Episode 4738: Minneapolis Shooter Identified; Truth Behind Gun Free Zones

Summary

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Bannon’s War Room – Episode 4738

Date: August 27, 2025
Title: Minneapolis Shooter Identified; Truth Behind Gun Free Zones
Host: Stephen K. Bannon
Guests: John Lott, Brandon Showalter, Mike Benz, Michael Lucci

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Episode Overview

This episode of Bannon’s War Room pivots from its originally planned content to focus on breaking news: a deadly school shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Host Steve Bannon and his guests explore the political, ideological, and policy implications surrounding the event, focusing especially on trans ideology, the concept of gun-free zones, the response of public officials, and broader issues like Chinese influence in the U.S.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Minneapolis School Shooting: Narrative & Ideological Wars

Timestamps: 00:11 – 15:00

• Context & Shooter Identity:

  • The shooter was identified as Robin Westman, accused of killing two children and injuring 17 others at a Catholic school during mass.
  • Bannon and guests argue the mainstream media is minimizing or distorting aspects of the case because the shooter's identity and motivation do not fit their “preferred narrative.”
  • Bannon:

    “Because the shooter’s identity doesn’t fit the legacy media’s narrative, a lot of the social media accounts and surrounding details have been wiped... Not going to use the nice euphemistic terms that the media will use even if they dare to touch the story. This is essentially domestic terrorism, if not a hate crime.” (03:19)

  • The panel discusses the erasure of evidence and reluctance of public officials (e.g., Minneapolis mayor Jacob Fry) and legacy media to confront motivations they deem uncomfortable (i.e., anti-Christian hate, trans ideology links).

• Debate Over Hate & Trans Community:

  • Early remarks caution against exploiting the tragedy to demonize the trans community; others push back, arguing the real issue is ideological radicalization.
    • Brandon Showalter:

      “Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity.” (00:14)

  • The hosts sharply criticize this position, suggesting it distracts from underlying security and cultural issues.

2. Gun-Free Zones, Gun Control & Public Safety

Timestamps: 16:53 – 28:18

• John Lott on Gun Control Arguments:

  • Questioning the efficacy of background checks and assault weapon bans in preventing mass shootings, Lott points out that virtually all such shootings occur in gun-free zones.
  • Lott:

    “These attackers go to places where their victims aren’t able to defend themselves. They go to these gun free zones... There’s a reason 92% of mass public shootings take place in these gun free zones, because it makes it easier for these people to go and be the only person with a gun to go and kill people.” (21:05)

  • Lott contends laws meant to ensure safety backfire—leaving only criminals armed, while law-abiding citizens are defenseless.

• Policing, Crime, and Political Rhetoric:

  • Sharp criticism of Democratic mayors, notably those who are unwilling to simply state that more police presence would reduce crime.
    • Bannon labels such leaders as “pro-crime.”
    • Data: Trump-era interventions in D.C. are credited with sharp drops in carjackings (87%) and violent crime (24%).
    • Lott:

      “The empirical work that academics have done indicates that you can explain about 55% of the variation in crime rates due to law enforcement type things… Only a couple percent of the variation… can be explained by anything that has to do with poverty or unemployment.” (25:37)

3. Transgenderism, Ideology, and Political Dogmas

Timestamps: 09:24 – 15:00

• Minnesota as a ‘Trans Refuge’ State:

  • Discussion of Governor Tim Walz’s policies making Minnesota a “transition refuge”—allowing minors, even toddlers, to undergo gender transitions without parental consent.
  • Showalter:

    “The state of Minnesota functions as kind of the trans hub of the Midwest. I really put it alongside the west coast states, which I consider the epicenter of trans ideology.” (09:24)

  • Showalter equates the current political prioritization of transgender rights with a “cult of death,” pointing to symbolism like the lieutenant governor’s “protect trans kids” shirt adorned with a knife icon.

• Media and Political Double Standards:

  • Guests question whether media and leadership would respond differently if the perpetrator was a white Christian targeting LGBT events.
  • Showalter:

    “Would Mayor Fry have said those things about the hatred towards the Christian community? I don’t think so. This is a death cult dogma that has captured the minds of most mainstream… Democratic politicians.” (10:24)

4. Alternative Media & Information Control

Timestamps: 30:59 – 35:30

• Mike Benz: Media Literacy & Censorship in Schools:
  • Benz uncovers federal “media literacy” initiatives as means for information control and censorship—arguing these are veiled attempts to blacklist non-mainstream sources and restrict free inquiry.
    • Benz:

      “While parents… think that media literacy means they're teaching your kids how to read the media, what they really mean is if you don't read the right media sources, you are illiterate and need to get your mind right.” (31:37)

  • He introduces model state legislation to ban mandatory media literacy curriculum, likening the movement to CRT and DEI bans.

5. Chinese Influence: The United Front & State-Level Responses

Timestamps: 35:30 – 49:15

• Michael Lucci: Texas’ Legislation Against CCP Influence:

  • Texas leads U.S. states in blocking Chinese government-linked property purchases, banning “sister cities” with adversarial nations, and criminalizing “transnational repression.”
    • Lucci:

      "Texas… first in the country… to define transnational repression and say we’re going to send you to jail for a very long time if you try that here." (36:51)

• Chinese Influence Operations (“United Front”):

  • Detailed explanation of the Chinese Communist Party’s “political warfare machine”—running dozens of organizations in NYC, inserting spies, targeting politicians, and running illegal police stations.
    • Lucci:

      "The United Front is [Xi Jinping’s] number one weapon to defeat the United States… it subverts our democratic system… allows them to extract extraordinary value…" (46:02)

  • Calls for federal action: mass sanctioning, cutting off funds, deporting agents, and even denaturalizing those who lied about CCP ties.

• Call for Firm National Policy:

  • Bannon and Lucci demand state and federal governments take more aggressive stances:

    “I think those people should face criminal charges, frankly, for treason. I mean, collaborating with the Chinese Communist Party, let alone military linked entities… I think we call that treason. Call me crazy.” (41:44)

6. Legacy Media, Information, and Bias

Timestamps: 50:05 – 52:54

• Legacy Media’s Reluctance on Shooter’s Motive & Connectivity:
  • Bannon skewers MSNBC and other mainstream outlets for refusing to publicize the shooter’s social media writings—claiming this demonstrates their bias and desire to avoid uncomfortable narratives.
    • Bannon:

      “I told you legacy media wasn’t going to touch the manifesto… obviously proclaiming extreme hatred for President Trump and all things trans, promotion of all things transgenderism.” (49:19)

  • Takes particular aim at Jen Psaki and other Democratic commentators for, in his view, enabling or trivializing ideological threats.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Bannon (on media narrative):

  “You are in the war room. It is Wednesday, August 27th… Had a whole show planned for you. But with the breaking news coming out of Minnesota, I wanted to dedicate a lot of our time to what is really going on there.” (03:19)

• Showalter (on ideology):

  “This is a death cult dogma that has captured the minds of most mainstream… Democratic politicians such that they fall over themselves and go out of their way to make sure that we just don't hurt the feelings of these poor darling trans activists that meanwhile, as they rampage and commit horrific acts of violence…” (10:24)

• Lott (on gun-free zones):

  “These gun free zones actually serve as magnets for these attacks. There’s a reason why something like 92% of the mass public shootings take place in these gun free zones, because it makes it easier for these people to go and be the only person with a gun to go and kill people.” (21:05)

• Lucci (on CCP tactics):

  “The United Front is so important to them. They turn our institutions against ourselves. They win by inches.” (46:59)

• Bannon (on media reaction):

  “These people don't want to investigate it because they know it proves yet again the War Room, right when we don't want to be right, that the Democrat party is a death cult. They don't protect or worship humanity. They hate Christianity.” (51:35)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Timestamps | |-----------------------------------|---------------| | Opening & initial reactions | 00:11–03:19 | | Minneapolis shooting analysis | 03:19–09:24 | | Trans ideology/policy in MN | 09:24–15:00 | | Gun-free zones & mass shootings | 18:28–22:30 | | D.C. crime, policing | 22:59–25:24 | | Media literacy/censorship | 30:59–35:30 | | Texas vs. CCP, United Front | 36:23–41:44 | | United Front as strategic threat | 46:02–48:56 | | Legacy media critique | 49:19–52:54 |

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Tone

• Direct, adversarial, and deeply critical of Democrats, left-leaning public figures, the legacy media, and progressive ideologies.
• Alarmist about domestic threats (gun-free zones, trans ideology) and foreign influence (China).
• Heavy use of hyperbole and rhetorical escalation ("death cult," "domestic terrorism," "treason").

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For Listeners

This episode blends hard news analysis with polemical commentary. It dives into tragedy, policy, and culture-war flash points, and provides a viewpoint that mainstream outlets likely won’t. If you’re looking for granular breakdowns of how culture, law, and politics interlock in crisis, especially from a populist-right perspective, this episode is a revealing listen.

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Transcript

[Brandon Showalter]

Anybody who is using this as.

[John Lott]

Using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity.

[Brandon Showalter]

We should not be operating out of a place of hate for anyone. We should be operating from a place.

[John Lott]

Of love for our kids.

[Joe Scarborough]

Minnesota ranks the highest per capitable for being a safe haven for transgender individuals in Minnesota.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

And.

[Joe Scarborough]

Can I just say, we can talk about economic growth and feeding children and growing the economy and creating jobs simultaneously with talking about everybody's human rights matters. And we shouldn't be demolizing.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

You can do both.

[Joe Scarborough]

Would you also like to get federal funding to help put 5,000 more cops on the street in Chicago? Would that help drive down crime?

[Chicago Mayor]

Well, look, policing by itself is not the full strategy.

[Joe Scarborough]

No, I understand you've talked about the other things you want, and I said those are good and important programs. But I'm asking also, would 5,000 more police officers on the street in Chicago be helpful to go along with. With all of those social programs that a lot of cities are engaging in and having success with?

[Chicago Mayor]

Well, look, here's the best way I can put it, Joe, is that in the 90s, when I was in high school, we had 3,000 more police officers and we had 900 people being murdered every single year in Chicago. It's just not policing alone. Of course we want more detectives.

[Joe Scarborough]

I know it's not policing alone, but I know it's not policing alone. You've told me everything else you want. I'm curious, and this does come down to an ideological difference between people. Do you believe that the streets of Chicago would be safer if there were more uniformed police officers on the streets of Chicago?

[Chicago Mayor]

I believe the city of Chicago, in cities across America, would be safer if we actually had, you know, affordable housing.

[Joe Scarborough]

Look, okay, but that's not the question. I asked my question, and I just need a yes or a no. Do you believe the streets of Chicago would be safer if you got all of those other extraordinary programs put back into place, which do have a history of being successful? If that's complemented by having 5,000 more cops on the streets of Chicago?

[Chicago Mayor]

I don't believe that we should narrow it down to just police officers, John. That's what I'm saying. That is an antiquated approach. I'm saying we've invested in detection.

[Joe Scarborough]

Are you hearing what I'm saying? I'm agreeing with you that all of all these other social programs are extraordinarily important. I just need a yes or a no, and then this will be the last time I ask if you get all of those other social programs, that 800 million that New York City does, Los Angeles, other people do with great success.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

And I think that's enough of that. I know we call Democrats soft on crime, but I think full stop we can just call them pro crime. Because apparently now, although I guess they've always hated police officers, now they're very okay with saying that on msnbc, of all places. You are in the war room. It is Wednesday, August 27th, in the year of our Lord 2025. Had a whole show planned for you. But with the breaking news coming out of Minnesota, I wanted to dedicate a lot of our time to what is really going on there. Obviously, because the shooter's identity doesn't fit the legacy media's narrative, predictably, a lot of the social media accounts and surrounding details have been wiped. I'm sure it'll be Thomas Matthew Crooks situation. I don't see the same impetus to get to the bottom of anything there. Instead, you saw that clown, that sham of a mayor, Jacob Fry, I believe is his name, who opened the cold, talking about how you, the war room posse, the viewers of the show are not allowed to use what happened like I said today at a Catholic school. We're going to get into the details as anything to promote transphobia or anti transgenderism hate. Well, bro, you missed the point. The hate crime that happened was not this audience or not people who've been sounding the alarm about the mental illness that is transgenderism, AKA dysphoria. It's what happened this morning. Robin Westman shot and killed two children, including injuring 17 others at a Catholic school during mass in Minneapolis. And I think we can call this what it actually is. Not going to use the nice euphemistic terms that the media will use even if they dare to touch the story. This is essentially domestic terrorism, if not a hate crime. And I hate that word has been so watered down by those on the left, the splc, the aclu, you name it. This is motivated by hate. Very clearly motivated by anti Christian hate. Even in some cases on I believe one of the barrels or one of the chambers he had written kill Trump. Now writing, where is your God? You know, I know we're told so much that langu language matters and pronouns matter from the side that supports and promotes people who commit atrocities like this. Well, I don't really think pronouns matter. I think terminology matters about what you determine a school shooting to be. And it's a domestic terrorist incident. I know we had no issue classifying anything January six related like that. But this is really, frankly ten times worse. But why I did that juxtaposition position in the cold. Not just a time juxtaposition between Tim Waltz and what we saw happen today, but also between what is just the absolute degeneracy and chaos going on in Democrat states and cities. You see the Chicago mayor maybe even more of a clown than Jacob Fry, who can't even say that. I actually think deploying police to the streets of Chicago. That's right, Chicago. What is it worse than? I think Iraq and Afghanistan may be combined in just a weekend alone, but apparently no cops there. It's not not woke enough for that wonderful mayor. I guess he's better than Lori Lightfoot, but not by much. But I think it's worth noting there's been a lot of, as you can imagine, reporting into the state of affairs when it comes to the issue of transgenderism in the great state of Minnesota. It was actually Tim Waltz who was flagged, if you can believe it or not, in 2023 by the head of Minnesota's Catholic school schools. I believe he penned a long op ed saying that school safety was being compromised, particularly at the hands of these radical gender activists. This just anti Catholic, anti Christian sentiment that had been fomenting not just across the country, but particularly under the leadership of Governor Waltz. And do you know what his answer was? Well, it was probably an awkward clap, but it was also not just to do nothing that would have been better. He actually declared Minnesota to be a transition refuge. That's right. Stripping parents of all rights to their kids if they decide one day that they want to become a trans student, even at the what ripe age of three, that you can't veto that you have to go along with it. I think this goes back to what we have always said. This is a battle between good and evil. It's not Democrat or Republican. I think Trump was the forcing function to prove the break of that party system. But this is about people who are just pro humanity and anti humanity, who support death, who think it's okay to kill people because they're Christians or think that we need to condone and outright support the crazy gender transition of people who take drugs that make them even crazier than they are and start shooting up schools. Frankly, I wouldn't add, or I would rather add that we don't just need mass deportations, we probably need mass detransitions, or certainly we need to play much harder with these states that receive federal funding that are supporting this type of hormones altering. And the puberty blockers, whatever euphemistic term they want to whitewash it as, shouldn't be receiving your tax dollars, let alone when all their state officials are going to go up and hit the sticks to say that there's no issue with the transgender community. They're just great. It's actually you, it's maga. It's the right wing Christian zealots, the Christian nationalists that are responsible for this. No, you guys are the ones with blood on your hands. You're not going to spin this. And we're definitely going to keep digging into Robin W. I think that was the, the online name that the manifesto was posted under. I want to go to Brandon Showalter. I just waxed on probably way too long, but I hate being lied to. Although I guess they're Democrats, so I can't expect much more. But the, the transgender issue in Minnesota, they're, they're pretty radical with Tim Waltz at the forefront. Can you just sort of talk about your general, you know, assessment of what happened today, but just how systemic failures. Maybe failures is too nice a word, but this intentional promotion of the transgender ideology. Let us, let us hear.

[Brandon Showalter]

Fascinating question, Natalie, and thanks for having me. It really is so disturbing. And first things first, heart goes out to all the families who are suffering, who've lost their kids and family members today in that horrific massacre. The state of Minnesota functions as kind of the trans hub of the Midwest. I really put it alongside the west coast states, which I consider the epicenter of trans ideology in terms of both the medical practices that are happening out there. I mean, yes, we've seen pushback from the Trump administration now with executive orders and federal agency action against this. But Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan have both championed transgenderism very effusively. And I was watching the cold open there with Mayor Fry talking about the, you know, the hatred toward the trans community, Natalie. I think that just goes to show how utterly out of touch people are when you do see that. Like the Covenant School massacre where it was a transgender identified shooter who killed all those children at that Christian school. And now you see this. And there have been other shootings where these deeply disturbed, confused people have carried out these horrific crimes. I'm not going to make the correlation causation fallacy and say that the hormones or the blockers caused psychiatric distress and then that caused the shooting. No, we're all individuals. We all are capable of doing evil. But I just would wonder if A white Christian had gone to a, you know, LGBT activist meeting and killed a bunch of people. Would Mayor Fry have said those things about the hatred towards the Christian community? I don't think so. This is a death cult dogma that has captured the minds of most mainstream, purportedly mainstream Democratic politicians such that they fall over themselves and go out of their way to make sure that we just don't hurt the feelings of these poor darling trans activists that meanwhile, as they rampage and commit horrific acts of violence, they're just so careful that we don't hate them. Nothing could be further from the truth. I, as a Christian, I have no hatred in my heart for, you know, genuinely confused people. What I do despise and what I think most Americans despise is this nihilistic ideology that is full of death and destruction. And if people can stomach it, I know Champagne Joshi has this, the full video, the 11 minute video that has since been deleted from YouTube of the shooter. This is just a cult of death. He hated Christians. He hated Jews. He had a target body with Jesus face pinned on it. He had Kill Trump on his magazine. He hated Israel. He hated gays. He hated religion. It's a cult of death. And so that ideology, that mindset, has consumed the Democratic Party's mind in terms of what they value most. And I couldn't help but notice also that old picture, this was taken a few years ago. It may have been when they were declaring Minnesota a trans refuge state, or maybe it was some other policy. Either way, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan wearing a T shirt saying protect trans kids, complete with a knife blade on it. So it goes to show you what their priorities are and how quickly they fall over themselves to promote transgenderism, even in the wake of a school shooting where Christian children are murdered at prayer. That's how high this goes. And I just don't think that the same would be true if the shoe were on the other foot. It's a mania. It's a dogma that has captured the minds of the Democratic Party at the very top. And until they learn that, and until they see what occult dogma it is, they. I don't think their political fortunes are going to change. But really, this isn't even about that. Today we should be focused on the families who've endured their worst nightmare. But it really is shameful to see transgenderism even be brought up as something we need to protect in the midst in the wake of such a shooting. I hope they get to the bottom of this. And I give my best regards to law enforcement who are doing the investigating now?

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Well, yeah, I mean if it had been a white male, I'm sure that's how they would describe it. Shooter, they'd probably have a live feed in the corner. If not providing live commentary, they'd have a special report tonight on msnbc, cnn, abc.

[Brandon Showalter]

And I would condemn it in the strongest of terms. I would condemn it in the strongest of terms. Like it would not. I mean there's nothing remotely Christian about shooting up a. I mean it's just, you're so right like the it's and people notice the double standard here.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

And can you talk a little bit more about the manifesto? As far as I'm aware, I haven't seen any of the legacy media outlets even get within a 10 mile radius of talking about some of the things that he said. It seems like it's really just been on X.

[Brandon Showalter]

Well, X is what I've been familiar with. And that 11 minute video that I just referenced, if people do, I mean you want to pop an antacid and try to get through it, it's absolutely brutal. If you're a Christian and you're watching this, you need to put pray on your knees for deliverance from evil because this is besieging the younger generation. It is a cult of death. It is demonic. I've had non religious people say to me that they're not even sure that they believe in God. But when their kids get involved in this gender confusion stuff, it convinces them that there's demonic spirits at work in the world. I mean there's something about this wickedness that drives them to the edge of their sanity, to the end of themselves. And I think people just really need to pray. Yes, the manifesto and the video will not surprise you, but it's particularly disturbing in this case.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

And Brandon, we're coming up against a break. If people want to stay up to date with this story, where can they go to follow you and get more.

[Brandon Showalter]

Of your analysis X on Twitter randonmshow and we'll be recovering. We'll be reporting on it at the Christian post for sure. Christianpost.com thank you sir.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

We appreciate it. Thank you.

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[John Lott]

Sure. Well, thanks for having me on. Look, the ones I've heard, the first one I've heard was background checks you could have had. They're talking about background checks on the private transfers of guns. It's not even clear that that would be relevant for this case. But the thing is, even if we had had such laws in effect and they had been perfectly enforced, there's not one mass public shooting this century that would have been stopped. We also hear about assault weapons bans. You look atfirst of all, we don't even know an assault weapon was used in this case. But you look at the last 25 years or so, 15% of the attacks involved a rifle of any type. And the thing is, there's no difference in terms of their ability to go and do the attack between that and some other semiautomatic guns. You know, they all fire one bullet per pull of the trigger. You know, an AR15 is like a small caliber hunting rifle, semi automatic hunting rifle. It fires the same bullets with the same rapidity. The big difference there is the outsized cosmetics, what it looks like on the outside. And just to go and ban guns primarily based on how they look and has nothing to do with how they function has never been obvious to me. But here's the bottom line, and that is I want to do something I don't want to. I want to do something that actually matters, that's related. And one thing that you see time after time in these mass public shootings is that these attackers go to places where their victims aren't able to defend themselves. They go to these gun free zones. We don't know everything with this individual yet by far, but time after time in their diaries and manifestos, these mass murderers explain in detail why they pick the targets that they do. But the media refuses, absolutely refuses to go and talk about those parts of their diaries and manifestos. And what do they go after? They go after gun free zones because their goal is to get media attention. And they know the more media attention they're going to be able to get, the more people they kill. And so if they go to a place where their victims are defenseless, they're going to be able to go and kill more people and get more media attention. So, you know, in Minnesota, it's a crime for you, anybody, even somebody with a concealed carry permit to take a gun onto school property. You know, so let's say this individual had lived, they killed two people, wounded something like 17 others. You know, they'd be facing many life sentences in jail for all those crimes that they committed. Do you think taking two years away from maybe their sixth life or their seventh life is going to make it so okay? Well, I can live with six life sentences, but you take two more years from my seventh life and that's going to stop me from committing the crime. The point for law abiding citizens though, if you or I were to go and become a felon and have to spend years in jail, our lives would be completely changed. It would completely destroy our lives. That would be a massive penalty. And so what you've done is, however unintentionally, and I can believe the desire was to try to create a safe area there. What you've ended up doing is passing a law that makes it clear that the only person that's going to have a gun there is going to be the bad guy who wants to go and do harm. And so these gun free zones actually serve as magnets for these attacks. There's a reason why something like 92% of the mass public shootings take place in these gun free zones, because it makes it easier for these people to go and be the only person with a gun to go and kill people.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

And I guess you can extrapolate that out to D.C. right, a city where it's essentially impossible to own a gun. No wonder why the crime rate is so high. And I guess another thing, the media won't touch, how that is actually going down, at least from the homicide, assault, burglary perspective over the last, I guess now about around two weeks. I'm curious your perspective, how you think President Trump's D.C. crackdown, as we're told it is, is going from a data perspective.

[John Lott]

I think it's going extremely well. Look again, it's just this notion, if you want to stop crime, you have to make it risky for criminals to commit crime. And you can do that by allowing victims to be able to go and defend themselves, as you were mentioning. But you can also do it by making it riskier through higher arrest rates, higher conviction rates, longer prison sentences. And the president is dealing with all of those different issues that are there. And so, you know, we have about 1300 law enforcement officers or patrol officers in D.C. so that means about 400 are on duty at any point in time. And, you know, that's for a district of 721,000 people. You can understand why the police union complains about being stressed incredibly thin. They're like 800 officers short of where they should be. So when Trump puts over 500 FBI and ICE and DEA agents out on the street, when he has over 800 National Guard officers out there, that's essentially more than doubling the number of patrol officers that you have. And so the mayor just announced in D.C. that there's been an 87% drop in carjackings. There's been something like a 24% drop in violent crime. That's there. You know, these are huge drops. But, you know, the biggest change has probably been with regard to homicides. If you take the rate of homicides last year, okay, in 2024, the odds that you could go 13 days, which they just did, without a homicide, is 1 in 800. That's incredibly low. And the other thing that just drives me crazy with regard to the Democrats, because they claim that they care about the poor, that they care about blacks. The latest data that we have is for 2021. And what you find is that 96% of those who were murdered are blacks. And so they claim black lives matter, but apparently they don't matter when it's Trump that's enacting a policy to go and save them.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

And, John, just give me a minute. We saw the Chicago mayor basically saying we don't want, you know, increased police presence, police force here. What are your thoughts on his rationale?

[John Lott]

Well, it's like so many of these other Democrats. He just refuses to go and do the obvious things to go and make it risky for criminals to go and commit crime. He wants to go and claim that basically crime is due to poverty. That's there. The empirical work that academics have done indicates that you can explain about 55% of the variation in crime rates due to law enforcement type things. Higher arrest rates, conviction rates, prison sentences, the death penalty. Only a couple percent of the variation in crime rates can be explained by anything that has to do with poverty or unemployment. Or incomes or any of those types of other factors that are there. Age obviously has distribution, other demographics have things to do with it, but not poverty. So, you know, the fact that he just can't get it out that, yeah, we need to have more police and having, having, you know, 5,000 more police as Joe Scarborough was asking about, it's just, you know, for him to say, not be willing to say, yeah, having 5,000 more police would make a real dent in terms of crime. Look, in Chicago in many recent years, you've had arrest rates for murder that have been in the teens, below 20%. And, and that's just the arrests. Many of those individuals weren't being prosecuted by the Soros type district attorney for Cook County. And, and even when they were prosecuted, not all of them were convicted. And it may be in the teens, but it's, it's, that's on average, for, for, for the hard ones to go after are the gang shootings. There's the ones it's hard to get people to be able to go and be willing to testify in to come forward. And the thing is when you have such low rates of arrest and prosecution and conviction, that makes it hard for people to be willing to come forward because they think to themselves, geez, I come forward, I say that I saw something and nothing happens to these guys and I just risk.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

And John, we're coming up against the break. I know the audience is going to want to get access to, to all of, all of your data and analysis before we have you back on. Where can they go to do that and follow you?

[John Lott]

Well, thanks. They go to our website@crime research.org crime research.org.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

A very wonderful website. John Lott, thank you so much for joining us. We'll have you back on soon. Mike Benz, after the break.

[Steve Bannon (Ad Read)]

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[Stephen K. Bannon]

Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon. Is the continued divide between Trump and the Federal Reserve putting us behind the curve again? Can the Fed take the right action at the right time, or are we going to be looking at a potential economic slowdown? And what does this mean for your savings? Consider diversifying with gold through Birch Gold Group. For decades, gold has been viewed as a safe haven in times of economic stagnation, global uncertainty and high inflation. And Birch Gold makes it incredibly easy for you to diversify some of your savings into gold. If you have an IRA or old 401k, you can convert that into a tax sheltered IRA and physical gold or just buy some gold to keep in your safe. First, get educated. Birch Gold will send you a free info kit on gold. Just text Bannon to 989-898 again, Bannon, 298-9898. Consider diversifying a portion of your savings into gold. That way, if the Fed can't stay ahead of the curve for the country, at least you can stay ahead for yourself. Welcome back to the War Room. We are joined by Mike Benz, who you are, I guess in an undisclosed location. I won't dox you, but you just presented to the State Policy Network talking about media literacy, all these sort of euphemistic terms, how they're coming after our kids with a lot of these programs. Can you just give us a few minutes on what you're talking about and how it links back? We got the tweet. We can put the picture up on screen to a lot of this USAID stuff.

[Mike Benz]

Yes. So this is the media literacy scam. This is something that you've pointed out, I think. That tweet of yours has 34 million views on it where you pointed out Biden's declassified Internet censorship plan relying on USAID to, quote, combat online disinformation by promoting, quote, media literacy. You'll also see on that list in that screenshot dhs, the Department of Education, the State Department and usaid. So that's four different federal government agencies all providing funding, grant money and using, quote, digital literacy as a way to, quote, combat online disinformation. Now this goes back to the 2016 election of President Donald Trump and the, quote, fake news epidemic that the Blob said was responsible for his win. So what the Blob oriented at that time was to revise effectively an old, sleepy, mostly dead field called media literacy and redefine it to mean that media literacy is, is a way to combat Ms. And disinformation, to take this kind of existing concept and use it as a predicate to launch a censorship operation within U.S. schools at the state and local level. The way it works is this. While parents and members of parent teacher associations or state assemblies think that media literacy means they're teaching your kids how to read the media, what they really mean is if you don't read the right media sources, you are illiterate and need to get your mind right. And so this has become the de facto way of creating blacklists in order to block access to or the ability to cite news or information that comes from alternative news sources. Basically, anyone who's not the New York Times or the Washington Post in schools all over the country, and they have spammed this weapon up to the hilt. Twelve states have now made quote, media literacy a mandatory course in K through 12 schools and have mandatory media literacy education tech firms like Newsela and NewsGuard installed in school WIFIs and school devices. So this basically blocks the ability to listen to the conversation we're having right now. And this was actually part of Norm Eisen's playbook as well. Natalie, if you can believe it, that 2025 democracy playbook from Norm Isen published in January this year called for a huge push on, quote, digital liter in schools and in the private sector and for more money to flow into the space. And until the time of our speaking, there has not been a single punching back. But I am proud to present to you today model legislation. I have a spinny chair, so I'm going to do a ceremonial spin in the spinny chair. I propose model legislation to completely blow this concept up. 12 states have made it illegal to not have mandatory state brainwashing through media literacy. I want 27 states to make it illegal to do it in the state the same way this was done with the 1619 project and Critical Race Theory and DEI. The same can be done on the media literacy. All of these contracts that are effectively forced onto these school systems to contract out to these media literacy firms. Well, they're not going to be able to do that if states pass this model legislation. And I'm very excited at the prospect of being able to take our schools back.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Mike Benz, I think I say thank you on behalf of the entire War Room Posse. That's great to be doing legislation at a state level to keep our classrooms free of all this very scary stuff. Imagine if people couldn't watch War Room. It would be a much worse world. We've got a packed show. I usually keep you longer but we've got to get to to some stuff in Texas and stuff in China. So in the meantime, if people want to follow you, maybe read this legislation, where can they go to do that?

[Mike Benz]

Follow me on X at Mike Ben Cyber. Check out our foundation website, foundation for freedom online.com video archives for my work is also available on Rumble and YouTube.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Mike Benz, as always, thank you. Speaking of, I guess both Michaels and state level legislation, I'm honored to bring on Michael Lucci of State State Armor who you guys do great work when it comes to combating the threat that is the Chinese Communist Party. But really from a nuanced level, you get down to the nitty gritty, whether it's the influence ops, the sister cities, the united front work department, this sort of euphemistic charm offensive, you're saying not, not on our watch. So thank you. But before we get into the sort of Chinese student stuff, obviously there was a big New York Times piece talking about Chinese influence of elections up in New York. You have been helping coordinate a lot of what Texas has been doing in terms of really, I think leading being the tip of the spear when it comes to countering malign Chinese influence. Can you walk us through some of the bills that were just signed yesterday?

[Michael Lucci]

Yesterday, Governor Abbott, who's been the best leader in the country on these issues, signed three key pieces of legislation. One, no ccp, no trend agua, none of these terrorist organizations can buy or rent property in Texas. Two, ending sister cities with adversary nation China, Russia, North Korea and then three, first in the country, probably first in the world to create a new criminal statute for what's called transnational repression, short form of that the Chinese government reaches in here and attacks people in the state of Texas. It's happening in Texas. It's happening across the United States. So Texas, first state in the country, probably the first jurisdiction in the world to define transnational repression and say we're going to send you to jail for a very long time if you try that here. But on top of that, Governor Abbott issued say five executive orders, another 10 pieces of critical legislation to block the Communist Party in all sorts of way getting our pensions out of China Blocking their genomic harvesting, which is a really sort of heinous thing. They're gathering genomic data across the United States for all the wrong reasons. And so there's a huge swath of legislation that was enacted in Texas this year. Every other state needs to be looking at what's happening here, but the federal leaders as well. On higher education, Texas enacted legislation that's gonna send you to jail for a long time if you do what one Chinese researcher was just caught doing this week, which is stealing trade secrets. Texas is making that a 20 year prison sentence with a new law that goes into effect in just the next week, protecting our higher education system, screening researchers, all sorts of critical legislation that needs to happen, as I said, at both the state and at the federal level if we're going to stop the Communist Party.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Yeah, I think it's an interesting way, sort of building from the bottom up a very robust defense to Chinese influence and infiltration. Right. Starting at what seem to be these innocuous things like the sister cities or the academic exchanges. But as you well know, this is part of a multibillion dollar political warfare effort that Beijing very strictly controls and deploys quite strategically. Right. To curate these sort of Western politicians or academics or think tanker types or media types to push and pedal their, their line. I'm curious, kind of relating this to what was. I mean, we've been talking about it here in the war room for a while, but I guess maybe for the, the New York Times readers, when they're not busy taking China Daily advertisements they publish years later, investigations into Chinese infiltration, particularly in New York. But can you just sort of give us, you know, an overview of how exactly this compromised network works and why it's so important to sort of use that to reverse engineer the policy solutions to combating it?

[Michael Lucci]

So the name of it is called the United Front Apparatus. But really think of it as a political warfare machine. Think of it as you're trying to win an election in the United States every single day. That's why, with the New York Times covered, and they deserve credit for this because they've been ignoring this problem for a while. Over 50 organizations in the city of New York, all with ties to the Chinese government, working on behalf of the Chinese government while actually operating under American nonprofit law. So they're engaging in electioneering, which is illegal for them to do under nonprofit law. But set that aside, they're running broad influence operations to try to take out politicians who say support Taiwan and insert politicians, and they don't care. The Party insert politicians that support the global agenda of the Chinese Communist Party. They also inserted spies into the governor of New York's offices. She's under indictment now with her husband. They're inserting spies across governments where really you have a soft underbelly. New York, California, Minnesota, where the leadership's really not watching very closely. So what they're doing in New York, over 50 civil society orgs, they're really just arms of the Communist Party. They're operating to enhance the Communist Party's power within the United States. And then they're crushing dissent against the Communist Party. New York also had an illegal police station where the Communist Party was policing ethnic Chinese in America, in New York City itself. So that's transnational oppression. That's the kind of thing that Texas said, you're gonna go to jail for a really long time if you do it here. But in New York, unfortunately, they still have free reign. And I think that the FBI really needs to start looking at some of these deep blue jurisdictions. California, New York, where the Communist Party is really just running wild. I mean, Gavin Newsom is running right along with them. In California, the governor of New York had spies in her office. They're now under indictment. I think you really need federal law enforcement to dig in deeply into these networks, suss them out. And if you know the President Trump, he should sanction all these entities. There are proposals to just sanction the entirety of what's called the United Front, cut off all their funding, send all the agents home, and denaturalize anyone who became a citizen of the United States by lying about their affiliations and loyalty to the Communist Party. That's what we need to win this political war just on our own soil, set aside the global conflict we have with the Communist Party.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Michael, if you can hang with us through the break. I have been a very staunch advocate of sanctioning anyone even tangentially tied to the United Front. I, frankly, I would subpoena all of the lobbyists that worked on behalf a lot of these influence groups too. Not just to get the names of the people who participated in all these meetings, but I think those people should face criminal charges, frankly, for treason. I mean, collaborating with the Chinese Communist Party, let alone military linked entities, let alone helping them target the Achilles heel of the American political system so they could get, I don't know, a better ROI for China's preferred policies. Yeah, I think we call that treason. Think maybe you're a traitor. Call me crazy. Let's drill down on that after the break. Quick Message from our sponsors. You never thought it would get this far. Maybe you missed the last IRS deadline or you haven't filed taxes in a while. Let me be clear. The IRS is cracking down harder than ever and this won't go away on its own. That's why you need Tax Network usa. They don't just know the irs. They have a preferred direct line to the irs. They know which agents to deal with and which to avoid. Their expert negotiators have one goal. Settle your tax problems quickly and in your favor. Their team has helped clear over $1 billion in tax debt. Whether you owe $10,000 or $10 million, even if your books are a mess or you haven't filed in years, Tax Network USA can help. But don't wait. This won't fix itself. Call Tax Network USA right now. It's free. Talk to a strategist and finally, put this behind you. Call 1-800-958-1000. That's 1-800-958-10000 or visit tnusa.com bannon we're going to make the case for why we need to sanction the united Front. Certainly not double the Visa cap for Chinese students, AKA spies, AKA sleeper cells. Take your pick. This is not run of the mill academic exchange. They are the enemy. And we shouldn't be training the people. We may one day meet on the battlefield, but we know they don't prefer kinetic conflict. We'll be right back after this short break.

[Steve Bannon (Ad Read)]

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[Michael Lucci]

Here's your host, Stephen K. Ban.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Welcome back to the War Room. We're still joined by Michael Lucci of State Armor. Now, Michael, the Trump administration got very close, close in sort of both direct and indirect ways in the first term to sanctioning a lot of these United Front entities, or at least really strongly. Warning, I believe it was the National Governors association from collaborating with any of these sort of Chinese counterparts. The one particularly engaged in the charm offensive. They revealed a lot of these companies or these sort of entities as being military proxies and collaborators, obviously sanctioning, adding to the entities entity list, a lot of these kind of groups. I'm just curious, make the case. You know, a lot of admin people watch this show. They love Steve. Can't blame them. But why you think going after the United Front is a really, really useful arrow in the quiver to combat malign Chinese influence?

[Michael Lucci]

I take the Chinese leader seriously when he says that the United Front is his number one weapon to defeat the United States. He places that ahead of the People's Liberation Arm, which he puts at number two, and the Communist Party itself, which he puts at number three. I think he means it when he says that. And why does he think that's his number one power against the United States? Because it subverts our democratic system and our constitutional system. It erodes the rule of law, but for their purposes, it allows them to extract extraordinary value from the United States while also damaging our system. So it's a way to use our system against us, to use our open system against us by extracting value and damaging our democracy at the same time. Easy example, as I know we're talking about higher education. The greatest heist in the history of the world has been committed by the Communist Party against the university system and corporate America. They've extracted literally trillions of dollars of intellectual property and then they monetize that every year. They get a return of hundreds of billions of dollars every year on the trillions of wealth that they stole from us. That is all by design. There are one hundred and fifty Chinese student scholars associations on campuses across the United States. This is one example. Our State Department says that they are controlled by the United Front. In other words, they are part of Beijing's global political warfare machine. They should not exist. All of these influence operations that we See, you could talk to some Chinese students on campus and they will tell you, if I say this thing, my parents get visited back home. So they're subverting constitutional rights inside the United States against Chinese immigrants, Chinese Americans, regular American citizens. They're broadly undermining our system and they win by inches. That's why the United Front is so important to them. They turn our institutions against ourselves. They win by inches. And so perhaps they don't win an invasion against President Trump in this term, but they will win inches this entire time unless we eject this entire political warfare machine. It's the only choice we have. The alternative is we let them slowly defeat us over time. They've already done this to some of our allies, New Zealanders, Australia. They are swamped with United Front influence operations. We have to eject them here and then we have to help our allies eject them from their countries. Otherwise we will continually be surrounded by these influence operations.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

And Michael, just one more time, if people want to follow you, get engaged. You guys are always sort of sounding the alarm against a lot of, I think, Chinese infiltration, whether it's the Microsoft stuff, the visa stuff, the United Front, where can they go to get engaged? Reach out and follow you.

[Michael Lucci]

StateArmor.org is our website at. StateArmor is our handle on Twitter. And then Ichael Lucci on Twitter as well. Well, constantly investigating, working with lawmakers, stopping the Communist Party at the state level.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Thank you, sir, for joining us. A very noble mission. We appreciate it.

[Michael Lucci]

Thank you.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

And Denver, if we have that clip, we can roll it. Otherwise I will talk about the United Front and Chinese Communist Party invitation for a while, but I guess msnbc, I believe they participated in a lot of the pay for play dinners with Chinese lobbyists too. So it all runs together. Although take your pick, because all legacy media networks did. I told you legacy media wasn't going to touch the manifesto, right? Or any of the clips, the videos that are obviously proclaiming extreme hatred for President Trump and all things trans, promotion of all things transgenderism. Let's watch an msnbc, I guess panelist. He doesn't look weird enough, Maple. He looks pretty weird, but not weird enough to be a host. Contort himself intellectually into why he can't explain Kill Trump now was written on the chamber. Let's roll it.

[MSNBC Panelist]

One of the things that we're still trying to get a better handle on, we're still going through the videos and going through the writings. So just to describe it to folks, there are YouTube videos where there's A number of either journals or they look like journals where there's a number of writings, not all of them in the English language. There's some sort of Eastern European language that's used. Some of it is in English. And this individual is writing about a whole host of things. Won't get into all the particular details. As we stated last hour, we're not here to do the bidding of this individual so that we can basically put out the information they were hoping to gain out of this shooting which has killed an 8 and a 10 year old. You referenced those that are at the hospital, the kids ages 6 to 14 there. Some of them are in critical condition, four needed to be operated on. What investigators are focusing on are these videos when they were specifically made. There's some dates that are associated with it. The bottom line, the bottom, bottom line, messaging on this, suicidal thoughts, quote, extremely violent thoughts is how one person in law enforcement phrased it to me. There's a reference to prior mass violence attacks. There's a whole host of different writings, some of it nonsensical. There's a handwritten diagram of the interior of a church, not clear if it's this church. And there's all sorts of things that this individual is muttering and whispering under their breath. So that's the latest as far as the investigation goes. What specific ideology or motivation will be assigned to this to be determined?

[Stephen K. Bannon]

That's the latest. That's as far as the investigation goes. Yeah. When else have you told us that? I think about what? The origins of COVID the COVID vaccines, the truth about January 6th. These people don't want to investigate it because they know it proves yet again the war room, right when we don't want to be right, that the Democrat party is a death cult. They don't protect or worship humanity. They hate Christianity. They steel man, that is Christian nationalism. These people are disgusting. And I guess we'll take you out with the wonderful Jen Psaki. Though to her credit, I guess she worked essentially for a dead man. So I don't even know if she would know how to respond to a school shooting. But she wanted to weigh in the brilliant genius that she is. Quote, when kids are getting shot in their pews at a Catholic school mass and your crime plan is to have National Guard put mulch down around D.C. maybe rethink your strategy. How about this, Jen Psaki? Maybe rethink your strategy of working for what probably one of the foremost networks in the country which is hemorrhaging cash and personnel day by day. But that's responsible for pumping this country full of indoctrination material, making kids want to become trans hate Christians and carry out acts like we saw this morning. I don't need advice from you or your failing show. Last time I checked, worms on the up and up and I think you basically lost your prime time slot. Thanks for the advice. Have a good one.

[Mike Benz]

War Room.

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