The Dan Bongino Show - The Dan Bongino Sunday Special 03/20/22

Episode Date: March 20, 2022

First up today is an interview with Senator Ted Cruz. We got his thoughts on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the debacle the Biden administration caused over the Polish MiGs. Next is former congressman Devin Nunes to tell us about his new venture, as CEO of Truth Social, Donald Trump's social media network. Then Peter Schiff about the inflation crisis, and what the near and long term future could look like financially. Finally, we talked with Dan Horowitz about the situation in Ukraine, and what the differences are with conservatives and conservatism now from the Reagan era. 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. Hey, thanks for tuning in to The Weekend Podcast. You know, it's a special podcast we put together for you to enjoy on Sunday over the weekend here. Features some of the best interviews we did in the radio show during the week with some guests I think you really want to hear from. You can hear him live during the week on my radio show. Just go to my website, Bongino.com. Click on Station Finder if you want to find out where you can listen. If you're looking for a firearm, I wholeheartedly recommend Henry Repeating Arms.

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and click on the free catalog button in the top right corner. You're going to love this company first up today's an interview with senator ted cruz we got his thoughts on the russian invasion of ukraine and the debacle the biden administration caused over the polish migs he has some inside info on this check this out um let me welcome this show i don't waste any more time very happy to have a really strong conservative up in the senate senator ted cruz thanks for joining us sir dan great to be with you so senator um one of your colleagues marco rubio

had victoria newland up on capitol hill yesterday victoria newland doesn't have a lot of credibility with me that was a central figure in the whole um spy gate russian collusion fiasco but it was a very concerning exchange yesterday about this, what Victoria Nuland called a biological research lab in Ukraine. And it appears doing some homework on this, that this was a long-term effort with Barack Obama and Senator Lugar, a former colleague of yours, to help them build out this bioweapons counterproliferation operation in Ukraine.

This is really concerning, Senator, because there's such a crisis of truth right now in the media. You don't know what to believe and what not to believe. As a guy who's read in on a lot of these things, I understand there's things you can and can't say. But your thoughts on this? Well, Dan, I agree with you that it is concerning that that that we had her testimony at the public hearing about a U.S. government facility there in Ukraine that is at risk of being seized by the Russians. And that is troubling. And at this point, I think a number of us in the Senate are focused on learning precisely what was being done at that particular lab. I can tell you I don't know the answer to that now.

I've already directed my team to begin trying to get to the bottom of it. And I will tell you, getting answers from the Biden administration on just about anything is not easy. They stonewall practically anything you ask them. But they have not affirmatively told us what was occurring there. And so my staff is in the process of trying to find out the answers to that. Well, Senator, I asked you because you have a reputation up there on the Hill for being a very aggressive seeker of the truth. I'm trying to find a more eloquent way to say that, but, and I appreciate that, you know, it's not cutesy time up there. You're a skilled debater, you're a lawyer. It's not cutesy time. know you want friends go go out on a date swipe right

or left like i'm not interested in that um i want answers from our elected people in a government run by consent of the govern and uh i really appreciate that your staff is looking into that because we really are we're having a tough time getting to the truth another uh another um another component of this this ukraine russia crisis right now we're having a hard time getting answers is the constant back and forth about these these these migs in in poland you know uh one story is well poland surprised us another story i'm hearing is well they didn't surprise us we were pushing them to do it and then when they did it there was backlash we changed their mind i mean what what is going on with this story with the MiGs in Ukraine?

Sure. So that I can shed considerably more light on. This weekend, I and the other members of the Senate had a video conference call with President Zelensky in Ukraine. And he was in an undisclosed location. He began the call by saying, this may be the last time you ever speak to me or hear from me. And there's no doubt Russia is trying very hard to kill him right now. He said several things. One of the things he said that I think was very important, he said if the United States had imposed sanctions on Nord Stream 2, something that I was fighting for all of last year, he said if we had done that last year, Russia would not have invaded. He said if we had done that last year, Russia would not have invaded. Putin would not have invaded except for the fact that Biden waived sanctions on Putin and Russia and Nord Stream 2, which is what precipitated the invasion.

But secondly, what he said on the question you asked is he said his number one priority – we asked him, what do you need? He said his number one priority is control of the air. He said right now the Russians have air superiority. And he said, we need fighter jets. We need fighter jets. We have Ukrainian pilots who can fly them, but we don't have the jets to go head to head with the Russians. In Poland, they have a number of MiGs, old Soviet MiGs from when they were all behind the Iron Curtain. The Ukrainian pilots are trained in flying MiGs, so those are naturally jets that make sense. Poland has been interested in providing them what they wanted from the United States is some commitment that we would backfill and make F-16s available to replace them so that Poland was not left defenseless. The Biden administration, frankly,

is timid and ineffective. And to be honest, they didn't want Poland to provide the MiGs. And so what they were saying, their public position was, well, Poland is a sovereign country, so it's up to Poland whether or not to provide the fighter jets. And the Biden administration was playing games by trying to blame it on Poland and say, well, gosh, you know, the Poles just don't want to help Ukraine. Isn't that terrible? Not our fault. And Poland yesterday in a move that was one heck of a move, just flew the flew the planes to a U.S. Air Force base. And now we have them. And they said, look, give them to Ukraine. They're yours. And suddenly the Biden administration, their lies were exposed. And so yesterday, the Department of Defense said, no, we're not going to give them to Ukraine because

they're scared of Putin. This is all about Joe Biden and the entire administration. Their weakness caused this invasion. And they are resigned to failure. They are resigned to Putin winning. And all they're trying to do is manage the destruction of Ukraine. And the only means they know how to deal with with our adversaries is through weakness and appeasement. And it keeps incentivizing more and more aggressive behavior by America's enemies. Senator, thank you for that. That is very illuminating, because I want the audience to understand what you're saying right now. I mean, you said it fine, but summed up,

the Biden administration's trying to have it both ways, is what I think you're saying. Listen, if you don't want to escalate this crisis and you don't want to transport Russian MiGs to Ukraine, then just say it, damn it. Just say it and take a stand. The problem, Senator, is they're afraid they're going to look like appeasers. So

like you said, they're trying to do the split the baby Solomon routine. Oh, man, these Poles, they're in the way here. Gosh, if they would just... So what you're saying is the Polish government said, okay, touche, baby, you want to play games? We'll send it to Germany and NATO, but you guys go ahead and do what you want with it.

And the Biden administration was caught flat-footed again. Is that accurately summed up? That is exactly right. And the Biden talking points and what they actually do are night and day. They're the exact opposite. You can't trust these people. Senator, one of the other things you said, which is tragically, you know, tragic at this point.

I mean, the hilarity of the Biden's administration's their messaging campaign just never ends. It's like a clown show. They just got over a six month cycle of telling us why we need to stack the court and get rid of the filibuster because they're Jim Crow relics of racism, yet you put a bill out there to sanction Nord Stream 2, which would have done significant damage to Putin's

war machine, and they literally Democrats filibuster your bill using this, quote, racist tool and now where's the media coverage of that, Senator? Nowhere. And now where's the media coverage of that center? Nowhere. Zero. That is exactly right. And if you look at, for your listeners, it's important to understand why Russia invaded Ukraine.

You know, Ukraine used to be part of the Soviet Union. Putin has long wanted to invade Ukraine because Putin wants to reassemble the old Soviet Union. And he did invade Ukraine because Putin wants to reassemble the old Soviet Union. And he did invade Ukraine in 2014. He invaded Crimea, the southern portion of Ukraine, but he stopped. He didn't invade the entirety of the nation. Why? Because Russia's major source of revenue is exporting oil and gas, and the natural gas goes on pipelines right through the middle of Ukraine. And so Putin couldn't risk damaging

that energy infrastructure, because if he did, if those were damaged or destroyed, he couldn't get his gas to Europe. The next year, in 2015, Putin began building what's called Nord Stream 2, an undersea pipeline that goes directly from Russia to Germany. It circumvents Ukraine. It skips Ukraine altogether. And the reason he started building Nord Stream 2 was because if it was completed and turned on, then he could invade Ukraine and not need to worry about the energy infrastructure because he could get his gas to Europe using Nord Stream 2. In Washington, both parties were throwing their hands in the air, saying there's nothing we can do to stop this.

I authored sanctions legislation, bipartisan sanction legislation in 2019, passed it through both houses of Congress. President Trump signed my sanctions legislation into law and Putin stopped building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline literally the day that President Trump signed my sanctions legislation into law. the day that President Trump signed my sanctions legislation into law. The pipeline was dead for over a year. Russia didn't invade Ukraine. And then Joe Biden becomes president four days after Biden is sworn in.

Putin returns to building Nord Stream 2. A few months later, Biden formally waives sanctions on Nord Stream 2. He lets Putin complete the pipeline. That is why Russia now invaded Ukraine. And as you noted, I forced a vote just a few weeks back on imposing those sanctions, and 44 Senate Democrats filibustered sanctions on Russia. They gave in to White House political pressure and stood with Putin literally days before the tanks rolled into Ukraine. Right. While lecturing us about the so-called racist filibuster, which, again, is just tragic that we have to deal with this vacuum of stupid in the country.

Senator, last question. Ben Jenner, your time. We're talking to Senator Ted Cruz from the great state of Texas. Senator, the hypocrisy and messaging from the Biden administration and the outright lies aren't limited to just Ukraine. It's the energy crisis, too, which obviously involves Ukraine and Russia. They can't seem to get their story straight, Senator. On one hand, they tell you that Keystone and onshore, offshore permitting, Amwar, the North Slope, that any of these things aren't fixes because they're short term.

Excuse me. They're long term solutions and not short term. That's debatable. They're probably more medium term than anything. But then the next day, Senator, they go out and give speeches about, yeah, we're going to build out a charging station network all around the country and we're going to build out Martha's Vineyard, wind farms and solar, which senators on a timeline far longer than Anwar or the Keystone Pipeline, which is so much finished. So what is it? Is long term planning good or is long term planning bad? I mean, they can't seem to get their message straight on anything. Well, unfortunately, the Biden White House combines stupidity with dishonesty. They don't understand the basic principles of economics.

So they insist that they had nothing to do with skyrocketing gas prices. Literally the first day in office, Biden canceled the Keystone pipeline. The first day in office, he froze all leases on federal land, both onshore and offshore. As you noted, he stopped production up in Anwar. He unleashed regulatory locusts on oil and gas. And we saw our rig count drop precipitously. We saw U.S. production drop precipitously. In 2019, under President Trump, America became energy independent. In 2021, under Joe Biden, we lost that independence and we became a net energy importer because of their war on U.S. production. Now, what's even more asinine now is the Biden administration just sent their officials to Venezuela to beg Nicolas Maduro to sell us oil. They're in Vienna negotiating with Iran to have the Ayatollah sell us oil. They're in Vienna negotiating with Iran to have the Ayatollah sell us oil.

They want our enemies to sell oil and they don't want American production, which creates jobs here, drives down gas prices and pollutes less than does foreign oil. It is better for the environment for us to produce here at home. These guys are zealots

and they don't understand cause and effect. And I will tell you, by the way, as you know, I do it does every week is tries to explain really what's going on behind the scenes in Washington and how to navigate through the lies that are coming from the White House. Senator, thanks so much for your time. I got a bolt, but you're so right.

Let's not give money to the terrorists in Russia. Let's give it to the terrorists in our own hemisphere, in Venezuela. That's a great to the terrorists in our own hemisphere in Venezuela. That's a great, that's a really great, real great strategy. The verdict with Ted Cruz, a very, very popular podcast. I always see it motoring up the charts. Thanks for your time, Senator. You're welcome back anytime.

Thanks, Dan. God bless. You got it. Senator Ted Cruz, folks, I can't say it better than him, puts out a bill to sanction Nord Stream 2 to bankrupt Putin's energy industry over there. And the Democrats filibuster it. Yep. Filibuster it using the filibuster they said was racist. And you fell for it, right? Liberals. Yeah, of course I did. I'm dopey. That was Senator Ted Cruz was on the radio show with some deep insights there on the conflict in Ukraine.

What's going on behind the scenes? We've got another great interview coming up with my good friend, former congressman, CEO of Truth Social, Donald Trump's new social media site, Devin Nunes. OK, here's former Congressman Devin Nunes to tell us about his new venture, Truth Social. All right. I want to welcome to the show a guy who, when he was in Congress, if it wasn't for his hard work and the work of others, him and Kash Patel and others out there and a lot of entrepreneurial journalists out there, we would have never, ever gotten to the bottom of the Spygate story and the Russia collusion hoax. My friend, Devin Nunes. Devin, welcome to the show.

Hey, Dan, it's great to be back on. I think this is my first time in my new capacity on the outside. I know. It's just like weird talking to you like this. Of course, Devin is the CEO of the Trump Media Group, which is responsible for the creation of what I believe to be the future of microblogging and social media, true social. Devin, you got an update for us? I'm on there. I'm thoroughly enjoying the platform.

I have, I think, something like 350,000 followers, which is pretty remarkable considering it's only been up and running for a couple of months. How's it going? Like I said, I'm enjoying it. And I don't just say that because you're a friend. The feedback from people that I'm involved with who are on there, they seem to like it too. Yeah, Deanna, people are really enjoying it. And it's actually, you say a couple of months, it's only been, it's only been four weeks and already, you know, already it's just amazing.

Uh, the people that are coming on the platform and in fact, you know, we're trying to do this right. So we're going slow and methodical. So we have a lot of people have downloaded the app. We're only available on the Apple App Store right now. So you have to have an iPhone to get it. We're continuing to let people on as we build out our infrastructure. It's a sight to see not only all the people that have joined, but, you know, the people that were now on a wait list as we as we get the capacity, we're bringing them on as quickly as we can. But it's really moving to see the people that are on there. I know you see them on on your on your site there, Dan, on your that are commenting on your account when you make posts. People who have been banned from the other social media platforms, and it's moving. And there's people that are meeting each other again for the first time in three years since they got booted from whatever platform they were using. And it's very inspiring. So our goal here is to open the internet back up to the United States and the rest of the

world. We're doing it slowly and methodically. We're doing it so that we're not reliant on any of the big tech tyrants so that we don't have some of the things happen to us like happened to other companies. And we're building it all from scratch. So it's a fun project to be a part of, and it's inspiring, and we're going to change the world. There's no question about it. And you're seeing it, Dan, as just one of our early users. I mean, you were on our beta testing, and you're now one of our largest users. And you see it on your feet because, you know, I know. I look at what you post on Truth, and then I go look at the other accounts.

And how is it possible with the millions of followers you have on your other accounts that you're getting more engagement on Truth? With a tenth of the followers. It more engagement with a 10th a 10th of the follow it's amazing with a 10th of the followers no the numbers you know they they speak for themselves and uh you know it's it's it's funny um you've seen the you know predictable you know uh cornucopia of crap uh left wing hit pieces oh it's a right wing platform nonsense it's this one it's it's no such thing it's a and this is i think Nonsense. It's this or that. It's no such thing. And this is, I think, more of an indictment, Devin, of the media's bias than it is of these platforms.

The platform, if I'm mischaracterizing this correctly, it's not a right-wing platform. It's a free speech platform. As a matter of fact, I've noticed now some left-wing trolls, if you notice this, Devin, are migrating over to true social. Like I posted yesterday, I had a few people making fun of my hairline or whatever. Listen, there's a lot of material physically to make fun of me about. And I'm serious. I'll bet they were waiting to be banned or blown off the platform. But as long as you don't violate the terms of service, this is a free speech platform. There might be a lot of people with right-wing politics on it, but it's not a right-wing platform. That's not there might be a lot of people with right wing politics on it,

but it's not a right wing platform. That's just a hit piece. Well, naturally, it's funny. The first people that got banned happened to be conservative, so they had nowhere else to go. So when we're trying to open the Internet back up, we're clearly going to get people that tend to be more conservative. Well, that's because they were banned from the other platforms, not because they wanted to get off the other platforms. And look, the other thing that we're trying to do, and you'll see it in some of my posts,

is I call it that we're making social media fun again. So you see a lot of content on there, and I post a lot of it, because our pictures and our video are very good. We're using Rumble for our video that I know your audience is familiar with. And so it's a place where you can share a video, you can share a picture. And I'll put, you know, my family made a lasagna the other night. So I posted that on there and then everybody posted what they were having for dinner. So we're trying to make social media fun again.

We're trying to open the internet back up. And, you know, you go to the other sites and, you know, quite frankly, you want to see partisan and garbage and just kind of a sewer pit. It's the other sites. It's not ours. It's not ours. No, you're right. I like to say, you're right.

Twitter's become a cesspool. Yeah, Twitter's become a cesspool. It really is. My team still uses it. Yeah, Twitter's become a cesspool. It really is. My team still uses it. I don't personally use it.

My team does. And disclosure, folks, obviously I am an investor in Rumble, as many of you know. Only fair for me to put that out there. But you're right. I mean, my Twitter account is still active, and I do use material for the show when I see things leftist tweet or sometimes things conservatives tweet that I find interesting. But, you know, I don't just say it because it's a competitor to truth, which I'm really enjoying. I say because it's true. It's almost like Twitter has just

become this place where the angriest people air their angriest thoughts. It's like a bad Freudian psychoanalysis session. And, you know, that's fine. Like, I post a lot of hot political stuff on Truth, but not everything all the time has to be politics all the time, Devin. Right. Well, and people want to they want a place that they can go and share. Hey, we took our kids to to this location. We had this for dinner. You know, I post a lot of things. I'm as you probably know, I'm a I'm I post a lot of things. I'm a, as you probably know, I'm a, I'm, I'm a big wine guy.

I'm into wine. I grow my own grapes and make, and make my own wine. I'm a partner in several, several wineries, small, small boutique wineries, but it's a, it's a hobby of mine. So I post a lot up there just about wine sometimes. So there's, there's all sorts of, and this is what we need. We need a platform that's not just going to be about politics, but it's going to be about everyday life. That's the whole point. Social media.

Imagine that. And the other issue is that, you know, we're not perfect, but, you know, we're going to have some bots or essentially, you know, people that are, you know, disguising themselves. And, you know, they give themselves nasty names and they go and harass Dan Bongino. But overall, I wonder, and I continue to question this, if you take the other social media platforms who brag about, oh, the millions of users, millions of users. Well, it doesn't really count if it's some hack somewhere on either side of the aisle that has 250 bot accounts. That's not, those aren't real people. So what you see on Truth is, you know, I don't have the, you know, we don't know for sure,

but it seems to me like it's 99.9% actual real people, not just some, you know, some dude in his underwear in a basement that doesn't like Dan Bongino using 250 bots to make fun of your hairline. Yeah, eating hot pockets. You got to throw that in there. Those guys in the room, they always eat hot pockets. Something about hot pockets in the left. No, you're right, and I can see it, Devin. I have actual metrics.

We're talking to Devin Nunes, a former congressman, good guy, most importantly, and CEO of Trump Media Group, which is now responsible for the launch of True Social. I can see it because I have two websites, BonginoReport.com and Bongino.com, and we can obviously measure. There are metrics out there of where the incoming traffic is coming from. So if my team posts an article

on these other social platforms, sometimes we'll get decent, okay traffic from there. Sometimes we won't. If we post a hot article on truth, boom. I mean, we'll see the traffic spike almost immediately. My wife can watch it in live time, so that's accurate. But, Devin, I wanted to ask you this because truth is really filling a void out there. There's never been a time, in my humble opinion, where free speech has been more important.

I mean, Devin, we used to have the left on our side for this. 30, 40 years ago, you had a strong ACLU that despite the fact that they had a lot of left leaning values, they actually stood up for, you know, the most abhorrent groups and their free speech because they understood free speech was the bedrock of American society. But that's gone away. Devin, we even see some Republicans now jumping on the anti-free speech bandwagon. It's really disturbing and it's up to people like us to save it, isn't it? Yeah, well, if you look at if you look at truth where we're at right now, true social, we've barely begun. I mean, Dan, you know, I can't get into metrics, you know, right now.

But but I mean, you already know how many followers you have. And we have so many people that are, that are not only waiting to get, get on the platform and we're getting to them as we continue to make improvements to our, uh, you know, to our, um, to our database and to our servers. And we've only just begun. So, you know, if you're, if you're out there, uh, you can go to the Apple app store and download the app. I know a lot of people are asking about, you know, will there be another way to get the app? And the answer is yes, we will have a progressive web application. So if you have an Android or a desktop, ultimately you will be able to get that. We're continuing to make sure we're testing that, building it out to make sure when we launch that, we want to make sure we get it right.

So we're trying to work through everybody that has an iPhone first. We're getting through that quickly. And I just think this is going to be, it's already the largest launch of a social media app in history. Nobody's had this type of growth this quickly. And we're barely beginning, Dan. It's just barely started. So I would just imagine, I think people are going to realize just how bad these tech tyrants are and how much not only economic damage they've done to like a site like yours when you go post on the other sites and nobody clicks on it because you're shadow banned to some, you know, dark basement somewhere and there's some dark ghetto in the

internet. But you're going to see all of the, all of the folks who have not had open access to free speech are going to see all their sites. Boom. I mean, I've had not just you, uh, Dan, but I've had several others say the same exact thing. Like, wow, we've got so much interaction and I just kind of have to laugh because I'm like, man, if you guys only knew, I mean, we've got, we've got so many more people that we're going to be bringing onto this platform over the over the next couple of months. Just it's just incredible. That's perfect way to end my last question. We were talking to Devin Nunes, CEO of Trump Media Group.

Devin, this wasn't by accident. You know, I read the you know, their leftist hit pieces. They're going to happen. They're kind of a joke. I get it. But you still read them i you know i i have these things on alerts and i see these pieces because i'm always interested in the tech space they all have the same theme but this this um this slow gradual launch of the product this wasn't an accident this was intentional um you guys had seen what

had happened with some other platforms and some understandable tech difficulties. I mean, hell, even Instagram and Twitter, these monster platforms have had, you know, tech meltdowns. It's not unique to, you know, conservative free speech platforms at all. But this is intentional, correct? To make sure the platform works, is efficient, that this isn't an accident for all these left-wing pieces saying, you know, criticizing this slow rollout. Yes, it's kind of funny because, you know, President Trump and myself have been crystal clear that our goal is to be fully operational by the end of March. I mean, that's that's what I said from the day that I walked in the door on the job. It's what President Trump has said, has said publicly.

I walked in the door on the job. It's what President Trump has said publicly. So the idea that the fake news guys would be out there saying, oh, my God, there's a wait list. Yeah, that's because it was designed that way. So they just don't want to report the facts. And look, I dealt with these guys through all the Russia hoax and impeachment hoax and all of that stuff. You know, they'll write 20, 30, 40 to one articles that are fake news against what the against what the truth is. And, you know, what I say, bring it on. Write all you want, boys and girls, all you fake news guys, because we're going to win. We're winning now. We're going to have millions and millions of people on this platform and places like the Bongino Report and other people that are trying to get, you know, to reach an audience that they've been sequestered from for so many years. We're going to open that back up. So I say bring it on, just like all the Russia hoaxers, all the guys who ran around looking for

the pee tape and all of that. Now all that truth coming out. And Guess what? The truth is going to come out on Truth Social. That's for sure. And the left will follow over there. They can't resist, Devin. They love trolling. I got to run. Unfortunately, I'm out of time. Devin Nunes, CEO of TMG.

Get on Truth Social, folks. Get on that list. It's a great platform. You guys have done a great job. Thanks, Devin, for spending some time with us. We appreciate it. Roger that, Dan. Thanks for having me on. You got it, folks. The platform is excellent. Listen, I'm not just telling you that because obviously I'm a fan of President Trump. Jim got on,

Mike got on the other day. Jim, good stuff, right? See, I'm at the Bongino if you want to follow. That was Devin Nunes telling us about True Social, President Trump's free speech micro blog platform. Up next, we talk with Peter Schiff about the inflation crisis. He knows a lot about this. Here's Peter Schiff from the radio show last week about the inflation crisis and what the near and long-term future could look like financially for your wallet. You don't want to miss this.

It's really important in this time of economic turmoil where you're getting slammed in the cojones every day with food bills and gas bills and rent bills and sticker shock. If you're trying to buy a home to get you all the information so that we can talk to lawmakers supposed to be representing us so they can fix the problem they created. One of the guys I go to, I trust on these economic issues. Who's been terrific and warning us about the pending inflation crisis for a long time is Peter Schiff. You can check them out at Schiff radio.com. Peter, welcome to the show. We appreciate you spending some time with us.

Oh, happy to be part of the show. Thanks for inviting me. Of course, Peter, I follow you. You've been warning about this pending inflation crisis for a long time. So Peter, Joe Biden said this weekend've been warning about this pending inflation crisis for a long time.

So, Peter, Joe Biden said this weekend that government spending, basically debts and deficits, have nothing to do with inflation. Kind of echoing the MMT people, these modern monetary theorists, conspiracy theorists, as you call them. Is that true? Does government spending have nothing to do with it? They can spend whatever they want with no repercussions at all on the value of the dollar? Well, of course not. I mean, there's no such thing as a free lunch. I mean, if you look at what the U.S. government is spending in the most recent fiscal year, not what they're projecting for the next year, but just the year that just passed, the government is spending about 55 percent more money than it spent in 2019. So you had better than a 50 percent increase in the size of the government because you measure government by what it's spending. And every dollar of spending

has to be paid for by the people. I mean, because you don't get all that government for nothing. We didn't have any official tax increases to cover that 50% increase in the cost to government. So how is the government paying for all this stuff that we're getting if it didn't raise our taxes? Well, with inflation. The Federal Reserve is printing the money so that we don't have to pay higher taxes. So instead, we pay higher prices. So every time you go to the supermarket or you write your rent check or you go and fill up your car with gasoline, don't think about, you know, Putin or COVID or some exogenous factor or greedy corporations.

You are paying a tax. Inflation is a tax. It's the way we are paying for government. So when Biden says that nobody earning less than $400,000 is going to pay higher taxes to pay for my government spending, he is lying. Everybody who buys stuff is paying higher taxes. We're talking to Peter Schiff. You can check him out at SchiffRadio.com. Peter, one of the things that bothers me about this is you know i'm i was a middle class kid my father was a plumber my mother worked in a grocery store i don't come from some silver spoon background and the middle class is a bedrock of american prosperity it just is it's where all the

money is they see you know there's a lot of very wealthy people but the majority of the money is with this i rather prosperous and large middle class inflation is particularly pernicious for the middle class and people in lower income categories. When you think about the things they have to buy, you know, we all have to buy them, but as a percentage of their income, food, fuel, rental payments, this does real damage to their wallets.

You get rich and wealthy folks, Peter, they can buy tips, bonds and hedge with gold. I know you're a big advocate. I have a pretty large portfolio of gold myself. I mean, I'm pretty hedged. I real estate, things like that, that can go up with inflation. The rich can actually benefit in some ways from inflation, but it really destroys the prosperity and potential prosperity of the poor and middle class, doesn't it? Well, absolutely. It's the, the poor and the middle class are disproportionately impacted in their standard of living.

Because obviously, if you're a billionaire, you don't really care what food costs. So the food price can triple, and you're not going to notice it. But obviously, if you're clipping coupons, if you're living paycheck to paycheck, and all of a sudden your food bill doubles, that is a big deal. I mean, now you have to figure out what you're going to give up so that you can continue to eat. But it's not like wealthier people aren't impacted by inflation because inflation could actually erode away the real value of their investable income. And therefore, what ends up getting reduced in a highly inflationary environment is investment on the part of the rich that might otherwise grow the economy, increase the labor productivity of workers. And so it doesn't affect their standard of living,

but it does affect their ability to invest, which undermines the economy. And certainly it will impact their charitable giving. I mean, potentially the rich won't be as rich if the value of their earnings is being destroyed by inflation. And so after they finish buying food and doing all that, they have a little bit less left over to give to charity. And so now you have a situation where people are more in need of charity because their cost of living is going up and they're not going to get as much because everybody is getting hurt by inflation. It's just the question of degree.

Yeah, that's a good point. Peter, is this situation going to get worse? My fear here is that inflation can be delayed. It doesn't appear in the economy right away. The M2 money supply has grown dramatically. I was looking at some numbers today from $15 trillion to $20 trillion just over the period of a year or more. $21 trillion, I think, actually.

We're talking about $6 trillion more of money floating around, both digital and currency-wise. This is a delayed response, typically, the inflationary response and the actual prices we experience. That money hasn't filtered its way through the economy. Is it going to get worse? Of course. I mean, because a lot of what we're experiencing now,

as far as price increases, these are the delayed consequences of the inflation that was created long before Obama became president. We have been creating inflation throughout the last decade or two decades, ever since Greenspan really was running the Fed. We've been printing a lot of money and kicking a can down the road. And I've been warning for years that a day of reckoning was coming and that the problems that we were going to ultimately have to reckon with were going to be much worse because of our delay. And so we're really just at the beginning

of this wave. For years and years, the Fed printed money. They called it quantitative easing, but it really was just inflation, debt monetization. And all the while, they acted as if there was no inflationary consequence, because they were looking at the CPI, and they kept saying, oh, look, the CPI is under 2%. When the CPI is highly rigged, it was reverse engineered to understate price increases. Prices were going up by more than 2%. We just were not recognizing that. Meanwhile, the inflation was showing up in stocks and bonds and real estate in our exploding trade deficits, where we were relying more and more on imports to keep a lid on prices. But now all that is

blowing up. We're just beginning to see the delayed consequences. And this is going to go on for years and years. The price increases that we've experienced so far are just a small down payment on what's going to come in the months and years ahead. We're talking to Peter Schiff, chief economist and global strategist at Europac.com. You can also check him out at Schiff Radio.com. You know, Peter, I've been following you for a long time, and you have been mourning about this. That's not some fairy tale. I've heard you do it multiple times, and they laughed. A lot of people laughed.

Oh, that's crazy. The great moderation is here. We figured out how to print money with no consequences. And unfortunately, nobody's laughing now. The economy's in real trouble. I saw a number today predicting 7%, if not more, inflation next year. But is there an alternative to this broken Fed-based system here? I'm going to play some Thomas Sowell clips later after you hang up. But the Fed-based system

clearly hasn't worked, Peter. Whatever they tell you they're doing, they're not doing. They have been on the wrong side of just about every economic prediction about inflation in the last 20 years. Is there a viable replacement for that? Yeah, of course there's a viable replacement. I mean, you could go back to what existed prior to the Fed. And even in the early days of the Fed, it wasn't nearly as bad as it is now when we were still on a gold standard. a gold standard. So even though we had a Federal Reserve in 1913, they remained somewhat restricted in their ability to print money by the gold standard up until 1971. So we have to go back to the type of monetary discipline that the founding fathers envisioned for this country,

and that they wrote into the Constitution. And when you talk about the middle class being the backbone of the American economy, the middle class didn't just come here by accident. It was a creation of the economic freedom that we enjoyed and the prosperity that that brought about. We had limited government. We had the most free market capitalism the world has ever known. And that's what created the middle class. I mean, it was a concept that was uniquely American. I mean, nobody else had a middle class but America, and that's because we enjoyed unparalleled levels of freedom.

And that comes from limited government, government spending being very low, taxes being very low, and sound money. We were on a gold standard. We didn't just have this printing press where the government could just print money and spend it. So we have to go back to those types of economic principles that made the country great. But the problem is, in order to get there, we have to come to terms with the fact that the country is no longer great. You know, Donald Trump was right about that. You know, we need to make America great again. I just wish he would have done something to achieve that instead of grow government and grow deficits

and pound the table for more inflation. We have to come to terms with how screwed up the economy is because of years and years of bad monetary policy and bad fiscal policy. So we have to pay the piper for that. There is an atonement. But then we can do the right thing. Then we can put in place the foundation to rebuild what the government destroyed. And we do have a lot of technology that didn't exist 50 years ago, 100 years ago. Capitalism could work even better now than it did back then.

We just have to give it a chance. We have to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit and the rugged individuals that made this country great. And we've got to succeed in, you know, in chaining the government back with the Constitution so that we can, you know, go back to the prosperity that we had and even go on to greater prosperity. prosperity. Peter, last question. I got about a minute and a half left and I'll let you go. But is that even a possibility anymore? I mean, I don't mean to be sound alarmist. And I do believe in the power of the people of the United States. We are entrepreneurial. We've been through a whole lot worse, but we're almost 30 trillion dollars in debt. And that's just the on the books liabilities factor in the other ones are probably closer to 100 trillion our gdp is only in the 20s i mean is it even possible to start over pay this back and start from scratch with a new ledger i i i'm not as optimistic on that front well it is possible but i agree with you it's not going to happen

until things get a whole lot worse and they're going to get a whole lot worse i mean the people in charge are still in denial. They still have no idea what's going on or why it's happening or what to do about it. The policies that are going to be pursued by both the Federal Reserve and the federal government are going to make a bad situation much, much worse before we even have a chance of turning this thing around, which is why what I'm advocating now, because I know we can't change the politics. We can't outvote the people that want something for nothing. And we're

not going to change the status quo until we have a real crisis. We're not even close to that yet. But what I can do is encourage people on an individual level to protect themselves as best they can from this inflation tax and from having their standard of living completely eviscerated by the Federal Reserve and by government policies, by working to get their money out of U.S. financial assets, out of U.S. stocks and bonds, into portfolios of quality dividend-paying value stocks outside the United States to protect their wealth, getting rid of U.S. currency and holding real money instead, holding physical gold and silver. I've got my company, Shift Gold, where I'm helping people buy gold and silver, Europe Pacific Asset Management, Europe Pacific Capital, where I'm managing money for people,

getting it out of harm's way, getting it out of U.S. financial assets. People need to do now what people did in the early 1970s, late 1960s, because we went through a tremendous decade of destruction in U.S. stocks and bonds during the 1970s. People lost a ton of money. Retirements were completely destroyed by inflation during that decade. That's really why women are working now. They didn't work in the 1960s, but the dollar lost so much value during the 70s that married women had to start working because their husbands couldn't afford to support them. So standard of living really went down,

but there were some people who avoided that because they read the writing on the wall. They got into gold and silver. They got into commodities and foreign stocks before the bottom dropped out. So we're in a worse situation now. This is going to be a much worse decade financially than the 1970s, a much weaker economy, much more inflation. And so it's more important that people take action early now to protect themselves. And that's what I'm trying to do for everybody that has been following me at my company. And I would encourage you to do the same thing with your radio audience. I mean, just people have to avoid these losses and profit because that's the best way that we can make a positive difference in the future, to be financially solvent and to be able to be in a position to financially help turn the ship around. Peter Schiff, thanks so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Thanks for coming on. Anytime. Keep up the good work. You got it.

Pretty troubling stuff there from Peter Schiff, but better to know about it than not, right? About inflation. That was from the radio show last week. Finally, we talked with Dan Horowitz about the situation in Ukraine. He had some unique insights on what the differences are now from the Reagan era about these conservatives who want to jump into war with Ukraine without considering the potential aftermath.

Check this out. Welcoming back to the show, I believe the second time, our good friend, a great commentator and a good man, and I might note, the guy who predicted the rise of Ron DeSantis very early on when I was in a jiffy lube getting an oil change

about 10 years ago in Maryland. My good friend, Dan Horowitz. Dan, welcome back to the show. Good to be back with you. And look at you. You're down there in Florida today, and I'm still up here in Maryland. I don't know what you're doing, brother. I don't know.

I wasn't going to bring it up, but we could use you down here. Florida's got Levin, got Shapiro. Everybody's moving down here. We got Trump down here. I think Hannity's got a couple joints down here or something. They're all moving down, and yet you resolutely stick with Maryland. I don't know what you're doing. But listen, I got a lot to get to today with you.

I always love your opinion on these matters. You know, one of them, obviously, I'm going to start off with Ukraine and Russia, everything going on over there. You know, Dan, there's a lot of opinion on the right, some of it getting a little hostile these days about what should happen with Russia, with Ukraine, our policy towards them, our policy towards NATO, etc.

And I really don't think we should get bogged down in vitriol on this because there's a lot of middle ground in this. OK, I mean, obviously, as I mentioned in the beginning of the show, as discussed about Israel, often, you know, if Israel stopped fighting tomorrow, they'd be obliterated. If the Palestinians stop fighting, there'd be peace. The same thing applies to Russia and Ukraine right now. Putin is clearly the aggressor in this situation, regardless of what you feel our involvement should be. Sure. I mean, Dan, I think a lot of the disagreement on the right stems from being played an unideal hand for so many years. What do you do now?

ideal hand for so many years. What do you do now? And to me, it all gets back to the fact that the whole nostalgia of the Soviet Union and defending Eastern Europe from the Soviet Union back in the days of Pope John Paul, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, that's predicated on a moral and just West, United States government, NATO government. We have so many problems here at home with governments that are no longer democracies. You know, Reagan used to quip about, you know, you can go to the Oval Office and say, Reagan sucks as president. And you could go to Gorbachev and say, Reagan sucks as president and get away with it. That's good. And I played that on my show recently, and I was thinking it's so sad.

You look at Trudeau and gradually what's happening here with DHS monitoring opposition, people being thrown in jail for political crimes without bail. We have our problems here. So that's why a lot of us have a difficult time barreling in headfirst to a foreign conflict before we even get into the details just because nato is corrupt the united states government i hate to say has a lot of problems with it so we're not going to be able to sustain the proper policy and the number two is the fact that we are coming in the middle of the story nato has been extremely weak extremely fractured on the one hand they've been adding a lot of states on the russian border which is fine if you want to punch the bully in the nose. But you can't be a weakling and then punch the bully in the nose and not back it up with beef and continue to make yourself dependent on their oil because they have all their green energy nonsense in Europe.

So, yeah, we're kind of being played a bad hand. What I would say at this point is there's one of two things that could be done. Either you give in to Russian demands and start today to bulk up your deterrent against them for any future aggression, and that includes energy independence. Or the Europeans, if this is really the Poland-Hitler World War II moment that they seem to be saying it is, why aren't they assembling an army and leading and we could help them out? But for them to do nothing and then us to barrel head first, $10 billion they want to throw at them, what is that going to accomplish? Yeah, that's brilliant. That's so well said. You are absolutely correct. I think a lot of the conservative right in this country feels like, listen, we almost unambiguously backed policing, intelligence and military operations for 30, 40 years only to see the left use those very same operations and weaponize them against us. The Spygate debacle.

Trudeau just recently turned Canada into a de facto dictatorship. That is so well said. And I think a lot of the older generation conservatives, and listen, I don't say this in any kind of disparaging way. These are guys who've been around a lot longer than me. They have earned the right to an opinion and they have earned the right to be heard. But I think they're viewing it through that older Reagan era lens. And Dan, we're just not there anymore. Number one and number two.

Listen, even if this was the equivalent of a new Third Reich, Vladimir Putin, Hitler did not have access to thousands of nuclear warheads. It would have unquestionably changed the calculus of World War II. It wouldn't have changed the morality of the mission and the immorality of the other side, but it unquestionably would have changed the strategy. And I already had these disagreements with some of the older generation people that we looked up to, and they certainly had their moments at times in the past, but I've already had this disagreement during the Obama era. What do you do when you have a president that absolutely will take that and do the wrong thing with it? And staying put

is usually the better option, especially when we haven't had a single proper foreign engagement over the last 20 years or so that hasn't gone bad. And then there's also the other part of it, too, that some of the older generation conservatives don't know how to reinvent the wheel. So there's like an algorithm, OK, abortion, guns, taxes, Soviet Union, like, you know, something that they remember and they could put into a paradigm. But we're stuck now with something very different. It's this Western oligarch of corruption. It's not a matter of the Biden administration. It's something much broader than that. It's in all the Western former democracies. It's the cancel culture. It's the soft fascism. It's the covid fascism, which, by the way, is still not over

with. I'm getting heartbreak, broken emails from military service members that to this day are are being forced to get the jab that doesn't work and and health care workers people being denied kidney transplants who did not end covid or covid fascism and some of us also do resent the fact that this is taking away from where the focus needs to be domestically that's the border crime and frankly i don't want to say names, but you know what I mean, some of these guys have been awfully muted on the Super Bowl liberty issues of our time. And then when it comes to Ukraine, like those testosterone levels go from zero to a hundred. I'm like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You know, I'm a little bit insulted here.

You know, I mean, if they were lying down on the tracks the last two years, I can forgive that. But, but really like, that's where you're going to throw it all out. I know. No, I get what you're saying. I mean, I've got to give up this show because of it. I mean, it's the real penalty for me. It's something I enjoy, but down the road, it's I made that decision and yeah, get it i get what you're saying one last thing i want to get to covet stuff because you've been just incredible if you're not following

dan on social media um please do daniel horowitz his accounts are amazing information is incredible but you just brought up a great point before we get into the next foreign intervention by the way nothing even close to what we were involved in afghanistan and iraq i mean we were never dealing with a country with thousands of nuclear warheads right you bring up a great point like can we fire the people who lost our last three uh you know wars we got involved in and and look at a new strategy before we get it i mean it's easy to get into a war right dan it's just really hard as candidly even biden learned to get the hell out of one can we just fire those people

first before we jump in another one? This is the problem. And I call Ukraine the fourth vaccine for two reasons. It's kind of a double entendre. Number one, well, you know, this is the fourth vaccine because it has to distract from the failure of the third one. So this is the way they have this off ramp to distract from what they're doing. But also, in my view, it's the fourth catalyzing event of the last few years that the media indulged in a way that's unprecedented. And this is what they do. You know, Dan, do you support cops putting knees on people's necks do you support sacking the capital do you support allowing grandma to die so this is do you support putin killing people and and the isolated point

is like well no but where's this coming from and where's this headed and you know when i saw it too i hate putin i you know love dead russian soldiers i have that nostalgia, too. Yeah, beat the Russians. But when I saw this social media orgy, I mean, I've never seen a time they were waving Ukrainian foreign flags at a State of the Union. Republicans are all into that. And it's like, never have I seen them do so much, but do so little. No, you're so right the propaganda is everywhere france yeah england assemble an army and go attack them i'll help you but if you're not going to do that didn't do nothing and have america dump in 10 billion in weapons which

i don't even know how you get them to them they're surrounded now but, whatever. How is that not going to just kill more people? Putin is not going to move off at this point. We all agree that Trump would have deterred, but he's not there. And you've got to play with the hand you have. And it's drill, baby, drill. It's, you know, vitiate the Iran deal. That's another thing coming up. You know, Biden is doubling down on that. Russia has earned a lot of profit off of that. energy independence is kind of like the ivermectin hydroxychloroquine of of this issue that's what would work that is the linchpin but that's what they're blocking we're talking to dan horowitz uh damn what's the name of your podcast by the way i want you to be able to plug in there sure see see our podcast at at the Blaze on iTunes, Stitcher, anywhere.

And look, it's not popular what I say, but it's always different from what you're seeing here in the news. No, no. Dan, listen, I've known you a long time, man. You have never, ever been. I see this avatar going around on Twitter, and it's funny. It's the meme of the gray face guy. I forget what they call it, but it's that uh the meme of the of the gray face guy i forget what

they call it but it's basically the lemmings on the left and it says i'm for the latest thing like that's how it is now like that i mean i know what you're talking about by the social media orgy over ukraine the same people who read ibram kindy who are like future discrimination is the only remedy for discrimination in other words a guy who recommends racism in the United States, they read him and love him. They're like, I stand with Ukraine. You don't even stand with the United States. The hell you mean you stand with Ukraine?

It's like, dude, I get it. You're for the latest thing. I totally get it. And these conservatives are like drunkards that wake up the next morning with a hangover and they swear never to get drunk again. They swear they're not going to buy into the narrative. You know, they all bought into January 6th. They all bought into BLM at the beginning.

They all bought into COVID fascism at each. You know, then when the lockdown wasn't popular, the man. And even the Iraq war, even the Iraq war, the yellow cake and WMD, like it was all crap. Like how many times a week? Listen, I was all crap, man. Like, how many times have we... Listen, Dan. I was all for that, and I learned... This is why I love you. You do not lie.

You're right. And I was... A lot of these things, I got baited into, too. And then you realize a few days later, you're like, this kind of sounds like the same thing that screwed me over before. Like, I'm not doing this again. I'm not.

And then all the Zelensky memes and all the Snake Island and all these like heroism, like there's no way that's organically coming from Ukrainian people. There's something much bigger in the Western media. And I don't know if it's that they plan on using the crisis to shut off energy, to, you know, save another life, help other people don't support Russia. And then somehow that leads to the Green New Deal. Is that the new COVID fascism? I don't know.

But Dan, we should be awfully suspicious about where this is coming from and where it's headed. Dan, I got a hard 30 seconds and I got to take a break. But your opinion on the latest study that came out of MDPI about the Pfizer vaccine, the potential for reverse transcription into the DNA. I got 30 seconds. What do you think about that? People warned about that for a while. We're seeing people in their 50s, 60s, 70s age very quickly. You look at the military data, there's German health insurance, American life insurance, and Israeli health ministry survey. They're all coalescing around specific neurological,

blood disorders, cardio disorders. This thing is shocking. It truly is. And I'll tell you, this is the biggest story. We need to detect and see how to diagnose and properly treat people. A lot of people need help. There's a lot of injury out there.

This is the issue. Wow, you kept the 30 seconds. I'm impressed. Jim, Dan, can you do next week? There's a lot of injury out there. This is the issue. Wow. You stepped, you kept the 30 seconds. I'm impressed. Jim, can we, Dan, can you do next week?

I want, I want you to come back next week and talk about this. I feel like I shortchanged you on the COVID stuff. I just, your opinions are so great. We're going to book you if you're available next week. I really appreciate it, but I do got to run.

I'm up against a really hard break. I've taken this way. Dan, thanks for your time. I really appreciate it. God bless. That was our interview with Dan Horowitz. You can hear me every weekday across the country on over 300 radio stations.

Just go to Bongino.com, click on Station Finder, and find out where I'm on near you. Thanks for listening. We really appreciate it. You just heard Dan Bongino.