WarRoom Battleground EP 899: Exclusive Interviews From Children's Health Defense Weekend

Podcast: Bannon’s War Room
Date: November 26, 2025
Host: Steve Bannon / Claire Dooley (guest host for most content recap)
Guests: Jeffrey Tucker, Dr. Pierre Kory, Dr. Sherry Tenpenny, Mark Gorton

EPISODE OVERVIEW

This episode features exclusive interviews from the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) weekend, focusing on the growing health freedom movement, critiques of the U.S. healthcare and vaccine systems, and detailed discussions on emerging alternatives. Key topics include a recent Trump healthcare proposal, the mainstreaming and empowerment of the vaccine injury and health choice movement post-COVID, and in-depth critiques of vaccine safety claims. The tone is impassioned, combative, and personal, with participants sharing both professional and deeply personal motivations for advocacy.

KEY DISCUSSION POINTS & INSIGHTS

1. Trump's Health Care Proposal: New Direction for the GOP

Timestamps: 00:47–05:26, 43:36–48:02

• Discussion:

  • Jeffrey Tucker explains Trump's recent proposal to redirect healthcare funds from insurance companies directly to consumers, allowing individuals greater freedom and flexibility in choosing their healthcare.
  • Tucker frames this as a unifying moment for both MAGA and "MAHA" (Make America Healthy Again) movements.
  • Concerns remain about the current system's inertia: even with direct payments, insurance-dominated markets limit meaningful choice and inflate costs.
  • Advocates for full "liberalization" of healthcare—enabling all Americans to have Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), choose alternative care, and remove insurance company and government mandates.

• Notable Quotes:

  • “It's been revealed that the healthcare is costing $27,000 per capita per person for the worst healthcare in the world, and that's before you even use it. The system is not working... The system is known as Obamacare. It's a disaster.” — Jeffrey Tucker (01:18)
  • “We need to blow open this entire system and open it up to genuine market forces.” — Jeffrey Tucker (45:45)
  • “...the consumer has total autonomy to spend it with whatever health care they want.” — Dr. Pierre Kory (46:25)
  • “Most people are part of this wicked system where you pay so much to have health care, but you don’t actually have health care.” — Jeffrey Tucker (49:06)

2. The Rise and Transformation of the Health Freedom Movement

Timestamps: 05:26–13:08, 29:00–42:19

• Discussion:

  • Coverage of the Children’s Health Defense conference, noted as CHD’s largest gathering yet—evidence of the movement’s growth and mainstreaming post-COVID.
  • Jeffrey Tucker remarks on a new cross-ideological coalition: parents and professionals burnt by institutional failures during the pandemic now unite around health freedom, transcending simple left/right politics.
  • COVID-era changes: formerly marginalized parents of vaccine-injured children (“on the defense”) now joined by healthy families, shifting the movement to an “offense.”
  • Longtime activists (e.g., Dr. Sherry Tenpenny) are recognized as having sounded early warnings later validated by COVID policies.
  • Organizational interplay: CHD positioned as “defense” and new institutions like MAHA as “offense.”

• Notable Quotes:

  • “This is not just about abstract ideology. This is about their freedoms that they want to exercise. They realize that freedom and health and choice all go together.” — Jeffrey Tucker (06:13)
  • “I think this offense is really important... now in the COVID era, healthy people, people who weren't broken... now it's time for an offense.” — Claire Dooley (09:26)
  • “We've seen all these new institutions... CHD is a legacy institution but now it's achieving new heights.” — Jeffrey Tucker (12:55)
  • “Philosophically... it's emancipated me from the old binaries of left and right... Everybody has an interest in freedom.” — Jeffrey Tucker (13:08)

3. Vaccine Safety and Injury: Claims, Critique, and Controversy

Timestamps: 15:11–28:02, 30:08–41:28

• Dr. Sherry Tenpenny Interview:

  • Dr. Tenpenny recounts her journey from board certified emergency physician to vaccine critic after examining vaccine safety literature.
  • Claims all vaccines cause harm at some level, citing ingredients such as aluminum, foreign proteins, and other chemicals. Asserts cumulative exposure leads to widespread chronic illnesses.
  • Argues COVID-19 vaccines are causing spikes in autoimmune diseases, “turbo” cancers, and infertility. Cites her 2021 webinar on potential mechanisms of harm.
  • Critiques routine vaccinations during pregnancy; asserts that historic caution over any drug during pregnancy has now been abandoned in favor of aggressive vaccine schedules for expectant mothers.

• Mark Gorton (MAHA Institute):

  • Cites studies (without direct references) suggesting 40% of American children suffer chronic vaccine injuries, equating to 1.4 million new cases per year.
  • Argues that improvements in communicable disease outcomes predated vaccines, attributing health gains to sanitation and safe water.
  • Claims that the paralytic polio epidemic of the last century was largely due to pesticide poisoning, not polio virus, and that vaccines have wrongly taken credit for falling disease rates.

• Counterfactual Dialogue and Rebuttal Anticipation:

  • Both guests, when prompted, argued mainstream fears around “return of polio” or measles are overstated, and not a justified tradeoff for what they see as a chronic disease crisis.
  • Emphasize need for alternative access to information and open scientific debate.

• Notable Quotes:

  • “Vaccines have never been proven to be safe. They don’t keep you from getting sick, they are not necessary, and every single one causes harm.” — Dr. Sherry Tenpenny (16:39)
  • “If you are bold enough to say that... you also have to admit that... our children... they’re vaccine-injured, they go hand in hand.” — Claire Dooley (34:49)
  • “If you look at the death rates from nearly all the communicable diseases, they had plunged by 90, 95, 99% before the advent of vaccines.” — Mark Gorton (37:01)

4. Institution-Building, Scientific Debate, and Public Communication

Timestamps: 08:13–13:08, 40:19–42:19

• Brownstone Institute’s Role:

  • Described as a refuge for canceled scholars and journalists, with a mission to publish dissenting or suppressed research and challenge “fake science.”
  • Advocacy for public, pluralistic debate over health policy and science, rather than gatekeeping by legacy institutions or “Big Tech.”

• MAHA Institute:

  • Frames itself as a think tank offering tactical support to pro-health freedom policymakers within the system.
  • Roundtables and targeted communications aim to spread complex critiques in digestible formats to the broader public.

• Quotes:

  • “What we parade around with is facts and truth, okay? And genuine revival of a love of science as it used to be considered.” — Jeffrey Tucker (14:08)
  • “It’s our mission to support and collaborate... Because the government health system is huge, it’s rigid, it doesn’t want to change... So we’re providing very useful tactical advice and support.” — Mark Gorton (41:28)

MEMORABLE MOMENTS & QUOTES

• “This is the primal scream of a dying regime.” — Steve Bannon [00:02]
• “You should not be making the decision of whether or not to vaccinate when you're in labor... It should be well armed and ready to make that decision, which could be a life altering and life changing event to that baby before they're born.” — Dr. Sherry Tenpenny [26:17]
• “If you just stop giving kids vaccines, you could stop poisoning 1.4 million kids a year.” — Mark Gorton [34:18]
• “We pay more than most developed countries in the world. Yet we have worse health.” — Claire Dooley [49:22]

IMPORTANT SEGMENT TIMESTAMPS

• 00:47–05:26: Jeffrey Tucker on Trump’s healthcare proposal and the case for direct-to-consumer medical spending.
• 05:26–13:08: Origins and growth of the expanded health freedom movement, CHD’s new prominence, and moving from defense to offense after COVID.
• 15:11–26:51: Dr. Sherry Tenpenny's journey, vaccine safety claims, ingredients, chronic illness, and vaccine/infant health warnings.
• 30:08–41:28: Mark Gorton addresses the scale of alleged vaccine injury, counters mainstream narratives about communicable disease, and details MAHA Institute’s mission.
• 43:36–49:35: Recap and further analysis of Trump’s healthcare proposal, with practical critiques from Dr. Pierre Kory and Jeffrey Tucker.

SUMMARY & TAKEAWAYS

• The CHD conference marks an inflection point for the health choice and medical freedom movements, described as moving from marginalized status to influential force with cross-spectrum appeal.
• Trump’s recent healthcare proposal is seen as a possible catalyst for radical, consumer-led reform, but guests argue that only comprehensive deregulation and real patient choice will solve structural dysfunctions.
• Guests maintain highly critical views of both the mainstream vaccine narrative and the healthcare/insurance status quo, emphasizing what they see as widespread and often-underreported harms.
• Multiple guests position their organizations (Brownstone, MAHA) as platforms for alternative expert voices and as tactical support hubs for would-be reformers inside and outside government.
• The episode offers a case study in the rhetoric, alliances, and strategies of a burgeoning health freedom movement, advocating skepticism toward mainstream science and centralized healthcare authority.

Note to listeners:
This summary reflects the perspectives, claims, and tone of featured speakers and does not constitute a clinical or journalistic endorsement of the content. For more information or alternative views, consult additional medical and news sources.