The Dan Bongino Show - Sunday Special with Mike Benz, Rep. Andy Harris, Rep. Tim Burchett and Michael Knowles
Episode Date: February 23, 2025Dan talks with Mike Benz about the USAID scandal, MD Rep Andy Harris about spending bills in congress, Rep. Tim Burchett on confronting lib media, and Michael Knowles about his Jubilee episode debatin...g the LGBTQ community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with
your host Dan Bongino.
Welcome to Sunday podcast.
This is our chance to play for you some of the best moments from the radio show and some
great interviews during the week that you may have missed.
If you ever want to check out our show, go to bongino.com, go to station finder and see
what radio station we're on near you.
You'll love it.
I promise you.
We put a lot of work into the radio show.
Check it out.
But before that, let me tell you about our first sponsor.
What you do online is not private.
Far from it.
Data brokers are tracking and creating a profile of your online activities.
And in the U.S., they are legally allowed to sell that information to whoever wants to buy it.
But there's a way to push back and hold on to your values, autonomy, and freedom,
and that's with ExpressVPN.
With ExpressVPN, 100% of my online activity
is rerouted through secure encrypted servers,
which makes it impossible for my internet provider
to know what I'm doing online.
ExpressVPN also hides my IP address,
so data brokers can't use it to build a profile on you.
ExpressVPN's easy to use.
It takes just one click,
and it works on all of your devices, phones, tablets, smart TVs, desktops and more. And you can have it
on up to eight devices at once. So you can give the gift of privacy and freedom to your
whole family. Right now you can get an extra four months for free when you use my special
link. Go to expressvpn.com slash Bongino and get four extra months of ExpressVPN. That's
expressvpn.com slash Bungino.
First up today on this Sunday special,
we talked with our deep state PhD specialist, Mike Benz,
about the USAID scandal.
He's probably forgotten more about this
than most people know.
You're gonna love this, check it out.
This guy's social media feed is like a PhD level course
in deep state money flows, influence
campaigns.
It's, he's probably forgotten more about it than most people know, but it's definitely
worth your time.
We have him on the show as often as we can.
He's got a high demand schedule these days.
You can follow him on X.
He's at Mike Benz, B-E-N-Z, Cyber, and I encourage you to do so.
Mike, welcome back to the show.
Good to have you. Dan, welcome back to the show. Good to have you.
Dan, great to talk as always. Mike, you have, uh, there's probably, there's no one out there
who's done more to uncover the deep state money flows in you. I mean, you can be humble about it
all you want, but I think everybody's starting to recognize now that's true. It's why you're in such
high demand for these shows, but this USAID scandal, I've been making the case,
and I'll let you take it from here,
that I think the biggest thing if we had to triage
our concerns about it is that taxpayer money, very simply,
was confiscated from citizens at the end of a barrel of a gun,
which is what the IRS does, you pay it or else,
or you're going to jail,
and was then used to fund a lot of things,
ideology, overseas, LGBTQIA stuff.
However, it was undoubtedly used to fund censorship and regime change,
both abroad and here at home against populist movements.
I see those as the top two most critical things the Democrats are freaking out about.
What are your thoughts on it?
Oh, absolutely.
I think what you're getting at is that there is a kind of difficult tango dance about the
role of the money that the government takes from U.S. taxpayers to spend on influencing
the course of events in foreign countries in order to make pro-U.S. interests promulgate
there.
And there's different schools of thought
in terms of the morality or the efficacy of those efforts.
But the absolute drop dead,
burn it down and salt the earth around it,
you cannot do activity,
is when that goes back and directly affects
US domestic citizens, so the government is basically stealing
their money in order to crush them with it.
And this is what you saw in every single aspect of what USAID
did.
USAID funded media institutions and then had those media
institutions write hit pieces on U.S. citizens.
USAID funded social media terms of service pressure groups in order to pressure
the tech companies or pressure governments to pass laws on the US tech companies in order
to censor the people who paid USAID to do that. USAID funds the unions and those unions
turn around and do protest movements and organize violence effectively against
US citizen elected governments in the form of Trump.
Time and time again, the USAID is supposed to support energy development projects around
the world.
They turn around, they fund barisma. You know, while that's basically the foreign policy pet project of the first family, everywhere
you look with what USAID does, they fund the drug networks that then get imported and you
end up with Kensington, Philadelphia.
They fund the paramilitary groups that end up turning around and having, you know, effectively,
you know, being, you know,
being at war with our own military.
I mean, you had a funny situation where a CIA-backed military, paramilitary in Syria
was at war with a Pentagon-funded paramilitary in Syria.
And, you know, USAID has this get-out-of-OFAC-free card where they can effectively fund terrorists
as long as their contractors do it, which is why I always say when it's too dirty for the
CIA, you give it to us eight.
We're talking to Mike Benz. He's at Mike Benz cyber BNZ on X strongly
encourage you to follow him again, PhD course in deep state logistics and how
they work. Mike, I love how the media here, Margaret Brennan and these other weekend tool bags,
how they're feigning ignorance
about the fungibility of money.
She was on with Senator Haggerty this weekend.
We played the clip at the beginning
of the podcast and radio show.
And she's like, well, there's no evidence
they're funding sex changes in Guatemala.
If she just would have looked at usaspending.gov,
she could have actually seen it,
but you know, God forbid the truth gets in the way.
But she's, I focus on that
before. The unreal thing is
critical because she's pretending
that the money that wound up in
this UN refugee group,
that that the various reports
and money trails that the
fungibility of money, they got
money and then you used it
basically to associate
with, you know, a Palestinian
based terrorist groups.
She's acting like it's not fungible, but this is the business model for USAID,
isn't it? Give it to these NGO groups, wipe your hands of it,
pretend you don't know nothing. And then what they do with it from there,
oh man, that wasn't us, that was them, they did it.
Plausible deniability. That has been USAID's role from the day it was born. And the fact is, as you
look at these grant descriptions, they will be one-line grant descriptions for outlays
of $50 million. And there's no way to get beyond that. USAID blocks even its Senate
Foreign Relations Committee Oversight Committee members, sitting senators from accessing the grant details and the troves of
classified documents that USAID sits on because it is what you know when I said when it's too
dirty for the CIA give it to USAID that is not a joke that's not an understatement that's not
hyperbole USAID can do covert action without requiring the same presidential finding that's required
to the CIA.
So when the CIA wants to do a dirty deed, a covert action abroad, but they don't think
the president will approve or even worse, it directly targets the president's international
allies or even the president himself by proxy, they can simply walk over to USAID and have a USAID network carry out
the logistics under the banner of humanitarian aid.
So if they want to fund ISIS, if a rogue cell at CIA wants to support ISIS groups and the
President of the United States wants to eradicate ISIS, then they can have USAID do humanitarian
support in the region where they'll pay for the housing,
they'll pay for the food, they'll pay for the munitions flows.
And then it's not a CI covert action, it's just discreet democracy promotion that oh
just so happens to go wrong being done by USAID.
I post an example of this from the first decade of USAID's existence.
This was an undersworn testimony at the Senate Farm Relations Committee
in 1972 when we were at war in Vietnam and Laos in 1967. The CIA's mercenary army, backed by this
commander Vinh Pau, it was USAID who paid Vinh Pau to purchase two CIA aircraft from Air America and
Continental Air Services, which are two
CIA proprietary airlines.
This is all public and declassified.
Nominally in order to help economic development in the region that the CIA backed paramilitary
effective terrorist group was operating.
They knew that that was where drugs are being shipped out of the golden
triangle.
So basically USA bought them the airplanes to be able to retail the opium
from the golden triangle to Vietnam in order to sell them in order to fund
their own mercenary army. USAID has been doing this since the day it was born.
Talking to Mike Benz, Mike, Jerry Baker has an interesting piece just dropped
at the journal, you know, not. Not a big MAGA guy,
but that's fine. I read all kinds of sources. And he makes a really good point here. Something I
kind of addressed earlier, he just says a little bit differently. The Democrats are dying on this
USAID hill, not because they really care about Guatemalan sex change operations. I mean,
it is fitting to their ideology, but that's not really it. What they're really defending is an unaccountable government, which is the collectivist communist
dream. I mean, when you're a communist, like most of these progressive hardcore leftists are, and
you believe in government controlling the means of production, one of the best ways to do that is to
fleece taxpayer money and turn it over to the communists who like nothing more than the opaqueness of USAID funding and then use it to break down a merit-based
capitalist, a constitutional republic and populist movements around the world.
I mean, they're dying on this hill to defend what I'm getting at is the
unaccountability of the operation.
It's not even specific things.
That's what's going on here.
I definitely think that's part of it. You know, there is another
aspect of it that I think is
parallel and on par with how sinister that aspect of it, which is that the cynical
exploitation of race gender and sexual sexual orientation and religious cleavages within countries in order to
selectively rig its internal politics.
You know, so the fact is, for example, it's not just the Democrats, the Republican wing
of USAID and the National Non-For-Democracy also fund, for example, transgender dance
festivals and these sort of woke identitarian events in countries where those demographic groups
represent an anti-government force where we're trying to take down that government or represent
a pro-democracy force when we are a pro-government force when we're trying to stabilize that
government against insurgents. So for example a lot of these more radical extreme elements that
will come from you know sometimes folks within the country's transgender community or folks within its radical, you
know, Islamic either extremist or terrorist cleavage or some religious
extremists or racial identitarian movements are deliberately paid for not
necessarily out of a sort of woke ideology but out the cold
calculating
understanding that when they do the baseline assessment or the strategic
assessment for the region they say
who's pro who's against this government news for it
and they see hey the transgenders
don't like you know this uh... you know the russian government that's how
u.s. aid ends up sponsoring places like pussy you know pussy riot
and and you get Republican support for Pussy Riot.
They would not want that sort of thing necessarily in their own neighborhood, but it's useful
to export and pump up in capacity to build abroad.
I think we're saying the same thing.
I may have said it, but you're always, of course, more eloquent than I am.
But I got a few minutes left.
But what I'm getting at is the.
Yeah, yeah.
But it's the name of a band, by the way, folks, that in case you're the whole
pussy, I think I'm sorry if we're not referring to anyone's anatomy for purposes.
Jim's looking at me like he's talking about the band department in order to
destabilize Russia from 2010 to 2012.
It was a very high profile diplomatic incident
because they were organizing street,
violent street protests,
sort of in the name of radical feminism and LGBT causes.
Yeah, look it up folks, it's the real thing.
I can see it, Jim's looking at me like,
he knows what you're talking about.
What I was getting at before,
and you said it again better, is this otherismism that Democrats, what I was getting at is they really don't care if
you get a sex change or not. They don't care if you have nuts or you don't. And
in this case, I'm there, I'm talking about it. They don't care. That's not
what it's about. What it's about is if they can find an identity politics group
and use it to say to this pseudo victim class, those guys hate you in the populist
movement, therefore rebel against them.
They don't give a damn about your cause.
As long as your cause, it's like the anti anti communist David Harris approach is against
that.
That's the only reason they're doing it.
Is that my answer?
Look at what just happened here in America where there was this big Democrat cause for
decades about Hispanics and how Hispanics can be sort of globalized as anti-Republican,
anti-Trump force.
And then you see the Cuban population turn out in huge numbers for Trump in 2016, 2020,
2024.
What does the Democrat coalition go around doing?
They say, well, actually, we shouldn't really include Cubans
as part of, you know, they're not useful.
That sub-demographic is not useful.
So that segmentation, strategically,
is a big part of this.
Or Mike, what about religious minorities?
Jews in the United States or ethnic minorities
like Asians in the United States getting into college?
They're like, no, no, they don't count, man,
because they're white adjacent.
You're like, what the hell is white adjacent?
I got about a minute left, take it.
Okay, I encourage everyone to go to DuckDuckGo,
Google, Bing, whatever, go to the CIA World Factbook right now, type
in any country in the world and what you will see is a breakdown exactly like that.
Why does the CIA keep such detailed statistics of race, gender, sexual orientation and racial
denomination cleavages in every country on earth?
Because that goes into the baseline assessment or the strategic assessment in terms of what assets to build up in the country or what assets or what chess
pieces to take down in the country in order to achieve a particular operational goal.
So that sort of religious cleavage point that's playing out in Ukraine right now where you
have the State Department basically trying to pressure Ukraine and even USAID sponsoring media
organizations to pressure the Ukrainian government to box out the Russian
Orthodox Church and various things like that.
But this is basically civil war planning that we do
in foreign countries come home to roost in our own.
Mike, I got to run, but I'm throwing this out there.
I saw you said last week and I'm sure you got a thousand takers that you needed like
two hours to go over this. When we open up our new studio in a couple of weeks, I'm happy to
promote all your content. You are, Jim will be there. You are more than welcome to, I will give
you the whole two hours. We can do a weekend podcast. It'll blow up. So I got to run. Thank
you so much. I would be because because of you not because of me Mike bends
He is at Mike Benz cyber. You see why we have him on you want a diagnosis of the deep state
Go to people who know more than you. Here's my advice for you folks quickly always be the dumbest person in the room
What do you mean?
Because if you're hanging out in a room where you're the smartest person you're not gonna learn anything
Always hang around people smarter than you you will leave better off
Another great interview next,
but first let's get to our next sponsor.
Folks, moink!
You want some high quality, delicious tasting meat
that supports American farmers?
The meat is absolutely fantastic.
They sent me a freezer full of this stuff.
It said that four companies control over 80%
of the US meat industry.
China's, many reports say China controls
the largest portion of US pork.
They're using tactics to crush American family farms
and with the additives they're putting in our food,
Americans are stuck with sketchy meat.
You don't want that.
Let me tell you about a company that's coming up swinging
on behalf of American family farms
and your family's food security.
Moink, M-O-I-N-K.
Moink's meat comes from animals raised outdoors.
They deliver meat straight to your doorstep
at prices you can actually afford.
Born, raised, and harvested right here in the USA.
They sent me some, it was absolutely delicious steak.
I put a little Pittsburgh on it,
like a little crust on it.
You can really taste the difference in quality.
It's making a really big difference in meals for my family.
Everything tastes incredible.
Support American family farms.
Join the Moink movement today at moinkbox.com
Bonjino right now and get free wings for life. What a deal.
They're the best wings you'll ever taste for free, but for a limited time. Spelled M-O-I-N-K
moinkbox.com
Bonjino moinkbox.com slash Bongino.
Moinkbox.com slash Bongino.
Up next, we talk with Freedom Caucus member,
Representative Andy Harris,
about the spending bills that have become a big, big topic
in the political space because of Donald Trump
and John Thune and Speaker Johnson's agreements
and disagreements about how this should work.
You're gonna find out how it works from a guy who's in the trenches.
Check this out.
I try to bring you the best guests and people who know what's going on at Capitol Hill.
One of them is an integral figure in the House Freedom Caucus, a guy I know very well known
for a long time, a great patriot.
Congressman Andy Harris from Maryland.
Congressman, welcome to the show.
Thanks for being here.
Dan, it's so good to be on the show with you. As you know, I'm a great fan of the show and your podcast.
Well, I appreciate that. And we've been a great fan of your work. You have been a big supporter of
the Freedom Caucus, the Tea Party movement. You've been representing your district for a really long
time. We go way back from when I ran in Maryland. And unfortunately, we didn't pull that victory out,
wish we had. But you have a really important position now with the Freedom Caucus.
And there is a kind of a debate, I think that's fair enough to say, I won't call it an argument,
but a debate going on about do we do as President Trump would say one big, beautiful reconciliation
bill or do we lead more, which I believe the House is leaning towards, or do we lean more towards the Senate side, both controlled by Republicans, where they
want to, they think it's more tactical to do two bills and take kind of a victory.
I'm just going to lay out quickly what I think should happen and tell me
if I'm crazy or not.
I think Congressman, the momentum is there right now after the election
between Doge and all of the political capital President Trump has built.
I think we go for it. We go for it now. We go around the country. We do rallies and we transform this government in one big legislative chunk.
Where do we stand on that? What's going on behind the scenes?
Sure, so the Freedom Caucus position has always been we just have to do
something right away. I mean you know the the president's running out of money to do that do the work on
the board of it he needs to do to start the deportation of the criminal legal
uh... aliens are so
uh... we were agnostic whether or not it's one bill or two bills we just needed
to go and go quickly
uh... because like you say we need to build on the capital that we have we
need to deliver the president victory if we can do it one big beautiful bill
quickly uh... we're all for it.
And I think, you know, our philosophy is kind of push the house along to where I
do believe we'll probably get a bill out of the budget committee tomorrow, maybe.
And then, you know, we'll start this process along.
Yeah.
I saw that one of the numbers they're looking at for, for cuts.
And let me get some water. You're a doctor, right? I may need you.
I'm kidding. Excuse me.
So one of the numbers I saw in the wall street journal column was they're
looking at 4.5 trillion in cuts. That's a big number.
Is that realistic? And, and, um, believe me, congressman,
I'm hoping that happens.
My issue with it is every time we talk about cutting
some congressman, Republican or Democrat,
it's bipartisan, you've seen it,
it's like, well, we can't cut that USAID program
for a farmer in Accra, Ghana,
because he's buying products
from this congressman's district in Iowa or Wisconsin.
We're gonna go bankrupt if we keep that up.
Is there a feeling up there like, hey, it's time to put these parochial interests aside
and do what's best for the country?
Because if they're not, this thing's going to die on the vine.
Look, I think you're right.
The number, you know, for the 4.5 trillion is actually the CBO estimate of what the tax,
what the quote the tax cuts will cost.
The number we're talking about for spending reduction
is like two and a half trillion or so,
but Dan, let's put that in perspective.
Our deficit, that's two and a half trillion over 10 years.
So that's 250 billion a year.
Our deficit's two trillion.
And remember, Elon last, yesterday at the White House
that we should cut a trillion dollars a year
uh... so at the numbers were even talking about and getting hesitation
from some republican colleagues
is way below the number that we actually have to do cuz like you like you said
uh... we're right uh... you know what we had a vote on u s a cutting u s a i d by
fifty percent not eliminating it
fifty percent and a majority of the republicans voted against that cut
last year yeah and and you know we're talking to congressman andy harris from maryland Not eliminating it, 50%, and a majority of the Republicans voted against that cut last
year.
Yeah.
And we're talking to Congressman Andy Harris from Maryland.
You've been there, you know, you've been there, it's not your first term, it's not your first
rodeo, you've worked your way up the ranks.
You've sadly seen this for a long time.
I mean, if I'm correct, you got elected right around the Tea Party revolution.
I mean, I was in Maryland, I don't remember exactly the year, but that's generally the timeline, right? That's absolutely right. It was
the 2010 election. It was a Tea Party election. We went to Washington to cut the deficit and restore
fiscal sanity. Just to remind everyone, the deficit at that time was 300 billion, only 300 billion. And
we thought that was a large deficit. Right. Remember the stimulus package when we first
crossed the trillion dollar deficit under Obama and we were like this is the end of the world,
my gosh now it's two trillion, we're 30 trillion dollars in debt and I think I'm saying Americans
are like is there even a path to pay this thing down? But that kind of leads to my next question.
The Democrats up on Capitol Hill and I'm not giving them political advice,
I obviously want them to lose their ideological position is spend this into bankruptcy. I don't
want that to win because I want America to win. However, fighting against this Department of
Government efficiency. Congressman, you deal with Democrats all the time up on the Hill.
Let's be candid. They're usually tactically smarter than this. Their ideology is ridiculous,
but they're usually not this dumb. This is one of the biggest political losers of all
time that I'm really shocked that they don't just come out and go, you know what? We like
government, social security, Medicare, that's it. It's all great. Whatever their position.
But yeah, there's some inefficiencies and if we're going to have good government, we
need to lean in a fishing company. That's not what they're saying at all. They're calling
Elon a Nazi, a fascist. This is an absolute loser for them in the long run.
I couldn't agree with you more. I hope they keep on fighting Doge. I hope they keep on
talking about how we need to restore all the funding to USAID so that we can do transgender
comic books. I mean, you're right, they are politically tone deaf on this, but that's good for our
side.
It's great for our side.
It's just kind of shocking to me because you've, you know, it pains me to say it, but I, you
know, I engage in political, realpolitik and not fantasy land.
That's why I think the show does okay for people.
You know, when you went through the Tea Party,
I'll give you a perfect example
of how the left is usually better at messaging.
I remember seeing campaign ads against you
when you first ran for reelection,
and you may have put out a positive statement
about the fair tax one time, which is a great proposal,
a consumption tax in lieu, in lieu of an income tax. And the
Democrats were hitting you on, Andy Harris wants a big tax hike. That's not at all what you can look
it up. But the point is, like the Democrats are usually better at lying than this. This is the
kind of thing where it's just, just come out and say, okay, Elon's right. Like maybe a paper system that goes into a mine
200 feet below the ground for OPM
that government employees manage by hand
so we can't even get people to retire the right way.
Maybe that's a bad idea.
Like that's the kind of thing that the same Democrat
be like, oh, okay, a little bipartisan agreement on that one.
Like this is a genuine loser.
No, they've bought into the lunacy. And you know, they're still with this attitude of,
you know, if Trump supports it, it must be bad. And I think, you know, they, they forget what
happened back in November, they forget that the American people actually view the federal
government with a question mark. And they applaud what's going on and and again
look if they're too as long as they want to stay tone deaf I'm all for it you go
ahead I'll have I'll have a discussion any day about whether or not we should
again be doing you know transgender comic books out of with federal taxpayer
dollars in foreign in foreign countries. Right. Congressman Andy Harris we're
talking to Congressman Andy Harris from Maryland House Freedom Caucus. Congressman, one of the things that concerns me is that
you guys in the Freedom Caucus have been for a really long time fighting for some degree
of fiscal sanity. And I want to say in advance, I am absolutely on team House Freedom Caucus.
Period. This positive statement put an exclamation point at the end.
However, here comes the kind of the buyer beware.
We are not a majority of the majority in the house.
I wish we were. It's kind of sad we're not, but we're not.
You've got a lot of swing state Republicans who will vote for any amount of spending as long as it makes them look good in, you know,
they're like parochial district there, right?
So how do we overcome that?
You know, the House Freedom Caucus, there were even some, you know, rhinos in the news
media who will attack you guys as if you're the problem when I think you're the only wing
of the Republican Party speaking common sense.
We can't just tinker around the edges anymore.
Does the Freedom Caucus have a plan here with President Trump and the MAGA crowd who are really interested in transformational change to
win the narrative war because sadly that matters?
Well I think we won the narrative war with the American people there's no
question about it. So what we need you know like you say for a year for a
year for a decade now it's our 10th anniversary of having the Freedom Caucus
for 10 years we've been talking about fiscal sanity.
The real change now is that we have someone like,
again, Elon Musk in the Oval Office yesterday saying,
oh, by the way, we should cut the deficit
by $1 trillion next year,
and the president nods in approval.
The president with us in the White House last week
came right out and said,
gee, why can't you guys just balance the budget now?
We're finding all this wasteful spending. Why can't you do it? You know practically it'll take us a
couple of years but you know we do need we have the oomph of Elon Musk and the president now behind
what we've been calling for for a decade. Congressman it's kind of a we're talking to
Congressman Andy Harris kind of a bit of a wonky question but to the audience you mentioned
something before and you kind of stirred my cerebral cortex here.
So thinking about this, it's a bit wonky, but you know what I'm talking about here.
Can we eliminate the pernicious effects of this government scoring system?
Because what you said before is accurate that when these entities come out and say it's 4.5 trillion in cuts, they count tax cuts
as a loss to government revenue using this antiquated scoring system.
However, Congressman, as you know well, there is no evidence that that's actually true.
When George W. Bush enacted that large tax cut, government revenue increased.
You can go look it up, folks.
I'm not making it up.
When Ronald Reagan cut taxes, government revenue didn't go down. It went up.
When Donald Trump cut taxes, absent COVID, the tax revenue
went up. This is a real messaging problem for us.
How do we fix that?
So we don't have to deal with these ridiculous assertions like tax cuts cost the government money?
Well, you're absolutely right.
And when you say, you know, there is no evidence that that's true, there's actually evidence
that that's false, their claims, because you pointed out the three instance.
I mean, there is actually evidence that it's false.
But the Congressional Budget Office, you know, we've tried to reform it.
We're going to try again.
The Democrats will stop us because you do need
tab sixty votes in the senate to reform the congressional budget office but
you're actually right
uh... that they they don't view it what history and uh... as it should be viewed
which is every time we've had a significant tax cut it will result
uh... at that time it will result in increased revenue
likewise if we allow this tax cut to expire,
the economic benefit will be horrendous.
And the reason why we're gonna balance this on paper
is because we are gonna assume
that by extending these tax cuts
and by the regulatory changes of this administration
and some of the deficit reduction,
we are actually going to reduce the deficit
and we are gonna grow the economy.
And that is worth a lot of money.
Growing the economy is worth a lot of revenue,
as you know, because it happened
with the first Trump tax cuts.
Congressman, I got a room.
You understand the economics of it, you know?
I, well, I'm not a doctor like you're,
the congressman's an actual medical doctor.
I tried to get in medical school, wasn't smart enough.
But I think I appreciate the compliment,
but I just want to say in my not defense,
you don't have to be smart to figure this out.
Like what you just said is true.
You can actually go to the treasury's website
and say, geez, what happened after
Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan and George W Bush cut taxes? Oh, look, government revenue went
up. It's not a mystery, man. Just go and put government revenue by year and look it up.
That's what bothers me so much. You're a medical doctor. I'm not. It doesn't require any intelligence
at all to go punch it in a website and look yourself
And they will still make this stupid argument that tax cuts are correlated with lower revenue
I'm glad you cleared that up and I really wish we could clean up this damn scoring system because it's killing us
Congressman Andy Harris
Can you come back with us next week and give us an update?
If you're available on what's happening with this reconciliation
bill because this is the biggest legislative item right now.
If you have some time next week, we'd love to have you.
Absolutely, Dan.
You got it.
Thank you for coming on.
That's great, Jim.
Sign him up.
Got it on tape.
He is a very powerful member of the Freedom Caucus and again, known him a long time.
There's nothing to do with my spreadsheets outlook on stuff but if you're going to get significant cuts the gentleman you
just heard is going to be a part of it because that Freedom Caucus is really really coalesced
around this idea of finally finally getting some actual spending cuts for this bloated
slob of a government right now feeding at the
trough of the American taxpayer. Another great interview next but first let's
get to our next sponsor. Hey one of my favorite traditions is choosing New
Year's resolutions we all get the opportunity start the year fresh set
goals tackle new challenges. This new year I encourage you to learn something
new with Hillsdale College they have more than 40 free online courses more
than 40 free online courses. more than 40 free online courses.
Learn about the works of C.S. Lewis, stories in Genesis, the meaning of the U.S. Constitution,
the rise and fall of the Roman Republic, or the history of the ancient Christian church.
With Hillsdale College's free online courses, they're really incredible.
I've been enjoying lately American Heritage. It examines the history of America from the colonial era to the present, including the
major challenges to the founders principles and great controversies in America's history,
including the current crisis and progressivism.
They have centered around the meaning of those basic foundational principles.
These courses are self paced.
You can start whenever and wherever you like.
So go today to hillsdale.edu slash dan and enroll.
There's no cost, it's easy to get started
and you'll get smarter by the day,
you'll become a better debater too.
That's hillsdale.edu slash dan to enroll for free.
Hillsdale.edu slash dan.
Courses are great, check them out.
The Roman Republic one is fantastic too.
We talk with Tennessee congressmen and frequent guests on the show Tim Burchett never a focus group tested talking point guys
We address in the beginning check this out
So I was scrolling through the internet and
Doing some show prep for later tomorrow the podcast. It's a non-stop show prep cycle
I just enjoy but I do so much.
And I saw this congressman.
He's been on the show many times.
Congressman Tim Burch.
He was on CNN, you know, doing what he does well,
debating with a deranged left wing lunatic
who seems to be fabricating fictitious talking points by the bundle.
And he did a great job welcoming to the show Congressman Tim Burch
from the wonderful state of Tennessee. Thanks for your time.
Dan, it's always an honor, brother, and I can't say how much I appreciate you and putting
the message out to America. And we thought we were on the cusp of losing our dad gum
country and y'all just keep putting the truth out there and it fails.
Well, you've been doing such a good job. You know, I appreciate that you go on CNN.
I know a lot of people have a different opinion and they say we should boycott these networks.
I think it's a mistake.
You have a particularly valuable skill.
You're a very good debater on TV and unlike me, you're calmer about it, which is a good
thing.
I'm learning and I'm getting there when it debating politics. I get fired up
But she was making the comment there Pamela Brown Whoever it was was making some ridiculous point and I don't play the clip on my podcast tomorrow
But I have you here to talk about it directly that you know
They have access these doge people to these you know sensitive government systems now number one
The only way to clean up government systems
of fraud, waste, and abuse is to have access,
but that's such a phony, fraudulent talking point.
Nobody cared when the IRS and Lois Lerner
were credibly accused of targeting conservatives
using IRS data.
Nobody complained, congressmen on the left,
or made a big political point out of the OPM hack
by China where my information
was stolen too. I mean, they don't really care about that. They just care about the
gravy train drying up.
That's exactly right. I said in committee, it's that the gravy trains on biscuit wheels
and it's about to run off the track. That stick it's going to get closed up. And if
you're from the North, get one of our good Southern people to explain you how the gravy drinks and biscuits work.
But anyway, yeah, all they're doing is attacking Trump, President Trump, and they're attacking
Elon Musk.
You know, all of a sudden, it's wrong that somebody is wealthy in this country.
You know, capitalism, outside of Christianity, capitalism has delivered more people from
despair in this world than
anything else.
Our State Department ought to be more concerned about two things, democracy, promoting democracy
and promoting capitalism instead of drag shows down in Central America at taxpayer expense.
It's beyond me and the left has no, they have no argument, Dan.
And all they're doing right now is just trying to, they're chasing their tail, trying to
see if something sticks.
Currently it's, oh, abuse the billionaire, the billionaire, the billionaire.
Well, that billionaire employs hundreds of thousands of Americans right now.
You know, I ran into Jeff Bezos at the inauguration and I said to him, I said, I said, look, man, you know,
people want to run you down.
But the people in my area over in Blount County, they got a job at Amazon.
And guess what they're doing?
They're going to put their kids through school.
They're going to buy a car.
They're going to achieve the American dream and buy a house
and have some financial security because those billionaires that they run down,
they're out there rolling the dice every day.
It used to be in this country,
we were about entrepreneurs and people that took risks.
Now it's these little pantyways
that wanna sit on the sidelines and wring their hands
and talk about how awful we are.
You know what I love about you?
Do you even have like a focus group
that sits around and tells you how to talk?
I doubt it because if you do you ignore them and I really love that.
My old chief of staff when I was my chief of staff when I was first elected congressman, my press guy, he said,
one thing I've never had to do is go behind Tim and say what Tim really meant to say was.
Right, right.
My dad was an old World War II Marine.
Yeah, my dad was an old World War II Marine in Pellaloo, Okinawa, First Marine Division.
And my mama lost her brother fighting the Nazis.
Mama flew an airplane during the Second World War.
Kid Rock always says he's the American badass.
Well, I got news for him.
I was raised by the American badasses.
And they didn't mince words. They were good Christian people. But man, they would call
you out. And they believed in that First Amendment, Dan. And I'm glad it's coming back in vogue.
Well, it reflects in your leadership style. We're talking to Congressman Tim Burchett
from Tennessee, frequent guest on the show. Congressman, you know, Democrat hypocrisy
is nothing new. I've argued over and over that they don't care about looking like hypocrites.
They don't. They care more about hierarchy and staying in power.
They don't care. They know the media will protect them from making two separate
points. So I got two things for you.
Number one is now all of a sudden they don't like Elon and they don't like
billionaires. They don't care about George Soros, though, criticize. Soros though, they love him actually, but they don't care about criticizing billionaire
George Soros. And secondly, I'm sure you remember as I do when Elon was a green champion for them
through this electric vehicle car company called Tesla, they loved Elon. So nothing they ever say
is true. They have based their entire political guiding ethos,
their credo that everybody's supposed to be on a front.
Nothing with them is ever principled.
Nothing, as a matter of fact.
Cause right now all they're doing is trying to get
something that sticks, man.
If you caught that Doge committee that I'm on
that my friend Marjorie Taylor Green put me on, um, she chairs it.
I, all they did was attack him, attack the fact they kept billionaire billionaire.
I've gotten this group called indivisible is a bunch of radicals and nobody
pays them any attention.
They're very frustrated people.
Um, they were obviously picked on in school and now they're getting
even with the world they think. And, and one of their talking points is keep calling him a
billionaire, keep saying billionaire. Apparently they've got a focus group
where that is a bad thing. I don't know about you Dan, but I wouldn't mind being
a billionaire. I'd be the most benevolent billionaire. I mean that's a
freaking American dream brother. And you know and that's why I think they're losing power.
If the Democrats Congressmen want to
forfeit over some money to us
and collectively make us both
billionaires. I'm sure we would,
you know, gladly accept.
I mean, nothing they tell you is
true. But I wanted to hit this
talking point because you're a
you're up on Capitol Hill and you're
dealing with this crop
of people up there all the time.
This is the Democrats.
I think we can both agree,
Congressman Burchett, although their ideas
are poppycock garbage and they're just misguided,
their political tactics are typically better.
They're very good at acting with like a Borg,
Star Trek personality,
because they're collectivists by nature.
Hopi, Changi, they're typically good at messaging
and using the media.
What I can't reconcile is this is such a loser for them
They effectively backing government waste. That's what they're doing
I mean govern the doge is pointing out clear examples of sex changes in Guatemala and other stuff
this is such a loser to them my
Theory on it is the gravy train has to be so
good for them that they've made the calculus and like to get
your input on this that they got to keep the money even if it
costs them their political jobs, because this is a loop they will
go down in the midterms if they pick government waste as a hill
to die on.
I agree. But you got to realize these people that are Marxist
and far left, they represent people that are Marxist and far left, they represent districts
that are Marxist and far left.
You've got all the working people have left some of these districts.
And that's why the big push was for allowing illegals to be counted on the census in a
congressional district.
And they'll never they allegedly can't vote for them.
But what happens is everybody leaves unless the ones that can't or they're on the government
tip.
So they're going to keep putting them in.
You know, we have districts, there's like five to seven congressional districts in California
alone that would not be in Democrat hands.
Look, they don't care what happens to the country.
This is evident because of the $36 trillion in debt.
Every hundred days we have another trillion.
All they care about is their little cut and you'll get that 25-30% of far left radicals that somehow that run a lot of our
school systems and colleges and universities in this country and they'll stay empowered
and they'll just wait for another day and then but they don't care they'll run us into
the ground till then and you know there's always the martyr complex and they'll play that up very well. But I just and they got these
young kids that don't never hit a lip that they think are, you
know, that think they're entitled to everything and never
have had to earn anything. So and they'll continue down that
path. But but America has woken up Donald Trump is is is lit in a fire into this country. And you're
right. All they got to run on is we're going to stand by raising your taxes, the average American
pays at least 50% in taxes if you take state, federal and local taxes. And you're telling me
we're taking $10 million out of your pocket and given circumcisions in Mozambique.
One even worse, East Tennessee, rural East Tennessee,
upper East Tennessee and Western North Carolina,
until Donald Trump came into office,
they were still without power.
They were still without water.
And the only person up there was Franklin Graham's group
and a mountain strong group of folks I know
that all volunteers and we voted on in Congress,
a hundred million dollars for relief.
And I didn't vote for it because I said one of two things, they'll either steal it or
misdirect it.
Well, they did vote.
They sent $54 million to New York City to put a bunch of illegals in fancy motels and
Americans are doing without combat.
Veterans are living under bridges right now.
And it's because of this crazy radical left that we've allowed to come into the
hop into the bell that was in the oval office for four years.
And finally America has woke up, but I'll tell you, we better be ready.
We better hold our guns because we got about a hundred a hundred and fifty days left of this because a miracle of Congress will lose its nerve both
parties because you know what's gonna happen there there why indoor
girlfriend who works for one of these agencies or works for one of these
companies that profits from it is gonna get their gravy train cut off and
they're gonna start derailing it you will see them oh I'm the same like they
did to Trump the first time so So America needs to be paying attention. One question. Wait till they start getting into
the Pentagon ways. They're going to be Republicans too. They're like, well, not that weapons program.
That's in my district. But we're going to be like, hey, the Pentagon says they don't want it. Why
should we keep paying for it? Congressman, I got a few minutes left, but I wanted to, you don't need
any advice from me on how to talk on TV. You've had so many viral hits on CNN from being a good debater.
I've argued you were a master debater.
You have to say those words slowly.
You'll figure that out later.
But there are two things I think we should really, really focus on.
Number one, even if you are if you and if you don't the Democrats will
be funding it down in down in those unbeaten so be careful I mean Bill Clinton
I you get where I go with that but that's a good one you caught me off guard
I like that see this guy's good on his feet but I got a better a minute and a
half left here that we should focus on even if you are a supporter of unchecked
entitlement programs that need reform you're like Social Security forget
We should still make the point even if you are in that direction
This money is being stolen from the same pot of money you're gonna get so even if we don't even look at Social Security
There is still a one pot of government money and the second thing is they keep talking about like well
You're robbing food aid from people in Accra Ghana Ghana, whatever, okay, we're not robbing anything.
People need food aid here.
The United States comes first.
So I got about a minute left.
Your thoughts on that?
100%.
I remember when Reagan was in the White House
and he cut a program that it cost a dollar
to get a dollar in somebody's hand.
So he cut that delivery service down and was still getting the dollar to the people.
And the, and the left hollered, Oh, he cut, he cut half the program.
Well, yeah, he did.
He cut the bureaucrats out.
That's exactly what Trump's doing.
You had a group of protesters in the, in our meeting the other day and disrupted
it, I'm sure they were paid by Soros or one of those guys and they said, Oh,
you're cutting out this thing for, for age and people that
had an age and they marched and they screamed and they were escorted out.
And if they had just watched you or Fox or somebody, they would have known that
Trump had not cut that program out.
You know, all they're doing is extremes.
They're trying to scare the American public.
Yeah.
If you don't go to, if you've got a no show government job and you're not a member of the mob working at some construction site, allegedly, you're going to be
out of work, out of a job, you're not working. And for good reason. We've got to straighten this
thing up. We're 36 trillion in debt. Our great grandchildren cannot afford this. Too many people
fought and died for this country to throw it away for these dirt bags.
Let's take our bad gun country back. I gotta tell you, having you on the Doge,
Congressman Tim Burchett, gonna wrap this up, but having you on the Doge with Marjorie Taylor Greene,
the Doge committee is going to be a tremendous messaging asset. And please continue to go on
these liberal networks. There's no sense preaching to the choir, you know, that you're doing a great
job and we really appreciate it.
I'm going to cover your hit with Pamela Brown actually on tomorrow's show too.
So thanks a lot for coming on today.
We really appreciate it.
Thank you, Dan.
People in Tennessee love you, brother.
Love you guys too, man.
Love you in Tennessee.
And he's a good man.
No squishes on this show.
You know the rules, but I met him personally.
Super nice guy.
Remember when we did the show in Nashville, Jim?
He stopped by and just a great guy.
So, uh, you do got some good people up there.
That Doge committee is going to be where it's at.
Going to be, that's where we're going to start really, really wringing out the
inefficiencies that it's going to be.
Another great interview next, but first let's get to our next sponsor.
Have you seen the news from some economists forecasting a depression, not a
recession, depression by the year 2030.
We could be in a perfect storm if Social Security and Medicare hit a breaking point with the
largest generation hitting retirement.
Smaller workforce usually means a smaller tax base.
Pair that with our growing national debt and rising cost of living, we can have a really,
really big problem.
So what are you doing now to protect your family for the future?
Well, gold has been a safe haven in hard economic times and Birch Gold makes it easy to diversify
a portion of your savings into physical gold.
Birch Gold will help you transition an existing IRA or 401k into an IRA in gold and it doesn't
cost you a penny out of pocket.
Help protect your future today.
Text DAN to 98989 and get your free info kit on gold and a copy of the Ultimate Guide for
Gold in the Trump Era with a forward by Donald Trump jr. There's no obligation only information. I buy my gold from
birch gold you can trust them too. Text my name Dan to the number 989898 today message and data
rate supply. Finally we talked with the Daily Wire's Michael Knowles about his viral debate
with a group of LGBTQIABIOPC2 plus one, I'm losing track of it all, activists.
It was amazing.
Here it is.
We love this guest.
We've had him on the show many times.
He has his own show, which is really wonderful, The Michael Knowles Show, which is eponymously
named after him.
And some of his segments have recently gone viral on X and other platforms.
He engaged in a very respectful but substantive debate with a group of transgender activists
about the issue.
And some of the cuts are just amazing.
And we wanted to have him on to talk about that and the news of the day.
Michael Knowles, always good to have you back.
Thanks for joining us.
Dan, thank you for having me.
Always a pleasure to be here.
So you were great on that debate.
It's gone nuclear on X.
Everybody's been sharing it.
One, you really, you have an asset I don't have in these debates.
I get so angry at stupid talking points, Sometimes it's just hard to contain it, but you're debating with this
You know activists there for the transgender cause about what a man and a woman is and at one point
the person you're debating says that
There they cite their lived experience
Somehow attacking you that you can't comment on these items and these issues and your
comeback was great I have lived experience like I'm alive right now but
just to sum up the question I find it interesting these liberal activists will
comment on all kinds of matters they have no direct experience with at all
spying law enforcement guns abortion everything but yet when you comment on
males or females it's not your lived experience.
It's a great observation, Dan.
You know, they're experts on everything.
The minute we have a COVID vaccine,
they're all mRNA specialists.
Any time there's any gun violence,
they all know absolutely everything about firearms.
But yes, whenever we question them,
we're not permitted to comment.
And it's especially a silly point to make during a debate because the whole
premise of a debate is that there is such a thing as objective truth and we
can all perceive something about it we can all reason about it and have ideas
and persuade one another if you make the claim that you can only speak about
things that are within the purview of your direct experience, then what you're really
saying is, we can't speak at all. No one can have any debates, no one can have any
conversations, and then what you're saying is that you can't have self
government. Because the whole premise of self government is that we can know
something about the world, we can persuade our fellow citizens, and we can
figure out how we want to live. So, you know, really, it's just a way to concede a debate implicitly,
which I think is basically what these people did.
Yeah, and you were fantastic. I watched multiple clips from it. And I don't think there was
a, you know, usually there's at least one moment where there's, it seems to be, you
know, you, I've debated a lot of people on my show live and there's someone always throw some curveball at you
And it's not necessarily you don't know about it
But you just didn't see that coming because it's such a weird thing
There's there's no portion of that debate and I encourage you to follow him on X Michael Knowles
Kno w l es it's worth your time his shows amazing, but just watch and you'll see how it's done
I'd like you to comment on this and I may have asked you this before. Forgive me.
I don't, I'm trying to be redundant,
but my theory on this whole LGBTQIABIOPOC2 plus one,
I mean, it really, it just keeps, I'm not even sure where, yeah,
I'm really not being like disrespectful,
but I just really don't know where it ends anymore is that this is a really,
this is another progressive kind of proxy fight where it's just a war on objective truth. So we as conservatives, you know, Thomas Sowell calls it the conflict
divisions, right? We have this worldview that there is objective truth, like you just said,
and facts and data will help us get there. Liberals don't like that because if there's objective truth, there are objective values.
Everything has to be discretionary and that's where government fills the hole.
We get to treat people differently.
We get to screw this guy over, screw that guy over.
They need to have government be the arbiter and be subjective in how they treat people.
So they can't have simple facts out there.
Like you ever see their war on math?
It's the same thing with their war on gender. They know it's true. They're not stupid. They
just can't have any objective truth out there. So it's just a proxy fight for, you know,
the filling the vacuum with subjective government.
I think you're totally right about that. It is a proxy fight. Sometimes people will say,
why are we spending so much time talking about this relatively small percentage of the population and my answer is always look
I didn't bring it up you know I'm not the one changing the laws and taking
away women's bathrooms and the like you guys brought it up and for a reason
because as you say Dan it is a proxy battle about something much deeper I
think there are two things going on with the left's obsession with LGBT. The first one is I think that they want to get people riled up as
pertains to their appetites. You know, sex is a really important part of human
nature and always has been. And so if you can get people really consumed with all
kinds of passions and lusts, they're not going to be in their right minds and
it's going to be much easier to manipulate them. So I think that's
the first little political objective that's going on, but then the second one
I think is that because sex is so important to human nature, really what
the left is doing is just waging a war, an attempt to redefine human nature.
And you've seen this for hundreds of years i mean
perhaps most notably
the jack of them to later the communists
said that they could redefine human nature i mean marks in the if you see
time for a baka there isn't in that number six
that uh... philosophy up until this point is sought to understand human
nature but what he endeavors to do is to change human nature and so when when the
left and pushes this ideology that says you know a man can be a woman or
something like that
now what he's doing is not just trying to flatter a small percentage of
society
he's trying to make a claim about human nature if they look if we can change a
man into a woman
then we can do anything then we through the power of the state and our leftist
ideology
all omnipotent we are going to be gods among men there is nothing that you can do anything than we through the power of the state and our leftist ideology are omnipotent. We are going to be gods among men. There is nothing that you can do to stop
us. And that's an ideology that's much, much older than the rainbow flag.
Yeah. We're talking to Michael Knowles. He has his own show. You should check it out.
The Michael Knowles show. It's fantastic. Michael, do you think that this, this Democrat
Hilda Dion that they've chosen in the culture wars and the government wars
right now they're choosing to die on the Doge Hill because they don't.
You know, they love government waste.
That's how, you know, usually winds up in their pockets.
So they don't want the rock getting overturned.
But on the culture war, it really seems like this is this.
They're not going to let this go.
I mean, they just got smoked in an election.
You'd think there'd be some
observance in the mirror of, hey, we've got a problem here, but you just don't see it in mass. You see a couple of Carville types coming out and saying, hey, this was stupid. But do you,
I'm going to play a clip when we're off the air next with you and from this Alex Carp on CNBC,
he was like, hey, I'm a Democrat, but this is the Democrat party committing suicide right in front of our eyes. I mean, do you see any
kind of introspection like in the Bill Clinton Democrat Leadership
Council era where they said, hey, we got to cut this crap out and get
back to good old fashioned American values within my party? Or is it
just the fallen on the sword thing?
Well, I think you're definitely seeing introspection among the corporate
and elite Democrats. You know, I think you mentioned definitely seeing introspection among the corporate and the elite Democrats.
You mentioned Alex Karp or even just Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos or any of these billionaire
masters of the universe who usually side with the Dems.
You notice they were all lining up at the Trump inauguration.
They're cooling it with the DEI policies and the LGBT policies too.
However, the ideologues are not giving
up and i think it's because they can't you know they're they're political
program is one of that maximizing individual autonomy especially their own
autonomy and and of of really total control over all aspects of human life
so if they come out all of a sudden after november and they say you know
what actually we are going to respect national boundaries. You know
what, actually we are going to respect the definition of marriage and family.
You know, we are going to respect parents' rights and the rights of local
communities and just objective truth. If they come out and say that, they will
be conceding a major limit on their own power. And so I just don't see any
way that the AOCs
of the world can do that.
And so you're gonna have the Alex Carps
and the Mark Zuckerbergs banging their heads
against a wall saying, guys, we're not gonna win
another election for 50 years if you keep this up.
But if you're a true believer,
if you're a real leftist ideologue
and you've already come this far,
I don't really see how you turn around.
Yeah, if you wanna watch Michael's full debate, it's on an
episode of a show called Jubilee, by the way, you can see the
clips of it on on X. Check them out. Michael Knowles K no w
l e s. Michael, I'd love your perspective. You're a very
insightful guy. And we've been friends a long time on the
current situation in Ukraine. You know, one of your colleagues
at the Daily Wire bench appear, I did the show about a year ago and Ben and I had a good 10-minute conversation about
this and it was interesting because when we took the time to listen to each other, I think
we both found some value even though we have a different perspective on it and what others
had to say. The left doesn't do that. What's really frustrating me about this argument
is it's become so completely emotional that it's devoid of reason logic and
facts. The argument has become Putin bad Zelinsky good, which, which is, it's almost childlike.
The argument it's gotten to the point where you say something like, Hey, man, I'm open to the idea
that we need international partners. It's we all live on this rock called Earth.
But is anyone going to present an avenue and an off ramp to this war that actually makes sense? Because I haven't heard it yet.
And the first thing from simpletons is you're definitely a Putin puppet.
It's just really distracting.
And now with this news about Zelensky and the rare earth minerals thing, I'm
thinking to myself, Trump's the spreadsheets guy.
He wants an answer. Nobody's giving it to him, and then they get mad at him for saying, hey
man, produce the goods or get off the shot clock.
I totally agree, Dan. The propaganda has been so frustrating because, you know, believe
it or not, I'm old enough to remember before the war broke out in Ukraine, I'm old enough
to remember when even our liberal establishment media would point out that Ukraine is a very corrupt country. When
the establishment media would point out that Ukraine has elements within its
militias and military that are neo-nazi, that were actually
booted off of social media platforms such as Facebook. And then the moment that
the war breaks out, all of a sudden we're told that Ukraine is the picture of a
Madisonian democracy. It's basically the fifty first date forget
about all that not the stuff actually if you don't support you crane now you're a
not feet
but you know look at please
i understand the complex situation but please respect our intelligence enough
to recognize that reasonable minds might disagree i mean i think going back to the
nineteen nineties you're very very intelligent foreign policy thinkers like henry kissinger sam nunn daniel patrick
moine hand all saying that you crane that needs to exist as a buffer nation
okay there's a role for buffer states they can mediate between greater powers
and it would be crazy fruit for nato for instance to expand into ukraine that
that might lead to more war and more bloodshed when president trump come comes out and he says, this war never would have started on my watch,
I know people think he's exaggerating or boasting. I think he is 100% right.
There was one administration in the last 20 years on whose watch
Vladimir Putin has not further invaded another country.
Wasn't Bush, wasn't Obama, wasn't Biden. It was Donald Trump.
And so now you
you've got this war that is broken out because of feckless leadership
can you cut to to possibilities you can either continue the liberal american
grand strategy of allowing you crane to be a meat grinder and hoping to kill as
many russian soldiers as you possibly can and sacrificing the the young men of
ukraine to do it or
you can say you know it's some years now has been enough and we need to wind this
down
blessed are the peacemakers because by the way if we let this war continue on
it could spiral on
beyond that the the gases of our genius elite liberal class and you could be in
a really serious regional or even global
war there's nothing that
bootlicking to Vladimir
Putin about that realistic foreign policy and I think happily the adults
are back in charge and we're gonna see a serious resolution. Yeah I couldn't agree
more. That was really unbelievably well stated. The simple minds are
not on our side. I am perfectly willing to concede that Ukraine didn't deserve
this. Ukrainian people didn't deserve it. No one's saying that was even mildly
suggesting that. But treating this like, Oh, good guy, bad guy.
And then leaving out the big,
bold bullet point that the guy's got nuclear weapons.
I'm not saying it's got to dictate everything we do.
It's just hopelessly naive and stupid.
And I don't want to be told I'm a Putin puppet for recognizing reality that's a real thing Michael you have a great show you're my wife's
favorite podcast she loves you you're the best I love your show too cuz it's so
well done it's called the Michael Knoll show K-N-O-W-L-E-S he's fantastic Michael
thanks a lot for your time great job on that debate really really good work we
appreciate it. Thank you so much Dan Dan. Always great to be with you. And I always say your wife has excellent taste in men, podcasters and husband.
Thank you, brother.
They're well said.
Michael Knowles, folks.
Yes, she does.
She loved the show.
It's amazing.
He's a really, as you can tell, extremely intelligent guy.
And both me and her are like magnets towards people who make us.
I always want to be the dumbest guy in the room.
Why would you want to be the dumbest guy in the room?
No, I'm serious.
If you're in a room with people smarter than you, you'll always leave smarter.
Don't hang around with people where you're the smartest person in the room.
You can only leave dumber.
Am I right or am I right?
Law of average, regressive to the mean.
Hang out with people smarter than you.
Thanks for checking out the podcast.
You can always listen on Rumble and tune into the radio show every day.
Go to bonjino.com slash station finder to find out where we're on a station near you.
See you on Monday.