The Dan Bongino Show

We Want Our Money Back (Ep. 2489)

90 min
Apr 7, 2026about 2 months ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

Dan Bongino discusses Trump's maximalist negotiating style on Iran, criticizes NATO allies for insufficient military support, and interviews CNN debate regular Scott Jennings about the challenges of defending conservative positions against emotional liberal arguments in live television debates.

Insights
  • AI and instant fact-checking are making it increasingly difficult for progressive politicians to maintain inconsistent policy positions without immediate public scrutiny
  • Live, authentic communication without scripts is becoming the dominant format that audiences trust, especially as AI-generated content proliferates
  • NATO allies are viewed as free-riding on U.S. military protection while maintaining cultural superiority, creating unsustainable political dynamics
  • Democrats' electoral strategy relies on emotional narratives rather than bedrock principles, making their positions vulnerable to logical deconstruction
  • Natural experiments (comparing outcomes across jurisdictions with different policies) provide powerful evidence against progressive policy claims
Trends
Shift from scripted to live, unscripted political commentary as authenticity becomes competitive advantageIncreasing use of AI tools for real-time fact-checking and policy analysis by audiencesGrowing skepticism of NATO's value proposition and calls for transactional military alliancesState-level policy divergence (California vs. Florida, New York vs. Texas) becoming visible proof of policy effectivenessEmotional vs. fact-based political discourse becoming clearer dividing line between left and rightDecline of traditional media gatekeeping enabling direct audience connection for commentatorsRising importance of debate performance and live media presence for political credibilityWeaponization of AI-generated content creating demand for verified live contentTax policy becoming flashpoint issue as wealth migration patterns become undeniableMilitary/national security becoming primary differentiator in political messaging
Topics
Iran Military Operations and Trump's Maximalist Negotiating StrategyNATO Military Burden-Sharing and U.S. Defense SpendingLive Television Political Debate Strategy and TacticsAI-Powered Fact-Checking and Political AccountabilityState Tax Policy Divergence and Population MigrationDemocratic Party Favorability and Midterm Election ProspectsWealth Tax Policy and Asset Liquidation EconomicsCalifornia High-Speed Rail Project Cost OverrunsTransgender Athletes in Women's SportsNational Security Leaks and Classified InformationEuropean Elite Anti-Americanism and Cultural SuperiorityAuthentic vs. Scripted Political CommunicationNatural Experiments in Policy AnalysisMinimum Wage and Economic Policy EffectsVirginia Governor Spanberger Approval Ratings Collapse
Companies
CNN
Hosts nightly debate show where Scott Jennings regularly appears as conservative panelist debating liberal commentators
Amazon
Referenced in discussion of wealth tax policy and Jeff Bezos's asset holdings as example of wealth concentration
Google
Used for fact-checking claims via Google Gemini AI tool to verify political statements in real-time
X (formerly Twitter)
Platform where political commentary and debate clips are shared and fact-checked by audiences
Rumble
Free speech platform hosting Dan Bongino's show and mentioned as alternative to censorship-prone platforms
TurboTax
Used to research and compare state income tax rates across different U.S. states
FC Dallas
Youth soccer team cited in natural experiment showing biological sex differences in athletic performance
U.S. Women's National Team
Lost scrimmage to FC Dallas under-15 boys team, used as evidence of biological athletic performance differences
People
Scott Jennings
Guest discussing live debate strategy, authenticity in political commentary, and challenges debating emotional libera...
Donald Trump
Central figure discussed regarding Iran military operations, maximalist negotiating style, and policy implementation
Marco Rubio
Quoted on NATO burden-sharing and need for alliance members to contribute more to collective defense
Joy Reid
Criticized for making false claims about pre-20th century taxation that were easily fact-checked
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Discussed defending California high-speed rail project despite massive cost overruns and incomplete status
Abigail Spanberger
Example of Democrat elected as moderate who implemented progressive policies, resulting in lowest approval ratings fo...
Megan Rapinoe
Criticized for denying biological sex differences in athletic performance despite evidence
Elizabeth Warren
Discussed wealth tax proposal and how natural experiments show such policies cause capital flight
Ted Lieu
Criticized for threatening war crimes prosecution for military operations before they occurred
Thomas Sowell
Quoted on how intellectuals and media lose wars rather than militaries, using Vietnam War example
Peter St. Ange
Cited for analysis of NATO costs to U.S. military budget, estimating $200-300 billion annually
Rudy Giuliani
Referenced as example of Republican implementing conservative policies and maintaining popularity
Ronald Reagan
Referenced as example of happy warrior approach and successful conservative policy implementation
Eric Adams
Criticized for asking wealthy New Yorkers to return by offering higher taxes as incentive
Paul Begala
Debated by Scott Jennings on Pete Hegseth lobster controversy, example of emotional vs. fact-based argument
Quotes
"Donald Trump does this all the time for the pearl clutchers... He takes a maximalist position... Meanwhile, in Donald Trump's head is a 10% tariff, but he knows that the country doesn't want 100% tariff on their goods"
Dan BonginoEarly in episode
"Our crudeness, our stunted liberal education, our ugly strip malls are because we sacrificed our culture to support yours. It wasn't for us, you wouldn't have the lever and all your museums"
John Conrad (via tweet)Mid-episode
"We didn't lose the war. The intellectuals surrendered on our behalf... once a democratic country decides that a war is unwinnable, it becomes unwinnable"
Thomas SowellMid-episode
"You live in the era of AI. You live in the era of instant information exchange where bullshit the Democrats used to shove down your throat in the past is no longer good and valid"
Dan BonginoMid-episode
"The era of kind of the scripted puppet is over and the people who can actually do it live, do it authentically, those are the people who are gonna succeed"
Scott JenningsInterview segment
Full Transcript
the show. All America all the time. Sit down, buckle up and get ready for the Dan Bonjino show. Oh boy. Do I have a surprise for you guys today? What an amazing guest was kind of chatting with him a bit before the show. You know, Scott Jennings move over a little bit. We don't know how it's about there. You know, Scott Jennings from CNN. He's been on the show for about a year. He debates at about 10 o'clock every night on a CNN with Abby Phillips and others. Just amazing. What an incredible guy. We're going to get into a whole bunch of different things. How it's almost impossible to date liberals. Debate. Excuse me. Definitely. I don't want to date liberals debate levels because they constantly change your position. Now they're arguing that Donald Trump. Hype taxes. I thought the Democrats wanted to be the best. We're going to debate the mathematical certainty of three plus three equals six. And in five minutes later, they're telling you what equals eight, and then it equals nine and 12. Then it equals two like how do you debate that? It's really hard. He does it live every night. So it's going to be great. And man, did Donald Trump drop a bombshell on true social right before we came up on the air? We got to talk about that. I got a whole show for you today. I got this show for you. We got Joy Reid, Peter St. Ange, AOC, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio. Lot of material. Let's get right into it. Bon charge. Bon charge. My favorite health and wellness company. Paula is obsessed with some of their new products. She was using last night and my daughter walked in and was like, Ma, what are you doing? You guys heard me do a segment of the various uses of red light therapy recently, right? You know, I am a huge advocate for red light therapy. It's benefits. We use bond charge products religiously. We just got another red light blanket. Paula put it upstairs. She was in it last night. She was and my daughter walks in, Ma, what are you doing? She said, we got the new red light therapy blanket. Bond charge is a global leader in premium wellness innovation grounded in science and driven by purpose. They've created solutions that fit easily into any lifestyle, which is why Paula is the mask, the new blanket and uses it for about 10 minutes every day. Red light, the red light face mask is lightweight, portable, contours perfectly to your face. Plus, it's suitable for all skin types and supports a more youthful complexion, smoother skin texture and more. It helps me go to sleep at night. I swear by these products. That's why Paula looks like she's still in her 20s. Look up the benefits of red light therapy. You think I'm making this up here. If you're ready to feel better, go to bondcharge.com. You can get a $15 discount on your red light face mask. Get the whole red light blanket while you're at it. Again, that's B-O-N- C-H-A-R-G-E bondcharge.com. Use code BONGINO to save 15% on your red light face mask. Big fan. These statements and products are not been evaluated by the FDA. They're not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or condition. Thank you, bond charge. Justin. Very nice. So, this little bomb shell dropped this morning on true social. From President Donald J. Trump, folks, get ready. It is going to be an eventful 24 hours. Says quote, I won't read the whole thing at the beginning, talking about a potential bombing campaign in Iran like nothing we've seen before. He says quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, he says. However, now that we have complete and total regime change where different, smarter and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, who knows, we'll find out tonight. He goes on about the 47 years of extortion. Folks, this is how Donald Trump debates. How many times, Justin, how many times we have to discuss this? Donald Trump does this all the time for the pearl clutches, for the pearl clutches, for the pearl clutches, for the pearl clutches, for the pearl clutches, and the people getting their draws in a bunch, pulling it out, oh my gosh, Donald Trump does this over and over, and you guys keep and ladies out there, keep with the clutching the pearl, oh my gosh, I can't believe he said that. He takes a what position? What's the word? He takes a maximalist position. We're going to put 100% on the pearl clutches, it's not surprising, it doesn't matter to country, you get the point. Meanwhile, in Donald Trump's head is a 10% tariff, but he knows that the country doesn't want 100% tariff on their goods, so what does the country come back with? The country comes back to Donald Trump and says, hey man, we'll do 15, Donald Trump's thinking, man, that's great, I only wanted 10. There's a two effort effort effort effort effort effort effort effort However, the discursive rhetorical style he has in his true social posts is unquestionably a maximalist position he does all the time. Folks, I just, I get, it's exhausting trying to keep up with the law. I can't believe we're gonna get him for war crimes. Ted Lu added already. Do you see Ted Lu's tweet? Put that, I'm sorry, going a little out of order here. Ted Lu, that ridiculous congressman who, the guy's just a moron. Here's Ted Lu, joint chief of staff, UCMJ University of Code Military Justice and Federal Law prohibit war crimes. Next he notes that the next administration will prosecute you. And he's just setting up for impeachment. He's, keep in mind, we have not even engaged in this maximalist civilization ending bombing campaign, which is not gonna be civilization ending. You know this, it's his negotiating style. And Ted Lu is not concerned about taking out the Iranian nuclear capacity or finding the 400 kilograms of freaking nuclear material, bro, that could be used to create a potential ICBM one day to nuke a city in the United States. Ted Lu, the dipshit, is concerned about what? He's concerned about impeaching Donald Trump for a bombing campaign that really, at least one he's discussing, hasn't even really started yet to the degree he said. Folks, do we really have to get into this too? It is not a war crime to bomb infrastructure when it is used by the military to attack us and attack our allies. It is not a war crime. Ted Lu is just making that up. Ted Lu is an idiot. Ted Lu knows it's not a war crime. Infrastructure is attacked directly and sometimes indirectly as basically, and they hit another target and some infrastructure gets hit as well. In war all the time, this is nothing new. I'm not sure if Ted Lu's just stupid and doesn't know that or doesn't know it's a liar. I'm not sure which one is better, honestly. You know who's committing a war crime? The Iranians who are telling their civilians to go act as human shields at these facilities because they want them to die. That's a war, that's an actual war crime. What side is Ted Lu on? I think you know the answer, not ours. Ted Lu's the anti-anti-communist. Ted Lu is friends with our enemies. That's who Ted Lu is. These guys want us to lose. Folks, it's one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen. This is, again, I had a lot of questions about the Iraq war. It doesn't matter who cares what my history was on it. A lot of people had a lot of questions about that. A lot of people had a lot of questions about a lot of the wars and conflicts we've been in. People had questions about Vietnam. I lost my uncle over there. He was shot in the back over there. This is pretty clear cut, that they were an enemy. You don't have to agree with military action. They actually chanted death to America. There are government officials on video saying our real goal was to get a nuclear bomb, and they have basically no problem using it. They had a ballistic capability, a ballistic missile capability, excuse me, they lied about. Our missiles only go this far. Oh, look, it almost hit Diego Garcia. You guys didn't tell us that, yeah, we lied. The case that they are an enemy of the United States that could cause us a real problem in the future going forward on a more dramatic scale than the pretty dramatic problems they've caused us in the past through proxy terror attacks, is not far-fetched. And the fact that through barely two months of this war that we've had unbelievable military successes I still don't understand why you're cheering on the wrong side. Like I told you, we got Scott Jennings coming up later as a guest, but here's a clip of Jennings on CNN engaged in one of his nightly debates. We always does a great job. We'll ask him about that too. Where, again, I want you to listen to Scott. He's a patriot, and the other members of the panel. And just ask the question, like these other panelists on CNN, these liberals, like what freaking side are you on? Check this out. We know that the regime is basically still in charge. We know that Iran is basically in charge of the chokehold and the straits of promos. It just doesn't seem like we're making any progress. You don't think it's still in 13,000 military targets? A bunch of targets that still have kept the regime in... What regime? The people that were in charge are dead. There's now new people, and there's been credible reporting that they're having trouble even communicating with each other. It's the same regime. They're very, very... They're very, very... They're very scramble and say it's the same regime. The president is the same. Well, you don't know. I mean, the person they say is in charge has never been seen in public. You've seen a cardboard cutout, but that's all we know. No, I don't... That doesn't sound great to me if I were in there. It might not sound great, but the IRGC and the way they're structured is so entrenched in the Iranian society that there's not... regime change hasn't happened. A leadership change has happened. They're in such great shape that we had pilots on the ground in Iran for two days, and we sent hundreds of special forces in and rescued them. And the IRGC and nobody in the civilian population could seem to find or help them. It's a small, Scott. I think... Catcher are guys. They're not in great shape. But, Scott, you can't... I love the commentary in the background. The regime hasn't changed. It's just new leaders. Well, ladies and gentlemen, when the regime of old leaders is screaming death to America and we're down to, like, the seventh layer of leadership, you're down to, like, say you had the grand dais the grand ayatollah, the sub-grand ayatollah, the mini-ayatollah, the mini-mi-ayatollah, and the mini-mini-mi-ayatollah, you're at the seven layers below him now. I think we can effectively say much of the regime has been changed because they're freaking dead. What side are these people on? Are they trying to give them, like, the... They give them, like, a little boost, rock-knee speech, like, go, Iranians, you got us now! What side are you people on? Folks, one of the things that's been driving me nuts about this conflict and others, too, and it happened to us during our time in the government, as well, are leakers. We are fighting a freaking war, man. People will die if you leak national security secrets. Now to leakers out there, you will kill someone, number one. And number two, you are leaking classified national security secrets. Is not protected speech or whistleblowing. It's a freaking crime, dude. It's a crime that's prosecutable. And by the way, I don't give a damn who did it. A bunch of people making an issue. They leaked it to this guy. It was in a Israeli newspaper. I don't care who they leaked it. The people involved who leaked this should go to jail. It doesn't matter to me who they leaked it to. Leaking information about our down pilots that could have gotten someone killed is a crime. It is not protected whistleblowing. And for media people, yes, you have a constitutionally enshrined freedom of the press. I will vigorously defend that using this microphone, and I certainly did during my time at the FBI. You are not entitled to go out and print a bunch of national security secrets that are going to get people killed. Thank God Donald Trump addressed this yesterday from the podium. I got a couple clips from this. He spoke at length yesterday, the most accessible president in modern history. Here's Donald Trump talking about the down pilot. I'm glad he addressed this to leakers. I've had enough of this bullshit, and he has too. Check this out. But these two extraordinary rescues, because it was two. As you probably know, we didn't talk about the first one for an hour. Then somebody leaked something, which will hopefully find that leaker. We're looking very hard to find that leaker. And talked about there's somebody missing. They basically said that we have one and there's somebody missing. Well, they didn't know there was somebody missing until this leaker gave the information. So whoever it was, we think we'll be able to find it out because we're going to go to the media company that released it. And we're going to say, national security, give it up or go to jail. And we know who, and you know who we're talking about. Because some things you can't do. Because when they did that, all of a sudden, the entire country of Iran knew that there was a pilot that was somewhere on their land that was fighting for his life. And it also made it much more difficult for the pilots and for the people going in to search for him all of a sudden. Chats blowing up over this April 25th in the chat. D-Bond Gino, I've had enough of this bullshit too. God bless our president. Folks, when we got in there during my experience there, you would come in in the morning and, you know, drink black coffee and it'd be a leak to the Washington Post. You believe Bond Gino drinks black coffee? What kind of guy doesn't put milk in his cup? You'd be like, are you serious? Everything would leak. Everything. All the time. We had to get rid of people left and right. And then the media would get upset that we were hunting down leakers. I can't believe they're polygraphing people. I can't believe people are leaking national security secrets and other stuff. Not everything was national security, but you get the point. Folks, we got to make an example out of someone. And I told you, I'm not playing any bullshit politics with this at all. I don't give a damn who that person, the leak or leaked it to. I care that that person who leaked it goes to jail. Here's the problem. And again, I'm going to give you, I'm just going to give you the hard truth. It is really, really difficult to find these people. Really difficult because a lot of people know this stuff. It is hard to isolate it down. It's not impossible. We've had some successes. Hopefully we'll have one here. I can only imagine the investigation going on. I'm not on the inside. We've had some successes. Some of them public, some of them not, but it's really difficult to trace these people down. But just disgusting. Folks, I want to talk about something else that came up yesterday too, because this is where I titled to show this today. I'm dead serious, man. It's time to get a refund from NATO. If NATO is not going to step up and help us right now, forget about NATO, even our European allies in general, if they're not going to help us right now, in this existential war against the death to America, death to Europe, death cult in Iran, then just let us know now and we can slowly part ways. We can trade with each other, but you know what? We can pull our bases and you guys will be on your own. You think you've got enough European military power in Western Europe to take on the Russians or China if they decide to engage in a nuclear volley? Go right ahead. But I'm getting really exhausted because I'm telling you during my experience, there are 80% of the legwork. Military law enforcement, counter-terror, counter-responage is done by us. And what do we get back in return? NATO and all this BS. Put up that John Conrad tweet. Forget about that. This guy, John Conrad, I've been following on X. He had a great tweet about this yesterday, how we kind of did this to ourselves a little bit. How over the years, the security umbrella through counter-terror efforts, military protection, we have provided to Western Europe has basically made them a cultural hub. You got great museums. You know, they've got great food. They've got great champagne. I know I've been there to a lot of Western European countries. They're beautiful. But our military protection, near guarantee for them, has allowed them to become cultural hubs and tourist spots while not taking any tactical concerns seriously. Put the end of that tweet up if you wouldn't mind. This is a great tweet. I can't read the whole thing. It's John Conrad with a K. It's a verified account. He talks about how NATO is in far bigger danger than anyone realizes. And the reason is nothing to do with defense budgets. It's, yeah, it's true. Justin said this may be the longest tweet we put on the air in Dan Banchino's show history. I've got to scroll to the end because the gist of it is kind of summed up in the last few paragraphs. How because we have supported their cultural institutions and institutions of higher learning and art centers and everything, that they have this inflated sense. I'm not talking about all Europeans. I'm talking about basically government officials and bureaucrats and some of their elites, that they have this superiority over us. Leave this up. Oh, look at you dirty Americans with your Walmarts and your strip malls. I was freaking dirty Americans. The only reason you guys are even alive right now. He writes quote, our crudeness, our stunted liberal education, our ugly strip malls are because we sacrificed our culture to support yours. It wasn't for us. You wouldn't have the lever and all your museums and all your fancy stuff and your haughty culture and your nose in the air stuff. You guys and ladies going to help us or not? I've got news for you. Those ballistic missiles over there are in you guys are in range. At least not this second. We are not, although we will be relatively soon if we don't stop them. You're in range now. Your museums and all your fancy culture. I told you I had nothing but professional dealings with the European partners. But it is time for you to or get off the pot. You know what I mean? Get out of the damn bathroom. You've been in there all day. People are knocking. It's time to do something. Move it along. You going to help us or not? Now there's a decent piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about how some of these countries are in fact helping but quietly. Why are you helping quietly? What are you embarrassed by a strip mall Americans who actually work for a living to pay our military to support you all? Folks, this is some serious bullshit. I'm sorry. Our military, by the way, does not lose wars. Okay? The experts and global elites lose wars. I even saw Pope Leo. I'm a Christian but Pope Leo talking about how we should be pacifists. Yeah, individually. I don't come in in the morning and punch Justin in the face and kick him in the nads. Hey Justin, why don't I do that? Because I don't like violence and you shouldn't either. But you're telling me as Pope, a very intellectual, very smart man, Pope Leo, you don't understand how nation state actors who might want to kill us and annihilate the globe may have to be handled with violence? I don't understand it. I know it's not a popular position questioning the Pope on the show. I don't care. I have a brain I can think myself to. We do not live in that world. God gave us a world of challenges and obstacles. We have to handle with hard decisions and hard men doing it. I want to play this little cut by Thomas Sowell. We haven't played the genius of Thomas Sowell in a long time. But I don't want you to fall in this trap that Scott Jennings is fighting every night on CNN against the elites. You got the Pope now chiming in and other, you know, so-called experts and academics. Oh, war is lost. We're all going to die. This is horrible. European elites, we're not helping us out of war for us. It's not a war of choice. Yeah, it is a war of choice. The Iranians chose to declare war on us with death to America and accumulating a nuclear stockpile a long time ago. It's their choice, not ours. Here's Thomas Sowell and how our military doesn't lose wars. The experts and the media lose wars. Check this out. Vietnam, intellectuals and society again. Among the many implications of the war in Vietnam was that it once again illuminated the role of the intelligentsia in influencing the policies of a society in the course of history. Close quote. We didn't lose the war. The intellectuals surrendered on our behalf. Yes. In fact, the communists themselves in later years admitted that there was no way they could have defeated the United States on the battlefield. In fact, the Tet Offensive, which was the turning point, that the communist guerrilla movement was virtually wiped out in the south. But the intellectuals saw that as a victory for the communists and the war was unwinnable. And once a democratic country decides that a war is unwinnable, it becomes unwinnable. Thank you, Thomas Sowell. The man's genius is timeless. The elites, our NATO allies, European elites who look at us like strip mall Americans. They're the ones who are going to lose this war, not us. Our military's tactical dominance is on display every minute of the day in Iran. Is it not? Did you miss that? Folks, I want to get back to this NATO issue in a moment. Donald Trump yesterday spoke, I'm in a mood today. Just so you know, everybody get, dude, am I not? You saw me walk in this morning. I am in a mood today. This show could go on for like five or six hours today. I'm going to play this clip of Trump on NATO and Rubio next because this, I want to refund, okay? If this is going to be an alliance, then act like allies. If not, pay for your own damn military while we pay for strip malls. Quick break. We'll get right back to it. Need a little patriotism right now. Patriot mobile. America's about to celebrate its 250th anniversary. Direction of the country's being decided right now in our culture and our economy. Yes, it is. And whom we choose to support matters more than ever. Most wireless companies don't care who you are or what you believe, or some of them probably just hate you, especially if you're a conservative. If I may throw that in, can I throw that in there? Yes, I can. Okay, good. Justin's like, it's your show. They just want your money. Patriot mobile is different. They have been for a long time. They've been with me a long time. Patriot mobile. Patriot mobile. For more than 12 years, they've stood with Americans who believe freedom is worth defending. They support the Christian conservative movement proudly when others stayed silent. True. And here's the deal. You don't have to give up quality or service when you switch to Patriot mobile. They deliver premium priority access on all three major U.S. networks. So you'll get the same or better coverage than you have today. You think switching is a hassle? Well, you're wrong. Sorry, it isn't. Keep your number. Keep your phone or upgrade. Their 100% U.S.-based customer support team can activate you in minutes. Still paying off of the device? No sweat. Patriot mobile even offers a contract buyout. Who's better than you? This is a defining year. We got to work together and save this amazing country. Go to www.patriotmobile.com or call 972-Patriot. Use promo code Dan, my first name, for a free month of service. That's www.patriotmobile.com or call 972-Patriot. Make the switch today. Thank you. Sincerely, Patriot Mobile. You've been good to us and our audience for a really long time. Okay. Donald Trump has pissed off about this NATO issue as well. They're quietly support. Why are you quiet? Why are you quiet, NATO? I don't understand. Why are you quiet? We're not quiet about our defense of your countries. We're not quiet about our trillion dollar military budget that provides a security umbrella for the entire free world of what used to be free world. Why are you quiet? Donald Trump's clearly had enough of this bullshit too and I'm glad he called it out yesterday in the Brady Press Room. Check this out. But all I want to see is I want to have a safe world and you're not going to have a safe world. Israel will be gone. The Middle East will be gone. And then they're coming for Europe. And I have to tell you, I'm very disappointed in NATO. Very. I think that NATO, I think it's a mark on NATO that will never disappear. Never disappear in my mind. You know, they're coming to see me on Wednesday. They're going to say, oh, we'll do this. We'll do that. Now they all of a sudden want to send things, you know. But they said it loud and clear at the beginning when I spoke to UK of all, I would have said they would have been there first because they've been, they're the oldest. And I say, yeah, I'd love to have a little help. I said, no sir, we'd rather wait till you win. I said, I don't need help after we win. They have two old broken aircraft carriers, barely work. I said, I guess we can use them. Who the hell knows? I called the general. He didn't even want to. He said, we don't really need them. We got the SS Abraham Lincoln, sir. We don't need them. You know, we have in terms of technology, we had one day, 101 missiles going at 2,700. 1,700 miles an hour aimed at the Abraham Lincoln. 101 missiles out of 101 missiles. 101 missiles were shot down. Unbelievable technology. 10 years ago, five years ago, I don't know if that would have been possible. But 10 years ago, that would have been, that wouldn't have been possible. He's tired of NATO too. Folks, if you're going to make the case to me, and listen, this is going to piss off a lot of moderate Democrats and a lot of moderate establishment Republicans too. If you are going to make the case to me, after what I just went through over the past year, that NATO is quote, invaluable. The greatest alliance in the history of, you know, global militaries. Fine, make the case. Some of the history with NATO has been incredible after 9-11. Very brave. By the way, I'm not knocking the people who serve. You serve in a military in the UK, any of our other NATO partners. God bless you. That is an amazing sacrifice. This is in no way directed at people who put boots on the ground. However, to the political leaders who are like embarrassed by what we're doing in Iran to clean up a global security threat, you are in right now with their ballistic missile capabilities over there. I'm embarrassed, you're embarrassed. We need a realistic evaluation of our global alliances, folks. I'm really sorry. We've got trillions and tens of trillions of dollars of debt. We've got obligations to folks here. I don't discount that. I get why some people may be upset seeing this is some kind of war we could have pushed off a war of choice, which it's not. But I understand your concerns. They're not invalid that we have domestic problems, too. I understand that. So if we're going to continue to pay for tens of thousands of troops overseas on foreign soil to help protect these countries from invasion, then you damn well better step up or give us a freaking refund. You start paying for it then. Paying us back. Here's Marco Rubio, the best secretary of state I've seen in my lifetime, my opinion, but I'm pretty sure it's true. Here's Secretary of State Rubio on NATO. And again, this 80-20 issue I told you about how we provide about 80% of the workload, intel, law enforcement, CI, CT, military, they provide about 20, maybe 30, be generous. So when do we get something out of this? Check this out. All of it's going to have to be reexamined. If you folks in the chat want to give Justin some moral support, he put his X account link up there. That was clever. That was good. I like that. Good comeback. Very clever. You can go in there. It'll be okay, Justin. Rubio's right. When do we get something out of this? Folks, again, I can't say this enough. You want to make the case how NATO is invaluable to us? I get the history. You're not wrong. There's been some quality moments throughout the history of the Alliance where they've come through for us. This is today. Remember that famous book Eckert Toll wrote, The Power of Now? I'm not a big Eckert Toll, but whatever. This was a really popular book. The whole idea was, which should sound tautological but isn't to some, you live in the now. The past has already happened. You're not going to change it. So there's no sense worrying about it. The future hasn't happened yet. So there's no sense worrying excessively about tomorrow. You have to live in the series of nows. Life is a series of nows. What are they doing right now? And the answer is right now, they're like embarrassed NATO, embarrassed by us. Really? You are? Like I said, I'm embarrassed. You're embarrassed. I love this guy. Can we try to get him on? Peter St. Ange. We played his clips enough. It's like Scabby of Scott Jennings. Oh, Peter, if you want to come on, well, if you don't want to come on, it's fine. But if you want to come on, we'd love to have you. Here's Peter St. Ange. He does a lot of economic segments, but this is a very, very valuable like minute plus clips, not that long, about the economics of NATO to what we do on that front. And again, like what are we getting in the now? In the now, right now, not tomorrow, not in the past. What are we getting out of it right now? Check this out. So why are we in NATO with the exception of token forces in Afghanistan? We've gotten literally nothing from the Alliance we have indeed spent trillions on. One study by the Foreign Policy Research Institute estimates roughly 25% of our military budget is for Europe. So over 200 billion a year, RAND estimates is closer to 300 billion. So 47% of collective costs. Note that's just ongoing costs. It does not include the Ukraine's, nor the Bosnian's and Kosovo's that came before it. Now, 300 billion is more than Somali learing centers. In fact, it's enough to cancel the income tax for everybody up to 100,000 per year. Put differently, 300 billion is enough to cancel all tax on business which would steal every large company and job from Europe. If you tally it up over the 80 years of NATO, it comes to roughly $10 trillion in today's terms. You are welcome, Europe. Yes, you are welcome, Europe. So forgive me, but I'm really tired about the lectures about our American culture. Thank God for our American culture. You know, I don't know if you all remember this. This is probably for P1s who've been listening forever, but about three years ago, I was at the iron bowl in Auburn and we had lost, that was, was that three years ago? The Milrow miracle, I was at the game, I'm an Auburn fan. So for you, Alabama fans, it was a great moment for you, a terrible moment for me, especially sitting there at the 50 yard line watching it. My daughter was devastated. There was a touchdown, wins the game with no time on the clock. However, I go home really disappointed. And we had, outside of Auburn, losing the game to Alabama. This is the American heartland right here. The hard work in South, Alabama. I walked out of that stadium and despite everybody being a little upset, people were coming up and I must add a hundred people say the nicest things about the show. They've been with me forever, all the stuff. I wake up the next morning in the hotel, or I forget where I was staying. It was somewhere in Opa Lake, I think. And I get up really early and I type out this Facebook post about the South and how amazing the people down there are. It feels like the South, I'm a Yankee man, I'm a New York kid. I live in Florida, which is like not really the South, you know, the joke about Florida. The more South you go, the more North you get. The further you are South in Florida, the more Northern you are. It's the opposite. So Florida is not really the South, at least South Florida. But just the love and the sense of community. The South feels like one big, enormous family. It's like the biggest family you'll ever have. And I basically wrote in the Facebook post, like, can you guys just like adopt me? Like, I feel like I missed out on this. I really do. Sometimes I'll listen to like a Morgan Wollin song about the TN or something like that. And I'm like, that's special. I love New York growing up there, but that's really special. I'm going to talk about culture, European NATO partners. That's culture. Try it sometime. Go check that post out if you ever get the time. I meant every word of it. Folks, these constant anti-anti-communist attacks where you can't really determine what side the Democrats are really on anymore, except for the side that's against America. Like whatever side is against America they ally themselves with instantly. They're having a real problem with this because there are still a lot of Democrats left in the South, not a ton, but a lot. And I'm telling you, like, they don't buy this bullshit either. I want to show you this clip on CNN. Harry Anten, who's a pollster over there, who seems to be pretty fairly on a sky when there's bad news about Democrats. He puts it out there. Good news, he puts it out there. I want you to pay very close attention to this poll in case you think this anti-Americanism, this pro-men in women's room bullshit that they're still going with, this boondoggle $100 billion super train in California nonsense, this mom-dami, we're going to send social workers out there instead of cops. This stuff is not working. I say that because we got a midterm election coming up and I just can't take doomers. The doomers are going to lose, everything sucks, Trump's the worst. You got that moron over there on his show talking about, ah, it's 25th amendment, all this. These people are complete imbeciles that should be disregarded immediately. The Democrats are in a world of pain and they want to see us lose the midterm. Facts matter, receipts matter. Here's a CNN pollster we cover a lot talking about the Democrats' favorability. You think this is really high? The Democrats are riding this wave right now? Numbers matter. They're not doing so great. Check this out. Party ahead at this point midterm of years with the GOP president. In 2018, Dems were up by 12. In 2006 on Net Favorability, which party like more Dems are ahead by 18, Republicans are actually ahead on Net Favorability at this point by five points. So Democrats are just simply put running behind their previous benchmarks and they need to be running well ahead of them if they want to take back the United States Senate given that math. Thanks, Andy. Sorry, I had to fix my iPad there. Yeah, you okay? Great. If so, Randy was going to make it there. Like I almost fell over. I'm being a little dramatic. You like kicked it. I saw him though. He balanced himself instantly like a cat. You ever notice how a cat falls from a bunch of... The cat always winds up on its feet. You ever see them twist in the air? That's amazing. Folks, why is this a problem for the Democrats? Their favorability being very low. Because you live, and I'll address this with Scott Jennings later by the way as well. You live in the era of AI. You live in the era of instant information exchange where bullshit the Democrats used to shove down your throat in the past is no longer good and valid. Because people can just check instantly they go to Grok, they go to an AI generator and they say, is this in fact true? Here's what I mean. This is why the Democrats are getting annihilated right now. Yesterday I mentioned natural experiments. You know what natural experiments are? They're experiments where you can't manipulate a variable because it would be unethical. So you just look for that variable in nature. I.e. you have two towns next to each other. One raises the minimum wage and one doesn't. Because they're next to each other, it is a natural experiment. You can see the effects of minimum wage. Natural experiments from everywhere. So I put this in Google Gemini so you can't accuse me of some right wing bias. It's obviously a left wing company, right? Here's Google Gemini's definition of natural experiments. That's a screenshot of my phone. What is a natural experiment? It's an observational study where researchers exploit naturally occurring unplanned events or policy changes that divide a population into treatment and control groups without direct researcher manipulation. Okay. I bring that up because the Democrats suck and their favorability is really low because we have natural experiments out there right now. Like tax rates in California versus tax rates in Florida. I may be a researcher. I didn't change the tax rates. I'm a whatever. I'm just a professor at some college. But I can study that. So I went to TurboTax and I just said, hey, give me the state tax rates. And here's what we got. For the 2025 tax year, states with the highest income tax rates include California, Hawaii, and New York. Tax-free living. They note some other states, Florida, Alaska, and Texas. Why do I bring this up? Because folks, the reason the Democrats suck so bad and why shouldn't be dooming and glooming about the midterms is when you conduct a natural experiment of people who live in California with high taxes versus Florida with no income tax. People leave California to go to Florida and Texas. They don't go the other way like ever. You can't run from that anymore. You can't hide from it. Maybe you could in the Walter Cronkite era before Google Gemini and Grock and the instant availability of Twitter and the Internet. It's going to be really, really expensive to be a liberal Democrat moving forward. Here's a perfect example. Here's this goofball mayor up in New York, Mamdani. He's got people fleeing the state to the point where the governor of New York is begging people from Palm Beach, Florida, who left New York to come back. Please come back. I know where state sucks, but come back. Here's Mamdani. He's saying, please stop leaving. I will offer you higher taxes if you return. Maybe not his exact words, but pretty much what he's saying. Check this out. Being in the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, we already see an exodus of working in middle class New Yorkers. So I don't have a hesitation in asking those who make the most amount of money in the city or the most profits in the city to pay a little bit more so that everyone can actually stay in this city. Please stop leaving. Come back and we will kick you right in the nuts with some new and even higher taxes. Welcome back. Like, Kata. Some of you get that. I may have aged myself. Justin has no idea what I'm talking about. All you have to do is look this stuff up. So yesterday I played a series of videos. If you missed the show, please check it out. A series of videos of media reports about this high speed rail boondoggle in California that basically is running into the hundreds of billions of dollars at this point. They could have basically rebuilt probably every school in California three times over for the cost of a train station and high speed rail that's still not finished. Now you can just look that up, folks. There's a natural experiment for you there too. High speed rail? What does it cost when government does it versus private sector? It is a boondoggle. Of course, here's AOC who may be a presidential candidate in 2028, God forbid, but it may happen. Here she is, of course, on video because we can just look this up instantly, telling you how great high speed rail, which is destroying California's budget still isn't finished and absolutely sucks. Here she is defending it. Check this out. It's not just about the high speed rail. It's about the high speed rail. It's about the high speed rail. It's about the high speed rail. It's about the high speed rail. It's about the high speed rail. It's about the high speed rail. It's about the high speed rail. It's about the high speed rail. It's about the high speed rail. It's about the high speed rail. It's about the high speed rail. It's about the high speed rail. It's about the high speed rail. You can just look that up, bro. Really? They're doing such a great job with it. Ladies and gentlemen, artificial intelligence and computing power is going to make it, listen to me, really expensive to be a liberal Democrat moving forward. They're asking for donations at that web? I hope not because that would be, imagine stealing all the tax pens to ask you for donations. Folks, when I say expensive, I mean it's going to cost you a lot of political capital moving forward. It used to be easier to hide this stuff with Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings with three news networks at night and no Fox News or Newsmax or Twitter or anything like that. You can't hide it anymore. Here's a perfect example of what I mean. I told you Joy Reid would be in the show. Here's Joy Reid. You can instantly fact check this now. Here she is making a completely ridiculous absurd statement that I promised you 30 years ago, liberal media chuckleheads would have been like, yeah man, Joy's right. We had no taxes before the 20th century. Nothing. Really? Because it's pretty easy to just go and like put that in a search engine? Here's Joy Reid. Check this out. If you go back before the 20th century, there were no income taxes. There were no regulations on business. You could earn as much money as you want, leave 100% of it to your children with no taxes. That's the world they want back. And to get it back, they need society to change. They need people to be less modern. They need people to want fewer things. All I did was go to Google Gemini again because again, I don't want to be, I don't want it to be assumed like if I use, you know, Grock, which is more down the middle. I went to Google for a reason. And I just put in this, again, a screenshot on my phone. List for me federal government taxes prior to the 20th century. Oh look, tariffs, imports, X sizes on goods like tobacco and alcohol, temporary income taxes to fund the Civil War. So you mean she's just making it up? I honestly, Joyce, probably just dumb, but it is going to get really expensive moving forward to do this because there's instant fact checking. People are, people go into this, go into Twitter all the time, X. Grock is what this tweet saying true all the time. Fact check this. Being on the side of facts and reason is going to help us. Can you put up that Greg Price tweet about Abigail Spanberger? I think that's what I mean too. The Democrats used to be able to hide, hide the limitations of their ridiculous policies, high taxes, you know, endless funding of public schools, no school choice, all that stuff. Now you get Democrats in office, right? Like Spanberger, she runs, she wins the governorship of Virginia. She's a Democrat. She runs as a moderate. I use air quotes here because no one actually believed that at the time. Gets in office in Virginia. She's taking people's guns. They're gerrymandering the state even by gerrymandering standards in a ridiculous way. She, yeah, exactly. Joe Biden moderate is Justin Jusson. Here's Greg. Abigail Spanberger has the worst favorability rating after 80 days in office of any Virginia governor of the 21st century because they can't hide this stuff anymore. You don't have this problem with good Republicans. You do have this problem with weak Republicans who go in there and don't do conservative stuff. But you've seen throughout history when Republicans go in, even in liberal states and clean up the mess, Giuliani's New York, Reagan after the Carter era. You see people are happy and elated because conservatism works. This stuff doesn't work, folks. And you can't hide it anymore. She's getting crushed right now. She's only been in office 80 days. Hasn't even been six months. Not even close. AI is also going to make not only liberal progressivism, collectivism, socialism, really politically expensive going forward as you're made a fool of in live time. It's going to make ridiculous policy positions you stake out even more absurd like this men and women sports. Liberals. I know you're not going to change. I'm not trying to teach you how to be better liberals. You guys want to stick to these dead policy positions like men and women sports. Please, you're welcome. Go right ahead. I'm just telling you, like, people can look this stuff up. They see how absurd you are and how ridiculous you sound. Megan Rapinoe is back. I hate playing clips of this absolute numbskull. However, here she is trying to make the case that yeah, there's no real evidence like men and women sports and all this. Really? Okay, I'll show you some evidence coming up next. You might have some direct experience with check this out. We already know that biology as much as we want it to be just nice and clean and tight and perfectly in one category or another. It's not. We know that. So now what we're doing is subjecting everybody, all women and all people who are identifying as women to this really invasive testing that only to me just says like, oh, so we're just trying to whittle it down to a certain type of woman. Is that what we're doing? Like, that's really the whole game here. Like, there's been, you know, they sort of like lost the battle on gay marriage and lost about all these things. So it's just like, we're going to have this whole campaign for all these years to just hate trans people, which is such a small percentage of the population. It's actually like on a single hand when we're talking about sports and just like thread the absolute tightest needle thread that you possibly could. But this committee is framing it as based in science, which it's not. And this will ultimately just prevent people from competing within the women's category that they feel like have an unfair advantage. It's just really hateful. So it's not an unfair advantage to put men in women's sports. By the way, we don't need the qualifier biological men. Can we just stop doing that? They're men. They're men. Okay. There's no evidence. Put up that CBS Sports article. This is fascinating. We're talking about natural experiments, right fellas? Natural, natural experiments. I didn't conduct it. Was it meant to be a research study? Kind of interesting, though. CBS Sports. FC Dallas. Under 15 year old boys. Their squad beat the U.S. women's national team in a scrimmage. Wow. Wow. Was that the year the women won the world's too? And they lost to a bunch of teenagers? By the way, I'm sure they're very talented women, but I thought they're... What was this like? Not the miracle on ice, but the miracle on grass? Did I miss something? Because this looks to me like a pretty natural experiment. You know, why do we have weight classes in boxing, by the way? Anybody know? Because, you know, force equals mass times acceleration, more mass, more force. Kind of how math works. So if you're larger and have more muscle mass or miss mass in general, you can probably create more force. So in order to make boxing matches and UFC matches more equitable, they have weight classes. You don't want, you know, Brock Lesnar fighting Mighty Mouse, okay? But Megan Rapinoe, who is indicative of this larger, keep telling each other lies, sweet little lies movement on the left, really wants you to believe that men who are biologically endowed with greater muscle mass than women, a scientific fact, have no advantage out there despite the U.S. women's national team losing to a bunch of teenagers in Dallas. And if this were the case, and the forget Rapinoe, the liberal progressives in general really believe this, that men have no advantage in women's sports, then fellas, Andrew, why do no women compete men's sports? You notice that? Why don't you see that? Why, why, can anybody answer that? Why are there no women competing in men's boxing matches? Why aren't there women like linebackers in the NFL? Why not? I thought there were no differences. I thought Megan Rapinoe was like, ah, biology, really not that simple. No, it's pretty simple, pretty simple biology. Right, good point, Justin. Why are there no women's world records in sports like the Marathon, the 400? Why are there no women that beat men? I'm just curious, you just told us there's no difference. It's a spectrum, it's a spectrum. No, it's a binary. Folks, I'm telling you, going forward, it is going to get really freaking expensive to be a liberal lunatic. I'm not telling you Republicans are going to provide the answers to all of our problems. I'm just telling you, Democrats are going to have a really, really hard time defending their insanity. Here's another one I saw yesterday, Liz Warren. Elizabeth Warren, Liberal Democratic Senator, put out another tweet about the wealth tax. This is going to be a staple policy position moving forward, either a wealth tax or a universal basic income for the Democrats. It's going to be a staple position moving forward. And it sounds good in tweets. It sounds amazing, like, oh my gosh, Jeff Bezos, I don't know Jeff Bezos. I never met this guy in my life. Of course, runs Amazon, you know the deal, Washington Post. She knows Jeff Bezos has $222 billion. If he paid my wealth tax this year, we could fund insulin in America. She goes into all these things, free lunch, blah, blah, blah. And Bezos would still have $215 billion to spare. Now you see that, and you're a dopey lib, and you're like, oh, that makes sense to me. And then you ask simple questions. You go to AI, or you ask someone, or you just put it in the Internet in a search engine. Well, what's happened when we've done this before? Because surely there's a natural experiment about this, and there is. You had wealth taxes in Maryland, wealth taxes in France. You had a proposed wealth tax that's moving through right now in the state of Washington, and what happened in said natural experiment. Fellas, this is so weird. The craziest thing, man. They institute this wealth tax, and people leave to not pay it. And then when they're forced to pay it, if they have to, they have to liquidate assets. Because Liz Warren, who by the way is not stupid, AOC, I'm not sure, Ted Lu, I'm really not sure. I promise you, Liz Warren is not dumb. Liz Warren knows full well that Jeff Bezos does not have $222 billion sitting in a freaking bank account. Jeff Bezos has these items in assets, many of which are not immediately liquid. So if Jeff Bezos is forced to pay, I don't even know him. Don't know him? I should say I don't know. I don't care about him. If Jeff Bezos is forced to come up with $7 billion plus, he's going to have to cash out a number of assets. And if everyone in the U.S. economy worth a billion or more had to do the same thing, the stock market would be wiped out tomorrow in a mass liquidation event. Of course, you can look that up, dumb ass libs, but you won't. Because you don't want the answer. Because you want to continue to tell each other sweet little lies and ignore the natural experiments going on all over the world right now. Facts and data are your enemies if you're on the left. I know you are allergic to them. I know it. But that's why we got a guy, Scott Jennings, coming up a little bit who uses facts. And that's why he always wins his debates on CNN. I got him coming up in a few minutes. I do want to show you how facts and data matter to me too on an entirely different time. You got my Eric squats? Hey, listen, I told you this show we're going to cover a lot of material today. I'm looking out for your health. You know I absolutely love and adore life hacks. Anything you can do to suck a few extra minutes of quality out of your life, you should take them. So I got the whole show staff doing these 10 air squats once every 45 minutes to an hour. I see this yesterday on X. Here we go. Dambon Geno Vindication Moment. This is at A.U.S. Wellness. Zib Atkins. 10 air squats every 45 minutes equals 10,000 steps. Talked about this amazing study from the University of Texas that they can control blood sugar better than going for a full 30 minute walk. When you sit all day, your blood sugar spikes go through all this stuff, but 10 air squats wakes up everything instantly. I'm actually doing 15 now. I love it. I'm just looking out for you. You know I love you guys trying to bring you some really interesting health hacks. This, however, is one of my favorites. And one of the nice side effects, your legs will be like rocks. They're like stone after a year of this. Even me with my bad knee. You shouldn't do it with a bad knee or bad back or whatever. Even me with my bad knee. Your legs are going to be like this wooden table. Like rocks. Guys get yours in today? You do? See? Even Andy's getting better. He's good. He keeps health care costs. That's good for the business. Everything. See? He's like a capitalist too. All right. I'm going to take a quick break and then we're going to get to our guest, Scott Jennings. You're really going to like this interview. I've been following him for a long time. I'm just going to tell you in advance it is really, really hard to be on live TV and be a guest on a show, on a debate show. It's easy to be the host because you know where you're going because you're the host. When you're the guest, man, these are, you got boomerangs coming at you from everywhere. So you got to be prepared for everything. Quick break and we'll get right to Scott. Hey, I think censorship is coming back. You've seen it. You've seen it over in Europe. You've seen the Democrats talking about it now. Talking about how when they get back in power, they're going to start going after corporations. Folks, I worry about these guys and so should you. I see it happening just about everywhere. Many platforms are controlling narratives again, deciding what they want to see. Not what you want to see, what they want, what they want out there. We have to fight back. Rumble is the only platform that has consistently delivered and stood for free speech. They got receipts. Now Rumble's taken the fight to the financial world with Rumble Wallet where you control your money. It's not a bank. It's not a government. It's not a tech company. It's not even not even Rumble can touch it. This is your money and your freedom with Rumble Wallet. You can tip creators like me instantly, no fees, no waiting weeks to get paid. You can also buy and save digital assets like Bitcoin, Tether Gold and now USAT. Tether's brand new US regulated stablecoin. Tether Gold is real gold on the blockchain, actual gold bars you own. USAT keeps your money steady and protected from inflation all without relying on banks. So let's take control back. Download Rumble Wallet today. Go to wallet.rumble.com or search Rumble Wallet in your app store. Download it, open your account and move your money where it belongs in your hands. Safe. Rumble Wallet is a technology provider only, not a custodial service. See terms at wallet.rumble.com. Bulk Drop Folks, so rarely do I get excited about interviews these days, but I am really stoked about this one. You probably already know him from my show because we play his clips all the time from CNN Electric debates. Scott Jennings, welcome to the show. What an honor to have you on. Dan, thanks for having me. And if I might say, I think this is the first time we're actually meeting. And I just want to take the opportunity to tell you, I'm a huge fan. I've been a fan for a long time. And I'm really grateful that you went into the government. It's not easy to go in and do what you did and serve the government and give up what you gave up. So thanks for your service and thanks for the invitation to be here today. Oh, that means a lot. I really appreciate that. And it was an honor, you know, and you asked us to step up, you'd step up and do it. So it's, you don't want to tell everyone else to do it. And then when it comes to you, I meant everyone but me. Like that's not an answer. So it was a great year. We had a good time. It was an honor to work for him. So you're over at CNN, your clips are just everybody in the conservative movement. Your name ID is probably through the roof. They've seen you on social media, just battling back and forth. You know, we were kind of chatting a bit before and I said to you, listen, I got to give CNN begrudgingly a little bit of credit for continuing to have you on. I joke on my show all the time that, you know, I probably would have fired you a long time ago because you're always there making such unbelievable points. It's like, sometimes I could see the hosts battling a little bit to keep up. But what's it like being over there, being just ideologically overwhelmed all the time? Typically you against like four or five. Well, my first answer to that is it's an honor and it's a privilege because there aren't too many debating spaces in American media right now. You don't get debates too much over at Fox, you get a little bit, I guess on the five and they really don't do any debating at all on MS. Most media is ideologically siloed. And so CNN decides we're gonna actually have some debates. And you know, they have a history of that and then they went away from a little bit. But now we do it every night at 10, but other shows do it as well. The four o'clock show with Casey Hunt, they always include me or people like me. And I think these debates are very valuable. So, you know, you always know you're gonna be somewhat outnumbered at the table and you always know that, you know, you're basically the odd man out. But for conservatives, I think that is a valuable thing to have where we can probably bring to an audience that doesn't hear much from our side, facts and rational thinking and logical thinking to these debates. I think it's incredibly valuable. So I have to really credit CNN, our CEO, Mark Thompson, for the thought of this 10 o'clock debating show back during the presidential election. And I think they thought it was gonna be a short-term thing, you know, just for the election, but it was so popular and people liked it so much that they've left it on the air and it's become one of their best shows. And I think it's because it's drawing in audiences that they might not have otherwise gotten, not just for the live show, but as you pointed out, the clips, these clips live on, you know, days and weeks after. And I think there's a lot of people consuming CNN debating content that would have never, ever watched CNN content before. So for a lot of reasons, it's a privilege and I think it's an extremely valuable thing. Yeah, I mean, you just exploded on to the CNN. I had known about you from being in these circles, but my gosh, I was starting doing the show and it was just every video is getting hundreds of thousands and millions of views because, you know, you become, I've been a commentator for about 10 years now. And when you were on the air, I used to debate, you know, in the world though, these things were, media had us like the top button that they're influential. We were like 45, like me in a world though, duking it out. But what I found from the emails I get, you probably receive in legions of them now, is you become like the people's voice. Not everyone has the opportunity to go on CNN or MS or Fox and debate. Obviously they just don't. There's one seat and you're butts in it. So you better damn well produce. And if you lose the debates and get your ass handed to you, you're pretty much done. So it's a lot of pressure, but do you get those emails too? Like thank you for saying that. I've been thinking that for the longest time. Yes, I get emails, people walk up to me on the street, everywhere I go, airports, just, you know, whether I'm in New York or DC or back home in Kentucky, a lot of people walk up to me and just say, thank you for saying what I wanted to say. And there's a lot of people out there consuming news and for mainstream media, they feel like there's very few people in there that actually see the world the way they see it or have the values that they have. And so for a guy from middle America, who's a conservative guy, who's got some political experience, but I'm not a career government person or anything. I think they just find it, they find the value and having a voice that basically sees the world that they, the way they see it and it can articulate these things. I think they also look at a lot of political media and they say, this is garbage. Like this analysis is garbage. You know, these views are garbage. You know, these things could be punctured with just a couple of key questions. And really who's gonna ask them? If someone like me isn't sitting there, I find that that's often the best tactic in these debates, Dan, ask a simple question. How, why, you know, why do you believe that? Are you aware of this fact? And so just simply being around to throw those things in, often turn these debates into something that our conservative audiences can really rally around. So it's hard. And as you pointed out, you have to be prepared because you got four or five people banging on you, you know, for a long period of time. But as long as you're prepared and as long as you're confident in what you're saying and as long as you've, you know, prepared for what the left is gonna throw at you, you can usually have a good night with these guys because I find their arguments don't really, they're not used to being challenged and they dissolve somewhat like a paper straw, you know, it's just a little bit of, a little bit of testing. Having been on both sides of it, having again done CNN and MS commentary and then being over at Fox. When I had my own show on Fox and the show I have now, this is why I just, I have so much respect for what you do. When you're the host, you know this, you host your own show, the Scott Jennings show, you know what's coming next. It's like, you know, when you, it's hard to run at someone else's pace. Even when you're running a pace you can handle because you're afraid, you don't know if he's gonna speed up or slow down but the guy running in the lead, he has no problem. It's the same way in commentary. But when you're on the receiving end of it as a guest in a guest chair, you have no idea where they're gonna go with this. So like you just said, you have to do extra homework and that kind of leads me to my next question, how with these debate segments that you're just an expert at on CNN, this explosion in AI is going to make these debate sessions going forward for liberals who don't bedrock themselves and ideas but an emotion and faith in this ideology. AI and the interwebs is gonna make this really, really difficult going forward. I heard you say in a debate, internet do your thing recently and of course you were right. Yeah, well I think you're exactly right. And you know, one word you use there that I think is so true is emotion. You know, what I find in our debates is that they're ruled by emotion. You know, they're ruled by vibes. And then that leads them to say things that they want to be true but aren't true at all. But they, you know, it sounds true or it should be true but is it true? And you can get yourself in trouble in debates, you're going down those emotional rabbit holes. But the thing is they want to drag you into that. They want you to be emotionally outraged all the time. They want you to forget that as conservatives, we tend to be ruled by logic and facts and analysis. That's how we, you know, sort of process the world. But they want you to throw all that aside and get into the emotional mud pit and roll around in there with them. And that's their best venue. So my job is to keep it above that. On the AI piece, I tend to agree with you and that segment you're referring to was against Paul Bogala. He was talking about the Pete Hegceth lobster, the great lobster hoax of 2026, you know? And he was literally like talking about, you know, Pete Hegceth ate all the lobster himself. And I finally just said, you're going to get killed on the internet for this. You know? Right? And, but that's happened a few times where I've heard somebody say something and I know immediately, oh my gosh, within five seconds somebody's going to have posted a compilation of debunking of this. And, you know, it never fails. And so I'm with you that they're going to have to watch themselves because they're going to embarrass themselves repeatedly. Cause you got a whole army of people out there on the internet who are more than willing and ready to fact check them and embarrass them. We're talking to Scott Jennings for those listening on Apple and Spotify, host of the Scott Jennings show, spectacular show, check it out. Just look them up. You're going to find them everywhere on socials. Follow them. You will not be disappointed if you don't know them already, which is hard to believe. Earlier in the show, I addressed exactly this point. I played a clip of Joy Reed and, you know, Joy Reed who's not known for being, you know, bedrock, the staple of truth or anything. And she made some ridiculous point how there were basically no taxes before the 20th century. So I did a really simple thing, Scott. I went to Google Gemini. So you can't accuse me of using like GROC, like an actual sensible right wing AI. It's left way. I use it for a reason. And I said, were there any taxes before the 20th century? And of course it listed them out. But that's what I'm talking about, how going forward, guys like you who stick to just facts and don't get emotionally embedded in arguments are going to look like rock stars on TV. But it is difficult debating liberals. I've been doing it for a long time, not nearly as well as you. And I mean that I'm not playing humble. You're just really, really good at it. But it's hard to debate the modern liberal. Because their principles are like, you know, they're like these, you just lick their finger and they see where the wind is blowing. You were debating a Maryland representative who I know from my time in Maryland politics, Johnny Olaszewski. And he's debating you about Trump raising taxes. And I'm thinking as I'm watching this, wait, I thought the Democrats liked raising taxes. What am I debating again? Because if I'm the conservative, I'm like, I don't like high taxes. I like growth inducing low tax rates. Like what is your principle? Like I know what I believe in. What the hell do you believe? It makes it really hard to debate. Yeah, that debate was interesting on two levels. One, he seemed to be saying he wanted low taxes, but at the same time he was arguing that Trump had somehow raised taxes when you and I both know he cut taxes. And it was the Democrats who block voted against the big beautiful bill last summer, which included the tax cuts for working people. And it prevented the tax rates from going up from the 2017 tax cuts. Democrats block voted on that. And so it was strange because he was taking a position that was somewhat unorthodox for his party, but at the same time steeped in a completely untrue statement. And so you're dealing with two strange things. I find that happening all the time. I was doing a debate the other night about gas prices. Everybody wants to talk about gas prices because of the Iran war. And I hear all these Democrats out here, going crazy about gas prices. And I finally said to one the other night, wait a minute, it was just five minutes ago that you guys wanted higher gas prices because climate change, you wanted to bring about the end of the internal combustion engine. That was your position, that gas should be more expensive. So people would stop driving. Now you're worried about gas prices. What you'll find, I think, is that they just make arguments that they think sound good in the moment. You know, oh, this is gonna be a good tactical item, but it's not really moored to any values or to anything they said two months ago, six months ago, last year. The other thing that drives me crazy about these debates is they all seem to think that all of American or human history started when Donald Trump popped onto the scene. They can't seem to recall or remember anything that ever happened before Trump last night. We were debating some of the language and rhetoric around the Iran war. And of course, Pete Hegceth and others, the president has invoked God and prayed to God to protect our troops and so on. And they're like, wow, no one's ever invoked God this way for military operations. And Lydia actually was on with me and she said, does no one remember George Washington kneeling in the snow at Valley Forge? You know, I mean, they can't remember a time before Trump. But of course, that's because they wanna say everything he does is unprecedented. It's never happened before. You know, this is outrageous. But if you just go back a little bit in history or you do a quick Google search, you'll find that no, you know, Trump often is doing things that many other presidents have done or, you know, but they don't, it's like that's all washed away for them. And I don't know, I think it makes for weak debating points when you can't seem to remember any American history at all. Yeah, it does. And the thing about the, you know, the Trump, I call the Democrat like show your ass theory, how they just have to like one up themselves with anger and rage to prove to the base, they hate Trump even more. You're like, you know, Trump's a racist. No, he's a super racist. No, he's like a grand wizard in the KKK. He's like a Hitler Nazi who's also in, he's like, he's co-joined both movements. And it's like, it gets to the point where you're like, guys, I mean, is this even real? Listen, I get it. He speaks discursively. He, you know, he uses language that hasn't been used for, I really don't care. I don't apologize for anybody. He doesn't need it. I'm a Queens kid, just like he is. I grew up around this stuff. But the commentary that, you know, what annoys me the most is the fascist and the no kings nonsense. Scott, if this guy's a king or a wannabe monarch, he's certainly the worst monarch we've ever seen. There's a, you know, an immigration issue in Minnesota. He sends Tom Homan in, the situation's diffused. They agree to some, a template moving forward. The Supreme Court makes a bunch of rulings. Yes, he complains a little bit. I don't blame him. He has an alternate position, but he follows the Supreme Court. I mean, if this guy's a racist and a fascist, too, he's really shitty at that too. I mean, he got the historic number of black votes for a Republican. I mean, all of this stuff, like we said before, is just based on an emotional response to Trump. None of it's really fact-based. He has always followed court rulings. I mean, look, even on the tariffs, you know, he imposed tariffs, the Supreme Court tossed out most of the, the tariff regime, but what did he do? He accepted that and then he pivoted to another statutory authority. It's not made up. You know, there are laws to which he attaches policy views and when the courts rule in favor, fine, against, fine, you pivot to something else, but it's all very normal and it's all very attached to the way things normally work. Look, even on, you know, Department of Justice stuff, you know, there have been grand juries that haven't gone along with the Department of Justice when it comes to indicting certain people. If he were a king, if he were a fascist, if he were an authoritarian, we wouldn't even be talking about grand juries, but we have a system, the system works, and then you, you move on to the next. I was on TV the other day with a congressman from Northern Virginia and it was the morning after the No Kings Day and he said, oh, I went to six No Kings rallies yesterday and I said, well, that's a lot of free speech for a country with a king that wouldn't allow you to go out and protest so much. That's a great point. But it's, but it's, that's how silly sort of this No Kings branding really is. Trump is actually, I think, yes, he has, like a lot of presidents, tested or pushed the boundaries of executive authority, but when it comes right down to it, he's followed the law and he's followed the court rulings and I don't really think that is in dispute, but in their sort of alternate reality, in their narrative, all of that is happening. And I think that's really one of the hardest things about the debating space is I find that the left lives in such a tight ideological bubble right now. They only know what they know and they only know what they told each other and they have constructed this alternate reality where a bunch of stuff is happening that's not actually happening. But in their mind, it is, but they have a reality and then you and I have the reality. And so when those worlds collide, it often makes for sort of strange interactions in these debates. You know, it does. And just speaking quickly about the emotional left rather than the policy-based, fact-based left, you know, you see in Virginia, you see Spanberger, she gets elected, she runs as a moderate, she's obviously the governor right now, you know, they're all term limited to one term. So she gets in, she runs as a moderate Democrat or pretends to be, gets into office immediately, she's going after the guns, a ridiculous gerrymander. Listen, everybody gerrymanders, I get it. I'm not telling you Republicans on, this is an absurd gerrymandering, even by the worst standards, right? Yeah, it's insane. What's like wipe out the Republican Party in like a 51-49 state. So she gets in office. So I covered earlier how her approval rating is now the lowest we've seen of any governor in modern times in Virginia. She's been in office, Scott, you know, she hasn't even been in office half a year yet, not even close. And then this just goes to show you, like when Republicans get into office and do Republican things, Rudy Giuliani in New York, you know, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, they don't go away, you see more of them. You saw Reagan Reagan Bush, right? When Democrats get into office and do Democrat, hardcore Democrat stuff, they're immediately unpopular and they're wiped out of office in one term like Joe Biden. I mean, they don't have anything to run on other than like you said, superlatives and fancy language. Yeah, Rush, I think used to say that Democrats could never tell you exactly what they're gonna do in campaigns because they would never get elected. So they're forced to come up with these narratives for their electoral themes. In the case of Spanberger, it wasn't just her, you know, the entire media pushed this theory that she was like some moderate, you know, deal making, you know, bring everybody together. You know, they did the same thing on Biden in 2020. Oh, he's a return to moderate politics and bring everyone together. That was baloney, you know, he wins the election and immediately he outsources the entire domestic agenda to the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party. Same thing for Spanberger in Virginia. I'm a moderate, I'm a moderate and takes over and within three months, it's every extreme partisan left liberal thing you could imagine, taxes, social issues, guns, won't cooperate with ICE to get violent, illegal aliens out of Virginia. And now this redistricting debacle, I mean, they're trying to take Virginia to a 10 to one map, 10 to one in a state that has a heck of a lot of Republicans in it after complaining about redistricting herself before. And as you pointed out, her approval ratings have cratered. People of Virginia have noticed they've been duped. There is no moderate and that's a good lesson for what Democrats will, I'm sure gonna argue in the fall, whatever they tell you they're gonna do in the fall, whatever moderate they claim to be in the fall in these purple districts around the country, don't buy it. This party is extremely partisan, it's extremely left, it's extremely progressive, it's extremely radical. And nobody that comes along and says, oh, I'm gonna be the moderate voice, they have no power and they have no ability to change this tide. Yeah, I changed direction a bit last question for you. I really do appreciate your time. What a great interview, you did not disappoint at all, Scott. When you really blew up a years ago, and I just saw your clips everywhere we kind of addressed it earlier, I'm an investor in the space, not just a content creator, I love platforms, free speech platforms specifically. I love giving platforms to people who even hate my guts because I think it's a good exchange of ideas and we saw what censorship does. So you explode onto the scene, I'm not kidding when I tell ya, I must have received, I don't know, 10, 15 calls from radio station owners, syndicators, sales agents, book people, I have a book publisher, how do we get Scott Jennings? How do we get Scott? I don't know, call Scott Jennings, like I'm not his agent. No, surely you know him. I said, I know of him, but I'm not his agent. Everybody loved Scott Jennings. The reason I bring it up is you now have your own show, the Scott Jennings show, radio, you're on TV, you're on every clip I've seen. The value of live content going forward is going to explode geometrically. With this AI slop out there, going forward in the very near future, it's gonna be hard to discriminate real Scott Jennings from fake Scott Jennings. Your opponents are gonna put stuff out there, the AI slop is gonna be ridiculous. So live content's gonna be amazing. So for you with the Scott Jennings show, these chat rooms and all this stuff, just your thoughts on the political commentary ecosystem going forward, how important it's gonna be to be live, so they actually know it's you. I totally agree with you. That's why this live debating show that we're doing, I think is working because it's live. I don't have a teleprompter, I don't have a script, but it is a live, authentic in the moment reaction to what's going on out there at the table. But it's me and it's happening in real time. We don't tape that in advance. That is a live reaction of what's happening. And I think audiences love it. And the authenticity piece of it cannot be understated. This is why you're so successful and why people love you. You're one of the most authentic political commentators. You speak from the heart, you don't need a script to do it. And so when people are able to perform and do that live and in the moment, I think audiences attach themselves to that. And so I think both in politics and in media, the era of kind of the scripted puppet is over and the people who can actually do it live, do it authentically, those are the people who are gonna succeed. If you've learned any lesson from Donald Trump in the last 10 years, it's that we now live in the era of authentic communications. And the people in politics who can do it, the people in media who can do it, those are gonna be the ones that are successful, not just as they post up against the inauthentic as Trump did defeating Kamala Harris. That was the ultimate authenticity versus inauthentic kind of tilt. But also as we post up against, as you pointed out, all of this AI generated crap. And so my advice is follow the people who are authentic, follow the people who can do it without a net and follow the people who show up prepared. I think as conservatives, those are, that's how we're gonna succeed. And I'll just throw in one final note, do it with a full heart and a little bit of a smile. I think we're at our best when we're happy warriors. That's a lesson of Ronald Reagan. And because the left is so, I mean, they're enraged. They're full of rage. They hate the country we live in right now. They're all too happy to tell you what a terrible country this is and what a terrible origins we have. They're just so full of rage and anger. And as conservatives, if we're true and if we're happy and we're those happy warriors, I think more Americans are gonna gravitate towards our arguments if that's our attitude. But again, it all goes back to this live, live authentic ability to talk to people in the moment. It can make you very successful. And as you have well learned, given all your success. No, it's so true. I always use that Walter Williams quote when, well, excuse me, Milton Friedman quote when he told Walter Williams, you know, when you talk about liberty, you talk about it with a smile. I bring that up all the time. We live in the greatest country on earth at the greatest time to live in said country with the most amount of freedom and prosperity. We have an unbelievably powerful military insulated by two oceans. Like honestly, my grandfather fought in the battle of the Bulge. My uncle was shot in the back in Vietnam saving his friend's life. He's on that wall. Like what are we complaining about? The flat screen doesn't work one night. Like I'm sorry. Like our forefathers and grandfathers handed us down this beautiful diamond of a country. And that's why I get sick of the doom and gloom. I get it. There are problems to fix. We need to talk about them openly and honestly. But this constant doom and gloom, everything sucks all the time. It's like, man, let me tell you something. You should travel the world, brother. I've been to something like 40 countries. There's nothing, nothing like this, zero. You will never see anything like it. So it's incredibly well said. Scott, where can the audience find the show and you on social? I know they're going to want to track you down. Absolutely. So on X, I'm at at Scott Jennings KY and I use that handle for Instagram and the other social media sites at Scott Jennings KY. The KY is for Kentucky, which is where I live and where I'm from. My radio show airs live every day from one to three Eastern on Salem Radio Terrestrial. We're on, I think almost 400 radio stations around the country. It also goes up as a podcast every day, the Scott Jennings show. So you can get that on Apple or Spotify. I did write a book that did fairly well called a revolution of common sense, which was about President Trump's first 100 days back in office for Trump 2.0. That's still out there on Amazon. And if you haven't read it, I encourage you to pick it up. But those are the principal ways. And even if you're not a regular CNN viewer, I try to get those clips up on social media the next day as soon as I can. So people can see some of these debates we're having because you won't believe honestly, if you've not seen some of this, you won't believe some of the arguments that the left is making and some of what I have to deal with on a nightly basis. It's highly entertaining, but highly illuminating about where they want to take the country. Folks, check this Patriot out. It is really difficult to go on live television, not knowing what's coming at you next every night and be consistently right. This guy's batting average is like a thousand. It's amazing. Scott Jennings, thanks so much for your time. Don't be a stranger. I really enjoyed this interview a lot. So thanks for your time, buddy. Thank you, Dan. Thanks for the conversation. And thanks for everything you've done for our country. And as I said, I'm a huge fan. It was an honor to be here. And I hope to see you soon. Thank you, sir. Talk to you soon. That was Scott Jennings, folks. Man, that was a, that may be one of my favorite interview. Even Jasmine's in there like, yeah, man, he was good. Certainly didn't disappoint one. Go support, at all. Go support him, pick up his book, follow his show. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed the show today. Yesterday was kind of a lighter news day. So we have the two hour block. We don't always go the entire two hours. I'm just not going to talk for the sake of talking. Some days like today, show goes a little longer. But again, if we have stuff we feel really passionately about, we're going to talk about it. I don't talk about things I'm not passionate about. Fellows, who puts the show together? Justin, who? Yes, what is two thumbs this guy? I have great producers. These are the best tech guys in the business. But the reason I put my show together is because I have to talk about stuff I really care about. That's really passionate to me. I'm not just going to throw slop in there just to keep talking, okay? So a great show today. I appreciate you being here. Make sure you check out Hailey at noon, rumble.com slash Hailey, and then Vince every day at 8 AM Eastern time, Vince colon ace, rumble.com slash Vince. And please download the rumble app, follow the damn Bongino show. It is free, free. Or you can just go to rumble.com slash Bongino on the web, click that follow button. We really appreciate it. We're up to 3.64 million followers there. We really appreciate it. I'll see you back here tomorrow at 10 AM. Hey there, I'm Vince. I'm Hailey Caradija. Host of Vince. Host of Scrolling with Hailey. Can always catch my show right here. Right here on the Bongino Report. Live 8 AM Eastern weekday mornings. Weekdays at noon. If you miss it, no worries. The show will always be right here. Right here. And anywhere you find a podcast. Thanks for watching.