➡ The podcast hosted by Dan Bongino features highlights from his radio show and interviews. The show discusses privacy concerns and promotes ExpressVPN, a service that protects online activity. The episode also includes a conversation with Mike Benz, a specialist on the USAID scandal, who criticizes the organization for misusing taxpayer money for controversial activities both domestically and abroad.
➡ The text discusses how Democrats and Republicans use USAID funding to manipulate politics in other countries. They do this by supporting groups that either oppose or support the government, depending on their own interests. This strategy is not about genuinely supporting these groups, but about using them to achieve political goals. The text also mentions how this tactic is used domestically, with different demographic groups being supported or ignored based on their political usefulness.
➡ Congressman Andy Harris from Maryland, a strong supporter of the Freedom Caucus and the Tea Party movement, discusses the ongoing debate about the best approach to legislative changes. He emphasizes the need for quick action, regardless of whether it’s through one or two bills, to address issues such as border control and deportation of criminal illegal aliens. He also discusses the need for significant spending cuts and fiscal responsibility, expressing concern about the current deficit and debt levels. Lastly, he criticizes Democrats for their spending habits and resistance to government efficiency.
➡ The Freedom Caucus, a group within the Republican Party, is advocating for fiscal sanity and significant spending cuts in the government. They believe that tax cuts can increase government revenue, contrary to popular belief. They are working towards reforming the Congressional Budget Office’s scoring system, which they believe inaccurately represents the effects of tax cuts. They are also focusing on reducing the deficit and growing the economy, with support from influential figures like Elon Musk and the President.
➡ The speaker criticizes the current political climate, arguing that the focus has shifted from promoting democracy and capitalism to attacking wealthy individuals like Elon Musk and President Trump. He believes that billionaires, often entrepreneurs, provide jobs and opportunities for Americans to achieve their dreams. The speaker also criticizes the left for their hypocrisy and their focus on maintaining power rather than addressing issues like government waste. He ends by expressing hope that America has woken up to these issues and will make changes in the future.
➡ The text discusses a conversation about government spending, entitlement programs, and national debt. It emphasizes the need for financial reform and efficiency, and criticizes unnecessary spending. The conversation also touches on the importance of prioritizing domestic needs over foreign aid. Lastly, it mentions a debate about gender identity and the concept of lived experience, arguing that everyone should be able to discuss and debate all topics, regardless of their personal experiences.
➡ The discussion revolves around the idea that the progressive movement’s focus on LGBTQIA and BioPOC 2+ issues is a war on objective truth, aiming to replace it with subjective government control. The speakers argue that this is a tactic to redefine human nature and manipulate society. They also discuss the current situation in Ukraine, expressing frustration with the oversimplified narrative of ‘Putin bad, Zelensky good’, and the lack of a reasonable solution to end the war.
➡ The text discusses differing opinions on Ukraine’s role as a buffer state and the potential consequences of NATO expanding into Ukraine. It suggests that the current conflict could have been avoided under different leadership, and criticizes the strategy of using Ukraine to weaken Russia. The text also emphasizes the importance of recognizing the reality of the situation, including the fact that Russia possesses nuclear weapons. Finally, it praises the Michael Knowles Show and encourages listeners to surround themselves with intelligent people to enhance their own knowledge.

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.

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He’s probably forgotten more about this than most people know. You’re going to 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.

Great to talk as always, Mike. You Have. 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. That’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, that the government takes from US Taxpayers to spend on influencing the course of events in foreign countries in order to make pro US interests promulgate there.

And there’s different schools of thought in terms of the morality or the efficacy of those efforts. But, you know, 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 hippies on US 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 U.S.

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 organized violence effectively against U.S. 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 burisma. 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 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, get out 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 USAID. We’re talking to Mike Benz, he’s at Mike Benz Cyberbenz 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 Hagerty 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@usaspending.gov she could have actually seen it. But you know, God forbid the truth gets in the way. But she’s that I focused on that before. The unwear 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, 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, 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, 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 of 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 discrete democracy promotion that oh just so happens to go wrong being done by usaid. I posted an example of this from the first decade of USAID’s existence. This was under sworn testimony and at the Senate Foreign relations committee in 1972 when we were at war in Vietnam and Laos. In 1967, the CIA’s mercenary army backed by this commander, Ving Pao. It was USAID who paid Ving Pao 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, 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 a big MAGA guy, but you know, 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. You know, the Democrats are dying on this USAID hill, not because they really care about Guatemalan sex change operations. I mean, it is fit into their ideology, but that’s not really it. What they’re really defending is, 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 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, religious cleavages within countries in order to selectively rig its internal politics. So the fact is, for example, it’s not just the Democrats. The Republican wing of USAID and the national noun 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 sometimes folks within the country’s transgender community or folks within its radical 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 of the cold, calculating understanding that when they do the baseline assessment or the strategic assessment for the region and they say who’s against this government and who’s for it, and they see, hey, the transgenders don’t like this. The Russian government. That’s how USAID ends up sponsoring places like Pussy Riot.

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 and capacity build abroad. I think we’re saying the same thing. I may have said it for you. Row is 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 thing. I’m sorry, we’re not referring to anyone’s anatomy for sec purposes.

Jim’s looking at me, Mike 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. But what I was getting at before, and you said it again better, is, is this other ism 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 am talking about it. They don’t care. They. 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’s the only reason they’re doing it is that look at what just happened, you know, here in America where there was this big Democrat cause for decades about, you know, Hispanics and how Hispanics can be sort of mobilized as anti Republican, anti Trump force.

And then you see the Cuban population turn out, you know, in huge numbers for Trump in 2016, 20, 20, 24. What does the Democrat coalition go around doing? They say, well, actually we shouldn’t really include Cubans as part of, you know, Hispanic. They’re not useful as that sub demographic is not useful. So, you know, that segmentation strategically is a big part of this. Or Mike, what about, 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. Oh, that. 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.

And 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. I got to run. Thank you so much. You would be because of you, not because of me. Mike Benz. He is at Mike Ben 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 going to 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 can. It’s many reports say China controls the largest portion of US Pork.

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You’re going to 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 and why. One of them, as 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 president’s running out of money to do the work on the border that he needs to do to start the deportation of the criminal illegal aliens. So we’re agnostic whether or not it’s one bill or two bills. We just need it to go and go quickly because, like you say, we need to build on the capital that we have. We need to deliver the president a victory. And if we can do it in one big, beautiful bill. Quickly. We’re all for it. And I think, you know, our philosophy has kind of pushed 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. You’re a doctor, right? I may need you. I’m kidding. Excuse me. So one of the numbers I saw in a Wall Street Journal column was they’re looking at 4.5 trillion in cuts. That’s a big number. Is that realistic? And 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 across Ghana because he’s buying products from this congressman’s district in Iowa or Wisconsin.

We’re going to 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’s, 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, but, Dan, let’s put that in perspective. Our deficit, that’s 2.5 trillion over 10 years.

So that’s 250 billion a year. Our deficit’s 2 trillion. And remember, Elon yesterday at the White House said we should cut a trillion dollars a year. So the numbers we’re even talking about and getting hesitation from some Republican colleagues is way below the number that we actually have to do. Because like you said, we’re right. You know, we had a vote on us cutting USAID by 50%, 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 a 2010 election, 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. 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 2 trillion, $30 trillion in debt. And I think 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 us 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 a nail. 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’s all great, whatever their position. But yeah, there’s some inefficiencies and if we’re going to have good government, we need a lean and efficient government. 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. It’s just kind of shocking to me because you, you know, there, it pains me to say it, but, you know, I engage in political realpolitik, not fantasy land.

That’s why I think the show does okay, you know, 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. 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 200ft 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, 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 again, look, as long as they want to stay tone deaf, I’m all for it. You go ahead. I’ll have a discussion any day about whether or not we should again be doing transgender comic books out of with federal taxpayer dollars 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 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, if comes to 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, rinos 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, for a decade now it’s our 10th anniversary in the freedom 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 U of Elon Musk and the President now behind what we’ve been calling for for a decade, Congressman, is kind of, 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, 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 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 stop us because you do need to have 60 votes in the Senate to reform the Congressional Budget Office. But you’re absolutely right, they don’t view history as it should be viewed, which is every time we’ve had a significant tax cut, it will result tax cut, it will result in increased revenue. Likewise, if we allow this tax cut to expire, the economic benefit will be horrendous.

And you and the reason why we’re going to balance this on paper is because we are going to 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 going to 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. Yeah. You understand the economy economics of it. You know, I, well, I’m, I’m not, 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. It’s not. 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. 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.

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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 of progressivism. They have centered around the meaning of those basic foundational principles. These courses are self paced, so you can start whenever and wherever you like. So go today to Hillsdale Edu 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 Dan to enroll for free Hillsdale Edu Dan.

The courses are great. Check them out. The Roman Republic one is fantastic too. We talk with Tennessee congressman and frequent guest on the show, Tim Burchett. Never a focus group tested talking point guys we addressed 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 nonstop show prep cycle. I just enjoy what I do so much. And I saw this congressman, he’s been on the show many times. Congressman Tim Burchett, 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 Burchett 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 dadgum country. And y’all just keep putting the truth out there and it helps. Thank you. 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, and unlike me, you’re calmer about it, which is a good thing. I’m learning and I’m getting there. When it’s debating politics, I get fired up. But she was making the commentator, 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, Congressman 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 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 to you how the gravy train 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, instead of drag shows down in Central America. 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, at the inauguration and I, and I said to him, I said, I said, look, man, you know, people were 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 dadgum day.

It used to be in this country, we were about entrepreneurs and people that took risk. Now it’s these little painting ways that want to sit on the sidelines and wring their hands and talk about how. How awful we are. You know what I love about you? 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. He 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. Unclear. Yeah. My dad was an old World War II Marine and Peleliu, Okinawa, 1st 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. 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 guests on the show.

Congressman, you know, Democrats. 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 here. 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 criticized. They love him. Actually. They care, 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. Political guiding ethos, their credo that every supposed to be on a. On a front. Nothing with them is ever principled. Nothing. As a matter of fact, that’s they. Because right now, all they’re doing is trying to get something that sticks. Dan, if you Caught that Doge Committee that I’m on that my friend Marjorie Taylor Green put me on. She chairs it. 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. They’re obviously picked on in school. Now they’re getting even with the world, they think. 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 best, most benevolent billionaire. I mean, that’s a freaking American dream, brother. And, you know, and. And if the Democrats, Congressman, want to forfeit over some money to us and collectively make us both billionaires, I’m sure we’re would, you know, gladly accept.

I mean, nothing they tell you is true. But I wanted to hit this talking point because you’re. 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 not. They’re very good at acting with like a Borg, Star Trek personality because they’re collectivists by nature. Hopey changey. They’re typically good at messaging and using the media. What, What I can’t reconcile is this is such a loser for them, effectively backing government waste.

That’s what they’re doing. I mean, government. 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 I 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. 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 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, or they’re on the government pit. So they’re going to keep putting them in. Yeah, we have this, we have, 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, that run a lot of our school systems and colleges and universities in this country. And they’ll stay in power and they’ll just wait for another day and then, but they don’t care. They’ll run us into the ground, kill then. And you know, there’s always the martyr complex and they’ll play that up very well. But I, I just, and they got these young kids that don’t never hit a lick 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 Eastern Sea and western North Carolina. Until Donald Trump came into office, they were still without power, they were still without wall.

And the only person up there was Franklin Graham’s group and a mountain strong group, a group of folks I know that, all volunteers and, and we voted on in Congress $100 million for relief. And I didn’t vote for it because I said one of two things. They’ll either steal it or misdirected. Well, they did both. 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 office that was in the Oval Office for four years.

And finally America’s woke up. But I’ll tell you, we better be ready. We better hold our guns because we got about 100, 150 days left of this because America, Congress will lose Its nerve, both parties, because you know it’s going to happen. Their wife and or girlfriend who works for one of these agencies or works for one of these companies that profits from it is going to get their gravy train cut off and they’re going to start derailing it. You will see them, oh, they did to Trump the first time. So America paying attention. Wait till they start getting into the Pentagon ways.

There are going to be Republicans too are 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. Yet 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, Dan, if you don’t, the Democrats will be funding it down in, down in Mozambique. So be careful. I mean, Bill Clinton, 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 about 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 going to 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, 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 a dollar to the people.

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 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 AIDS and people that had of aids. And they marched and they screamed and they were escorted out. And if they 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 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 to this country to stow it away for these dirt bags. Let’s take our dad dumb country back.

I got to tell you, having you on this Doge Congressman Tim Burchett and 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. 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, 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 you do got some good people up there. That Doge Committee is going to be where it’s at. Gonna be. That’s where we’re gonna start really, really wringing out the inefficiencies out of this company. 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.

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We’ve had him on the show many times. He has his own show, which is really wonderful, the Michael Noll 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, you have an asset I don’t have in these debates is you’re so. 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 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. Anytime 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. Is basically what these people did. Yeah. And you, 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. He seems to be, you know, you. I’ve debated a lot of people on my show live, and there’s someone always throw some curve ball at you, and it’s not necessarily. You don’t know it 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 ex Michael Knowles K N O W L E S. It’s worth your time. His show is 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 LGBTQIA BioPOC 2+ I mean, it really. It just keeps. I’m not even sure. Yeah. Element of. I’m really not being like, disrespectful. 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. 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 this. 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 piece, 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 Jacobins and later the Communists said that they could redefine human nature. I mean, Marx in the theses on Feuerbach, I think, in number six, says that philosophy, up until this point has sought to understand human nature, but what he endeavors to do is to change human nature.

And so when the left pushes this ideology that says, you know, a man can be a woman or something like that, 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. He’s saying, 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, 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 then the government wars, that 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 pocket. 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 Carville types coming out 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 Karp on CNBC 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, 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, their political program is one of maximizing individual autonomy, especially their own autonomy, and 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 going to have the Alex Karp’s and the Mark Zuckerbergs banging their heads against a wall saying, guys, we’re not going to win another election for 50 years if you, you keep this up.

But, 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 want to 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 N O 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, Ben Shapiro, 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. Left, the left doesn’t do that. They 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, 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 a 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 51st state. Forget about all that Nazi stuff. Actually, if you don’t support Ukraine now, you’re a Nazi. And I thought, you know, look, please, I understand it’s a complex situation, but please respect our intelligence enough to recognize that reasonable minds might disagree. I mean, I think going back to the 1990s, you have very, very intelligent foreign policy thinkers like Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, all saying that Ukraine needs to exist as a buffer nation. Okay? There’s a role for buffer states. They can mediate between greater powers, and that it would be crazy for NATO, for instance, to expand into Ukraine, that that might lead to more war and more bloodshed.

When President Trump 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 is 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’ve got this war that has broken out because of feckless leadership. And you’ve got two possibilities. You can either continue the liberal American grand strategy of allowing Ukraine to be a meat grinder and hoping to kill as many Russian soldiers as you possibly can and sacrificing the young men of Ukraine to do it.

Or you can say, you know, 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 the guesses of our genius elite liberal class, and you could be in a really serious regional or even global war. There’s nothing 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 that. No one’s saying, no one’s even mildly suggesting that. But treating this like oh, good guy, bad guy. And 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, because it’s so well done.

It’s called the Michael Knowles 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. Always great to be with you. And I always say your wife has excellent taste in men, both podcasters and husbands. Thank you, brother. Well said, Michael Knowles folks. Yes, she does. She loves the show. Is 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 regression. Regression to the mean. Hang out with people smarter. Thanks for checking out the podcast. You can always listen on Rumble and tune into the radio show every day. Go to bongino.com station finder to find out where. We’re on a station near you.

See you on Monday. You just heard Dan Bongino.
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