense. One of the things liberals will tell you

in defending so-called net neutrality is, folks, a bit should be a bit should be a bit. Everybody should have equal access. Joe, it's about equality. Yeah. It's about equality, Joe. Did you know that? It's about equality, Dan.

It's always about equality for everything. Now, you heard what I just told you, right? Yeah. Now, this battle has been against internet service providers, you know, the evil like Comcast of the world. I'm saying that sarcastically because you're like, oh, they'll slow down your traffic if you don't pay for a fast lane. But did you notice, Joe, nobody seems to have any problem whatsoever with search engines

or content providers like Facebook and Twitter and other ones, allowing people to pay to get their traffic in front of you first. Nobody has any problem with that. Amazing. So, Joe. Yeah. It's incredible, isn't it? Yes, it is.

Yes. It's just phenomenal how this happens. Now, the reason is, of course, because liberals want control of the Internet by switching it from Title I to Title II. So the government under net neutrality, which is really a farcical term under title two can regulate the internet because liberals want the government to control everything. And they'd like the government to control the internet traffic flow to your house. Having got all that out of the way, net neutrality is just

a vehicle for them to do that. Because who is really controlling the quality and the quantity of the information that goes to your house are the content providers not the isps so i'm just asking you in the audience i'm not going to spend a lot of time on this but i found this article fascinating there's 10 other stories i have to get to today but it just again speaks to the intellectual vacuum liberals live in that they go after comcast and all these other companies internet service providers under the illusion that they're somehow slowing down internet traffic to your house and a bit isn't a bit in other words a piece of information isn't treated equally on the internet meanwhile content providers like facebook with sponsored ads

facebook with your timeline feed as we talked about joe remember a couple weeks ago how an overwhelming majority of americans are getting their news from Facebook and Twitter. They're controlling the traffic. You're worried about the ISPs? Are you kidding me? There's a war going on right now with Google because hotels can't even get their own business on the front page of Google. And you're worried about the ISPs? Gosh, I mean, seriously.

Are you guys delirious? Now, to be clear on what I'm suggesting, I'm not suggesting the government should have a role in that either. Google's a private business and it's free to do what it wants. I have no beef with Google. I have no beef with Facebook. I have no beef with Twitter. I wish they were a little more centrist and not left-leaning. I totally get that. But I'm not suggesting to you the government has an answer here. You have a beef with Google, then become the next Sergey Brin and Larry Page and start up a competitor.

Go invest in Bing or whatever, Yahoo, or whatever. Start up your own thing. Yahoo backwards. Start it up. I mean, really, what's stopping you? Oh, I don't feel like doing that well Sergey Brin and

Larry Page didn't have a ton of money to start it either go start up a competitor stop whining stop whining all the time about everything all the time will you please stop complaining gosh everything the rich the internet the ISPs

the teachers the teachers you everything teachers, you, everything. Just stop whining. Stop with the Republicans, the conservatives, Reagan, this guy, the Laffer curve. Just shh. My gosh, are you annoying, liberals. I'm sorry for having me to start the show off, and especially Christmas week, on a semi-rant rant here but it's really

irritating i'm reading this story this morning that's what's going through my head isps yeah that's the problem comcast that's the problem meanwhile facebook twitter and google alone are controlling probably 90 of what you see and you're worried about a fictitious problem at your internet box on the last mile of traffic with someone slowing down the internet traffic to your house but you couldn't care any less about everyone else because you're phonies. And Joe, you know why? I should explain the why because sometimes I don't do that.

You know, I got an email this morning. This is not a look squirrel moment, folks. This is intentional. But I got an email this morning and someone said, I need to let you answer questions more. But you know what? The problem is, folks, to be fair to Joe,

Joe's doing a lot of stuff back there. He's got the soundboard going. It's not like Joe's just... Joe's not like some clown in the background. He's a producer. Joe was actually never intended to be part of the show. I just found him so funny that it became his second banana roll by default.

Right? That was never the intention. This is the Dan Bongino show. Right. It's not the Armacost show, but it's become such because I find Joe very amusing to talk to on the show but that's not what he does so that's why I don't bother him a question but I'm gonna ask you a serious question it's not a setup here okay and I'd like your opinion

on it because I want to see what I know usually you're like the ombudsman for the audience why would you think liberals if they were interested in passing something and making a political point why do you think they would find Comcast a more convenient target than Facebook? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Just to have somebody to blame it on the big rich companies and corporations. Right, right. But Joe, yes, you're right. Of course, it's always the big. But here's the real reason in my humble opinion. You're right. You're not wrong. That's cool.

That was my answer. Okay. Yeah. Comcast. And that's what I think a lot of people think, but there's a real reason here. Companies like Comcast are cable companies. Wouldn't you agree have a negative

kind of customer service-y tone to it? Like, oh, Comcast. Oh my gosh. Meanwhile, Comcast's been fine to me down here. I've had problems in the past. But, right, everybody hates the cable company, right? But who hates Facebook? I mean, really, there's some complaints here and there about political bias. I get it.

But really, everybody uses it. Nobody has any huge complaints with it. I mean, I have a complaint with it. They let impersonator pages go on. There's some guy out there who's impersonating me. And Facebook couldn't care any less, by the way. Which, you know, after a while, you're like, what are you going to do, right? What are you going to do?

What are you going to do? But Facebook and Twitter are not popular targets. They're not easy bullseyes. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No one wants to throw like darts at the butt of Facebook and Twitter because they're like cool, techie companies.

But Comcast, oh man, we got to get them. Folks, do you understand that's the only reason they pick them? That's the only reason they pick them as a vehicle to government control over the Internet. The only reason. You'll say, well, it was a way to regulate last mile providers and their titles. No, no, that was never the goal, folks. The goal was control of the Internet. That was always the goal.

Always. The last mile thing and ISPs and Comcast, that was just a vehicle to get control over the internet. If they could have done it through Google and Facebook because they were easier targets, they would have. Don't be a sucker. I'm serious. Don't be a sucker for these folks. All right, folks.

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All right. This show I've been dying to do for a while. I just had to get that net neutrality thing out of the way. But I've been itching to talk about this for a while because I was filling in for Mark Levin the other day. Was it last week? And a guy called – I'll be back, by the way, tomorrow on Friday in for Mark. And a young man, very nice guy, but very confused show, called in about the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, saying, oh, the CBO is saying these tax cuts are going to cost us. One cost us, by the way. Tax cuts are going to cost the government something. That's comical in and of itself. But the CBO is

saying it's going to increase the deficit by 1.5 trillion. So I said to him, and I asked a very simple question. Some of you may have heard it. I said, Mr. Caller, what are you basing these predictions on? In other words, this is an entity that predicts the future, right? CBO, amazing, Joe. They predict the future. Isn't that incredible? I said, what's their record of success? And he didn't know.

So I informed him about their record of success, how it was a 100% record of failure, how they've never successfully predicted anything. And his comments were really telling because it goes to show you the extent to far leftists will go to make their talking points sound real, even when they're entirely farcical. He's like, well, well, I trust them anyway. I'm like, well, why would you trust them? You know, again, if I was asking a guy for betting tips, because I was in Las Vegas and I was betting on a horse or something, and he was a supposed horse expert. And I said, well, what's your record of predicting the horse races? And he goes, zero for a hundred.

Well, are you going to put your money on that guy? The answer is no. You're going to put your money on the opposite of what that guy says. If he says, you know, bet on horse Joey Bag of Donuts, you're betting on Joey Bag of Donuts competitor because you know this guy's zero for a hundred and he's just not going to win.

So, I did some homework this morning for you because because I enjoy doing this, and it's fun. We're going to call CBO Phil. Hey, Joe, by the way, do you have that fake news thing? Yes, I do, Dan. Somebody emailed us, and this is kind of like the CBO fake news story. So although it's not entirely fake news like the melania trump was gonna mow down a 200 year old tree uh on the white house grounds i don't know if you saw this story someone suggested we do like an air siren so joe put this little thing

together play that cut this is a fake news alert the story you're about to hear is inaccurate bogus or just a bunch of crap this is a fake news alert. The story you're about to hear is inaccurate, bogus, or just a bunch of crap. This is a fake news alert. Nice job by Joe Arbuckle. That was a great idea. The listener sent that in. He said, so this is kind of a fake news alert about the CBO sounding the alarm, pun intended, that the debt is going to increase by 1.5 trillion. We'll call this here at Epic CBO Fails. So on the Affordable Care Act, Joe, in 2010, the CBO predicted... Hey, babe, you want to come in and say hello? My young daughter's home from school. You want to come in and say hello, baby? Come here. Come and say hello. So you want to say hello to the audience? Come on over here. Here, say hello, babe.

Hello. Say, my name's Amelia. My name's amelia and what'd you get for christmas i got a barbie camper and calico critters thanks babe give me a pico i love my daughter sorry folks didn't mean to interrupt the show but she's uh she's home from school and she's creeping around my office i can see she wants to come in and say hello she got a barbie camper and calico critters, in case you need me to translate Bongino for you. So the ACA, the CBO predicted in 2010, Joe,

how many people would be in the exchanges? Log these numbers in your melon there. 21 million. 21 million, Dan. 21 million, Dan. 21 million. We've got that number logged in our heads. This is terrific.

21 million. So surely, you know, joe to be fair in 20 you know 2010 they predicted 21 million you know even statistical analysis sound ones are off by you know five ten percent so you figure if they were between you they predicted 21 million if they were between 18 and 24 million it was a pretty good prediction wouldn't you say i Yeah, I'd say so. I mean, plus or minus 5%, 10% roughly. By 2017, the number was 10 million in the exchanges. So you can slice that number in half.

21 million, 10 million. Now, I don't have a ditto cam like Rush in the studio, but let me do the hand mechanics for you. One hand goes high, the here 21 million one hand goes low about halfway between the table and my hand 21 million 10 million 21 million 10 million 21 million 10 they weren't even close folks they weren't even in the ballpark they weren't even in the parking lot of the ballpark they weren't even in the county or the state the ballpark is actually in. That's kind of a big miss, Joe. That's kind of like the guy threw a knuckleball,

you swung it at head level, and the thing was bouncing on the ground five feet from his hands. I mean, you just missed this thing. The ball didn't even make it to home plate and you were swinging. That's kind of a big miss. Oh, we're not done. Folks, again, I'm not trying to discredit people personally. I'm sure the CBO is full of wonderful human beings.

I'm just telling you as an institution, it has been an absolute epic, colossal, catastrophic, apocalyptic failure. Still on the ACA. They predicted these risk corridor payments, which were surplus payments. I'm using the government terminology here. Surplus payments made from insurance companies that were supposed to make a lot of money, Joe were surplus, I'm using the government terminology here, surplus payments made from insurance companies that were supposed to make a lot of money, Joe. Oh, yeah. They were supposed, remember this? They were supposed to give money to the government that was going to be used to offset companies

that were losing money. They predicted, this is a doozy, that these risk corridor payments would result in a net $8 billion in positive payments to the government. Wow, man. Some prediction. You guys are great, CBO. What did it actually result in in 2015? Just years later, by the way. It resulted in

a $5.8 billion deficit. So we're looking at about a $13 billion swing. They were off by a little bit, Joe. A little bit. It was a little bit. This reminds me of Goodfellas, where you know, what is it? The guy who gets out of jail, what is it, Billy Batson, he says, go get your shoebox.

And Robert De Niro's like, well, I didn't do anything wrong. And De Niro says to him, to Billy, he goes, you offend them a little bit, a little bit, you know, just a little bit. They're off by a little bit there. Predicted 8 billion, it lost 5.8 billion. You were off by a little there, about 13 billion in a swing. Nice work there, guys. They were on Medicare. Excuse me, on Medicaid enrollees.

Remember, the Obamacare expanded Medicaid enrollees. The CBO, 50% more people enrolled in Medicaid than the CBO predicted. A little bit, Joe. A little bit. They were off by 5% times 10. 50% more people enrolled in Medicaid. That's a nice job. Good job by the CBO.

You're right. We should absolutely put our faith in them. You may say, all right, well, come on, Dan. You're just picking on Obamacare, which naturally just stinks. And that's an easy target. You're right. It is because it was such a disaster. But let's go back to some other ones.

Let's go back to some predictions they made. This is Joe. This one is a doozy. This is the this is the coup de gras of of predictions in 2002 the cbo predicted a 10-year budget window right joe they predicted in 2002 i want you to follow this because this is just this is clear evidence of i mean failure so epic it's laugh They predicted by 2012, so 10 years after the prediction, that the national debt would be 7.4% of GDP. Okay?

Not 74, folks. 7.4. I'm not getting their numbers wrong. 2002, they predicted in 2012, it would be 7.4% of GDP. What was the actual number? The actual number was 74. Well, to be precise, 73. So move the decimal point over by one, basically times it by 10, and you get the actual number of what the national debt was. So now all of a sudden, the CBO would say, yeah, it'll be about 7.4%. You mean 74? No, we mean

7.4 because it's 74. Oh, sorry, we screwed up. Only by a factor of 10. No big deal. Folks, why are you taking these people seriously? Now, I'm not maligning them personally. I mean that. Now, let me just be very specific as to why.

Because I'm not trying to dance around and be like the pc guy you know be nice and virtue signal there are good people that work there but joe they're forced to work with the parameters you give right so if congress and the democrats specifically give them a set of parameters and say don't go outside these parameters and assume this then that's what they're going to assume. And that's the dopey numbers they're going to give you, even if the assumptions are wrong. Here's a great example. I've used this. I haven't used this example in a long time, but for those long time listeners, you've heard this before. Understanding the difference between a valid measurement and a reliable measurement

is kind of an essence of what's wrong with the CBO. Garbage in is going to equal garbage out. And here's what I mean by that. You can have a scale, right? A scale like you weigh yourself on, you step on it. Remember this example, Joe? You can have a scale that's reliable, but it's not valid. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Now, how is that? So, let's say the scale is off by 20 pounds every time. It adds 20 pounds, which for me would be great. I'd be like, nice. I'm up to like 240. This is solid. I'm always looking to gain weight, not lose it. But you see where I'm going with this show? If you have a scale that's off by 20 pounds every time, it's reliable. It says Dan Bongino weighs 240 pounds, but it's not valid. I don't weigh 240 pounds. I weigh 220 pounds, but it's reliably off.

I don't know what Joe weighs. 200? Joe's a pretty stacked guy. You're about 6'1", right? Yeah, about 210 at this point. 210? Joe's pretty stacked, especially for a guy who's a little bit older than me. So Joe would be 230, which he's not. He's 210. But it's reliable. It's reliably wrong. When you understand the difference between reliability and validity, you understand the

problem with the CBO. The CBO has been given a scale that's always 20 pounds off by using static rather than sound dynamic analysis. In other words, when factoring in growth factors into the economy in a real traditional way based on historical analysis, they're given faulty assumptions. You're always going to get faulty output. It's not a mystery. That's important. It's critical you understand that. And I know people who've studied statistics in college, that was probably a basic example, and you already knew it. But some people haven't. The CBObo is reliable joe they're just not valid they are reliably wrong every single time so please spare me the talk about how the cbo is

predicting an apocalypse from this trump tax cut i don't want to hear it they've been wrong every time i'm not interested if you were betting on the cbo's assumptions you'd be broke right now all right today's show also brought to you by our buddies at BrickHouse Nutrition. So on a very serious note with BrickHouse, I was off the foundation for like three, four weeks, which was probably a bad idea. And this is kind of stupid. Miles will hate me for saying this. You shouldn't, if you're on the foundation, which is their creatine ATP blend, which makes

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who always writes these crazy Looney Tunes pieces in the Wall Street Journal, sums them all up magically, Joe, in one piece today in the Wall Street Journal, every tax cut myth about this tax cut plan. I'm not going to beat it to death because you've heard him before on the show, but I just, because some of your liberal friends may read this and go, look, even the Wall Street Journal is talking about how bad this tax cut plan is. First, Blender's like, these are a scam. They're going to expire in 2025.

Oh, gosh. I can't. Can this guy, Alan, you are a PhD, right? I mean, listen, nothing personal, buddy. I know people send you this podcast based on the listenership we have yet by the way yesterday did you see the numbers you know they were like bonkers so we're going crazy we're going looney tunes with the numbers someone must know alan blender he can't be this dumb he can't be this dumb to tout this they expire by 2025 thing

ladies and gentlemen i've told you four or five times, maybe more, they expire because no Democrats voted for it. So that's the only reason. If eight to 10 Democrats would have voted for it, they'd be permanent. The Republicans wanted these things to be permanent. The Democrats said no. That's it. That's the only story you need to hear. They couldn't overcome a Democrat filibuster, so they had to pass it with 51 votes. That's it. That's the only story you need to hear. They couldn't overcome a Democrat filibuster, so they had to pass it with 51 votes. That's it. It is no more complicated than that. The only question you should ask Alan Blinder and your Democrat friends is, okay, you want them permanent? Are you willing to introduce a bill tomorrow in conjunction with Mitch McConnell and

the Republicans in the Senate to make them permanent? That's it. Only question, folks. Ask your liberal friends that. Are you willing to call your congressmen, liberals who listen to the show, and your senator tomorrow and have them introduce a bill in January to make these tax cuts permanent? I guarantee you, you would have absolutely unanimous Republican support. Guaranteed. Guaranteed. You would get every Republican. But you won't do it. Because you're making it up. So Blinder leaves that part out, of course. Oh, they're going to expire. Number one. Number two.

We don't need to beat this one up because we just talked about it. He goes, well, they're going to add to the deficit. And he's basing that on the CBO estimate, who I told you had been reliably wrong. And not valid, basically, forever. So we'll move on from that. The deficit thing is nonsense. Tax cuts have not led to decreased government revenues. Blinder knows that. He's just lying to you in the piece. Then he talks about trickle down. Here we go, folks. Trickle

down. Despite the fact that most middle class Americans are going to get a 56% tax cut as reported in the Washington Examiner today, even some liberal outlets are starting to acknowledge that their hysteria about the middle class losing under this deal were all lies. The middle class is actually going to do fine under this deal. It is a myth. And folks, there is no such thing as trickle down. I've said it on the show before. If you don't believe me, Google the National Review piece by Thomas Sowell, the trickle down myth. There is no such thing as trickle down. It is a Democrat. listen to me because i some of you get this wrong i get emails from republicans they're angry at me joe like what do you mean there's no such like i'm attacking conservative

economic principles i'm not you're reading this all wrong trickle-down is not a theory it is a slur by democrats folks you that? That trickle-down economics was a focus group-tested talking point used way before Reagan, by the way. Reagan, most people think it started in the Reagan era. That is not true. Thomas Sowell has a long history of the term trickle-down. Trickle-down started way before it is a slur liberals use against conservatives to make you believe something's going to rich people and is supposed to, the imagery of it trickling down to the starving masses was used intentionally to make you feel

like you're getting worked. There's no such theory as trickle-down. None. It doesn't exist. It's a myth. Nobody can point to you the actual econometric theory of trickle-down because there's no such thing. So, of course, Blinder mentions that, Joe. Trickle-down doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work because it doesn't exist. Trickle-down, how can it work? It doesn't exist. It's like saying unicorns have a high propensity for hoof disease. There are no unicorns. That's like I said.

The hoof disease is out of control with unicorns. What? There's no such are no unicorns. That's like I said. The hoof disease is out of control with unicorns. Wait, what? There's no such thing as unicorns. There's no such thing. Actually, the example would be even better. This is a more appropriate example. Hoof disease is rare in unicorns. You're like, it is?

Well, there's no such thing as unicorns. That's why it's rare. Right? That's the perfect example. Hoof disease in unicorns. Yeah, I it's rare. Right? That's the perfect example. Hoof disease and unicorns. Yeah, I just never see it anymore. Have you ever seen a unicorn? No. Do they exist? No.

But that's why hoof disease is rare. It trickled down can't work because there is no trickle down. There's no such thing. It's a stupid talking point. Don't be a sucker for that. Okay. He also repeats the, oh, this one's a doozy. He repeats that this was this vote was

taken on a partisan basis not one democrat voted for it this is classic wait let me get this straight you open up by telling us they're going to expire these tax cuts you don't mention that they were only going to expire because zero democrats voted for it And then you're complaining that only Republicans voted for the bill later on. Wait, we come again. So you're whining that they're not permanent because your Democrats didn't support it. Then you're whining later on the opposite thing that only Republicans voted for it. Does this make any sense to this guy? Now, what I find ironic is Blinder seemed to have no such complaints, or at least as loudly he didn't complain, that only Democrats voted for Obamacare. None. He only complains about

tax cuts. So when the government's going to take your money in the form of Obamacare and no Republicans vote for it, he's fine. But the fact that no Democrats voted for this, he's loudly complaining while simultaneously complaining that because no Democrats voted for it, it's going to expire. If you're pulling your hair out right now, you should be. no Democrats voted for it, it's going to expire. If you're pulling your hair out right now, you should be. It doesn't make sense because it's not supposed to make sense. Because it's a liberal who wrote this and they never make sense. Finally, he complains in the piece that 13 million Americans are going to, quote, get like thrown off or lose Obamacare coverage.

Folks, that's a myth we've debunked on this show repeatedly. That is not the case. The individual mandate, the tax penalty for you, if you do not have Obamacare, the tax penalty was repealed. Because the tax penalty was repealed, the predictions are, which are going to be off, by the way, are that 13 million Americans, now that they are not penalized to buy this garbage insurance at overinflated prices, 13 million are going to choose, choose, choose, choose, not lose Obamacare. They are going to choose to exit the program. Blinder leaves the choose word out because he knows it's uncomfortable. He knows it doesn't hammer home his point. They don't want Obamacare.

Forcing them to get it is forcing 13 million people to buy a product they don't want. When you take away the penalty, they don't want it anymore and they are going to run for the hills. Thousands of Americans would die. Of course, Bernie. Of course they would. Play that again, Joe. Thousands of Americans would die. Of course they will. That is the natural result of 13 million Americans who don't want Obamacare, which they can't use anyway because their deductibles are through the roof. Thousands of Americans.

That's their response to everything, of course. And I don't know if that clip was for that, but it very well may have been. The funny thing is about Bernie saying that is, as I always say, you could apply that to anything with Bernie. We don't really even know. Joe, right? I'm not kidding. Someone sent that to us or Joe pulled it or something.. Democrats say people are going to die about so many things. I am genuinely being serious. I have no idea what that's about. Tax cuts, school choice, Obamacare. I don't know. I don't know. I really don't. You know, ripping mattress tags off a mattress, thousands of Americans.

I have no idea. That's just the Democrats' talking point. So 13 million Americans will choose not to have Obamacare, but Blinder leaves that out. All right. Let's see. Oh, a great piece in the Daily Signal today, which will be available at the show notes at Bongino.com. Folks, please, I'm asking you post-holiday. If you can, up to you.

Obviously, your choice, of course. We love having you here. I don't want to turn you off by, you know, selling you stuff. I'm not selling you anything. I'm offering a free product for you. Please go to Bongino.com and subscribe to my email list. It really helps us a lot getting the information out. It's right there on the homepage. Subscribe to the email list, and I will email you these articles every day. It's basically four or five articles that sums up the best conservative news stories I can find across the internet that day. And I've got some good ones today from Legal Insurrection, Daily Signal, some really, really good stuff. But here's what I saw at the Daily Signal, just to show you some of the progress that Trump has made on court appointments. And folks,

court appointments are critical. Dan Horowitz has been all over this at Conservative Review, but as we've seen, the Democrats have fallen in love with the judicial state now i don't know if anyone else is using that term if they are i will appropriately footnote it later but the judicial state which horowitz has been all over is the the explosion in federal and state judges overriding the will of the people through laws and the legislative process governors and the president now ladies and gentlemen the constitution was written by the founders to provide three co-equal branches of government not one branch of government to override the other three now i know i get it most of you understand that in essence but a lot of liberals i'm serious joe really don't they really believe that the judicial process is a license to override the will of the people. They've done it on social issues like gay marriage over and over and over. They believe that's not what the judicial branch was there to do. That's not.

some of the original founding secret service, Supreme Court cases, you'll see that this is not, the constitutionality of a law was not meant to override the constitutionality of the Constitution. The legislative process makes the laws, not the bench. I bring this up, folks, because appointing liberals to the bench has been a disaster since FDR tried to stack the courts. We have had this explosion in far left fake judges. They're not real judges. I mean, they're judges. They're they're ginos, judges in name only.

They get on the bench and they have absolutely no intention of adhering to the Constitution. They want to legislate from the bench. The most important, I think, or maybe one of the most important things Trump has done, and God bless him for doing this, when he got in office, Joe, has been immediately seeking outside counsel on who some of the best constructionist conservative judges out there are and appointing these people. Now, here's a progress he made as far as good news and bad news. I'll give you the bad news first. Trump has only had 19 total appointments made to the bench. This is a historic low. George W. Bush had 28. Reagan had 41 at this point, by the way, Joe, in the first year. Carter had 31 and there were 167 vacancies either announced

or pending. That's a lot of judicial appointments at the federal level to only have 19 uh confirmed the good news he has had a record number of circuit court judges at the appellate court level here where joe an astonishing 50 000 cases are heard a year now just to put this in perspective for you so i know this sounds weird you're like well he's had a record low number of judges appointed. Yes. But what I'm trying to tell you is the ones he's had appointed, Joe, are at the most critical level you can do it, which is the circuit court judges. They hear 50,000 cases a year. The Supreme Court, Joe, hears just 70. So the Supreme Court is critical. And the Gorsuch, Neil Gorsuch appointment by Trump to the Supreme Court in the Senate confirmation process was excellent.

I know the Senate confirms them. I get it. Don't play word games with me. I hate when people, liberals email me specifically. You don't know the Senate confirms them? No, I don't know. Thanks. Thanks for telling us, Joe. Do you know that? Yeah. I mean, you know, we got to, the show's 45 minutes to an hour long, folks. We got to, you folks. We don't have to walk through the Constitution every single time. Liberals do that. They like to catch you in word games. But of those small level of overall appointments, they've been appointed in the most critical place, and that is those appellate courts where 50,000 cases are heard a year in contrast

to just 70 on the Supreme Court. So that's the good news. Now, in the new year, folks, not to get hyperbolic or melodramatic with you, but this is how critical it's going to be to hold the Senate next year. If the Democrats succeed in continuing to slow down this process, and what they're doing is they're demanding these cloture votes on every single judicial court nominee they can get their hands on, which requires 30 hours of debate. So what's happening is rather than just taking vote after vote after vote, which was traditionally done to confirm these people, what happened, Joe, is they're now demanding 30 hours of debate on every single one of them, which is grinding the process to a glacial pace, effectively almost a halt.

If we don't win the Senate, excuse me, retain the Senate, we have the Senate now, next year, and we lose the Senate in the 2018 midterms, we are going to be in big trouble. You are not going to see another nominee appointed to the court. I'm telling you right now, they will grind this process to an absolute halt. So get out there, get active, and make sure you vote. Enough on that. I don't want to get preachy on that i vote every time all right uh let's see oh this one this yeah this one kind of hurts i got two more just quick ones i'm gonna put this story up at the show notes today too because this is stunning and having worked for the federal government i was kind of astonished by this one as well joe if how many that's kind of an unfair question i want to ask you that i don't want to set you up because I was so off on this too.

I don't want to put you in a bad spot. If I gave, this is serious, but I'll give you a multiple choice. How many federal government employees do you think make six figure salaries or more? I'll give you three numbers, right? $100,000, $205,000, $306,000, or $406,000 federal employees? I'd say

the $400,000. You would be right. Really? $406,960 federal employees are making six-figure salaries. Folks, that's one in five. You know what the average salary for an American employee is? $44,000.

Now, having worked for the federal government, I want to be clear on this, and I want to give you a clear-eyed view of what's going on. The constitutional roles of government, our military folks, I shouldn't say constitutional respect to the FBI because the FBI isn't anywhere in the constitution, but I think the roles we all agree should, you know, the law, federal law enforcement, our military, our court system. I have no problem and I don't work for the Secret Service anymore. My pension's gone. I cashed it out. I don't get anything from them. I'm not their spokesperson. But having worked there, I can tell you that the appropriate functioning, I know, Joe, you would agree with this because we've spoken about this. The appropriate functioning

of our federal government requires that people obey the law, that people obey contract law, and that people basically don't try to assassinate the president. You need good people in these roles. You need good people in these roles. You need good people in the FBI. And I could tell you having worked there, especially in the regions, most of them work, Washington, DC and New York, where the salaries are higher, they just because the cost of living is higher, that I don't have an issue with a senior level Secret Service agent with, you know, 15 years experience making $130,000 a year. I know that may disappoint many of you, but I'm just I'm here to be honest, I'm not gonna lie to you. I don't because I was there year. I know that may disappoint many of you, but I'm here to be honest. I'm not going

to lie to you. I don't because I was there. And I know what happens when they move to New York from Tuscaloosa and they find out that their $90,000 a year can't even rent them an apartment and they quit. And we lose a guy, Joe, who's an agent, who's a lawyer. He's got an MBA. I mean, I know one guy who was a CPA, an MBA, and a law degree. This guy was one of the best agents around, and the entire Secret Service budget is just a billion dollars, which is nothing. Same thing with the FBI. I want really good trained linguists, trained accountants, trained lawyers. I want the best of the best.

That's my opinion. You're free to feel otherwise. But, Joe, on the other side of this do we need 406 000 people making six figures what the heck are you doing i mean seriously what are you doing i mean does a bureaucrat in in hhs who is basically administratively keeping you know keeping control of some documents or some files they need to make you, you know, 95 to 100,000 a year. I mean, come on. This is insane. We got, we're in the middle of the worst budget crisis in American history. We got all these people making $100,000 a year. The articles in the Daily Signal puts it in perspective, one in five making 100 grand a

year. Folks, I'm sorry, but that's just, that's insane. That really, something needs to be done about that. There needs to be some kind of control on some of these salaries. I mean, the fact that a Secret Service agent putting his butt on the line every day is making the same amount as some upper-level bureaucrat who has the equivalent job in the private sector of a $70,000-a-year job is making $130,000. It's just insane. That's just wrong. All right, one more quick story.

Legal insurrection has a piece up today. I'll put it in the show notes about a Poynter survey. This I was kind of shocked by, too. It's why I wanted to discuss it last. Poynter is some media group, and they did a survey, Joe, about trust in the media. And an astonishing nearly 44% of Americans think the media is just making it up. Making it up. Making it up! Folks, on a very serious note, we need an independent, good, strong media.

We do. I mean, listen, the way tyrants move forward and basically disguise their agenda is by a compliant media. Now, we've seen that. The media, unfortunately, is compliant to liberals and they make stuff up about Republicans. So this is a problem that needs to be solved. But, you know, you want a reason why this is happening? I have another article I'll put in the show notes today in the Washington Examiner. Only 5% of the coverage of Donald Trump to this point of his presidency has been positive. Now, folks, come on. I get it that the media dislikes the man. I get it they have a beef with the guy.

But are you seriously telling me that only five out of 100 stories are worthy of at least some component of positive coverage? You're just making it up at that point. And that's why America is losing faith in you. It should be a lesson to media folks, but it won't be. I know how they are. Joe, I'll be honest with you. I don't think they really care.

I think they are so committed to the liberal agenda that they'll throw their business model, their money, and their salaries out the window. And that's what happens when media becomes a religion and not journalism. All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in. Please go to Bongino.com, subscribe to my email list. I will get you these terrific articles right in your email box every day. And I will see you all tomorrow.

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