Extended interview: Steve Bannon

[0:10] You made a reference to Lenny Riefenstahl back in that documentary. [0:16] How many years ago was that? About 10 years ago? [0:18] I think the documentary was made about 8, 9, 10 years ago. [0:22] 8, 9, 10 years ago. [0:24] The Brink. [0:25] The Brink. It was very good. Really much. [0:29] You'll say the director was not a fan, but I think the film turned out our audience actually loves The Brink. [0:35] It's on Netflix now, so it's got another one. [0:41] I just watched it over the weekend. [0:43] It was really good. [0:45] But I thought at the time, Steve Bannon must be one of the only people other than me who knows who the hell Lenny Riefenstahl was. [0:56] Trump could have used her. [0:58] Well, I made it, I think, in reference to the way I got into politics was making documentary films. [1:04] And my documentary films were not even-handed. [1:09] I made these films for the Tea Party. [1:12] It originally started about the financial crisis, the collapse. [1:14] I was in the Tea Party, and I had a very particular take on it, very populist, very nationalistic. [1:20] And critics came and said, hey, this is fascist filmmaking. [1:23] And I said, look, Lenny Riefenstahl was one of the most powerful filmmakers ever. [1:29] She was amoral, and she was a filmmaker for the Nazis. [1:32] But her films were very powerful. [1:34] And what I was trying to do is to try to recreate the power of those films to make sure that people, particularly the little guy, understood that they could have a voice. [1:43] You have a taste for the right wing. [1:46] Definitely. [1:47] It's no doubt. [1:47] I am right wing. [1:49] I'm not conservative. [1:50] I'm a right winger and proud of it. [1:52] What does that mean? [1:54] I think it means that you're both populist and nationalistic. [2:00] And you're not prepared to basically give any ground on that. [2:04] We've seen, and I've argued for years, in front of donors and conferences and Wall Street types, [2:10] that the politics of the future for the country is going to be populist. [2:14] It's going to be the populist left or the populist right. [2:17] And that you're going to have to accommodate yourself. [2:19] And if you do not support the populist right, the populist nationalistic right, which I don't think we've been nationalistic enough. [2:28] I think that's the next wave of this. [2:30] Is you're going to have Mamdani's and Mangione's are going to be the result. [2:38] You're going to have a democratic, you know, socialist working families party, far left, what we call the Marxist-Jihadist. [2:46] Or you're going to have parties on the right that are much more populist than we are today and much more nationalistic. [2:53] The Germans who were the politicians who were coming on your show tonight. [2:58] Alternative for Deutschland. [2:59] Alternative for Deutschland. [3:01] We're very close to those folks. [3:04] For years when they were at 3%, 4%. [3:06] They just won a couple of small but important elections in Germany. [3:15] What do you think? [3:15] Well, they're polling at, they're polling at, on a federal election, if they were to have one, they're polling on a federal basis at 30%. [3:23] And the Christian Democrats are about, I think, 19%. [3:27] So they are the dominant, just like Le Pen and Front National. [3:31] And the SPD is? [3:33] SPD is, I think, the second party. [3:36] I think they're at 25%, but they're lower than Alternative for Deutschland. [3:40] Now, you have not had federal elections. [3:42] But the Alternative for Deutschland, the reason we're going to have them on tonight, they happen to be in town. [3:45] But the important thing is they used to be the students and we were the masters because the MAGA movement went first. [3:51] But they took the lessons of the MAGA movement and applied it to Germany. [3:56] They're very grassroots. [3:57] They're very door-to-door. [3:58] They have no money. [4:00] They have, obviously, government suppression all the time of their speech. [4:05] They have the police, the intelligence agencies all over them. [4:08] So they've really done this, really street by street, block by block in Germany. [4:13] So one of the reasons I'm having them on tonight while they're in town is to reinforce what we're facing here in this midterm election, [4:22] that we have to have a massive turnout, traditionally, of our grassroots base plus the leadership of the grassroots that can bring in what we call the MAGA low-propensity voters. [4:33] If we can do that and we can bring in some of our MAGA, make America healthy again, grassroots, we can, as I keep saying, hold serve. [4:42] Other than that, you could have a situation where, you know, Cook calls it red undertow or could lead to a blue wave or maybe even a blue tsunami. [4:52] What are you looking at? [4:53] I mean, you're a smart political realist. [4:58] Give me a sense, give me your sense of the socialists and what is their impact going to be? [5:10] Because it could go either way. [5:13] We were the first on War Room back in, I think, March or April. [5:18] We had DeGrasse, who was on the show the last couple of days, who's our congressional guy, but it was Stefanik's person in New York. [5:25] And she was running for governor at the time or getting ready to run for governor. [5:28] And I think this guy, Mondani, was at 3% or 5%. [5:35] And you would talk to people in New York and they'd go, forget it, this race is over. [5:39] Cuomo's got, he's got, he's got the Jewish vote, he's got the Catholics, he's lined up the fire department, the cops, the, you know, the New York Post, Fox News, everybody. [5:52] That this is not going to be competitive. [5:53] He's got $40 million, Mondani's got no money. [5:55] And I thought about that novel that John Ford made into a movie called The Last Hurrah, where it talked about a mayor, you know, it was really the Mayor Curley of Boston made in a fictional figure. [6:06] But it was after the war and they hadn't realized how things had changed. [6:11] And they ran the exact same campaign that Cuomo ran. [6:14] They had all the endorsements. [6:15] They had the church. [6:16] They had all the other religious groups. [6:18] They had Wall Street. [6:20] They had all the financiers. [6:21] And they lost by surprise. [6:22] And I just kept telling people, I said, you guys are missing it. [6:27] This guy with the Working Family Party and DSA, they're out in the boroughs every day with thousands of people. [6:35] And what are they doing? [6:36] Canvassing. [6:37] They kind of took, I think, the lessons of the MAGA movement from 16 to 20, which is always grassroots base. [6:43] At the end of the day, it always becomes, you saw this in 24. [6:46] And why Elon got so excited about the race and what Charlie Kirk helped to perfect is that it's door-to-door. [6:53] It's canvassing. [6:54] It is getting people out to vote. [6:56] It is getting lower propensity voters out to vote. [7:00] And the DSA has done an extraordinary job at this, not just in New York. [7:04] We went to Texas. [7:05] We moved the show to Texas for four months at the beginning of the year in January because we thought, hey, Texas is going to come down to everything. [7:14] You control the House, the Senate, and we weren't seeing the kind of intensity in Paxton's campaign. [7:20] So we went down and we had a Sharia law proposition put on the ballot in the primary. [7:27] Gert Wilders came over, Glenn Beck. [7:29] We got people all jacked up. [7:31] And then a couple of weeks later, in a special election in, I think it's Senate District, State Senate District 9, in the middle of the winter, like in January or February, a state Senate seat came open because some guy went to the government. [7:45] The Working Family Party and DSA went down there, and their candidate won. [7:51] This is in Tarrant County, where President Trump in 24, just four or five months before, I think had won by 17 points. [8:01] That candidate lost by 14, and she was a strong candidate. [8:05] And I told people, I said, you're missing this. [8:08] This is not just New York City. [8:10] This is going to be all over the country. [8:12] I actually talked to Politico about how it's changed politics. [8:15] These people are very focused. [8:19] Some of the candidates may say way outside the mainstream, but they have a ground game that people have to understand that they have dedicated people, and they're going to turn out their vote. [8:28] And that's what this is all about. [8:29] This is not a persuasion election. [8:31] As I argued from the beginning, this is all about turning out one's base. [8:35] And I think you're going to see that they're doing a good job of it. [8:38] Hassan Piker, why do you think he's so effective, let's say? [8:42] We just don't deal with it because I think that the right has made him into a bigger figure. [8:50] At the convention, they had a video on him. [8:52] I mean, at Fox News, it's all day long, and we're quite anti-Fox. [8:57] We think Fox is just a collection of neoliberals and neocons. [9:00] And so we are proud to be right-wing, and our channel is proud to be right-wing, and we've got very conservative hosts on here throughout the day, [9:09] and a very dedicated audience, an audience that makes a difference in elections. [9:13] I think it's deeper than Piker, and you just can't single out one person. [9:18] The country's clearly changing. [9:19] I mean, the populace- [9:21] Seven hours a day, Steve. [9:22] I mean, what he does, you do four hours a day, but seven hours a day. [9:31] You know, I mean, after a while, you have to ask yourself, you know, does he just put it on automatic? [9:37] Why is he effective? [9:38] Well, I think he's given a message, particularly for young people. [9:42] As I say, when young people are talking about, hey, we're going to give you free stuff, we're going to give you free rent, [9:47] and you see the economic conditions today for this younger generation, [9:51] I continue to say you just can't pull out a copy of Milton Friedman's, you know, Freedom and Capitalism and throw it at somebody. [9:59] You have to have alternatives. [10:01] And this is why, you know, we're so big now on, you have to, you know, we're very much opposed to legal immigration, [10:07] that you have to stop H-1B visas, that we have to give this young generation of American citizens, [10:14] African Americans, Hispanics, whites, you name it, you have to give them a shot at the jobs first. [10:20] I think what Piker and these guys have done, and particularly Mandami, have put a happy face on socialism, [10:27] have put a happy face on, they've taken populism, they kind of put a happy face on, [10:32] they have deeper things they want to do than just populism, but it works. [10:38] I mean, Mandami's campaign, particularly the videos, the TikTok videos, the Instagrams, [10:43] where he's walking through grocery stores and other things, it's clearly effective. [10:48] And it's clearly effective to younger generation that doesn't really, the form of capitalism they're seeing is exclusionary. [10:58] And so I keep saying we have a capitalist system with very few capitalists. [11:03] You don't have, you know, you don't have an overwhelming majority that actually have real assets or financial assets [11:08] or have a stake in the system, and it's getting hard. [11:10] This is why you have later family formations, later, you know, it's 40 years old to buy your first house. [11:16] It used to be in the low 20s. [11:19] The economy shifted with the concentration of wealth and power. [11:22] You're going to have to open that up for people, or you're going to have people vote when they say, [11:28] hey, I'm going to offer you free stuff. [11:30] If they're sitting there and saying, hey, the guy's offering me free stuff, I don't see what your alternative is. [11:35] You've got to present an alternative, and that's why I think the fight, [11:37] and you just can't demonize one guy like Hassan Piker. [11:41] I think Hassan Piker is demonized by Fox for a whole host of geopolitical and geostrategic reasons. [11:48] Well, there is a sense, and clearly Fox is hammering away at that, [11:55] that this is the way for Trump to survive one more major battle. [12:04] Focus on the social democrats, focus on the communists, focus on this is the alternative. [12:14] I'm not so sure, I'm not so sure Fox is really there. [12:17] I think because there's two things going on simultaneously. [12:20] You have a massive battle at the top between the direction of the country, [12:26] more populist nationalists or more democratic socialists, populists, what I call globalists, [12:33] because they're globalists at the end of the day. [12:35] Then you have the established order of both parties, right? [12:40] The established order hasn't quite figured out what they're going to do with the DSA yet, [12:43] but they're not obviously handling that very well. [12:45] They are looking forward to getting past Trump, and more importantly, past Trumpism as quickly as possible. [12:50] And I think that's one of the reasons we're rallying the base here to say, [12:54] regardless of some of your issues, maybe this term with President Trump on some of the policies he's chosen, [13:00] they're deeper things to fight for. [13:04] And of course, you know, it is a compare and contrast to the DSA and what they're trying to do. [13:09] But more importantly is what are we going to do in being more populist? [13:14] What is it going to be in being more nationalistic, particularly with things like immigration, [13:18] particularly things like with the economy, with hemispheric defense instead of the forever wars? [13:23] So there's a number of huge policy choices out there. [13:27] And I think President Trump's laid the groundwork. [13:29] But I don't think, when you see Karl Rove, who's all over Fox all the time, right? [13:35] He's one of their chief speakers. [13:36] And when you see him coming out and going to this Texas Tribune conference he gave over the weekend [13:42] and said, hey, the MAGA movement is full of Nazis, right? [13:45] He's talking about Beau French and other people that are very hardliners on mass deportations [13:51] and very hardline on H-1B visas and even legal immigration. [13:56] That shows you the established order of the Republican Party believes that they are all set for getting beyond Trump. [14:08] You're there. You're almost there. What's your future? [14:12] Well, I just, first off, President Trump, I'm the, I would say the leader of trying to get President Trump to run for a third term. [14:21] It appears that he's not interested or it just won't happen. [14:26] The idea of a third term for Trump, it's against the Constitution. [14:32] Oh, I think you could drive a truck through that, through that amendment. [14:36] Really? [14:36] Yes. I talked to constitutional lawyers and there were, I think, a number of different alternatives. [14:42] Would it be contested? Yeah, it'd be contested because everything the president does is contested in the courts. [14:47] Look, I'm in my 80s. You lose a step or two. You're not as quick as you once were. [14:57] The president quite... [14:58] You seem pretty, you seem pretty quick. [15:00] The president quite clearly has lost a step or two. [15:04] Oh, I don't agree with that. [15:05] Oh, absolutely. [15:06] Why do you say that? He's working 20 hours a day. [15:08] Look, there is no question that he's able to keep going, that he keeps moving. [15:16] But what he's doing, we have rarely, if ever, been as unpopular around the world as we are today. [15:24] But that's... [15:25] But Ted, hang on a second. [15:27] You're talking, when you say unpopular around the world, you've got the whole NATO situation. [15:31] He's finally gotten NATO. [15:32] Yeah, he's unpopular around the world because he's not going to let America be picked off again. [15:37] I mean, he's very adamant. This gets to the tariffs. It gets to our national security strategy. [15:42] Of course, you know, if America is just a doormat, it's going to be love. [15:46] If America is underwriting, you know, spending a trillion and a half or two trillion dollars a year, [15:51] underwriting to be the world's cop, you know, the other nations of the world, particularly in Europe, [15:56] those deadbeats, remember, they were just like at 2% and they wouldn't even make those commitments. [16:02] Why? They did that to themselves saying, hey, we've got to do something for the Ukraine war. [16:05] They've been drafted and all this stuff. So yeah, Trump is unpopular in certain parts of the world. [16:10] There's no doubt about that. But I think in every situation, it's because of he's standing up for America [16:17] and saying, hey, I'm putting America first. And the globalists throughout the world and these other [16:22] national leaders in places like the UN don't like that. [16:25] Putting America first vis-a-vis the Canadians, putting America first vis-a-vis the Venezuelans, [16:36] putting America first as far as the Russians are concerned or the Chinese are concerned, not so much. [16:42] Let's take those in order. First off, the Canadians, when it comes to particularly tariffs, [16:50] the Canadian government and working with the Canadian government, I say this for the first time, [16:55] are, and Navarro talks about this relentlessly, they are not just tough, they're unfair. [17:03] What President Trump is trying to do is get a tariff system that works, that they will abide by. [17:08] Also, we just did the Greenland deal. And the Canadians, we provide so much of really the [17:13] Canadians' defense, particularly on ballistic missiles or with our NORAD. If you look at what [17:19] President Trump did in Greenland, really saying that the Arctic, which is going to be the great [17:24] game of the 21st century with China, Russia, and the United States, is not going to be uncontested. [17:30] The Canadians should be very concerned that their northern border, which used to be [17:35] their bulwark for security, could put them in a situation like Ukraine, that the Chinese and or [17:40] the Russians could take a vibe and say, hey, look, you know, we've got it, you take it from us. [17:46] President Trump has made a commitment by getting Greenland and saying Arctic defense is going to [17:51] be top, to help the Canadian people again. So what we put out of pocket for Canadian defense, [17:58] these issues we've had on tariffs, I think it'll all be worked out. And the Canadian people and [18:03] the American people are obviously close friends and close allies. [18:06] Let's hope it will be. [18:07] And Venezuela, he takes out a dictator and now has a massive capital infusion to get their [18:13] oil and gas industry back up, which, you know, without President Trump coming in and laying that [18:20] framework, you would have never had it. Now, is it perfect down there for the people in Venezuela? [18:24] But look what they went through for 20 or 30 years. [18:27] It may take more of an investment than the American oil industry is prepared to put in there. [18:34] Ultimately, but let me get back to the issue that I raised a few minutes ago. Trump has lost his [18:43] fastball. He's not as quick as he used to be. Why do you say that? I say that because I see what he [18:52] looks like. I see, I mean, the, I don't think Americans have ever been quite as embarrassed by their [19:00] president as they have been by Donald Trump. Ted, if you're part of the media elite, if you're part of [19:07] the East Coast elite, if you're a globalist, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're Atlanticist, [19:15] if you're Atlanticist, what President Trump has done, yes, you're not going to like it and you're [19:20] probably going to hate it. And I understand this war is a, is a huge issue, but I think working [19:25] class Americans are not embarrassed by President Trump. I think quite frankly, they are, they're [19:31] supportive of President Trump and how he presents the United States. [19:33] I think Americans are very uncomfortable with this war in Iran. I think they are saying, [19:42] why the hell did we get into that in the first place? We were in better shape before the war [19:48] than we are right now. Let's bifurcate the war. If you look at the first part, the 12-day war, [19:55] um, and President Trump, the total obliteration of their nuclear program. Except it isn't totally [20:01] obliterated. We know that. I believe it's obliterated enough. What we're doing with tearing down [20:05] their economy to economic warfare of Scott Besant, given what he's doing with their currency, [20:10] given the blockade on the oil, uh, uh, secondary sanctions so that the, our quote unquote allies [20:17] in the Persian Gulf can't be money launderers for them out of Dubai. I think a full effort [20:22] on that, that our allies in Europe, uh, now have their banks that they're not, uh, they're [20:29] not, uh, they're not helping to finance them. Also the Chinese Communist Party, the president, [20:33] supposedly the, all the readouts are he put the Chinese on notice and they denied to his face [20:39] that they were supporting the Iranians. I realized there's a lot of people thinking the [20:44] intelligence community that would refute that. But so I think you're seeing a non-kinetic [20:49] aspect of this, I believe. And you're seeing some of the biggest hawks that are some of the biggest [20:54] neocons in the Republican party, people like Mike Rogers, others coming forward, say, Hey, [20:58] we've got to wrap this war up. We need to focus back on the domestic economy. And, uh, I think [21:04] the president's taking that, uh, to, to, to, you know, it's a high priority for him. I think [21:08] he's taken it to heart and he's open. He just said the other day, the Iranians are sitting [21:12] there trying to talk to him. So let's see how it play out. It clearly, and you can't, there, [21:17] there is a part of the MAGA movement and particularly some of the Republicans that are maybe the non-evangelical [21:24] Christians that are very upset about the whole thing. And that's one of the reasons that we [21:29] have to have this massive effort on a grassroots basis to make sure that we can get everybody [21:34] out to vote because of those people either stay home or if those people in a protest vote, [21:40] again, vote against president Trump, we could have real problems. [21:45] If you lose the house, you're in deep trouble. [21:49] I think if we lose the house, we're in, we're in trouble because I think I've always been an [21:53] advocate. The house, like the founders set it up as the house of commons, all revenue, [21:58] all spending, the investigative apparatus. I think it just bogs down everything president [22:03] Trump's going to do. And they're not going to be able to, as much as they try to convince [22:06] people, they're going to be out of control. They're more radical elements. They're just [22:10] not, it's going to be like when Pelosi won in 18, she, cause I fell over because she ran [22:15] on, we're going to impeach Trump, but then she, then she took her time. I think you'll see [22:19] Bobby Kennedy impeached. I think you'll see Pete Hegseth impeached. I think you'll see [22:23] subpoenas flying every day. They will look to destroy president Trump and will be bogged [22:28] down for two years. [22:29] That sounded like your argument for you got to vote Republican this year. [22:33] It's pretty compelling, I think. [22:35] Well, it's, it's compelling to you. It may not be so compelling to the majority of American [22:40] voters. [22:41] But you don't need the majority. Here's my point on the midterm. Remember, midterm elections [22:46] are always driven by base getting out and the base's ability to get more of their low [22:51] propensity voters out. And convincing independents in this case, either stay home or certainly [22:58] don't vote against president Trump. That's one of the issues that, that we're dealing with. [23:02] So it's a, first off, you have to have a motivating factor to make sure not just you get people [23:08] to vote, but you get people to do the hard work of the canvassing, going door to door and [23:14] getting not just more of the core MAGA conservative base, but also the lower propensity voters [23:21] who traditionally don't vote if Trump's not on the ticket. The DSA's got the same issue, [23:26] but they're very organized and trying to get their vote out. [23:28] What does your gut tell you? I mean, you know, do I really expect an honest answer from Steve [23:35] Bannon? [23:36] Sure. [23:37] I do. I think you're, I think you surprise people by sometimes saying exactly what's [23:43] on your mind. Do you think you're going to win this election? [23:46] I think if we do our job, it's very tough, but doable to both hold the House by a seat [23:57] or two and hold the Senate. We have raised more money. And quite frankly, we've been able [24:01] to, I think, shut down some of the NGOs that were funding so much of the left. Historically [24:07] Arabella, um, act blue, others that, uh, the Democrats are resource constraint. They've [24:15] had a mark. They've stolen a march on us by framing this and now using these polls as [24:20] a PSYOP. If we don't counter that with two things, number one, you have to spend the money [24:26] on the TV ads in the, in the air game. And that is the traditional Republican consulting [24:30] class who love points on the buy. It's incumbent upon us to motivate the Trump base, many of [24:38] whom have a noticeable lack of urgency to not just get out and vote, but also to do that [24:44] hard work. What's one of the reasons I had a show that you guys saw that we had Alex DeGrasse [24:50] who comes in and does house races and Caroline Wren who does governors and, and, and we're [24:54] not trying to give people hope in, this is a tough hill to climb. Traditionally you lose [24:59] seats in, in, in midterms, right? As, as Trump lost in 18 and Biden lost in 22. It is a, [25:06] but I tell people it's very tough, but doable. But if you just sit there and let this red, [25:13] as Charlie Cook says, the red undertow turn into either blue wave or blue tsunami, you're [25:19] going to have hell to pay. If we're able to thwart their efforts in the house. And even [25:25] if they took the house, it was just by a couple of seats or handful of seats, or, you know, [25:29] people were predicting 25 to 30. If you're able to cut that in half or cut it less, it's like the [25:35] Democrats did in 22, where they claimed victory. When we had anywhere from 35 to 60 seats, very tight [25:43] as the map expanded and we did not close the deal. But if you go back and look at those, [25:48] it's a thousand votes in some of these congressional districts. It's very tight. So do you, you can't [25:54] sell hopium, particularly to the blue collar MAGA base. They just got too much experience, [26:01] too much common sense. And they've been through this. Our audience are people that have done this [26:05] now in elections since 2016. Uh, and people are discouraged in some aspects, but I think people [26:13] realize the alternative and they're going to get out and there's money coming into the ground game [26:18] from president Trump's operation or from other sources. We can make this a fight. If you just stay home [26:24] and suck your thumb and it's all terrible and look at this polling, you could get, you could get blown [26:30] out. And so that's what's before us right now. President Trump is engaged. I just announced on [26:34] the show, he's announcing, uh, you know, he's going to Ohio, he's going to Texas. He's going to [26:39] the railhead of the MAGA movement. And he's going to places like Denton, Texas and others [26:44] that are central to the MAGA movement. So the white house gets it. President Trump gets it. I think [26:50] the political team around him now get it. And if you converge all those resources, uh, you could, [26:57] you could pull it off. It's going to be very tough, but it's doable. And you just don't have an option [27:03] not to do it. You have to fight. If you're just going to give up in your country, then just stay home. [27:07] But I think, I think MAGA has proven itself to be pretty tough fighters over the last decade. [27:13] You're able to handle reality. I mean, I've seen you do it a lot of times. The Democrats took quite [27:27] a few shots for not going after Biden when it was clear that he had lost not just a step or two, [27:39] but that he really was old age and caught up with it. Some of that is happening with President Trump. [27:48] And I don't hear anything from Steve Bannon about Trump losing a step or two. [28:00] Right now inside the Republican, and you see this on Fox, there's a very clear anti-Trump, uh, anti-MAGA. [28:11] In fact, the, the, the powers that be in the Republican party are all prepared to pin this defeat [28:17] that MAGA has played its hand out, that Trump's played his hand out. And we got to move on by that. [28:23] And we have to move on immediately. President Trump is a towering figure. This will be called the age [28:30] of Trump. Individuals like this come along every century or every so often. He is a towering figure, [28:37] whether you love him or hate him. He has changed the direction of American politics. Our movement, [28:42] the people who watch our show, were not really engaged in politics before Trump came up. Trump is [28:48] the reason they're in politics. So Steve, you're drifting. No, I'm not, I'm getting to the point. [28:53] No, no. You're drifting. No. The point is, one, he's nowhere close to what Biden was. He's still [28:59] at the top of his powers, I think. You see this in his campaigning. You see this in how he comports [29:05] himself. I think every day, we cover him nonstop, uh, as the, as the pool feed in the Oval Office [29:13] for these very complicated, uh, you know, executive orders or everything he's doing. It's nonstop. [29:19] All of his speeches are just rambling drivel. I wouldn't call him, I would not call him drivel. [29:25] President Trump has been known to go off script and do it, but he didn't. Hey, when I took over [29:30] the campaign, I said, we're going to take you off the teleprompter. I just want you to rip, [29:33] just give it to me from the heart. So our base in the MAGA movement with President Trump's speech, [29:40] they, they, they still love it. And he's still a towering force. And I don't think you're going to see [29:45] any movement in the Republican party about trying to, of what they should have done to Biden on [29:51] President Trump, because they realize what a towering figure is and how beloved he is. Now, [29:55] that being said, they're already starting to move on from Trump. This is the issue. [30:00] The issue we have in the Senate today and the Senate races, we have a much bigger urgency problem, [30:06] I think in the Senate than in the house, because the Senate, the house of these very, um, confined [30:10] congressional districts. And quite frankly, we've done such a great job over the last two cycles [30:16] in redistricting of which I think we've net redistricted 17 seats, um, which if we had not [30:22] done this race right now would not be competitive. So, um, in the Senate, because they failed to act [30:30] and they failed to do their job, like to, you know, when they, they had this hearing with Jack Smith, [30:36] that hearing should have been six months ago or nine months ago, there should have been some [30:39] accountability. The Senate has treated President Trump, I believe like a lame duck. I think we're [30:45] seeing the payback on that. I believe, as I say, it's much harder to get people motivated for some [30:52] of these Senate races. I believe that this is one of the reasons that in Kansas and Nebraska, [30:57] in Iowa, uh, it's not simply some of the policies. I also think we have an urgency problem [31:04] that people are saying there, Hey, we had control of the Senate. We did nothing with it. I think John [31:08] Thune has to, to not even push the Save America Act, which was absolutely essential, I think, [31:16] to running this election, uh, fairly, but it was such a high priority for the, for the MAGA movement [31:22] and the MAGA base and Republicans overall, just to dismiss that and put a half-hearted attempt, [31:27] I think shows how weak the Senate was in pushing President Trump's policies. Now here, [31:32] they're sticking around or they're going to pass the college sports bill and they're going to hold [31:36] Jack Smith accountable at some hearing where they're going to criticize him all day. I, I, [31:42] not saying it's too late, but I think people, uh, have seen that the Senate treated him as a lame duck [31:49] and are acting accordingly. Now I think we'll get people motivated and out there to hold the Senate, [31:53] but I think that's going to, I think that also is going to be very tough. [31:56] Is Trumpism without Trump even possible? [32:00] Yes, because of his inspiration in 10 years. Trumpism is simply populist nationalism. And when I say [32:11] we're about to become, I think, if you look at these younger generations, I think there's one, [32:17] I think we're become much more nationalistic as a country. I think people are really going to put, [32:22] not just America first, but want American citizens first. They're going to want being a citizen and [32:28] have the obligation to serve in the military and, you know, pay your taxes and play by the rules of the [32:32] game that a citizen should have priority over other people, particularly foreigners. [32:37] So I think it's, I think we're at the very, I think we're at the very beginning of this. [32:42] President Trump, look, you don't replace, it's like Charlie Kirk or Andrew Breitbart. [32:48] These are people that come along once in a generation. You don't replace President Trump [32:53] with just somebody. Sometimes the movement itself has to pick itself up and drive forward, right? [32:59] So I don't think people would sit there and go, we've got to wait for the next Donald Trump. [33:03] There's not going to be another Donald Trump in the foreseeable future for us. [33:07] Is this, is this ultimately a right-wing movement? Is the United States in the final analysis moving [33:15] toward, all right, I'll say the word, fascism? It's not fascism. It's actually more inclusionary. [33:22] It's more entrepreneurial. It's not fascism at all. Remember, if you go back, we win at the ballot box. [33:28] The MAGA movement has only lost the Pelosi election of 18. The core belief of the MAGA movement is we've [33:34] won the 2020 election. But you didn't. That's not true. We did. You didn't. [33:38] That's just not true. Look, Steve, please, hold on a second. It's not true. [33:43] I respect you. You're a brilliant guy. But how many court cases were there? 60-some-odd court cases? [33:51] We can go debate this another time. We didn't have standing. We never even got into court. [33:55] You lost every case. [33:56] We never even got into court. A matter of core belief of the MAGA movement is President Trump [34:05] won the 2020. We won 22. We won 24. He won the primary in 23 and 24. If you go back, [34:14] besides the election that was stolen by the illegitimate Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi beat us. [34:19] Nancy Pelosi beat us in a midterm election in 18 and she beat us. So this movement has tremendous [34:26] resilience, tremendous latent power. You can't sit there and wait for another Donald Trump. [34:33] A guy like Trump comes along every 100 years, right? A cultural figure that is invested in your [34:40] politics and redefines American politics. But at some point you have to acknowledge [34:46] that he's lost his step. I'm never going to, I'm never, you're good, but you're not. I don't [34:52] acknowledge that. If I, if I saw that and seeing the guy, if I saw that, I would tell you, yes, [34:58] he's lost his step. Listen, I think if he wanted to, he could run for a third term and I think it'd be [35:05] a hell of a, I, at the end of the day, I think it'd be a barn burner. You want to waste whatever, [35:10] whatever currency you have, political currency, on trying to push a third presidential term for Trump? [35:18] Let's get through these midterms first. What I want to spend political currency on is what, [35:23] it's what's, it's what's before. I tell people, they go, it's a 28, 28. I said, [35:27] don't worry about 28 because three November of this year will determine the future [35:33] tactical direction of the country. And it could be radically different. Like I said, [35:37] if the Democrats take the house with Jamie Raskin, it's going to be a political war. And [35:43] Jamie Raskin, these guys have hired law firms. They got Mark Elias. You got Norm Eisen. You have [35:48] very smart and tough people on their side. I give them credit for being very tough. And [35:54] as a guy that went to federal prison, I can tell you that they play for keeps and I believe in their [36:00] heart of hearts. They think we let this MAGA movement off the hook last time because we didn't [36:05] execute during the Biden regime. We're not going to make that mistake this time. And that's why I tell [36:11] people it's all on the table and you're going to have to fight like hell between now and three [36:15] November to make sure that we come out on top. And if you don't, if you don't, what's the image [36:21] that you see? What's going to happen? I believe that we'll go to the mattresses. I think you'll have [36:26] two years of trench warfare in Washington, DC. I think it won't resolve anything. I think the Democrats [36:32] will not be able to control their more radical elements that just want to destroy Trump and the [36:37] Trump movement. And I think you'll go to what I call political warfare. What does that mean? [36:43] Subpoenas every day, uh, investigations every day, not really focused on, um, you know, [36:48] rejecting president Trump's budget right out of the hand, but huge fights over, [36:52] over budgets and even getting budgets passed, uh, just huge fights on everything, [36:56] every aspect. There will be no such thing as must pass legislation. They will, they will, [37:02] I believe that some of the, the changes that president Trump's trying to make around Washington, [37:07] DC, I could actually see we're asking in this crowd going and shutting down the government [37:12] other than appropriating the money for it. I think that the type of fight I think you're going to [37:18] have is going to be, I don't think the American people are prepared for it. I don't think they [37:22] fully understand it. Now, some of the craziest on the Democrats, I do remember they just did a poll [37:28] the other day that said, Hey, if you woke up in the morning and the following, this is just for [37:32] Democrats, if, if the following action happened and you woke up the next morning, how would you feel? [37:38] And they had, uh, you know, like, uh, president Trump was impeached. 80% thought that was a great [37:42] idea. President Trump died in his sleep. Uh, you know, it was like 50%. A military coup took place [37:49] and overthrew president Trump. It was like 40%, I think the final was president Trump was assassinated [37:56] during a rally and 33% of Democrats in this poll said, I think that's either great, very positive news [38:04] or somewhat positive. So you have an element of the democratic party that has Trump derangement [38:10] syndrome. There's no doubt about that. You see it on, on particularly MSNBC every night and, and that [38:16] element is going to be empowered. So that's why this fight for the house and somewhat for the Senate [38:22] is about that. And I tell people you've got five weeks, nothing is foreordained and, and it's going [38:28] to get very tough for us to do polling in the, and going in the next five weeks, because we're going [38:33] to have a tough time. I think people are not responding right now. Also logistically, a lot of these [38:38] call centers. So you're going to be flying blind and you have to get back to basics. And the basics [38:43] are, we need an air game that, all the resources they raised from the donors. Plus you need this [38:49] massive ground game, which I think both the white house political operatives and obviously the [38:53] grassroots understand. And we've got five weeks to stand it up and to deliver. You infamously said [39:02] the real opposition is the media and the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with should. How's that [39:10] work? Well, the S word was used in the context of let's go back to the beginning of this administration. [39:18] Every day we had three, four, five executive orders. The media is not a, the legacy media is not an [39:25] independent group looking for a search for truth. They're a part of the left wing of the democratic [39:33] party. It's obvious. You've seen this in the last couple of days. You've seen this as part of the [39:37] legacy media. Let me take a little bit of exception. I understand it. You're, you're probably the, [39:43] the, but you're from an old school perspective. I'm talking about the modern, I'm talking about the [39:48] modern, the modern left wing media, the modern legacy media. And you saw this in trying to shut [39:53] down the president. We had, but the modern left wing media, Steve, is a reaction to the right wing [40:04] media that came about. Ted, come on. You're talking about Breitbart. If we were, we were up by our [40:10] bootstraps. We, we were. I'm not talking just about Breitbart. I'm talking about Fox. You've made my case, [40:16] right? You're part of the liberal Eastern Atlantis establishment. I'm not using that as a criticism. [40:22] It's just an observation. They are the enemy of the, uh, I think the people in the United States, [40:29] they are an elite group that service an elite group of globalists. And yes, we took them on. [40:34] And that comment was, Hey, we're going to put out one or two executive orders a day in the [40:40] first administration where you saw it come to life is flood the zone. Like we did in the first six to [40:46] nine months of the second term where you get three, four and five executive orders that you're just a [40:53] jackhammer and driving the process. They can't cover it all. First off, as you know, the deterioration [40:59] of the legacy media, they don't really cover the policy stuff at all. You don't get, [41:03] you watch the news and it's like simpleton stuff. It's not even, they don't even have the [41:08] correspondence. Don't have any real true education. They don't know history. They don't know policy. [41:13] So it's all personality. It's, it's not covered well. So if you want to drive policy and win, [41:18] just flood it with actions, flood it with executive orders, flood it with a, a, a dynamic driving [41:27] executive and they'll never be able to handle it. Firstly, they won't know how to cover it. [41:31] We saw that in the first six and nine months of, of the 25 thing, it was overwhelming to the media. [41:36] Why? Because we had years in the wilderness to put together project 2025 and build cadres of people [41:42] that could go into the administration. Those 3000 people that hit the deck plates running day one, [41:47] which we never filled the first term. I think we came close to 3000 after a month or two in the [41:53] second administration. So no, now look at what's happened in the last week. The president of China, [42:00] the, the, the chairman of the Chinese cameras party came for what was supposed to be a, his first state [42:05] visit, a major summit with some of the most important topics in the world, including artificial [42:11] intelligence on the, the media decided because their nose got put out a joint because president [42:17] Trump banned CNN, MSNBC and Politico. They unified, including Fox. I might add, [42:24] they unified on the broadcast side and banned any pool coverage. That's why our network stepped up. [42:30] The only way that you had any coverage at all was real America's voice providing a pool. Now, [42:36] if you go back and look at the news of those nights, the greeting at, uh, Andrews air force base, [42:42] which was extraordinary for a president that hadn't been done since 1962 and Harold McMillan. [42:47] It's extraordinary for president to do that. Also all the events that took place, [42:52] they wouldn't even put a snippet up on the main, on the legacy media. Why? Because they have Trump [42:57] derangement syndrome. They don't put the public's need. You can't sit here and argue that the public [43:04] should not see president Trump greeting. She, and also what happened on the arrival and what happened [43:11] with, with she's speech in the four year. Okay. I agree as far as it goes, but the president never [43:22] should have excluded those reporters from the white house. It was chicken stuff. I don't agree with [43:28] that, but reasonable men can disagree. What was my plan in 16, my plan in 16 was to, first off, [43:35] when you see the layout of the white house, why the media is right on top of the oval office is not [43:40] acceptable. My plan, which was not accepted by a guy named Donald Trump was to move them off the [43:46] campus to around where the Blair house is at Lafayette, at Lafayette square, and then make them [43:52] come through the gate every day to, to get on campus or as an alternative to put them over an EOB [43:59] near the auditorium where Jack Kennedy, president Kennedy used to give some of those press conferences. [44:04] Right. And, and then they would need a pass to get in the West Wing, but to get them out of the [44:07] West Wing, I'm still a huge advocate, which still has not happened to get all of the mainstream media [44:13] out of the West Wing. I think it's a national security issue. I think it says it should, [44:17] there are cheap by Joe, the American people knew how close upper press and lower press were to, [44:23] to the oval office. They would freak out. They don't really, it's, it's, it's from here to the end [44:28] of the war room. It's unacceptable. And the media has proved that Trump can't get any coverage. We have [44:34] some of the most important policy issues before us. And you never see, you know this, the news never, [44:41] first off, broadcast news never touches it. Cable news never really gets them back of these massive [44:46] policy issues. Are you, are you proud of what's happened to the media? Because you deserve a lot [44:52] of credit for it. What do you mean? We drove them so crazy that they turned out to be more left-wing than [44:59] not? Well, you certainly drove them crazy. You've certainly diminished. I mean, what the, what the, [45:06] I can't believe I'm getting Ted Koppel to agree. What the, keep coming, keep coming. What the, [45:10] what the mainstream media is today is a pale imitation of what it was 25, 30 years ago. [45:18] You agree? I agree. Well, thank you very much. I definitely agree. Yeah. [45:21] Now you guys had a chokehold, a cartel on, and your show, quite frankly, Nightline, I think, [45:28] showed the way for what cable broadcasts, it broke really. My theory is it broke the network hole [45:36] because it showed a show every night that put out information about topics Americans wanted to see. [45:42] And that's what, that's what drove the hunger for cable news in the first place. And that's all [45:47] deteriorated. But no, I, it's, it's, it's a shale, it's a pale, uh, shadow of what it once was. [45:54] But that's not, I don't take responsibility for that. [45:57] Well, you, you deserve some credit for it. Well, then I'll take it. [46:01] Ted Koppel's going to give me credit. I'll take it. [46:02] The kind of news organizations, in quotes, that are allowed into the White House today, [46:10] they don't belong there. They don't deserve to be in there. [46:13] Ted, when you compare it to what the coverage of ABC and CBS and NBC and the broadcast networks, [46:20] it's pop, it's politics for dummies. They've dumbed this thing so down. Now the cable [46:26] are really an attack dog, but the broadcast, it's so simplistic. If you watch the pickups, [46:32] our audience couldn't watch two seconds, whether they agreed with it politically or not, [46:35] there's just not enough information there. There's not enough, there's not enough substance there. So [46:40] no, they've brought this on themselves. And I believe by adding, listen, people laughed when I [46:45] ran Breitbart. The, the Harvard university did this study after the 16 campaign and said, Hey, [46:52] the two most powerful news organizations at the time where Breitbart was here and the New York [46:57] Times was here. We were above the New York Times because, and listen, at Breitbart, are we even [47:02] handed? No, we are not even handed. We, we definitely have an angle of attack or point of view that we [47:08] push every day, just like the war room. You don't come to the war room for balanced coverage. I'm not [47:12] going to give you balanced coverage. What you're going to get is news with a perspective, but I'm going to [47:17] give you more information, more information and facts so that you can go back and think about it. [47:22] But we're going to put an angle of attack on this that definitely has a perspective, [47:26] definitely has a MAGA and a pro-Trump perspective, even where we don't agree with President Trump on [47:32] policies. And there's a lot of policies we don't agree with. All right. One, one more question. [47:38] I love this. Keep going. [47:41] One more question. You just gave me credit for destroying the media. [47:44] So I'll take that. Well, you know, that's got to be broadcast. If you, if you, if you really want [47:50] credit for that, I do want credit for it. Well, then you got it. And I think that, I'm not sure [47:56] that that's something that's really helped the United States. I think, I don't think it's helped [48:00] the country. I think it's definitely helped the country. You know why? Because we got Donald Trump [48:04] as president. Otherwise we would have had Chris Christie or the Bushes. If we had Bush as president, [48:09] the country would be gone. Or worse, we would have lost to Hillary Clinton. [48:14] If you don't have Donald Trump, what replaces Donald Trump now? [48:19] I think a movement has to, the movement has to step up. You can't look. It's like when Andrew [48:24] Breitbart died. I said, there's not going to be another Andrew Breitbart. When Charlie Kirk died, [48:29] I told him, you're not going to replace Charlie Kirk. When Trump decides to leave the stage actively, [48:35] he can't be replaced. Like Washington or Lincoln, these are people that they named the age of. [48:40] I can't believe that you're mentioning Trump in the same breath as Washington and Lincoln. [48:47] Oh, I am. I think he's at that level. I hear you. I know you're doing it. [48:50] Because I think General Washington was there at the birth of the nation. [48:53] Yeah. Lincoln was the rebirth of the nation. And I absolutely believe, [48:58] and I think 99% of MAGA believes that Trump was there for the salvation of the nation. If we had [49:04] had President Hillary Clinton in 60s, she knows this. That's why it's still burning. You can tell [49:11] it in her eyes. It's still an act of hurt. She knows what she would have done with the country, [49:16] and we thwarted it. And then after we were driven into the wilderness for those four years, remember, [49:23] in the early first six months of 21, Fox abandoned him. The Republican Party abandoned him. They [49:29] wanted DeSantis or they wanted Nikki Haley. In those six months, I think you saw a coming together [49:36] and a rallying of people that understood what President Trump means for this country. And we [49:40] formed and organized over years to not just win primaries that you could argue shouldn't have won, [49:48] given where Fox had their thumb on the scale. But he came back and won the presidency and won the [49:53] popular vote. And like I said, we had the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the executive branch. [49:58] You got it all. And he was cool. You got it all. And if you want to take credit for what you've got, [50:07] you deserve it. You deserve the credit. The question is whether- President Trump deserves the credit. [50:13] But I'll say something. I am so proud. I would not change one thing of what we've achieved [50:20] with President Trump. And I do believe he's at the level of the three great presidents. I think history [50:25] will only show that more of a time because it's very tough to put him in context today. But he's [50:31] clearly, I think, in the top three. The country was gone. This was managed. You saw it up close and [50:38] personal. The managed decline of this nation by its elite. Look at the wars we're in. Look at the [50:44] financial collapse in 2000. Look at the war we're in right now. It's nowhere, first off, as bad as [50:49] this situation is, and Scott Bess and the president are coming up with an economic plan, it's nowhere near [50:55] the open wars we had in Iraq and Afghanistan. And you just, in theory, that you're trying to spread [51:00] democracy. You had the, you had 9-11. You had the wars, the wars that we chose by the Republican Party. [51:06] You had the financial collapse of 2008. I said at the time, 2008, the financial collapse will, [51:13] the response will be a populist response to this because they bailed themselves out, [51:18] not the people. In fact, the people, as we know, underwrote it. So that response, that's, [51:23] Hillary Clinton was just a continuation of that system. That system was not sustainable. [51:29] You could argue it's not sustainable today with the debts that we're running up. [51:33] That there has to be a major structural redefinition of the country. If you didn't have Trump in that [51:38] moment in time, you would not have a country today. He, and he will, for all of his faults, [51:45] okay, for all the grievous injury that people think that he's put on the, on the liberals and [51:52] the moderates in this country. If you didn't have Trump, you would not have a country today. And that's [51:58] what he's provided. And I realized that drives globalists and drives certain people absolutely [52:04] deranged about it. And that's my clarion call to our people is that we are where we are, [52:10] but you've got to fight like hell because if we don't hold these institutions that we hold today, [52:17] right, with a very tenuous grasp, if you lose control of these institutions, then you're going to have [52:22] hell to pay. Are you going to be pulling a lot of the right-wing parties around the world into some [52:30] kind of a coalition? Is that the goal? I think after, no, I think the, I think the right-wing [52:36] parties are doing fine themselves as nationalist parties. I think what you see for Alternative for [52:41] Deutschland, what you see for Le Pen and what I still refer to as Front National, Nigel Farage, [52:46] and even Tommy Robinson on the farther right than Nigel in England. I think General Venacci, who's now [52:54] a new rising right-wing power in Italy. I think you're seeing, and nationalists like Modi, I think [53:01] the world is heading towards a time of more nationalism. And that is the best way to have a family of nations. [53:09] And so they don't, certainly don't need our, like I said, Alternative for Deutschland is now here to teach [53:14] us. They went to ground and what they did is they went door to door and they convinced people with no [53:18] campaign money that our way, our policies to re-industrialize Germany, stop this mass immigration, [53:25] re-migration, are policies you should vote for. I think that we can learn a lot from them. [53:30] If you had to push all the chips into the center of the table right now, which way is it going to turn out? [53:40] I would push all our chips in the middle of the table and say, guys, there's no retreat and there's [53:45] no substitute for victory. Let's fight like hell. That's a frightening prospect though, isn't it? [53:52] Because what you're saying is, we can't afford to lose. Oh, we can't afford to lose. I don't [53:57] think there's any doubt about that. Yeah, but I mean, if Steve Bannon says, [54:00] we can't afford to lose, that doesn't just mean that all the chips are on the table. It means [54:07] we've got to do whatever it takes to win this fight. Exactly. Well said. All right. So be it.