Feb. 22, 2023 - Bannon's War Room
48:51
Participants
| 
| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| This is the primal scream of a dying regime. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Pray for our enemies, because we're going medieval on these people. | |
| I got a free shot at all these networks lying about the people. | ||
| The people have had a belly full of it. | ||
| I know you don't like hearing that. | ||
| I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it. | ||
| It's going to happen. | ||
| And where do people like that go to share the big lie? | ||
| MAGA Media. I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? | |
| If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved. | ||
|
unidentified
|
War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Bamm. | |
| I, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., do solemnly swear. | ||
| So help you, God. So help me, God. | ||
| Congratulations, Mr. President. | ||
| Well, America, meet your new first family. | ||
| The Bidens are walking into the House now, the White House, where the President and First Lady will make their new home. | ||
| And for anybody out there wondering, yes, there has been a deep clean of the building, given the fact that the previous occupants did not take coronavirus particularly seriously. | ||
| World War III. Okay? | ||
| It is World War III, but we have a sacred obligation. | ||
| Just understand, and don't kid yourself, no matter what you all say. | ||
| Let's get it straight here, guys. | ||
| Where we were a year ago, the direction we're headed in, World War III. Go get vaccinated, | ||
| America. Go and get the vaccination. | ||
| I should be prosecuted. | ||
| Do you know we don't rule out first use nuclear? | ||
| I'm a street killer. | ||
| Birds on the red roof of the office. | ||
| Never lost their way. | ||
| War killer. | ||
| It's just a shot away. | ||
| It's just a shot away. | ||
| The conditions are so bad that one woman who NewsNation has been in contact with has rashes on her body after showering. | ||
| We're gonna be with you Mr. President for as long as it takes. | ||
| How does this whole experience feel for you? | ||
| that money matters more than humanity. | ||
| Hey, hey! | ||
| New York anesthesia is over the next week. | ||
| I just wanted to give you a thousand dollars. | ||
| For what? Who are you? | ||
| You're not with NS? No. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm not with anyone. We wanted to come here and give a little money to people to help out and say that we're sorry that this happened to you. | |
| We don't need anything for him. | ||
| We just wanted to say we love you. Thanks. | ||
| That's yours. Nope. | ||
| No catches? We don't want anything. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We just want to say that we're sorry. | |
| I really appreciate it. | ||
| Thank you. Really appreciate it. | ||
| Thanks a lot. Thank you. | ||
| Don't make me cry. | ||
| Oh, thank you so much. | ||
| You just changed my life. | ||
| This is it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Welcome to East Palestine, Ohio. | ||
| It's a sweet, patriotic community. | ||
| 5,000 people live here. | ||
| They have homes here. Their children go to school here. | ||
| There's playgrounds, businesses, restaurants. | ||
| And there's also a train track that runs right through the center of town. | ||
| And on that train track, there was a massive derailment a couple days ago. | ||
| Chemicals spilled into the air and into the water and into the soil. | ||
| These people have to live with that now forever. | ||
| Worse yet, the government came along and then lit it all on fire, sending a black, toxic plume of smoke directly into the atmosphere. | ||
| And then they told everyone to go back into their homes. | ||
| Everything's safe. But there's been no reassurances. | ||
| And in order to compensate these people, the railroad responsible has given them five whole dollars. | ||
| We think that's wrong. And so we're here today. | ||
| We've identified the 20 homes closest to that toxic burn. | ||
| And we're going to walk up to those homes and we're going to hand them a thousand bucks. | ||
| And we're going to say, we're sorry this happened to you. | ||
| We don't need the government to come in and save us or help us out. | ||
| We, the American people, can help each other out. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's the way it's supposed to be. Let's go do that. | |
| As soon as we arrived in East Palestine, we drove to these five houses. | ||
| These homes are the absolute closest in town to the toxic explosion. | ||
| So close, in fact, you can see the train car wreckage from their backyards. | ||
| We thought this would be a good place to start. | ||
| We're gonna walk up and hand them an envelope. | ||
| Inside of that envelope is going to be a thousand bucks cash. | ||
| And hopefully this money will go towards clean food, water, whatever they need right now. | ||
| But nobody's helping these people. | ||
| So we're gonna help. | ||
| We're gonna help. And we have 20. | ||
| We have 20 of these to give out. | ||
| If you're interested in where we got this money, please stay tuned to the end of the video. | ||
| We'll tell you where every single dollar came from. | ||
| As soon as we were done filming this scene, a man named Smiley walked up to our car to talk with us, tell us his story, and show us the train wreckage in his backyard. | ||
| So this is your house right here? | ||
| Yeah. So no one's shown up to help? | ||
| No, I haven't talked to anyone from the railroad. | ||
| You know, they're all hiding. | ||
| You've helped out other people before. | ||
| Yeah. Yourself? Yeah. Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
If I can give them food, I give them food. | |
| If they need something, if I have the ability to give it to them, I do. | ||
| We wanted to help you out today. | ||
| Oh, thank you. Inside of that envelope is a thousand bucks, and we hope that it can go to- Oh, this will help out a lot. | ||
| God bless you, sir. Oh, thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. Yeah, I'm just trying to move my things in. | |
| I don't want to be bothered. Okay. | ||
| Well, I don't need to interview you. | ||
| I need to hand you this. | ||
| Inside of that is $1,000 cash. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's from people all around the country who care about people who are affected by this. | |
| Well, I'll just tell you right now, I appreciate you. | ||
| Definitely helps, man. You just paid for my rent for my first month, so I appreciate you guys. | ||
| Well, there you go. I'm out of here, and I'm going to be in a lot better shape after this. | ||
| Well, good. All right. Bye, man. | ||
| Bye, customer. Yep. Have a great day. | ||
| How has this been affecting you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh God, my whole life's turned upside down. | |
| Spent $148 on cleaning supplies. | ||
| But I'm more concerned about the elderly in the area. | ||
| Disabled, they can't clean their house top to bottom. | ||
| We're here to help. | ||
| We've brought this for you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So that'll pay for your cleaning supplies. | |
| Thank you. Don't make me cry. | ||
| For real? That's yours. | ||
| No? No catches? | ||
| We don't want anything. We just want to say that we're sorry. | ||
| I really appreciate it. | ||
| Thank you. Really appreciate it. | ||
| Thanks a lot. Oh, you know, you do not have to do that. | ||
| This is why we've been here. We appreciate as much as we can get out there. | ||
| We absolutely appreciate it. | ||
| Has anybody been out to help or, like, has anybody offered assistance? | ||
| Not so much. | ||
| Say hi! That's my grandson. | ||
| God bless you guys for doing and helping people. | ||
| Just thank you so much. | ||
| Oh, my God. We have two daughters in here, and we've struggled so hard. | ||
| My oldest daughter's been trying to help, but, you know, I mean, we really appreciate this. | ||
| Thank you guys so much. | ||
| I just wanted to give you $1,000. | ||
| For what? Who are you? | ||
| You're not with NS? No, I'm not with anyone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I can share my social media. | |
| Please? Yeah. | ||
| Honestly, in the last 10 days, it's hard to trust folks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're sorry that this happened to you. | |
| So there's a thousand dollars cash in there. | ||
| We don't need anything from it. | ||
| Just wanted to say we love you. I just can't even believe it. | ||
| It's a nightmare. It's starting to weigh on my mind. | ||
| Not just my body, you know. | ||
| I have a cough now. | ||
| It's concerning. Can I hug you? | ||
| That's what I'm here for. | ||
|
unidentified
|
God bless you. | |
| You're angels. You are. | ||
| Truly are. Here to just hand you. | ||
| This inside of that envelope is $1,000 cash. | ||
| Thank you, appreciate it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Where are you guys from? Tampa, Florida. | |
| Thank you. Thank you. | ||
| I will pay this forward, absolutely. | ||
| There's a lot of people that need diapers and water and stuff. | ||
| That's right. Yeah, I really appreciate it. | ||
| Really? That's $1,000 cash. | ||
| Holy crap. Wow. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is that for real? | |
| Yeah. Thank you. | ||
| Thank you for helping us. That's $1,000 cash. | ||
| There's someone else that needs it more than me, so. | ||
| How about you pay for it? Because you know this community better than I do. | ||
| You will know who needs it more, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. God will put that person on your path, okay? | |
| All right. God bless. | ||
| A thousand bucks, man. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I appreciate it. | |
| I really do. That's a thousand dollars cash. | ||
| Are you serious? I'm dead serious. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's all I need from you. | |
| Wow, man. That's really, really nice. | ||
| We really appreciate it. | ||
| Thanks. Thank you a lot, guys. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's really nice. You about to have a baby? | |
| Yeah. What is your name? | ||
| I'm going to call him Jordan Santino Truni. | ||
| Jordan Santino Truni. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. Great name, man. | |
| What's your name? Cameron. | ||
| Cameron? Yes, sir. Nice to meet you, man. | ||
| Nice to meet you. All right. I'm trying to struggle with this right now. | ||
| This is a pain. It is for your son. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much. Thanks for your child. | |
| It's good. I'm a dad myself, so it's good to have a little something extra. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much. Yeah. Aw, thank you so much. | |
| This is good. | ||
| A hug from you too. | ||
| Oh my god. Thank you so much. | ||
| The power of helping out your fellow Americans. | ||
| Man, it's beautiful. Thousand bucks. | ||
| People are crying. People are hugging us. | ||
| And it feels good. It feels good to help your fellow Americans. | ||
| So where'd we get this money? Who paid for this? | ||
| Well, you did actually. By watching our videos, we get monetization and we got about $20,000 last month from that. | ||
| And so we decided to spend it here and take the money that we get from you watching our program and give it to these people. | ||
| So if you like these videos, keep watching, keep sharing. | ||
| Share this video so we can inspire more people to do good. | ||
| From East Palestine, Ohio, my name is Benny Johnson. | ||
| See ya. It's Wednesday, 22 February, in the year of our Lord, 2023. | ||
| It's Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, and there's not a better way to start this Lent season off, the 40 days of Lent, than the tale of two cities, the Ukraine and Kiev, Warsaw, Poland, all of it, versus East Palestine, Ohio. | ||
| Benny Johnson joins us live now. | ||
| Benny, how did you get the idea? | ||
| It's the most moving piece of reporting I've seen coming out of East Palestine. | ||
| How did you get the idea? Thank you, Steve, and good morning. | ||
| I fundamentally believe that this country is facing a battle of darkness and light, good and evil. | ||
| I also know that Christians are more powerful than we could possibly know. | ||
| We have the creator of the universe on our side, and he asks us to be a light in dark places, and there's few places darker right now than East Palestine, Ohio. | ||
| You know, those people were already hanging on by a thread, and then the government came in and nuked their town with chemicals, and so they needed help. | ||
| And so we just followed the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. | ||
| We are simple Christians and we just went and gave what we could. | ||
| That was what we could give. | ||
| That was our monetization for last month on social media. | ||
| We didn't need to ask the government's permission. | ||
| We didn't need to ask Joe Biden to go in there and do something good for our fellow Americans. | ||
| We just went and we Delivered action for them. | ||
| Just action. Just got up and moved. | ||
| Enough complaining. Enough talking in our little boxes. | ||
| Just get up and do something nice for people and bring some light into the world. | ||
| That's what we're called to do as Christians, and we're stronger than we think we are. | ||
| Benny, we've got about a minute. | ||
| I want to hold you through the break. | ||
| I know you're busy, but I've got to hold you. | ||
| But the question I want before we go to break, you've done so much reporting on the callousness of the government in Norfolk, southern, the corporate, in the government interest. | ||
| Has that rubbed off on the people? | ||
| Have they been hardened because of this, or are they still the same good folks, the hobbits of East Palestine, sir? | ||
| I'll tell you this. I live in Tampa, Florida. | ||
| If there was a tragedy in Tampa, Florida, these people in East Palestine would be the first ones to be delivering what they could. | ||
| They would give us the shirt off their back if they could. | ||
| They are the salt and the earth of this country, and that earth has now been poisoned by an evil corporation and the government that has been bought off by that corporation. | ||
| And so it is truly up to us, the American people, to fix that for them. | ||
| And that's what drove us to go there. | ||
| And that's what drove us to go and do good because they would do good for us. | ||
| And that's actually how you build a country. | ||
| That's how you keep a country is you have Americans helping other Americans. | ||
| And again, we don't need the government's permission to do that. | ||
| Okay, Benny, if you can just hang on for one second and take a short commercial break. | ||
| I want everybody, including Captain Ben and Grace Chung, to share this. | ||
| I want Benny's video to go everywhere, and you guys not just share it, but also join it. | ||
| You talked about monetization. | ||
| Short break. Benny Johnson, Ben Burquam, Steve Cortez, all next in The War Room. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Everything's begun, and you are over. | |
| Cause we're taking down the CCP. For the world all through Hong Kong. | ||
| We rejoice when there's no more. | ||
| Let's take down the CCP! Here's your host, Stephen K. Band. | ||
| Welcome back. We begin the 40 Days of Lent today. | ||
| We're going to have a special at 6 o'clock tonight. | ||
| We're going to talk a lot about Lent, a lot about this nation, where we're headed, Ash Wednesday, all of it. | ||
| Benny Johnson joins us, having gone to East Palestine. | ||
| Ohio made this incredibly moving video about the citizens there. | ||
| Benny, what is your recommendation of what needs to happen? | ||
| You've been there on the ground. | ||
| You've talked to people. | ||
| You've done amazing reporting on what's happening overall between DeWine and Shapiro and the EPA and Norfolk Southern. | ||
| Having been there on the ground, what is your recommendation of how we go forward on this? | ||
| Yeah, you have to speak truth to power. | ||
| You have to humanize these people and tell their story. | ||
| They are the forgotten man and woman in America. | ||
| And so let me tell you really quickly what a couple of hours on the ground meant for me and my team. | ||
| We were coughing and wheezing. | ||
| We had chemical burns on our faces, Steve. | ||
| We had a pepper spray style reaction to breathing the air there. | ||
| Our mouth Ears, nose and throat were all on fire. | ||
| Those people have to live there. | ||
| We've all seen the water supply. | ||
| Those people have to live and shower in that water. | ||
| How else are you going to take a shower? | ||
| How else are you going to take a bath? | ||
| Where are you going to bathe your children? | ||
| How are you going to make baby formula? | ||
| They have to live there and they need proper testing. | ||
| They need people to come in and actually tell them whether it's safe. | ||
| I can tell you I'm not the only journalist who had the same response when I went there. | ||
| The Fox News journalists, the Newsmax journalists, they were all getting sick. | ||
| And so people are having to live there, children, with train wreckage behind their homes. | ||
| The little woman in the video with the small child, that train wreckage is right behind their house. | ||
| So they need proper testing and then they need relocation if it is truly uninhabitable. | ||
| And the question I suppose I have most predominantly is why does it fall to us? | ||
| Where's Greenpeace? | ||
| Where's the federal government? | ||
| Where's FEMA? Where's the Red Cross? | ||
| Why am I having to ask for PETA of all things? | ||
| Why am I a conservative begging PETA and Greta Thunberg and Greenpeace to come to this place to observe the largest man-made disaster ecologically in American history? | ||
| Well, they're too busy on private jets going to Davos to give speeches. | ||
| And throwing paint on Monet's at museums in London to actually go and see these forgotten men and women. | ||
| So I guess it falls to us to tell their story, which is what you and I do every single day, and then to speak truth to power and hope that the powerful act. | ||
| And praise the Lord, Donald Trump, a real president, is finally visiting East Palestine, Ohio today. | ||
| What would be your recommendation for President Trump, the best use of his time since you've been there, the best use of his time? | ||
| We know he's been a forcing function. | ||
| You know, Mayor Pete's showing up this afternoon. | ||
| He's had, you know, the big press. | ||
| He forced Shapiro, DeWine, EPA director to stop the trip to Africa to do the boondoggle on climate change and come back yesterday to try to get ahead of him. | ||
| But what would Benny Johnson, what would be your recommendation for President Trump, the best use of his time today in East Palestine, Ohio? | ||
| Of course, Steve, you know Trump far better than me or almost anyone on the planet. | ||
| However, in the small hours that I've gotten to spend with Donald Trump privately, I watched him behind the scenes in a kitchen environment at one of his hotels before a speech. | ||
| And that man went to the person for the service staff in the kitchen and asked them their stories. | ||
| Trump spoke with them. | ||
| Half these people were from Guatemala. | ||
| And so they spoke very broken English, but Trump connected with them, hugged some of them, spoke with them about their children. | ||
| That is a superpower for our president. | ||
| And so Donald Trump should use that superpower today to connect with the people of East Palestine. | ||
| What they need is a hug. | ||
| Most importantly from someone powerful, what they need is somebody to know that they're not lost in the darkness, that there is a light out there because it is a very, very dark place right now, East Palestine. | ||
| Again, they were hanging on by a thread thanks to globalism and thanks to the central planners moving out all of the industry from that area of the country. | ||
| That used to be a deeply prosperous area of the country. | ||
| Now it's hanging on by a thread and then they nuked their town with chemicals. | ||
| And so they need someone powerful to say that they care. | ||
| To embrace them and to do what Donald Trump does best, which is to bring humanity to the forgotten man and woman in this country. | ||
| Benny, I couldn't think of a better way to kick off the 40 days of Lent Ash Wednesday with your witness and testimony from East Palestine. | ||
| How do people get to you? How do they continue to get the videos you put up and all your work? | ||
| Thank you, Steve. | ||
| If I may, for just a moment, the If you missed the video, the way we were able to give the $20,000 to the people, which was our revenue for January when this crash happened, the way we were able to do that is because people watch our show. | ||
| And so you can find us at Benny Johnson at all social media. | ||
| You can download our podcast, The Benny Show. | ||
| And what that does is it, even if you don't have $5 available, To give to these people of East Palestine, I know your heart breaks for them. | ||
| So by watching our programming and by watching our show, we get monetization from that. | ||
| And then we can give on your behalf. | ||
| And so we deeply appreciate a download or a follow so that we can continue to share God's light and Christ's light in the world. | ||
| Benny Johnson, honored to have you on here. | ||
| Couldn't kick off the show any better. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, sir. Thank you, Steve. | |
| It's a tale of two cities. | ||
| I'm going to play Ben Berquam is on the ground. | ||
| We're going to play a cold open for Ben and then go directly to Ben Berquam in East Palestine, Ohio. | ||
| An agency has ordered Norfolk Southern to clean up the toxic chemicals spilled when one of the company's trains derailed nearly three weeks ago now along the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. | ||
| The order requires the rail operator to identify and clean any contaminated soil and water, pay all EPA costs, and to participate in public meetings at the agency's request. | ||
| If the company fails to do any of these, the EPA says it will take over and charge Norfolk Southern triple the cost. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In no way, shape, or form will Norfolk Southern get off the hook for the mess that they created. | |
| Folks, I know this order cannot undo the nightmare that families in this town have been living with, but it will begin to deliver much needed justice for the pain that Norfolk Southern has caused. | ||
| Action also being taken at the state level. | ||
| Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro says his office now has made a criminal referral to the acting attorney general there. | ||
| Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signaled yesterday his office also is preparing to take legal action. | ||
| The Biden administration has been criticized for what some say has been a slow response to the derailment. | ||
| Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was asked yesterday if he should have spoken out sooner. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was focused on just making sure that our folks on the ground were all set, but could have spoken sooner about how strongly I felt about this incident, and that's a lesson learned for me. | |
| President Biden also posted a long Twitter thread defending the actions of the White House and criticizing rail companies for quote, resisting safety regulations. | ||
| The president also blamed the previous administration for quote, Limiting our ability to implement and strengthen rail safety measures. | ||
| Speaking of the previous administration, John, former President Donald Trump says he's going to be there in East Palestine, Ohio today. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, we don't know what his agenda will be or when he is supposed to arrive, but he said he'll be there today. | |
| And we should note that his administration rolled back some of the safety regulations that may have played a role here in this crash. | ||
| But certainly now there is a lot of scrutiny. | ||
| This is all lies and spin. | ||
| And we now know from a White House readout that Biden's been on the phone nonstop. | ||
| They made Michael Regan go yesterday, DeWine. | ||
| Finally, after the war room hammers them, you got DeWine looking at legal action. | ||
| The legal action ought to be against you, DeWine, okay, and you, Shapiro, and you, Mike Regan, okay, and the company, obviously the company, but the company did not have, you only set up a unified command yesterday against federal regulations. | ||
| You're three weeks late. Ben Berquam, you're there on the scene, sir. | ||
| Put us in the room. Well, you can see behind me, Stephen, there's some freezing rain coming down right now, but behind me you've got the construction crews. | ||
| All of this is the broken down, exploded train, some of the remnants of what's left. | ||
| It's an absolute disaster. | ||
| Over to my left, you've got the... | ||
| Heavy equipment over here picking up train cars, picking up the wheels of the train and loading them into dumpsters. | ||
| But I'm standing in mud and talking to the people on the ground here. | ||
| They feel, just like Benny mentioned, they feel like they've been abandoned. | ||
| And they were coming up to us just saying thank you for coming and telling the story. | ||
| You know, we've just been waiting here. | ||
| One of the women that I talked to said she was told to just stay in her house. | ||
| So the evacuation zone was just a mile wide. | ||
| And then everybody else where the plume of this cloud of toxic gas went above their house was told to just stay in their house. | ||
| She said she's had a sore throat and had headaches ever since. | ||
| And we're hearing that over and over. | ||
| I actually got, I don't know if this is placebo, but we came down here last night, and this morning I woke up with a sore throat and stuffy nose. | ||
| I don't know if it's connected or not, but I gotta tell you, the fear on the ground here is palpable. | ||
| The people, they don't trust the federal government, and not just here. | ||
| What you see going on right now, you've got the rain coming down here. | ||
| We had this toxic gas that came from here, went northeast, across Pennsylvania, up into Canada, across the eastern states, and all of that landed on the ground. | ||
| And what's happening now is as this rain falls, it all gets washed down into the tributaries and the rivers. | ||
| I was talking to a guy last night named Wes, and he said these rivers flow right into the Ohio River, goes right down through Cincinnati. | ||
| I have family just outside of Cincinnati, I was with them yesterday, and they said the grocery stores are running out of fresh water there because the people don't trust the water that's coming down the Ohio River. | ||
| It's just, it's a disaster on on an epic proportion and to have Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg blame President Trump. | ||
| I mean, it's shocking. | ||
| It's absolutely shocking. | ||
| It's not surprising, sadly, but it's just like being here, it's absolutely shocking. | ||
| And the people here, the people of East Palestine deserve better and the American people deserve better. | ||
| By the way, Nick Sorter has just reported, just tweeted out how people are so excited to see President Trump. | ||
| Ben, real quickly, what would be your recommendation to President Trump when he comes, he gets wheels down there and gets to East Palestine sometime this afternoon? | ||
| What's your recommendation? Use every bit of leverage that he has to help the people here. | ||
| They are desperate. And really, as Benny said, they just want to know that they're heard. | ||
| The people here feel like they've been abandoned. | ||
| Blue collar workers, you know, a lot of steel industry here. | ||
| These are people that are just hard workers, love their country, love God, love their families. | ||
| And they just want to feel like they're not being abandoned. | ||
| And up to this point, they've been abandoned. | ||
| And that's really it. I'll say it. | ||
| Wes said it best. I said, what do you make of... | ||
| And Wes was the guy I interviewed last night talking about all of this stuff flowing down into the Ohio River. | ||
| I said, what do you make of President Trump coming here before Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg or any of them? | ||
| And he said, President Trump's a man of the people. | ||
| And that's really what it comes down to. | ||
| Ben, just hang on for one second. | ||
| I understand it's starting to rain there. Just hang on one second. | ||
| We're going to take a short break. We're going to go back to East Palestine, Ohio. | ||
| Ben Burkwam, Real America's Voice, the lead investigative reporter, is there on the scene. | ||
| Cortez is with me. Ben Harnwell is with me. | ||
| We're going to go. We've got Michael Patrick Lay, Jeff Clark, all of it. | ||
| Wall-to-wall today. The Tale of Two Cities. | ||
|
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Back in a second. Here's your host, Stephen K. Band. | |
| Okay, Ben Burquam is in East Palestine, Ohio. | ||
| Ben, order a battle today with President Trump. | ||
| We know he—and by the way, it's a tough logistics. | ||
| He's got a flying, I think, outside of Youngstown. | ||
| There's like an hour trip in. | ||
| Give us your best estimate of what's going to happen and what's your reporting going to—where are you going to be? | ||
| Well, I've heard a few different things. | ||
| They've been keeping it pretty close to their chest on what they're actually going to be doing, but I understand he's going to be getting in here a little bit after noon and going to be making several stops to first responders, fire department, some locals. | ||
| There's a local park here where he's expected to go. | ||
| Again, it's been raining, freezing rain all morning, so they may shift that somewhere else. | ||
| And I know he's going to go to several local businesses that have been affected by this. | ||
| Just real quick to the question you asked too, Steve. | ||
| All you have to do is come down here. | ||
| If the Democrats, if the left want to know what's happening and how people have been affected. | ||
| I was down in a coffee shop. | ||
| We just had the morning show at the Roadhouse. | ||
| And you just sit there and listen to people. | ||
| There's a guy I was talking to this morning, lives 40 miles from here. | ||
| He said all of the fish in his pond died, floated to the surface. | ||
| I mean, 40 miles from here because the creek runs down and because that plume of toxic gas went over his property. | ||
| It's just absolutely a disaster. | ||
| So President Trump's going to be here. | ||
| He's going to be talking to the people. | ||
| As far as the specific times, we don't have that yet, but we will be here on the ground. | ||
| Ed Henry, Karen Turk are here as well. | ||
| They're doing their morning show again tomorrow. | ||
| And then I've got a jet. | ||
| I'm going to be heading back down to the border for a little while, but I'll be back here on Friday as well. | ||
| So we're going to continue to tell the stories that the mainstream media clearly don't want told, but that's why we're here and why we exist. | ||
| Fantastic. Ben, and how do people track your reporting throughout the day? | ||
| How do they get to you? At Ben Berquam, last name is B-E-R-G-Q-U-A-M. I'm banned on Twitter right now, so you can find me on Getter, on Truth, on CloutHub, on the rest of it, and then on americasvoice.news and frontlineamerica.com for all the stories. | ||
| Don't give me any happy talk about Elon Musk and Twitter. | ||
| All the key elements of the anti-CCP movement. | ||
| No, he hasn't let any of the anti-CCP guys on, the hardcores, the ones who are trying to take down the CCP with Lao Bajing. | ||
| I've been banned more since he took over than I had before, so I don't know if it's the algorithms or the people in charge of it. | ||
| All I know is it's gotten worse for me, so that's why I'm on Getter, on Truth, and on CloudHub. | ||
| That's why I'm so proud of Getter. | ||
| You go to Getter, you're going to get the real truth. | ||
| Berkman, the reason you're banned more now than ever, you are on fire. | ||
| You're in the zone on reporting right now. | ||
| You're at every hot spot. You're doing the best work of anybody. | ||
| So fantastic. Thank you, sir. Ben, we'll get back to you in the afternoon show. | ||
| Thank you, sir. See you, sir. Cortez, you talk about a tale of two cities in the beginning of the early days of the Third World War. | ||
| Here you see the personification of the forgotten man and woman. | ||
| And here's the hypocrisy of the corporatist and the administrative state. | ||
| All of them kicked these guys to the curb and just forgot about it until all of a sudden Trump goes, hey, I'm going to East Palestine. | ||
| The next thing you know, they're at the ramparts. | ||
| DeWine's down there. Josh Shapiro's down there. | ||
| They're filing – sending criminal complaints. | ||
| And this EPA – I want to make sure everybody understands. | ||
| This guy is such a phony. | ||
| He's got to be brought up in front of the House. | ||
| This is another guy who got a role in impeachment. | ||
| Michael Regan. Left was going to Africa on a seven-day boondoggle with a bunch of Hollywood celebutards, right? | ||
| They're going out there in some boondoggle on climate change, on the cult religion of climate change. | ||
| Forgot about these people until Trump announced he was coming. | ||
| And now he's sitting out there, oh, they just announced yesterday we did a unified command. | ||
| Dude, you're supposed to do a unified command by federal regulation the moment the Norfolk Southern... | ||
| At 11.23 at night, 23.23 or 23.53 on that Friday night, they notified you by federal regulation. | ||
| It's supposed to kick in with a unified command. | ||
| You didn't do your job. | ||
| You should be turfed out immediately. | ||
|
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Cortez, give me your assessment. | |
| This is the personification, the manifestation of the forgotten man and woman. | ||
| Steve Cortez. It certainly is. | ||
| And by the way, it's not just the right thing to do for President Trump to travel there. | ||
| It's also very politically savvy. | ||
| And President Trump, in many ways, owes his 2016 triumph to the people just like those good citizens of East Palestine, Ohio. | ||
| And, you know, Benny Johnson mentioned, you know, look at the indignities, at the suffering that has been inflicted by the ruling class upon these people, even before the tragedy of the train wreck, right? | ||
| What globalism has done to towns like that in eastern Ohio, in western Ohio. | ||
| Think of the constant interventions and needless wars all over the world. | ||
| The sons and daughters of places like East Palestine are the people who went and bled and died in those needless wars which were perpetrated by the ruling class. | ||
| By the way, speaking of President Trump, there's a fantastic paper done by a couple of academics who are not Trump people at all. | ||
| One of them is Professor Shen, who is a law professor at University of Minnesota, and they give a great statistical analysis attributing the 2016 triumph, which you largely engineered, Steve, attributing it to areas of the country like East Ohio that had extremely high war casualty rates. | ||
| Those places flipped from being Democrat Obama voters to Trump voters, largely because of his America First foreign policy promises of realism and restraint, promises that he then followed up on as president. | ||
| We see the exact opposite right now as Joe Biden. | ||
| And you're exactly correct to present this stark contrast between the tale of two cities, East Palestine, Ohio versus Kiev. | ||
| Where is the focus? | ||
| Where is the fixation, I would say? | ||
| Not just a focus. Where is the fixation of the ruling class of America right now? | ||
| Whether it's giant corporations or the corporate media or Joe Biden himself, their fixation is on Kiev, is on a regional Slavic struggle 5,000 miles away from America. | ||
| A battle that has gone on for time immemorial and will probably go on until the end of time that thankfully involves no discernible, definable U.S. national interest. | ||
| And yet that is the fixation of the ruling class instead of places like East Palestine, Ohio, which right now is suffering. | ||
| And by the way, too, let's not let the politicians and the political leaders absolutely deserve all of our derision regarding their abdication of leadership here. | ||
| But let's not let Norfolk Southern off the hook and its CEO, Alan Shaw. | ||
| Let's remember that he offered $1,000. | ||
| Think about how paltry this is. | ||
| He offered $1,000 per resident. | ||
| You saw Benny Johnson go and give that much in an envelope in cash. | ||
| Okay, just an independent broadcaster offered as much as the CEO of a $50 billion corporation. | ||
| That is the market cap of Norfolk Southern. | ||
| Alan Shaw made over $4 million last year. | ||
| He lives in a $4 million mansion right now. | ||
| And instead of relocating temporarily, he should be on the ground constantly. | ||
| In East Palestine, so should Buttigieg, so should EPA Regan, so should Governor DeWine. | ||
| Instead of relocating there, instead of drinking the water if they tell us it's safe and doing so on camera out of the tap, where is he? | ||
| He's aloof. He's disconnected. | ||
| And again, he is representative Of the larger corporate class, the ruling class in this country, whether it's politics or media or big business, they don't care about the deplorables in places like East Palestine. | ||
| And this unfortunate tragedy is revealing that for the country. | ||
| I sent you the readout from the White House that showed that they actually put out that Biden was not, I think it was five phone calls from Warsaw, five phone calls about this to EPA, to other people in the administration, to Josh Shapiro. | ||
| They're in panic mode when he's in Warsaw. | ||
| They're given this bizarre space. | ||
| And Cortez, essentially, he's kind of become messianic. | ||
| I mean, there's something very weird. | ||
| The Warsaw speech was like another version of the one in front of Independence Hall. | ||
| This guy, there's something deeply wrong with what's going on that doesn't match the facts on the ground or really the facts of what the starting days of the Third World War when the Chinese are there. | ||
| Walk us through that. He's calling, by the way, you notice he didn't call Pete Buttigieg. | ||
| That's a big, that's a buried lead. | ||
| Didn't call Buttigieg. | ||
| Called all these other people, get them back there, get them out there. | ||
| And then he gives this messianic speech that I'm going to end world empires. | ||
| I mean, what is he talking about? | ||
| Yeah. By the way, first, before we get to Biden, just quickly on Buttigieg, we realize here that this is the travesty of hiring for quotas, right, of diversity hires. | ||
| And let's face it, he was hired for one reason only, because he's gay and he's very upfront about it and he loves to talk about it constantly. | ||
| He is an immature, arrogant McKinsey consultant with no significant experience in the transportation sector at all. | ||
| The mayor of a pretty small town with a pretty bad track record as mayor was brought into the Biden cabinet and is totally unprepared in every way to manage several crises, plural, but including this most recent crisis. | ||
| But regarding Biden, he put out a And you're exactly right. | ||
| There's something almost eerie about it. | ||
| And you're right, too, that it's messianic in a sense. | ||
| This is what he said in his tweet. | ||
| The people's love for liberty said nothing will ever be able to erase the people's love for liberty. | ||
| What people is he talking about? | ||
| OK, is he talking about the people of Ukraine? | ||
| Because, by the way, if he is, Zelensky is hardly a harbinger of liberty. | ||
| Okay? Zelensky is a man who has literally outlawed a Christian church in his country, a man who has nationalized the media, who has outlawed opposition parties in Ukraine. | ||
| He is an incredibly corrupt man who is supported by oligarchs. | ||
| Putin is every bit as corrupt, if not more so. | ||
| My point is, there's no good guy in this fight. | ||
| And thankfully, there's no American interest in this fight. | ||
| And yet we get these ridiculous platitudes. | ||
| The people's love for liberty. | ||
| Look, Joe Biden is reckless, and he is absolutely playing with fire right now, and he is risking sending the United States into World War III over a regional struggle in the Baltic that has nothing to do with the United States. | ||
| So realize what is happening right now. | ||
| Realize the gravity of this situation, what the Davos set wants, what the Washington war machine wants, what the defense contractors want right now, and I think also realize We are at the most dangerous moment right now. | ||
| We are at a national security precipice that is as dangerous as any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. | ||
| That is my dispassionate analysis of the current situation. | ||
| Now, in the Cuban Missile Crisis, we had nuclear missiles 90 miles away from the United States. | ||
| That was a crisis that we could not avoid and that we had to confront. | ||
| This is a crisis that we are creating, fomenting, financing with money that we don't have, with money that we're borrowing, and escalating. | ||
| This is a totally avoidable crisis for the United States. | ||
| And yet, Joe Biden, you're exactly correct, and perhaps it's a massive diversion because he realizes what is going on at home, particularly economically. | ||
| As the situation deteriorates rapidly here on the economy for Americans, he's trying to create a massive wag the dog moment. | ||
| But Steve, he is absolutely playing with fire, and the American people could pay dire consequences for it. | ||
| We've got a couple of minutes, Steve. | ||
| We're going to hold you into another segment. | ||
| Wag the dog. | ||
| What is he trying to divert attention away from, the reality of life in the country, and particularly for folks, the types of people from East Palestine, Ohio? | ||
| Yeah. And by the way, yeah, let's talk about that because yesterday on the show, we talked about credit card debt, which has reached $1 trillion, almost $986 billion, $1 trillion in credit card debt right now in the United States. | ||
| That is by far the highest of all time and not just the highest in dollar terms, but also the biggest year over year leap of all times. | ||
| That $1 trillion of credit card debt is at an interest rate now on average of over 20 % because of Biden's inflation, the highest interest rate. | ||
| of all time. So Americans are struggling and are unfortunately reaching for risky credit card debt just to pay for the staples of life, not for luxuries. | ||
| Just yesterday, by the way, speaking of retailers, of consumer-facing companies, just yesterday, Home Depot stock fell 7 % at the higher end of the scale. | ||
| Nordstrom stock It fell 8%. | ||
| So on a day when Home Depot falls 7 % and Nordstrom falls 8%, instead of worrying about the US economy, Biden is in Europe trying to stoke an escalation and a global war, a global conflagration. | ||
| Think of that contrast. | ||
| And by the way, this credit card problem is not just a problem. | ||
| For individuals, it's also a problem for the federal government. | ||
| If it's possible, if we can pull up chart number one, I'd like to show what is going on with the Fed. | ||
| Steve, hang on one second. | ||
| We're going to get to the government's credit card in a second. | ||
| We're going to take a short break. Steve Cortez is going to walk us through from the details of the consumer to now the federal government and how that's all going to roll back downhill in a moment in the war room. | ||
|
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| Okay, welcome back. CPAC.org slash War Room. | ||
| You still have tickets. | ||
| We want to see everybody there in the posse. | ||
| So it's $47 off. | ||
| It's under $2.50 a ticket. | ||
| The response so far has been overwhelming, but we want more posse members. | ||
| We're going to be broadcasting live for four days. | ||
| We want everybody there so we can do meet and greets, hear your thoughts about the show, get your input on topics we ought to be covering. | ||
| All of that. So make sure you go. | ||
| It's in National Harbor right there in Washington, D.C. So in the mid-Atlantic states, it's relatively easy to get to. | ||
| CPAC.org slash WARM, they've got tons. | ||
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| Steve Cortez from the particular about a trillion dollars of credit card debt, and it's going up to 20 % because of what you're about to tell us about the Federal Reserve's balance sheet. | ||
| This all rolls downhill, and where it rolls down to is everybody in this audience and down to East Palestine, Ohio, okay? | ||
| You're on the receiving end of all this, sir. | ||
| Walk us through it. Exactly correct. | ||
| Ten-year Treasury yield, by the way, as we speak here today, 3.89%. | ||
| nearing 4 % once again. | ||
| Why is it rising dramatically? | ||
| Because inflation is absolutely out of control. | ||
| Who's at fault for that inflation? | ||
| Well, there are really two main actors, two main culprits. | ||
| They are Joe Biden, along with the rest of permanent Washington, which includes a lot of Republicans, unfortunately, on the fiscal side. | ||
| And then on the monetary side, the Fed, which has finally found religion on inflation. | ||
| But for years and years, unfortunately, Fanned the flames of this current inflationary spiral. | ||
| To show you what I'm talking about, if we can go to chart number one, please, this shows the Fed's balance sheet. | ||
| So we've been talking about the unfortunate explosion in credit card debt for regular Americans. | ||
| Well, the Fed effectively has viewed its balance sheet as an almost limitless credit card. | ||
| So that is the Fed balance sheet going back five years. | ||
| As you can see, before the lockdowns, relatively tame, and thanks to the policies, the growth, pro-growth policies of Donald Trump, the Fed balance sheet was thankfully starting to slowly go lower, if you look on the left-hand side of that chart. | ||
| It then absolutely exploded higher with the lockdowns and with The unfortunate election of Joe Biden. | ||
| Now, in recent months, the Fed has promised, because it finally found religion and promised to fight inflation, in recent months, the balance sheet has been getting reduced. | ||
| It went from almost $9 trillion to $8.38 trillion, a reduction of almost $600 billion. | ||
| Now, that sounds like a ton of money, and it is in reality. | ||
| But the reason I want to show that chart is it is immaterial. | ||
| It's nothing in the context of the rise. | ||
| In other words, this recent very slight reduction matters very little compared to the ascent of previous years. | ||
| And yet, Steve, I think this is critically important. | ||
| And yet, even this very slight reduction in the Fed balance sheet has brought tumult to global financial markets. | ||
| I talked yesterday about the intense pain for retailers, particularly Home Depot and Walmart. | ||
| That kind of pain and that kind of market volatility has resulted from just a very slight decline in the Fed's balance sheet and what is effectively the credit card of the Federal Reserve for America. | ||
| Now, it's reducing its balance sheet, by the way, though, in a time. | ||
| It should be doing this in a time of growth. | ||
| That's the way it should operate. | ||
| You take the punch bowl away when the party is roaring, not when the party is winding down. | ||
| But hang on one second. | ||
| Two things. Trump never talks about this. | ||
| Trump did quantitative tightening. | ||
| He took almost a trillion dollars. | ||
| He took almost a trillion dollars of liquidity off of the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve. | ||
| That's unheard of since 2008. | ||
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Trump did this. Obama didn't do it. | |
| Biden's been insane. Trump took, in the first year, he had a 3 % growth rate. | ||
| The great, you know, the golden year of 2019, which the CCP and others focus on, we got to get rid of Trump. | ||
| Right? Just randomly a virus came out of a biological weapons lab in Wuhan. | ||
| He took a trillion dollars off. | ||
| One of the reasons about what they have to do now, Steve Cortez, correct me if I'm wrong, and Mercatus did the analysis. | ||
| They've been playing this game because the interest rate arbitrage of kicking $50 billion or $100 billion in to take care of the deficit. | ||
| They're sitting on... | ||
| Still, I think, a trillion-dollar loss over there on the Federal Reserve, sir? | ||
| Am I approximately right on that? | ||
| That's exactly correct. | ||
| No, so the Fed was able to transfer to the Treasury every year significant profits and, you know, the really profits in quotes because the Fed was effectively eating its own tail. | ||
| In other words, it was buying bonds. | ||
| As it was buying bonds, they were naturally going up in price because it has such massive buying power. | ||
| And they were capturing profits on the way up. | ||
| Well, now as it unwinds the balance sheet on the way down, there's enormous losses. | ||
| And you're exactly correct that the federal deficit situation, which is already terrible, it's going to get even worse without that injection, that basically fake transfer from the Fed over to the Treasury. | ||
| And all of this, by the way, against the backdrop of an economy, which unfortunately is falling apart. | ||
| And that's not my opinion. That's what the numbers tell us. | ||
| If we go to chart number two, This is the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index. | ||
| And this is since the beginning, since Biden took office, since the beginning of 2021. | ||
| Look at the handoff like so many of these charts. | ||
| Look at the handoff from Donald Trump. | ||
| The Trump boom 2.0. | ||
| The economy was recovering with gusto. | ||
| That's the first arrow pointing upward. | ||
| Ever since Biden's policies took effect, look at the arrow downward and the demonstrable trend, unfortunately, into deeply negative territory for Philadelphia Fed, manufacturing came in shockingly low in recent days, minus Other than the lockdowns, that is the lowest number we have seen since the 08-09 great financial crisis, the great recession. | ||
| That is the reality of where we are right now, not according to Steve Cortez or Steve Bannon, according to the numbers, according to the Philadelphia Fed. | ||
| And it's on-the-ground assessment of what is happening in manufacturing in this country. | ||
| It is absolutely falling apart. | ||
| And by the way, speaking of McKinsey, I mentioned them earlier. | ||
| McKinsey, which almost always recommends layoffs for basically every corporate client that engages McKinsey. | ||
| The most elitist firm in the world. | ||
| I mean, the definition of globalism. | ||
| McKinsey itself laying off 2,000 people. | ||
| Now, I'm never happy about anybody losing their job, but what's good for the goose sometimes is good for the gander. | ||
| And unfortunately, people are losing their jobs, even at McKinsey. | ||
| Cortez, if your wife and the workers will allow you to stick around for the first part of the next plot, hang in there. | ||
|
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We've got to get to immigration. | |
| Steve Cortez, I've got Ben Harnwell, Michael Patrick Leahy, Jeff Clark. |
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