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Feb. 26, 2025 - Bannon's War Room
54:57
Episode 4296: Cheating And Weaponization; Failures Of Exporting American Culture Abroad
Participants
Main voices
d
donald j trump
20:47
m
mike benz
14:59
s
steve bannon
09:26
Appearances
m
mike lindell
01:51
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Speaker Time Text
donald j trump
...javelins.
And the expression was that Obama gave sheets and I gave javelins.
That was a big deal at the time.
It wiped out.
That was the beginning when people said, wow, that's something.
Well, that was American equipment.
Without American equipment, this war would have been over very quickly.
And American money, too.
I mean, a lot of money.
unidentified
That war-fighting equipment and the ammunition...
That's sustained going forward for Ukraine.
How long is it sustained?
donald j trump
Well, it could go forward for a while.
And maybe until we have a deal with Russia.
We need to have a deal with Russia.
Otherwise, it's going to continue.
But now when Americans put up their money, the taxpayer money, and the president approves it, we're getting our money back in some form.
But it could go on for a while, or it could be settled quickly.
I think it's going to be settled quickly.
I spoke with President Putin.
I think he wants to settle it.
And once you get on with life, it's horrible.
What's happening, horrible.
Thousands of soldiers a week are being killed.
And others too.
But especially on the battlefield, thousands a week are being killed.
and we want that to end.
unidentified
Will you remind me there's a question.
Will you still say that?
Yes.
Okay.
Real quickly.
Carolyn Levin, your press secretary, sent an earthquake through that briefing room earlier today announcing that the WHCA would not have any control over placing media in the seats Just want to get your thoughts on that.
And also on Air Force One.
It's really, it's trading on X. People are talking about it.
Get your thoughts.
donald j trump
Well, we're going to be now calling those shots.
As you know, we won that lawsuit right there.
See the Gulf of America, which is a beautiful name.
Most people agree.
I don't know.
AP has been terrible.
I think they're radical left.
I think they're third-rate reporters.
I know the specific young lady that works on the account is terrible.
She's a radical left lunatic, as far as I'm concerned.
They don't treat us fairly.
That's number one.
And number two, they had no right to do that.
This is the Gulf of America.
unidentified
And if you look at that shoreline, look at that shoreline.
donald j trump
Look, from Florida, most of it is, it's called America.
And the vast majority, like, big numbers.
So, I'm just admiring it as I look at it.
I'm getting teary-eyed, but I don't want you to say Trump broke down and started crying.
How beautiful is that?
Look at the shoreline.
Look at that.
That's America.
unidentified
Can I shift our attention to Canada real quick?
Yes, please.
Last week, I spent some time with two government officials for Canada, and I was asking them how realistic is it that Canada would be the 51st state.
And they told me there is a path.
Alberta is first, and if they sign on, Saskatchewan would follow, and then you go west.
To British Columbia.
There is a movement in Canada to join us.
Want to get your thoughts on that and how that's proceeding right now.
donald j trump
So it's true.
Thank you, Brian.
It's true.
A lot of people in Canada are liking becoming our beautiful, cherished 51st state.
They'll have to pay much lower taxes.
They'll have the ultimate security.
You know, they don't pay very much for security right now because they rely on us, which is really unfair to us.
They make cars that we could make, and they send them back into the United States.
They make a lot of things, including the sending of oil and everything.
We don't need their oil.
We don't need their lumber.
In fact, we're going to be freeing up, and I've asked Howard Lutnick to get that done with Lee and everybody, Lee Zeldin, environmental.
We're freeing up our forests.
We're going to be able to...
Take down trees.
Now, you know, we're so restricted environmentally, we're going to be freeing it up with an emergency order.
We have an emergency order.
And we're going to be freeing up our forests.
We have more forests than almost anybody.
And great lumber, great trees.
We don't need anybody's trees.
We don't need trees from Canada or anybody else.
In fact, we have to put the slits, as they call them, the area, you know, 50, 60 yard area in between areas of trees.
It stops the fires.
And frankly, California should have been doing that for years.
It's almost getting late.
They're going to run out of forests the way they're going.
What a shame.
And by the way, the water is flowing in California.
I hope you people have seen it.
But the water is flowing.
Do you have a picture of that?
Hold it up.
Do you have a picture of that?
Get a picture of it, please.
You know, we had a little skirmish in California.
I can't believe we had to do that.
But we opened up the water in California.
The water was flowing into a place called the Pacific Ocean.
Which for the Pacific Ocean is only a drop.
But for us, it's more water than we can use in California.
So I'll get you some photographs, but it's a beautiful sight.
The water is flowing in California.
Beautiful water from the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
And it flows down.
And instead of being routed out to the Pacific Ocean, and this has been going on for 20 years more, in order to take care of...
Certain species of fish, which wasn't doing very well without water, I can tell you.
So that's a big deal.
It's like not reported.
It's incredible.
But California has a lot of water.
That's going to take care of farmers.
It's going to wetten up the land.
And it's going to go all the way down to Los Angeles, where they have curfews on water, where they have all sorts of blocks on water.
You can only use so much that we're going to put a...
Until just recently, they were going to put a...
A number of gallons per person living in a house in Beverly Hills on water.
You're not going to have that problem anymore.
Do you have a picture?
Let me just see what that looks like.
How beautiful is that?
Look at that beautiful water flowing.
Look at that.
That's coming in the dikes and other means of transportation.
Isn't that beautiful?
Who would believe that?
That's all water they could have had.
I went to the governor during my first term and I said, why don't you do this?
And they said environmental, they have an environmental problem with clean water.
If this water were there, you wouldn't have had those fires.
You had sprinklers, they make people put sprinklers in the ceiling of a home, and they had no water in them.
With this, they would have had a lot of water in them.
They would have all been full.
You would have had a whole different deal down there.
You probably wouldn't have had a fire, but if it wasn't, it would have been small.
It would have been put out.
You had the fire hydrants not working.
In California.
So it's a beautiful sight.
These are canals that were built.
These were all built.
And you saw them for years.
They were empty.
Concrete.
They call them the V-shapes or the pipe, half-pipes.
And they're shaped different forms, but they're shaped and they rush down through the farm areas where the farmers can take it and down to Los Angeles.
And they were sitting empty for years.
And now look at that.
Look at the way it looked.
It wasn't easy.
We had to be very unfriendly to get into those areas.
We opened it up.
I essentially attacked California.
Can you believe it?
unidentified
At the outset of your administration, sir, you committed to ending the weaponization of government and to holding those accountable who participated in the weaponization of government.
Hold it.
donald j trump
This is a good one.
Is everybody listening?
Deranged Jack Smith.
We're going to call it the deranged Jack Smith signing for Bill.
Go ahead.
unidentified
One law firm that provided pro bono legal services to the special counsel's office under Jack Smith's leadership was Covington and Burling.
As a result of those actions, we're now going to be suspending and putting under review the security clearances for the attorneys and employees at that firm who worked with Jack Smith's team.
And we're going to continue holding the people who were responsible for the weaponization of government who supported it accountable for what they did.
donald j trump
And you'll be doing this with other firms as time goes by, right?
unidentified
We're looking at sort of the whole panoply of options.
donald j trump
The weaponization of our system by law firms.
Even pro bono work they're doing just in order to clog up government, stop government.
And nobody knows about it more than me.
And hopefully that'll never happen again.
Covington and Burlington?
unidentified
Covington and Burlington.
Okay.
Mr. President, may I ask you a question about Europe?
So long term, do you plan to maintain the number of U.S. troops...
donald j trump
Wait, I just want to savor this one, please.
Who would like this pen?
Why don't you send it to Jack Smith?
unidentified
A deranged person.
Mr. President, what do you say to people who worry that targeting an individual firm or individuals who, you know, aren't Jack Smith for his actions?
donald j trump
I've been targeted for four years.
Longer than that.
So you don't tell me about targeting.
I was the target of corrupt politicians for four years, and then four years after that...
So don't talk to me about targeting.
Yeah, go ahead.
unidentified
Mr. President, there are approximately 2 million federal employees right now.
By the end of your term, what do you expect that number to be?
What would you like that number to be?
donald j trump
Well, it'll be lower, but I can't tell you.
Everybody knows I ran on downsizing government but making government better.
I ran on tariffs and making our country rich, and that's what it's going to do.
We're going to be doing something else that's going to be very good.
We're going to be...
unidentified
We're going to be selling a gold card.
donald j trump
You have a green card.
This is a gold card.
We're going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million, and that's going to give you green card privileges plus.
It's going to be a route to citizenship, and wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card.
They'll be wealthy, and they'll be successful, and they'll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people.
Mr. President, are there any requirements for that gold card?
unidentified
Do you have to invest a certain amount of money in this country in order to qualify for that gold card?
donald j trump
Yeah, exactly.
unidentified
So the EB-5 program was really, you lend some money, but it was full of...
Nonsense, make-believe and fraud, and it was a way to get a green card that was low priced.
So the president said, rather than having this sort of ridiculous EB-5 program, we're going to end the EB-5 program, we're going to replace it with the Trump gold card, which is really a green card, gold, so they'll be able to pay $5 million to the U.S. government.
We'll have to go through vetting, of course.
We're going to make sure they're wonderful, world-class, global citizens.
They can come to America.
The President can give them a green card, and they can invest in America, and we can use that money to reduce our deficit.
Why do we give out lotteries of green cards?
Why do we give out EB-5 of green cards?
President of the United States understands that the right answer is why don't we eliminate the deficit of the United States of America instead.
donald j trump
The gold card, well, millions, but the gold card will bring in with it people that create jobs, very high level people.
I think companies will pay to get people in.
For instance, you today graduate from the Wharton School of Finance or Harvard or Stanford or any college, and nobody knows if you can even go to work for a company.
Apple and all these companies that want to get people to be working for them will be able to buy a card.
And for the people that are number one in their class at top schools, I see that as one of the things.
But generally speaking, it'll be people with money and people that create jobs.
And they won't have to pay any tax on income outside of the United States, which they're not paying right now.
They're not citizens.
But they'll have to pay, if they create jobs in the United States, they'll pay full taxes like everybody else.
So you're getting big taxpayers, big job producers, and we'll be able to sell maybe a million of these cards, maybe more than that.
And if you add up the numbers, they're pretty good.
As an example, a million cards would be worth five trillion dollars.
Five trillion.
And if you sell 10 million of the cards, that's a total of 50 trillion dollars.
Well, we have 35 trillion in debt.
That'd be nice.
So we'll see.
But it could be.
Great.
Maybe it will be fantastic.
We have it all worked out from the legal standpoint.
It's totally legal to do.
Hasn't been done before.
It's been done in many different forms.
We give them away.
Why should we give them away?
We shouldn't give them away.
And I think it's something very exciting.
I think it's potentially just something that we're all very excited about.
So it's a gold card.
It's somewhat like a green card, but...
at a higher level of sophistication.
It's a road to citizenship for people and essentially people of wealth or people of great talent where people of wealth pay for those people of talent to get in meaning companies will pay for people to get in and to have long-term status in the country and I think it's something we're very very happy about.
Would you have anything to say about that?
unidentified
Many other countries by the way do this including of course Your 51st state does that.
And the money's earmarked for deficit reduction?
donald j trump
It may be earmarked for deficit, but it actually could be more money than that.
I mean, if you did $10 million, it would be, you'd have $15 trillion left over.
But generally, it's going to be paid down debt.
unidentified
Do you need Congress for this?
Do you think you need them to pass a law?
donald j trump
No, we don't need Congress, no.
Because we're not doing citizenship, we're doing the card.
It's a path to citizenship.
A very strong path to citizenship, but we're not doing the citizenship.
For that, I'd have to get Congress.
unidentified
And would all countries be eligible for this gold card?
donald j trump
It depends.
The countries largely, the people will be vetted very carefully.
unidentified
Mr. President, in Ukraine, would you provide military support for Ukraine in the future under a peace agreement?
donald j trump
Say it again louder.
unidentified
Would you provide military support for Ukraine in the future as part of this agreement?
donald j trump
Well, people are going to do it.
I think Europe will largely be responsible for that.
European countries will be responsible.
unidentified
But Macron asked for a U.S. backup.
donald j trump
Well, we'll see.
I mean, right now we're just in the process of negotiating.
We've pretty much negotiated our deal on raw earth and various other things.
We'll be looking at that security.
You're talking about general security for Ukraine later on.
I don't think that's going to be a problem.
There are a lot of people who want to do it.
And I spoke with Russia about it.
They didn't seem to have a problem with it.
So I think they understand.
They're not going back in.
Once we do this, they're not going back in.
unidentified
Would the U.S. provide, for instance, air defense for Ukraine?
donald j trump
Right now we're not providing anything.
You know, it's about Europe, too.
Europe put in $100 billion and we put in $350 billion.
It's not a fair thing.
You know, we would normally say, and I say it now anyway, but we want equalization.
They should put up actually more money than us because they're right there.
We have an ocean in between.
But we've had very good talks with Russia.
We've had very good talks with Ukraine.
And we think it maybe will come to an end and we'll stop killing young people all over the battlefield.
unidentified
On Europe, so do you plan to maintain heavy military presence in Europe in the long term, like tens of thousands of troops?
donald j trump
We'll be involved.
We'll be involved in Europe.
We're involved in Europe now.
Europe is our friend.
They take advantage of us on trade.
We don't like that.
What the EU does, we don't like that.
But we'll solve that.
The old-fashioned way.
We'll give them the same reciprocal numbers.
You know, we're talking about a reciprocal tax.
You know that.
And if they charge us, we charge them.
Right now, they charge us much, much more than we charge them.
And they have non-monetary taxes also on tariffs.
And we're going to change that.
It's all changing.
It's all changing.
We're not going to be the people that we were.
We had people in this office sitting right at this desk or another model of this desk.
Because, as you know, the other desk is right now being refurbished.
unidentified
Is Steve Witkoff delaying his trip to the Middle East?
donald j trump
No, not that I know on the film.
And the Middle East has been great.
Saudi Arabia's treated us really well.
They really have.
I think Qatar has treated us very well, too.
They want to get that whole mess ended in the Middle East.
You know, we don't even talk about that anymore.
You guys haven't asked one question about the Middle East, but the Middle East seems to be doing relatively well.
unidentified
I asked Dr. Middle East about the Middle East.
For months, even before you were elected in November, you've spoken about your desire to free all of those hostages that have been held by Hamas since October the 7th, a year and a half ago.
And just a few weeks ago, you gave an ultimatum.
You said if they're not all released by noon on February the 15th, they would be hell to pay.
Is Hamas thumbing their nose at you, Mr. President?
donald j trump
No, I think the opposite.
As you know, they weren't going to release any more hostages.
And I said, there's going to be hell to pay.
And then they agreed that they were going to release the hostages that they had agreed to release, plus an extra one.
And so that you could say that was a big difference.
But I said it from that point, it's up to Bibi, Netanyahu and Israel.
I may have taken a different stance, but they did release.
They went back to releasing the hostages.
But if you remember, they said we weren't going to release any.
They've totally ended it.
And they said, well, they're not going to release any.
They'll be held at bay.
But the rest is really up to him.
I may have done it differently than him.
It's not my decision.
It's his decision.
But they did release all of those hostages.
unidentified
Mr. President, when you spoke to Vladimir Putin, did he raise or did you discuss at all the possibility of a minerals deal on the Ukrainian land that Russia now controls, striking a deal with Russia?
donald j trump
Minerals on Russian land, too, if we can.
They have very good rare earth also.
They both do, I would say that, and oil and gas.
Look, it's a great thing.
If we sell, it's great for Russia, too, because we can do deals there.
They have very valuable land that isn't utilized, so something like that could take place, yeah.
No, we haven't lifted any sanctions.
I guess it will be at some point, but right now we haven't agreed to lift sanctions on anybody.
unidentified
You should be fascinated.
donald j trump
Your taxes will go down to nothing.
unidentified
Would a Russian oligarch be eligible for a gold card?
donald j trump
Yeah, possibly.
I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people.
unidentified
It's possible.
They're not as wealthy as they used to be.
donald j trump
I think they can afford five million dollars.
A lot of people are going to want to be in this country.
And they'll be able to work and provide jobs and build companies and pay taxes.
All of those things.
It's an incredible thing.
This is the group that...
It's the first to hear it.
Nobody's heard about it.
Nobody ever thought about it.
But we've been thinking about it very, very strongly over the last week.
And I was going to announce it sometime next week, and I figured, why not?
We have a lot of cameras blazing right now.
We might as well do it now.
We'll have Caroline announce it the next time.
No, it's a great thing.
The gold card.
Remember the words.
The gold card.
Somebody said, can we call it the Trump gold card?
I said, if it helps, use the name Trump.
I'll give it to you for free.
unidentified
Mr. President, you probably just launched 10,000 stories.
Do you want to elaborate a little bit more on what Russian oligarchs you know or don't know?
donald j trump
Isn't it interesting how many stories we do tell?
And they all turn out to be true.
And they all turn out to be ultimately correct.
Trump was right about everything.
Do you have one of those Trump was right about everything hats?
I'm going to give it to this gentleman.
Everybody gets vetted.
They get vetted.
unidentified
So you've got to, you know.
We're going to begin in two weeks.
donald j trump
About two weeks.
The sale will start in about three weeks.
unidentified
Mr. President, do you see a more active role for Zelensky now, given the status?
donald j trump
I hope so.
I mean, look, I think that we want to get that country back on its feet.
And right now, it's been destroyed.
Here, come in here.
unidentified
Give me all of them.
donald j trump
Look.
unidentified
See that?
donald j trump
Trump was right about everything.
Just came in.
Somebody said, I said, this was sent in by a fan.
I said, I think we should make some of them.
But we were pretty much.
unidentified
You want one?
I'll pass it.
donald j trump
Are you allowed to take one?
unidentified
Probably not.
donald j trump
He'll consider.
unidentified
I know he'll take one.
donald j trump
He's sort of a stiff.
He'll take other things, but not a free hand.
unidentified
Always say yes to the president.
Always say yes.
donald j trump
Would anybody like one?
unidentified
Mr. President.
An easy question perhaps for you.
Maybe it's difficult.
I'm going to ask you this question about the Super Bowl.
donald j trump
Who do you work for?
unidentified
I work for two news organizations.
Who?
I work for two news organizations.
I work for Great Television, America's second largest broadcaster, and I work for iHeartRadio.
So there you go.
Let me ask you the easy or tough question, Mr. President.
The Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl.
Are they being extended in invitation?
donald j trump
They will be.
We haven't yet, but we will be.
I thought it was a great performance by them.
And absolutely, they'll be extended that invitation.
Would you do that right away, buddy?
unidentified
Yes, sir.
donald j trump
We'll do it right away.
We're going to do it sometime today.
And they deserve to be down here, and we hope to see them.
We have a lot of teams.
We just had the great hockey team, as you know, Florida come here.
We have many of the great athletes come that win things.
unidentified
What's the main obstacle holding up this PGA Tour Live Golf?
donald j trump
Well, they have to get together.
You know, they've had a lot of...
Discussion back and forth.
They both are meaning well, and a deal will ultimately happen.
I think it'll happen pretty quickly.
It'll be nice to see the golfers, the best golfers, be able to play against each other.
unidentified
What's your role been in this whole project?
donald j trump
Just to help expedite it.
Tiger was here.
Adam Scott was here.
Jay Monaghan was here the other day.
Just to really help expedite it.
We had Yasser here from Saudi Arabia, a great guy.
These are all great people, and they want to work it out.
So if I can help them work it out, I don't get anything out of it.
If I can help them work it out, I just think golf, it's very much of an individual sport, and you want to see the best players playing against each other, not playing in two different locations, right?
unidentified
What's going to be more challenging, a PGA-LIV deal or a Russia-Ukraine deal?
donald j trump
I think the PGA deal is much more challenging.
unidentified
Sir, may I ask another Middle East question, if I may?
What's your take on what's happening in the West Bank and what is really doing?
donald j trump
Well, it's a movement up there that a lot of people are concerned about.
And there's been a lot of Israeli movement up there for a reason.
All of a sudden, maybe they're not feeling so good about that.
So that would be terrible.
I hope that doesn't happen.
But there is movement up there that nobody knew about.
Right?
You know that, right?
unidentified
Yeah.
And when you say, are you concerned about it as well?
donald j trump
I'm concerned about everything.
I want the world to be peaceful.
You know, when I left here, we had no war.
We had defeated ISIS in less than four weeks.
In fact, I took the general that defeated ISIS and I put him in charge of the whole ballgame because that's what we want.
We want winners.
Raisin Cane, you know?
Raisin.
When I heard that name, I said, I like that name.
That's the kind of general I like.
So we'll see.
He was great.
He's a great soldier.
Not a politician, a soldier.
A real soldier.
You know that, Brian.
This guy was...
unidentified
I do.
donald j trump
I've heard that story a million times.
Yeah, this guy's the real deal.
unidentified
He is.
donald j trump
And I think he's going to do a great job.
But think of it.
We had no wars.
We had no problems.
We had no inflation.
We had no problems.
And then all of a sudden you have October 7th in Israel, which was horrible.
And then you see...
What happened with Ukraine would have never...
Russia would have never gone in if the election weren't rigged.
It was a rigged election.
The 2020 election was rigged.
And we got out of it.
And you see what happened.
You see what happened to our country.
Inflation, Afghanistan, that horrible withdrawal from Afghanistan.
I think when Russia saw what happened in Afghanistan, they said, wow.
It's a paper tiger.
We're not a paper tiger.
We are the strongest military force in the world.
And by the way, Pete Hegseth is doing a great job.
But we didn't have wars.
We didn't have inflation.
We had a strong border.
We had everything going good.
And then Biden got in, and he's, in my opinion, the worst president in the history of our country.
I think Jimmy Carter was a very happy man when he passed away two weeks ago.
unidentified
What are you expecting at the cabinet meeting tomorrow?
donald j trump
It's going to be a cabinet meeting.
And I'll preside, unlike Biden, I'll preside over my own cabinet.
unidentified
Mr. President, on the C.P. Brown, on the dam, compare your cabinet in your second term to your cabinet that you had in your first term.
donald j trump
Well, I had some great people in my second term.
I think this is deeper.
I think it's better because it's deeper.
I had some people that I didn't really like too much in my cabinet, but I didn't know Washington then.
I was a New York person.
I knew New York intimately, but I had to rely on people.
I had great people.
Look, we got the biggest tax cuts in history.
I rebuilt the military.
I mean, we did so much.
We did unbelievable.
Even right to try.
Somebody was saying today they were saved by right to try.
We did right to try medically.
We did transparency medically.
That was a big thing.
But Biden canceled that one.
He didn't cancel right to try, which is interesting.
He didn't cancel Space Force.
He was going to cancel Space Force.
Space Force is turning out to be invaluable.
Amazing.
We created Space Force.
Think of it.
We rebuilt our entire military, and now we're going to have to patch it up a little bit again because of what's happened.
No, this was a grossly incompetent administration.
The only thing they were good at was cheating on elections and the weaponization of government.
Thank you very much, everybody.
Thank you.
steve bannon
It's Tuesday, 25 February, Year of Our Lord, 2025, right there.
President Trump holding court as he signs executive orders, some of those executive orders.
A little controversial, the Trump gold card.
I've got to wrap my head around that.
But he said the Biden administration was great for two things, cheating and weaponization.
And I think he's correct on both of those.
Another huge day of Days of Thunder.
Do we have our first guest up?
Is he up correct?
We're getting him right now.
Michael Benz.
Mike Benz is going to join us.
Huge development in that story.
The story is about this, I guess, a chat room or a thread in a chat room with senior people in the National Security Agency and I think other people in the intelligence community.
Absolutely kind of demonic what they're talking about.
Tulsi Gabbard, I think, has just signed something that has signed something that's going to out the names of these people.
So this is going to be huge.
Mike Benz, who's been so terrific about following the national security in the intelligence community.
Mike Benz is going to join us.
Also, Eric Tietzel from CRA. As it stands right now, I don't think it's changed here in the last few minutes.
They're trying to schedule a vote on this budget resolution, which will kind of kick off the process for the reconciliation, for the one big, beautiful bill.
You've got to get this first.
The House will try to pass it tonight and then see if the Senate wants to act on it.
If the Senate doesn't want to act on it, I think it becomes part of it, or the Senate can come up with their alternative.
A lot of confusion on Capitol Hill.
People all day tweeting, talking about the CR. Let's get this done now.
Let's make sure it's not a year-end CR. How are we going to get the doge cuts in there?
Then on this side, the reconciliation with the budget.
All very confusing, but just remember the process is President Trump's trying to push his agenda, the agenda of a supply-side tax cut.
He needs to do that to a budget reconciliation process, so that will begin tonight.
I was very skeptical earlier today.
When Johnson said, at first they scheduled it, then he said later, well, it's either tonight or, you know, it'll be sometime.
I thought that was an indication that he did not have the votes.
And people I'm talking to thought it might be not even this week or next week before they rounded everybody.
I think there's been some whipping of the vote since then.
It's supposed to be at 630 tonight.
We will cover that live.
On the CR, I am told that the continuing resolution for this year, there's still a significant number of votes short, and the Democrats have told them they're not going to bail them out.
So that's not going to happen.
President Trump right there talking about everything from trying to do the merger of Live Golf and the PGA Tour.
Obviously, President Trump is very interested in that as a guy that takes golf very seriously, takes tour golf very seriously, and the majors very seriously.
Everything to what's happening in Ukraine, and I understand we're on the half-yard line on the Ukraine deal, which is the minerals deal, the way it's been structured.
As you saw it yesterday, Macron, they're still trying to get American security guarantees.
Their belief is if they get the United States in for some sort of development project with their minerals, and remember, most of their minerals, I believe, at least the way I understand the geography of Ukraine, Are not simply in the eastern part of Ukraine but very close to the Donbass.
So I don't know how that's going to work without some sort of Russian, you know, at least acknowledgement.
And I think they'll be part of this Russian rapprochement.
That, you know, the Europeans once again trying to get us entangled in the Ukraine.
The Ukraine deal makes perfect sense.
Or as perfect a sense as you can get in this day and age as part of an overall Russian rapprochement.
I think I've got Mike Benz.
Mike, you join us.
Tulsi Gabbard just put out a tweet, or there's a tweet out about Tulsi, about what she may be doing in this NSA. Can you explain to our audience, given your knowledge of the intelligence community, kind of this, what's coming out on Twitter the last couple of days, it seems quite depraved, perverted, demonic.
I don't know what you want to...
You know, how you've referred to it, but can you tell our audience exactly technically what's been going on and what has been revealed by this, sir?
mike benz
Yes, there have been communications with the CIA, NSA. These are over unclassified channels.
But essentially, just like private corporations like Google have essentially chat groups that are designed for inclusivity and basically in-group solidarity.
For various identity groups in the intelligence community, you have these LGBT and sort of queer-centric affinity groups that have been using the CIA and NSA unclassified comms channels to basically, you know, say this charitably.
To talk ill of domestic political opponents, of course, CIA and NSA are both supposed to point outwards.
They're not supposed to opine at all on domestic affairs, especially domestic political affairs.
They're supposed to answer to the democratic will of the domestic population.
And the fact that, of course, as Chuck Schumer famously said, they have six ways from Sunday to get back at you to use those.
The fact that they couldn't even keep it in their pants long enough to do it on their own cell phones, to do it on their own messaging apps, on their own phones, they couldn't wait to get to the office to conspire with their friends about celebrating the death of people like Pat Robertson.
You know, call Tulsi Gabbard a Russian agent or, you know, an enemy of the queer community.
Not sure even where they're getting that from.
You know, is evidence of just how deep the ideological rot has gotten within the intelligence core.
steve bannon
So, let me get this straight so the audience can understand this.
You have these affinity groups.
They use these comm channels, text messaging, chat rooms, whatever, at least sponsored or somehow on the apparatus of the server of the intelligence, these various intelligence apparatuses.
And this affinity group is what, transgender, LGBTQ plus?
Is that what it is, this affinity group?
mike benz
Yeah, and it's important to remember here that there was a reorientation of the intelligence community towards this while Kamala Harris was vice president and when she was on oversight of the Senate Intelligence Committee, there was a famous episode.
I forget if it was reported by the New York Times or Politico, but where Kamala Harris described getting CIA analyst memos on geopolitics of countries in Central Asia and Eastern Europe and whatnot.
And she gave orders for the CIA analyst to type the memos up again or to, going forward, make sure that the language in the CIA analyst memo was gender inclusive.
For example, she cited, according to Mainstream News reporting, that a term was used to describe a female foreign leader that would not be used, in her opinion, for the same activities by a male foreign leader.
As has been reported, she basically wanted the intelligence community to completely reorient the language it uses in intelligence analyst memos, the culture of the organization, to basically have ideological dominance of the exact sect that we now see is doing domestic political targeting and using official CI NSA comms channels for basically a combination of a kink.
A kink sex talk, a domestic targeting outlet, and a gossip column.
steve bannon
We'll get to the domestic targeting in a second, but the kink part, doesn't that make people in the intelligence community more vulnerable to be influenced, blackmailed, influenced, etc., by foreign powers?
Doesn't the intelligence community think that that is a concern, that these people may be exposed and may be open to blackmail?
mike benz
Well, that was always the knock from the 1950s until the 1970s, 80s.
It was always the traditional FBI concern was that members of the LGB community, this is sort of before the T, took over.
You know, because there was social stigma around homosexuality in the mid-20th century, that folks in high-level political spheres who had a deep, dark secret at risk of being exposed would be at risk for blackmail.
And this was something that was a not inconsiderable part of U.S. counterintelligence in the mid-20th century.
That was exported around the world by U.S. intelligence as a means to sort of break up post-Soviet states and draw them into a more liberal Euro-Atlantic order.
And as the sort of geopolitics of gender and sexual identity became weaponized, as we're seeing with USAID, for example, spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year, if not low billions of dollars a year on.
Transgender dance festivals, LGBT music conferences, and all sorts of cultural affinity groups.
And a large part of that is because it stands in such stark contradiction to the norms of the former Soviet empire and the legacy paternalistic Russian influence, as well as the Chinese, that they're useful affinity groups abroad.
And so you sort of have a similar situation where just the promotion of that at a movement and at a cultural level has, you know, can have some blowback when you start to see this type of clustering, you know, attacking heteronormative, you know, communities essentially.
steve bannon
So, yeah, and I'm not making a value judgment about whatever people do in their own personal and private life.
The question I'm asking, this is a group chat.
Right, which would be open to be broken by foreign agents.
And here in the group chat, they're open and this thing gets pretty salacious.
Isn't that a problem with the intelligence community having this type of platform where whatever people do in their personal and private lives is what they do in their personal and private life.
But here, you're actually making it almost like theater.
And it's out there for – it seems to me to be very easy for foreign intelligence agencies, particularly the CCP, who are brutal about this kind of stuff.
That's why I can't imagine how this went on.
And what you're saying is essentially officially sanctioned by previous administrations of the intelligence community?
mike benz
Well, it was a major emphasis of Kamala Harris during her time at the – because remember, before she was vice president and running for president.
And backed by, if you remember, there was the, you know, 50 plus intelligence community, you know, support letter for Kamala Harris over Joe Biden.
She had bipartisan support during the time that, you know, internationalist Republicans really dominated the Republican wing of Congress during Trump's first term while she was on the Senate Intelligence Committee before she became vice president.
This super protected group status effectively means that if you castigate the attempt to use official comms channels as private sex chats, what would normally be impropriety if it was done in the heterosexual community becomes almost like a hate speech targeted attack on a protected class.
When the same standards are held to that community, I think that was at least the cultural norms that were set up by the Biden-Harris oversight and implementation of the executive branch, Intel core.
steve bannon
Trevor Burrus: And there was also open almost targeting of political opposition.
It puts to a joke that these groups are apolitical, right?
There was open derision and actual potential targeting of political opposition, sir?
mike benz
Yeah.
I mean, they openly celebrated the death of Pat Robertson, saying that if there's smoke, if it felt smoky today, it was because the gates of hell had just...
Opened up and, you know, the deceased conservative had just entered and then, you know, followed by five or six similar chat messages that were all spiking the football.
And, you know, these sorts of things are standard fare in the rough and tumble of a comment section where you have red team, blue team.
But the fact is, is the intelligence community is where the darkest arts are practiced.
This is where we overthrow governments.
This is where we do gain-of-function funding for freak viruses.
This is where we provide clandestine support for terrorist groups and paramilitaries.
There's a license to kill, effectively, given to these agencies.
So when the civilians who pay these people's paychecks see that...
They have their sights directly on the taxpayers of this country, where they're not even allowed to operate.
I think it resonates with something, with a very deep And legitimate fear in the U.S. population, which is that when you are given, when you are a spy agency who is authorized to lie legally under NSC 10-2, plausible deniability,
when you are authorized to overthrow democratically elected governments and do all the malfeasance of traditional CIA spycraft, there's a special burden on you, just like judges are held to a standard.
Beyond impropriety, they have to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
Whether there was propriety or not, they should not even come close to the line.
And in this case, they blew so far over it that the smoke, so to speak, was the exhaust pipe from these channels that they were having.
But like I said, this is the unclassified comms that we got.
Imagine what's in the classified documents.
Imagine the domestic targeting.
And, you know, the language in CIA, NSA, analyst memos during the Biden administration around populism.
I mean, populism was a major target of intelligence work because it was defined as a threat to democracy itself.
So I can only imagine what's in the classified files around, you know, targeting of these various groups that, in the unclassified, they're celebrating the deaths of openly.
steve bannon
Mike, this plays into those of us that think this is a – the intelligence apparatus is completely and totally out of control, not supervised.
And where it is supervised, it's to be weaponized against the American people.
What is your recommendation?
Because obviously you're very highly regarded in MAGA circles, but you're also very highly regarded at the senior levels of the White House and the administration.
What is Mike Benz's conclusion here?
What has to be done about this situation?
mike benz
Keep cleaning house.
I think everything that's being done is incredibly heartening to see.
I actually don't think there has ever been this much pressure on the rogue intelligence agencies here in the U.S. in the entirety of U.S. history.
There was a moment of reform in the late 1970s during the Church and Pike Committee hearings, during what was called the Halloween Massacre, when Jimmy Carter fired 30% of the CIA. It's been floated that up to half of CIA officers or agents or analysts could be fired in the upcoming months, which would be even more severe and drastic than what was done under Jimmy Carter.
And then when you combine the fact that USAID has been slashed, and USAID is the primary money funnel.
That builds up the institutions that CIA then works with to conduct operations.
I don't think there's anything that's been close in previous years to what has been done just in the past month.
But you can expect opposition on this from several places.
The judges, there's going to be a full court press to go to jurisdictions in New York or wherever they can find favorable judges.
to try to stop that firing process from happening.
I think it's already underway.
Elon and the Doge people with the consent of the Treasury and Donald Trump have offered golden parachutes essentially to CIA personnel.
This has greatly bothered the CIA in exile folks who are telling people don't take the money because they offered eight months severance basically.
You get eight months of your CIA paycheck if you If you leave, that way we're paying you without you having to work.
steve bannon
Mike, can you hang on one second?
I just want to take a short commercial break.
Mike Benz, who is one of the leaders in this effort to bring the deep state, whatever part of it we keep, to heal here in the United States.
Short commercial break.
Ben's on the other side.
unidentified
We will fight till they're all gone.
We rejoice when there's no more.
Let's take down the CCP.
Here's your host, Stephen K. Van. .
steve bannon
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Mike Benz, solutions to this and any other aspects of this you think we ought to understand, particularly as Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe try to get their hands around the deconstruction of the deep state.
mike benz
Well, it's important to remember that it's all connected.
In this case, it was CIA and NSA. But CIA is primarily a...
You know, a covert support mechanism for the State Department.
And NSA is a covert support mechanism for the Pentagon.
And so it's all connected.
This attempt to clean out the rogue elements and the rot within the intelligence community means that the same pressure needs to be applied at state and at DOD. So obviously USAID has come under intense pressure, but...
State will be inheriting USAID. And so all of those programs and, you know, all those functions that were being done to project soft power influence, for example, we talked about how, you know, some of these gender identity and sexual orientation identity aspects have been weaponized by U.S. statecraft for decades now as a way to try to implement regime change or try to alter the course of elections.
A great example of this, for example, the CIA red cell memo that was disclosed by WikiLeaks from 2010 showed that when the CIA, when the State Department was frustrated that France and Germany, that their parliaments were not taking more taxpayer dollars from Germans.
The CIA analyst memo proposed to the State Department, based on their own fieldwork and polling surveys they'd done, that if the messaging is changed from a national security predicate to support the war to a feminist predicate to support the war, by changing the State Department messaging and the USAID media-funded messaging away from Afghans as terrorists.
To Afghan women as being oppressed, that that would lead more of the German population and French population, because 50% of the voters are women, and you have many men who are sympathetic to the women's rights issues, that that would lead European parliaments to vote to give more money for the NATO war in Afghanistan.
And you see this play out in country after country, this selective analysis of the demographics of a country.
In order to build up those capacities, in order to achieve aims that are deemed beneficial to U.S. statecraft.
And so I think that this has now gone on so long that we're now seeing blowback at home.
There's a parallel, for example, with our migrant and refugee programs.
The primary function of our refugee programs and migrant programs are to bring people from foreign...
Countries in war-torn areas where their families are part of militias or political royalty who's being oppressed there, bring them to safety in the U.S., pay for their entire lifestyles and have tens of thousands of them send back remittances that basically fund a CIA or special forces proxy war in the region.
But then those people stay here.
And they, in turn, exert their own influence over the politics.
And there is blowback.
This is what's happening in London, for example, with Pakistan.
Pakistan plays a major role in British statecraft in Central Asia and even into Romania and Ukraine.
And the fact that there's been such a huge amount of importing of those refugee communities who are playing a useful role to Great Britain in terms of funding the British war effort and the great game against Russia, you see the same thing happening with gender and sexual orientation blowback here in you see the same thing happening with gender and sexual orientation blowback here in the intelligence community who works again with those elements, you know, So this has to be a holistic effort is what I'm saying.
this at CIA and NSA, you have to take it all the way up to the chain, to the State Department and DOD, and that means Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth have their work cut out for them.
unidentified
Wow.
steve bannon
And Tulsi Gabbard.
Extraordinary.
Benz, where can we get you?
I know on social media, you're active, influential, and a must-read.
Where do people go?
mike benz
At MikeBenzCyber on X, and the website is FoundationForFreedomOnline.com.
steve bannon
Benz, I hope it's not too long before we can't interview you because you're in the administration.
That's one of my prayers every night.
Before I put my head down the pillow, we need you on the inside.
No, we need you on the inside now more than ever.
Ben, thank you so much, man.
Great work.
Very special guy right there.
Spent years working on this.
We've talked about this from the very first days in the administration.
When he actually worked over at HUD with Dr. Ben Carson.
Knew about cyber, knew about this information war, knew about the deep state.
Coming in and working over at HUD for Dr. Carson as one of his senior advisors.
Mike Lindell, a tough day today.
President Trump making it happen in the Oval Office.
Talk to me about selling us a pillow, sir.
mike lindell
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I love it when I'm here, Steve, when I do this afternoon call.
I'm going to head right downstairs to my call center, and I love listening to the calls come in.
I'm going to take a couple of them right now.
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So you guys make those calls.
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steve bannon
Promo code WARWROOM. What's the number again, Mike?
Somebody can get lucky and talk to you.
What's the number?
mike lindell
It's 800-873-1062.
I'm going to take at least three, four calls, you guys.
So 800-873-1062.
steve bannon
Short commercial break.
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