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May 2, 2023 - Bannon's War Room
51:56
Episode 2703
Participants
Main voices
d
donald j trump
24:41
p
peter navarro
07:49
s
steve bannon
15:41
Appearances
Clips
j
jake tapper
00:10
m
mika brzezinski
00:24
| Copy link to current segment

Speaker Time Text
steve bannon
This is the primal scream of a dying regime.
unidentified
Pray for our enemies, because we're going medieval on these people.
steve bannon
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.
jake tapper
And where do people like that go to share the big line?
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?
steve bannon
If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.
unidentified
War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Bass.
steve bannon
Tuesday, 2 May, in the year of our Lord, 2023.
Welcome back. For the second hour of the morning edition of The War Room, Dr.
Peter Navarro, the manufacturing czar and Assistant to the President and one of his most trusted aides.
What a lot of people don't understand is that absolutely a central part of securing the border and making sure we had the best system Currently available at the time, it could have gotten a lot better than they were working on.
It was because of Peter really working with President Trump in alternatives that dealt with trade and other of the laws that really, you know, calm this thing down.
Peter, when you hear about a colony of 100,000 Central Americans and people from Mexico and Central America run by the cartels, doing real estate transactions, having trafficking in children, That basically ICE won't go into, authorities won't go into, and that this is a forerunner.
If you read Benzman's book, and Benzman's, I think one of the smartest guys reporting on this, read Benzman's book, this is the future of the United States of America.
What would you and Donald Trump do, and what will you do in a second term, sir, to set things right here?
peter navarro
Everybody needs to understand that the fundamental difficulty in policing the border is the American justice system, and in particular, judges appointed by people like Obama.
And there's one judge, the Dolly Gee, that has created this whole thing where he got the child trafficking.
The other thing to understand here is that as much damage that this invasion is doing to this country, it's also doing similar amounts of damage To Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador,
and on down, because what it's doing is it's hollowing out those countries, many times of their most able-bodied, who obviously want to come here for obvious reasons, and left behind are children and elderly folks.
I mean, there's a lot of dead villages down in the Northern Triangle because everybody's heading to El Norte.
What we would do is what we did, Steve.
It's like the safe third nation agreements with Mexico and the Northern Triangle.
Shut everything down. What are those?
It's basically that these people will stay on that side of the border until they're processed.
And that takes a long time.
Ergo, they don't come.
And as soon as Trump instituted the safe third nation, first with Mexico on the threat of terrorists, and then the Northern Triangle.
Problem was solved. It took us a couple of years because we had to fight these judges.
But kind of the light bulb went off in the over one day.
Yeah, we can use tariffs to threaten Mexico.
And they did it. So that's where we stand.
And let's remember, the Navarro report, by the way, on the border is still the gold standard in analysis on this.
It did it for the boss during the administration.
It's up on PeterNavarro.com.
And it documents in excruciating detail all of the costs that illegal immigration imposed on this country.
And it's a dizzying, you know, with the crime, the economics, the socioeconomics, the budgetary implications.
But the solution is simple.
Save thirds plus build the wall.
Let's get the president in there.
And for this purpose, you've got to tell everybody coming over, you're going back as soon as Trump gets elected.
That is critical. Donald Trump needs to make that statement today.
And as soon as that signal sends- He said that in our conversation, the 15 million.
steve bannon
The 15 million can't be lost.
I want to tie this now- I'm working with Captain Bannon, but I haven't put up the CNN headline.
I'm going to tie it now to where we stand, because this is inextricably linked, not just to the health of the nation, obviously, but to the economic health.
This is costing us an absolute fortune.
Why the corporatists want to break the wages of African-American and Hispanic-American lower-skilled labor.
This is the scam. And they're open about it.
And deplorable, not so even blue collar, but the lowest skilled part of that.
This is what they're doing because they want the flooding zone of this cheap labor.
They also want bigger markets.
Let's be honest. The Procter& Gamble and these guys, the Anheuser-Busch's want bigger markets.
But it's specifically tied to this fight over the desolate because it's costing us a fortune.
Yesterday we had huge movement, Peter.
And I want the posse to understand, and this is why we've got to get you up to speed, because you're the creditors committee.
You're the one. And we had Congressman Burchard on last night.
He's one of the guys that said, no way, not voting for this thing.
But now comes the pressure.
Janet Yellen comes out, Peter, and says, hey, upon further review, it's going to be 1 June.
We're out of cash.
Because as you said, hey, I think I'm looking at the economy in a stagflation.
The economy is slowing down dramatically to 1.1 % growth.
unidentified
And the tax revenues slow down with it, right?
peter navarro
That's the punchline. Don't bury the lead there, brother MBA. The tax revenues goes down.
steve bannon
Tax revenues. You're playing the Steve Bannon role.
unidentified
And the debt service goes up as the Fed raises interest rates.
peter navarro
I just robbed the train just for a minute there.
steve bannon
Go ahead. And they're going to raise them again.
So this morning on cue, Biden then asked for the meeting next week.
But he says, hey, I'm having a meeting.
So don't call it. I'm not blinking, as we say.
I'm not blinking because it's still got to be a clean debt scene, but I'm going to have him in the White House.
On cue...
The Hill this morning lead story, CNN lead story, The Hill is, a note from Treasury, it dramatically increases pressure on GOP, right?
And CNN goes, agony for millions coming with GOP hardliners.
Ultra-MAGA extremists, hardliners on the budget are going to bring tremendous pain.
peter navarro
Peter Navarro. Yeah, you threw me that saw ball.
Let me hit it, okay?
Today, petervar.substack.com and the weekly column in The Washington Times, which will drop this afternoon, is on precisely that issue.
Actually, you inspired me last Thursday when I was co-hosting with you, that the Republican messaging must simply be that the Democrat can say it's going to be a catastrophe if you don't raise the debt ceiling.
It's actually going to be a way bigger catastrophe if you do and you don't get any cuts.
And the problem is this debt service trap, Steve, where right now we spend $400 billion a year on debt service alone, on a debt that's over $30 trillion.
And that $400 billion is bigger than what we spend on veterans and bigger than a lot of combined programs.
And what's going to happen is as interest rates rise, it's more and more expensive to service the debt.
And as growth slows, we generate less tax revenues.
And so that double whammy works to basically increase the debt trap and the debt service obligations.
And that's where we're headed.
And the only way we're going to get out of this is to start with cutting expenditures.
Thursday was epic because we had Russ Vodon.
The quiet part out loud that Russ said, there's no actual real cuts.
Most of it is simply holding the line.
It's like, okay, you roll back from last year's extravagant levels, and then going forward, you just hold it at 1 % increase a year.
That's not cutting.
That's reality.
That's like holding stuff.
So go to peternevar.substant.com and the Washington Times and support the Washington Times because it's a great paper.
But that's what it's about.
And the Republicans need to be relentless in arguing that the bigger catastrophe is what the Democrats want to do.
And this whole sky is falling stuff is just corporate media crap.
steve bannon
Okay, I want the war room posse to understand you got to go to the Times.
How do they get to all your articles?
Because also I want you to go to Russ Vogts.
Here's why. Starting today, and we're going to put up, Captain Ben is working with it right now to get to CNN. It was amazing.
The Hill newspaper and CNN both coming at the war room posse from a different angle, right?
One saying, oh my God, McCarthy's really got the pressure on him now because we're out of cash.
We're out of cash. He's going to get his bluff called.
And the agony that's going to be bestowed on millions of Americans, millions of Americans, because of this audience, because of the heartless, ultra-MAGA. They haven't been playing this ultra-MAGA rap, you know, Dark Brandon, not to use.
They're going to use it right here. This is where it's coming.
The meeting, I think, is next Tuesday, Wednesday.
That's just kicking off.
But now we're going to have a hurdle.
And Peter, let me ask you.
Is it too much of us to ask that they send us the model?
And the Republicans, the first thing they'll do is just dig in and say, we need to see the numbers.
You got Yellen over there wandering around.
You don't know what she's saying half the time.
Now she's dropping at that.
Tax revenues are dropping. Hey, they probably have dropped.
We don't doubt that, but let's see the numbers, sir.
peter navarro
Let me be real here.
What the article partly does is go back to the Gingrich 1995-96 Contratops with Bill Clinton, where Clinton cleaned the Republicans' clock by using the new wine in the old Gingrich bottle from the Bidenites.
It's the same thing. The Democrats are convinced that they can pull the catastrophe card to cow the Republicans down.
They are convinced of that.
And by the way, they've outsourced, the Biden regime and Congress have outsourced Their media relations to the corporate media who have a vested interest in seeing that debt ceiling go up.
So it's a tough slog.
And that's why I say the Republicans have to be absolutely precise in their method of messaging.
Otherwise, we're going to get that Democrat madness.
And I end the piece by talking about the importance of explaining that MAGA, what MAGA is, MAGA is the middle of this country.
We are a center-right country that supports fair trade, a strong American manufacturing base, secure borders, endless wars.
That's basically it from an economic standpoint.
And that's all we're pushing in this.
It's MAGA common sense.
And Donald Trump, come on boss, get out there and explain that to the American people.
Republicans, Kevin McCarthy, needs to leave with that message.
The bigger catastrophe is doing what Joe Biden wants to do.
steve bannon
But hang on, I only got two minutes, but I need you to answer this for me.
If we gave Biden and they pulled, if he granted us Even the deal that's on the table, because it's just a cut in the rate of spending.
It's $1.5 trillion, or March of next year, whatever comes first.
And right now, with the collapse in tax revenues because of their economy and the bank situation, this will happen.
We'll get to that by October, November.
What happened? Don't we go through this?
This is just, it's in perpetuity right now, sir, until we start making hard choices.
peter navarro
This, again, I do this in the article in Peter Navarro on Subsection.com.
This takes care partly of the demand pull inflation, too much money chasing too few goods.
The big issue we also have is the cost push.
from the loss of strategic energy dominance.
We need to go full spectrum on policy, but we got to fight this fight right now and get the best we can.
Again, the quiet part out loud is that this is not draconian.
It's not actual cuts for the most part.
It's a $5 trillion savings, and $3.4 trillion of that is simply from reducing the rate of spending.
And so the Republicans, look, they need to be better at messaging economics.
And this is the time.
Otherwise, we're going to get rolled again, and that's going to be catastrophic this time around.
steve bannon
100%. That's where we got the war room, and that's where we have Peter Navarro.
Dr. Navarro, thank you very much.
Honored to have you on here whenever I go to your Substack.
One more time, where do they go, Peter?
peter navarro
Yeah, yeah. PeterNavarro.Substack.com.
And by the way, your subscriptions help pay for my legal defense fund against that Biden weaponization of the Injustice Department, which wants to put me in prison.
Navarro, Admiral, out.
steve bannon
We don't want these to be the prison notes.
We've got to have you on the show.
peter navarro
The food's not very good, Steve, you know?
unidentified
And other than that... And your body's a temple.
peter navarro
I've been training for this, you know?
unidentified
Sorry, Admiral.
I'll be next to Navarro so they don't take my lunch money.
peter navarro
Yeah, CNN would write about that.
steve bannon
Short commercial break.
peter navarro
Let's go to Europe next.
unidentified
We will fight till they're all gone.
We rejoice when there's no more.
Let's take down the CCP. We know that you don't support the current unlimited and uncontrolled supplies of weaponry and aid to Ukraine.
So can you comment?
Is it possible if in the near future the US policy regarding sending weaponry to Ukraine will change?
steve bannon
I'm not sure. The sound here is not good.
Did he say, I don't support aid to Ukraine?
No, I vote for aid for Ukraine.
I support aid for Ukraine.
unidentified
I do not support what your country has done to Ukraine.
donald j trump
I do not support your killing of the children either.
unidentified
And I think for one standpoint, you should pull out.
donald j trump
And I don't think it's right.
unidentified
And we will continue to support because the rest of the world sees it just as it is.
mika brzezinski
So we have a lot to talk about.
I just want to jump ahead to our B block for a second.
Did you see Kevin McCarthy on Ukraine?
unidentified
Yes, very strong. A Russian reporter sort of challenged him on the American support for Ukraine.
And Speaker McCarthy went back hard at this Russian reporter.
mika brzezinski
He went back. It was really actually...
Best moment as Speaker of the House, and nothing bad to say about that.
It was a really—we'll get to it, have a bigger conversation about the state of the war in Ukraine, but the Speaker of the House really planting a flag on what needed to be said from that side.
unidentified
He did. It was his strongest comments yet on Ukraine in particular.
steve bannon
You see how—this is just what they did with President Trump when he fired the missiles into Syria.
You know, he's finally president.
Remember that happened in Morning Mika the next day?
He's finally president. He's acting president on the show.
That's Morning Mika rubbing up on Kevin McCarthy's finest moment of speaker.
He's really the speaker now.
This is a fine moment. This is all crap.
The guy said uncontrolled.
And McCarthy's got to get his mind right on this.
We need to cut off all the money to Ukraine.
This is a joke. You're sitting up there, not in a real...
What you pull together is fine because it got you to the White House and now Biden can totally reject it like a slow layup gets rejected in basketball, right?
But, we need to, we cannot continue to...
unidentified
Because we're being saps.
steve bannon
Okay we're having some more technical problems here.
Are we melting down?
Okay. Can I get...
I can't see anything. I can't hear anything.
We're continuing. You've got the two Ukraine articles in The Guardian.
People don't understand something. This is why we've got to cut off the money to Ukraine.
This is exactly why we have to cut the money off.
Because The Guardian is reporting you've got oysters and caviar In Champaign on the, what is it?
The Niper River there.
They're living high on the hog. And now they got an article that the people, the working class people are selling their pots and pans, selling anything they've got, their jewelry to survive.
And in the article, they say, yeah, but the nightclubs are full.
The oligarchs over there, we're funding the oligarchs that are stealing from us.
McCarthy puts forward a budget.
It puts forward a negotiation that doesn't have I'll just give a monologue here.
We have Kevin McCarthy.
We had Kevin McCarthy actually in, I think it was in He gave a speech and afterwards did a press conference.
In the press conference, one of the Russian reporters asked him a question.
Do you support the continual unlimited spending on arms?
McCarthy said, hey, look, I really can't hear the translation, but I support Ukraine.
I support continuing Ukraine.
Your country ought to get out. Hey, I'm all for that, but that's for those two countries to work out.
Not for us to use it as a proxy war against the Russian people.
And here's the bigger question.
We've got some technical problem again.
We're trying to get Ben Harnwell from Rome.
The European media...
And first off, the Daily Telegraph has got a story up that says, hey, we don't want to talk about the quiet part out loud, but Ukraine's actually not winning.
But more importantly, they talk about actually the finances of this.
The Guardian's got two pieces up in the last couple of days.
The first piece talks about how it's like the new Paris.
It's got the nightclubs.
It's got the boutiques.
It's champagne and oysters that live in the high life.
And this is all the oligarchs and the people around the government.
They're stealing money with both hands.
We still don't have an audit.
And then they got another article that comes out on Sunday and says, oh, by the way, because they do have the wealthy and you do have boutiques.
You can't get a reservation at the restaurants.
The nightclubs are packed.
I think I've got Ben up.
Is Ben back? Can we try Ben Harnwell again?
If not, I can keep raining.
Ben Harnwell, do you hear me?
unidentified
I hear you loud and clear, Steve.
I don't know if you hear me. Okay, so I tell you what.
steve bannon
Let's go to commercial break because this system is completely screwed up right now.
unidentified
Can we go to commercial break? Are we able to cut the break?
This is what I was talking about.
I need names for them.
Come on.
steve bannon
Okay, we have a major technical issue.
donald j trump
This is your all-time favorite president, Donald J. Trump.
Over the last 40 years, I've corresponded with some of the most incredible people, from presidents to kings and queens, and from Hollywood stars to business titans.
My new coffee table book, Letters to Trump, published by Winning Team Publishing, features some of these never-before-seen letters.
You're going to love reading it.
steve bannon
You're going to love having it.
donald j trump
Get your copy today at 45books.com.
I think you'll really, really love it.
steve bannon
There's 700,000.
We've got a team on the border right now, a real American voice.
There's 700,000 to a million.
This is the biggest thing, Border Patrol, right now, that when Title 42 goes away, right?
And you implemented Title 42.
When Title 42, because you didn't want the country flooded with people that potentially were affected.
donald j trump
When Title 42 goes away... You know, they're going to come in, and these are people that are very sick.
They have all sorts of diseases.
Not only, you know, I mean, you hear about COVID. COVID's like you're lucky if you have COVID by comparison to these other things.
And I set it up so that Title 42, we need it because they're going to come in.
They're going to infect our population with sickness.
And I said it. And we weren't allowing very many people in at all, especially during COVID. And now they're ending it.
And even the judge, the judge was very good in many ways.
But he said, listen, in about two weeks, you know, it's going to happen in a couple of weeks.
Hundreds of thousands of people immediately are going to pour into our country.
And the number is going to be, Steve, at the end of this year, in my opinion, real number, because, you know, they only talk about the people that they see, which is ridiculous because most of the people come in, you know, they're not seen.
The number is going to be 15 million people by the end of the year.
15 million, not three or four.
You know, you hit three million, four million.
It's going to be 15 million people by the end of the year.
That's bigger than New York State.
And these people are coming in from their prisons and their mental institutions.
And it's not just Guatemala and Honduras.
It's not just Mexico.
These people are coming from all over the world, from Asia, from Africa.
We have people coming. Haiti is like emptying out.
There is going to be no Haiti.
Somebody's going to end up buying all of Haiti.
You're not going to have any people there.
They're going to say, what a nice piece of land this is.
Everyone from Haiti is moving into the United States of America.
The people are coming in from all over the world at levels that nobody's ever seen.
Steve, when I had the strongest border in the history of this country, and now we have the worst, and I say it's the worst border in the history of the world because no, and I say this during speeches, no third world country would allow this to happen to them, what's happening to us, and they'd fight them with sticks and stones if they had to.
There's never been a border like what we have right now.
And don't forget, that's not only people.
That's drugs. It's human trafficking.
I look at this beautiful letter I get from Andrew Lloyd Webber, who was big before Phantom, but nothing like Phantom.
And he did Jesus Christ Superstar, which was another great one.
He did a lot of great things.
But he said, because he lived in the building of Trump Tower, he knew me a little bit.
And he said, I'd love to have you as my guest.
I'm opening up a musical called The Phantom of the Opera.
And I said, oh, so let's go.
So I say on the letter, okay, I'll go.
And anyway, we went.
And it opens with the chandelier and this.
You've been there, right? Yes, yes, yes.
steve bannon
Do you agree? It's the first time I saw a shock when the chandelier drops.
No, but the whole thing was magnificent.
donald j trump
It was a great, great musical.
He said, but I'm opening a musical called Phantom of the Opera, and I'm saying to myself, all right.
Now, I get many letters like that.
I still get letters like that, except it's a little hard when they make you put masks on and do this thing.
I mean, you know, I think Broadway, you still have to.
It's brutal. It's brutal.
I mean, if you had a Broadway theater right now, it just is just that.
steve bannon
Well, plus the city, what's happened to the city.
donald j trump
Plus what's happened to the city.
steve bannon
Look, it just closed after, what, 40 years.
This letter is from the opening night.
The reason I want to start with that It just closed last week.
donald j trump
Yeah, no, it did. It was very sad.
steve bannon
Because of what's happened to the city.
donald j trump
I think I know why it closed beyond that, but I think it's, you know, you've got to have a lot of things going right, and they get so politically correct.
But it did close, and I would think it's very hard to open on Broadway, have anything on Broadway.
But Phantom was one of the greatest of all.
So I go in and I see this music.
I said, this thing is unbelievable.
It didn't take long because the music is so good.
By the time we had intermission, it was like I said, this thing is incredible.
And by the end, you know, with the whole thing with the gondolas and the candles and the whole thing coming out and the great music.
And we play a lot of that music.
I mean, I go to places where we want background music that's beautiful, it's great, everybody likes it.
But you go there and it's opening night for one of the most successful plays, musicals ever, I would say.
Maybe the most, but certainly one of the most, Arnold Palmer.
You know, he's a very rich man.
IMG, the big deal, the big agency.
Mark McCormick. Mark McCormick was a golfer.
steve bannon
Really started it with pump.
donald j trump
Should I tell this story? Tell it, yes.
So Mark McCormick went to a very good college, a good golfing college, and he wanted to be a professional golfer.
And his college, whatever it was, Duke or some college, but they played Wake Forest.
And he got to play, he was the number one player in the team.
He got to play Arnold Palmer, who was the number one player in Wake Forest.
And Mark McCormick was really good.
He was better than a scratch player.
That's very good. And he heard about Arnold Palmer, but, you know, he figured he's just the best player in that team, and, you know.
So they played through nine holes, and his friend called over in the fairway, Mark, how are you playing?
He said, I cannot play better.
I'm playing great. How are you doing?
I'm seven down. You know, seven down after nine.
He said, I can't beat this guy.
And he lost the match, you know, it was over after about 11 holes or something.
And he comes back. 11 and 8 or whatever.
He realized... That he's never going to be able to beat on the bottom.
steve bannon
I've got to get another line of work.
donald j trump
No, he said, you know, this isn't going to work out.
He's longer, he's stronger, he putts better, he chips better.
There's not a thing he doesn't do much better.
He said, I could play this guy a hundred times.
I could never beat him. So now he realizes, you know, Arnold Palmer then went over and he won the U.S. Amateur and then he became a pro and right from the beginning.
But, you know, he was a great guy, very powerful guy.
Arnold Palmer is a great story because his father worked at La Trobe.
It's a golf course, a very, you know, at the time, very sort of middle of the rung golf course.
And he was a, he carried grass because he was a very powerful man.
They call him a sod carrier.
Can you believe it? He carried sod on his shoulders because he was so powerful.
And Arnold was a very powerful man.
You know, I mean, that's the way it is.
Arnold was like a blacksmith.
His arms are strong. He was quite a man.
And Arnold would practice with his father after the club was closed, and they couldn't afford even a golf club.
So they'd go in and use the members club in the evening to take a members club, and Arnold became a great golfer.
Then he won the U.S. Amateur, he turned pro, he immediately did well.
He bought the club, and he made his father the manager.
Isn't that great? You know, it's like, to me, it's like one of the great stories.
There's many great stories, but that's one of the great stories.
But Arnold was a special guy.
So Arnold was a very rich guy.
So Mark McCormick lost.
Badly. And he realized after that he could never be approached, you know, because they're just much better.
unidentified
That little elite group of people, there's a big difference, believe me, I know very well.
donald j trump
And so what happens is he said to Arnold, I think you're going to be a great star.
I'd like to sign you because I've always wanted to do it.
And he gave Arnold a piece of the agency, IMG. Arnold was a very rich guy.
He owned a piece of the Golf Channel.
Everyone wanted to do those early years.
steve bannon
First guy really flying a jet, had his own jet.
donald j trump
He had his own jet. In fact, he asked me a question.
He said to me, you know, because I became very friendly with Arnold later when he was older.
He said, you know, I bought a beautiful jet, and they all want me to finance it.
They give me all these financing options.
Should I finance it? I said, well, do you need the money?
No, I don't. I'd rather just pay cash.
I said, you're doing it right. Pay cash.
You don't have to listen to these geniuses.
You don't need to borrow money.
I'll never forget it. I said, do you need the money?
No. I don't want to do that.
They want me to finance the plane.
I don't want to put debt on the plane.
I said, Arnold, do what you're doing if you don't need the money.
It was sort of funny. But Arnold flew his own plane.
But Arnold was a great guy.
And so he became an owner of IMG. He was one of the original owners.
My favorite president, Donald J. Trump.
Over the last 40 years, I've corresponded with some of the most incredible people, from presidents to kings and queens, and from Hollywood stars to business titans.
My new coffee table book, Letters to Trump, published by Winning Team Publishing, features some of these never-before-seen letters.
You're going to love reading it.
steve bannon
You're going to love having it.
donald j trump
Get your copy today at 45books.com.
I think you'll really, really love it.
steve bannon
We're here in historic Mar-a-Lago in the library.
I'm honored to be joined by the 45th President of the United States and soon to be the 47th President of the United States.
President Trump, thank you very much.
Thank you. This book, I think for people that know and love you, is what people have been waiting for.
Because it shows you prior to you being president.
And you've got what I call the great and the good of the late 20th century and early 21st century.
unidentified
It's everywhere. It's entertainment, it's media, it's sports.
steve bannon
religious figures, and you've got, you know, their letters to you, your correspondent back, the great photography, but then the special is your commentary and observations.
How did you come up with the idea?
donald j trump
Why did you want to do this? So a group of people got to see in my office, I have stacks and stacks of letters from really famous people.
They say very diverse, okay?
Very diverse, like actors and crazy people and probably, I shouldn't say this, probably mobsters and, you know, we had sort of, yeah, boxers, but we had everybody.
And Richard Nixon and politicians, famous politicians, and some really good ones and very personal letters.
And they saw this and they said, you've got to be.
And they started looking. And Sergio, who you just had on, is terrific.
Fantastic. He started looking at these letters.
He said, these letters are incredible.
I had two women. Norma, who passed away, but she was with me for many years, and she was a fantastic woman.
unidentified
And she worked with a young woman named Rona.
donald j trump
Rona. Rona Graff. And between the two of them, they loved to save letters.
And every letter was saved and preserved and beautiful and wrapped up.
And all of a sudden, we saw these boxes full of letters.
And Sergio and his staff, they went through them.
They said, you're not going to believe some of these letters.
Like getting a letter from Rosie O'Donnell who was in love.
I don't want to say that. In the true sense of the word, but, you know, she really liked me a lot.
steve bannon
Whoopi Goldberg. By the way, Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, I mean, it's the whole, it's the whole, it's all this kind of graciousness, gratitude in class.
Well, not just running for office, because we've got Cuomo, I want to talk to you about that.
It's what you stood for when you ran for office.
That's what separated out.
I want to go just to some of the, I think, some of the ones, the best at the beginning.
Talk to me. Phantom of the Opera just closed.
New York City is a very different place today.
donald j trump
Do you agree? Much different. You were there.
steve bannon
There's a letter and a couple of letters here from Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Were you there opening night or close to opening night?
Opening night, yeah. Opening night.
Did you know at the time, tell me about the experience, did you know that this was going to be a landmark production?
donald j trump
Well, nobody does. You know, Broadway's sit and miss.
They say the worst investment you can make is a Broadway play because they always fail.
But when you hit, it's big, okay?
When you hit, it's almost bigger than hitting a big movie.
In fact, some people say it's bigger.
And I had a lot of respect for him.
He lived in Trump Tower with Sarah Brightman.
They fought like hell.
This was not made in heaven.
She always wanted the windows open, but it's an old glass building.
You have to keep them closed. How about that?
steve bannon
Because the letters, your observation, she was an opera singer?
donald j trump
She was a singer, a great singer.
steve bannon
She wanted it open to sing?
donald j trump
She wanted it for her voice.
Fresh air. She didn't want perfect air.
She wanted fresh air, but the fresh air from New York.
So, you know, she was happy. Fifth Avenue, the cars, everything.
But it's a glass tower. It's an all-glass tower.
We have window washers that go up, and they blast the hell out of the glass.
steve bannon
You're very particular about how the building's clean.
donald j trump
Oh, yeah, yeah. I always keep things clean.
I like cleanliness, right?
So that's why I get sick when I look at New York and what's happened so badly.
So we have these beautiful window washers.
They go up mechanically, and they just blast everything, but all the windows are closed.
We say, please never have your window open.
Please, please. But she didn't care about that.
She wanted it open for her voice.
And this window washer goes up, and every time we'd pass their apartment, they'd have a window open, and they would just...
steve bannon
And they're hitting it with the high pressure.
donald j trump
Yeah, and she was not happy.
She'd be rehearsing in there.
She'd get wiped out. It got to a point, I don't even think they rebuilt or repainted, because she just insisted on it.
She used to complain all the time.
And, you know, she was very nice, but she wanted to have outside air.
And I said, why don't you move into a different building?
You know, this is like a glass tower, a beautiful glass tower.
But anyway, they were married, and she was a big star.
She was the star of a phantom.
But no, it's just interest because I'm a big fan and fan of the opera and others.
steve bannon
Did you know as soon as the first night you saw it, there was going to be something special?
Because you fell in love with this, particularly certain music.
donald j trump
So it's like politics, like anything.
You never really know, but this thing was special.
So he wrote me a letter, which I have in here, and it's Dear Donald essentially saying, I'd love you.
This is where people love me. I used to get invited to everything.
I was invited to that Anna Wintour thing that she does at the museum.
steve bannon
The Metropolitan Museum.
donald j trump
The Super Bowl of Fashion.
The day I ran for politics, I said, has the invitation come in?
I haven't seen any, sir.
But I was, I get the best table.
I was the king of that thing.
And then all of a sudden, you know, you go cold turkey, which is okay.
And it's over politics.
And, you know, all I want to do is make America great again.
You know, when you think about it, make America great, America first.
Why are people so opposed to that?
I don't even think they know why they're opposed.
So I look at this beautiful letter I get from Andrew Lloyd Webber, who was big before Phantom, but nothing like Phantom.
And he did Jesus Christ Superstar, which was another great one.
He did a lot of great things.
But he said, because he lived in the building of Trump Tower, he knew me a little bit.
And he said, I'd love to have you as my guest.
I'm opening up a musical called The Phantom of the Opera.
And I said, oh, so let's go.
So I say on the letter, okay, I'll go.
And anyway, we went.
And it opens with the chandelier and this.
You've been there, right? Yes, yes, yes.
Do you agree? It's like...
steve bannon
The first time I saw a shock shot when the chandelier drops the hole.
donald j trump
No, but the whole thing was great. It was a great, great musical.
He said, but I'm opening a musical called Phantom of the Opera, and I'm saying to myself, all right.
Now, I get many letters like that.
I still get letters like that, except it's a little hard when they make you put masks on and do this thing.
I mean, you know, I think Broadway, you still have to...
It's brutal. It's brutal.
I mean, if you had a Broadway theater right now, it just...
Well, plus the city.
What's happened to the city. Plus what's happened to the city.
steve bannon
Look, it just closed after, what, 40 years.
This letter is from the opening night.
The reason I want to start with that, it just closed last week.
donald j trump
Yeah, no, it did. It was very sad.
steve bannon
Because of what's happened to the city.
donald j trump
I think I know why it closed beyond that, but I think it's, you know, you've got to have...
You gotta have a lot of things going right.
And they get so politically correct.
But it did close.
And I would think it's very hard to open on Broadway, have anything on Broadway.
But Phantom was one of the greatest of all.
So I go in and I see this music.
I said, this thing is unbelievable.
It didn't take long because the music is so good.
By the time we had intermission, it was like, I said, this thing is...
Incredible. And by the end, you know, with the whole thing with the gondolas and the candles and the whole thing coming out and the great music.
And we play a lot of that music.
I mean, I go to places where we want background music that's beautiful.
It's great. Everybody likes it.
But you go there and it's opening night for one of the most successful plays, musicals ever.
I would say maybe the most, but certainly one of the most.
And it was sort of cool to see a letter where I'm opening A show on Broadway.
It's a musical. It's called Phantom of the Opera.
And it's Andrew Lloyd Webber. And I said, OK, I'll go.
And then you go. And, you know, you think it's a long time ago.
You feel young. I still feel very young.
And I watch other people.
By the way, when they talk about Biden being old, he's not old.
I have friends that are 85, 90, 93.
You look at Bernie Marcus.
He's 100 percent. He's 94, 95.
Sharp as ever. Biden's not old.
That's not his problem. He's got other problems, but he doesn't have an old problem.
But I think they like to say that for other reasons.
unidentified
He's got a big problem now because you've given him a nickname.
steve bannon
Yesterday was a big day.
donald j trump
I've decided that Hillary's cooked.
We can't do too much better.
You know, I always felt, I never felt that Crooked Hillary was a great name.
I thought it was accurate, but it never flowed like some of the other names.
steve bannon
You have letters in here from Bill Clinton.
You talk about Bill Clinton. I do. No, I liked him.
He had a real relationship with you.
donald j trump
They were at my wedding.
They were at my wedding to Melania when we got married in Palm Beach.
They came. A lot of people came.
Maybe you're sort of saying, can you try and leave me out of that whole deal?
But it was a beautiful wedding.
They were there. They couldn't have been nicer.
We had a very good relationship.
I used to play golf with Bill Clinton.
I have a club in Westchester that's fantastic.
steve bannon
There's a great photograph in this book.
At Westchester with Bloomberg, Clinton, yourself, for a round.
donald j trump
Well, Bloomberg loved me too until I ran.
Bloomberg called me and said, could you do me a favor?
Could you take over this golf course that's been under construction for 28 years?
It was a project in the Bronx.
I took it over. I got it done in nine months.
It was under construction for 29 years, and he was embarrassed by it.
I had a very, and I did a great job with it, and we opened it, Jack Nicklaus.
steve bannon
And it's a public link, people.
It's a public course. The MAGA deplorables, the average citizen to go play that course.
donald j trump
No, it is. It's in the Bronx.
I did it as sort of a favor to him.
I said, all right, I'll do it. I said, fellas, look, you've been screwing the city for 29 years.
It's time we get this thing built.
You know, they were rough guys, too.
These were guys that were... Even you don't want to know them, okay?
These were rough guys, but they were good.
I said, let's get it done.
Let's get it done. And I got it done in a year, built a beautiful clubhouse, everything top of the line.
And then... They never really appreciated it.
By that time, Bloomberg was gone.
But I did it because Bloomberg asked me to do it.
I had a very good relationship with Michael Bloomberg.
But then he went crazy.
Something happened to him. And, you know, when he went away from his policy of guns, you know, what he was doing with the gun stuff, which basically was started by Rudy.
Look, Rudy was the greatest mayor in the history of New York.
And the crime, I mean, I don't know how you feel.
steve bannon
You were there when the city started to collapse.
donald j trump
I saw it all. I saw it collapse.
I saw it come back. Rudy started it.
steve bannon
And you've seen it collapse again.
donald j trump
Now it's collapsing again.
Now it's at a level.
And the one thing that's different...
We had a very powerful police force that wasn't being utilized.
Now many of those great policemen and women have left and gone to Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, many states, and they're leaving.
And you need, you need, and you have some great people, but they're looking to leave.
They're not being treated with respect in New York's finest.
And we love them. And I love them.
You know, they endorsed me for president.
They've never done that before.
It was a big deal at the time. They endorsed me for president.
And it was a fantastic day that we had when they did that because it's never happened before.
They didn't even know if they were allowed to do it, but it didn't matter to them.
They gave me the most beautiful award.
They had me a man of the decade.
The whole thing with the New York, New York finest.
They were never treated properly and they were never allowed to do, meaning over the last 10 years, they were never allowed.
De Blasio was a disaster as a mayor.
They hated it. Remember when he was making a speech and the police all turned around with their back as facing De Blasio?
He was so bad to the police.
And many of them have left.
steve bannon
They didn't want to come to some of the funerals.
Remember that? They had a big controversy about...
donald j trump
De Blasio was so bad.
It's not even thinkable how bad he was.
And it started there.
And it just, you know...
steve bannon
Does that hit you especially because you're from Queens, but you went to New York and made it to Manhattan, that what's happened to this great city that you were so much apart?
The late 20th century, starting in the 80s, You were everywhere.
And you can tell by this book, this is the power.
By the way, go to 45books.com, promo code WARB, you get free shipping.
This is a must-have, a great Mother's Day gift, a great Father's Day gift.
The quality of it, the quality of the photos, the paper stock, the binding, they did a great job.
And what I want everybody to do is put it on your coffee table, particularly if you have friends and relatives that are not MAGA. Because here's the point.
No, because the gratitude, the gratitude, and no, there's all types of things in here where you have done favors for people that nobody knows about.
That's one of the things about the book that's so incredible.
You've got Sean Connery, you've got Michael Douglas, you've got Kirk Douglas, you've got Oliver Stone, Jack Nicholson, Arnold Palmer.
I mean, great religious figures, thinkers.
donald j trump
So many interesting stories.
Arnold Palmer, you know, he's a very rich man.
IMG, the big Deal, the big agency.
Mark McCormick. Mark McCormick was a golfer.
steve bannon
Really started it with Paul McCormick.
donald j trump
Should I tell this story? Tell it, yes.
So Mark McCormick went to a very good college, a good golfing college, and he wanted to be a professional golfer.
And his college, whatever it was, Duke or some college, but...
They played Wake Forest, and he got to play.
He was the number one player in his team.
He got to play Arnold Palmer, who was the number one player in Wake Forest.
And Mark McCormick was really good.
He was better than a scratch player.
That's very good. And he heard about Arnold Palmer, but he figured he's just the best player in that team.
So they played through nine holes, and his friend called over in the fairway, Mark, how are you playing?
He said, I cannot play better.
I'm playing great. How are you doing?
I'm seven down. He said, I can't beat this guy.
And he lost the match.
You know, it was over after about 11 holes or something.
And he comes back. 11 and 8 or whatever.
He realized that he's never going to be able to beat on a bottle.
steve bannon
I got to get another line of work.
donald j trump
Right. No, he said, you know, this isn't going to work out.
He's longer. He's stronger.
He putts better. He chips better.
There's not a thing he doesn't do much better.
He said, I could play this guy a hundred times.
I could never beat him. So now he realizes, you know, Arnold Palmer then went over and he won the U.S. Amateur and then he became a pro and right from the beginning.
But, you know, he was a great guy, very powerful guy.
Arnold Palmer is a great story because his father worked at La Trobe.
It's a golf course, a very, you know, at the time, very sort of middle of the rung golf course.
And he was a, he carried grass because he was a very powerful man.
They call him a sod carrier.
Can you believe it? He carried sod on his shoulders because he was so powerful.
And Arnold was a very powerful man.
You know what I mean? That's the way it is.
Arnold was like a blacksmith.
His arms were strong.
He was quite a man.
And Arnold would practice with his father.
after the club was closed.
And they couldn't afford even a golf club.
So they'd go in and use the members club in the evening.
They'd take a members club.
And Arnold became a great golfer.
Then he won the U.S. Amateur. He turned pro.
He immediately did well. He bought the club.
And he made his father the manager.
Isn't that great? You know, it's like, to me, it's like one of the great stories.
Many great stories, but that's one of the great stories.
But Arnold was a special guy.
So Arnold was a very rich guy.
So Mark McCormick lost.
Badly. And he realized after that he could never be approached, you know, because they're just much better.
That little elite group of people.
There's a big difference, believe me.
I know very well. And so what happens is he said to Arnold, Arnold, I think you're going to be a great star.
I'd like to sign you because I've always wanted to do it.
And he gave Arnold a piece of the agency, IMG. Arnold was a very rich guy.
He owned a piece of the Golf Channel.
Everyone wanted to do it in the early years.
steve bannon
First guy really flying a jet, had his own jet.
donald j trump
He had his own jet. In fact, he asked me a question.
He said to me, you know, because I became very friendly with Arnold later when he was older.
He said, you know, I bought a beautiful jet, and they all want me to finance it.
They give me all these financing options.
Should I finance it?
I said, well, do you need the money?
No, I don't. I'd rather just pay cash.
I said, you're doing it right. Pay cash.
You don't have to listen to these geniuses.
You don't need to borrow money.
I'll never forget it. I said, do you need the money?
No. I don't want to do that.
They want me to finance the plane.
I don't want to put debt on the plane.
I said, Arnold, do what you're doing if you don't need the money.
It was sort of funny. But Arnold flew his own plane.
But Arnold was a great guy.
And so he became an owner of IMG. He was one of the original owners.
I think it was just Mark and Arnold.
Arnold was the first client at IMG. IMG became the biggest agency.
I mean, Mark McCormick did a phenomenal job.
He was very good at that. He was better at that than he was a guy.
steve bannon
Isn't that the part of the agency that represented you?
They had, yeah. Didn't they buy a merger?
donald j trump
I think they bought William Morris and they did that.
But that was, you know, later. But the initial IMG was owned by...
Pretty impressive. Arnold Palmer and Mark McCormick.
And Mark McCormick did a phenomenal job.
He passed away. He died during an operation, actually, but did a fantastic job.
steve bannon
Actually, Arnold Palmer passed away during the 16 campaign.
I remember you, Gracious, saying you wanted to attend the funeral, but you realized what the intensity of the campaign would bring a circus.
donald j trump
Oh, I would have done that in two seconds.
And I called up the family because it was just great people.
He was married to Winnie. Totally in love with her, so it took him years to recover.
steve bannon
And she passed away.
donald j trump
And then she passed away, and then five or six years later, he met another woman who was absolutely great, but Arnold was having a very hard time with that whole thing.
He was a great gentleman and a great man in many respects.
unidentified
He did a, you know, Then Jack came along.
donald j trump
Arnold did a great job, and then Jack came along, and Jack was able to beat Arnold.
You know, Jack was longer, and he was younger, and lots of things.
And Jack went through a little hell because nobody wanted him to beat Arnold.
Arnold was, you know, Arnold was Arnold, but Jack was phenomenal, and he spoke with his clubs.
You know, he didn't speak like our friends in the world of politics.
They only speak with their mouth, not with their brains, not with anything else, but Jack...
Jack spoke with his clubs.
He was phenomenal. And Jack's another one, a Gary player.
You meet great people, whether it's golf or other sports, but a lot of those people are represented in the book.
steve bannon
In the book, did you realize at the time, because I'm going to talk about some of the politicians and did they have the right stuff, did you realize at the time, because if you see the letters and you see the communication, there's graciousness, gratitude, true friendship, even maybe sometimes you didn't know them that well, you'd done things for them. There's a line of demarcation, November 8th of 2016, the day you win, on that.
What you stood for is America First and MAGA. Is that the line of demarcation in your life?
Did many of the people that you had known and they respected you and you had relationships with, did that end because of your finally turning to politics?
donald j trump
You may be earlier. I think it more went the announcement rather than the day of the victory.
That was a great victory. A victory like nobody's ever seen before, let's face it.
You happened to be there in the room sitting right next to me, so you know it better than anybody, but was that the wildest evening ever?
Incredible. And I think if we do it again...
unidentified
You've got to tell the story about President Obama telling you about...
steve bannon
About, remember, they keep telling him, hey, we got a firewall in North Carolina.
No, I can tell that, sir.
donald j trump
It's a little long, but it was, we have the firewall in North Carolina, we got this, we're going to win Florida, we're going to do this.
It was actually about Bill Clinton, with Bill Clinton, and we'll tell that story for a while, but I think it was one of the greatest, and I think if we win in 24, I think it's going to be...
steve bannon
When we win in 24. Yeah, I hope so.
The country can't take I don't think it can take it.
donald j trump
I don't think we're going to have a country anymore.
steve bannon
You know this as a businessman, correct?
donald j trump
Well, even as a politician, they've weaponized, you would know this very well, they've weaponized the Justice Department, they've weaponized the FBI. They're doing things that a communist country would do, a Marxist country would do.
steve bannon
It's a very sad thing. Did you ever think this country would get to that?
donald j trump
I never thought it would be that bad.
steve bannon
And you dealt with some tough people.
donald j trump
I said, we will never have a socialist country.
And I was right. We skipped that station.
We went right into Marxism or communism.
What's going on is sick.
And what they do is they're unbelievable at cheating in elections.
unidentified
You're watching The War Room with Steve Bannon.
Charlie Kirk is next.
donald j trump
Stay tuned to Real America's Voice.
They cheated in elections.
Had Rupert Murdoch backed his people, he wouldn't have had any liability.
When he went out and said, there was nothing wrong with this election, what a thing to say.
I mean, if you just look last week with the FBI and what happened with the FBI and Twitter, or the FBI and Facebook, where they told them what to say, and they said, don't talk about the laptop.
unidentified
It's all started, everything's begun, and you are over, cause we're taking down the CCP. We rejoice when there's no more.
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