The Dan Bongino Show - Ep. 655 Are Obama Officials Starting to Turn?

Episode Date: February 14, 2018

In this episode I address the growing Susan Rice email scandal and a theory that she may be flipping on the Obama team. I also talk about some warning signs in the economy and an incident in Syria that taught the Russians a tough lesson.    A stunning development: Was the Hillary campaign paying someone who was also working for connected Russians?   The Russians learned a tough lesson in Syria last week.    Beware, higher interest rates may be right around the corner. Look at the January inflation numbers.    Here’s an older article that sums up Susan Rice’s troubling role in spying on the Trump team.    Are there chemicals in your products causing obesity?   An interesting article about the myth of the Social Security “trust fund.”   An older piece that quotes John Brennan regarding Bob Mueller. These guys need the special counsel to distract America from the spying scandal.    Copyright CRTV. All rights reserved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Growth is essential for every entrepreneur. At BDC, we get that. And the businesses we support grow at double the average rate, accelerating the pace. We're on it. BDC. Financing. Advising. Know-how. 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 today? Hey, man, what a day. Glad to be here. Yeah, happy Valentine's Day to all those spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, all of y'all out there, and a big happy Valentine's Day to my lovely wife, Paula, the rock in our relationship.

She is the one who also you know her, whether you know it or not, because the reason this show is up at the website and the website is so lovely every day is because of my wife's unique website designing skills. So big thanks to Paula, right, Joe? She's a dynamo. Thank goodness for Paula. Yeah, you ain't kidding, man. She's rescued us from many a technological disaster during the show, folks.

All right, let me just walk through what i'd like to get done today i have a couple of updates one a fascinating theory i saw yesterday on susan rice being a potential of course the barack obama national security advisor being a potential good guy in this which listen i i i get it and i i am not here to take shots at anybody else but i think that theory is outrageous and i'll i want to just quickly give you what that that individual's saying and why i think it's crazy a couple other developments in that case as well um some worrisome news about a poll i saw about americans desire for big government desire for

big government yeah i said that right what and i yeah yeah no i got to get into that because that no no no no no we're not we can't have that and some email i got on that topic yesterday as well also i've got a couple of stories about some more liberal intentions versus results you know this is a common theme of our show for you regular listeners right liberal intentions versus what happens in the real world i have two stories that are just damning about liberals trying to do one thing, actually doing the opposite and then running away from the results. So important stuff. All right. Today's show brought to you by buddies at iTarget. You know, folks, anybody can fire a firearm, okay? It's not hard. You just pull the trigger. The question is, can you fire one accurately? You

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It's the best way to increase your marksmanship. Go to itargetpro.com. That's itargetpro.com. Promo code Dan, my first name, D-A-N. You'll get an extra 10% off. Give it a shot, itargetpro.com. Promo code DAN, my first name, D-A-N. You'll get an extra 10% off. Give it a shot, itargetpro.com. Okay. So I saw a Twitter stream yesterday from a guy who's done some really, I think, decent work on this,

investigatively speaking. And someone sent it to me and said, hey, there's a theory running around out there that Susan Rice, in this entire, remember, the scandal is the Obama team spiedied on the Trump team and they've been looking to hide it. And the theory, Joe, is that Susan Rice was a good guy in this now, or not a good guy so much, but that she's trying to do the right thing now. In other words, the email we addressed yesterday, Susan Rice sends an email to herself right before President Trump is sworn in on January 20th. Moments before she sends an email to herself and she sees her assistant.

She doesn't send it to the people involved in the meeting. The email's about the email's about a meeting that happened on January 5th between Barack Obama, Vice President Biden, Jim Comey, Sally Yates and Susan Rice in the meeting, and they're discussing the intelligence investigation against the Trump team. The meetings, now keep in mind, she sends an email on January 20th, the meeting's on January 5th, and she says, hey, Obama said during the meeting that we have to conduct this investigation by the book. Now, one of the theories out there I've seen going around is that Susan Rice is a good guy in this, Joe, because Susan Rice, this is interesting, is now acknowledging in an email to herself just minutes before Trump takes office that a meeting happened, Joseph, that nobody else acknowledged happened. In other words, Obama is on the record saying he doesn't get briefed about ongoing FBI investigations.

Now, to be fair, at this point, it was a counterintelligence investigation. But still, it shows that by memorializing this in an email, Rice is acknowledging that Obama did know what was going on. Yeah. Secondly, Jim Comey has never publicly acknowledged this meeting. The meeting with Obama, comey acknowledged he said oh he was just there to say goodbye clearly by this email joseph that is not the case right right susan rice is acknowledging they discussed details how to proceed forward and this is what's even more disturbing if they should share information and what information they should

share with the incoming administration wait come again you're debating if the united states government should share information with the now president united states yeah joe's given a this thing sign of course it stinks but what the theory about susan rice is that that i saw and again i'm please i'm not trying to start a fight with anybody i'm just i i don't think this is true they may be right and if they are i will absolutely correct the record i i dispute this strongly though that this is a good thing the so just to rewind the premise here the premise is that rice sent the email to publicly acknowledge a meeting joe that nobody else will acknowledge happen in other words look at this i was here for this this happened there'll be no denial i sent myself an email the second piece of, let's say, evidence that Rice may be a good guy in this is that it was sent strategically right after the Obama team left office so that nobody in the Obama team would then have access to it.

It would only be an evidence trail left for the Trump team. Why? Because the Obama team was out. They were gone. Because the Obama team was out. They were gone. Like, if you were going to memorialize a meeting on January 5th, Joe, why send the email on January 20th right as Trump takes office? And again, that theory would be that, oh, she was doing it because now she was no longer afraid of the Obama team because they were going to be out of office. She sends the email knowing the Trump team will see this, right? Because they have access to the system now. team will see this right because they have access to the system now yeah and that she is in fact being a good guy memorializing a meeting that later on everybody's gonna say didn't happen now it's not insane the theory right it's not crazy but i i dispute the premise of it

strongly um and by the way one more thing i think the you're not that motive necessarily is is uh dispositive in this but the motive would be as i've seen some people claim joe that rice had been burned so many times on the benghazi talking points remember when she was thrown out there for benghazi hey tell them it's a video susan tell them it's a video tell them it's a video so rice was the fall guy right she was she was obviously humiliated it was's a video. Tell him it's a video. So Rice was the fall guy. Right. She was obviously humiliated. It was not a video in Benghazi. So the theory is that, oh, well, maybe her loyalty to Obama was strained and that she was doing this to memorialize a meeting everybody was going to deny happened later on.

And she only sent the email after Obama couldn't see it anymore in his team. Interesting, though, right? Yeah, that is. I hadn't thought of that. No. Yeah. Here's why I don't think there's much to that. And again, if I'm wrong, so be it. It would be great to see Susan Rice see the light, right, Joe? I mean, if some Obama, I've said to you repeatedly, my biggest complaint about the Obama team is they lie and they stick to it. If someone would finally come out and say, hey, we screwed up. Here's what happened. Great.

Terrific. Let's have it. So I hope I really mean this. I hope I'm wrong. But here's why I dispute. I have a couple of pieces of evidence. Number one, if Rice was really worried about being set up as the fall guy in Benghazi and the lying she did on national TV, which humiliated her, right? In other words, the Obama team tells her, go out and say it was a video on Benghazi, and it wasn't,

and that bothered her so much. Here's my question to you. Then why did she lie again? After this whole Benghazi thing, and after the whole email thing, and after the January 5th meeting. You know, she went on MSNBC and when asked about the unmasking of Trump officials, which she signed off on, this is clearly after Benghazi, way after Benghazi, she's asked

about the unmasking and she lies about it. She basically says, oh, I don't know anything about that. We didn't unmask people, right? That was a lie. Now, in today's show notes at Bongino.com and if you subscribe to says, oh, I don't know anything about that. We didn't unmask people, right? That was a lie. Now, in today's show notes at Bongino.com and if you subscribe to my email list, I'll send these articles to you, as always. Sorry to keep reminding you, but it helps us a lot to get you on our

email list. I will send you an article by Eli Lake. It's an older one from 2017, but it's a damning piece. It's short. It's sweet. Please read it. It's short. It's sweet. Please read it. It's about Susan Rice unmasking Trump administration officials. And it's about a pattern when the Trump team took office that they saw of Susan Rice unmasking these people that was highly disturbing. Just read the piece. So my question to you is this,

if Susan Rice all of a sudden is a good guy and she's a good guy because she was bothered so much about being screwed over by being fed the Benghazi talking points and being lied to by Obama, why did she go out and lie again later about unmaskings we all know happened? Read the Eli Lake piece. She lied, and then she had to acknowledge later on that she lied about unmasking. You see where I'm going with this, Joe? Yeah. If I set you up, Joe, right? Mm-hmm. You know, let's say I go to CRTV and I lie, but say I want to get rid of Joe because he's

the worst producer around. Poor Joe. Poor guy. He puts up with so much. He's the best. But let's say I want to get rid of him, and I want to hire Joey Bagadonis, the producer, instead. So I keep lying about Joe, and then Joe gets upset and goes to the police and says, hey,

Dan Bongino was involved in a bank robbery. You know, Joe's doing that because he's upset and he's upset about being screwed over by me. But the point is, Joe doesn't then go later on and defend me to the same cops. In other words, the cops go, hey, was Dan Bongino involved in

a bank robbery like you told us? No, no, no. He was at the Palm City Grill that night in Florida. Joe, you told us he robbed the bank. In other words, why is he still defending me then? That may not have been the best worded analogy. I see what you mean, yeah. The point is

if Joe is upset and wants to give me up via an email or a statement to the cops or whatever, he doesn't then later on go back to the same cops and then lie about it to cover for me. Does that make sense, Joe? Oh, yeah. You just come clean.

Yeah. So to me, it doesn't make sense. So that's number one. Why lie again? Number two is her lawyer's statement is pretty damning. This is from the Wall Street Journal today. Susan Rice's lawyer gave a statement. The lawyer's Catherine Rumler.

She's the counsel for Susan Rice. She said in a statement, there's nothing unusual about the National Security Advisor memorializing an important discussion for the record. But this is where it gets interesting, Joe. The statement goes on. The Obama White House was justifiably concerned about how comprehensive they should be

in their briefings regarding Russia to members of the Trump transition team, particularly Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, given the concerning communications between him and Russian officials. Again, if Susan Rice is a good guy here or is turning into a good guy, why is she doubling down with now discredited accusations against General Flynn? Folks, it doesn't make any sense. I'm sorry. It doesn't make sense. I'm just putting that out there. Again, I hope I'm wrong and that she is turning

and she's going to give up the goods on what happened, but I would not put a lot of faith in that theory. I just wanted to get that out there. It's important. All right. Hey, there's one more troubling story here that's starting to break, and I want to make sure you're attuned to this. Lee Smith at TabletMag, who I've been citing his articles a lot because they're terrific. I have another one today. It's a little shorter. He writes some pretty long pieces, so sometimes 1,500, 2,000 words. This one's short, but it's good. It's in TabletMag, and it's about another disturbing revelation in this case folks that should again be freaking you all out now before we get to it i want joe you have that

cut ready yeah this is important this is from yesterday and for those of you asking me why i keep covering this it's breaking news every day about the most important scandal of our generation there's other stuff to get to too we'll get to it but this critical stuff. And every day there's a new development in this because it's such a layered involved scandal. Just remember the overall 30,000 foot view though. The Obama team spied on the Trump team. There's an article by Eli Lake, I include in the show notes

today, that shows how they did it, unmasking the Trump team identities in recorded conversations with foreign agents. But they still can't seem to admit, whether it's management level people at the FBI, that something went wrong here. But here's an interesting development. Before we play the cut, this is Christopher Wray yesterday, the FBI director, that is,

yesterday up on the Hill testifying. He's being questioned by Tom Cotton, a senator who's been on top of this, about a Russian businessman with some potentially shady connections named Oleg Deripaska. Now, so you understand the context of why I think he's asking this question. There are now new allegations, folks, these are deeply, deeply troubling that Christopher Steele, who was the working through the Hillary campaign to get information on Trump, the former British spy, that Steele may have been being paid at the same time by Oleg Deripaska. Now, folks, this guy, Deripipaska is deeply connected to Vladimir Putin. Can you imagine the 56th layer of hell that would develop here if we found out that the spy producing, the British spy producing for the Hillary Clinton team negative information on Trump was simultaneously being paid

by a guy connected to Vladimir Putin. Can you even imagine? So as I always say, remember the names. Remember the name Oleg Deripaska in context. It's about a minute long. But listen to that and listen to how he answers about the dossier too, which goes to show you that they're in a world of trouble here.

Play the cut. Mr. Ray, are you aware of a gentleman by the name of Oleg Deripaska? I've heard the name. Is it fair to call him a Putin-linked Russian oligarch? Well, I'll leave that characterization to others, and certainly not in this setting. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, last week sent a letter to a London-based lawyer who represents Mr. Deripaska and asked if Christopher Steele was employed either directly or indirectly by Oleg Deripaska at the time he was writing the so-called Steele dossier. Do you know if Christopher Steele worked for Oleg Deripaska? That's not something I can answer.

Could we discuss it in a classified setting? There might be more we could say there. Thank you. And maybe we'll hear back from the lawyer in London as well to give us a straight answer. Jim Comey testified before this committee in an open setting last summer, and he referred to the Steele dossier as salacious and unverified does that remain the fbi's position i think maybe there's more we can talk about this afternoon on that okay thank you okay you hear tom cotton joe okay thanks like that was really useless thank you for not answering any of our questions. Why is Deripaska now an interesting target for a U.S. senator in an open hearing on Capitol Hill?

Folks, because if you read the Lee Smith piece, there are some interesting connections here between Deripaska and Steele. Was he being paid, Steele, at the same time by Hillary's team? At the same time he was being paid by a Russian oligarch with connections to Vladimir Putin? Folks, what else do you need to hear Russian collusion if that's the case? What else do you need? There was Russian collusion between the Hillary team and them. What else do you need to know? If that is in fact the case, there is a world of trouble brewing.

Now, why is Deripaska's name in the news again all of a sudden? Another interesting angle. And I'm going to wrap this up here. Mark Warner, the Democrat senator from Virginia. Who was contacted by a lobbyist. Keep in mind, Warner has oversight and tell uh oversight capabilities over the intelligence community he's a democrat senator from virginia warner was on is now on the record in a text exchange with a lobbyist trying to connect him with Christopher Steele, the spy.

In other words, lobbyists reach out, hey, Steele wants to talk to you, wants to talk to the Democrat senator. Who does the lobbyist also work for? Oleg Deripaska. Oh! Oh, that hurts. Oh, boy. That's a gunshot, ribs, liver, kidney shot there.

Folks, it only gets worse for the democrats this is why and i again i'll i'll um i want to just make two final points on this this is why number one i can't say in strong enough terms to the democrats out there it is time to take a bath on this remember my analogy analogy, corporate filings, you lose a lot of money. You're going to lose it over a few quarters. A lot of times these corporations will take a bath. That's the expression. Just take all the losses now. Let's get the stock price hit done and over with and let's move on. Democrats, liberals, it's time to take a bath. This thing just gets uglier and uglier and uglier. If it is now revealed that Hillary Clinton was in fact paying a guy who was also being paid by the Russians

and a guy connected to Putin himself, do you realize the hellstorm that's about to come your way? Just give it up. Now you have a Democrat senator exchanging texts with a lobbyist who also works for the guy who's connected to Putin to try to connect him to Steele? And you're going to stick to this? Holy Moses. So, number one, time to take a bath.

Number two, Joe. Yes. Now, it makes absolute sense why they need Mueller and they need the special counsel. This is why they pushed for it the entire time. They need Mueller. And I have a piece from Breitbart. It's a little older, but it's a pretty good piece about Brennan, John Brennan, as I told you, the CIA director, who I think was one of the puppet masters in this.

Brennan, on the record, Joe, there should be, if Trump tries to fire Mueller, no, they shouldn't follow that order. Brennan, terrified they're going to fire Mueller. Why? Follow that order. Brennan terrified they're going to fire Mueller. Why? They need Mueller. Why do they need Mueller, Joe? They need Mueller to go, look, shiny red ball, shiny red squirrel. As I said on Fox the other day, that's what they need. If they don't have Mueller, they have nothing. The focus will be entirely on what really happened.

Russian collusion with the Democrats. They need Mueller to constantly take a scalp. Oh, let's go get Mike Flynn on false statements that the FBI, by the way, on the record, didn't think were false. Let's go arrest George Papadopoulos for fibbing. Folks, do you understand? Joe, is this making sense? They need a distraction technique and if Mueller goes away and the investigation goes away with nothing

with no Russian collusion because there isn't any all of a sudden the media will no longer be able to ignore the real Russian collusion that happened between the Hillary campaign the DNC and actual Russians they need

Mueller that is why they are so passionate about keeping this special investigation on the front page of the news. Because even though we'll never find anything on Russian collusion because it didn't happen, you can't create facts, they need it as a distraction technique. It's starting to all make sense now, folks, all coming together. All right, I got some more stuff to get through, some great stories in the news today. But today's show also brought to you by buddies at Filter By. Folks, it's been a cold winter. Thankfully, it's starting to recede a little bit.

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them out thanks filter by for helping to keep the show free and for providing really good products we really appreciate it all right so i saw a story in the journal today in the op-ed column folks that should really freak you all out i mean it terrified me uh it was a poll it was a wall street journal nbc poll and it asked him it was basically about americans desire for bigger government and It terrified me. It was a poll. It was a Wall Street Journal, NBC poll. And it asked them, it was basically about Americans' desire for bigger government and government services. And the gist of the question was, should government do more to solve problems? Now, this was a poll that, Joe, historically in the past, a majority, if not overwhelming majority of Americans had said no to that question. Do you want government to do more?

That's the question in essence, right? Now, what's really shocking is the poll is now trending upwards. Now, 58%. That's a pretty heavy majority, folks. I mean, you ask a question to the American electorate, you get 58% returns on it. That's a pretty heavy majority.

58% of Americans think the government should do more to solve problems. Now, okay, that's a pretty heavy majority 58 of americans think the government should do more to solve problems now okay that's a lot of them by the way most the majority of republicans and conservatives obviously are against it but the fact that 58 of the american problem thinks one the government should do more to solve problems and then by default joe must think that the government can actually solve problems to me is really troubling i don't know why you would think that now here's a quote from the piece i'm going to because there's some interesting little kind that the government can actually solve problems to me is really troubling. I don't know why you would think that. Now, here's a quote from the piece.

I want to, because there are some interesting little kind of tidbits and sub-headlines in here as well. It says, Americans also hope that increased government action will support a varied list of beneficiaries. In other words, more government for more groups of people, right? A Pew study last month found majorities endorsing the view that government does too little to help young people the elderly the middle class and the poor by contrast 64 percent that the government says that the government does too much to help the wealthy now this is fascinating here because i got a couple points of this questions about specific

policies confirm these findings the most recent kaiser survey joe found that 50 percent of americans want the government to increase spending for Social Security by only 5% want cuts. There are comparable numbers for Medicare and Medicaid as well. Folks, I'm committed to the truth on this show, and I know the truth sometimes is troubling. And I got an email yesterday from a gentleman, very nice, by the way, the truth on the show and i know the truth sometimes is troubling and i got an email yesterday from a gentleman very nice by the way very complimentary about the show but he said his he was warning me joe almost in a very like uh kind of cryptic tone he's like don't get into this social security and medicare stuff we paid for our medicare and if you're going to talk about it you're going to alienate listeners folks

I'm not I'm in the business of creating conservative content okay I'm not in the business of alienated listeners alienating listeners excuse me but I'm also not in the business of alienating the truth bingo you yes to the gentleman

who emailed me and to Joe how many times does this come up on the show, the Social Security debate? Oh, yeah. Often, right? Often. I am absolutely 100% with you that the government asked you to pay for a product, a retirement benefit. They asked you to pay in advance for it. They also asked you to pay for a Medicare benefit.

Excuse me. You paid for it. That is not your fault. I absolutely believe you did work. You earned that money and you paid for a benefit. You were promised by the government. I am not suggesting that promise should be broken to people who have already planned their lives around a broken government system.

Now, let me say that twice, because if I only say it once, I will get another set of nasty emails. I am not suggesting now that the promises made to you by the government should be broken to people who already have basically people 55 and older at this point, whose lives have been designed around a system the government promised them, even though the government broke their promises. But what I am telling you is there is no money. And us arguing about the details of this, I can't say to you in strong enough terms that ignoring the truth is going to slap everyone in the face one day and pretending like it's not there. Please understand, there is no Social Security trust fund. Now, I'm going to include a Cato piece from 1999 because it's that good in the show notes today.

And it's short and it's sweet. And if you read it and come away with the conclusion that there is still a Social Security trust fund, I'm sorry, but you're immune to facts. There is no trust fund. there is no trust fund and the fact that 50 of americans want more spending on social security goes to show the absolute messaging failure conservatives and libertarians uh have been involved in on on the issue of government spending folks there is no money now there is no money the money in the trust fund, there's a great, you know what? I'm going to see if I can put, I should have taken a, I usually take screenshots when I

want to get to stuff. Here it is. But this is really good. Here's a quote from humorous PJ O'Rourke in the piece. Having a government trust fund is exactly the same thing as not having a government trust fund. I don't mean to make light of it, but there's no trust fund. The government took your Social Security money.

What they did is they bought U.S. denominated assets, bonds and the like. Those kinds of things. The money was then given to the United States government the united states government which they spent there's no money in other words work is not wrong joe a u.s government trust fund is the same thing as not having a trust fund because they already spent the money yeah it's gone folks i'm just asking you to to understand like i don't know why we're not getting through to the american public about the how really insane government spending is, how out of control it is, and how this message isn't resonating, and how people aren't ultimately

frightened about what's going to happen with their kids and grandkids. I'm not trying to scare you. I'm just trying to tell you the truth. If you listen to yesterday's show, there's some good news in it. We can grow out of this if we commit to growing the economy and we handle spending right. But folks, there is no money in that trust fund. It has been spent. In other words, Joe, now that the trust fund is starting to cash in those assets they have, U.S. government denominated assets that they bought with your money, here's a good question for you, Joe. Where do you think they're getting the cash from? The taxpayer. Yeah.

Because there's no cash there. There's no hard assets. They're not. In other words, Joe, the trust fund was not like invested in real estate. Now they're selling the homes and giving the money to people for their retirement. When they cash in those assets to pay you your Social Security returns, they're simply taking the money from U.S. taxpayers. You get it? Yeah.

Again, I'm not faulting anybody. I'm not trying to start a fight with our old elicitors. I get it. You did pay in. You were made promises. And I think it's fair that our generation, given that you fought in World War II and you built the damn country,

I think we should keep those promises. Let me be crystal clear on that. I'm just telling you, if you're 55 and younger, there's no money. And saying, as this poll does, Joe, and I'll tie this up with this point here, that 50% of Americans want more Social Security returns and they don't want cuts.

It means what? You want to take more of our money to give to ourselves well there's no money the money to pay you if you are even remotely close to 55 or younger is coming from you do you understand that i'm not trying to be a jerk folks folks. I'm just, I can't believe how many people still don't get this. Read the Cato piece. What is that Milton Friedman quote? You know, the great part about government spending that makes it so attractive to people is that you think you're spending your neighbor's money.

But the catch is your neighbor is saying the same thing. You're both spending each other's money. I think when people hear you say the money is coming from you, the folks are going to say, yeah, that's right. I paid into it. It's my money. But you're not coming from that direction. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, exactly.

Your money, folks, that's a good point, Joe, and I'm glad you said that. Yeah. The money you paid in, let's say you paid in $30,000 over your lifetime, right? I'm glad Joe brought this up. Yeah, thanks. You will require more than that. It's not your fault. Again, I'm not saying it's your fault. People are living longer and the social security system was designed so poorly, the money you paid in will require a multiple of that to pay you back. You're not going to get $30,000 or $30,000 plus interest or $30,000 plus a growth rate.

You are going to get far more than you paid in. That's why there's no money. That money is going to be paid out of a trust fund, which is being paid by taxpayers now. It's called a pay-go system. Even worse, Joe, when the people who paid in over the lifetime there's still not the system's going bankrupt now so now we're gonna have to backfill with taxpayer dollars now the people who are paying now are now paying taxes to pay for people now and paying taxes and payroll taxes to pay for their social security later and there's not going to be enough to pay for them either.

It is not, folks, the money's not there. If we don't fix this entitlement problem, at a minimum for people 55 and younger, there's absolutely certain arithmetic bankruptcy coming. Here's another part I found concerning about this study, Joe. Apparently, 48% of Americans, the debt's not a big concern for them. Just folks, listen to yesterday's show. How is it not a big concern?

We presently owe every, we owe $20 trillion. That's the entire annual value of our economy, $20 trillion. We owe everything. Now, so I don't wear you out with complaints. There are two things that I think we need to do. Well, one is say kind of a, it's going to be an oh moment, you know? And another one is a way to fix this. You know what, Americans?

I'm talking to all of us here, me included in some respects. You want bigger government? I don't. But you want bigger government? 48% or what now? 50%? Oh, excuse me, 58% think the government should do more to solve problems? All right, let's stop withholding. No, let's stop withholding taxes, Joe. Let's give you a quarterly bill for exactly how much that would cost. And then let's see how many Americans want bigger government. No, I'm serious, folks. You know why I say that? From personal experience.

I'm a small business owner. My wife and I, it's our, proud to say, our third small business now. We're doing quite well, thankfully. Thanks a lot to you. I mean that. But the first time we started paying quarterlies, we were like, what? You get a bill, Joe. And you're like, wait, what? I mean, we owed a blank ton of money. It was a lot. And let me tell you something. I was a conservative anyway, so it doesn't matter.

But I got to tell you, even if I was a liberal, I think that would have been an eye opener. I honestly believe, Joe, that now that 58% of Americans think the government should do more to solve problems, they only say it because they have one, they have no idea that government can't solve problems. What does it solve? Poverty? Nope. Higher education costs? Nope. Healthcare costs? Nope. What does they say? The government doesn't solve anything. But if in your zeal to believe that the government solved prop solves problems you were actually billed for it i think a whole lot of american minds would start changing right away i'm not suggesting tax hikes or anything i'm just telling you you should get a quarterly bill because i think what happens with withholding joe

is withholding has been happening for so long that it's psychologically built into the, you know, it's baked into the cake. It's built into the economic structure and people don't understand or grasp the gravity of government. Get your whole paycheck. Take the whole thing. No payroll taxes, nothing, folks. And every quarter you should get a bill for Social

Security, for Medicare. It should be all itemized. For Medicaid, what you're paying for DACA recipients. And I bring this up because remember, Joe, what I told you in the poll, they want more benefits for a growing list of beneficiaries. You want all these programs. You want Medicaid. You want SNAP. You want CHIP. You want all this stuff, you want DACA, you want, get a bill, itemize the bill. Every quarter, you're going to get a bill if you make $100,000 for probably close to, I don't know, 10,000 bucks. And you're going to be like, is there a way to kind of cut costs on this? Like this DACA thing that's costing me, you know, 70, 80 bucks here. And, you know, Snap that's costing me three you know, 70, 80 bucks here and, you know, snap that's costing

me three, $400 here. Can we, you want to turn those poll numbers around quick? That's the way to do it. Change withholding, change withholding, make the government operate on a quarterly budget. And that's the way we're going to rock and roll, but it'll never happen. Here's another point. Here's going to be the wake-up call moment. I said this yesterday, and I'll say it again, but I'm bringing it up today, not to repeat

yesterday's show, but because there's another great article I have up at Bongino.com and on the show notes today about interest rates. What did I say during yesterday's show, Joe, that the wake-up call for Americans is going to be interest rates? One of these days, we're going to wake up, and you're going to find your car loan is at 10%, and your mortgage is at 12%. Oh, that's not going to happen at 4% now. No, it did happen, folks.

It happened in the 1980s when I was six and seven years old, okay? Mortgage rates were double digits. Joe remembers it well. He's a little older than me. Interest rates were sky high. So for our college crowd listening, think about what I'm telling you. Your mortgage payment now at 4%, say it's, I don't know, $1,000 a month for your house. That same $1,000 a month that, say, gets you a $300,000 house,

that same $1,000 a month now gets you about a $200,000 house because the interest rates are double. You get it, Joe? The interest costs that are built into that $1,000 house because the interest rates are double. You get it, Joe? The interest costs that are built into that $1,000 payment are so much higher that you have to buy that much less of a house. Folks, interest rates are the canary in the coal mine. As interest rates creep up, let me just give you a quick analogy here. Do you ever notice when you go into a car dealer, they always want to negotiate with you on the monthly payment? By the way, that's a horrible negotiating tactic for you.

Great for the dealer. But it's not a stupid strategy because people operate typically on biweekly or monthly budgets. They know how much they make biweekly or monthly, and they say, okay, I can spend this much on a car and this much on a house. Car dealers take advantage of that because it's harder to do the math in bigger chunks. And if I lose you, Joe, please stop me,

but it's hard to do the math on an annual budget. Okay, well, the car's going to cost me this. Now you got to multiply everything by 12. Then you got to factor in taxes. It gets confusing. When you do it in small digestible chunks. Okay, what's this car going to cost me per month? Now you only have to multiply if you get paid bi-weekly by two. Okay, I know what I get paid per month because you times it by two, right? And I know what the car is going to cost me per month. So the math is easy. So I don't fault car dealers for doing that.

But the reason they do that is because we like to think in small, digestible chunks of numbers. Why think yearly and in decades, Joe, if you can think in months? It's just easier to do the math. Does that make sense? Yeah. Now, this is why interest rates are going to be the big wake-up call for Americans. We have so much government debt, and we printed so much money in an effort to stave off the Obama continued recession,

do quantitative easing and other programs, that eventually all of that money we printed is going to start chasing either the same or a growing amount of products, not growing at the rate the money supply did. So the best way to explain this, folks, is if we print a lot of money, let's say you have $100 in an economy that was printed.

This is important. Please understand this this because the story broke today that should scare all of you it's not listen it's a great country we'll be okay i don't mean to be dramatic today but this story today it's headlining drudge right now it's in the show notes i was like oh boy i better get this out to my audience if there are i'm giving you a very simplistic example if there are say is an economy there's an economy on an island, and there's 100 computers on that island, and it's the only product they have, and on that island are 100 circulating $1 bills,

and that's the only official form of money. The most likely scenario is that those $100 bills will fetch 100 computers. Roughly, the price of the computers will work out to be $1 each because of the amount of circulating money and the amount of product available. I get it. It's a very simplistic example. Just roll with me for a minute. Folks, we printed a whole ton of money during the Obama years. It was not Obama's fault per se, although he incentivized it because we do have a quasi-independent Federal Reserve. But they print the money, Federal Reserve notes, dollar bills. We printed them.

We printed a lot of them. It's really an electronic creation, but let's just stick with printing because it's easier to understand. Let's say the Federal Reserve now on that same island prints $200. So now there's $200, Joe, chasing the same 100 computers. No more computers are made. Now each computer on average could fetch $2 each. That's 100% inflation rate right there.

Now, it's a simplistic example, but it's meant to emphasize what the printing or creation of additional money will do if the economy doesn't grow and create 100 more computers to suck up all that money. Right, Joe? Because if you have 100 more computers to suck up all that money. Right, Joe? Because if you have 100 more computers, you now have 200 computers, $200. Now it's great. You have more money and you have more computers. But the price of the computer on average will still be $1, $200, 200 computers.

Folks, we haven't been growing at that rate. We have been growing under the Obama years at about 2%. But we printed a whole boatload of money. We created electronically a whole boatload of money. I've warned and a lot of other people have warned when the economy heats up that money is going to start to filter it out, start to chase computers again, Joe. Money that's been hiding in banks and hiding is going to start chasing products. And we better start building more products. Now, why is this important?

Headlining judge today. Inflation scare. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I'll include in the show notes a CNBC article. Consumer price index jumped 0.5% in January, Joe. That jump was significantly higher than they expected. They expected about 0.3. Folks, you're going to see more of this.

We printed a boatload of money. Now that the economy is heating up, that printed money is starting to chase computers and prices are going up. What does this have to do with the interest rates, which I said are canaries in the coal mine? Folks, as inflation starts to spike, which it's going to inevitably,

as the economy heats up, the only way to squash out of control inflation is going to be to raise interest rates at the Federal Reserve. They may have to do so at an accelerated rate. As interest rates go up, again, everything is going to get more expensive. Borrowing money is going to get more expensive. Your monthly payments on your car is going to get more expensive. Borrowing money is going to get more expensive. Your monthly payments on your car are going to get more expensive. Your monthly mortgage payments are going to get more expensive until Americans are like where they were in the 1980s. And they're like, hey, gosh, this is ridiculous. 15% on a mortgage. The interest rates are going to be the canary in the coal mine. The interest rates ultimately over time are going to be the thing that I think is going to wake up

Americans to this 58% who say the government wants to do more. Really? You want the government to do more when you're paying 20% interest on your car loan? I don't think it's a coincidence, let's say, you know, a coincidence, let's say, that during the 1980s, when interest rates were 10, 15%, that Ronald Reagan ran on a platform that the government is the problem and a majority of Americans agreed with him. Folks, interest rates, interest rates, interest rates.

This is going to be the watershed moment when they start to go up and go up dramatically, which I think is going to happen in the future, to squash the inflation, this is what's going to happen. Americans are going to be like, well, listen, I'd like to buy that $30,000 car. Yeah, your monthly payment's going to be $42,000. Wait, what? Yeah, the interest is 200%. How's that? The car's only $30,000. Yeah, you're paying a lot of interest. All right. I'm exaggerating for effect, but you get my point. That make sense, Joe? Yeah.

Interest rates, big trouble. Watch it. Read the article today. It's a good one. Okay. Two other stories I saw, which were interesting. Number one, I don't get into a lot of foreign policy, but there's a great story about, it's actually an op-ed piece by Ralph Peters in the New York Post.

It takes a shot at the Blackwater guys, which I don't like in the piece, but it's still a good piece nonetheless. And it's definitely worth reading. The story's about a, if you've been watching the news, you may have heard about it, but it hasn't exactly been like a front page headline everywhere. And I think it should be, folks. And I think it should be, folks. Something happened right near the deconfliction zone in a part of Syria where U.S. personnel were operating, let's say. clear on this because the point I'm about to tell you is very important here. Russian mercenaries don't operate the same way, say, American mercenaries would, like a Blackwater or people who are... When I say mercenaries, I mean people with generally military or significant law enforcement experience who are privately paid to go and conduct operations in a theater,

like a Blackwater type group. Russian mercenaries like the Wagner Group, which Peter's discusses in the piece, don't operate in the same way. They almost operate with the Russian government's imprimatur. In other words, they're doing things that the Russian military won't do, often, Joe, because the Russian government's trying to avoid casualties. Now, you may say, well, the U.S. government does certain things with groups like this as well. Not to the extent the Russians do, not even say, well, the U.S. government does certain things with groups like this as well. Not to the extent the Russians do. Not even close.

Okay? The Russians have this group of mercenaries operating in Syria that are trying to advance Assad's and Russian interests. Russia has a number of military interests in Syria. And they have been at loggerheads with American forces over there. Here's the bottom line. American forces have been operating in this area. And forces over there. Here's the bottom line. American forces have been operating in this area and there's a deconfliction zone. In other words, do not cross this line, fellas. Russians, Syrian Assad forces don't come over here and they generally haven't.

So this is where the story gets good, Joe. A group of Russian mercs decided it would be a good idea to test that deconfliction zone theory, knowing U.S. operators were over there, and said, you know, like, don't cross that line. Don't push the red button. The Russians are like, ah, push that red button, cross the line. Really, really bad move. That was awful. That was really awful. that was awful that was really awful so and it was a unbelievably strategic abomination of i mean who was thinking who thought this was a good idea i don't know so here's what happens of course our superior tactically and technologically efficient military basically wiped these russian mercs off

the face of the earth now the numbers being numbers being from the Russian government that is disputed, it's been, not that we, believe me, we killed a lot of them. It's either dozens or upwards of 200, depending on which calculation you see. Bottom line is a lot of people died. But the Russians are in a really, really interesting situation here, right? The Russians were told, hey, these fellas over here, they're crossing this deconfliction line. And the Russians, Joe, in order to claim plausible deniability, what did the Russians have to say? They're not our guys.

These are Merck's because then it's an official U.S. Excuse me, Russian government operation. Right. So the Russians are like, those're not our guys yeah these are mercs because then it's an official u.s excuse me russian government operation right so the russians are like those aren't our guys and peter's rights in the piece and i think he's right that the russians probably thought ah you know this is still probably obama era military stuff you know what they're gonna say joe don't you do that again don't you cross that red line pun intended don't cross and then they cross don't cross further then they walk further don't you take one more step one more we're gonna do something and that's not what happened our team was like and that was it that was the end of the mercs okay not that i listen war is a serious thing

i don't mean to make light of it but they were were told, don't do it. And they did it. And our air to ground, basically our ground engagement fighters wiped them out. Now, Peters writes in a piece, I think he's right, the Russians are having Joe an oh moment. An epiphany. Yeah, what do we do now? So Putin apparently is really pissed off because he can't claim they're his guys, but he knows they were his guys. And what's he going to do? Bottom line, I'm trying to tell you folks, I am not, believe me, I am not a war hawk in any respect. I lost an uncle in Vietnam and the subject to me is a very serious one. War is a

very serious one. But the world is full of complicated actors. And I do believe in realpolitik. And the point I'm trying to make is, if we are going to stand as a credible world threat, whether you agree that we should be there or not, I get it. There's a significant disagreement about what our footprint should be around the world.

I respect that. And it's a great debate to have. What I'm trying to tell you now is we are there now. Those are our boys. And the ones that are there now, whether you agree they should be there or not, while they're there, if we tell the damn Russians, don't you step across that line

and they do it and they attack, there better damn well be a penalty. Because it will only incentivize the Russians in the future to do this again. Does that make sense, Joe? There are no more red lines to cross. No.

The lines are red with the blood of those guys who thought it was a good idea to cross the red line. One line. Yeah, that's it. Now, read the piece. It's a really good one in the show notes today. But I say that because I like to tie stories together. It's important yesterday a critical speech was given a speech presentation up on capitol hill by dan coates uh mike rogers and christopher ray

the fbi threat actually the soundbite we gave you from the beginning of the show and in there in addition to the trump russian collusion fairy tale and the obamagate spying thing other serious topics were brought up and one thing they all agreed on and we should all agree on is although i think the russian collusion with the trump team is an absolute myth russia's a serious threat folks and i'm angry at the democrats for making this a partisan issue because it's not and one of the issues that came up was that the russians are going to target the 2018 midterm elections again And one of the suggestions out there in the Wall Street Journal today and elsewhere, which I agree with, is you want to mess with us? You want to toy with us?

You want to play games with your third world economy over there in Russia? Really, folks, it's a third world economy. Absolutely. You want to toy with us? We should unleash freaking hell on these people in their upcoming elections. You want mutually assured intelligence destruction? We should start releasing everything we have on all these Russian oligarchs, all these Russian businessmen paying off Putin.

How'd Putin, how'd he get his money? We should start releasing a massive social media and intelligence campaign within Russia, the same way they're doing here. You want to learn? You're going to learn the same way those mercs learned in Russia. You cross in Syria, excuse me. You cross that damn line, you're never going back. You're going back in pieces. You cross this line again in the midterm elections, which you've done all over the world. We are going to unleash intelligence and technological social media hell on you. Folks, it's the only way.

The Russians will not be lectured. They will only learn by example. This is important stuff. And the Russians' involvement in our country is not a partisan issue. I have no doubt. And the Russians' involvement in our country is not a partisan issue. I have no doubt. Again, I wish Schiff and the other hack Democrats would be serious about this and stop trying to make up fake Russian collusion stories with Trump. But if they're willing to get on board in a bipartisan effort to hit the Russians back for messing with our elections, I am totally on board.

And I think all the listeners would be, too. What happened in that Syrian deconfliction zone should happen again on the technological battlefield too. Dig it! What was that? That was Randy. Oh, play that again. Dig it!

All right, two final stories I wanted to get to. These are just one of the constant themes of the show for our new listeners. I know a lot of you tuned in at episode 628 about the Russian collusion, but we cover a lot of stuff in the show. I'm really proud of the content. One of the constant themes of the show has been liberals live in a world of intentions, never results. They say things they intend to do, and when the results are the opposite of what they intend to do,

they double down and ask for more. It's called the broken leg fallacy, where the government introduces a treatment, it breaks someone's leg, and then they introduce more of the treatment to heal the broken leg. The broken leg fallacy, liberals live by it. Here are two quick ones. Wall Street Journal Today article by Jason Riley. So the Obama administration, Joe, thought there were racial disparities in discipline levels in special education schools.

In other words, there were too many black children who were being placed in special ed and too many black children that were being disciplined. So rather than getting to the bottom of why that was happening, of course, the Obama administration said, well, listen, if you don't fix that and we don't have equal number of racial proportions in both special ed and discipline, there's

going to be some financial penalties here, folks. So, of course, let me just get get so we're clear yeah again liberal intentions the goal is to so-called help minority students specifically kids big kids of black kids to help them by mandating that if you're black you're not disciplined or you're not placed in special ed in specific quota numbers more than white kids so your goal was to help them well what happened well of course liberal results never match their intentions joe well what happened was when the universe was the university of pennsylvania they did a study

someone did a study out there of why children who were black were being placed more in special ed classes special education classes than kids who were white and being placed more in special ed classes, special education classes than kids who were white. And what they, by the way, kids who are white are placed in special ed more than kids who are Asian, but nobody's interested in that racial disparity, right? Because that doesn't work for them politically. And what they found out, Joe, is that a lot of it had to do with premature birth rates and exposure to lead. In other words, a lot of these children who are black, who are in special education classes, are there, Joe, because they need special education.

Right. Not because it was racial. Doubling down on it, most of the administrators in the schools were black. You know, it's just so nutty, like, talking. But here's what's worse, Joe. When they controlled for that, lead levels, premature births, they found out that black children were actually being placed

in special education at lower rates than white children. So, in other words, there's no racial disparity. There's a disparity based on the need for special education due to complications like premature birth and lead levels which black children tend to be exposed to at a higher rate but again liberal intentions so now you say okay well what's the point so how did people get hurt by this how did they get hurt well they found out the test scores now are going down that there's more disorder in certain there's there's more disorder in classrooms there have been multiple reports of this in big city schools because teachers and administrators now are afraid

to discipline students if they happen to be black even students who may need discipline so they keep students in the classroom with all the other students by the way black and white included who are not disciplined problems and their test scores are going down and teachers are reporting more disorder in the classroom hurting everyone this is again the liberal world of intentions where they try to pretend they're helping people and they're actually what they're doing is they're destroying everybody at the same time unbelievable really disappointing here's another story i saw wall street journal today again and by the way this is a this was a bipartisan effort at stupidity joe do you remember after the stock market crash they had sarbanes-oxley yeah sorry

and ron and all that other stuff sarbanes-oxley abbreviated as socks sox was another one of these fascinating pieces of legislative uh uh garbage that was intended to increase corporate accountability. So in Section 404 mandated internal audits for companies. Here's the bottom line to make it super simple for you. Sarbanes-Oxley said, if you're going to be a publicly traded company, in other words, you sell stock to the public, you're listed, Joe. Right. That you have to conduct a series of internal audits and you have to make sure that the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed.

Again, on its intentions, on its face, just like the students are, hey, there are too many black children being disciplined. We got to fix that. Good intentions, right? The result's awful, causing more disorder and more chaos in the classroom and lower test scores. You would think, again, oh, so what, Dan? What's the problem?

You want companies that are publicly listed selling shares to the public to make sure that they're auditing themselves the right way and that the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed? What's the problem, Dan? Well, the problem is there's a cost to that. And the cost for even small businesses was upwards of $2 million a year. So what happened, Joe? The massive internal audit costs. In 1996, we had 7,322 publicly listed companies. What do we have today?

3,671 publicly listed companies. Why? Because if you're not publicly listed, you don't have to go through this $2 million audit trail. So what are companies saying? Ah, we're not going to list our shares to the public. What are we going to do? We're going to go get our $2 million audit trail. So what are companies saying? Ah, we're not going to list our shares to the public. What are we going to do? We're going to go get our money from private equity. Oh, the evil billionaires and trillionaires that Democrats keep talking about.

So basically what's happening here, folks, is as companies succeed in our economy, instead of making their proceeds shareable with the public through public shares, pension funds, your retirement, they're now available to the evil rich hedge fund people and the private equity people that, I'm being sarcastic, that liberals claim to hate who are making out like bandits on a couple of companies and a series of companies that are doing great, but will not list their shares publicly because they don't want to deal with the audit nonsense that the government imposed upon them that, by the way, is not working. And by the way, the Enron scandal was already having free market repercussions. Companies who were using consultants for things other than management consulting and accountant

consulting, too, were already taking an impact on their share prices. And by the way, CEOs who were responsible for multiple rewrites of their financial data were already taking a hit on their salary and their worth. So the free market was already correcting for what happened. But of course, the government had to get involved, mandate this huge audit trail, Joe. And what's happening now? Again, what are the results?

Oh, we're going to fix this. We're going to make sure these companies are accountable. No, they're not accountable because now they're just going private and they're sharing their wealth with a group of private equity people who are getting a lot wealthier while the public does not share in the benefit of a growing economy. Thanks, liberals. You guys are great. You guys are just wonderful. Unbelievable, right? Isn't this incredible, Joe? All right, folks, I really appreciate you tuning in. Please go to the show notes today at Bongino.com and share the show. I appreciate everything on Twitter. I've been liking a lot of your tweets. For those of you

who've been saying nice things about the show, I really appreciate it. I'll see you all tomorrow.