Transcript of Sunday Special with Nate Smith, Mike Benz, Mike Lee, and Michael Knowles 11/24/24

Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino.

Welcome to Sunday podcast. This is our chance to play for you some of the best moments from the radio show and some great interviews during the week that you may have missed. If you ever want to check out our show, go to bongino. Com, go to Station Finder and see what radio station we're on near you. You'll love it. I promise you, we put a lot of work into the radio show. Check it out. But before that, let me tell you about our sponsor. Using the internet without ExpressVPN is like writing an important report and forgetting to hit save. Most of the time you're probably fine, but what if one day your computer freezes or crashes and all your hard work is gone? Every time you connect to an unencrypted network, any hacker on the same network can gain access to your personal data. It doesn't take a lot of technical knowledge to hack someone, and your data, it's valuable. Hackers can make up to $1,000 per person selling personal info on the dark web. Expressvpn creates a secure encrypted tunnel between your device and the internet, so hackers can't steal your sensitive data. Best of all, it's easy to use.

Just fire up the app and click one button to get protected. It works on all devices. You can also stay secure on the go. We love ExpressVPN over here at BONGino Inc. Because it's nobody's business what we're doing online. It's only yours. Right now, you can take advantage of ExpressVPN Black Friday, Cyber Monday sale to get the best VPN deal you'll find all year. Use my special link, expressvpn. Com/bongino. They get four extra months with a 12-month plan or six extra months with a 24-month plan, totally free. That's ExpressVPN vpn. Com/bongino to get an extra four or even six months of ExpressVPN for free. 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 Five dollar water? This was Jim's idea. You're not going to want to miss this interview. Man, I've been dying to get this interview going forever. This guy is such a good dude, man. And you know how it's hard to find good people. It really is. Good friends. There's just so few of them, especially in a business like this, where someone's always selling you something or they want something for me.

He'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. You haven't. You need to go download it right away. Download the whole album, California Gold. I want to welcome this 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. 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. It was about two years ago, I guess, right? You're up on the stage, and I'm there with Paula, and you're the opening act there. Man, you're tearing it up, brother. I look at the cat next to me. I'm Who the hell is 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 reliving Give 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 spent my whole life just backing up a little bit working in hospitals. My whole plan was to be a registered nurse. I was what they call a CNA, a certified nurse assistant. I worked in care homes, hospitals, ICU, neurotrauma, all these things. That's what I was passionate about, was taking care of people and something that I really love doing. 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 and 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 and 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? Because I already did it one time before when I was 23 and a little older now, and it didn't work out so good. But they were like, Let's do a go fund me, send Nate back to Nashville.

I 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 I didn't really have a backup plan. 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. I'm at three number ones right now. It's mind-blowing, man. I can't even really describe to you what 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 be involved.

We're talking 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, Bungino 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. In an album, you get one or two good ones, not 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, damn, we made it? Are you sitting in a car in a taxi and your song comes on? Does Morgan reach out to you and say, I want you to open up? When do you say to yourself, This is it. We've crossed the red line. This is really cool, man. When was that moment for you?

Dan, I can remember It was great. Crystal clear, man. I was sitting in a hotel room, I think on the East Coast. I was sitting 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. I don't know. I don't know if you ever really arrived.

I don't know if you ever arrived. That is the most relatable story you're ever going to tell because Nate, I still do that. I'm in hotel rooms now, and listen, me and you, we were working stiffs, man. I know what that's like to go five. I'm paying no $5 for no Avion water. I'm going to drink from the sink. And I still to this day, I'm like, damn, $5 water. 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. The song, it hits. You're there. When do you get the call from Morgan? Morgan is one of them. I mean, him, Taylor Swift, pretty much dominate the music culture now. When do you get that call where he says, Hey, I want you to open up for me at concert? You must have been like, Wow, now we're really there. I mean, we're performing in front of the biggest crowds in the world.

He actually texted me, and he was basically just like, Hey, man, I just recently had signed with a booking agency called Neil Agency, and they have Morgan that got Hardy, Ernest, a bunch of people. They got Bayly Zimmerman, good friend of mine. Basically, after I signed there, Morgan just texted me. He was like, Nate, I'm a big fan of your music. Would you consider coming on the road with me? I'm like, Are you joking? Consider? What do you mean by that? Yeah, that's the question. What do you mean by that? Of course, I'll be there, bro.

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 because a lot of people let me down. It's This guy isn't one of them. This guy is a... I hope not to speak in a terms. I just want to tell a quick story. We go to the concert, not that long ago in Charlotte. And Nate's performance, I don't want to bother the guy. And I just buy tickets like any other. I'm sitting there in the pit, and Nate's performing. He's crushing it. Bulletproof is on, which is my favorite Nate Smith, so it's everyone else's, too, because it's one of the most popular country songs in the Cosmos right now. So I wish I could tell you I had something unique, but in this case, it's good, it's not. Bulletproof is an amazing song. And he sees me, gives me a little head nod, and he shoots me a text. He's like, Hey, bro, you want to come back after the show and say hello? They have a little trailer back there. I don't want to bother him because I had a bunch of people with me.

He's like, No, don't worry about it. Bring your daughter, bring your... The guy could not have been nicer, folks. He's going to take a picture. He's giving my daughter an autograph hat. My daughter had a friend with her. I'm like, Hey, would you mind? Oh, yeah, no problem. What's her name? This dude is the genuine article. Nate, I want you to know, that really meant a lot. But let me ask you this. So, bulletproof, right? Bulletproof has been taken over. It's just like, rocketing up the charts. Do you feel now... You're not performing in the smaller venues anymore. And as an artist, I think everybody likes the behind the scenes take. It's got to be a little different. You do lose a little bit of intimacy when you're in these small bars and you're struggling, but now you're in big stadiums. How do you still keep the fire, man, and keep it personal? You know what I'm saying?

Totally. It's 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 a 2000 Cap Club. So I'm all over the place a little bit. So I get best of both worlds right now, which is really awesome. And 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. Besides the venue that we're at, they're pretty loud. I'm just having a blast. I don't know if you know this or not, but I'm a very shy person, believe it or not, and an introvert. 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 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. I see a lot of people, and you connect different. I mean, you and Bayly, Morgan, obviously, is the guy, but you and Bayly really got a gift, man. I think the dream team is when you and Bayly 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, again, they always love a little behind the scenes on this stuff. Most of us don't know what it's like to be big country music stars. That's not what we do. But what's life on the road like? It's got to be tough. I guess you're living out of your tour bus a lot, and it's got to be tough. How do you sleep on that thing?

I struggle really bad. On the road. I have a little back bedroom. It's a bedroom, but it's so loud and bumpy during the road. I usually will sleep in the bunks. I 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. You're getting up and you're going. You've got a day full of interviews and day full of different things. But you got to just... The big thing for me is when I When I have my downtime, I completely unplug. I've had this whole week off, been a little under the weather, but just completely unplug and just recharge, man. So when I get back out there, I have something to give because I really feel like as an artist, personally, I'm not just in the entertainment industry, I'm in the service industry. It's the way that I see it. I'm there to serve. I'm there to bring songs that can touch lives. I'm there to love my neighbor, everybody I meet, to hug them and give them everything I got. I don't want them to ever feel lapped.

Nate, I know you're really passionate about the country, too. I mean, I hear the way you talk about it. I really am, bro. You 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 make a point to mention it in your social. You know this is the greatest country I've heard. There's no mystery there.

It sure is, man. It sure is. And I'm really happy with the way things are going now. And I just feel like we're really stepping into a It was a beautiful time, a beautiful era. I'm so proud to be an American. Honestly, my story is like an American story. Starting from $14 and I'm playing stadiums and all this stuff. It just shows that anything's truly possible in this country, man.

Nate, we love you, brother. Bonvino 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's songs. You got bulletproof, fixed, 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? I'm already getting feedback. My audience loves you. You come on anytime you want, my brother, all 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. 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, 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 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. For those of us holding our breath for the past several months, we can exhale. Work can finally be done on the major issues this country is facing. One of the most significant are crushing national debt. The fact is, our nation's deep in the red. That debt's a house of cards that can't quickly be dismantled.

So the strategy remains the same. Diversify your savings. That's why I buy gold from Birch Gold. So many things are out of our control, out of our president's control. It's important to have a safe haven for your savings. Birch Gold Group, my gold company, will Hope you convert an IRA of 401k into an IRA in physical gold. And the best news, it doesn't cost you a penny out of pocket. So text Dan to 98998.9 and get your free info kit. Plus, right now through Black Friday, you'll receive a free one ounce Silver Eagle for every $5,000 purchase. Help protect your savings with Birch Gold. Text Dan to 989898. Claim your eligibility for free silver today. Message and data rates apply. 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. 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, in your Dewey decimal system, your library of knowledge.

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, and he's at Mike Benz, cyber on X. You should follow him. Subscribe to his platform 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 colonies for President Trump's soon-to-be administration, it appears that the deep state, the bureaucracies, the NGOs at profit off of censorship and collectivism, socialism-style governance. We're really panicked. Obviously, forced Gates out. He has left today, but we still got a few hitters in there. We've got people in there like Ratcliffe and others who know where the bodies are buried. I I think. 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. These are the people that, even if you disagree with them, could shake up these deep state bureaucracies.

You're exactly right. The Gates bombshell today of him dropping out is, I think it sends a shockwave into the security of other pics that are currently staffing the cabinet ranks, or at least set to, between Tulsi, Bobby Kennedy, as you mentioned, Ratcliffe, Hexet, the 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 Gates as 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 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 Gates 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 pics. The fact is, is one of the things they are most afraid of with Matt Gates 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 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 legacy AG pics. And Matt Gates 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 Hegset, 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 proof Donald Trump's presidency in the run up to Donald Trump's victory. So I don't know what 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 the entirety of US foreign policy to be run through Rubio. But that is something that I have quite a critical eye on.

Yeah. When he was in the Senate on the collusion hoax and not stopping that earlier. It's always been pretty disturbing to me. That's been my one 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 who they are, but they They ask me to stay 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 intensity.

And a lot of even the left wing woke boards are starting to say, Hey, man, this whole DEI crap, 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 6 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 D&C, 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 pics in. So it was like you could not have a more favorable deck in terms of the political set up. 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 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 Australian and Central and Eastern Europe. And they got one by one all these countries to pass these laws that restricted the ability to post on social media if you were a populist. It started with this German law in 2017 called NettsDig, which required for compliance with it, mandatory AI censorship technology that would scan and 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, the blob here in the US, 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 tilting it 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 US 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 UK Labor Party figures extremely heavily in this. Kerr Starmer is the test tube baby, born in a lab, freak mutant of NATO. Andrew Sgroog-Rasmussen, the former NATO head, made a special project to get Kare Starmer to replace Jeremy Corbin there in the UK. And the UK Labor Party has taken that incredible power that they have and has metastases exercised a censorship capacity partially funded by the US, I should note.

For example, their scan and ban technology for the Metropolitan police in London is funded by the US 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 US 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? You know a lot of people in the transition team. Do they have a sense of what's going on? They're 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 once. It is the orchestra director of the entire panoply of US soft power projection. And all this censorship work comes out of state. So Marco Rubio is going to need to be the one leading the crusade, the carrots and sticks 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. Us 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. Ceo is a board member of the International Republican Institute, which has been spearheading these international censorship laws. He promoted the the IRI Beacon Project. He won a Man of the Year Award from the from the IRY, 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, really, you are like a human computer with the deep state. It's amazing how you just Boom, boom. You fire this stuff out. Get that on the Weekend Interview show. 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 I wrote four books, 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. Hey, check your jawline. Indeed, listen, sagging jawlines and the double chin, it could give your age away. It makes you look older. Introducing the GenuCell skincare jawline treatment with dual peptides and MDL technology. Genucell is most advanced ever. The jawline treatment not only helps tighten jawlines, but plumps the layers of the skin, the contour defined, and sculpt the jawline and neck in minutes. People go abroad. They spend thousands of dollars to get rid of sagging jawlines and double chins. You should try GenuCell first because no one has the technology. With GenuCell immediate effects, you can see tightening in minutes. The results get better every day. Just in time for Christmas, save over 70% off GenuCell's complete skincare package featuring the jawline treatment and GenuCell's immediate effects. You'll even get GenuCell XV wrinkle treatment included for Christmas and the holidays. Go to genucell.

Com/dan. Start looking younger and decades younger. For those family get-togethers, genucell. Com/dan, G-E-N-U-C-E-L. Com/dan. As a special holiday gift, every package order includes a bonus beauty box with two skincare bestsellers who are automatically upgraded to free priority shipping. Genucell. Com/dan. Genucell. Com/dan. Try it out. Paula loves it. Senator Mike Lee came on to talk about the upcoming spending bill and the chances of appointments President Trump, them getting through and getting confirmed. Hear what they're trying to do with this budget. This is really bad. Check this out. We don't do a lot of guests on the show. One segment per show, a couple of 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.

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 as a chance. Where do we stand on that? Is it going to go through? And why 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 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 House Speaker Mike Johnson has said that that is not what he wants, that he's not going to push that. He's not going to allow it from my understanding. 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.

We're 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 have obviously the victory, the taking back of the Senate, holding the house, all good stuff. We get that. But I'm particularly excited about the potential for the Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswami-led Department of Government Efficiency. Given the recent Chevron ruling that basically dump 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. 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. As to the Chevron deference point, 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. I think sometimes people excessively celebrate the demise of Chevron deference. It's good that we got rid of it, but it's not It's 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 1, sections 1 and 7.

We 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 Reims Act, REINS, stands for Regulations from the Executive and in Need of Scrutiny. What it says is that anytime there's a new, generally applicable federal rule that is tanned them out to Allah, 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 Rainside. 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. However, I think the voters are a little bit upset. I'm going to rephrase that. A lot of 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. It may not be there. The voters feel like, Well, we gave you a Senate majority because we believe in the MAGA 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 I thought, President Trump obviously has a reason for selecting people like Pete Hegset and Matt Gates and others. We've seen some softening from the moderate, I'd call, rhino wing of the Senate. However, what's your take on the... You're not part of that, by the way. 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 Hague 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 difference 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. If people are worried If you're worried about any particular nominee, whether it's Matt Gates or Pete Hesget or somebody else, they're worried about whether they're confirmable, whether there's some reason why they shouldn't be confirmable. That's why we have a review process. We have committees. Those committees have hearings. I'm looking forward to the hearing that we're going to have for Matt Gates and the Judiciary Committee, on which I sit, the Arm Services Committee. We'll have a hearing on Pete Hesget 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 We can do those before President Trump is sworn in so that we're ready to get them confirmed.

But we ought to do this with an eye towards presumptively confirming them. We ought to do them, but 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 an outspoken critic of 702 government spying, FISA spying, bloated governments. Again, you and Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, are probably the most avid constitutionalist I know in the Senate. They failed us on 702 spying last time. The FBI is out of control. I think it's time that President Trump is given some deference on this. We were just talking about them before, but actual deference, because I think he understands that we need some door kickers this time. We need people willing to break stuff because we're broken now. The only way to fix it is going to be to glue this thing back together the right way. Picking a lot of old-school establishment types not willing to go out there and stir the pot a little bit, you're just going to get the same result. We're just going to get the same failure. 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 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. 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 ad-base. I remember. Handle talking about all the reasons why it was so bad what we ended up adopting, because what we ended up was a series of fake reforms.

It was a fig leaf. We need real reforms this time, and I think that starts with personnel and needs to culminate with legislation.

Well, I love your ad, Baste Mike Lee, account Jim and I get a kick out of it. We like you and Bace John Roberts over at Fox. Bace John Roberts has been tearing it up, too. But Bace Mike Lee is a must-follow Twitter account. You were all over 702. We appreciate it. 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. 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? 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 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 only have 53. We're going to be 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 clôture standard, the filibuster standard, for which most substantive legislation must pass. The important thing to remember with 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 There are 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 Reims Act as we can move in there.

In Everything that we can identify a firm budgetary connection with has a decent chance of being put in there. We're working on those priorities right now. A lot of research is going into it as we speak.

Senator Mike Lee, last question for you. We'll let you go. 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 ID for federal elections? What's the atmosphere up 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 That's how the 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 It's 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 citizenship proof when you register a vote in a federal election. I believe that the Democrats acted in bad faith in 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 going to be impossible for them to deny that. We got to 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 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. Oh, I love it. The vote channel 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 is mine. Thanks so much, Dan.

You got it. 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 on a podcast I really enjoy. But first, our next sponsor. Hey, you're having trouble sleeping or staying asleep? Listen, I've been there. It's not just about feeling tired the next day. It's about the toll poor sleep can take on your life. But guess what? There's hope on the horizon. Beams Dream Powder. They sent me something to try a long time ago. It was a total game changer for me and my sleep. Seeing we're sleeping well, we're sharper, more focused, and ready to tackle whatever life there is that way. Other sleep aids can cause the next day grogginess, but dream contains a powerful all-natural blend of Reashi, Magnesium, Elthianine, Apagenin, and Melatonin to help you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed. There's never been a better time to finally try Dream. Shop their for sale and get up to 50% off when you visit shopbeam. Com/bonjino. You've been hearing me rave about Dream all year. It's your chance to finally try it for the lowest price of the year.

So head on over to shopbeam. Com/bonjino for up to 50% off. That's shopbeam. Com/bonjino 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. 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 sober analysis of what's going on. I think you're one of these guys who understands 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. We're not trying to date these guys, right? Like Tulsi Gabbard or Hegset. We're looking for people to enact the Trump agenda. Measuring by the response of liberal heads exploding, I think he's got a plan here, and I'm on board.

Absolutely. Dan. The pics 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 the relationship between citizen and the federal government. Obviously, there's this new department, the whimsically named DOGE, led by Elon and Vivek, that endeavors now, in Elon's words, to cut some 329 federal agencies with overlapping responsibilities and a ton of waste. That's very exciting. 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 dishonest media that have even admitted that new media are the future. It's the podcast election, according to the Washington Post. I think President Trump could capitalize on that and fundamentally change the way that the press wields its corruption It's 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 five shows max or so. You're on mine. Michael, you just said something there. It sparked my interest. 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 funny. But everybody laughed, and they thought it was really stupid. But I think guys like you and me who were first movers, the old business school first mover advantage, we Understood that podcasting is 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 100, 200,000 people tuning into the Knowles 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 communicator can have a really close, intimate relationship with an audience because the audience has to go out there every day and choose to listen. That It means that you need to have credibility. It means that you need to have integrity. It means you need to call it like you see it and be a real person. This is why the Joe Rogan interview with President Trump for two hours or three hours, however long it was, was so much more captivating than some canned television interview that President Trump could give because you were seeing the real man in a free-flowing conversation, weaving, as he used to say. Now, I look in 2024, after the American people, the vast majority The 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. There's two reasons for that. One, it's just technology changes, as you point out, that you saw it happening. You You are an early adopter. Who's laughing now? People would laugh at you then, but who's laughing now? You're at the forefront of media. But the other reason is that the CNN and the New York Times, especially, and 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. They used President Trump said that FEMA was discriminating against Trump supporters during the Hurricane Helene cleanup. Then what happened? Daily Wire obtained documents from FEMA, proved that FEMA was discriminating in Hurricane Milton. Then the supervisor who was fired came out and said, Actually, it was happening during Helene, too. 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 lack of credibility and with that waning influence, why doesn't a representative for Joe Rogan have a seating the press room? Why doesn't Tim Kast or Dan Bungino, or who now? It would be nice to see Dan Bungino in an even bigger role in the White House, but why doesn't the White House press strategy reflect the way media actually exists today?

Yeah, brother, I agree with you 100%. Why doesn't he get a Daily Wire seat, Daily Caller, Brightbar, Megan Kelly's operating. Like you said, Rogan, Tim Pooh, another one with a massive audience. Charlie Kirk has his own enterprise over there. 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, 800. Theirs, seriously, is about 100. I mean, every major story they got wrong. The collusion hoax, the Hunter laptop, the spygate thing. I mean, everything from the Nikki Haley Drape story, Mike Flynn with the I mean, nothing they said was correct. I think that's why Gutfeld pointed out on the five last night. Like, the media, if they don't have this Sister Soulja moment soon where they ripped 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 asked, Okay, 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 in a radio show, who's more likely to get it correct? And there's no question, you got that correct. At 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 just don't see any reason to do that. The White House Press Office, it's not as though that began under George Washington or something. It'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. 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 the 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 voice. You know who they'll pick, right? They'll pick some ridiculous, John Bolton's our new... Whatever, man. 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. I don't mean that as an insult. I just asked 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. A couple of 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, because 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 because there's some Colombian voters, Dominican voters, Puerto Rican voters, Black voters, Jamaican voters. To racially depolarize despite the onslaught of false allegations of racism, I'm telling you, man, it's going to be this guy's lasting gift if the Republican Party doesn't blow it.

Yes. If the Republican Party doesn't throw at 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. The reason it matters is that after President Trump's landslide, there's no argument they can make. They can't say that it was undemocratic. 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 Hispanic? 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. The breadth of this coalition was so impressive. It's because President Trump, you mentioned a standard Republican administration and how Trump is mixing that up now. Trump understands that politics is the art of inclusion. It's the art of the possible. It's the art of the second best. You can bring in people who have really divergent views. If you put them in the right place, he would joke on the campaign trail.

He said, We love Bobby Kennedy. We love him on health. We love him on big pharma. We love him on food. We all love him on energy. We're going to put someone else in charge of energy. We all want him getting rid of oil and natural gas. So he's putting Kennedy in the right space. You think of the Vake Ramaswami. The Vake is so unbelievably talented. Great that he's part of this coalition. Now, the Vake disagrees with some of the Trump advisors on tariffs. Okay, where are you going to put the Vake? 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. I think, to your point, getting back to the beginning, Dan, these appointments 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, unfortunately, I got to run, but you brought up another interesting point I'm going to 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. 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 Ramaswami, RFK, Marco Rubio, and Tulsi Gabbard all have in common? They all ran against Trump, either as Democrats, independents. 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 you landed that plane perfect. Don't tell me there's a loyalty. Ted, there's a loyalty test to the freaking agenda. Just be Be honest about it. 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. I mean, a super ridiculously nice guy in person. I mean, almost like you're like, What am I doing I got to be nicer. I'm like, me in person, I'm usually in a bad mood. I'm like the grumpy old man. Jim's shaking. Here, 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. I caused myself more trouble. Thanks for listening to the podcast. Make sure you tune in to our show live every single weekday at 11:00 AM on Rumbble at rumble. Com/bonjino. It's free. You can watch it on demand at any time. Give us a follow on and Spotify, The Dan Bongino Show. We really appreciate you being here. See you on Monday. You just heard Dan Bongino.