May 7, 2025 - Bannon's War Room
51:57
Participants
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| It was nearly impossible to get anyone on camera for this story because of the fear now running through our system of justice. | ||
| In recent weeks, President Trump has signed orders against several law firms, orders with the power to destroy them. | ||
| That matters because lawsuits have been a check on the president's power. | ||
| Many firms and attorneys have been targeted, among them Mark Elias, a longtime opponent of Trump, who is the only lawyer the president has named who was willing to appear on 60 Minutes. | ||
| Elias and others are warning that Trump's assault on the legal profession threatens the rule of law itself. | ||
| Elias says that for him, it began with the president's personal grudge. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The story will continue in a moment. | |
| Donald Trump hates me because I fight hard and I fight for free and fair elections. | ||
| I insist on fighting for democracy in court, fighting for voting rights in court, and insist on telling the truth about what the outcome of the 2020 election was. | ||
| Are there risks in doing the work that you're doing? | ||
|
unidentified
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I'd be an idiot not to be worried. | |
| The question, though, is what do you do? | ||
| Do you just cower in the corner? | ||
| Do you just try to disappear? | ||
| Do you just leave democracy to fend for itself? | ||
| Or do you stand tall and do the best you can every day to represent your clients and try to preserve the rule of law? | ||
| Mark Elias first crossed Trump in 2016. | ||
| He was the top lawyer for the Clinton campaign. | ||
| Then in 2020, when Trump and allies challenged the election results, Elias fought in court and won. | ||
| Trump calls him a thug. | ||
|
unidentified
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Donald Trump is the walking embodiment of everything that is wrong with the American political system. | |
| And so when Donald Trump says that I am unethical or that I am undermining his vision of America, I say, boy, I must be doing something right. | ||
| I met with Mr. Martin. | ||
| He seems like a good man. | ||
| Most of my concerns related to January 6th. | ||
| I think anybody that breached the perimeter should have been in prison for some period of time. | ||
| Whether it's 30 days or three years is debatable, but I have no tolerance for anybody who entered the building on January the 6th, and that's probably where most of the friction was. | ||
| If Mr. Martin were being put forth as a U.S. attorney for any district except the district where January 6th happened, the protest happened, I'd probably support him. | ||
| Targeted firms say what the president signed amounted to a corporate death penalty. | ||
| And it should never be allowed to happen again. | ||
| The orders threaten to bar attorneys from where they work, courthouses and federal agencies, and cancel the contracts of law firm clients. | ||
| For example, an aerospace company could lose its federal contracts if it stayed with the firm. | ||
| A senior partner at one firm told us the president's orders were, quote, diabolical, intended to bankrupt us. | ||
| He said within hours, his major clients were threatening to drop his firm. | ||
| It took only a matter of days before America's wealthiest and most powerful law firms buckled. | ||
| This is the primal scream of a dying regime. | ||
|
unidentified
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Pray for our enemies, because we're going medieval on these people. | |
| I got a free shot at all these networks lying about the people. | ||
| The people have had a belly full of it. | ||
| I know you don't like hearing that. | ||
|
unidentified
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I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it. | |
| It's going to happen. | ||
| And where do people like that go to share the big lie? | ||
|
unidentified
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Mega Media. | |
| I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience. | ||
|
unidentified
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Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? | |
| If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved. | ||
|
unidentified
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War Room. | |
| Here's your host, Stephen K. Vann. | ||
| War Room. | ||
| Here's your host, Stephen K. Vann. | ||
| Welcome to the War Room. | ||
| It's May 6th in the year of our Lord, 2025. | ||
| Natalie G. Winters hosting today, filling in for Stephen K. Bannon, who you've probably gathered by now, is out on assignment. | ||
| But don't worry, we have a very packed show. | ||
| So much to get to, frankly. | ||
| I think we are blessed with the opportunity to, shall we say, return to War Room tradition. | ||
| Though I don't know about you guys, I get a little sick and tired of having to return to our war room posse birthright, which is holding rhinos. | ||
| I guess the rhino of today's show will be none other than Senator Tom Tillis, but holding them to account. | ||
| I remember when I sat here while Stephen K. Bannon was in prison, and I liked very much attacking, who was it, Speaker Mike Johnson, the man whose vocabulary is limited to probably Ukraine and continuing resolution. | ||
| We're going to share that love with, like I said, Senator Tom Tillis, who I guess apparently is so conservative, is so Republican, despite representing the great state of North Carolina, that he has the same viewpoint, the same brilliant mindset on the wonderful, patriotic, truly MAGA man that is Ed Martin. | ||
| He shares a viewpoint on him that Mark Elias, who you saw in that 60 Minutes opening, and Norm Eisen, which is that he's not fit. | ||
| He's not fit. | ||
| And here's why this matters. | ||
| Because all 12 GOP Senate Judiciary Committee members have to vote unanimously to advance him out of committee, or someone who's frankly even worse, not just talking physiognomy-wise, but that's Judge Bozberg. | ||
| He's going to get to pick Ed Martin's successor. | ||
| Now, pro tip. | ||
| For Senator Tillis, if you're not being called a thug by Mark Elias, or your worldview is something that does not strike fear in the heart of him and his cronies, all of the, I guess, true alpha males who are so confident in trying to destroy this country, they can't even appear for a softball interview with Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes. | ||
| Well, hey, Scott, if you want to interview me or Steve or anyone in this audience, we're around. | ||
| I didn't get a call. | ||
| But Tom Tillis, you are very much on the wrong side of history. | ||
|
unidentified
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Okay. | |
| And frankly... | ||
|
unidentified
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Trump's live, by the way, so if you want to jump to that. | |
| I believe we're going to stop my Tom Tillis right here because President Trump is speaking live. | ||
| My producers are telling me, don't worry, we're going to get back to it because there's a lot we have to get there on his record. | ||
| But he's speaking from inside the Oval Office. | ||
| I think Steve Whitcoff is behind him, so let's toss to that and we'll get back once he wraps. | ||
| A big period of time. | ||
| I think that this is a... | ||
| Potentially a great time for our country in solving a lot of problems that we inherited, that we should have never had, frankly. | ||
| Attorney General Pam Bondi, who's incredible, and Senator Lindsey Graham. | ||
| Oh, Senator Graham, where are you? | ||
| Where is Senator Graham? | ||
| Hello, Lindsey. | ||
| Steve is a graduate of some great schools, including Hofstra University, where he studied. | ||
| Political science and law. | ||
| After graduating, he entered the real estate business, co-founding the Stellar Management Company in 1985 and launching a legendary career. | ||
| You know, he started off in a law office. | ||
| In fact, he was one of my young lawyers. | ||
| And they said, that guy's smart, but he just started. | ||
| It was a very smart firm, Dreyer& Traub. | ||
| Killers. | ||
| They were total killers. | ||
| They said, he's worse than all of them. | ||
| But people don't know that. | ||
| They think he's a nice guy, Pam. | ||
| Not that nice, actually. | ||
| But he is something. | ||
| Steve quickly established himself as one of the toughest, smartest, and best negotiators in the business. | ||
| In 1997, he founded the Whitcoff Group, which now owns dozens of the most beautiful and iconic properties in the entire world. | ||
| He's owned some incredible properties. | ||
| As a businessman, he's admired and respected by all. | ||
| And now Steve is putting his talents to work for America as special envoy to the United States and making a lot of progress. | ||
| Our country is blessed to have a negotiator of such skill and experience who really selflessly steps up to the plate, puts himself forward all the time. | ||
| Over the past few months, Steve has already helped negotiate the return of dozens of hostages from Gaza, and they come in and see me, many of them, and they are so thankful to Steve. | ||
| And also hostages from other parts of the globe. | ||
| He's met with... | ||
| President Putin, Prime Minister Netanyahu, representatives Iran and many other places. | ||
| He is meeting with people that he never really thought he'd ever meet just a few months ago, and he's figuring it out. | ||
| It takes him about an hour to figure it out. | ||
| After that, he's brutal. | ||
| He does a great job. | ||
| He's working tirelessly to end the bloody and destructive conflicts, and one in particular with Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| Where you're losing 5,000 young people a week on average, Ukrainian soldiers, Russian soldiers, and people in towns and villages that are being killed. | ||
| We want to bring it to an end, and we're working, Steve, in the Middle East, where I think we're having some very good success, and you'll be hearing about it as we go. | ||
| We had tremendous success over the last month, and, you know, we're taking the word of the Houthis. | ||
| But they didn't want any more, and I understand that. | ||
| And they have decided that they don't want to do this anymore. | ||
| So I'm proud to have him as a friend. | ||
| Steve's a very fantastic guy. | ||
| I picked him out of a lot of people. | ||
| I had a lot of choices. | ||
| But I said, we need somebody with two things, a great personality and somebody that could negotiate. | ||
| And he's got both of them in spades. | ||
| He's also really smart. | ||
| So I want to thank everybody for being here, and I want to... | ||
| Very, very importantly, I want to say to Marco Rubio that you're swearing in a very important person. | ||
| And Steve reports to Marco. | ||
| I said, Steve, you better do a good job of Marco. | ||
| He will fire you so violently you have no idea. | ||
| But Marco, if you could administer the oath. | ||
| Thank you very much, Marco. | ||
| Thank you, Steve. | ||
|
unidentified
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I, Steve Wyckoff, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservations. | |
| Without any mental reservation. | ||
|
unidentified
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Or purpose of evasion. | |
| Or purpose of evasion. | ||
|
unidentified
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And that I will well. | |
| And that I will well. | ||
|
unidentified
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And faithfully. | |
| And faithfully. | ||
| Discharge the duties of the office. | ||
| Discharge the duties of the office. | ||
|
unidentified
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On which I am about to enter. | |
| On which I am about to enter. | ||
|
unidentified
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So help me God. | |
| So help me God. | ||
| Congratulations. | ||
| Do you have any questions? | ||
| Good job. | ||
| Thank you, Mark. | ||
| Any questions for Steve? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, what have you reaction to the attacks between India and Pakistan? | |
| No, it's a shame. | ||
| We just heard about it just as we were walking in the doors of the Oval. | ||
| Just heard about it. | ||
| I guess people knew something was going to happen based on a little bit of the past. | ||
| They've been fighting for a long time. | ||
| You know, they've been fighting for many, many decades and centuries, actually, if you really think about it. | ||
| No, I just hope it ends very quickly. | ||
| Well, the plan we haven't talked about, but we're not planning on stopping in Israel. | ||
| But we will be doing it at some point, but not for this trip. | ||
|
unidentified
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There's a report that the UK is offering various trade concessions. | |
| What's your response to that? | ||
| Who? | ||
|
unidentified
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What? | |
| The United Kingdom. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
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And can you also say if you were discussing tariffs with Mr. Arnold? | |
| And what about the United Kingdom? | ||
|
unidentified
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They're offering various trade concessions, apparently cars, steel, digital service. | |
| They're offering us concessions? | ||
| I hope so. | ||
| They do want to make a deal very badly. | ||
|
unidentified
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Can you say your guests here are discussing tariffs or business? | |
| No, I think that the United Kingdom, like every other country, they want to go shopping in the United States of America. | ||
| China wants to, very much wants to make a deal. | ||
| They all do. | ||
| But yeah, I would say that every country wants to make a deal and not the ones they had in the past where we were like, look, we were being ripped off by every country practically without exception in the entire world. | ||
| And those days are over. | ||
| Those days are over. | ||
| And, you know, I said before in our meeting with the new and very talented Prime Minister of Canada that we have some very big announcement to make. | ||
| It's not about trade. | ||
| It's about something else. | ||
| But it's going to be a truly earth-shattering and positive development for this country and for the people of this country. | ||
| And that'll take place sometime within the next few days. | ||
|
unidentified
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Any plans for Mr. Wyckoff to travel once again to Russia? | |
| And as you mentioned in your remarks, he's traveled to Russia on a number of occasions. | ||
| He's met with President Putin. | ||
| What type of progress is being made as it relates to all of those visits that he's made to Russia? | ||
| I think a lot because I think Russia wanted to take all of Ukraine and they've stopped. | ||
| That's a lot of progress. | ||
| You know, it's small. | ||
| It's a portion of Ukraine. | ||
| But no, I think a lot. | ||
| I think if we weren't here. | ||
| They would be right now fighting to take the whole country, and they're not doing that. | ||
| So I think that's a lot of progress. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. President, please. | |
| Mr. President, I think it frustrates you that Russia continues to attack civilian areas inside Ukraine. | ||
| I don't like anything about that war. | ||
| It's a war. | ||
| I don't like anything about it. | ||
| And I'm not happy with that, no. | ||
| Not at all. | ||
| Not even a little bit. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| The Houthis are backing down. | ||
| We're seeing conflicting reports that they plan on continuing to attack Israel in support of Gaza. | ||
| Does that change the equation? | ||
| No, I don't know about that, frankly. | ||
| But I know one thing, they want nothing to do with us, and they've let that be known through all of their surrogates, and very strongly. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. President, where are they? | |
| Is there a hostage deal that's imminent? | ||
| And are you talking to Netanyahu right now about their plan to level the rest of Gaza? | ||
| We're talking to him about a lot of things right now. | ||
| This is really crunch time. | ||
| I would tell you for Iran and for their country, this is a very important time for Iran. | ||
| This is the most important time in the history of Iran for Iran. | ||
| And I hope they do what's right. | ||
| I'd love to see a peace deal, a strong peace deal. | ||
| They cannot have a nuclear weapon. | ||
| I would say that this is the single most important period in the history of Iran, which is a long history. | ||
| And we want it to be a great country. | ||
| Let it be a tremendously successful, rich country. | ||
| They have everything you need. | ||
| The people are incredible. | ||
| They have vast amounts of oil and assets. | ||
| We want it to be a successful country. | ||
| We don't want to do anything that's going to get in the way of that. | ||
| But they can't have a nuclear weapon. | ||
| And if they... | ||
| Choose to go a different route, it's going to be a very sad thing, and it's something we don't want to have to do, but we have no choice. | ||
| They're not going to have a nuclear weapon. | ||
| They're not going to have a nuclear weapon. | ||
| Do you understand that? | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In regards to the Houthis, have you told the military to stop attacks against the Houthis? | |
| We just informed them a little while ago, and all action is stopping. | ||
| Probably haven't heard yet. | ||
| You know, there are various people in various rather strategic locations. | ||
| But by this moment, they should just about all know, Marco, I think that the attacks are going to stop both ways. | ||
| And that's pretty much it. | ||
| But we've just informed everybody just a little while ago. | ||
| To follow up on the previous question, if he continues to attack Israel, which he said he didn't know about, but if they continue to attack Israel, Well, I'll discuss that if something happens, okay? | ||
| If something happens with Israel and the Houthis. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Well, I can announce all of them now. | ||
| I could announce 50 to 100 deals right now because, you know, I'm the shopkeeper and I keep the store. | ||
| You know, I know what countries are looking for, and I know what we're looking for, and I can just set those terms. | ||
| And they can go shopping, or they don't have to go shopping, because everybody wants to shop here. | ||
| This is like a beautiful store. | ||
| This is like one of Bernard Arnault, or maybe I should say Alex, even more importantly, young, the future. | ||
| But Bernard's an honor to have you. | ||
| We'll have a meeting after this. | ||
| But he has the greatest stores in the world, and they want to shop. | ||
| Our country is the greatest store in the world of that kind. | ||
| And everybody wants a piece of it. | ||
| And they took advantage of us for years because we allowed presidents. | ||
| Our presidents allowed it to happen. | ||
| You know, I don't blame China. | ||
| And I don't blame Vietnam. | ||
| And I could name every single country all the way up and down the line. | ||
| South Korea. | ||
| Every single country took advantage of us, without exception. | ||
| Japan. | ||
| These are friends of mine, but they took advantage of this country. | ||
| They ripped off our country. | ||
| Selling us millions and millions of cars a year, and we sold them none. | ||
| We weren't allowed to sell them a car. | ||
| They took advantage of us. | ||
| I don't blame them. | ||
| I blame the people that sat behind that desk that allowed it to happen, but I don't allow it to happen. | ||
| I didn't in the first term, but this is a much stronger position because we had the greatest economy in history in our first term. | ||
| The stock market was up 88%. | ||
| We had numbers much better than that. | ||
| But this is going to be, I think, a much better term, and I think the tariffs are coming in, starting to come in. | ||
| We were losing $5 billion-plus a day on trade. | ||
| Now we're not losing that kind of money, and we'll soon be making a lot of money a day, and a year, and a month. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You and perhaps the Attorney General. | |
| The Justice Department recently received a criminal referral against New York Attorney General Tish James for fraud. | ||
| We haven't heard much about it. | ||
| You or the Attorney General, give us an update as to what's going on with that investigation. | ||
| Well, I don't want to get involved in something that Pamela's involved with. | ||
| If you'd like to say something, Pam? | ||
| I can say unrelated to that. | ||
| She's a disaster for New York. | ||
| She's a horrible, horrible human being. | ||
| And I think she's a total crook. | ||
| There's no question about it. | ||
| But that's just my opinion. | ||
| Pam's going to have to do what she wants. | ||
| She's a very bad person. | ||
| She's a very, very bad person who campaigned solely on, I'm going to get Donald Trump over and over again. | ||
| She's a sick person. | ||
| But that has nothing to do with what Pam does. | ||
| Pam is going to do what's right. | ||
| She always does. | ||
| I've known her a long time. | ||
| Yeah, go ahead, behind you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| On Gaza, you said there's been progress and progress in the Middle East. | ||
| At the moment, as a colleague said, in Israel, Netanyahu is saying he now wants to conquer Gaza. | ||
| Is there any prospect of any movement on that? | ||
| Are you happy with what Netanyahu is doing? | ||
| Well, we've gone very slowly because we want to try and get as many hostages saved as possible, and we've done a good job in that regard. | ||
| Two weeks ago, I had ten hostages come in, and they thanked me profusely. | ||
| And I said, you have nothing to thank me about. | ||
| What they went through is incredible. | ||
| They lived in a pipe. | ||
| You know, they keep hearing about caves. | ||
| It was a pipe, three and a half feet high. | ||
| And they didn't know if they were going to breathe. | ||
| They didn't know if they were going to live to the next day. | ||
| They lived like hell. | ||
| I couldn't believe the stories I was hearing. | ||
| And they weren't grandstanding. | ||
| These were people that were seriously mistreated. | ||
| One was in for 512 days. | ||
| One was in for 300 and... | ||
| 61, I guess, days. | ||
| And one was in for a shorter period of time. | ||
| The stories were unbelievable. | ||
| I said, how many people are left? | ||
| How many are left? | ||
| They said, 59. I said, oh, wow. | ||
| That's more than I thought. | ||
| They said, well, only 24 are living. | ||
| But now it's 21. That was a week ago. | ||
| Now it's 21 are living. | ||
| And these are young people. | ||
| Young people don't die. | ||
| Old people die. | ||
| Young people don't die under these conditions. | ||
| So, of the 59 people, and they said 59, and I said, really? | ||
| But they said only 24 are living. | ||
| And I now correct, I say 21, because as of today it's 21. Three have died. | ||
| So, this is a terrible situation. | ||
| We're trying to get the hostages out. | ||
| We've gotten a lot of them out. | ||
| As the expression goes, there's 21 plus a lot of dead bodies. | ||
| You know, parents came up to me. | ||
| On numerous occasions, but a couple in particular, they came up to me two weeks ago and they said, please, sir, my son is dead. | ||
| Please get us back his body. | ||
| They wanted his body. | ||
| He's dead. | ||
| They know he's dead. | ||
| They wanted his body as much as you would want the boy if he was alive. | ||
| It's a very sad thing. | ||
| Thank you very much, everybody. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| All right. | ||
| Thank you, President Trump. | ||
| Wonderful remarks. | ||
| As always, always taking questions. | ||
| I've been told I'm a, what, state-sponsored propagandist for usually being in that rotation. | ||
| Frankly, it just shows you the contempt that they have for you guys, the War Room audience. | ||
| They think that questions that are asked by people like myself and Brian Glenn are not as deserving as those asked by, I guess, smug, elitist New York Times reporters. | ||
| Quite a Freudian slip there. | ||
| Mike Benz, I think we have you joining us. | ||
| We're going to go to the wonderful Attorney General Ken Paxton shortly. | ||
| But until then, Mike Benz, I want you to walk us through, before we even get into the politics of Tom Tillis, who's opposing Ed Martin, why his role is so critical when it comes to investigations, accountability, the war room version of accountability, particularly, I think you called it the choke point of a lot of these D.C. prosecutions. | ||
| The D.C. prosecutor's office is the top of the pyramid when it comes to the most corrupt secrets of D.C. People think about the abuses of the FBI, and you have to understand the FBI serves the Justice Department. | ||
| The FBI is the investigative arm of the Justice Department. | ||
| So when the FBI spies on you, that means the prosecutors approved it. | ||
| When the FBI raids your home, that means the Justice Department approved it. | ||
| And the Justice Department has main justice, that's Pam Bondi, but it's got the different branch offices in all of the different jurisdictions in the United States. | ||
| And the most important jurisdiction when it comes to cleaning up the swamp is the jurisdiction over the swamp, Washington, D.C. That is the position that Ed Martin has been nominated to be the head of the D.C. Justice Department, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. | ||
| And so all secrets flow through there. | ||
| All investigations flow through there. | ||
| All local authorizations for the FBI flow through there. | ||
| So anything that you want to do to clean up the swamp that requires the Justice Department is going to require somebody who believes in Donald Trump's agenda and can be trusted to take on very, very serious and dark forces. | ||
| And if Ed Martin is not confirmed by the time that his term runs out as acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia on May 19th, that is less than two weeks away now, Judge Boesberg, he's the chief justice for the D.C. Circuit, by law will get to handpick the D.C. prosecutor. | ||
| So there have been all these scandals. | ||
| There have been lawsuits now filed about... | ||
| Judge Boesberg potentially circumventing the random selection process in order to airdrop into handling cases that have all gone in the most monstrous way possible. | ||
| Well, he will get to not just handpick cases. | ||
| He'll get to handpick the prosecutor. | ||
| And the prosecutor will get to dictate the FBI. | ||
| So if Ed Martin is not confirmed, all of the momentum we have had for the past 100-odd days It will be a screeching stop to all of it, and there will be almost no hope for serious reform of the federal agencies, of federal bureaucrats, or anything. | ||
| This is a hand-wrapped gift to Norm Eisen and all the little color revolution plotters to not just take their control over the judiciary, but add the prosecutors who are the most dangerous of all. | ||
| And walk us through why you think Tillis, who of course is sort of a representation of the forces that oppose him, like you alluded to, Norm Eisen, Mark Elias, why do you think he has become the hotbed of resistance in this case? | ||
| Well, this is where it gets into speculation for me. | ||
| I get the sense that he's jumping on the grenade where several other Republicans in the Senate who tend to go against the Trump agenda are saying that they will they they've now switched. | ||
| There were about five of them who seem to indicate they would be blocking Ed Martin. | ||
| But one by one, they have indicated that they will approve Ed Martin if he if it comes to a committee vote. | ||
| And Tom and there's 12 Senate Republicans on that Senate Judicial Committee that requires unanimous vote to get it off the committee and onto the floor. | ||
| Tom Tillis is the one of the twelve. | ||
| Who is saying that he is going to hold that up. | ||
| And here's where, to me, it gets very dark. | ||
| Tom Tillis has made precisely one public statement about this to the press, and that was just this morning, where he said it was January 6th that is the reason that he is not going to approve Ed Martin. | ||
| And, obviously, January 6th was a Fed surrection. | ||
| January 6th also happened, checks, notes, what, four? | ||
| Four years and four months ago. | ||
| It has no play today. | ||
| Everyone who did not commit a violent crime that day has been pardoned by the President of the United States. | ||
| There are no active cases when it comes to peaceful protesters. | ||
| This is not just an ancient memory. | ||
| It's settled. | ||
| It's done. | ||
| For that to be invoked is the reason to block Ed Martin. | ||
| Suggest something much darker to me, because if you actually parse that statement that Senator Tom Tillis said, is he mentions towards the end of his remarks that he was apprehensive about Ed Martin pursuing a fedsurrection theory of the case. | ||
| He alludes to the fact that he says that there was no federal involvement. | ||
| That was a sort of pipe dream. | ||
| I'm paraphrasing what he says. | ||
| And he slips that in there, and I find that very curious because he's a senator from North Carolina. | ||
| And North Carolina is the heart of the, shall we say, Mark Milley deep state when it comes to all things psychological operations, domestic... | ||
| A very nasty history of domestic interference and domestic politics. | ||
| Well, and Ralph Baric at UNC Chapel Hill doing the COVID gain of function stuff. | ||
| Mike, if you can hang with us through the break. | ||
| Posse, we're also going to have AG Ken Paxson joining us shortly to get into all this. | ||
| So, Mike, I want an update on what I think you are rightfully known for all things NGOs, how they're funding all that resistance. | ||
| After we come back, if you can hang through, that'd be great. | ||
| We're on Posse. | ||
| In the meantime, you've got to make sure you're checking out birchgold.com slash Bannon. | ||
| Texting Bannon to 989898. | ||
| You can get a free copy of The Ultimate Guide for Gold in the Trump era. | ||
| I wish I had a copy to hold up, but you can very easily get it online. | ||
| And check it out on your Patriot Mobile phone. | ||
| How is that for a combo read? | ||
| That's PatriotMobile.com slash Bannon or you can call 972-PATRIOT. | ||
| More Mike Benz. | ||
| More the wonderful AG Ken Paxton. | ||
| And I promise I will give you that rant that we missed. | ||
| We'll be right back after this short break. | ||
|
unidentified
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War Room. | |
| Here's your host, Stephen K. Vance. | ||
| War Room. | ||
| Here's your host, Stephen K. Vance. | ||
| Welcome back to The War Room. | ||
| We're still joined by Mike Benz. | ||
| Mike, if you could just give me two minutes, you know this audience is always wanting to be ahead of the curve on how they're sort of reformulating their resistance to Trump. | ||
| Obviously, the NGO is taking a key role, if not the foremost role, maybe second to the judiciary, though, as you've alluded to, they're all conjoined. | ||
| It's all one of the same. | ||
| How have they sort of been rebranding? | ||
| I know this is a topic you've been discussing a lot, but just give us some key pointers. | ||
| I know they'll find everything you're talking on on X, too, but just give us... | ||
| I know this is not the question you just asked. | ||
| But I was just talking about Tom Tillis in North Carolina in January 6th, and if I only have a minute and a half, I'd like to just put something out there to put the button on that, because I think it's extremely concerning and important, if you don't mind. | ||
| North Carolina, where Tom Tillis is the senator, played an extraordinary role in January 6th itself, which is why it highly disturbs me that Senator Tillis would be the one who's blocking this from the Republican side. | ||
| North Carolina is what houses Fort Bragg. | ||
| The Psychological Operations Center, and where organizing protest activity has been a hotbed of that exact place for coming up on 60 years now, going back to Lyman Lemnitzer and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Domestic Operations in the 1960s. | ||
| But most importantly, North Carolina was the center of the Fed's erection logistics for January 6. Go back and read the Thomas Caldwell complaint from the Justice Department. | ||
| The entire Eastern Seaboard presence of the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and the Three Percenters, all three days before January 6th, starting January 3rd, met commonly in North Carolina, where the FBI and Justice Department allowed the, quote, quick reaction force bringing the guns and explosives to skate free as an unindicted co-conspirator. | ||
| This person was called Person 3, and I'm going to read a few things from this complaint. | ||
| Person 3 has a room and is bringing someone. | ||
| He will be the quick reaction force. | ||
| Oathkeeper friends from North Carolina are taking commercial buses up early in the morning, the same night. | ||
| They will have the goodies in case things go bad and we need to get heavy. | ||
| Then it says Person 3 had maps. | ||
| Person 3 created maps of the Capitol in order to... | ||
| Map out where to go. | ||
| He was the transit, actually bringing the guns and explosives to the meetup site in North Carolina. | ||
| And this person, who was literally transporting heavy weapons with a, quote, planned to ferry heavy weapons across the Potomac should that become necessary on January 6th, and distributing maps to find the quickest route to the Capitol should those heavy weapons be needed. | ||
| This person played the key role for the basis of the indictment of the entire Oath Keepers squad. | ||
| Never was charged. | ||
| Again, right there in North Carolina, right where the military should have been doing its counterintelligence and counterinsurgency work. | ||
| We know Mark Milley said to Gina Haspel, the head of the CIA, on November 9th, 2020, just two months before January 6th, that there was a right-wing coup afoot and something needed to be done to stop it. | ||
| Mark Milley would not just go back and sit on his thumbs if that's what he said to the CIA director. | ||
| They would be infiltrating those very groups, and they would be doing it right there in North Carolina. | ||
| So, my question is, what is so scary about the Fed's direction theory, given North Carolina's role in it? | ||
| That the senator from North Carolina is the one blocking it. | ||
| And the irony in all of that, Mike Benz, is that you essentially answered my question, because it all goes back to NGOs and weird, bizarre federal funding ending up in places that it probably shouldn't. | ||
| Mike, I wish we had more time. | ||
| But in the meantime, before you're back on, if the posse wants to keep up to date with all of your wonderful, wonderful analysis and reporting, where can they go to do that? | ||
| Find me on X at Mike Benz Cyber. | ||
| A must follow. | ||
| Thank you, sir, for coming on. | ||
| Thanks, Natalie. | ||
| An honor to be joined now by Attorney General Ken Paxton, a true fighter, true patriot, true hero. | ||
| Frankly, on every issue, I think you have probably one of the best records in modern American politics. | ||
| No different when it comes to the wonderful U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin. | ||
| You wrote a wonderful letter very recently. | ||
| You're expressing your support for him. | ||
| I'd love if you could walk the audience through, first and foremost, why you think he's such an excellent pick for the job. | ||
| Obviously, he has a wonderful performance under his belt already. | ||
| But more importantly, your sort of analysis of some of the people who are outright opposing him or, in some cases, not explicitly supporting him. | ||
|
unidentified
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So, first of all, it wasn't just my letter. | |
| This is a lot of Republican attorney generals agreeing with me and me agreeing with them that Ed Martin is a great choice for U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia. | ||
| As Mike suggested, this is a difficult place. | ||
| The Department of Justice has had problems under the Biden administration being known for prosecuting people for their views or political views as opposed to focusing on prosecuting crime. | ||
| Is the guy that can bring my place back? | ||
| It's a lot of work to do. | ||
| When you've got corruption, when you've got to figure it out, and you've got to change the direction of an agency, that's exactly the kind of person we want. | ||
| And I certainly understand why certain establishment Republicans, including initially my senator, who finally got on board because he has a primary opponent, why they don't want a guy like that in position to change things. | ||
| That's not... | ||
| That's not the usual direction of Washington. | ||
| So I think it's super important. | ||
| There's nothing more important than making sure that our Justice Department and our FBI are operating appropriately and doing the job of justice as opposed to political motives that have been going on for at least the last four years. | ||
| Surely it's speculative. | ||
| I asked Mike the same question, but, you know, you have these people who talk out of both sides of their mouth, acting like they're President Trump's staunchest defenders and supporters in both rhetoric and in terms of legislation here on the Hill, but then they're not giving him the cabinet that he had an overwhelming mandate and that he deserves to actually have. | ||
| I guess in this case it's not necessarily a cabinet member, but... | ||
| Your thoughts on what you think the underlying motivators are, whether it's Cornyn, like I said, in the case of Tillis, who's coming out outright, but just the outright sabotage. | ||
| How can these people pretend that they're doing anything to help the MAGA movement when they're blackballing, blacklisting someone who I think has been one of the most hardcore MAGA devotees that exists out there? | ||
|
unidentified
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Look, they're not aligned with their constituents, and that's been shown for years. | |
| That's why there's so much frustration with Congress, with our Senate. | ||
| It's one of the reasons I'm running. | ||
| The people that are representing us, the John Corners and the others, who are not aligned with their actual voters. | ||
| They're aligned with powers in Washington, D.C. They're aligned with other political forces that are not benefiting the United States, that are not benefiting the people of my state, Texas. | ||
| They're operating, and they show it by their behavior. | ||
| They do talk out of both sides. | ||
| They talk about how much they support Donald Trump and how they're there for him on everything. | ||
| It's just not true. | ||
| It's not accurate. | ||
| And their own behavior, by the fact that they wait to get on, and they trade off supporting and killing things under the Trump administration. | ||
| So, yeah, so John Cornyn jumps on, but then he lets somebody else jump on the grenade because they don't have a primary opponent. | ||
| So that is the problem with the Senate. | ||
| They are not aligned with President Trump at all times when they should be on these very important issues, especially this one. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, relinquishing control over that pick to Judge Bozberg, by the way, the same people who voted to confirm Merrick Garland and Matthew Graves and all of essentially all of Biden's cabinet. | ||
| Yeah, I'm seeing a little bit of hypocrisy there. | ||
| But you've been firing on all cylinders, too, whether taking the fight on the CRT, that crazy front, or also the CCP. | ||
| If we can go through some of the legal action, I think our audience is probably particularly compelled by what you've been doing to rid Texas schools of critical racism. | ||
| I think you just had a big win, if you want to let the audience know. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, it's a big deal. | |
| What our kids are being taught, this critical race theory, is crazy stuff. | ||
| It's designed to direct our children in a very bad path. | ||
| And fortunately, our legislature has empowered me to go stop it. | ||
| Now, the only authority I have is to go actually stop it. | ||
| So we've done that. | ||
| We just sued Coppell, which is a northern conservative area in Coppell School District. | ||
| Well, it's the very issue, and we've got to win. | ||
| We want them to stop and acknowledge that what they were doing was wrong. | ||
| To acknowledge and not tell their teachers and their staff to no longer teach, no longer race theory, which is a clear violation of their violence. | ||
| So as long as I see, as long as I see that we discussed, as long as we're being involved, we'll stop. | ||
| We will stop race theory from being pushed onto our children. | ||
| And can you walk us through, too, you know, we've always been the home of anti-CCP resistance, whether it's military, civil fusion, or using all of these so-called independent Chinese companies. | ||
| I always say there's no such thing as a non-state-owned enterprise in China. | ||
| As you know, they can all be requisitioned by Beijing per Article 7 of their national intelligence law and be compelled to give over data or any information that the Ministry of State Security deems advantageous to the national interests of the Chinese Communist Party. | ||
| Yet somehow our wonderful elites, the laws that I guess people like Cornyn and Tillis have allowed to pass, have made it so these companies can operate here and have, you know, open season on our data. | ||
| And in some cases, I guess, our farmland and spy balloons, the list goes on, especially under Joe Biden. | ||
| But you're trying to push back particularly on data collection at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party or their like, you know, pseudo CCP entities. | ||
| Can you walk us through that as well? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Communist Party in China is not our friend. | |
| As much as we might want them to be, much as we might want to trade with them, much as we might want good things to happen in that relationship, the reality is they are doing things that harm us. | ||
| And one of the things they're doing is collecting data on every U.S. citizen that they can to use to their advantage, to use against us. | ||
| And fortunately, our legislature, again, seeing the problem. | ||
| We've passed a Data Security Privacy Act, and it doesn't just affect the Chinese. | ||
| It affects all companies. | ||
| It just so happens the Chinese are not honoring that law. | ||
| That law says that if they are collecting consumer data, they have to inform the consumer. | ||
| And if that consumer wants to get rid of that data, them having that data, they have the right to do that. | ||
| And unfortunately, some of these companies like Alibaba and others, TP-Link, have not followed that law. | ||
| And so we've given them notice. | ||
| 30 days notice that they have to stop collecting that data without informed consent and the right of the consumer to stop it. | ||
| If they do not do that, we will sue them. | ||
| And it's wild, too, how so many of these firms have active lobbying registrations, working with firms on K Street here in D.C., representing them, making it harder for you and other AGs like you who want to push back on their ability to infiltrate, and I use that word in its truest intentions, this entire country and collect, I mean... | ||
| Probably a CIA-level intel on the American people. | ||
| A.G. Kemp Axton, thank you so much for joining us. | ||
| And like I say, there are very few people in politics who I think have as wonderful a record as you do in terms of actually taking the fight on and understanding what accountability means. | ||
| It's not just found in letters and tweets, and I know the audience really, really appreciates that from you. | ||
| If they want to keep up to date with everything you're working on, it sounds like it's a lot. | ||
| The tweets, all of it, the press releases, where can they go to do all that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, KenPaxson.com is my website and@KenPaxsonTX is my X account, so take a look. | |
| A must follow. | ||
| Thank you so much for joining us. | ||
| We'll have you back on soon, sir. | ||
| War Room Posse. | ||
| Make sure you are checking out RickardsWarRoom.com. | ||
| You can get a free book, MoneyGTP. | ||
| We love Jim Rickards. | ||
| I never really got to interview him that much when Steve was in prison. | ||
| That's okay. | ||
| I still like his book. | ||
| I think he's a brilliant man, so I had to go and source some of that myself. | ||
| And as always, the wonderful people over at Birch Gold, give Philip Patrick a call. | ||
| That is BirchGold.com slash Bannon or texting Bannon to 989898. | ||
| And remember, all these people who now love to talk to you about how the Chinese Communist Party is such a threat, people like A.G. Paxton are actually taking them on, despite the Western lobbyists that they have to make that very difficult. | ||
| But all these people are now exploiting that same CCP issue to justify a trillion-dollar budget over at the Pentagon and essentially ad infinitum spending. | ||
| Because they're so tough on the CCP. | ||
| How about this? | ||
| Delist them from the stock market. | ||
| Rip Alibaba. | ||
| Make what we did to Huawei look like child's play. | ||
| Take them all out. | ||
| Kick them out. | ||
| You want to talk tough on China? | ||
| It doesn't cost a trillion dollars to do that. | ||
| It just costs some courage and not being bought off. | ||
| Try that for once. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Martin, he seems like a good man. | |
| Most of my concerns related to January 6th. | ||
| I think anybody that breached the perimeter should have been in prison for some period of time. | ||
| Whether it's 30 days or three years is debatable, but I have no tolerance for anybody who entered the building on January 6th, and that's probably where most of the friction was. | ||
| If Mr. Martin were being put forth as a U.S. attorney for any district except the district where January 6th happened, the protests happened, I'd probably support him. | ||
| Debatable. | ||
| That is an interesting choice of words. | ||
| I guess three days, sorry, 30 days versus three years, right? | ||
| That warrants a discussion. | ||
| So much so that Mr. Tom Tillis can't bring himself to vote for Ed Martin. | ||
| Happy giving that over, ceding that to Judge Boesberg, someone who thinks we should keep convicted illegal alien rapist criminals in this country. | ||
| That sounds like an interesting form of morality I've never heard of, but I digress. | ||
| But he can't entertain a vote for Ed Martin because of that debate. | ||
| But it's quite an interesting admission because apparently he didn't find anything debatable about, and I'm going to read you the list of all the names of Biden appointees that he voted for, Antony Blinken, Janet Yellen, Lloyd Austin, Merrick Garland, Pete Buttigieg, that's a real winner right there, nothing to debate on that front, and Gina Raimondo. | ||
| And just to, I guess, complete this wonderful record that our dear friend Senator Tillis has, you can also throw in Ed Martin's counterpart. | ||
| That is Matthew Graves, who oversaw the prosecution and persecution of, what was it, 1,500 MAGA patriots, probably people who used to watch and now can, because of President Trump again, watch this show. | ||
| And I would humbly put forth that the best way to understand why this man is so opposed to Ed Martin is by something that even in my 24 years on this planet, I've learned in politics, and that's following the money. | ||
| And it's quite interesting, right, like Mike Benz was talking about, this role, this position, it gives you essentially control over so much of the investigations that touch and run across all of Washington, D.C. And Ed Martin, who, what was it? | ||
| Got a lot of flack for coming and representing and advocating so strongly against people who wanted to shut down Doge. | ||
| And let's put maybe the ActBlue investigation. | ||
| Just flag that. | ||
| Put a little asterisk on that one. | ||
| So it's quite interesting to me. | ||
| I was looking through his top donors and contributors. | ||
| Well, it comes primarily from the financial services and finance industry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hmm. | |
| That's interesting. | ||
| And when I looked at who his number one contributor was, it was actually Blackstone. | ||
| I wonder why they don't want any investigations going on in D.C. And of course, Senator Tillis, now we'll get a little personal, his whole claim to fame these last few months has been the lone Republican who's standing up to evil President Trump who doesn't want to continue giving your tax dollars to Ukraine. | ||
| And apparently we need to share our intel capabilities with them, too. | ||
| And if you roll the tape a little bit more, right, he thinks that what? | ||
| January Sixers are not able to be redeemed. | ||
| They need to be thrown in prison and locked away. | ||
| They should be given, I guess, the Seacott treatment. | ||
| But you know what's so funny? | ||
| Because this is the same guy who essentially sponsored, if not wrote, a mass amnesty immigration bill that would have given people who entered this country illegally Amnesty, full citizenship rights, H-1B visa recipients, their kids, working documentation, and would have allowed for, what was it, I think 5,000 illegal aliens to pour into this country every single day under Joe Biden? | ||
| That was euphemized as, you know, strict border control. | ||
| But I'm sorry, Senator Tillis, you want to give illegal aliens more nuance? | ||
| And understanding and compassion in how you handle their cases, then you'll give American patriots who dared to stand up to a contested election? | ||
| And that's the reason that you can't vote for Ed Martin? | ||
| Where were you when January Sixers, when your constituents were getting thrown in prison? | ||
| You were probably lobbying for more money to go to Ukraine. | ||
| Or for illegals to be allowed in this country. | ||
| Or, I don't know, another issue that, I don't know, I would maybe say a little bit debatable, to use a word that I've heard from you. | ||
| I guess while all those January Sixers are getting thrown away, you felt the need to vote for the law that codified same-sex marriage. | ||
| I don't know about me, I think that's a little debatable. | ||
| Right? | ||
| Ed Martin is bad because he will give January 6th participants grace. | ||
| Let's look at how you feel comfortable talking about Zelensky. | ||
| I know you care so much about democracy. | ||
| Well, this man's canceled elections. | ||
| But look at the love that you're willing to show for him on the Senate floor. | ||
| Denver, let's roll that clip. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I would say to the Ukrainian people and President Zelensky, thank you. | |
| In spite of the fact that dozens of people have died this week, including civilians. | ||
| At the hands of decisions made by Putin, thank you for being willing to lay down your guns and try and get to peace there. | ||
|
unidentified
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But the American people need to know that Putin is a liar. | |
| He is a murderer. | ||
| He hates democracy. | ||
| That's what this is about, folks. | ||
| This is about good versus evil. | ||
| This is about totalitarian versus this messy thing we call democracy. | ||
| No, Senator Tillis. | ||
| You should be saying thank you to Ed Martin because he has more courage and conviction and one ounce of him than you do in your entire body and your shameless, feckless political career where you have done nothing but essentially be a Democrat, acting like a Republican and cheapening what it means to even be one. | ||
| And how dense you are to stand up there and say what's going on in Ukraine represents a battle between two competing worldviews of authoritarianism and democracy, setting that issue aside. | ||
| If you were so smart, like I'm sure you feel when you go to all the D.C. cocktail parties that you get invited to because you're willing to attack President Trump, you know that that's the fight that we have right here going on in this country right now, and there's no better person equipped to helm that fight. | ||
| Then someone like Ed Martin who actually has a track record of making America great again and standing and holding the line when it gets a little tough and not running to the legacy media for cover. | ||
| So shame on you and Warren Posse. | ||
| It's 202-224-3121. | ||
| And ask him how he felt comfortable voting for Merrick Garland and Matthew Graves, but not Ed Martin. | ||
| I'd love to hear your spin on that. | ||
| And don't ever tell me to thank Zelensky again. | ||
| You can get the Speaker Johnson treatment. | ||
| Or you can reverse your ways. | ||
| We got a minute left. | ||
| We got the wonderful Mike Lindell joining us. | ||
| Mike, hit us with the latest deals, or you can just continue my riff on Senator Tillis. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Take your pick. | |
| Oh, you nailed him. | ||
| You nailed him, Natalie. | ||
| You guys... | ||
| I want to get on here. | ||
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unidentified
|
And Mike, we've got to bounce, but it's promo code WARROOM. | |
| They will love those gifts. | ||
| Thank you for joining us. |
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