Episode 5007: Tanenhaus Returns: Buckley And The Conservative Revolution

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bannon’s War Room – Episode 5007

Title: Tanenhaus Returns: Buckley And The Conservative Revolution
Date: December 18, 2025
Host: Steve Bannon
Guests: Sam Tanenhaus, Gabe Kaminsky

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Overview

This episode explores the legacy of William F. Buckley Jr. and the origins of the conservative movement in America, focusing on Buckley’s strategies, the challenges from internal and external threats, and his relationship to figures from Joe McCarthy to Ayn Rand and the John Birch Society. Historian and author Sam Tanenhaus returns to discuss his Buckley biography, highlighting the intellectual and tactical evolution of American conservatism. Investigative reporter Gabe Kaminsky also appears to discuss his recent report on alleged Chinese Communist Party influence within U.S. environmental nonprofits.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. CCP Influence in U.S. Climate Policy (00:52–08:03)

Guest: Gabe Kaminsky (The Free Press)

• Investigative Story: Kaminsky details a letter from 26 Republican attorneys general to the DOJ requesting an investigation into several U.S. climate nonprofits (notably Energy Foundation China) potentially acting as unregistered agents for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under FARA.
• Key Points:
  • Energy Foundation China is registered in San Francisco and Beijing, employs ex-Chinese officials, and engages in anti-oil advocacy in the U.S.
  • The AGs allege these groups push an agenda detrimental to American energy dominance and beneficial to China, which holds a massive trade surplus and energy deals with countries like Iran and Venezuela (05:16).
  • Kaminsky notes FARA prosecutions have traditionally been rare and the DOJ under Attorney General Pam Bondi has focused on the most serious offenses.
• Quote:
  “Effectively, these top law enforcement officials are accusing U.S. nonprofits of acting as foreign agents or sort of like secret lobbyists for the Chinese Communist Party.” — Gabe Kaminsky (01:47)
• Bannon’s Analysis:
  Bannon connects this to his recurring theme of U.S.–China competition and energy independence, arguing that CCP strategy includes undercutting American energy.
• Quote:
  “The Chinese Communist Party has a total master plan geopolitically. Part of it is to hurt the United States when it comes to Trump’s full spectrum energy dominance.” — Steve Bannon (05:16)

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2. Buckley, McCarthy, and the Birth of Conservative Media (08:05–14:44)

Guest: Sam Tanenhaus

• Buckley’s Early Days:
  Tanenhaus traces Buckley’s relationship with Joe McCarthy back to Yale, describing how Buckley’s mentors saw McCarthy’s bluntness as connecting with ordinary Americans in a way elite conservatives could not.
• McCarthy’s Appeal:
  The comparison is made between McCarthy’s blunt anti-communism and Trump’s later populist rhetoric.
• National Review’s Origins:
  Buckley’s experience with the media’s hostility to McCarthy inspired him to found National Review as an alternative “beachhead” for conservative ideas.
• Quotes:
  • “Buckley said, I’m down with that… That’s how Buckley came up with the idea of founding National Review. It will be the beachhead, it will be the counter argument.” — Sam Tanenhaus (10:24)
  • “I’d rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone book than by the faculty of Harvard University of Harvard.” — William F. Buckley Jr., relayed by Tanenhaus (13:21)

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3. Communication, Listening, and Narrative Control (17:57–23:14)

• The Power of Listening:
  Tanenhaus credits Buckley (and even Trump) not just as communicators, but as great listeners who absorb prevailing anxieties and turn them into resonant messaging.
• Narrative Failure:
  The fall of McCarthy is analyzed as a failure of narrative control—allowing opponents (notably Edward R. Murrow) to frame the terms of debate.
  • When Buckley wasn’t allowed to defend McCarthy on air, he recognized the need for independent platforms.
• Quotes:
  • "Buckley is a pioneer of all that. If they won't let you in… start your own club." — Sam Tanenhaus (22:15)
  • "It wasn’t that he didn’t have the facts… but he had let other people craft the narrative or put the architecture around the narrative, and that’s what destroyed him." — Steve Bannon (20:04)

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4. Coalition-Building and the Limits of Extremism: Birchers, Rand, and “Inclusion/Exclusion” (23:14–41:26)

• Managing Internal Factions:
  Buckley’s struggle to manage the radical fringes of the conservative coalition (the John Birch Society, Ayn Rand’s objectivists) is paralleled with current ideological policing in conservative media.
• John Birch Society:
  Initially useful for grassroots activism but later became a liability because its leader, Robert Welch, pushed conspiracy theories (e.g., Eisenhower was a Communist agent).
  • Buckley, Russell Kirk, and Barry Goldwater orchestrated a public break with Welch to preserve the movement’s credibility.
  • The process came at a high cost—alienating subscribers and grassroots—but was deemed essential for conservative respectability and political influence.
• Quotes:
  • “If the people in the middle think the leadership of our movement or one faction of it is controlled by someone who’s on the fringe, that will damage us.” — Sam Tanenhaus (40:13)
  • “Buckley could be very isoly pragmatic. And that’s what he did.” — Sam Tanenhaus (41:05)
• Analogy to Today:
  Bannon compares this historical moment to recent controversies around who gets platformed on conservative outlets (like Tucker Carlson’s podcast), suggesting the cyclical nature of boundary-policing in political coalitions.

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5. Legacy, Reception, and Book Details (32:16–43:13)

• Tanenhaus Biography:
  Sam Tanenhaus’ Buckley biography was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
• Distribution and Interest:
  The book has received strong feedback from the War Room audience and has become a recommended holiday gift for those interested in conservative history.
• Whitaker Chambers Bio:
  Tanenhaus’ biography of Whitaker Chambers has sold out in print but is available on Kindle.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Kaminsky on CCP ties (01:47):
  “These top law enforcement officials are accusing U.S. nonprofits of acting as foreign agents or sort of like secret lobbyists for the Chinese Communist Party.”
• Bannon on Buckley and narrative (20:04):
  “It wasn’t that he didn’t have the facts… but he had let other people craft the narrative.”
• Tanenhaus on capturing the public voice (12:44):
  “He [McCarthy] said things that the working class and middle class audience themselves were thinking, but wouldn’t say very much. A forerunner of Donald Trump, is he not?”
• Buckley’s famous line, via Tanenhaus (13:21):
  “I’d rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone book than by the faculty of Harvard University.”
• Tanenhaus on boundaries of coalition (40:13):
  “If the people in the middle think the leadership of our movement or one faction of it is controlled by someone who’s on the fringe, that will damage us.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:52]–[08:03]: Kaminsky on CCP infiltration of U.S. climate nonprofits
• [08:05]–[14:44]: Buckley’s early alliance with McCarthy and the founding of National Review
• [17:57]–[23:14]: Listening, language, and the conservative counter-narrative
• [23:14]–[41:26]: Managing coalition boundaries: Birchers, Rand, respectability vs. grassroots
• [32:16]–[43:13]: Book accolades, distribution, and modern analogies

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Tone & Style

The episode moves at a brisk, passionate pace with Bannon’s signature forceful urgency and Tanenhaus’ more scholarly, conversational depth. The tone mixes historical analysis, partisan commentary, and practical politics, aiming to connect conservative history with MAGA-era realities.

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Summary for New Listeners

This episode of Bannon’s War Room is essential listening for anyone interested in how the conservative movement in America constructed its intellectual and organizational boundaries, the ongoing struggle to manage extremist elements, and the parallels between past and present right-wing insurgencies. With sharp historical analysis and real-world investigative reporting, it bridges foundational battles of the twentieth century with the ideological skirmishes of today—underscoring the perpetual conflict over who defines, and who speaks for, American conservatism.

Transcript

[Steve Bannon]

This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on these people. Reasons 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.

[Sam Tanenhaus]

And where do people like that go.

[Steve Bannon]

To share the big lie?

[Sam Tanenhaus]

MAGA MEDIA I wish in my soul.

[Steve Bannon]

I wish that any of these people had a conscience. Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.

[Sam Tanenhaus]

WAR Room here's your host, Stephen K. Ban.

[Steve Bannon]

Thursday, the 18th of December, your velour 2025. You're around for the second hour of the morning edition of the War Room. Sam 10 and House going to join us in a moment. Continual discussion about the Bill Buckley and his revolution. Gabe Kaminsky joins right now from the Free Press. And just serendipitously worked out, it came after this print and after Dr. Peter Navarro and E.J. antoni. So, Gabe, one of the foundational elements of President Trump's economic policy is full spectrum energy dominance, right? You just heard Peter say right there, there's all kind of issues now with refineries, all this. It turns out you've got an exclusive report, if we can put it up on the Free Press, that it turns out a lot of these climate groups and do gooder groups are in association with the Chinese Communist Party and they are quite deep into American energy policy. And now at the state level, people are waking up to this. Can you walk us through your exclusive investigative report, sir?

[Gabe Kaminsky]

Yeah, thanks for having me. That's according to what you just said there. That's according to 26 Republican attorneys general. So we had reported at the Free Press that these top law enforcement officials sent a letter to the Department of Justice this week requesting that Attorney General Pam Bondi investigate whether a few different climate nonprofits in the United States focused on climate change or environmental causes may have failed to register under the Foreign Agents and Registration act, also known as fara, on behalf of China. And so effectively, these top law enforcement officials are accusing U.S. nonprofits of acting as foreign agents or sort of like secret lobbyists for the Chinese Communist Party. And the basis for that, according to these officials, is that, for example, one of these nonprofits, it's called the Energy Foundation China, it's based in San Francisco, but it also has an office in Beijing where it employs a whole host of former Chinese government officials and is supervised by China's government directly because it is registered in Beijing with China's non profit agency and coupled with the Energy Foundation, China's advocacy in the United States related to anti oil litigation or congressional related advocacy that is against fossil fuel and production of oil. The attorneys general think, think that this group and others should have to register under Pharaoh.

[Steve Bannon]

I mean that's, it's, it's not just that they're a group and they're taking money or maybe association. When you actually go after Pharaoh, you're saying that their, their, their, their purpose, right, is to represent the interest of another country, in this case the Chinese Communist Party. How did it get. Because these things just didn't appear yesterday. How long has this been going on and how have other DOJ officials and other state officials looked the other way on this?

[Gabe Kaminsky]

So the interesting thing about the Energy Foundation China is that this scrutiny is not new. This is a charity that has been registered with the IRS since 1991. And over the past five years roughly there has been heightened scrutiny of them, particularly among Republicans who are hawkish on China and believe that Beijing is indirectly or directly propping up groups in the United States that have this anti oil agenda that is aiming to boost China, which is, I mean China trade tensions have, you know, you just had Peter Navarro and who was talking about trade tensions. Trade tensions have continued to escalate between the United States and China. Beijing has been continuing to import oil from adversary other adversaries of the United States like Venezuela. And so coupled with that, and the other sort of leg of this is that there has been heightened scrutiny in the United States of climate related organizations engaged in disruptive sort of protests. In Washington D.C. where I live, the congressional baseball game. Every few years now there's climate protesters running on the field around the world. There's been reporting about climate protesters throwing paint at fine art or gluing themselves to streets or cars, which has only led American officials to believe this is a national security issue. A national security issue ping to oil and energy. And so the funding is aiming to, you know, look into that further.

[Steve Bannon]

No, I mean they're, they're, they're trying to, you know, stop refineries, make the cost of American energy because it makes us competitive. This is a group, the Chinese Communist party has a $1 trillion trade surplus this year annually. Suck. You know, folks, think about that. You talk about adversaries, Venezuela is bad enough. But I said this, you know, even if you don't want to get in the middle of the Israeli situation in the Middle East. I've been saying the Iranians, the mullahs are in business for one reason. They basically have long term output deals with the Chinese Communist Party. I think Iran or The Persians provide 50 or 60% of the of the energy for the Chinese Communist Party. I mean, the Chinese Communist Party has a total master plan geopolitically. Part of it is to hurt the United States when it comes to Trump's full spectrum energy dominance. Gabe, do you expect action to be taken? You said this has been reviewed for a while. You get 26 ags now it's a Pam Bondi, she swamped with so much. We're arguing that DOJ's got to get up to Brown University every day. We're banging on them. You know, we love these folks, but there's just so much to do. Are they going to have inside the group over there, are they going to have the capacity to actually take on the ccp?

[Gabe Kaminsky]

I reached out to the Department of Justice. I did not hear back. If you, Steve, if you hear anything from people, the doj, you know, let us all know. But generally, FARA has long been a dormant office. In fact, for decades, from about 1988 to 2016, they were, I believe, under or around 10 Farah prosecutions as a whole, which really shows how much of an obscure law it's been viewed that ramped up post 2016. But right now, after Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo after she joined the Trump administration that signaled to law firms and lobbying firms in Washington that the DOJ was only focusing on the most serious, what they determined to be the most serious Ferrari offenses. What they determined to be cases that are treason or espionage. And so on that basis, it's really not clear if the Department of Justice would be, what would, you know, put the resources into focusing on this. But we have not heard back from the doj. And my understanding from the state attorneys general is that they do. You know, it's a significant amount of states that called for this action and they do aim to have conversations with the DOJ to force this issue.

[Steve Bannon]

Gabe, where do people get you where they get your rings at Free Press and where they find your social media? Sir.

[Gabe Kaminsky]

Yeah, you can read all of my and my colleagues reporting@the FP.com and follow me on Xecominsky Brother.

[Steve Bannon]

Thank you so much, Kaminsky. It was fantastic. Great report. We're going to push it out and we'll check in with DOJ to make sure, there's some action being taken.

[Gabe Kaminsky]

Let us know.

[Steve Bannon]

Sam Tanenhaus, Marxism, Communism. Bill Buckley with Whitaker Chambers and others fully supported McCarthy because they realized after the defeat of the fascist imperial Japan, the Nazis and the Italian fascists that communism. Right. And one of them was our ally. Another one really wasn't, that communism was going to be a massive, massive problem and there's going to be a global conflict. So he wrote a book was McCarthy and His Enemies. Buckley did walk me through that because he's, you know, you see today, you know, we have Navarro up here about the trade deficit, you know, the trade surplus of a trillion dollars by the ccp. You got Kaminsky saying, hey, they got people everywhere trying to do everything to bring the United States down, including going after President Trump's energy policy. Buckley was a devout Catholic and a hardcore anti communist. Was he not just like Joe McCarthy?

[Sam Tanenhaus]

He was. And he liked McCarthy. They met at Yale when Bill Buckley was an undergraduate. Joe McCarthy came and gave a talk there in 1948. Buckley was involved with a political union there. Campus grew the Republican Party, the party of the right conservatives. And they always liked to have big speakers come through 1948, important midterm elections, we know all about those. And the only guy they could get was Joe McCarthy, who wasn't famous yet, but he was getting onto this issue of anti communism, of how much the gatekeepers were withholding about what they really knew. That's what McCarthy was about. How many communists are there, really? Who are the names? Let's have them. And he was very aggressive about it. And Buckley agreed with him. And in fact, his main mentor, guy named Wilmore Kendall, brilliant political scientist, one of the most talented thinkers of that era, still read today. Steve said to Buckley, watch this guy McCarthy, he's stirring something. He's stirring something. He's reaching the people with his argument, not the elites. He's reaching the public. And another one of Buckley's mentors, another intellectual giant, James Burnham, said the same thing. And he said, keep your eye on McCarthy. McCarthy is not going to get everything right. Right. But he's going to ask the big questions. He's going to push it out with the public and see it. So Buckley said, I'm down with that. And he and his brother in law, Brent Bozell, very important figure, in some ways as important as Buckley as a thinker. They decide what's happening to McCarthy is that the opposition, the enemies, as they called them, is controlling the debate. They're saying, no, let's not listen to what McCarthy says. Let's take McCarthy himself down. Who is Joe McCarthy? He's getting X wrong, he's getting Y wrong. He's inventing stuff. He doesn't have the goods. Meanwhile, McCarthy's getting documentation from the FBI Joover and they realized, Buckley and Bozell, that McCarthy himself was becoming the object of attack. And they said, why is that happening? It's because liberals control the media. That's how Buckley came up with the idea of founding National Review. It will be the beachhead, it will be the counter argument. That'll be airtight, super smart, really fun to read. That's going to stand up against the liberal tide and make that case for the anti communism. That's how it came to be. And it was the, you know, greatest publication, conservative publication of its time.

[Steve Bannon]

I'm gonna get to National Review in a minute. This is. You say something in the book that, that really hit me in the solar plexus. And it goes back to last night. You said they couldn't figure out because he was, he had gone. And it was Claire Booth, Loose Luce's wife. A Time magazine that he saw speak at one of the Republican conventions. And she was so magnificent. She had wit, she had class, she knew how to put the rapier in. She had everything as a speaker. And he realized that McCarthy was the exact opposite. But I think somebody told him that the power of McCarthy wasn't his rhetoric. He wasn't a great speaker, but they had a power. And his superpower was he said things that the working class and middle class audience themselves were thinking, but wouldn't say very much. A forerunner of Donald Trump, is he not?

[Sam Tanenhaus]

Yeah, I'll give you an example of that, Steve. Probably the greatest intellectual in the Buckley orbit was this philosopher and scholar, James Burnham, whose book the Managerial Revolution, I think we talked about this Inspired George Orwell's 1984. Burnham did a thing and every year he was very much an elite guy. Top of his class at Princeton, educated at Oxford. After that professor at nyu Georgetown apartment He would take a trip, he'd take a road trip for about six weeks and he'd go out to the country and he'd talk to regular people and they would say, the communism thing doesn't seem that hard to us. Why don't we just get rid of them? Why are we creating a talking shop about them? They're coming after us. Why don't we go after them in return? And Burnham says they're right, they're right. That, by the way, is the origin of Buckley's really probably Most famous comment. I'd rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone book than by the faculty of Harvard University of Harvard. It began with that. That if you listen Buckley, fantastic listener. People remember how much style he had as a talker. Great listener. He's hearing something else coming out there from the people. And he's also at his church. Goes to church every Sunday. Right. His mother was a daily communicant. You know what that means? She went to mass every single day. Buckley's very close to her. He didn't go every day on Sunday. He. He wanted to hear the old classic Latin mass. He's an altar boy. His fellow parishioners, they are not rich guys in Connecticut. It's the working class and middle class. Buckley actually has a lot more in common with them than people realize. And so does Joe McCarthy. I'll add one more name to this thing, Steven. It's interesting. William Case. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.

[Steve Bannon]

Hang on, Sam. We're going to take a short commercial break. I want to finish this entire story when we return to the War Room.

[Mike Lindell]

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[Steve Bannon]

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[Sam Tanenhaus]

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[Mike Lindell]

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[Steve Bannon]

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[Sam Tanenhaus]

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[Sam Tanenhaus]

Well, so they realize McCarthy's the voice they need. But you have to be careful because you have a large media landscape, what we call an ecosystem. It's a lot different back then. It's very easy to get cornered as being extremist, militant and not permitted into the conversation. Buckley calls them the racket club rules, which is great because Buckley comes out of that background himself and that's the genius of it. So he can, he can now we call it, Steve, we call it code switching, right? You can talk to different groups of people in different ways. But he was a genius at that again, cuz he's a great listener. I want to say something, by the way, about President Trump that I think gets missed. I was just telling a reporter this Trump is a much better listener than people realize. Look how much of that first campaign came out of the talk radio he was absorbing. I mean, where do you think that language comes from? You know, I wrote a piece you may remember about Josh Green's book about you, you and Donald Trump, number one bestseller. And I mentioned how some of the language the candidate Trump used about the border came out of the language of Border Patrol people at the time, 2015, 16, but was treated as this outrageous kind of provocation. And people heard that language who were involved in border enforcement. This guy actually sounds like us. That was part of Buckley's thing. He's a great verbal guy. He's a word guy, he's a listener. He's an excellent musician. He speaks all these languages. Everything comes to him through his ears. He hears things and then turns them around, figures out how to do his own take on them. And McCarthy was the guy who unlocked the mystery for how to get the public to understand this threat.

[Steve Bannon]

In going forward, he realized, too, something important and something very important for us today. Alex Jones on the show last night, in ending his analysis of the speech, said, cry havoc and unleash the dogs of information warfare. Buckley and Bozell and the rest realized in McCarthy getting banged up, that it wasn't that he didn't have the facts, it wasn't that he didn't have a thing that people would rally around, but he had let other people craft the narrative or put the architecture around the narrative, and that's eventually what destroyed him. And they were determined not to allow that to happen to the conservative movement. Is that generally true?

[Sam Tanenhaus]

Yeah. I'll tell you how Buckley knew this, too, Steve. It's an episode in the book, really important. After Edward R. Murrow, the great CBS broadcaster, went after McCarthy, which he began to do, by the way, after McCarthy had begun to slide. Right. He's very shrewd that in the spring of 1954, he went after McCarthy very hard. And Buckley had been writing this book with Bozell. They're going through dossiers. If you look at this book, it was a bestseller. But one reason people were surprised by it, and McCarthy himself had trouble reading him, was it was so densely footnoted. It's constructed out of all these particular investigations of people's ideological histories, of their possible compromises when they're working in government and all the rest. And so Buckley had all the data. He's a young guy, he's a great debater, probably the greatest debater of his time. So Edward R. Murrow says to McCarthy, well, if you don't, like he said this on the air, how I've been treated, you can come on And Robotny, well, McCarthy is now barnstorming through Wisconsin elections. Coming up 1954. McCarthy is the number one draw, by the way, for the Republicans in the midterms. So Buckley said. McCarthy says, well, I don't have time to talk to you, but I know a young guy who does. Bill Buckley will go on the air and refute you for 30 minutes. Buckley told me he's sitting at home watching on TV the TV news. And McCarthy says this. He almost falls off his chair, says, so they're going to let me go on the air and make the case for McCarthy's crusade. And then what happens? Murrow sends a telegram that says, this extension, Senator, this invitation, Senator McCarthy is only for you. You can't have somebody else come on and make the case instead. Because he knew very well that if Buckley had that half hour, he'd be able to make a really strong case. He wanted nothing to do with Buckley. That's one reason Buckley had to start the magazine. If they're not gonna platform him, as we say in the mainstream media, where's he gonna make the case? Start your own magazine. Just like nowadays, people start their own podcast, they go online. Buckley is a pioneer of all that. If they won't let you in, into the club, start your own club.

[Steve Bannon]

Let's talk about that. National Review gets started, and then there's this issue, I guess in the late 50s or maybe early 60s, and it kind of is not directly analogous, but it's some of the things that are going on today where Tucker has somebody on his podcast, Nick Fuentes or others, and people melt down about it. McCarthy. And walk us through how this happened, because you had many elements in this coalition and he realized you needed a coalition, but you had the John Birchers, which I will say, if you look back over some of the stuff before the Birches maybe got a little too crazy. A lot of the stuff that Birches stood for turned out to be right. You also had the objectivist, Ayn Rand. I'm not a libertarian, but it did have Alan Greenspan in there. And you might say, hey, it was kind of a weird cult. But they had some of the biggest thinkers. In fact, a guy that was one of the most powerful Federal Reserve chairs ever. Buckley made a decision at some point in time that they needed to go. He needed to have the platform that determined who was in or who was out, who actually got heard and who didn't get heard. Can you walk us through that?

[Sam Tanenhaus]

Yeah. Here's what happened. Steve Buckley knew Ayn Rand. He'd met her through anti communist circles in the 50s, and he also knew Robert Welch. The founder of the John Birch Society was really begun in a secret meeting in Indianapolis, late 1958. Organizations start in 1959. Buckley supported Robert Welch and the Birch Society for a couple of years. He thought they were great. They're getting the grassroots people out there. Who's gonna knock on the doors to get people to the polls on primary day? Who's gonna get them out to vote for conservative candidates? Welch was doing this through his organization, Ayn Rand. Buckley was a little. He was like you. You know, he's not sure. He loves the totally libertarian atheist argument. The first time Buckley met Ayn Rand, Buckley said this. She said to him, Mr. Buckley, you're too intelligent to believe in God. Buckley said, I didn't love hearing that. You know, he liked your first novel, the Fountainhead. But then when Atlas Shrugged came out, that's her magnum opus, Buckley was uncomfortable with it because of the atheism, because he thinks anti communism. And Ayn Rand was a Russian emigre, Jewish Russian emigre. He thinks it has to be fought through a kind of moral, religious crusade. So he says, all right, who's the best writer I've got? Who can take down Ayn Rand? Oh, I know Whitaker Chambers, one of the greatest writers alive. So he takes Ayn Rand down and asked to review. Now, that was in 1957. The Birchers come next. And Buckley, if you look, and I have this in the book, if you look at the early issues of National Review, when the John Birch Society was founded, Buckley was all for it. He says, this guy's organizing at the grassroots level. Buckley and his friends will do the intellectual combat. Buckley would go to campus. And I'm hearing now from people who say they remind him of Charlie Kirk, go on campus. Bring your best debater on. I will take them on. But there are other people who aren't on college campuses. And the John Birch Society, through Robert Welch, is organizing them in chapters. It's actually modeled. Welch did not deny this. In fact, he was proud of it. It's modeled on the American Communist Party. We're going to have small cells. We're going to educate people in. In the community, and they will carry the fight. Hey, you got some leftists on your school board there. Do we really want them? Let's have a campaign. Let's have a vote. So Buckley likes them. But then what happens is. And we know about this. You're right, Steve. This is where the parallel comes in. In his own writings, Welch was very conspiratorial minded. Now, look, Vice President Vance just told Us I believe in conspiracies that are true. Well, wel. Welch got involved in a conspiracy that wasn't true. He was really convinced that Dwight Eisenhower was a communist agent and Buckley at first said, so what? If that's what he thinks, he's allowed to think it. The, as they called them, the little old ladies in tennis sneakers and the retired generals and businessmen in small towns who are, by the way, the backbone of the John Birch Society. Right? He's a very upstanding citizens, right? He says they're not saying this stuff. Who cares what Robert Welch said?

[Steve Bannon]

Well, the media took advantage of it. Hang on a second. I want to get to the punchline after a short break. Sam Tenenhaus make sure you've got time to give it as a Christmas gift. Buckley, the Life and the Revolution that Changed America. If you want to understand MAGA and where MAGA came from, the roots, we've kind of gone in a different direction. But you got to understand Buckley and the Buckley Conservative Revolution. Short commercial break Sam Tanenhouse next. If you're a homeowner, you need to listen to this. So listen up. In today's artificial intelligence and cyber world, scammers are stealing home titles with more ease than ever. And your equity, the equity in your home, your life savings is the target. Now, here's how it works. Criminals forge your signature on one document, use a fake notary stamp, pay a small fee with your county, and boom. Your home title has been transferred out of your name. Then they take out loans using your equity or even selling your property. You won't even know it's happened until you get a collection or foreclosure notice. So let me ask you, when was the last time you checked your home title? If you're like me, the answer is never. And that's exactly what scammers are counting on. That's why I trust Home Title Lock. Before I met them, I never checked on this. Now I'm safe and now I'm secure. Use promo code [e-mail] to make sure your title is still in your name. You'll also get a free title history report, plus a free 14 day trial of their $1 million triple lock protection. That's 247 monitoring of your title. Urgent alerts to any changes, any in a fraud should happen, they'll spend up to $1 million to fix it. Go to home title lock.com now. Use promo code Steve. That's hometitle lock.com promo code Steve. Do it today. Do it now.

[Sam Tanenhaus]

Here's your host, Stephen K. Band.

[Steve Bannon]

Citizen Kane over at Citizens for Press. By the way, that was ranked the 15th most powerful media operation by Mediaite. So a hat tip to Cain. They put up a story that they By 2035, $2 trillion a year we will spend in interest on the national debt. Think about the $2 trillion a year on interest. Scott Bessens running the IRS now as long and also being Secretary of Treasury, they're going to get every penny they think they're owed. Now, I know you're, you may have a different opinion, what you think you owe them. Therein lies the rub. And that's why you need Tax Network USA, 800-958-1000. Tell them the war room sent you. Tell them Bannon sent you. They'll give you a free consultation. They've heard it all before. There's nothing on any of those letters you have in the drawer. IRS is saying that you've done or failed to do that they haven't seen and worked out. But you got to get in touch with 800-958-1000. Particularly do it year of year end. The IRS is in the business of making deals. You're in. Do it today. 1-800-958-1000 tax network USA. Go check it out. Also, home title lock. Make sure on home title lock every dream you've ever had is in that home, if you're lucky enough to own one. The average age of a first time home buyer is 40 years old. That's not acceptable. President Trump's working on it. Make sure that ownership of your home doesn't turn into a nightmare with either AI, advanced cyber rogue, lawyer, accountant, rogue relative, maybe someone close to you. Get into that title and take out a, I don't know, hard money loan from a hard money lender that you got to pay back. Hometitle lock.com promo code Steve or promo code Bannon. So Bannon or Steve? I think it's Steve. They give you 14 days free on, on the $1 million triple lock protection. Check it out. Talk to Natalie Dominguez and the team at home. Tidal Lock. Do it today on both of those. Take away the anxiety, take away the angst. Get it done today. Sam Tannenhouse. Continue, sir. These are so good. I could just, I could sit here.

[Sam Tanenhaus]

All day and do it well.

[Steve Bannon]

Oh, no, hang on, hang on. First off, first off, the book just got audience. We never give you chop liver here. The book just got nominated for one of the most or the most prestigious Award in Biography. What is it called?

[Sam Tanenhaus]

The National Book Critics Circle Award, Steve? It's critics across the country. So it's one of 10 books. They're all great books, obviously, but there it is. And the publisher told me about this the other day, very pleased about it. So this is their long list. Then they cut it down to another group and the winner will be announced. And prices are nice. I mean, I've been up for a few. I've even won one or two. And it's great, but it's really about getting the book out there. So. So readers get at it. And so this is, you know, it's like a, you know, certification, a gold seal, you know, so that. So I'm very happy about that. But let's get on to the important stuff here, which is that Buckley realizes that the John Birch Society is doing really good work and he's all for them. The problem is Welch has got these extreme theories, and while the rank and file don't pay attention to them and guess who does, the media is all over it. And so they create stories. They're publishing stories all the time. Give an example. We think we're living in sort of extreme Times Now. In 1959, or a little later, 1960, 61. The John Bush Society is now really big. And it's at the Most, maybe it's 40 or 50,000 members. Could be less than that. Some have said as many as 100,000. But that's enough if they're organized to make a difference in politics and in communities, which is what they're all about. So Robert Welch announces they're going to have a college competition to see who can write the best essay saying the Chief justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren, should be impeached. And it's going to be an essay that makes the constitutional or case for removing him. The New York Times reported that on page one, as if it's an invasion coming from Mars. It's an essay contest. But they managed to scare people about it. And, And Welch himself doesn't get it. He viewed himself as an educator. Right? All this is in my book. So Buckley says, okay, now we have a problem.

[Steve Bannon]

The problem. But hang on, hang on. I do. I want to bring up. I want to bring. Because this is analogous to the Trump movement and people don't lose this. The two things that Welch went after Eisenhower and there was. It sounds crazy in the surface, but he did have some logic to it, internal logic. It made sense to him. Eisenhower was a Republican president. Earl Warren was a Republican Chief justice of the Supreme Court. It's not like he's going after. He's going after people that they considered the established order of the Republican and conservative party Party, Correct?

[Sam Tanenhaus]

Correct. Earl Warren was put on the Supreme Court in part because he had been a pretty strong contender in 1952 to be president. He'd been on the Republican ticket as a vice president in 1948. He's Republican establishment. One of his proteges, a guy named William Noland, Bill Noland was far to the right of Nixon from California. This. It's the Republican establishment that the National Review and Buckley had their own term for it. They called it the liberal establishment, Capital L capital. You had to keep telling the editors at Random House, no, you can't lowercase it. It's a liberal establishment because they saw it as going across both parties, you know, what kind of what we would call a blob or something or deep state today that if you go in the big kind of muddle middle, the two parties kind of sound like each other. This is what Buckley's genius was, to lead an insurgency against it. You wouldn't know anything about that. They didn't have a conservative. They didn't have Conservatism Inc. Back then. You know, you and some other people came up with that term. It didn't exist. It didn't exist. When I wrote my little book on conservatism 15 years ago, on how the establishment was coming apart, I didn't think, I didn't use that term. It didn't exist. Well, Buckley and company see the same thing. Robert Welch they realize is very effective, but they also know that establishment is going to do. What you always do with the movement is you go to the person at the top. Buckley first wrote a brilliant defense of Robert Welch Defense in National Review 1961. And he says, listen, what liberals like. Even less than a weak conservative movement is a strong conservative movement. That's their fear. And Welch is making it stronger. But once Welch himself became super vulnerable, cuz he can't stop himself, he goes on television and he starts repeating this stuff about Eisenhower. And Buckley and others are saying this is not gonna work. So Steve, here's who got together in a private hotel room in interesting, wait for it, Palm beach to figure out what to do about it. Bill Buckley was one, the great conservative writer and thinker. Russell Kirk was another and a senator who is kind of making waves from Arizona who comes in dressed like a cowboy named Barry Goldwater. Buckley wrote a great account of it, a reminiscence through the end of his life. And he said Barry Goldwater had a briefcase, but if he ever opened it, that entire meeting at the Breakers, I never saw him do it. They're there and they agree Welch is the problem, not the Birchers, Welch himself. So Buckley even warned him because he liked Welch. Buckley kind of liked everybody. And he said, look, you're going to see me coming after you. I am not coming after the organization, but I'm saying we have a problem with you. So they organized. Buckley wrote the great attack on him in National Review. Russell Kirk was super respected in the intellectual world. Wrote articles in America, Liberal Jesuit, Catholic magazine, going after Welch. And Goldwater told reporters, he told journalists, we need to get rid of this guy. What are the reporters in the mainstream press? Do they leave it out on their stories in Goldwater? They want to still pin the Birchers on him. Goldwater couldn't believe it. He said, I talked to this guy from the New York Times and I told him we're getting rid of Welch. And he wouldn't report it. So you think this stuff happens in later times. It was happening even more back then. So Buckley realized we're in it alone. We're going to have to make the case in a way that we'll finally get some props from the establishment. So Buckley wrote this brilliant five or six page analysis of all the holes in Welch's arguments. And he finally starts to get some credit from really the most important columnist of the time. James Reston at the New York Times says Buckley has written a brilliant dismantling. So here's a lesson they all learned, Steve, which. Which I found when I was an editor, I was an OP editor editor at the New York Times, and I would call conservatives, and they would say, I just fell off the chair. I can't believe they hired you. And the reasons they thought they would only get approached to write about something when they went after their own side. And so I would say, no, we want to hear other things you have to say too. But things that opened up. This is like the 90s. It's still a long time ago, but not back in the 60s. So Buckley saw they had to push Welch out. That brought in 1200 angry letters from subscribers, and it really damaged National Review for a while. But then the publisher, Bill Rusher, who supported Welch and thought Buckley was making a mistake, he tried to broker a truce with Welch. Many years later, not long before he died, Bill Rusher told me I was wrong, Buckley was right, we had to make that move. And I looked closely at Buckley's writing at the time because he would send letters out to everybody saying, what are you doing? Why are you coming after this guy who's on our side? And Buckley said, if the people in the middle think the leadership of our movement or one faction of it is controlled by someone who's on the fringe, that will damage us. Doesn't matter. Everybody knows you have all kinds of people in your ground troops. Right? Pat Buchanan was great with this, with his pitchfork crusade. Yeah, you bring everybody in, but the leadership is. Has to pass a certain test. And Welch wasn't doing it. So Buckley pushed him out with regret. But when he had to be. Buckley could be very isoly pragmatic. And that's what he did.

[Steve Bannon]

And very tough. Fascinating. We're going to continue this over the holidays. Sam, where do people go to get the book? The book is number one in a bunch of categories now. The Warren posse loves. I've gotten tremendous feedback. A great gift, particularly for someone maybe younger on your list, on your Christmas list that maybe doesn't have the background, the historical background of the country, the conservative movement. And particularly a giant like Bill Buckley, of course, don't hold against what the national reviews turned into. We're gonna get to that as we.

[Sam Tanenhaus]

That's another story. Well, as you know, because of our first broadcast, Random House reprinted and it takes a while to do that. They are on Amazon. You can go on Amazon and you'll see whatever number is left in stock.

[Steve Bannon]

But.

[Sam Tanenhaus]

But you can order them. Anybody who wants to get in touch with me and I'm hearing from some great listeners, it's my website, samtananhouse.com just send me an email and we'll have a conversation. But it's in bookstore still. I'd be doing talks and at clubs and their private clubs are able to get the book through bookstores. But Amazon's still a good place and there'll be more available there, I'm told.

[Steve Bannon]

What about your people tell me the Whitaker Chambers book is sold out. Are they going to restock the Whitaker Chambers?

[Sam Tanenhaus]

I have to ask them at Random House because I discovered that too. Yeah, they're out of stock now. You can get it on Kindle. But some people just like to have the, you know, the book gotta have the store. So I will ask them about that. Yeah, they. They ran out. Thanks to you. Thanks for our conversations.

[Steve Bannon]

This weighs in at over a thousand pages. People gotta get this. This is. This is a prestige book. Sam, it's so great to have you on here and thank you for taking time away. I know your schedule's really busy, but thank you, taking your time and joining us here in the War Room.

[Sam Tanenhaus]

It's been a pleasure, Steve, anytime.

[Steve Bannon]

Thank you, sir. See how many the Birchers, the Libertarians forced out. The stories are all in there. They're amazing, the personalities. You'll see Reagan, Young Reagan, Nixon, Goldwater, all of them. And Bill Buckley, the intellectual, the public intellectual giant of it all. We're going to take a short commercial break and music that leads us out is take down the Chinese Communist Party. Isn't it interesting that back from 1949 on, remember, McCarthy was really about who lost China. So was Henry Luce at Time magazine. Who lost China? Who lost it? The State Department that was riddled with Communists. Short commercial break Back in the Worm in a moment. Imagine having the world's most connected financial insider feeding you vital information, the kind of information only a handful of people have access to and that could create a fortune for those who know what to do with it. That's exactly what you get when you join our frequent guest and contributor Jim Rickards in his elite research service, Strategic Intelligence. Inside Strategic Intelligence. You'll hear directly from Jim and receive critical updates on major financial and political events before they hit the mainstream news. He'll put you in front of the story and tell you exactly what moves to make for your best chance to profit as a proud American. You do not want to be caught off guard. Sign up for Strategic Intelligence right now at your our exclusive website. That's rickardswarroom.com Rickards war room.com you go there, you get strategic intelligence based upon predictive analytics. Do it today, right now. Rickards war room.com war room here's your.

[Sam Tanenhaus]

Host, Stephen K. Ban.

[Steve Bannon]

Okay, we're all over the Ella Cook situation at Brown and also the situation down in Savannah with the acid attack. More on that throughout the I'll be putting stuff up on Getter all day. Grayson, Mo. They're going to get up before we do to Amfest. We're going out there and shifting the flag. Afternoon show will be out there hosted by a collection of folks. I'll be out there a little later today and we're going to have a great weekend. And security out there supposed to be fantastic. So we got to make sure that security around the country for the rest of the Ella Cooks is beyond solid. And that's what we need. The FBI to step in right now and take over that investigation and tell us about Ella Cook. We need to know about her. Cameron Kinsey, former White House official staffer over there. You know, Scott Bess is now in charge of irs, the great Citizen Kane, who, by the way, mediates as the 15th most powerful site out there, put up this analysis that showed in a couple of years ago, he's spending $2 trillion a year in interest payments on the debt. Right. And the debt's going to be out of control by then. So the irs, and Scott Besson has told the president, hey, everything that we're rightfully owed, we're going to get. Now, the gap is between what they feel they're owed and what you, you know, what the citizen feels are owed. And that is where in the middle of that is where Tax Network USA come in. Take it away, ma'. Am.

[Cameron Kinsey]

Yes. Well, thank you so much for having me, Steven. And you're exactly right. No matter who is in office, we are going to continue to fight for hardworking Americans. Tax Network usa, if people don't know we're one of America's leading tax firms, we specialize in helping individuals, small business owners, really just take on the irs and whether that's audits, whether that's back taxes, wage garnishments, unfiled returns. We have a team of licensed CPAs, enrolled agents, experienced tax attorneys, even former IRS agents who just know the tax code inside and out. They know how the IRS operates and they know how to push back effectively. So, Steve, and you know, the truth is the IRS sometimes doesn't care who's in charge politically. And you know this. They've stayed aggressive. And so our job is just to protect hardworking Americans. But we're not just here to file your taxes. We are truly here to fight for you. And that's really the difference between us and another company who may just give cookie cutter advice and vanish when things get tough. We've, I mean, again, we've helped eliminate a billion dollars in tax debt. We approach every single case strategically and personally, Steve Job, because we share the same values of the people watching this show. We want limited government. We want less bureaucratic nonsense, and we're protecting people from these weaponized institutions that we've seen in the past. So that's really just how we approach every single case. We try to make it as simple and strategic as possible. It starts with a direct consultation with one of our team members. A lot of people called in previously during the Black Friday sale to get that free discovery call. But really, our initial free consultation is just to dive into your picture a little bit deeper. We want to see the full financial picture, see how we can help. And if you decide you want to move forward after that free call, we flag every deduction. We fix any error that we may see. We make sure that your filings are clean and accurate and audit proof. So even though we've seen those deadlines pass, you know, if you've gotten those IRLs or IRS letters in the mail, do not wait. A lot of people want to stuff those in a drawer. They get. They get really scared to take on the irs. They don't even know where to start. And I'm here to tell you, the average American does not know the tax code inside and out. I can tell you right now, I am not a tax expert myself, but we have experts in your corner. And that's why it is so important to have help on your side. And so if you do want to get started with, we do just recommend, like, bring your W2, bring the IRS letters, bring the financial records, anything that shows proof of hardship, like medical bills, proof of income loss. But don't worry if you don't have it all organized either. That's really just a part of what we do as well. So don't panic if it's not all gathered. If documents are missing, our team can actually assist with that as well, Steve. Obtain copies from the IRS or other sources. So we're just focused on building a robust case for our clients. And it's very easy to get started with us. I'll give you that number. It's 1-800-958-1000. And we take extra care of our war room posse. We love you guys so much. And you can go to TN, USA.com/Bannon as well. You can fill out a quick form and one of our team members will reach out to you as soon as possible.

[Steve Bannon]

The end of the year is the best time to do this. Get the angst. Give yourself a gift for the holidays. Take away the angst. Take away the worry. Go to Tax Network USA, 800-958-1000. They've heard it all before. They've settled a billion dollars of this. You're not going to tell them anything new. Get there. Get a safe pair of hands. Cameron. Merry Christmas, ma'. Am. Love working with you this year. Fantastic work. Fantastic.

[Cameron Kinsey]

Thank you so much, Steve. Appreciate you. God bless.

[Steve Bannon]

That's MAGA right there. Cameron Kinsey. Mike Lindell. I am so, so proud of you, brother, the way you're running this campaign. But that's a topic for a different day. We're closing in on Christmas, brother, and everybody's Telling me they want to give the gift of my pillow to support the causes that you fight for, sir. Where do they go? What do they do? And what do you got?

[Mike Lindell]

Well, the news is, everybody, this is the last few hours. You need to get your order in in the next four hours with the get for getting it by Christmas option available. So get them now. This is it. We put, remember, we put our five flagship products on sale for the war room posse and exclusive there you got The My Pillow Six Piece Towel says half price, 39.98. All the slippers, the best gift ever for Christmas. Give the gifts of those. The best slippers ever, $39.98 Giza Dream Sheets, you guys, we have all the size, everything's available as low as 20, as low as 29.98. Then you have the MyPillow premiums and the MyPillow mattress topper. And so if you go to my pillow.com forward/war room, everybody, you go to the website, there's just a few of the crosses left. There's like 20, some of the crosses left. And get those, you can still, like I say, this is the last four hours where you can get to take that Christmas delivery, guaranteed Christmas Christmas delivery option promo code war room. Now as you go down, you guys, there's over 250 items there. Giftsters, all the stuff for the kitchen. Those are. We put everything on sale for these last few hours. So you guys do your shopping there. And I want to tell you mystore.com to you guys there, you see that square? You can use promo code war room there. That's over a thousand entrepreneurs made in the usa. They need support at this time of year. And then you call 800-873-1062. My operators downstairs, they know this is the last, last four, three, three, four hours left, you guys. You get your orders in promo code war room. Everything's on sale for Christmas. And Merry Christmas. This is it. Everybody get your items now. The best Christmas gifts in history.

[Steve Bannon]

Go back to work now. Mike Lindell, we'll see at five o'.

[Sam Tanenhaus]

Clock.

[Mike Lindell]

Thanks, Steve.

[Steve Bannon]

Hardest working man in showbiz right there. Want to thank Sam Tannen House once again. Want to thank the team at rest last night. Tremendous coverage from President Trump's speech and afterwards, just great. Charlie Kirk show is next with Andrew Colvett. Poso's up. You got Gruber, you got bowling. They're actually, I think already at amfest. Gonna have our crew out there. I will see you later tonight and tomorrow and over the weekend, make sure you stick around. The Charlie Kirk show is next and they're gonna be rocking it out in Phoenix. See you later. Do you owe back taxes or haven't filled in years? Now's the time to resolve your tax matters. When the national conversation around abolishing the income tax system, the IRS is fighting back, improving, it's here to stay by becoming more aggressive than ever before. They're sending out more collection notices, filing more tax liens and collecting billions more than in recent years. If you owe, the IRS can garnish your wages, levy your bank accounts, seize your retirement, even your home if you owe or haven't filed. It's not a question of the IRS will act, it's when the IRS will act. Now. Right now, Tax Network USA is offering a completely free IRS research and discovery call to show you exactly where you stand and what they can stop before it's too late. Their powerful programs and strategies can save you thousands or even eliminate your debt entirely if you qualify. Don't make a costly mistake. Representing yourself or calling the IRS on your own waives your rights and costs you more money. They are not on your side. The IRS is there to get as much money as possible, not to help you out. Get protected the right way with Tax Network USA and start the process on settling your tax matters once and for all, beginning today. Call 800-958-1000. That's 1-800-958-1000 or visit Tax Network USA.com that's tnusa.com Bannon for your free discovery call with Tax Network tnsusa.com Bannon for your Free Discovery call or call 1-800-958- 1000. That's 1-800- 958-1000. Don't let the IRS make the first move. Act today.