May 24, 2023 - Bannon's War Room
48:42
Participants
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| This is the primal scream of a dying regime. | ||
| Pray for our enemies, because we're going medieval on these people. | ||
| I got a free shot of 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. Bannon. | |
| Let's talk about those debt ceiling negotiations between the White House and Capitol Hill. | ||
| I want to bring in NBC senior congressional correspondent Garrett Haake. | ||
| So, Garrett, Congressman Graves, who was one of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's debt ceiling negotiators, says, and he should know, things are not going well. | ||
| What's the latest you're hearing? | ||
| Well, the problem here, Chris, is that they're stuck. | ||
| At the end of the day, this is about spending levels. | ||
| And Republicans say they want to spend less next year than the U.S. government spent this year. | ||
| But they keep walling off sections of the budget that they don't want to cut. | ||
| And as the White House, as our reporting has indicated, has tried to put other things on the table, other ways to spend money or save money or try to achieve some of the same deficit reductions that the House Republicans want. | ||
| House Republicans are saying thanks but no thanks. | ||
| Take for case in point Medicare savings. | ||
| The idea that perhaps the US government could make up some of the costs that Republicans want to make up by spending less money on prescription drugs or payments to insurers. | ||
| Well, here's what happened when I asked Kevin McCarthy about that a little while ago. | ||
| How can the White House be interested in that when they said you can't touch Medicare or Social Security? | ||
| You don't think there's savings to be had there? | ||
| No, remember what the President said long ago? | ||
| You can't touch Medicare or Social Security. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He said he wouldn't deal with it. So that's a cut in your view then? | |
| That's not something we would go into? The President said you can't. | ||
| I'm asking your opinion on it, Mr. | ||
| Speaker. I understand you're asking my opinion, but I've got to be very clear. | ||
| The President said you can't do anything with Medicare or Social Security. | ||
| And now he wants to bring that into the fold. | ||
| We all heard that from all the people across the country, over and over. | ||
| So Chris, I mean, that just gives you an example. | ||
| House Republicans have taken revenue raisers, i.e. | ||
| closing tax loopholes, raising taxes on the wealthy off the table. | ||
| They continue to kind of carve out things where they won't make cuts. | ||
| That leaves cuts mainly to domestic spending, Democratic priorities. | ||
| If your recipe here is to put together a coalition that can vote for a bipartisan bill, that ain't it. | ||
| Democrats are not going to support that. | ||
| And so we go around and around and around with that deadline moving ever closer. | ||
| Garrett Hague, thank you for that. | ||
| I think there would be a huge backlash from our entire House Democratic caucus, certainly the progressives, but also in the streets. | ||
| You know, I mean, I think that this is it's important that we don't take steps back from the very strong agenda that the president Himself shepherded and led over the last two years. | ||
| But if the president agrees to spending caps, or if he agrees to work requirements on certain social safety... | ||
| It's going to be a problem. We do not legislate through the debt ceiling for this very reason. | ||
| Tuesday, 23 May in the year of our Lord, 2023. | ||
| Russ Vogt for the Center for Renewing America, the Center for American Renewal. | ||
| Russ, you've been one of the architects of this. | ||
| Where are we right now in the fog of war? | ||
| See through this for a second because this morning we had a lot of momentum on coming out of the conference to really question this one this phony one June deadline there's no deadline and we had McHenry had Gates sitting there going the Treasury Department to come forward with a financial model and kind of show us their work and it may be I think I'm seeing some tweets right now McHenry may be backing off that but where are we standing this whole process? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, I love the clips that you just showed and being able to see the absolute panic the White House and the left is in. | |
| As a result of the months of framing this fight right about woke and weaponized bureaucracy, it's not about Social Security and Medicare. | ||
| And to see the White House going to Medicare cuts is pretty amazing. | ||
| But we're in a good place. | ||
| Now, the House Republicans need to hold strong. | ||
| Do the negotiators need to hold strong? | ||
| Yes, absolutely. But I do recognize that as the Republicans in the House have made it clear to the negotiators, this is what we're fighting for. | ||
| The House passed bill. | ||
| $5 trillion of cuts, defunding the woke and weaponized bureaucracy, going at the IRS, going at a lot of the renewable energy credits that are messing up our entire energy grid, going at every single thing that we can do to be able to get people back to work with work requirements. | ||
| As they fight for what the House passed, It doesn't matter what AOC thinks. | ||
| It is about Biden and McCarthy and the House, and the Senate will pass what Biden agrees to, and AOC can vote no, but she's irrelevant. | ||
| So we're in a good place, but they have to hold the line and insist on what they passed in the House and those spending cuts that will actually lead to less spending and a bureaucracy that's not weaponized against the American people. | ||
| So how do we, if they're all over the map right now, if they're all over the map with this, how do we get them to hold the line? | ||
| I mean, the Republicans, there's certain elements of the caucus, the 20, etc. | ||
| They're sitting there going, hey, the best deal we've got is on the table. | ||
| But are you hearing rumblings that McCarthy's under pressure to cut a deal with the Democrats? | ||
| Otherwise, we just hold and force Treasury to show us the model. | ||
| Look, the 1 June is a total lie. | ||
| That's why they won't show you the numbers. | ||
| They won't show you that because of total. | ||
| And they understand by the 15th, there's plenty of cash coming in. | ||
| And once you get to that, there's no crisis. | ||
| We can take the whole summer. As Grant said, we're going to fight along this line all summer. | ||
| So how do we get there? | ||
| How do we make sure that the caucus says, show us the model? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We get there by the House negotiators not getting deal happy. | |
| And to the extent that they go back to what they passed, And insist on that and insist on 22 spending levels, pre-COVID levels. | ||
| You got to insist on that. | ||
| That's a 20 % cut to the bureaucracy. | ||
| That means a 30 % cut for the Department of Education, which does nothing but critical race theory. | ||
| They got to insist on that. | ||
| And Biden will reject it at first. | ||
| He's rejecting it now. | ||
| But he's going to get closer and closer to the deadline that he says that matter. | ||
| You and I know it's a fake deadline. | ||
| But they have to be able to cut a deal before then because you know what? | ||
| If we get to June 2nd and Steve Bannon and Russ Voter write that June 1st was fake deadline, 30 to 40 years of their debt limit scaremongering goes out the window. | ||
| So the pressure is on them to reach a deal. | ||
| And McCarthy has to hold the line. | ||
| Hold the line. Everybody goes home for Memorial Day. | ||
| It's all going to be fine. One more time, Russ, because I've got a very special guest here. | ||
| One more time. Tell us what we have to hold the line in one June. | ||
| How do we do it? Hold the line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Don't get deal happy. | |
| Insist on the House position. | ||
| People want to say, what's Biden getting out of it? | ||
| He's getting a debt limit increase. | ||
| In exchange, the House have given him the terms. | ||
| The terms have already been passed. | ||
| Accept that bill, Joe Biden. | ||
| You will get the debt limit that you need for one year. | ||
| That's the deal. And House Republicans need to insist on it. | ||
| They may get up to the June 1st deadline. | ||
| The June 1st deadline's not real. | ||
| Go over it. | ||
| Hold the line. | ||
| Hang on a second. I'm going to bring in Congressman Lauren Boebert. | ||
| If the sun rises on the 2nd and we haven't had a deal, Russ votes 100 % correct. | ||
| 30 years of scaremongering people about this is over. | ||
| Congressman Boebert, your thoughts? | ||
| Yes. No, this is absolutely an arbitrary deadline that has been presented. | ||
| You believe it's arbitrary? I do. | ||
| What has Janet Yellen been correct about? | ||
| What has she overseen so far that she's just nailed it out of the park? | ||
| I mean, we've had banking crisis. | ||
| We've had inflation that she didn't see coming. | ||
| All of this that is taking place, and now all of a sudden she knows exactly when we're going to... | ||
|
unidentified
|
She's an oracle. Yeah, yeah. | |
| Has she shown... | ||
| Have they had the common courtesy to show the House any set of numbers? | ||
| No, Steve. | ||
| And actually, Congressman Gates today said we need to be bringing her in before our committees and named several committees that she could go before and actually produce The information that she's seeing that makes her believe that this June 1st deadline is real. | ||
| And I would love to see that. | ||
| Let's issue that subpoena. | ||
| Let's invite her in, first of all, and get her before Congress to actually produce what she's seeing. | ||
| If she didn't come over, you would subpoena her? | ||
| You know, I think we need to use our subpoena authority a lot more than we are right now. | ||
| Okay, we're going to get into that. Russ, what do you think? | ||
| Do you think we ought to get her over there and have an open hearing to the whole nation? | ||
| Just let her explain herself in an open hearing to Congress over maybe McHenry's committee. | ||
| Just get her over there with people to deal with this and just say, hey, look, can we see your numbers? | ||
| We want to accommodate. | ||
| We've passed a bill. We want to accommodate you on the first, but we've got to make sure there's a real deadline. | ||
| You think that's smart? No doubt about it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And she has already admitted to this, and you put it out last night when you said that she buried the lead in her comments. | |
| They want to be able to disguise the notion of default, to make it timely payment of everything the federal government's ever obligated. | ||
| That's not what default is. | ||
| They know it. They just don't want to have to make tradeoffs themselves. | ||
| Russ, how do people get to you now? | ||
| Because people ought to be on your Twitter feed and your getter feed 24-7, True Social. | ||
| Where do they get you on social media? | ||
| How do they get over to the center? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's the same across all three channels, at RussVote, and they can get us at americarenewing.com. | |
| We're following it closely. The watchword is hold the line, Russ? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's it. Thank you, brother. | |
| Appreciate it. Russ Vogt, the architect of this. | ||
| The number is 202-225-3121. | ||
| I think today when you call, Instead of giving the what for, just say, hey, we want Yellen to show her work. | ||
| Yes. Show her work. | ||
| Do you agree with that, Congressman? | ||
| Do people in your district agree with that? | ||
| Would they like to see what this financial crisis is about? | ||
| Absolutely. This federal government needs to be much more transparent than it's been in the past. | ||
| I'm grateful that we have the gavel to have actual oversight, but there has to be transparency for the American people rather than just gaslighting On media all the time and on the news all the time. | ||
| That's all that has been taking place for years now. | ||
| The American people are kept in the dark about what's really going on. | ||
| They get talking points fed to them by the DCCC and by Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and Hakeem Jeffries. | ||
| And then the media help push that. | ||
| And they're being completely gaslit. | ||
| Produce the documents and show us real information. | ||
| And if you can't, well, maybe you just made the whole thing up and we're not going to default on June 1st. | ||
| But, you know, when I walked in here, you were saying, you know, we need to hold the line. | ||
| And Russ, Russ Boat's wonderful. | ||
| He's certainly helped us with the House Freedom Caucus and crafting this plan and getting the right policies in place for this. | ||
| But we cannot get deal happy. | ||
| Just as was said, we have already done our part. | ||
| If anything, I want to increase the ante. | ||
| Let's throw in HR2. Let's get some border security in with this debt ceiling increase. | ||
| And so I don't want to make any deals that lessen what we brought to the table because there was already more that we could have done. | ||
| And so if anything, if they're going to keep playing this game... | ||
| You've already made your accommodations. Yes, and if they're going to play this game and not want to negotiate, then we should just keep up in the ante. | ||
| Let me go back to your district, because you had a tough general election fight. | ||
| I know you're very focused on 2024. | ||
| When you go back to those hardworking people in Colorado, the people that didn't vote for you, what is their sense of what's going on here with the spending? | ||
| Do they feel they're being dealt with straight, that people are actually giving them the information they need to come to some conclusion about how they make decisions on this? | ||
| It really depends on who you're listening to. | ||
| Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who believe the media. | ||
| And so they see that Republicans aren't doing enough in the House for this debt ceiling. | ||
| And they're believing that message that's coming from the White House, from Joe Biden, from Jen Psaki's replacement. | ||
| And they're saying, what are you guys going to do? | ||
| Well, we already did it. We produced a solution for Joe Biden's problem. | ||
| And if there is a default... And he gave an increase to the debt ceiling. | ||
| Absolutely. We increase it. | ||
| And you're not happy with that, Bill. | ||
| We're not happy in the world. We're in posse, but we, in the spirit of trying to move things forward, you guys, McCarthy did a masterful job of bringing it all together, presenting it. | ||
| That's the bill that's passed. That's the bid. | ||
| There's no, they haven't come up with any response. | ||
| The Senate, Schumer hasn't done anything in the White House. | ||
| And we have done our part. | ||
| So now it is up to the Senate and Joe Biden to come to the table and say, okay, we can have some clawbacks with COVID spending and the IRA. See, now they don't want to touch the IRA. These are massive subsidies to the- This is the energy bill. | ||
| The energy bill. This is basically the bill back better. | ||
| Right. Inflation Expansion Act is what it really is. | ||
| And it was the Green New Deal. | ||
| And Democrats brag about that every day in the House. | ||
| I'm in committee with them all the time, and they're talking about the Green New Deal subsidies that are in there. | ||
| And it's... It's the Inflation Reduction Act. | ||
| It's just a big con game. | ||
| We title it one way, we load it with a bunch of other stuff, and sell it. | ||
| But this is very reasonable, and this is what the House has put forward. | ||
| The rest of the vote helped us tremendously on this. | ||
| The House Freedom Caucus, we got together. | ||
| Some of our other allies, like Congressman Gates, came to the table, and we said, this is what we're willing to put forward in lieu of a debt ceiling increase. | ||
| Here's a question. We're going to go to a short commercial break right now. | ||
| Here's a question while we get back. | ||
| Have you seen anything? Are the Democrats, are they working, one, with a sense of urgency? | ||
| And number two, do you think they're really putting forward anything to actually to get to a deal? | ||
| Hang on. I want to have this audience even build through the break. | ||
| We'll be back in the war room in just a second. | ||
| Congressman Lauren Boebert in the House. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Next. We rejoice when there's no more. | |
| Let's take down the CCD. Here's your host, Stephen K. Band. | ||
| Okay, the head of the, in the cold open, you weren't here to see it, but they had the head of the Progressive Caucus and AOC saying they're going to take to the streets if there's any cuts whatsoever. | ||
| Is that a threat? That sounded like a threat. | ||
| Really, we're going to start rioting now? | ||
| I mean, their extremism is on full display. | ||
| They are so extreme and so radical in every single one of their positions. | ||
| And just like I said, they got the media to cover for them and try to make them look reasonable and make Republicans look extreme. | ||
| But in everything that they are doing, this is extreme. | ||
| You asked me... Well, maybe you're going to ask it again. | ||
| We were kind of teeing it up there. But the urgency that the Democrats... | ||
| Do they have any urgency to get this taken care of? | ||
| And no, they're fine to just sit back and put the blame on Republicans because they know they have this coalition in the media to massage that message for them and make them the good guys. | ||
| Are they actually negotiating in good faith? | ||
| Are you hearing real proposals coming forward? | ||
| And why is McCarthy even listening to this? | ||
| Because you've got a bill. Let them pass something, right? | ||
| Right. I don't think that we should be negotiating anything other than our bill. | ||
| We have done our job. | ||
| We passed the bill. | ||
| The Senate is the one that needs to come to the table and actually present something. | ||
| What is there to negotiate? I haven't seen a plan. | ||
| I've seen our plan. I haven't seen anything else. | ||
| So, you know, I wasn't a part of the meetings that took place with the folks that McCarthy sent over and the Speaker himself went there. | ||
| But, you know, there were walkouts there. | ||
| And they're saying this isn't in good faith. | ||
| So I don't know what's being said in those rooms in totality, but it doesn't sound like something that's being done in good faith. | ||
| And coming from this administration and from the Democrat Party, is there anything ever in good faith? | ||
| You were part of the Magnificent Six and also part of the Twenty. | ||
| And you're part of the House Freedom Caucus. | ||
| Where's the Freedom Caucus coming? | ||
| Because they've been the rocks on this. | ||
| We're going to have Ralph Norman on next. | ||
| He's one of the leaders in the Twenty. | ||
| Talk to me about where the Freedom Caucus is in this. | ||
| They dug in? Yeah. | ||
| So, I mean, this was our plan. | ||
| This was our bill that we passed. | ||
| We were the ones that had a press conference And with with senators and said, this is what we need to do. | ||
| If we are going to agree to increase the debt ceiling, then this is what we want to see happen. | ||
| And that's the plan that we ultimately pass. | ||
| And I'm glad that Congressman Ralph Norman is coming on and joining you. | ||
| That'll be great. You know, he's on the Rules Committee, so he's been very active in how all of this is going to play out and certainly was one of the 20 fellow Freedom Caucus member. | ||
| Some of us with the Freedom Caucus are getting together this evening. | ||
| We're going to talk more about this. | ||
| I certainly hope you're not going to see any of us break off. | ||
| But the Freedom Caucus, that's a conservative conscience of the Republican Party. | ||
| These are the guys and girls that I turn to when I need help and understanding. | ||
| They have my back and I have theirs. | ||
| I think that if we remain strong, we might be able to pull this off. | ||
| How can, I don't understand, with McCarthy on tenterhooks, and he's doing a good job and really an incredible job of the messaging coming out to the sticks, what he did on the Senate Terrace the other day was great, that unity of this thing. | ||
| Why would he give that up? | ||
| All the polling, we're going to have Mark Mitchell on from Rasmus tomorrow morning. | ||
| The polling's off the charts. | ||
| The American people, it's like 56%, 67%. | ||
| They understand things have to be cut. | ||
| We shouldn't be taking any money. | ||
| McCarthy's thing is saying, why are we paying for guys? | ||
| Surfing on couches that won't do 20 hours a week. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And we're borrowing the money from China. | |
| Your constituents understand that. | ||
| Why are the rest of the Republicans not dug in with you guys? | ||
| From the messaging that I've heard from the speaker, he has dug in on this. | ||
| Going back to the last segment of your show where we had Russ vote on here, we cannot get deal happy and just start offering cuts and negotiating with ourselves. | ||
| We have to see a plan, and really, we have to hold strong to what we passed. | ||
| We have the Chamber of Commerce that's supporting what we passed out of the House. | ||
| I mean, come on. When's the last time they came to our side? | ||
| So this is very reasonable. | ||
| It's understandable to cut these hundreds of billions of dollars in areas, and I don't want to hear the excuse of we'll take care of it in the appropriations process. | ||
| There's plenty we're going to take care of in the appropriations process, but Let's get something now, too. | ||
| You know, we're not going to increase. | ||
| I don't want to see an increase to 2025. | ||
| That number is far too much. | ||
| You mean to push the timeline from the spring of next year, this thing would go to March or April or May, to push it to after the inauguration of 2025, which would basically give them $4 trillion, $5 trillion. | ||
| That's exactly what that would do. | ||
| And so I think as long as the American people continue to show their support for the plan that we have passed and say that they don't want anything that reduces the amount of cuts or extends the timeline, then the Speaker will continue to see that polling and the response of the American people and will stand strong with us. | ||
| We fought for these rules to empower the Speaker, for him to be a better Speaker. | ||
| And he's done a really, really great job. | ||
| And that's exactly what I want to continue to see him do. | ||
| So I hope that we can all stay united throughout this. | ||
| But I think the Speaker knows that we have his back from the House Freedom Caucus as long as we can see this and stay strong. | ||
| If he holds the line. Yes. | ||
| Let's talk about what else is going on. | ||
| You've got an invasion on the southern border. | ||
| You have these investigations. Do you think that the conference and the Republicans are moving with enough alacrity? | ||
| They're being aggressive enough on these subpoenas. | ||
| They're being aggressive enough on these investigations. | ||
| They're being aggressive enough on trying to stop this madness on the invasion of the southern border. | ||
| Steve, I always think we could be more aggressive. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm so shocked that Lauren Bova doesn't think we're aggressive enough. | |
| Do more, do more. | ||
| I do want to see more people before us in committees. | ||
| Are you using the subpoena power enough? | ||
| I don't think it's enough, no. We've issued tens of subpoenas. | ||
| We need to issue hundreds of subpoenas. | ||
| And as far as the border, going back to our last segment talk there, I want to up the ante with this debt ceiling increase and add HR to a border security bill. | ||
| We fought for that in the Speaker's race as well. | ||
| We demanded that the Texas-built border security plan come to the floor, and we were able to get that passed. | ||
| But is the Senate going to pass that? | ||
| Is Joe Biden going to sign that? | ||
| Well, let's up the ante and add it to this. | ||
| Would you say, in other words, you would say, hey, you got to close the business Friday to accept what we've got. | ||
| If you don't, we're going to add, pulling out of the WHO, adding some border security, we'll add a couple more things to it. | ||
| Right, we're not getting weaker. We'll get stronger. | ||
| And if you don't agree to that by the middle of next week, we're going to add some more stuff. | ||
| We're moving forward. There's plenty of stuff that we could add on there, demands for a must-pass piece of legislation. | ||
| So I think Joe Biden should take the increase that he's getting and see that we are at a very reasonable place. | ||
| And, you know, we'll just keep adding more onto it. | ||
| But also, you know, I was talking today and we... | ||
| And it was said that we need to be using the House floor to actually be pushing the message of all of these things that are in the debt ceiling instead of the bills that we're passing right now. | ||
| I mean, sure, we've got some good bills coming up, but why don't we have the 87,000 IRS agents bring that back into the mix? | ||
| Why don't we have the IRA and defunding that and all of these other... | ||
| There's so much great stuff in here. | ||
| ...so many things, and we could bring that and use the House floor. | ||
| We haven't done enough about messaging that. | ||
| Like I said, we're going to have Mark Mitchell from Rasmus. | ||
| The polling's off the chart. | ||
| The country has your back on this. | ||
| They understand something has to happen and they don't realize why it's not happening. | ||
| When they're saying we're going to take to the streets, they said we've worked so hard to get here. | ||
| If you cut a nickel of spending, they're going to riot. | ||
| We worked so hard to get to $32 trillion in debt. | ||
| Don't take it away from us. | ||
| They don't care. They could care less about that. | ||
| It's irresponsible. Do you think when you issue these subpoenas, particularly when Ray and the FBI just head to high noon, the administration, this regime is just in your grill about they're not going to cooperate at all. | ||
| Yes, they have no fear of repercussions. | ||
| It's their administration. | ||
| It's Biden's DOJ. You know, they're not investigating the things that we're putting forward, which is very frustrating. | ||
| You got Hunter Biden. You got the big guy, Joe Biden himself. | ||
| You know, look what Chairman James Comer uncovered in the oversight committee that we have shell companies from China. | ||
| $10 million to nine Biden family members. | ||
| Exactly. And there is no Biden family business. | ||
| It's selling access to Joe. | ||
| We've got a couple of minutes. I know you've got to bounce. | ||
| Right now, where is the center of gravity of your work? | ||
| You're one of the firebrands. | ||
| You're one of the leaders. You're this rising generation. | ||
| Where are you spending your time? | ||
| I know you do media, but where are you spending your time behind the scenes working on this? | ||
| Yes. Well, so obviously the debt ceiling is number one right now, but we got other things. | ||
| That's your number one priority? That is number one right now. | ||
| But also we have other things coming up. | ||
| We have a farm bill coming up. | ||
| You know, we have appropriations coming up. | ||
| I've already been working through the appropriations request, things that we could defund. | ||
| People don't understand. We're going to get another bite of the app on the appropriations, correct? | ||
| Yes, yes. We're going to take the woke and weaponize out then? | ||
| We are going to defund the woke and weaponized areas of our federal government. | ||
| Yes, that will be in the appropriations process. | ||
| And that's stuff that we're already working through. | ||
| We have got pages and pages of departments and programs that could be defunded because they are woke and weaponized. | ||
| I'm very excited about that. | ||
| I'm excited to put forward, put to use the Holman rule and go after these. | ||
| You mean actually terminate people if they didn't... | ||
| Reduce their salary significantly. | ||
| And so these bureaucrats that have overreached, bring them in. | ||
| And I want to be very aggressive with that. | ||
| But then also, you know, I mean, on a day-to-day, we have the oversight committee. | ||
| We have these hearings. But, Steve, natural resources is my passion. | ||
| We have to be energy secure again. | ||
| We have to be energy independent. | ||
| We all want cleaner air, cleaner water. | ||
| But we can't turn this economy around until we're full-spectrum energy dominant again. | ||
| Right, yes. So that all plays together. | ||
| How tough is that with their obsession with the Green New Deal? | ||
| It's a religion. | ||
| It's a theological discussion with those folks, right? | ||
| Yes. They're not rational. | ||
| They are not rational. I travel to these energy co-ops and they want us to be completely green and renewable by 2035, by 2050. | ||
| It's absolutely not possible. | ||
| They don't have the battery capacity. | ||
| They don't have the storage. They don't have the transmission lines to even connect it to the grid if they did. | ||
| None of it is there yet. | ||
| And so, I mean, these companies are struggling to comply with regulations. | ||
| And, you know, it's just making it harder and harder. | ||
| We just need to produce... Hold the line. | ||
| Yes, hold the line. How do people on social media and the website, where do they get to you on social media? | ||
| On social media, I'm at Lauren Boebert on Twitter and Lauren Boebert for Congress on Facebook. | ||
| And my website is laurenforfreedom.com. | ||
| And let me tell you, I am the number one target on the DCCC's list. | ||
| We know that. So if people are so inclined, where do they go to make a donation? | ||
| laurenforfreedom.com is where you can come to help support me. | ||
| Every little bit helps. They certainly came after us. | ||
| We've already been outspent in the first quarter by my Democrat opponent. | ||
| They smell blood in the water. | ||
| They're coming after me because I am coming after them. | ||
| You're coming after them. Thank you for coming in here. | ||
| Hold the line. Hold the line, Steve. | ||
| Don't get deal-happy. I love that. | ||
| Next couple of days, hold the line. | ||
| Show us your work. Short commercial break. | ||
| Ralph Norman, South Carolina, next. | ||
|
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Here's your host, Stephen K. Van. | |
| Welcome back. Now we're going to go to one of the leaders of this, Congressman Ralph Norris of South Carolina. | ||
| By the way, the number is 202-225-3121 to call and talk to your congressman. | ||
| 202-224-3121 to your senator, the congressman. | ||
| Make sure they understand. Hold the line. | ||
| And now we want to see the work, as we've been standing here for weeks and weeks and weeks. | ||
| Where's Janet Yellens? How do we know this June 1st date's a real date? | ||
| Only number she puts on anything is the date on the letter. | ||
| Congressman Norman, you're a businessman. | ||
| You've had to work with projections. | ||
| You've done financing. You're a real estate developer. | ||
| Have you ever seen a situation like this where the people kind of trying to negotiate a deal won't show you any of the numbers, sir? | ||
| Not only will they not show you the numbers, Steve, they won't put it in writing. | ||
| They'll talk in these glowing terms. | ||
| But they don't put it in writing. | ||
| It's just like Janet Yellen throwing these dates out. | ||
| Nobody believes that. | ||
| And, you know, Matt Gaetz did a great job to say, let's subpoena Janet Yellen. | ||
| Let's get her in and make her answer. | ||
| Where are the numbers to back up these dates that she's been saying? | ||
| And I think now, you know, originally she was June 1. | ||
| Now she's talking about maybe June 15th. | ||
| I mean, you know, this thing could be July or August for all we know, but main thing, put it in writing, testify, and give us something to go on to see, because you have people that can follow the numbers, and to not provide numbers is insane. | ||
| Do you think that that's going to happen? | ||
| Do you think there's going to be a real effort now to try to invite her to come down? | ||
| And if she doesn't come and subpoena her and say, look, we need to have a presentation where you actually show us the cash flow here. | ||
| And I mean, you've dealt with cash flow all the time. | ||
| You show us the cash flow, use of proceeds, sources of proceeds and, you know, sources and uses. | ||
| And we can make a determination about this process going forward. | ||
| Do you think that will happen? You know, even if she answers a subpoena, which she'll have to do, it's just smoke and mirrors with her. | ||
| I mean, what can you trust with this administration? | ||
| I think they are playing the, you know, the nation's going to be in turmoil, the debt limits reach, you can't pay bonds, you can't pay Social Security, veterans benefits. | ||
| I think that's the only leverage they think they have. | ||
| The longer this goes on though, the more she's going to have to at least Have something for us to look at because, I mean, why not? | ||
| If she's confident on her figures and she's confident on the dates, she's obviously coming up with them from somewhere. | ||
| But it's politics, Steve. | ||
| You've been around. You know this is just trying to play it out, trying to make the Republicans fold, which I don't think we're going to do. | ||
| It could be some tweaks, but it's going to have to be what we presented today. | ||
| The Senate and this administration is pretty much the final offer. | ||
| And we need to be adding to it. | ||
| We need to be doubling down on it. | ||
| And I would, Chip Roy suggested putting the immigration bill in. | ||
| We need to do that. And the longer it goes, because here, you know, Biden was in Japan. | ||
| For what? What's he doing there rather than, what's more important than, as he says, the debt ceiling and the survival of America? | ||
| Politico had this article that finally showed that the Treasury guys understand the prioritization of payments. | ||
| Basically, enough cash coming in to pay the interest, to pay any face amount that rolls over. | ||
| She's changed the nomenclature, Congressman, from a default to now pay your bills. | ||
| Well, it's a $6 trillion budget. | ||
| You got contractors at Department of Labor and Education. | ||
| I mean, these guys can be stretched a week or five days. | ||
| It's not the end of the world. | ||
| Is that what they're trying to do, is three-card money where they change? | ||
| Now they've got to have every bill that's got to be paid exactly on time on June 1st? | ||
| The full faith in credit is going to collapse here in the United States? | ||
| Is that what they're trying to do? That's the message that she's going to put out. | ||
| That's a message that the handlers or the cabal that's running this administration will try to scare their American people. | ||
| I mean, you remember Obama. | ||
| He shut down some parks and some government buildings that didn't get cleaned, and they'll try everything. | ||
| This group knows no bounds. | ||
| All they want to do is be able to keep the budget, keep spending, keep the credit card, and we're just not going to let them do that. | ||
| As you know, with the speaker fight, it's one of the big things that we reminded Kevin McCarthy of today, who, by the way, has done a good job. | ||
| But she's going to have to prove it, Janet Yellen, and for whatever it's worth, Make some kind of a statement that is backed up by if, let's say, a bond payment's not going to be met, which bonds? | ||
| And what about the taxes coming in from those states like California who've been delayed from COVID? That's going to be revenue coming in. | ||
| And so she can't just play ignorant. | ||
| She can try to get by with words, as they always do, and emotion. | ||
| But it's just a different day now. | ||
| And Americans are feeling inflation at every level. | ||
| Nothing has gotten better under this administration. | ||
| And the debt has taken on a new meaning, I think, for most Americans now. | ||
| You're a businessman, real estate developer, dealt with banks, dealt with finance. | ||
| When you hear even what their offers are or their logic, Are they talking in the terms that adults talk when they have to work through budgets, whether it's a personal budget or a plan for a small business or real estate or buying a house, a mortgage? Are you hearing any rationality coming from their side? | ||
| Or are they just talking a different language than we talk, sir? | ||
| They're talking a different language and they're talking something they don't understand. | ||
| Most of these bureaucrats who are masquerading as politicians have never had a real job. | ||
| They wouldn't understand a balance sheet if it was spelled out in ABCs. | ||
| They just don't go there. And you look at all the, you know, what has been said to date, it's basically nothing other than platitudes on why we're in the shape we're in. | ||
| I mean, Steve, imagine this is an administration that is not cutting one dollar from anything. | ||
| If you run a peanut stand, you can find a dollar. | ||
| He's made it clear. | ||
| All the reporters ask me, have you got a deal? | ||
| Have you got a deal? No. | ||
| His ambition is to just keep spending. | ||
| We heard today that he may be offering, instead of having the 22 budget for the 24 budget, put the 23, which had all the COVID spending in it. | ||
| But that's just not going to fly now. | ||
| And we're pretty well set on everything that we had, the 22 being the 24 budget, cutting all the IRS agents, the student loans and all of that. | ||
| But we've got to double down on it the longer it takes. | ||
| It is irresponsible for this administration to go this long with not having numbers or not having something in writing. | ||
| And the best thing we could do Is say, you know, if we don't have it in writing by the end of this week, we're going home and we'll not come back until you have something. | ||
| Now, we've got next week off anyway. | ||
| But as it goes on, and I can see this going on into July as they amp up the pressure on Republicans to give in. | ||
| I don't think it's going to work this time, though. | ||
| I 100 % agree with you. | ||
| One other element, I don't think people, and I don't think we do a good enough job messing. | ||
| You have given him a debt ceiling increase. | ||
| You've attached with it a number of very logical, very rational Pieces to that to get to that. | ||
| And you've set a deadline, I think, that will come up again, the $1.5 trillion or March, April, and May of next year. | ||
| My understanding is in their even discussions, one thing they're adamant about is that it's got to get out of the presidential season. | ||
| It's going to have to be after the inauguration in 2025. | ||
| My back of the envelope math says that could be as much as a $4 trillion or more debt ceiling increase. | ||
| Is that type of insanity, would anybody in your caucus, anybody in your conference, really consider that as a possibility? | ||
| No. All along, the number we heard on the debt ceiling increase was $4 to $6 trillion. | ||
| I mean, imagine that. | ||
| That tacked on to the $32 trillion. | ||
| And I would argue when you put Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, it's much larger than that. | ||
| But yeah, he wants to try to, one, make the claim that we're holding him hostage, which it's not. | ||
| And two, he wants to get it past the presidential election because he doesn't want to deal with it. | ||
| He wants to put his head in the sand as he has on all these other issues. | ||
| But, I mean, again, it took a lot of convincing for Kevin McCarthy to give us, to give him any type of an increase. | ||
| And $1.5 trillion is more than I would have wanted, but we did get substantial reductions that had to go along with that, and we put the timeline on it. | ||
| March, April, and May where it ends. | ||
| But Steve, they will spend every dollar we give them. | ||
| They know no bounds. They think printing money is what their job is. | ||
| Government is their job, and it's killing the country, and I think the American people will judge them because of that. | ||
| We've got to stick tight, though. | ||
| We cannot break from what we sent them in writing that no one said we could do, but we did. | ||
| Do you think they've been, since they haven't given you anything back in writing, or is your belief they being straight, that the Biden regime is being straight with the House Republicans? | ||
| No. Their plan, I will give them credit, understand leverage, and I think they think the longer this holds out, they will get the squishy Republicans to say, well, let's start negotiating. | ||
| Negotiating what? Our negotiating has been done. | ||
| I think they're just going to ride this out. | ||
| It's up to us to put the pressure. | ||
| We ought to be having a press conference, the Freedom Caucus, and those 20 of us who put the concessions on the speaker, we ought to be having press conferences every week. | ||
| I think you'll see that as time goes on. | ||
| All of us are messaging what exactly it means, what we have presented, which is a far cry from what most of us would have wanted as far as cuts. | ||
| But it does get the ball going in the right direction. | ||
| The spending is downward, and it's in the right direction. | ||
| But this is by no means a cure-all. | ||
| It's a first step, but that's all it is. | ||
| This stairway is a long stairway. | ||
| Let's talk about the offer. | ||
| Would you give them till Close of Business Friday to come back with a set of numbers and a response? | ||
| If not, you add getting out of the WHO, border security, a couple of three other things. | ||
| Do you think there's an appetite to press the bet here and to basically increase our offer, make it tougher if they don't accept what's on the table? | ||
| Absolutely. It's getting to that point. | ||
| And particularly if we just get words from Yellen when she does testify, And I think it's time now to say no more. | ||
| I'm tired of, again, the press saying there's been no results on the talks. | ||
| Well, it's time to stop talking and just meeting for the sake of meeting. | ||
| Put it in writing. | ||
| If I sold you a shopping center, it would be in writing. | ||
| Or if I sold you a toaster, it would be in writing. | ||
| It's time for the man to put it in writing or no more meetings. | ||
| And let him tell the American people why it's not significant enough to put something in writing, because right now we're just going back and forth. | ||
| And to negotiate against ourselves goes against everything anybody in the business arena has ever known. | ||
| It just doesn't make sense. | ||
| And we're having these talks, and it's not for us to be eager. | ||
| It's up for him to come back and say we either accept it or we don't, or here's why, and then let the conversation begin. | ||
| But it's time to go home as far as ending this charade of endless meetings that up to this date has produced nothing. | ||
| Congressman, can I ask you just to hold briefly through? | ||
| We're going to take a short commercial break. | ||
| I've got a couple more questions. | ||
| You're hearing a lot of wisdom here because Congressman Norman has negotiated many, many deals, and that's one of the things I see here. | ||
| It's a complete amateur hour, how this is being handled. | ||
| We're going to take a short commercial break. | ||
| We're going to return. Congressman Ralph Norman from South Carolina, a very experienced businessman and one of the real architects. | ||
| He's also on the Rules Committee, so he knows the whole process of how this has to get through. | ||
| Short commercial break. We're going to be back in the war room in just a moment. | ||
|
unidentified
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| Steve Stern's putting it on. | ||
| We're going to get you more details about this so everybody can participate. | ||
| Congressman Norman, here's what our audience appreciates. | ||
| You don't talk like a politician. | ||
| You talk like a businessman. | ||
| Our audience is working class people, small entrepreneurs, the middle class, and all they want to do is be dealt with straight. | ||
| They just want common sense, plain talk, no hide the football. | ||
| It's refreshing. I remember when we first had you on here early, I think in January, When you came on, you said, hey, I got nothing against Kevin McCarthy, but I stood up and said, you voted for all these bills before. | ||
| We got to stop this. You were the first guy to really stand up and say, it's all going to come down to this debt ceiling negotiations. | ||
| Given where we are now, in your kind of common sense, practical, no back down attitude, are we where you think we ought to be? | ||
| And are you comfortable tonight as you head over to the House Freedom Caucus meeting tonight that we're going to hold the line? | ||
| Well, if you look at it, Steve, we really, other than we put something in writing and we got the necessary 218 votes to get over to the Senate. | ||
| Now, our task is not done. | ||
| We won't be successful unless we carry this thing through to the end. | ||
| Now, I think that it's going to get a lot rougher over the next couple of weeks. | ||
| I think that the fact that what we said at caucus today was very meaningful. | ||
| People are dug in. | ||
| And it's people that are coming up to us and saying, one, let's hold the line, let's don't give in. | ||
| And it's my opinion, if we do give in, and I mean basically go to smoke and mirrors that most of the political hacks around here have done in the past, we lose the confidence of the American people. | ||
| Because the ship has already sailed with what our proposal is. | ||
| And we're so far apart now. | ||
| That the Biden administration, the only thing they can do is try to wait this thing out and let the public pressure build. | ||
| They did that on the 20 of us, though. | ||
| I mean, the public pressure, the media and all, I mean, that's just their playbook. | ||
| It didn't work, and I don't think it's going to work on this debt ceiling. | ||
| We've got people who, you know, they're not going to join in on voting unless we get something big in return that makes financial sense. | ||
| We won't do it. He can't get the 218 to pass the House. | ||
| And I don't care how much I hear the Senate can't pass it or Biden just isn't going to, you know, we're going to default. | ||
| We just got to ride that out and we'll have the confidence back of the American people. | ||
| Before I let you go, the people in your district, where are their heads at right now on this topic? | ||
| A lot of them don't understand how it affects them. | ||
| I mean, when you hear the debt ceiling, the difference now, while they may not see that, what they do understand is the price they're paying at the pump. | ||
| They understand the crime that's going up. | ||
| They're seeing on TV screens all over the country. | ||
| They understand the people coming across the border. | ||
| That is affecting South Carolina. | ||
| They understand that nothing has come down. | ||
| And that's what's got them concerned. | ||
| And I think I sense in South Carolina, people are for the first time genuinely concerned about survival of the country. | ||
| And, you know, I'm as frustrated I have been. | ||
| And it'll be a total frustration if we can't get this bill across in substantially the same form that we presented it. | ||
| And again, put some financial sanity back in an administration that knows no bounds. | ||
| They're totally sold out to other countries, and it's a shame. | ||
| I do think we will do it, though, and I do think it'll be successful. | ||
| I just want to make sure I understand this. | ||
| In a state like South Carolina with the patriots and the hard work, grit, determination, you actually think now there are folks down there that think that the end of the republic could be before us so we don't get a grip on this? | ||
| I think it will. I mean, think about this. | ||
| Another four years under this administration, take the Supreme Court alone. | ||
| Take what the damage that would happen. | ||
| Along with everything else. | ||
| And they're saying it's now never. | ||
| And they're looking on the debt ceiling while it may not, in their minds, affect them. | ||
| They know their children are going to have to pay it off. | ||
| They know the 95,000, or they've heard the figure of the 95,000 for every newborn in this country is stuck with that tab. | ||
| They know the family of The families in America are roughly in the $250,000 range debt that they owe. | ||
| They understand that. | ||
| And they know we can't keep going like we're going. | ||
| And so they're behind it and they want to see us succeed. | ||
| We can't fail. Congressman Norman, how do people get to your site, social media, all of it? | ||
| RepRalphNorman.com is where you would go on my Facebook page. | ||
| And on my Twitter account and look forward to hearing from people. | ||
| Congressman, thank you very much. | ||
| We'll make sure you've got a lot of fans here, so I'm sure you're going to hear from a lot of folks. | ||
| Thank you very much. Honored to have you on here. | ||
| Thank you. Congressman Norman was the first to really start driving this and done a magnificent job so far. | ||
| Okay, Natalie Wood is going to pick up on the next hour. | ||
| Absolutely packed show. | ||
| Make sure you go to MyPillow.com, promo code WORM. You're going to need a good night's sleep. | ||
| As Congressman Norman said, it's not going to get any easier. | ||
| I want to give you some breaking news from one of the people associated with negotiating. | ||
| They're saying the negotiations have stopped for the evening, right? | ||
| These negotiations that are not in good faith by the Biden regime. | ||
| But no more negotiations. | ||
| What they ought to do instead of negotiating is send Janet Yellen tomorrow morning with a couple of her Treasury grundoons, get over there in front of a committee, and make a presentation and let us see the math. | ||
| Let us see the work. | ||
| Okay? That's what we need to do to go forward. | ||
| And you're going to find out that this is completely a phony made-up date, randomly picked to put pressure on people to try to make a terrible deal. | ||
| So we've got to hold the line. | ||
| Make sure you call Your voice heard. | ||
| It means a lot. You're the chairman of the creditors committee. | ||
| It's the Congressman Normans of the world that put you there. | ||
| What they call the ultra-MAGA extremists. | ||
| Okay, short commercial break. |
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