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The Dan Bongino Show
Why Are The Saudis More Patriotic Than The American Libs? | Episode 43
00:57:51
President Trump took a groundbreaking trip to Saudi Arabia and kept the winning going from overseas. Also in this episode: Biden is exposed as being mentally incompetent by his own media and no one wants to talk about it.
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- [00:00]
Vince
Hey, good morning and welcome to Vince. Always so good to have you with us. The President of the United States is touring the Middle east right now. We'll break down everything that he's achieved so far and also ask you a very pressing question I've been thinking about. Could Kamala have handled any of this? What would a Middle east trip even look like if Kamala Harris were President of the United States? How many bullets have we dodged by President Trump taking one for the rest of us? Always thinking about that. Also coming up on the program today, how has President Trump's tariff fight helped American businesses? We've seen some great economic data this week. I've got a big interview coming up with an American manufacturer of those high speed hand dryers that you see inside of bathrooms all over the place. You know, the accelerator, the thing that'll, you know, just blast every last drop of water off of your hands. Those things are cool. The guy who runs that operation, we talked to him today. Can't wait to have that conversation. You're really gonna like this. That's all ahead on Vince. Great to have you with us on a Wednesday. How awesome is this Wednesday in America? Things are feeling good. Wanna thank our sponsors for making this show possible. As always, I've been using the bone charge infrared sauna blanket. You know why? Because now I have a sauna in my house. It's a sauna blanket. The thing works phenomenally. I love it. My wife is using the red light face mask from Boncharge and we love both products. I first turned to that sauna blanket to help with muscle recovery and detoxification. It's become a total game changer. And it is nice to have the sauna inside the house. It's easy to use. You can just wrap yourself up, let the infrared heat work its magic, and it's created a real difference in how I relax and rejuvenate and how I feel afterward. It's really awesome. The red light face mask is equally impressive. My wife loves it. She's been using it each night just before bed, she'll put on the red light face mask. It's pretty cool, actually. It looks, she looks like some sort of, I don't know, like a, like a Star wars villain or something. But she's got the mask on and it works great. It pumps all that red light onto her skin and it's giving her fantastic results. It's just, it heals, it's like heals your complexion. It's actually amazing. It's like having a mini spa treatment right at home. If you're thinking of trying either of these products out, you're in luck. Head to buncharge.com, use the code Vince at checkout, and you're going to get 15% off. Both of these products have made a huge positive impact on our wellness, and I'm sure you're going to love them, too. Use the code vince@buncharge.com to save 15%. These statements and products have not been evaluated by the fda. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition. I see some chatter going around right now about Kamala Harris. The Stephen Miller over at the White House points this out, which is great. He was saying that this is, like, ridiculous that the left keeps offering up this excuse. The reason Kamala lost the election is because the campaign wasn't long enough. The campaign wasn't long enough that only 100 days or so, not enough time to mount up a full presidential campaign. She would have won if she had another a hundred days at least to be able to wage this campaign. And I've told you before, and I'll reiterate here again, that I'm convinced that if the campaign were longer, Trump's margin of victory would have been bigger. That's what I think. What do you think? Would a longer campaign have helped Kamala Harris out and improved her odds of rising to the presidency? I don't think so. I don't think so. Yeah, it was too long. Already said WCF 1647. Yeah, the campaign for her was way too long. Look, Kamala Harris, she couldn't survive a long interview. You think she was gonna survive a long campaign in an improved position? No way. No way. No. She needed a highly scripted, controlled, short delivery environment. And even in that environment, no good. No good. So this idea that Kamala Harris would have been phenomenal, she would have been president if the campaign were longer. It's just so absurd. Stop making excuses for her. Just say she was a crappy candidate. I guess the upside is that what I'm looking at is that these Democrats are so wedded to their old stupid ideas that they're just gonna make sure that they stay in the wilderness. Okay, if that's the end result of this, that's totally fine with me. But come on, a real political party would say, yeah, she was a dud. She was a lousy candidate. We were lying to you about Joe, and, you know, maybe we should actually do something that helps American people. But that's not the way they're reacting to this instead, they're blaming the voters. Biden says you're racist and you're sexist for not voting for Kamala. And Democrats say the reason Kamala lost, in addition to the racism and sexism of the voters, is that the campaign was too short. It was only 100 days for her. Oh, it was so unfair. I'm telling you, it was good for her. Her loss would have been even more historic if that was a longer campaign. It's so funny to listen to these guys. And so one other reason I'm thinking about Kamala today, and I don't spend a lot of time thinking about Kamala. I try to avoid doing that particular thing. But one reason I'm thinking about Kamala today. Could you imagine what this Middle east thing would look like right now? What would the foreign trips look like if Kamala Harris were president of the United States? President Trump is right now doing a tour of the Middle East. It's a pretty dynamic tour. We're not exactly sure how it's all going to end up. Because Thursday, let me put this on your radar. On Thursday, we could have a huge negotiation between Volodymyr Zelensky, Vladimir Putin, and, yes, even President Donald Trump in Turkey. The late breaking news on that subject is it sounds like Putin has asked that President Trump be present if they do this. We haven't gotten a full commitment out of Putin yet to actually show up. Zelensky says he's going to Turkey, but President Trump could be on the verge of historic peace talks between two leaders who absolutely hate each other, Zelensky and Putin. And the president is taking this idea seriously. He's thinking about this. So we'll keep tracking this, but we could watch as a massive, massive peace deal is about to break out between these two countries. We'll see. This could be the beginning of something big. Also, President Trump has been trying to resolve this conflict between Israel and Hamas, which is a proxy, of course, for Iran. The president has been fighting back against Iranian proxies. They've been bombing the hell out of the Houthis. They got the Houthis to stop attacking American vessels in the Middle East. And the president, in just the last 24 hours, once again reiterated, yeah, there's no circumstance where Iran gets a nuclear bomb. That's just not gonna happen. We're gonna stop that from happening. So he's sticking it to Iran, getting hostages out of Gaza. We just got an American hostage, Idan Alexander, just a few days ago out of Gaza ahead of the president's trip. It's a sign. I don't know if I want to say it's a sign of goodwill, but it's clearly a recognition of. Of President Trump's leverage in this conversation. As Hamas says, look, we don't want the heat. We don't want any more of this. We're gonna release this American hostage ahead of President Trump arriving in the Middle East. Big things are happening, and I'm gonna get into Saudi Arabia in a moment. But again, as I'm going through this, think about what this would look like if Kamala Harris were president of the United States. None of this would be even happening. She has no idea where these countries even are. She doesn't know who their leaders are. And to make matters worse, she doesn't even read her briefings. You know the rap on her, that staff would prepare information for her. They would have binders full of information. Remember binders full of women, Mitt Romney. We have binders full of information for the woman. And they would give it to her. She would refuse to read the research. She was too lazy, too above it to do it. And then she would show up to these meetings completely unprepared, and then she would whip off all of these ridiculous platitudes that didn't have anything to do with anything to make herself sound intellectual and poetic. And instead, she just sounded like a moron. I am very, very happy. I don't want to sit here and insult her all day, although she deserves it. I just want to tell you that I know the world is in a lot better hands right now. I know that our country is in a lot better hands right now with President Trump in office and not her. So this is. It is nice, I think, insofar as we look upon, you know, what we were able to achieve. This is one of the clear things you have to keep in mind. We were that close. We were that close to having utter disaster doubled down on here in the United States if Kamala were to become president of the United States. America dodged a bullet, Trump. That's right. That's right, Raven Ranger. Trump took a bullet so we could dodge one. That's what happened. So now we're watching the president in the Middle East. He goes to Saudi Arabia, and I gotta say, first of all, they're rolling out the red carpet for him in all of these countries. They really want to treat Trump well. They want to impress him. I know Qatar had the camels out. They had. The Arabian camels are on display. The crown prince meets the president on the tarmac of Air Force One as he's descending from Air Force One. It's considered a. A very rare thing for the Saudi prince to do that. They normally send some other diplomatic official out to greet these world leaders. Not so with Trump. He's standing right there waiting for him right at the bottom of the steps, which, by the way, President Trump can navigate on his own. He doesn't need, you know, he doesn't need a chairlift to get up and down into Air Force One. And so he's coming down and he meets Mohammed bin Salman right at the bottom of the stairs. They shake hands. And the left is furious about all this. They're furious about every element of this. I saw video of President Trump saluting each foreign military official as they would come up. They would render a salute. Trump would return the salute, which is a courtesy. The President of the United States, a senior officer, a senior official. You do that, you return the commander in chief. You return these salutes as they're given to you. And he's doing it to be courteous. The left is freaking out about it. Oh, this is crazy. Look what he's doing. He's saluting back. He's so insane. No, he's not. He's being courteous. He's. He's got a good relationship with the Saudis. He's trying to build upon it. Not saying this is an easy part of the world to deal with. I mean, think about the countries he's dealing with here. Saudis and the Qataris, for one, the Saudis. Almost all of the nine, 11 hijackers were Saudis. This is not like we're going in there and everybody's pure and innocent. Nothing like that. President Trump is taking the world as it exists and dealing with it as it exists. And so he goes in there and he says, okay, we're going to have a good relationship. We're going to do big things. And what does he want? He wants peace. He wants peace. His chief negotiator, Steve Witkoff, has been saying he told Breitbart News my friend Matt Boyle in the past few days, that they're hoping for more Abraham Accords. You know, the Abraham Accords, these are where Arab countries recognize the existence of Israel as a country. They establish bilateral relations with Israel, and that's to bring about a regional peace. So instead of doing some sort of grand deal where every country in the Middle east is all of a sudden working out a deal with Israel, the Trump administration the first time said, no, no, no, forget that. We'll just do it piece by piece. We'll have each country individually work out its own arrangement with Israel. And so they did. They called out the Abraham Accords, and that's been great. But some of the big daddies who are in the region, they're still not on board yet. The Saudis are not yet on board, and President Trump wants that. President Trump wants the Saudis to establish this Abraham Accord deal with the Israelis. This, ladies and gentlemen, the point of this is global peace. This is one of the most difficult possible deals. The President has called it before. The hardest negotiation that he's ever gonna have to negotiate to deal with, ever, is Middle east peace. The Arab Israeli conflict that's raged for decades. How do we resolve it? President Trump is on his way to doing it. Who else? Who else? Go ahead, name one other person. Where both sides would say, this guy is on our side. We trust this guy. There's nothing else like this. There's no one else like this. The Israelis trust Trump. They like Trump. They're happy with Trump. They believe that their security is improved by having a great relationship with President Trump. They've made that clear abundantly. In the Golan Heights, they're calling it the Trump Heights. They're happy with the President, they're happy with what he's done for Israel. Meanwhile, on the other side of the equation, on the Arab side of the equation, even for Hamas, they just released an American hostage at Trump's urging. Everyone wants to work with President Trump again. I just need to remind you about how much worse this can be. Kamala could have been president. This would be. We'd be in nuclear war right now if she were President of the United States. Something different is happening. Thank God. So here's President Trump. He speaks, he goes to the Saudi U.S. investment Forum yesterday and he walks out to Lee Greenwood. God bless the usa. Take a look at this. Men who died, who gave that life to me and I gladly stand stand up next to you.
- [13:40]
Chad
And they met her still today.
- [13:44]
Vince
Isn't this unreal? In Saudi Arabia, God bless the usa. There's nobody that's ever been like this dude and there is nobody who will ever be like this dude. Now, before I get to the contents of the speech, I do want to emphasize one other thing. So he walks into Lee Greenwood, who by the way, has played for the President live over and over and over again. Cuz Lee Greenwood and Trump love each other. But on the way out, on the way out of his speech yesterday, they played ymca, which just, I'm sorry, can we, can we pull up the visual of this, of them playing YMCA as President Trump leaves.
- [14:30]
Bill Gagnon
Place?
- [14:30]
Vince
You can go. I said, young man, when you're short on your door, you can stay there. And I'm sure you will find many ways to have a good time. The only thing that's missing from this amazing moment is I was hoping that President Trump would get the prince to dance with him and start doing the Trump dance on the stage, maybe including some of the golfing action that the president occasionally adds to this thing. Hilarious. Now, I, you know, you may have picked up all of the various little elements of this as you heard it yesterday. I certainly, I was like, watch. I first of all was howling, laughing. Then I was thinking, this is new. You think the Saudis would normally play YMCA at a big stage event that the whole world is watching? No way. Okay, so, like, four years ago, this was the, quote, gay anthem. The YMCA now is pretty obviously a Trump anthem these days. Like, you hear ymca, it's practically a war crime to play YMCA at weddings where lefties are in attendance. Now, I haven't been to one of these, but I guarantee this is happening. Tell me, Chad, if this is true, have you been to any weddings where they play YMCA and. And then lefties freak out that they're playing it? Guarantee that's been a big problem. That's a Trump song now. That's a Trump song. Yeah. But the Saudis, 10 years ago, they would have killed the Village People. So now they're playing Village People songs in Saudi Arabia as Trump leaves the stage in a very successful speech. Now, this speech was great for a bunch of reasons. And every time President Trump does this, it's actually kind of the same thing. It's just delivered to different countries in different ways. But every time President Trump goes internationally, have you noticed what the trend is? The trend is he gives a speech about the value of sovereignty, how important it is for a nation to have borders, and how important it is for a country to obsess over her own citizens. Your job as a country is to see to the needs of your own people. And. And I respect you if you see to the needs of your own people. I understand that impulse. President Trump says, because that's what I'm here to do. I'm here to defend the United States of America, to stand up for her people. Now, he gives this speech a lot, and for me and you, this is not controversial. The idea that you would stand up for sovereignty is common sense. This is what voters in the United States want, and presumably people around the world desire out of their own governments, but it's not what they've been given. Instead, what have we been given? We've been given globalism. We've been given international control. We've been given a decline in borders, open, porous borders over which the world's populations flow and bring about chaos and bring about crime and bring about poverty. This has not been good for the world. Just this past week, you saw the UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, say out loud that we need to get control of our borders. We're destroying our country if we don't get control of our borders. He said that in England, yes. In the uk, English should be the official language. Well, no kidding. That was common sense for centuries. And then recently, you developed some sort of psychosis that caused you to abandon common sense. So President Trump is a dose of common sense for the world. Every time he makes an international trip, he says, sovereignty, that's what I want. And so here he is. Let's start with some of these clips here where he says that he wants a new relationship with the Middle East. When you think of the Middle east, what do you think of? We think of chaos. You think of terrorism. You think of regional battles and Sunnis versus Shias and suicide bombers. It's crazy. The president wants to forge a new way forward, and he says this future for the Middle east should be defined not by chaos, but by commerce. Take a look.
- [18:39]
Chad
Before our eyes, a new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts of tired divisions of the past and forging a future where the Middle east is defined by commerce, not chaos, where it exports technology, not terrorism, and where people of different nations, religions and creeds, are building cities together, not bombing each other out of existence. We don't want that.
- [19:08]
Vince
Not bombing each other out of existence. We don't want that. He's calling the whole region to their better angels, saying we can all succeed together. And he also admitted the failures on the part of American leadership through the decades. Now, this has been a routine indictment for President Trump. It's not a recent revelation for him. But here he is, going after what he referred to as the neocons, the interventionists, and the nonprofits who have sown so much chaos around the world with nothing but despair to show for it. Take a look. Here's the president.
- [19:45]
Chad
And it's crucial for the wider world to note this great transformation has not come from Western intervention or flying people in beautiful planes, giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern Your own affairs. No. The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so called nation builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop cabal Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle east has been brought by the people of the region themselves. The people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives. Developing your own sovereign countries.
- [20:38]
Vince
Yeah, yeah. This is a great speech. This is a great speech. And so it's an attack on the globalists, it's an attack on the World Economic Forum. It's an attack on the nonprofits. The nonprofits, you know, all the organizations that were taking money from you. USAID not to offer aid, but instead to induce chaos around the planet. And the President said, we're done with that. We're totally done with that. The future is flourishing because it's gonna involve people looking out for their own people and not interfering in other nation's affairs and not constantly trying to facilitate regime change. Wars that only create power vacuums, only create the rise of terror organizations like isis. Enough of that. Enough of that.
- [21:26]
Bill Gagnon
More.
- [21:27]
Vince
In a moment, I want to talk about how the President made a big announcement about Syria. Speaking of complicated affairs, he made a very big announcement about Syria yesterday. And this is a chess move on the part of the President. I'll explain in just a moment. I want to thank our sponsors for being here, as always for supporting this great show and this great audience. There seems to be something happening with our farmland here in the United States that's not getting enough attention. Reports say that Chinese companies have been buying up hundreds of thousands of acres of U.S. farmland. You've been watching this. And they're taking control over critical supply chains, things like fertilizer, animal feed, farming equipment. Now, why is this? It appears they're tightening their grip on global food production. And if things go south, well, we all need to be ready. This is why I trust my Patriot Supply. They're America's largest emergency preparedness company. And right now, when you purchase their four week emergency food supply, you will get four free 72 hour food kits, an extra 12 days of food absolutely free. That's four weeks of delicious meals that last up to 25 years, delivering over 2,000 calories per day, shipped fast and for free. So we can't control what China does. President Trump is trying to. But what can we do on an individual level? We can control how prepared we are with my Patriot supply. Go to preparewithvince.com today claim your 12 days of free food with qualifying purchase. Shop now at preparewithvince.com preparewithvince.com yes, indeed. All right, Syria. So we've got something interesting going on in Syria. Remember, it wasn't that long ago that Assad was chased out and the, basically the terrorist leader who took over was a guy who was a part of. He was a part of it all. He was a part of an Al Qaeda affiliate and isis. His resume is terrorism. This dude. His resume is terrorism. And now he's leading Syria. So this just as a basic matter is like, well, okay, for all the people who are trying to unseat Assad. So you want to replace him with a terror leader. That's the big plan. Are you really thinking this through? Of course not. They're never thinking it through. They're not thinking through second or third order effects. It's always like, well, we need regime change now. Surely the future will be better. That's funny, that doesn't ever happen. It keeps getting worse and worse and worse. So now we deal with what we have. Syria's new leader is there, and the president is thinking this through. He's being asked by two countries, being asked by Turkey and the Saudis, hey, ease up on the sanctions on Syria. Pull them back, would you? And the president, in the interest of creating a counterbalance to Iran, is saying, okay, I'm on board. I'll do it. But you know what's happening behind the scenes, which is that President Trump wants especially Saudi Arabia to sign onto the Abraham Accords. He wants them to create this partnership with Israel. That would be a very, very big deal if he secures that. And as I mentioned, Steve Wyckoff is saying that more of these Abraham Accords are gonna be announced in the coming weeks. He says as many as four to six countries. This could be huge. So understand all of this as where the president seems to be heading and why he made this announcement yesterday about what's going on with Syria. Take a look. Here's cut six. And the president saying he's gonna ease up sanctions on Syria for now. Take a look.
- [24:54]
Chad
Likewise, in Syria, which has seen so much misery, death, there is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace. That's what we want to see in Syria. They've had their share of travesty, war killing many years. That's why my administration has already taken the first steps toward restoring normal relations between the United States and Syria. Syria, for the first time in More than a decade.
- [25:32]
Bill Gagnon
Now.
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Vince
The president said in that address, he goes, boy, the things I do for the prince. He said, the things I do. He made it really clear that it was Mohammed bin Salman that specifically asked for those sanctions to be lifted on Syria. And that's a big deal. It's a very big deal. Now, that's also an indication that President Trump wants something else. He wants more. Now, he did announce over the course of this trip, and we knew some of the terms here coming into his trip to Saudi Arabia, that we're getting another $600 billion in investment from the Saudis in the United States, thanks to President Trump's work. That's a massive amount. And right now, President Trump, his tally, he has it at $10 trillion in new investment that he's attracted to the United States just in the first, just a little over 100 days that he's been in office. That's a big deal. So we've got something very big going on right now. And if we get an Abraham Accord announcement from Saudi Arabia, I mean, this will be just gigantic. This will just be completely gigantic. In fact, here's cut seven. President Trump encouraging the Saudis. Come on, baby, join the Abraham Accords.
- [26:44]
Chad
And with the historic Abraham Accords that we're so proud of, all the momentum was aimed at peace and it aimed very successfully. It's been an amazing thing, the Abraham Accords. And it's my fervent hope, wish, and even my dream that Saudi Arabia, a place I have such respect for, especially over the last fairly short period of time, what you've been able to do, but will soon be joining the Abraham Accords, I think it'll be a tremendous tribute to your country, and it will be something that's really gonna be very important for the future of the Middle East.
- [27:23]
Vince
Very important. Finally, on this sequence of events, and he's already having a great relationship with the Qataris today, things are moving there again, like I said, this is complicated business. The Saudis, bunch of the hijackers, nine, 11 Saudi, the Qataris, they've been funding Hamas. They've been one of the biggest funders of Hamas. And they've been dumping money into American universities, too, that has spread a lot of pro Hamas propaganda. It's. It's been gross, it's been grotesque. So, hopefully, as President Trump tackles all this, he can tackle some of the core issues that are creating chaos, not just in the United. Not just around the world, but certainly in the United States. But he's dealing with people as they are right Now. And he says the goal of all of this. Cut eight. Peace. Here it is.
- [28:08]
Chad
My preference will always be for peace and partnership whenever those outcomes can be achieved. Always. It's always going to be that way. Only a fool would think otherwise.
- [28:22]
Vince
Yeah, only a fool would think otherwise. Only a fool. We're gonna get to our interview in just a moment with the executive behind the accelerator hand dryer. You see them in literally rest stops, bathrooms, restaurants, everywhere. This is an amazing piece of technology. And that company, well, it's succeeding first and foremost on the value of its product. And secondly, and very importantly, thanks to President Trump, they are very grateful for the fight that President Trump is waging right now for American manufacturing because they actually manufacture here in the United States. It's a massive, massive deal. I just had this conversation as we were closing out our radio show yesterday. So you'll see it. I'm wearing a different shirt because we recorded it. But it's good. It's really good. It's really important. And I just ask you, as always, to share these things because this is a win and I want people to realize how good this is for our country. One other point, I do see people today pointing out that it is important when you're on Rumble, if you're listening on the rumble stream, rumble.comvince to smash the like button on the broadcast. Now, I don't know what this does for us other than offer the aesthetic impression that this show is well liked. But if it's like any other company, if it increases our visibility across all sorts of feeds and things, well, then, hell, you're really gonna help this show out. Would you please smash the like button? I would love for you to do that. And, and also, if you're not subscribed, get subscribed, of course. Join me rumble.com Vince it is the best damn audience in media. If you're not subscribed yet, become a part of it. All right, just a moment. We'll hear from the, the executive behind the American made accelerator hand dryer. It's so cool. We're coming up. Hey, I gotta thank our sponsors that keep this show going. I love blackout coffee. Where's my blackout coffee today? I got my blackout coffee right here. I adore blackout coffee. I drink it every single morning. It is what gets me fired up. Totally. And John is the owner of Blackout Coffee and he's created a great company. He created a great company. Blackout coffee was built from the ground up, refusing to compromise on quality or values. It's America first coffee. It's roasted fresh right here in the United States. There's no woke nonsense, just bold, strong coffee for people who actually do get stuff done. And as you know, blackout coffee has been the official coffee of everybody here at Silverlock. This is a brand that first of all loves you and very importantly stands for the right values. Blackout coffee is not just a great patriotic company, it's a delicious coffee company. I adore it. Here's the deal. John is hooking you up today. You can head over to blackout coffee.com Vince use the code Vince. That's V I N C E and you'll get 20% off your first order. Whether you like whole bean, ground or even instant coffee that does not suck, blackout coffee has you covered. Support a company that actually shares your values. Blackoutcoffee.com Vince use the code Vince and you'll get 20% off your first order. Blackout coffee. Love the blackout coffee. And then the only thing more important than achieving a dream is protecting it. So you should protect your family by securing their future with life insurance from policygenius. Policygenius makes finding and buying life insurance simple. It ensures your family has a financial safety net that they can use to cover debts and routine expenses or even invest that money to earn interest over time. You see, with policygenius you can find life insurance policies that just start at 292 bucks per year for $1 million of coverage. Now, some options are 100% online and they let you avoid unnecessary medical exams. You can compare quotes from all of America's top insurers side by side for free with no hidden fees. Their licensed support team helps you get what you need fast so you can get on with your life. They answer questions, they handle paperwork, and they advocate for you throughout the process. Life insurance is a form of financial planning and policygenius is the country's leading online insurance marketplace. Come on. Join thousands of happy policygenius customers who left five star reviews on Google and trustpilot. You can check life insurance off of your to do list in no time with Policygenius. Head to Policygenius.com or click the link in the description to compare free life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save. That's policygenius.com joining me now, the chief operating officer at Excel Dryer, based out of East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, Bill Gagnon joins us on the program. Bill, it is very nice to have you here. Thank you for doing this.
- [33:00]
Bill Gagnon
Thank you very much. Happy to be here.
- [33:05]
Vince
Now I see behind you you've got A model, perhaps your most famous model of hand dryer on the image that's right behind you. And I'm reminded instantly by seeing it that you produce the man's hand dryer. That's what I think of when I see that thing. I go, I know my hands are getting dry with that machine. How long has that machine been built in the United States?
- [33:27]
Bill Gagnon
So that is correct. The accelerator hand dryer is the number one brand sold and I helped invent it with my father, Dennis, my mother, Nancy, here in East Long Meadow, Massachusetts. It came on the market in 2001 and really changed the industry. We created the category and now multiple global players all have high speed, energy efficient hand dryers. If you remember the old ones, everyone hated them. Barely blew on your hands and you're wiping your hands on your shirt or something to finish the job. So our simple tag with the rotating nozzles. Yeah. You turn the nozzle up and down. And so when my father bought the business, he quickly realized, he goes, boy, I make something people hate. We got to change this. And that led to the invention of the accelerator.
- [34:25]
Vince
That is so awesome. Well, thank you for that. It has been a public service. So has it been made in America ever since you invented it?
- [34:35]
Bill Gagnon
So a lot of it was. And that was my father's vision. He had a lot of history in manufacturing, working for Hasbro Milton Bradley, the board game company which was based. Their headquarters is here at East Long Meadow or was at the time. And he built factories for them in India and in Australia. So he understood manufacturing, how to build a plant, how to, how to employ from top to bottom and get it up and running. So he was confident in his skills and said, I want to own my own manufacturing company. I want to make an American made product, number one that has a quality workforce and makes a product that's dependable and easy to use. And he thought it didn't really matter what it was, as long as it hit that criteria, he could figure out a way to do it better and make it more profitable. Nobody grows up as a kid dreaming to be an owner of a hand dryer manufacturer. I can tell you that if it, if it happened, it would be a first, I think. But it just so happened that XL dryer met his criteria. It was in the area where we lived and I was a young, younger kid when he. The kids were young and it is where the family was. It was available for sale, checked his check boxes. So he became the owner of a hand dryer manufacturing company.
- [36:06]
Vince
That's amazing. So what happened after that? So after your father takes ownership of it, and then as you mentioned in the early aughts, you invent the accelerator and you've got this amazing hand dryer. What happened in terms of manufacturing here in the United States? What did that look like? And how many people's lives were affected by it?
- [36:25]
Bill Gagnon
Yeah, I. I have to. I can't help but tell it was an amazing story because my, you know, my father really built himself up from nothing, first person to. To go to college and his family living in Chicopee and, And, you know, it was big for him, a big step for him. And he basically invested everything into purchasing this business. And if it didn't work out, he would have been back to being poor and having no money. And it was an all or nothing investment. So, you know, we were all working together, living it. We didn't know how successful it would be. We knew we had something when we showed it at the first trade show, was the National Restaurant association show in Chicago. And people would put their hands under it, make these great facial expressions like, oh, my God, Wow, this is. I've never tried a dryer like this. We kind of knew we had something and literally we got back in. Well, actually, the Wall Street Journal writer wanted to write a story on. He heard about it, came to Chicago, stood in our booth and watched people's reactions and then interviewed them as they came out. And he was just interested in new products. And next thing you know, the Wall Street Journal posts an article about this. Finally, a fast hand dryer. And the next day, my dad gets a call from Good Morning America in the Today show saying, hey, we want to put you on with your accelerator. And he said no to both of them because he was a very pragmatic businessman of someone. Think, how do you say no to that? He goes, this is the only prototype that's ever been made, and what if it fails on national tv? I'm sunk before I even get started. And so he said no, saying, no, I got to make sure I can make it right first before I start publicizing it. I thought it was an interesting part of the story of we'll never know what would have happened if he went on that show. But it ended up really blowing up, and pun intended, I guess, like globally, by being a very quality product. It was. We have two patents on it, so it really is American ip. We invented it here. It was better than everything else. Three times faster, 80% less energy used, and at less than a 10% increase on price. And these are all strategic parts of his vision of how the product was going to succeed. And it really has been more successful than we all thought it would ever be.
- [39:04]
Vince
It's really cool. And then. So take us over time, then, from the turn of the century to the Trump administration, the first Trump administration. How did your business change and get affected? And what did Trump term one deliver for you?
- [39:21]
Bill Gagnon
Yeah. So when it comes to being American made, as soon as we. I say we now, but I'm involved in the company, and my father got involved when he owned it. He would look at his supply chain, and we wanted to make it as domestic as possible. And we found new vendors that were as close to us in Massachusetts, New England, and certainly wanting to be American made. And the biggest hurdle was motors. So at the time, there weren't American motor manufacturers that could compete with China on the size, the quality, and the performance at a competitive price. But we never gave up looking. So our product was sourced from US Vendors, except for the motor, which is a key component to the whole thing. And we kept looking. We found a partner we were analyzing, saying, hey, can you make us a replica of this Chinese motor? But we want to enhance it and it has to be around this price. And it was a, you know, I don't know if we can get that low, but we were prepared to pay more if we had to just to become fully American made. It just so happened that as we were working with our domestic partner, comes into Trump's first term, and we're analyzing landed costs to us at the factory, and now we're adding 25% tariff on top of the Chinese motor. And we just got our. Our new pricing from our motor vendor, and it equalized the gap. So now it made it an easy yes for us to move forward with the domestic vendor because of that tariff, where that would have been quite a pill to swallow if we had to just eat that 25% and maybe increase the price of our product, which would make us less competitive in the industry. But, you know, timing is everything and in life, right? And that literally happened when we were making the decision and to be able to fill in that line of extra 25%. And the cost to us made us say yes. And now all of our voters are being made from our new partner in Tennessee.
- [41:36]
Vince
Wow. All right, that's fantastic. So then that was President Trump's first term in office. Now in his second term, as he came in, he announced tariffs on every country on the planet. Obviously, these are ongoing negotiations. Many of these countries are at the moment at a 10% tariff, at least for a 90 day period that the President announced recently. This week on China, he has lowered the tariffs at least according to the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant, to around 30% right now on China. What is the impact of all of this on you? Are you cheering this on as you watch the President do this?
- [42:10]
Bill Gagnon
So for us personally and for XL Dryer as an American manufacturer, this is absolutely helping us. So I told you that the accelerator has two patents on it. It's American innovation and ip. And something we ran into about six to seven years in is about a dozen Chinese knockoffs came into the marketplace, looked the same, exactly the same, copied our language and our little arrow on the product and everything. And it cost less than half the price. And we had, it was killing our business, our online business, our export business. One example of our distributor in the UK had such trouble with these copycat Chinese knockoff products that we actually filed with the ITC and won a ruling to block them from coming into the United States. And that was a big win for us. But what did they do? They just, they changed the look a little bit and so it didn't look exactly like it, but they're still out there. And that really hurt our business and we had to be more competitive with pricing. But now, so these Chinese products now coming in to the country with the tariff is making them closer or closing that gap. And the difference in price and our quality can be seen right when you open the box and put the two products together. And so now it's helping us compete against that and all of our top competitors and the top hand dryer manufacturers in the industry have all shifted overseas. That was the easy route. So World Dryer used to be made in Chicago, was number one. They shifted over to China a long time ago because one of their big customers wanted the price to be cheaper. They couldn't do it themselves, they went to China. Dyson came into the market, very large, well known company, but they're manufactured in Malaysia with their hand dryers. And all the people moved overseas. But we chose to take the harder path, look within, figure out how to be more efficient, make it more efficient with our own employees and work with our vendors to keep the price down, not increase and keep it American made. And that has put us in a great position right now of literally last week, the number one distributor of hand dryers in the United States, which sells all brands, just sent out an E blast to all their customers saying the below manufacturers will be increasing their prices to the below percentages starting May 1 and it was all our competitors, 7%, 15%, 22%. But our name wasn't on it because we have no price increase because we're tariff resilient and our vendors are not increasing prices to us. And now our hard work is paying off to the fact that literally today we asked that same partner who prefers to sell our dryers to send another bulletin out about XL Dryer and how we haven't raised prices and we're a quality American brand. And that literally just went out to all their tens of thousands of customers today. So that feels good.
- [45:38]
Vince
That's fantastic news. Have you seen any increase in purchases during this period as a result of that?
- [45:45]
Bill Gagnon
So our business is definitely bouncing back from COVID Covid was difficult for us because of the pandemic airborne virus. We blow air around, people had knee jerk reactions thinking it was bad. That's all false. Hand dryers are safe. Moving air is good. We know now we want to move it, filter it. We have HEPA filters in the dryer. So but that, that took a lot of wind out of our sail. Now what we saw is where we're two pillars of business of specification new construction, but then retrofitting old buildings. Construction really slowed down 23, 24. And now with Trump in office and commitments to invest in building in in the US and construction projects are coming back online, we're seeing uptick in business. So our large distributors like the one I mentioned are seeing more requests. So we are seeing business come back in general, but certainly for our products. And now when we're pricing things out, we're in a more competitive place than we were before. So it should definitely lead to more business.
- [47:00]
Vince
That's wonderful. So what's your message to other American businesses if you're in the mood to give them any advice about how they should operate, given the success that you've had?
- [47:10]
Bill Gagnon
Stay strong, hold the line. You know, there's always, you can always sharpen the saw and find a better way to do things. It just takes a little time and effort, but usually it can be done and it'll be worth it for you in the end.
- [47:26]
Vince
And I know by now that you're appreciative of President Trump. What would you express to President Trump if you could? What's the message you have for him?
- [47:34]
Bill Gagnon
Well, the one other thing I'd like to say is as a small American manufacturer, in the beginning we didn't have much international presence, but we're trying to grow significantly internationally. We are sold all over the world. We sell into all, every continent. You know, we just put over 550 hand dryers in the new Istanbul airport in Turkey. We have a great partner there. We're in World cup soccer arenas in South Africa to, you know, Planet Fitness in Australia, you name it. But what we found is that we have a lot of barriers to entry getting our American made product into other countries. And I've been talking about Turkey and Brazil as being some of the worst, where it's 30 to 40% added cost after tariffs, VATs and landed costs to our partner in Turkey, where our product is almost as much as the very expensive Dyson product because they're coming from Malaysia and don't have to pay the same tariffs in VAT. Brazil, it's over 50% cost of our product to get it into Brazil, into that market. So there's a lot of markets where the tariffs that are non reciprocal, which in what I applaud Trump for is just saying, let's be fair. Why is it so high for us to come into your country and we charge you so much less? That's not fair. Right. And let's open it up and what you charge will charge the same. I think that's fair. And if that happens and we'll be able to grow internationally faster and we'll be able to open up in more foreign markets because of the reduced tariffs on American made products. So to that, you know, I say thank you to the efforts for both helping our export business, but also helping our domestic business keeping Chinese knockoffs out of the marketplace.
- [49:41]
Vince
Yeah, what a nightmare that is. They steal your intellectual property, they steal your patents, and then they sell the same product and try and underbid you and put you out of business. That story keeps getting told over and over and over again.
- [49:55]
Bill Gagnon
You can see the little arrow behind me on the product. It says, feel the power so everything looks the same. And then their little arrow says, feel the air. And that's the only difference. Everything else is exactly the same.
- [50:10]
Vince
Typical Chinese knockoff scam. A Bill Gagnon. Thank you very much and thank you for keeping our hands dry. I appreciate you, brother. Good to talk to you today.
- [50:20]
Bill Gagnon
It's our pleasure. Thank you.
- [50:23]
Vince
All right, there he is, Bill Gagnon. Nice to talk to that guy. The Chat, by the way, cracking me up today, our Rumble Chat. For those of you listening on the audio podcast the Rumble Chat, a lot of mixed reactions. There were adults in the crowd who were like, well, yeah, great. Finally some conversation about American manufacturing. Then there were others who said, I Am not entertained. Hey, totally fine. I totally get it. Not everything has to be entertaining. But for those of you who were concerned about a lack of entertainment. Anyway, that was a great dude. That was a great dude. And I know we had some mixed reaction to it, cuz some people just want entertainment. So I saw what you said and everyone's been asking me for a cartwheel. I can't do a cartwheel in the studio, but I can dance for you. I can if you want me to dance, you know, to entertain you. Is that what you need? A little bit of entertainment? Holy cow. Anyway, Bill Gabden was great. Yeah. Oh, yeah, there you go. Is that working for you? A little bit of Trump. Ymca Gotta add in the. Look at that form. Holy cow, what a shot that was. I don't know what to tell you. It's so funny. People are telling me, they're like, vince, I'm not entertained. I'm not entertained. Entertain me. I'm trying, fellas, I'm trying. I promise you. That's so funny. But look, hey, here's the deal. Here's the thing about Bill Agnon, what he's done, Bill Gagnon, what he's done and what his company's done. You heard what he's explaining here. He loves Trump. You know why he loves Trump? Because Trump's actually defending his business. That's the key. Trump is the guy who's actually standing up for an American business. And so getting your arms around the process here about how that actually works, I'm sorry, that might be like, you know, watching paint dry to you. I'm telling you, it is essential for people to understand how we're getting our businesses jacked and taken to China. You heard what he said. So they create a great product at the turn of the century, right? And then when they create this product, what happens? Well, if China detects any success in American manufacturing, they steal the product, they produce it with crappier internal parts and then they sell it. Then they sell it here in the United States and they put that American company out of business. They slap a sticker on it, everything. They steal his intellectual property, they steal his patents, they produce the same exact product. Now in the United States, it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way because you can litigate it. You can go to court and hey, hey, Joe's hand dryer supply down the street, they stole our product. And so you can litigate that, the court can shut down that operation, stop that from happening. That doesn't happen in China, you think we have access to the Chinese markets through the courts? You think that works? No, no. Once China Jacks your stuff, game over. Game over. So really, really good conversation with this guy. Really appreciate him for coming on. And I wanna highlight more American success stories like that because here's a guy who's benefited from all this, and that means that the president's agenda is working here. And then you get the downstream positive effects of the American economy getting, getting a nice, a nice boost. So wonderful stuff, wonderful stuff. And cool, too. I didn't even know that thing was made in America. I just assume when I see anything nowadays, it's probably made somewhere else, but that guy actually makes it right here in the United States of America. Love to see that. Hey. The media's fascination suddenly with Joe Biden's dementia is taking off. And they're all acting like there was just no way of knowing suddenly. Check out NBC Nightly News last night. Here's cut 10, NBC Nightly News. Then they finally realized Biden was brain dead when he was in office. I can't even believe that happened.
- [54:14]
Bill Gagnon
Meanwhile, there are damaging new details tonight about former President Biden. A new book alleges serious concerns about his mental acuity. Gabe Gutierrez joins us now. And Gabe, President Biden's team is now responding to this reporting.
- [54:28]
Vince
That's right, Lester. According to an expert from the new book obtained by NBC News, it was, quote, obvious to many at a fundraiser last summer that then President Biden did not know who George Clooney was, even though they were longtime acquaintances and Clooney is one of the most famous men in the world. The book by journalist Jake. Oh, my gosh, that's so funny. So the big tragedy in all of this is that Joe Biden didn't know who George Clooney was. Don't you know who I am? I'm George freaking Clooney. And so Joe apparently stared at him with his dead eyes and he thought to himself, huh, who? Never heard of you? And George is like, it's me, Clooney. I'm Clooney. I hang out with Obama. You know, we go, we go to Italy, we hang out at the villas all the time. Huh? So Joe Biden didn't recognize Clooney, and that was the last straw for Clooney. That's what led Clooney to work with Obama to get rid of Biden and write that big New York Times op ed saying, Biden's gotta go, Biden's gotta go. And NBC, I love this. NBC Nightly News acting Like this is suddenly breaking news. Is this breaking news for you? Was this breaking news for any of us? No, not breaking news at all. We've known this for years. NBC now wanting to pretend like this is just something they could not have known until this very moment at all. NBC Nightly News last night. Brian Stelter is suddenly noticing Joe Biden's mindlessness. Here he is, cut 11, the old Mr. Potato Head. Take a look. What do you make of the media strategy and how it's gone so far?
- [56:03]
George Clooney
Biden being back on the public stage reminds people of what went wrong. And it doesn't negate what is in this explosive book. When you launch a book the way Tapper and Thompson are doing next week, you come out with a first excerpt. So that first excerpt up on the New Yorker website site right now, also available on CNN.com it is very damning about what went wrong in 2023 and 2024. So to Jamal's point, I think there's an emerging conventional wisdom, an emerging narrative that the President Biden Midterms in 2022 was a different person than the Biden in the summer and fall of 2024, that his decline had escalated, become worse in that period of time. And there's a great example in this excerpt from George Clooney who says he saw President Biden in December of 2022, but then when he saw him again In June of 2024, he barely recognized the man. It was like seeing a different person, quote, the president appeared severely diminished, as.
- [56:52]
Vince
If he aged a decade. Look, this is excuse making, so you let me, let me tell you what. Everything that you're seeing right now is the media try to cover its ass for failing to tell you anything. For failing to tell you anything. And the irony to all of this is we didn't even need the media to tell us. We just spent the last four years mocking them for pretending like they were even capable of doing a cover up here about Joe Biden's mind. The whole planet knows that Joe Biden can't think. And then there's a half dozen people inside of a CNN newsroom who think they're pulling a fast one on you. Yeah, you keep trying that, fellas. It's not going well for you. There's a reason nobody watches you. The most viewers that segment had anywhere just happened just now on this show. Vince, great to have you with us today. We'll be back again tomorrow. Always. 10aM Eastern live on rumble. And we've got the 12 to 3 national radio show rumble dot com. Vince, you can watch it live there as well. Great to have you with us. See you tomorrow.