
Episode 4818: The Government Shuts Down ...
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This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on these people. Christians, I got a 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.
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And where do people like that go to share the big lie? MAGA media I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.
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Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.
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War Room here's your host, Stephen K. Banner.
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It's Wednesday, the 1st of October, in the year of our Lord 2025. You might ask why no coal open today? Why? Why are you not getting our blood pressure up and having us spit out some of the warpath coffee? We'll be so angry. Well, we're going to get to all that. Just the structure of the show today. The government officially shut down at midnight last night, or I guess one minute after midnight or one second after midnight. We're in a government shutdown a lot. Traditionally, a lot of this has been Kabuki theater, except when President Trump shut it down in 18 and then we shut it down in 2013 over Obamacare. So the two big times, in fact, President Trump's in 18 over the border wall, over the. Over the Pelosi and Schumer adamantly refusing to, I think it was $5 billion at the time, had the longest government shutdown in history. This is different because there's kind of, I think, a method to President Trump's madness here. And with Russ Vote. Russ Vote is going up to the Hill today, I believe, to walk through a plan of taking on the administrative state during this period of shutdown. Schumer, who had essentially no leverage and tried to bluff his way, I believe, stepped on the rake. And now you have a very energized Trump administration that is going to do here what they were limited structurally from doing before. There's going to be a press conference on Capitol Hill in a moment between with Majority Leader Thune and the speaker of the House, the Speaker of the House Johnson, to walk us through the update. Thune has done something very smart last night, had a couple of votes. Guess what? A couple of Democrats, or at least the Democratic senator, one of the Democratic senators in Nevada, voted to keep the government open for the clean CR to 21st November. And Angus King, who's an Independent, basically caucuses with the Democrats. He's really a Democrat, too gutless to say I'm a Democrat, tries to convince people in Mania's independent. So here's what we're going to do. The presser has not started yet and we are going to when it starts, we're going to pick it up. Wade Miller, who is the individual at cra, the former Marine at CRA that Russ Vogt has holding Fort Apache is going to be on here to walk us through the logic of what Russ Vogt is working on. We're going to play a cold open and then I'll be right back. So let's go ahead and play it. The press conference will start here momentarily. I've got Wade Miller. We got a packed show this morning. Let's go ahead and let her rip. There were thousands of years of combat experience collectively in that room. As someone who served yourself, what were your takeaways tonight?
B
Well, it's one of the more bizarre, unsettling national security events I've ever encountered. The president sounded incoherent, exhausted, rapidly partisan to speaking to an apolitical institution under the laws of the U.S. the Secretary of defense gave a Rambo lecture to an audience that had been at war for 20 years. By the way, a lot of these men and women have daughters and sons who served in combat and were killed or wounded. And then finally, I think the Secretary of defense basically looked at an audience of it was not just a senior commanders, it was a senior enlisted command, sergeant majors, Navy petty officers, and said those of you who are minority or women probably got to where you were as a DEI choice as opposed to on merit. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This is the most lethal, disciplined, effective, well trained.
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Okay, we're going to restart the cold open after the press conference. Let's go now to Capitol Hill, speaker of the House Mike Johnson.
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This Capitol each and every day. But today that's not going to be the case. Today America's boys and girls will walk up to these doors and they'll see something different, a sign that says closed until further notice. And that's because at midnight, Democrats followed through on their threat to shut down the United States government. As we speak here this morning, there are hundreds of thousands of federal workers who are getting their furlough notices. Nearly half of our civilian workforce is being sent home. These are hard working Americans who work for our federal government. Our troops and our Border Patrol agents will have to go to work. But they'll be working without pay. Food assistance, veterans benefits, and vital support for women and children are all coming to a halt now, thankfully, President Trump is trying to mitigate the damage as much as possible. His administration is working to limit the harm to the American people. But the longer this goes on, the more pain will be inflicted because it is inevitable when the government shuts down. The sad thing about it is that every single bit of this was entirely avoidable. Democrats could have worked with us in a bipartisan manner to avert this unnecessary and very harmful shutdown, but instead they did something that is rather shocking to us. They prioritize taxpayer funded benefits for illegal aliens over keeping the government open for American citizens. They themselves position that as a binary choice and it's patently absurd. Listen to what the Democrats are demanding. They demanded in exchange for our simple, clean, 24 page bipartisan continuing resolution. The same one that Chuck Schumer and the Democrats voted for just a few months back in March. In exchange for that, they rejected it. And they demanded something else. They wanted us to add over $1.5 trillion in new federal spending, paid for, of course, by hard working American taxpayers, simply for funding the government at current Biden level spending levels. We are not going to do that. We can't do that. We won't do it. Almost two weeks ago, the House did our job. In the House, we passed a common sense nonpartisan bill to keep the government open. Republicans did our job. We had one Democrat join us there. So it was bipartisan. But every other Democrat in the House voted to shut the government down. And last night, 44 Democrats in the Senate did the same thing. This is a clean resolution. It would simply buy Congress a few more weeks, seven weeks to finish the job. Why do we need that time? So that appropriators in both parties can finish their work. They've been restoring regular order. They've passed 12 separate bills out of committee in the House and the Senate has done its work as well. Three bills of the 12 passed in each chamber. They don't line up exactly. So there's a conference committee constituted, the first time in years that that's happened. We just need more time because we ran out of clock at the end of the fiscal year, September 30th. This is very important to note. Democrats themselves have voted to pass a clean, bipartisan CR just like this 13 times in the last few years. During the four years of the Biden administration, 13 times this happened. Republicans did the responsible thing even when we were in the minority to keep the government Open. And today should be no different. There is nothing new in this legislation. There's no poison pill. There's no partisan tricks. There's no gimmicks whatsoever. The only difference today is the man who is sitting in the Oval Office. Rather than work with President Trump and Republicans to get this job done, as our party has done repeatedly in the same situation over the years, Democrats want to play political games with the lives and the livelihoods of Americans. The simple truth is Democrats in Congress have dragged our country into another reckless shutdown to satisfy their far left base. That is the truth. Whether or not the government remains open or reopens is entirely up to them. There's still time for Democrats to pass this clean, bipartisan bill that's sitting before them. And we encourage our Democrat colleagues to do that. I certainly pray they'll come to their senses soon, do the right and responsible thing. The reason they will have one more opportunity today is because of the sound leadership that is being Provided in the U.S. senate by our colleagues who are standing here with us. This is a joint press conference, as you know, between leadership, Republican leadership in the House and the Senate. And I'm delighted to yield to my good friend and an extraordinary leader in the Senate, Leader John Thune.
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All right, well, thank you, Mr. Speaker, and our House colleagues for doing the work. You sent us a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, we are here this morning in a government shutdown that Democrats wanted. Chuck Schumer, at the behest of a bunch of liberal far left activist groups, has walked his Democrat colleagues into a boxed canyon. There's no way out, folks. There's no way out. This could have been avoided. It's totally unavoidable. And everybody's now asking the question, how does this end? Well, it ends when the Senate Democrats pick this bill up, passed by the House of Representatives and vote for it. It's on the floor of the Senate. We're going to vote later this morning on this. 24 pages. Does this look partisan? Does this look dirty to you? 24 pages to fund the government. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. The House kept it simple. We kept it simple in the Senate. This is something, as the speaker noted that 13 times in the past Senate Democrats have done when they were in the majority and Joe Biden was in the White House. This is a very straightforward issue. It's not complicated. They want it to end. Vote with us to open up the government by voting this out of the Senate today, putting it on President Trump's desk, and he will sign into law President House Republicans, Senate Republicans, we're all united on this. And what's interesting now is some of the Democrats are joining us. Our vote last night was a bipartisan vote. There were three Democrats that came over and voted with us because they know this strategy is a losing one and it hurts the American people.
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It's not about who wins or who.
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Loses or who gets blamed in all this. It's about the American people. And they have taken the American people hostage in a way that they think benefits them politically, but at the consequence and the cost of what's going to happen to the American families if this government shutdown continues. So I'm glad to be here with our Democrat or our Republican colleagues. Our Democrat colleagues in the House have been around here the last few days, I guess, flailing around, celebrating, celebrating the fact that they voted to shut down the government. How ironic. This can all end today, folks. It needs to end today. We will continue to work together with our House counterparts, with the President of the United States to get this government open again on behalf of the American people. Next up is. There he is, the leader.
E
Thank you, Leader Thune. Today marks day one of the Schumer shutdown. As Speaker Johnson pointed out, this didn't need to happen. House Republicans came together weeks ago to prevent a government shutdown. We brought as straightforward of a bill as you can have to say, let's allow government to be funded for another two months while we negotiate our differences. Clearly, we have differences with Democrats right now. One of the Democrat leaders confirmed yesterday that that Democrats shut the government down to fund health care for illegal aliens. That is no way to hold the American people hostage over some far left demand. You know, we had an election in November where the country came together and said, let's send to Washington leaders who want to solve problems and get our country back on track. And we've been working feverishly to do that to get this country back on track, to get the economy moving, to lower inflation, to lower interest rates. And Democrats, just to appease their far left radical base, have been voting no every step of the way. Well, today it has consequences because when Hakeem Jeffries whipped every Democrat to vote no and shut the government down, luckily in the House, we only needed a majority vote. We were able to come together and do the right thing and get that bill over to the Senate. But as everybody knows in the state Senate, you also need Democrats to come together with Republicans to get 60 votes. And so when Chuck Schumer made such a fatally flawed decision to shut the government down, Ultimately, the American people, I think, are going to get involved and demand that Chuck Schumer reverse course because it's not sustainable. The American people do not want to be held hostage to Chuck Schumer's radical demands to fund illegal health care. And. And, oh, by the way, to cut and gut $50 billion out of rural hospitals. That's in the bill that Chuck Schumer filed as his alternative. That's outrageous. You want to talk about a partisan demand to hold the American people hostage? That's what Chuck Schumer has done. We have a bill that is clean, that just keeps these negotiations going for another two months while the government stays open. And all Chuck Schumer needs to do is get over the tantrum that he's having with the results of the election from November and vote yes to keep the government open. We are here ready to get the job done. Schumer needs to end his shutdown and finally join with us and let's start real negotiations without holding the American people hostage. With that, I want to bring up my friend, the whip of the Senate, Whip Araso.
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Well, today we're in the middle of the Schumer shutdown.
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The Democrats have caved in to the.
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Radical wing of the Democrat Party. Caved in, completely abandoned the American people in the process. And why? Well, one of the reasons is Chuck Schumer wants to try to prove to.
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Somebody that he's more liberal than aoc.
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Yesterday in the Senate floor, the cracks started to appear in the Democrat base. Three Democrats voted with the Republicans to prevent a shutdown. And why? Because they know the American people are hurt when the government shuts down. We hurt our military who may be without pay. We hurt our veterans who may not get health care. Today, the Senate is going to vote again and give the Democrats an opportunity to open the government by passing the.
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Continuing resolution to give us seven weeks.
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To do the appropriations process to get the government open again.
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That's what the American people want, is.
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What the American people deserve. And today, we'll see how many Democrats vote with us to end the Schumer shutdown. And now, the whip of the House of Representatives, Tom Emmer.
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A government shutdown serves no one. Government shutdowns unleash chaos on federal workers.
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Delay pay for service members, and weaken.
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Our position on the global stage to.
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Hold these people hostage instead of just.
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Letting them do their jobs.
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Okay, you see the messaging. The Schumer shut down. Here's what Schumer is doing this, and here's the reason. Because it is a clean CR as you know, I don't have to tell you, you hate that. You hate continuing resolutions. You're prepared to do it because they got to keep, quote, unquote, negotiating. Now, as was it Andy Biggs we talked to the other day, you're going to have a worse calamity come November because they're going to try to force through an omnibus, say, oh, we just got to get this done for a year long. CR so the worst is still in front of us. But and because the single subject, appropriations, everything we work for was not done. And a lot of fingers can be pointed, including at the speaker of the House and other people. We kind of are where we are. But the Democrats have, I think, walked themselves into a trap. And why they walked themselves into a trap because please notice, I'm going to tie a couple things together here. This is because Schumer and the guy and the folks that voted, gave him the 10 votes or the seven votes in March to keep the government open, came under such huge pressure because the Democratic Party has kind of lost reason now. It's not Orange Man Bad anymore. There's like a psychotic reaction to Trump. And this goes back to the escalating violence of the left, whether it's Mangini or the alleged shooter in Utah or some of the talk you're hearing coming out of New York City, Mandami and his dominance of this New York City race. And really the crushing of Cuomo in the, in the more traditional progressive part of the Democratic Party is has all these guys on alert. Schumer's concerned about one thing, Chuck Schumer's political life, because without being a US Senator, he's nothing. Because you can tell he's a guy of limited intelligence and limited talent. He's being pressed by AOC to his left. If she decides not to run for president, which, yes, folks, that is on the table and they're thinking about it, she'll run for the United States Senate and she would open a can of whoop ass on Schumer in a primary. And he knows that. That's why he's got to be a tough guy here. But they stepped on the rake. Here's why they stepped on the rake. President Trump has a plan. And that plan, his architect of that and you know, the, the executioner that is the great Russ Vogt, who has worked on this for eight years. And as you know, given he was a big contributor to the show in 22 when he came out and gave his first CRA budget, he talked about how to get to a balanced budget, I think in four or five years. He talked about taking apart, deconstructing the administrative state. Russ has a plan right now, I think to be very, one of the plans is to be very aggressive on deconstruction in the administrative state during this shutdown. And so it's going to play right into, it's going to play right into the hands of maga who want to make sure that we can, you know, we're not anarchists, but we want to take, we want to take have as limited government as we possibly have with the regulatory apparatuses that you need. Russ Vogt has that plan and he's prepared to execute it and fight it in court if the Democrats want to do this. So this is where we stand right now. The Democrats understand they're kind of cornered. There's no real off ramp for them, particularly last night. This was huge when the senator from, when the senator from the Democratic senator from Nevada voted with the Republicans and Angus King. That's two votes. This is why Thune can stand up there today and say, well, this is a bipartisan. This is bipartisan. And they will continue to vote every couple hours. Thune's gonna put him on the, is gonna put him on the, on the, on the griddle today. That's why I believe that Russ votes plan which he's going up to the Hill, I think, to walk people through not looking for sign off. I don't believe the President of the United States is looking for sign off, but he's, he's clearly looking for, to let them know that they're in the loop. Okay. I think that's the way to say it is Wade. Do we have Wade yet? Okay. We're trying to try to get Wade Miller in a moment. Wade is over at CRA and is very familiar with the details of this plan. Let's go ahead and play the. Let's play because we've got to move the show along. Let's go and play the cold open and we're going to get Wade Miller here. We got, we're jam packed today on Capitol Hill. They're up there. It's all messaging. If you heard, if you heard, if you heard Speaker Johnson and Thune, you got the, you get the point of what we're doing and what we're, how we're driving this thing. It's a Schumer shutdown, but there's a lot to do and this can be to our advantage. I'm a huge believer in these government shutdowns. Because number one, you can do lots of reconstruction. Number two, it's been a winner for us in 13 and it was a winner for us in 18, by the way, we had a huge win in the midterms in 14 and we picked up 14 total seats in the House in the stolen election in 2020, I think a net 12, which is extraordinary given they stole the presidency from President Trump. So let's go ahead and play the cold open. We'll bring in, we're going to bring.
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In Wade Miller estimate for us. Give us some ballpark numbers here. We've already had some sizable reductions in force. Actually, There's a number 300,000 floating around for this, for this calendar year that may or may not be the right number. But that number is floating around now. If there is a budget shutdown, as our own CHAD program suggested almost ineluctably will be a budget shutdown, then you have the authority to reduce the federal employee employee count by roughly how much? Well, I'm going to let that those kinds of questions extend until tomorrow and the days after. Right now where we are, we have hours to go before a government shutdown and it can be avoided. And then we'll get in tomorrow. The preparation is all done. We have many options. But we're going to get in tomorrow and see where we are and we're going to manage this shutdown and try to keep the American people from the havoc that the Democrats have caused on with their crazy demands. But let it be said, there are all manner of authorities to be able to keep this administration's policy agenda moving forward. And that includes reducing the size and scope of the federal government. And we will be looking for opportunities to do that. And you've made that very clear to Mr. Schumer. It doesn't seem to move him, Russ.
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Vote.
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That's what I don't understand. It will be worse. I mean, if I were he, and I'm most certainly not, but if I were he, I would want a continuing resolution and discuss all this stuff. I wouldn't want to hand the circular over to you. And he'll have to take some measures that he's not going to like one darn bit. Well, I think he's got some time over the next several hours to come back from the brink to work with his moderates to get a continuing resolution passed. We'll see how these votes come up and then we'll see where we are in the morning. What am I going to say if.
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I'm asked to go on the street and conduct illegal actions. And I guarantee you that the people.
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In that audience will not execute illegal orders.
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We've been saying that for a long time. But at the same time, all of.
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Them, not only were they personally embarrassed.
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But they were embarrassed for their services.
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That had, you know, sit in that.
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Audience and listen to this kind of stuff.
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That's, that's the, you know, the worst.
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Part of all this.
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You know, there's a saying in the.
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Military that's a great leadership dictum. You praise in public and you discipline in private. This was a disciplinary approach in public.
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With cameras so the whole nation could see.
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And it was an attempt at separating the military institution from the people that they defend. And I don't think it worked very well. But I'm sure there's a lot of.
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People questioning what the military will do next. I'm sure of what they will do next.
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They will make sure they don't follow.
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Illegal orders and maintain their job yesterday.
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But Dave Columbia, simpleton Republicans do have a lot to lose.
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The midterms are around the corner, right? But their memory again of 2013 is that there was a shutdown. It lasted, well, a while. It was pretty painful. They won the 2014 midterm, then 2018, after, after the midterm, there was a shutdown over border funding. Trump lost in 2020, but Republicans gained ground in the House. That's not remembered by Republicans as a failure. That's another reason we've been just piling up moral hazards and reasons that members of Congress are not worried about the long term politics of this. They're really not. The only thing that's new compared to the last shutdowns I talked to is we've got elections in Virginia and New Jersey in a couple weeks. And Republicans I talked to said we'd rather the issues there be about the culture and schools and gender policies than a government shutdown, because we think that's a issue for Democrats, but that's pretty minor.
A
President Trump has said, you know, he could use this as an opportunity to further cut government and turn some of those temporary furloughs into permanent job cuts. Speaker, can you assess what you're expecting in terms of the job cuts and how severe they could be?
C
Yes, the president and I have talked about this at great length. While a shutdown is very damaging for real American people who depend upon government services, it can provide an opportunity to downsize the scope and the scale of government, which is something that we've all always wanted to do. And so, in a way, Chuck Schumer has now handed the keys to the kingdom, to the executive branch under President Trump to do some things that we would not otherwise be able to do because we would never get Democrat votes for them. Now Russ Vogt is in charge, as you know, of the Office of Management and Budget. And it is his responsibility to look at all of this and make very difficult choice. He gets to decide now what services are essential, what programs and policies should be continued in which would not be a priority for taxpayers. That is what is about to happen. And Chuck Schumer has allowed that. And so from his political perspective, it's a pretty massive backfire and there's a real opportunity for government to work more efficiently and effectively for the people if those decisions are made.
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Okay, so this is where we stand. The great Wade Miller is going to join us. We're going to take a short commercial break in a minute. Gold breached $3,900 earlier today. What did we tell you? We also told you it's not the price of gold. We don't focus on the price of gold. It's the process of what drives value in gold and why people look to it as a hedge. Very important. One of the things of this audience is understand capital markets deficits because at the end of the day this shutdown is going to get back to as we roll into November, it's going to get into a, a very unappetizing set of alternatives. I haven't seen what the deficit was at midnight last night. I'll double check. But look, it's roughly $2 trillion as we told you it's going to be. And remember, we're still, when you talk about these crs, you're still dealing with Biden and Pelosi numbers. How does that make you feel? Not great. Well, this is the reason that the Congress, which I think I'll start calling the Duma, because they got about as much power as the Duma had back in pre revolutionary Russia. Right. They've been unable to address the situation on spending. They're just not going to do it. They're going to continue to tap it along. As long as you have these massive deficits adding to the debt, you're going to have these refinancing issues. And as long as you have that, you're going to have to print more. You have to print more money. This whole issue of fiat currency and particularly the central bank's asset allocation, that's why they're buying gold at an all time record level. And that's one of the structural things underneath gold that continues puts the pressure on the upward pool. Pressure on gold. You need to understand this. Go to birchgold.com promo code Bannon End of the Dollar Empire we did this for a reason. We started four years ago when goal was $1,100 an ounce. Why we said the financial crisis before the United States is something that has to be addressed and during the Biden regime, the illegitimate Biden regime years, it was awful what they did. But understand today it's one of the reason gold is above 3900 although it just backed off a couple of bucks. Wade Miller is going to join us. We're going to walk through the logic of Russ Vote and why once again this shutdown is going to work in our favor. Short break, back in a moment. This July there is a global summit of BRICS nations in Rio de Janeiro. The bloc of emerging superpowers including China, Russia, India and Persia are meeting with the goal of displacing the United States dollar as the global currency. They're calling this the Rio Reset. As BRICS nations push forward with their plans, global demand for US Dollars will decrease, bringing down the value of the dollar and your savings. While this transition won't not happen overnight, but trust me, it's going to start in Rio. The Rio Reset in July marks a pivotal moment when BRICS objectives move decisively from a theoretical possibility towards inevitable reality. Learn if diversify your savings into gold is right for you. Birch Gold Group can help you move your hard earned savings into a tax sheltered IRA and precious metals claim. Your free info kit on gold by texting my name Bannon. That's B A N N o N to 989-898 with an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau and tens of thousands of happy customers led Birch Gold army with a free no obligation info kit on owning gold before July and the Rio Reset. Text Bannon B A N N O N 298-9898 do it today. That's the Rio reset. Text Bannon at 989-898 and do it today. You missed the IRS tax deadline. You think it's just going to go away? Well, think again. The IRS doesn't mess around and they're applying pressure like we haven't seen in years. So if you haven't filed in a while, even if you can't pay, don't wait and don't face the IRS alone. You need the trusted experts by your side. Tax Network USA Tax Network USA isn't like other tax relief companies. They have an edge, a preferred direct line to the irs. They know which agents to talk to and which ones to avoid. They use smart, aggressive strategies to settle your tax problems quickly and in your favor. Whether you owe $10,000 or $10 million, Tax Network USA has helped resolve over $1 billion in tax debt. And they can help you, too. Don't wait on this. It's only going to get worse. Call Tax Network USA right now. It's free. Talk with one of their strategists and put your IRS troubles behind you. Put it behind you today. Call Tax network USA at 1-800-958-1000. That's 800-958-1000 or visit Tax Network USA tnusa.com Bannon do it today. Do not let this thing get ahead of you. Do it today.
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Of the new pin because the government shut down. Don't think the IRS has shut down. When I talk about a $2 trillion deficit that I think we hit last night at midnight or thereabouts, that means the government needs your money. I don't care how much tariff revenue, which, by the way is coming in record amounts, is coming in. The IRS going more aggressive than ever. You need to go to if you fail to file late filing, haven't filed in years. Got a letter from the irs. Hey, it's not going away. It ain't going to go away. And don't think well, the government shut down. No, no, it doesn't work like that. 800-958-1000 or tnusa.com promo code Bannon. You get a free consultation. Just use the name of the war room or Steve Bannon. These guys have sold over a billion dollars worth of issues. Trust me, anything that you've got, they've heard before. So what you have to do to get rid of the anxiety and the angst is get somebody on your side. So make contact today. Don't let your issues with the IRS Metastasize and that's what means, well, I'll deal with it tomorrow or put it in the drawer. Do not do that. Just confront this and confront it by talking to the guys at Tax Network usa, the men and women over there. You'll feel a lot better after the call. 89581000 Wade Miller Yes, a fine Navy day yesterday. Pete. Pete Hegseth reading the riot act to the to the generals and admirals. I know you as a Marine, the Marines. I, I looked at the Marine generals in the audience. I don't think they had an issue with doing some heavy PT and think I think a couple, three of them say hey Pete, no offense army major. Right. Bring it. So but I don't want to talk about that. I got to talk about the budget shutdown. Russ Vogt, the warrior Wade in 13 when Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and a bunch of us, you know, support I was at Breitbart at the time. We shut down the government. They shut down the government over Obamacare and man, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz got torn apart. These guys were going to destroy everything. It worked out for us. A big win in 14 predicated upon the messaging that took place the American people because there's an opportunity for the nation to kind of focus here and hadn't really heard this because a lot of people as you know don't follow politics. Same thing in 18 when they stole the election from from President Trump. We picked up on A gross number 14 house seats net 12. This is one of the biggest and you can look in the districts we picked it up. You can see where how Trump won and had it stolen from him. So we've had two victories on shutdowns. Russ Vogt knows that as well as anybody. But in addition and I was telling somebody today, I was in a conference room with Russ over at EOB in May of 2017 when Russ Vogt walked through his whole waterfall theory of cash coming in because then on September 30th two things are going to converge. We were going to have a debt ceiling issue and a government shutdown. And Russ was already thinking about at the time of what you do with these non essential employees of the federal government. So this is not a guy just started up last night. Walk us through. You guys released the Russ Vote budget I think in 22 as an exclusive on War Room to walk through how CRA was even at the time thinking about how you deconstruct the administrative state and do it mathematically. Russ Vote is heading up to the Hill, I believe not to look for sign off, but I think President Trump and Russ want to keep the Hill in the loop about what they're prepared to do. What would that be, sir, in your best, your best thinking?
B
Well, first, it's amazing what can happen if you have principled leadership on your side who is articulating a stance instead of proactively going out and blaming themselves and handing the victory to Democrats. So we're in a different paradigm. I think that's important. Number two, you're correct. So you know, Russ has spent years looking at the federal budget. He wrote a whole budget outline in 2023 when he was president at center for Renewing America that was methodically went through line by line by line of every agency and determined what was actually needed for the government to function for the American people. And what was waste, fraud, abuse, weaponization. And so that was put out. And I know that Russ has been thinking about this daily for years of what would he do if so empowered. And right now we're in a position where President Trump has stood strong. He's not caving to the hostage taking demands of the left, and he's empowering Russ vote to start moving forward on that vision now. We'll see. I mean, so they want, there's two priorities here. One, they actually do want to clean CR to fund the government. But if Democrats just won't allow that, then they will move to plan B, which is to empower Russ vote to OMB to start sending out these orders to every single agency to determine what is actually necessary. And remember, there's now no appropriation. So they can do a lot now that they could not have done 24 hours ago to cut down the woke weaponized and wasteful portions of the federal government, the federal bureaucracy. And so they have a lot of power here. I honestly don't understand strategically why Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer thought it would be a good idea to go in this direction. I get that their base wants them to extract some sort of fight, but this was not the fight that they should have picked. I mean, if it were up to me, I would have probably pushed it into November and made it about a Christmas fight. And everyone wants to go home and strategically do it that way. But they have really fallen on their own sword here and ambushed, you know, stepped on a rake, so to speak. And I don't understand what their logic and thinking is because we now have a fully operational Russ vote who would love nothing more than to enact the President's agenda of demolishing the woke and weaponized deep state.
A
Yeah, I think that this is part of it's Mandami. I mean they're looking and seeing what's happening with the Working Family Party and the DSA as the radical left escalates violence. You saw this in Portland. Ben Burncromb's going to join us right after weight punches. But they have the Democratic Party as you know it has ceased to exist. Right. They're held hostage by an ever increasing Marxist jihadist party. That's just what it is. Which is escalating violence. This is why we had to have the antifa designation of terrorists. This is I think the buried lead of President Trump's the commander in Chief's address here saying hey, we got problems all over the world and you guys are the best. I'm going to get you a trillion dollars and we're going to get you in fighting shape. And we're only going to go into wars we're going to win with precision and ferocity, I think as the Secretary of War said. But we got a problem here at home and I think he put people on notice that we're going to deal with this. So that's what I think is captured. I just think logically and this is why I hope Russ moves with alacrity, is allowed to move with alacrity. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity right here. The Democrats are on the heel. You just saw, I thought the messaging from, from the House and the Senate was terrific. And Thune's going to keep putting them up against the wall every, every couple hours and have another vote. Right. So Wade, I think given Russ has thought this through, the president's empowering him. He's going up to Capitol Hill. Like I said, I don't think he's looking for, he's not looking for sign off. President Trump is gone, wants to keep people in the loop and I think this is the most coordinated I've seen the best communication and Russ is kind of in the lead tank and I hope that he's unleashed this afternoon to go through really the administrative state and say hey look, it's essential, non essential and we're just going to have to cut the non essential. Do you think that that is a possibility, sir?
B
I think it's a high likelihood. It's a complex political strategy here in trying to get to Democrats voting for a clean cr. So if that's their priority, then they're probably thinking through this strategically of what will be step one, step two, Step three to kind of help push them in that direction. If they just don't want to go in that direction, then we could get into step 14, 15, 100. We've already seen an announcement from OMB and Director Russ Vogt that they're cutting 18 billion in infrastructure spending in New York to make sure that it is not funding dei, which of course is systemic racism. Which gets back to your point, we no longer have a Democrat party. We have a neo Marxist party that's focusing on identitarian politics. And so they're cutting that funding. And we'll see over the coming hours how much more Democrats want to watch this happen helplessly.
A
No. And this is, I think, great that Russ is putting people on notice. I love the fact first tweet, this is infrastructure that's needed collectively. People realize, I think this is for rejuvenation of some of the tunnels, bridges. I mean, this is entrance and egress from New York City, from the Manhattan that's needed. Everybody concurs with. But Russia is saying, hey, we're not playing games anymore. You guys still have all this DEI madness. You've got all this woke madness. We're not doing this. Okay? President Trump. And that's why the address yesterday to the flag officers, President Trump is putting people on notice. We're not playing games. When I want something done and I realize the institution of the uniformed services in the Pentagon, you're going to take a trenching tool and dig out DEI and all this woke madness and climate. But Russ as the organizer, he's the linchpin between the kind of legislation and the executive branch and programmatically, how it gets spent. Russ is a guy that has limited capacity for nonsense. And I think what he did today in New York City was absolutely brilliant. Say, look, sorry, not sorry, we're not doing this anymore. And he's going to put people on notice and we got to go to court. You'll go to court and they're going to win in court. Wade, talk to me before I let you go. Oh, good. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, jump in.
B
Well, he has the ability to do this with a scalpel at large scale. So what do I mean by that is he can get into thousands of different programs with a scalpel to have this impact woke weaponized and wasteful government spending with while minimizing the impact on the American people. And there's probably no one else on the planet that can do that as good as Russ.
A
Vote. Tell me about cra. You guys are kind of the think when Russ decided to set up a think tank or an action entity. You guys were focused on these kind of big issues at the time. But tell me about your work now. Where can people go to find out more about you? Because you're still generating amazing stuff. Although half your team went into President Trump's administration to make sure we could set things right.
B
Yeah, you can find us@americarenewing.com and we continue to work on America First Paradigms and we try to anticipate what's the fight going to be a year, year and a half from now and start preparing the work to fight those fights. There's a lot of other good organizations that carry on with the day to day. We of course, do that as well. You know, since this is going to be a big fight. We're already working, we're knee deep in that fight. And we'll continue to try to anticipate what is the support that the President is going to need, what is the support that the, you know, the Trump administration will need and then put in the work to advance those America first ideas and agendas.
A
Thank you so much. Social media, where do people get you?
B
Yeah, it's Wade Miller, underscore usmc.
A
Thank you, brother. Appreciate you. All the work you guys do over there. Let's get Berkham. Berquam is in Portland, Oregon. Ben, we'll come back and play your footage. Talk to me about last night. Last time we left you, it was in the rain of Portland. All this, all this madness takes place between sundown and sunup, correct?
F
Yeah, yeah. So that's what happens. You know, it's like at your house. The cockroaches come out at night. The same thing happens here in Portland. All the violence typically happens at night. Antifa comes out at night. We were in there actually, right after I got off with you, we got invited inside the building. We were the only media, first and only media yesterday that got invited in. We're going to be cutting up all that footage later today and getting that out to you guys. But as soon as we got in there, the antifa and all these guys started showing up. As soon as the sun went down. There were seven arrests last night. We were there for it. And it is, it's just the worst of the worst. And as we speak now, what happens is during the day now you got these liberals, these leftists, these NGOs that are coming out, they're setting up to provide legal aid for the illegals and for the criminals that got arrested last night. So there's this entire network, conspiracy network, whatever you want to call it, of organizations and individuals that are working to aid and abed and undermine this country from within. By the way, the the same NGOs that were profiting off the invasion of America are now working to to protect illegal aliens and protect the criminals that are trying to undermine America from within.
A
I have no earthy idea why we're still allowing those folks to fly function. Anyway, Ben, hang on. We're going to come back to Portland, Oregon. Amazing footage from last night. Seven arrests. When we gonna roll them all up? Put the military on notice yesterday, folks. We have an invasion here in the United States of America and we're going to deal with it. So says the Commander in chief of the Armed forces. Short break. Berquam in Portland next. 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, MoneyGPT, 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 torickards war room dot 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.
C
Go ahead, camera all on me.
B
You keep that square on me.
A
At.
F
The intersectionality of Palestinians.
A
That I know what the I'm talking about and that.
B
Every single one of you peasants is a goddamn idiot.
A
What are the dentists? Don't worry, I'll send you to money taker.
F
The. The threat level that you guys are under and in particular, when you have local politicians saying everything's under control.
G
Well, so. So here with the way the building is set up, you can see behind me, there's a lot of high rises. There's a lot of different opportunities for people to look down and look into what it is that we're doing. And to try to zone in and dial into our operations. We've actually had to put up some paper and some different window blockages on our third floor to keep people from looking, looking in and trying to dial in. I get that the mayor and other politicians within Portland are saying that there's not anything going on here, but we've had a lot going on here over the last nine months, especially since the beginning of June. This has been an ongoing protest, and the protest is fine. We're not here to stop people from exercising their First Amendment right. It's the folks who come out later at night. Normally, the news crew show up here first thing in the morning. There's not a lot going on here then. But towards the nighttime, that's a whole different ball game. And depending on what's going on and the local news and what it is that we're doing, what is happening in Washington, there can be anywhere from 15 people here to 1,000 to 2,000, and they can be here in a relatively short amount of time. There'll just be waves of folks that'll come in when they see if we've stepped up our battle rhythm, if we have more people coming in and out, if we have more people on the roof, if there's more traffic in and out of the building, just a whole lot of different things, because they have some spotters downstairs who will let everybody know through their networks what is and isn't happening down here. And that drives a reaction for a lot of folks. So we've had arrests that I think we're up to 170 arrests about that have occurred here in this building. But it has been difficult. We have folks that come in, in masks. I mean, we get a lot of flak because our flight folks wear masks. Our people are doing that to protect themselves and their family from this doxing and from people coming to their houses and from being followed home. Meanwhile, we have people here who show up with gas masks, with helmets, different types of strobe equipment or other things that will impede the lawful operations that we have going on.
A
Okay, the mainstream media. This is why on the terrorist investigation, we have to not just look at the financiers and the NGOs. As Ben Burkum has said over and over again, the sources these tide found all the foundations and. And the NGOs. You have to look at the media. The media is an active partner of these folks. They. They come in the morning when it's all calm and it's at. These people are vampires. They come out at night. They're like the walking dead. He just heard the officer right there. No federal official that is trying to stop the invasion of our beloved republic under orders by the President of these United States in a government that would control the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the Executive branch should be under that pressure. She shouldn't have to play these games. You just heard it right there. This is not acceptable. These people have to be every night. We ought to roll them all up, put them in. Put them in a federal lockup, and then, you know, indict them, do whatever you got to do. But they shouldn't be on the streets to terrorize. They're terrorizing federal officials that are trying to begin the process of mass deportation. Ben Berkram, your thoughts?
F
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And I just want to kind of show you, paint the picture what's going on. Speaking of that. So Antifa comes out at night. During the day, you got these NGOs, and that's what's happening right here. You got these leftist NGOs that are aiding and abetting illegal aliens. So you have illegal aliens that are coming in for their court appearances. Then you have these leftist NGOs that come out and meet with them and provide them legal aid. And then they're also part of the networks that are. That are telling illegals when ICE is coming to their communities. It's all a coordinated effort. It all goes back to the mainstream media, like you said, that's providing aid and comfort as well, covering up the story, telling the lies. And then you have the local community that's having to live with it. I've got Rick here who actually lives in this neighborhood. You live in that building right next to us. Rick, tell us about what it's like to live here and your thoughts on the folks that are, you know, that are. That are running these operations.
B
Well, it's been, I don't know, 115.
A
Days now, June 7th. And they're here every single day, all day, 24, seven. Obviously, at night, it gets, you know, a lot spicier, but it's, you know, it's just a nightmare getting called Nazi every single time I walk my dog. Nazi. My. My girlfriend, my Nazi princess.
F
Just because you love America.
A
Just because I love America. Yeah. Because, you know, because I stand up to the them. So what I've been doing is there's a. You know, there's a couple people here, a couple women here that are afraid to even come out of their building. So they text me and I, you know, I walk them. I also offer, you know, to take Shelley and Katie Davis court to, you know, do their cars, you know, when.
B
They, when they're leaving.
A
Okay. Hey, Ben. These people are afraid of me. Ben.
F
Yeah, go ahead, Steve.
A
Ben, hang on one sec. Hang on one second. I want to continue this at the top of the hour. No citizen of this country should have to live like he's living. No citizen of this republic should be terrorized by these people on a nightly basis. And if the local authorities in Portland are too gutless, and you got that, governor, you got the mayor stepping up to the microphone. Oh, it's calm. Trump's overselling it. No, if, if there's one citizen being terrorized like that, round them all up and throw them in the who's gal. It's time. We got to stop playing patty cake with these people. They're going to intimidate, they will intimidate anybody until somebody steps up. This is not going to end until we end it. This country is quickly, rapidly heading to a very dark place unless we stop it now. We still have time to do it, but we have to have the political will to do it. Short commercial break we're going to turn to Portland, Oregon, and a besieged citizenry next in the war room. You know, I didn't know this until the guys at Field of Greens, the doctors and the experts told me about it and then gave me information. It was fascinating. We have two ages, our actual age and our body's internal biological age. Additionally, what I didn't know is I've likely lowered my biological age without even knowing it. Here's the thing. Because Americans eat so many processed and ultra processed foods and not enough fruits and vegetables, many, perhaps most, are 10 years older on the inside than their actual age. They're ticking time bombs. A major university study suggests how to slow aging and diffuse that biological time bomb. Participants slowed their aging by drinking Field of Greens. That's all. They didn't change their eating, drinking or exercise, just Field of Greens. I feel great knowing Field of Greens can slow how quickly I'm aging and I encourage you to join me. Swap your untested fruit, vegetable or green drink for Field of Greens while there's time. Check out the university study. I want you all to read it and get 20% off when you use promo code Bannon@FieldofGreens.com that's FieldofGreens.com promo code Bannon. Read the university study. Find out how you can slow down your internal biological clock by using this amazing formula which you just add to your favorite drink. Art of water, what you do at the Worm every day. And in addition, you will get an energy boost. That's fieldofgreens.com promo code Bannon. You get 20% off. Do it today.
Date: October 1, 2025
Host: Stephen K. Bannon
Key Guests: Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Leader John Thune, Rep. Steve Scalise, Wade Miller (Center for Renewing America), Ben Bergquam (On-location in Portland)
This episode focuses on the 2025 federal government shutdown following a failed vote for a continuing resolution (CR) to maintain government funding. The War Room crew frames the shutdown as a “Schumer shutdown,” pinning blame squarely on Democrats and especially Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The episode covers the GOP narrative about the causes and consequences of the shutdown, strategic opportunities for the Trump administration, the role of Russ Vought (Office of Management and Budget Director), and escalating culture war issues. On-the-ground reporting from Portland highlights clashes with Antifa and the impact of leftist NGO activism.
Host's Opening (00:53–03:45):
Republican Leadership Messaging
Speaker Mike Johnson (05:00–09:33):
Senate Leader John Thune (09:33–11:27):
Rep. Steve Scalise (12:26–15:26):
Senate Whip John Barrasso and House Whip Tom Emmer (15:22–17:14):
Bannon’s Assessment (17:14–22:22):
Administrative State and Russ Vought’s Role
Possibility of Permanent Federal Downsizing
Wade Miller on Execution (36:48–43:15):
Real-Time Actions:
Wade Miller on Scalpel vs. Axe (43:15):
This episode aggressively advances the Republican narrative blaming Democrats for the government shutdown while simultaneously framing the crisis as a strategic opportunity for the Trump administration to cut federal agencies and uproot what the hosts call the “woke and weaponized deep state.” The roles of Russ Vought and the Center for Renewing America are highlighted as pivotal in executing administrative and budgetary changes, while the on-the-ground segment paints a vivid picture of culture-war combat in American cities. The episode closes out with calls to confront not just the political opposition but also activist groups and NGOs seen as undermining the country.
Listeners come away with the sense that the shutdown is both a gauntlet thrown at the feet of Democrats and an opening for dramatic policy transformation by the Trump administration.