The Dan Bongino Show - Ep. 672 Skin in the Game Matters

Episode Date: March 8, 2018

Summary:  In this episode I address the “Trump Paradox” and his skin in the game. I address the Special Counsel, government spying, and the recent actions by Jeff Sessions. I also debunk silly liberal talking points on the tax cuts and liberal economic policies.    Liberals keep saying stock buybacks are a bad thing, are they?    Just how much power does the government have to spy on you?    The “blue wave” in Texas was a total bust.    Why are liberals evacuating liberal cities?   Here is some great information about the upcoming midterm elections.   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. The Dan Bongino Show. Get ready to hear the truth about America with your your host dan bongino all right welcome to the dan bongino show producer joe how are you today hey coming to you from the studios of

w bongino where you feel like dancing dan yeah oh my gosh yesterday so man hey so i'm chewing on a nitric oxide tablet now i forgot to take take one before. I love these things. That intro was that bad, huh? Yeah, no. W-B-O-N-G-I-N-O. Usually it's W-M or W-K. That's usually how it works, right? Yeah, K or W. Based on the coaster you're on.

Yep. Yesterday's feedback on the show, I just want to really sincerely. Thank you all. Um, I had to stop answering emails after eight o'clock last night. I read them. I promise you. Um,

thank you. Uh, the feed, the feedback was tremendous, but we got close to between YouTube, our YouTube channel, emails, Twitter,

and Facebook. We probably got close to 1,000 emails yesterday. Holy cow. Yeah, thanks a lot, folks. I appreciate it. It really means a lot to me. I didn't intend on going on some inspirational rant. It just kind of happened.

So thanks a lot. I appreciate you sharing it. I got some interesting stuff for you today. I've been digging into this book by Nassim Taleb called Skin in the Game. And it's a fantastic book. And there's a couple of things he talks about and relates it to the election of Donald Trump, the appeal of Christianity, and me with the Superman movie.

You're like, how the heck are those three things tied together? No, stay tuned. I promise you this will be interesting. And also, I want to talk about the scope of government surveillance and how this is actually working and why this is so disturbing to me. And I'm puzzled why it's not disturbing to liberals. The scope of government surveillance and what they can do to you now. A great article at TabletMag. All right, today's show brought to you by my buddies at BrickHouse Nutrition.

You know, I'm a big fan of these guys. Field of Greens is an absolutely terrific product. I begged them to get this thing up and running. And I asked them to put out Field of Greens because I'm an avid believer in nutrition and the benefits of fruits and vegetables. And sometimes I just don't get enough. I try, I try, eat dried fruits. Last night, I had a heaping serving of green beans and tomatoes and red peppers and everything. But sometimes it's not enough. You need that fruit and vegetable insurance.

You got to eat them every day. And Field of Greens is a way to do it. It is ground up fruits and vegetables. Stuff you're probably not going to get to eat all the time. You got your cherries. You got licorice. You got your prebiotics, probiotics in there. This is an incredible product.

Go check it out. Field of Greens. It's available at BrickHouseNutrition.com slash Dan. That's BrickHouseNutrition.com slash Dan. Field of Greens. I got some great feedback on it. Yes, I told you it tastes great. It does not taste like a vegetable fruit powder. I promise you. I think it tastes a little bit like a cherry drink. I love it. I drink it every day. Go give it a shot. Field of Green is available at BrickHouseNutrition.com slash Dan. That's BrickHouseNutrition.com slash Dan. Pick it up today. Okay. So I'm reading Taleb's book, Skin in the Game. And I was listening to a podcast he did on Econ Talk with Russ Roberts. And this guy is just fascinating. He wrote the book, The Black Swan. And it's a fascinating book. And if you, you know, listen, this is not one of those 12-step self-help book podcasts,

but sometimes I read a book that really changes my life. And The Black Swan was one of them. It used to drive Joe crazy because I used to quote the book all the time. I like it. Yeah, it's a great book though. And one of the lessons I took from the book, which is incredible, and if I'm summarizing Taleb poorly, he can email me and challenge me. I won't take it personal.

But I'm doing my best here because he's such a complicated guy. One of the things he says in the book, the gist of it is that one of the lessons he learns from successful people is not the fact that they're the smartest, not the fact that they're the best looking or the strongest or the fastest or whatever it may be, or they're the smartest, not the fact that they're the best looking or the strongest or the fastest or whatever it may be, or they had the most money growing up. One of the commonalities amongst successful people is they take advantage of kind of black swan events. In other words, a black swan is a rare event, right? And he says that a lot of these people are successful because they collect opportunities. Collecting opportunities, meaning you go to, what Joe, 5,000 cocktail parties, 4,999 of them are a total waste of

your time. Why did I just do that? And boom, cocktail party 5,000, you meet a guy who goes, wait, you're Dan Bongino? I want to offer you a $10 million deal. Well, that hasn't happened yet. But if you'd like to offer us a $10 million deal, Joe and I are certainly open to accepting it, right? Yep. Point being, collect opportunities. The people who are successful in life go out there and they collect opportunities with others. Cocktail parties, business meetings, anything you can do to go out there and interact with others, right? Mm-hmm.

But I kind of improv this. At one point, he talks about chasing trains, but don't chase trains. In other words, if you're going to go out there and collect opportunities, commit to it and do it, don't chase the train. If the train's scheduled to be there at 8.20 and get there at 819 45 seconds and you're running for the train that's your fault you knew the train was there at 820 and you didn't do it you got there too late okay that's your fault collect opportunities but commit to it don't chase the train either get there early or don't do it okay a great look, but he wrote this second book and it's about skin in the game. And it basically is a,

um, a breakdown of, of the assignment of risk in society. Uh, I don't want to get too detailed. That's not a book review this show, but it's, it's,

uh, it's critical to the political issues we discuss in the day and specifically what's going on now, especially in Trump country out there. There's a paradox with Trump. I'll get back to the skin in the game thing in a second, because I don't want to get too deep into the book. There's a paradox out there with Trump

that people are having a very difficult time understanding. And when I say people, I do not mean you. I'm talking about the media, the pseudo intelligentsia, Hollywood, the academic crowd. They have a really tough time understanding the appeal of Trump. And here's the paradox. The paradox isn't that they don't understand. They don't understand any conservative or Republican.

The paradox is, how is it that Trump is a billionaire, a very rich guy by any standard, yet he appeals to the middle class in a way that billionaires, according to liberal class warfare ideology, should not. That's the Trump paradox. Taleb's books get in the game. He explains this in a beautiful way. He says, listen, I'd never heard this approach before, but he's right. He's like, the appeal of Donald Trump is, in fact, that he's lost money in the past.

The appeal of that, that's why, by the way, another thing about Trump, the appeal of Donald Trump, too. I'm not, folks, I'm not folks. I'm not. I'm not saying losing money is good. Please don't misinterpret my comments. I'm not saying a a sexual past that he's had is some kind of bastion of morality. I'm not saying any of this. I'm simply trying to explain away the the working class middle America. Whatever you want to call it, fly over country appeal of a billionaire, which is never Romney.

Couldn't pull it off. No one else seeking the Republican Party has been able to pull it off, but he has. Taleb's talking on the podcast about how Trump has lost money, Joe, lots of money in the past and how the Democrats in the intelligentsia are like, wow, what a clown. He's gone bankrupt at times. Yeah, but he's gone back and he's every,

he's learned from his failures. Like that's what happens to real people. They have skin in the game. Trump's got skin in the game. And how Trump, the losing of money by Trump and the gaining back, by the way. No one wants someone who's perennial, you know, excuse me, constantly bankrupt all the time.

Nobody wants that. He's come back and been successful after losing money on certain business endeavors that didn't work out. It's not just that. You know, his past, he was open and honest about a lot of it on whatever, the Howard Stern show, wherever he appeared. He was honest about his past with women. People say, hey, the guy's real.

I may not like it. I may not agree with it, but at least he's honest about it. response was a natural response to years of people not having skin in the business game yet talking about business and also politicians lying about their past with women or men and then getting in office and being exposed as frauds like when trump came in office everybody knew just go to the howard stern interviews everybody knows no mystery it It's like, all right, we get it. Like finally, at least he's not lying like these other guys. It's a really fascinating analysis that I, the skin in the game part of it, that he had his own money in the game. In your business world, you may say, oh, well, I'm not in the billionaire business world. No, but you haven't lost a billion dollars either. You're in the business world. Would lot of us have lost money in business. We may have lost 10,000, 20,000. I'd rather lose that than lose a billion. This guy's got skin in the game. It's fascinating. And one of the lines I thought to sum this up,

it ties into his book, is this is a natural response to years of politicians not having skin in the game one lying about their past number two and number three joe a natural response to a generation of explainers and not doers he talks about this difference in the book how we have had explainers forever everybody's a great explainer barack obama the left oh man can he he give a speech? Oh, the tides of war are receding. It's a fundamental transformation. Ah, people were going crazy. We love you, Obama.

Hope and change. Convincing, yeah. Oh, my gosh. Sometimes I'd watch the guy be like, this is the greatest speaker ever. Unfortunately, he's wrong on absolutely everything. Trump was a natural response to that. Obama was an explainer. He wasn't a doer.

Everything he did was a catastrophe, but he could explain the hell out of it, Joe. Yeah. It's a catastrophe, but he could explain the hell out of it, Joe. Yeah. It's a new day. The tide of war is receding. The oceans are receding. This is great. Global warming is finished forever.

Barack Obama gave some amazing speeches, yet did nothing right. He was an explainer. Now you've got Trump, skin in the game, has lost money, has earned money, has a past, a lot of us do, was open and honest about it, in many cases hasn't lied about it at least, at least that we know. cases hasn't lied about it at least at least that we know and he's not a particularly great explainer joe but he's a darn good doer we got tax cuts we got supreme court justices we've got regulations and government red taping wiped out and is he the best explainer in the world? Probably not. But we've had generations of explainers. Joe, how many explainers have you heard?

Obama, an explainer. John Kerry, an explainer. Hillary, an explainer. Frankly, George W., Mitt Romney, explainers. Yeah. Romney had a 562-point economic plan. That's great. We loveer, yeah. He laid out a, Romney had like a, what, a 562 point economic plan. That's great. We love it, Mitt.

Great. Good job. I'm sure you did your homework on it. A lot of splaining. A lot of splaining. Yeah. But as we said in yesterday's show, not a lot of dancing, right? Not a lot of dancing.

A lot of splaining. Not a lot of dancing. Trump was a dancer. He was a doer. He was a natural response to 50 plus years of splainers, as Joe would say. And I thought it was a really brilliant analysis of how skin in the game starts to matter now. Now, his book covers skin in the game on a number of topics. The banking crisis, how, hey, the banking crisis was inevitable.

Why? Because bankers and a lot of financial companies had no skin in the game. They lost money. Oh, don't worry. The taxpayers will cover your losses. That's no problem at all. Don't you worry. Fannie and Freddie got bailed out.

These government-sponsored enterprises, other banks got bailed out, other financial institutions. Some did, some didn't. You don't have skin in the game. There's no reason for you to act responsible. You have no skin in the game. But there's a great line. I'm going to move on. I got news of the day, I promise you. And I'm sorry if this stuff, it doesn't really pique your interest, but I think it should, folks. It explains a lot of the why about what's going on right now in the country. it explains a lot of the why about what's going on right now in the country. There's a great line in the book from a Spartan woman to her husband. You know, it's a, of course, no one, it's not a direct quote. But it's a quote that's become quite famous.

The Spartans, of course, famous warriors. And the Spartan woman says to the husband, you either come back with your shield or on it. Now, that's a deeper quote than it appears. It may sound like just a simple call to action, but it's not. And Taleb explains it brilliantly. The idea with the Spartans was if you ran from battle, Joe, you wouldn't run with your shield. Why? Because if you run, you wouldn't run with your shield.

Why? Because if you run, you turn your back and your shield is held in front. You don't have arms in your back. They don't work. Your arms move in the front. They don't move backwards in the same. So if you were to run from battle, you would do what with your shield?

You drop it. It's useless. You turn your back and you run. It's heavy. Fight or flight? Fight. And if you engage in flight rather than fight, don't come back here. That's a Spartan woman.

Now, come back with your shield, meaning you fought, because if you ran, you wouldn't have your shield. Or come back on it, meaning come back dead, meaning you fought nobly in battle. He talks also about interventionist foreign policy and how this is an interesting generation, how Spartans and others, how these generals led their men into battle and how many of them died in battle themselves. That's not the generation we live in anymore.

You got a bunch of politicians out there sending kids all over the world, no skin in the game whatsoever, despite multiple failures and interventionist foreign policy. It's not a foreign policy show. I just think it's a very interesting critique we should all consider. How that Spartan quote kind of points to the opposite of what we have now.

Everybody who sends the kids into battle makes these decisions about your finances, about your house, about your interest rates. These guys have no skin in the game themselves. Their lives are perfectly insulated from yours. Fascinating. One more thing on this. He talks about, Taleb talks about the appeal of Christianity on that. And he doesn't get into a religious conversation in the show or in the book. He just talks about how the natural appeal of Christianity,

why Christ being human and divine at the same time, how that explains away why so many people find Christianity appealing. I'm a Christian, full disclosure, and I'm And I'm just, I'm mirroring his thoughts. I'm not giving you a conversion speech or anything like that. Yeah. But that that's an interesting part of how Christianity,

that Christ divine and human nature, he had actual skin in the game. Yep. Like quite literally, and that's the appeal. One more thought on this too. I remember seeing that, I said I'd get into a Superman movie.

Like, what does that have to do with anything? There was the most recent one, Man of Steel, which was okay. Henry Cavill, the actor. I don't see too many movies anymore, but that one came out like four years ago. And I liked it a bit, and I hated it in other respects. And one of the reasons I hated it and I couldn't figure it out until I read a critique afterwards. Superman's indestructible.

He has no weaknesses other than kryptonite. And even the kryptonite, you always know he's going to win in the end. Because once the kryptonite goes away, he goes back to being indestructible. One of the reasons I didn't like the movie is he has no skin in the game, Superman. He doesn't really feel pain. He doesn't get hurt. He doesn't get beat up. He's got superpowers. He's got you stronger

than anybody. The reason Batman and the Dark Knight were so appealing to people like me, the kind of hero, anti-hero, whatever it may be, the the punisher or others is that they're human beings like they get their butts kicked it actually hurts i thought of it in relationship to the analysis how of to lebanon book how we're naturally attracted to people of skin in the game and superman doesn't he doesn't have it you know we were talking about that just the other day you and i about our favorite part of the bible one of our favorite parts of the bible was when jesus went in the temple and went berserk. Yeah. Because it showed he was human.

We both said that. Overturned the money tables, and then there's another part where he's healing lepers, and he gets tired. Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the day, he just gets tired, because that's the appeal of the religion. So a bunch of interesting points in the book. I highly recommend

it. Again, it's called Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Really, really great book. It's some illuminating things. No matter where you are, by the way, on religion, foreign policy, it'll at least open your eyes to some things he says that are indisputable. He's absolutely correct. These people doing foreign policy, whether you like the foreign policy or not, do not, in fact, have skin in the game. All right. Second story of the day I wanted to get to. Great, great, great piece in TabletMag today by, who's it, the Dyer? Interesting piece, though. It'll be in the show notes up at Bongino.com.

Please subscribe to my email list. I appreciate you doing it. I will email you these articles. And it talks about the scope of government surveillance and how powerful the government's ability right now to surveil you is. And no matter where you are on the ideological spectrum, folks, this should concern you and concern you deeply. I talked about in a recent show the two-hop rule. If you don't know what this is, you better. the two hop rule. If you don't know what this is, you better. Because if you live in the United States and you believe we're still in a fourth amendment guided constitutional republic, I would

suggest to you that you are wrong. You're right about living in the United States. You are not right about living in a constitutional republic that is still restrained by the limits of the Fourth Amendment, the limits on government power against illegal search and seizure. Why do I say that? The two hop rule, folks, allows people within the government to get a warrant in a secret court against you. It's not an open proceeding. You have no opportunity to go in there and make your case. The proceedings of the secret court will not be released publicly. You have no idea what was said against you. The government can go in and get a warrant in this secret court based on probable cause at, say, Armacost. Joe here is a foreign agent and is in

violation of U.S.s law you have no ability to challenge the evidence the evidence will never become public and you say okay well what's the problem maybe he is well it's not just joe it's not just joe they can look into this is why the carter page warrant on the uh the pfizer warrant on carter page is so critical because i believe strongly that the page warrant was just a vector a vehicle to get into the trump team and see their conversations via the two hop rule here's how it works i get a warrant to spy on joe i'm allowed two hops so let's say joe is emailing you know Bobby I then hop once to Bobby and I start looking at Bobby's emails and who's Bobby who's Bobby's emailing as well let's say Bobby

is emailing Joey now I get to hop to Joey and see who Joey's emailing as well folks think about that they needed a vehicle they were spying on Trump. We already know, for those of you who've been listening to the show the entire time, you know, they were spying on the Trump team. They were spying on him through foreign entities that were providing intelligence and circumvention of U.S. law. Foreign entities were spying on the Trump team. People were being, in my opinion, used as pawns to set up the Trump team in a framing operation. You know about the names, Millian, Agalarov, Downer. People who may knowingly or unknowingly, I believe, were pushed into the Trump orbit to get information from the Trump team.

But they needed a legal face to this. So they needed at some point a warrant somehow to put a legal face on what I believe was an illicit immoral operation at best they were spying on their political opponents they had nothing on Trump they had nothing on Trump so they had to go around and go well where do we go Papatopoulos they probably tried that and found out they had nothing there either they go to Manafort yeah we can get something on Manafort, which they did. They did get a warrant on Manafort to listen to his conversations.

But they probably said, let's get Page 2 and let's hop. Let's hop. We get a warrant on Page. Let's say Page emailed Carter Page at some point, emailed. This is hypothetical, by the way, but I'm just giving you that

to give you that. I'm going to read you a quote from this piece. It should disturb you. This is more about, by the way, the government just giving you that to give you that i'm going to read you a quote from this piece it should disturb you this is more about by the way the government power rather than the trump russia thing i know a lot of you started tuning in at 628 for that but this is critical for other reasons beyond the scope of the trump russia thing because i don't see how the fourth amendment applies anymore if this is what they can do carter page emails say you know an intermediary in the trump campaign and that intermediary, they can hop to him, to the next guy, and that intermediary emails Don Trump Jr. or say Trump himself,

you've got a surveillance net into Don Trump Jr. and Trump himself with no probable cause whatsoever. The hops matter. Now, here's a quote from the piece. He says, but the scope, excuse me, the use of controls, what he's talking about here is there are some limits, administrative rules on how deeply you can jump into these hops. So this is the author of Tablet Meg challenging that. He says, but the use of controls should not obscure from us

the scope of what's actually going on. Data mining in particular is inherently about hunting through data that's already there. Because it is routinely collected or stored under legal requirements and made available to the U.S. intelligence community on demand. Folks, there's a library of your crap already out there it's already stored on government databases they can tap into the moment they get a warrant where you're not allowed to see it's a secret court warrant not only that it may not even be against you it may be with your neighbor who emailed you tell me again how the fourth amendment applies there please please come back to me national security professionals who disagree with me.

I'm fascinated by this. I'm not being a jokester or a clown here. I'm interested in your feedback. Please tell me how the Fourth Amendment applies to me. If I email a guy who has got a warrant against him for being a foreign intelligence agent that's given through a secret court. Nobody has any ability to see it ever. And then they can hop to my emails. Please tell me how I was protected against the illegal search and seizure there. Please. I'd love to hear it. I'm

not kidding. Here's a joke going on. He says for some types of communication data, get a load of this folks. It is possible to retrieve information from as much as five years back in the database. So now get a load of this. I'm not only talking to my neighbor. I've done nothing wrong, by the way. Now you can get my communications potentially from up to five years ago. How again am I protected via the Fourth Amendment and the Bill of Rights against illegal search and seizures by the government when you've seized my data and i've done nothing wrong please explain that to me well we may find something wrong that's not the way it works right you don't get

to search my house without a warrant and go hey look look what we, we found a mattress tag ripped off. Guilty. Get him. To the guillotine. That's not the way this works. You produce the evidence before, not after. Challenge me on it. I'm open to it.

It goes on. This is a critical piece, folks. Please read this. It's not that long. He says, in the case of a subject like Carter Page, that means investigators who obtain a warrant in October of 2016 can hunt through his communications going back several years before that date. date and they can use their license to hop to probe the first and second order of correspondence linked to him at any point during that period in the same fashion links from the past can then be exploited going forward here one more this is important a couple more sentences here

what this means in practice is that under a single warrant, anyone Page had a text or phone call with in the Trump campaign during the brief months of his association with it in 2016 was fair game as a direct connection all the way through the end of the last warrant extension. Folks, do you understand the scope of government power as related to this piece? Do you understand how damaging this is? How are you protected by the Fourth Amendment if the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to you because the government can all hop over to you as long as they get a warrant in a secret court where nobody can see the proceedings and you can't defend yourself? No, I'm really serious. Explain to me how that is a...

We're living in a constitutional republic with strong protections against government overreach. I'm open to hearing it, folks. Because that sounds to me like a whole lot of people in this country, based on simple geometric growth after the warrants, are potentially subjected to warrantless searches. I don't know any other reasonable way to look at that.

All right, I got one more point I want to make on another topic related to this. And I got a couple other things I want to get to. Today's show also brought to you by our buddies at Gotenna. Gotenna.com. Gotenna.com. You say, what's Gotenna? It's like antenna with a go. G-O-T-E-N-N-A.com.

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One more thing. So Jeff Sessions is finally talking about a second special counsel in this case. Folks, we need one. The Mueller thing is out of control. I told you the other day, I'm not going to repeat the show, but Mueller's new focus on the UAE, the United Arab Emirates, and some meetings. It's a smokescreen, folks. Just like the whole investigation

is a distraction from the Obamagate spying scandal. Look, look what Trump did. That's the entire purpose of the Mueller probe right now. The Mueller peaked interest now in the United Arab Emirates conveniently aligns with the fact that Susan

Rice and a lot of other Obama administration officials have already admitted that they were spying and unmasking the Trump team because of a meeting with the UAE. So Mueller needs the UAE thing, investigation, air quotes, to be highlighted in the media to do what, folks? Again, to take away from the main story that is the Obama team spied on the Trump team without the evidence to do it. This is all a scam. We're all

being suckered by this disingenuous nonsensical Bob Mueller probe. Mueller should be ashamed right now about what's going on. He really should. I'm sorry. The guy's got a decorated career public service. We thank him for it. This is a total sham. Oh, gosh. This guy met with someone in

the seychelles talk about what a channel of communication with russia is that illegal no it's not so what are we doing what are we doing it's not illegal for people to talk with russia but by the way no one can even prove that happened i it's just so bizarre folks but all right enough i talked about the other but the second special counsel thing just a quick uh comment on that i i'm asking you as friends and i've been getting a lot of positive email but some negative on stuff too some people disagree with some of the things i talk about in the show that's fine i read all your emails please send them my way but i'm not i don't say

things to get agreement i say things because i believe they're true i feel very confident right now and notice i'm stammering a bit because i'm i feel very confident let me just leave it at that that sessions is on to something with the trump case just give him a couple more months. If nothing happens, I'm with you. I think he's been, the recusal was awful. I think on some other issues, we could definitely use a little more spark. I'm just saying, based on some pretty decent information, I think they're onto something in this FISA abuse portion and the spying scandal. Just give it some time. For all the complaining you hear Trump doing about him, he's still there.

He's still there. He's still there. They haven't gotten rid of him yet. Yeah, you're right. And I think this appointment that he's now, he did an interview last night with Shannon Bream on Fox, was a good one, where he alluded to the appointment of an, and this is very important, folks, of an outside Washington, D.C. swamp person to look into this. Just give it a little bit more time and wait for this IG report to come out. If we get nothing after March and April, I am with you a thousand percent, folks.

A thousand percent, he's got he's gotta go but i'm pretty confident there's something going on so that's a bit of good news for you uh for today all right enough on that okay uh oh this is a great story i haven't done a lot of um economy stuff but uh you know i love debunking liberal crap for For me, it's become a pastime. I have a great piece in the show notes from the Washington Examiner. It's a CEO from a diabetic sugar company. It's a really, really good piece. And it kind of debunks a myth I really hate that the liberals have been pushing out there about these tax cuts. You hear this myth propagated a lot.

And the media loves it as well. One of them is, oh oh these tax cuts are junk hundreds of millions of dollars are going into share buybacks so what's the problem with that ladies and gentlemen do you understand i don't mean this in a condescending kind of jerky tone but maybe to the liberals listening, most conservatives probably get this already, but do you understand when a company engages in a share buyback? I don't know, how do you say this without sounding like a jerk? Do you know what that means? This is more for lips. A share buyback is a company taking money in its corporate coffers and buying back its stock, which is owned by who, Joe? People.

Right. Well, I don't understand. The liberals are like, this tax cut is garbage. It's share buybacks. The rich are getting richer. Okay, here are some numbers for you, folks. Because, again, we do numbers on the show. We do numbers.

I have numbers for you folks because we, again, we do numbers on the show. We do numbers. Liberals, if numbers don't interest you, you may want to find a new show. Some numbers from the piece. This is actually from the Wall Street Journal today. There are 54 million Americans, Joe, that have 401k accounts. The country has about 300 million people. Are you suggesting that 54 million people are in the 1%?

If you are, you have a serious problem with math. Okay? We don't need Jay's abacus for this one, Joe. This is not complicated. If there are 300 million people in the country, right? If there are 300 million people in the country, right? I assure you 1% of 300 million is not 54 million, okay? So if your take is share buybacks suck, they benefit the 1%, 54 million people are invested in 401ks that own, wait for it, wait for it, shares. Whoa. Liberals, I know it, wait for it, shares. Whoa.

Liberals, I know logic is tough for you. By the way, I'm not even done. 42.5 million Americans have an IRA, an individual retirement account, large portions of which are invested in shares, stocks, equities. Whoa! Now we're up to about $90 million. Now there may be some cross-pollination. Some may own one and own the other.

Who cares? Say it's $70 million. I said it was $54 million in 401ks. Say the cross-pollination is only $60 million total. $60 million! That's about a fifth of the entire country. That's not the 1%. Say the cross-pollination is only 60 million total. 60 million. That's about a fifth of the entire country. That's not the 1%. One-fifth, one-percent, one-fifth, one-percent.

I'm doing the math. It ain't working out. Ain't close. No. One percent would be one-one-hundredth. I wasn't a math major, but call me crazy. Not one-fifth. So one-fifth of the country,

corporate money is being filtered back to a fifth of the country, and liberals are out there going, the share buybacks, the rich get richer, the big dopes. Do you ever stop to tell our liberal friends listening? Thank you, Joseph. That's our head scratching,

which is much louder than when I actually, here's my actual scratch. You can't hear that as well as Joe said. We haven't done drops in a while. We need to start bringing some of those back. Matter of fact, on the topic of drops, do you have Natalie Portman in there? Are you like a crazy person? Are you like a crazy person? To our liberal friends, I mean it.

Do you ever say to your liberal friends, who are the companies buying the shares back from? Where's the money going? Oh, it's going to shareholders who now, by the way, because you may say, oh, but the company's buying back the shares. Folks, they're buying back the shares, which reduces the supply of the shares, which makes the shares in the hands of the public now worth more. That's the point. Makes the shares in the hands of the public not worth more.

That's the point. They're reducing the stock of stocks. Oh, man. I feel like I really feel bad because I feel like a portion of my audience right now is like, are liberals really this dopey? Not all of them, but some unfortunately are. That's what share buybacks are. Now, let me read to you a line from John Cochran in the Wall Street Journal the other day. I can't put it in the show notes against subscriber only, but it's a really simple, eloquent explanation about how buybacks work.

He says, suppose company A has $100 cash and a factory worth $100. So it has $100 in cash, Joe. That's one set of assets. All right. And this is an or. And a factory worth $100. All right. So the company has $200 in assets, right? In assets, correct, yes.

So the company issues two shares. Well, if it has $200 in assets, folks folks then each share would be worth $100 I'm doing it slow for lips because it has $100 in cash $100 in a factory total assets worth $200 it issues two shares to the company those shares are worth $100 each

because the company has $200 in assets it says the company's shareholders have $200 in wealth now it has two shareholders each has a $100 piece of stock shareholders have $200 in wealth now. It has two shareholders. Each has a $100 piece of stock in a $200 company. All right. I know.

I know, brother. I get it. But we have to do this because liberals are still telling people that share buybacks are a bad thing. Imagine the company uses its $100 in cash now, Joe, to buy back one of the two outstanding shares. Okay. Now its shareholders have one share worth $100 and $100 in cash. Their wealth remains the same. In other words, if they bought one of the shares back from one of the shareholders and gave him the cash, there's still one guy with the $100 share and there's $100 cash no longer with

the company. All right. It's with the other shareholder. Now you may say, well, how does that benefit anyone? Well, he goes on, I'll sum it up because he doesn't get really too wonky, but I want to keep this short and sweet for you. The reason companies do share buybacks with their cash folks is because they don't have a way to invest the money now to make a reasonable profit and to jump over whatever hurdle rate

they have in place. If they had a way to invest the money to make more money, what would they do? They'd invest it. No. Do you believe it, brother? I'm having a hard time with that one, Dan. I know. I can see.

Joe is not really struggling for the guy who emailed us about the corollary, but he's pretending to struggle for the sake of effect for the show. If the company had $100 and had a way to make money off that $100, they'd invest it in the company. The reason companies do share buybacks is because they're doing okay now, but they don't have any profitable investments. So what do they do? They buy back the shares.

They shrink the supply of shares. People see that as a sign of strength, by the way, not weakness, because the company doesn't have any investments right now. The money then goes back into the economy because one of the shareholders joe and the 200 company gets his hundred back and what does he do with it he invested in another company that takes the money and invests it in a profit-making. This is like cash flow 101. But you cannot argue with liberals.

I swear they make stuff up. Share buybacks. They think like they put the money back at the shareholders' hands and everybody goes and gets a matchstick and burns the cash. I don't think I like your tone. You probably don't.

Because it's a quite hostile tone right now because it bothers the heck out of me that i gotta wake up every morning and debunk liberal stupidity all the time the share buyback is a transfer of corporate money back into shareholders that take the money into corporations that are willing to invest it by way, that's why it's a sign of strength. And Cochran makes a good point, Joe. Right, right, yeah. He says if you're with a company, it's doing okay, but it doesn't have any potentially explosive new investments right now, and it's sitting on a bunch of cash.

That shareholders don't want you flushing the cash down the toilet. They don't want you, a sign of a weak company is a company spending money on everything, everywhere, and they blow it. They invest in automatic pooper scoopers, stuff that nobody cares about. Well, that may be great. I don't know, but I'm not in that market person. I don't have a dog, but it's a sign of strength because Cochran gives the example. Let's say the company says, oh, we got this cash. Let's just spend it on a project even

though we think it's going to lose money. The stock price of the company would go down, not up, because people would say, wait, they're flushing cash down the toilet, Joe, on stupid projects nobody cares about. It's a sign of strength for the company to take the money and go, we don't have anything right now. We're going to buy back our stock the stock price is going to go up for existing stockholders and we're going to put the money back in the economy so that the guy we bought the stock back from or the woman can take the cash and invest in another company has better opportunities i'm glad you explained this because i kind of knew how it worked but a couple of these things i didn't realize i and i'm sure i'm not alone. Yeah, I think that's a good thing.

I'm glad you did that. I hope so, because I don't like... We have a lot of really, really smart listeners. I get emails from doctors, financial advisors, lawyers, managers, I mean, blue-collar workers who've been in the workforce forever, who understand business better than anyone, personally. Talking about skin in the game. Those are the doers, man. The people who get their hands dirty. They're not the splainers. They're the doers, but they get it.

I'm simply trying to explain to you that the share buyback talking point by the left, just so we have to take it out to 30,000 feet again. One of the liberal talk points, tax cuts by Trump, they suck. People are doing share buybacks. Hundreds of millions of share buybacks. Share buybacks from who?

Shareholders. Who are the shareholders? Oh, us? So we're getting cash back to invest somewhere else. Please explain to me again in slow motion how exactly that's a problem. I'd love to hear it. I'm serious. I would absolutely love to hear it because it makes no sense if you understand basic economics. Sorry, I'm a little... I'm laughing because it's just so silly that we've got to explain this stuff away. All right, I got a couple more things for you. Before we get to that, welcome back to our friends Freedom Project Academy. Really appreciate them jumping back on board. This is a really, really great online educational opportunity. Hey, America's schools are nothing like we remember growing up. We grew up in safety and learning was more in the safe

spaces and propaganda, unfortunately, what it's become now in a lot of places. And even through, excuse me, even though technology continues to offer new opportunities for learning, I think we can all agree that traditional moral values, once woven into the fabric of the classroom, have practically disappeared. It's sad. That's why you need to consider Freedom Project Academy's fully accredited Judeo-Christian classical online school for kindergarten through high school. We're talking about an incredible interactive education where students attend live classes, folks, every day with teachers and fellow classmates from across the country. Freedom Project Academy doesn't accept a penny of government funding, which allows them to stay committed to teaching

students how to think, not what to think. Families can enroll students full-time, or you can start with a single class. It's entirely up to you. Go to freedomforschool.com and request your free information packet today from Freedom Project Academy. Go to freedomforschool.com. That's freedomforschool.com. And request your free information packet today from Freedom Project Academy. Enrollment ends in July, but classes fill up fast. They do. That's freedomforschool.com. Freedomforschool.com.

And if you want to give the show some credit, don't forget to tell them Dan Bongino sent you and the Dan Bongino Show. You can tell them Joe Armacost from the Dan Bongino Show sent you, too. They wouldn't mind that either. All right. They'd like that. All right. Texts coming in left and right, of course. Who is this person?

Someone's texting me. Oh, all right. I got it. Yeah. Sorry. Someone said to me yesterday in an email, too, Joe, that one day I should tell the story in detail on on how we met got the show started maybe one day in a rough cuts episode joe might be a good christmas show yeah yeah we tend to do some uh you know non-political stuff around the holidays all right the blue wave the fictitious

blue wave so yesterday folks um the media loves false narratives right right? The media, this is what they do. They love false narratives. They love storylines. These storylines are usually fictitious. They're usually invented, but they're usually meant to align with a pro-liberal message, not necessarily a pro-Democrat message. One of the storylines we've heard for days that I want to immediately debunk to you, and folks, to be clear, when I debunk this story, I'm not suggesting to you that there isn't anger among Democrats. I'm not suggesting to you that their midterms, the 2018 midterms might not be ugly for Republicans. I'm not suggesting any of that. Matter of fact, I just got done yesterday during the show telling you, you got to dance, got to go out and vote. 2018 is coming up. This is just as important as 2020.

We lose the House of Representatives, they are going to try to impeach the president. On garbage. It is extra... I could almost argue 2018's almost more important than 2020 at this point. Because we ain't going to get to a 2020 if we lose 2018.

I'm not saying Democrats aren't angry. I'm not saying they're not mobilized. They've had some big wins in Virginia, in Wisconsin, and elsewhere. I'm not saying they're not mobilized. They've had some big wins in Virginia, in Wisconsin, and elsewhere. I'm simply suggesting to you that the media is trying to set up a narrative now to generate Democrat excitement that there's a massive blue wave everywhere.

There isn't. There is a blue wave in some purple states. There is a blue wave in some blue states. Now, why am I bringing this up because yesterday joe the big narrative yesterday texas had their first primary the first primary of the 2018 election cycle where they pick candidates for each party as most of you already know and the story was all it was all over joe you name me a liberal outlet i'll show you a story

texas turned purple it's's turning blue waves coming to Texas. Yeehaw! All over the place. Time out, folks. Again, we do facts. We do numbers here. Yeah, there was some decent turnout for the Democrats in Texas. But what were the actual numbers?

So Ted Cruz, who was running largely unopposed, by the way. Now, why does that matter? This is important because this entirely refutes the Texas blue wave narrative that your liberal friends want you to believe. Cruz was running almost unopposed as the incumbent senator of Texas, which means, as Joe knows, and I know having run for office before, it is very hard to get people to show up in a primary election to vote for you when there is nobody running against you. Hey, Joe, can you take off from work and go vote today for me? Why?

There's nobody running against you. Just because. Now, he had nominal opponents, but there was never any doubt Cruz was going to win the Republican Party. None. okay so just to be clear there's a blue wave nobody's supposed to show up to vote for Cruz because he's unopposed relatively the Democrat had an opponent Beto O'Rourke he had a few they had a lot of people running against him. Now, he was the heavy favorite, the Democrat running against Cruz. In the Democrat primary, there was a whole lot of motivation, Joe, to show up. Yeah.

He had a lot of opponents, but people liked Beto O'Rourke, right? Mm-hmm. Now, you would say to yourself, just let me set this up, that if there was a blue wave, that there would be a massive turnout of Democrats in a Democrat primary that was contested because there was motivation to vote because your guy is being actively contested by someone else. If you don't vote, your guy is going to lose. And at the motivation on the Republican side, if there was a blue wave, would be down for

a number of reasons. Number one, there's a blue wave. And number two two there's no reason to vote Cruz was relatively unopposed well the air quotes blue wave was like as people sent to me on Twitter which is brilliant you ever get those blue flushers in the toilet bowl you put those things in and you flush and there's a blue wave as you flush. This was the blue wave. What were the final numbers?

Ted Cruz got 1.3 million votes. Beto O'Rourke got 640,000. 1.3, 641, 1.3, 641. I'm reasonably confident that Ted Cruz did quite well. Keep in mind, there was almost no reason to show up and vote for him. Even the governor was running relatively unopposed at the top of the ticket in the Texas primary. Folks, be very cautious of these media stories. Again, just because I got a couple more pieces of data on you for you.

Show up. You got to dance in 2018. OK, there's no doubt This is a critical election. But let's stop all playing into the media hype all the time. Everything's a blue wave with them. Everything. Meanwhile, the Tea Party thing was just a bunch of pissed off Republicans showing up at D.C. and screaming and yelling and spitting on people.

A story debunked hundreds of times over. But when it's the Democrats who are energized, this is democracy in action. There's a blue wave coming. Ain't it? Not in Texas it wasn't. Now, a couple more numbers for you. I'm going to put another article in the show notes today from Axios. Please check it out. Here's the title. Remember, Joe,

the media narrative out there is there's a blue wave coming. Here's the title of the Axios piece. Exclusive polls. Big warning signs for Senate Dems. Huh? Big warning. I didn't read that wrong.

Big warning sign for Senate Dems. Folks, there are, what, 10 or so Senate Democrats running, who are running in states won by Donald Trump. Most of them are in a world of trouble right now. Let me just go through a couple of them quick. Montana. How did a Democrat get elected in Montana? I love you, Montanans.

How did you elect this guy? Seriously, email me. I'd love to hear it. I don't know much about Tester. So John Tester, he is the incumbent Democrat in Montana. He is down in a poll right now to a generic Republican. By the way, generic. They haven't even picked a Republican yet to run.

55-42, West Virginia. By the way, this is the blue wave, Joe, the tidy ball wave. West Virginia, Joe Manchin, incumbent Democrat, 43%. Generic Republican, 52%. 52, 43, 52. joe the tidy ball wave uh west virginia joe mansion incumbent democrat 43 generic republican 52 52 43 52 says to me mansion's in a little bit of trouble claire mccaskill from missouri who narrowly escaped uh being thrown off her perch last time 44 josh hawley who appears to be uh the lead republican in that case 52 44 mccask McCaskill, 52. Republican, 44, 52. Yeah, that's quite a blue wave right there. Indiana, Joe Donnelly, the Democrat, 45%.

Generic Republican, 51. North Dakota, Heidi Heitkamp, 47%. Generic Republican, 49. Here, we even get into states where they're swinging at best, usually leaning Democrat. Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin, 49. Republican, generic Republican, 46. Within the margin of error. Debbie Stabenow, Michigan, 49.

Generic Republican, 45. Now the races get a little tougher, but still we've pretty much cleaned up so far in the polls. Ohio, Sherrod Brown, Republican, Renacci, Brown, 50. Renacci, 45. Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, 52. Lou Barletta, 43. Down here in Florida, Nelson, 50. Renacci, 45. Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, 52. Lou Barletta, 43. Down here in Florida, Nelson, 53. Scott, Rick Scott, who may be the nominee there, 43.

So in a little bit of trouble in those races down ballot. But folks, that is not a blue wave by any measure. Let's not be ridiculous, okay? Little gaslighting going on here. Gaslighting, yeah, baby. I covered that, by the way, for those of you who checked me out last night on NRA TV. You can check it out on Roku, by the way. Thank you for everyone who's been watching. You can also just

go for free. I've been getting a lot of questions. How can I watch it? NRATV.com. There's no cost to you, nothing. Just NRA TV.com, 530 Eastern Time. I'm on every day. It's a new show called We Stand with Dan Bongino. Thanks to everybody who checked it out. Please spread the word on Twitter. I covered that gaslighting last night. Joe's right.

Repeat a lie over and over. There's a blue wave. People start to believe it's true. And you may say to yourself, well, what's the benefit of repeating that story over and over again? The benefit is to disenfranchise Republicans from showing up. Oh, it's not worth it, Joe. Don't vote 2018. The media said there's a tiny bull wave coming.

Don't you worry about it. Everybody stay. Listen, in some places there will be. It may not. Don't you worry about it. Everybody stay up. Listen, in some places there will be. It may not be a great 2018, but it's not going to be a blue wave like the Democrats want you to believe. All right. One last story here. I have a story up. I put it yesterday in the show notes. I'll put it up again today. Some of you may have missed it because it's a fascinating one from Business Insider. You know, liberalism is a forest fire. It's a forest fire that destroys everything it touches. Liberalism is a bed of hypocrisy. Liberalism is not a set of principles. It's a set of means to an end. It is a means to gain control over your money. It is a means to get control over your kids. It means to get control over your healthcare, your business, and everything else. That's what liberalism is. Liberalism is not

a set of guiding principles. Liberalism is not a set of guiding principles. Liberalism is not based on principles. Liberals will say anything in order to advance power. Again, not to repeat shows in the past, but one of the bedrock principles of liberalism has always been increased taxes, give the government more of your money, except when they needed to attack Trump on the tax cuts. Nancy Pelosi said, well, these tax cuts are crumbs, meaning they weren't enough. Well, what is it, man? So are they not enough? Or are we supposed to give the government more money?

They lie constantly about their principles. Ironically, the greatest damage suffered by a subset of our population, by liberalism, are liberals. Well, you may say, what do you mean by that liberalism's greatest impact is obviously in places where liberals have monopolistic control over the people where liberals run baltimore san francisco they're all run by liberals so liberalism ironically does the most damage to liberals who dominate places run by liberals. I bring this up because Business Insider has a really great piece about U-Haul rates.

Like U-Haul rates, what the heck does that have to do with liberalism? This is a great story. Joe, it is so hard to get a U-Haul out of San Francisco that U-Haul's charging up to $2,000 a truck to move because so many people are leaving San Francisco in droves. Liberals, by the way, who are moving into places like Texas and other places like Nevada and are altering the politics there from relatively conservative back to liberalism. Now, I ask you this, and this is a simple question, folks. I say this in the most non-humorous fashion possible. It's a genuine question for the liberals listening. If liberalism is so great, why are liberals evacuating places run by liberals you voted in?

It's a serious question. San Francisco, also in the piece, by the way, is the number one city for evacuations. It's like Snake Plissken. Remember Snake? Kurt Russell escaped from New York. This is escape from San Francisco. People can't get out quick enough. If this is such a fantastic place to live, run by liberals, dominated by the liberal ethos, why is it that liberals can't escape fast enough and U-Haul doesn't even have enough trucks to get the heck out of there? Why?

Why is it that when, I wrote a piece for Conservative Review a while ago about the exodus from liberal states, why is it that when you look at gross income in states, the most amount of income, in other words, people taking their jobs and their money out of states, are leaving from blue states. Why is it that those states have negative adjusted gross incomes, people leaving, and states like Florida, Texas, Nevada,

why is it that those states are winning? Oh, because they have no state income tax and are run by relatively conservative legislatures and governors in some cases? Why? Why is that? Why can't you explain that away? It's the liberal paradox. The liberal paradox is we love liberalism,

we elect liberals, we run our cities based on liberal principles, and then we move out of them years later when liberalism kicks in. Can you please explain that away to me? Please read the piece of Business Insider. Send it, by the way, just so you know. Then we'll wrap this up.

Send it to your friends, your liberal friends, and ask them for an explanation. I am guaranteeing you. What do they call it? The British debating method when you tell your opponent what your opponent's going to say before he answers. That way he can't say it. Here's what Joseph's going to say here. And then when he says that he looks like a fool right here's what they're going to say they're going to say well it's not just liberalism it's people move for all kinds of reasons they do and all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons are moving out of blue states to red states. Joe, in some limited circles, we would call that a clue that there's some pattern here

amongst blue states that irks people enough to get the hell out of them as quick as possible. That's the answer they're going to give you. It's not happening with red states. People aren't leaving red states for blue states. They're leaving blue states with red states. People aren't leaving red states for blue states. They're leaving blue states for red states. It doesn't matter. I'm telling you, they got six foot thick skulls. None of this is going to matter. All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in. I really appreciate it. Please go to my website, Bongino.com, subscribe to my email list, read that Axios piece. The tablet mag piece about surveillance is really, really terrific.

And I'll also put a few other articles in there I saw that were really interesting, especially the one about share buybacks that explains the silliness of the liberal argument. All right, folks, see you all tomorrow. Thanks a lot. 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.