9: Breaking Bad: How MAGA Turned a Gen Z Influencer Against the "Elites"

Summary

FYPod Episode 9: "Breaking Bad: How MAGA Turned a Gen Z Influencer Against the 'Elites'"

Release Date: March 29, 2025

Hosts:

• Tim Miller: Host from The Bulwark, focusing on the political shifts among Gen Z voters.
• Cameron Caskey: Co-host alongside Tim Miller, bringing insights into the MAGA movement.

Guest:

• Natalie Winters: Co-host of the Bannon War Room, White House correspondent, and former intern for Raheem Kassam. At 24, Natalie provides an insider perspective on the MAGA movement's influence on younger generations.

---

1. Introduction and Guest Background

Timestamp: [00:55]

Tim Miller opens the episode by introducing the guest, Natalie Winters, highlighting her role in the Bannon War Room and her journey from interning with Raheem Kassam to becoming a co-host alongside Steve Bannon.

Notable Quote:

• Tim Miller [00:56]: "We couldn't be more excited to finally have a MAGA youth on the podcast."

Natalie shares her background, emphasizing her experiences in a progressive high school environment in Los Angeles and her early skepticism towards groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and their perceived threats to American sovereignty.

Quote:

• Natalie Winters [03:31]: "I'm 24. I have a very interesting resume. I've only ever worked for Steve Bannon or Raheem Kassam."

---

2. The Evolution of Threat Perceptions

Timestamp: [06:19]

Natalie discusses how the focus of perceived threats within conservative circles has shifted over time—from Islamic influence to the Chinese Communist Party, and more recently to organizations like the World Health Organization and the United Nations. She attributes this pivot to a broader narrative of elitism and globalism that resonates with the War Room's audience.

Quote:

• Natalie Winters [06:19]: "Conservative news industrial complex then pivoted to saying the Chinese Communist Party was the threat."

Cameron probes further into the conflation of ideals like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Chinese Communist Party, questioning the consistency of the MAGA movement's stance on elitism.

---

3. Defining the 'Elite' and Anti-Elitism

Timestamp: [16:26]

The conversation delves into what constitutes the "elite" from the War Room's perspective. Natalie contrasts the Bulwark's listeners, who might view elites as bureaucratic and cultural influencers, with War Room followers who see elites as connected to globalist agendas and organizations like USAID.

Quote:

• Natalie Winters [16:26]: "It's sort of their conception of elites is more sort of the swamp... the Ivy League educated USAID contractor."

Cameron challenges this definition by highlighting figures like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, questioning whether they are seen as part of the elite the War Room opposes or if they represent a new form of elitism within the MAGA framework.

---

4. Deconstructing the Administrative State

Timestamp: [29:11]

Tim Miller seeks to understand why War Room's audience, who benefit from aspects of the administrative state like Medicaid and Social Security, advocate for its deconstruction. Natalie responds by clarifying that the opposition is not to these programs themselves but to the perceived misuse and corruption within the administrative apparatus.

Quote:

• Natalie Winters [29:11]: "Steve and we have been pretty consistent in saying we don't think that Medicaid should be cut."

She emphasizes that the target is the "unelected, unchecked power" and the idea of deconstructing what they term the "administrative state," rather than dismantling essential services.

---

5. Social Ostracization and Radicalization of Gen Z

Timestamp: [64:09]

Cameron introduces personal experiences of feeling isolated after shifting political ideologies, drawing parallels to Natalie's own journey from liberal activism to embracing MAGA principles. They explore the role of social isolation and ostracization in pushing young individuals toward the right.

Quote:

• Cameron Caskey [57:07]: "I have a lot of conservative friends who really like having liberal friends because they're not bought in emotionally the same way."

Natalie adds that finding alternative news sources and communities that resonate with their anti-establishment sentiments plays a crucial role in this ideological shift.

Quote:

• Natalie Winters [66:34]: "Feeling sort of locked out or removed from, like, mainstream popular culture will sort of force you onto the conveyor belt of, like, pursuing alternative news sources."

---

6. Controversies and Mischaracterizations

Timestamp: [46:13]

The hosts address controversies surrounding Steve Bannon, specifically the allegation of him performing a Nazi salute. Natalie vehemently denies this, asserting that Steve Bannon did not engage in such gestures and that any similarity is coincidental or misinterpreted.

Quote:

• Natalie Winters [46:37]: "He didn't do a Nazi salute."

Cameron remains skeptical, presenting a hypothetical scenario where Bannon mirrors Elon Musk's ambiguous gestures, suggesting it as a form of trolling or signaling within the MAGA movement.

---

7. Balancing Perspectives and Concluding Thoughts

Timestamp: [69:25]

As the episode nears its end, Tim reflects on the shared experiences of both guests—being mischaracterized and feeling let down by establishment politicians. He encourages a more moderate approach, advocating for compromise and incremental progress rather than radical shifts.

Quote:

• Tim Miller [69:57]: "You both have been let down by politicians. And I'm here as the elder to say, you know what, guys... don't get so down about it."

Natalie counters by emphasizing the importance of addressing the deep-seated issues within the administrative state and maintaining transparency to build trust among the audience.

---

8. Listener Engagement and Final Remarks

In the final segment, Tim invites listeners to reflect on the discussed themes, urging them to find common ground and coexist peacefully despite ideological differences. The episode concludes with a lighthearted nod to attending future events and interactions between the hosts and guest.

Quote:

• Tim Miller [72:46]: "You people need to find God. All of you... Find love, all right?"

---

Key Takeaways:

• The MAGA movement's appeal among Gen Z is driven by a sense of anti-elitism and distrust of globalist agendas.
• Social ostracization and the search for community play significant roles in radicalizing young voters to the right.
• There is a nuanced debate within conservative circles about the nature of elites and the administrative state.
• Mischaracterizations and controversies, such as the alleged Nazi salute by Steve Bannon, highlight the complexities of media narratives surrounding the MAGA movement.
• The conversation underscores the importance of understanding the underlying motivations of Gen Z voters to effectively engage and address their concerns.

Notable Quotes:

• Tim Miller [00:55]: "We couldn't be more excited to finally have a MAGA youth on the podcast."
• Natalie Winters [06:19]: "Conservative news industrial complex then pivoted to saying the Chinese Communist Party was the threat."
• Cameron Caskey [57:07]: "I have a lot of conservative friends who really like having liberal friends because they're not bought in emotionally the same way."

---

This summary provides an in-depth overview of Episode 9 of FYPod, capturing the essence of the discussions between Tim Miller, Cameron Caskey, and Natalie Winters. It highlights the key themes of anti-elitism, the role of social dynamics in political shifts among Gen Z, and the internal debates within the MAGA movement.

Transcript

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Natalie Winters]

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[Tim Miller]

Hey guys, welcome to FYPOD. I'm Tim Miller. Camera.

[Cameron Caskey]

I'm Cameron Caskey.

[Tim Miller]

And we couldn't be more excited to finally have a MAGA youth on the podcast. Last week after we were talking about the government taking over the grocery stores and seizing the means of produce production, we needed to balance it out with the fascist right represented as well. I'm excited to have with us Natalie Winters Bannon War Room co host and White House correspondent two hours and correspondent for the Bannon War Room. We all make mistakes. We all make spelling errors. Natalie, I am pumped about this. We've got to hang out before, which we'll explain to people in a little bit why that that odd couple has, you know, got it, got a test run. But Cameron and you don't know each other, so you're just meeting. And so I kind of just want to do first date questions at the top for Cameron and the viewers. Like, tell us about you. Where are you from? How did you become interested in Steve Bannon's triple shirted soft authoritarianism? You know, just kind of give us a little rundown about you.

[Natalie Winters]

Of course. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm honored to, I think, be making, I would say, my intentional bulwark debut. I'm sure you've probably played clips of my show or Steve, but probably not non consensually. Although you were actually on War Room earlier this week. I played one of your clips with Jeffrey Goldberg. But yes, I heard about that.

[Tim Miller]

Somebody told me. I try to listen. As you know, once a week you guys put out like 20 hours of content a week. You're the only guys competing with me on total hour content, so I can't listen to it all. So I did miss that.

[Natalie Winters]

We are live for 16 of the day.

[Tim Miller]

That's insane.

[Natalie Winters]

It's wild. Although I've started referring to War Room and don't tell Steve more as a live stream because there's such a lack of preparation that goes into the shows. It's kind of haphazard, but we love it. Very, very populist. But yes, I'm Natalie. I have been Steve's co host for about two and a half years. I've been in Bannon War Room world for about five. I started this whole journey interning for Steve's old co host, someone by the name of Raheem Kassam, who was very involved in Brexit, kind of Nigel Farage politics for some reason when I was in.

[Tim Miller]

A huge upgrade from you to Raheem. I've got a lot of problems with your politics, which we'll get to. But I got to say, you are a huge upgrade over Raheem. And for guests who are not familiar with Rahim, just count your blessings and don't go searching for any information about it.

[Natalie Winters]

Well, I've been told I'm a DEI hire, which, you know, it's nice, I guess. Although I guess Di is over now. We ended it, right? It's done.

[Tim Miller]

So watch out. You might get. You might get.

[Natalie Winters]

I might be on the chopping block. But yes. So for some reason in high school, and we'll probably get into those reasons, I became a huge fan of Rahim. I was very skeptical of the Islamic cessation of America. I was very skeptical of the Muslim Brotherhood. I thought they were trying to establish a new caliphate. Anyways, that was how I got really exposed to Raheem and decided that I wanted to intern for him the summer before I started college. So started working for him. Got very kind of wrapped up in Bannon World and worked behind the scenes for the predecessor to what War Room is now, which was War Room impeachment. As a staff writer, this was back when I believe the rule was no women in the war room. So I wasn't particularly allowed to go into the office. But I worked my way up to becoming the co host, most recently when Steve was in prison, taking over at least the afternoon portion of the show. Try to put that on a resume. You can't. So I have a very interesting resume. I've only ever worked for Steve Bannon or Raheem Kassam. And I'm 24.

[Cameron Caskey]

Wait, I'm sorry, real quick. I'm trying to get the. I'm trying to get the timeline right.

[Natalie Winters]

Yes.

[Cameron Caskey]

Which one was first? Was it the no woman rule or the prison?

[Natalie Winters]

Prison was post no woman rule, which I actually, I broke the glass ceiling of the war room, if you think about it.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Cameron Caskey]

Slay Queen.

[Tim Miller]

Kind of like you're kind of the Hillary Clinton of the war room, minus the pantsuits.

[Natalie Winters]

You know, I'm very anti pantsuit.

[Tim Miller]

I don't. Well, I don't know that you have a lot of different types of outfits. I know that you don't tend to be.

[Cameron Caskey]

Today, this is my first suited up outfit.

[Natalie Winters]

I was gonna say you are dressed up today. I watch your shows.

[Cameron Caskey]

Yeah. MAGA had such a little hissy fit about Zelensky not wearing a suit. So if we were going to have MAGA guest, I figured I might as well prevent the why aren't you wearing a suit conversation and do what Volodymyr could never do while he's protecting his country from Russia. So I suited up.

[Natalie Winters]

I appreciate that.

[Tim Miller]

I'm going to Beyonce B Day Torti to represent myself being an elder millennial. Because B Day was the seminal millennial Beyonce, right?

[Cameron Caskey]

No, it's you representing yourself being gay because you're the DEI hire of the Bulwark.

[Tim Miller]

So now I have a couple other follow ups about your bio there.

[Natalie Winters]

Really quick.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Before. Cameron, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I just can't let this go. You said in high school you became skeptical of the Muslim Brotherhood and a caliphate coming to America. I don't. That didn't turn out to be.

[Natalie Winters]

Not yet.

[Tim Miller]

A fear. A very worthwhile fear. I don't think. What. What Talk. Talk to me about that. Why did you have that fear? Do you feel like looking back on it? That was maybe misguided.

[Natalie Winters]

It is interesting because I do think a lot of these same think tanks and groups and sort of pundits who are very, very skeptical of the metastasization or the spread of Islam in America back then, now sort of pivoted more into like, the Chinese Communist Party is attempting to take us over. And now it sort of morphed into like, the World Health Organization, the United nations, they're trying to usurp our sovereignty through pandemic treaties. Take your pick. So I'm aware that politics is. Sometimes people aren't always telling the truth. I guess maybe when I was in high school, I was maybe a little, I would say, overly radicalized on the issue. But I do stand by, I think, where I sort of came to that viewpoint from. I grew up in Los Angeles, and at least the high school that I went to was a very progressive, very far left. I kind of went to school with the children and grandchildren of kind of the Hollywood strain of like the elite. I hate that term. But I, for sake of whatever. To be concise, that's probably what I describe it as. And I just sort of felt like the impacts of immigration, legal and illegal, were very detrimental to my kind of lived experience, as Steve would say, growing up, and that no one was really talking about it. I think there was sort of a whitewashing of the type of people that we were more or less importing into this country. And I thought that a lot of the, I think sort of looking to what was happening in Europe, particularly the uk, which I guess explains why I became so interested in Raheem and the concept of no go zones was something that I saw as a potential future for what could happen here. And I think to some extent you've seen enclaves like that develop in, you know, Minnesota, for example. I think it's not totally right wing hyperbole to say that there are some no go zones. I think we've seen police reports. But I'm not like a crazy conspiracy theorist. I don't think we're living under surreal.

[Cameron Caskey]

You're not a crazy. You're not a crazy conspiracy theorist. You're just suggesting that the Muslim Brotherhood became the Chinese Communist Party, became the.

[Natalie Winters]

No, no, I'm just saying like the right, I think was very, perhaps say maniacally or myopically focused on that being the threat at the time. Then that, like conservative news industrial complex then pivoted to saying the Chinese Communist Party was the threat. And then it was during COVID It was kind of like globalism. Un. Wh. That's what. I'm not saying that they're all in the same. You can have discussion about evolving global alliances, but I'm just saying from the conservative perspective of what the premier threat facing the country was, I think that.

[Tim Miller]

Was sort of one more follow up, then I'll let Cameron go again. I'm just trying to get to understand. I'm trying to understand the core of you. You as a human spelled with one or two Rs. One R in that. People who don't miss this joke, Natalie, when she took the jobs, White House correspondent, she misspelled it as correspondent with only one R. I do misspellings all the time.

[Cameron Caskey]

Oh, that was you.

[Tim Miller]

It went viral. Yeah, that was her. And so we had a little running joke about how she was like the solid core respondent for the White House. Yeah. Anyway, but I want. So I just, I'm trying to get to your, you know, your essence, maybe a better word. So. So you're at. You're at a fancy high school in la? Like what? Like Sierra Canyon or something.

[Natalie Winters]

I went to Harvard Westlake.

[Tim Miller]

I know Harvard Westlake.

[Natalie Winters]

Oh.

[Tim Miller]

Would have been my second guess. So you're.

[Cameron Caskey]

So you're from the heartland.

[Natalie Winters]

Mutual friends. Cameron.

[Cameron Caskey]

We totally do.

[Natalie Winters]

I'm sure. Yes.

[Tim Miller]

So you went to Harvard Westlake. I'm just. You kind of just jumped straight from there to the Muslim Brotherhood. So it's like you're at Harvard Westlake. You said you're seeing your surroundings. What was it about that elite preppy LA school that made you think. The threats of Sharia law are very acute to me in my life. So that's the part I'm not getting. Like, what were your experiences in high school in specific?

[Natalie Winters]

Sure. Well, I was a big fan of like Lauren Southern Milo, that kind of Internet, like antisocial justice y crowd of people. So that's what I was sort of saying about just like the evolution.

[Tim Miller]

Because like your friends were too woke. Like your friends at school. Like what? Why did they appeal to you? Is what I'm trying to understand.

[Natalie Winters]

So this is like a longer story, which I'm happy to get into, but my best friend growing up was actually the granddaughter of a very prominent Democratic senator who will probably inevitably discuss on this podcast. I don't want to dox anyone, but it wasn't like I was someone who was an ideological puritan that couldn't hang out with people who I didn't agree with. I. I mean, Tim, I think you, you know this for a time at Turning Point usa. I'm not someone who particularly likes to talk about politics in my free time. Like it's my job and I believe what I believe, but I'm not sitting around like discussing policy. So I had a very robust social life. But once, I guess it was probably 2016, right. When like everything became hyper, hyper politicized. I felt like because I didn't drink the Kool Aid and sort of just support everything that Hillary did, I really liked Trump. I think I liked Trump more at that. I mean, I was in 10th grade at the time. It was more just sort of like anti establishment, wanting to be rebellious. That was what initially drew me to him. But I think that sometimes younger kids on the left have a hard idea or just ability to like internalize MAGA youth as anything other than a Turning Point MAGA hat wearing, like hardcore activist. So I felt very typecast and sort of stereotyped as this like fire breathing hardcore MAGA person, which I guess ironically is what I sort of become in my public facing career. Right. But in High school, I was so, so not bad. I think the thing that I said that really, like, nailed me as crazy MAGA girl. They were having a. A wage gap bake sale. And I remember someone had posted it in our class Facebook page. And I literally replied. I was just like, the wage gap doesn't exist. And anyways, it set into motion this whole thing where I sort of became known as the like crazy conservative girl on campus. Which I know for your viewers you're probably like, well, you were probably talking about the Muslim brother I like. I really. I really wasn't. But that was sort of my background. And then I one time I did, funnily enough, a podcast. It was called, I think it was some name that was a play on, like, being right wing. So I was under the impression that that podcast I could like, say what I thought. And apparently what I said was really controversial. The school paper labeled it, deemed it hate speech. They held an emergency meeting with all the affinity groups like the Black Student Union, the gay group, the feminist group. So I felt very ostracized at that point. And again, I'm sure maybe your audience would have a different perspective. What I said then, it wasn't anything that I think you'd be like, wow, that's actually offensive.

[Tim Miller]

Well, you just gotta tell us what it was.

[Natalie Winters]

So I have tried, like, you know, I love. I'm an investigator reporter. There are no copies of it. The most offensive thing I said was, I think I jokingly was like, yeah, when Milo says feminism is cancer, like, ha ha, he's right. Like, that was the edgiest thing that I said. It wasn't. I waded into anything racial culture. Like it.

[Cameron Caskey]

No.

[Tim Miller]

N bombs.

[Natalie Winters]

No, no, no, Tim, No. But. So I was very kind of. This is not me, like playing the. Like I. Yeah, okay.

[Tim Miller]

No, we're trying to understand.

[Natalie Winters]

But so. So I'm just setting the stage because then the same year that I was applying to college and at Harvard Westlake, your equivalent of a social credit score was where you went to college. Right. And the year that I was applying was the year that. That Operation Varsity Blues, if you guys recall, the kids on the rowers, like paying to get their underperforming kids in to college. Do you remember that? Like Olivia Giannulli, that whole thing. So I had gone to elementary school with all those people, and a lot of them were at Harvard Westlake, and that was sort of the same group of people who I had felt had attacked me from a more like ad hominem personal perspective of like, you're a sexist, you're a racist, you're a bigot, you're just a bad person because of the beliefs that you have. And then behind the scenes, I thought from my high school kind of purview that they were doing something that was so immoral and unethical, where they were basically rigging, cheating the system. The same people who are saying that I was a racist because I said affirmative action maybe isn't the best policy. So all of that together compounded with me being exposed to the Bananesque worldview, which I think is sort of the reorientation, not so much Democrat, Republican, but like elites versus everyone else, which I'm aware is maybe ironic given, you know, where I'm from, but made me, I think, just sort of have what I always refer to as like a boomer worldview. That's really in line with kind of the worm audience.

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[Natalie Winters]

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[Tim Miller]

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[Cameron Caskey]

I feel like the real irony of the elites versus everybody else situation is that the guy that Bannon has been championing so aggressively that sent to prison for the past couple of years has actually just handed the country over to elites. So that's kind of interesting. Like, you know, the new Bannon. I hate to say that somebody stole Bannon's clout because he really totally had a ton of clout back in 2016. But Peter Thiel has kind of come in and stolen his bag. And Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are kind of the same guys that Bannon has been able to garner so much populist support for talking shit about. So now I'm sitting here, it's like, it's not the exact same thing as the H1B visa drama, but I'm like, okay, well, what is MAGA right now? Like, is MAGA the party that's finally standing up to the elites, or is MAGA the party that is transparently being controlled by them?

[Natalie Winters]

I think that the inherent connection between elite and Billionaire though. Yes. It seems sort of intuitive. I think is maybe a framing that our audience would sort of reject in the sense that I think to them their idea of what undergirds or represents the elite class is more sort of the swamp. So when you see. Even though it's being done underneath Elon and Doge, but when you see them going after to what their vision is, your average, you know, Ivy League educated USAID contractor who's making millions of dollars promoting cultural filth, that's probably what they would describe it as in third world countries. I think to them that is sort of more their conception of. Of the elite. I think it's almost less finance.

[Tim Miller]

USAID employee making millions. Who are the multimillionaire USAID that I.

[Natalie Winters]

Bought my first Tim Miller eye roll face.

[Tim Miller]

I'm just like, I didn't understand. So the millionaire USAID employee who is.

[Natalie Winters]

The million dollar contracts.

[Tim Miller]

But they go to like, they get contracted out to like a group to an ngo and then people work for the group and then it's like it's people that are making like $80,000 a year that gave their.

[Natalie Winters]

I think they're making a little more than $80,000 a year.

[Tim Miller]

Maybe a couple. I mean, but like these people are not the elites. The people that are in fucking Africa helping.

[Natalie Winters]

I'm not saying Africa, I'm just. I'm just saying I think that maybe. And I'm trying to help your audience understand. I mean, we can.

[Tim Miller]

I want to understand back and forth.

[Natalie Winters]

And we can debate. But I also think that, you know, the Bulwark listeners probably don't get so much of an insight like into what War Room listeners think. So I'm happy to try to convey that. But I'm just.

[Tim Miller]

I want it. I want to hear it. I'm just trying to understand. I don't. That doesn't make sense to me. The usaid, I think that's what they're mad at. Why are they mad at them?

[Natalie Winters]

The War Room kind of Bannon worldview. I think that to us there's more of like a cultural component to what we define the elite as and sort of this idea of ivory tower beliefs. And I think that that is a USAID is maybe a bad example because there's a lot to get into there. But I'm just saying this sort of more globalist orientation, the idea that people would be making six figures promoting this sort of what I'm sure would be referred to as, you know, WOKE ideology in these third world countries or promoting gender rights in Africa. That I think you're. The way that you guys sort of term elites. I think that there's an inherent conflation between money and being an elite, which I'm not saying is an inaccurate characterization. I just think to answer your question, how I can sit here and say, well, we're anti elite, but we also support the efforts of Doge. And what Elon Musk is doing is because it's not just a money thing. I think it's sort of there's an ideological prerequisite to be in the basket or the tier of people that the war room audience that myself would consider to be an elite.

[Cameron Caskey]

So gender rights in Africa, where's the elitism there? Like, because we got Elon Musk offering million dollar prizes to people who are going to vote the way that he wants them to vote in what, like Wisconsin or something? But that's not elitism, that's patriotism. Elitism is when we go to some country and promote gender rights or like stopping the prevention of hiv. Like, where does the elitism come in there? Because I guess my whole thing is I've been seeing Bannon for so long and, you know, a lot of the stuff he says, I'm like, you know, Steve, I think you've got the wrong idea. But then he says, the, the tech bro billionaires are a huge problem in this country. And I'm like, you know what, Steve, I think I agree with you on that. But now the tech bro billionaires kind of are the country, right? So what would Steve say? I. I mean, I, I hate to speak for him, but you know, you're talking about the war room audience like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk. That's cool. It's just the gender equality, that's not cool.

[Tim Miller]

Bezos.

[Natalie Winters]

I think each tech oligarch is sort of its own case. For example, we. Myself, I've been extremely critical of Mark Zuckerberg. Like I think all the tech bros who are doing the maga performative dance, I think that's absolutely disgusting. And I think that our audience should have higher standards than accepting them back into the fold. I think the whole Bezos whatever is not very convincing to me. I think the Elon transition is a little more interesting and deserves a little more nuance to look at that I would sort of reject, I think some of the premise of your question, the idea that they have totally like usurped our country and taken it over. Only because I think there's an implication that, that what they're doing is something that the American People don't support. And I think this idea that the Doge agenda or that cutting waste, fraud and abuse is something that is like so anathema to the interests of the American people. And that's something that Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are like force feeding down the throats. I think the Trump voters knew what they were getting when they were voting for Trump. I think Elon was very prevalently on the campaign trail. I think the concept of cutting waste, fraud and abuse is not particularly niche. I also think that waste rotten abuse is perhaps the more palatable, kind of simplified version of what, honestly, I think Bannonism in its kind of predecessor form, the idea of deconstructing the administrative state, I think that that's also the kind of the other side of the coin with Doge, which I do think is something that is very important for. For our audience. But in terms of back to the.

[Tim Miller]

Africa example, you don't have audience, though. You have audience that works for the government, though. I guess. This is. And this is a genuine question. I know that my I give off sarcasm face, so I'm just. I'm gonna verbalize. This is a genuine.

[Natalie Winters]

We haven't even told the audience that we don't actually dislike each other.

[Tim Miller]

I know we're gonna get. We're gonna get to. We're gonna get to our Terry Lake encounter at the end. We're gonna start with it, but all of a sudden we got the Muslim Brotherhood.

[Natalie Winters]

You know, I dropped a ball.

[Tim Miller]

You dropped Sharia law and you, you dropped Sharia law and we went off.

[Cameron Caskey]

The I'm not done with the Muslim brother thing.

[Natalie Winters]

Well, and I want to answer your.

[Tim Miller]

Question too, but it's a related question. I'm adding on to Karen's question because what I don't understand is because particularly from the audience's perspective, we hear enough from Steve. I know it's Steve's fucking perspective is you have people in your audience, I assume, that work for the federal government that have federal government jobs that are on government health care. Certainly I don't understand what they're getting out of this. I understand being mad about fraud and abuse and being happy that that Elon is poking the eye of the people they don't like, who care about trans people or whatever. But, like, I don't get what they're getting so far. I'm really happy that they've instituted some policy that's going to help me because I see a lot of regular people losing their jobs, unlike people that are probably maga People that are probably your audience. I don't know if you work at the VA or you work at one of these places. You could very well be a war room listener.

[Cameron Caskey]

You don't understand, Tim. Veterans are woke.

[Natalie Winters]

It's a lot of stolen valor. No, I'm kidding. No, no. I think to answer. And again, I have to say, by the way, I love being able to have actual discussions like this because I feel like so much is just screaming on, on panels. But I think the sort of juxtaposition there is that, you know, we're all told and perhaps maybe my characterization of every person that Doge is firing as some woke usaid, you know, sister who's promoting trans rights in Africa. Yeah, that's probably not all the people that they're firing. But I think you can also concede that there are some people who have received collectively their organizations, millions of dollars promoting stuff that probably could be itemized as waste, fraud or abuse. And I think maybe our audience is a little more hypersensitive to those issues, perhaps on the heels of what they feel is like unaudited Ukraine aid packages and just billions of dollars overseas to the forever wars that they really dislike. But to answer your question specifically, and I live in D.C. so I'm around a lot of people who've listed their houses and have lost their jobs. The idea that I have to feel really bad about someone who loses their job who for years has not been going into an office. I sort of reject the ideological premise of their job to begin with. And they're probably getting an overinflated salary for really not doing much.

[Cameron Caskey]

How much do you think government employees.

[Natalie Winters]

Let me finish. Let me finish that. The same. Now we're getting a Tim Miller face palm. I'm very, very honored. But the idea that like I'm supposed to have unmatched empathy for them, but then our audience, who, you know, really, I think was forced to shut down their businesses during COVID and didn't see the outline, the really explanation or justification for that and felt sort of assaulted in that way.

[Cameron Caskey]

You know, the Democrat, the Democrats tried to give them money and the Republicans in Congress said no, no, no, we're not.

[Natalie Winters]

And we hate Republicans in Congress. Most of them. Okay, yeah, most of them are disgusting. Can I also say too, this is perhaps a different tangent as I have met more and more like Doge adjacent people and sort of the more tech bro class. I think that a lot of the people. And honestly, Tim, I think it kind of goes back to your book, which is wonderful. And it's very well written. And I think it's quite interesting how a lot of people who I think are in the MAGA movement or pretend to be maga, and even what you're sort of saying, Cameron, with a lot of these Republican members of Congress, it's all performative and it's all fake, and they are narcissistic, and they do what they want to get ahead because they want to be on fox. They want to have the sound bite. Most of the Republicans who are in the Doge caucus on the Hill are then voting to continue spending at Biden levels and continue spending money, God knows where, whatever. Meanwhile, I think the Doge crowd of people who have sort of come to D.C. and in some ways, it's sort of like, pick your poison.

[Tim Miller]

You're talking about the big balls of the world.

[Natalie Winters]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

The guy that wanted to normalize Indian hate, Marco. Those guys, those are the true believers, that crowd.

[Natalie Winters]

But I'm also talking even more the higher levels. Like, just. I mean, like I said, I've been in D.C. for years now. When I go to the cocktail parties, it's just sort of. Even though we're not allowed to go to the cocktail parties in Steve world, and I don't drink. But. But there's just more of, like, a San Francisco transplant vibe here, you know what I mean? Like, kind of the techie crowd. And I just think it's an interesting dynamic because I think traditionally, a lot of the MAGA stuff, and it's what your book sort of talked about, like, was people who were lying because deep down they did support amnesty, but then they saw where the trends were going in the Republican Party, so they pretended to be really hardcore on immigration. And I think that the people who are in Doge, you're pulling from, like, people who actually want anonymity and are not trying to get ahead or advance their own career, they're genuinely doing the Doge stuff. These are very high iq, brilliant techie people who would probably rather be in San Francisco, like, doing the coding stuff.

[Cameron Caskey]

They're all probably like, does anybody in the entire world want to be in San Francisco right now?

[Natalie Winters]

I mean, have you been to dc? It's not particularly great, but I'm just saying I think it's an interesting, like, cultural difference between, you're saying, the appeal. They just want to kill these guys. I literally met an autistic, like, Doge man who literally. I tried talking to him. He asked me, like, if Steve and Trump, he's like, I thought they hate each other. I was like, that was like, five years ago. Like, he's like, oh, I don't follow politics. I literally just want to cut waste, fraud, and abuse. And I was like, are you this. Is this just shtick? He was like, no, I just care about the waste, fraud, and abuse. My point being, it's just a different. It's not political. Like, it's. They would never have a group chat where they're, like, sending emojis, you know what I'm saying? Like, they're just.

[Cameron Caskey]

Do they have a group chat where they're sending. Would they have a group chat where they're sending war plans, by any chance?

[Natalie Winters]

They wouldn't want to bomb the Houthis. They would just be like, who cares? We don't need to get involved in another thing. I'm just saying it's an interesting split and it's cool to be here.

[Tim Miller]

I know what you're saying. I'm not exactly encouraged that the people that are just firing public servants willy nilly are like autistic Vulcans that have no actual ideological bearing or care about our empathy. And they're just.

[Natalie Winters]

But it means they're willing to do Elon's bidding on what Bannon I think outlined in the first term, which is deconstructing the administrative state. And I think when you hear our audience.

[Tim Miller]

So I guess. So this goes back to my question. Why does your audience want to deconstruct the administrative state? Because to me, your audience benefits a lot from the administrative state. What are they getting?

[Natalie Winters]

Administrative state? Like?

[Tim Miller]

Well, they get health care. Most of them are going to be on Medicaid or Medicare.

[Natalie Winters]

Steve has said he doesn't want to cut that.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, but. Okay, well, that's like a third of the government. Like, they benefit from, you know, other government services. If they're rural, they benefit from all the farm subsidies that we are giving, which are extensive. Like, they benefit from Social Security offices. If they're veterans, they benefit from the va. Like, you're like, what is your audience getting out of firing a bunch of bureaucrats like that? I genuinely don't understand. Why do they want to deconstruct the administrative state? I don't get it.

[Natalie Winters]

Well, I think it's particularly profound now because I think it's on the heels of what we view as the weaponization of government under Biden. I'm sure the Bulwark listeners are rolling their eyes, but I think very deeply.

[Tim Miller]

About weaponization of government. I can tell. I'm seeing that in cash. And Pam Bondi, they're very similar.

[Natalie Winters]

No, but I think that perhaps it's just maybe I think the way that we have messaged what the administrative state is is not so much rooted in like oh, it's the administrative state. I think that's, that is bringing you your health care, which yes, to some extent it is. But I think Steve and we have been pretty consistent in saying we don't think that Medicaid should be cut. We don't think that coming after these benefits while a bunch of billionaires are going to be getting their tax cuts or their nice loopholes or whatever, that that's something that's necessarily positive. We've been adamantly against that and Steve has been against that since I think day one and fought very hard against some of the more you know, high net worth tax cuts in the first administration that sort of more almost neo Connie, neoliberal kind of rules based world. All the buzzwords that Steve would use like that to them is what represents the administrative state.

[Cameron Caskey]

If you're angry at Hillary Clinton and like, like you, Natalie, for example, you're upset that people are calling you sexist in high school for saying that feminism is cancer. Like how do we stick it to the administrative elites by cutting veteran benefits?

[Natalie Winters]

Well, I think that logic chain is not really what we're advocating for. I think that is a mischaracterization. I think when we say that we want to take down the deep state, the administrative state, I think it goes more sort of to the unelected, unchecked power and the fear.

[Cameron Caskey]

I think Covid was unelected and is.

[Natalie Winters]

Unchecked, but I don't think that he is unchecked. I mean, I think we've seen the courts sort of try to stop a lot of what Doge has done. There are checks on him.

[Tim Miller]

We're trying to impeach the judges that are trying to stop him.

[Natalie Winters]

But have they been impeached?

[Cameron Caskey]

Elon Musk is literally paying people to impeach the judges. They're also going after private law firms.

[Natalie Winters]

Well, they're going after those law firms because, and I was going to get to that with I think that what our audience kind of conceives of the, the administrative state, the deep state is being, I think people like Mark Elias, firms like Perkins, Coy, Covington Burling, where they see this sort of close relationship between what is government power and then private sector law firms sort of aiding and abetting, for example, Special counsel Jack Smith, that that collusion is something that they're very, very against. And frankly too, I think it's quite hypocritical when you have AOC and Bernie Sanders standing up there saying that they're putting American workers and families first. And when you go to AOC's website, the first page that you're hit with is like, know your rights. How to avoid being deported. I don't think illegal immigration has been particularly a boon to any American worker, and I think Obama's Economic Review Commission would agree with me as much on that. But I think the difference is that like Elon, for example, is very out there and not just puts his money where his mouth is, but puts his mouth where his money is. And again, I'm just explaining to you guys, you don't have to agree with me, but I think where I don't no worries. It's okay. You will one day, Tim. One day you'll come on the War room. No, you've been on the War room.

[Tim Miller]

I'll be back.

[Natalie Winters]

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[Cameron Caskey]

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[Tim Miller]

VGW Group Void we're prohibited by law 21 plus terms and conditions apply. I don't understand why a movement that is very hostile to the administrative state, very hostile to the deep state, very skeptical of government, is cool with the government. Just like sending six hooded jackbooted thugs to like randomly take a lady off the sidewalk because she wrote a bad op ed. I would think that your audience would be pretty concerned about that if that person had written an op ed about whatever Christianity or defend it, you know, or pro Russia op ed. And Susan Rice and Anthony Blinken had sent. Had sent a bunch of hooded people to take them off the street about.

[Natalie Winters]

Their pro Russia op ed of our GN6. We don't have to get into Gen6 sex, but.

[Cameron Caskey]

Well, there's. I mean, there's a difference between writing an op ed and storming a Capitol in one of the. In one of the most embarrassing moments in US History because this young woman typed something on a computer and went clickety clack, and these people were scaling the walls of the United States Capitol. So let's not do that. Let's not do the Jan6 thing, because that's just embarrassing enough and our viewers deserve better. I'm just curious, like, why. Why do we get to send masked thugs to. To arrest somebody for using this First Amendment that the Republicans only seem to care about when it involves using slurs and stuff, but it also involves political distance? Where do we draw?

[Tim Miller]

You can say now, no worries.

[Natalie Winters]

You can't.

[Tim Miller]

But you can't. But you can't. You can, but you can't say. You can't say anything anti Israel or else in an op ed, or else we're going to arrest you. Like, explain it. Like, why wouldn't you be? Why are you mad about that?

[Natalie Winters]

Well, I think that our audience, and even Steve, I mean, Steve went to prison. Right. I don't think that our audience is immune to being on the receiving end of unchecked power of the administrative state of a weaponized doj. And frankly, I'm not going to sit here and say. And defend that right. I can call balls and strikes. I don't think that. I think freedom of speech is an important thing. And I think, honestly, I think people are too sensitive.

[Tim Miller]

So you're anti the Tufts arrest? We have an agreement. We have Our first agreement 36 minutes in. You're opposed to the arrest of that woman.

[Natalie Winters]

I wouldn't say that. I'm anti. In the same way that I think the Mahmoud Khalil one I'm more strongly in support of. I think this may be. There's a little bit of a distinction there.

[Tim Miller]

Okay.

[Natalie Winters]

But I also.

[Cameron Caskey]

Wait, hold up, hold up, hold up. That is so interesting to me. What is the distinction?

[Natalie Winters]

Well, I think the other guy is, like, on record, he's very violent, radical, extremist. This I also think, too.

[Cameron Caskey]

Like what? Like what? What's on the record?

[Natalie Winters]

Well, I think he's been belonged to a lot of groups that have talked about very positively what happened on October 7, groups that have sort of intimated wanting to carry out similar attacks here in the United States. Again, I. I'm sure there are plenty.

[Cameron Caskey]

Of people in the war room audience who are on the four Chan threads that were talking about committing acts of violence towards me and the people who survived the Parkland shooting with me. Do you think that someone from the war room ought to get disappeared because of what other people who might have been around them in certain groups have said? Or do you. Or is it more that it's somebody's individual actions to speak for them?

[Natalie Winters]

Well, I would reject that characterization of the war room audience. I actually think that in a weird, probably horseshoe theory way that they're really about being engaged in politics.

[Cameron Caskey]

Wait, no, you're right. They're about denying that the shooting happened in the first place. My bad.

[Natalie Winters]

I don't think that.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, certainly there's some overlap between the war. You had Alex Jones on a very.

[Natalie Winters]

Good faith engager with you guys.

[Tim Miller]

You had Alex Jones on. Certainly there are some. I guess Cameron. What Cameron is saying is like, certainly, like there have been war room people that are part of groups where somebody else in the group has called, you know, the people, crisis actors and shootings. And like, they're extreme. The point is they're extreme. There's extreme rhetoric in a lot of different corners of American society. It doesn't mean you can just take. Okay, right, so you can't just. But. But nobody. But why. Okay, so then why can't you just take somebody off the street because they were involved in a group that you don't like or because they wrote an op ed or because they have tattoos?

[Natalie Winters]

I don't think that I advocated for that. I think you're.

[Tim Miller]

Well, you did it for Khalil. You said for Khalil you were cool with it. But not for. I was explaining.

[Natalie Winters]

I think he's a lot more radical. But I also think that these whole processes, these cases are all being worked out in the courts, right? That, like, there's a lot of people. There's a lot of people.

[Tim Miller]

Well, not for the ones in San Salvador. We don't even know who's in San Salvador. We sent people to a foreign gulag. We don't even know who's there. The government won't tell us. We just have our friend Tricia, who is on Vivek's campaign, tweeting, trust us, trust the government. These are bad people. That doesn't feel like a war room ethic.

[Natalie Winters]

I would have released the names of the Individuals who were there to confirm and stand by what they were saying, that they were all Trend members. I was in the press briefing room when they were being hammered on that. I think that they should have given everyone a fact sheet saying, here are all the people who were there. I think that when you're dealing with an invasion of 10 million plus people and a lot of them being members of really bad criminal organizations, many like Trend, rapists, murderers, pedophiles, the whole gamut, when you're trying to deport all of those people, it's not going to be perfect and you're probably going to make some mistakes. And I'm aware, like, in politics you can't really admit that it's probably like the cardinal sin. But, yeah, there probably are going to be some mishaps. And I think the best way to combat that is transparency and by identifying who's being deported. I think they need to increase the deportation numbers. I think they're way too slow. But I think it's about a question of balancing priorities. And if the answer is that, well, because we cannot effectively ensure that every single person that we deport is actually a member of Trend, so therefore tens of thousands or thousands of really bad people with criminal records are going to be allowed to stay in the country. I think that that is just a balance that our audience, which you guys might disagree with, would rather say, okay, well, if there's going to be two people who are mistakenly deported, who, let's be real, the ACLU will probably sue on their behalf, they'll probably make it back here.

[Tim Miller]

We can't now disappear there. We have no standing. I guess I would say to your audience, we are going to disappear. Disagree on this, Obviously. My last thing on this is just, I would say if you are opposed, if you want to deconstruct the administrative state and you don't trust the government and you're opposed to the deep state, then you should be really mad that this government is just taking people off the street and sending them to a foreign prison and saying, trust us, because you wouldn't want the other side doing that.

[Cameron Caskey]

So if we're deporting rapists, right, we have Conor McGregor, a foreign rapist, being brought to the White House to celebrate some stupid European country, I don't even know which one.

[Tim Miller]

De Ireland.

[Natalie Winters]

Why do you not like Ireland?

[Tim Miller]

De Ireland. We had to have a DEI celebration for Ireland. We had to cancel. We're canceling Pride Month, but we're keeping Ireland's DEI celebration. I don't get that.

[Cameron Caskey]

Continue if we're celebrating Mr. Donald Trump, who has some. Who has some rape stories, be careful what you say.

[Natalie Winters]

You might get sued.

[Cameron Caskey]

No, totally. If we are. If we are celebrating. Mr. Donald has never been accused by many women of rape before Trump for getting rid of the foreign rapists. What is it about importing Conor McGregor, a convicted rapist from another country, and the Tate brothers, who are convicted human traffickers from another country? Why do those foreign rapists get to come in, but the people who are supposedly rapists because they've got some sort of random tattoo that has nothing to do with the gang, have to go out?

[Natalie Winters]

Well, I think, again, that's sort of an unfair characterization. I don't think that the Trump administration, despite the left wing smear campaign, that they were behind bringing the Tates here. I don't think that they were. I think Trump sort of said he had no idea what was going on. That wasn't something that they were advocating for strongly. But just because you bring someone who is a rapist to visit the White House. This is a great quote, but, like, that doesn't negate you from then being able to. I think all rape is bad. Like, I don't know which one. Like, I don't see how that precludes us from wanting to deport a bunch of foreign rapists who are actually residing within the country.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, look, I'm against the San Salvador Gulag altogether because I'm an American. I believe every individual has rights and should be able to go through a judge. But I'd be happier if the Tate brothers were in the Gulag. And the gay makeup artist. Well, that's what I'm saying. The gay makeup artist. Can we bring the. Can we trade the gay makeup artist, makeup artists?

[Natalie Winters]

So he's not.

[Tim Miller]

I'd like to trade the gay Nicaraguan makeup artist for the Tate brothers. That's just me. Cam, you got anything else on this before we move on to.

[Cameron Caskey]

I just had one more question because I know you guys have some that you guys want to talk about. So I was curious because I am. I am so bad and curious. I have so many questions about the guy. Mostly because my number, the number one thing I associate with Bannon, other than the shirts, these United States falling apart, is the conversation that he and Donald Trump had about the musical fan of the opera. I don't, I don't know if that was on War Room, but Donald Trump came on Steve Bannon's podcast and spoke for two minutes straight about Phantom of the Opera in a really fascinatingly theater kid way that I will always find terribly amusing. But you know, I have been thinking a lot about Nazi salutes lately. Not only because Elon Musk double tapped the Nazi salute. One wasn't enough for him, he had to do two. And then of course the ADL came out and said, lol, he's just being awkward. And then he made Nazi jokes and the ADL said, actually this is bad. But then Steve, Mr. Steve Bannon happened to do a Nazi salute of his very own at. What was it? Cpac, the rnc, Some like that. What did he mean by that? Like, what do you think he was going for?

[Natalie Winters]

Well, let me preface. Steve is not like anyone speaking on his behalf. So I just want to make this clear that I'm not at all speaking for him because Steve can speak for himself. You guys shout him on the podcast. He, I think unequivocally and repeatedly said that he was not doing a Nazi salute. I was standing next to him when he was giving all those interviews saying he didn't do that. And for those of you who know Steve well, when he supports something, he will support it. I think he has, you know, called Breitbart platform for the alt right. He's like referred to himself as all these things that are edgy and he's being, you know, nuanced when he says these things. But I think he has no issue with saying things that he. It was not an ATHE salute. I don't think Elon salute was a Roman salute. Yeah, but it was a Roman, to be honest. If you want the real answer. Steve always has this, I'm not going to do it. But like he has this one hand gesture that he always does and it is very salute esque that he always, it's like, I don't know, it's how he like emphasizes certain points. And I, for whatever reason, I think when he was on stage it was a little more like right angley than it usually is. I'm serious. I know this sounds like coke, but it really, as someone who's watched a lot of his speeches, it wasn't really out of the ordinary. It's a movement that he makes a lot. And I just think in that news cycle it was sort of seized upon the rush to depict Steve as an evil Nazi, whatever. In the same way in high school, if I, you know, if those kids had been nicer to me, who knows how I would have turned out. But I just think that it's a very unfair characterization and I don't think that it is very successful for your side. I don't think it helps when somebody.

[Cameron Caskey]

Does the salute that Hitler famously did all the time.

[Natalie Winters]

But he didn't.

[Cameron Caskey]

Nobody else really does. Well, no, he did the Nazi salute. And. And he just did it.

[Natalie Winters]

He didn't.

[Cameron Caskey]

Okay, but you can see the video where he does the Nazi salute. And I was just curious what he was going for there.

[Natalie Winters]

But he didn't do a Nazi salute. I mean, that.

[Cameron Caskey]

Okay, so he did a salute that just coincidentally is identical to the Nazi salute.

[Natalie Winters]

Say it was just a crazy day. Hypothetically. Say he had done a Nazi salute. Like you really think. Stephen K. Bannon, who, by the way, I think, was behind the idea to move the embassy to Jerusalem on the first day of the first Trump administration. Someone who, believe me, they have gone through every single. Someone who's been on radio for years. They've gone through every single clip, every single show that that man has ever done. There's never been some sort of leaked audio dossier. Blah, blah, blah. This is what Steve said that was so anti Semitic or rac. You really think that, like, Steve would throw away everything that he has done to, I would argue, build the most racially and ethnically inclusive, as he calls it, the, you know, multiracial, multi ethnic working class. That's what he always says on the show. That he didn't.

[Cameron Caskey]

They not even let women in.

[Natalie Winters]

That he would go out of his way.

[Tim Miller]

We should go back to the no women war room.

[Natalie Winters]

Out of his way. To reverse all of that. Someone who has explicitly advocated for maximizing the value of American citizenship, regardless of what race you are, regardless of all of that. That, like, his genius idea to fuck all that up would be to go on stage on CPAC and, like, do a Nazi salute. I mean, that's just.

[Cameron Caskey]

Do you want me to tell you? I could tell you my theory?

[Natalie Winters]

Sure.

[Cameron Caskey]

I could tell you my theory. First of all, I don't know how intellectual I consider Steve Bannon.

[Natalie Winters]

Second of all, he's a very intellectual and intelligent man.

[Cameron Caskey]

For sure.

[Tim Miller]

He does read. I mean, he reads way more. I will say I'll side with Natalie on this one. Like, Steve reads more books in a week than the FBI and deputy FBI director have read in their entire lives.

[Natalie Winters]

It was like a backhanded compliment.

[Tim Miller]

Well, we know Cash has read at least one book because he wrote the January 6th children's book. Other than that. And he wrote his own book, which is not exactly.

[Natalie Winters]

Would you have a copy for your daughter? Would she read it?

[Tim Miller]

No, thank you. I would not Enter the home.

[Cameron Caskey]

Okay, so my guess for what Steve Bannon was doing when he did the Nazi salute that's explicitly a Nazi salute is he saw that Elon Musk did it twice and that the right just kind of said, okay, pop off, King. And he said, you know what? Since this trolling is going so well, I'm just going to do it too, because you could just do whatever you want now because you're telling me that Steve just again, coincidentally, total coinky dink has a salute that he does that if you put the video of his and Hitler's next to, it's identical. And also coincidentally, Elon Musk did the same thing. So Hitler, Elon and Steve all just randomly do the same thing with their arm that is famously associated with the Nazis. I think Steve was trolling because I. I think he saw Elon get away with it and say, hey guys, welcome to the new Republican order. We all get to do whatever we want, Nazi or not. My question for you, following up. Okay, let's. Let's roll with your question narrative question. My question is let's roll with your narrative that Steve was just like pointing at the sun or whatever the. What would you. What would the war room audience say if Alexandria Ocasio Cortez went up and did the same salute?

[Natalie Winters]

I don't understand what you're saying. I think they made memes of her doing it.

[Cameron Caskey]

They did the Roman salute.

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah, they made memes about it. Like, I don't.

[Tim Miller]

I think that what we've learned here is that Cameron's convinced it was a Nazi salute and you don't. I don't know how much more can be, can be explored. Well, another thing that we've learned is that maybe had those Felicity Huffman followed the fucking rules, okay, and not tried to cheat our kid into usc. And had those other Harvard Westlake brats been nicer to you, you know, who the hell knows? Maybe you'd be on MSNBC right now. So liberal kids out there, liberal kids out there, be nice, okay? And I want to transition with that be nice message into be like me, all right? Use me as a model.

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[Natalie Winters]

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[Tim Miller]

VGW group void where prohibited by law. 21/members and conditions apply. I got to hang out with Natalie. I haven't had any impact on our ideology, apparently, after listening to today's wonderful podcast, but I was at the Turning Point USA event, as always. I interviewed Steve. No Nazi salutes during that interview, but we were in private, so who knows? And talked to Natalie afterwards and she was like, let's go to the. Who was it? Whose party was it? Who's that guy who does the dancing?

[Natalie Winters]

Invited me. That is an unhappy.

[Tim Miller]

I invited you?

[Natalie Winters]

Yes. I don't ever go to those events. And you were like, one of my friends is telling me that this is happening. Are you going? I'll go if you go. Like, would you want to go?

[Tim Miller]

Who's the guy? James Okeefe.

[Natalie Winters]

James o'keefe.

[Tim Miller]

It was James o'keefe's event. Yeah. So we went. We hung out at this event in Phoenix, outside at a bar. It was fine. You know, there's a little teasing, a little friendly joshing, some disagreements. The deplorables and attendants were confused about whether we were there together or not. A lot of ambitious young men came to flirt with you. And then I'm curious what you thought at the highlight of the evening when the new head of voa, which doesn't exist anymore, so it's really a nice job for her. Carrie Lake, the two time failed candidate, just like started screaming at me. She was not modeling the type of behavior that you're looking for. So talk about that. It was quite an adventurous evening, I thought. And then we also got to watch Milo and Laura Loomer yell at each other.

[Natalie Winters]

Well, for starters, you got to go back to the Amfest prior to that am fest, where you were also again interviewing Steve, and you had walked through the hallway and you ignored me and I thought that you hated me. And then I was like, that's a good assumption. You were so.

[Tim Miller]

A good base assumption.

[Natalie Winters]

You were so. You were so mean. I was like, oh, my gosh.

[Tim Miller]

I was focused.

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah, well, it was like a post Steve high where you have to process everything. But yes, we hung out in the bar, I believe. I believe War room covered your tab. Okay. I'm very nice.

[Tim Miller]

Is that true? I don't know if that's true. Is that true?

[Natalie Winters]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

Did you?

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Okay. Oh, wait, at the bar? No. Oh, not at the James O'Keeffe party. Why is that? Downstairs.

[Natalie Winters]

So, yeah.

[Tim Miller]

You wouldn't uncover myself that's true. I appreciate the war room listeners for paying for my.

[Natalie Winters]

I'm giving the color and then I'll answer your question. There are a lot of people who thought that Tim and I were dating at this party. Which shows you they need to watch more MSNBC and some member, the guy who pulled me aside was like, don't be embarrassed of the age gap. Like you guys.

[Tim Miller]

Between you and me.

[Natalie Winters]

Between you and me, they thought, ouch, that's.

[Tim Miller]

That's kind of a nag.

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

You thought I was 50.

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, we can't do this.

[Cameron Caskey]

It's. This has been too much of a thing with Tim this week is his own mortality.

[Tim Miller]

My mortality is tough. Okay, well, I mean the fact that people thought we were dating, I guess the plus for me, even though the fact that they thought that it was like a press secretary Caroline Levitt and her 100 year old husband situation is a little less good, but. Okay. We could have had a Carville Madeline thing if only I was straight.

[Natalie Winters]

I know. And I guess if I hadn't been so radicalized on Sharia law. Girl can dream. But no, let's see. I'm going back to that event. Well, I. To be honest, I don't really particularly like going to those events. Not just because I get mobbed. But I do think in the same way that some of your left wing people in person can be a little radical. You know, there's some radicalism with some of those attendees too. And I don't ever want to be a witness in some case. No. But yeah, Carrie Lake really does not like you. I don't understand. See, I have a very different approach to all this. Maybe it's because I'm a 24 year old girl. Maybe. And I don't know which variable there is more salient the age or girl. But I don't really hate anyone. Maybe I'd put the people that I identify as belonging to the deep state. But I love watching on. Yeah, well, I don't. I would love to get dinner with normizen. If I could get dinner with anyone living, dead, alive, my answer to that question would be normal.

[Tim Miller]

But when you saw Carrie approaching me like you know, like an angry bravo mom, like what did you. What did you think? I mean, did you think I didn't.

[Natalie Winters]

Think she was going to attack you? Like I know. I think you know, Steve, I have always sort of.

[Tim Miller]

I think you did back away.

[Natalie Winters]

Well, I didn't want to get in trouble for being the person who brought you there. Which I guess that's why I'm now coming on a podcast to disclose it? No, but I think Steve has a very, like, amicable relationship with most people in the mainstream media, which I think is maybe something that our audience would sort of find hard to believe. I just don't think it's worth, like, getting worked up over. Like, she was worked up hating people on a personal level. Like, it's not worth the cortisol spike. Like, that's sort of my personal.

[Tim Miller]

Her cortisol is high.

[Natalie Winters]

We're about Maha here. Yeah, I really, honestly, I prefer talking to people that I disagree with.

[Tim Miller]

You could tell she lost the encounter because the tape wasn't revealed. She didn't. She never. She never publicized the tape, but she thought she won the encounter.

[Natalie Winters]

Can I ask you a question?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, sure.

[Natalie Winters]

Say I had gone to the like, left wing equivalent of whatever that event was, which I've struggled to understand what the left wing equivalent of like a Turning Point type.

[Cameron Caskey]

We're not good at. We're. We're not good enough at organizing to have something like that.

[Tim Miller]

There isn't one. And it's a big problem. And I complimented now that all the U.S. i gave. I gave a frustration. I gave a. I gave a. I gave a very reluctant compliment to Charlie on this very point. And my article about. About the Kerry Lake attack.

[Cameron Caskey]

Charlie also has a lot of money coming from some curious places. So he's get. He's got a little bit of a jump start on, well, the guy that.

[Tim Miller]

Died of COVID you know, who is the original founder of tpusa. We don't really talk about him. It's not like a care situation where you put, like where you put his statue up at Turning. Not you personally where his statue is put up at Turning Point usa. It's kind of like we kind of don't want to remember the fact that the old guy that started Turning Point.

[Natalie Winters]

USA died of COVID when I was like, growing up.

[Tim Miller]

I know that I wasn't pointing you, Natalie, into saying it is noteworthy that the person that founded Turning Point died of COVID and that we just pretend like it didn't happen because Covid was a hoax.

[Natalie Winters]

Look, I can talk about COVID but I think you guys are. We're running out of time with being on YouTube, which is a experience I don't usually get because worm is being.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, right, you're banned.

[Natalie Winters]

But no, I was just curious, like, how you think I would have been received in like, the alternate transposed universe.

[Tim Miller]

Cam, how would Natalie be received at a march for Our Lives event.

[Cameron Caskey]

You think I know shit about March for Our Lives, dude? Just because she founded it doesn't mean I know anything about it.

[Tim Miller]

How would she received one of some lib thing that you go to like a Charles Schumer press conference or whatever. How would she received.

[Cameron Caskey]

I. I don't know. I really don't know which MAGA voices people my age are actually that aware of. Right. Like, I know that they'd probably mob Charlie Kirk. I know that they would mob Ben Shapiro. It's hard to mob Ben Shapiro because it's hard to find him in a room he normally is behind somebody. Yeah, but I don't know, man. Like, you know, people, I. I feel like people on the left are quicker to get emotionally upset by people on the right than vice versa. And that's because people on the left left are so often more compelled by morals than they are by like lower taxes and ending woke. So I have a lot of conservative friends who really like having liberal friends because they're not bought in emotionally the same way, you know, their politics are inspired by the fact that they don't want black Disney princesses anymore and, you know, the fact that they think they're going to be paying less money in taxes and that the economy is going to be better just by the. That the economy is tanking. Whereas people on the left, you know so much of why they believe what they believe is the desire to have autonomy over their bodies and the desire to build new opportunities for people from different communities who otherwise in US history have been affected by systemic racism, things like redlining, things like discriminatory job hiring, things that actually created issues creating generational wealth for people of color. So people on the left, I think, so often are driven by a moral belief system, whereas I think people on the right saw enough posts of Pepe the Frog saying the N word and said, wait a second, there's somewhere for me. But you touched on something that I think is really interesting that speaks to something I. I talk to a lot of young people on the right about which is the ideal, the idea that social ostracization because of certain political beliefs is what radicalizes people and puts them on things like the Bannon War Room. Because you said, for example, you were mischaracterized. And I can't imagine how you were treated by the Harvard Westlake kids. Because I know a lot of Harvard Westlake kids and the best of them are the finest people I've ever met and the worst of them. There's going to be a tenth circle of hell built just for. Just for those rotten scumbags that you see at Saddle Ranch. But you know, the idea that certain social groups have adopted wokeness and people feel like there isn't a place in those circles for them might turn them farther to the right. Like when you were talking about Tim and the first time you met Tim you said, you know, and I thought you didn't like me. And I think that points to a more interesting phenomenon of like how many young people that are on the right are on the right because they didn't feel socially accepted by the woksters. And then what was originally like I can't sit at the same lunch table as the kids who are more woke turned into, you know, well now women can't get abortions. Well now a 22 year old named Big Balls can gut the veterans Affairs. You know, I think there is a little bit of a domino effect of feeling socially isolated turning into we need to disappear people off the streets and send them to prison for expressing their first amendment values. And I'm wondering what do you think that means young people turning to the right because of that sort of social ostracization?

[Natalie Winters]

Well, I'd be curious if the reverse would happen. For example, like say I had grown up in a very conservative small town and I just wanted to be sort of innately rebellious or whatever. I didn't vibe with them. Like if there's a similar thing or if you think that that paradigm is.

[Tim Miller]

Something you would have become non binary. You would be non binary. Right?

[Natalie Winters]

I just, I would have become trans in an alternate.

[Tim Miller]

You would be non binary.

[Natalie Winters]

But no, I'm. I'm curious your qu. Like genuinely, I'm asking like do you think that that is a symptom of something that is more like of a right wing bent and ideology or do you think that as society has just become more, I think politicized where you feel like you sort of have to like get involved because you can't, you know, what is it Silence is violence or you have to be an ally or whatever that like that kind of cultural thing has made people feel like, like they have to pick. I'm just, I'm curious.

[Cameron Caskey]

Yeah, I think liberalism and progressivism is about community and conservatism is about isolation. So when you're talking about silence of violence, you're talking about people pressuring other people to step up and get involved with certain social issues. I think there's a principle at the center of that which is things can be achieved when we come Together, whereas at the center of conservatism is things can be achieved when you stand up for yourself. And that can very easily lead to things like isolation and social isolation. And it's hard not to say that social isolation is the major contributing factor to young men turning to the right, because this dramatic shift that we've seen of late started with COVID when we were all very isolated, and social media has made us more isolated, and young men feel less opportunity than ever to connect with other people, to make friends, to meet young women, et cetera, et cetera. So I do think, just back to this social ostracization point, it is isolation that drives people to the right more than it drives people to the left.

[Tim Miller]

It's easier to talk about this from Natalie's perspective if we're not, like, obsessing over Harvard Westlake, but, like, going back to the Turning point event with all the, like. It's not. It's not. It's not a wrong observation that Cam is making that for me, at least, that at least a certain percentage of the younger men that were, like, super excited to be there and to meet you, like, seemed like social isolation might be part of their life. No. Do you feel like there's a. There's kind of a loneliness among some of them?

[Natalie Winters]

I don't know. I don't know if I would describe it as loneliness, because I think maybe the place is where conservatives find community are maybe just a little different, I think, from where people on the left. In other words, I think church and, like, religious life is something that is a lot more important, which is sort of a different sense of community. But I definitely think. I mean, feeling sort of locked out or removed from, like, mainstream popular culture will sort of force you onto the conveyor belt of, like, pursuing alternative news sources, media sources. I always joke, like, Ben Shapiro was my gateway drug, and I ended up at Steve Bannon. But I don't. I don't. I just don't know if there's an inherent political connection, because I think, conversely, Right Turning Point represents a sort of newfound, like, social scene connection. Right. For a lot of young people. I think that on the left wing side of things, I think that, like, your politics is more intimately linked with your whole Persona. Right. Like, it's like you were saying, it's.

[Tim Miller]

More rooted in there are no hats.

[Natalie Winters]

Well, there's the pig cats. No, no, no, no. I'm just saying, like, it's more rooted, and I think a desire that you think you're doing good in a way that Maybe we would disagree with what that actual outcome is and how you achieve it. But it sort of becomes your. Your whole Persona. Whereas I think for me it was like, I have my political beliefs, but they're not my whole identity. And I just sort of felt like within the school setting, it's like you're either the, like hardcore campus Republican, like one of those crazies, or you're apolitical, or you're like some hardcore lib. Like there just wasn't really any gray area. So then I guess maybe you become the projection of what people are believing that you become. I guess in my case, I did.

[Cameron Caskey]

I was gonna say I have a little bit of a personal experience with that too, because there was a period of time where I was driven rightward in my politics. I can't say I ever got to the point where I was like, women shouldn't be allowed to do abortions. And I can't say that I got to a point where I was like, you know what? There's too many black people in colleges. I can't say I ever got there. But Ben Shapiro was very much a gateway drug for me as well. I loved watching Ben Shapiro. Oh, my God. The fact that there was this guy who was telling me things. I wanted to hear about how a lot of, a lot of societal things are not my fault. They're actually the fault of woke and women and things like that. And he was spitting Stephen Sondheim lyrics. And, you know, I mean, it's like, like Steve Bannon and Trump talking about the gondola in Phantom of the Opera. But I really. Shapiro really resonated with me. And the reason I was asking you about the social isolation thing is that it was because it was at a time when I felt more isolated from the people around me than ever. Because I had just left March for Our Lives, an organization that I founded, and I had put so much of my life into this left wing activism stuff. And then after Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and all these people who actually qualify as elites, unlike the fucking US Aid workers, I'm not giving you that one. When, when those people, when those people told me and my friends that we were going to make a difference, and then, oh my God, turns out we didn't. And, you know, some state level laws got passed and there was an Office of Gun violence prevention for 25 minutes, you know, I got very jaded and cynical because I said, you know what? The Democratic side of politics is filled with liars. And the thing about the right That I, that resonated with me was the fact that these guys are straight up going to be the villains. But God damn it, they are telling you exactly who they are. People on the right were the first people who told me in a couple years, nobody's going to give a shit about Parkland. And that really resonated with me because that was a thought that I had the whole time while all of these Democrats in office were saying, you kids are going to make a difference. We're going to remember your legacy forever, blah, blah, blah. There was this voice in my head that was like, these guys are full of shit. And then finally people on the right said to me, guess what? The Democrats were going to use you for political gain. And then as soon as you weren't expedient for them anymore, they were going to leave you behind, you know, that. I was like, finally someone's speaking the truth to me. But the thing that made me flirt with this right wing ideology in a way that I started connect to and then I started making friends on the right and I started realizing that people on the right want to be friends with people on the left more than vice versa. You know, that all came from a period of time when I felt excluded and left out and alone. So that makes me wonder how many young people who have turned to the right have the same reasoning.

[Tim Miller]

I think we might have found a way to close there because I don't. I don't know that Natalie, I don't know that Natalie agrees with you on that, on the whole reasoning for why people turn to the right. But you guys, have you noticed, did you notice that you guys have an origin story together? You both became ideologically moored to pretty, you know, on opposite sides in high school. You both were let down by establishment politicians and that has radicalized you further.

[Natalie Winters]

And we're both on a podcast with.

[Tim Miller]

Tim Miller and now you're both on a podcast with me. So you guys both have that in common. You've both been let down by politicians. And I'm here as the elder to say, you know what, guys? 50 year old elder. You know what, guys? Compromise is okay. Progress, micro progress is okay. That's good. It's the American system. Don't be so. Don't get so down about it, all right? You don't need to, you know, you don't need to go full bannon. Natalie, let me bring you back, okay? Moderate Republicanism is nice. It's very cozy. Spencer Cox is out there and you Utah.

[Cameron Caskey]

He's like, okay, I Don't care how good Phantom is. We need to have some other conversations.

[Tim Miller]

We're in a close. Really quick with Boomer Mailbag. Very fast. Just because you mentioned it, I thought we could end on a nice note. Marla is a grandma. She writes in have gen zers written off religion and or church attendance. I myself have pulled way back, only going when the music ensemble I play in performs. It's nice, Marla. It has definitely left me in the nihilism space. So there you go. You had mentioned church. Is that really true, though? Are the MAGA kids? Because I see the MAGA kids as being more secular than like the old school Christian conservative kids, but maybe that's wrong. You're the ones that are around them. Are you getting invited on church dates? Is church happening?

[Natalie Winters]

I think there's sort of a split. I think traditionally my sense on it was, it was more, there's more of an overlap, but I think now there are a lot more people who have been pulled into it from sort of the secular angle who are just sort of like, like anti globalism, anti lead. I want to be able to buy my first house. I don't, I don't know about the numbers because it seems like every other week there's an article that's like, church attendance is at all time low. The country's gonna collapse. And the next week the article is like, young people are having a spiritual revival. So I don't, I don't know who's doing those, those polls.

[Tim Miller]

Have you been invited on any church dates?

[Natalie Winters]

Church dates? No.

[Tim Miller]

You're after one of the secular young men. Cameron, do you know a single person who's a weekly church attendant?

[Cameron Caskey]

No, I don't think so. I know some people who, like, will go to church for holidays. And I, I know people in my, in my Jewish community who go to synagogue pretty frequently. But I don't know. I, I tap out of conversations. When God comes up, I'm just like, okay, do your thing. Believe in whatever book you believe in. I, I, I couldn't find it less interesting. There's almost nothing I find more boring than people's religion, other than the fact that they ought to be free to pursue whichever one they like.

[Tim Miller]

You people need to find God. All of you, all of you and all your friends need to find God, okay? Find love, all right? Get some love and empathy. All right? We can all just coexist. That's what the bumper sticker says. Natalie, with the guns.

[Natalie Winters]

I like the one with the guns.

[Tim Miller]

We'll leave it there. That was FYpod. Let us know if you want to have any MAGA guests back ever again. My guess is going to be maybe we'll see y'all next week. Natalie and we'll see you around the bend.

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[Natalie Winters]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

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