2/7/25: Steve Bannon WH Correspondent On Elon, Trump, GOP Infighting!!

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar – Episode Summary Episode Title: Steve Bannon WH Correspondent On Elon, Trump, GOP Infighting!! Release Date: February 7, 2025

In this compelling episode of Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, hosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti engage in a robust conversation with Steve Bannon, featuring Natalie Winters, the White House correspondent for the War Room podcast. The episode delves deep into the current political landscape, examining the interplay between technology, populism, and internal conflicts within the GOP.

---

1. Daily Mail's Attack on Natalie Winters

The episode opens with a discussion about a scathing Daily Mail article that criticized Natalie Winters' appearance and professionalism.

• Natalie Winters [09:19]:
  "I was being slammed on Instagram in comments for saying that I was dressed inappropriately. I think that was obviously outlandish, but more precisely, I just think it sort of represents really an effort to just delegitimize us."

• Steve Bannon [03:35]:
  "Today we've got another fun one. We're joined by Natalie Winters, who is the White House correspondent for the War Room podcast."

Natalie addresses how mainstream media outlets like the Daily Mail attempt to undermine independent journalists by focusing on superficial critiques rather than substantive issues.

---

2. The Influence and Power of War Room's Audience

A significant portion of the discussion highlights the immense influence and activism of the War Room audience.

• Natalie Winters [04:25]:
  "We're on Real America's Voice, which is in, I think, 9 million plus homes. I think our average viewership is at least around 700,000, plus or minus probably a few hundred thousand."

• Krystal [04:52]:
  "700,000 watching live just on a TV."

Natalie emphasizes the dual strength of War Room—its extensive reach and the high level of engagement from its audience, who actively participate in grassroots activism and political advocacy.

---

3. Tension Between Independent and Mainstream Media

The conversation explores the friction between independent media outlets like War Room and traditional mainstream media.

• Natalie Winters [02:27]:
  "I don't think it's great to have unelected billionaires running any government agency, but spare me, mainstream media the performative outrage that you guys either care about the Constitution or that you care about unelected bureaucrats or billionaires running government. So it's the framing of it I sort of reject."

• Steve Bannon [03:10]:
  "Independent journalist industry."

Natalie critiques mainstream media for what she perceives as shallow outrage and biased framing, advocating instead for a more honest and impactful form of journalism that holds power accountable.

---

4. GOP Infighting: H1B Visas and USAID

Internal conflicts within the Republican Party, particularly regarding H1B visas and USAID funding, are a focal point.

• Steve Bannon [34:33]:
  "President Trump is the chief magistrate. Does he have the right to hire and fire?"

• Natalie Winters [36:54]:
  "All of those USAID programs not only are a really concerning and have to do with funding biological weapons in China and collaborating with DARPA and stuff..."

The discussion highlights disagreements within the GOP on immigration policies and foreign aid, revealing deeper ideological rifts that could impact the party's cohesion and effectiveness.

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5. Elon Musk’s Influence in Government

Elon Musk's burgeoning role in government operations raises concerns about the concentration of power in the hands of unelected billionaires.

• Krystal [03:17]:
  "I think our bureaucrats are better than their billionaires. Better than their billionaires? No, I think there's... enormous unelected influence."

• Steve Bannon [37:34]:
  "We need to prioritize American workers first, not we have to get rid of Elon Musk and defend USAID because Elon is being an autocrat."

The episode debates the dangers of billionaires like Musk exerting significant control over government agencies, potentially sidelining democratic processes and favoring personal or corporate interests.

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6. The Culture War and Populism

The hosts and guests dissect the ongoing culture wars and their role in diverting attention from essential material issues.

• Steve Bannon [23:57]:
  "From the left, people don’t use phrases like trannies... it's a way to distract from material analysis."

• Natalie Winters [33:34]:
  "H1B visa debate is something that was very eye-opening because I have done War Room for about 4ish years now, which makes me feel very old."

They argue that culture war topics are often used by elites to divide the working class, masking more significant economic and political agendas aimed at maintaining power structures.

---

7. Evaluating the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)

The IRA's impact on American jobs and manufacturing is scrutinized, with particular attention to its messaging and effectiveness.

• Natalie Winters [81:52]:
  "We call balls and strikes. But from a more Meta perspective, you can't really tell me they did a good job with reducing inflation."

• Steve Bannon [84:00]:
  "If you separate it from Democrats, is that something that fits into Bannon's style?"

The discussion critiques the IRA's actual benefits versus its public perception, questioning whether it genuinely supports American workers or merely serves corporate interests through subsidies and tariffs.

---

8. Israel, Foreign Aid, and Populist Perspectives

Natalie Winters provides insights into the War Room's stance on Israel and the broader implications of foreign aid.

• Natalie Winters [68:48]:
  "I think it's more about the H1B visas... we need to defend USaid because it's currently being run by unelected bureaucrats or billionaires."

• Steve Bannon [55:19]:
  "I hate this, like, idea that the US is some charitable organization that is just so benevolent and wasting people's money because we're so soft-hearted."

They debate the merits and drawbacks of American foreign aid, particularly focusing on USAID's role in international relations and the potential for misuse in perpetuating U.S. interests abroad.

---

9. Ethical Considerations for War Room Media

The episode concludes with a reflection on the ethical responsibilities of independent media in reporting from within the White House.

• Natalie Winters [72:17]:
  "My first and foremost ethical consideration is what I wear. No."

Despite her humorous take on the question, Natalie underscores the balance between supporting political agendas and maintaining journalistic integrity, emphasizing a commitment to truth and primary-source reporting.

---

10. Conclusion

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar successfully navigates a complex dialogue with Steve Bannon and Natalie Winters, dissecting intricate issues ranging from media influence and GOP infighting to the role of billionaires in governance and the efficacy of populist strategies. The episode offers a nuanced perspective on the state of American politics, urging listeners to critically evaluate the forces shaping policy and public opinion.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Natalie Winters [09:19]: "I was being slammed on Instagram in comments for saying that I was dressed inappropriately."
• Steve Bannon [34:33]: "President Trump is the chief magistrate. Does he have the right to hire and fire?"
• Natalie Winters [36:54]: "All of those USAID programs not only are a really concerning and have to do with funding biological weapons in China and collaborating with DARPA and stuff..."
• Krystal [03:17]: "I think our bureaucrats are better than their billionaires. Better than their billionaires? No, I think there's... enormous unelected influence."
• Steve Bannon [23:57]: "From the left, people don’t use phrases like trannies... it's a way to distract from material analysis."
• Natalie Winters [81:52]: "We call balls and strikes. But from a more Meta perspective, you can't really tell me they did a good job with reducing inflation."

This episode serves as a vital exploration of the shifting dynamics within American media and politics, providing listeners with a deeper understanding of the underlying tensions and strategic maneuvers shaping the future of the GOP and independent journalism.

Transcript

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[Natalie Winters]

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[Sagar]

Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.

[Natalie Winters]

Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.

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This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

[Natalie Winters]

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[Krystal]

Is generally supportive of MAGA in there pressing the White House Press Secretary of an opportunity to do it. How are you thinking about that?

[Natalie Winters]

We are forthright in our support for President Trump, and I'm aware that maybe that's hard to square with the idea of, like, being a journalist. I don't want to be a Trump cheerleader for four years. I don't really find any intellectual merit in doing that either. If you can tell. Like I love digging into documents I don't like standing there and being like, oh my gosh, we took over Gaza.

[Krystal]

I look at what Elon Musk is doing, getting rid of usaid. Amazing, cathartic, beautiful masterpiece. At the same time, you now have like a genuine oligarch running loose in the government.

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah, I don't think it's great to have unelected billionaires running any government agency, but spare me, mainstream media the performative outrage that you guys either A, care about the Constitution or B, that you care about unelected bureaucrats or billionaires running government. So it's the framing of it I sort of reject.

[Steve Bannon]

Over here. At Counterpoints, you know that we like to have long form conversations with people in the journalism industry, find out where they came from, where they're going.

[Krystal]

Independent journalist industry.

[Steve Bannon]

Independent. Independent journalists.

[Krystal]

Corporate apparatus. Corporate apparatus.

[Steve Bannon]

Oh, we had Ezra Kind. New York Times loves to call itself independent.

[Krystal]

That's true.

[Steve Bannon]

Which it technically is. Technically like they own themselves.

[Krystal]

Sure.

[Steve Bannon]

That's right. Fair enough. We had my drop site colleague, Jeremy Scahill. We had Matt Taibbi on. That was a fun one. Today we've got another fun one. We're joined by Natalie Winters, who is the White House correspondent for the War Room podcast. Hi, Natalie.

[Natalie Winters]

Thank you.

[Steve Bannon]

Thank you so much for joining us.

[Krystal]

And I just want to say I think one blind spot in D.C. especially among Republicans, and maybe you've run into this. Natalie, I'm curious. This might be a good place to start. They don't realize how powerful War Room is. If you look at the podcast charts, War Room is routinely near the very, very top. It is an extremely powerful.

[Steve Bannon]

Well, you can tell us out numbers, like with an internal look, because it does seem like. Because when you guys ask your posse, or what is it? Posse. The posse.

[Natalie Winters]

The posse.

[Steve Bannon]

You ask the posse to do stuff like the phone lines melt down. So the numbers have got to be big. Can you put some. What are your highest numbers? What are your average numbers?

[Natalie Winters]

Sure, sure. I feel like it was a dark moment when you just called me a journalist. To me, it's still like a slur. No, independent media.

[Krystal]

Welcome to the club.

[Natalie Winters]

I guess I gotta accept it. Look, I think our audience is so powerful for two reasons, quality and quantity. What do I mean by that? We're first and foremost a TV show. We're on real America's Voice, which is in, I think, 9 million plus homes. I think our average viewership. Average is at least around 700,000, plus or minus probably a few hundred thousand. But that's just people who are watching on a traditional TV that excludes all streaming, all Rumble, all Twitter live streams.

[Steve Bannon]

700,000 watching live just on a TV.

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah, just.

[Krystal]

Yeah, just.

[Natalie Winters]

But that's not including, like I said, Rumble, which is another 60,000 or so Twitter, the clips that go viral after everything like that. So it's just a massive audience, but to the quality. And I don't mean that our viewers are better than yours. I just mean in terms of engagement and grassroots activism, there really has never been, I think, a more impactful or powerful audience. I would say just ask Kevin McCarthy, but anytime that Steve Bannon, who I always feel like when I call him my co host, I am demeaning him. It's Stephen K. Bannon's war room, but they will do it. I've literally met audience members who take days off of work to make phone calls, to call the Senate, to call members of Congress. And in some ways, I think it's interesting, actually, just last night, they had Ezra Levin of Indivisible on Rachel Maddow talking about their sort of resistance tactics. Right. And they want to be burning down the phone lines. They want to be writing off ads in the local papers. They have a very systematic sort of characterization of how to push back through their manuals. And I think War Room has sort of culturally appropriated a lot of the left's tactics, which I guess goes back to sort of McConnell in the early, like, 2000s. Right. So, you know, you kind of have debate over whose tactics they were. But I think Steve Bannon has really capitalized on the art of the phone call. And, you know, I'm friends with a lot of members. They're always texting us, saying, thank you for giving us the COVID to stand in the breach, to hold the line, particularly against CRs, the kind of omnibus spending bills. So our audience really, really does have power. I'm honored to even be able to speak to them. But I think people really underestimate the power of our audience. But like I said, I just asked Kevin McCarthy about the power of our audience.

[Krystal]

No, it's real.

[Steve Bannon]

No doubt about. Seemed like the audience got steamrolled a bit by Musk in the. So let's talk. Let's start. Well, actually, let's start with the Daily Mail attack on you, because I think that's a lot of. That's what a lot of people are going to be curious about. You can put up this first element, and then we'll get to some more serious stuff. So if you're just listening to this on the podcast, this is a Daily Mail headline. You're not a hostess at Hooters. You work at the White House. Kennedy's maternal warning to the scantily clad correspondent moaning about her fashion critics. So walk us through what, what happened here. So this goes back to the. The new White House opens up its press briefing room to non traditional folks. Breitbart, you know, got a little seat along the side there. Other people, they, they said go ahead and apply. I applied for one. You know, I used to, I had this permanent ish badge under Obama, then Biden for a while. Then they took away a bunch of badges, four of them. Yeah. So now I've, I wonder if mine was one of those. They're like, everybody has to reapply. And I was like, I'm not reapplying because KJP is like not answering any questions. I'm just going to go to the State Department, like to stop wasting my time. So I didn't even reapply, but I have applied to this new one. So they're letting in new people. So then they let you in. And then there's this social media meltdown over how you look. What, what was how. Walk us through what happened and before.

[Krystal]

Let me also ask, because it was a lot deeper than how you look, how you look. And maybe you can weigh in on this. It was even just the fact of you being there was controversial to the old guard who really is uncomfortable.

[Steve Bannon]

And in the old guard's defense, like as you just said yourself, you're brand new to, in thinking of yourself even as a journalist. Yeah, sure, you can imagine other journalists are like, wait a minute, what's wrong?

[Natalie Winters]

And look, I think the way you framed it is the right way. Right. The buried lead. The significant angle of this story is that new media is in there in a press briefing room that for so long has sort of been inactive or really I think just sort of propaganda esque in terms of not answering real questions, kicking out journalists that they disagree with. And now President Trump and Caroline Levitt are taking historic steps to put in new media voices. And I think the story should have been, wow, Steve Bannon's war room is in the White House. Yeah. It's a controversial 23 year old girl who's maybe said some edgy things which, which I all stand by, but that should have been the story. So I sort of viewed it when it really started to, I think, snowball and become a bigger and bigger thing. It was like article after article after article and the Kennedy piece, which I think is a ridiculous accusation to say that I was dressed like a hostess at Hooters. I don't think a cashmere sweater with.

[Krystal]

Wasn't that like Alice and Olivia?

[Natalie Winters]

I was gonna say, I think like Olive Fox has that Alice and Olivia sweater. Everyone has worn it. It's like the most basic. Like, I'm very basic. It's the most basic sweater that exists. I think that was obviously outlandish, but more precisely, I just think it sort of rather going back to the original story, they had said that I was being slammed on Instagram in comments for saying that I was dressed inappropriately. I've gone through my comments, the typical haters who will always comment on anything I wear or anything I do, sure, they said what they said, but overwhelmingly, it was an outpouring of support from our audience and from people who are really, truly excited to have war room in the press briefing room. Like I said, our audience played a critical role in President Trump's victory. So they saw. I was like, wow, this is amazing. So I know that's what the Daily Mail does. That's their business model, the rage bait, the clickbait headlines. But it wasn't like I was being slammed for what I was wearing. So when I saw the stories continue to pile up, and then the Kennedy article, which was just so offensive, and if you read it, she refers to herself as like a fellow hot person and saying that I showed up to the White House trying to look like Barbie, just all these really bizarre attacks. I was like, this feels like more to impugn my character, our show, and make us seem unserious and mock this sort of whole new media operation and take away, sort of reframe the story as opposed to, wow, let's give the Trump White House credit for putting in alternative media voices. Instead, it's like they're putting in just some good looking chick because whatever. And it's an annoying story too, to, I think, engage with. I mean, for starters, I think our show has been de. Platformed, de. Censored, demonetized, like everything. They only threw my boss in, what, prison for four months. So we're used to the attacks. So, you know, a Daily Mail criticism on my outfit kind of pales in comparison, but I just think more broadly, it sort of represents really an effort to just delegitimize us. And now I feel every time that I walk into the press briefing room, it's like just a loaded situation. And I mean, the first time that I opened the door and walked in, everyone looked at me, was like, what the heck are you doing here? Like, who are you? And I get it. It's an institution, and I respect that. But I do think that my presence, being there, what we were just talking about in terms of War Room's viewership, it sort of holds a mirror to their face. And I think it raises more broadly the question, which is something we always dive into at War Room, which is sort of the idea of credentialism or the idea of, like, what even is the mainstream media and why they're referred to as the mainstream media? Because we trounce them in viewership. And if you look at the trajectory of viewership, I would take our trend line over theirs because they're essentially perpendicular. And we trounce them in impact, too, in terms of our audience calling phone lines. So I'm just curious by what metric and what standard. Right. That they would think that they're more deserving to be there. But it's just annoying because I think to respond to these accusations, I then become the trope of what they want me to become, where I'm sitting here saying, sorry, I wore a sweater. Like, sorry, I'm blonde. And I'm like, that's so. And it cracks me up, too. And I know I'm rambling, but it's stories. It really cracks me up because, like, for your audience who's not familiar with me, my background was in investigative reporting. I was the person who had no social life. All I did was stay up and go through, like, FARA filings and the Federal Register and USASpending.gov and Reading Brookings Institution reports. I have, like, never traded off being a young girl in media. I love. I always refer to myself as, like, an autistic incel. Like, I love researching. And it was just funny to be portrayed as something that I so don't view myself as. But then, like, deciding how to push back against it was my first time ever really being smeared as something that I just felt so disparate from.

[Steve Bannon]

Oh, go ahead, do some more. Let's hear some more background. Like, where you came from.

[Natalie Winters]

Sure, sure.

[Steve Bannon]

Like, yeah. So where'd you grow up? And how'd you become political for the first time?

[Natalie Winters]

Sure. So I was born and raised in Los Angeles in Santa Monica, and my parents were conservative, but more run of the mill, kind of like apolitically conservative. Like, just default. Like, oh, I just don't really wanna pay taxes. Like the classic trope. But I was fortunate enough to go to a very.

[Steve Bannon]

Are they Democrats now? Are they still.

[Natalie Winters]

No, no, they're still. My mom is like a Mike Lindahl super fan. She's watched too much. My dad's. Maybe not so much on the. My pillow train. No. But I was very blessed to have gone to probably one of the most prestigious high schools, certainly in California in the country, Harvard Westlake, which is.

[Krystal]

Is that where Alex Marlowe went?

[Natalie Winters]

Angelia Hahn.

[Krystal]

I was gonna say this is not uncommon in Bannon world. That you come from the defects from Allegiance.

[Steve Bannon]

Is that a private school? Public school?

[Krystal]

It's private.

[Steve Bannon]

Right?

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah. Yeah. And the year that I was applying to college was the year that Operation Varsity Blues, if you remember the girls pretending to be on the Rowers. So actually one of my best friends from elementary school was the daughter of the individual who sort of, I guess, like ratted to the feds or leaked on the whole thing. So that was an interesting. Just sort of like class system understanding where I was like, oh. And for me, getting into college at Harvard Westlake was like the apex why you existed. The paragon of existence. Right. And seeing a sort of admission system where it was like you either had to be a first gen, LGBTQ whatever to get in, or you had to be some like, old guard, old money, super blue bloody type donating $10 million to a fake sports program. I was like, oh, that's an interesting way to conceive of American society, which I think is very Bannon esque. Is that Republican versus Democrat. I was never really into that, but it was very like, oh, the elites and their sort of woke pet projects and then everyone else. And concurrently, on that timeline, it was also. Or the years prior it had been 2016. So I graduated high school in 2019. Sorry. I'm 23 and I was in 10th grade during President Trump's 2016 election cycle. And I was not like the cringe person in the MAGA hat, like trying to just cause conflict for the sake of cause and conflict. I remember at first I had like an English teacher who was so radical. I mean, like the short dyed hair. She ultimately became a they them and encouraged other kids in our class to like, transition. Like the whole like literally the meme that you hear on Fox News, like, it was that kind of teacher. And I remember one day I had lied to her. Cause it was the election day. And I was like, oh. Cause we were going around. She wanted us to all tell stories of like, how, you know, politically and civically engaged we were. And I was like, oh, I saw like a young family voting and they all had like Hillary Ware on And it made me feel, like, really empowered. And it was, like, the worst feeling that I ever had because I was like, I don't ever want to lie to people, and I don't want to live a truth that is not my own. And very shortly after, I was like, I'm never doing that again. Got into a very long form, like, controversial debate because they were having a gender pay gap bake sale. And I was like, the gender pay gap doesn't exist. Rattled off the quintessential peak 2016 culture war, like Prageru talking. And from then on, I think got sort of typecast, at least in high school, as, like, the MAGA Turning Point girl, which was so not me. I always pride myself, like, I love my job, but I have a whole life outside of it, too. And I think that there's sort of this weird urge to, like, typecast all conservatives on campus as sort of like, zoo animal. That's your only personality. And I did a podcast because they had started a show called Right on Point, and I was under the impression that it was like, oh, we can say what we want. And I had been sort of pushing the administration to bring conservative speakers. They had literally had a member of the Communist Party USA come and speak, and they had sort of abdicated their role, I would argue, of admissions. And they kind of weaponized that whole process just to accept essentially, like, you know, minorities, the whole DEI trope. But I was very disheartened, sort of seeing all this happen around me. So I tried to push back, not in, like a hair on fire kind of way, but just, like, raising points. You guys say you care about diversity. What about diversity of thought? And apparently what I said on the podcast was really controversial. They had to call an emergency meeting with the Gay Straight alliance, the Feminist Club, the Black Kids Club.

[Steve Bannon]

What'd you say?

[Natalie Winters]

I just said I wasn't a feminist. I was like. I kind of explained why I like Trump, particularly on immigration. It wasn't a lot more radical now for us.

[Krystal]

You've since. In fact, when Ryan announced you were coming on the show, by the way, you've since referred to and gone further along those lines, which I think is probably an arc that a lot of people in your generation have gone down in the last several years, too.

[Natalie Winters]

Yes, I think, for sure. I mean, also too. Just from my perspective, before Steve went to prison, I was doing more investigative reporting, particularly on Chinese Communist Party infiltration, which I guess was where I was getting to with my story. And I'm very proud of the work that I did, you know, members of Congress, the Republican Study Commission cited at the national association of Scholars. I broke a lot of stories about the origins of COVID stories from Hunter Biden's hard drive that led to the removal of Peter Dosak from the COVID Origins investigative team. Doing, like I said, the exclusives, listening to the audio tapes from Hunter Biden's hard drive is, I think, an extremely cool career accomplishment. I was 19 or 20 at the time, so I always focused on that. And my approach to doing media was like, I never want to be an opinion commentator because I was very cognizant of my age. And I think being a woman too, I was just like, I don't ever want to come off like my opinion matters because it doesn't. Like I don't have experience. I was very cognizant of that. So I always abstained from doing opinion commentary. And then when Steve went to prison and I joined his show about two years ago as a co host, I couldn't just rattle off my deep dive researching for an hour while hosting a show. Right. It's a different gig. So I always joke that the worst thing they did was send Steve to prison because it helped me kind of find my broadcast casting voice and go on the rants, which I know we were talking about. But that sort of forced me, pushed me into that role. But to my core, deep down, I'm like an oppo researcher and I wish I had the time and the chance to do that more. But I also think people like the rants. They like the kind of inflammatory content. Not that I'm trying to be like the Daily Mail and go for clickbait, but if you're doing these long form investigative pieces and no one's reading them, it's kind of like, what's, what's the point?

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[Amazon One Medical]

Amazon One Medical presents Painful Thoughts I.

[Unknown Speaker]

Could catch anything sitting in this doctor's waiting room. Okay, just wiped his runny nose on my jacket and the guy next to me sitting in a pool of perspiration insists on sharing my armrest.

[Amazon One Medical]

Next time, make an appointment with an Amazon One medical provider. There's no waiting and no sweaty guy. Amazon One Medical healthcare just got less painful.

[Steve Bannon]

We have a clip from one. A short clip.

[Natalie Winters]

You're gonna make me watch myself. I hate that.

[Steve Bannon]

It's pretty short. Yeah, let's roll.

[Natalie Winters]

These House Republicans, they love to focus on the culture war so much, right? The. The limited hangout that the trannies in the bathrooms. Right. Well, Speaker Johnson and most of your colleagues, maybe there are a few good ones, the ones we have on this show. But I would humbly suggest that before you start screaming about transgender surgeries that you focus on yourself. Because last time I checked, you don't even have any balls. And I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that I'm actually just quoting you, Speaker Johnson. Let's introduce you to a version of yourself just a few months ago who pledged that we were not going to have a Christmas time omnibus. But oops, here we are, Denver. Let's roll it.

[Steve Bannon]

So it goes on from there. So obviously from the left, people don't use phrases like trannies. But one piece of that I wanted to pick up on is what is an inherently left wing analysis in there, which is that elites use culture war drama to distract from material analysis. And I was telling you before you came on the show that oftentimes I'll listen to your rants and I'll be like nodding along.

[Krystal]

He's a very regular listener.

[Steve Bannon]

I'll be nodding along for all. Yeah, yeah, yep, yep. Check, check, check, check. And then it'll veer off and I'll be like, whoa, okay, this is where I get off. And you head over here. I wonder. And I'm looking forward to following your career. Cause I wonder if. And same with you, like, I feel like there's more space on the left for you guys if you can recognize like fully that this culture war stuff is genuinely what you were saying it was in that clip, that it is a an elite distraction from intended to divide the working class so that the elites can go ahead and then accomplish their agenda. In this show, we're always in left wing populism. Right wing populism are always in tension. And my argument consistently is that whatever the kind of motivations of good right wing populists, actual right wing populism in practice winds up being co opted by Elon Musk. Elon Musk's like the Ken Martin who became the DNC chair recently, rightly has gotten pilloried for this hilarious clip of him where he says we're not gonna take money from bad billionaires, only the good ones. But there are good billionaires and good. He should be pilloried for that. Cuz that's completely absurd. Right wing populism often falls into that same trap. That. And that's why sometimes it falls into conspiracism too, and anti Semitism. Because the left has a structural analysis. It's the 1% those are the bad ones. And there's no division between within the 1%. They're all bad, they're all capitalists, they're all ripping off the workers for the right. When they say it's these cosmopolitan elites that are the bad ones and there's some good ones like Musk or others. Sometimes what that analysis needs is anti Semitism to say it's actually the Jews who are doing it. I'm not saying that the war room does that, but like that. I think that's why you get the strain of anti Semitism and right wing populism. Because.

[Krystal]

Well, in left wing populism as well, far left wing populism has the same problem.

[Steve Bannon]

Well, it shouldn't, because it can say that all bankers are bad. It doesn't have to say the Jewish bankers are bad.

[Krystal]

Yes, but they will say that all of the bankers are Jewish bankers. Sorry, Natalie, this is not.

[Natalie Winters]

And you say I'm controversial for saying tranny. No, I'm kidding.

[Steve Bannon]

And if they do, they should be run out. But anyway, so there's this tension between the different wings of populism. And so. And I often hear you talking about you and Steve Bannon as well, talking about the way that they're trying to divide people. Bannon, recently in that New York Times column was saying, yeah, the Democrats screwed up because they beat Bernie Sanders. Like, if. And I've spoken to him over the years, and I know he's being. He's said this in real time, genuine, that he thought. He thinks Ro Khanna has a good analysis. He thinks Elizabeth Warren had a good populist, economic populist analysis, and that if Democrats had effectively been able to render that, then they would have had more purchase with regular people than with whatever this Ken Martin style DNC stuff is. So. Yeah. So how did your politics wind up kind of where they are?

[Natalie Winters]

Well, I, too, am an avid consumer of msnbc. We're the same kindred spirits. And I'm trying to understand why I like watching it so much. I think I hate watching. The conclusion I've come to is it's like a slot machine. It's very dopamine because you never know when they're gonna say something crazy. Right. So you're very hooked in. But I think that clip is sort of, I think, very, I would say, representative of the distinction between war room and traditional conservative media. Because that night, probably, you know, FOX News main story was the transgender bathroom bill and the whole, like, Nancy Mace debacle. And we're like, okay, yes, that's an important issue, but it's sort of a shiny toy. It's a distraction. And I think that that's how Washington has operated for a very long time. I know when Steve was in prison, we were really staunchly against the CR plus SAVE act, because we're like, you guys have done nothing for election integrity for the two Years you've been here, don't tell us now, like a month before the election that you suddenly care about securing elections. So that's why we need to get behind omnibus spending like you guys have done for what, like 16 times in the past few years. So that is, I think, you know, the tranny rapids aside, an interesting, I think, sort of clip that shows you the difference where our show, I think, sort of excels in terms of actually taking on these issues. But I think it's interesting, and this is something too, that Steve and I have sort of talked about on the show a lot, which is how Democrats will triage their 2024 loss. Because whatever they choose to identify as being the variable will obviously sort of dictate how they then progress forward. And I think in the beginning you saw a lot of meltdown over misinformation and disinformation, and we need our own Joe Rogan. And then that's sort of a different position that they would take of like, okay, well, we gotta double down on the censorship. We need to fund independent media, though. I think the way they use the term independent media is a little cagey, but I think the civil war that's brewing, that I think, frankly, if it pans out the way that you're probably more inclined for it to. If it does pan out that way, it's bad for Republicans. It's bad for, like, my side, the populist right, is that the sort of more, I think, non establishment wing of the Democratic Party wants to take us on and I think probably has more similarities with us on protecting workers rights. You're against the H1B visa stuff, and that's what most Americans, I think, support. Right? It's sort of the reorientation of the political system outside of Republican versus Democrat, but like, like American workers and the ruling class, like Steve always says. And I think what you're seeing now is even with Ken Martin, like the Democratic establishment, the same way that they sabotaged Bernie Sanders, just a refusal to hand it over to the sort of more activist wing of their party, which they like to decry and I think sort of villainizes like a bunch of Hamas cosplayer protester types, which is part of your party, I'm sorry to report, but I also think that there are a lot of the more disaffected Democrat coalition. And I think if you guys were to take those issues like immigration, like workers rights, even Bernie Sanders was on the war room side of the H1B visa debate. Right? That's a lot more Politically salient. I do think, however, that the version of left wing populism here in the United States is, I think, sort of weighed down by the identity politics in terms of you guys can't support deportations or ICE raids or strengthening the border or the idea of sovereignty. Because I think you guys, I'm not saying you in particular, but have really bought into some really radical propositions about starting off the DNC with the stolen land declaration and just the idea that deportations are racist and that if you talk about a great replacement theory, that that's totally not happening, that's a conspiracy. It's like, well, that's not a racialized sentiment, it's a replacement theory. And it's happening of American workers. They're importing our replacement and they're making Americans train their replacement. So I think that the refusal for the populist left to sort of engage with that issue, Please keep doing it, cuz it helps us. But if you guys were to really embrace that, like, you know, Kamala Harris said for, I guess for the first time ever in her history, the word sovereignty down while she was talking at the Arizona border during the campaign trail or the patriotic flags inside the dnc, it sort of took everyone first shock. They're like, what the heck? This is so new. But I don't think that the Democratic elites will allow that to happen. And even that senator, I forget who did a whole tweet thread where they basically said that like, it's bad for our donors if we embrace populism.

[Steve Bannon]

I missed that one. But yeah, it certainly is in tension with the donors.

[Krystal]

Well, and this is like obviously a huge conversation about the ideological overlap. We have a question from one person in our audience, Nathan Sandberg, readers or.

[Steve Bannon]

Viewers to send stuff in.

[Krystal]

And Nathan asks, what would it take for the populist left and the populist right to agree to disagree on culture and unite against the techno feudalists and transhumanists. Otherwise I don't see how we humans win. And this is a really interesting question because of kind of the H1B visa dust up that we were talking about earlier in that Elon Musk Super Pro H1B visas behind Neuralink and a lot of AI software is a complicated person, but that's the bucket that he's in. And for a lot of people in the populist right, this is really offensive and is sort of exactly what the fight against the left was.

[Steve Bannon]

And who was that? Let's give him credit.

[Krystal]

Nathan Feinberg was positioned as for a really long Time. So I'm curious what you make of Nathan's question, Natalie, from your vantage point, like, can everyone agree to disagree on culture or is this actually part and parcel of the culture war in and of itself?

[Natalie Winters]

Well, I think that H1B all the vis. There's so many visa categories. It's insane. That debate, right? It's wild. Like, that sort of represented that sort of reorientation, like the political fracturing. I think you saw it most acutely on the Republican side of things. I will say I think it was really just kind of war room from like a media perspective. And Steve, who held the line, most people really kind of jumped on the Elon Musk bandwagon. And I don't know, I mean, I think, for starters, I love the idea of a big tent, right? I love the idea of bringing people in. And it's, and it's maybe great to see the tech bros liking us, but I also think too, you have to preserve some of the reasons that those people didn't like us in the beginning. And that was because we weren't like, I would argue the Obama White House. That was just like, hey, here's free unlimited money. We're not gonna regulate you, just please support us.

[Krystal]

And Musk didn't like Trump in the beginning, and Musk took a lot of money from Obama to start Tesla when it was not start, but to reinvigorate Tesla.

[Natalie Winters]

Exactly. And we've even more broadly, I think, have been very critical of the tech bro newfound maga conversion. I think it's very performative. I think they have tried to do a kind of limited hangout version of what they did to the maga movement, where they're like, sorry, we accidentally censored you. I'm like, no, no. You algorithmically manipulated, blacklisted, censored, debanked, deplatformed, spent what, a billion dollars to mess with the 2020 election? So we're not gonna let you get away with that on a two page letter, Mark Zuckerberg. But I think that to me, the H1B visa debate was something that was very eye opening because I have done War room, what, for 4ish years now, which makes me feel very old.

[Krystal]

It's like your entire adult life, really.

[Natalie Winters]

Since I did the show for the first time when I was 19, fun fact, I had no Wi Fi connection at my house, so I had to do it in a friend's kitchen and I was standing up. So we've come a long way. I'm sitting down in a studio, but I have never received such an outpouring of support from our audience because we took a really hard line. I did an hour long episode with Steve where I sort of dug into the myth that is A, we need to be importing a bunch of foreign workers, and B, that the people who we are therefore importing are the best and the brightest. And it wasn't, I think, talking points that anyone had really heard. I stayed up literally all night and I just, like, read every government testimony, every government report, like, read a book on. I was just like, the data is truly astounding. You never hear about it. This was all based on a lie. And of every issue I've ever covered, I never received so many messages from people not just saying, like, yes, you're on it, you're on the right side. But more importantly, people being like, this is my lived reality. Like, I was replaced. I had to train a replacement. My wife did this. My son can't get a tech job. And that was when I really had a realization. I was like, like, wow, this really is a politically significant and palpable issue. Like, talk about the bathrooms. Okay, whatever. That's the crux of it. And frankly, I think the sort of irony or paradox of the whole Vivec situation was that I think the H1B, H2B, all the visa categories, I think that's something that just sort of gets swept under the rug. Like, people don't really know about it. They do know about it vaguely. It's like a nebulous thing. It's like, yeah, we're certainly importing a bunch of workers.

[Krystal]

It's kind of symbolic.

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah, but it's not like, oh, my gosh, when you actually get the numbers and you see who's overstaying, you're like, wow, this is a really, really, really deep problem. And I think that they sort of unintentionally expose themselves by like, forcing a conversation. Because now, you know, when the H1B, H2B, whenever visa sort of regulation or legislation comes through Congress or President Trump speaks on it, it's now such a hot button issue where I think we're on the right side of it.

[Krystal]

But are you destined to divorce with Musk? I mean, he gets a seat at.

[Natalie Winters]

The table and you know what I mean? I think he recognized what was going on in Pennsylvania. I think they were smart to not put all their money into just like stupid TV ads. But it was like boots on the ground, door knocking, grassroots. Like, we have an affinity there. But he gets a seat at the table, he doesn't get a commandeering presence to co opt the entire MAGA movement. And I think that War Room has really been instrumental in pushing back against him. Like, imagine a world in which Steve Bannon wasn't there from within the MAGA tent to be pushing back against some of the stuff that Elon does. And I also think too, like, there's a very strong mindset to make everything very black and white. Like it's gray. Like, some of the stuff Elon does is good and some of it is probably not Good. And maybe MSNBC's criticisms of him are accurate and maybe they're not. But I think it shows why, frankly, I think they don't want a sort of, shall we say, rogue kind of War Room esque outlet. Right? Because we call the balls and strikes. Like, we are not afraid. We don't cater or kowtow to anyone. I would argue we're actually independent. We're not beholden to anyone in MAGA World or the other side.

[Krystal]

But you're planning to ask tough questions then of Caroline Levitt, which, if people don't listen to Warren, Very critical of Musk, very critical of certain moves when you get on the wrong side. So I think that's extravagant.

[Natalie Winters]

People want mass deportations and we need them. And if we are not meeting that benchmark, then I'm gonna be asking about it. If we're not meeting the benchmark on certain policy proposals or campaign promises that our audience worked so hard to get him elected, I'll be asking about that, which I think is really funny. The idea that, like, I'm there as some, like, lackey to just make the Trump admin look great. I think they've been doing wonderful stuff so far, the most part. But my job there is to sort of speak for our audience. And we've been very forthright in criticizing when criticism is necessary. We shouldn't be stapling green cards to diplomas, and we criticize that. And I think the trope of us as Trump sycophants or something is very off base. If you actually. And the issue too, like you were saying, so many people don't actually watch War Room. And some of the most interesting, funny conversations I've ever had is when people start totally apolitical. So what do you do? And I'm always like, I work in media. And they're like, finally, it's like the eighth question. I'm like, okay, I'll just tell you what I do. Oh, you work for Steve Bannon. I thought he hates women. And he's like a Nazi and blah blah. And I'm like, actually no, Steve is for taxing the billionaires as much as possible. He's against concentrated wealth. He's for breaking this up. And he's all about the American work. And they're like, oh my gosh, that, that's so not what I thought he was. Which I think sort of speaks to the way they've sort of defamed the right wing populist movement because it is such a politically powerful force.

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[Steve Bannon]

And so compared to Musk, there are a lot of people on the left that would prefer that Bannon, when it comes to those pieces that you laid out, not necessarily the mass deportations, but the other parts that he beat Musk. And so we have a question here from David Flag. He says what can liberals do to support Bannon over Musk? That's a good question. What would you tell?

[Krystal]

That is a good question.

[Natalie Winters]

Well, let's see. I gotta put myself in the mind of both liberals and Stephen K. Bannon.

[Steve Bannon]

Or not really because. Because pretend that liberals are gonna do what you tell them to do. I think their question is. Cause they don't really understand the right wing ecosystem and they don't know what levers to pull and what would help and what wouldn't help. Sometimes what they do would backfire. They might, if they support something, then it might lead someone, the right to be like, well, if Bernie and AOC are for that, it must be bad.

[Natalie Winters]

I think what I would say is, I think the media has a playbook with how they are covering the Trump administration and to sort of back into this. They don't have any levers of governmental or institutional power right now to necessarily push back.

[Unknown Speaker]

Right.

[Natalie Winters]

They lost everything. And I think if you read or just listen to msnbc, but sort of historically their playbook. And I'm inclined to bring up sort of like the Norm Eisen's of the world, the Brookings Institution, their democracy playbook, how they've sort of pushed for regime change in foreign countries. It's been through the idea of civil society in an opposition to what they call democratic backsliding. And I have always viewed the depiction of President Trump as a dictator, as an autocrat, as an authoritarian, as part of a sort of narrative game to sort of stick us in the mindset of like we're having democratic backsliding going on. Therefore, even though we don't have the constitutional or electoral authority to impeach Trump or push back against him, we're justified because we're defending democracy. And I think the Elon Musk coverage oftentimes when it gets reduced into like, like Elon is acting like an autocrat and it's a hostile takeover of the United States government. It's not really all that hostile. I think Elon played a pretty visible role in the campaign trail. I think Doge was probably one of the most visible campaign promises of President Trump's 2024 campaign. I just would sort of reject that framing. So if you want to criticize Elon Musk, I don't think it's a very powerful tactic to. To decry him as, like, unelected dictator, shadow president, evil man. I think it's more powerful when he messes up on issues like the H1B visa, to just call it out more plainly for what it is. And I think remind Trump, right, that the people elected you for the right wing populism stuff, the Bannon worldview stuff. I would attack it more from the angle of, like, put American workers first, not we have to get rid of Elon Musk and defend usaid because Elon's being an autocrat and he wasn't elected. I'm sorry, the whole agency's run by unelected bureaucrats or billionaires run the Democratic Party. So I think those attacks are a lot more powerful than, like, buying into the paradigm that it's dictator Elon and dictator Trump.

[Krystal]

So from the perspective of a conservative populist, I look at Elon Musk and sort of like, what, Ryan Gardusky, I don't know. Did you see his post about Musk? He said, let's just say there was a bill who's made most of their money from businesses whose success was based on government contracts and subsidies. The way you go from being a billionaire to being a trillionaire is getting a hold of government data and using it for your next business. I thought that was pretty interesting because again, like, as another conservative populist, I look at what Elon Musk is doing, getting rid of usaid. Amazing, cathartic, beautiful. A masterpiece. But at the same time, you now have, like, a genuine oligarch running loose in the government. And I can see easily how it would be a way to enrich. He could use it as a way to enrich himself. And I feel like people who were against the concentration of power in the hands of people like Elon Musk on principled ideological reasons, I worry that we're sort of getting numb to having him run loose in the government. And I'm curious what you make of just, like, from the principle of Elon Musk coming in and cleaning house potentially in a way that could enrich himself. What is that? Do you have similar Sort of like principled ideological aversions to the idea of, as you said, well, okay, under Biden, it was unelected bureaucrats in the pockets of billionaires. But then do we end up with, like, replacing those unelected bureaucrats in the pockets of billionaires with other unelected bureaucrats in the pockets of billionaires?

[Natalie Winters]

Our bureaucrats are better than their billionaires. Better than their billionaires? No, I think there's so many verticals that they're kind of carrying out this what I'm sure Steve would call like, deconstruction of the administrative state. And I think you just have to take kind of each agency, each department, through its own paradigm. And what do I mean by that? Like, what's going on with DOJ and FBI? I think that's more like a legal battle, like unitary executive theory. Like, is President Trump the chief magistrate? Like, does the president have authority over. Not as the mainstream media makes it. Like, he wants control over all three branches, but no, of the entire executive branch. Does he have the right to hire and fire? And I think that's what you're seeing go down right now with the FBI, purge the lawsuits that they're putting out, getting rid of January 6th agents. That's the paradigm to view that through the USAID thing. Yeah. I don't think it's great to have unelected billionaires running any government agency. Of course that's bad. But spare me, mainstream media, the performative outrage that you guys either, A, care about the Constitution or B, that you care about unelected bureaucrats or billionaires running government. So it's the framing of it I sort of reject, but I think you just have to take it, I mean, day by day. I mean, I also think too, I'm also sort of inclined, and maybe this is a little less ideological, but I remember when President Trump, what did he say in 2016 when he was talking to African Americans? He was like, what do you guys have to lose? And I sort of feel like that's the approach of the Trump administration now in a more broad sort of whole of government, whole of society approach. What do I mean by that? It's like, we're so fiscally insolvent. Fiscally, it's so bad. What do we have to lose by maybe taking a chance on another way of running the government? And yes, I'm sure you would give me a whole litany of what we have to lose. But I, on the other hand, what we're doing is not working. And what we've been doing at USAID is not working. And I think that there's this desire to sort of whitewash and euphemize, particularly in the context of usaid is like, we're helping Bangladeshi refugees eat. And it's like, well, maybe, I mean, what is it like 12 cents to the dollar actually makes it over to whatever country it actually is. But a lot of those USAID programs not only are a really concerning and have to do with like funding biological weapons in China and collaborating with DARPA and stuff where you're like, what is going on here? But as someone who frequents the USA spending database website a lot, there also is no oversight. And I think that that lack of oversight is almost equally bad as maybe lack of oversight. On Elon Musk, for example, there are a ton of government grants and they all curiously popped up starting around 2016. Combating misinformation, disinformation. I'm talking like thousands in foreign countries in, I mean, Pakistan and India, in the uk, like everywhere.

[Krystal]

Ukraine.

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah, everywhere, Very much Ukraine, right. And you're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars. And if you read the grants, it's literally just like to empower journalists and combat misinformation in Uzbekistan. And you're like, well, what the heck does that mean? And then I've gone a step further. If you look on Google Maps, you look at the addresses to the places that these sizable sums of money are going to, there's shacks on the side of the road, like they're not real. It's fun. People should go and do it. It's wild, okay? It's insane. And that's where I'm like, I think if you look, I think why they're melting down about usaid sometimes it's cuz.

[Steve Bannon]

These are basically almost spy programs. And they're trying to. They're covering the real identity because.

[Natalie Winters]

But I also think it's how this town has gotten rich, I think through usaid. I think they've laundered money and I use that in the truest sense in the name of democracy through a bunch of NGOs that you're like, what are you even doing? And two, I think why they're melting down about the USAID stuff. And I do think it is interesting watching the mainstream media sort of decide what to take the bait on, because I think that was the lesson that they learned from the Trump administration. The first iteration. They're like, we can't melt down. We can't become apoplectic over everything. But I think their resistance strategy this time around, or what they now are terming the opposition, since they can't impeach him, since they can't really do anything. I know they were standing on the steps of USAID saying, shut down the Senate. I'm like, all right, recess appointments, fine by me. No, but their plan, and I think you see it in the groups that they've been setting up, like for example, Democracy Forward, which is the kind of consortium of a bunch of resistance type orgs. They started a group called Civil Service Strong, which was outlining and coaching civil servants how to be whistleblowers, how to sue if they are feeling put upon, or whatever. And I think that the crux, the sort of cornerstone of their resistance tactics was going to be whistleblowing and leaking and doing their kind of typical sabotage from inside of these agencies. And now that they can't do that, I think they're panicking, right, because they're like, how do we go after the Trump administration now? And moreover, to that point, and maybe this is where we get a little more conspiratorial. But as someone who has read a lot of the texts coming out of these resistance type organizations, there's always this sort of undercurrent of, well, maybe we need to partner with international organizations, we need to like, go global, which they have done, I would argue, with a lot of the censorship stuff when they couldn't totally do it here. They outsourced the infringement of the First Amendment to international groups. I think the UK has been a hotbed for it. But I think too, another reason, kind of a compounding factor as to why they're so nervous about USAID being shut down, is that I think, again, maybe they weren't planning to launder the money. I'll be a little nicer, I'll be more charitable. They were just planning to send the money. But I think they really wanted to kind of bankroll the resistance internationally and sort of use that as a roundabout way to come after President Trump, because they couldn't really, they can't really do that much. They can call the Senate, you know what I mean? And War Room's great at that. But they don't really have the ability to push back in a meaningful way. That's why they're, you know, groveling on the steps of usaid, looking rather cringe, I would add. Like, Jamie Raskin's gone from, what, impeaching President Trump twice and like, running circles around us from a lawfare perspective to now groveling outside of USAID with like a bunch of freaks, you know, so I'm like, you know how. I guess times are tough for Democrats.

[Steve Bannon]

Yeah, it does have them in a bind because they're trying to figure out how to defend usaid. And, you know, initially they were defending it as, you know, foreign aid is important. And pointing to, like, if you shut down pepfar, you shut down this protection for, you know, spending infants in Sudan, people are gonna die and people literally are gonna die if you do that. It's a clever insurance policy, but then Rubio can counter and say, well, we're gonna keep those programs going.

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah.

[Steve Bannon]

And so now you've started to see. I think it was Chris Murphy who was like, the reason we're funding USAID in Africa is to counter China and so that we can extract the resources from Africa. I saw that and I was like, okay, like now we're talking about what's actually happening. Like, it's out in the open. Like that is. It's always bothering me, foreign aid. I hate foreign aid. It's so wasteful. Foreign spending.

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah.

[Krystal]

He said USAID spends money to make sure that we're countering Chinese influence inside of Africa and make sure we don't.

[Steve Bannon]

Lose minerals, to make sure that we don't lose access to critical mineral supplies.

[Krystal]

And that we're fighting against Hezbollah.

[Steve Bannon]

Like, I hate this, like, idea that the US Is some charitable organization that is just so benevolent and wasting people's money because we're so soft hearted that we're out here helping people. No, we're like a ruthless empire that is trying to extract resources from Africa. And USAID is the soft power way that we go in and do that. China's got its belt and road and its other efforts that it uses to try to get resources. It's a competition for resources. So finally, at least we're talking about it openly. And then you can debate it like, do we want to use this? And clearly what the MAGA folks are saying is we don't actually believe that it's for American soft power. We think you're going to use it as your own partisan weapon in this intra civil war fight, which to me, if that helps to bring down the American empire. Good.

[Krystal]

Well, I was just gonna say we have. Speaking of the American empire, we have a question from Kevin McGonagall who says.

[Steve Bannon]

I was gonna ask this one too. I like this one.

[Krystal]

Will there be a right populist pushback for American troops being, as he puts it, cannon fodder for Israel? I mean, securing Gaza? It's been a whirlwind of last 12 hours, Natalie. But as I know, before we were.

[Natalie Winters]

Booked to do the show, apparently now we are taking over Gaza.

[Krystal]

Seriously.

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah.

[Krystal]

So we're taping this within, like, 12 hours of all of that happening. And you're sort of in a position, hearing from your listeners, who I'm sure are probably more in the Josh Hawley camp of saying, I don't know, that this is the right use of US Resources. A similar argument that's made against usaid, in fact. So how are you? How's the war Room audience kind of grappling with this massive, dramatic new Trump plan through the lens of everything you've talked about, imperialism, USAID and all of that?

[Natalie Winters]

Sure. Well, I think to sort of conjoin what both of you said, I think the issue first and foremost derives from the lack of transparency. And I think one way to view what President Trump is trying to doing or Doge or anything, they view it as like, oh, they're stealing the contracts and they're doing this and they're shutting it all down. And they think are maybe a little harsh in their sort of depiction of it. But I think the more maybe euphemistic way of describing it is they also just want radical transparency for the American people. And I do think that that transparency maybe is a little concerning. If you try to really understand what exactly has been going on at these agencies, I'm inclined to bring up the final months of the Biden regime. We call it a regime. At the War Room. I have, like, a reflexive. I can't call him an administration.

[Steve Bannon]

As long as we can call it the Trump regime, we're good.

[Natalie Winters]

Sounds cool. It sounds better that way.

[Krystal]

That is an extremely. That moment is extremely, I think, like, instructive.

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah, there you go. That's the clip. But when the American people, when the support was cratering for Ukraine aid, there was, I think it was October of last year, or maybe it was 2023. But there's a whole Politico story where they had sort of leaked. They were like, okay, the White House knows that Americans are kind of like, cagey on supporting Ukraine. So our new effort or our new sort of like, propaganda campaign to get Americans to support Ukraine aid is going to be the message messaging which they were pumping out through local papers and local media was the idea that Ukraine aid is actually good for our industrial base and that it's good for our economy and that it creates American jobs and we don't have to have that.

[Steve Bannon]

Debate that's getting rid of these surplus Weapons anyway, so we can make new ones.

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah, yeah. And that was such an interesting moment for me because I was like, no, no, no. If you want the American people to support giving aid to Ukraine, the number one thing that you should do would be an audit and show us that our money is a actually making it there. Which what Zelensky said just yesterday, he's like, I only got 77 billion. What about the outstanding 170 billion or whatever? And it was that moment where I was like, they will not audit it because they can't. Because if we were to know where that money's actually going, it's not good for anyone. And to answer your question, I think, look, I think the Gaza thing is a little absurd. It just kind of happened. Right. But I also think too, the way that I've sort of been observing it is more just watching if the media takes the bait on it, which I think they have, though I was watching MSNBC this morning and they seem a little more upset over the FBI lawsuits. They're kind of focusing on that.

[Krystal]

No surprise, Orion. But you see it as bait.

[Natalie Winters]

Well, because I think their whole paradigm is like, cover what Trump does, not what he says. And I think it'll be interesting.

[Steve Bannon]

He's generally smart, probably.

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah. But I also think that I personally sort of view this kind of bold proclamation, which I would also love to know, like, behind the scenes, if this was something that he had talked about with Netanyahu. Because if you look at the facial reactions, it sort of seems like news to Netflix. Trump just said it. Which I mean, for Trump to be telling in what a matter of like 24 hours, Israel, China, Mexico and Canada, like, actually, we're the top dog. We're gonna choose. What's going on here, I think is something we haven't seen in a while. But to that point, I think, I mean, it's not a cliche or novel take, but the thing itself is sometimes not the actual thing itself. It's not actually about gauss, for lack of a better word. It's. It's the art of the deal. In the same way that the tariffs, was it actually about putting those tariffs in? Who knows? It was about extracting concessions. I will say this is sort of a like, narrative, like, paradigm shifting idea where it definitely maybe almost like brings whatever we want. We don't want that. But I don't know. I think our audience, obviously, the Israel issue, I always call it a lose, lose. No matter what you say, you're going to get harassed by everyone. But the way that I've always approached it. And I think our audience too is just from the America first perspective. I think there's sort of a mere Shimer esque kind of quality to it where it's just like, are we super invested in it? The offshore bound? Like what exactly is our investment in the region? How does it benefit us to either have a more or less terrorist state that absolutely hates us and is trying to attack us us, but it's also not our job to prop up the opposition to said state. And I think our audience, when it's come to anything related to Israel, Palestine, Gaza, whatever, is first and foremost, we don't want any refugees from Gaza entering the United States. Like that is sort of where I think we really toe the line and I think we will definitely push hard on that. But I think, you know, if we were recording this episode tomorrow, right, like it'd be a different news cycle. And I don't really think that it's about taking over Gaza. I think it's. I hate to use the words 4D chess because I'm not one of those people, but there is an element to it.

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[Steve Bannon]

You described the Israel issue for you guys as lose, lose. And I'm curious like where your audience comes down on the question because from a obvious internal logic perspective, America first and isolationism would include Israel. Like it would call into question our like reflexive, unapologetic, endless support for what they're doing. Yet there's so much cross pressure to make an except America first exception to Israel and also apparently to South Africa because Elon Musk is upset about the law that they're passing in South Africa, coincidentally to Israel. So on the one hand I'm curious where they are on that. And then separately, oftentimes on the war room, you'll have people like Frank Gaffney and others who will give this like really vulgar history of Islam and talk about how like actually, you know, they're all polygamists and like war mongers. And if you look at the Koran, like they're just violent people and like it's really about the culture. And then oftentimes Bannon himself, I haven't heard you on with those types of folks. Often Bannon himself will say, just as a caveat, we're not referring to the law abiding Muslim citizens of the United States. And like, so you can sort of see his wheels turning. Like that's a little bit aggressive in how it's being phrased there. Yet those types of people keep coming on and making the case. Just last night one of those guys was on talking about the history of Gaza, making the case that the Palestinians are just kind of irredeemable, violent or something. So how do you blend and think about that? Like, I guess you guys don't like the phrase Islamophobic strain, but like a fairly vulgar thinking about a billion people or 2 billion people, how many Muslims there are on the planet, compared to thinking about America first, populism, which says if you're a citizen of the United States, like you have, you're entitled to equal dignity and respect. And it doesn't matter what your race, religion or anything else is.

[Natalie Winters]

I think it's sort of the Steve paradigm of wanting allies and not protectorates. And I think that where our audience sometimes maybe gets a little tripped up or is sort of anti aid to Israel, I think is just because the sheer magnitude of the funds that are going to them, and I don't think that it's ever really been clearly articulated to the American people like what exactly we're getting in return for that. And I think too, I mean, you know, as someone who's covered foreign influence. Right. And foreign lobbying, you know, the idea of any foreign country having a strong lobbying presence in D.C. is something that I take aversion to. And I think that, you know, whether it's AIPAC or whatever entity it may be, I think that that just sort of hard to square. Conversely, it's like, well, I also don't want. And I think if you go back to the infamous Steve whiteboard pic, what was it designating the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization from the White House. He always says that his biggest regret was never doing that. And for Steve Bannon, who's had a lot of lives and a lot of cool things, for that to be as big a regret, I think tells you something. And I think the way that our show sort of conceives of Islam is probably a little more on the not Islamophobic scale. But I think we maybe reject the framing that it's a phobia. Because I do think some of the fears are rational in the sense that I think if you look at. Well, it's funny, I sort of feel like the Chinese Communist Party threat, and if even if you look at like the trajectory of someone like Frank Gaffney sort of superseded the idea that it was the Muslim Brotherhood who was coming to overtake the global hegemony of the United States with the caliphate. And then suddenly like the Chinese Communist Party became the new threat. And I'm always cagey of that kind of stuff because I do think it can very quickly turn into like reductive neocon war mongering, right. Where it's like well, I'm a really bad, squishy Republican senator, but I'm really tough on China. Right. But I'm really anti Islam.

[Steve Bannon]

I really hate movie.

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah. I really think we need to. So I'm aware it can become performative very quickly in the same way, like the transgender bathroom stuff. Right. It sort of becomes a cultural thing.

[Steve Bannon]

Which goes to my point earlier that.

[Krystal]

Muslims were like, holding hands.

[Natalie Winters]

And that's where it's like all sort of comes back.

[Steve Bannon]

Which goes to my earlier point that right wing populism often needs, because it won't go after the 1%. It often needs, like, oh, it's the Muslim Brotherhood.

[Natalie Winters]

I also think that that's a function too of. Of right wing media in terms of, like, I think our show. And it's funny, I'm even sort of struggling, like, you played one of my rants. I much prefer having something to rant about as opposed to something to celebrate about from just a broadcasting perspective. And I think we thrive on, like, having an enemy. And I do think sometimes the MSNBC critique of us is like, we do better in opposition than actually ruling. Is sort of an interesting critique if you look at it through the lens of right wing media. In other words, like, we were all united, right, during the campaign because we had a clear and defined enemy and a clear and defined goal. But then very soon after, you sort of started to see the fracturing of the base, the H1B stuff happen. The sort of like, it was fast, right? It happened very quickly. And that's why in some ways, and this may be a hot take, I almost think that it would have been better for Republicans, not actually, but had Democrats taken the House or something, because then we would have had something to really push back against as opposed to be infighting because it'd be like, we're all concerned that they're going to impeach President Trump. We're very good. I would maybe push back on the framing of conspiratorial. I think, is it conspiratorial? Is it coincidental? But just sort of the, like, linking of a bunch of stories. I think it's pattern recognition is maybe how I would describe it. And I think that now we're sort of like, not struggling, but the resistance is very weak. And if I had to host the show this evening, like, I could have, you know, two months ago done a whole rant about every way that in our view, they were trying to sort of, you know, fool around with elections stuff, and they were trying to lie or smear President Trump. And now the best that I can do is dig into the attorney who's representing the nine anonymous FBI agents who, in 2022, was tweeting up a storm about how, quote, all of MAGA needs to be fired from the United States government. So it's such a boring rant. And I'm just like, I wanna give me a chance to rant.

[Krystal]

And so this brings me at least my last question, because I could keep doing this forever. This is from M and N. This is a viewer who says what ethical considerations should be top of mind for War Room and other new media outlets as they report on the White House with their newfound access. We talked about this a little bit earlier and how you feel like, from the America first perspective, you're calling balls and strikes. So as somebody who is generally supportive of MAGA in there pressing the White House press secretary, you have an opportunity to do it. How are you thinking about that to the point that M and N is making? Is this like a. Is it a priority to push the White House? Is it a priority to use your time in a way that advances, maybe concerns? How are you thinking about this as somebody who's a journalist, but also sort of in the camp of the White House?

[Natalie Winters]

Well, I would say my first and foremost ethical consideration is what I wear. No.

[Unknown Speaker]

Sweaters.

[Krystal]

Top of the list.

[Natalie Winters]

The skirts are not going anywhere. You know, it's funny. They were mad at me for wearing sneakers, which I was like, everyone does when they're not on camera. And I was like, look, I was actually.

[Steve Bannon]

They do that in the cast, even.

[Natalie Winters]

When they are eco friendly. And I walked to the White House from Capitol Hill. So I was like, I love walking. That's my favorite thing to do. I was like, I was trying to reduce my carbon footprint. And then I got ratioed for it, but not ratioed. We ratioed the Daily Mail and they had to take the Journal name off the story. It's another war room win. The power of the War Room audience. But, no, I think that's an interesting question, and I think that it's something that I've kind of internally struggled with. I've always said, despite my rather bombastic rhetoric, I spent a lot of my free time actually trying to deduce how to be a responsible steward of this platform that I have not stumbled into. But just at 23, put yourself in my shoes. You're speaking to hundreds of thousands, millions of people. The most powerful political. It's a lot to conceive of and not sound cliche, but I'VE always just sort of let the truth guide me. That's why I've always stuck to sort of like primary source based reporting. Also made writing copy easier because I could just sort of copy and paste from what the documents or the grants were saying. But I also think too, I think it's an interesting question because we are forthright in our support for President Trump. And I'm aware that maybe that's hard to square with the idea of being a journalist. But I'm sorry, every time I walk in that press briefing room and everyone's sitting there who has their superiority complex and I guess really a chip on their shoulder, but the idea that we're a clownish operation by being there, it's like you guys are probably more partisan than we are. And that's sort of what I find to be the most cognitively dissonant or just gaslighting experience of that press briefing room where I'm like, I have to sit here and pretend like what you guys are doing is telling the truth. They act so professional and so serious and I'm like, you're a bunch of liars and you're advancing a certain talking point or certain narrative. So. So I just to keep our audience kind of ahead of the curve because I don't want to be a Trump cheerleader for four years. I don't really find any intellectual merit in doing that either, if you can tell. I love digging into documents. I don't like standing there and being like, oh my gosh, we took over Gaza. And how I've sort of come to really, I think square, that is focusing on the resistance because it gives me something to latch onto. Because I guess maybe I need an enemy or something, something to cover. So I really wanna focus on that angle. But I also think too, I wanna cover the media. There's enough people who are gonna be trying to ask questions. I learned the hard way, like this is where I stand, this is where I sit. I'm like, okay, sir, I'm not trying to come for your seat. I'm new, I got it. And I think covering the media is more interesting. And sure, it's funny, the people in the briefing room in the masks and when someone asks a question, they're like, like rolling their eyes cuz it's a different outlet than what they're used to. But I think to wrap up my answer, what we were talking about in terms of the resistance, stuff like civil society and the media is the crux, is the cornerstone of their ability to push back on President Trump right now, that's all they have. And being in that press briefing room, therefore, sure, it gives me access to the White House, the president, but it also gives me access to sort of ground zero of the resistance. And that is what I want to cover and sort of use that as like primary source reporting to supplement the reporting that I've been doing kind of independently on tracking the resistance stuff. So that's how I view it, which is, you know, maybe not the traditional ethics based journalism, but I think we live at a post journalism ethics world. And I think I'm the first to admit it. If they want to admit otherwise, I would just point them to their viewership.

[Steve Bannon]

I mean, to support your point. And this probably happened when you were in elementary school, back when Time magazine was a big deal in Washington. Time magazine's White House correspondent transitioned to become Obama's spokesperson and went from the seat to the podium.

[Natalie Winters]

Gosh, Caroline Levitt's been on War Room.

[Steve Bannon]

A ton, which, no, I would humbly suggest that the resistance is boring and that you should take your talents and focus them on Musk corporate America trying to co opt the MAGA movement and the intelligence community. That element of the resistance I think is very interesting. And that brings me to this very interesting question that I'm curious about too. GBRU says, is Donald Trump aware of the statements Steve Bannon has been making about Elon Musk, Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Andreessen and their intellectual guru Curtis Yarvin Has War Room Bannon, you or any other MAGA affiliated person or organization brought these concerns about techno feudalism to President Trump. Is it breaking through?

[Natalie Winters]

I think that person asked on that would be Steve. Right? I don't want to speak about their conversations, but I mean, I don't even think it's just like a, you know, Steve, President Trump conversation. I think that you can't like turn on a TV or the media without being inundated with like this is the thing itself, right? This is the story right now. You know, Steve and President Trump talk. Obviously he's not shy about that. But you know, Elon obviously has a seat at the table too. But I do think, I mean also too, the sheer power of our audience, like I said, that's a very powerful grasp. So I don't think they're going to want to alienate us. But like I said, it's all about having a seat at the table and we can debate it out. And when you have full transparency, we will win. I have full faith in Stephen K Bannon and myself and our kind of approach to the issue. I mean, you see Mark Zuckerberg and all these people, they're getting totally ratioed and trolled. No one believes their conversion. So I think it's just sort of a time will tell thing. Like I.

[Steve Bannon]

You know, and maybe this could be the last one. Cause there's a ton of interest from our lefty audience here in.

[Natalie Winters]

I was scared they were gonna be mean to me.

[Steve Bannon]

Well, they did want.

[Natalie Winters]

Oh, they are. Okay.

[Steve Bannon]

A bunch of them said they wanted to ask you about the correspondence typo, which I don't know what that means. Do you know what that means?

[Natalie Winters]

I know this whole interview I'm like, I'm so smart. I'm so good at my job. I'm 23 and like the youngest White House corresponded up. I'm so intelligent. No, when I tweeted out the now infamous picture, I spelled correspondent with one R. Oh, that's amazing. And it was. Cause I was getting ready to go on air, and you don't understand. Love Real America's voice, but I put them in the category of tech startup. So it's very ratchet. And I'm getting pulled in this direction. I have my Air AirPods in. My phone's not connecting. Like every journalist that we've ever attacked, I think Steve, the segment before he came to me, they were like, we need to send these people to prison. And I'm like, well, Steven, that you just called three of the people that I just saw walk by that they should go to jail. So I'm standing there and I wanted to tweet out the picture. Cause I was like, this is a cool picture. It's like what makes the people jealous.

[Krystal]

Yeah, Take the West Wing. Yeah, yeah.

[Natalie Winters]

Right. And so I know that when I had typed out Correspondent, which is sort of like a difficult word to spell, I'm like, the first rate. Okay.

[Steve Bannon]

It's a little tricky.

[Natalie Winters]

It's a little complicated. I always say I'm very honest. And I just kind of. You know when you just want to use Autocorrect, so you just kind of like get the gist of the word out there and then you let it.

[Krystal]

Know you trust the machine.

[Natalie Winters]

So I guess for some reason autocorrect thinks that I am like, well, you know, correspondent with one R means like the affair partner is in a divorce.

[Steve Bannon]

Oh, I did not know that.

[Krystal]

Oh, I did not know that.

[Natalie Winters]

I'm not. Wow.

[Krystal]

You learn something new every day.

[Natalie Winters]

But that went super viral. So I correctly know, though I guess I'M doxing myself. No, I'm not. But yeah, so that was kind of annoying. And then they all piled in. But I will defend my honor. And as a true opposition researcher, the lady who first quote tweeted me that led to like 40 or 50 million impressions. I was like, oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing. She spelled correspondent wrong too. I went through Rachel Bitticoffer, I went through her Twitter and twice in February, it was February 7th and February 8th of 2019, she was tweeting about the Virginia Correspondents Association. They were having their big annual dinner and she spelled it with one R and she did it twice. So if that's reflective of your intelligence, I am smarter than her.

[Steve Bannon]

But aside from that, there does seem to be a lot of lefty hope that your faction is going to be beat the techno feudalist authoritarian faction. And one of these, I'll make this the last one is related to, I think, asking you to look at some of the left wing stuff that was done and evaluate it in a fair way. So they say. What are your thoughts on the Inflation Reduction act, which promotes reshoring American jobs, combined with imposing tariffs on imports to boost the US Energy manufacturing sector sector, which is an accurate description of the ira?

[Natalie Winters]

Well, I will say I think they did an absolutely horrific job on messaging on some of their wins. Like I said, we call balls and strikes. But from a more I think meta, kind of bird's eye view perspective, you can't really tell me they did a good job with reducing inflation. And I think if you look at their economic track record, whether it's the revisions of the jobs reports, I think what was 12 out of 13 times downward to the fact that so many of the new jobs that they created, I think it was at the end of it like a net loss for Americans and the net gain was happening among non citizens or immigrant workers. So I always find, and I'm the first to admit it, the economic data really confusing and overwhelming because there's so many layers to it. And they're like, well, consumer confidence or the price index is really high. And I'm like, well what is that based on? Americans lived experience is absolutely horrific. So I don't, I mean I think if they want to hang on to what they did with the economy as being something really strong, I would highly advise against that. I also think too it's a broader, I think issue in terms of I don't think any president who oversaw an invasion of 15 million illegal aliens, the most oppressive force on American workers, wages you can't say that that was good for reducing inflation or helping American workers.

[Steve Bannon]

Separate it from Biden. Biden and partisanship. The idea of the Inflation Reduction act, where you are subsidizing American jobs and a transition to a clean energy economy which China is killing us in, like in general, directionally, if you separate it from Democrats. Is that something that fits into Bannon's style?

[Natalie Winters]

Like in, I think the supporting American manufacturing base. Of course, I think President Trump. Trump kind of went a different way of trying to do that. More like tariff kind of, that sort of approach. But yeah, I think Peter Navarro, who obviously helped co host the show while Steve was in prison, is close friends with all of us, we work very closely with him, is very supportive of that too. We're very. For reshoring. I mean, if it were up to Steve, we would like kick out all Chinese companies and maybe the big tech ones too, while we're at it.

[Steve Bannon]

He did say break up the big tech companies. Yeah, but he said they should have left Lina Khan in place.

[Natalie Winters]

But I just think it's sort of performative and not just a Democrat thing. Not to skirt your question, but like the idea that they're actually genuinely trying to reshore manufacturing jobs. They're still outsourced. You know what I mean? Like it's. I don't think it had the impact that they intended. Not because the legislation was bad or ideologically unprincipled, but this city is just. And big business, big donors, corporate interests, they want to outsource and that's the fundamental issue. They just hate American workers. So I think you have to negotiate with them much more intensely. Like carrots stick. I think tariffs are more of the stick. I think stuff like that is a little more carrot based. And they're not gonna take the carrot. You have to.

[Steve Bannon]

You just smash them.

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah.

[Steve Bannon]

Smash the rich.

[Krystal]

Fascinating. Yeah. Natalie, thank you for joining us.

[Natalie Winters]

Thank you so much. I'm so glad I wore that skirt. Otherwise, I don't know.

[Krystal]

No, I mean, listen, like the media infiltration of the White House press room is long overdue. Like new media infiltration on the White House briefing room is long overdue.

[Steve Bannon]

I'm sure I'll see you in there.

[Krystal]

Yes, that's right. But thank you so much.

[Steve Bannon]

I want to get in the seat.

[Krystal]

Thanks for being on and taking the time. We appreciate it.

[Natalie Winters]

Thank you, guys.

[Krystal]

Awesome. Well, we'll be back with more counterpoint. It's next week, so stay tuned for that. Appreciate it. See you soon.

[Sagar]

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