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- [00:00]
Representative or Analyst 1
Of priorities. This here is a skinny budget. It will be fleshed out in full. But when you're talking about cuts to the National Park Service, cuts to climate science research, cuts to UN Peacekeepers, to the NIH rental assistance at a time when the rent is too damn high, what does it tell you about the priorities, John, of this administration?
- [00:20]
Representative or Analyst 2
And we're not just talking, Lucia, should be clear here. We're not just talking about cuts. We're not talking about what you usually hear in Washington about, which is a reduction in the expected increase or even a one or two point haircut on these programs.
- [00:32]
Steve Bannon
Programs.
- [00:32]
Representative or Analyst 2
We're talking about tens of billions of dollars from the National Institutes of Health and the Housing Urban Development Agency. So you had a big list there. I think we're talking about basically a 20% cut, maybe a little bit more than that, in discretionary spending. This is unheard of. No one's ever seen anything like this. It is responsive to Donald Trump's base. It is responsive to Russ Vogt, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Basically the kinds of budgets that he used to write when he was budget guy for the Republican Study Committee, which at the time was the extreme right wing group in the House. And its budgets never got more than a handful of votes. So we're seeing the dream of Donald Trump to slash the federal government to cut taxes for the wealthy. And, you know, we will see what Congress says about it. But for the time being, I think there is a clear direction of President Donald Trump to destroy as much as he can of the federal government as fast as he can.
- [01:31]
Angela
Well, right, of course, Right. I mean, at this point, they keep taking these actions that are, in this case, explicitly illegal. And that's, you know, that's sort of a throwaway at this point because it becomes so much of a reflux of this administration. And what they're out of is part of this larger plan, Right, which is to target anything that they feel is oppositional. And that's where we, you know, as we get closer to the midterms, there's an irresistible temptation, which I know is true, to think about this in the standard political terms, but I just want to caution everyone that this is different. This is not just another election. They are on an authoritarian run here. They are trying to reshape our country, using government in a way that reshapes our culture and what our government represents. They're not, they're trying to take away so much of the basic protections and freedoms that we took. So what's an issue With CBS and PBNP and NPR one revenge. They've always hated them. The right wing media is always targeting as one of the villains because they're a truth teller. Another part of that is most of the stations will be affected, are in, are in, are not the big cities, but actually in the, in the, in the smaller community, the smaller stations, the rural areas are the ones that are going to get hit the hardest on that. Taking away alternative voice just gives Trump and the rest of the right wing media more power, enhancing their narrative dominance. And that, to me, is a big part of it. They're getting rid of the checks, not just legally, but also in the court of public opinion.
- [02:50]
Representative or Analyst 1
Well, Angela, you have political calling these cuts unprecedented. But I mean, all four of us know these are not surprising. A lot of this is straight out of Project 2025. Russell vote had been telegraphing that this is what they wanted to do if they came back into power. There was a playbook and now they are running the playbook. Angelo?
- [03:10]
Angela
Yeah, I mean, they listed all the things they're going to do. Nothing in here is even remotely, you know, sort of out of left field. And they are getting basically everything they wanted in terms of their first wave of cuts and reductions and gutting. And that is an intentional part of the plan. The other thing too is that they're buoyed not just by the sort of, whatever sort of confidence they have now in this and whatever authoritarian bent, they're also buoyed by history and a track record. This is not the first time in 2017, his budget. A similar thing happened when his first term. The budget was, had all these tax cuts in there. It was, it was a deeply unpopular budget. Everyone's like, well, everyone's going to be mad at Trump over this. Did they promise that the tax cuts were going to pay for themselves? None of that came true. The only thing that came true is that rich people got a massive tax cut out of Trump's bill that wasn't funded. And yet people still walked away with the broader feeling and impression that somehow Trump is better on the economy than an alternative Democrat would be. And that that, to me is the scary part about this, is that they not only think that they can jam this through, history says that they probably have a pretty good track record of not just jamming it through, but getting away with it.
- [04:20]
John
Trump 1 and Trump 2. There's really an attempt to sideline the. And there's always been this attempt to sideline Congress, but now to sideline the courts as well. I Mean, they're doing a few things. One is they're moving people around all the time to try to keep us from getting into the right court. So we go to one court and get injunction and they move people to another. I mean, even with this Alien Enemies act, that piece you just played, he signs it on March 14, doesn't tell anybody. But we find out they're starting to get people ready. Then they finally publish it on the 15th. But the statute says very clearly you're speaking supposed to publish the Alien Enemies act proclamation. If you want to use it, make it public. But they're already trying to move it before it becomes public. We find out that people are being moved, we go into court, and then they say, well, you're too early. Well, you don't. Wade hasn't even published it. But the people would have been gone. And as you said, they were already some people gone.
- [05:17]
Representative or Analyst 1
DOJ no longer enforcing justice. Like the whole dismantling of dei. Everything the DOJ has done thus far has been in support of this administration. They have attacked the courts to undermine the court's trust with the public. For when the courts actually do speak, they are attacking the whole prospect of the nationwide injunction. So it's going to make it harder for people to challenge the administration's actions. They'll have to do it in every different jurisdiction. That'll be entirely unwieldy. They are subjugating law firms and they are trying to attack public interest firms, too. All of that is about reducing the amount of legal resources available for this fight. It is not a coincidence. This is a strategy to make the law no longer work for the people.
- [05:59]
Jon Meacham
We haven't really faced. I think what will be the defining crisis, which will be the president either accepting a contrary decision, likely from the Supreme Court on an issue of great significance, or trying to reject it and trying to defy it. And that moment is coming. You know, the word crisis comes from the Greek vernacular about health care. Crisis is the moment in a disease where a patient lives or dies. And don't want to be overly hyperbolic on a Friday evening, but we will have a crisis for the rule of law, I think, before this year is out. And here's hoping that the institutions, the judges, the lawmakers and the citizens hold onto that rule of law, no matter what their impulses at the moment might be.
- [06:54]
Steve Bannon
This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies, because we're going medieval on these people. You're just not going to free shot all these networks lying about the people the people have had a belly full of it. I know you don't like hearing that. I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it. It's going to happen.
- [07:16]
Angela
And where do people like that go.
- [07:18]
Steve Bannon
To share the big lie?
- [07:19]
Angela
MAGA MEDIA I wish in my soul.
- [07:23]
Steve Bannon
I wish that any of these people had a conscience. Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.
- [07:36]
Jon Meacham
WAR ROOM here's your host, Stephen K. Bann.
- [07:45]
Steve Bannon
It's Saturday the 3rd of May in the year of our Lord 2025. We're here, we're going to get into all this. CAC Citizen Kane is going to join us here shortly to go through this firestorm that's come up about the budget that the Russ vote and the team put out yesterday from the White House. We'll get into all of that. I actually had great honor to speak this morning already as a keynote speaker to the last day of the center for Renewing America conference where Russ Vogt, Mark Paoletta, that entire team, Jeff Clark, all the great heroes of the interregnum in President Trump's four years did all this and made sure the days of thunder and flood the zone were you could actually effectuate are now in for the second hundred days. Really one of the most dangerous and controversial part times of the American Republic's history, which we're now rolling out in the first couple of days. And MSNBC is actually right. There are convergence of crises here and whoever kind of wins the next hundred days is going to be really driving the agenda. So it's quite important. I want to go to Rome. Ben Harnwell, Yesterday I did this interview or republishing interview I did with Archbishop Vigno. I want to get to that in a moment. Ben, where are you? The reporting out of Europe is so important about what you've accomplished and what we put together at our monastery is kind of the counter to the radicalness of Bergoglio in trying to keep the hopefully keep the church on track by being a rally point for conservatives and more importantly for traditionalists. Where are you today and where do we stand with this upcoming conclave?
- [09:26]
Ben Harnwell
Sir Steve Good morning. Well, I'm here live from St. Peter's Piazza. You can get a sense of the fact that the piazza is already now starting to fill up with pilgrims in expectation of the Conclave by the fact that this mobile signal is slower than usual. That's because there are a Couple of thousand people behind me. It always happens in Rome when lots of people gather together. There is a diminution of the, of mobile signals. So that's an indication there's an excitement in the air, a buzz in the air. People are starting to discuss now in real terms who the potential names might be. I mentioned one name because I know this is something that you've been hammering on, on the war and this is the danger to do with American born Cardinal Provost. Already the world's mainstream media seems to have picked him as their flag bearer. You have articles by the New York Times, by Crooks, which is basically the Catholic version of the New York Times, and they're pushing articles against him in his favor one after another. If I might just quickly highlight this, this is the guy to avoid steep. This is one of the principal people we do not want to see come out onto that loggia behind me with a new papal regnal name. But already to give an example of the things that people are saying, the National Catholic Reporter, known as the National Catholic this Daughter for its accuracy, has highlighted Cardinal Prevost and his interest in dialogue. Crux argues that Provost would maintain Pope Francis substance, but with more pragmatic, cautious and discreet leadership. Steve, God save us from that.
- [11:11]
Steve Bannon
No, this is, we got this. Obviously we're fairly dialed in there and from the very early, really even before the funeral, but from the early days there was this push behind the scenes to say, hey, let's keep the Americans on board because they're 80% of the cash flow. But we actually have somebody here that's more, that's more organized but even more progressive than Bergoglio. And so they feel that they got, they got every win in the world. They basically have this myth of no American Pope. They go through that. They lock in the American church, particularly the donors, and now feel obligated to back an American Pope. So they'll lock in the cash they so desperately need from the American church and they'll have somebody they think is even more organized than Bergoglio and they will have somebody that's actually farther to the left than he is. Your thoughts is that basically what the people driving this agenda behind the scenes are looking at?
- [12:11]
Ben Harnwell
Yeah, but I have to say I think they're slightly on the wrong foot this time around. The difference from being when Inverted Carlos Pope Francis was elected in 2013 and the difference is, is that they no longer have a friendly force guiding the international pressure, like for example, Macron is doing in France on his cardinals, because in the sense that they no longer the deep state, the global deep state, what, what Archbishop Vigano calls the deep Church. It no longer has control of the White House. And this is crucially important because it's a, it's a missing element now. And this is the power of the war. AUDIENCE Obviously this is the power of Maga. What it does mean in this, in this time round is that you cannot, the Klaus Schwab, the Von der Lyon, the people who set the agenda behind the scenes and then have it repeated via the Catholic Church, they can no longer use the White House to push their guy in this time. And so they are doing exactly what you said. But we have a far stronger hand this time out.
- [13:26]
Steve Bannon
Hang on for a second, Ben. We're going to take a short commercial break. When I come back, there's a lot to go through, including that interview. Archbishop Vigano, I mean, he throws down hard and says there was actually a plot that was executed to make sure Bergoglio became Pope. And he's very specific about it, about the deep state, the World Economic Forum and what he calls the deep church. We'll break it all down for you. Ben Harnwell's live in Rome at the Vatican today. Kainiac Citizen Kane is going to join us also within this hour. Short commercial break One of the things we've been working on for years is to make sure that you understand capital markets, that you understand money, that you understand the intersection of money and power, because that's what this is all about. Obviously it's a spiritual war, but it manifests itself in the realm of the known. And in the realm of the known, money talks. So you have to understand it particularly have to understand how gold has been a hedge against times of turbulence for 5,000 years of man's recorded history. The end of the Dollar Empire. This is Birch Gold, a joint effort between Birch Gold. In the war room, myself go to birchgold.com promo code Bannon we just put out the seventh free installment, the Rio Reset. What's going to happen in July in the middle of all this budget fight and all the geopolitical fights, all the geo economic trade wars is the BRICS nations are coming together to look for an alternative to the dollar. The rio reset totally free. Birchgold.com Bannon get it today at your weekend homework exercise. Exercise. Short break. There's a lot of talk about government debt, but after four years of inflation, the real crisis is personal debt. Seriously, you're working harder than ever and you're still drowning in credit card debt and overdue bills. You need. Done With Debt and here's why you need it. The credit system is rigged to keep you trapped. Done With Debt has unique and frankly brilliant escape strategies to help end your debt fast so you keep more of your hard earned money. Done With Debt doesn't try to sell you a loan and they don't try to sell you a bankruptcy. They're tough negotiators that go one on one with your credit card and loan companies with one goal, to drastically reduce your bills and eliminate interest and erase penalties. Most clients end up with more money in their pocket month one and they don't stop until they break you free from debt permanently. Look, take a couple of minutes and visit donewithdebt.com talk with one of their strategists. It's free, but listen up. Some of their solutions are time sensitive, so you'll need to move quickly. Go to donewithdebt.com that's donewithdebt.com Stop the anxiety, stop the angst. Go to donewithdebT.com and do it today. Here's your host, Stephen K. Ban. Okay, let's go back to the Vatican. In St. Peter's Square, our own Ben Harnwell. Tell us about Vigano really connected the dots of the Obama administration. The deep state in the United States, the World Economic Forum, the deep state, international intelligence services, these political operatives, these the money. And also talked about how it manifests itself in the deep church. Walk us through the highlights of the interview. Sir.
- [17:00]
Ben Harnwell
I tell you this, the quote that caught. Yeah, I can hear you. Have you lost me?
- [17:06]
Steve Bannon
Yeah, we're good. Go ahead. No, no, we got you. Go ahead.
- [17:08]
Ben Harnwell
Have you still got me? Okay.
- [17:10]
Steve Bannon
Yes, go ahead.
- [17:11]
Ben Harnwell
The quote that really caught my attention here is when Archbishop Vigano says hatred for the traditional Mass is one of the hallmarks of the enemies of Christ. And this being Archbishop Vigno, he's also clearly talking about Satan because he's his whole ecclesiology of the present moment is definitely the reign of Satan over the world and over Christ Church as well. I flag up for our Protestant brethren this fact. Whether you buy into a lot of what the Catholic Church sort of teaches in terms of its piety and its traditions or not, even Protestants will recognize that in Satan in demonic possession has an absolute supernatural or preternatural hatred of the crucifix of the cross with of Christ crucified. So all I mentioned to our Protestants friends is just to carry that thought process along because it is exactly the same and arguably even more demonstrable Satan's hatred of the traditional Latin Mass, I'll mention and then pass on it. We'll come to that. Come to that. Develop that point a little further, Steve. The point is, and this is why Archbishop Vigano is absolutely heroic, is because he is speaking up for the ordinary pilgrims and Catholics who go to mass every Sunday because all of the rest of the bishops, all the rest of the cardinals are not doing. They are hiring shepherds at great personal cost. Archbishop Vigano has been a tireless voice and I strongly recommend. Look, Liz has pushed this out. It's on the Warren website. I'm going to push out this interview as well. Everybody must read it because of what Archbishop Bigono is saying. And I'll say this, that guy has been in hiding, I think, for the last seven or eight years, since he produced his expose, his dossier on the the child sex abuse scandal in the church and Pope Francis's lack of action, the fact that he was promoting Cardinals constantly. Like McCarrick, only Vigano spoke up. And there is now within the war room ambit, within the wider, if we ever we take Trisulty, within the rather, within the wider Maga family here, there is now a direct line. This is the point I want to make. This is the direct line between Archbishop Vigano's solitary witness in defense of ordinary Catholics and this radio show, this television show, this transmission. There is that line. This is the show that speaks out and says the message that all the Catholic media are too afraid to touch. This is where people need to come to find out what is the horrific stories that are taking place over my shoulder in the Vatican state.
- [20:02]
Steve Bannon
How is this going to play out now? How's this going to play out in this conclave? Because we saw what Vigano said before. Hey, you had the political muscle of the progressive left globalist back in 2012 and 2013 that manifested itself by getting Bergoglio in. Now, their alternative is to come with an American, to try to get the Americans to buy off, to keep the cash flow from the American Church, which the Vatican desperately needs because they have an insolvency crisis. They have plenty of assets, assets all over the world in real assets, real estate, but they have limited cash flow because so many of the church, so many of the folks in the old regular church don't go anymore because it's gotten too radical in the traditional church. As you know, we've tried to cut these guys off from getting access to the money, but in Prevost, they've got, they've got somebody actually more lethal than Bergoglio because he's more organized, he's more radically left. Sir.
- [21:03]
Ben Harnwell
Steve, look, that's exactly the point here. You've got two questions here, two issues. You've got the role of the laity in the ability, the talents, the resources that the laity have, which is not being used. And I'd like to, I'll close with that point when I come back to the laity. And I think that the laity should have a role in what's taking place over my shoulder in just a few days time in the choosing of the Pope. But you also have the Vigano point as well. So these two things to do with the fact that the Church is bankruptcy. One of the reasons that the Church, the Vatican has no money is because you had a lot of serious, pious, sincere American businessmen giving money every year to, to, to the Pope and, and his initiatives via the Papal foundation and what have you. And they had a difficulty in getting the money coming in. Why? Because Pope Francis was constantly doing two things. He was criticizing capitalism and he was playing up his hatred of America. Well, how are you going to get American capitalists to give money if all you're doing is showing rapid contempt and hatred for them and in fact indicating that American capitalists are the very antithesis of Christ's gospel. So that is one of the reasons that the Vatican is heading towards bankruptcy. And I'm only, I can only regret the fact that not my Pope died before the, the incoming hit the fan on that one because he should have been around to see the, this particular disaster that he had created, created for the church and for the faithful. Staying on the point of the faithful. This church has a medieval organization, right? It's structure, the faith goes back 2,000 years, but it's a central governing system. Goes back a thousand years. A bit, a bit. 12, 13 years. And it hasn't really changed. One of the things, and I close with this point, Steve, one of the things, as a practicing Catholic that really offends me is that I have no real say in the running of the church. And that wouldn't be a bad thing if the bishops and the cardinals who are charged with running the church were doing a good job, but they're doing an appalling job. They're doing an appalling job on what is really belongs to their office, like Christ has entrusted to them, which is feeding the sheep, preserving the faith. Well, if we judge them on the metric of preserving the faith, we can see how badly they fail. But even on the worldly things like the governance of the church, the discipline of priests and bishops, it's doing an even worse job. And those guys over my shoulder, their approach to us has never changed since the Dark Ages. The laity's job is to pay to pray and obey. They came up with happy talk about involving the laity. But fundamentally we're closed out of that room in four days time when they start choosing a paper. We're locked up and we're supposed to applaud whoever they pull out there on that balcony. And that's really, that's disgraceful and offensive because they're failing and because it's patronizing and it wasn't always that way in the church.
- [24:20]
Steve Bannon
Steve, let's, let's go to that.
- [24:24]
Ben Harnwell
1600 years ago, the laity of the Rome picked the Pope.
- [24:29]
Steve Bannon
Well, let's go to that because one of the criticisms they throw at us is that oh, you guys are just nothing more than your traditional Latin Mass, but the structure, the power structure you want is close to Protestantism. That this is one of the big things that Luther and the Reformation are about, that we're trying to impose a more Protestant hierarchy or more Protestant organization on the church. Your response?
- [24:55]
Ben Harnwell
Well, firstly from the official Catholic position, what is the problem with that? They love the Protestants. They have breakfast meetings with them, they have prayer gatherings with them. The people that they don't like are us, the traditionalist Catholics, the people that don't think the faith should change as it moves down the generations. But if that is their criticism of us, oh, that's Protestant. Well, isn't there a certain dissonance here? Because all they do is praise Protestantism right from the fact we're not my Pope holed up in, in the St. Paul VI, excuse me, the Paul Papal VI audience hall. The, the, the bust of, of Luther. They love Protestantism. What's the problem? Second point, Steve and I close with this, which is more fundamental. CCP generals have the ability to pick Catholic bishops under this secret toxic Vatican China agreement that's so toxic we're not even allowed to see it. Don't tell me Vatican that the CCP generals, when they're persecuting the faith in China can pick general, can pick bishops, but we can't. That's just disgusting.
- [26:04]
Steve Bannon
Ben, where do people go to keep up with this? By the way, I also want to announce that Jack Posopic is going to go, is going to go to, over to work with Ben for the coverage. We're going to have a wall to wall or the conclave And I think we're going to try to get Jack over there as soon as possible. He'll go over the special correspondent for the War Room because we're going to take a ton of his time. He'll also be doing a show from over there. We'll take a ton of his time. So. And we'll make a formal announcement of that, I think tomorrow or Monday. Where do people go to get all your, all your content, sir? Particularly over the weekend, because things are going to run pretty hot on this.
- [26:39]
Ben Harnwell
Well, Steve, I can't wait for Positive to come out here. We'll finally see who's able to drink more, the polls or the Brits. I'm on Getter, Steve, at Harnwell. My profile at Harnwell, it's the Brits. We know the answer before we even ask the question. I'll drink that guy under the table. Naval career unknown on Getter at Harnwell. Thanks, Steve. God bless.
- [26:59]
Steve Bannon
He doesn't want to hear about the, about the intelligence officer. People should understand Ben Harnwell is one of the most competitive people I've ever met in my life. That's one of the reasons I love him. Ben Harwell, thank you so much, brother. Look forward to getting you back there on Monday and reading all your content over the weekend. Thank you, sir. Grace and Mo have pushed out the up on our site. Is the is the interview, I think complicit clergy, one of the great groups of young priests in the country, have pushed it out. We're going to try to get it up everywhere. Extremely controversial. We ask very tough and pointed questions. And guess what? Archbishop Vigano gave amazing answers, stunning answers. You want to understand the deep state in the deep church. He's the guy. And he got excommunicated for it. It's been excommunicated by Bergoglio for his efforts to try to free the traditional Catholics within the Catholic Church. Birchgold.com it's not the price, it's the process. Understand why gold has been a hedge against times of financial turbulence for 5,000 years. If you understand that, you will go a long way to your education as a citizen, a consumer and somebody trying to protect their net worth. Birch Gold duck ended the dollar empire. Get to Philip Patrick and the team today. Short break. Kaniak on the other side. Another day, another breaking news story buried. They rather talk about anything else than what's really going on. It's not because they don't know what's happening. The media, pundits and talking heads just don't want to pay any attention to it and they particularly don't want you paying any attention to it. The real stories, you have to look beyond the headlines for them. You know the truth is being covered up. Prepare for what will come with my patriot supply. Since 2008, my Patriot supply has helped millions of Americans get ready for the worst. Today their best selling three month emergency food kits are flying off the shelves. Get yours right now at the website my patriotsupply.com this food kit offers over 2,000 calories per day plus with ultra durable four layer packaging. It lasts up to 25 years. Let me repeat that. It lasts up to 25 Years. Order all the kits you need for $200 off each, free shipping included. You've been warned about what can happen. Don't live in fear. Take back control of your future. Because this isn't just food, it's freedom. Stock up on these food kits at my patron supply.com that's my patriotsupply.com Action, action, action.
- [29:33]
Representative or Analyst 2
The party has replaced the power of the purse. Congress no longer defends its institutional prerogatives or not very much. That. That said, I think you'll see some pushback in some areas. For example, the low income Home Energy Assistance Program, liheap. This is a, this is a program where you've got hundreds of thousands of people getting heating and cooling assistance assistance in a variety of states. Among them the big swing states, Pennsylvania and Michigan, all throughout the south, where you get air conditioning assistance from the LIHEAP program. That's one that's popular. I think there will be some pushback on, I think you'll see some pushback on the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities. But overall, I think Republicans are going to do their darndest to support Trump. And I think what has changed since 2017 is, is that you've got a Republican Party in Congress that is not only much more aligned with Trump, but very, very afraid of his base in primaries, which is the most likely way that any of them will lose. And so I think they're going to do what they can to pass what he wants and maybe make a few adjustments here and there.
- [30:35]
Angela
They were so very clear what the trade off actually was. Usually they leave that part out of the budget. They don't make it clear what they're going to take away from you. In this case, they were very clear. I think the first question was really important in response to the current landscape because that, that strange confusion and tension about the defense spending is Critical because one of the things within the larger sort of right wing ecosystem that obviously helps sort of have that swirling cauldron of support for Trump's narratives and false narratives and support for him is this weird. There is a, there are obviously contradictions and tensions everywhere. But one of the tensions is in defense spending. There's a traditional sort of hawkish, you know, very, they want to very as much defense spending as you can possibly get. And then there's another part of their coalition that is much more nationalistic, wants to look inward, much more populist, wants to but and cut defense spending first and really take it away. And so in a strange way, this confusion actually helps them because if you're part of, you're sitting in the right wing media right now, depending on where you tune in, that's the one place where they're saying different things. Some say, yeah, you know, this is really bad for defense spending because they're spending too much. Right. Some are saying the opposite when it comes to the other thing. They're all saying that there's not going to be any cuts or sacrifice. It's only waste, fraud and abuse that they're getting rid of in Medicare and Medicaid to the extent they ever acknowledge that. But that's the part where I think it's an advantage that's being something to really hammer home so that fracture becomes a full blown crack.
- [31:57]
Kane
The salvation here has to be the populace and the salvation is clearly not Congress which has not been doing anything. The courts can only do so much. Remember a lot of what we're talking about is something that may be illegal, but there's a whole lot that's going on that is legal and just improvident. And so that's where you really need those pulse. I mean that is why that is ultimately the key issue. But what we're seeing in terms of the attack on the judiciary, I mean nobody should be surprised. This is a man who is a convicted felon in that sitting. Now in the Oval Office we saw him attack prosecutors and the courts, you know, for the entire time that he was under indictment. This so now you will start seeing the exact same thing. It's the reason he has attacked the media, anybody who stands up. And part of it, even when he loses, is fear. So the idea of attacking the law firms is that they have the fear they will obey in advance. The attacking of universities is so you have fear and obeying in advance even if he loses. The international students, international scholars thinking about, thinking twice about coming here, scientists Thinking, you know, what better to be doing this in Canada, in England, in France. I mean, the repercussions because of the nature of what he is doing, even if the courts ultimately say you can't do this, are enormous.
- [33:34]
Jon Meacham
Well, he sees his next hundred days the way he's seen his last X number of days in life, which is that it is about him. It's not about us. It's not about we the people. It's not about a world in which we try to fulfill the implications of the Declaration of Independence. And this is not some reflexively partisan anti Trump point. It's simply the case. And we're not, we don't do ourselves any favors. We aren't, I think, doing our jobs as citizens if we don't call them as we see them. And what we've seen for the last decade, and it's now been a decade, is that we are living in an age of Trump. There's no question about that. He has set the terms of the debate, and many people are defined now by their reaction to the terms he has set. And I think what, without any fear, really of serious contradiction, I think we can say that he is taking a cult of personality. He has used that to take over a major political party, and he is now in his second term of trying to make the world in his image as opposed to an image where we can all figure out a way to live lives of prosperity and purpose. And it's a remarkable thing. No American president has ever held this kind of grip, has ever had this kind of grip on the American imagination. And I don't like saying things are unprecedented. It's against my business model. But in this case, in this case, it is unprecedented.
- [35:26]
Steve Bannon
Oh, my God, what a Saturday morning. JOHN D. Jon Meacham, one of the great haters, actually said, I'm going to replay that one the second hour, that this is the age of Trump. What we said on the show for years and years and years, Jon Meacham says, you can't dispute it. It's the age of Trump and no American president. Meacham's the historian of the presidents, one of them. But the Morning Joe crowd, the Washington consensus just said, no American president has ever had a grip on power like President Trump. Wow. From Meacham, not from War Room, not from Bannon, from Jon Meacham. Stunning. The I want to bring in Cain now. The president of Media Matters, who's a really smart guy, hates maga, hates Trump, hates War Room, hates all of us. But a smart guy. I'll play that clip in the middle of that again. By the way, the team did a magnificent job of bringing all the different elements of of these clips together for the last couple days. He got it. So Kainiac Cain, one of the things I love about Citizens Free Press, not only is it the Drudge of the right, it's, it's 10 times better than Drudge. You are at where Drudge was with Pete. Drudge back with Andrew Breitbart was one of his. It was Andrew 12. It was 12 on, 12 off. Andrew do 12. Drudge would do 12 back in the 2004, 5, 6 all the way up to 1011 until Andrew went separate ways to do the Breitbart refinance the Breitbart site. And then Drudge lost it after Trump won at 16. Whether he got bought off or invested, who knows. But it radically shifted, but also got lazy. It's nowhere. It doesn't have the impact. It's also not brilliantly thought through as you and your stack tell people. Why? Because you're saying the budget came out and you and I are in sync on this. And this is remember Rush votes the architect here. This is Project 2025. This is CRA. I just gave the keynote address over this morning, the third one I've done for the three years. They've been kind of up and running or since they've had these conferences. You know, it's 22% on discretionary side. Don't touch the defense budgets. A major increase. Although the defense guys are yelling us but you immediately when this thing goes up, Kane is got the way to look at it. I think the sophisticated way in the stack, red and green. He's letting you. This is important. You need to pay attention here. And you're all over this like, hey, this is not nearly enough. This is a nice first cut, but we're not going to get there here. So walk me through one. What is your obsession with federal spending? What is your obsession? How has that driven you as a news person? Because you weren't a news person for decades. You're a trader, you know, Wall street guy in the, you know, you're trading securities daily and playing golf, working on that handicap. And then all sudden you're the one of the most significant people in the world on news. But it was driven by your obsession with federal spending, sir.
- [38:42]
Citizen Kane
Yeah, that's correct. First of all, I gotta say Meacham got it completely wrong. I just gotta put this in there. It is not a cult of personality. It's the Will of the people. This is what MSNBC doesn't understand. They don't understand the working class coalition and that Trump, we aren't driven by Trump. We're driven by the ideas behind America first. Now I'll get to your question. You're exactly right, Ben. And you remember our conversations well that we've had in different texts, in different text threads. I was interning for CNN in Washington D.C. in the summer of 1987. I was a young kid of 20 years old. I was doing my resume tape on the overnight shift in the last two weeks of the internship. Now this is early CNN. This is Bernie Shaw, Bernard Shaw, this is 87. I think it existed for just a couple of years. So it wasn't a left wing, sort of a hateful left wing rag. And so I'm over there in the overnight. One of the overnight producers is like the national Debt just crossed 2 trillion. 2 trillion. I'd never really even heard about the national debt, didn't understand the difference between debt and deficits. And that sort of struck my interest at that point. And you can go back and talk to my friends. Starting back in 87 is when I started to get extremely upset about this stuff because I was looking at, you know, future, you know, unfunded mandates, the future money that was going to have to be laid out. So it's been a drunk, you know, this has been a thing that's been going on now for 40 years for me. So, yeah, you talked about Drudge, you and I, in our various discussions. And I know how tight you sort of, obviously you were with Andrew, but as well with Drudge himself. And you talked about the heyday, you know, 02 to sort of 2010, when Drudge was really pushing it out. And you know, and I was a reader of that site and I just always thought that there needed to be an alternative. Not that Drudge was doing it wrong, but just that he didn't do enough stories in a day. You know, he would do 50, 60, maybe back then he was doing closer to 100. But you're correct in pointing out that he's not really even trying anymore if he's still running the site because they're really just doing 50, 55, 60 stories. So I always thought there should be an alternative. I knew it would change my life. I mean, look, this is 415 straight weekends that I'm working this. It's the as you know, it was the 8th anniversary of Citizen Free Presses launch just two days ago on May 1st. It was May 1st, 2017. So this is 3000 straight days. So I knew that once I started that if the site became popular that I would never be able to stop. Right. So I put it off a long time and I didn't actually, to wrap this up, I didn't actually wait for Trump, excuse me, for Drudge to turn on Trump as he started to in that March, April, May period of 2017 when the Comey stuff was first breaking. That was just when I happened to launch. So I did not launch because Drudge turned against Trump or turned against America first. I launched just because I think there needed, I thought there needed to be another site up with more links every day. So that was the, that is what led to May 1st. I've got a lot more, but I'll let you interject.
- [41:58]
Steve Bannon
Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. Hang on. We're gonna go to a commercial break. I'm gonna you around for a while because I want to get to, for people to understand the site, the stack and particularly you do the best. You do the best pulling together of different, whether it's financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, all the great blogs out there to talk about really the, the underlying economic and financial crisis. We have this summer, the second hundred days. This is the speech I just gave at cra. We're going to have the convergence of multiple crises, both the kinetic part of the Third World War coupled with this, the issue about Trump being a commander in chief, the constitutional crisis on the deportations coupled with this financial and economic crisis. Hang on for a second, Kane. We're going to take a short commercial break. The situation down in Texas. We're going to start covering in detail. Well, we covered in detail but I mean we're going to have the players on starting next week. There's something deeply wrong in the state of Texas right now. It's a MAGA state. The House has been taken over, given by the Rhinos to the Democrats and they're passing some incredibly just bizarro laws. Also this question of what's going on with these mosques and these Islamic centers. We're gonna get to all of it. Gotta break it down. 9, 7, 2 Patriot, Patriot mobile. Glenn Sturry and the team out of Tarrant county have helped turned around the state. President Trump won it by 14 points. They've got the best phone service in the country, full stop. Today's the day. You do the shift, do the switch at 972. Patriot, Patriot Mobile. Health isn't just a personal issue. It's a family issue. A Community issue. We're living in unpredictable times. Supply chains can break down, hospitals can get overwhelmed. And let's not even start on the natural disasters. These aren't hypotheticals. They're happening. You see it here in the war room and we all know it. The question is simply, are you ready? That's where Jace comes in. This isn't just a kit. This is a Jace case. It's a lifeline. It's a personal supply of prescribed emergency medications that puts the power back in your hands. Whether it's an unexpected illness or a global disruption of supply chains, you can act fast and protect yourself and your loved ones. This February, show them you care in a way that really matters. Be prepared. Get the Jace case today so you'll have the right meds on hand the moment you need them. Visit jacemedical.com and use the code Bannon B A N N o N at checkout for a discount on your order. That's jacemedical.com promo code Bannon. Get the Jace case and do it today. Here's your host, Stephen K. Bann. Like I said, Glenn surrendering the team. Make sure you check out Patriot Mobile. You don't need to be convinced about the company is one of the great alternative Patriot companies in this alternative economy. Because folks, I said this morning at the breakfast in 28 if the radical Democrats steal it, we allow them to steal it and the deep state has not been shattered. And I'm not crazy about the trajectory on that where I love so much other stuff is going on. Let's be honest. MTG put that tweet out and people should listen to MTG on this. I think she spoke from the heart and she spoke for a lot of people in the base about things. They're coming hard. They're coming hard. That's why 972 Patriot do the switch today to Patriot Mobile. So I'm just doing some math here. Cain87 would make this it was 30 years then roughly from that day as an intern when you found you heard about this thing called the national debt to the debt really when you launched Citizens Free Press about 30 years okay. Of you doing other things for eight years every day you've worked this relentless you're back to the old drudge even pre Andrew. Right. So you're doing it. You're doing it 247 the I want to make sure somebody because the convergence above his budget but I would actually argue in the reality of CNN at that time and the reason it resonated was not Bernie Schar, who was a, who's a hardcore lefty, was Lou Dobbs, President Trump, the formation of this movement, Lou Dobbs is the railhead of the guy that was saying back then, trade, trade deficits. And the focus was Japan because very quickly after the crash, you know, Japan crashed right in the early 90s and never really to recover, although they've got massive trade deficits. With this, China took it over because the Bush hunter in the early 90s and the Clintons gave a most favored nation in WTO and really, you know, pardoned with the Chinese Communist Party. So as we're here today, we have from a young man as an intern, we had only 2 trillion of debt. We had a very small trade deficit. We had some, but not, not huge. We had a pristine balance sheet. Basically we were a manufacturing hegemon still. We were starting to lose it. The 80s you start to see losing it, right? 70s and 80s. But the catastrophe before us, as you went about did your Wall street trading, did it ever dawn on you as you were a trader that the country was being gutted both by trade and by the spending? Because those are the double whammies that have us in the fricking jammer in today, sir.
- [47:29]
Citizen Kane
Yeah, absolutely. It dawned on me, dude, Ross Perot, I mean I was 100% on the Ross Perot train. And not because I felt thought, yeah, he was talking about the national debt when Clinton and Bush weren't, but he was also talking about what was going to happen to the jobs and the giant sucking sound, obviously. So I saw that coming and I didn't buy it. Even at the time. I didn't really drink the Kool Aid that the cheap textile jobs would go overseas and go to Mexico and the higher wage jobs would come back so quickly and so easily and they obviously hasn't and Perot has proved to be correct. So yeah, I saw it. But yeah, Ben, I want to really get into this budget stuff because you talked about it. Look, you played MSNBC, these guys are freaking out about 163 billion in cuts to non discretionary, non defense discretionary. Right? That was like 750 million in the previous budget in last year's fiscal year budget. And we're cutting it down to the 580 million range. And they're freaking out because these are all the programs they don't, they'd love. They don't want a 23% cut, they don't want a 2% cut in any of it. But you know, getting into why I was upset yesterday and why every time there's something about the budget, why I break it down, is this all I'm looking for? Bannon is a path to a balanced budget. And I understand that Trump didn't talk a huge amount in this campaign season about the national debt, but it's an understood thing, you and I both realize, and others as well, the importance of it. So I was sort of hoping that in four years, we could knock this thing down 600 billion a year and get the deficit back, you know, by 2028, approaching that zero mark. Right. Because the whole point, what people need to understand about the deficit and obviously in the accumulation of the annual deficits being the national debt, what they don't understand is interest on the national debt. I gave some charts to your producer before the show today to show how interest has really gone from the sort of 300 billion a year range to this year, this fiscal year. We're only halfway through it and we're at 582 billion. You see it right there. So on 37 trillion in national debt, if you're having to finance it at 3.284%, it's going to cost 1.1 trillion. So that's going to make it the single largest non discretionary item in the budget. It's going to be larger than defense. We heard yesterday defense is likely to be 1.01 trillion and interest on the debt at 1.1. So why does this matter? Think about it, people. We only bring in 5 trillion, about 5.1 trillion in total federal revenues, right? We're spending 7.5, we're bringing in 5.1, and 1.1 of it is interest on the debt. That's 20% of our total federal revenues that we're having to spend on the monthly Visa bill just to keep it from going up. And I'll quickly say, you know, when I put links in the stack, like, look at the national debt four years from now, right this day in 2029, at 47 trillion. First of all, we're going to be lucky if it's at 47 trillion. It's very possible that it's going to be closer to 50 trillion. And the point is, the financing cost on 50 trillion at 3.24%, that's $1.6 trillion in interest payments. You know, I've always, I've been, I've been worried about this for 30 years, right? Wondering what's the breaking point. Well, the breaking point is the bond market. You and I both realize we saw what happened three weeks ago. When the bond market kind of did a few wiggles and waggles when it wasn't. When it was a little bit worried about this Republican budget. That's the point. When the bond market goes, when it decides that it needs 1% more or 2% more on every, you know, every length of treasury, then we can no longer finance our debt. As people have said, how do countries go bankrupt Very, very slowly, and then all of a sudden, all it really takes is for the bond market to give up on U.S. treasuries. And my, you know, the reason I'm screaming right now and the reason I'm screaming all over the website is we're finally getting close to that choking point, Bannon. We're getting close to the point where interest on the debt is so large it takes up such a percentage of our federal revenues raised that we can no longer spend on anything. And so that's why I'm sounding the alarm now, because I would, rather than Trump, you know, putting on 10 or 11 trillion just like Biden did. I'm not just blaming Trump. And, and Trump's numbers were much lower, by the way, before COVID before COVID hit, Trump had gotten the, the Obama annual deficits down from, like the 1.8 trillion range, down closer to a trillion. So he was making progress. So I'm not putting this on Trump, and I understand how this is all politically difficult to do. These are actual cuts. But the point is, if we let it get to 50 trillion or 47 trillion, the interest on that is going to be almost insurmountable. So that's why I'm raising the alarm now. I feel like.
- [52:24]
Steve Bannon
Hang on, hang on, hang on one second. Hang on one second. Hang on a second. We'll take you through a break. The great Kane, Citizen Kane is with us. And I got one more bombshell to drop coming out of Japan. All next in the war room. What if he had the brightest mind in the war room, delivering critical financial research every month? Steve Bannon here. War room listeners know Jim Rickards. I love this guy. He's our wise man. A former CIA, Pentagon and White House advisor with an unmatched grasp of geopolitics and capital markets. Jim predicted Trump's Electoral College victory exactly 312 to 226, down to the actual number itself. Now he's issuing a dire warning about April 11, a moment that could define Trump's presidency and your financial future. His latest book, Money GPT, exposes how AI is setting the stage for financial chaos. Bank runs at lightning speeds, algorithm driven crashes, and even threats to national security. Right now, War Room members get a free copy of MoneyGPT when they sign up for Strategic Intelligence. This is Jim's flagship financial newsletter, Strategic Intelligence. I read it. You should read it. Time is running out. Go to rickardswarroom.com that's all one word. Rickards war Room Rickards with an S. Go now and claim your free book. That's rickardswarroom.com do it today.
- [53:53]
Trevor Comstock
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