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Dec. 24, 2020 - Bannon's War Room
47:48
Ep 609: Merry Christmas Eve Special Hour 2 (w/ Flannery, Rabbi Spero, Rossi-Hawkins, & Preate)
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Main voices
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rabbi aryea spero
13:23
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steve bannon
19:09
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jack maxey
00:50
| Copy link to current segment

Speaker Time Text
unidentified
War Room with Stephen K. Banner you Here's your host, Stephen K. Banner.
steve bannon
Welcome back to War Room.
Like I said, we're a little understaffed.
You normally, in the second hour, have our tee-off music.
That's fine.
We're cutting the cold opens a day to get to the, as we call it, to get to the receipts.
I want to thank everybody.
You're listening to War Room Pandemic.
It is the number one podcast in America for politics.
I think we're number five for news.
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I want to go back now to Christopher Flannery from American Story.
Just one question, Christopher, because we are pressed for time, but here's the thing.
And tomorrow, when we go, we're going to have the Combat History of Christmas tomorrow for the entire two hours.
It's a special we've been doing for years.
Patrick K. O'Donnell, the combat historian, will be there.
Here's what I just don't get about this.
This has been nothing but one defeat after another.
The combat valor and the dedication have been incredible, but this army had basically disintegrated down to its basic core.
In your mind, how did Washington even come up with, because if you talk to infantry officers and infantry non-commissioned officers, one of the hardest things to do is a forced crossing of a river in the middle of the night, in winter, to then land and immediately go into a fight.
How did Washington conceive it and how did he think he could pull it off given the fact that they had essentially, although they'd had a lot of stands and they'd been Very dedicated.
They have basically from Long Island all the way through Brooklyn to Manhattan to the White Plains all the way back down to New Jersey had suffered one defeat after the other.
How did he come up with and how did he convince his counsel of war to pull it off?
unidentified
Well, desperation, necessity, and a remarkable determination, an unwillingness to quit.
That was Washington.
So he knew how desperate it was. And yeah, you can read the details of crossing that river in the pitch of night in a blizzard with chunks of ice flowing down the river, Donnie, trying to put horses and cannon, not just troops, horses and cannon on these boats to get across. It was desperation and Washington was not going, he
was going to win or die.
And that was that was the spirit and he needed luck and maybe a little divine help.
steve bannon
Divine Providence.
Victory or Death is the podcast.
It's an American story.
We're going to have it up and link to it.
We want to make sure our audience gets to all of that.
Christopher, fantastic work.
We look forward to having you back when we've got a little more time.
Christopher Flannery.
Merry Christmas.
The podcast is terrific.
People should go to it.
Victory or Death.
You get in seven minutes the entire compressed story.
So thank you very much for joining us on War Room Pandemic, our Christmas Eve special.
unidentified
Merry Christmas, Steve.
Thanks for all you're doing there.
steve bannon
Thanks, brother.
Merry Christmas.
jack maxey
Merry Christmas.
steve bannon
Okay, very special.
You know, we love introducing authors.
We have a sense we're the most powerful audience in all media.
One of the reasons is our people, no matter what their level of formal education, are readers.
They absorb massive amounts of information.
And I know this because we've had people on here and the book sales have just blown out.
I've wanted to have this gentleman on for quite a while, Rabbi Spiro.
He's on here today to talk about Hanukkah and the Hanukkah season.
But I have to ask him, he's got a book I strongly recommend, Pushback.
I think it's the subtitles, How Do We Regain the Judeo-Christian Tradition in America?
It's a very powerful book, and it talks about the underpinnings of what we stand for.
And the key thing you take away from Flannery is part of that Judeo-Christian tradition.
Unwillingness to quit.
Unwillingness to quit.
Also, the involvement of divine providence in certain inflection points in American history.
So, Rabbi Spiro, thank you very much for joining us today on World War I Pandemic.
rabbi aryea spero
Oh, my pleasure.
steve bannon
First off, just quickly before we get to Hanukkah, I want to talk about the book.
Tell me about Pushback.
What is the Judeo-Christian tradition?
We talk about it a lot here, but I love the fact that someone's written a book about it.
Talk to us what that tradition is, what does it mean, and have we lost that in modern America?
rabbi aryea spero
The Judeo-Christian tradition does not mean that you've got to go to church or synagogue every week.
The Judeo-Christian Tradition.
The ethos is a set of principles that founded America and they work like no other set of governing and human principles.
So, for example, the idea of personal responsibility and accountability.
The idea of looking at a person as an individual as opposed to classifying him as a member of a group.
The idea of local control.
That's very important.
That things should not come from some distant centralized authority, but local control.
That's the way it was in biblical times.
And that's how the founding fathers envisioned America.
The idea that there is a morality, a right versus wrong.
And of course, pursuit of happiness, meaning the right to free markets, to earn your living and to do so without excessive government control.
Free markets, what we call capitalism.
And it's worked for America.
It works every place that it's instituted.
And it definitely is the core of our identity.
And I say in the book that in order for a country to survive or a family or a corporation, it needs a distinct, specific identity.
And what the United States is, it's more than simply a land between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
It is an idea.
It's an ideal.
And it's made us successful, this idea, which is the Judeo-Christian ethos.
One more thing.
Alexis de Tocqueville, when he came to America in the 1800s to observe America, he said that this is the ideal that has brought this wonderful success and blessing to America.
And so long as we continue with that ideal, we will have that success.
But if we change it, Then we are doomed to failure.
We'll just become like all the other societies that eventually lost their vigor, their energy, and they atrophied.
steve bannon
Donald Trump's victory in 16 was really about the managed decline of our country by our elites.
So the question is, if the Judeo-Christian tradition is so powerful and so interwoven in American society, how did it How was it, Rabbi, that our elites seem to have lost faith in it?
When I look around at people that are believers in the Judeo-Christian tradition, I see working class people.
I see middle class people.
But when I go to, you know, New York or Hollywood or London, when I travel all over the world, you know, for Goldman Sachs, my own business, I had an investment banking finance firm for many, many decades.
It's the elites that seem to kind of mock and ridicule those ideals today.
Why was it that the elites Many of them are selfish, and what propelled them to success, they're not willing to share with others.
rabbi aryea spero
They want to reserve it just for their group.
But the main reason is, they no longer believe in America.
They're elites.
They are universalists.
They're all part of this transnationalism.
And they want to be part of a whole global fraternity.
There's so much more glitter.
There's so much more money when your audience is the entire world.
And that's what it means to be part of a ruling class.
You're a ruling class, not just in the United States, if you're one of these elites, but you feel you're part of a global ruling class.
And they do all work together.
Those on the left work together.
Got rid of, they just jettisoned the Judeo-Christian ethos because they don't care about a unique America.
They don't like a unique America.
They, in fact, don't even like the American people.
And that's why you see that they're trying to destroy the middle class.
I wrote this already after the second month of Obama, back in 2008.
And I said, there's an attempt to destroy the middle class because what distinguishes America from other countries is this vibrant middle class, which depends upon independence, personal responsibility, free markets.
They want to destroy that because they don't like America.
They don't like the concept that some fella in Iowa, a farmer, has as much right through his vote to determine the destiny of this country as they, from Harvard or from Hollywood.
They understand one thing, that in order for America to survive, The Judeo-Christian ethos must survive.
And in order for the Judeo-Christian ethos to survive, so must America, because today America is the bedrock of that ethos.
So they're out to diminish America, and that's why they want to basically cancel the Judeo-Christian ethos, which has always made America, America.
steve bannon
Rabbi, I got a two-part question.
Number one, because our audience is massive in its activism.
We've seen this this week as they've lit certain politicians up and actually had a change of behavior by some of these politicians.
Number one, besides your book, and we're going to get that up because I think everybody's got to get a copy of it and read it, besides your book, how can people learn more?
Where should they go to start to learn more about the Judeo-Christian ethos?
And number two, what can our audience do Practically, to start to push, to start to get this back into the mainstream of America.
rabbi aryea spero
Let me take your second question.
Let me address that first, because activism, to me, is the most important thing.
And people can be active, because America is still based on local control.
You don't have to go travel to Washington D.C.
or always call your senator.
In America, since it is a country based on federalism of local control.
You can remain in your home, in your neighborhood and do so much that will have an effect.
Number one, there are school boards.
Make sure you either run for a school board or you influence, strongly influence your school board to teach authentic American history, not critical race theory.
Not ideas that denigrate America.
That's your school board.
You've got your local library.
Don't let them take out books under the name of white supremacy and cancel culture.
Don't let them take out the books that you want your children to grow up to read that will bring them to love America and make sure they don't bring in those books that are out to denigrate America.
There are zoning issues.
Sometimes they'll be bringing in projects to destroy your neighborhood.
Certain public housing maybe to destroy your neighborhood.
You have a right to protect your home.
Don't feel bad about it.
The first thing is you have to stop feeling bad.
They've used the idea of racism.
And somehow white-ism to make people feel guilty, to lose their confidence.
Don't do that.
Between the school board, between the zoning boards, the library, your state representative.
We now know for the first time how important state legislatures are.
They determine the electoral college.
If things would be right, we would be having a powerful state legislator fighting back in places, let's say like Pennsylvania or Arizona.
So get in contact with your state senator, your state representative.
That type of activism.
It's still America and the power still belongs to the people if we have the confidence and the courage, the courage.
You were talking before about crossing the Delaware.
I've been to Washington's crossing there between Pennsylvania and the river right there, the Delaware River.
They had the courage to do what they did.
We certainly should have the courage.
To make a point to our local school board to run for the school board.
steve bannon
Rabbi, can you hang on for one second?
We just want to take you through a commercial break, and we want to bring you back on the other side of the break and talk more about how people learn more about this ethos, and we want to talk about the Hanukkah season, the Festival of Lights.
So, Rabbi Spera is with us.
We're going to take a short commercial break.
Just some programming note.
I think for the 7th or 8th year we're going to do the Combat History of Christmas.
It is a deep dive into those battles that have been fought by American service men and women throughout our country's history over the Christmas season.
Places like Bastogne, Chosin Reservoir, Trenton, Savannah, we get into all of it tomorrow.
With Patrick K. O'Donnell, who is our combat historian.
Also, Boxing Day Special with Raheem Ghassan on Saturday.
Short commercial break.
We'll return with Rabbi Sparrow in the Hanukkah season and also Maria Luisa Rossi gonna talk to us about the seven fishes tradition in Italy.
All next on War Room Pandemic.
unidentified
War Room with Stephen K. Bannon.
Here's your host, Stephen K Bannon.
steve bannon
Welcome back to our Christmas Eve special.
This is War Room Pandemic, the number one podcast politics in the country, number five, I think, news show in the country.
And that is ahead of NPR and Rachel Maddow, all of our friends, New York Times, Pod Save America, all of them.
So it's the reason it's because this audience, this audience is so powerful, so activist.
Our guest is Rabbi Sparrow.
He's the author of Pushback, Regaining the Judeo-Christian Tradition in America.
So Rabbi, before we get to Hanukkah, I just want everybody to get your book, and already in the live stream and on Twitter, people are just saying they love this as the best explanation of the problem with the elites they've heard.
Where do you recommend people go, besides obviously the Old Testament and the New Testament, where else do you recommend people go to really get to the foundational elements and to understand this Judeo-Christian ethos that underpins Western civilization and particularly the United States of America?
rabbi aryea spero
First of all, do read the book.
It's called Pushback, Reclaiming Our American Judeo-Christian ethos, because the Judeo-Christian ethos has reached its apex here in America with the Founding Fathers.
There was a Judeo-Christian ethos to a degree in parts of Europe and England and Holland, maybe a little bit of Switzerland, but the apex, the fulfillment of the entire Judeo-Christian ethos was implemented here by our Founding Fathers.
In 1776, actually, it predates that.
So it's our American Judeo-Christian ethos.
I just want to say something to all that are listening.
We are people who have a heritage, a glorious heritage.
The Judeo-Christian ethos is our heritage.
You cannot, we cannot allow people to steal that heritage, to rob us and our children from it.
It's a birthright, and you have to fight for a birthright.
Other places that you should go to find out about it?
Read history books that predate Howard Zinn.
Read the history books that some of us grew up with.
I'm 70.
That we grew up with when we went to school.
Those history books.
Read older biographies of John Adams and George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
Read their biographies pre-1980.
There's some great ones on John Adams.
If you even want to go Deeper than that, of course, there's the Federalist Papers.
But if you look, let's say you take an old Encyclopedia Britannica, before the New York Times started with all their projects saying that America was founded on slavery.
Go to the old encyclopedias that were published in the 30s, the 40s, the 50s, even the 60s.
You'll find out there, when you read it, what real America's about.
This is worth fighting for.
The Judeo-Christian ethos doesn't belong necessarily to Jews or Christians.
It's a value system.
It belongs to anybody who wants to imbibe in it and live by it and have a good successful life.
steve bannon
Rabbi, tell us about the, you talk about fighters, the Maccabees and what they did about the culture and the civilization of Israel versus the Greek traditions.
Walk us through what the festival lights, what's Hanukkah and what's the Hanukkah spirit and the Hanukkah message?
rabbi aryea spero
More than any other year in my lifetime and perhaps in history, the Hanukkah story, the message of Hanukkah has been revisited.
What happened was in ancient Judea, they called Israel in those days, 2,200 years ago, they called it Judea.
It was a sovereign country, but the ones that ruled the world were the Greeks.
And the Greeks had different provinces where they controlled different parts of the world.
It was like a globalization and they got together with the Syrians.
So they had the Syrian Greek hegemony.
Israel fell, fell underneath that hegemony.
And they said like this, enough of this nationalism.
They told the Jewish nation, no more nationalism.
You're now part of a universal order coming out of Greece.
We're going to have one culture.
You're not going to have any distinct culture, no more nationalism, no more sovereignty, no more distinctiveness.
Many of the Jews gave in.
They didn't want to fight.
And they had all types of excuses.
Well, maybe transnationalism is good.
Maybe our identity is not so important.
Oh, who cares about sovereignty?
We'll be protected by someone even stronger than us, the Syrian Greeks.
But finally, there was a family called the Maccabees.
They rose up and said, no, we're not going to relinquish our heritage, the distinctiveness, our sovereignty.
We're not embarrassed by our nation, our nationalism.
And they fought against odds.
Against odds that were greater than what we are at today fighting against, let's say, the transnationalists or the globalists or the universalists or the deep state.
They fought.
The problem they had was not simply the enemy without, but the enemy within.
There were elites then who were bureaucrats, some even in the temple, some even that were priests.
And these elites decided to partner not with their countrymen, but with the universalists, the globalists.
The Greek, Syrian Greeks, because they loved the glitter, the power, the money, the romance.
They felt that they were above and they were just better than the common people.
And so they had to fight an enemy from without, but they had to fight sabotage and betrayal from an enemy, an elite, a bureaucratic elite from within.
They were very powerful.
They finally prevailed, the Maccabees.
They went right to the temple, which was the foremost institution in that country.
Which the elites had taken over.
The ruling class had actually taken over the symbolic institution of ancient Judea, the temple.
They got rid of them and they cleaned it out and they lit a menorah, a candelabra, hoping that it would last for a day.
And it lasted eight days.
So they knew that their efforts had been blessed by God.
That was a miracle.
The amount of oil that should have lasted one day, lasted eight days.
So of course, We are living through the same ideas.
There are people, a ruling elite within our country that are collaborating with globalists, transnationalists in order to denude America of its distinctiveness, its sovereignty, and they make fun of nationalism.
Nationalism is a good thing.
When your nation is Israel or your nation is America.
That's a good nationalism because we stand for something wonderful called the Judeo-Christian ethos.
So it's very relevant for today.
They had fewer people, the Maccabees, than we have.
And we have more power.
So if they can do it, I think we can do it.
steve bannon
Rabbi Sparrow, I tell you, just incredible.
How do people get access to you and to your writings?
We're going to push the book hard up on Amazon and other places.
unidentified
Do you have a website, Twitter?
steve bannon
Tell people how they can get access to you.
rabbi aryea spero
Well, we have a website.
It's called Caucus for America.
Caucus for America.
We've been around for about 20 years.
And then also I do things with a group called Conference of Jewish Affairs.
We both have websites.
So it's either Caucus for America Or Conference of Jewish Affairs.
I also do the Jewish angle because unfortunately, many of my fellow Jews who should know better, they have gravitated to the left and they themselves have become transnationalists.
And they're on this whole train of constantly demonizing America.
And I tell them that in the name of Judaism, if you want to be a proper Jew, you should be a patriotic American, subscribe to the Judeo-Christian ethos.
And be part of those who want to maintain this glorious heritage for this country.
steve bannon
Rabbi Spiro, thank you very much.
Honored to have you on.
Look forward to having you back.
The book is Pushback, the American Judeo-Christian ethos.
Thank you very much.
We're honored.
Thank you.
rabbi aryea spero
It was a pleasure.
steve bannon
Happy Hanukkah.
By the way, I think, Jack, that rates with the Ken Blackwell.
jack maxey
I agree.
steve bannon
Ladies and gentlemen, and Madeline Peltz particularly, we're going to get to Madeline in a second, our marketing director over at Media Matters, that was not scripted.
We put the show together, and I've been a big fan of this book.
And this is actually the first time I've had a chance to visit with Rabbi Sparrow, but wow.
jack maxey
Inspirational, because you know who the Maccabees are?
They are the original deplorables.
steve bannon
Exactly.
jack maxey
And we are going to take back the Temple here, too, people.
steve bannon
I've got to tell you, and remember, the through line is unwillingness to quit.
Maccabees didn't quit.
Washington didn't quit.
And I'll tell you, it's easier to quit, remember, the easiest thing to do is to quit.
Just to stop, okay, to quit.
Trump's not quitting.
Rudy's not quitting.
We're not quitting.
And we're not quitting because we're crazy.
We're not quitting because We can't quit.
You can't.
And if you look at the tradition and this Judeo-Christian ethos, which is so powerful the way he lays it out, right?
That's what we call it.
That's why we started, the show we were going to do, we're going to have Ben Harnwell on from the Academy of the Judeo-Christian West that we have in Rome.
And now I want to go to our favorite correspondent from Italy, Maria Luisa Rossi.
And Maria Luisa, we're jammed for time on this, but we're going to hold you over, and we've got the Pre-Eights next from Pennsylvania in a very special presentation about Vietnam and Bob Hope during Christmas.
But I want to first off, we got about a, I tell you what, let's go to break.
I want to come back and ask you about Italy.
In fact, right now we got about 30 seconds.
Give us, what's the update on Italy?
I know you're in New York, you can't go back home.
What's happening with the virus in Italy?
unidentified
Well, they're calling it a lockdown.
I would call it a shutdown.
The city and the nation, actually, is in a red zone.
Nobody can go anywhere.
Italy's locked in a situation of despair.
This is how they describe it to me.
So much so that for the first time in 20 years, I'm not going back home.
Everyone's home.
Nobody can visit anybody.
Christmas Eve's Mass, or Christmas Mass, will be held at 7 o'clock in the evening, so in a few hours from now.
Only two people can visit per family.
So this is Italy right now.
Hostage.
Hostage of the virus.
steve bannon
Maria Luisa, you're a hostage also in New York under de Blasio.
We're going to take a short commercial break.
We're in return.
We've got Maria Luisa Rossi to talk to us about some traditions in Italy.
We've also have Ernie Preate and his daughter, our comms director, in a very special presentation about the Christmas season in Vietnam with Bob Hope.
All next on War Room Pandemic.
unidentified
War Room with Stephen K. Banner.
Here's your host, Stephen K Banner.
steve bannon
The image you see on the comeback is from the Combat History of Christmas, which we'll do tomorrow with Patrick K. O'Donnell, Jack Max and myself.
I want to get the image up.
Right now, if you're in a Sam's Club in Horsehead, New York, you're watching on Real America's Voice, you're watching the show live.
So we want to thank the Sam's Club, or at least the guys over in the electronics department that are streaming the Real America's Voice network, I guess from a satellite, And I guess they're on The Dish, and this is Dish Channel 219, and we're live streaming in Horsehead, New York.
Everybody there has seen Rudy, and they saw Rabbi Sparrow.
By the way, Rabbi Sparrow, incredible.
We're going to have him back.
He and Blackwell, these guys are original gangsters.
Oh, geez.
jack maxey
And there was one thing great in the live stream, Steve.
People really loved what the rabbi had to say about taking back our country, and in the context of the story of the Maccabees.
Somebody, and I gotta give this guy props.
He just posted Michael Cotton, hashtag MAGA Bees.
steve bannon
MAGA Bees.
jack maxey
That's who we gotta be, people.
steve bannon
That's genius.
By the way, Michael, trademark that.
Put that T in MAGA Bees.
We're going to be using that all the time.
Also, just some quick housekeeping.
We're going to get to the gifts and cards next week on the 12 Days of Christmas.
We're doing Melissa Collins.
I just want to thank her.
A lovely note.
And she also made this tremendous wreath.
Madeline Peltz, our marketing director over at At Media Matters, who's honored.
She's up here because she's a mainstay.
So you get number two pencils.
You got the townhouse, Breitbart Embassy.
You've got the war room, the logo.
Melissa, just thank you so much.
And of course, got a picture of our marketing director, Madeline Peltz.
I think Madeline already put out a tweet about this.
She said it was non-denominational.
We're cool with that.
Madeline, you're the home of the Judeo-Christian ethos, as Rabbi Sparrow tells us.
I also want to say, We're going to redo it.
I love the Hanukkah music.
It's amazing.
So we're going to interdisperse that with the Christmas.
It's just incredible.
The Christmas music is King's Choir of Cambridge.
Everybody should go to their website.
If you really want something traditional to be in your home over the Christmas holidays, get the King's Choir The King's College Choir of Cambridge University.
It's absolutely amazing.
It also shows you what we lost in the English Reformation.
The Episcopalian high church Anglicans took all the good music, and the Catholics took, well, we kept the Gregorian chant.
They took the choir.
I want to go now to Melissa Rossi to talk about traditions.
Melissa, we're a little jammed for time.
Maria, I'm sorry.
We're a little jammed for time.
But talk to us about the Christmas Eve tradition.
I think it's the seven fishes, the seven fishes in Italy.
Walk us through this tradition.
unidentified
Salmon fish is an Italo-American tradition, and Italy, as you know, we're very proud of our food.
Every region has its own tradition, but it's fundamentally something that we as Italians have inherited from the Italo-American tradition, where you prepare a seven-course meal, the traditional Italian meal, and the courses are made of fish.
So you would start with You know, fancy appetizer and all the way to dessert is fish-based.
What this is about, really, is a Catholic or Christian tradition of the seven sacraments or the seven hills of Rome, some say.
And it becomes a feast, a feast of Christmas Eve, as it began in the United States in, I believe, the late 1800s.
1800s and then Italians in the South have start celebrating it the same way.
We do eat fish in Italy as you know on Christmas Eve and this is pretty much what we're doing tonight all over Italy. We're eating and we're eating alone. Fish of course. But do you see any similarities now a little bit to New York City?
steve bannon
I mean, New York City is the greatest city in the world, right?
Capital of the world, Wall Street, media, all that, the greatest people I've loved every day.
I live there.
And if you haven't, it's just it's a town of small neighborhoods and villages, not this.
You think it's one huge place, but when you live there, what is happening under de Blasio?
Is de Blasio now, de Blasio is New York like Italy?
unidentified
Well, I would say that Italy's far worse.
I think New York under de Blasio has become a squalid theater.
Of crime and destitution.
I walk the neighborhoods.
I live on the Upper West Side.
You can see St.
John of the Divine behind me, where there was a shooting last Sunday.
And it's just crime-ridden.
It's abandoned by the wealthy.
Only the deplorables live here.
And of course, they have no jobs.
But the city still holds, because America holds.
And America holds dear its institutions.
In Italy, we are asked, or required rather, to go out only if we show the police who will stop us if we go somewhere a document that says where we're going and why we're going somewhere.
You have 62 million people shut in a nation without the capability, possibility, or wherewithal to go anywhere, including church, because as I said, Church mass and church or Christmas Eve mass will be held at seven o'clock in the evening, not at 12 o'clock.
So I would say that though New York is sad, squalid and downhill as a city, as the greatest city in the world, vibrancy is gone, jobs are gone, but Italy now is a complete, is completely locked in, locked in within itself without Any possibility of a renaissance or renewal.
steve bannon
Okay, Maria Luisa, we're going to have you back on because we want to drill down on this and particularly what's happening with the virus.
For those who are audience members that have joined us now at the beginning of the year, Maria Luisa Rossi is one of the top correspondents for Italian TV here in America.
Reports Back has her own show.
She's like one of the most well-known personalities in all of Italy.
Just last question, how are the Italian people right now viewing, both the elites through the media, but the regular people, how are they viewing this fight we have to actually find out who the President of the United States is right now?
unidentified
Well, it's a very interesting question, Steve, because somebody called me yesterday.
Actually, they posted the question and they said to me, well, has Donald Trump given up yet?
I think this pretty much sums it up.
I think Italians don't respect the U.S.
media as they did before the whole Trump presidency.
I think Italians are split just the way Americans are split.
They're split between people that believe that Joe Biden deserves the presidency and people that believe that Donald Trump was not treated fairly and that he deserves to be president for what he did vis-a-vis the virus.
I don't think enough credit was given to Donald Trump for Operation Warp Speed.
We will start to vaccinate people on the 27th of December.
900 people will be vaccinated in Italy.
A million people were vaccinated here in the United States.
Nobody talks about it.
As I said, people are asking me, has it given up yet?
steve bannon
Maria Luisa Rossi, do you have a Twitter handle?
How do people follow you in our audience?
unidentified
At Emma Rossi Hawkins, and of course you have the cover of my book, America Virus America.
You're in it, Jack's in it.
This is a story about the good guys taking over the narrative.
And of course my Instagram at Emma Rossi Hawkins Official.
steve bannon
This is another fantastic book, another great author, one of the real drivers of the populist movement throughout the world and one of the few major media stars internationally that is pure MAGA.
Maria Luisa Rossi Hawkins, thank you very much for joining us on the Christmas Eve special.
jack maxey
A Merry Christmas and many blessings to your family.
I know your mom's over in Italy and I want her to have a Merry Christmas and know we're thinking about her.
steve bannon
Merry Christmas.
Yeah, particularly since she's not there, first time in 20 years.
Merry Christmas, Maria Luisa.
unidentified
Proud to be here.
Merry Christmas.
steve bannon
That right there, ladies and gentlemen, is a fighter.
We only have the hardest core of the hardcore on there.
So glad we're welcoming Rabbi Sparrow to our posse, because wow, what a day, what a show.
For that, talk about Italian-Americans, and talk about fighters, and talk about people who don't give up, the Priates.
We got Ernie Priate, former Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Boy, do we wish we had Ernie in there now.
And his daughter, the comms director for the War Room, Alexandra Priate, and they joined us today from Pennsylvania.
So I want to, before we get into, you've got a, we're going to end the show and we're going to take the next block to do that.
But Ernie, we got this site, we're going to put up a Catholic site that's come out and said it's the Republican problem.
We're losing election integrity because the following Republican Elected officials and they've got every state they got their pictures We I want to put it up later and put it up in the live stream, and he's got the way to contact them They're not docs.
This is all their official stuff, but to contact them because we know we rattle the cages in Pennsylvania yesterday But in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that has Independence Hall that the Battle of Trenton to take back to save our Republic in its first Christmas Started from Pennsylvania.
You had to cross the Delaware from Pennsylvania.
That's where Washington's broken army was sequestered.
That's where you had Independence Hall that, you know, six months before in 1776 you did the Declaration of Independence.
We had Valley Forge.
We had Gettysburg.
It is, outside of my state of the Commonwealth, Virginia, it's got the second most important history in the nation.
What is going on, Ernie Preate?
You served your country in Vietnam.
We're going to get to that in a second, as a Marine.
You used to be Attorney General.
What is going on with elected Republican officials in your state?
unidentified
They're intimidated.
They're intimidated, Steve.
The fact of the matter is that Maxie, by the way, is from Scranton.
His family is from our neck of the woods.
That's right.
jack maxey
I'm related to one of the good justices, aren't I, Ernie?
unidentified
Yes, you are.
It's former Chief Justice, back in the 20s.
Now, the fact of the matter is that the people are intimidated by the media.
They're intimidated by the deep state.
They're intimidated by people who are rhinos.
Let's stop this.
Let's get this over with.
Let's move on.
But there is a fundamental question that hasn't been answered, and that is, did we have a fair election?
Did we have an honest election?
And more and more we hear from people firsthand, not just affidavits, but in testimony, That there are problems with the election that we had.
Not just in Pennsylvania, but in multiple states.
And it always turns out to be it's in the battleground states that were the key.
Seven or eight of them.
So, one of the things that I've been calling for, both on your show and John Katz and Matias' show in New York, is that there has to be a special investigator.
And the President has called for that.
Special counsel has got to be appointed to look into this because the allegations that we're seeing Involve fraud.
Fraud is by its very nature a concealed, secretive offense.
And it is needed.
The way you get through to fraud to find out what happened is you use investigators, grand juries, and people who are willing to go out and testify, whistleblowers.
And that takes time, Steve, and folks.
It takes time.
I was a prosecutor.
I was a death penalty prosecutor.
I had 19 murder cases.
in my Scranton area when I was DEA. I was there for almost 15, 20 years.
The fact of the matter is it takes time to do this stuff.
You can't do it in 40 days.
So we may not be, but the fight can't stop now just because there's deadlines on June the 6th, or January the 6th. We just can't have that. You got to investigate until you come to the right conclusion and it may take unfortunately a lot of time.
steve bannon
Yeah, Ernie, just hang on.
We're going to take a short commercial break.
We're going to come back with Ernie Preate and his daughter, Alexandra Preate, talk about Bob Hope, Vietnam, and Christmas.
This will be Ernie Preate, the 2nd Lieutenant Platoon Commander, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, when we return to War Room Pandemic.
unidentified
War Room with Stephen K. Bannon.
Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.
Here we are at Coochee, known the world over as Zap City.
Yay!
steve bannon
I don't have much news from the States.
You all remember the States.
You've seen it in those training films.
unidentified
No, I have real good news for you.
steve bannon
I want to tell you guys the country's behind you 50%.
unidentified
Thank you.
Oh, let's see.
What else is new?
steve bannon
Well, yeah, Santa Claus is resting up at his ranch in Texas.
unidentified
And, uh... And I have good news for you Catholics.
steve bannon
It's official now.
Now you can eat spam on Fridays.
And by the way, write that down.
Hey guys, the countries behind you, 50%.
Funny how that number kind of resonates today.
I want to bring back Ernie Preate and his daughter Alexandra Preate.
Ernie, you were, I think, there in Christmas 1967 and rolled over to the Tet Offensive as a young Marine, 2nd Lieutenant Platoon Commander.
Walk us through, you may have been a part of Vietnam that couldn't get to Bob Hope, but what did Bob Hope mean to the troops over there during Vietnam?
unidentified
Well, where I was stationed, it was called Hill 55, which is about 12 miles southwest of Da Nang at Christmas and 1967. Bob Hope was in Da Nang and he was in Saigon, Tan Son O'day I believe too, but the fact of the matter is that we were pleased to know that he was coming to visit the Marines
and the Army and the Air Force and the Navy folks when we were there. Because at the time we were there, there was all kinds of picketing, all kinds of protests in the streets of America, and we sort of felt abandoned when we were over there. We were We were not supported by the vast majority of American people.
And there were great riots and great protests, as you know, back in 66, 67, 68, that eventually caused President Johnson in May to stop running for the presidency.
But we went through Christmas of 67.
I was in 55.
It was called the Rocket Zone.
And it was called the Rocket Zone because the NVA would come out of the mountains west of Da Nang from the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
They'd set up these Russian Ilyushin 122mm rockets on pallets and then tilt them up a little, light the fuse, and they'd take off, go seven miles to the Da Nang airstrip, and they'd hit planes, fuel dumps, ammo dumps.
uh... headquarters uh... and people were getting killed and we're losing a lot we're losing a lot and that was that that was the focus of the media the burning airplanes that the the rockets hitting the base but we were out in the we're out in the field and it was just like a christmas is like any other day You didn't know whether it was Sunday or Christmas or Tuesday or Wednesday.
Because all you worried about was if you're going to take a step around a corner and some sniper or some rocket's going to come in and knock you the hell off your feet.
So you were really worried at that particular time.
We didn't have any... I was in combat Over almost 13 months.
I started out as a second lieutenant, got to be a first lieutenant in around about September and by the time the Tet Offensive happened on January 28th, I was the regimental operations and planning assistant To some very fine Marines, Major Preble, Colonel Minor, and we were in charge of the defense of the city of Da Nang.
Short story, that's the only place that the NVA did not come through.
They got through to Saigon, they got through to Pleiku, they got through to Tan Son Nhut.
The one place they didn't get through, Mr. Bannon, was where the Marines were at Da Nang.
We won.
jack maxey
Hey Ernie, if it's possible, could you tell me a little bit about, you told me one time about the airstrike you had to call in.
Is that appropriate or no?
steve bannon
I tell you what, why don't we get Ernie back in a time not on Christmas?
That's a smell napalm in the morning, it smells like victory.
We want to have you in.
I do want to end with the Bob Hope clip, and somebody's got to tell me we've got another Bob Hope clip.
But one thing, very quickly, Ernie, the Christmas in 67, you were within 30 days of the Tet Offensive, which Walter Cronkite and everybody deemed that we had lost.
For the fighting men over there that didn't feel like the country had its back, did you guys feel that you had been defeated?
Did the Army in the field feel like, or was it just the American media and the elites?
unidentified
It was just the American media and the elites.
We kicked ass.
I mean, our kill ratios went from 4 to 1 to 15 to 1.
I mean, I'm looking at newspaper clippings from the Sea Tiger back in those days, and we were stopping the infiltration of the rockets.
Four-man, five-man squads are taking on 100 men of NBA carrying packs and rifles and winning.
Cost us some very, very fine people, but the fact of the matter is, we won the war.
We lost the peace.
steve bannon
Ernie Preate, I want to thank you very much.
We certainly wish you were the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania today.
You're an American patriot, an American hero, and your daughter's not too shabby either.
Alexander Preate, I want to thank the Preates for taking time away on Christmas Eve.
We're going to actually end with a Bob Hope clip.
I want a programming note.
Tomorrow is the combat history of Christmas.
We go into the details of Trenton, of Bastogne, All I got was a blur.
Where'd you learn to wiggle and waggle like that?
with them on the great combat historians patrick o'donnell then on the day after boxing day reheat the some special the boxing day special we're gonna now and with bob hope in the troops on christmas in vietnam thank you very much for just paying will see you tomorrow now i got was a blur what you learned a wiggle waggle like that watching your golf swing If I ever swung like that, my caddy would kiss me.
unidentified
But I must say, these kids out here are crazy about you.
Well, the feeling's mutual.
Oh!
Oh!
Uh, what I'd like to know is, uh, when am I going to get a chance to meet all these fellas personally?
Well... They haven't.
They haven't got time, honey.
steve bannon
I'm only there in a hurry to get back to the war.
unidentified
I just read the cards.
What do I know?
Well, I've never seen so many interesting faces.
What were they in civilian life?
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