Episode 4957: WarRoom Thanksgiving Day Special 2025

Summary

WarRoom Thanksgiving Day Special 2025 (Episode 4957)

Podcast: Bannon's War Room
Date: November 27, 2025
Host: Steve Bannon
Guests: Dr. Larry Swigert (Co-author, "Patriot's History of the United States"), Charlie Kirk
Theme: Reflecting on Thanksgiving's roots, American exceptionalism, and the narratives that have shaped American history

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Episode Overview

This special Thanksgiving episode explores the origins and meaning of Thanksgiving Day, linking it with key pillars of American exceptionalism. Steve Bannon is joined by Dr. Larry Swigert, noted historian and co-author of "Patriot’s History of the United States." Together, they revisit the foundational moments of the nation, from the Pilgrims at Plymouth to landmark moments in 20th-century American politics. The discussion also traces the influence of historical personalities, the narrative of conservative American history, and the ongoing debate about what makes America unique. Interludes of traditional music, including Johnny Cash and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” frame the conversations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Thanksgiving as a Uniquely American Tradition ([02:46], [10:25], [17:22])

• Steve Bannon opens with a reflection on Thanksgiving as a moment to give thanks for the nation and its blessings, framing the day within a larger narrative of American history.
  • “Is any other nation on earth really segregated out a time of year or a day to actually give thanks to God, to give thanks to divine providence for the blessings of the nation?” ([10:31])
• The episode includes the traditional Johnny Cash Thanksgiving song and “Battle Hymn of the Republic” performed by Odette, underscoring the spiritual and patriotic dimensions of the holiday.

2. The Origin and Impact of "Patriot’s History of the United States" ([02:46]–[07:57])

• Dr. Larry Swigert recounts the creation of "Patriot’s History of the United States":
  • Textbook landscape in the 1990s was seen as increasingly liberal, prompting Swigert and co-author Mike Allen to write their own, with a focus on a conservative, narrative-driven account.
  • The book’s popularity soared after an appearance on Glenn Beck’s show, at one point shipping 19,000 copies in a single day.
  • He offers a free PDF update that covers 2018–2025, including Trump’s first full term, Biden’s term, and COVID ([05:54]).
  • “We had to argue against the textbook all the time. So we said, why don't we write our own?” ([03:53])
• Bannon’s personal connection: Used the book while teaching civics at Danbury Federal Prison, receiving enthusiastic responses from inmates ([06:16]):
  • “So many of the inmates came up to me after and said, what's this history book? … it was standing room only at the prison library after the fact.”

3. The Interconnected Biographies of American History ([07:57]–[09:43])

• Dr. Swigert previews his upcoming book “American Biography”—tracing U.S. history through the interconnected lives of its notable figures.
  • “You find these links through American history, we really are all tied together by less than six degrees of separation...” ([08:41])
• Bannon expands: “I think it was [Thomas] Carlyle that said history is just biography. Right? But you're actually going to prove it.” ([09:23])

4. The Pillars of American Exceptionalism and the Thanksgiving Debate ([18:28]–[26:42])

• Dr. Swigert discusses the origins of Thanksgiving, contrasting the Massachusetts/Plymouth tradition against Jamestown/Virginia ([18:28]):
  • Four pillars:
    1. Christian, mostly Protestant religious tradition (bottom-up congregational church governance)
    2. Common law (law is in the hearts of the people, not the ruler)
    3. Private property with written titles and deeds
    4. Free market economy
  • Only Plymouth, not Jamestown, encompassed the first two crucial elements, making it the true origin of American exceptionalism.
  • “Are you listening to me? 1619 Project: American Exceptionalism has nothing to do with slavery or slaves. There were no slaves in Plymouth.” ([19:39])
• The Pilgrims’ journey—leaving England due to religious persecution, briefly residing in Leiden, Holland, then seeking a new life for freedom of worship in America ([21:54]).

5. Surviving the First Winter: Humanity and Hardship ([25:20]–[26:42])

• Survival in the new world was formidable. The Pilgrims stayed aboard the Mayflower initially, sending scouting parties ashore, and relied on both native survival skills and communal efforts ([25:20]):
  • “More than half of these travelers … were not separatists. They were just others who wanted to come over. … And they fished and they hunted and they gathered and they did whatever they could to stay alive for those weeks.” ([26:00])

6. The Importance of Property, Titles, and Deeds in American Development ([43:22]–[47:53])

• Dr. Swigert defines why written property rights are central ([43:46]):
  • “Private property with written titles and deeds … is a key aspect of economic growth.”
  • Reference to Hernando De Soto's The Mystery of Capital, explaining the advantages of a clear, documented system of ownership for personal and national prosperity.
  • The 1785 Land Ordinance—its landmark role in surveying and settling the Northwest Territory ([45:28]).
• Contrasts how land is parceled east vs. west of the U.S. due to historic differences in surveying and property law ([46:32] and on).

7. Deep Dive: Whitaker Chambers, Yalta, and 20th Century American Anticommunism ([29:22]–[42:29])

• Charlie Kirk and Bannon discuss the postwar political climate, focusing on:
  • The Yalta Conference and its global significance: U.S., UK, and USSR leaders carving up postwar Europe ([29:28]).
  • Whitaker Chambers, formerly a Communist and later a leading anti-Communist journalist, and Alger Hiss, the high-ranking State Department official later exposed as a Soviet spy ([32:16]–[37:39]):
    • The challenge of publicly revealing Communist infiltration.
    • Time and Life magazine’s formative influence in mid-century U.S. popular history ([33:18], [36:08]).
    • “Time magazine … was like Fox, Tucker Carlson, The New York Times, and the BBC combined.” —Charlie Kirk ([31:13])
  • The "informer's dilemma": Chambers’ moral pain and loneliness in exposing a former colleague ([41:36]):
    • “An informer is somebody who's like a ... fetching a soiled boss ... I don't want to name these people I worked with. ... I don't want to be that guy.”

8. Reflections on America’s Modern Political Divides and the Role of History ([50:14])

• Discussion of Ken Burns’ “The American Revolution,” its educational value and “woke” elements, and tying those insights back to the process of American settlement and the social contract from the Proclamation Line of 1763 to the Land Ordinance of 1785 ([50:14]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Steve Bannon:
  • “[Thanksgiving] is a narrative ... like a novel, the arc of the history of the United States. And it’s very profound.” ([06:16])
• Dr. Larry Swigert:
  • “We had to argue against the textbook all the time. So we said, why don't we write our own?” ([03:53])
  • “…1619 Project: American Exceptionalism has nothing to do with slavery or slaves. There were no slaves in Plymouth.” ([19:39])
  • "Private property with written titles and deeds. And that’s so important." ([43:46])
  • "...one of the most important laws in American history, even before the Constitution, was the Land Ordinance of 1785." ([45:27])
• Charlie Kirk:
  • “Time magazine … was like Fox, Tucker Carlson, The New York Times, and the BBC combined.” ([31:13])
  • “An informer ... I really admire about [Chambers], Steve, is that he calls himself an informer.” ([41:35])
• Musical Highlight:
  • Odette’s performance of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” bookends major segments, evoking a deep sense of national spirit and continuity ([11:29], [27:46], [50:50]).

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Opening Thanksgiving Reflections: [00:09]–[02:46]
• Patriot’s History of the United States Origin Story: [03:53]–[07:57]
• Interconnected Biographies in American History: [07:57]–[09:43]
• Thanksgiving’s Roots Debate (Virginia vs. Massachusetts): [17:22], [18:28]–[21:54]
• American Exceptionalism Pillars: [18:28]–[23:48]
• Pilgrims’ Struggles & Early Survival: [25:20]–[26:42]
• Whitaker Chambers, Yalta, Alger Hiss, and the Anti-Communist Era: [29:22]–[42:29]
• Written Titles, Property Rights, and National Development: [43:46]–[47:53]
• Mayflower Compact Foundation: [48:17]–[49:30]
• Modern Reflections and Ken Burns Discussion: [50:14]–[50:50]

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Tone & Style

• The tone is reverent, celebratory, and spirited, with an undercurrent of cultural and ideological critique.
• There is a strong emphasis on patriotism, the continuity of American history, and the fight to preserve traditional narratives.
• The dialogue is rich with anecdotes, historical asides, and cultural commentary.

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Summary

This Thanksgiving special does more than recount the holiday’s history; it engages with the foundational ideas that, according to the hosts and guests, make America exceptional: religious liberty, property rights, bottom-up governance, and a shared narrative of perseverance. Dr. Larry Swigert brings scholarly gravitas blended with engaging storytelling, while music and reminiscence set a tone of gratitude and purpose. The episode serves as both a reminder and a challenge—to remember, teach, and continue the uniquely American story.

Transcript

[Johnny Cash]

We've come to the time in the season when family and friends gather near to offer a prayer of thanksgiving or blessings we've known through the years to join hands and thank the crew creator now when Thanksgiving is due.

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

And this.

[Johnny Cash]

Year when I count my blessings I'm thanking the Lord he made you.

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

This.

[Johnny Cash]

Year when I count my blessings I'm thanking the Lord he made you I'm grateful for the laughter of children.

[Charlie Kirk]

The.

[Johnny Cash]

Sun and the wind and the rain the color of blue in your sweet eyes the sight of a highball and train the moon rise over a prairie and oh, love that you've made new and this year when I count my blessings Thanking the Lord he made you this year when I count my blessings I'm thanking the Lord he made you. And when the time comes to be.

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

Going.

[Johnny Cash]

It won't be in sorrow and tears I'll kiss you goodbye and I'll go on away Grateful for all of the years I thank for all that you gave me for teaching me what love can do and Thanksgiving Day for the rest of my life I'm thanking the Lord he made you Thanksgiving Day for the rest of my life I'm thanking the Lord made you.

[Steve Bannon]

It is Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, the 27th of November, in the year of Lord 2025. Johnny Cash with the Thanksgiving song we play every year about this time. Very special. Honored to have back Dr. Larry Swigert, the co author of one of the most profound books, I think, about history in the history of the country, the Patriots History of the United States. Larry or Doc, thank you so much for joining us again. As we do this one more time, it's always fantastic. Talk to me about not just Thanksgiving Day, but the whole Patriots history. You guys had a totally different take that's resonated down through the years. It was a number one bestseller. Rush Limbaugh fell in love with the book. It became a blockbuster. You know, people I think would think, hang, hang on. A conservative history of the United States. You guys had the idea because you were teachers of history, right? And you couldn't find a textbook that actually told the true story of the United States. Sir.

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

That's exactly right. Mike Allen and I met at a Western history conference and we were lamenting how bad the traditional textbooks that were out there were. You know, it's interesting that they started off, many of these, like the National Experience or American Pageant, weren't terrible. But over time, especially as they took on more co authors and younger writers, they got to be extremely liberal. So by the early 1990s Mike and I couldn't find anything to teach from. And as an instructor, it's a pain to have to argue against the textbook all the time. So we said, why don't we write our own? So around 1999, we started writing this book. And by the way, it was not a direct response to Howard Zinn's People's History. This wasn't even really the original title of the manuscript we gave him. And we didn't think we'd get a publisher. We thought we'd end up with a book that we had to bind and sell out of the back of a van along with, you know, plastic Straws in California and various other sort of contraband items. Buddy. Plastic Straws Patriots History of the United States. But we did get a publisher, and it worked out very well. And as you mentioned, we had a number of years where we had just good, good sales. Everything was fine. And then I went on Glenn beck's show in 2010, and he had a massive audience at that time about the equivalent of what Tucker had at Fox when he left Fox. And overnight, the book just exploded to the point we were shipping over 19,000 copies a single day. It is now in its 45th printing. And for your audience, I will have a free update from the last edition, which ended in 2018. I will give people a free update if they just email me at Larry at Wild World of History. That's [e-mail] we have two new chapters that go from 2020, 2018 to 2025 through Trump's first full term, through Biden's term, through Covid, and part part of the way through Trump's term. So if you want that free update, it's a PDF, I'll email it to you if you email [e-mail] we're gonna.

[Steve Bannon]

Get into all of this today. You know, one of my favorite people to have on not just great chemistry and give and take, but your love of history just comes through. And it comes through on the book. So if anybody's ever, ever wanted to, particularly their grandchildren, children, or yourself, if you don't think you know the whole story, what Sweikart and Alan do is. And it's a narrative. It's kind of academic to a degree, like parts of it, like a textbook, but it's like a narrative you read. It's huge novel, the arc of the history of the United States. And it's very profound. I want to thank everybody for we do this, we do our specials On Christmas Day. We do our specials on Thanksgiving Day. Want to thank everybody, part of the Warren Posse, particularly today. We know you're probably traveling around, trying to get to Thanksgiving dinner this afternoon. And I love this book so much. I had Mo send me a bunch of copies. I started with the one at the prison library, but this is, you know, people comment about. I taught civics at Danbury Federal Prison, and one of the key textbooks I used was the Patriots History of the United States. And it was amazing. So many of the inmates came up to me after and said, what's this history book? And so I know it was standing room only at the prison library after the fact. I bought a bunch of copies and gave it to the prison library so they had more to circulate. Larry, let's talk about things, and we'll go back to the founding of the country and all that, but we've had Ken Burns, the American Revolution, that's been on. I don't know if you've been watching it, but let's go back to Thanksgiving because you got. Did you watch Burns, American Revolution?

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

No, I did not. Sorry. I've had not only the book you see in the background, America in the 21st century, which is coming out in February, but the publisher and I decided we needed a book for America's 250th anniversary specifically. Although I wasn't going to write any more books, I go, okay, I'll do one more. And it's called American Biography. I know this is going to be right up your alley, Steve, because I follow the history of America, starting with John Smith, all the way up to Trump, by linking people together, one to another to another, all the way through the history. It's. It's quite an amazing story. You know that Bradford, William Bradford, his ship was sent off on a prayer service by Increase Mather, who was Cotton Mather's father. And Bradford, of course, liked Cotton Mather a lot. And you just get into these connections whereby. Did you know that Davy Crockett had on him one book at the Alamo, he brought with him one book, and it was Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. I mean, you find these links through American history, we really are all tied together by less than six degrees of separation, quite honestly.

[Steve Bannon]

So you're saying it's kind of an unbroken chain of. You can look at American history. I think it was Carlisle that said history is just biography. Right. But you're actually going to prove it by doing American biography and linking back to the unbroken chain of American patriotism. All the way back to the beginning to telling people stories.

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

Yeah, exactly. Right. I mean, we forget that so many of these people were contemporaries, but they weren't the same age. You know, Washington overlapped Patrick Henry, who overlapped Thomas Jefferson, who overlapped James Madison. And you get Daniel Boone in there, you get Davy Crockett. Crockett Boone and Mike Fink apparently never met, even though Disney had Mike Fink and Davy Crockett doing a keelboat race. Apparently they never met, but they were all in that same milieu, all at that same time, and they all knew of each other, which is. It's just really remarkable.

[Steve Bannon]

What. Let's go back. I want to talk about Thanksgiving a little bit to kick the show off.

[Charlie Kirk]

Did you.

[Steve Bannon]

And by the way, the song, our out song, is three minutes long or does this take me down to it or want to cut it? Three minutes, you let me know. Okay, fine. You're going to give me the sign. Maybe I wait for Larry. Maybe I wait for Larry to. We come back. Is it three minutes out? Okay, fine. Larry, our doctor and I'm going to bring you back. You'll be with us for all two hours. When you come back, here's the question. Is any other nation on earth really segregated out a time of year or a day to actually give thanks to God, to give thanks to divine providence for the blessings of the nation? So we're going to let. We get a very special song. Every year at Thanksgiving, we do this Odette, and we're ready to go. Let's go ahead and let the. Let's go and let the song. We're going to play the entire song to kick things off.

[Odette]

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword his truth is marching on Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah his truth is marching on I have seen him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps they have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps I have read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps his truth is marching on Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah his truth is marching on I have read a fiery gospel written Burnished rose of steel as ye deal with my condemners, so with you my grace shall deal. Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel. His truth is marching on Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, glory, hallelujah his truth is marching on he has sounded forth the trumpet that shall Never call retreat he is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat O be swift, my soul to answer oh, be jubilant, my feet his truth is marching on Glory, glory, glory, hallelujah. Glory, glory, hallelujah in the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me as he died to make men holy Let us die to make men free his truth is marching on Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah his truth is marching on Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord he is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored he hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword Truth is marching on.

[Steve Bannon]

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[Dr. Larry Swigert]

Phil America's Voice Family.

[Steve Bannon]

Are you on Getter yet?

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

No. What are you waiting for? It's free, it's uncensored, and it's where all the biggest voices in conservative media are speaking out.

[Steve Bannon]

Download the Getter app right now. It's totally free. It's where I put up exclusively, all of my content 24 hours a day. Want to know what Steve Bannon's thinking? Go to Getter.

[Charlie Kirk]

That's right. You can follow all of your favorites. Steve Bannon, Charlie Kirk, Jack Posobi and so many more. Download the Getter app now.

[Steve Bannon]

Sign up for free and be part of the movement.

[Johnny Cash]

We've come to the time in the season when family and friends gather near to offer a prayer of thanksgiving for blessings we've known through the years.

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

To.

[Johnny Cash]

Join hands and thank the Creator.

[Steve Bannon]

Okay, welcome back. On a Thanksgiving morning. We do our, we always do our worms and Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the holidays. Make sure that we're there for you all the time. Larry Swiker Dr. Swigert Author Co author of the Patriots History of the United States When I was a kid growing up, Doc, there used to be arguments around the table. We were from the Commonwealth of Virginia, you know, family was from Norfolk, but we had gone up to Richmond and were there. But we used to get together with the Norfolk crowd and there'd be big debates over people at the time. I think Jack Kennedy in 19, I think it was Kennedy in 61 or 62 put out a proclamation that both Thanksgiving were both Massachusetts and Virginia. But it was a huge debate at that time, as things often were about American history. You wouldn't have that debate today. Talk to me about that. I think you come down, if I remember reading the book correctly, you believe Berkeley and what happened in the Berkeley plantation, all that happened afterwards. You come down on the side of this, that it was Massachusetts, sir.

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

Massachusetts especially Plymouth, was the site of American exceptionalism and not Jamestown. And the reason for that is what we call in the book the four pillars of American exceptionalism. The first one being a Christian, mostly Protestant religious tradition. And the reason that's important is not for matters of theology, but because the Puritans believed in bottom up congregational government of the church and every other church government at that time was top down. Second pillar was common law, that God puts the law in the hearts of the people, not the ruler, and that the people elect or select rulers who will carry out God's law. The third was private property with written titles and deeds which was at Jamestown. And the last was a free market economy. They wouldn't have called it capitalism then, but they did have early elements of a free market economy. But it was only Plymouth that had those first two elements. And as a result, American exceptionalism. Are you listening to me? 1619 Project American Exceptionalism has nothing to do with slavery or slaves. There were no slaves in Plymouth.

[Steve Bannon]

It's interesting you say this I want to drill down because on in Jamestown was freebooters. Right. It was really entrepreneurs. They were not there to farm, they were there to find gold. I mean, it was a corporate entity. There was a corporate entity. They were going to have allocation of profits. And they were much more capitalistic in looking at it because it was really an entrepreneurial. The Virginia Company was an entrepreneurial activity, sir.

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

Supposedly so was Plymouth. But of course, we know what happened there was that the Pilgrims could not go to the king and say, listen, whore of Babylon, we want a place where we can worship without your oversight. And they were being persecuted severely in England at that time by the Church of England. So they couldn't go to him and use a religious argument. So they went to him, they said, hey, we think we can make you some money if you just give us some land up there in the top of the Virginia grant. And as you know, they were originally supposed to be part of the London Company. Virginia Company grant at the top of Virginia. And they were off course and ended up in Massachusetts.

[Steve Bannon]

The Puritans had actually left, I guess the group called the Pilgrims had gone to. Because they didn't fit in in England. Right. They just felt that the English society was getting too decadent. In fact, the. There was a. I think it was. Kevin Phillips wrote the Cousins War, which was one of the most profound books I've ever read about the founding of America. Talked about the. The Puritans versus the Royalists in the English Civil War. And the different parts of the country came from. It didn't extrapolate that down to really how the revolution in our country was kind of two parts, the New England part and the Southern part. And they took it all the way to the Civil War, Right. With the abolitionists and really the rebels. It was quite interesting, the distinction. But when they left England, they didn't come to America first. Right. They made a stop in which they. I guess they. They pissed off the locals there and had to keep going. Tell us that story.

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

Well, they went to Leiden in Holland, and it's something of a myth that when they came to America, they didn't know how to farm. Of course they knew how to farm, but they'd spent some time in Holland doing other things, tanning and leather and all these other kinds of what we call mechanical skills at that time. And they had wanted an area of. Which wasn't, as you said, decadent and sort of a Las Vegas. And that's what they found in Holland. And that greatly disturbed them. But when they left England, it's important to understand that it wasn't just these guys are a little too sinful for us. They were being actively persecuted. Members of the separatist group and the Pilgrim and the Puritans as a whole were being thrown into jail because they were not kowtowing to the line given by the Anglican Church. So their physical safety was in question. And then when they left Leyden they said, we've got to go really far away here, let's get to America.

[Steve Bannon]

But one of the things for the audience is that they wouldn't kowtow to the fact that the King was the head of the Church of England. Right, not arch. Remember Henry VIII had removed the Catholic Church and made it more nationalistic. They wanted it to be English, not Roman. But they did put the King, they put a secular head in charge. That was one of the big complaints. Besides all the ornamentation and how they felt the Church of England or the Anglican Church was too much like the Catholic Church except it reported to a different person. But the thing that really stuck in their crawl was that the King was the head of the Church of England.

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

Yes, absolutely. This comes to that first pillar which is that in America you have a Christian, mostly Protestant tradition that emphasizes congregations and bottom up church government which was contrary to the Roman Catholic Church, to the Greek Orthodox Church and of course as you just mentioned, to the Anglican Church. And Henry viii, I used to tell my students, created the Anglican Church because he wanted a hottie, he wanted Anne Boleyn. And the Pope says no, I'm not going to give you a divorce. He said, well fine, I'll start my own church and I'll be the head of my own church. So when you combine the Pilgrims bottom up religious experience with their bottom up political government experience, you have such an absolutely powerful force that it makes America different from every other nation in the world. And just a few years ago you might remember how many Americans, I'm sure they asked you this too. What's going on with Canada and Australia? Why are they locking down so hard? Aren't they democracies? And I would always say yeah, they're democracies, but they don't have the pillars of American exceptionalism that begin with this twofold bottom up resistance against top down government. So they were very different in their Covid experiences than we were going all the way back to the Pilgrims, going.

[Steve Bannon]

Back to the Pilgrims on the Mayflower. What stuns me having gone up there and been to Plymouth Rock and to Plymouth and going and actually tracing not just how they came across how they landed, how did they survive. This is what I don't get, because you have every day you have to get your heat, your food. It just I tell people we stand on the shoulders of giants, right? Because I wouldn't last too long in that environment. Larry how did they actually survive when they had nothing and they were on the tiny, tiny sliver of a vast wilderness?

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

Well, first of all, they didn't all leave the boat the minute they got here. They stayed on board the Mayflower for some time, and they sent out scouting parties, obviously. Are we in the right place? Is there a place here where we can settle? Is there a place where we can live? Once the whole body of people remember more than half of these travelers who came to America. We all call them the Pilgrims, but more than half of them were not separatists. They were just others who wanted to come over. And they were known by the term strangers. And they fished and they hunted and they gathered and they did whatever they could to stay alive for those weeks.

[Steve Bannon]

She's quite amazing. Odette will take us out one of my favorite songs, what a Beautiful Voice from 1959, the Battle Hymn of the Republic. And throughout the day, we'll actually, in the second hour, we'll play the entire all the standards for. It's quite amazing. Larry Swigert is our is our guest, as is. Basically, we set a tradition last couple years of every Thanksgiving. The reason is I have not met any one individual that has just not a storehouse of knowledge and information in these amazing stories, but has a great love for this country. And in that love, I think you can connect a lot of dots. Larry Sweikart, the book is Patriots history of the US now, United States, what now? And its 45th printing. He's got an incredible book coming out. American biography of the 250th in America in the 21st century. We'll talk all about those. Larry Soika Odette will take us out with Battle Hymn of the Republic.

[Odette]

His truth is marching.

[Steve Bannon]

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[Dr. Larry Swigert]

Right.

[Charlie Kirk]

All right. So Yalta, Yalta happens. And there's this and explain to people.

[Steve Bannon]

Though, and why is Yalta so big in the post war America? Everything you see, the losing of China, all of it, McCarthy really from the post war era to all the way up to really Jack Kennedy, this thing, what happened at Yalta drives so much.

[Charlie Kirk]

1945, the war has been won. So the leaders of the three great allied nations, us, uk, Soviet Union, all me, Yalta. Right. Which is where? The Crimea or something.

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

Right.

[Charlie Kirk]

And they all get together and they're going to divide up. We can't believe they're fighting about it.

[Steve Bannon]

In Ukraine right now.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, you can't believe that they would do this until we see it happen. Now they actually have maps in front of them and they're carving up Central and Eastern Europe. Who gets what piece of what. And Stalin's coming out looking very well.

[Steve Bannon]

And they went well because I mean, the reality Is they lost 65 million people, 25 million military and another 30 or 35 million starved to death. I mean, they broke the Wehrmacht arsenal of democracy, the heroism of America and the troops and the 8th Air Corps. Unbelievable what the British did. Unbelievable. But that technically where the war was fought, which was in Eastern Europe and the Ukraine and all that, the center of gravity of this great war where the Russian army, the Red army broke the back of the Wehrmacht and then broke Hitler, was all in the east. So Stalin realized they had paid in blood of what they said, that we had paid for material goods.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, that's absolutely right. And you know, when I go back even, even further in history and you go back Tolstoy and War and Peace and that's when Napoleon gets stopped in Russia, it's the same thing. And you have it's what's happening in.

[Steve Bannon]

Ukraine, they'll throw as Many bodies into the meat grinder as they have to.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, you know, and what do they say about Russia? It never lacked for strong leaders. Right? Yeah, they'll do it. They'll do it. And they were doing it then. And so Chambers is a Time magazine. Remember, there are no bylines then and everything is strict reporting. So they get cables. In those days, the cables would come in from the Foreign Office. And then these, these guys, like Chambers is now running the, the foreign news department. And we have to say Time magazine at that point was kind of like. Was like Fox. It's like Tucker Carlson. The New York Times and the BBC combined.

[Steve Bannon]

First give a second loose. And his wife, one of the most extraordinary women in American history, Clare Boothe Luce had really gotten Henry Luce even more thinking about the grand strategy of America. So you had her, you had Theodore White, Teddy White. I mean, the crew of writers he had and people that could actually deliver great copy because remember, they called Time magazine the first draft of History. And these guys took it seriously and.

[Charlie Kirk]

They were really good at it. They were great writers. And then they had guys in the home office like Chambers who would rewrite and then smooth it out. And Chambers was famous for his own copy, the flow in his copy. Right. Chambers had been a prodigy as a short when he was a kid. And we haven't even touched on that. It's called the hottest literary Bolshevik in America. Right. So now he's gone the other way. And now he knows a lot of world history. One of Chambers languages is Russian, along with German. He spoke German like a native. His Russian is really good too. And he sees what's going on and he knows that Alger Hiss is this guy he used to. To run as a spy who's now at Yalta.

[Steve Bannon]

So Chambers retreats as, as FD. He's not at Yalta. He's FDR's aide de camp at Alta. I mean, he's the guy bringing the papers in. I mean, he's. Because FDR is very ill at this time. In fact, he's within 90 days of dying. Of dying. That's how ill he is. And Whitaker Chambers is kind of running.

[Charlie Kirk]

The deal that Alger Hisum.

[Steve Bannon]

Alger Hiss.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, they had phone extensions. FTR was, was 1, Aldrahis was 3. End of story. Well, so Chambers is watching all this and he goes off to his, you know, he lived on a farm in Maryland. And he'd come in, he'd work these odd hours. He's become a Quaker by now, very odd, oddball character. But everybody Knows he's brilliant and he types this thing up. He has a story. He writes a parable, right? It's not a report in Time magazine, it's an essay. He calls it a historical fantasy that he's invented. It's called the Ghosts on the Roof. And he imagines the ancient czars of Russia watching Yalta and saying, wow, we got our guy in Stalin. He's the one who's actually going to create an empire for us. And Chambers slips it in to Time magazine, he gives it to his editor, and there's like a delegation that descends on a guy named Tom Matthews. T.S. matthews said, you're going to publish this thing. How can you do it? All he's doing is feeding all the right wing frenzy out there. And Matthew shows it to Luce and Lou says, this is like the work of a literary genius. He's created this story. It's like a story by Franz Kafka. Lou shows it to his wife, whom you mentioned, Claire Boothloots, and says, this.

[Steve Bannon]

Thing is a playwright, wrote the Women.

[Charlie Kirk]

She was a Republican congresswoman. She was one of Buckley's first idols. But they got a lot of his have that in the book. One of his first idols.

[Steve Bannon]

He admired the way she could give a speech like nobody else.

[Charlie Kirk]

Nobody else, you know, with the turns of.

[Steve Bannon]

But they were the power couple in New York. You're talking at the highest level of Manhattan society, in the elite in the country.

[Charlie Kirk]

They had a penthouse apartment across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art after they moved out of the Waldorf, right? And Buckley was very proud. He told me, he said, I think I'm the only person who edited Harry and Claire Loose because they both wrote pieces for him.

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

Right?

[Charlie Kirk]

But that's later. That's the 1960s. So Chambers writes this thing and Time magazine publishes it and it blows up and they want to fire Chambers right then and there, right? His colleagues, his esteemed colleagues. And Lou says, no, we're not doing it. So they're already loaded for bear with Chambers. So then a few years later, what? Or actually months later, Life magazine was read by even more people than Time. Time was for the readers. Life was the photo magazine that was Claire Luce's idea to do Life, right? Huge circulations. These magazines had bigger circulations in that much smaller America than any print publication does today.

[Steve Bannon]

In a blue collar house with five kids, Catholic. We got Time magazine, we got Newsweek, we got Life, and then we got Look. But the Life magazine would come in and it was like, that was the world.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, it was the world. It showed you the world, those photographs. Well one of the, you may remember at the end of Life magazine that have the photo of the week. And the photo of the week was in 1945. It was the handsome debonair State Department official Alger Hiss flying home with the charter for the United nations and he was its first Secretary General. And Chambers goes, are we allowed to say this? He kind of goes back this, this was the guy who was in the Communist Party with me. Nobody wants to believe me.

[Steve Bannon]

So for the audience, he identified Alger Hiss as a communist spy working for the military intelligence. I mean this is the hardcore guys in 1939 to senior people in the State Department after the war, he's telling Henry, Lucy, he's working at Time, this guy's a Soviet agent at Yalta, he's number three on the phone to FDR now he's back his thing, Whitaker, Chambers gotta be going insane because he keeps telling the powers that be, the people that could shut it down, hey, by the way, this guy's just not a fellow traveler, he's not sympathizer. He's an active agent of military intelligence for the Russians and he keeps rising in power. Is anybody going to do anything about it?

[Charlie Kirk]

Well and this, this is the way these stories always turn. It's why they, they're fun to tell is. So Chambers finally gets a hearing in Congress because in 1946, right, with Truman succeeds Roosevelt, as you said, Roosevelt was near death. He does, Harry Truman succeeds him and then the Republicans running on a platform they call had enough, right. 1946 and lo and behold, some anti communists get elected to the House and the Senate. I'll give you three names. There are two congressmen. One guy's named Jack Kennedy, the other is Richard Nixon.

[Steve Bannon]

Paul had been in the Pacific in the war, came back home and wanted the country to get moving again. And they realized things were wrong in D.C. and both these guys coming in on that platform, although Nixon's more of a fire breather than Jack Kennedy.

[Charlie Kirk]

And there's a third guy too who gets elected to The Senate, Joe McConnell, McCarthy from Wisconsin, all post war, all post war. And now they're all sort of getting ready to move. And so huac, the famous House Committee on UN American Activities, which we kind of turn the, the order around, we call it huac. And you can always tell when you talk to the old style anti communist and ex communist witnesses. The guys I knew when I was writing the book, nobody remembers their name anymore names anymore, you know, Herbert Rommerstein and Victor Rizzel. They always insist on calling it hcua, House Committee on American Activities. So at any rate, so they start having hearings in the summer of 48. It's an election year. Congress, right. Congress goes home for the vacation. The House goes home. And they started having these hearings on communist infiltration and they're not really getting anywhere. And then they say, well, look, we've got this one other witness. The FBI has been tracking him. The Naval Intelligence had also been interviewing Chambers on and off all these years. Alger Hiss mysteriously leaves the State Department to run the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace because pressure's already coming from within. They want to get rid of him. Right.

[Steve Bannon]

But it also shows you, this is the NGOs we always talk about today. They're one of the most well endowed from as tough a capitalist as you could ever have. But now they're kind of a front organization for nefarious communist activities.

[Charlie Kirk]

You know, the gospel of wealth becomes sort of the gospel of socialism, Right? So they bring Chambers in and he's just there to corroborate a previous witness, no one remembers her anymore named Elizabeth Bentley because she'd also been one of these couriers. And she's, look, we're speaking kind of of, you know, un woke terms or whatever, but she's this kind of middle aged, you know, kind of dumpy woman and she's giving her testimony.

[Steve Bannon]

You figure if she's a Soviet spy, we don't have much to worry about.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, but they said, well, let's, let's see if we can corroborate her. Right. One of the journalists at the time, I think it was AJ Liebling, called her the nutmeg Mata Hari because she's from Connecticut, like where I live now, nutmeg state. So then they bring it and they say, well, we've got this other guy, we've got this guy at Time Magic magazine. And so Chambers gets the subpoena from HUAC in August, right. To testify before the House Committee. He doesn't want to do it. He says to a friend of his, he said, look, they don't. The guy says to him, well, just tell them what you know. You've already talked about all this stuff. You've been talking to oni, Office of Naval Intelligence, you're talking to the FBI. You talked to Adolph Burley. Why not just go before huac, tell them what you know. And Chambers and says, well, you know, he looks around and says, they don't like informers around here. And one of the things that's so great about Chambers. I really admire about him, Steve, is that he calls himself an informer.

[Steve Bannon]

I know it. I know it.

[Charlie Kirk]

You know, he doesn't, he doesn't pretend he's doing something different from what he does. He has this gorgeous, beautiful, heartbreaking line in Witness where he says, an informer is somebody who's like a, who's fetching a soiled boss. He said, I don't want to name these people I worked with. I'm not going to say what they did. I don't want to be that guy. Right? That's a term we use now. I don't want to be that guy. I'll tell you as an aside, several very good filmmakers came to me and said, you know, I'd like to make a book, a movie about Chambers. Said, will never happen. Will never happen. You cannot make the snitch the hero. The country won't accept. And then they would all back down. And the end, right? Like one guy who made very small offer for was Dairo, Robert Dairo, his production company, years ago. Well, that's an interesting story, all this stuff.

[Steve Bannon]

All right, so anyway, hang on one second. I want to go to break and come back with this, you know, dinero and those guys. It's interesting. I would argue that I think we get it made now because of the success of Goodfellows, which focuses around the rat. I only know that from prison because in prison they tell you, you, hey, if you're a rat, you're the lowest down. This. I mean, you do not want to go to prison and have that what they call in your papers if you go, if you have that, you've been a government, a government informant in, in federal prison. It is. The life is not good. Anyway, short commercial break. SAM 10 In House, Whitaker, Chambers and Buckley. Next.

[Johnny Cash]

We've come to the time and the season when family and friends welcome back.

[Steve Bannon]

That's Johnny Cash. We're gonna play all of it at the top of the, at the top of the hour. Larry, one thing when you say about the four pillars of American exceptionalism, when you get to private property, you always throw in with written. Was it written deeds and contracts. What's the phrase that you always put it that you go private property with Boom. And what do you say?

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

Written titles and deeds. And that's so important.

[Steve Bannon]

Why is Larry Soy. Could you always make a point to add that? Why?

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

There's parts of Africa to this day that do not deal in written titles and deeds. It is a key aspect of economic growth. Because if you want to use. You know, there's a guy named. Who did the book the Mystery of Capital. Okay, I'm. I'm forgetting his name right now. But anyway, he did this book, the Mystery of Capital, and he looked at what was missing in all of these nations that have some form of capitalism, but they're still extremely poor. And one of the leading elements is that many of them still do not have written titles and deeds. So if you want to grow your business and get a loan from a bank, you're going to have to put up collateral. And when you put up collateral, you're going to have to have written titles and deeds to whether it's your house or your car, whatever else it is, that securing that loan, if countries don't have that. And Hernando De Soto, I think, is the guy who wrote Mystery Capital. He looked at several of these regions, and they don't have that. And it would take between 150 steps just to get something registered. I mean, I filled out a car registration yesterday in 10 minutes. So this is a very important, key element of America's past that we just glide by because it's so common to all of us these days. But there's parts of the world still struggling with this. Oh, and Steve, let me remind you one more thing.

[Steve Bannon]

Go ahead. Sure.

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

What I call the most important law in American history, even before the Constitution, was the land Ordinance of 1785. And what did that do? That set up a series of surveys in the old Northwest, starting in Ohio, going all the way out to Illinois and Wisconsin, that would sell off land at a buck and a quarter an acre and give you a written title and deed. And it broke up the countryside into sections and townships of square miles. And as soon as you would fill up one section, you'd move on to the next section. This is all for protection again, against Indians. Well, we're Americans, damn it. I'm American. I'm going to go settle where I want. And people began running out, settling in many of the unsurveyed areas. And so we had a clash between written titles and deeds and common law, which says the people know what they're doing, the people know best. So Congress sided with the people, and it drafted a law called preemption, what we call squatters rights, which says you can go out and if you can find land that nobody is on and you can stay there seven years and build a house, you can claim ownership to that land by law and get your own title. Indeed. And so when you fly across America from The east to the west. You'll notice in the east, especially when I was teaching in Ohio, you fly over Ohio and you look out the plain window and you see what looks like a jigsaw puzzle parcel of property. And that's because so many of these people had not waited for the survey. They said, well, my land runs from the creek down there to that. That mountain, over to that big rock that looks like Jimmy Durante and then back here, down here. And they would draw that up and take it into a assay office or a government office, and then it would be certified that that's their land. As you move further west, though, you look out your plane window and what do you see? Nice squares. Because everything had finally been surveyed by the time they got out west.

[Steve Bannon]

Were there titles? Indeed, the Pilgrims were more communal than the Jamestown crowd. Right. Although both of them had a kind of a. More of a socialist system. It was only when they kind of went to Capitol. But did they have individual titles and deeds? When you go to Plymouth today and they've got the recreation of the village, were those individual titles and deeds that people had for their own private property?

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

Yeah, I mean, you, you would get your title deed for a lot in the city. I think Bradford's lot is still there. And it might take a while, but eventually you would get that piece of paper, which was. It's crucial. It's amazing how one little piece of paper can be so important. Said every man who's ever been married.

[Steve Bannon]

Mayfair, before we go to break here at the top of the hour. Mayflower Compact. They knew even when they arrived there might be an issue. The Mayflower Compact, which you had, you had a long time to kind of figure out how this thing was going to be governed. Why did they wait to the last second? And then they came up with one of the most profound foundational documents in American history.

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

I think the reason they waited, and I can't prove this, but I think the reason they waited was it's always dangerous to try to restructure a government at sea. You know, at sea, the captain is the government. He's the sole government. And so they didn't want any conflict between a newly elected governor from the body of people and the captain. You saw the same thing, actually, in Jamestown, where Captain John Smith had been put in the brig on board ship for being a little too boisterous about what he was going to do. But his name was one of the seven administrators that was named there from England. So I think that. That they didn't want to rock the boat, so to speak. But we do need to get back to this because the Mayflower Compact is very important.

[Steve Bannon]

Okay, we're gonna do that in the next hour. By the way, Nate Morris from the Commonwealth of Kentucky is going to actually come in beginning the next hour and I think we may have a couple of a little bit of discussion about the land Ordinance of 1785. If you watch if you watch Ken Burns, the American Revolution LARRY, that when you get time, I know you're busy doing your books, but it makes a very big deal about the Ohio Valley and the Indian lands. That's the sole purpose of the revolution. There's a few woke moments. I actually liked it quite a bit. Bit. I like the Burns's revolution quite a bit. Although there were being Ken Burns, you're going to get some woke, right?

[Dr. Larry Swigert]

But, but he's he's talking about the proclamation line of 1763, not the land or yes.

[Steve Bannon]

Well, no, no, no, but it projected out that eventually you would get to that the purpose was to get to the land, not just keeping us back, but the the, you know, Indian lands, native lands where the where the which the land ordinance I think went over and and gave you ordinance. Anyway, we'll talk about the next hour. Short commercial break Back on Thanksgiving Day, Dr. Larry Swart, author co author of the Patriots History of these United States Back in a moment.

[Odette]

My grace shall deal. Let the hero born of woman Crush the serpent with his heel. His truth is marching on. Glory, glory.