Bongino Takes On Cenk Uygur (Ep. 2358)
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Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino. Folks, I don't want to waste any time. I'm really happy to be hosting a debate today. Cenk Uygur from the Young Turks put out a tweet, said he wanted to debate

Some Trump supporters, I responded. Their team kindly got right back to us. So we're going to do the debate. So the show is going to be a little different today. Cenk is waiting by. Assuming there's no technical issues, we'll get right to it. But it's a live stream, so we're just dealing with a couple of things.

We're not going to do too many interruptions today. Just one at about the halfway mark. So just be patient. The sponsors keep the show free. They want to talk to you. So I deeply appreciate it. Hey, Bongino listeners, get access to Beam's Cyber Sale before anything else. Enjoy up to 50% at shopbeam.com slash Bongino. Use code Bongino. Don't miss Beam's.

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Let's go. All right. I want to welcome this show and just be patient. If it doesn't work out, the tech will figure it out. I've got some other material planned too. I want to welcome from the Young Turks, an extremely successful podcast. I believe they've had a billion or so views on YouTube and the guy who runs it is Cenk Uygur. Cenk, thanks a lot. We appreciate you joining us today. Thanks. No problem, Dan. Thanks for having me. And yeah, the network has 29 billion views overall. Wow. That's

That's pretty impressive. So you got quite an audience. I saw you put out the genesis of this, folks, is Cenk put out a tweet, said, listen, I want to debate. Let's do it. And I responded. I was at North Carolina and I said, ah, he's probably not going to. And he did got back to us right away and said, let's do it. So we're here. So, Cenk, I told you I'd say everything up front and no tricks or anything like that. I want to start about, you know, the tax debate. This is obviously a big difference between liberals, probably the Young Turks audience and mine, the Dan Bongino show.

You know, I hear liberals make the argument for higher taxes on successful folks. They rarely make an argument for higher taxes on the middle class, although it winds up, in my opinion, being there. I'd like you to make the case. You know, why should successful people pay higher taxes and why do liberals constantly say they don't pay their fair share? What is that actually based on?

Yeah. So it's a great question. A lot of answers to it. So first off, look, let me just express the frustration that a lot on the right and the left have about where our taxes go. I wish the government spent our taxes better and then we could have a more fruitful conversation about where the level of taxation should be. But for example, the Defense Department can't pass an audit. Half

Half the money, they're like, we don't know where it is. Well, half the money in the defense budget is like $400 billion. Subsidies to oil companies, subsidies to all of the friends of the donors of both Democrats and Republicans. Now, in terms of where taxes should be, well, there's some historical record on what's worked the best. I know it's going to shock you, and I'm not in favor of this, and it's the highest marginal tax rate. So things like people making above $10 million a year,

When America built the greatest middle class the world has ever seen, in that 40-year stretch between 1930 and 1978, taxes for the highest marginal tax rate was as high as 91%. And when it was most successful, it was around 70%.

So now the reality is that to us, that sounds way too high, right? And it sounds way too high to me. And remember, it's for every dollar above that marker of whatever it is, 10 million, et cetera, right? And it gradually goes up. The thing I'm most concerned about is corporate taxes because

because corporations get everything. And both the Democratic and the Republican politicians shovel everything to their corporate donors, including giant corporate tax cuts. And that's exactly one of the things I hated about the Trump administration. A lot of talk about being a populist. I'm a populist. You want to be a populist? You want to take on the swamp? I love it.

But he didn't do that. Instead, he did a giant corporate tax cut, brought their taxes from 35% down to 21%. It cost us $2 trillion. And what folks have to understand is that money's got to come from somewhere.

That it's not magic. So when they take $2 trillion and give it back to corporations, that means they're going to take it from us. They're either going to cut our social security or Medicare. They're going to raise our taxes. They also raise fees. They taste, uh, raise regressive taxes like sales tax, gas tax, et cetera. That goes more to the average guy, more of the poor in the middle class. So what it means to pay their fair share is, Hey, listen, uh, once you get to a certain number, we remember the highest, uh,

rate, it doesn't apply to all your money. So let's say you're at a million dollars and can you pay 40%, 50% for every dollar above a million?

Of course you can. Of course you can. And so look, I know good progressive wealthy folks. And one of them I sat down to breakfast with one day and he said, I don't get it. Why is my taxes not 70%? I mean, we can't spend this kind of money. It's impossible to spend. And we already do investments. Every good businessman does investments no matter where taxes are, right? Okay.

Yeah, that's okay, but we can talk more about it. All right, well, I think I want to let you finish your thought in full. I want to respond, and I'll give you a chance to respond to the response, and then we can jump on to another topic. So let me address each. I was taking notes as you spoke. I'm going to try to, again, minimize any interruptions. You were kind enough to join us. One of the first points you made was that, you know, a very prosperous time in American history, the 50s, was when the top marginal tax rate, which you accurately stated was 90%. That point is correct.

But what you left out there is that that 90% tax rate wasn't actually paid by anyone. If you look at the data, it was actually paid by far less than 10,000 residents. So you're citing a tax rate no one actually paid. It's like talking about a unicorn. It may be beautiful, but it's only beautiful on paper. It doesn't exist.

So you leave that out. And then when you look at Hauser's law, named after a person named Hauser, when you look at the percentage of taxes paid by GDP, it's been steady over time, regardless if the marginal tax rate was 90 or 70. So on your first point about the 90%, you are accurate, but you're citing a rate no one actually paid. Secondly, you cited the 70% tax rate. How did we get there? The 90% tax rate, do you know who cut it?

It was JFK. He was the one who cut the tax rates, citing marginal tax rates were too high and revenue was too low. That's JFK. You can look that up. It's not me. He was the one who cut it to 70 percent. Reagan then cut it from 70 to 28 percent progressively. Now, I want to make a point. I'm going to address a couple other things, but I want to go back to that in a second. Another thing you addressed is corporate taxes. And if you could address this, I'd appreciate it, Cenk.

corporate taxes are not paid by corporations. Corporations get their money from people. They have to, it's like stating that the government, you know, raising taxes gets its money from like unicorns or Martians. Corporations get their money from people. So if you raise a tax on a corporation, they have to raise their prices in order to turn a profit and stay in business. Uh, and,

And one last thing I'd like you to address as well is you keep citing these high marginal tax rates of 90% and 70%, but when Reagan cut the rate, and we actually have this if you guys want to pull it up. When Ronald Reagan cut the top tax rate, the top tax rate from 70% to 28%, revenue to the United States government, which I don't want, Cenk, I want to be clear. You can argue that the government does good things with our money. I'm not even making that argument. I'm simply stating even if your argument is accurate,

that the government needs more money, therefore we shouldn't cut taxes. You actually should like Ronald Reagan because if you look at this chart here, you're going to see government revenue went from $500 billion to $900 billion after Reagan cut the tax rate to 28% because the economy grew and the government took in more money even at a lower rate.

I don't understand why your argument against tax cuts, when even after Bush cut taxes, revenue went up as well. George W. Bush tax cuts, revenue went up by $700 billion. So address that, and then we can move on.

Yeah, so let me address all the things that you brought up. So first of all, the reason that only 10,000 people paid the 91% tax rate is because, as I said, it applied at really high levels. So a lot of times Republicans talk about it as if it's going to apply to you guys. It doesn't apply to you because the highest marginal tax rate is at a monster number. Now, don't quote me on it, but that's why I mentioned the 10 million, like if it was in today's money. It was a giant number. But in that bracket,

that is what we're talking about. America helped you get there. All of us helped you get there. The roads, the bridges, the schools, the cops, the military, everyone helped you to get there. And if you're already at over a billion dollars, et cetera, I'm not saying take all your money. I don't believe in that, right? So I'm not your standard progressive in that sense. But

But should you pay higher than what you pay today? Absolutely. And it showed that economically it totally works. You're right. JFK cut it to about 70%. I look, I keep telling you, I think 91% is a giant number. I'm not in favor of that number. And I'm actually stunned at how well it worked, to be honest. And at 70%, that still sounds way too high to me. Again, it's for the highest tax rate. And again, the economy roared in that time.

At 70%, we were building the greatest middle class the world has ever seen, right? Because it doesn't apply to the average guy. It applies to the very, very richest people. Okay, so in terms of the Reagan numbers that you stated there, look, that's a source of an internal debate. The American population grows. Other parts of the economy grow. So revenue is not just linked to tax cuts. In fact, Donald Trump said when he came in that he was going to get rid of the entire $20 trillion deficit magically.

by cutting taxes and he cut corporate taxes, mainly corporate taxes.

And he didn't get rid of the deficit. In fact, he added $8.4 trillion to the debt. There is no magic. When you give it to the rich, they take it and it's gone. And then we're gonna have to pay. It's just the most empirical fact you could have, 8.4 trillion, we now owe. We now owe because Trump gave trillions to corporations. And the revenue definitely did not come back. Now,

Now, last thing is you talked about corporations are people too. No, they're not. So I run a company, okay? So I started the Young Turks. 75 people work there. We've got, you know,

Half a dozen shows, we're on dozens of platforms, a lot of people it takes to run that operation, okay? I'm super proud of being an entrepreneur. I love the opportunities America gave me, okay? And I'm proud that I employ those people and I take care of them, right? But taxes are on your profits, brother. They don't...

involved whether you can make it or not and especially in digital media it's a tough tough business so we're always trying to make it to get to the place where we have profits so that everybody's paid everybody's taken care of and we can keep going right so but if i'm making uh

you know, tremendous profit, whatever it might be, 10 million, 100 million or whatever it is. And then they come and take a portion of that for the business that we created. Yet that makes sense. Corporations have to chip in too. So, you know, when I didn't run a company,

I had to pay a lot of taxes. And so why does the average guy have to pay a lot of taxes? But companies can't take any money out of their profits to help this country get on its feet. Look, Dan, three quarters of Americans think that corporations pay too little taxes.

So if the populist position is not give corporations a bigger break They already have all the breaks in the world and that's part of why I'm against Trump his major piece of legislation was a two trillion dollar giveaway to them and he says now he's gonna take corporate taxes from 21% to 15% Jesus how low do you want him to be it's absurd Yeah, okay

I was going to address the national debt next, but you kind of segued nicely to it anyway. I just want to address on the corporate tax front. Again, you're accurate. You don't pay taxes on losses. You're correct. However, I believe, and again, you were nice enough to come here. I'm not trying to insult your brother at all. I know you run a business, very successful. I follow the podcast space. But I know you have to understand that there's a thing called a hurdle rate.

Just because you make a profit in a business doesn't mean you're going to stay in that line of business if the government's taking more money from you. That's not how it works. You know, if you could, for instance, let's say like I'm an investor in Rumble and other tech platforms. I'm not going to, you know, say I didn't ideologically commit myself to this and I was just this is just a job for me. It's not. But say it was.

I'm not going to sit here and continue to do podcasting four hours a day. The government's going to take a lot of my proceeds if I can get some kind of tax carve out in a different business and defeat a hurdle rate, a rate of return I need. It's just a fundamental misunderstanding of how business works. And on the debt, which I was going to get to next. Yes, you are correct. Republicans and Democrats from Reagan on have added to the national debt.

But every time I debate a liberal, I never can get an answer on this. You know, what is is national debt a good or a bad thing? Because, Cenk, it seems like liberals make the argument that that's only bad when Donald Trump and Republicans do it. But Kamala Harris, who's running on a massive government expansion, that the debt is good. I agree with you.

debt is a bad thing when accumulated by government enterprises. I 100% agree with you. I don't care who does it, period. You don't need to make the argument Trump and Bush did. You win. You win. It's over. I'm simply telling you, can you acknowledge as a liberal then that you're suggesting government debt is not healthy and a net positive for the economy, so why are we doing it? You can't have it both ways.

Yeah, so I definitely acknowledge that. So look, we're not a normal show on the left or we're definitely not Democrats. We drive the Democrats crazy. So for example, on the left, they have this thing called modern monetary theory. Good people, smart folks, but nonsense. I don't believe it at all. And what it says is debts and deficits don't matter at all. Just print as much money as you want. Buy

By the way, the other person who agrees with that is Dick Cheney. So on the right, and unfortunately, Reagan, Trump, etc. They're like, they pile on the debt, pile on the debt, and they say it doesn't matter. That's nonsense. Of course it matters.

By the way, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't have any debt. You need to balance it out because at different times, let's say, for example, let's say you have war, right? World War II. We took on a lot of debt to be able to win that war, but then we paid it off, right? And you don't have to pay all of it off, but if you accumulate too much debt, then you're starting to tip the balance of the economy. And it's a really dangerous game to play. And that's what Japan did.

And it slowed them down so much, slowed down their economy. Because once you get over 100% of GDP, you're paying such a high interest rate. And then God help you if you risk your creditworthiness. And that's another thing I'm really worried about with Trump.

He keeps saying, oh, it's good business not to pay your debts. No, that's terrible business, terrible business. And if America doesn't pay its debts, then the dollar is going to crash. Interest rates are going to go sky high. Inflation is going to go sky high. And right now we're at past 100% GDP on our debt. So did the Democrats do a good job on debt? Bill Clinton did. Obama did a little bit. So they did bring down the deficits. No question about it. And Clinton got to a surplus.

But overall, no, Democrats and Republicans have been having the same problems. So Biden added $4.8 trillion to the debt. Again, Trump added $8.4, way more. But either way, don't do the corporate tax cuts. Be responsible. Audit the Fed, audit the Defense Department.

So they don't ever do any of this. They just waste all of our money, hand it over to all their donors. Right now, the oil companies get $30 billion in subsidies. Why? They're the most profitable companies in the world. Are we doing capitalism or are we not doing capitalism? This ain't capitalism. This is what I call capitalism.

corporatism where corporate interests capture the government and capture mainstream media and then they put out nothing but a pro-corporate agenda oh yeah lower our taxes let us take all the money we'll pile a debt on to you don't worry about it no that debt's going to explode on us and i hate it whether a democrat or republican does it and then your point about uh the corporate taxes and profits

Look, I went to Wharton Business School, and unlike Trump, I earned my way in. I didn't have any family name or anything like that. And what you do is you manage risk, right? So if you're going to make some profit, but it's relatively risky, well, then you might not do that venture, right? So it's a matter of seeing risk and reward. So I understand that taxes could affect that equation, but then it's around the edges. As Warren Buffett said earlier,

no investor is going to see a good investment opportunity and go, Oh, because I have to pay taxes. I'm not going to make that money. No, you make the money and you worry about the taxes later. So I'm pretty sure Warren Buffett knows better than you and I. All right. Well, I think we just fundamentally disagree. I'm glad you, you know,

acknowledge the point that the hurdle rate does matter, but I think we just fundamentally disagree where the money should be. And you and I could argue this way. I'm going to move to a different topic. I just don't think the government has any incentive to spend your money better than you will based on Milton Friedman's cost versus quality. It's not their money and they're not even spending it on themselves. There's, there's just no incentive. I think that's an ideological conflict of visions. I don't want to get stuck on it, but I do want to address one quick thing.

Cenk, you know, there are going to be a lot of liberals. We got 143,000, we're only 20 minutes in watching live. I appreciate all your feedback in the chat. I just want to say categorically, there was never a Clinton surplus. I actually applaud Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich for doing an amazing job. Your point isn't wrong that they did, but there was never a surplus. It is easy to prove. Just go to the United States Treasury and look at the national debt. Every year Bill Clinton was in office, it went up.

If he was running a surplus, it would have went down. That is, it's a talking point, but it's not true. He did a great job. I'm not taking away from you him and Newt Gingrich didn't effectively control government as a percent of GDP. They did. You are correct. But there was never a surplus, and anyone can look that up. He got close.

But they just took it out of the Social Security Fund. It was an accounting myth. That's what it was. But it doesn't take away from your point. And I don't want to pick nits over that. It's kind of silly. But that just said a lot. Let's move on to the health care topic. Obviously, you being from the Young Turks of a show with a liberal bent,

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you're probably interested in an expanded role for government and healthcare. I don't personally see how that's effective given that Medicaid and Medicare are bankrupting the United States government. Entitlement programs are large and causing national debt. And I don't see how a government bureaucrat

somehow has an inner knowledge of your healthcare condition who can make better healthcare choices than you could with your own money. Why am I paying a bureaucrat in the government? Can you make the larger ideological argument why I'm paying the government to make healthcare decisions I can personally make on my own? Yeah, definitely. So,

First of all, every issue that we discuss is going to get back to money in politics because we're drowning in money in politics and they're buying off all of our politicians. So for example, why are our health care costs so high? Well, one of the top reason is drug companies.

And what do drug companies do? They donate, for example, four times what AIPAC does. Everybody's concerned about AIPAC buying off our politicians for Israel, and that's true. They gave over $100 million in this campaign cycle.

and the politicians serve their donors. But the drug industry is a way bigger lobby than AIPAC. It's spent at least four times more this time and spends way more. So in America, we can't negotiate drug prices. The government can't when it has enormous leverage. Every other country in the world can't.

That is not the free market. That's the exact opposite of a free market where the price is not set by the market. The drug companies say, this is our price, and the American people have no choice. They're our hostages, and they have to pay it because we bought off all your corrupt

politicians on the Democratic side and the entire Republican side. 20 Republican senators just the other day saying, no, we shouldn't negotiate drug prices. They should be sky high. So I hate those guys. I hate what they're doing to us is killing people. Now, when you get to universal health care, every developed nation on earth has it except us. Almost every nation on earth has it except us.

68,000 Americans die every single year because they don't have private health insurance. That number is zero in all other developed nations. We let Americans die because the health insurance companies didn't get to make a profit off of them. That system is insane. Now, if you go to universal health care, well, the problem is you're saying, oh, my God, all the costs. But that's a myth. So this is a story.

stone cold fact anybody can look it up the developed nations that do universal health care on average they pay half of what we pay they don't pay more they pay way less and what is their results oh big long lines no i i try to book a

appointments now with my doctor, they're like, yeah, we'll give you one six months from now. We're waiting in lines because of this crazy privatized system that doesn't care about your health. All it does is it cares about the profits of the people that are in these industries.

So in the rest of the world, life expectancy is, in the developed world with universal health care, life expectancy is higher than it is here. Almost all the metrics in terms of health are higher, and they pay half of what we pay. And you know where most of the money goes? Ironically, it goes to bureaucrats, but not government bureaucrats. Private health insurance and drug company bureaucrats.

bureaucrats who go hey i'm going to give you the same service you could have gotten from the government much much much cheaper because it's just insurance remember it's not your doctor your doctor's still private you still get to have your doctor the people who prevent you from having any doctor you want are hmos they say you're not allowed to you could only pick this doctor or if they're in this network right it's those bureaucrats that are killing us and they're killing us for their profit

So we've got to wake up to the fact that we live under corporate rule and corporate media tells you how great this system is. They're lying to you. It's not great. It's one of the worst systems in the world. That's why we pay twice as much as everyone else. I want to reduce costs and get better results.

Well, a couple things I want to address there. It's interesting how you seem to be, especially by your last sentence and statement there, willing to trade what you claim is rule by corporations that I can escape from to rule by government I can't.

That has a monopoly on force that I don't know about you, but that seems like an odd chain. If you're uncomfortable with being quote ruled by corporations who don't have the barrel of a gun and a monopoly on force, why you would trade that for government seems like a bizarre change. If you love liberty and freedom. Second,

You know, you keep saying it's a privatized system. Government now pays in the United States. Government finances about 40 to 50 percent of the health care system. Well, let's not with a straight face say this is a private system. It's at best fairly stated a hybrid that's dominated by government payments. That's that's not in doubt. Ever since Obamacare, that number is probably close higher, closer to 50 percent of medical payments. Secondly,

claiming that there's the rationing or I don't want to put words in your mouth. You didn't say it isn't a problem, but, but if you're insinuating that pull up that article guys, the one I showed you about the rationing, um,

Rationing in government-run systems is real. Cenk, there's only two ways to allocate a product. Healthcare, Chia Pets, it doesn't matter. You can price the product or you can ration it. There is no third way. You'll win a Nobel Prize in economics if you could tell me a third way to sell or make a product available. So if we're not going to price it where someone can go and buy LASIK products

And when LASIK generally isn't covered by insurance, that's why it's cheap. Plastic surgery is affordable because a lot of it isn't covered by government. I mean, look, here's the health secretary in the UK admitting that NHS rationing is government policy. I mean, it's not me saying it. Rationing is real.

So I'm not saying to you that everything you said there is bullshit. Yes, there is a lot of money spent on lobbying by drug companies, and I'm certainly not here to lobby for big pharma. But again, acting like they don't spend a lot of money on R&D and acting like their profits are exorbitant relative to other industries doesn't marry up with the facts.

But second, I'd just like you to address the rationing thing. That's very real. And the UK is going bankrupt right now, and the NHS is chronically running out of money. So I don't get where you're making an economic efficiency argument comparing it to us, where the government here is still Medicaid and Medicare. The Medicaid trust fund, a Medicare trust fund, is going to go bankrupt, what was it, 2035 or 2032? I mean, we're having real significant issues with this. You kind of glossed over.

Yeah, so let's break it down one by one. So you say corporations don't have the power of the gun and government does. Well, first of all, that's part of the point of the government is that we collectively get together and go, hey, we're going to have cops, we're going to have a military, we're going to protect ourselves, right? So

You can't take the gun. I mean, I know you don't want to defund the police, right? So my point is that the government is a balance between individuality and protecting the community, and we need to get that right balance. But when you say corporations don't have that power, that's actually not true because they just bought our entire government, and the entire government's corrupt and serves corporate donors. So now they have the power of the gun and the power of the dollar, okay? So these guys, look, guys, politicians are just waiters and waitresses. They're servants for the donors, okay?

So don't respect any of them. Mainstream media tells you, oh, my God, they're such noble, unbelievable people, and they're here to help you. They're not here to help you. They're here to rob you. They're servants of the donor class. So the corporations that control them now have nearly more power than I have ever seen in America. And if you don't like big government, wait till you get a load of big business and big government combined. And that's what we have today.

So number two, now when you get into specifically in the health insurance industry, so you say, well, the government already runs parts of it. That's right. And every part of that the government runs is actually very popular. Now, this is a right wing show. So a lot of your audience is going to be like, oh, no way. The government's not popular. Really?

Well, Obamacare now is way above 50% in popularity, and that's why the Republicans stopped trying to kill it. In fact, Donald Trump was pretending that he was in favor of it. J.D. Vance in the Tim Walz debate was like, oh, we saved Obamacare. No, you didn't. You tried to kill Obamacare. And the reason they're saying that is because it is now popular. Medicaid, popular, very popular.

Medicare, the second most popular program in America, polls at 77%. You cut that at your peril because it is a rare government program that works spectacularly. People are very happy with it. Why? Because people are waiting to get to 65 so they can get Medicare and be freed from the oppression of private health insurers. You can't have this. You can't have that, which leads to rationing.

are you saying we're not doing rationing now all my private health insurance does is rationing you can't do that you can't do this and that's an elective surgery this is and then half the time it's not even elective they're trying to save money look think about how private health insurance makes money their revenue is how much you pay them so they want to make it sure that it's as high as possible and their costs are the health

care that they're giving you. So they want to make sure their costs are as low as possible so they can make the most profit. So how do you keep your costs low? You provide as little healthcare as possible. The entire incentive of the system is to make sure you don't get better, that they make a profit off of you being sick and

and not paying for it. That is crazy. That's why it costs twice as much as all the other countries that have universal health care. And then you talked about R&D. Are you kidding me? You know the US government pays for most of the research and development for the drug companies?

Now, normally, look, again, I run a business. You're invested into this, into Rumble, you said, so you understand it. So listen, when someone invests into a business, they get equity. OK, and but when the American taxpayer invests into research and development for drug companies, we don't get any equity in the drug companies.

And then the drug companies turn around and say, you're not even allowed to negotiate drug prices. Corporatist rule. And now I have the government backing me up, so you don't have any choice at all. You don't even have a public option. Biden said he'd do a public option. He didn't even propose one. The Republicans hate a public option because that would take beloved profits away from their beloved drug companies and health insurance companies.

So if we're going to help them with research and development, then they need to give us equity in those companies. Now, you said there...

their profits are not exorbitant. No brother, the drug company profits are unbelievable. They are record breaking. They're killing us with their profits. That's not what I said though. They're a little bit different. That's not what I said though. They also are very profitable, but the drug companies are out of control profitable because they killed off the free markets. It's it. That's not what I said. I didn't say, I never used the word exorbitant at all. I said, when you look at drug company profits relative to other industries, it's,

They are relatively in line. And I'm not sure, you know, the American people really care what any liberal thinks about what an acceptable level of profit is. I mean, that's just an opinion. No, I mean, I guess liberals do, but I guess I'm making a point.

No, Dan, I'm not. I'm not really interested. I think me and my audience, maybe yours is, but I'm not really interested in what anyone else thinks about an acceptable level of profit unless you're an investor somehow or you're somehow got skin in the game. Like, why? Why would I care what a group of people think about an acceptable level of profit in my business? Like, are you working in my business or why would why would it matter to me?

So Dan, first, it's not my audience or your audience. 76% of Americans say that corporations are making too much money and you can say, Hey, what is it their business? In fact, I literally wrote that in my book, justice is coming. I said, one poll had nearly three quarters of the country saying that, uh,

corporations have too much power and make too much money. And there was one result where I was like, I'm not sure I even agree with this, right? But the American people's gut intuition that they're making quote unquote too much profit is not because they're envious. It's not because what difference does it make how much they make? Look, you come up with a good company. I'm an entrepreneur. You come up with a good company, small business, big business, I don't care. And you're making good profit. God bless your heart. That's the whole point of America, land of opportunity.

But the reason why in our gut we think they're making quote-unquote too much profit is because we know they captured the government. So if you're in a free market and people can pay whatever they want for drugs...

Then you make money, no problem. But if you're not in a free market and you say, I can set my prices anywhere I want and you're not allowed to negotiate, well, then you're making quote-unquote too much profit because you rigged the rules. You got the government to rig the rules on your behalf. Then the government pays for your research and development, doesn't take anything back from it.

You guys set the prices. Dan, this isn't capitalism. This is corporatism. Corporatism is killing capitalism. Capitalism is free markets. Corporatism is, no, crony capitalism. We get everything. We buy off the politicians, and we make infinite profit because we captured the government.

I got to hold that thought. I got to take a quick break. Folks, we'll be right back with Cenk Uygur from Young Turks. But I want to address that because you're citing polls a lot and what the American people think.

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Back with Cenk Uygur from the Young Turks. Cenk, a couple things. Again, I think you do a good job debating your position. I'll give you credit. But what I find a little lacking, I don't mean as an insult, and tell me if I'm wrong, is that the bigger issues I'm trying to get at, you're still not addressing, like,

You know, the government's role in health care, Medicare's own actuaries, OK, that they're not partisan actors. Their actuaries have said to the American people, despite, you know, close to a trillion dollars a year spent on government funded health care at the federal level alone, that they're going broke in 10 years. They don't have the money.

So, you know, it's, it's like, it's easy to attack the private sector. It is because it's not perfect. You're right. You may have to wait for a doctor's appointment. I do, but that's not rationing. You can pick another doctor, correct? If the government tells you at the end, well, Jen, I don't know. You can't. Oh, well,

Well, then, no, see, that's not accurate either. I mean, I had to have back surgery five years ago. My insurance company said, no, no dice. You know what I did? I changed insurance companies and got to back surgery. I mean, you have a choice. It may not be a good one, but it's like saying I don't have a car. I don't have transportation options. Yes, you do. You get on the train.

But I don't like the train. That's not what you said. You said you have no transportation options. That's not right. So I want you to address that. They are going bankrupt, number one. Please hit that. And then second, you know, you cite polls a lot. The American people say they don't like corporations making a lot of money. The American people say, you know, the rich don't pay enough. So I've asked a thousand liberals this question. It's probably not hyperbole from running for office. I've never got a satisfactory answer. Why don't liberal corporations...

And why don't liberals set an example for the American people and just voluntarily pay more? Why do they have to be forced to do it if government's such a benevolent force? And I know they'll scoff. Well, you have to pay more too. Why? I believe charity is a good thing. I don't

need a liberal to give to charity for me to me and my wife give hundreds of thousands of dollars a year away to charities that do a good thing. If government is so great, why don't liberals, the 30 million or 40 million or 50 million get a group together and all double their taxes and lead by example. Nobody's stopping them. Government's a good thing. Pay for it. All right. So I'll take that one by one too. So, uh,

So, Dan, you're lucky because, you know, you're getting you're able to switch health insurance. But most people work for a company and their company provides the health insurance. So I'll give you an example. A friend of mine who ran for office nearly one as a progressive in Kansas because he runs like me, a populist progressive, not like the corporate Democrats. Right. And but then he got sick. He got he got stage four cancer and it was we were really worried about him.

And he had insurance through his wife's company. And it was an HMO. And they said, well, there is a doctor that can perform surgery on you and maybe save your life. But he's in Denver. He's out of network. So he's like, well, what do you want me to do? And they're like, we don't care. Nothing. I mean, he was going to die. His wife had to switch companies.

I mean, but most people don't have that luxury. So what are you going to do? You can't afford chemo. You can't afford surgery. And you're stuck at a company. I mean, this whole system is crazy. And part of the reason why it also leads to corporate rule is then you're attached to your company like an indentured servant.

And God help you if they fire you or they don't cover the doctor that you need. This is not the right way to run health insurance. No other country does this. And guys, don't get me wrong. You can layer on private health insurance on top. Nobody's stopping you from doing that. If you say, hey, the government insurance is not enough. I want to buy extra insurance. God bless your heart. It's still like that.

Sometimes your right makes it seem like, oh, we're taking your freedom away. Nobody's taking your freedom away. The government is like they provide cops, like they provide a fire department,

They're covering everyone. That's their responsibility to protect your life. But if you want to get extra security, nobody's stopping you from getting extra security. In fact, Kim Kardashian, when there was fires here in California, hired private fire department. But we can't have a private fire department, otherwise the whole place is going to burn down. Some things need to be public, including health insurance and cops, because those are the things that save your life. Okay? So now when you turn to...

Social Security and Medicare, people say, oh, my God, it's going to go bankrupt. You know, Social Security could be solvent if all we did was this easiest fix in the world. All of us get money taken out of our taxes for Social Security and our employer matches, right? But it gets capped and that cap keeps moving. I think it's around $170,000 or so. If you're making above $170,000, you no longer contribute to Social Security.

If you just lift that cap and have everyone, including past 170,000, contributing to Social Security, it's solvent forever. Solves the problem. But the rich don't want it. They don't want to pay like an extra 0.6 or whatever it is to keep Social Security is the number one most popular program in America.

So that's what I mean by a fair share. I mean, a tiny, tiny percentage from people making above 170 gets us covered with Social Security forever. Medicare is a little bit tougher situation because of all the runaway health insurance costs. But part of the reason they have runaway health insurance costs is, again, because the drug companies charge so much, et cetera. So the right way to do that is to keep that super popular program but get government corruption

under control so they stop serving the drug companies, serving the health insurance companies, etc. And then you talked about voluntary taxation. And this is a point I hear often. Right wing goes, well, okay, we don't wanna pay extra taxes. We don't wanna give to the cops, the military. We don't for the collective good or roads, bridges, libraries, schools, we don't want to. So liberals, if you wanna pay more, why don't you carry the load?

Well, that's not how a community works. And what does that do? That says, okay, if you're a good guy and you're trying to look out for others, you give away all your money and have no power left. And if you're a bad guy and you're selfish and you're greedy, you keep all your money and then you'll get to lord that over other people and have all the power. Yeah, no deal. I'm not going to do that. And if you take that argument to its logical extreme, okay, for example,

I don't want to fund Israel for $26 billion to slaughter Palestinians. Okay, so Israeli supporters, why don't you go pay for it? Okay, well, you know what? I didn't want to go into the Iraq war. Young Turks is the longest running internet show in history. We were around before the Iraq war and we're one of the two national shows that said, don't go in. It's going to be a disaster. And it was a disaster. And they made us pay trillions of dollars for that dumb ass idea.

I didn't want to pay it, but that's not how taxes work. I don't get to say, hey, I don't want that war. I don't want that government program. I don't want your kids to get educated. I don't want to. And by the way, that's what the rich are doing now. They're killing off public education because all their kids are already in private school. So I don't want to fund it. I don't want to fund it. No, we're a community. We work together. And especially in insurance, you have to pool your resources together for when you need an emergency, help in an emergency.

I'm a little confused. I mean, it just sounds to me like you made the argument against taxes. I'm not trying to be a dick. You're telling me the government makes you pay for a whole bunch of stuff you don't want to pay for that you could pay for yourself. By the way, I totally disagree with the slaughtering Palestinians. We can talk about that, the Israel issue next if you'd like to. But really, I'm not sure what argument you're making.

Can I explain? Wait, wait, hold on. I will. I will let you, but I just want to say one more thing too, and maybe address this. You know, this is, I do a lot of debating, whether it was TV back then or here. You pulled this stunt, whether you know it or not. I'm not trying to be a smart ass, but you did this utopia fallacy thing again, where you compared the current system of insurance. My friend's struggling. It's a horrible story. I'm really sad for him. I had cancer myself. I acknowledge to you fairly that,

The current system is filled with human beings who are flawed and we're all sinners. The current medical system, no matter how private or how government, is always going to have problems. The question isn't, is the private system perfect? There's this thing called the utopia fallacy. Liberals do a lot. And they go, well, they'll give you an example. They'll say, this guy, man, he had cancer. It's horrible. I had cancer. The insurance company fucked him over. It happens all the time. You're correct. But then you're pretending like...

There's a utopia out there where this doesn't happen as if the government doesn't fuck people over every single day and there's no way you can escape. If you're on Medicare and the government tells you, for instance, when you look at the Alzheimer drugs, that Medicare, they pulled this big scam trying to pull some experiment because it was getting too expensive. Those seniors were in an uproar because there was no option.

I'm acknowledging to you the private health care system is flawed. Your argument is correct.

But what I'm saying is you're not acknowledging the other avenue. That yes, if the private healthcare system is, one of its flaws is insurance companies don't pay for everything and some people are going to get screwed. It's interesting you leave out that if the government doesn't pay for it, you are absolutely screwed and you actually don't have an option. There's no second government to lobby to. Can we accept that premise that you're not acknowledging the other half of this while I am?

So let me break those down. So first off, if you're rich under both systems, you're fine because you could layer on private health insurance and get any treatment you like. So we're talking about now middle class and poor. OK, actually, the biggest problem is for the middle class because the poor are also covered under Medicare. So the middle class constantly gets squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. So now let's look at the there's no utopias that I agree with you on that. Let's look at the two different options.

One is a private health care system and the other is the government. So private health care system denies you coverage. And all of you out there, you've been there. OK, you're screwed. You have no options. You can't go ask your representative in government. You can't do anything because you're stuck in your company. Your company provides this health care company. You don't have the choice to get out of that health care company besides what you're sick now. Right. And so you're totally, utterly stuck.

If the government provides it, at least you then can go to your representative and go, why aren't you guys covering cancer treatment? Right. And the American people rise up. And in fact, you saw it happen with your own eyes. The health insurance companies got so greedy and so corrupt that they were denying coverage for people with preexisting conditions. Well,

Well, that's all of us, right? And it became so oppressive that the government, which I think is owned by these corporate owners, then said, all right, we got to do a release valve, okay? So let's let them...

do obamacare basically the drug companies allowed that to happen the health insurance guys fought it but we won that fight and now we're much better off that's why obamacare is popular so with the government it's at least a democracy and you have a chance to to have some sort of redress of your grievance with a private company you are screwed they don't take your closet over my point though

I only got 10 minutes, so I really, I'm trying my best not to interrupt. I got 10 minutes left. I got to go live on the radio after that. But you're totally glossing over my point. You keep saying something that is tautologically inaccurate if you just look at it. You keep saying that you have no options in the free market health care. You do.

You just don't like them. You actually made the point. He asked, wait, wait, hold on. You said you have to leave the job. Okay. That sucks. But when the government tells, you know, which it tells people know all the time, Alzheimer's, you're saying your best response is call your representative and hope for the best. No, over long run, we can pressure the government to do things. God, it's hard, but we did it with preexisting conditions. Okay. But when Dan, you keep talking about a hypothetical where you're rich. Yeah.

Yeah, you can leave any insurance company you want if you're rich, but if you're middle class, leaving your job is not tenable, especially in the middle of cancer. I didn't say it was. Hold on, hold on. No, I know, but I didn't say it was. I'm just telling you it's an option, not a palatable one. I'm not disagreeing with you, though. I don't want to debate something we both agree on.

It fucking sucks, bro. We both agree. I'm just saying the government sucks worse because you can't get away from them. Your point is at least we can lobby government over time. Okay, I concede the point. You can get government to take other people's money and pay for things. Can I move on? No, because I only got 10 minutes. And I'm enjoying this. Just real quick. All right, make it quick. Remember, you could layer health insurance on top of what the government's giving you. So you still have options. But the thing that you mentioned about

Uh, uh, uh,

Individual policy. Shoot, I forgot the thing that you mentioned earlier. We'll do it on your show. We'll do it on your show. I promise I'll do your show. You were nice enough to come on mine. I'm not going to screw you over. We'll do it on your show, The Young Turk. Oh, sorry, Dan, real quick. Yeah, go ahead. What I was saying about the government and all the different things that we disagree with, like the Israeli policy, the military policy, et cetera, if we all say I'm only paying taxes for the things that I like, it becomes completely unworkable. Right.

So we have to pool our resources together for things like security, things that protect our lives, police, fire department, health care, etc. So that's why I'm saying you can't say, hey, I don't like that part. I don't like that part. I'm not going to pay my taxes for that. I'm not going to pay my tax for that, even if it deeply bothers you as it does others.

For me, that's how we pool our money together and that's how we work together. No, I concede that what you're saying is not wrong. I'm just saying, I think you think that's an argument for you. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm actually think, I think you're making the argument for us. We have to pay for shit we don't like and we'd rather not.

I'd rather pay for things that there is mass consensus on, military, courts, at the state level, roads. The other things you're talking about, funding for Israel, you're making a point we both agree on.

You don't like it, I do. So why should you have to pay for it? I agree. But that's fine. It's weird, but kind of agreeing and pretending to disagree. It's just a larger issue there. Let me get to this last point because I'm running out of time. Again, I appreciate you being here. I think it's been really productive. The abortion issue, obviously a hard one. I've asked this question. It's not a trick. I'm not trying to set anybody up. Do you accept any limitations on abortion and why?

When does life begin? But most importantly, what are you basing that on, your answer? Because, again, no liberal's ever given me an answer. How do they know that? When they give an answer and I ask them part two, no one responds.

Dan, I'll be your huckleberry. So here's the answer. So number one, I'm in favor of Roe v. Wade. Now, I'm going to surprise you on a couple of factors here. Number one, I was against Roe v. Wade as a Supreme Court decision. It was legislation. It was not a court decision. It was activists, okay? And the reason is there's no talk of abortion in the Constitution. That's absurd. There's no talk of the trimesters in the Constitution. They just made that up.

up. And that was at a time when Lewis Powell said, hey, and he was a right winger, worked for the Chamber of Commerce and said, let's pack the courts with activist judges. So that gave us Roe v Wade, but that also gave us Citizens United and the unlimited corruption where the judges said, yeah, the Constitution says that you're allowed to bribe politicians through campaign contributions. They just made that up.

In the legislation that they made up, Roe v. Wade, it was actually excellent legislation. I agree with it from a policy perspective, right? And that's what they should pass on a national level. So what did that say? Did that say unlimited abortion? No. It said that abortion should be legal in the first two trimesters. In the third trimester, it's illegal. And unless the health of the mother or the baby is involved, right? Well, at that point, it's...

You know if the baby's passed away and they need to get it out etc And that's usually only 1% of abortions happens in the last trimester And it's almost always because of a health emergency like that and guys you got to remember I know there's a lot of hyperbole out there But a woman is not going to carry a baby around for nine months and then at the end guy changing my mind It's I take it up almost never happens and and the people

that have been there for nine months, I mean, that have carried it to term for nine months are desperate to have that baby. It's almost always health emergency. So in terms of when does life start? You know, Dan, I actually used to be,

be uh what you would call pro-life for a brief period of time in in uh college and and the reason was i was like exactly the point you're making i was like well when does life begin conception makes sense as a place where life begins but then i realized that no that's not actually it true it's the question isn't life the question is dependent or independent life

So if the life is dependent, whatever form of life you think it is on the mom or on anyone, that is their choice. Once it becomes independent, then it's a human being and the government then has a responsibility to protect that independent human being. If it can survive outside the womb, then it's a person. Until then, it's a zygote, it's a fetus, and the mom has the responsibility and the freedom to control her own body.

I'm sorry, I only got a few minutes and I want to make sure we wrap this up appropriately. I just want to take a second to answer. And then if I don't get to, I promise I'm not trying to screw you over. We will definitely do it on your show. It's not an effort to like box you in at the end. Again, you've been very generous with your time. I think this has been really good back and forth. We have barely interrupted each other.

The dependence issue I hear brought up a lot, but it's interesting when I bring up to people and, and, and I say, well, well, you know, dependence, what about human beings at the end of life? There are people, you know, you know, grandparents who have Alzheimer's and things who are dependent on other people too. It's a fascinating argument. When you say dependence, I said, should we kill them too? And they said, well, that's silly. You know, that's, you're making an argument about dependence in a different way. Well,

Well, I'm really not. I mean, I'm the woman, the person actually would not be able to live without an additional human being support. And then secondly, you know, I appreciate you giving a candid answer. You never hear that from liberals. So applause there for that. And the fact that you acknowledge at one point you felt differently about it. That's actually rare. I never hear that in the abortion issue. There's always endless filibustering. So I'm glad you actually gave an answer on viability.

But on the conception thing, I just can't understand how people get around this. Every single human being on planet Earth was conceived. Not every conception resulted in a human being. You have ectopic pregnancies. You have miscarriages. Granted. But every human being on Earth was conceived. It's not a difficult scientific argument to make. I just wish liberals would be honest about it. And you gave an honest answer. I wish they would just say...

Well, we're, you know, we don't really care if it's alive or not. We just don't think it should be allowed to live if the mother doesn't want it to. I really have a minute left. I want to let you respond. I have a hard minute and I got to run to the radio, but go, go ahead.

Yeah. Look, financial dependence on someone is very, very, very different than a physical, literal, biological dependence. And so what I'm worried about is, guys, you say you're for freedom, but you're taking women's freedom away. And you're saying you don't get to decide what you do with your body and what you do with your life. You're going to have to raise this kid for 18 years. You're going to have to carry it for nine months. We're just taking your body. I mean, look at what happened with the vaccines. People were so upset about a simple, you know, jab. Wow.

Like that was like the biggest intrusion into your freedom. Imagine if the government made you carry another life form for nine months and take care of it for the rest of your life. That's taking your freedom away. If it's an independent human being, the government should protect it. But if it's in your body and it's not a human being yet, you get to make the choice.

All right. I guess we're going to have to disagree on when it's a human being, but I will do your show. Cenk, you just get with my team like I got with yours. And I appreciate you giving us the opportunity to speak like two men about the issues from a different perspective. We're both running businesses, both very successful. I'm a little later to the live stream video game. I know you guys have been around a while, but I appreciate it. And thank you for coming on. I think that was really productive. I appreciate your time.

Thank you, Dan. Me too. It was a good conversation. Thank you. I agree. Folks, thanks so much. I really appreciate your time. I got to jet, go to radio. Please don't forget to join us election night, 7 30 PM Eastern time. I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. I always like a good debate talking over each other. Never works. Join me here on rumble and the radio show in just a few minutes, please give us a follow at rumble.com slash Bongino and download the rumble app. See in a few minutes on the radio show and back here on Monday at 11 AM.

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