Sunday Special with Nate Smith, Mike Benz, Mike Lee, and Michael Knowles 11/24/24
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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. Welcome to Sunday Podcast. This is our chance to play for you some of the best moments from the radio show and some great interviews during the week that you may have missed. If you ever want to check out our show, go to Bongino.com.

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First up today, we talked with country music superstar, our good friend, Nate Smith, about the music industry, how much he loves the country and a $5 water. This was Jim's idea. You're not going to want to miss this.

Man, I've been dying to get this interview going forever. This guy is such a good, good dude, man. And you know how it's hard to find good people. It really is like good friends. There's just so few of them, especially in a business like this where someone's always like selling you something or, you know, they want something from you. It's such a good guy. He is just destroying the country music charts right now.

You know who he is. You've heard his new song, Bulletproof. If you haven't, you need to go download it right away. Download the whole album, California Gold. I want to welcome to the show a good man, country music artist, and hopefully very, very, very good friend of mine, right? My man, Nate Smith. Hey, Nate, welcome to the show, brother. Good to have you. What's up, Dan? That was quite the intro, bro. I appreciate you so much.

Man, you deserve it. You know, so I told the story in the beginning. We're in Houston, right? I get to the concert early. You're opening up for Morgan Wallen. I don't get to listen to a lot of music and it's about two years ago, I guess, right? And you're up on the stage and I'm there with Paula.

and you're the opening act there, and man, you're tearing it up, brother. I look at the cat next to me, I'm like, who the hell's this guy on stage? Nate's up there, he's like, a few months ago I was driving, now I'm here talking, singing in front of 40,000 people. I never heard such passion. I went on the radio and talked about it,

And he said, that's Nate Smith, man. And I just relived that moment for me where you go from this life where you're busting your butt, you're struggling, you're a young artist trying to get ahead, and then you're opening up for Morgan Wallen. What is that like, brother?

Man, it is absolutely unreal. It's so hard to really put it into words, but I mean, like, you know, I spent my whole life just kind of backing up a little bit working in hospitals. So my whole plan was to be a registered nurse. So I was what they call a CNA, a certified nurse assistant. And I worked in care homes, hospitals, ICU, neurotrauma, all these things. And that's what I was passionate about was taking care of people and something that I really love doing. And kind of long story short, my hometown of Paradise,

ended up catching on fire. We lost our whole town, pretty much. It was pretty bad in 2018. I had to start over. A friend of mine was kind enough to send me a guitar in the mail because I lost mine and started writing songs again for a different reason. Seeing people get in touch by this music was so special to me. It really got me going again, I guess. Then my friends were like, what if we send you back to Nashville for the second time? I

I already did it one time before when I was 23 and I'm a little older now and it didn't work out so good. But they were like, let's do a GoFundMe, send Nate back to Nashville. And I got in my car and I slept in my car many, many nights on the road moving here. And then essentially I paid my rent, my car payment, and I was down to $14 in my checking account and didn't really have a backup plan.

And anyway, so what happened was I ended up somehow signing a publishing deal with Sony and getting a record deal a year and a half later. And just kind of I'm at three number ones right now. It's just it's mind blowing, man. I can't even really describe to you what it's like. But it's just cool that I'm making songs that are making an impact on people in America and trying to trying to be involved, you know.

You know, we're talking to a country music artist. It's blowing up the charts right now. Nate Smith and just a really, really wonderful guy, man. You want to talk about a patriot who loves his country. His new album is called California Gold, Bongino Army.

I don't ask you a lot, man. Everybody go and download it. I promise you, you'll thank me later. It is an amazing album. You know, in an album, you get one or two good ones, not this one. It's just banger after banger after banger. So Nate, I ask everyone we have on the show in the country music business, I ask them this question. When did you know, like...

damn, we made it. Like, are you sitting in a car and a taxi and your song comes on more? Does Morgan reach out to you and say, I want you to open up? Like, when do you say to yourself, this is it? Like we we've, we've now, you know, we we've crossed the red line. Like, this is really cool, man. When did you, when was that moment for you?

Dan, I can remember it crystal clear, man. I was sitting in a hotel room, I think on the East Coast. I was sitting in there and I saw one of those water bottles that said $5 if you drink this thing. And I went, you know what? I can do that today. I'm going to drink that $5 water. And I chugged it, man. I chugged it. I didn't feel bad. I didn't feel bad at all. That was the moment that I knew. But, you know, I don't know.

i don't know if you ever really arrive that is the most relatable story you're ever going to tell because nate i've had i still do that like i'm in hotel rooms now and listen where me and you were we were you know we were working stiffs man i know what that's like to go five i'm paying oh five dollars for no avion water i'm gonna drink from the sink and i still to this day i'm like damn five

five dollar water i we've all had that experience brother that is so relatable but nate when did so you're sitting there and you're like wow like the song you're you know it hits you're there when do you get the call from morgan morgan's one of the i mean him taylor swift probably pretty much dominate you know the music culture now when do you get that call where he says hey i

I want you to open up for me at concerts. You must have been like, wow, now we're really there. I mean, we're like, we're performing in front of biggest crowds in the world.

He, uh, he actually texted me and he, and he was basically just like, Hey man, you know, I just recently had signed, uh, with a booking agency called Neil agency. And they have Morgan that got Hardy, Ernest, a bunch of people. Uh, they got Bailey Zimmerman, um, good friend of mine. Um, and they basically like, after I signed there, like Morgan just texted me, he's like, Nate, you know, I'm a big fan of your music. And you know, would you consider, would you consider coming on the road with me? I'm like, are you joking? Consider like, what do you mean by that? Of course I'll be there, bro.

- Oh man, that's amazing. We're talking to Nate Smith. The album is called "California Gold." Folks, listen, I don't vouch for a lot of people 'cause a lot of people let me down. This guy ain't one of them. This guy is a, Nate, I hope I'm not speaking out of turn. I just wanna tell a quick story. So we go to the concert not that long ago in Charlotte.

And, you know, Nate's performance, I don't want to bother the guy. And I just buy tickets like any, I'm sitting there in the pit and Nate's performing. He's, he's crushing it. Bulletproof is on, which is my favorite Nate Smith. So it's everyone else's too. Cause it's like one of the most popular country songs in the cosmos right now. So I wish I could tell you I had something unique, but it's in this case, it's good. It's not bulletproof. It's an amazing song.

And he sees me, gives me a little like head nod and he shoots me a text. He's like, you know, hey, bro, you want to come back after the show and like say hello? You know, they have a little trailer back there. I don't want to bother him because I had a bunch of people with me saying, no, don't worry about it. Like, bring your daughter, bring your wife. And the guy could not have been nicer, folks. He's going to take a picture. Give him my daughter autograph hats. And my daughter had a friend with her. So I'm like, hey, would you mind? Oh, yeah, no problem. What's your name? Like this dude is the genuine article. And Nate, I want you to know like that really meant a lot. But let me ask you this. So

bulletproof right bulletproof's been taken over it's just like rocketing up the charts like do you feel now like you're not performing in the smaller venues anymore and as an artist i think you know my everybody likes the kind of behind the scenes take it's got to be a little different like it's a little more you do lose a little bit of intimacy you know when you're in these like kind of small bars and you're struggling but now you're in big stadiums like

How do you still, like, keep the fire, man, you know, and keep it personal? You know what I'm saying?

Totally. You know, it's kind of funny. I'm actually, it's weird. I'm in that phase of my career where one day I'm playing a stadium, the next day I'm doing like a 2000 cap club. So I'm kind of all over the place a little bit. So I get best of both worlds right now, which is really awesome. And, you know, any chance I, I do like the smaller venues still so much because of just the rowdiness and the honky tonk feel and stuff. So I think we're in a cool spot right now with the size of venue that we're at. They're pretty loud. Yeah.

I'm just having a blast. I mean, I don't know if you know this or not, but I'm a very shy person, believe it or not, and an introvert. And I was for a long time, I would close my eyes the whole time I would sing. I was too afraid to look at people. I couldn't make eye contact with anybody. And now it's like the best part of the show. It's like, we're doing this thing together. God, I love America. Brother, you're a, listen, I go to a lot of concerts now. A lot. I see a lot of people.

And you, you really, you connect different. I mean, you, you and Bailey, you know, Morgan obviously is, you know, the guy, right. But you and Bailey really got a gift, man. I like the dream team is when you and Bailey open up with Morgan, those are the concerts. I'm like, I'm definitely going to that one. I'd send Jeff a text. I'm like, Jeff, you got to hook me up, man. I need help on this one because you guys just tear it up. But for my audience out there, again, they always love a little like behind the scenes on this stuff.

You know, most of us don't know what it's like to be, you know, big country music stars. You know what we do, but what's life on the road like? I mean, that's, it's gotta be tough. I mean, you're, I guess you're, you're, you're living out of your, your, uh, your, your tour bus a lot and it's gotta be tough. You know, I mean, how do you sleep on that thing?

I struggle really bad. So on the road, I mean, there's a little back bedroom. It's kind of a bedroom, but it's so loud and bumpy during the road. So I usually will sleep in like the bunks. I kind of like the bunks. They're a little quieter and they're in the middle of the bus and everything. But, yeah, it's a struggle, dude. And I mean, you're constantly you're getting up and you're going, you know, you've got like a day full of interviews and day full of different things.

but you gotta just, I mean, the big thing for me is, you know, when I have my downtime, I completely unplugged. Like I've had this whole week off, been a little under the weather, but just completely unplugged and just recharge, man. So like when I get back out there, I have something to give. Cause I mean, I really feel like as an artist,

Personally, like I'm in, I'm in, I'm not just an entertainment industry. I'm in the service industry, you know, it's the way that I see it. I I'm there to serve. I'm there to, to, to bring songs that can touch lives. I'm there to like love my neighbor, everybody I meet to hug them and give them everything I got. And I don't want them to ever feel lacked, you know?

Yeah. Nate, I know, I know you're really passionate about the country too. I mean, I hear the way you talk about it. I really love this place. You don't hide it at all. You are a Patriot through and through. And I know my audience really appreciates that too. You, you make a point to, you know, mention it in your social, like you, you really, you know, this is the greatest country on earth. There are no mystery there.

It sure is, man. It sure is. And, you know, I'm really happy with the way things are going now. And I just feel like, you know, we're really stepping into a beautiful time, a beautiful era. And I'm just I'm so proud to be an American. And and honestly, like, I mean, my story is like an American story, you know, starting from fourteen dollars and I'm playing stadiums and all this stuff. I mean, it just shows that anything is truly possible in this country, man.

Nate, we love you, brother. Bongino Army. Again, I don't ask you guys and ladies for a lot, but I need a favor, man. Do me a solid. You all go and download this man's album, Nate Smith. He's a good man. He's a patriot. The album is amazing. I promise you'll thank me for it later. It's called California Gold.

California Gold and make sure if you don't download but you stream make sure you go to Spotify like Hot Country and click the like button on Nate songs you got bulletproof fix read and break just amazing songs this guy is really talented and I promise you this guy is the real deal what a genuinely nice guy Nate Smith what an honor to have you on the show by the way this is an open invitation you ever want to come back my audience I'm already getting feedback my audience loves you you come on anytime you want my brother all right

Just want to say thank you so much for having me. Thanks for being a great friend. And then all of Dan's army. I love you guys. Thank you for all the support and for downloading the music. You guys are amazing. Thank you so much, brother. You're the best folks. Nate Smith. Thanks, Nate. We appreciate it. What a great guy, folks. I told you that guy's the real deal, man. And those people are hard to find. You may ask yourself, too.

You know, damn, why don't we have more interviews like that? You want to know why? Jim will tell you why. The reason is a lot of people are fakes and phonies. And we told you we're not doing any squishes on this show. We're not. Listen, I don't need you to share my political beliefs on stuff on every single thing. I don't. But I need you to love the country and be the real deal. And this guy is, man. And that's why I'm asking you for a solid. Nate Smith, California Gold is the album. Check it out. Coming up next, another great interview, but let's hear from our next sponsor.

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Up next, we talk to deep state specialist Mike Benz. No one breaks it down better than him. Listen to him about the perils of international censorship and how it actually works coming up here. You know, one of the characteristics of smart, smart people over stupid, smart people is if you're a smart, smart person, you know, the outer perimeter of your fence of knowledge.

And you go and get other people who are smart, smart people in other spaces to fill in those spots for you. Those blind spots in your knowledge and your Dewey Decimal System, your library of knowledge, right? And when I need some insight on the deep state and some expertise, this is the premier guy to go to. He was with us on election night. He's at Mike Benz Cyber on X. You should follow him. Subscribe to his platforms there. It's amazing. Mike Benz, welcome back to the show. Good to have you. Great to talk to you, Dan.

Mike, whenever we need some insight on the deep state, we go to you. I just wanted you to comment on this first. Some of the nominees for President Trump's soon-to-be administration, it appears that the deep state, the bureaucracies, the NGOs that profit off of censorship and collectivism, socialism-style governance, were really panicked. Obviously forced Gates out. He is left today. But we've still got a few candidates.

uh hitters in there we've got people in there like ratcliffe and others who know where the bodies are buried i think uh what's your take on this because people are policy you and i know that i wish policy were policy but it isn't people are policy and these are the kind of people that even if you disagree with them could shake up these deep state bureaucracies you're exactly right you know the gates bombshell today of him dropping out is i think

it sends kind of a shockwave into the security of other picks that have, that are currently staffing the cabinet ranks, or at least set to between Tulsi and

Bobby Kennedy, as you mentioned, Ratcliffe, Hegseth at DOD, all of these, I think there's going to be a similar type of campaign that will be waged to varying degrees between them. I mean, if folks remember, it was only 24 hours ago that a hacker hacked into the private communications of Matt Gaetz's lawyers.

and then leaked that to the New York Times in order to orchestrate this backstab that we apparently are seeing today. There's only two ways that you can be a hacker in this country. You can be a felon or a fed. That is, the only people who are authorized to do that sort of hacking and are able to get away with it from this Justice Department is if you work for the CIA, the NSA, or the FBI.

All other means of electronic hacking are felonies. So how did this hacker... Who was this hacker who hacked the lawyers of Matt Gaetz on the eve of this announcement? So...

That I think is an open question that is going to go to the heart of all the other national security related picks. The fact is, is one of the things they're most afraid of with Matt Gaetz is that the entire national security division of the Justice Department contains and is the holder of all secrets of the intelligence community. Folks can look up right now, Mary McCord from the Obama-Biden Justice Department is

talking about how all things related to prosecutions in the intelligence world effectively require the consent and constant interplay of the IC and the Justice Department, which means the Justice Department head has to be totally on board the blob agenda. This is how they got – this is why Bill Barr and Merrick Garland and Eric Holder and all these others are the sort of legacy AG picks, and Matt Gaetz is a massive outlier to that.

But one of the things I'm most concerned about is that I don't think Marco Rubio, for example, has anything to worry about with his nomination passing through. I've mentioned Hegseth, Ratcliffe,

Tulsi, and Bobby Kennedy all likely experiencing a significant amount of turbulence on the way to Senate confirmation if they get there. I don't think Marco Rubio is going to have any problem whatsoever sailing through because his network is essentially the exact network who has been trying to trump Trump-proof

Donald Trump's presidency in the run-up to Donald Trump's victory. So I don't know what kind of back-channel conversations are happening between Trump and his donors, between Trump and Congress that allowed such a pivotal position to freedom on the internet, as well as the entirety of U.S. foreign policy to be run through Rubio. But that is something that I have quite a critical eye on.

Yeah, I mean, you know, the role in when he was in the Senate on the collusion hoax and not stopping that earlier has always been pretty disturbing to me. I've that's been my one, you know, big bit in the bar there. It really bothered me the entire time. We're talking to Mike Benz. He's at Mike Benz Cyber on X. I strongly encourage you to follow him if you're concerned about the deep state. If you love it, he's not your guy.

Mike, the fight against censorship is the fight right now. If we can't speak, we can't wage a political battle because it's not a battle. It's a one-sided asymmetric war where they're shooting at us and we're completely disarmed. But we can't deny the fact, as you know, that the left and this blob of deep staters has been very, very effective over the last few years. Do you think we're starting to turn the corner on this, though? I don't want to say who, what company, but...

I've run into a few major companies at events in green rooms and, you know, you know, they are. But, you know, I don't want to they ask me to stay quiet, quiet about it. But they're even starting to say to me that a lot of the pressure campaigns they felt before they're there, but they're dissipating in kind of intensity. And a lot of even the left wing woke boards are starting to say, OK, man, this whole DEI crap.

you know, it's really not worth the time and energy anymore. Are you sensing this deep state censorship complex losing its power a little bit? I hope you say yes. I'll be devastated if you say no.

Well, you're absolutely right. Yes, in terms of short term. But there's a recoil on this rattlesnake that is going to be springing back with poisonous fangs over the next six to 12 months. And I'll tell you exactly how that's going to happen because we've been here before. Donald Trump won the 2016 election because of freedom of speech on the Internet. Trump did not get a single legacy newspaper endorsement in the entire country in 2016.

Even David Brock, the political hatchet job, black ops magician for the DNC, just a week before Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, did this big postmortem with 120 major tech execs and financiers and Soros types.

blaming the free and open internet for Donald Trump's election. And not only did Trump win the presidency, but Republicans won the House, Republicans won the Senate, Republicans got to put their Supreme Court picks in. So it was like you could not have a more favorable deck in terms of the political setup

But the fact was, is the entire censorship industry was constructed within the United States right under Trump's nose in that case because of shadow diplomacy abroad and back channeling with these.

Organizations of an international nature. I mean, I can tell you exactly how it happened. Basically, as soon as Trump won the election in 2016, you had the out-of-power Hillary Clinton State Department and John Kerry State Department diplomatic corps take their special set of skills of working with European regulators and Brazilian regulators and officials and

and Australian and Central and Eastern Europe. And they got one by one, all these countries to pass these international law, to pass these laws that restricted the ability to post on social media. If you were a populist, it started with this, this German law in 2017 called Nets DG, which required for compliance with it, mandatory AI censorship technology,

that would scan and ban every keyword that was deemed by the German government to be problematic because it was a proxy for populism. They explicitly, the shadow diplomacy that was done between the out-of-power faction of the blob here in the U.S.,

with the German government is the reason that these were all implemented at Facebook and YouTube and Twitch and Discord and all that, the entire Internet in the first place. It was for continuity with global markets because they didn't want to lose access to Europe. That then tilted into what is now the UK online harms bill in the US and the anti-misinformation law in Brazil and now the entire EU-wide Digital Services Act.

That is – mark my words. They are not going away on this anytime soon. They are going to do a bifurcated strategy that involves using state laws like what we just saw in Michigan with this new misinformation law that just came out of the Michigan State Senate and like they've been doing in California and Illinois and New York where they have these mandatory media literacy laws now.

that effectively prohibit access to or the ability to cite alternative news. You can only read blob media there now if you're in public school. So they're going to balkanize the U.S. at the state level in terms of the rules of the road for the Internet. And then they are going to work with their international partners. The U.K. Labor Party figures extremely heavily in this. Kerr Starmer is the test.

two baby born in the lab freak mutant of NATO. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former NATO head, made a special project to get Tara Starmer to replace Jeremy Corbyn there in the UK. And the UK Labour Party has taken that incredible power that they have and has metastasized a censorship capacity

partially funded by the U.S., I should note. For example, their scan and band technology for the Metropolitan Police in London is funded by the U.S. Justice Department so that they have a real-time heat map of every Tommy Robinson supporter and every Nigel Farage reporter and what they post online. That's literally funded by the U.S. Justice Department.

They are going to work with the UK and Europe and South America and Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia to make sure that every ally of Trump on the international stage is not allowed to rise to power. And they're going to try to make it unprofitable through these global revenue fines like the EU threatens to impose to bankrupt X unless they censor Trump supporters at home.

Mike, I got a hard two minutes left, but is the Trump administration, do you think they know this, the fight against the DSA and these European censorship laws? And are they willing to go to the mat and say, listen, you do this to our companies. You got some heavy tariffs coming and we're going to economic war over this. Do you think they know that? I know a lot of, you know, a lot of people in the transition team. Do they have a sense of what's going on? Are they willing to take it on?

They've heard this. They've been briefed on it. When they're told of it, they remember it. But the rubber is going to hit the road at the State Department, which is why I come back to Marco Rubio. The State Department, even though it only has $35 billion in funding every year, it's not one of the most heavily funded ones. It is the orchestra director of the entire panoply of U.S. soft power projection. And all this censorship work is

out of state. So Marco Rubio is going to need to be the one leading the crusade, the carrots and sticks, throwing

thrown or offered at Europe to fight back the BSA. He is going to need to coordinate USAID and be an enthusiastic cheerleader to make sure that USAID is on board. U.S. Agency for Global Media also serves the State Department. Rubio is going to need an iron fist with them. Rubio is going to need an iron fist with all the NGOs and the university centers who are wrapped up in this.

We are going to need strong-arm diplomacy in order to threaten to fundamentally renegotiate our posture with things like NATO and the EU and humanitarian assistance and treaties and trade agreements in order to fight this thing back, which is why we need a real soldier in there. And my concern is that Rubio comes from the camp who orchestrated all of this. Rubio is a board member of the International Republican Institute, which has been spearheading these international censorship laws.

He's promoted the IRI Beacon Project. He won a Man of the Year Award from the IRI, which is one of the worst censorship organizations, just this year. So his whole career has been funded and pushed by the same forces he now needs to take on. So there's going to be a knife in someone's back at the end of the day here. It's going to be the friends that have helped Marco Rubio along the way, or it's going to be the President of the United States. Time will tell on that.

Jim, is this guy like a library or what? Mike, you are really, you are like a human computer with the deep state. It's like amazing how you just boom, boom. You fire this stuff out. Get that on the weekend interview show. We got it. Let's record that after the break. Mike Benz, follow him. He's on exit at Mike Benz, B E N Z cyber. You heard it. You're missing out on a PhD level course in the deep state without this guy, Mike, thanks so much for spending some time with us. You're welcome back.

Anytime. We love having you. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Dan. Talk soon. You got it. Guys, seriously, he's like the Dewey Decimal System of the deep state. I'm serious. I wrote four books, like four actual books on the deep state. And every time he comes on, I learn something new. Incredible. Gosh, that was a good one. Another great interview next, but first our next sponsor.

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hear what they're trying to do with this budget this is really bad check this out

You know, we don't do a lot of guests on the show. One segment per show, a couple times a week. Lately, we've had a few more, though, because it's really important to understand the limits of our own knowledge. I'm not in the United States Senate. I'm out here on the radio trying to move the needle politically for the guys who are. But one of the good guys up there, regular guest on the show, is Senator Mike Lee from Utah, an avid constitutionalist and a good friend. Senator Lee, thanks for spending some time with us. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Dan. It's a pleasure to be with you.

Oh, always good to talk to you. But before I get to the nominees, there's something you've been focusing on. You are, again, an avid constitutionalist, and you have been upset for years since the Tea Party revolution when you came in about the bloated, grotesque government budget. You've been warning people that they're trying to push through an end-of-the-year spending bill.

That's going to basically blow up the budget even more before the new Republican Senate House and presidency is a chance. Where do we stand on that? Is it going to go through? And why am I why aren't I hearing more about this from other Republicans?

Look, it shouldn't go through. We shouldn't be doing it. It's a terrible idea. One of the dumbest things that we could do after being entrusted with the voters, with this rare, somewhat unique blessing of having both houses of Congress and the White House under Republican control next year. One of the dumbest things we could do after being entrusted with the voters,

being given that advantage would be to perpetuate Biden spending levels and Biden spending priorities while the Senate and the White House are still under the control of the Democrats to move them forward through the end of fiscal year 2025. I think would be a dereliction of duty. I think it would be a real breach of trust with our voters. So I certainly hope not. Now, I take great courage in the fact that.

that House Speaker Mike Johnson has said that that is not what he wants, that he's not going to push that. He is not going to allow it from what I understand. What he wants is instead a shorter term spending package that will take us into March of next year, allowing us to reset the clock with Trump priorities and Trump spending levels.

talking to senator mike lee from utah certainly one of the good guys senator lee i am particularly excited there's a lot of great stuff going on you and i have both seen it we obviously the victory the taking back of the senate holding the house all good stuff we get that but

But I'm particularly excited about the potential for the Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy-led Doge, Department of Government Efficiency. Given the recent Chevron ruling that basically dumps Chevron deference, basically saying the law is the law. You don't get to interpret the law to spend more money. I mean, I'm oversimplifying, but I think we can both agree it's generally the point of it.

Elon and Vivek have a very rare opportunity right here to advise OMB and get rid of a number of these crazy regulations that have authorized some of this spending. And it'd be really hard to get them back because now you would need actual legislation because you don't have Chevron. This could be a really big deal and an inflection point for our soon to be bankrupt government.

Yes. No, that's exactly right. That would be a good thing. And as to the Chevron deference point, you know, I've never been a big fan of celebration penalties in football. I think the better way of approaching it would be if somebody celebrates early, celebrates when there's no cause for celebration penalties.

And I think sometimes people excessively celebrate the demise of Chevron deference. It's good that we got rid of it, but it's not the end, not even the beginning of the end. At most, it's the end of the beginning. All getting rid of Chevron deference did was to say that the courts are no longer going to give this undue amount of deference to an agency's own interpretation of a statute it's charged with administering.

it still leaves the underlying problem fully intact. And that's the problem we've got to turn to next. The underlying problem is that Congress, since the 1930s, has been delegating copious amounts of legislative authority, lawmaking power, to unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. We'll pass a law saying we shall have good law in Area X, and we hereby delegate to Department Y the power to make and enforce good law.

That is lawless. It violates both the letter and the spirit of Article I, Sections 1 and 7. And we've got to get back to the point where Congress makes the law because only Congress is empowered to make the law under the Constitution. The best way of doing that, I believe, is for Congress to pass the REINS Act. R-E-I-N-S stands for Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny. And what it says is that any time there's a new generally applicable federal rule that is tantamount to a law,

that Congress has to affirmatively enact it and submit it to the president for his signature or veto before it can take effect. We've been talking, you've been on the show before about the RAIN Act, critically important. It's the only way we're going to get this bureaucracy under control. Senator Lee, you're in the Senate, obviously. You have a better take on it than we do. We hear from a lot of people.

uh however i i think the voters are a little bit upset uh i'm going to rephrase that a lot a bit upset because they feel like this was a trump election that it was his coattails that unquestionably dragged quite a few senators across the finish line that may not be there so the voters feel like well we kind of gave you a senate majority because we believe in the mega agenda now they're not dumb they understand the advice and consent role of the senate

However, unless there's some documented, verifiable reason, charges, convictions and things like that, President Trump obviously has a reason for selecting people like Pete Hegseth and Matt Gaetz and others. We've seen some softening from the moderate, I'd call kind of rhino wing of the Senate. However, what's your take on it? You're not part of that.

by the way. But however, what's your take on the Senate feel for some of the more, and I use the air quotes here, controversial nominees, because that's what the left's saying, not us like Gates, Gabbard, and Pete Hegg said that their respective roles.

As you point out, Dan, some of the initial chatter has calmed down a little bit following those announcements. I think some people reacted a little bit too quickly. But look, at the end of the day, we have to remember that President Trump should be accorded at least the same amount of deference that Joe Biden was accorded, accorded by many, including a number of Republicans.

In other words, Joe Biden got his attorney general pick. Donald Trump should be able to get his. And if people are worried about any particular nominee, whether it's Matt Gaetz or Pete Hesgeth or somebody else, they're worried about whether they're confirmable, whether there is some reason why they shouldn't be confirmed. That's why we have a review process. We have committees. Those committees have hearings.

And so I'm looking forward to the hearing that we're going to have for Matt Gaetz and the Judiciary Committee, on which I sit. The Armed Services Committee will have a hearing on Pete Hezgeth and so on and so forth with the other committees and the other appointments. Look forward to those. We'll be having those in January, as I understand it. We can do those before President Trump's sworn in so that we're ready to get them confirmed. But we ought to do this with an eye toward presumptively confirming them. We

We ought to do them, especially as Republicans. We have an eye towards saying President Trump ought to have his pick. If something comes up that makes them untenable, then we'll address that at the time. But that's what the committee process is for.

Yeah, well, I agree. We're talking to Senator Mike Lee from Utah. Senator, I think you'd agree being a kind of outspoken critic of 702 government spying, FISA spying, bloated governments. Again, you're probably the most you and Rand Paul, you know, Ted Cruz are probably the most avid constitutionalist I know in the Senate.

You know, they failed us on 702 spying last time. The FBI is out of control. And I think it's time that President Trump is given some deference on this. You know, we were just talking about him before, but actual deference, because I think he understands that we need some kind of door kickers this time. We need people willing to break stuff because we're broken now. And the only way to fix it is going to be to glue this thing back together the right way.

and picking a lot of old school kind of establishment types, not willing to go out there and stir the pot a little bit, you're just going to get the same result. You know, we're just going to get the same failure. And I think that's how my listeners feel. I get a lot of feedback from them.

Dan, I couldn't agree more. And that's why we've got to get reformers in there in each of these positions that touch features like FISA 702, where we've seen so much abuse by the FBI and somewhere elsewhere, but a lot of the FBI of the authorities under FISA 702. We cannot do this the same way we've done in the past. It'd be a grave disservice, not only to President Trump and

And to those close to him who, like him, have at times become the victim of abuse of these types of authorities. But the American people as a whole, we'd be doing a great disservice to all of them to just pick somebody who's going to perpetuate that same problem. President Trump wants and frankly deserves genuine reformers who will go in there, figure out where the problems are and pull the problem out by the roots, making sure that it doesn't happen again.

You know, it was about a year ago when we were having a robust debate over the need for a FISA 702 reform. I about wore out my X account on my at-base handle, talking about all the reasons why it was so bad what we ended up adopting. Because what we ended up adopting was a series of fake reforms. It was a fig leaf.

And we need real reforms this time. And I think that starts with personnel and needs to culminate with legislation. Well, I love your at based Mike Lee account. Jim and I get a kick out of it. We like you and base John Roberts over at Fox base. John Roberts has been tearing it up too, but based Mike Lee is a must follow Twitter account. You were all over seven Oh two. We appreciate it was an issue mattered a lot to me. We had speaker Johnson on the radio about it. He came on, we had a pretty fiery debate about it.

But the First Amendment means what it says. And I'm just really, really upset at the way that whole thing went down. Let me ask a question I get a lot from the audience, and I know you'll explain it better than I do. How can we move legislation via reconciliation? You know, we obviously still have the filibuster, which the Democrats wanted to get rid of. Now they love it again, of course, the 60-vote threshold.

What can we do by reconciliation? The Trump tax cuts, obviously we did that last time, but what else can we do? Or is the entire Trump agenda going to be stymied because we're not going to, we only have 53, we're going to be a vote shy.

Yeah, I'm so glad you asked about this. Reconciliation, of course, is shorthand for a term known as budget reconciliation. We're allowed under certain limited circumstances to bypass the 60 vote cloture standard, the filibuster standard for which most substantive legislation must pass. The important thing to remember with reconciliation.

Budget reconciliation is that you've got to find something that is primarily budgetary, budgetary and it's not overwhelmed by the policy implications of it. We've learned over the years how to draft things so as to make them potentially reconcilable. We're looking forward to a very aggressive debate and discussion about what we put in there.

I would like to see a lot of things that we know we're going to have to do at least one reconciliation package that will deal with the extension of the Trump era tax cuts from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. But I believe that we are actually going to need to do two reconciliation bills probably in 2025. And the other one is going to need to include a lot of things.

including funding for things like border security, including some very aggressive regulatory reform, which could and I believe should include at least as many elements of the RAINS Act as we can move in there. Anything that we can identify a firm budgetary connection with has a decent chance of being put in there. And we're working on those priorities right now. A lot of research is going into it as we speak.

Mike, Senator Mike Lee, last question for you. Let you know another question we get from our listeners all the time. They are absolutely adamant. We've got to clean up this broken election system. What are the chances of getting a voter reform bill? Things like voter I.D. for federal elections. What's the atmosphere up on Capitol Hill and the appetite for that?

Okay. The appetite for it has been strong. It's been made stronger by what we've seen in this election year. Remember, Dan, it was just a few months ago when I came on your show to talk about the need for the SAVE Act. The SAVE Act is a bill that I introduced in the Senate. Chip Roy's got it in the House. Very simple set of requirements. It says if you're voting in a federal election, in order to do that, you must, upon registering...

show some type of proof of citizenship. This is not onerous. This is the same type of proof. In fact, it's easier under the SAVE Act to do than what everyone has to do anytime they start a new job. You've got to fill up the I-9 form and produce proof of citizenship. You ought to produce some sort of citizenship proof when you register to vote in a federal election.

And I believe that the Democrats acted in bad faith and opposing that they blocked it. They wouldn't let it move forward because they said it was unnecessary because they insisted over and over again. Non-citizens don't vote. Well, how do you know that? Well, because they can't vote. What do you mean? Well, because federal law currently prohibits it. Yeah, but federal law makes it almost impossible to enforce.

and they never answered the question. They just doubled back down on saying non-citizens don't vote. We've now found so many instances of non-citizen voting, it's gonna be impossible for them to deny that. So we gotta use that same enthusiasm in the next Congress to get this thing passed. While we're at it, I think we ought to slap on some other requirements. If you're voting in a federal election,

You also have to produce some sort of photo ID as you're casting your vote so that you can't cheat. While we're at that, I think we ought to consider having a national election day rather than an election season. Vote counting that goes on in late November is called fraud.

You would make my audience's day if those three things went through. Senator, I ran over a little bit, but it's always a pleasure and honor to have you. Senator Mike Lee from Utah. Thanks so much for your time, sir. We appreciate it. Pleasure's mine. Thanks so much, Dan. You got it. That is, man, we fit a lot in there, Jim. Voter ID, FBI, 702, budget, reconciliation, tax cuts. That was stacked. Finally, one of the great voices on culture and politics in a podcast I really enjoy, but first our next sponsor. Hey,

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So head on over to shopbeam.com slash Bongino for up to 50% off. That's shopbeam.com slash Bongino for up to 50% off. Michael Knowles has his own show. He's from The Daily Wire. He joined us to talk about the fallout from the election and what we can do to look forward to January, what we can do in the meantime. So check this out.

Man, I love this guy. He's such a talented host in his own right. He works over at The Daily Wire where they've got a great crew. His show is incredible. My wife and my crew love his show as well. His name is Michael Knowles. He's been on the show before. You should check him out. Michael Knowles, like no L-E-S. Great show. Michael, thanks for coming back to the show. Really appreciate your time. Dan, always a pleasure to be with you, especially during this very celebratory couple of weeks.

It's been amazing. And you're one of the few, like you, I don't really have a ton of time. I'm usually putting together my own show, but you're one of the few shows I do listen to and take the time to listen to because it's really terrific. Because I think you have a very kind of...

sober analysis of what's going on. I think you're one of these guys who understands the political trench warfare, that this isn't like a Tinder dating contest with these people. The large majority of America, including every single swing state, just voted for Donald Trump and his judgment about the direction of America. You know, we're not trying to like date these guys, right? Like Tulsi Gabbard or Hegseth, or we're looking for people to enact the Trump agenda. And measuring by the response of liberal heads exploding, I,

I think he's got a plan here and I'm on board. Absolutely, Dan. The picks have been excellent so far. Trump is obviously coming right out the gate, moving very quickly because President Trump recognizes this is a once in a generation opportunity to reset politics.

the relationship between citizen and the federal government obviously there's this new department the whimsically named doge led by elon and the bake that endeavors now it in elon's words to cut some three hundred twenty nine federal agencies with overlapping responsibilities and a ton of waste so that's very exciting and then on the flip side of it i think this mandate also offers president trump an opportunity

once in a generation at least, to redefine the relationship between the citizen and the press. You think that Kamala Harris lost this election? You think Joe Biden lost this election? I think some of the biggest losers in this election were the New York Times and the Washington Post and CNN and MSNBC and the desiccated old dissidents

dishonest media that have even admitted that new media are the future. It's the podcast election, according to The Washington Post. And I think President Trump could capitalize on that and fundamentally change the way that the press wields its corrupt power in this country.

We're talking to Michael Knowles. He has his own show, The Michael Knowles Show. I strongly encourage you to check it out. It's worth your time. It's one of the few on my shelf. They say there's a shelf, the podcast shelf. Everybody has one. It's like five shows max or so. You're on mine. Michael, you just said something there that kind of sparked my interest. You know, I love the parallel economy and the free speech ecosystem.

But I know when you first started doing this and when I did, when I say this, I mean podcasting. I forget the radio show for a minute, but everybody laughed. Matter of fact, when I started my podcast in 2015, I remember someone saying to me, what happened? You couldn't get a radio show? Well, now I have both, which is kind of funny. But everybody laughed and they thought it was really stupid. But I think guys like you and me who were kind of first movers, the old business school first mover advantage, you know, we understood that, you know,

podcasting's different than radio or cable TV I love them all I've done them all I had a cable TV show as well but you know better than anyone it is an a la carte on demand exercise so if someone goes to Spotify and hits play on the Michael Knowles show they want to be there they had to do a volitional act of hitting play it wasn't forced on them in an airport it wasn't the only cable news host on that night they did it on purpose

so when you get a hundred two hundred thousand people tuning into the knoll show that's a dedicated audience that can make things happen man it's the concentrated interest diffuse cost theory that's a concentrated interest that is such an insightful point because it shows you and this is something that president trump has done in spades over the last eight or nine years now it shows you that a a communicator can have a really close intimate relationship with an audience

uh... because the audience has to go out there every day and choose to listen and and so that means that you need to have credibility it means that you need to have integrity and you do need to call it like you see it and and be a real person this is why it the joe rogan interview with president from for two hours or three hours over long it was which was so much more captivating than some canned television interview the president from could give up because you were seeing the real man in a free-flowing conversation

weaving, as he used to say. And so now, you know, I look in 2024 after the American people, the vast majority of the American people, actually, including the popular vote, gave President Trump this mandate. I'm looking around the White House press room

And I'm asking myself, why is CNN in the front row? I'm asking myself, why does MSNBC have a seat at all, really? MSNBC might be sold for parts in a month. CNN had 13.3 million viewers in primetime in 2016. They have something like

800,000 now. And there's two reasons for that. One, it's just technology changes, as you point out, that you saw it happening. You know, you were an early adopter. And so who's laughing now? You know, people would laugh at you then. But who's laughing now? You're at the forefront of

But the other reason is that CNN and The New York Times especially and The Washington Post and the rest of them have really tarnished their credibility. I look at The New York Times. The New York Times called President Trump a liar. They ran a so-called fact check because President Trump said that FEMA was discriminating against Trump supporters during the Hurricane Havoc.

Helene cleanup. And then what happened? Daily Wire obtained documents from FEMA proved that, that FEMA was discriminating in, in hurricane Milton. And then the supervisor who was fired came out and said, actually was happening during Helene too. So I look at that and I say, I have to ask myself if I'm in the white house press office,

Why does the New York Times have a press pass at all with that kind of lack of credibility and with that kind of waning influence? Why doesn't a representative for Joe Rogan have a seat in the press room? Why doesn't Tim Kast or Dan Bongino or who know, you know, it would be nice to see Dan Bongino in an even bigger role in the White House. But why why don't why doesn't the White House press strategy reflect the way media actually exists today?

Yeah, brother, I agree with you 100%. I mean, why doesn't he get a Daily Wire seat, Daily Caller, Breitbart, you know, Megyn Kelly's operating. I mean, like you said, Rogan, Tim Pool, another one with a massive audience. You know, Charlie Kirk has his own enterprise over there. You know, the difference between us and them, Michael, us and them being the New York Times, Washington Post, and this liberal media ecosystem out there is,

We've been right. I mean, not about everything, but our track record batting average in this sport of politics is probably seven, eight hundred. There's seriously is about a hundred. I mean, every major story they got wrong. The collusion hoax, the Hunter laptop, the Spygate thing. I mean, everything from the Nikki Haley drapes story. Mike Flynn with the Russian contacts. I mean, nothing they said was correct.

And I think that's why Gutfeld pointed out on the five last night, like the media, if they don't have this sister soldier moment soon where they rip the bandaid off and just start telling the truth dispassionately, they're not going to have an audience left. There's not much there.

Well, Dan, I'm not saying it just because I'm talking to you. You just mentioned the Spygate story. But think about this. Think about 10 years ago. You ask, OK, who's more likely to get the details of a major news story correct? The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, the entire establishment media or a former Secret Service agent? One guy with a podcast and a radio show. Who's more likely to get it correct? And there's no question.

you got that correct and and so i i had a certain point it's like lucy with the football how many times are we going to keep waiting for the establishment media to correct themselves i i just don't see any reason to do that you know that the white house press office and it's not as though that it did that began under george washington or something that's a relatively recent creation it's changed over the years the purpose of it is to

communicate what's going on at the White House to the people and also to get serious questions from the media. But I think the majority of the American voters showed us in this election that they don't believe the New York Times, they don't believe the Washington Post. Across demographic groups, across the Rust Belt and the Sun Belt, they've turned to something that is different. And so

You know, we've complained for years that the press is really at the vanguard of a corrosive and corrupt system. Well, I think that the reason they're running scared right now, the reason you're hearing about the view trying to add a finally a pro-Trump voice, the reason MSNBC might be on the chopping block is because finally technology and the voters have caught up to them and they really have nowhere to turn.

Yeah, I was shocked to see that. The view looking for a pro-Trump way. You know who they'll pick, right? They'll pick some like ridiculous like, oh, John Bolton's our new, like whatever, man. Like, I mean, we don't want swampies. We want actual people who understand the Trump movement. I want to get your opinion on this. Talking to Michael Knowles. He has his own show, The Michael Knowles Show. Check it out. It's definitely worth your time.

I've said forever that, listen, Trump ran a pretty standard conservative presidency the first time. And I don't mean that as an insult. I just ask people to go back and look. We had tax cuts, a good thing. Abraham Accords, great thing. Some pretty good judicial appointments, not just at the Supreme Court level, but circuit appeals. You know, a couple turkeys here and there, but that happens. But a lot of good things happen. Regulatory reform, but pretty standard conservatism stuff, right? Anchor conservatism stuff.

I think his lasting gift to this party has been his unexplainable to me ability, 'cause I don't get it. If I could, I'd bottle it and sell it to other politicians, to break through and give us the first racially depolarized election. His ability to break through to Mexican voters, Ecuadorian voters, I hate the term Hispanic 'cause there's some Colombian voters, Dominican voters, Puerto Rican voters, black voters, Jamaican voters.

It did racially depolarize despite the onslaught of false allegations of racism. I'm telling you, man, is going to be this guy's last lasting gift if if the Republican Party doesn't blow it.

Yes. If the Republican Party doesn't throw out every lesson that this guy has taught us over the past decade, this really could be lasting because the popular vote should not matter. As a matter of the law, that's not how we elect presidents. But it does matter. And the reason it matters is that after President Trump's landslide, there is no argument they can make. They can't say that it was undemocratic, that the majority of voters voted for Trump. They can't say that Trump appealed to white supremacists.

You're telling me one in five black guys is a white supremacist, 46% of Hispanics? You can't even tell me he's appealing to sexism. Trump won the majority of married women, and he won 40% of women under 30, according to AP exit polls. So the breadth of this coalition was so interesting.

impressive and and it's because president trump you you mentioned a kind of standard uh... you know republican administration and trump is mixing that up now trump understand the politics of the art of inclusion if the order of the possible if the order of the second best and so you can bring in people who have a really divergent views if you put them in the right place he would joke on the campaign trail except we love bobby kennedy we love them on health we love him on on big pharma bill my food

we all love him on energy we're gonna put someone else in charge of energy we all want him get rid of oil and natural gas and so he's putting kennedy in the right space uh... you think of the big rama swami

Vivek's so unbelievably talented, great that he's part of this coalition. Now, Vivek disagrees with some of the Trump advisors on tariffs. Okay, where are you going to put Vivek? You're going to put him over there with Elon, cutting that red tape, tearing up those government agencies, doing what he does best. Trump really knows how to cast. I mean, he was a top TV producer and talent for a dozen years. And so I think, to your point, getting back to the beginning, Dan, these appointments have...

have been good not just for the people that Trump is putting up, but I think he's really putting them in their proper place.

talking to Michael Knowles Michael and unfortunately I gotta run but you just you know you brought up another interesting point I'm gonna probably readdress after the break I love all the ridiculous accusations against Trump too that is a loyalty test yeah there is a loyalty test his agenda not to him the people because I only bring this up because the people you just mentioned they have one thing in common to our listening audience what do Vivek Ramaswamy RFK Marco Rubio and Tulsi Gabbard all have in common they all ran against Trump

either as Democrats, independents, or Republicans. That's some freaking loyalty test, bro. Loyalty test. Here's a few people. You mentioned those names, and in my head I'm thinking, this is such a brilliant point because he landed that plane perfect. Don't tell me there's a loyalty test. There's a loyalty test to the freaking agenda. Just be honest about it, you know? And I know that was perfect, man. You set me up perfect. Michael Knowles.

Check out his show. It is one of my podcast shelf must listen to every single day. It's available everywhere you get your podcast and send my best to the boys over there at the Daily Wire. We love you, man. Thanks for coming on. We appreciate it. Dan, a pleasure as always. Thanks so much. You got it. What a great guy. And I mean a super.

ridiculously nice guy in person. I mean, almost like you're like, what am I doing wrong? I gotta be nicer. I'm like, you ever meet me in person, I'm usually in a bad mood. I'm like the grumpy old man. Chimshaking, yeah, come on, you know it's true. Not to people, I'm never mean to people ever, ever. Only one person ever, but it was for a different reason. I'm usually pretty, well, sometimes. All right, whatever, I better get out of here or I'll cause myself more trouble.

Thanks for listening to the podcast. Make sure you tune in to our show live every single weekday at 11 a.m. on Rumble at rumble.com slash Bongino. It's free. You can watch it on demand at any time and give us a follow on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, The Dan Bongino Show. We really appreciate you being here. See you on Monday. You just heard Dan Bongino.