The Dan Bongino Show - Ep. 662 Where Do We Go from Here ?

Episode Date: February 23, 2018

In this episode I address the vitriol directed at Second Amendment supporters and the CNN town hall. I also address the budget disaster and the ridiculous Obama team economic criticisms of the Trump team.  This piece debunks some common myths about firearms and the Second Amendment.  What happened at that CNN town hall? A student at the CNN town hall is claiming the questions were scripted. The NY attorney general is continuing his attacks on conservatives.    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? It's the end of the week, brother. Thank goodness. Yeah, Joe and I are having a good laugh before the show because I'm here. Some of you have seen me and some of you are podcast listeners.

I forget this young kid. He wanted to take a picture. I told him I'd give him a shout out on the Friday show. You know who you are. I'm sorry I forgot your name. I'm horrified. But a really cool cat. But I was laughing with Joe because at least 20 people came up to me.

You know who you are too and said, hey, where's producer Joe? I'm like, I thought you wanted to meet that bunch. No, forget you. I want to meet producer Joe. Oh, dude, it was funny. Hey, I see your Twitter's building up too, by the way. It was funny. Oh, thank you. Hey, I see your Twitter's building up too, by the way. It's Joe Haas with an O, not H-A-Z.

Joe Haas, H-O-Z, one. You asked the other day and you received, or I received, yes. Our audience, you guys are the best. I know I've been down for the last two days on the show. I'm back. I was a little upset. We're in a fight here. It's going to be some serious topics today, but the kid is back.

And yes, I just called myself the kid. It's an inside joke with my wife. She's cringing right now. I know. I love doing it. It's funny. She drives her nuts. That's why I like saying it.

So, it's been a while. I like to mess with her. All right. Today's show is brought to you by our buddies at BrickHouse Nutrition. I'm happy to have these guys on board. Folks, they have one of the best muscle building products out there. It's good for you, just your general looks too. Listen, you know, we all want to look good, right?

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Also give a shot to Dawn to Dusk. It's our energy product. It's 10-hour time-released energy for you. Works better than any other product on the market. Go give it a shot, Dawn to Dusk. They're both available at BrickHouseNutrition.com Dan. And you can link to them from my email list. If you're on my email list as well, there's a link at the top. Okay. Sorry. I was a deep breath on a more serious note. So, um, due to the scheduling issues and how Joe and I've been recording, um, I didn't want to get into the town hall because I didn't feel like I had the time. And the time we were recording, I would have cut off some stuff. The town hall, I mean the CNN town hall with Dana Lash.

Now, I was with Dana today on the set at NRA TV here at CPAC. I had some time to talk with her. Did you happen to see any of it, Joe? It was a little late. I know you have to go to sleep early. No, I saw some. This morning, I saw some clips at CBN. Yeah.

Folks, listen, I can't say this enough. The CNN held the town hall under the premise that it was going to be an open dialogue about targeted violence, school violence, gun safety, and things like that. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. Now, let me just say in advance, and I can't say this is not some phony caveat you throw out there to virtue signal to anyone. I'm not doing that. I don't know what it's like to be involved in an incident like that. These are kids.

I got an email from a guy I already told you about that was horrifying. He was at the scene. He described to me some of what he saw. It was so deeply disturbing that you couldn't read the email and not come away moved. I also listened yesterday. I don't know if you saw it. Excuse me, a couple of days ago to the White House briefing on the issue where Trump invited a number of the families involved, not only in this incident, but Newtown and Sandy Hook as well.

I listened to a father get up. The father, I was stopped in my tracks. He's like, my daughter's gone. She's gone. Like, I'm never going to see her again. He couldn't even think of the name of the cemetery. He said, if I would have known, I would have been there myself. I would have went. I would have went to the school if I would have known this happened. went to the school if I would have known this happened. It was so heartbreaking that you really couldn't watch it, you know, and hold it together. The problem is right now, people aren't talking

anymore about solutions and things that'll work. We're focused almost exclusively right now on the raw emotions at the expense of fixing what's a crisis right now. Here's what I mean by this, folks. This was a horrible tragedy and God bless these kids for speaking up. They have an absolute right to their viewpoint and they are a valuable voice in this.

I absolutely mean that. The problem is when we were in the Secret Service, a lot of times we were involved in things where, granted, not anywhere remotely close to the crisis these kids dealt with, Joe. But we had some really serious stuff happen. And there were some heavy emotions around it. I think of an incident over in Jamaica when we were caught in downtown Kingston in a really nasty situation we had to get out of. The situation didn't end. In other words, there was no time to focus on the emotions of it. We should focus on the emotions here.

The nation needs to grieve and these kids need to heal. to grieve and these kids need to heal. But we also at the same time simultaneously have to have a very serious conversation about Joe, what's an ongoing threat right now. We've already seen people just in the last few days, school attackers, targeted violence, kids who were planning attacks or looking at planning attacks already stopped. This is a crisis right now. I'm going to leave you with this thought on this because I want to move on to some other issues involving this and gun safety with this. Are we going to have that conversation or are we just going to scream at each other? What happened to Dana last night was disgusting. Dana goes out there as the spokeswoman for the NRA.

Let me tell you, I have a newfound respect for Dana Lash after yesterday. there as a as the spokeswoman for the nra let me tell you i have a newfound respect for dana lash after yesterday she walks into a situation where she knows she is going to be public enemy number one she has one of the younger uh young ladies involved in it who said some things to her about being a mother and and dana sat back and took it all and answered the questions and answered them responsibly. As she left, I got this directly from her. They couldn't get out of there without security. There's allegations people screamed, burn her, burn her. What is this, a witch hunt?

Folks, we have to start focusing right now. This is a crisis now. Now, we can sit here and talk all day, but the reason I'm bringing up the father, and I'm sorry this is a little disjointed, but it's an emotional conversation, is the father who moved me absolutely said something we should all pay attention to. What he said was, we can have this conversation about guns, but that's not the conversation right now. The conversation right now is, how do we secure the damn schools? We got security at banks. We got security at sports stadiums. We got security down here with the Secret

Service at CPAC. But our kids, what do we have? We have a bunch of flowery rhetoric and a bunch of crap. Are we going to secure the damn schools or not? This is a pressing issue. Does this matter or does it not. Are we going to secure the damn schools or not? This is a pressing issue. Does this matter or does it not? Are we going to focus exclusively, Joseph, exclusively on the emotions or are we going to problem solve as well?

When this involved protectees in the Secret Service and I was there, Joe, believe me when I tell you the special agent in charge of the detail, if you focused on it, you got lost in the emotions, we'll pull you aside and say, get it together. Yep. Now, this is not, I'm not talking about the kids. There's no getting it together after that. But I'm talking about the other secondary and tertiary figures using this. It is time to talk about actually securing the schools. And the problem I'm having right now is people are not being realistic, Joe. I had a guy confront me here at CPAC. He was some liberal goofball. He tries to do an ambush interview, which is comical because I've only,

you know, been quote ambush interviewed like 10,000 times. There's nothing you're going to ask me that you're going to ask me in an ambush I haven't been hit with before. I've run for office three times and I have, you know, a conservative profile. So people come after me, which is fine. I'm not like anybody's victim. Don't get me wrong um guy hits me up joe and the secret service is there at cpac and he goes well how do you feel you're in a gun-free zone right now i said you know what wise ass that's really funny you say that and i said he's like can i tape this i go no you can't tape it but if you want to go right ahead it's perfectly legal unlike you i'm not looking to take other people's rights but he didn't have time to get the camera because he was too slow and i think he was

he didn't expect the response i said this is a gun-free zone you know why it's a gun-free zone because it's guarded by men with guns in the secret service what i used to do and by the way he goes then he comes back i'll give him credit he was actually a little savvier than some of these other ambush interviewers he goes yeah but they're government guns and the government should i say that's hysterical because you're a lefty kook and you argue all the time about how the cops, how the cops are horrible, how they're attacking people in inner cities, how the, how the cops are violent. I said, you make that same argument as you argue that only the cops should have guns, which is it? I said, and secondarily, let me tell

you something. I said, everybody here feels safe. You know why everybody feels safe? Because men with guns and the Secret Service and the police department are here in force with a lot of guns, with a lot of powerful guns. By the way, as a strong deterrent to a bad guy with a gun coming in here, unlike the schools, which don't have that. I said, chew on that. I said, and secondly, if you're guaranteeing me, Joe, that I'm going to get a government bodyguard like the president of the United States and that effectively we all have now falling in the Secret Service bubble, make that argument. Are we all going to get that? So that's not what you're saying.

What you're saying is what? The elites get government guns? But you and I, Joe, when we dial 911, we have to wait 10, 15 minutes for a police officer to show up. By the time, we're probably already dead. I have rarely been offended by an ambush interview, but this guy quickly realized that was a stupid question. You're in a gun-free zone, protected by guns. What is wrong with these people? A couple more things on this, and I want to move on because there are a lot of stories here.

I got to say, this guy picked the wrong time for the ambush. I'm things on this. I want to move on because there are a lot of stories here. I got to say this guy picked the wrong time for the ambush. I'm the wrong guy. You know me well, man, for a long time. I'd been at it with NRA TV from 8.30 to 2. I'll be back tomorrow if you want to watch NRATV.com. You can check us out on our Facebook page too. I'll be back with Grant.

I was tired. I hadn't eaten. I was exhausted. I'd been talking for, gosh, four or five straight hours when you factor in breaks and things like that. I was beat. I mean, I was really tired. He grabs me on the way out. I hadn't eaten. And he's like, you can tell he's one of these snarky, snot-nosed, you're in a gun-free

zone. Yeah, protected by guns, you idiot. Did you not figure that out? So let me get this straight. When you go into school, you're suggesting we should set up magnetometers and arm guards around every classroom good i'm with you excellent is that but that's not what he's saying what is their mantra we don't need to bring guns in schools really tell that to the bad guys because the bad guys don't give a they don't care we don't need guns in schools you think the bad guys are following? What is wrong with you? One other thing.

Matt Bevin, the governor of Kentucky, has a piece. It's a video piece. I don't know who videoed it or whatever. But he gives a really incredible answer. I like Matt a lot. The governor. I've had him on CBM before, actually,

when I was filling it over there. Someone comes up to him and asks him about gun control. I don't know if it's a liberal or not. And he makes a great point. He said, listen, I grew up here. And when we grew up, we brought our 22s to school. We left them in the back of the truck in a parking lot. He goes, I remember taking mine on the bus to school and showing it to my friend.

He said, guns have been around forever. Something's changed in the culture. Folks, guns aren't new. the culture folks guns aren't new the use of guns are new you know semi-automatic rifles aren't new the 556 round isn't new they have been around a long time this this this school shooting the school shooting incidents we've seen that is new a relatively new phenomenon granted they've happened but this is relatively new are we going to have a conversation about what's changing in the culture with video games bathing our kids and you know pornography and violence and violent i'm not blaming the video don't please don't i'm not suggesting that at all there's there's very i'm just saying that

folks when you combine all of this let me just put together for you a really terrible picture here for a minute. I don't need to sound macabre. Combine broken families. Combine that with kids who sit at home and they're being attacked on social networks all day. I mean, Joe, if you and I were bullied in school by one kid, when you left school, it was over, right? Yeah. Now you go home and social media, these kids are just pummeled on Instagram. Look at you.

You're fat. Your hair's the wrong color. You know, you got glasses on. I don't like your teeth. It never ends. You know, bathe them in, again, in pornography and violence and violent movies. And you have a recipe for disaster. It's something about the culture.

And the problem is the left doesn't want to have this conversation about the culture because what why this is important Why matters Joe? Once it turns to a conversation about the culture they have to acknowledge something Joe values Yeah, and acknowledging values forces the left to acknowledge. What do we always talk about Joe an Objective standard for what's right and what's wrong. Because we can't measure values, in other words, what we value is good, and what we don't value, because it's bad,

if there is not some common metric of what those values are, what is good. Folks, please don't lose me on this. This is very important. The left wants a relative culture. They don't want a culture that navigates off a North Star. In other words, Joe, thou shall not kill. Thou shall not lie.

These are objective values. The left doesn't want that. Why? Because those values come from where, Joe? A higher power. That's right. Joe's pointing up. Big R rights from God.

Once that's acknowledged, the left has to give up the idea that the ultimate power in your life is the state. Folks, do not, do not for a second dismiss what I'm telling you. The idea that it's a cultural problem based on values rot will force the left to accept the fact that values and good and evil are real. The left does not want to do that because once they do that, they have to acknowledge the existence of a higher power other than the state. And once you do that, the entire premise of their far left radical argument falls apart because the state is the ultimate power to the leftist. Don't ever forget that. Did I explain that well? Yeah, you did.

Sometimes people email me, they get annoyed that I always ask you, but you're always good at telling me if we're off track. That went too hard. There's a really good article, by the way, I'll put up at Bongino.com at the show notes from Kurt Schlichter, who we had on NRA TV. He's really a very talented writer. He's a lawyer. He was an officer in our military. And he has a piece up at Town Hall, Joe, also about some common misconceptions about the gun debate. It's short. It's very cerebral, though. It's very well written. And just some of the things he hits on, folks, that I'd encourage you to read.

In there, he talks about how the process now to get a gun is not unfettered, as some people say. Like, the left says, oh, what do you want? Unfettered access to weapons? No, it's fettered, okay? There is still a form you have to fill out, the 4473. He goes through that. But he also talks about the militia and what the Second Amendment means by the militia,

what the militia actually is, what it was supposed to mean and how it's regulated. These are really critical points he points out. People commonly confuse, you know, the militia with the military.

They're not the same thing. But check out the piece. It'll be up at the show notes today. He also goes into some other issues on the gun rights debate that I think are really terrific. So it'll be up. It's at townhall.com. It's Kurt Schlichter. So check it out on my website. I'll put it up there under the show notes, Bongino.com. Okay. There's another article I wanted to talk about, which is important

because it speaks to, again, the diminution of rights in the country going on right now. And it's not just one, Joe. It's not just the Second Amendment under attack. It's basically multiple amendments, the Bill of Rights under attack at the same time. There's an article up at Cato about the New York Attorney General, this guy Eric Schneiderman, who has been just awful. Right now, think about what's going on, Joe. We have a full-blown attack by the left on the Bill of Rights. And you may say, really? Where, Dan?

Well, on the First Amendment. We've seen it on college campuses where you have the right supposedly to free speech. Well, folks, we know that's not exactly true. It may say it in the Constitution, but it is not being practiced. It is not. If you go on a college campus as a conservative, what the liberals have figured out now is if they get what's called the heckler's veto. What is the heckler's veto? The libs figured out a long time ago that if they can cause enough of a security nightmare for the conservative speaker, riots, they can throw things.

I mean, literally at Berkeley where they put things on fire, then what do they do? They create enough of a security situation. Much of what's going on in Dallas with the NRA. It's a great point. The same things happen with the Dallas mayor. We talked about that the other day. And it's essentially, that's what it is. Oh, it's going to create protests.

So what do they do? They create extraordinary security costs for these conservative groups and then they use the security cost as a reason to not allow that person to speak. This is called the heckler's veto. The heckler, the people in there screaming against the group, you know, down with the NRA, or as the billboard said, literally, there was a billboard, kill the NRA, which

is disgraceful, by the way. What do they do? They get a veto over free speech. Now, the whole idea of free speech was not free speech. It's comfortable speech, Joe. Comfortable speech. Nobody cares about talking about the Yankees or the Mets or the Red Sox. That's not speech anybody wants to limit.

Well, maybe if you're a Yankees fan, you want to talk about the Red Sox. But, folks, the idea of free speech as enumerated in the Bill of Rights was it was going to cover unpopular speech and all speech, as long as you don't impose a threat on somebody else. I mean, I can't call Joe on the phone, tell him that I kill him and repeatedly call him every day. That's under attack on college campuses through the heckler's veto. You have the fourth amendment under attack. We've seen it with the Obama administration, with Obamagate, with the spy scandal, where unquestionably we've seen the right to privacy in your papers and in your documents.

We've seen that go out the window, folks. I mean, the conversation about metadata and your metadata and the government accumulating it and using it against you seems to have gone out the window. We saw it with the unmasking cases, with the repeated use of the FISA court to spy against people who were not secure in their personal conversations, were not secure in their personal items and their personal papers and their business dealings. Folks, this is very real.

This is happening. It's not hyperbolic. We're not making things up. We're not exaggerating for effect. This is happening right now. The First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, we've seen this attack of the Second Amendment continue as well.

And the attack over the control of your own personal safety and security through the ownership of a firearm, if you so choose. why am i bringing this up in terms of the cato piece and eric schneiderman because this guy is at war with the constitution in new york and he's out of control what did he do he's now demanding access to a conservative group citizens united to their donor list now you folks this is a big deal. This is not a joke. He wants access to the list.

Now, why does he want access to the list? Well, he's a liberal Democrat, and Citizens United is a group. He wants access to who the New York donors are to this group. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with Citizens United, Citizens United is probably the most famous for the Supreme Court case where they produced a movie about hillary clinton um it was not a flattering portrayal obviously and that was deemed basically

free speech that that could come out before an election it could be funded by certain organizations who could pay for things like that so really the right to freely associate with other companies and give you money to companies and to have freedom of speech as a as an entity was defended citizens united though is under attack because schneiderman what they want to do joe is they want to grab a hold of these donors now of course joe they'll say don't you worry we will keep all of this quiet but that's not what happened that's not what happened when the obama irs got a hold of the list of the opponents to gay marriage and people in California where the, it was Joe, leaked. And all of a sudden these people became targets for public harassment and ridicule. He's doing it again, folks.

This is another battle against things like the right to freely associate with others. The right to not be subjected to government coercion in your private associations. I mean, these are the... This is a multifaceted, multi-pronged approach, and this is what frightens me about liberalism every day, and this is why on the show I focus on with Joe all the time, being our rights, the bigger 30,000-foot picture here

outside of just the gun issue because i'm telling you folks for the to the people out there who are maybe self-defined as moderate democrats who say well you know i believe in the right to free speech and the fourth amendment the fifth amendment the right against self-incrimination i get it i believe in all that but you know having a gun and owning a gun is different. Ladies and gentlemen, it's not. These rights are inextricably linked. If you believe in the right to speak, you have to believe in the right for you to defend your right to speak as well. These are the things that matter. This is under attack on multiple levels. Please read this piece in Cato. It is so deeply disturbing

about what Schneiderman's up to in New York, because this is what they want to do. Now, they're going to have a really tough time. The Second Circuit Court, apparently they lost the case on that, but I'm hoping the Supreme Court takes this up. But one of the issues that comes up in there is a Supreme Court case back in the civil rights era, Joe, the right to keep your donor list private was upheld. Now, it's interesting, and I'm speaking to our liberal friends right now. What's interesting is I mentioned the civil rights era for a reason. Do you know what case that was?

It was the NAACP versus Alabama. At the time, segregated Alabama wanted to get a hold of the NAACP donor list well why do you think they would want that at that time folks it may not have been for the most uh benevolent philanthropic means you think the NAACP won that case so I this is why I'm frustrated because I'm imploring I'm begging our liberal friends and our liberal listeners, and I know we have them. I'm begging you to please open your eyes and understand what's going on. The very same arguments, the very same things that you were afraid of back there in the civil rights era, the encroachment of government into de jure racial segregation, the encroachment

of government into your civil liberties to live because you happen to be black. These liberties are all intertwined. And the fact that some of those same tactics are being used now to go after political opponents, again, to be fair, this is not based on race. Jim Crow was a very unique, horrible time in our history. But the strategy, Joe, that's the point I'm trying to make.

The strategy is the exact same, to go that's the point I'm trying to make. The strategy is the exact same to go after people based on politics, not skin color. Be afraid. Be very afraid. This is why we need to stay organized and fight back, folks. It matters.

All right, a couple more stories. But today's show also brought to you by buddies at My Patriot Supply. Hey, folks, preparedness matters. I know I've confused you, but we'll throw one in there, right? All right. Preparedness matters. You know, my prior line of work, preparedness was everything.

It was everything we did. Ladies and gentlemen, you've got to have an emergency food supply. We implore, excuse me, we ensure everything in our lives that matters. We ensure our teeth, our health, your car, your home. Ensure your food supply. Go to preparewithdan.com. That's preparewithdan.com. Sorry, I'm throwing Joe for a loop right now. I'll explain to you another time. Preparewithdan.com and pick up your one month supply of emergency food today. Preparewithdan.com. That's preparewithdan.com. I have like

eight to 10 boxes of this stuff in my house alone because I live in a hurricane zone and you just never know when the supply chain of food is going to get interrupted. Go check it out, preparewithdan.com. All right, getting back to the content. Interesting piece, by the way, about this is, I read this and I was pretty much blown away because you know I'm fascinated, Joe, with facts and data and economic numbers and you know opinions are great but sooner or later you're gonna have to back it up and I said as much uh on Hannity on Wednesday night if you I don't know if you saw the appearance you all out there but he asked me you know when I thought basically the media was going to come

around to the first year success of the Trump team on the economy. And I said, you know, Sean, it's going to have to be soon because the numbers don't lie. People lie. You can have an opinion, a negative opinion, but you can't have an opinion about what the numbers are. In other words, Joe, the point I was trying to make to Sean is we measure economic growth unsurprisingly by growth. GDP grows domestic product. That's how we measure growth. In other words,

what we produce and when what we produce grows in amount and quality and quantity, we're growing as an economy. You grow by producing more medicine, more cars, more shale oil, more iPhones, more rare earth minerals. This is how you grow. more iPhones, more rare earth minerals. This is how you grow. The Obama numbers were historically bad. The average Obama growth rate of 2% was horrifying. He's the first president in modern American history to not reach 3% growth, folks. I mean, think about what I'm telling you. He's the first president in modern American history to not reach 3% economic growth in any one year of his presidency. Now, he had reached it in quarters, but that's not typically how we do it.

You measure it annually. He never reached an annual growth rate of 3%. That is so deeply disturbing. Think about how some of the horrible presidents we've had on the economy, Jimmy Carter, even they did it. But not Barack Obama. He didn't get there. The numbers don't lie. They never lie.

And they're going to have a hard time because Trump is now pushing towards this because we haven't had a full year yet of measurable growth for him because the way the government measures it, they don't go by calendar year. So we're not there yet. We'll see. We'll see what happens in the next quarter. But Trump, I think, is going to break that 3% mark his first time out of the chute. But here's an interesting piece from the Wall Street Journal today. And it's subscriber only, but I'll read it to you. It's fascinating.

The Jason Furman, who was an Obama economic guy, I cite him frequently on the show for, well, I don't cite him. We usually talk about him to tell you how wrong he is, right? Is that right, Joe? Is that a good way to say it? I'm trying to be nice, you know? But Furman writes a lot in the Wall Street Journal, even as a liberal economist.

And he writes things I think are just not accurate. Again, I'm trying to be really nice. But he took a shot at the Trump team for their overly rosy, because this is funny, this gets better. Recently in the journal, he took a shot at the Trump team for their, Joe, overly optimistic views

of growth in the economy. Keep in mind, I just told you the economy's growing at a faster rate than Obama. Those are the numbers. Whether you agree with them or not is irrelevant. This is a great piece from the journal, though. He's calling out, James Freeman is calling out Furman about numbers. In the journal though he's calling out james freeman is calling out

firman about numbers like in other words he's saying this is ironic that you're attacking the trump team for overly optimistic estimations of the numbers let's go into what your estimations were this is good from the piece he's calling out reporters now freeman too he says specifically reporters may want to consult table S9 in the economic report Mr. Trump released last May. This is great. The press will note that the president and his economic team predicted 2.3%

real economic growth for the calendar year 2017. Remember, calendar years, that's not the way the government works. So the Trump team, just to be clear, Furman is saying, the Obama guy, is saying, hey, the Trump team is way too optimistic with their estimations. So Freeman says, really?

Because that's funny. If you look at the Trump estimate released last May, they predicted 2.3%. Well, what was it, Joe? If the Trump team is crazy, they should have been way off. Well, continuing to quote Freeman, based on the current reading from the Commerce Department released last month, the Trump forecast was right on the money.

Wow. This is what I meant when I told Sean. Eventually, the press can't lie about that. The Trump team predicted it in May. They are not Karnak from the Johnny Carson show, okay? They predicted it. That's exactly what they hit. Now, to be fair, the liberals listening and the Democrats, you may say, okay, Dan, what's the big deal? The Obama team was spot on all the time with their estimates. Let's guess Warner Wolf used to say, let's go to the videotape. Let's see exactly what the Obama team did. This is the same piece from Freeman, by the way.

He's citing some of the Obama economic forecasts and the coverage of that. And I'm quoting here. It says, the average annual growth rate from 2010 to 2016 for the Obama years, folks, again, assuming 2% real growth for 2016 was 2.1%. So from 2010 to 2016, it was 2.1%. Now the Obama team's multi-year forecast averaged a 71 percent overestimate from this figure oh oh oh so let me get this straight joe firman's argument is that the trump team is insane yeah they're overestimating their growth as he's simultaneously beating the obama growth rates easily in his first year, as his predictions from last May were right on target, and as the Obama predictions on the economy overestimated growth by 71% during the Obama years.

Don't, ladies and gentlemen, don't let these numbers get in the way of your assertions that the Obama team knows exactly what they're talking about on the economy. Now, it gets better because now he's talking about all the lost growth from their estimations. In other words, if the Obama team was right about how they were going to grow the economy through Obamanomics, the Obama team, I think it's obvious, Joe, committed early to a tax and regulatory regime that was going to introduce more government into our lives at the expense of more rules and at the expense of your wallet. There's no question about that, okay? Here's what that cost us. He says, compounding growth at 3.6% annually means a 28% larger economy after seven years. That was their prediction. Compounding at only 2.1% where they were, they weren't at 3.6,

where they were, they weren't at 3.6, means 15.7% growth. So they were estimating 3.6. They were grotesquely wrong. They hit 2.1. This is what this cost you, including you too, Armacost. If the administration's growth projections were accurate, the GDP would be about $1.8 trillion larger. You know how much that is? That's roughly $6,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. Not exactly crumbs. Dude, that's going on a t-shirt. Not exactly crumbs, with an exclamation point. You're damn right that's not exactly crumbs.

The Obama team's estimates were so off they were off by about six thousand dollars by that's what you would have made if they would have hit their own targets which they didn't listen i can pile on jason firman all i want i i you know i'm sure he's a nice guy i'm not here to attack the guy personally i'm just i'm just basically trying to tell you and and that's this is the to take it out to 30,000 feet, to give you the mental material you need to argue with your liberal friends. When they cite experts, Austin Goolsbee, Jason Furman, Larry Summers, Obama himself, and other people from the Obama team talking about how, oh, this is the Obama economy. He handed off a great economy to Trump, and they start talking about predictions of what's going to happen.

I want you to ask him then why the Obama team couldn't match their own predictions and why the failure to match those own predictions by overestimating by almost 71% cost every American about $6,000. Explain that. When you can explain that, then you can get into attacking the Trump team who, by the way, hit the prediction right on the darn money and is already beating the Obama team. Until then, I'm sorry, guys, but pipe down. You have no credibility in this.

You've been way off. You obviously don't know what you're talking about. And I think you're just making this up. All right. Last topic of the day, because this is another one revolving around the budget. And the reason I'm bringing this up is, this up is there's a lot going on. Obviously, we have still the Parkland, what happened there, a lot going on with attacks on the NRA and everything. But we do have to talk about there are other things going on. These are also pressing issues. So that was on that side.

But there's another good piece I saw at the Journal today about what's really driving the federal deficit. Now, I don't want to beat this thing up too much because we've talked about this before, but they frame it in such a way I think is interesting, and it's kind of a new way I've heard about it. We're in a little bit of trouble. Let me just, speaking of, that was the good news. In other words, I think the economy's growing, just to be clear, because I don't want to leave you on a Fridayiday with with you know a bad feeling i i think things will be okay if we can get a hold of our spending and the economy is growing and we can grow out of this if we handle this the right way yeah having said that let me give you the alternate side too just

to do the right thing i don't want to you know be one of those shows that leaves you with a pollyannish feeling of everything either It's a quote from the journal today. The federal deficit is big and getting bigger. President Trump's budget estimates a deficit of nearly $900 billion for 2018 and nearly $1 trillion for 2019. Folks, that's a big deal. I don't care who signs it. I don't care if there's a Republican or Democrat.

These are recorded shows. We keep them around forever. I do not believe in deficits. I don't give a damn who signs it. Even worse, its balance sheet reveals the public debt will reach $15.7 trillion by October. Pay attention to this number. This works out to $48,081.61 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. Folks, that does not even count unfunded liabilities by Social Security and Medicare.

Folks, that's a big number. That's huge. Keep in mind, that doesn't count any of the obligations we've made to people through Social Security and Medicare. That's four times the current public debt. Yeah, that's going to leave a mark. Yeah, you're looking at, oh, you're darn right that's going to leave a mark. You're looking at over six figures for every single person in America. Ladies and gentlemen, there are people out there working in low-income jobs who are just starting out. Either they're still in school or they're

working on their skills who won't make $100,000 in four or five years. That entire amount is owed to the government and more when you factor in Social Security and Medicare. We have a debt problem. And the piece is entitled, Why We Are Growing Broke. Here's another number in there that'll absolutely blow your mind. Federal tax revenue, Joe, has grown. This is interesting.

Has grown 15% faster than national income. Tax revenue has grown 15% faster than national income. So you say, well, what's the problem? If tax revenue is growing so fast, then why do we have this catastrophic debt situation? Because federal spending has grown 50% faster than national income. Ladies and gentlemen, grown 50% faster than national income. Ladies and gentlemen, tax revenue is not keeping up with the explosion in federal spending. We have a serious catastrophic tidal wave of a red debt menace coming ashore soon. We can stop it. We can stop this train from running us over on the tracks if we would just get a hold of it now what is the real driver here now i gosh i always hesitate you know joe you can sense where i'm going with this um yeah i know i'm

going to get negative feedback for the 15th time or 20th or whatever i'm going to preface this by saying something i am i am absolutely serious about i am not telling anyone out there who is 55 or older who has paid into so uh social security that we should take your benefits i can't please can we get that on a loop because i will get an email saying i can't believe you think i should i paid it you did pay into it i get it i'm not suggesting it doesn't matter because i'm not a legislator anyway i'm just telling you that knowledge is power. Ignorance is not bliss of the situation. You did pay into it. They spent your money. They've already gotten rid of it. A lot of people paid into government pensions too. That money's never

going to show up either. Now, again, I'm not saying they should take that away from you. I'm just telling you the facts. They already spent it. That money isn't there anymore. facts. They already spent it. That money isn't there anymore. Social security is a pay-go system now. Meaning as people working now pay into the system, it doesn't go into a trust fund for them. It goes to pay you. And I'm fine with that. The government made promises to you that they broke, but I get it that you were past your working years. You paid in the entire time. And whereas me at 43 and Joe, you're in your fifties, right? Sixties.

I've only asked you this 50 times, but you look so young. I always get confused. I mean, would you agree that it's reasonable that you and I can change? We can change careers. We can work a little harder. If you're 65 or older and those promises were broke,

it doesn't do me any good as a legislator, as a country to say, Oh, and by the way, those social security payments, sorry, they're done. There's no money. We'd have a catastrophic situation where we'd have our elderly folks who can't go back to work out on the street. So to be crystal clear, I am not suggesting that. I'm just trying to give you a scope of

the problem. Please understand that. Folks, entitlement spending is what's bankrupting us. It is not the discretionary spending. It is not the military. Your liberal friends want you to believe that. It is not true. It is categorically false. It is not accurate. Entitlement spending has grown from an astonishing 4% of GDP back in the 60s to 14% now. Not 14% of the budget, Joe. 14% of everything we produce, we produce about $20 trillion worth of goods. That's what our gross domestic product is. It has gone from four to 14% and the trajectory, Joe, is up and up and up and up and up. To give you a scope of how bad the problem is, when you combine discretionary spending, in other words, the Secret secret service the fbi line items things like that not entitlements not medicare not social security discretionary spending when you combine

discretionary bending spending excuse me with defense national defense the percentage of gdp we've spent on that since in that same time period, Joe, no difference at all. I know that surprises a lot of people, especially the liberals who want you to believe that we're building this big, huge military juggernaut that's scooping up every dollar we have. Now we have a great military, thank God for that. But if you think we're spending more, we are spending more in raw dollars. But when you combine it with discretionary spending and you're measuring budgetary impact, the percentage of GDP we spend on discretionary spending in the military is no different. It is the rise from 4% to 14% on entitlements that is absolutely bankrupting us. Matter of fact, there's an interesting number in here, Joe.

absolutely bankrupting us matter of fact there's an interesting number in here joe it says if even if this fence spending today spending on our military army our air force our coast guard our marines our navy if we were to double today our defense spending double it it would still not match what we're paying out in entitlements folks it all i'm trying to do is give you a scope of the problem don't don't be don't be i don't want to aggravate my audience i just we can't fix the problem if we're not willing to acknowledge it now there are ideas out there and you know i know people listen and there are ideas we can get a hold of this and again these are not for people 55 and older because it's just not practical at this point. We've already screwed them over with a poorly designed plan.

Folks, the way to do this right now would be very simple. The way to do it would be for people 55 and younger to convert them to accounts they control. Because I think it's clear as day right now that those social security accounts, they've been looted. The money was taken. Now you can use whatever rhetoric you want on the left to define that. You can say, oh my gosh, well, this is privatizing. What does that mean? What does privatizing mean? Meaning you're letting me control my own money because we gave the money over to the government that in turn spent it. The money's not there. Don't tell me about an IOU. It is not,

in fact, an IOU. It was a government IOU, which means it's worthless. Don't tell me about an IOU. That's nonsense. It's not true. It's worthless. It's in effect, Joe, me taking money out of my right pocket, burning it, and writing a letter saying, hey, you know what? That $20, it's gone. It's finished. You can write to yourself all you want. By the way, by the full faith and credit of Dan Bongino, you just burnt it.

It's gone. Money isn't there. If we were to devise a system now where you had these personal accounts, here's a number for you I read a little while ago that's staggering. It said that right now the average social security benefit is around, what is it, $18,000, $20,000 a year or something like that. But if you were to put the same amount of money based on the average American income in for your entire workable life at about a 6% return, you'd get a benefit of $22,000 a year. And the difference is the money would actually be there.

The entitlement spending is out of control. If we were to do that and make those personal accounts that you control rather than the government having a key to that lockbox that they go in and raid all the time, if we were to give you that account and then we were to turn Medicare back over to people and allow people the ability to buy their own plan. They would again become cost competitive again because they'd have to compete for customers.

Remember, Medicare is a third-party payer program now. What does that mean? It means the government pays for it. And as I said to Andrew Wilkow on his show today, when the government pays for anything, neither cost nor quality matter. Cost doesn't matter because if the government, if they're paying for something, it's not their money. So the cost nor quality matter. Cost doesn't matter because if the government, if they're paying for something, it's not their money. So the cost doesn't matter. When you buy something for yourself, the cost matters. Milton Friedman was brilliant on this. If Joe's buying a car for himself, the cost of the car matters. Why? Because it's his money. The quality of the car matters too because it's his car. But Friedman has said over and over, when you get these third-party

payers like the government, the cost of the products they're buying doesn't matter because it's not their money. They're getting it from Joe and the taxpayers. But the quality of the product doesn't matter either. Why? Because the third-party payer is buying the product for someone else. It's not even their product. You would almost get better efficiency out of the government, Joe, if the government stole your tax money and bought themselves Lamborghinis. At least they go to buy nice cars.

This is why government products that they pay for suck so bad because they don't care about the quality. It's not for them. If, Joe, if they send you to a doctor, Dr. Jones, and he's awful, he's the worst, he's terrible, then nobody cares because it's not them.

They're not going to die if it's a faulty hip replacement. And if Dr. Jones charges 50 bucks, then that's fine. They'll pay him the 50 bucks. If he charges 5,000, they don't care about that either. If we were to turn Medicare over to a personal program, just like the personal program for Social Security where you could control your own accounts, we could finally get it controlled through market mechanisms over the explosion and cost the reason the costs are

exploding in these entitlements programs is precisely because you're giving the government the money and control over the money and the government has no desire to control cost because it's not their darn money i am really apologetic and sorry if this is a tough conversation to have. And just to leave you on a good note, it is Friday. The show notes are really good today, by the way, so please read them again at Bongino.com. It's important. But I do think with some very simple changes like the ones I indicated and a good solid 3.6% growth rate or more i use that number because ironically that was the number of the obama team as i just told you predicted for themselves and never met at 3.6 percent growth we double our economy in 20 years folks if we could double our economy in 20 years

and just hold the line on spending for a while we would cut our national debt our deficits in half just by doing nothing just by growing out of it and i'll one last note on this that is possible you have this explosion in material science gene therapy all these things i told you about artificial intelligence i saw a story the other day joe alibaba um which is one of these Amazon-like companies overseas, they have this robotic warehouse that moves around products so that people don't, it cut down human labor by 70%. And these robots are moving things around. These are all explosive productivity enhancements that now free up human labor to do more valuable

things. These are the things that are going to enable us to produce more, give our GDP more value, give our economy more value. When we start wiping out diseases, Alzheimer's, diabetes, cancer, we're going to save trillions of dollars. A lot of that Medicare spending now that's bankrupting us. If it was controlled by market mechanisms and people so they could keep the costs and keep the quality, keep the cost down and the quality up, marry that up with technological

enhancements. And hopefully in the future, the wiping out of cancer and AIDS and all these other plagues that are destroying our society, you have the unbelievable potential for growth. It's around the corner. We just need some smart people up on the hill and not some of these cowards we have now. Not all of them. There's some good folks, but there are some people up there now that are doing the easy thing. They're not doing the right thing. And it is really terribly disappointing folks. All right. Thank you again for tuning in. Ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate you very much bearing with us this

week. Joe and I had a very difficult schedule, but we put a lot of work into the show. This is, Joe and I, you know, we mean this. You mean everything to us. You are our first priority outside of God and my family, you are it. I have a lot of other jobs and I do a lot of other things, but I never miss a show. I have never missed a show. We do holidays. We do everything.

We have never taken a day off because of you. And we deeply appreciate you hanging with us this week. It was a really tough schedule, but we got the shows out. It means a lot. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. I'll see you all on Monday. You just heard the Dan Bongino Show. the show is out. It means a lot. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. I'll see you all on Monday.