All Episodes
Previous Next
Jan. 17, 2025 - Bannon's War Room
51:53
Episode 4202: The Left Behind In East Palestine; The American Apparatus Rests On Your Shoulders
Participants
Main voices
s
steve bannon
33:47
Appearances
b
ben bergquam
01:18
j
jason jones
01:37
Clips
j
jake tapper
00:08
| Copy link to current segment

Speaker Time Text
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
This is the primal scream of a dying regime.
Pray for our enemies.
unidentified
Because we're going medieval on these people.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
I got a free shot at all these networks lying about the people.
ben bergquam ▲ ● ▼
The people have had a belly full of it.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
I know you don't like hearing that.
I know you've tried 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 lie?
unidentified
MAGA Media.
jake tapper ▲ ● ▼
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. Vance.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Okay, it's Friday, 17th, January, year of our Lord, 2025.
We're going to try to juggle today.
We've got Kristi Noem being grilled over at the Senate.
I just, once again, want to give everybody a shout-out who have been at the Ramparts this week.
Complete preparation by the nominees.
Full-spectrum dominance.
I think the biggest thing, the thing that shocked me the most is that how ill-prepared the Democrats are to actually ask serious questions.
If you think about it, Marco Rubio laid out quite a unique vision that the Washington Consensus does not believe in this fetish of the post-war international rules-based order.
He made a very compelling case how it had been gamed by the global elites, the party of Davos, and particularly the Chinese Communist Party in conjunction with Wall Street and Big Tech.
No real pushback on that from the Democrats.
Pete Hex has talked about a warrior ethos.
And really a revolution in military affairs, no pushback on that.
You had a bunch of heritans sitting there talking about some personal foibles of Pete, but nothing substantive.
Another total waste.
Scott Besson and Russ Vogt.
Russ Vogt at OMB, Scott Besson at Treasury, laid out kind of MAGA economics, how they're going to cut the budget, what they're going to look for.
No substantive pushback.
some yammering about taxes and you know where we stand with taxes.
Cut taxes for working-class and middle-class people and raise them for the wealthy.
If the wealthy can't, if the oligarchs and the wealthy cannot help us close this budget deficit because all their donors down here driving this big spending, then somebody's got to pay to close the gap.
Scott Besson did an amazing job and Doesn't totally agree with my theory of the case, and we know Scott very well.
It's interesting that two of our kind of contributors, Russ Vogt at OMB... And Scott Besson is going to be Secretary of Treasury.
And they did a fantastic job, virtually no pushback.
Pam Bondi.
Oh, and one last thing.
Wyden of Oregon embarrassed himself, humiliating, not understanding tariffs, not really understanding trade.
Looked like a buffoon in front of Professor Besson, who kept his calm the entire time.
Pam Bondi, you saw that over and over and over again.
The 2020 election, was it stolen?
Here's the answer.
You want the answer?
The answer was stolen.
Okay?
You know who agrees with that?
The American people.
Because they rendered a verdict on November 5th, and that verdict is we're going to return the guy that should have been in the office full-time, we're going to return him.
Now, what's shocking, and this is what I think for the Democratic Party, it shows you the rot, the laziness that they've had for years.
Because remember, in Biden's farewell address to the nation, it was all about the oligarchs.
All about the oligarchs.
Let's talk about that for a second.
President Trump's had no power for the last four years, correct?
You've been with him from the beginning.
Remember in January, February, March, April of 2021, no power.
Approval ratings in the 20s.
Abandoned by the Republican Party.
They were just going down to make sure that the line was still in the cage, right?
No power.
Who's had power for the last four years?
Joe Biden.
The oligarch nature of our nation, and it is, that is our theory of the case, was started with President Obama and how he took care of the 2008 financial crisis.
The great concentration of wealth and power, and if you don't think wealth and power is concentrated, we've been in Appalachia for two days with Ben Burquam about the flood, and what has happened to those folks there?
No relief.
In six-degree weather, ten-degree weather, they're living in tents.
We're in East Palestine today.
In two years, what has happened?
Don't take it from me.
Take it from the people we've been interviewing the first hour of the show.
Nothing.
Total and complete contamination from a corporation who the executives should be charged with criminal negligence.
Criminal negligence.
Criminal negligence.
And what has happened to the folks in East Palestine?
Nothing good has happened for them.
They've been abandoned.
Don't take my word for it.
That was the word that every one of them used in the first hour of the show.
So Obama started this with the concentration with how he dealt with the financial collapse of 2008, which he did not create.
That was created by the Bush regime, Bush 43. As we say over and over again, the worst president in American history except for James Buchanan.
But Biden, you don't think they nurtured the oligarchs?
They created the oligarchs?
They were in power.
Can I bring up a sore subject?
Silicon Valley Bank.
Remember the bail on Silicon Valley Bank?
We talked about that over and over and over again.
I don't know.
I'm going to pick some random names.
Peter Thiel, David Sachs, Marc Andreessen, right?
Any more?
You want Facebook?
You want them all?
Remember when your taxpayer money, the person making, I don't know, $45,000 a year, you bailed out the bank.
Why?
Oh, all these great companies, these great startup companies are not going to be able to make payroll.
As we walk through here, there's plenty of cash in the venture capital community.
They just had to make their own payroll.
The bailout of Silicon Valley Bank was a bailout of the oligarchs.
Why is that?
Because the oligarchs...
Worked at the time for the Democratic Party and the globalists.
unidentified
Remember, all the platforms.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
This show, I might add, as you know, we are banned in perpetuity on the following platforms.
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter.
What, Instagram, TikTok?
Can I go to any more?
Remember, President Trump was too.
Because oligarchs, they thought they'd use, and look at the FBI reports, look at everything that's coming to DHS. They used the oligarchs and they used social media to destroy us.
And now, and now that we have won, the populist movement has won, has gotten it back when President Trump has won, they've all surrendered.
And they're saying, oh, Steve, well, you've lost this.
You know, you have all these, you know, you got TikTok's going to be up there, and Mark Zuckerberg's going to be up there, and Elon Musk is going to be up there, and Bezos is going to be up there.
They're all going to be on the podium.
All going to be up the podium.
Folks, those guys being on the podium and sitting together is the equivalent of the USS Missouri.
In September of 1945. They're there to sign a surrender document.
They didn't support President Trump.
They're not going to support President Trump in the future.
These people are totally and completely transactional.
100% transactional.
They will flip just like they were in service to Biden and these radical Democrats.
They're going to be in service to him again.
The moment Hakeem Jeffries takes the House and becomes Speaker of the House, first thing he's going to do is try to impeach President Trump.
He knows he's going to be with him.
Bezos, Zuckerberg.
Mark Zuckerberg is flat out, let me be brutally frank, he is a criminal and should be charged with crimes after a full and complete and fair investigation by a special prosecutor in paneling a grand jury of American citizens and following totally the rule of law of what he did in the 2020 campaign.
He is a criminal.
So when people sit there and tell me, oh my gosh, look at there, they all control President Trump, they don't control anything.
They're running like little nine-year-old boys up there.
That is the moral equivalent of September 1945. The Japanese Imperial High Command sitting right there.
And Trump is the equivalent of General MacArthur.
He's sitting there.
They're signing their surrender document.
Those idiots are going to be sitting up there mocked and ridiculed.
It's like in Rome when they used to come back from the wars.
Marcus Aurelius used to come back from the wars and drag the Visigoth.
Chiefs in back of them, right?
That's what that is.
Trump won.
MAGA won.
And they lost.
And they're up there to kowtow.
To kowtow.
To President Trump and the MAGA movement.
The gall of Joe Biden and the gall of Rachel Maddow.
Rachel Maddow, oh my gosh, I got a cold chill down my spine.
Ma'am, respectfully, you were all for Facebook.
When they were suppressing the voice of the populist movement.
You were all for Twitter when it was suppressing the voice of the populist movement.
We got FBI. We have FBI interviews that prove that.
And whistleblowers.
You were all for Amazon.
You were all for all of these guys when they're working for you.
But as soon as they flip, and here's the reason they flip.
They understand you're not coming back to power anytime soon.
They understand that.
They get it.
They've surrendered.
President Trump's going to have them all sitting together.
It looks like the Japanese Imperial High Command.
They're there to sign a surrender document, an instrument of surrender.
They've been broken.
These powerful oligarchs have been broken.
And how were they broken?
By you, the American people.
Think of what we've shown you.
You see some pattern recognition here?
You see what's happening in Appalachia?
See what's happening in Georgia, in North Carolina, in East Tennessee and Virginia?
Did you see that?
Those folks have been abandoned.
I'm not saying that.
That's coming from their voice.
They've been abandoned and now they're freezing in sub-freezing temperatures, sometimes as low as the teens and what's said was going to be six degrees in the mountains.
They have nothing.
They've been abandoned.
And look at East Palestine.
Look at the pleas of those people.
Those people are not looking for a handout.
Those people never looked for a handout in their entire lives.
The entire system rests on you.
The entire thing.
When those oligarchs are sitting up there, the entire system rests on you.
We sit here with Russ Vogt and Scott Besson, and you've got a front page of the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times of London.
The entire system rests on your shoulders.
You are the full faith and credit of the United States government.
It's not the Securities and Exchange Commission.
It's not the FTC. It's not the Federal Reserve.
It's not the Treasury Department.
It's not Congress.
It's you.
And are you treated?
Are you treated like any...
Are you given the respect?
Are you given the respect that you deserve as an American citizen, regardless of your race, regardless of your color, regardless of your ethnicity, regardless of your religion?
Are you given that respect?
I'm going to give you the short answer.
The answer is no.
Why?
Why is that?
Because money seeks power.
And that's what we have here.
Who's the first one to talk about oligarchy right here in this show?
And you think I'm going to let Biden sit in a quiver?
Dude, we've had no power for four years.
We didn't bail out Silicon Valley Bank.
You bailed them out.
They should have had to make payroll on their own money.
You have people making $32,000 a year that bailed these people out.
You bail them out all the time, like Obama bailed out Wall Street.
Did anybody in Appalachia get a bailout?
Anybody in the last three days been down, they get a bailout?
They get a bailout in Western Carolina.
They get a bailout in East Tennessee.
You get a bailout in Georgia.
You get a bailout in Virginia.
They bail out East Palestine.
No, they did not.
You know what they've come to do?
They've come to the defense of a criminal corporation, Norfolk Southern.
Has Norfolk Southern done what they were supposed to do?
The lies and misrepresentations, a complete set of lies and misrepresentations from the EPA, from FEMA, from these corporations.
Has anybody ever been held accountable?
Who bears the burden here?
Who bears the burden of this corruption, this malfeasance, this criminal negligence?
Who bears the burden?
Hard-working people in Appalachia.
People who have never looked for a handout.
People whose kids serve in our military.
unidentified
Back through every patriot's grave.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
And how about East Palestine, Ohio?
Look at what's happened in two years.
Nothing.
Biden, before you talk about oligarchs, Before we talk about those guys, I'll work for you.
In your service.
In your service, sir.
In MSNBC. Ma'am.
Miss Maddow.
So shocked.
unidentified
Cold.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
A cold bolt went down my spine.
Are you kidding me?
How dumb do you think people are?
It's offensive.
Let's have an adult conversation.
The oligarchs, we broke them.
And they surrendered.
And you don't like it.
Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg's a common criminal and should be in prison for what he did in 2020. Do you think it makes any difference?
He's taking off the censors.
Oh, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do that.
He's going to go UFC and have the chairman of UFC on his board.
He's all growing out, growing his hair, doing kung fu.
Get ready, bro.
Because in a prison yard, you better do some kung fu.
We're going to take a short break.
We're going to turn to East Palestine, Ohio, and the citizens thereof in a moment.
unidentified
Here's your host, Stephen K. Band.
See what drones are doing in changing the face of warfare, whether it's in Ukraine and other battlefields around the world.
We are very concerned about the weaponization of those drones and what it could mean to the security here in the United States.
I've proposed comprehensive legislation to extend authorities beyond just the FBI and DOJ and Homeland Security to local law enforcement.
You mentioned in your comments about security for the Super Bowl, which is incredibly important.
Well, we have to remember that that threat exists for all games.
In fact, one of the biggest supporters of my legislation is the NFL. In fact, we just had a recent playoff game that was delayed because of drones that flew into that playoff game.
That's Peters of Michigan.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
When they start getting nasty, we'll come back to it.
We want you to see.
I think we've done a good coverage.
You guys have been fantastic.
The calls into the Senators.
The number is 202-224-3121.
Man, the ramparts again today.
This is why everybody's pushed through.
So far, everybody's going to get approved.
Of course, we've got Tulsi.
We've got Bobby Kennedy.
We've got Kash Patel.
They're laying in wait.
I'm a huge believer in this flood the zone concept.
I don't like the fact that we're going to bring these other ones out, onesies, twosies.
It doesn't work.
But just remember, we've got a lot of work to do.
Call the Senate today.
That's the switchboard number.
Let them know that...
You're thinking, it's your thoughts, you're free men and women, but you're thinking about the nominees so far, what they've had to say, the resistance to that, and what you believe about pushing across President Trump's entire slate.
Like I said, this is the preamble to the Days of Thunder.
Days of Thunder started high noon on Monday.
I think we're looking at, they're trying to get a hundred executive wars.
Remember we talked about three things, you know, you got the kinetic wars.
The kinetic part of the Third World War and the Eurasian landmass, Ukraine being number one.
President Trump got a ceasefire.
A lot of folks not happy with that ceasefire.
We're going to go to Jason Jones in Bethlehem here in a moment.
A lot of people not happy, particularly people in Israel on the right that think the job should get done.
A lot of our contributors are not particularly happy.
We try to get them in.
Got this situation in South Korea.
The Chinese Communist Party has had the, with this coup d'etat, has had the president arrested.
Colonel Mills will be back tonight.
We're going to talk about that.
It'll be Saturday morning in Korea.
John Mills is going to get a complete update today.
You should know that everything we've been talking about South Korea is getting a lot of play in South Korea with the Patriots.
So you've got the kinetic part of the Third World War.
You've got the financial crisis, which is the existential crisis.
You heard vote and you heard Besant yesterday.
Magnificent just presentations throughout.
Then you've got the deportations, the immigration, everything Steve Miller, Homan, and that's what Kristi Noem is being grilled about a little bit today, but not much.
Here's the reason.
The Democrats are just not prepared.
You can't personalize it.
If you personalize it, you have Pete Hanks.
He's not perfect.
Not a perfect instrument.
Right?
Donald Trump's not a perfect instrument.
Steve Bannon's not a perfect instrument.
Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, nobody.
Right?
But there are massive policy differences, and you're seeing taking shape.
Really the MAGA direction of our government and what they think of the economy.
Here's the reason.
Here's what's different than 16. We've had four years to get ready.
Yes, I'll say the project that shall not be named, Project 2025. Which is just an over, you know, you had Heritage, you had AFPI, you had others.
All working to do these policies and most importantly to train and network with the people.
Remember, let's go back.
President Trump and the three areas that he's got to deal with right away.
Right?
He's also got three ways they're going to do it.
Executive orders.
Then legislation.
Executive orders just last in the time of president.
Can direct the federal bureaucracy to do what he wants.
If OLC, remember, Office of Legal Counsel has to give an opinion on it, has to be in the Constitution.
Remember the travel ban?
Which I worked with President Trump as one of the co-authors.
Remember the travel ban?
All the meltdown of the travel ban?
We had a letter from OLC giving us an opinion.
We knew the Supreme Court would back it.
And guess what?
Wait for it.
The Supreme Court backed it.
That's why we're not going to see 100 executive orders on Monday.
We'll probably see, I don't know, 50. Unwinding a lot of what Biden did day one to initiate the invasion of our country.
A lot of that will be reversed, some on the trade tariff side.
Those 50 will have OLC opinions to them.
They'll be fully vetted, are the ones you see.
The second part is legislation.
That is this whole thing between one reconciliation bill, two reconciliation bills.
They're fighting all the time over there.
The government shuts down 60 days from Monday at midnight.
The government shuts down on March 20th.
We run out of money again.
They're hustling away at the Appropriations Committee.
The DOGE guys are working because, remember, the DOGE cuts have got to come in the Appropriations Committee.
I'm not feeling great about that.
Why am I not feeling great about that?
I'm not feeling great about that because the House Freedom Caucus, the Hawks, Our buddies, the Hawks, they put a deal on the table, a proposal.
It's got a debt ceiling increase two years.
Two years, four trillion dollars.
unidentified
Hmm.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Let me do some math here.
Let me do some arithmetic.
Four million, two years.
That's two trillion dollars deficit per year for two years, right?
unidentified
Hmm.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Yeah, right.
Not feeling good about that.
That looks to me like forty trillion dollars.
Of course, I project, and I've never been wrong in these numbers, I project we actually may be at $40 trillion one year from Monday.
Because right now we're at about $1 trillion every 100 days.
You know what says that's right?
The first four months of this fiscal year starting on October 1st.
I think we had a record.
We're now at almost $1 trillion right now.
And the third is personnel.
That's the cabinet.
That's these confirmations.
You've got to power them through.
You've got 3,000 people who hit the deck place running.
President Trump announced yesterday that 1,000, 1,000 of the 3,000, just need a security clearance, 1,000 will hit the beaches on Monday at high noon.
1,000 of the 3,000.
Senate confirmations, we may have one, maybe Marco Rubio by noon.
But they're coming.
Remember, that 3,000 is to control or to oversee.
Basically, 2.5 million civilians, 2.5 million military, roughly.
But wait for the contractors, 18 million contractors, 9 million of those, and some executive 9 million are the folks that clean the buildings.
9 million executives of the executives, about 5 million, I think, are in some sort of managerial, real managerial position.
So that makes sense.
About 10 million people overall to run an apparatus that spends, I don't know, $6.5 trillion a year, takes in $4.5 trillion, $5 trillion.
That's the gap.
Anybody gives you happy talk, even have Freedom Caucus, and they give you happy talk, talk about all these wins and what we're going to do.
Even Freedom Caucus in their memo said, over 10 years, I'm not interested in 10 years.
I'm not interested in 10 years.
I built my career in investment banking at Goldman Sachs, my own firm, doing restructurings, bankruptcies, digging companies out that were good companies that had a capital structure problem.
That's what we have here.
I don't care about 10 years.
I care about this year.
I care about next year.
So Doge, Elon, Vivek.
Vivek's not going to be the senator from Ohio, I don't think.
I think he's going to be the lieutenant governor.
So Vivek got a lot of work to do.
He got officers over at OMB. They're consultants at OMB. They got Russ Vogt.
And guess what?
Appropriations, single subject appropriations bill.
We fought for that.
That's where McCarthy's gone.
We've got that.
We've got 60 days that the government shuts down.
No more CRs.
No more.
None.
The null set.
We want to see all 12 appropriations bills, and this is where Joe's got to come in and give us, you know, you committed a trillion dollar cuts, and you need to see those cuts.
The tariffs, the trade, President Trump thinks of this very differently.
Not just internal revenue, but external revenue.
He doesn't look at tariffs just as, I'm going to put a 10% or 20% tariff on an avocado coming from Mexico.
That's not how he thinks.
Fees and duties and tariffs, he thinks of the United States as a, like...
Premium seating at a concert or a sports event.
Through the Golden Door is the most lucrative market in mankind's history.
And guess what?
He's going to charge a tolling fee.
Yep, that's what this is about.
That's what he could see across-the-board tariffs.
You could see a Memorandum of Understanding on Monday.
You could see some, in Days of Thunder, day one, three of our contributors, Peter Navarro, the Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing, Scott Bessent, the Secretary of Treasury, and Russ Vogt, the head of OMB. Those brothers have been spending some time on this, and President Trump, and President Trump has, I think the French called it idea fix.
He's got very fixed ideas when he talks about trade.
He talks about getting access to this country, to the citizens of this country, should be at a premium.
He's going to charge a premium.
I'll take you next step.
First, I don't want any foreign capital in this country.
None.
Foreign capital means foreign influence and foreign power.
However, Maybe in the stock market, maybe, but it should be a premium there.
Every financial transaction in the United States from a foreign government, foreign power, foreign fund, like the Norwegians got a trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund.
If a sovereign wealth fund wants to buy a share of stock here, it should be at some 10% premium.
Throw it in the kitty.
Quickly, the corporations in this country, the four and a half trillion corporations only pay 500 billion in taxes, 500 billion dollars.
You...
The citizens, did I mention full faith and credit of the United States government?
Did I mention that?
You.
The folks in Appalachia.
The folks in East Palestine.
The folks that go to work every day.
The folks making, I don't know, what's the average salary here?
50,000 bucks?
Can't live on 50,000 bucks.
You're going to run your credit card up at 29, 25% APR. You're going to run your credit card up and you're going to run it into bankruptcy.
You're in bankruptcy trying to make ends meet.
But for the average guy making $50,000 a year...
Man and woman, you're supporting the entire system, the entire post-war international rules-based order.
All of it rests on your shoulders.
You pay the taxes, your pension funds in the venture capital funds, in the hedge funds, in the money managers, Larry Fink's trillion dollars coming from pension funds of teachers and firemen and basic schmendricks that go to work every day.
So you underpin, why do they come here to invest?
It's not the SEC, it's not the FTC, it's not the Treasury.
Singapore's got that.
Tokyo's got that.
Hong Kong used to have that.
Munich's got it.
The City of London's got it.
They come here because of the social stability.
They come here because of the work, self-organizing that you do every day.
What Burke called the little platoons.
That's where they come here.
And shouldn't you get something for the effort?
Isn't your sons and daughters on patrol in the Hindu Kush?
Aren't your sons and daughters on the carrier battle groups in the Red Seas?
Aren't your sons and daughters deployed with the 101st Airborne Brigade in Romania?
Aren't your sons and daughters in Germany?
Aren't your sons and daughters in South Korea?
Aren't your sons and daughters on patrol in the South China Sea?
The entire system rests on your shoulders.
All of it.
Not some of it.
All of it.
Not in Davos, not in Brussels, not in the city of London, and certainly not in Washington, D.C. Short commercial break, going back to East Palestine in a minute.
unidentified
Okay, I'm going to go to East Palestine in a minute.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
The Supreme Court has upheld the ruling on TikTok.
We're going to get on that tonight in the evening show, late afternoon evening show.
We'll have...
Brian Costello and other experts on here to go through all of that.
Also, Frank Gaffney, we're going to have a bunch of folks from the Victory Coalition.
We're going to talk about the ceasefire.
It seems to be some folks, particularly on the right in Israel and the right here in the United States, the Hawks are not happy with this.
Tom Cotton's not happy with it, so we'll break all that down in the five to seven hour.
Let's go to East Palestine, Ohio.
Ben Burquam.
Here's the question, Ben, for the audience.
Look, I really appreciate you folks hanging with us and really speaking from the heart.
I thought Norfolk Southern, you know, besides my rant, I thought Norfolk Southern had a big settlement and everything was taken care of and they were going to make up for the activity, the mistakes they made and the lies they told over and over again.
But they were given a lot of money and everything was going to be better.
Everything's going to be remediated.
Ben, can you go around and just ask the folks just to hear it from the heart?
Did that happen?
ben bergquam ▲ ● ▼
Yeah, before we do that, I was trying to show out the window.
Actually, we have a Norfolk Southern train going by us as we speak, so the question is timely.
I'll go around the room.
unidentified
Thank you, Steve.
The $600 million that Norfolk has offered as a class action suit, they've thrown such a broad net that it's going out over 20 miles.
About 55,000 households, 455,000 people that are partaking in that.
Now, we sold our house at a loss, and I moved my family out the day after the train derailment.
We threw away all of our clothes, beds, furniture, put everything that was left into storage, and we moved about six times before we bought another house.
We sold our house for a loss.
When I went down to talk to them, I had all my receipts, everything, and I laid it out.
And they said, well, you sign off all your rights, your medical rights, your rights to any claims in the future against it, and we don't know how much you're going to get.
It just depends how many people participate.
We can't give you any guarantees, but before...
We give you a number.
You have to sign off on your rights.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Hang over a second.
Ben, I'd like to go around the room.
Hang over a second.
I thought it was $900 million for the cleanup, and then there was additional, I don't know, over 20 years, $25 million a year.
My math may be wrong, but I thought it was bifurcated into two sections, one to clean up.
Where we spent the time with you guys.
Is the locale around the derailment in what I call the central part of East Palestine that had the most damage?
Are you guys getting the remediation first from the $900 million?
Is that coming through either FEMA or EPA? Is that happening?
Is it to your sign-off and your liking?
Do you guys have premium access?
Go ahead, ma'am.
unidentified
What we were told was they were starting at the furthest point first, doing senior citizens that were single, then senior citizens that were married, then coming in and doing single individuals, married individuals, then married with children.
So if you think about it, that means the people of East Palestine mostly are getting their money last, which would make sense because that means the bulk of the money is going to sit in a bank account and gain interest for them.
How long before it gets distributed?
I have friends who are down in Chippewa who already got their money.
Not anything close to what they said you were going to get.
Not even in the thousands.
And they're within 10 miles.
But the attorneys got their money.
Yeah, for sure.
ben bergquam ▲ ● ▼
And by the way, Steve, $70,000 is the cap.
Am I correct on that?
And they subtract.
This is the insane part.
They subtract out what they've already paid to relocate you in a hotel.
Am I right on that?
unidentified
Give your supplies or anything you turned in as a receipt.
ben bergquam ▲ ● ▼
We've got a guy on Social Security over here who they're dropping his Social Security because he was given $6,000.
They consider that income.
Now they're reducing his Social Security.
unidentified
Anyone who's on Social Security or disability will lose it for that year because it's going to be considered income.
So then you're going to have to reapply the following year.
So, you know, I know people who, I kind of do this for a living, but...
You know, they had to put it in somebody else's name, you know, in the family because that way they wouldn't lose their Social Security, you know, that they worked their whole life for, their disability, you know?
ben bergquam ▲ ● ▼
Go ahead.
Yeah, go ahead, Steve.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Let me ask you, do you folks have any, like, Norfolk Southern's got high-powered white-shoe law firms.
The government's got very sophisticated law firms.
The real estate interests there have very sophisticated lawyers.
The real estate interests.
Is there anybody collectively representing your interest?
unidentified
No.
The lead counsel for the class action is supposed to represent our interest.
However, they had a so-called toxicologist get on a town hall and tell our residents there's zero long-term health risk and zero cases of cancer will come out of this.
You can Google the guy right on LinkedIn and see that his former employees were Dow Chemicals, Exxon, Chevron, and a couple major polluters.
ben bergquam ▲ ● ▼
That's the one representing you?
unidentified
Yeah, that's what our attorney is representing us.
Put out there.
Most of us that live the closest, that we're in the most contaminated homes and have to relocate, zero dollars.
Zero is what I'll get.
And people will still be stuck in these contaminated homes.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Okay, here's a question.
When you say contaminated homes, of the $900 million settlement between the government or the EPA and Norfolk Southern, has any remediation work started in the central locale around the derailment and around that central part of the business district and those other areas where President Trump has any remediation work started in the central locale around the derailment and around that central part of Has any remediation started there at all, or has that just still been left like it was from the time of the derailment essentially?
ben bergquam ▲ ● ▼
Steve, just to clarify, so it's the $600 million is what you guys are talking about for the settlement, correct?
unidentified
That's the class action.
That's what's actually going for the people.
That's what the people...
ben bergquam ▲ ● ▼
Hang on, one at a time, one at a time.
By the way, we do have Pastor Sheely here, his attorney's on Skype, so he's here.
But it's not only that, it's not only that they're not paying, they're also intimidating people, if you speak up.
unidentified
Well, because I did speak up, it seems like I've gotten phone calls and threats of all sorts because the people that apparently think that everything is well here, which it's not, they didn't want to wait around for their...
They wanted it to happen immediately, and it hasn't happened.
I was one of the ones who was blamed for it because I spoke up and said, this is not good enough for the people of this town.
They need to have medical treatment, not just medical monitoring, for at least 20 years.
They need to have that.
And every single family that wants to be relocated needs to be relocated.
That is, out of this contamination.
ben bergquam ▲ ● ▼
And Lonnie, back to the contamination.
What have they done, to your satisfaction at all, to clean up and make you feel safe?
unidentified
Nothing.
Nothing.
I want to say that the $600 million settlement, that's their insurance policy that's paying that.
That's not Norfolk Southern paying that.
That's their insurance policy.
We're not even worth what the cost is of that remediation that's taking place right now.
Last I heard, I think it was, what, over a billion dollars that they've spent here so far?
Our lives aren't even worth.
That it's unfathomable to me that they're spending more money to clean it up than they are taking care of us and making our lives whole.
They're still finding contamination to this day.
14 more pockets of chemicals in our soil just back in November.
They still just found it in our wetlands like two years and we still have contamination here.
ben bergquam ▲ ● ▼
Steve, real quick, I want to get to this young lady who's been waiting here.
She's 19. She was 17 when it happened.
unidentified
Hi.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm Jenna, and I tested positive for vinyl chloride and benzene, too.
Around when they started, Norfolk Southern started to dig near where I live, I began to have seizures.
I have a picture.
I spent a week in the hospital.
Sorry if I cough.
They couldn't find anything.
I'm sorry.
They couldn't find anything wrong, and all they said is it might be called an anxiety seizure or something.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Hang on one second.
When you say you tested positive, Ben, just ask her.
When she says she tested positive for vinyl chloride and benzene, what does that mean?
unidentified
Yes.
It's in my system.
In my blood?
Yes.
The CDC actually sent down a memo to our local doctors and told them to not test us for vinyl chloride when people started testing positive.
And when we talk about what Dr. Chai has done for the community, he could write blood tests for his patients.
He's a chiropractor, but he can still do that.
So his patients, he had to write them prescriptions to be tested because no one else here would test for vinyl chloride in our systems per.
The CDC. I'm a nurse.
I used to work at one of the local hospitals, so I have a lot of friends who are still there.
I went in to get my blood work done, and they slid a memo over to me that stated, do not test for Norfolk Southern vinyl chloride for East Palestine residents.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Do you have a copy?
Hang on.
Do you have a copy of that memo?
unidentified
With my phone, but this is a local hospital that was told, do not test.
Do not test.
And the $5,000 that they're giving for medical, first of all, $5,000 isn't going to pay an ER visit.
But the thing is, you might as well take it because in 10 years when you're sick, you're never going to prove that it was this.
Norfolk Southern has millions of dollars to fight in court.
They're going to say, well, did you ever smoke?
Did you ever go to a bar where they smoked?
You live next to a factory.
You have a...
The power plant down the road.
So you're never going to prove it.
So you might as well just take the money and say thank you because that's all you're going to get.
You're never going to prove in 10 years that this came from here.
ben bergquam ▲ ● ▼
By the way, the statutes of limitations, Steve, are up in about a month.
Less than a month.
Go ahead, Steve.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Hang on, Ben.
Ben, we have limited time.
Hang on, we have limited time.
Here's what I'd like to hear.
Just go around.
At high noon on Monday, President Trump...
He takes the oath of office as the 47th president of the United States.
President Trump came out there.
I actually would argue that that was the pivot point on the primary when he really gathered the forces of MAGA and then drove to victory in the primary and then the presidency.
So East Palestine has a major political aspect to it.
What would those people in their own voice just keep it short?
I want to hear from everybody in the 10 minutes we got left.
What are they asking specifically of President Trump to do?
unidentified
National disaster relief for East Palestine and the surrounding communities.
Because like I said, I live in Darlington.
That cloud came down on us.
We were given no help whatsoever.
And I just recently, and I have it in a text message.
Was texted by a East Palestine fireman and his wife and told, I had no business coming to East Palestine and taking their resources.
I just want to say, do God's will.
Listen to God.
I think Congress should investigate.
What does that mean, ma'am?
Hang on, hang on, Ben.
I'm sorry.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
What does she mean when she says do God's will?
What does that mean?
unidentified
I will say this.
The disaster has brought the community together.
Some people went the other way, but it's unfortunate.
But in these kind of situations, people turn to God.
And I think that when we turn our back on God, these things happen.
But the righteous, God hears the righteous.
So I think that's very important.
We've got to bring God back into our country.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Thank you.
unidentified
I just think that it should be investigated, and these people's questions should be answered in front of Congress on live TV. They've been avoiding it for two years, and we just can't get justice here.
There's no justice in East Palestine.
I say if people want to help, make sure you call your local politicians.
The things that we still need here is we still need relocation.
The very least we deserve is medical insurance that covers these chemicals, and we need to have safer regulations and chemicals, and we also need research money.
If people want to help, you can donate to Galam Research Group at the University of California, San Diego, and help us get answers not only for ourselves, but for you.
I would ask President Trump to please stop Norfolk Southern from forcing families back to homes to watch their loved ones die from chemical exposure.
I ask him to stop that and to help the sick and the ones that want out get out immediately.
Immediately.
Help these people, reimburse people that's given their homes, taken loss on their homes, and they're still not whole.
If you want to stay in town, I'm fine with that.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Hang on a second.
Hang on a second.
What do you mean, Ben, hang on, go back to it.
What do you mean Norfolk Southern forcing people to go back to their homes to see their loved ones die?
What does that even mean?
unidentified
I have a 90-year-old Korean War veteran stepfather.
My mother's 83 with Parkinson's.
Norfolk Southern, after the EPA deemed us a special circumstance, we had Michael Regan in the home.
We had Sherrod Brown, Bill Johnson.
They all acknowledged the chemical smells.
What happened next?
They relocated us.
It'll be two years, February 28th.
Nothing's been done to clean the home.
I begged for testing the home, not from Norfolk contractors.
I've had independent testing that shows contamination over and over and over, and it gets higher each remediation because as they're cleaning this up, they're not doing it properly, and they are re...
Exposing residents.
So now all of a sudden they decide that they're no longer paying for our relocation, even though their contractors, Norfolk Southern contractor, recommended tearing my home to the ground and the other two houses beside me.
And you are forcing me back because you know that you put me in a home that I cannot afford the rent for.
Now I have to take my family back because I'm telling you my family will die in that house.
It is horrible.
This needs immediate action.
They need stopped.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Thank you, ma'am.
We'll make sure that the president hears that.
unidentified
Dr. Andrew Weldon from...
Dr. Andrew Weldon from Purdue University was here a number of times, and he took some of the studies that I had done because I had paid for myself on my shop.
I'm not too far from where her house is, so I know exactly what her house smells like.
Fortunately, I got all my stuff out.
However, he just said, yeah, they didn't test your property correctly.
We confirmed it was contaminated for months.
Federal government didn't act in a proper way that helped the community recover safely.
Dr. Andy Welton, five minutes ago.
ben bergquam ▲ ● ▼
Anyone else?
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Hey, Ben.
We have to bounce, but...
Go ahead, sir.
unidentified
Go ahead.
I just want to see President Trump show back up here to East Palestine.
We need to support...
And Darlington.
And Darlington.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
You want him to return, is what you want, and then to be able to address your grievances personally?
Okay.
unidentified
Yes.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Hey, Ben.
Ben.
Ben, we've got to go.
I want to talk to you about maybe getting some folks, and we'll stick around for the 5 to 7 show.
I want to continue this.
I also want to talk to them like we're doing the conference call with the working group in Appalachia tomorrow.
I want to get some of the folks here, and we want to get on a conference call tomorrow and get kind of a punch list so we can talk to the president about it and make sure President Trump's fully informed and, of course, Lee Zeldin, the EPA, and other folks, okay?
Can we do that?
ben bergquam ▲ ● ▼
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Folks, I want to thank you very much.
I know it's been heart-rendering.
I want to thank you.
We thought it was very important today to return to East Palestine because, quite frankly, your tragedy, I think, changed the direction of American politics and really led, I think, a lot to this victory you're going to see that's going to be culminated on Monday.
And something has to be done.
It's unacceptable what has happened to you.
And so we will put our shoulder to the wheel and figure this out for you.
Or together.
How does that sound?
Love you guys.
Ben, I'll return to you.
Maybe we'll get some folks on the 5 to 7 in the car right after the show.
Thank you guys very much.
I appreciate all of you doing this this morning.
I really appreciate it.
Okay, see right there?
Is that any different in Appalachia?
You see pattern recognition?
unidentified
You're treated like garbage.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
You're telling me a citizen in this country should be like that?
Think about that for a second.
You think that's appropriate?
You think what's happening in Appalachia is appropriate?
Because that's the way the system works.
Let me repeat.
The entire system rests on your shoulders.
Not some of it, all of it.
The entire American empire, the entire apparatus that your sons and daughters employed all over the world.
What they tell us the other day, 150 countries, 125 or 135,000, just...
Army personnel, you add it all up, 150,000, 150 countries.
A trillion dollar defense bill.
Deficits as far as the eye can see.
Don't take it from me.
House Freedom Caucus deal.
Two-year lift on the debt ceiling at $4 trillion.
And they're the biggest hawks going.
Let's just do the math.
It looks like $2 trillion deficit every year, right?
Hate to bring that up.
This is the crisis we've gotten ourselves into.
And who pays for it?
Who pays for it?
Who pays for it?
unidentified
You.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
You pay out of pocket.
Your pension fund goes to support it.
Your sons and daughters, your kin, are all over hell's half acre.
But when it comes time for something, people have never asked for a handout in their lives.
And you've got corporate welfare.
What did Laura Loomer call the brolegarks?
Welfare queens?
Yeah.
And Silicon Valley runs as an apartheid state?
An apartheid state?
How many African Americans, how many blacks are working in Silicon Valley?
How many Hispanics are working in Silicon Valley?
And I'm not talking cleaning up buildings.
I'm talking as executives and programmers.
Tell me.
Not many.
You know why it's an apartheid state?
That's techno-feudalism.
Let's go to Bethlehem to have Jason Jones.
So, Jason, got about two minutes.
Can you give us something?
First off...
Tell us where you are, why are you there, and what's the feeling on this ceasefire that's going on in the Holy Land, sir?
jason jones ▲ ● ▼
Well, Steve Bannon, I'm about 20 meters from the very birthplace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
I'm here because during the war, our organization, the Vulnerable People Project, granted to a jobs program to keep Christians in Bethlehem that felt the push to leave because...
The streets of Bethlehem, of course, are empty.
I was in the place of our Lord's birth, the Church of Nativity, for hours by myself.
We've also delivered food packages and trucks of food to the churches in Gaza and evacuated the Christians.
And so that's why I'm wounded Christians in Gaza, and that's why I'm here.
They're happy that the war is over.
You know, the most vulnerable Christian community in the world are the Christians, of course, in Gaza and the Christians in the West Bank.
They're facing what they call ecclesiocide, which is the eradication of the oldest Christian community in the world.
I met a gentleman today whose family had 800 years of Greek Orthodox priests in their family.
I just interviewed another gentleman who said that in his home, the bedroom, his bedroom, him and his ancestors going back to 500 A.D. have slept in the same bedroom.
So you have Christian communities that were literally their ancestors were in the upper room in the Book of Acts.
So the end of this war is something that gives them a lot of hope, and they place a lot of hope in President Trump.
In the weeks and months leading up to the election, I was in Pennsylvania working with the Syrian Christian community that was eager to support President Trump because they knew that their communities in Syria were facing ethnic cleansing and ecclesiasties as well.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Wow.
It's terrible what's happened over to the Christians, no doubt.
Hey, Jason, can you give people...
I got breaking news here.
jason jones ▲ ● ▼
Sure.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Yeah, I don't know about this, man.
Due to the dangerously cold temperatures expected Monday, President-elect Trump's inauguration is moving indoors.
Sources tell Kate Sullivan and Caitlin Collins at CNN. Expect Trump and Vance to be sworn in inside the Capitol Rotunda.
Come on, man.
Where's that grit and determination and toughness?
What was the temperature when Jack Kennedy got...
I know Reagan in the second term, I think, was inside the Capitol.
But man, Reagan was...
unidentified
I don't know.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
I don't know about that.
We're going to have to check into that one.
Not feeling good about that.
Of course it's cold.
It's January.
Don't know about that at all.
I don't think that's the right stuff.
We'll dig down on that.
Recommendation of President Trump and the inauguration team, Biden, all of you, get out on the west side.
Let's have an inauguration.
Biden, who stole it in 20, like gutless cowards, remember they had like 100 people there with the mask on?
That's a travesty.
We need to be up and we need to be bold on Monday.
So when President Trump puts his hand on the King James Bible, takes the oath of office of the 47th President of the United States, We can fire off the football.
Let's get back up.
It ain't going to be that cold.
Is this because the oligarchs are there?
Are they too tender coming from Silicon Valley?
Are they too soft?
They can't sit in the cold?
Then don't come.
Sign the surrender document somewhere else.
Okay.
Charlie Kirk is next.
Two hours of Populist National.
Jack Posobiec out of there.
We're back 5 to 7 live tonight.
As always, we'll see you back here in the War Room.
Leave you with the right stuff.
The great film from Philip Kaufman.
▲
Export Selection