The Dan Bongino Show - The Bongino Brief - Debate or Debacle?

Episode Date: September 30, 2023

It was not a great night for anyone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Dan Bongino. Welcome to the Bongino Brief. I'm Dan Bongino. Listen, here's the thing about the debate. There were three components to a debate. There's the candidate component, there's the network component, and then there's the moderator component. Folks, this is one of those rare things where I think the moderators, or one of them at least, looked really bad, which made the network look even worse. The viewership apparently was not great. And then I don't think any of the candidates did what they needed to do to change the narrative. I think there are a couple that

didn't necessarily hurt themselves last night. But I guess my point is when you're in a race and folks, I'm just giving you the math. Listen, you know where my heart is in the race. I've already said it. You wrote an opinion and I gave it to you. However, I like a lot of the candidates up there genuinely because of what they stand for and have done. I do. So I feel like I can really be objective on this. I don't think anybody did what they needed to do to close what in some states is a 30 to 40 point gap between them and Donald Trump. I just don't. point gap between them and Donald Trump. I just don't. It looked like a race for number two. Now, listen, Bob Costa is a left-leaning guy, but I've met with this guy before of all the left-leaning guys. He's not as crazy as most of them. I got a bunch of texts this morning saying

this exact thing. You may say, oh, this is some lefty guy. All right, fine. But I'm just telling you, I got almost the exact same text. Some of the words verbatim out of this. This lefty. All right, fine. But I'm just telling you, I got almost the exact same text. Some of the words verbatim out of this. This is Costa. He says, listen, lots of angst tonight about my top GOP sources about the debate. Donors are concerned, flurry of texts, questions about where the race goes from here. They wonder, is anyone going to have a breakout moment? Meanwhile, Trump all but ignores the scene and shrugs off the indictments. Folks, they're not wrong. You have to ask yourself if you're a candidate, what the do I have to do to make a difference, right? And when you're up on the stage with seven people, honestly, three or four of them who have no business being up there at all,

this should be three people on stage right now. Right now, it should be DeSantis. It should be Vivek and Nikki Haley. Maybe Tim Scott. Mike Pence has no business being up there. I'm sorry. The guy is not polling significantly in any of the states. It is a waste of assets and time. You may think he's a nice guy. You may think he's a nice guy. You may think he's a mean guy. He doesn't belong on the stage. Chris Christie is just up there to be an asshole. That's all Chris Christie's doing.

Chris Christie was given marching orders by his donors. Go be an asshole. That's all he does. He goes up there and says dumb stuff. I'll show you what I mean. Do we have the Donald Duck thing? Did I send that? That clip? I didn't send it. Well, good. I probably ignored it because it was so stupid. He's like, we're going to call you Donald Duck. It's just dumb. It's just stupid. was the governor of North Dakota, isn't even a conservative. He barely, if ever, supported anything conservative outside of a tax cut.

What is he doing? No one even knows who he is. It's a waste of time. Maybe if you had a debate between DeSantis, Vivek, Nikki Haley, and maybe Tim Scott, you could spend some time with these guys and people who don't like Trump. And listen, there are people out there, folks. I'm a Trump supporter, but there are people out there who aren't. Let's not be naive about it.

No, everybody doesn't love him. There are people who don't love him. And some of them are conservatives, and they like DeSantis, or they like someone else. If they're trying to make a choice right now, it's not helping. Last night was a mess. What are the political narratives that make a difference? Come on, you guys already, you know this, man. Say, come on, I'm so insulting. I'm sorry. You know what I'm talking to,

like the people maybe, you know, who aren't getting, this isn't breaking through. The only political narratives that make the difference are ones that change your preexisting notion of who a candidate is for the better or for the worse. Change the political narrative. You get what I'm saying? If you love someone and they say something that makes you think better of them in a race, then you're really going to love them. If you love someone in a race and they say something that changes the political narrative because it changes your perception of who they are and you hate them, then it's going to change momentum in the other direction. When you're static, like a sitting pile of water, it just breeds mosquitoes and stuff. It's no good. Here's what I mean.

First, the moderator on the moderator front, the moderator network. Why did Fox pick this lady? I am so confused why this Univision lady was there. She seemed to, she was asking questions that weren't questions at all. They were statements. Here she is blaming the United States somehow for gun violence, ignoring the plague of gun violence in South American countries, in some European. I mean, this isn't even a question. It's not even serious. Nobody should have even answered this question. They should have said, ma'am, that's not a question. It's a ridiculous statement, claiming the United States somehow has a monopoly on gun violence. It's so silly. I absolutely refuse to answer it. How was this lady in the debate for? Check this out.

We're going to stay in the topic of crime because it affects all of us. Governor Burgum, for the first time ever, a Univision poll found that mass shootings and gun safety are one of the most important issue for Latino voters. Mental health concerns are not unique. What the is that? What kind of stupid question is that? It was just vetted by Fox. How did you let that question get out there? She has no evidence to back that up at all. That is not unique to the United States at all. It's not even close. Has she traveled to South America? Does she have any idea what she's talking about? Is she factoring in suicides? I mean, what is she even talking about? Here,

it got worse. Here's the second question. Again, this is not a question. This is a statement. Here, check this out. According to Customs and Border Protection, about 90 percent of fentanyl is seized at official border crossings and 57 percent of the smugglers are U.S. citizens. How would you stop fentanyl brought into the country, mostly by U.S. citizens through ports of entry? There's two sides to this and we have to be very honest. U.S. citizens through ports of entry. There's two sides to this, and we have to be very honest. Why, again, did they answer this question? Are you seriously blaming the fentanyl crisis on U.S. citizens on an American network,

knowing there's a border crisis? Even if our data was correct, which I don't believe at all, because how do you know how much fentanyl is coming into the country when you don't catch a lot of it? I don't know, fellas. Joe, I'm just throwing a statistical question out there. If a bunch of fentanyl got into the country, you didn't caught. How do you know what got into the country? Because you didn't catch it. You don't know because you didn't catch it because it's on the street. But again, nobody, what I'm stunned about is that these candidates even answered the question. But again, nobody, what I'm stunned about is that these candidates even answered the question. They should have been like, again, ma'am, with due respect, time out.

Where'd you get your ridiculous statistics? 53% is smuggled by Americans. Where did you get that? How would you know? A lot of the fentanyl in the country isn't caught in the smuggling process. So how would you know who the smugglers are if you don't catch them? I don't know. I'm just asking questions. Holy Moses. This is the moderator? This is like a Republican Democrat debate. What the kind of bullshit was that? More in a minute, but first.

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with your tax attorney or financial professional before making an investment decision. Message and data rates apply. This was not a good question. I'm sorry. It made a lot of the candidates uncomfortable. This question did not go over well with anyone. DeSantis shut it down. I think he did the right thing. This really just did not reflect well on the night, but check this out. On stage tonight should be voted off the island. Please use your marker to write your choice on the notepad in front of you. 15 seconds starting now of the people on the stage. Who should be? I'm absolutely serious. With all due respect. I mean, we're here.

Like, we're happy to debate. I think that that's disrespectful to my fellow competitors. Nobody wants to participate. Let's do some questions. Let's talk about the future of the country. I'll answer it. I want to be clear about this. If I may.

Let me ask you something. Then if you won't answer that question, let me ask you this one. Listen, I'm all for having a little bit of fun at these things. We don't have to be stiffs all the time. You know, I think that's the reputation of the Republican Party. And debate, moderating debates is tough. I mean, I don't think she was trying to make anybody look stupid. It was probably, by the way, something that somebody behind the scenes drew up.

You know, you're not sitting there writing all these things yourself. But it just didn't go over well. And I thought the Santas did a good job saying we're not going to. It turns out, by the way, Chris Christie, did you guys catch it? Christie wrote a name down and then Christie was like, oh, I'm not playing this either. Did you see it? Did you see it? Did you Joe? You caught it. Chris Christie writes a name that he's like, oh, I'm not playing, man. Oh, you just did. But you just did. You just you just wrote a name.

You know what happened, dude? Tell me if I'm not crazy. Someone should have walked up on stage like a bouncer and grabbed it. Be like, you see, he played, he played the game. Everybody's going to ask now, who is the name? It's, you know, it just didn't go over well. But again, yeah, you see it. There you go.

There you see, right there. See, you know, that's the first thing I caught. Thank you. Good call, Guy. You saw that, folks, in the chat? I didn't even play it at all. Cool. I'm not playing the game.

This guy, he's the designated asshole. You ever see that show, Designated Survivor? You know, in the event of an emergency, you get a designated survivor in the government. Christie's the designated asshole. That's what he's got to do. He's the jerk on stage. He's got to be the jerk.

They call him Donald Duck. I get it. Trump uses nicknames too. That's just not funny. I mean, I'm not saying every one of Trump's nicknames was a huge hit, but some of them were just funny. The little Marco low energy gem. Donald Duck was just dumb. It was just stupid. All right. Here's where it just, like I said, doesn't look good for the network. It wasn't really a, the debate was not, it was not a great night for really for anyone.

It was like a trifecta and it's going to happen. I mean, listen, the debate was on Rumble too. It's a platform I own a good chunk of. So don't think I'm like throwing someone under the bus. Oh, those Fox guys screwed up. And we were on Rumble too. I don't think it was a great night for us either. Candidly, I don't think that many people are interested. So again, I'm not, don't tell me like, oh, you're just bitter.

I'm not bitter at all. I've already told you. I still got friends here, good people. And I'm just giving you my honest opinion about what happened. It just wasn't a good night. Sometimes we have shitty shows and we tell you, yesterday's show was no good. Today's show is fiery, man. I'm loving today's show. Here, this is, I mean, this doesn't help at all. So this is, they've started screaming over each other. I got two

cuts of this. I want you to tell me again, viewing this as an open-minded Republican voter who hasn't selected a candidate yet. That's who they're talking to. Does any of this change your mind? Take a listen. We're not a perfect nation. We're founded on the pursuit of perfection. That is what makes America great. And that is why we will end it once we win this election. I have to jump in here. I'm sorry. There to be speaking there's one person on this this is infuriating because tiktok is one of the most dangerous social media apps that we could have and what you've got i honestly every time i hear you i feel a little

bit dumber for what you say because i can't believe they hear you've got a tiktok situation what they're doing is these 150 million people are on TikTok. That means they can get your contacts. All right. He played the wrong one. That's Nikki Haley and Vivek going at it, but I'll cover that too. Yeah. Hold on. Just keep that. Hold that thought for a second because I was going to go into this anyway.

The problem I find with that one, I'm a little bit out of order now, but whatever. We'll go back to that in a second. Is Haley and Vivek are clearly playing for the number two spot. In my humble opinion, and I'm not little bit out of order now, but whatever. We'll go back to that in a second. Is Haley and Vivek are clearly playing for the number two spot? In my humble opinion, and I'm not saying this based on any inside information, I'm telling you what I think their candidate's thinking, not what I want. So if you're a DeSantis guy, don't come screaming down my throat. I'm just going to block you or mute you for stupid

because I'm not saying you should drop out or anything like that. I'm simply suggesting I think Nikki Haley and Vivek's campaigns think DeSantis is done. That's what I think they think. You got me? I think they think his campaign is done. The reason Vivek and Nikki Haley are going out of it after over TikTok, you know, it doesn't matter. They'll make up anything to fight each other right now is they're fighting for the number two spot right now. They think DeSantis is going to drop out. I don't think he's going to do that, but they think he's going to. I think he's got enough support to stay in at least till South Carolina.

And if he shows a competitive second in a couple of these states a lot longer. But I think that's exactly what they think. And I'm trying to explain to you what I think went on with that, too too. Now back to this. This is the screaming over. I got two cuts of this. None of this helps any of the candidates. Again, how does this change your mind about a candidate on the time? That happened all night. And listen, again, you can sit there and fault the moderator, but the reality is nobody gives a shit about the moderator.

They don't. They're going to do what happened to 1,000 debates. Congress races, Senate races, local races. This happens everywhere. Every candidate has an incentive to try to get their point in And the longer they talk They figure someone's going to shut up first And this is what happened

So this is not so much on the moderates It's just on the candidates This doesn't help anyone Vivek at one point said this too In the New York Times This is how you know Vivek was causing some trouble Because the New York Times jumped all over it New York Times

Transgenderism, especially in kids, is a mental health disorder. Vivek Ramaswamy, New York Times. This is false. Being transgender is not a mental health disorder. Many transgender people experience gender dysphoria or psychological distress as a result of the incongruence between their sex and their gender identity. Gender dysphoria is a diagnosis in the psychiatric, diagnostic, and statistical manual of mental disorders and can be given to children, adolescents, or adults. How the hell is that a fact check? How is it false?

You just said the same thing twice. The Dan Bongino Show. If you'd like to hear more, subscribe to The Dan Bongino Show wherever you get your podcasts.