The Dan Bongino Show - Ep. 693 Is This What the FBI is Hiding?

Episode Date: April 6, 2018

Summary: The unprecedented efforts by the FBI to hide the documents describing the origins of the Trump/Russia investigation are all making sense now. In today’s show I discuss the scandalous scheme that could destroy our faith in international intelligence cooperation. I also discuss liberal efforts to manipulate suburban voters and China’s “doomsday weapon” in the trade wars.    News Picks: Devastating new FBI texts uncover a previously unknown meeting in London.    The Dems target the suburbs.   Mystery surrounds Sessions’ DOJ moves.   Gun sales spike again.    Is this China’s doomsday weapon in the trade wars?   Copyright CRTV. All rights reserved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino. Alright, welcome to the Dan Bongino Show. Producer Joe, how are you today? I'm always good on a Friday, Dan-o. You missed my NRA TV show last night, didn't you? Oh, you know what we brought back? The Kangster! Oh, yeah? The Kangster made a return. The Kangster!

You know who we brought back? The Kangster. Oh, yeah? The Kangster made a return. The Kangster. Yeah, Kang from the Young Turks made a return on my NRA TV show last night. For those of you who have been regular listeners, you know, I don't even know how to say it. You know, Kang, the guy from the Young Turks. I know that's not how you pronounce his name.

I really don't care. He's an obnoxious fool, a loud, obnoxious fool. He went after NRA TV, so I did a half an hour show last night and just destroyed the kankster. Remember we had the kankster curve? Oh, yes, I do. A measure of stupidity and the kankster being at the top? Well, I'll be introducing on the NRA

TV show tonight the kankies, you know, like the Peabody's, the Emmy's, and the Tony's. The kankies? My wife thinks it's, or she's like, that's horrendous, that name. It's supposed to be. The Kankies, for the dumbest media commentary of the week, named after Kank from the Young Turks.

Do they make a medicine for that? The Kankies, they probably do. There's probably some Z-Pak or something you can take to eliminate a case of the Kankies. But you'll see my first recipient of the Kankies. So make sure you catch my show tonight, NRA TV, 5.30 p.m. Eastern Time. Hey, I've got a really, 5.30 p.m. Eastern Time. Hey, I've got a really, really cool show for you today. Major League Bombshells yesterday, folks.

It's starting to all make sense now. This entire slow walk by the DOJ, the FBI, Rod Rosenstein, why they are so reluctant to produce information. And I'm bringing this up in light of the conversation we had yesterday about the foundational document that started this Trump-Russia investigation known as the EC, the electronic communication. This was a big deal. I brought it up on yesterday's show,

and the FBI does not want to release it. So yesterday, I spent all day hunting stuff down. Some of you were kind enough to send me some things and calling people and trying to figure out why the FBI is risking a contempt citation from justice to not release what I called yesterday the Genesis document, the document that lays out why they started this investigation into Trump. And it all makes sense now, Joe. It is all coming together. The document that lays out why they started this investigation into Trump. And it all makes sense now, Joe.

It is all coming together. The book's coming together. Everything's coming together. I'm going to get to that today, so don't miss it. Today's show brought to you by our buddies at Filter By, in what may be the greatest ad ever written for the Dan Bongino Show. Filter By, one of America's leading providers of air filters for your HVAC system. It's spring cleaning time

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supporting them. They support us. Yep. Okay. It all makes sense here. As I said, the slow walk. All right. Joe, I have not discussed this with you before the show because I want you, of course, your genuine reaction to everything. The FBI, as I said, is refusing to provide the unredacted document that started this whole investigation into the trump team i know i get it some of you are exhausted about i understand but this is important because i had the bells went off last night i think they're not they're they're they're risking a contempt citation to refuse to provide this information while they started it. Because as Kim Strassel pointed out in the Wall Street Journal piece today, which I think she is spot on. I think she is right over the target based on information I've been putting together from various places here.

Because the information was provided by foreign intel now that may know you know joe didn't play the dun dun dun because i know that doesn't sound that dramatic but trust me it is what i'm about to tell you is is pretty darn frightening and i don't i don't listen it may get me in a little bit of trouble but that's okay uh because i think it's the truth and i'm pretty sure the evidence is mounting. Strassel points out an interesting fact here, that when we share information, Joe, intelligence with foreign governments, cooperating governments, and sometimes I guess even uncooperating governments, if there's some kind of enemy, my enemy is my friend initiative, right?

If let's say I'm the king of Danistan and Joe's the king of Joestan, right? And we share info, Joestan, right? And we share info. Joestan may say, hey, Dan, do us a favor. We're going to share this info with you about the country. But as a condition of sharing the intelligence, you are not allowed to disseminate the information. We're going to agree to that, right? We're going to make a pinky promise, okay? Yeah. That may be some of the information contained in this Genesis document.

be some of the information contained in this genesis document which yes which is why the fbi is so reluctant to unredact this document as to how they started this investigation at the trump why do i now what have i been telling you you you gotta be shitting me no i'm not for months now i've been telling you this this joe what, that this investigation started based on some reporting from liberal outlets, including CNN, based on foreign governments who are cooperating with the United team because the the nsa the central intelligence agency and the fbi could not legally do it dude now it makes all the why they're slow walking this makes all the sense in the world let me just throw this out there i'm just gonna ask you know i know people hate this one guy actually emailed me who is it a friend of mine he's like you know jesse ventura the former former governor of Minnesota, who drives me crazy as he always goes, I'm just asking questions.

Which he does. I heard him on Howard Stern one time. He does do that. I'm just asking questions. I'm just asking questions, man. That's it. You sound like him. I'm not trying to do this to be a wise guy.

I'm just asking you the question right now because i'm i'm reasonably confident based on a series of points i'm going to lay out in a moment that the british and united the united kingdoms involvement in the spying on trump is catastrophic i say catastrophic because it is going to be embarrassing it's going to be humiliating it is going to be embarrassing. It's going to be humiliating. It is going to overturn a lot of basically members of free countries, democracies, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, their perception of what the intelligence communities were designed to do. It's going to shake the faith in the intelligence community. And I think the bombshell is that, yes,

they wanted a spy on the Trump team and they used a foreign government to do it. And that foreign government played politics with the United States to get their preferred candidate in there. Folks, that is, I know even putting that out there opens you up to significant criticism and conspiracy theory nonsense. And you know what? That's okay because I can back it up with reporting based on left-wing assets like CNN who have already reported that the British intelligence entities were spying on Trump. Let me lay this out for you, okay?

Hey, I wasn't even thinking in that direction, man. Not at all. Last night, I've said to you, you and I have discussed this, okay, before. It's not a mystery that the British spied on Trump. I mean, it's already been reported in left-wing outlets. That's not controversial at all. If you look at the Obamagate files section on my website, Bongino.com, just read the articles yourself. Like I said, CNN and other entities have already reported, left-wing entities, that the British spied on Trump.

That's not controversial. None of that's new i'm not i'm that's already established but what hit me last night like a ton of bricks falling on my head and what should really be hitting you now it is is that the whole scandal in other words i had assumed that this was a small component of it. That maybe, you know, I always knew there was a political component to the Obama-Clinton-DNC machine spying on Trump. Obviously. Obviously, they didn't want Trump in. But maybe the scandal is the level of British involvement.

In other words, maybe this whole thing started with a cooperative kind of wink and a nod with the British that they were going to do it. In other words, the genesis of the investigation was Obama officials and Clinton officials, in fact, pushing the British to do this for him. That's a huge revelation. I was unsure in the past the level of UK involvement. And I'm very hesitant to say things.

But now I'm starting to think, gosh, were they integral players? You get what I'm saying, Joe? It's kind of like if there's a conspiracy to rob a bank that Joe's involved with. Five guys rob a bank. And Joe, you know, you think Joe was just a getaway driver. And you find out later, like, Joe was the joker from uh the dark knight series like joe organized the whole thing and then whack the other four guys later you're like oh my gosh like man did i underestimate joe's involvement in this folks i i really believe i've underestimated

how big of a scandal this is collaborating with a foreign government to take down Donald Trump. I believe I'm convinced that's why they're slow walking this case. And that is why. And hat tip to Kim Strassel at The Wall Street Journal for exposing that. That is probably why, as I talked about during yesterday's show, they will not release this Genesis document because in this document there is information given to us by the British that was probably integral. One of the main reasons they spied on the Trump team. Now, let me lay it out for you. All right. The reason I'm talking about this now,

and it's got to matter to you, even if you're tired of this case, new texts emerged, again, from our lovebirds, Peter Stroke and Lisa Page from page from the fbi stroke who is an upper level manager involved in the hillary clinton email case and in the early stages of these counterintelligence investigation on trump he's having an affair with lisa page they text each other these things have been coming out in drips and drabs which is being released by it which has been uncovered

as a result of Michael Horowitz's internal affairs investigations, IG investigation into the FBI's behavior during these cases. So the text that came out last night, one of them is damning, damning, big time. Apparently, on August 2nd of 2016, Stroke travels somewhere to meet with someone. The text who he meets with is redacted, but he says, wow, what an interesting guy. He travels to London, August 2nd of 2016, to meet with someone. And we don't exactly know where, because a lot of it's redacted. But in the text, he says, hey, by the way, where he met with the guy, talking about the embassy.

And I quote, he says, the place he met with him is the longest continually staffed establishment in London. Talk about the embassy. Well, what's the longest continually staffed embassy in London? Oh, the Australia House? Alexander Downer, who met with Papadopoulos in a bar in London, months before that, by the way, in May, in early May, is the Australian ambassador to the United Kingdom. Now, I'm not, and it's hard to confirm who he met with, but it appears to be Downer. Appears. And we don't know that yet. I can't confirm all of that yet.

That will, I'm sure, come out in the coming days. But folks, was this a conspiracy the entire time, legitimate one, between friendly countries to the United States, Australians, the United Kingdom, to take down Donald Trump? I mean, this is really spooky stuff. Let me put together some more pieces of this for you. off. Let me put together some more pieces of this for you. Folks, Downer, Alexander Downer, the Australian ambassador to the United Kingdom that met with Papadopoulos in that London bar where it was alleged Papadopoulos told him about dirt on the Russians and that sparked the FBI's interest. Downer's a member of the Haglitt group. The the haglet group is already known to be a home for former british mi6 agents now downer left before that uh before this this case the haglet group but

but it's reported that he was at functions with them and he still maintained those professional contacts keep in mind all these points i'm laying out for you folks are contacts with the british government new australians involving people involved in the trump investigation this is terrifying stuff we obviously know this is an easy one christopher steel who produced the dossier on trump was a former british mi6 agent we know that bob hannigan robert hannigan who was the head of the GCHQ, the British NSA, that he met with John Brennan of the CIA in a principals kind of director, director meeting and had some serious information. Keep in mind, the British, it's already reported they were spying on Trump. Hannigan suspiciously steps down right after the election

when they find out Trump wins, the head of the British NSA. We now know that Christopher Steele and his effort to get the dossier into the American justice system and to try to use some Republicans to do it. Who does he use to get the information to Senator John McCain? Oh, a former British ambassador to Moscow, Sir Andrew Wood. We know that Rob Goldstone, the publicist who contacts Don Trump Jr. and says he has some information about Hillary

in emails from a Russian, is a British publicist. We know Joseph Misfood, the guy who tells Papadopoulos that the Russians have dirt on Hillary. Papadopoulos tells Downer, who tells American intelligence and starts this investigation, allegedly. We know Joseph Misfood is known to have rubbed elbows with prominent United Kingdom intelligence officials. is known to have rubbed elbows with prominent United Kingdom intelligence officials. Folks, this is a big deal, okay? I'm not going to spend the whole show on it.

I've got other stories to get to. But it hit me last night that I may have missed the, you know, I may have been staring at a tree too long. I may have been staring at a tree thinking that the real scandal here was Trump being spied on, neglecting the fact that the real scandal the entire time may be foreign intelligence working with the United States government to take down a political figure. I know those may seem like the same story. They're not. It's the same person involved.

But the level of scandal, now it makes sense. Yes, spying on Trump would have been a big deal. No question about it, especially without the requisite probable cause and without a predicate crime. That's a huge deal. But the fact that the United States government may have intentionally cooperated without any evidence with a foreign government to spy on a major American political figure in the heart of an election is, is it hyperbolic to say, can you imagine a bigger scandal? This is really troubling stuff. Was this a setup the entire time i think the

answer is obvious but again the real question now which we're digging through this book i'm putting out is going to be it's going to blow your mind but the real scandal now is i think not what did obama know and when did he know it joe i think it's clear as day now. Obama knew Trump was being spied on. I think the question now is, what did the British know? And when did they know it? And who? I have this underline right here. This is going to be the question right now

in this foundational document, this EC, this Genesis document about how this whole thing started. Who called the FBI? That's the simplest way I could write this to wrap this thing up so you understand. Who called the FBI? You know, if the cops show up to your house and they say, hey, we're getting reports that you were involved in a kidnapping, and you're like, what the hell are you talking about?

I was sitting here recording Dan's podcast. Wouldn't you want to know, Joe? Well, who said that? I sure would. I'd ask right off the bat. You're darn right you would. The question now and why they're hiding this EC document, and I believe Strassel's onto something,

I believe it's going to be people who were prodded, foreign governments and foreign intel people who were prodded by the Clinton campaign, the Obama team, to basically launder and clean their involvement in the genesis of this investigation from the start. And I think they did it through the British, the UK intelligence services and the Australians. This is deeply disturbing stuff. I appreciate all the feedback, by the way, from our listeners overseas. I'm probably going to be banned from traveling at some point in the future. I know there was a lot of negative feedback for other commentators who have suggested this kind of connection.

But that's fine, folks. I'm only interested in the truth here. And I think the quicker we can get this out in the public domain and hopefully get people held accountable for it and clean our hands of it, we can get this out in the public domain and hopefully get people held accountable for it and clean our hands of it, we can move on. But this is really, really damaging and devastating stuff. I mean, it really clicked last night. Oh boy.

Yeah, a lot. All right, folks. Today's show also brought to you by our buddies at BrickHouse Nutrition. Love these guys. They've been with us from the beginning. One of my original sponsors. They produce great nutrition products at the tip of the spear. These guys are always on from the beginning. One of my original sponsors, they produce great nutrition products

at the tip of the spear. These guys are always on top of stuff. My favorite new product they put out, which I begged them to put out, I said, Miles, please, I'm taking this fruit and vegetable powder now. I don't really like it. It tastes terrible.

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But we don't have time. I mean, who has time? Who has time to eat eight servings of fruits and vegetables a day? You just don't, especially some of the exotic stuff. I know, Joe, you don't. Man, you got a busy day like I do. Damn it. Now, thankfully, I work from home, so I can squeeze in some mixed berries here and there.

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This isn't junk. This isn't pills. It is a vegetable, fruit and vegetable powder that tastes amazing. A little hint of cherry, a little blueberry. I love it. I take it three times a day. Thankfully, Miles sends me a ton of it because my kids love it too. I put it in everything, green tea, V8, water, you name it. I throw it in there. It tastes really good in orange juice, by the way. It's delicious. It's called Field of Greens. It's available at brickhousenutrition.com slash Dan.

That's brickhousenutrition.com slash Dan. Go check it out. It's absolutely delicious. I love this stuff. It's your fruit and vegetable insurance plan, folks. We should all be doing this. This should be the bedrock of any diet. Field of Greens, available at brickhousenutrition.com slash Dan. All right, let me move on to other stuff because there's a lot in the news.

You know, Rush Limbaugh addressed this yesterday, but it's a really important story that's not getting a lot of play. You know, one of the threads I've addressed frequently throughout the course of our three-plus years now doing the show, Joe, has been the left seamlessly moving from one domain to the next. They lose the presidency. They fight at the House of Representatives. They lose at the federal level. They go to the next. They lose the presidency. They fight at the House of Representatives. They lose at the federal level. They go to the courts. They lose in the courts. They fight in the culture.

They lose in the culture. They move to the states. They move, you know, they lose in the states. They move to the voter rolls. You know, your mission is to fight back. And I got an email yesterday from a person, and he said, I really appreciate your Yankees analogy, where I had said to you that I think one of the things we do is, as conservatives, we're entrepreneurial. You know, we are. We're

individuals, and we think in terms of winning and losing, which is, you know, I get it. It's natural. Like, hey, we won. Trump, we didn't win anything. We won that election. By the way, the fight started the next day after Trump won the election. The left doesn't think like that. The left thinks they have a long-term game. They never think in terms of winning and losing. They just think in terms of like the fight. And we have to switch our mentality. And one of the points I was making is we have to learn to do the same thing.

We have to think like the Yankees. You know, you win the World Series and after you take a few days off to digest the win, the general manager's back in the office getting the team ready for the next season. I mean, it's a perpetual fight. And we have to get conditioned to think that way. The battle over what's going on right now with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is a perfect example of this. How the left seamlessly, without a break at all, moves from one domain to the next. Now, Pruitt, Rush addressed this a bit yesterday, Pruitt has become an absolute lightning rod for the left. And why is that? Because the left sees a threat, they smell a

threat, they sense a threat, and again, seamlessly, boom, target Scott Pruitt. Now, I say that because once we recognize what they're doing, we can effectively fight back. Why has Pruitt become such a target? Number one, he is a staunch conservative. Comes from a really red state. And he is in a position where he can do significant work to help advance the cause of liberty and really damage his far left agenda, which is to damage the country and damage the economy. He is running the EPA. Now, some of the things he's done, including scrapping the waters of the United States rule,

getting rid of this miles per gallon standard by Obama we've been talking about for the last few days. Thanks for all the feedback on that, by the way. You know, assisting us in getting out of the dreadful Paris Accords, Joe. Scrapping a lot of garbage regulations on coal and things like that. This has really damaged the leftist agenda. Because as Kevin Williamson, who's been in the news lately since being terminated from The Atlantic for being a pro-life conservative, I kind of feel bad for him. Me and him aren't exactly buddies, but I feel terrible for him. Kevin Williamson wrote in one of his old books,

he talks about this idea of the new socialism. And the new form of socialism, ladies and gentlemen, is not the old Soviet style. Liberals figured out a long time ago that trying to sell the American people on the government taking over the means of production, in other words, taking over your economy, effectively owning your business. I mean, that's what socialism is. The government control the means of production. That after the collapse

of the Soviet Union, this had no effective constituency. Nobody outside of the real kooks in our job. Ah, nice! Look at it. As we're on the air, Trump. Scott Pruitt's doing a fantastic job. You see that? I'm looking at Fox. Apparently he...

Good. You see, Trump sees what... This is what I love about Trump. I don't want to get lost here, but Trump instinctively sees what's going on here, Joe. You know what I'm saying? Gosh, I think i can nail him that was good joe joe knows what just happened there so this is important the new form of socialism because they can't sell the old form of socialism is not to sell to people hey the

government should take over your business like they did in the soviet union we're going to run your farm we're going to run your business. What they proposed and what they kind of, I shouldn't say proposed, but they sneak around behind the scenes is using the administrative state to tax and regulate businesses into death, into doom. Yes. Yes is right. And the EPA has been one of their primary means to do this. Now, due to Chevron deference, in other words, deference to these administrative entities that write vague rules, what's been allowed to happen is the administrative state, in other words, bureaucrats who are not elected by you, bureaucrats in the EPA, administrators in the EPA, these people are not elected,

they've been effectively allowed to legislate your life away. And in conjunction with the democrats and their high tax agenda they already control the means of production or a significant swath of them they control it so if joe has a you know uh you know what's let's say joe has a production business you know armacost inc he may not have to turn all his proceeds over to the government answer to some soviet era politburo uh you know jackbooted thug. But if the tax rates are high enough and Joe is already turning over a majority of his money, and he's answering to all these rules from the FCC or someone else that's imposing them on him, Joe is already controlled by the administrative state. And it's kind of what Williamson's hints at in his book about the new form of socialism, which is accurate. He's right.

This is the new way far left liberals want to control the economy. Hence, Joe, their war on Pruitt and why this is so important and has nothing to do with Scott Pruitt and everything to do with the left's desire to continue this path down the road to this new form of socialism. Pruitt stood in the way, had some nerve and said, nope, I'm going in there and we're not doing any of this. We're not doing the administrative rule on ponds in your backyard. This waters the United States. We are not going to regulate the automotive industry to a miles per gallon standard. That's entirely unattainable. We are not going to submit ourselves to globalist rule and the Paris Accords. We are not going to put our coal business out of business. We're not doing it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It ain't happening. Yeah. Not happening. We ain't doing it. And the left has made him public enemy

number one. So the key question, how is the left going to try to take pruitt down because i told you they move seamlessly it doesn't have to be legitimate the left they'll find a way to take you down so a piece of a journal today i'll read to you a quote from it so what they did is the left of course with their friends by the way still remaining in the government a lot of these obama loyalists and obama holdovers are trying to use ethics charges against republicans and conservatives in the administration they see as a threat to their new socialism in their administrative state because remember the epa has been a cudgel has been a weapon an administrative state enforcer that democrats have used for a long time to impose rules on businesses they don't like,

coal, the automotive industry, whatever it may be. So what did they do? They scoured through Pruitt's travel records and found a couple trips he took that, granted, listen, I'm not defending first-class travel and all that stuff and the government. I'm not. But we do have to be realistic. And you know what? If it was a trip he apparently took

a trip to the vatican pruitt and he rented some condo which by the way the the ethics office determined was at some market i'm not worried about the condo story that much in other words the left is saying he rented this condo joe from this connected person who was not lobbying epa but rented it at like a lower than market rate but the ethics officer said that's not true so i'm not really worried about that their next target is they're moving on to this trip he took to the g7 and apparently the trip was expensive and it was it was first class or something like that uh and he took a tour of the vatican after hours or something so that this is their you know this is their new weapon against pruitt. But folks, from the Wall Street Journal today,

yet his predecessors, talking about Pruitt, took similar trips and racked up even more expenses. According to the EPA, Lisa Jackson, the administrator from 2009 to 2013, Joe, spent more than $332,000 on four international trips. One to China cost $5 000 alone her successor gina mccarthy went on 10 international sojourn spending 630 000 one trip was to italy where miss mccarthy received a tour of the vatican the exact same thing at at what four times the cost

i think it was um you know so mcc spent $630,000 over her tenure. So far, they're complaining about $100,000 plus for Pruitt and a tour of the Vatican when McCarthy did the same thing. Ladies and gentlemen, this is entirely made up. This is a fabricated, air quote, scandal. It's not a scandal. It is an effort by the left to move seamlessly. Now, this story is important to you and matters.

And I can't tell you this enough. And this is where, let me get back to this here. Let me take this, taking a note on this so I don't forget to give you the bottom line, not up front, the bottom line at the bottom. But I had to set it up first. This is why, despite some disagreements I have with the Trump team over some things, once in a while, This is why I ultimately support this guy. I think he's been great for the country.

Trump instinctively senses. I don't know if it's from his business experience. You know, some people have suggested it's his desire to be liked. I don't care what it is. But Joe, you know, he puts, he licks his finger and he puts it up into the air and he senses the

direction of the conservative base. Something even pretty hardcore Republicans, I think, outside of Reagan have ignored forever. I know that because George W. Bush, remember, he appointed Harriet Myers. And then he was like he was like shocked when Harriet Myers, not appointed, but nominated Harriet Myers to the Supreme Court. And he was stunned that there was a conservative backlash because she wasn't the conservative choice. He was stunned. Trump senses something's wrong here. He knows that the Pruitt thing is not going to go over well if he gets rid of him.

if he gets rid of him. So the reason I brought it up at the Fox News is I've been hearing from people that he is going to defend Pruitt and make a public statement on it. And it appears that I guess that has already happened, that he has come out and forcefully defended Pruitt because he senses, this is important, folks. He senses this is not about Pruitt.

He senses in this case, this is about an attack by liberals on Trump's attack on the administrative state. And he knows he has to draw a line in the sand. I sensed it. I'm not. And again, I'm not glossing the guy up. I'm not trying to put lipstick on anything.

I sensed it after the signing of the disastrous omnibus bill, where, as I got from a bunch of friends of mine that he sensed afterwards that the the revulsion to this amongst conservatives was very real and something had to be done therefore discussions right now getting serious about the impoundment act which we've been talking about for days or trump telling congress we're not going to spend some of that money and you better do something about it i guess the way to the to uh put my signature on this and move to the next story is he cares. He actually cares about what the conservative base cares about and is responsive to our demands, even when a mistake is made, which signing the omnibus was. There's no way around it. He is receptive to that.

And that's a good thing and i appreciate it and i think that's why he came out in support uh of pro it okay uh let's see i got a few more stories to get through that are important but last and for the day this is a great company i thank you i really appreciate them uh thanks a lot for sticking with us these guys are great uh freedom project academy american schools they're nothing like we remember growing up. A lot of propaganda, safe space junk, but unfortunately, very little hardcore learning anymore. And 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. They have. Everything's propaganda

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All right. There's a battle brewing. And it's a serious one, folks. We're in a little bit of trouble in the house. Interesting piece in the New York Times today. It was up at Drudge. I'm not a huge fan of the times but it is it's it's it's an accurate portrayal of a fight that's going on here and the fight is this we're losing the suburbs we are we're losing the suburbs and

we're losing the suburbs badly and we're losing the suburbs even worse in blue states now why is that because a lot of democrats are starting to manipulate suburban homeowners in blue states, Joe, in suburbs, which we have a lot of in Maryland, where Joe's from, and I lived for a long time. They're starting to manipulate these suburban voters who would traditionally vote Republican, maybe not in overwhelming majorities, but in majorities enough to to help Republicans get elected. overwhelming majorities, but majorities enough to help Republicans get elected. They're manipulating them into believing that the tax cut bill, which hurts them because of the mortgage deduction limits, and the property tax deduction limits, and the tax deduction limits in their states, that somehow the tax bill hurts them and not the high taxes in the state. I know that's complicated. Let me just boil this down to you and give you the tidbits of what you need to know. The Trump tax bill limited the deductibility of certain taxes paid at the state and local level. So if you pay a lot of taxes, which happens in blue

states, Joe, Maryland, New York, and California, you can no longer deduct the full value of those taxes from your federal taxes. That is not a problem in states like Florida that don't have a state income tax. We can't deduct the state income tax from our federal tax bill in Florida because we don't pay one. It's simple as that. Not the case in California and New York and other places where people pay a heavy state income tax. They used to be able to effectively get some of that money back by deducting it from their federal taxes. Make sense, Joe?

What you paid in state taxes, you could deduct a good swath of it. A lot of that has gone away. That is not the fault of the tax cut bill. Yes, the tax cut bill did change that. But that is the fault of blue state governors that tax the snot out of you. It has nothing to do with Trump. It has everything to do with the fact that you live in a state. Listen, I know this is having a real impact. I'm not minimizing it. So, you know, you're always free to send me nasty grams. I read them. But I got an email from a woman in New Jersey. She was

all upset. Like I was minimizing this. I'm not. This is going to probably cost you a little bit of money, but it's the fault of the local government. The whole idea of the tax cut bill, Joe, long-term, which we have to start looking and fighting folks, was to stop the deductibility of significant state tax loads to make people pay the full load. Because what was happening? What was happening is they weren't paying the full load yeah because what was happening what was happening is they weren't paying the full load if you live in new york or california and you're paying ridiculous state taxes which you are they were deducting it from their federal tax bill effect effectively getting a break no one else got there you go because you're almost getting a subsidy from other people

i know that's kind of a leftist way to say it. I'm sorry. I'm really not trying to do that or play their game or manipulate you. I'm just saying you were getting something not available to people in the other states that chose not to tax the snot out of their citizens. So the thinking behind the bill, which I agree with, was, hey, listen, if you're going to tax your citizens to death, they and they voted for you then they should pay the tax if not get them out get them out that was the thinking what democrats

are successfully doing now is they're walking into the suburbs in these blue states and they're telling people that their tax hike bills are the fault of the Republicans, which, folks, is entirely, it's garbage. It's fabricated. It's made up. It is entirely invented. You're paying a high tax bill at the state level because you live in blue states that tax you.

That is not, Donald Trump did not hike your taxes at the state level. They did not. your taxes at the state level. They did not. Your taxes are high. You lost the ability to claim some of it on your federal taxes, which is a separate taxing body. Now, the article in the New York Times is about New Jersey. Maybe I'll include it in the show notes, even though it's the Times.

Let me take a note on that. And why Times? Because sometimes I forget, and I know a lot of you get annoyed, understandably. Nothing worse than telling people, go to Bongino.com and read the show notes, and it ain't there. The piece is about New Jersey, how New Jersey's become a particular hotspot, and two Republican members of Congress have already said they're not going to run again. And the operating thesis of the piece is that if the Republicans lose the House, Joe, it's going to happen in suburbs and blue states where they had traditionally held seats, even by slim margins. Now, this is where the call to action, and I have to beg you all, you got to get out and vote. You have to. There are still people in the suburbs who understand that this midterms this can be offset with increasing

voting on on behalf of the republican you know team so to say in areas of the country outside of the suburbs and cities i know the area those areas of the country the agricultural communities what they call they call the exurbs which is outside the suburbs these areas are not densely populated but there are enough of us in national elections, if we vote in big numbers, to offset some of the losses in the suburbs and blue states. But make no mistake, though, some of those people have been convinced, you know, I think mistakenly so, that somehow Trump raised their taxes. He didn't. He did not raise your taxes. It's a state level what's going on right there, but we are going to lose some seats and it's sad. Speaking of taxes, there's another piece I saw today.

It was up on Drudge. This one's a subscription only, but it's a really good piece that requires some, I think, analysis here and shows you the problems we have with our tax code now. So, Joe, tax payment data is always a few years delayed. It's tough to figure out who paid what, when they paid it, and how much they paid. But there's an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal, just a staggering number. I had to look twice to make sure this was accurate because it seemed to me to be way, way above even my worst fears about how the tax code has become increasingly progressive. become increasingly progressive. The top 20% of taxpayers, 20 out of 100 taxpayers,

the top 20% are paying a staggering 87% of the income tax. Folks, that's not sustainable. Now, the left has always enjoyed this because it feeds into their class warfare paradigm. Now, the problem with it, before I get to the class warfare paradigm, the problem with this is obvious. When you have an increasingly small number of people paying an increasingly higher amount of the income tax at the federal level, which generates about 50% of our revenue. You have corporate taxes, capital gains taxes, payroll taxes, but the income taxes is the biggest portion of a federal revenue. When you have a smaller number of people paying that, you have what happens in California being repeated at the national level. have what happens in California being repeated at the national level. What happens in California, Joe, is these roller coasters each time of state tax revenue, these hills, these valleys, these vicissitudes that come around in the income stream into the state. Because why?

state. Because why? Because when you have the wealthiest 20 out of 100 people paying almost nine out of $10 of every tax bill, 90 cents out of every dollar, right? Who takes the hit during a recession? It's those 20 out of 100 people. Because those 20 out of 100 people are the business owners. They lose the most. And when they start to lose, whether it's on their capital gains, whether it's on their business sales, say they lose money for a few years, they have to stay afloat to ride the recession out. They don't pay taxes, Joe, on lost money.

There's no negative, well, there's a negative income tax, but freedom and all that other stuff, but there's no tax on money you lose. Income taxes are taxes on income, not lost income. You don't pay taxes if you lose money. Thankfully, that may come next. Pay taxes on how much you lose, right? That's the Democrats' next agenda, right? But the point of it is those 20 out of 100 people are the ones who own the businesses and are likely the ones that are going to lose money and not pay taxes at all. When you solely rely on them for nine out of every $10 in your tax stream into the government,

when the recession hits, the government has no money. This is what happens in California. You get extreme volatility. Now you say, well, how does California survive? Because what happens, Joe, is on the rebound and on an upspin in this business cycle, what winds up happening is as these companies start to rebound out of the recession

and start making money, and then in a boom, they start making a lot of money, like the internet boom in the 90s, those top 20% start making significant amount of money and start filling up the state coffers again. Folks, this is happening at the federal level now too. The volatility is really catastrophic.

There is no anticipation of federal income streams. Not that I'm really concerned so much about the government making money off its citizens all the time, but a certain amount of predictability would help because you wouldn't have to borrow money then and then pay money back at interest rates. This is not sustainable, but the left loves this. This is what they want because what they want is a de facto entitlement structure built into the tax system. In other words, the left wants increasingly high numbers of people proportions of people not paying anything but living off the rich because the rich are easy to demonize folks remember this this is the reason i bring this up earlier in the week i discussed the story uh from the human progress report

it's in the show notes how one in six people would rather see the rich pay more in taxes even if it hurt the poor i I didn't say that wrong. One in six people, according to this survey, would rather see the rich pay more in taxes, even if it hurt the poor. And the report in the show notes talks about how envy is a powerful force. The left understands this.

They understand this is volatile. They understand this is unsustainable. They understand this can't possibly work a long time. They understand what's going on in California. Bankrupt? Big tax dollars. Bankrupt? Big tax dollars.

They get it. But to them, it's all about creating envy and keeping those flames of class warfare stoked and keeping the rich demonized as a bunch of bad guys. This is not possibly sustainable. It can't work over time. But the left doesn't care, folks. They don't care one bit. All right, how we doing here?

All right, good. We got some time. All right, another interesting story I saw at The Week, which is, you know, it's written from a perspective. It sounds kind of like the guys, the leftists that wrote the piece. When you read it. E-E-K or E-A-K? No, no, no.

E-E-K. Good question. Yeah, yeah. The week. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, it should have been. The way he sounds at it, it should have been E-A-K. You're right.

He comes from a, you could tell by the end that he's extolling the virtues in a way of a far left government managed economy with planners, which I firmly disagree with. But it's a good piece worth reading because we've been talking about China all week, and this is kind of the perfect capstone to this. My wife, by the way, liked yesterday's show, which I thought was interesting. She found the China stuff fascinating. I was a little worried how it was going to go over with the audience. The show did okay yesterday. It wasn't our best day ever, but I always get a little worried about getting wonky with the China stuff. But the piece is interesting.

It's on Drudge today, too. I'll put it in the show notes. Check it out. And the premise in the piece, Joe, is that China, I said to you yesterday how their ability to manipulate the debt, the U.S. debt they own is limited because they're going to hurt themselves.

Yeah. But this is an interesting point he brought up. He says they do have like the doomsday weapon, China. You know, hit the rented Stimpy, don't hit the red button. You ever see that episode? They tell him, don't hit the red button. He's like, ah, he's going crazy. He wants to hit it, right?

Like a kid, they tell a kid not to play with something. They want to play with it more. The doomsday weapon for them would be pulling the trigger on these rare earth minerals. And it is an interesting piece. It's written from a left-leaning perspective, but it's worth reading. It's short. It's not very long. I was expecting like an 11,000 word treatise, but it's not. It's actually pretty short. And China has basically right now a large swath of global control, at least economically speaking,

over these rare earth minerals that are used in a lot of complicated, sophisticated electronic equipment and technologically advanced equipment now. These rare earth minerals are, I mean, obviously they're called rare earth minerals for a reason. They're rare, they're hard to find, and China has selectively tried to corner the market on this. Now, to be clear, so I don't want anybody to panic. I want to give you both, because I could sense he's panicking a little bit in a piece. We do have these rare earth minerals in the United States,

but they are very expensive and very dangerous to mine. They create a lot of byproducts and waste products that can be dangerous to human health. There's a lot of regulations that goes into it. It could be very expensive. And the Chinese have effectively manipulated the market on rare earth minerals and basically sabotaged the price levels in efforts to put competitors out of business. So they control the market for these things. And a lot of military equipment uses these things as well.

business so they control the market for these things and a lot of military equipment uses these things as well so the premise of his piece is this that if the chinese wanted to really hurt the united states joe they could pull the plug on the export of a lot of these rare earth minerals and we would have to start production here almost from scratch at some of the places we were doing it in the past, but that were put out of business. Now, when you read the piece, at one point at the end, he talks about how planned economies and the Chinese were savvy in how they did this. I give a little more credit to free market forces. If the Chinese tomorrow morning pulled the plug on this, the entrepreneurs in the United States would figure out quite quickly, I think, how to, you know, either find some form of a replacement for this or to start to mine them here. So I wouldn't worry too much. But remember, Eve, that is a fair consideration in light of what we've been talking about all week,

how, you know, the Chinese,, and of course they announced these 100, Trump announced yesterday, a proposal for 100 billion more in tariffs. This is a serious conversation. And yesterday, just one more highlight on this before we end the show for the week. Yes, the Chinese dumping those treasuries yesterday, that would be catastrophic for them. But I'm not sure if I highlighted yesterday as well, there would be some consequences for it.

I know I mentioned it, but I just want to be clear. If they dump all of the debt they own, they lent us money, we gave them a bunch of IOUs, okay? If they were to dump these, yes, it would hurt them as well because the value of what they're holding would go down too. But I just want to be clear on this. Interest rates in the United States would probably go up and could go up quite dramatically. And if they go up, I mean, you're talking about the cost of money and the purchase of a lot of things, business loans and car loans, houses. I don't want to give you some overly rosy picture yesterday about the Chinese, because I even said in a Facebook Live that they would be hurting themselves, but it would hurt us a little bit too. I think we could overcome it. There are other places where we could sell debt. I mean,

of course, even Americans buy government debt, but they own a lot of it. They have one trillion. They're holding a trillion in our assets. So it's a big deal. All right, folks, I appreciate it. Thank you again for another great week. Our listenership has been exploding. I really appreciate all the emails. And I do appreciate you subscribing. I've been getting a lot of questions.

People say to me, you know, where do I subscribe? I listen on your website, Bongino.com. That's fine. That's cool. I don't want to put anybody out of their way. But if you go to iTunes and you subscribe or SoundCloud or Spotify or even our YouTube channel, what is it? YouTube.com slash Bongino. We do get credit for that. It helps us to keep the show free for you all. So we really appreciate it. So thanks a lot. It means a lot to me. All right, folks. I'll see you all next week. You just heard the Dan Bongino Show. Get more of Dan online anytime at conservativereview.com.

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