The Dan Bongino Show - Ep. 661 Conservative Voices Are Being Silenced

Episode Date: February 22, 2018

In this episode I address the continued attacks on conservative voices and the efforts to suppress honest political debate. I also discuss some positive news about the economy that you may not be hearing about.    The hysteria to label everyone Russian “bots” may lead to liberals as well.  Was Michael Moore “colluding” with the Russians?  Was Barack Obama a “deficit cutter”? Are we looking at strong economic growth ahead? Read this brief piece.  A Trump bump in approval ratings? Absolutely.  Why the war on guns has failed.    Copyright CRTV. All rights reserved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From the kitchen to the laundry room, your home deserves the best. Give it the upgrade it deserves at Best Buy's Ultimate Appliance Event. Save up to $1,000 on two or more major appliances. Shop now, in-store, or online at BestBuy.ca. Exclusions apply. 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?

Oh, and the fun continues. It just doesn't end, Joe. And now it's coming from people, you know, people at a network I do work for. You know, I'm not a paid contributor over there at Fox, but now I get a guy at Fox taking a shot. I can't believe it. It just, it never ends, folks. It is really incredible. Really.

I mean. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? We don't even have, remember we used to use that one a lot? Yeah. What are you going to do? Oh, boy. All right, folks. I got a lot to get to today it's just that you know you probably tell

them a little it's just that it never stops the attacks never end if you're a conservative god forbid you have a different viewpoint you were uh you know you're supposed to shut up at all points and never open your mouth again because that's what liberals want and i got a lot on that today. All right, today's show brought to you by our buddies at BrickHouse Nutrition. They've been with me from the beginning, one of our original sponsors. They've got some great products over there. I spoke yesterday about my favorite foundation, a really terrific product.

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You remember the old Joe McCarthy? I mean, it's not really a great analogy because it was different historical times, but it's a term the left has used against us for a long time, as many listeners have indicated to me. But understand that this is what's happening right now. There is an ongoing effort to shut every conservative voice up right now. I got Howie Kurtz at Fox now coming after me from an appearance I did on Tucker saying that somehow I suggested somehow that these students who were speaking out didn't have the right to speak. I don't know what to say, folks. This is a media critic, Howie Kurtz, who apparently did not even watch the media portion that

he's trying to cover. I know Joe's giving me the look like, is this a real story? I'm not kidding, folks. It's up in media right now. Howie Kurtz denounces Fox News guests for comments on Parkland shooting. He's insinuating that I said at any point that these kids who were traumatized by

this should not be allowed to speak. Did he listen to my show? Did he listen to the show I was even on? I know. I'm thinking the same thing, Joe. I wish we had a ditto cam for that one. What are you even talking about, Howie? You're a media critic. That is not what I said.

Matter of fact, I said specifically during the Tucker Carlson piece that these kids that were traumatized by this had a very valuable voice. And that the point about the signs missed was the part where I think they could be the most valuable. My critique was that of the media that was highlighting the supply side measures of this. This was as simple as saying, oh, gun control and all this was going to go away. Are we not allowed to talk anymore? No, I'm serious, man. Are we not allowed to talk? We're not allowed to have an opinion about anything ever. You empathize with people? It's fake. Oh, it's all fake. You guys just want kids dead.

Kids speak out. You celebrate them speaking out. You say, listen, I think these kids who were traumatized by this could have something really interesting to add to the debate about what the signs were missed and the mental health debate. I think on gun control, I have a different opinion. All of a sudden, he's trying to shut them up can we talk anymore you don't say anything you're not sympathizing you say anything it's fake you open your mouth on twitter you're a russian bot you don't open your mouth on twitter look at these cowards they're hiding do you realize there's nothing we can do folks the truth is on our side but i i again i'm not trying to be debbie downer i actually have some good stories today i want to talk about too because i i'm trying to lighten up the mood in

light of everything that's going on a little bit and try to frame the stories so that uh you know we can get a bit of an emotional break from the trauma of the last couple weeks but this is getting harder and harder to deal with folks i mean every day you're either a russian bot you're either a coward or you're a you're an accomplice to murder this just doesn't end this is why i i i begged and pleaded yesterday with you to please follow us, support us, spread the word if you can, because otherwise there's no way for us by ourselves, Joe and I, to withstand the onslaught. We have a good following, okay? But the following is not good enough. And it won't end with us. No. No, it won't end with us, Joe. It'll go on to Ben Shapiro next and someone after that. And next thing you know, you'll be stuck again with Joy Reid and Joe Scarborough as your sources of information.

I have a story in the show notes today. Please check them out at Bongino.com to show you how ridiculous this is. Because now, Joe, the new line by the left if you speak out if you say anything that doesn't toe the line right now if you say anything at all you are now a russian bot interesting an article up at the show notes today who was one of the favorite targets of russian bots and retweeted her stuff often joy reed at msnbc i didn't use that name just haphazardly is joy read of msnbc is she a russian bot too so that was one of their favorite targets for retweets to get their information out is joy read a russian colluder what about michael moore who showed up at a rally that's now strongly

believed to have been promoted by uh by by by russians who were interested in sowing chaos michael michael moore of of um of far-left liberal fame uh you know michael moore with all those movies that he did um is he all of a sudden is he a russian bot too or is it just conservatives what about the clintons who now you know we found out over the course of this uranium one investigation took millions hundreds of millions in speaking fees from people associated with deals involved with the transfer of uranium to the Russians. Are they Russian bots too? Folks, do you understand this is not going to end?

I need you to fight. This is a call to action for you to please, please fight back. Follow us. Spread the word. Spread the word spread the word about the show if you choose i i you know i'm not not pressuring anybody but this is this is getting bad and it's going to get worse they see the strategy they and you know what they do joe they smell weakness and they smell weak republicans out there and i'm going to ask you this and i'm

going to move on do you believe in what we're doing or not? Do you believe in the Second Amendment? Do you believe in the Bill of Rights? Do you believe in the right to speak out? If you believe it, this is the time to do it. Follow, spread the word, stand up. If you're afraid of losing friends on Facebook and Twitter and other forums on speaking out, folks, we're losing the country.

Please, I'm really, I'm humbly asking for your help. We need it. Please spread the word. Okay. A lot going on. Let's get to a different story for now. Here's the bottom line. There's a Holman Jenkins story in the Wall Street Journal. It's very good. And it's about John Brennan, the former CIA director's pressure, potential pressure on the FBI, how this could be a story, to initiate an investigation. Now, for those of you who listen to the show, you know it's a really big deal because the Central Intelligence Agency, as I said, does not have a law enforcement mandate. They cannot go and arrest people. Joe, we didn't know. A lot of people don't know that.

The CIA, they're not cops. They're not law enforcement officials. They're not police officers. They don't have arrest powers. They are an intelligence gathering entity. Now, Brennan goes and briefs Harry Reid in August of 2016. This is important. John Brennan, the CIA director under Obama, briefs Democratic Senator Harry Reid in August. Some of the information then makes it into a letter from Harry Reid to the FBI requesting a criminal investigation. Because remember, the CIA can't do that. Where does the information come from?

Well, a lot of that information was in the dossier. Why is this interesting and what's wrong here? What's wrong is that John Brennan later says in a hearing, I believe in December, that he doesn't know anything about the dossier, that he's unsure of the details of the dossier to be more precise. Well, how is he unsure of the details if the briefing information that he gives to Harry Reid all of a sudden makes it into a letter where some of that information about the dossier appears in the letter in a request to investigate. I've told you this is the next shoe to drop. This is very suspicious material here. The CIA should not be pressuring people, especially the FBI, to engage

in law enforcement operations unless there's some significant, you know, hey, listen, we got an intelligence, you know, intelligence feed on a potential terror attack. There may be a need to make an arrest, of course, but against political opponents, this is very strange. So John Brennan, a former CIA director, is running for the hills. But Jenkins brings up an interesting point. You know, I said the other day, and some other outlets picked it up, Joe, I don't know if you noticed, I saw it on Hannity and Limbaugh picked it up too, how the indictment of the 13 Russians is curious, because for all the talk in the indictment of the 13 russians is curious because for all the talk in the indictment about the involvement in the election by the russians in an attempt to meddle for all the

talk about that folks they don't actually charge the russians with with donating or making financial contributions in a way to uh to uh distort the election they don't charge them with that and i had said to you based on the piece i put in the show notes that i thought that was quite curious and i think it speaks to some involvement with the hillary clinton campaign and russians that may be uh let's say they may not look good for the clinton campaign i think muller may be afraid does this make sense joe if you if you listen to the show the other day well that they did not charge the russ Russians with basically election fraud-based crimes. They charge them with wire fraud and conspiracy.

And I think it's because the involvement of Hillary in the Russians is a little more intense than we're being led to believe. And if Mueller sets a precedent, Joseph, that Russian election fraud and Russian election money and Russian attempts to influence the political process, if they charge him with that specific crime, I think Hillary is in fact in more trouble than we've been led to believe. And I think that may be why they didn't do that because Hillary seems to always get a pass. They're like the Teflon Dons of politics.

Here's the problem. Jenkins says, listen, the CIA has a lot of information Joe they obviously have information you know we don't know about of course I mean

I think that goes without saying they have a level of clearance Joe and I don't have we're not read in on skiff type programs anymore

right this is not a skiff this is a podcast but I was an SCI cleared secret service agent for a while and they probably

have a lot of info and the interesting angle for a while, and they probably have a lot of info. And the interesting angle he brings up is that they probably have information on Steele's contacts with the Russians as well. That may be a little bit more extensive, folks. Now, this is really troubling because Steele's a foreign agent himself. Remember, just because Steele used to work with MI6, the British intelligence outfit, and they are a friendly country to us. I want to be clear on that. But that doesn't matter. He is still a foreign agent.

He is not a U.S. citizen. I don't want to put words in Jenkins' mouth, but it's interesting how he says if they have more information there in his extensive context, we don't know about them. I mean, what level of involvement does Hillary have with the Russians, folks? This could be more frightening than we know. And I think in those 30,000 emails that are missing, which I don't believe are missing, by the way, there may be some more information there to uncover a more extensive web of contacts between Hillary and Russians. We already know about Skolkovo, which I told you about the other day, which was, sorry, the Silicon Valley. I think I said Silicon. Thank you for all the

corrections today. Silicon Valley of Russia and how these companies that were investing over there, something like 17 of the 28 companies made donations to the Clinton Foundation. And the FBI found later on that these attempts to establish this tech hub, Joe, in Russia were really attempts to steal dual-use technology for potential Russian military use. These companies donated to Hillary Clinton. Now, the CIA must have some intelligence on this. They must have something on Steele's context there. And if those contexts are a little more elaborate, who was financing those Russians? And are those Russian networks involved also in some attempts to influence Hillary Clinton while using Christopher Steele to attack Donald Trump through the dossier? It's a really interesting story. Unfortunately, I can't put the story in

the show notes because it's subscriber only. But I thought I'd bring it up because there may be some information there we don't know about. And just think that may uh that may change the tide of this uh of this case if it becomes public and i think it's time that if we not you know as long as it's not sources and methods that the public's entitled to know so just to be clear what i'm saying here is i think the indictments against the russians may have been written in such a way to minimize the crime of trying to influence politicians in the United States precisely because Hillary's contacts with the Russians through Steele may have been more extensive than we know at this point. Does that make sense, Joe? It's important I get that out there. Okay, today's show also brought to you by our buddies at SimpliS at simply safe listen this is a company that's been around for many years they're

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Go check them out. These are really good. It's a really good company, folks. We appreciate you supporting the sponsors there. Okay. Another thing I want to talk about. This is a great piece I will have in the show notes from the Washington Times. Joe, it's back again.

You're going to be like, please, Dan. Why do we have to do this again? We have to because you know how these things work. Yes. They continue to creep. Remember this story about Obama being a deficit cutter we used to address all the time? Yeah. So much so even some of the listeners were like, all right, we get it.

It's happening again, folks, because the Democrats want to paint Obama as some big deficit and debt cutter, and they want to paint the Trump team. I know Joe's shaking his head like, really? Is this thing coming back? It is. Great Washington Times piece that entirely debunks this. Now, one point in the piece to be clear in the Times, which will be in the show notes, it does say that, sorry, I get distracted a bit here.

It says that the Clinton team ran surpluses, which we know the Clinton surplus is not in fact true. They didn't run surpluses. There was never a surplus in any year based on standard accounting measures. But it's a good piece otherwise. And it says a couple things I want to get out there. Number one, let's debunk the myth that Obama cut the deficit by 60%. Okay, this is done using absolutely tortured statistics. is done using absolutely tortured statistics and it's done in a way to deceive you into thinking that obama and his team were somehow fiscally responsible let me explain how they do this

because technically speaking they're not inaccurate but they're doing it hoping you're confused by the difference between debt and deficits yeah when obama comes in and forgive me if you've heard this before, but when Obama comes into office, his first year deficit, and to be fair, this is not entirely attributable to him. The first year fiscal policy

obviously has some remnants left over from the prior administration. But let's just stick with the first year to show you how they get the number. His first year deficit, meaning the amount of money the government spends in contrast to the amount of money they take in, is $1.4 trillion. Folks, that was a record by far. It was an astronomical amount of money. I mean, a staggering amount of money. Now, the year prior

under Bush, and again, I'm just, to be fair, Bush does have something to do with that first year because there's some bleed over. So I'm just trying to be fair. But the last year of Bush, the deficit, Joe, is $459 billion. Right. So $459 billion, first year of Obama, $1.4 trillion. Now, when Obama leaves office, the deficit is $438 billion in 2015. So I'm not even going to talk about it because 2016 actually goes up a bit. But folks, I'm straining to even give their team the benefit of the doubt, not because I want to do that, but to show you the

absolute rank absurdity of their argument, how silly, in fact, it is. It's an insane argument, okay? Obama's last year in office, the deficit is almost as high as the highest deficit Bush ever produced at $459 billion. His was $438 when Obama left. So if you're going to think about it that way, yeah, technically, the deficits did go down under Obama from $1.4 trillion to $438 billion. The point I'm trying to make is that they're using that statistic as a way to manipulate you into thinking that this was somehow some fiscally responsible policy. Folks, Obama's smallest deficit of any president in American history is up there with the largest ever. His smallest deficit, his largest is by far the largest ever at 1.4 trillion. But it requires you to understand, or I think they're trying to manipulate you. They're trying to confuse you by saying that he's a deficit cutter to insinuate that he's fiscally responsible when Barack Obama is in fact the president responsible for the largest accumulation of debt in American history. There's not even a close second. Obama accumulated between nine and $10 trillion in debt over the course of his presidency. It's a staggering number.

Staggering. There's not even a close second, folks. Now, the debt is the accumulated debt over time. If I owe $50,000 on a credit card I've been using for 10 years, that's the debt. But if next year I take in, say, $100,000 in revenue and spend $150,000, my next year accounting deficit is $50,000. So they're using this 60% number to insinuate that there was some kind of fiscal responsibility. Now, having said that, folks, I am not absolving in any way Republicans of their role in running up big deficits. The deficits were quite low in some of the years of the Clinton presidency. They almost balanced the budget in one of those years, as a matter of fact, almost. They never did. I'm not saying that. I'm simply saying to you that media outlets attempt

to propagandize you by insisting that he was some kind of a massive deficit cutter and therefore his budgets and his Washington Times for some comparison so you can see the numbers yourself. You don't have to take my word for it. I hope and pray you don't go and seek out other sources of information, too. But that's how confident I am that this stuff is complete garbage and bunk. Okay. Another thing, thanks to a listener out there. I had spoken about an article, I don know two three shows ago by jonah goberg it turns out it was at town hall not national review but it's a really good article it'll be

at the show notes today and i really encourage you um to read it remember the article joe we discussed about the war on smoking and how the federal government and you know the industries out there and that you know that and basically American interests that wanted to get you to stop smoking were very successful because they understood smokers and they understood – everybody had a smoker in their family and they understood how to talk to them. And I suggested to you that in the Goldberg piece, one of the good takeaways from it is that the left is going to fail on the gun issue because they make no attempt to understand us ever. They just don't know gun owners. They don't know the language. But people had a mom, a cousin.

Goldberg, someone found the piece. It's a really good piece. I encourage you to read it. It'll be at the show notes. Thank you to the listeners who sent it in. But that'll be in there. I didn't mean to spend a lot of time repeating a story I already talked about, but it's a good piece about the psychology of getting people to move in a direction and how to get people to do things and how I think this

gun control debate, and I'm using air quotes because there's not a debate, as you've seen, it's just an effort to silence the rest of us, is going to fail because they're not interested in what we have to say. They're just interested in shutting us down, as you've seen with all this Twitter stuff going on and all this other. I mean, it's just it's wearing me down, folks. It really is. It's just total nonsense what's going on. All right.

Another important story, because the liberals are celebrating over this. And the redistricting debate is coming coming about again. The redistricting. There's a there's a Pennsylvania. You may have heard the story in Pennsylvania where the Democrats overturned the Pennsylvania congressional map to make it more favorable to the Democrats. Now, you may say, well, the legislature in Pennsylvania made it more favorable to Republicans. Okay, you may not like that, but that's what the law dictates, Joe. The legislature draws up the maps, not the courts. I think this case may go to the

Supreme Court eventually. We'll see. There is a redistricting case, ironically, I was involved in that's headed to the Supreme Court. But I just want to explain to you quickly for your liberal friends who talk about this, that the redistricting problem and the Democrats' argument about not having political representation is a function of their own choices. Now, yes, does gerrymandering exist? Of course it does. Absolutely. Do Republicans, when they're in power, try to get more seats at the state and federal level by carving up lines? Of course. Do Democrats do the same thing? Of course. I mean, it happens all over the place. Now, I'm just trying to explain to you, though, that the disadvantages of being a Democrat right now have more to do with geographic concentration than anything. Here's what I mean by that, folks. Republicans tend to spread out a little bit.

They spread out between urban, suburban, agricultural-type communities. They tend to live in geographically different spaces democrats um it of course we're not talking categorically but democrats don't joe democrats tend to concentrate in places like big cities so what winds up happening the concentration of democrats gets quite intense so what you'll have is you'll have a district in, say, New York City or Washington, D.C., where literally, I get it, Washington, I know it's not a state, just play the game for a minute, where Hillary Clinton gets 98% of the vote or 94% of the vote. So what happens?

Joe, this is not complicated math, but 51% is enough to win, correct? Yeah. 50 plus win, correct? Yeah. 50 plus one, right? I mean, in races where it's a plurality, you may need even less than that in some primaries. You only need 51 out of 100 votes to win. You don't need 98. The problem is Democrats choose to collectively live in cities. So what happens, Joe?

You have these races, 90- know 95 hillary five percent trump and they have what the democrats at least are calling wasted votes they're not wasted they're just people tend to live they're not your vote still counts it just doesn't add to the win it just buffers the margin of the win right but it still counts the democrats are suggesting that these wasted votes are somehow a result of republican gerrymandering and packing them into into into districts but yes some of the lines have something to do with that but folks there's simply no way if you're a democrat in manhattan for republicans if say the republicans take over new york there's just going to be no way to carve up manhattan in

a way to significantly make a difference. You may get one Republican seat out of it, Joe, but you get what I'm saying? There's just not enough Republicans in Manhattan for you to what slice a building in half and say, you guys on the left side, it's just not going to work. The concentration of Democrats and what they call the wasted votes is too intense. Republicans spread out a little more. So whereas Democrats are winning seats 95-5, 90-10, Republicans are winning seats 52-48, 55-45, and they're just barely getting by. But it gives them a number of more seats because the way they're spread out. Does that make sense? Yeah, sure. So I'm not suggesting, again, that there's not a partisan interest here in carving up districts in a way to benefit either party.

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just telling you that the majority of the problem, even if you were to engage in a massive countrywide redistricting, Democrats, it's where you live. I mean, I'm not telling you to move out to increase your political or decrease your political clout. I'm just saying as a result of your decisions, you're having a tougher time representing yourself outside of the big cities. I'm telling you, you hear it on this show first. We tend to focus on issues here. I think you may not see that much in the mainstream media, but I'm sure are going to filter their way into the conversation. Be very careful about the talking points. Oh, it's all Republican gerrymandering. Listen, one, Democrats gerrymandered too.

That's the takeaway. They gerrymandered too. I've seen it in Maryland. I was a victim of it. Lost a congressional seat by one point. That was held by a Republican before they gerrymandered it by, what did he win, by 20 points, Roscoe Bartlett? And then they put a bunch of Montgomery County Democrats in the district, and the district was lost. So I've been a victim of it. But secondly, yes, partisan carving up a district happens on both

sides. But number two, the Democrats are concentrated in ways Republicans aren't, and it's almost impossible for them to spread their influence. You can't move a guy who lives in Manhattan to a district in Staten Island. You can't do it. There's just no way. They're not contiguous. It's impossible to do. That's why they're having the problem. It's important you understand the distinction there. All right. I got a couple more good ones today, so don't go anywhere. Some optimistic stories finally. Hey, last one today. Today's show also brought to you by buddies at GoTenna. Have you tried this out yet? This is super cool. If you guys are ladies out there, campers, outdoors types, you just like to be prepared. Here's a good one. You live in a hurricane zone like I do where communication networks go down. This is the coolest product. When I originally saw it, I was blown away. It's called Gotenna. Like antenna, what a go. Gotenna, G-O-T-E-N-N-A.

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and texts it's like overwhelming Joe I'm sorry by the way to torture you today in the show so folks Joe is one of the finest I mean this producers here in the business but I have tortured him on today's show you may sense it throughout the show I have been I am

it's been rough my sincere apology everybody tweet Joe at Joe Haas with a Z1 if you like the show I've been, I am, it's been rough. My sincere apologies. Everybody tweet Joe, at Joe Haas with a Z1, if you'd like to show and thank him for doing about two hours of edits on today's show. It's been kind of tough, yeah. Oh, poor guy. He's like, take a note.

I'm like, Joe, please, that one, this one, that one. All right, it's the good news, folks. Council of Economic Advisors released their growth forecast. This is really, really good news. And it looks like everybody's starting to come around to the new growth reality, what the left calls secular stagnation. In other words, this was a theory that – let me explain this the right way, because if you don't get this, you're not going to understand a lot of the left's rhetorical nonsense and the games they play. The left, at the end of the Obama administration administration was desperate to explain away the paltry growth rates just to be clear folks obama's growth rates during his time in office measured by gdp were

some of the lowest in history matter of fact he's the first president in american history to not reach three percent growth in any year of his presidency those are troubling numbers the left needed an excuse so they started a bandy about this theory of secular stagnation. Secular stagnation was a far left liberal economic talking point. And the idea, Joe, was that, well, you know what, this is the new normal, low economic growth. And the gist of it being everything that's been invented has been invented. And this may just be the way one and 2% may be the new normal for the future. By the way, that's not Barack obama's fault that's them saying it not me just so we're clear but now interesting trump's only in office a year council of economic advisors

comes out and says hey growth for 2018 joe looks like 3.1 which kind of says that the secular stagnation is no thanks have a nice, but thanks for playing the game. Not to mention, Joe, it also says we may be looking at 3.1% through 2020. Now, my opinion, folks, I think after the tax cuts, I think that's a low number. I think we could hit 3.5. Now, remember, if we, remember the rule of sevens for you finance people, you know, your investments double in 10 years. That works for economic growth as well.

At 3.5%, in 20 years, the real economy would double. If we can hit 3.5% in our lifetimes, I'm 43. By the time I'm 63 years old, you will be looking at a real economy that doubled. I mean, what's the average median income? $45,000, $40,000 or something? If the economy were to, in fact, double, the median income would be 90 grand000, $40,000 or something. If the economy were to in fact double, the median income would be 90 grand, 80 grand in real money in today's dollars, folks. This is impressive. Now, they're forecasting 3.1 in the report. But again, I think it could

get higher. If we can keep this going for a good, strong period of time, again, in our lifetimes, we could be looking at an even more vibrant, robust economy. I think there's a good reason to smile. You know, the Council of Economic Advisors, is everything they say gospel? No, of course not. But I think the fact that the secular stagnationists, you know, oh, everything that's been invented has been invented, and the government's going to be the source of growth in the future. I think we can finally start to put some of them out to pasture their theories and say, hey, listen, guys, really, this is obviously garbage and nonsense. Now, corresponds with another Rasmussen poll, which I'll put in the show notes today I'd like you to take a look at, where Trump approval has now popped to 48%, folks.

Now, you may say, well, you know, figures are relative. What was Obama's at this time in his presidency obama's was 45 so folks the arguments about trump uh how he's you know his approvals historically low and people can't stand trump are not really based in reality now i'm not a big believer in the polls anyway because uh obviously they failed horribly during the trump election joe but i find it interesting that even the polls the liberals are trying to use are so dramatically skewed that they're painting a really ridiculous and unnecessarily bad portrait of where Trump stands. Now, to be clear what I think this is about, I think this has a lot to do, folks. This has a lot to do with the fact that people are actually seeing the results in their own paychecks. You know, it's very difficult. We saw this with the Reagan years. When you engage in a tax-cutting

program, now, if we can accompany it with government spending, it'd be even better. But one of the things about government spending cuts and government spending in general that doesn't have a hugely positive effect on approval ratings is it's not seen as real money sometimes if i don't explain this right stop me but i think the way it works is people assume government debt is somehow not going to hit them like it because it hasn't right away i told you about interest rates that interest rates as they go up because people won't lend us money as we get farther and farther in debt will be the canary in the coal mine but the reality is joe they haven't yet i mean interest rates, that interest rates as they go up, because people won't lend us money as we get farther and farther in debt, will be the canary in the coal mine. But the reality is, Joe, they haven't yet. I mean, interest rates are still very low. Matter of fact, they're historically low,

and people aren't going and getting car loans at 19%. They're not getting mortgages at 15%. And I don't wish that to happen. I think it's going to, sadly, if we don't get our spending situation under control. But the point I'm trying to make, Joe, is that it hasn't hit people in the wallet. So people, it's not going to affect approval ratings as much as it should, because people don't see an instant impact from it. Does that make sense? Yeah. With tax cuts, and we saw this in the Reagan years when he cut the top rate from 70 to 28%, people saw immediate income effects in their own paychecks you're seeing that now

with people getting bonuses with people getting raises um this is really uh dramatic stuff and i think that's what's leading to this corresponding bump in trump's approval ratings and if we can continue the economic growth as is uh as james carville's alleged to have said to bill clinton once it's the economy stupid i think the democrats are going to have a really difficult and hard time combating the Trump economic powerhouse that's been created since the secular stagnationists and the Obamaites have left office. They're going to have a really tough time explaining it away. I mean, what are you going to say to people if they get a job at $70,000 and $80,000 a year and they were working for $40,000 and $50,000 before? What are you going to say to people if they get a job at, you know, 70 and $80,000 a year, and they were working for 40 and 50 before? What are you going to say to people if they get a two, $3,000 bonus? What are you going to say to people if they get a promotion? You know,

what are you going to say to people when their kids get a job? Are you going to continue with the, are you going to be the crumbs and collusion party forever? I mean, is that going to be your, your, your Democrat campaign slogan for 2018 and 2020? Crumbs, crumbs, economic crumbs. This is all crumbs. Thousands of dollars is not crumbs. Collusion, collusion. Is this the best you've got? Folks, I think they're in a lot of trouble if they continue this stuff. I don't think there's a viable path forward electorally. Remember, Reagan won 49 states. The only state he lost in reelection was Minnesota, which was Mondale's home state. And he only lost that state by a couple of thousand, I think it was 3,000 votes, because his economic plan was so popular. He won Maryland, New York,

California. So the economy, and I'm not giving Democrats advice. I'm just saying, if this is going to be your campaign plan going forward, good luck. That is a complete loser. All right. Here's a story i saw yesterday at the wall street journal which i thought was interesting and it just speaks to what i was talking about yesterday joe during the uh the show about how the conservative economy may be the only path forward the story's about this growth in a la carte type programming um it's not so much about cord cutters cord cutters meaning people who disconnect from cable but it's about the growth in netflix and hbo and podcasting and it's a really good story and it says that listen a lot of these people who may have been cable

talents before or entertainers who wouldn't have been given a platform on whatever, ESPN or Comedy Central, whatever it may be, are now starting their own shows. And they're selling them to Netflix and other places. And they're doing quite well. And people are listening and watching. And it applies to me. I mean, this show is called The Dan Bongino Show. I always joke with people.

It's amazing. They found a guy named Dan Bongino to host the show called The Dan Bongino Show. I know it's a horrible joke. My wife hates it. But for some reason, I can't stop telling stupid jokes. But the show, that's what this is. It's a la carte. It's on demand.

You get it on demand. It's free to you. We hope to keep it that way for a long time. But this is growing as a platform. And one of the examples I give is the guy who did that show talk soup on, what was that on E or whatever it is. He's on Netflix now and he has this really low budget show. That's him talking about it,

not me. And he's, he said at one point he jokes, he goes, if we're not the lowest budget show on Netflix, I'd be astonished. But the show apparently does pretty well. I don't know the guy's name.

It doesn't really matter. I bring this up because folks, even in a la carte programming in the future, the distribution networks are going to matter. And this is where this war on conservatives and libertarians is not going to stop. If the distribution channel now is cable, and let's say the Dan Bongino show, like, no, we're not going to do that. We're not going to have the Dan Bongino show on cable. Why? Well, he's a conservative.

You effectively have cut me off from doing that. It's going to be up to places like Netflix and HBO to provide alternate kind of counter programming, the liberal stuff as well. Why do I bring up HBO? I'm not targeting anybody here. I'm just saying HBO just picked up Pod Save America, which is a very popular podcast done by some former Obama officials. And let me say, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart,

I am not being silly or ridiculous about it. Congratulations to the guys who started Pod Save America. They are liberals. They're leftists. Yeah, but nice job. You put together a business model. People like your product business model people like your product like people like ours and unlike a lot of liberals out there and i'm not saying the pod

save america people are calling for any kind of a boycott or anything like that um but a lot of liberals are they just don't want conservative voices i applaud them hbo just picked them up joe i don't know what they're going to do like a video version i guess of pod save america i'm not i'm not really sure but i applaud them i don't i don't you know again're going to do, like a video version, I guess, of Pod Save America. I'm not really sure. But I applaud them. I don't, you know, again, I vehemently disagree with their political views. But that's, you know, America's a vibrant, flourishing country where ideas should be able to flourish. My complaint is that I can guarantee you, Joe, guarantee you that if our political, keep in mind, we may not be as popular as pod save america but i assure you we're not far away yeah um this show that joe and i put together thanks exclusively to you

has gone bonkers i'm almost positive that if we were to approach hbo and to say hey you know you guys entertain this for doing a video show that one of the i don't want to speak for them in advance but i think it would be an issue that our show was political but conservative political yeah my problem with the whole thing is when you're if the default position is liberalism is acceptable and conservatism isn't it's a free market i can't be clear about this as i said yesterday about twitter they're free to do whatever they want it's their company facebook too so is Twitter, they're free to do whatever they want. It's their company, Facebook too. So is HBO. They're free to pick up and not pick up whoever they want, Joe. Netflix as well. I'm just saying us as consumers, we have to find a way to bypass this. And I think

the way to circumvent and bypass these distribution networks, am I clear? You get what I'm talking about here? Netflix and others in the future is going to be to go to subscriber-only models that are funded by you, and you go and pick out what you want. You go to NRA TV, you go to Bongino.com, you go to CRTV, and you pick out the programming you want, and you pay for the program. It's the only way to put it on. If I could do it for free and was independently wealthy, I'd be more than happy to do it. But again, I applaud these guys. I just wish the favor would be returned on our end because folks, as I said to you yesterday during the show, and I'll tell you again today, I don't bore you with a lot of the internal details. Some of them actually aren't even that boring, but I don't want to share too much sometimes because

I don't want to give anybody else ideas. but the pressure going on behind the scenes to silence a lot of conservatives out there is really dramatic. And at some point, we are really desperately going to need your help. I mean, it's happening at conferences. Did you see this thing with this? Oh, I'm sorry, folks. One more story. I didn't mean to get off track, but this is important. It's even happening in relatively conservative areas the nra is having their convention in dallas yeah dallas not exactly a bastion of liberalism now to be clear a lot of democrats in dallas no question about it but there are political officials in dallas pushing for the nra to move their convention out of dallas Yeah. Folks, it doesn't stop. I mean, if Planned Parenthood wanted to have its convention in New York City, listen, I

absolutely object to everything Planned Parenthood does. But Planned Parenthood can speak out. They can have a convention if they'd like. I mean, you're not going to see me telling the Madison Square Garden or wherever they were to do it that, yeah, you guys can't host these people. This is the battle that's going on behind the scenes. I mean, if we can't even host a convention in Dallas, then folks, we're in a world of

trouble. And this is the kind of stuff I need you to be on the lookout for. And that is why I desperately need your support. And I need you to spread the word about the show. Again, my sincere apologies for asking you for favors. We try not to do that. We try to just provide you a show and be low maintenance, but there's a really sincere and tough battle going on behind the scenes. And I could use your help in advancing the cause, folks. And thanks to everyone who has supported us and the show. Please go to Bongino.com. Check out the show notes today.

I think you'll like me. I have some good selections. And please spread the word. Enjoy my email list. I'll send these articles, as always, right to your inbox. I really appreciate it. Thanks, folks. If you're at CPAC, by the way, please come say hello.

I'll be at the NRA TV booth. I'd be happy to talk to you. See you all soon. You just heard the Dan Bongino Show. Get more of Dan online anytime at conservativereview.com. You can also get Dan's podcasts on iTunes or SoundCloud and follow Dan on Twitter 24-7 at DBongino.