
Episode 4160: Creating The American Oligarch...
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the tech overlords who appear to be running Trump's second term agenda, rely on highly skilled immigrants to power their enterprises. Those immigrants come to this country to work with an H1B visa, which provides terms that are extremely favorable to their employers and also an amazing opportunity for the folks coming to work here. Folks basically have to stay at their job in order to stay in the country. If they leave their position, they have two months to find a new job or risk getting deported. So you can see why someone like Elon Musk likes them so much. For example, this is not abstract. When Musk bought Twitter and a huge percentage of the staff headed for the exits, Vice News reported on how Twitter employees on visas can't just quit. The other side of the debate over the H1B visa is the one that folks like Stephen Miller and Stephen Bannon have been pushing for years that we should restrict, limit, perhaps end all immigration in the US Legal and illegal, right stuff at the border around asylum, but also H1B visas. I mean, just listen to the two of them on Bannon's old radio show back in March of 2016 is before Trump was even the Republican nominee.
Steve Bannon
Take a listen and they see these oligarchs down there with 54 private jets, and they're not down there for their health. They're called together by Karl Rove. And it's a Stop Trump movement. It's a Stop Trump movement because they want unlimited HB1 visas. Isn't the beating heart of this problem.
Vivek Ramaswamy
Right now the real beating heart of.
Steve Bannon
It, of what we got to get.
Vivek Ramaswamy
Sorted here, is not illegal immigration, as.
Steve Bannon
Horrific as that is. And it's horrific. Don't we have a problem? We've looked the other way on this.
Vivek Ramaswamy
Legal immigration that's kind of overwhelmed the country.
Steve Bannon
The history of America is that an immigration on period is followed by an immigration off period.
Elon Musk
So be very clear there, right? H1B visas, legal immigration and immigration off period. Like, they have a pretty clear vision. Miller's going to be the one writing that border bill. So those two factions, the Republican Party, with pretty profoundly different views, are at each other's throats about what to do with their newfound power. Should they use the legal immigration system to continue supplying Silicon Valley and other industries with highly skilled workers? Or should they apply some new racist immigrant exclusion act like the Chinese Exclusion act, to deport all those workers and let their American, let Americans take their jobs? Defense of the former argument that is continuing H1B visas Elon Musk spent his Christmas week absolutely melting down the social media platform he owns. He has since deleted many of those posts, including one that replied approvingly to a post calling American burn workers in general a slur, the R word for being too stupid to be able to do the jobs that workers on H1B visas were doing. One emblematic post is still up where Musk tells opponents of H1B visas to F themselves before pledging to go to war on this issue, the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend. Although he seems to have underestimated how much the MAGA diehards hate immigration, his online base of right wing Twitter trolls quickly turned on him, spurned on by the likes of Bannon as well as Laura Loomer, the fringe far right activist who spent much of the fall cozying up to Trump before his campaign stepped in and pushed her aside.
Steve Bannon
Not a civil war because they're not tough enough. They're just not. I don't think that it's acceptable for.
Rachel Duffy
George Soros, Elon Musk, or Peter Thiel. It doesn't matter what side of the.
Steve Bannon
Political aisle a billionaire is on.
Elon Musk
I don't think that it's acceptable for.
Steve Bannon
Billionaires to have this much power and.
Elon Musk
This much access on the policy dispute here and there is a real one. Trump actually took Muff's side on it, coming out in support of H1B visas in comments the New York Post quote, I have many H1B visas on my properties. I've been a believer in H1B. I've used it many times. It's a great program. Now I have to say, I think Trump might be confused here. I don't think his properties are hiring a ton of, say, like software engineers off H1B. As the new York Times reports, Trump has been a frequent and longtime user of the similarly named but starkly different H2B visa program, which is for unskilled workers like gardeners and housekeepers. Of course, you could drive yourself crazy trying to track Trump's position on anything at any given moment. In 2016, of course, he called for, guess what? The H1B to be banned.
Vivek Ramaswamy
This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're going.
Steve Bannon
Medieval on these people. Christians not got a free shot.
Vivek Ramaswamy
All these networks lying about the people.
Steve Bannon
The people have had a belly full of it.
Vivek Ramaswamy
I know you don't like hearing that.
Steve Bannon
I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but.
Vivek Ramaswamy
You'Re not going to stop it. It's going to happen.
Elon Musk
And where do people like that go to share the big lie? MAGA MEDIA I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.
Steve Bannon
Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved. War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Band. It's Tuesday, the 31st of December in the year of our Lord 2024. That's the last time, I guess we'll say that. Or the show this morning. Show. It's the last show of the year. We've got a lot planned to get through, but we've got to get through this. First thing about immigration, I want to bring in Sean Spicer. Sean, you were comms director for the White House and the spokesman for the president. And also in the campaign, you came in and bailed us out and helped Jason for the, for the sprint to the end. But I first met you, Sean, when you were comms director with rights over the RNC. In fact, spring of 16, we had a lot of interaction together. Commander. And you remember Breitbart Radio, my morning show? We're talking about the exact same topic. In fact, I think that Karl Rove. I'm not saying UN Rights instigated it, but I think that was somehow an RNC adjacent meeting where they all went down there. That was the last gasp of the Stop Trump movement. But what are we talking about? We're talking about H1B visas. You remember that day, sir?
Sean Spicer
Dude, I remember very vividly getting a call saying, who is this Steve Bannon guy and how are we gonna solve this? And I said, well, let's go meet with him, because I don't think it's going away. And you still haven't ten years later.
Steve Bannon
Unbelievable.
Sean Spicer
Thank you for the kind words. It's been one heck of a ride.
Steve Bannon
Well, Sean, so you've been there since the beginning, and obviously you had a job with Reince. You guys were kind of the establishment guys, but you saw the issues that were popping up. And I know that you went out of your way behind the scenes of the donors say, hey, look, you guys gotta understand, there's a, there's a, there's something happening in the country. We're here, what, eight years later, and we're having a debate about this, this very topic. Now you have your own show, you've got your own Twitter feed, which is huge. You've got a big following. You did something the other day, and walk us through what you did in the heat of this and the Nastiest part of it, which is about 48 hours ago, you decided to do something. What was it?
Elon Musk
Yeah.
Sean Spicer
First, let me just address what you said. I think the one thing that you and a lot of the folks showed us is that for so long, we had heard, this is how it works.
Steve Bannon
Right?
Sean Spicer
You can't do anything different. This is the system. This is how. And I think what Donald Trump showed us more than you can fight back, you can be a fighter and win. And that's what I think broke the mold for so many of us. That said, it's not just normal. So what I did the other day is I heard this discussion about H1B visas, and I put it out there. I literally just tweeted, let's settle this, H1B visas pro. I'm with Elon Khan. Bannon is right. And 67%. And it trended this way. I made it intentionally 48 hours because I didn't want it to be a flash in the pan. I wanted people to be able to see it, digest it, share it. Look at that thing over there. 92,674 votes. Is this scientific? No. But is this where the people are? Yes. And what I found most interesting, Steve, wasn't just the vote, but I read through a lot of the comments, and what I found interesting about this issue more than anything is that some of the commentary that you have shared goes back to my original comment. For so long, we've been told we need H1B visas because Americans can't fill this, and we've been just given a blanket excuse. This is how things are done. Suck it up, Right? What I read through a lot of the comments and through a lot of the commentary that you're putting out, there is no, there is a different way. That's not. You don't have to just accept the status quo. These guys created this problem, and now they want everyone to bail them out. Right? So we can train Americans, we can reprioritize putting Americans in these problems. We shouldn't just accept the status quo because they say so.
Steve Bannon
Sean, given the new coalition we've put together, and obviously it's the early days of that. You know, we did it in 16, a little bit, but much more in 24. We have African American males now coming to the forefront, either not voting for Democrats and. Or sometimes voting for President Trump. And you have Hispanics in record numbers. Think over 50% of the Hispanic vote last night on MSNBC, when they say, hey, we kind of like what Bannon is saying, but we know they're racist. At the end of the day, these guys are all racist and they refuse to talk about the Hispanic and African American. I mean, isn't that what this is really about? It's about American citizens. Regardless of your race or ethnicity, you deserve a shot at these jobs and you're not dumber or lazier than people as guys are saying that we actually have plenty of people that could step in and fill those because they're not bringing over the Einstein's. That's obvious, right? Do you think that gets us past this racism charge?
Sean Spicer
No, because they can't admit that they're wrong. That's the problem. And again, this goes back to the first thing I said about the status quo. We force people into a four year college education because we tell them that's the smart thing to do. So they get a degree in gender studies and make 15 grand a year, never pay back their loan and hope that the government forgives it instead of saying, hey, there's these trade schools where you can learn a skill, you can learn to be an engineer, you can learn to work on computers. The system is screwed up. And the problem is that our leaders tell us there's only one way to do things. And what I think more than anything we've learned over the last eight years, if not 10, is that there are better ways, more common sense solutions and we don't have to suck it up. If we're willing to fight back, if we're willing to say this isn't the only way, that there are other avenues to pursue this, that if you're not going to change, we'll get rid of you, then. You know, I think that to me is the message over and over again. We've learned that we can win. We don't have to accept the status quo. I mean, I think about all these fights, these people saying Pete Hegseth isn't qualified. What are you talking about? The guy's got what, three bronze stars, degrees from Princeton and Harvard, served in Gitmo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and somehow because he didn't wear a star in his shoulders, he's not qualified. He didn't work in the defense industrial complex, he's not qualified. Tell me how Denis McDonough, Obama's VA secretary who's never served in the military, never worked for a veteran service organization, is qualified. We've got to remember that we've been shown a roadmap on how to fight and win. And if we'll follow it, we will be more and more successful. The problem I think or the best thing that ever happened to Donald Trump. I hate to say this is not taking office in 2020, because for four years we've been able to get the people, the process and the policies right to think about them. And when he comes Back in on January 1st, the American people better have their head on a swivel because it's going to go around like this over and over and over because he is going to crush the establishment.
Steve Bannon
At 67, 33 and it held pretty tight. And 92,000, we tracked these. That's a massive amount of people. And remember, you're restricted. You only vote once. So it's not like somebody sat there in the intensity of comments. As far as actionable, because as a comms director and information guy, you're always talking to me about actionable information. What is the actionable information that this represents to Sean Spicer? As you see this, what do you think should be done with this?
Sean Spicer
So if I were a tech leader, right, I'd go out and say, guys, the American people aren't with us anymore. Kind of the same way that corporate America lost the American people, right? So I would go back and I would say, all right, we need to do things to help American citizens take these jobs. What can we show that we're willing to man up and do? We're going to establish scholarships, we're going to establish training programs, but they need to have skin in the game. They can't just bypass. American citizens get the cheap labor, as you pointed out through these comments and even that Chris Hayes clip that you played, this is indentured servitude. They come over and they're trapped in a job. How's that any different? Just because they're making a few more bucks, they have no ability to say or do anything. Are you going to speak up at your job if something's going wrong? If you know that your visa is tied to your ability to stay in the country? So what I think these tech companies need to do is show immediately that they're willing to have skin in the game when it comes to putting American people first, whether that's scholarship, training programs, stem, you know, things. But they've got to do more. They can't just sit back and say, oh, sorry, this is the way it is and we need this labor.
Steve Bannon
Sean, where do people get the show? Where do they go to get your social media?
Sean Spicer
Sean Spicer.com is everything. My show airs every night at 6:00 on my YouTube channel. Sean, just go to Sean Spicer. 6:00pm every night. I appreciate you coming on and and anything on obviously on Twitter on X it's Sean Spicer. So thank you, Steve, for calling us out.
Steve Bannon
Now. Sean, are we going to have any luck in getting you into these? Are we going to get you into any lucky getting you into the second term? Sir, can we break some news here?
Sean Spicer
I tell you what, if you go, I go.
Steve Bannon
Commander, Happy New Year. Commander Spice, good to see you.
Elon Musk
Happy New Year.
Sean Spicer
Thanks for having me on. You bet.
Steve Bannon
Thank you. Robert Shaw Corral will take us out here on New Year's Eve here in the war room. Very special guest Batya Unger Sargon is going to join us next to talk about the plight of the American working man and woman when the entire system is rigged against them. Short commercial break Back in the War Room in just a moment.
Sean Spicer
And here's the hand, my trusty friend.
Vivek Ramaswamy
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Rachel Duffy
Saying no to the selling out of the future of their children. And it is so dispiriting to see this coming from the so called right. And I think you nailed it, Rachel. These people do not believe in national borders. They don't know what a nation is. They don't know what it means to feel a sense of obligation to our fellow Americans because they are our fellow Americans. But to people who have less than you. What happened to noblesse oblige? Elon Musk, you are the richest man in the world. You can't have a little bit of respect for the country and the people in it and the working class of the nation that gave you that privilege. You have no respect for the God who gave you that privilege. It is so utterly infuriating. And I'm so grateful to you and to patriot Steve Bannon, our national hero, for toeing the line and holding the line on this and saying, no, we will not sit here and cheer as they take good jobs away from Americans and give them to other people.
Batya Unger Sargon
And so what is the answer? I mean, I think about this. If we keep importing foreign labor to meet this demand, if we keep, as you said, driving the wages down, we don't really get to the root of the problem. If Vivek is right that we need more people, which I'm not entirely convinced that that is the case, we also could set up programs in inner cities to prepare them to code and do. These are entry level jobs. Let's not pretend like these. A lot of these are super, super high tech. Some of them are entry level and people can be trained into them. But that would require the oligarchs, the titans of the universe, to take less money and invest in this for our government to invest in those kinds of programs.
Rachel Duffy
You're totally right. And think of the irony here, Rachel. They shipped all their good manufacturing jobs overseas and said, we'll teach them to code. Now it turns out, no, actually we're going to import people to do the coding.
Batya Unger Sargon
Right, exactly. So I want to end on what I think is a positive note because what I see is left and right coming together in this. Why don't you talk about that a little bit? Because I think it's a really positive thing.
Rachel Duffy
Oh, absolutely. I mean, this moment revealed that the divide in this country is not left versus right, and it's certainly not, God forbid, racial. It is the multiracial, multi ethnic working class coalition coming together and taking on the oligarchs, both the over credentialed college elites and the oligarchs of Silicon Valley and saying we're going to stand together. Black, white, Hispanic, Jewish, Asian, working class Americans are going to stand together for the future of their children.
Batya Unger Sargon
Yeah, I'm really glad that you came. And I have to tell you, I think this debate that's going on is incredibly important. And I'm glad we're having it. And I'm glad, and I'm grateful to Elon Musk that it's happening on Twitter.
Steve Bannon
Rachel Duffy, one of the smartest folks over at Fox with our guest, the author of Second Class and boy did she nail it. We know the audience loved the book Second class, how the elites portrayed America's working men and women. Bhatia, Unger, Sargon. Talk to me for a moment about this left and right coming together, because you're 100% correct. This is about American citizens. In MSNBC last night, couldn't get over, they said, well, we do agree with Bannon on this populism, but we know he's a racist and we know they're all white nationalists. This is a true coming together of the populist movement of both left and right to defend American citizens, is it not, ma'am?
Rachel Duffy
First of all, thank you so much for having me. It is such an honor to be here with you. They literally put you in prison because you were revealing the truth, which is that the divide in this country is not racial. It's between the elites and the multiracial working class, who all want better jobs for their children, all want a future in this country that reflects them and their values and their hard work. And what the left does, and now the tech pro right as well, is they try to racialize this, to hide the fact that this is about citizenship. It is supposed to mean something to be an American citizen. And this is something that working class people of all races intuitively understand. And it is something that the oligarchs on both sides, not only do they not understand it, Mr. Bannon, but they have invested everything in erasing the concept of citizenship, the concept of a nation, state and national borders. Why? Because they have gotten very, very, very rich doing that. And that is the whole game here. It was the game when the left was calling working class people of all races racist because they want a future for their children. And it's the whole game when Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy say that they're too lazy and stupid. Yes, they said that to your faces. It's the whole game. And you have been on this from day one, Mr. Bannon. You are a national hero and a patriot who taught me what the real story in this country is.
Steve Bannon
How can they continue to get away with this is what's confusing to me. And you know, Elon retweeted somebody that called American workers retarded. Vivex. Just basically, you'd see the underpinnings of the hatred of the American people right there. But how can they get away with all night last night on CNN and msnbc, Highly skilled foreign workers. Highly skilled foreign workers. Americans not qualified to do these jobs when we know from the evidence and the facts, these are principally entry level jobs. We've asked them, we've asked everybody. The millions that have come in here on these visas. Show us one example, one example where an American tech worker didn't have the qualifications to do that job. We have yet to get an answer on one of the millions that have come here over the 20 or 30 years of this program. But how can they continue to sell the fact that Americans either not qualified, these are highly qualified foreigners are coming over, or Americans don't want the jobs and the jobs are going open, which both are bald faced lies, ma'am.
Rachel Duffy
They can continue to sell it because there is an elite in this country that is very, very hungry to buy it because it puts money in their pockets. So if you have a college degree, you're in that knowledge industry and you are the consumer of working class or middle class labor. Of course you want an open border because it puts money in your pocket. Of course you want to ship manufacturing overseas because then when you buy things, you can buy cheap stuff. And guess what else? When you go to compete in the housing market, suddenly there's a lot less competition because the top 20% is controlling over 50% of the GDP, which means that you're no longer competing with your cleaning lady or your landscaper when it comes to buying a home. Suddenly it's much easier for you to achieve the American dream while you are consuming the labor of an American who can no longer afford that American dream. We used to believe that this was our God given right. Our rights in this country are guaranteed by God. And that that is something that means something that binds us together as citizens of this great nation, culturally and economically and socially. And of course this is not about race. This is something that binds Americans of all races together. But the oligarchs on the left, the over credentialed college elites, and now the tech bro rights, these people don't believe in these things because to destroy the concept of the nation is to put millions and billions of dollars back in their pockets. They're always saying that mass immigration raises the gdp. Of course it raises the gdp. It makes oligarchs unbelievably wealthy to have a limitless supply of low wage indentured servitude. The problem is, is that it makes Americans much poorer. And what you have done, Mr. Bannon, is given voice to the masses who did not have a voice to object when there was a handshake agreement pre trump between both parties to further destroy the border, ship jobs overseas and import a slave caste who are indentured servants or enslaved to cartels to do low wage and working class and middle class jobs here. It's the whole game. They are getting rich off of the working class. It is class warfare from the top, from the elites on both sides against the multiracial working class coalition.
Steve Bannon
Did you find this out? Give me a minute before we go to break on second class because your book, when we had you on here, the audience loved it. But you've been working on this for years. How did you get the idea? Just tell me the idea first with second class, how the elites portrayed America's working men and women. How'd you come up with the whole concept of it?
Rachel Duffy
I had started to notice that the real divide in this country was not racial and was not between even left versus right. I was doing a lot of reporting from the south during the first Trump era and I had gone into that reporting as a woke leftist. And I was expecting that I was gonna find all of this racism. And what did I find? The exact opposite. That the demand for instances of racism in this country from the leftist elites was totally, totally superseding the actual supply. And I was really shocked by this. And I started to think about, well, how come I am so shocked by this? How come I was under the illusion that this was still a white supremacist country and that everybody who voted for the other party than I did was a white supremacist or a racist? That was my first book. It's called Bad News how woke Media is Undermining Democracy. And it's about how the media, which is extremely woke, perpetuated this myth about racism in America. And having discovered that the real divide was not racial and it was really the class divide. And the reason the media was so biased against Republicans was because the Republican party was becoming the working class party. I then started to uncover this class divide and I wanted to write a book about that. I wanted to allow working class people in their own voices to talk about the struggle for dignity in a country where the Democrats had created an economy that was an upward funnel of wealth from the middle class into the pockets of the elites. And so I traveled around the country for a year. I interviewed working class people of all races who vote for both parties. And I found that there was a lot of consensus and unity among these people. And of course, what you know and what all of your viewers know, which is that this is the greatest country on earth and we have to fight, fight, fight to keep it that way.
Steve Bannon
And the greatest resource of the greatest country on earth, it's its people in their struggle for dignity, work with dignity. Short Commercial break the Dublin Woman's Choir is going to take us out with Auld Lang Syne. We're going to be back in a moment with our guest Batya Unger Sargon, here on a New Year's Eve, the last day of 2024. What a year. Short break Back in a moment.
Elon Musk
The H1B visa is the one that folks like Stephen Miller and Stephen Bannon have been pushing for years that we should restrict, limit, perhaps end all immigration, the US Legal and illegal right stuff at the border around asylum, but also H1B visas. I mean, just listen to the two of them on Bannon's old radio show back in March of 2016 is before Trump was even the Republican nomination.
Steve Bannon
Take a listen and they see these oligarchs down there with 54 private jets and they're not down there for their health. They're called together by Karl Rove and it's a Stop Trump movement and it's a Stop Trump movement because they want unlimited HB1 visas.
Vivek Ramaswamy
Isn't the beating heart of this problem right now?
Steve Bannon
The real beating heart of it, of what we got to get sorted here is not illegal immigration, as horrific as that is. And it's horrific. Don't we have a problem? We've looked the other way on this.
Vivek Ramaswamy
Legal immigration that's kind of overwhelmed the country.
Steve Bannon
The history of America is that an immigration on period is followed by an immigration off period.
Elon Musk
So be very clear there, right? H1B visas, legal immigration and immigration off period, like they have a pretty clear vision. Miller's going to be the one writing that border bill.
Steve Bannon
We have a very clear vision for folks who just come to this show. Over the last year or a couple of years, this has been a, I don't know, 10, 12 year project. The years of 15 and 16 were trench warfare. In 14 with with Dave Brat coming on, seeing the huge victory had taken down Cantor, we could walk you through and Stephen Miller, who had been on Michele Bachman's staff and then went to Jeff Sessions and Jeff Sessions kind of held the line in the Senate. But so when, when people like David Sachs and and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy shop, dude, I've taken down bigger guys than that a decade ago. Okay. You think the odds odds along against these guys or the odds are long against Biden, you should see the odds against Trump. At the beginning, that was an event I was doing Breitbart News radio. Many of the audience that was Really a call insure. I mainly took calls. I'd have guests like Stephen Miller. Something big came up. Principally we'd have, it'd be calling over a Sirius XM and it's a morning show six to nine. That was a group of Karl Rove and I used the term oligarchs and people go, what are you talking about? They all, I think it was 54 of them got together. I think it was an island off of South Carolina to have an emergency meeting in March of how do they stop Trump? Trump was running the tables and I think he had just won Super Tuesday. How to stop Trump with these primaries that were left, how to stop Trump and how to put as much money as possible. And the issue, one of the big issues was H1B visas because I said, look, it's immigration. Overall, what Biden did is so radical, was to crush, to try to defeat inflation to crush the relatively low skilled or unskilled workers, African American and principally Hispanic by allowing, I don't know, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15. You pick the number, millions and millions and millions of people. And now they argue as Bocce just told you. Well, it added 1% to the GDP because they're taking all their money and buying Doritos. They'll always come up with another lie. But back then it was the same issue. H1B visas. And remember, we do have a clear vision. It's total immigration right now. I say we must demand a moratorium. All immigration, all the students, everything. A moratorium. We just got to settle down and figure this thing out. Because the system's been gamed for decades and decades and decades. And who pays the price? Who pays the price? The American citizen. Do you not have enough on your shoulders? Is the anxiety not enough announced yesterday? What have I been saying on here? Credit cards at $1.2 trillion face amount. The credit card companies just wrote off last quarter, I think $78 billion if my number's correct. Up 14% on write offs. A credit card non performing. The highest since. I'm a thought of random date. The highest since. Wait for a random date. You're waiting for it, you're ready for it. 2008 is that date ring a bell? Because that's the beginning of the collapse of the elites in this country. The financial collapse that they manufactured and they made a fortune off of. And then because the most progressive and hey, Bush got us into this. He's the worst president this country's had since Buchanan, Jimmy Carter, God rest his soul. And he'll have his state funeral next week. Jimmy Carter is in the top five, but you got to throw Biden and you got to put Bush right there in backup. Buchanan. Okay, 2008, crash. But Obama, the most progressive, the most progressive president in history, did the most neoliberal bailout bail out the elites. The greatest concentration of wealth happened on that. Watch how they bailed it out and how they destroyed the working class, the middle class. And we have never recovered from that. Even Trump's kind of three golden years of really 17, 18, 19, particularly 18 and 19, partially recovered, but not fully. A long way from fully, but at least it was the start. So this fight has gone on because the elites in this country that have control, they always want to go to where they want to crush labor, whether they allow 15 million illegal aliens to come here to compete against African Americans and blacks at the lower end of the skill set, or whether the private equity and venture capitalists and hedge fund guys ship the manufacturing jobs over to China so Lao Baijing can work as slave laborers under the dictatorial regime of the Chinese Communist Party and ship all your manufacturing jobs over there. So as Bhatia said, you can buy cheaper stuff here. Or if they can't outsource it, they'll just bring them here and lie to you. Bald faced lie. Here's what we at least would like enough respect to. Let's have a debate. Let's have a debate. Be upfront about it. You want lower wages, I got it. You want lower wages because you get higher margins. And remember, most of these kind of what I call these companies of algorithm companies, right? If you get those guys at a third less than that. Yesterday US Tech workers walked us through the number and Will Upton walked us through the number. It's about you're cutting off a third of 40% of labor cost. I get it. I went to Harvard Business School, I worked at Goldman. I can do the math. I got it. That's big. That's a higher margin. And guess what? That's going to get you a higher multiple in the stock market. And that means, Elon, you're going to be richer. And David Sachs, you're going to be richer. And Vivek, you're going to be richer. Oh, as a side note on all of this, I kind of, I don't need, and I think as a citizen of this country, what we don't need is white guys from South Africa lecturing us like Peter Thiel and David Sacks and Elon Musk. We don't need white guys from South Africa. Lecturing us on how the way things should be. Let me be blunt about that. I don't think that country's got the greatest track record on earth, okay? We've gone through a number of struggles ourselves, but we worked them through, okay? Not perfect, far from perfect. But I don't need guys from South Africa telling us the way the social order in this country is. And I particularly don't need a South African telling me that the people in the United States, the workforce, is retarded. Okay? Don't need that. Now, the good news is, and you see the fight all the way back to there, where they couldn't stop Trump, didn't stop Trump. They tried to pull out every stop. The good news is, you know, they talked a big game. Oh, they're going to fight to the ends of the earth. This is so important. Remember, they start off with H1B. Visas has made all his companies and the rocket company and all these companies have made them. And I will fight to the. I will show you types of warfare that you can't even comprehend after I eff you in the face. To which I said, yo, Child protective Services, can you have a wellness check on this toddler? Dude, you have no earthy idea how to fight. What they're doing now is spamming, like the Twitter feed and, you know, and suppressing it to our feet. Dude, we're banned everywhere and the show's bigger than ever, and we just took you on and ripped your face off. So I don't care what you do on Twitter. Doesn't matter. Does not matter. Bring everything you've got, okay? Because we're not going to lose this fight. You've already surrendered after. Oh, oh, well, you know, it needs reform. Well, at first you told me it was great and all the tech companies depend upon it. It was the most perfect thing. Then an hour later, it needs reform. And here's what we need to do. We need to pay this higher and this. No, that's all a lie. And we're not buying it anymore. You can lie and spin other people. You ain't spinning us. Here's what we demand. Doge. Doge, the first thing at the top of your list, we want the complete eradication of this program. All of it. Not some of it. Not reform, some of it. All of it. Get rid of it. It's a blight upon the American people. Somebody said, well, Steve, why do you put. We gotta be able to get. No, this is about the direction of our country, and this is central to it. Either citizenship Means something or it doesn't. In the one way did you get to mean something is to stop bringing the world into people's homes, into people's own nation that they have helped build and generations of their families have helped build and help defend and fight for and pay taxes for and be the little platoons to build the civic society. And they got nothing to show for it. After five or six or seven generations you just got this anxiety, what happens if I get laid off? And we know they're suppressing wages, that they're suppressing wages by taking the jobs of China, they're suppressing wages by outsourcing jobs. The more marketing and telephonic jobs and what they can't do there, they're going to bring them here, they're going to get up in your grill. Why do you think Trump won? Why do you think blacks and Hispanics voted for him? Because they look around their cities and go, hey, I finally got the joke. They're coming for me. Think of how brutal and how nasty the elites in this country are. They would allow and actually organize because this is all very organized. It's all very organized. 10 to 15 million illegal alien invaders who come into this country take jobs from the, from the folks that have the least skills in this country. Think about that for a second. And here, if you've gone to engineering school, you've gone, you try to get. They're going to import on a bald faced lie, higher skilled foreign workers. High skilled foreign workers. The skills are not any different than American citizens. And don't sit there and lie. You can't fill those spots. You go out of your way, you go out of your way to gun deck the entire thing. So you can do that because they're more compliant. The reason they got to be compliant in 21st century America, we have indentured servitude. As much as that was a scar in the country in the 19th century. And we're doing it here in front of your eyes and we have billionaires that are worth a fortune. They're going to sit there and look at you. Oh, you're a liar. Show enough respect for the citizens of this country to just be honest. Let's have a debate. You want lower wages, I got that. I understand it. It's not going to happen, but I understand it. But do not sit there and play us for fools because we've only just started to fight. Okay? Somebody gave me a compliment the other day in some article. They said this guy's a thug, but he wins. At any cost. I don't care what you call me, okay? But we're not going to lose this fight. We want the complete evisceration and eradication of this entire program. One, two. We want everybody here on one of these visas deported immediately. As soon as you deport these 15 years in the same timeframe, Hohman, get a ticket for them, boom, send them home. An immediate hiring of American citizens, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, to fill those jobs that American citizens should have. And then, yes, yes, we need to sit down with the companies, the private equity companies, the owners, and have a discussion. Well, hang on for a second. You did this for decades and you stole people's futures. Look how many white men. Look how many black men, look how many Hispanic men are not in the workplace force. Was it 50 or 60 or 70 million in the prime years of their lives? Do you understand how this eats away at the soul? You are cruel and you are barbaric and we are not going to tolerate it. I have not yet begun to fight, okay? And if you guys want to continue on, we will beat you into submission.
Vivek Ramaswamy
Short break.
Steve Bannon
Here's your host, Stephen K. Banner. So Batya. And by the way, we're calling for. We know the student program, visa program. There's. All of. These are scams. They're all scams. The student visa program scam. You got other programs here. There's dozens of. They're trying to game the system against you. Against you. And we're going to deconstruct it all. We want a 1000% total and complete moratorium on all, quote, unquote, legal. It's not legal immigration. Do you think the H1B visa is legal? It's not legal. It's a scam. It's a 100% scam. Please, we've begging you guys, show me the excellence. Show me how these people, these skilled foreign workers, the highly skilled foreign workers that you bring over here is essentially slave labor into the country and pay them nothing. And they got to be compliant to work 100 hours a week because if they don't say anything, you're going to ship them back. And they got a shot if they keep their head down to get a green card to get through the golden door and then have chain migration. This is how purely evil you are. You are evil. So don't sit there unctuous and lecture us, the South Africans. You're going to lecture us not enough evil come out of South Africa, sirs. Yeah, I went there because we're not going to Tolerate. This is the United States of America. We're not going to be lectured by a bunch of white guys from South Africa. Don't need it. You unctuous. Yesterday you had a defender on here. She was fantastic. Alison Wynn, who knows you, Classy, very smart. Stanford knows Elon. Brilliant guy, smart guy. You know he's going to colonize the Mars. That's a complicated engineering project and he is a quite a brilliant engineer. You might, one might argue he's not Tesla at that level, but he's Edison at another level. Okay, that's a pretty good compliment. We've had I don't know, one or two of those in the history of this republic. We got one there. But you know what, you know what? If you can work out the mathematical formulas in the engineering complexity of sending a colony of human beings to Mars and keep them alive, you can work through the math on this. And you know it's a bald faced lie. And here's how I know you know it's a bald faced lie because you cratered as soon as we got up in your grill. Oh, okay, fine. Well, I won't fight to the death. I'm not going to fight to the death and show kind of new types of warfare. Why don't we reform? We need reform. And you got some BS answer and you think we're going to buy that? Where did you come from, dude? Here's what you need to do. You need to study modern political history of the fights we've been through for 12 or 14 years to get to this spot. You think that's just because people are just wandering around? People have worked for over a decade pounding this, pounding this, pounding this. And that's how relentless the established order is. Because Bacia told you they're, they're making a lot of money and they have control. And this is about money and power. It's not about race, it's not about gender, it's not about ethnicity, it's not about religion. That's what they want you to believe it is so you're like a bucket of crabs at each other's throat. It's not about, that's about money and power. And Karl Rose Gonna get his 54 big donors down there, they're gonna figure out how to stop Trump or how to compromise it. And they'll use Ted Cruz, they'll use little Marco or they'll use Jeb Bush, or they don't care who they use. They'll throw up some chop block, they'll misdirect you look at this and that. There's some racism over there. You white folks go, look at that. That's a Fox specialty. We don't fall for that. So don't think you're going to come back and. Oh, you know what? Well, what we need to do is increase it here and cut that cost there. Screw you, you clown. And then you got to suppress us. Oh, they're, I don't know, blacklisting you. Whatever they do. I don't care what they do on Twitter. I could care less. We're banned on every platform in the world, and this show is one of the most powerful in the world. Why is that? Because the content of the show resonates with the most powerful audience in the world, working men and women that happen to be citizens of this great republic. This is a defining moment. Some of the people say, oh, Steve, you gotta. We gotta have a group hug. You can't do this and let the Democrats. No, no, we're not having group hugs. We're not having pats on the head. You got to get this straight. First off, you got to get. Hey. I've said many times that Elon came and Elon's money helped organize the grassroots government. In his engineering mind. He saw what the problem was as we saw it, and he supported it. And for that, he gets a place at the table. There's no doubt. You should. It's a quarter of a billion dollars in June, not an entire cycle in five months. But that dinner with Sachs and that check from Elon came at Biden's. You know, when Biden. In the debate or right before the debate, and Biden, you know, they kind of saw the numbers of where this thing was heading. They're recent converts, and we love converts. Hell, I'm in a. I'm a Catholic. We used to be in the convert business. Not so much anymore. We can't keep what we got. But in the old days, you know, half the saints are missionaries. We love. We loving converts, but the converts sit in the back and study for years and years and years to make sure you understand the faith and you understand the nuances of the faith and understand how you can internalize the faith. Don't come up and go to the pulpit in your first week here and start lecturing people about the way things are going to be. If you're going to do that, we're going to get. And we're going to rip your face off, because you can't beat us. We're not beatable. This army of the awakened is not beatable because we're relentless and we will never surrender and we will never slow down. And yes, if you go low, we'll go to the center of the earth because we're fighting for something that means something. We have meaning in this. This is why people watch the show. This is why people come to this show and all this great content people provide us. And Ben Berkhweim's down now, putting his life in danger again. Why do people do this? Why have they done this for years? Why did they do it for years At Breitbart, when Trump started appearing in 13 and 14, we said, that's the guy. Why was it because it had been a struggle before that we're not, we didn't come in here in June and we're not saying, oh, just because you came late, no, you can be part of this, but you're not going to sit here and lie to us to our face and expect to say, oh, because you're worth $500 billion, you people are taking money. Take money. I don't care. Bow down and kowtow. I don't care. I could care less. I'm a crazy frickin Irishman and I will never. I didn't kowtowtown a Nancy Pelosi. They put me in a federal prison for four months and I didn't care. I spit in their face when I went in and spit in their eye when I came out. I literally do not care. And that is the first step in the path to victory. 100% moratorium on all immigration until we get this thing sorted and we can go through the lies of this legal immigration for decades and decades and decades. Short break. That's why we created Sacred Human. Really trying to fill this gap of quality supplements and of course, the beef liver being our flagship product. For those who don't know, beef liver is loaded with highly bioavailable ingredients such as vitamin A, B12, zinc CoQ10, etc. And because it is 100% grass fed and natural, your body is able to absorb these nutrients far better than taking any other synthetic multivitamin or any other synthetic vitamin in general. So we have some other amazing products, but if you'd like to check us out, you can go to sacredhumanhealth.com and cheers to your health.
Vivek Ramaswamy
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Podcast Summary: Bannon's War Room – Episode 4160: Creating The American Oligarch
Release Date: December 31, 2024
Host: WarRoom.org (Stephen K. Bannon)
Guests: Sean Spicer, Rachel Duffy, Batya Unger Sargon, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy
In Episode 4160 of Bannon’s War Room, host Stephen K. Bannon delves into the contentious issue of immigration in the United States, with a particular focus on the H1B visa program. The discussion highlights the contrasting views within the Republican Party and the broader implications of immigration policies on American workers and the economy.
Elon Musk initiates the conversation by addressing the reliance of tech giants on H1B visa holders:
“Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the tech overlords who appear to be running Trump's second term agenda, rely on highly skilled immigrants to power their enterprises. [...] If they leave their position, they have two months to find a new job or risk getting deported.”
[00:00]
This sets the stage for a deeper exploration of the H1B visa's impact on both employers and immigrant workers. Musk cites the example of Twitter's exodus of H1B visa holders following his acquisition, emphasizing the precarious position of these workers.
Steve Bannon and Vivek Ramaswamy articulate the internal struggle within the GOP regarding immigration:
Steve Bannon: “They're called together by Karl Rove. And it's a Stop Trump movement because they want unlimited HB1 visas. Isn't the beating heart of this problem.”
[01:09]
Vivek Ramaswamy: “Right now the real beating heart of the real beating heart of what we got to get sorted here is not illegal immigration, as horrific as that is. And it's horrific. Don't we have a problem? We've looked the other way on this.”
[01:24]
The dialogue underscores a faction within the party advocating for restrictive immigration policies, contrasting with those like Musk and Ramaswamy who see economic benefits in maintaining the H1B program.
Elon Musk's fluctuating stance on H1B visas is scrutinized:
Musk initially supports the program, acknowledging its utility for his businesses. However, he later criticizes the system, reflecting internal conflicts.
“Defense of the former argument that is continuing H1B visas Elon Musk spent his Christmas week absolutely melting down the social media platform he owns.”
[02:50]
Bannon highlights Musk's contradictory behavior, noting Musk's aggressive social media campaigns against H1B opponents, which led to backlash from right-wing factions influenced by Bannon and activists like Laura Loomer.
Rachel Duffy and Batya Unger Sargon present a perspective that shifts the focus from racial to class issues:
Rachel Duffy: “The divide in this country is not left versus right, and it's certainly not, God forbid, racial. It is the multiracial, multi-ethnic working-class coalition coming together and taking on the oligarchs.”
[16:11]
This viewpoint suggests that the core issue is economic disenfranchisement caused by immigration policies that favor elites, thereby fostering a united front among diverse working-class groups seeking equitable job opportunities.
Sean Spicer shares his experience and strategies regarding the immigration debate:
Sean Spicer: “I literally just tweeted, let's settle this, H1B visas pro. I'm with Elon Khan. Bannon is right. And 67%. And it trended this way.”
[07:05]
Spicer emphasizes the need for tech companies to prioritize American workers by establishing scholarships and training programs, advocating for a shift away from reliance on foreign labor.
“What I think these tech companies need to do is show immediately that they're willing to have skin in the game when it comes to putting American people first.”
[12:11]
Bannon and other guests vehemently oppose the H1B visa program, labeling it as exploitative:
Steve Bannon: “The H1B visa is [...] perhaps end all immigration, the US Legal and illegal right stuff at the border around asylum, but also H1B visas. [...] we want the complete eradication of this program.”
[29:20]
Bannon argues that the H1B program undermines American workers by creating a class of dependent, low-wage laborers who are easily exploitable and have limited avenues for advancement or recourse.
The discussion touches upon how H1B visas contribute to wage suppression and economic disparities:
Rachel Duffy: “Mass immigration raises the GDP. [...] It makes oligarchs unbelievably wealthy to have a limitless supply of low-wage indentured servitude. The problem is, it makes Americans much poorer.”
[22:19]
The guests argue that while H1B visas may boost corporate profits and economic indicators like GDP, they simultaneously erode the financial stability and job prospects of American workers, exacerbating class divisions.
Guests propose actionable solutions to address the issues stemming from the H1B visa program:
Sean Spicer: “Tech companies need to demonstrate their commitment to American citizens by funding training programs and scholarships, ensuring that American workers are prioritized.”
[12:11]
Steve Bannon: “We want the complete eradication of this entire program. [...] Immediate hiring of American citizens, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, to fill those jobs that American citizens should have.”
[41:00]
The emphasis is on ending the H1B visa program entirely, enforcing stricter employment regulations for foreign workers, and investing in domestic education and training to equip Americans with the necessary skills to compete in the job market.
The conversation frames the immigration debate as a battleground for economic control:
Rachel Duffy: “The oligarchs on both sides [...] have invested everything in erasing the concept of citizenship, the concept of a nation, state and national borders. Why? Because they have gotten very, very, very rich doing that.”
[22:19]
This narrative positions the elites—comprising both left-leaning college elites and right-leaning tech moguls—as orchestrators of policies that prioritize their wealth accumulation over the welfare of the working class, thereby deepening societal divides.
Stephen K. Bannon wraps up the episode by reinforcing the urgency to dismantle the H1B visa system and advocating for a united working-class movement:
Steve Bannon: “You need to study modern political history of the fights we've been through for 12 or 14 years to get to this spot. This is a defining moment.”
[42:03]
“We are fighting for something that means something. This is why people watch the show. [...] We are relentless and we will never surrender.”
[42:03]
Bannon calls on listeners to reject the status quo, unite across racial and ethnic lines, and prioritize American labor rights to reclaim economic dignity and national sovereignty.
H1B Visa Program: Central to the discussion, viewed as beneficial for tech enterprises but detrimental to American workers.
Internal GOP Conflict: Divergent views within the Republican Party regarding the future of immigration policy.
Class vs. Racial Divide: Emphasis on economic class disparities over racial tensions as the primary source of division.
Elite Influence: Both political elites and billionaires are portrayed as manipulating immigration policies for personal gain.
Actionable Solutions: Advocacy for ending the H1B program, prioritizing American workers, and investing in domestic education and training initiatives.
Elon Musk [00:00]: “If they leave their position, they have two months to find a new job or risk getting deported.”
Steve Bannon [01:09]: “And it's a Stop Trump movement because they want unlimited HB1 visas.”
Rachel Duffy [22:19]: “Mass immigration raises the GDP... it makes Americans much poorer.”
Sean Spicer [07:05]: “I literally just tweeted, let's settle this, H1B visas pro. I'm with Elon Khan. Bannon is right. And 67%.”
Steve Bannon [29:20]: “We want the complete eradication of this program. Not some of it. Not reform, some of it. All of it.”
Episode 4160 of Bannon’s War Room presents a fervent critique of the H1B visa program, highlighting its perceived negative impacts on American workers and the broader economy. Through a series of debates and guest insights, the episode calls for a fundamental restructuring of immigration policies to prioritize and uplift the American working class, positioning this issue as a pivotal moment in ongoing class warfare orchestrated by entrenched elites.