wavePod

Get Wave AI

Episode 4756: Meltdown At The Kennedy Hearing; Cuts To Defense Fund - Bannon`s War Room | Wave AI Podcast Notes

Back to Bannon`s War Room

Episode 4756: Meltdown At The Kennedy Hearing; Cuts To Defense Fund

Bannon`s War Room

Thu Sep 04 2025

Episode 4756: Meltdown At The Kennedy Hearing; Cuts To Defense Fund ...

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: Bannon's War Room
Episode: 4756: Meltdown At The Kennedy Hearing; Cuts To Defense Fund
Date: September 4, 2025
Host: Stephen K. Bannon (with Dave Bratt hosting much of the episode)

Overview of the Episode

This episode intensely dissects recent congressional hearings concerning COVID policy, vaccine mandates, and defense spending—with a special focus on the "meltdown" at the hearing involving Secretary Xavier Becerra and Senator Kennedy. The show navigates the politicization of scientific committees, defense budget increases, America’s energy security, and the information war around COVID-19, featuring guest analysis from Dr. Naomi Wolf and energy expert David Walsh. A recurring theme is the claim that key health and defense decisions are driven by political and economic interests rather than objective science or national interest.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Kennedy Hearing and Vaccine Policy Meltdown

Who was involved: Senators Bill Cassidy, Kennedy, Mark Warner; Secretary Xavier Becerra
Topics:
- Politicization and conflicts of interest in the US public health committees, especially relating to vaccine recommendations.
- Senator Cassidy accuses Secretary Becerra of making children vulnerable by restricting RSV and COVID vaccine access.
- Becerra counters, stating committee reform was meant to “depolliticize” and eliminate pharma conflicts.
- Senator Kennedy accuses HHS of denying vaccines by changing eligibility/recommendations, challenging Becerra on earlier promises not to restrict access.
- Becerra retorts that vaccines for which there is “no clinical data” should not be recommended or mandated coverage.
Memorable Exchanges:
- "I will put my mailbag against your mailbag any day of the week." – Secretary Becerra to Senator Cassidy [01:27]
- "You promised that you would not take away vaccines from anyone who wanted them. You just changed the classification of the COVID vaccine." – Senator Kennedy [03:39]
- "I'm not taking them away from people, Senator." – Secretary Becerra [03:51]

2. Politicization and Transparency in Health Policy

Bannon/Panel’s View:
Officials, notably under both Trump and Biden, have allowed public health policy, especially around COVID, to become thoroughly politicized. This includes the firing of dissenting scientists and allegations of manipulated or incomplete data reporting.
- "We were lied to about natural immunity… the vaccines would prevent transmission… It wasn’t true. They knew it from the start." – Secretary Becerra [05:13]
- "The CDC allowed the teachers union to write the order closing our schools… and then pretend it was science based." – Becerra [05:13]
RFK Jr.’s Role:
Dr. Naomi Wolf and Dave Bratt frame RFK Jr. as standing alone for “transparency” and “platinum science,” facing hostile senators allegedly beholden to Big Pharma.

3. Big Pharma’s Influence and Accountability

Wolf and Bratt allege bipartisan congressional corruption through pharma dollars.
- "Are you saying that we’re all corrupt because we take pharma money?" – paraphrased by Wolf from Bernie Sanders in the hearing [19:13]
- "Senators are bought and paid for by big pharma… shouting for the nearly a million dollars or more that they are getting." – Dr. Naomi Wolf [19:13]
Wolf contends public hearings are no longer “theater,” and a “massive crime scene” could emerge if Trump (now questioning Pfizer’s data) and RFK Jr. align against the vaccine establishment.
- "It’s a massive criminal… fraud, battery, violation of the Nuremberg Code, manslaughter… if the power of the White House gets behind HHS." – Dr. Naomi Wolf [23:42]

4. Philosophical Reflection: Truth, Science, and the Academy

Dave Bratt and Dr. Naomi Wolf lament the decline of scientific and moral truth-seeking in political and academic discourse, blaming postmodern relativism for the collapse of trust.
- Wolf references her Yale linguistics professor and the “meaninglessness” taught by post-structuralism.
- Bratt recommends The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom and invokes Plato and Karl Popper on the impossibility of perfect truth.

5. Economic and Defense Policy: “America First” Under Threat

Defense Budget Concerns (with Wade Miller):
- Miller (Citizens for Renewing America) says current House/Senate defense budgets go “way beyond what the President has requested,” tied up with regulatory burdens and spending streams that restrain a putative “America First” agenda.
- Example: Funding increases to Ukraine, continued spending on defense contractors, and ineffective or “woke” military provisions.
Quotes:
- “Congress pushing its own parochial agenda… this is just how the NDA process works.” – Wade Miller [49:25]
- "Stop kneecapping the President and statute from being able to execute his agenda." – Wade Miller [48:39]
Economic Stability / Federal Reserve Critique:
- Bratt slams the Federal Reserve for accommodating “$2 trillion deficits every year,” warning of impending inflation and an unsustainable $57 trillion federal debt projection.

6. America’s Energy Crisis and “Green” Policies

David Walsh (Energy Analyst):
- Warns about overwhelming US dependence on Chinese solar/battery imports (87% of panels, 87% of batteries).
- Criticizes both red and blue states for escalating renewables (91% of new US capacity is solar/battery but “six times more costly” than conventional), fueling utility rate spikes.
- Demands halt to Chinese energy imports – warns against sacrificing US energy security “for a trade deal.”
- Europe, meanwhile, is sidestepping sanctions, buying discounted Russian energy.
Key Quotes:
- “We need to throw our bodies in front of the Chinese importation… 87% of solar panels… from China.” – David Walsh [36:01]
- “This is the ruination of the US energy supply. As long as this is happening, you’re not going to buy gas from the United States.” – David Walsh [39:07]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments with Timestamps

[01:27] Secretary Becerra: "I will put my mailbag against your mailbag any day of the week."
[03:39] Senator Kennedy: "You promised that you would not take away vaccines from anyone who wanted them. You just changed the classification…"
[05:13] Secretary Becerra: "We were lied to about everything… The CDC allowed the teachers union to write the order closing our schools… and then pretend it was science based."
[19:13] Dr. Naomi Wolf: "The American people have clearly seen that their senators are bought and paid for by big pharma…"
[23:42] Dr. Naomi Wolf: "It’s a massive criminal… if the power of the White House gets behind HHS… crimes from fraud, battery, violation of the Nuremberg Code…"
[36:01] David Walsh: "We need to throw our bodies in front of the Chinese importation… 87% of solar panels, 87% of battery storage, 60% of inverters all coming from China."
[48:39] Wade Miller: "Stop kneecapping the President and statute from being able to execute his agenda."
[49:25] Wade Miller: "This is just how the NDA process works. It's Congress pushing its own parochial agenda."

Timestamps for Major Segments

00:00–05:08: Senatorial grilling of Secretary Becerra on vaccine policy, pharma influence, COVID recommendations.
05:08–07:38: Bannon, Bratt, and others reflect on the political nature of COVID response and “the big lie.”
07:48–13:44: Dave Bratt on academic “openness,” left/liberal attacks on RFK Jr., introduction of Dr. Naomi Wolf.
13:44–15:00: Wolf critiques “safe and effective” narrative, Operation Warp Speed, Trump’s new stance, and consequences for Pfizer.
16:59–19:13: Senators Warner and Becerra spar over COVID death data; Wolf unpacks congressional pharma capture.
19:13–26:07: The moral/philosophical decay of public discourse (Bratt, Wolf).
29:46–32:46: Bratt covers the looming economic crisis, unsustainable debt, and Federal Reserve critique.
34:29–42:48: David Walsh diagnoses the energy supply crisis and China-dependence in US renewables.
44:57–50:19: Wade Miller on defense budget, NDAA, and constraints on the “America First” agenda.
51:03–52:48: Mike Lindell’s segment on FBI phone seizure and My Pillow promo.

Key Takeaways for Those Who Haven’t Listened

The episode provides a combative, critical perspective on both public health and defense policy, suggesting that entrenched interests overtly override the will and safety of average Americans.
COVID-19 policy debates are framed as a proxy war over truth, scientific integrity, and the corrupting influence of Big Pharma; RFK Jr. is positioned as a rare proponent of transparency and reform.
The show lambasts bipartisan hypocrisy in Congress regarding both health and defense spending: defense budgets rise regardless of rhetoric, and both parties are supposedly compromised by moneyed interests.
The rise of green energy is depicted not as a win, but as a national security vulnerability—characterized by massive Chinese dominance and the risk of skyrocketing costs for Americans.
Listeners are urged to be vigilant, skeptical of official narratives, and proactive in advocacy—whether about vaccines, defense funding, or energy policy.

Recommended Resources Mentioned

The Closing of the American Mind – Allan Bloom (recommended by Dave Bratt and Dr. Naomi Wolf)
Dr. Naomi Wolf’s Substack: "Outspoken"
Citizens for Renewing America analysis on defense policy (by Wade Miller)
Dave Walsh’s energy commentary (True Social, Getter, X: @DaveWalshEnergy)

Note: All timestamps are in MM:SS format for reference. Non-content secions (ads, intros/outros) were omitted from this summary for clarity.

Loading summary...

Transcript

Senator Bill Cassidy (0:00)

The American Academy of Pediatrics has warned that the committee is being politicized at the expense of children's health. American Academy of Pediatrics. You think they're lying too?

Secretary Xavier Becerra (0:15)

I think the American Academy of Pediatrics is gravely conflicted. Their biggest contributors are the four largest vaccine makers. They run a journal, Pediatrics, which they make a lot of money on, that is completely on pharmaceutical companies. So I don't think. I wouldn't put a big stake in what they say that benefits pharmaceutical interest. Senator, I didn't politicize asap. I depoliticize it.

Senator Bill Cassidy (0:46)

Congress has been investigating all over the country, Mr. Secretary. Scientists and doctors are saying otherwise. They're all wrong too. They're all lying.

Secretary Xavier Becerra (0:56)

According to you, the scientists, doctors are supporting me. All over the country there is division on opinion.

Senator Bill Cassidy (1:03)

I don't get letters from thousands of people who are not political saying that this set of changes is going to damage American health care and particularly these health care agencies for decades to come. I don't get any letters forever.

Secretary Xavier Becerra (1:21)

Maybe you're listening to a selective group of people.

Senator Bill Cassidy (1:24)

You get. You get me and I will. Fine.

Secretary Xavier Becerra (1:27)

I will. Tell you what, Senator. I will put my mailbag against your mailbag any day of the week.

Senator Bill Cassidy (1:33)

30 seconds. Dangerous respiratory viruses like RSV are on the agenda for the next advisory meeting. Countless parents have been awakened in the dead of night by a wheezing kid gasping for air, forced to rush their little one to the er. There's no worse heart wrenching fear. The RSV vaccine offers these kids protection against the worst effects of the virus. But now it looks like you're on a crusade to make infants and babies more vulnerable to the terrible illness. That's what we're doing with the COVID changes.

David Walsh (2:09)

And please make your answer brief.

Senator Bill Cassidy (2:10)

Mr. Secretary, I've said the position is indefensible. I think it's possible.

Dave Bratt (7:48)

All right, everybody, Dave Bratt in the war room for the great Stephen K. Bannon. Stephen K. Bannon's downtown giving a stem winder to natcon. Can't wait to see the headlines coming out of that. He shared a few lines with me earlier today. It's going to be a good one. So follow him. I was going to be on the show a couple days ago, but news events overtook things. I just want to point everyone's attention. I know you probably don't follow the New York Times every day, but a couple interesting articles, back to back opinion pieces, New York Times, Cass Sunstein, you know, Obama fame and all that. And then the next day another one from one of the big more liberal writers. But they're, they're making rapprochement back to classical liberalism, right? To be open, tolerant conversations, rational discourse, openness. Whenever you hear the term openness, right, it's pervaded the university campuses in our country. I worked on the campuses for the last 30 or 40 years and. Sounds neat until you see what the liberal Project results in. And for anybody who wants a remedy or a quick study on that, read Alan Bloom, right, University of Chicago, great philosopher, Closing American Minds. It's a great book on he blisters the concept of openness, which came to us from a philosopher named Karl Popper, who had a brain, but now it's gone into Soros land. So when you see Soros and the folks doing openness and pushing openness, you gotta ask, in juxtaposition to what? And it's in juxtaposition to just the American classical setup of inalienable rights under law. But the reason I bring it up right now is you just saw a blistering leftist assault on RFK Jr. You know, I think if anybody sees that, their heart just goes out to them. It was so bad. And then the Democrats are bad enough. All political abuse are my own. But then our guy, Republican Dr. Cassidy, says, I'm just gonna approach this as a medical doctor. We're just gonna do science, no politics here. And he goes into just a tirade. I mean, I think he's got, you know, Trump derangement syndrome or something. Folks, Louisiana, you ought to give your senator a call. That was not there was not one scientific thing about his discourse. He didn't go after RFK on one testable proposition, just a bunch of narrative gobbledygook. So to help us decipher this mess, we have brought in the real doctor, Dr. Naomi Wolf. Doctor, thanks for being with us on the War Room. Great to have you. And why don't you just launch and give us your view? You're more skilled than I am in this realm of medicine. Spend your life's work. So have at it. Thanks for being with us. Doctor.

Dr. Naomi Wolf (10:35)

Well, thank you so much for having me. It's great to see you again, and great to be with a posse again. Of course, I'm not a medical doctor. Just full disclosure. I have a DPHIL in literature, but I did have the incredible experience of helping to oversee this project that Steve Bannon launched and that the posse brought to fruition, which did oversee 3,500 medical doctors and scientists, in reading through the 3,500 documents released under court order by Pfizer. So I do know a lot from overseeing these 105 reports about what the fight was about that you just showed clips from. So I will launch in. It's, you know, I've been critical of RFK Jr. In the recent past because I wanted him to move faster and more directly on pulling especially the COVID vaccine off the market. That's the one that due to the work we did on these two books and the evidence from Pfizer's own internal documentation, there is no way to make the case at this point in history because the evidence is out there in public that it's safe and effective. Pfizer concluded a month after rollout that it was neither safe nor effective, that it didn't work. More people died or were hospitalized with the vaccine than without. You can't make the case that it prevents transmission. Even they don't make the case it prevents transmission. It doesn't. So all those mandates and don't hug grandma were a lie. You know, it has catastrophic side effects. We're seeing horrific excess deaths, as the former BlackRock hedge fund manager Ed Dowd has magisterially demonstrated with his data analysis. And we're also seeing catastrophic drops in live births, a 13 to 20% drop in live births, according to government data sets, especially in the Western world, including in North America. I was just in Europe, and there are a million missing babies in Europe. And we know why. This injection causes sterilization or miscarriage or spontaneous abortion in a plethora of ways. So having said all of that, a lot of things are kind of coming to a head that people should know about that preceded this fight in the Senate and all this yelling. One of the things that really changed the chess board is that President Trump tweeted a really interesting tweet, I would say, three or four days ago, in which he basically said Pfizer had shown him wonderful data, presumably about how effective and safe this injection was. And the implication was when they were leading up to the release during Operation Warp Speed. And now he's calling on Pfizer to release it to the public. And I think he's saying, did you show me real data? Let the public assessment or did you lie to me? So we really put Chrysler on the spot. And I'll pick up after the break if you'd like me to.

Dr. Naomi Wolf (19:13)

I should say up front, he's being heroic. I mean, he's standing firm. He's standing on science, he's standing on truth. And what the American people can clearly see again and again in these exchanges is that he is trying to tell our representatives and our senators what is missing in the science that he inherited and how ill served the American people have been in a horrible emergency in which they were lied to continuously. Or as he was trying to point out just now, the data were botched or outsourced or illegally handled actually in many cases. And he was about to point out that a lot of the data is modeling, which is just imaginary numbers. But I think what the American people have clearly seen, and I think he did a wonderful job being on offense and sticking, trying to stick to the facts and trying to be heard, even though he was being kind of silenced and shouted at, is the American people have clearly seen that their senators are bought and paid for by big pharma. RFK junior Secretary Kennedy said that clearly several times to Bernie Sanders and to Elizabeth Warren and he named numbers and, you know, $850,000 to Elizabeth Warren and she, you know, tried to speak right over him. And he forced that issue so assertively and in such a kind of go on the offense way that Bernie Sanders actually had to say, are you saying, you know, Bernie smoked out Bernie Sanders completely? Bernie Sanders said everyone here has taken money from pharma. We know pharma is corrupt, but they pay all of us are. Are you saying that we're all corrupt because we take pharma money? So the American people have clearly seen who's paying for their senators and that the senators are jumping through hoops for their employers, shouting for the nearly a million dollars or more that they are getting. Seems like annually was a little unclear from the shouting. RFK Jr quitted himself really admirably in trying to people watching this have had enough science to know that his answers kept returning to what would make the science solid and thus what would keep them safe. You know, and even when he was saying they fired people who raised questions about the booster, Martin Kulldorf, a world famous epidemiologist virologist from Harvard, he did right to continue to go back to the science and back to trying to depoliticize it and to make it transparent. Now he is in some impossible positions because they all want him to just roll out the COVID injection with no hesitation and recommended because billions of dollars are at stake with that. And he to his Credit won't. But he also hasn't completely withdrawn it. So he is in a difficult gray area, a difficult to defend gray area. I mean, everyone's kind of mad at him, right? Our side is mad at him because he hasn't pulled in, and their side is mad at him because he has. Because he is not providing it with no testing for free. I mean, just as he said, do you want me to give you a product that has no safety efficacy data? But I do want to say one more thing. Things are really escalating because what's at stake here isn't just another piece of theater. It's not just yet again, as with the confirmation hearings, as you all recall, initially for Senator Kennedy, Secretary Kennedy, sorry, it's not just another ritual of shouting senators. Because this time it seems as if President Trump may be moving into alignment with RFK Jr. About this issue or at least raising the right questions at last, which has been a long journey. And I also want to tell people now their data. Point is, Pfizer replied to President Trump on their own website this week, just a day or two ago, saying, we'll get President Trump the data by the end of the month. And some of it is here on our website. So that's not. That's like a dog eat my homework answer from Pfizer. And the reason this is escalating, and I promise this last thing I'll say is that given that exchange with the leader of the free world and Pfizer, who's paid all of these people that you see yelling at Secretary Kennedy, it's not just is this a botched product, what's at stake if this moves ahead with President Trump and RFKE Jr. Finally in alignment on this issue and President Trump realizing he was lied to by Pfizer, which I'm sure he will not like, it's a massive criminal. It's a massive crime scene. I mean, there are crimes upon crimes from fraud, battery, violation of the Nuremberg Code, you know, manslaughter. I mean, criminal offenses, civil offenses. Even with the PREP act, if the power of the White House gets behind hhs, which hasn't been the case, you know, there have been two camps. So it is a very dangerous moment for the people who took all that money and participated in this crime.

Dave Bratt (29:46)

All right everybody, Dave Bratt in the war room sitting in for the great Stephen K. Bannon with Naomi Wolf. I want to go into a little bit topic of the instability we're going to face economically going up. You know my favorite chart comes from Robert Gordon Jordan. Long run trend productivity going down. For the past 70 years. Trump's doing everything he can to turn that around, bringing capital in. It's all good. We're going to have a little instability in the short run. Probably. He's doing everything right. We got major good moves. The rest of the show is going to be about all that. But we're at 37 trillion in debt right now. CBO, Congressional Budget Office has us $2 trillion deficits for the next 10 years. So that's 20 trillion extra debt in the next 10. So 37 and 20 is 57 trillion in debt. That's not sustainable. The only good news is that England is going to be the first mover. They're going to plunge first. Right? England, France, Germany, they're at 0% growth right now. So they're going to be a marker and they're going to be a warning sign. And so in these times, and I just have to throw in, I always forget sometimes to make the most basic point, the Federal Reserve bank is accommodating, right? There's this debate on these little moves that the Federal Reserve makes. They're accommodating $2 trillion deficits every year without question. The Congress never asked them why are you accommodating? You're supposed to be in charge of the economy. You do all this other projects under the unemployment moniker, but you're not managing the economy when it comes to putting $7 trillion into our federal government. Right? Unproductive $7 trillion. And so in these times, right. Go to Birchgold, our friends. When you've got the Fed accommodating that much, you know what comes next in the history of thought, right? Inflation is around the corner unless our Congress gets its head on straight and starts cutting some spending. So Birchgold right now until September 30th, if you're a first time gold buyer, Birch Gold is offering a rebate of up to $10,000 in free metals on qualifying purchases. To claim eligibility and start the process, request an info kit now. Just text Bannon to 989-898. You know it, right? Just text Bannon to 989898. And I met with the Birch Gould guys. They're a class class group. Plus Birchgold can help you roll an existing IRA or 401k into an IRA in gold and you're still eligible for a rebate in free metals up to $10,000. So give them a call and check them out. All right, back. Naomi Wolf, Dr. Naomi Wolf has been with us doing a super job surveying the news today with RFK Junior. Naomi, how do people reach you what? Name a book or two you might recommend to the young people of the country to get their heads on straight. There you go. That's a good question. That's for advanced readers.

David Walsh (38:35)

Well, Putin just went to visit a couple of days ago. They announced a second major pipeline into China. That's 50, 50 billion cubic meters a day of natural gas on a second pipeline increasing the existing 1,6 million 6 billion cubic meters a day. So about 147% increase in Chinese importation of pipeline gas which is way cheaper than LNG coming on boats from the US into China to remove any last vestiges of dependency on the US for lng China will be the worst. This Biden war was Ukraine, Russia activity basically was the alliance of Russia and China militarily and energy wise. So this completes the coup. They'll be completely independent with Russia on something that they have lacked. China has lacked. Natural gas wants to build a lot more combined cycle. Yes. Fully operational 24 hour a day power plants to fuel their industrial growth. Exactly what we need to be doing here. But we're not doing. We're building solar farms all sourced from them. So this presents an opportunity to get back into this trade deal. The trade deal is not the main thing. The main thing is the ruination of the US energy supply. As long as this is happening, you're not going to buy gas from the United States. We should not be purchasing solar panel, one inverter, one battery storage, one from China, one unaffordable intermittent part time energy useless. But secondly, no reason to be supporting their economy with these kind of purchases of energy devices from them while they're abandoning US natural gas. So it's a big deal. India is in the penalty box for supporting Russian procurement. But you know, we don't China, we're not putting China in the penalty box in this trade deal for doing exactly the same thing. Being an ally of Russia in this Ukraine war, an ally of Iran in their activities with Hamas and Hezbollah and we're letting them get out of jail free. Pass. Because we want a trade deal. Trade deal cannot include the procurement of solar panels, inverters and battery storage from China.