The Dan Bongino Show - Ep. 676 What Happened Last Night and Why It Matters

Episode Date: March 14, 2018

Summary: In this episode I break down the special election in Pennsylvania last night and why the results matter to you. I also discuss ways to fight back against potential political losses in the upcoming midterms. I address the stunning revelations about more Obama administration connections to the spying scandal. Finally, I cover school choice and an Obamacare lawsuit that could be the victory we’ve been waiting for.   News Picks: Republicans are beginning to worry after last night’s special election.   The recent hit job on Trump’s education secretary was full of lies.   The media can’t make up their minds on what the firing of Rex Tillerson means.    Is Obamacare in real trouble in the court system?    Another stunning revelation about another Obama administration official and the spying scandal.   Did Obama use Fusion GPS too?    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 hey welcome to the dan bongino show producer joe how are you today i'm on the right side of the dirt so things are

cool man yes you are on the upside yes sir downside we like that yeah we definitely like that after that session this weekend of jujitsu i got back into rolling i'm feeling i'm feeling like under the dirt maybe a little more comfortable at this point. Above the dirt, man, everything hurts always. These joints getting old. I remember when I was a kid, you got beat up a little bit. You fell asleep for six to eight hours. You woke up. You feel

great. Now you wake up. You feel worse. It's amazing. Don't you feel that? You wake up and you're like, oh, I wish I wouldn't have went to sleep. The cesspool of sore chemicals creeps in while you're sleeping at night. Amazing. Oh, boy. Yesterday, a lot of news to cover.

Obviously, this Pennsylvania race. I'm going to give you some analysis on this. You're not going to hear in other places. Listen, it was bad. There's no way around it. And I'll tell you, though, importantly, why it was bad what happened in pennsylvania there was a congressional race last night i'll tell you why we shouldn't jump off the bridge here why it's not full-blown panic mode yet no and i'll also give you some inspirational words

from someone who has been through a brutal congressional loss just like that i guess you could say though that uh sacone got lamb blasted. He got lamb blasted last night. That is absolutely correct by our buddy, and I use that term very loosely, Conor Lamb, who ran, by the way, as a Republican, although he was a Democrat, which was interesting. And I got a couple of inspirational words on this because I don't want anybody to, you know, people, we all tend to, we don't want to be like liberals who lost their minds with Trump derangement syndrome after the thing. There's ways to, you know, people, we all tend to, we don't want to be like liberals who lost their minds with Trump derangement syndrome after the thing. There's ways to fight back here, folks. And I'm going to give you a few of those.

Also, a couple stories here on some incredible breaking news yesterday, which if you're a regular listener to the show, you've already heard about the Obamagate spying scandal. But a couple of bombs were dropped yesterday on this thing. And I did an appearance on Hannity last night where I discussed some of this stuff, so we'll get into that. All right, today's show brought to you by buddies at iTarget, one of my favorite sponsors here. Listen, anybody can fire

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All right. So I'm going to tie in a Christian-themed movie in the race in Pennsylvania last night. You're probably like, what the heck? Where do I start? I got an email yesterday from a guy and this this is where this is all going and it was a great email I read all of your emails and I can't respond to every one of them but keep sending them I I promise you I read them some of them are really long and I have to kind of skim portions of them but I will I read them and to show you I read them someone sent me an email

yesterday you know who you are and it was great it was a quote show from a Roman poet um in the republic uh Quintus Ineos and the quote goes as follows the victor is not victorious if the vanquished does not consider himself so you're darn right there are no victories. That is a great quote. That is an accurate quote. And it describes where we are now in the culture wars by the liberals, the political wars they're waging against us. They want us to feel vanquished.

But as the quote says, the quote victor is not victorious if the vanquished does not consider himself so we lost last night okay we lost uh the race although it's still not decided because of the slim margin of victory by the democrat conor lamb in pennsylvania's 18th congressional district this is not a a a major loss unless we consider ourselves vanquished and we walk off the field, take our toys and go home. Now, what happened last night? Why should this matter to you?

Folks, it was a loss. OK, and a bad one. Here's why. The Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district is a solidly Republican district. It is a in the Cook PVI. I'll tell you what that is in a second. But it is an R Republican plus 11. A Republican plus 11 district. The Cook PVI named after a political analyst last name Cook stands for the Partisan Value Index. It is a measure of how Republican or Democrat a congressional district is. Republican or Democrat a congressional district is.

It measures the lean of the district, the Republican lean of the district, based on the average over two presidential elections of how deeply Republican or how deeply Democrat it is. R plus 11, Joe, is pretty darn Republican. Yeah. Plus 11, Joe, is pretty darn Republican. Yeah. To give you an example of how Republican-leaning it is, I ran in a district in Maryland, a congressional district, which at the time was a D plus 6, a Democrat plus 6, and was considered universally by everyone who I spoke to

had any experience in politics to be entirely unwinnable. Now, we came within a point of winning that race in what would have been a huge upset at the time, but we didn't win. We lost. That was a D plus six. This was an R plus 11. a six this was an r plus 11 nearly twice as as uh republican leaning as the district i ran and was democrat leaning and it looks like this guy lamb may actually have pulled it off

folks that's bad it does me no good or you any good for me to sugarcoat that and go, ah, listen, nothing to worry about. Now, Saccone may pull it out. Apparently, there's a lot of absentee ballots out. There's some military ballots out. The chances of him pulling it out, I think, are unlikely at this point. I saw some of the absentee counts from one of the counties. They were going 60-40 for Lamb, the Democrat.

So I don't see that being likely at this point, but it does me no good to lie to you and go, ah, nothing to worry about here. There is something to worry about. But until we consider ourselves vanquished, they don't win jack squat. I'm going to tie this into our Christian movie in a minute, but let me give you some explanations

as to what I think is happening here so you understand how we can fight back electorally. Some takeaways. There's a suburbs network effect going on here, folks. You may not hear this analysis anywhere else. You may, but the problem we're having now, which we didn't have in the presidential election to that degree with Trump, is if you were touching a suburb anywhere as a congressional district, Joe, and some of these guys, the Pennsylvania 18 had some areas that did touch suburbs. Suburbs are now turning against Trump in droves at this point. Now, I have a theory for why that is. I call it the network of the suburbs network effect.

A lot of people who live in the suburbs, Joe, work where? In the cities. Yeah, in the cities, right? I mean, we see it around where you are in Baltimore. Joe works in Baltimore at WCBM. What are the suburbs? Baltimore County, you know, you have the area surrounding Towson, around there. Yeah, yeah, exactly. A lot of those people who live in the suburbs work in the cities. The cities are virulently, virulently anti-Trump for a number of reasons why cities vote Democrat. They rely heavily

on government services, whether it's public transportation, policing, there tends to be, that's beyond the scope of this podcast, but obviously cities tend to lean Democrat. Again, the reason is they rely a lot on government services. That's one of many, many reasons. I don't want me to oversimplify it. When you work in the suburbs and you're constantly surrounded by people who are, you know, Trump, I don't even know how to say it's a family friendly show. Trump's, Trump's a, he's a bad guy. I don't, I can't use expletives on the show. It's worse than that. You all know how Trump derangement syndrome sounds. That's why I'm hesitant to open my yapper on this one. But when you're surrounded all day by people who rip this guy to shreds

based on just pure emotion, not reality, what's happening, after a while, folks, that's going to take effect. So you have this suburbs network effect where you have congressional districts that are touching a suburb somewhere. We saw it in the Ossoff race, too,

even though Ossoff georgia candidate who was the one of the first special elections afterwards they had places that touch suburbs too and touch cities there's this suburb network defect if your congressional district touches the suburbs you are seeing people being contaminated by a non-stop anti-Trump tirade emanating from the cities. Secondly, so, okay, so takeaway number one from the race lesson, again, you touch the suburbs, your congressional district, you better start mobilizing now and you better start speaking out. Number two, voters right now who voted for Trump in the presidential election are not all, but many of them have no allegiance whatsoever to the GOP.

And after the GOP's reluctance to do anything outside of the tax cuts, I don't blame them. They're not giving them anything to vote for. What are they giving them to vote for? We had the tax cuts. Great. What else? What about Planned Parentharenthood what about sticking up for the second amendment rights what about getting rid of Obamacare that failed these you know you have to move on agenda items you can't just sit back and rest on your laurels and go hey well listen you know we cut taxes okay great that's terrific what are we doing about spending ah Ah, not much. Planned Parenthood. Oh, not much. These are core items that matter to people, too.

The allegiance is not to the GOP. It's to Trump. How did that affect the Pennsylvania 18 race? Trump wasn't on the ballot. It was a special election for a congressional race. It was Saccone versus Lamb. Now, you can say oh well Trump showed up for folks listen people don't vote for endorsements they don't I'm telling even if it

is Trump they vote for candidates and the bottom line is Trump wasn't on the ballot and the allegiance was not to the brand it was to Trump so if Trump's name isn't on there a lot of people just didn't want to show up but But a lot of Democrats did. Because their allegiance is not even anymore to the Democrat brand. They'll vote Democrat. But more importantly, it's to the anti-Trump brand. So there is an anti-Trump tidal wave growing out there amongst Trump derangement syndrome people who are spreading the anti-Trump virus everywhere. Again, based on, at this point, what appears to be, Joe, emotion alone.

Because remember, Lamb ran almost as a soft Republican. The allegiance to the anti-Trump brand is being driven by anger. So the point I'm trying to make is the excitement to get out for the GOP, then get out vote is not there because the excitement is for Trump, not the GOP. Make sense, Joe? Trump's not on the ballot. But the anger at anti-Trump is getting some people with Trump derangement syndrome to come out and vote for a brand they're not necessarily associated with, the Democrat,

but they associate it as being anti-Trump. And anger is a more powerful motivator than the false excitement for the GOP brand, which isn't there. I hope that makes sense. Anger is a more powerful motivator to action. We saw it even during the Obama years. And there's nothing wrong with saying that.

No. During the Obama years, Joe, people felt like their health care plans were under attack, which they were through this awful Obamacare. They felt like their Second Amendment rights were under attack, that their income and their businesses were under attack. We saw it in Maryland with the rain tax. When Governor Martin O'Malley instituted a rain tax, people were getting bills for thousands of dollars for attacks on the impervious services on their property. People were mad. That's a powerful motivator. But there wasn't enough corresponding commensurate excitement on the other side

for people to get out and vote for a guy who wasn't Trump. That's in a way to be expected. But we should never, ever accept it. Now. Oh, yeah. One oh yeah, one more. Here's a bit of good news for this, by the way. So it was an R plus 11 district. That's kind of a big downside.

This was a big upset. There's no way to paint it any other way. But the district's going to be gone in the upcoming election. Pennsylvania, there was a Supreme Court case in Pennsylvania. It's a Pennsylvania Supreme Court case where they wiped out the district lines. It's a bad case. It's a terrible case. But it looks like the district as we know it's going to be gone anyway. So this may have been that the reality is for as much as a message victory as this was, and it was, Joe, again, that's the point I'm making. Doesn't mean no good to lie to you here, right?

As a tactical victory for advancing Democrat policy initiatives, it is as irrelevant a victory as you're ever going to find. Yes, it's a flip from a Republican to a Democrat. The election day is coming up this November. That district's probably not even going to exist. So tactically speaking, don't lose any sleep over it. But messaging-wise, make no mistake, this was significant for the left and it doesn't do me any good to sell you otherwise. Now, how does this tie into a Christian themed movie out there? Folks, you know, the left frequently exchanges cultural power for political power and vice versa. When they have political power like they did under

Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat House and a Democrat Senate, they will use that political power to implement the powers of the state and decrease the power of the individual. They will take your money. They will take your health care through higher taxes, through Obamacare. They will destroy school choice programs to send your kids to schools they choose, not you choose. The Democrats will use political power endlessly. When they don't have political power right now, they't have the senate they don't have the house they don't have the white house they will exchange what they don't have in political power for cultural power you're seeing it today with these walkouts where they're you know they're they're they're

using basically kids to advance one of their agenda items yeah meanwhile suppressing the views of other kids who may have different opinions. This is what the Democrats do. They love cultural power. Now, with relationship to our, with referencing the quote we started with, the victor is not victorious if the vanquished does not consider himself so.

Why are we vanquishing cultural power? So the point I'm trying to make here is the Democrats may well, very well be on the road to taking back political power, which they will use. But why don't we emulate their strategy? Remember, when they lose political power, like they don't have it now, they just take over through the culture, do shaming on college campuses. Do Hollywood movies making us look like idiots. Do TV commercials, putting messages in television shows we're all supposed to watch,

making us look like idiots in the media. That's what they do. Why don't we pay them back? Folks, there are ways to do this and we have to start looking at moving from political power to cultural power seamlessly if we lose. Folks, we may lose the

House. We may lose the Senate in this upcoming election. I don't think we're going to lose the Senate, by the way. I think there's a good chance we lose the House. And I think Trump stands a decent chance of getting reelected. But we should be moving seamlessly to the cultural realm and we should take it. Now, there's a christian themed movie out let me just caveat the throw a caveat in there buyer beware here all right i have no actually it's not buyer beware in the sense but i just want to put this out i have no financial stake in this movie at all i don't know anybody associated with it the producers um i personally have never met any of them i'm just telling you there's a

Christian-themed movie out right now. What is it called? I can only imagine about the song. If you go to church, you've probably heard this song. It's become very popular. It's a great song. The Christian-themed movie out now is about that song and the writing of that song.

Folks, I'm all about dancing. As you know know you gotta dance we gotta dance baby dance i told you that did the whole show on that thank you for all the tremendous dancing stories you've been sending to me go listen to the show you'll know what i mean but there are ways to dance every day to start to take back the cultural side of this equation from the democrats if we lose political power and this is one of them. I went today. I'll be more than happy to tweet out the photo of my receipt, but I just went before

the show and bought a ticket to this movie. Folks, I'll be honest with you. I'm probably not going to go. I don't think I'm even going to have the time. Go see it. If you can't see it, buy a ticket. They're like, Dan, that's crazy. You're asking me to buy a ticket to a movie I have no financial interest in and I may not even be able to see? Buy a ticket.

Why? Folks, how many of you, any of you go to business school or take a business course? A lot of you have. You've probably heard of SWOT analysis. It's not SWOT like a SWOT team. It's SWOT with an O. Strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. They teach you this in business school.

It's an interesting matrix that you can use in strategic analysis in your business. And basically, the gist of it is, how do you mitigate weaknesses by mitigating threats and leveraging opportunities? weaknesses by mitigating threats and leveraging opportunities? How do you leverage a strength by mitigating a threat and leveraging an opportunity? It's a pretty good tool for businesses to see new opportunities in the future by brainstorming. It's one of the few things in business school you learn, along with like five forces analysis and net present value, that may actually help you in business later on. I actually learned a lot in business school. I mean that. I had a really great time there. But SWOT analysis here applies in this case. How do we mitigate a weakness in the culture war? By conquering a threat. What's that threat? That threat to us has always been Hollywood.

And I don't mean it in a conspiracy theory way. We're not liberals here, okay? We're realists. But it is a threat. Hollywood is clearly overwhelmingly biased against conservatives. I mean, just take the actors. Just go follow them on Twitter. It's not hard.

They hate us. They hate Trump. They hate the Second Amendment. They love big government. These are not things we believe in. This is a threat to our ideology. I'm not talking about threat using a basic SWAT analysis here? We take it. We take their stronghold. They can't stand the success of Christian-themed movies. It drives them crazy. They can't stand it. That Sean Hannity's Let There Be Light, which I think is out on dvd i do know sean but again i have no financial interest in this at all zero do what you want with your own money i'm

telling you what i did and i lead by example i will be buying the sean's dvd let there be light of his christian movie which did very well generated seven million in sales on a three million dollar budget pretty darn good return, if you ask me. And this, I can only imagine, I already bought a ticket. Came out to $12.17 on Fandango. $12.17. I'm probably not going to make it. Go buy a ticket.

Take it. Take their stronghold. Conquer their stronghold conquer their stronghold spend no money whatsoever on any of their sex drugs and violent fueled anti-conservative garbage don't buy a ticket anywhere on their stuff otherwise but when you see a christian movie folks some of them because they're christian movies but doesn't make them great some of them may not be any good. Buy the ticket. I don't even care if you go. Buy the ticket and dance.

Because it will take their stronghold. Pretty soon it will. They are seeing right now, Hollywood men, believe me when I tell you, it is scaring the hell out of them. They are seeing right now that they are going to have to change a lot of their marketing plan, a lot of their money allocation into these movies because this is the only movies people will see. But you may say to yourself, and this is a fair enough criticism because I can already see some of the emails, which is cool.

I don't mind. You may say, well, why would we enrich Hollywood producers even if they make Christian films? Folks, we're not going to change these people. These people are embedded in the cities I just told you about where the network effects are real. They are going to stay liberal in perpetuity. But gosh, how great would it be

if we can force them in their own liberal strongholds to put out movies and information which advance our cause not theirs they're not going anywhere they will find a way to earn money let's make them earn their keep by producing what we want, not what they want. And remember, when you're doing what your opponent wants you to do, you are probably doing the wrong thing for yourself strategically. We want them to do the wrong thing for themselves strategically because they're our opponents. We want them to do that. Don't watch any of their crap shows on TV.'t watch any of it but when you see a christian movie buy a ticket buy a ticket i did it i went out i don't i don't speak with forked tongue here i bought that movie risen

it was okay i bought the dvd you know i I bought the DVD for the movie Risen when it was free on cable. I'm not kidding. I could have hit record on cable. I bought it anyway. Take their stronghold. Because there's a darn good chance we may lose political power. we may lose political power. The anti-Trump wave of anger, we may not have enough excitement in the midterms. I think in 2020 with Trump on the ballot, we will. But in 2018, there may not be enough pro-GOP excitement because of their lack of accomplishments to overcome the anti-Trump anger. But don't consider yourself vanquished.

We move seamlessly into the cultural realm and we fight these skirmishes. It's a guerrilla war. You know, you lose on a bathroom issue here, you move into entertainment there. You lose on the entertainment thing. You move seamlessly. You make them fight a 30-front war. You make them fight on so many fronts, they get fatigued like they've been trying to fatigue us. But the difference between them and us is they will feel vanquished because they're snowflakes and we're not.

We will be victorious in the culture wars if we stick it out because they don't have the guts for this in the long haul. They're pajama boys. Remember the Obama ad? The pajama kid with the hot cocoa? That's them. You know who I'm talking about?

These are men who get manicures. These are the betas. The beta males. We're the alphas. We have the guts. We have the gusto. We have the physical and mental strength to stay in this fight for the long haul. This is your fight. This is your dance. We lose politics right into the culture war. We lose in the culture war right back into politics. Fatigue them, wear them down, make them fight everywhere until they are mentally

exhausted. I can't say this enough. Keep moving. Shift seamlessly one front to the next front, to the next front, to the next front. Do what they do to us. Take their strongholds, leverage strengths, mitigate weaknesses. Where's our weakness? Our weakness is in culture and academia. How do we leverage opportunities there? How do we mitigate threats there? Oh, send your kids to Hillsdale. Send them somewhere else.

Go to a college class. Get a C in that class for promoting conservative values and publish that thing everywhere on Facebook and humiliate the professor who did it to you. This is how we dance. Don't worry too much about these political losses. Worry enough to get you to the polls. But worry is not a substitute for action.

I'm asking you to do things. Get out there and do something. Worrying ain't going to fix anything. I'm smiling today. You should be smiling too. It was a loss. Doesn't do us any good to paint it otherwise. But let's get back in the fight and start doing the next day.

Because the Democrats, I'll just leave it with this. The Democrats and the liberals do not have the guts to fight this out in the long run. They just don't. This is the beta pajama boy crowd. the snowflakes. That's not us. All right. Today's show also brought to you by, excuse me, my buddy said filter by. There's a lot of screamers and yellers out there on social media about the environment, but I bet a lot of those yellers screaming about how industry's polluting the air and destroying the planet probably haven't changed their air filters in forever. They're probably pretty dirty. Mind where I moved in.

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notes uh please check it out by rowan scarborough and And it's about a book that, now the book, I highly recommend you do not buy it. It is written by two left-leaning authors and it propagates a lot of myths in the book about, you know, Logan Act nonsense. And I don't really, I don't like the whole idea that the core focus of the book, I think, is, in other words, on defending the Democrat narrative in this case. But there are some interesting revelations in the book. It's by Isikoff, Michael Isikoff, and David Korn. And one of the things they throw out there in this new book on the Russia tale is that the person who connected Christopher Steele, the foreign agent working for the Clinton campaign to go gather dirt on Trump and who put together the dossier, the person who connected him with the FBI or

okayed the meeting, is probably a better way to say it, okayed the meeting between him and the FBI was one Victoria Nuland. Now, if I always tell you, remember the names. And I went on Hannity last night and I put this out there and got a ton of email. Matter of fact, I'll be on the radio today on Hannity because they were very excited about the connections I had made. Now, those of you regular listeners probably know this connection already. Why is that name drop in this Washington Times piece yesterday important? Victoria Nuland worked at the State Department. So according to this book,

she somehow inserts herself into this and contacts or is contacted by the FBI and okays a meeting between the FBI and Christopher Steele, a guy who's already known to multiple people in the State Department who know the Clintons because of his work on a prior case. Now, I find it hard to believe that Newland didn't know he was also working for the Clinton campaign to generate anti-Trump stuff. Who is Newland? Newland's the former chief of staff to a man named Strobe Talbot, who was a high-level diplomat in the Bill Clinton administration. Who is Strobe Talbot's brother-in-law? Cody Scheer.

You remember this, John? I sure do, yeah. Who was Cody Scheer? Cody Scheer was working with Sid Blumenthal in Libya. Sid Blumenthal, Hillary Clinton's right-hand guy, one of them, was working with Sid Blumenthal in Libya and also passing information to the State Department to Jonathan Weiner about more dossier-related stuff.

There was a second dossier that came from Blumenthal. So look, folks, this network never, ever ends. I keep telling you this was a Clinton scam the whole time. So now think about it. The connection between the FBI and Christopher Steele is okayed by a woman named Victoria Nuland working in the State Department. Nuland was the chief of staff to Strobe Talbot in the Clinton administration. Strobe Talbot's brother-in-law was Cody Scheer. Cody Scheer is working with sid blumenthal who is also passing dossier related information to jonathan weiner at the state department that is also making it to the fbi

you can't make this stuff up one big happy family it's what they all know each other i've been trying to tell you the whole time that everybody involved in this case has either some connection to the clintons or some connection to a scandal and the Clintons that they needed to cover up by generating negative information on Trump. There was another revelation yesterday too, by the way, that's important, but I just, I don't want you to lose this one. So the anti-Trump information in the dossier, the nonsense about Russia and all this other stuff comes from two sources, folks. It comes from Sid Blumenthal, who works with the Clintons all the time, and who's over in Libya doing his thing and has some contracts involved with Libya.

And the second source is Christopher Steele, a British spy paid essentially by the Clinton campaign to go gin up information on Trump from Russia. Those are the two sources of information of all of this stuff, all the lies. How they get into the federal government on the information superhighway is now clear as day. Steele gives the information to the FBI. The meeting to meet with the FBI is okayed by Victoria Nuland. Nuland used to work with Strobe Talbot. Talbot's brother-in-law is Cody Scheer. Cody

Scheer is working with Sid Blumenthal, who is the other pathway of information into the federal government for anti-Trump stuff. This was all a Clinton scam the whole time. It's becoming clear as day. Now, again, if you listen to the show, you probably know that. Now, another stunning revelation. Please read the Washington Times piece, by the way. It's a good one. Another piece in the Daily Caller I'll put in the show notes today. That's a must read. Also in the book.

And again, don't please, do what you want. It's your money. But I would not buy this book. They are not our friends. But I think to maintain some patina of credibility, Joe. They had to put some information in there to act like they were doing some investigative work, right? But there's another revelation in there that is just jaw-dropping.

That apparently, in the Obama-Romney race, one of the opposition research firms hired to do anti-Romney opposition research was Fusion GPS. terms hired to do anti-romney opposition research was fusion gps folks it never ever ends fusion gps the same company hired by the clintons who hired christopher steel to go get the fake Russia information about Trump. The Obama administration used the exact same outfit to go bang up Mitt Romney in the Obama-Romney presidential election. Wow.

This was a setup the whole time. The levers were already in play. The buttons were already inside to push them. Hey, we got a guy for you go try these fusion gps guys they'll go generate information whatever you want we use them on romney they're great folks that read the daily caller piece it's great it's great it'll be in the show notes today obama used fusion gps too they made a massive payment to them. Obama also made a payment to Perkins Coie, the law firm, which hired Fusion GPS for the Clintons. The circle of deceit, folks, never ends.

It's sad. It really is how people are still getting snookered by this entire thing. All right. I got two other stories today involved news of the day, but they're important and there are takeaways you need to know about. So number one, actually, well, that would be number four based on stories. But have you seen the 60 Minutes piece they did on Betsy DeVos? It was a hit job. I've heard a couple parts of it. Yeah. Yeah. Now, Betsy DeVos. It was a hit job. I've heard a couple parts of it. Yeah. Now, Betsy DeVos is

the Secretary of Education. And it bothered me a bit. I'll be candid with you because some of the answers to the questions that were asked by Leslie Stahl of Betsy DeVos, there was an easy answer to them. And I try not to pile on the train because I really respect a lot of what she's done, Betsy DeVos. But they weren't answered well. And of course, it was made to look even worse, Joe, by 60 Minutes,

which obviously is interested in a left-wing agenda. The questions were about DeVos being the Secretary of Education. She is a big believer, as I am, and she's done incredible philanthropic work on this and school choice and allowing parents to pick the schools they want to go to. And of course, Leslie Stahl had a pile on and she made a number of absurd, outrageous claims. And I just wish Betsy DeVos would have answered the questions differently. I'll get to the specific claims in a second and we'll debunk them. But the entire premise and line of her questioning Leslie Stahl was this, was, hey, well, you're

visiting all these school choice schools, Joe, and you're doing your thing over there, but why haven't you visited any public schools or a large number of public schools that are failing to see what's going on there. And she panicked a bit. And then she started going along this line of questioning too that, well, hey, that's great, these school choice programs, but don't they take money from public schools? A point we've debunked repeatedly on this show, which she could have debunked, but she didn't. So I would have stopped right there and said, let me get this straight because this is what you have to do with liberals when you're debating with them. Don't forget this, folks. Liberals will always try to lose you in the wonkery. That's what they do.

Liberals love wonkery and they love to lose you in it. They don't want to talk about big, bold ideas. That's not their thing. What they want to talk about is they want to talk about specific cherry pick studies and things like that in the hopes to lose you down like a rabbit hole. So what you have to do with liberals when you're debating with them, and I highly recommend you take this tactic, is keep it about umbrella ideas all the time. Because for whatever study you throw out there, they will throw out another cherry pick study. Perfect examples on gun control. They'll say all the time on gun control, well, you know, we should model Australia and the United Kingdom because, meanwhile, the Australia thing is nonsense in and of itself, but they'll say, look, they haven't had as many gun homicides as we've had, and they have strict gun control.

And then, you know, you could come back and say things like, well, what about Chicago? What about Washington, D.C.? What about Brazil? They have strict gun control and the gun homicide rate there is, you know, is high. The point I'm trying to make, you see where I'm going, Joe, is they'll always find a counterexample and they'll always massage the statistics. So the way you have to argue with

them is you've got to take it out to kind of first principles here. And what we should have said, what DeVos should have said to Leslie Stahl is, so the point you're trying to make by saying something like school choice takes money from public schools and a lot of a lot of these charter schools are public schools by the way too but the point you're trying to make leslie is that money equals the results correct well i mean that's what they're trying to say, right, Joe? Yeah, exactly. If Stahl's premise is that money leaving public schools is a bad thing, what you're trying to suggest is that money, taxpayer money,

being put into public schools is a good thing. Okay, so now you have them on that point. Now, where you double down on them and where you hammer home and where you go for it right after, you say, well, okay, listen, we have spent 400% more dollars at the state, federal, and local level on education in the last 40, 50 plus years. We have seen education scores flatline. So before I dig into your premise and acknowledge your premise that more money

equals better results, you're going to have to prove to me what you just said is in fact true. And what you just said is categorically false. Some of the states in the union in the United States that have low per student spending have great results.

Some that have high student spending have horrible results and some that have high student spending have horrible results and vice versa meaning that clearly there is no trend for more money better results same thing around the globe some countries that spend half of what we spend on education per student have scores that are far better than we do on on um inter uh internationally recognized metrics of academic success so do you see how when when you combat their overall premise that's why i always take even on gun control i always take it out to the big issue so let me get this straight what you're saying is less less guns equals less gun crime and less homicide. That's what you're saying, right?

Because you want to take guns away. That's what I'm saying. Where is that shown to be true? Well. Where is that shown to be true? Because there are more guns in the United States right now, a lot more guns, and there's less crime. So that's an irrefutable statistic.

Their entire argument after that falls apart. It's not a coaching class i'm not trying to be like your debate coaching mentor here i just having been through political debates and being in the conservative sphere and arguing on tv um almost every night i mean it'll be on tonight again on what is it wednesday or tonight's talker so you know being on every night having to debate in front of three million people every night. After a while, you learn by experience about what liberals do. And that's one of the tricks they lose. They lose you down the rabbit hole, come out of the rabbit hole, keep it at 30,000 feet and they can't win. Now I can back this up. Here's a great, great, great piece by the Daily

Signal today on this Betsy DeVos interview. It'll be on the show notes, but I'll read to you a portion that should matter to you. This is about more money equaling better results in education, which is not true. Nationwide, Joe, per student, spending has increased nearly 30% since 1990 after adjusting for inflation. Stahl's comment, that's the 60 Minutes person there, Stahl's comment that education research is complicated, glosses over increases in taxpayer funding for education,

uninspiring to mixed results, and examples of remarkable student success when parents have opportunities for their child's education. But the significance of average scores and percent funding increases lost on parents that just want their child to succeed. The ability to provide this in South Carolina is so wonderful. It is exactly what Jed needs. Richardson says, we're talking about a parent here. So, one of the points she's trying to make there too is that the spending's increased. The scores are flat.

And I'll get to the scores flat in a second. But that still does not speak to individual parents in school choice-based programs who just want to pull their kids out of schools that are failing them. I mean, try explaining to a parent, and I know I don't want to confuse you here, but try explaining to a parent whose public school is failing

that because a 1.2% increase in a fourth grade score on international metrics is a reason to keep their kid in school. Again, you have to take it out to the big issue. And the big issue on that front is this. Leslie, why are you stopping taxpayers who fund the education system from

taking kids out of schools that are failing? Why? Pull it right out to 30,000 feet. Right out to 30,000 feet and make it about the parent and the choice because that's what it's about. And that was never done in the interview. Another quote from the piece, again, about the spending. According to the nation's report card, a reliable indicator of average student learning state by state, 12th graders are scoring the same today in reading and math as they did in the 1970s.

Whoa. the same today in reading and math as they did in the 1970s. So, folks, the 30,000-foot point that Leslie Stahl was trying to make was a lie. It's disingenuous. She was trying to say, oh, well, look, we've had some creep up in scores, and we've spent all this money. No, you haven't. You have not.

It's just not true. It's wrong. You made it up. You're not robbing money from public schools either. The amount of spending per school has stayed roughly the same. Spending per student's gone up dramatically in a lot of these districts, despite the growth of public school option programs. Can't buy me a love, babe.

No, you can't. And you can't buy education results either. Education results are going to be a function of what we have right now. I mean, don't you, here's an analogy I always give people, right? I spent a lot of time running for office in Maryland. One of the things I always found fascinating about Maryland, which entirely refutes the left's argument that the government should run schools and pay for them with your money, the left's argument that the government should run schools and pay for them with your money is you have you have a system and how it's all this is how it's all about choice right when you're prince george's county maryland which is uh an interesting county in a number of senses

it's it's one of the wealthiest minority counties in the country but they vote largely democrat in prince george's county but the school even though it's there are very wealthy portions of Prince George's County. What's fascinating about Prince George's County, Maryland, is that the public schools are some of the worst in the state, despite the money that's there. There's some of the worst in the state. Yet you have some of these awful public schools in Prince George's County. And then right next door, Joe, you have what else is in Prince George's County, And then right next door, Joe, you have, what else is in Prince George's County? The University of Maryland in College Park. How is that?

They both receive some semblance of government funds, right? Well, University of Maryland is a state school. You have a public school, which is entirely funded by taxpayer funds. Why is it that the University of maryland located in the exact same place in county as these public schools is a it's a terrific school it's very liberal school but it's a it's a wonderful school it's always in like the top 50 for public institutions there why is the university of maryland so good and the public schools right next door so bad? Because you picked the University of Maryland that if they give you a crap product, you're not going to go there.

Liberals, this isn't complicated. These are the kinds of 30,000 foot stories we absolutely have to get through to our liberal friends. Choice matters. Choice matters because it forces the producer of the product to produce a product you want because you have a choice. That's why school choice matters. That's why I was so bothered about this hit piece. So just to sum up before I want to move on to one final story here, because it's important. Money does not equal results. We have spent dramatically more money, triple digit increases since the 70s on education. The scores are flat according to the nation's report card. They've gone nowhere.

So money is not associated with better results. Countries that spend less money get better results. That is not the equation that matters. That equation is nonsensical. Liberals like that equation because liberals want to spend money. That's why. Liberals want to spend government money. And that money winds up in teachers' union coffers which vote for Democrats. That's the sole reason liberals want to advance the argument that money equals results, despite the fact that it doesn't equal results. Secondly, choice matters.

I just gave you the example. You go to colleges that have to attract your services, they produce a good product. You go to public schools that don't have to attract your services because you're forced to go there, all of a sudden they don't produce a good product. That's why. All right, folks, today's show also brought to you by our buddies at Freedom Project Academy. What a seamless transition. That was not intentional, by the way. Talking about crap public schools, right? America's schools are nothing like we remember growing up. We grew up in safety, and learning was more important than safe spaces

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Freedomforschool.com. It's a really great place. All right. This is a big story. I've been holding this for two weeks or so because there's just been so much going on with the Trump thing and the Russia case. Every day is a litany of new news stories. Did you hear what's going on with Obamacare, Joe, in this lawsuit? This is genius.

Which one? There's a lawsuit out there amongst the states. Now, embedded in the tax cut plan, the Trump tax cut plan, was a zeroing out of the individual mandate tax on Obamacare. I hope this doesn't get too complicated, but I'm going to tie it up real simple for you at the end. I promise you. The gist of it is, with Obamacare, no mandate tax, no Obamacare. Okay, so that's where we're going with this.

So you have that in your head. All right. Embedded in the tax cut plan was a zeroing out of the individual mandate tax, meaning this. If Joe Armacost now chooses not to get insurance, that tax you used to have to pay, that penalty under Obamacare is now zero. All right. So according to the Supreme Court

ruling that saved Obamacare, John Roberts, who saved Obamacare unbelievably, ruled that the penalty for not buying Obamacare was in fact a tax. You know, it was very controversial. It's not a tax. So, matter of fact, Obama's people in news interviews said it wasn't a tax. In an interview Obama gave with George Stephanopoulos, he said it wasn't a tax, because he didn't want to run on the time about being a tax hiker. So, what did he do? They claimed, no, it was just a penalty for not buying insurance. Well, a penalty for not doing something is clearly unconstitutional that's where the case was going to get thrown out it didn't get thrown out because john roberts said shockingly oh it's not a penalty joe it's a tax and a tax is constitutional well in a particularly genius move by some republicans who put that in there

they zeroed out the tax and given the severability meaning like hey listen you can't this thing can't be judged in pieces here it has to be judged in total no tax no law all right so states are not that difficult so some states now are suing and there's a lot of optimism in republican circles right now for a bit of good news again after because I don't like to leave you in a bad mood after Pennsylvania last night. There is some really good, healthy optimism in these Republican circles that if the Supreme Court takes this case, another opportunity in Obamacare, that Obamacare is going to be deemed unconstitutional because no tax, no law. And what I love about it is the Democrats are usually very good at messaging. A lot of them got blindsided by this and are now starting to panic a little bit.

But listen, you heard it here first. Not a lot of people are covering this right now. If this lawsuit makes it to the Supreme Court, I'm relatively confident it will be a death spiral for Obamacare, that there's no way it can survive. No tax, no law, and we will be free of the shackles of this legislative abomination, finally. All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in. Please check out my NRA TV show tonight at 5.30 Eastern Time. It's available for free at nratv.com. We're also on Roku, so you can check that out. You can also check us out on Facebook, the NRA TV page. And go to Bongino.com, read the show notes today. I will include an article

from the Washington Examiner about this Obamacare case. It's short and sweet, but it'll explain to you exactly what I just said and how Obamacare may be looking at its last legs. Thank the Lord. Finally, let's get rid of this disaster. All right, folks. Thanks a lot. I'll talk to you all tomorrow. You just heard the Dan Bongino show. Get more of Dan online anytime at conservative review.com. You can also get Dan's podcasts on iTunes or SoundCloud and follow Dan on Twitter 24 seven at D Bongino.