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Jan. 9, 2026 - Bannon's War Room
54:24
Episode 5056: Keeping Texas Free For Americans; Ridding Minnesota Of Somali Fraud

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Participants
Main
b
brian harrison
rep/r 05:26
c
chip roy
rep/r 06:29
s
scott bessent
admin 11:44
s
steve bannon
r 17:47
Appearances
c
claire jones
ft 00:32
g
glenn story
04:39
r
richard escobedo
cbs 00:48
t
tej gill
02:04
w
wade miller
02:01
Clips
a
alana austin
newsmax 00:28
f
fatima hussein
ap 00:26
j
jake tapper
cnn 00:10
m
mary margaret olohan
dailywire 00:16
|

Speaker Time Text
steve bannon
This is the primal scream of a dying regime.
Pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on these people.
You're not got a free shot on all these networks lying about the people.
The people have had a belly full of it.
I know you don't like hearing that.
I know you're trying to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it.
It's going to happen.
jake tapper
And where do people like that go to share the big line?
MAGA media.
I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.
steve bannon
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
Waru, here's your host, Stephen K. Banner.
steve bannon
It's Friday, 9 January at Your Lord, 2026.
We're in Texas in the Metroplex area, Dallas-Fort Worth.
We're here at a huge event this evening about stopping Sharia law in Texas and reversing this Islamic invasion of the first among equals of our beloved states in the union.
That would be the great state of Texas, the mythical great state of Texas.
Chip Roy's going to join me here momentarily.
I want to finish with Wade Miller.
Wade, a president even said on Tannity, I think it was this exclusive interview, you know, talking about the midterm elections.
You've come up with a solution.
Look, when we did the 2020 census, Stephen Miller and I had worked on this in 2017 extensively.
We were very specific.
Miller and I, we had a thing that had no illegal aliens, none of these college kids running around.
I mean, this was going to be a real census of American citizens and where the hell they live, work, and vote.
And of course, Wilbur Ross and a bunch of these globalists that were in the Trump administration, Wilbur Ross over at Commerce, retorked it.
We won in courts about what we could do.
They retorked it.
That didn't happen.
That census data is still there.
CRA is calling for what, to have a truly fair election in these midterms.
We're doing these redistricting fights.
We won in Texas with five.
Brian Harrison is going to join us second.
DeSantis just said yesterday, we're rolling there.
There's other states where we had, you know, had a hit a speed bump with the Republican establishment, Mike Pence in this crowd.
Indiana, what are you calling for right now, sir?
wade miller
Sure.
So millions of people were counted that should not have been counted.
Illegals, Biden brought them in.
They affected apportionment, affected redistricting.
We can go in and republish that data.
You don't have to redo the census.
Just go in, get rid of differential privacy, which created tons of fake data and throughout all of the data.
Do data corrections.
The Census Bureau admitted that six seats went to Democrat states that should not have.
That itself should trigger a reapportionment process.
And then all of that data, if you account for how the college students were illegally counted, other data revisions, that would trigger all sorts of redistricting.
We know that the Supreme Court is probably going to come down and we're hoping that they'll get rid of the majority minority district criteria.
That's going to force redistricting.
So if Howard Luttnick, who's a very smart guy, I think he understands his problem, and Joyce Meyer, who's one of the deputies there at Commerce, if they don't start lighting a fire at census to get them to republish and do all of this data corrections, it's going to be too late to impact that window.
And there's a real chance, there's a possibility that the outcomes of the next election will not be fairly decided.
And that, you know, this time next year, Democrats could be impeaching Donald Trump on bogus grounds.
And part of that reason might be because census didn't do this.
It should have been done by now.
They need to light a fire under the operation there and get them to start moving forward on this.
It's really important and it could be the difference between doing saving America and not.
steve bannon
The Supreme Court has not come back with the DEI districts of the Black Caucus and all that, the Louisiana issue, I think, and they're still dealing with that.
Do we have enough time to have your plan?
Does Lutnick have enough time to do this?
wade miller
I think so.
Again, it should have been done by now, but I think that the next date that the court is scheduled to do opinions is February 20th.
They could come back before that.
But I do think that if they made this a huge priority, I think that they could knock this out by then.
I think they could do that.
And then it would bleed directly into that redistricting process.
And it could mean, you know, quite a few seats switch.
And that could be the difference maker between who controls Congress in 2027.
steve bannon
Wade, thank you for all the work you guys have been doing on this Islamic takeover of the country.
We want to see more of it from you guys.
You guys are fantastic.
Where do people go to see CRA and your social media, sir?
wade miller
Sure.
AmericaRenewing.com.
That's Americarenewing.com.
And on X, I'm Wade Miller.
steve bannon
Sir, thank you.
Thank you for all the work you're doing.
Russ Vote and part of your team are in the government over at OMB, helping making things happen.
You guys are doing an amazing job over there right now.
unidentified
Thank you.
steve bannon
Chip Roy joins us.
Chip, what do you think about Wade's and Russ vote and all these guys' idea about this?
This census is so messed up.
You talk about the midterm elections.
I mean, you're heading out to run for attorney general in the state of Texas.
What do you think about getting this census right so we can get this redistricting correct?
So we actually have, we know they're making up all kinds of false allegations about President Trump right now.
He understands they're coming for him if they take it.
What are your thoughts about this?
chip roy
Yeah, Steve, these are absolutely the right direction to be headed.
Wade is exactly right.
Wade, you may know, was my former chief of staff.
He's a good friend.
Obviously, Russ Vote, great friend who's over at OMB.
Wade and I worked together, and I don't know if you know this, we held a hearing in the subcommittee on the Constitution in which we had witnesses talking about this.
I think this was in November, where we raised this profile, trying to make sure that people are aware of this.
Now I've had conversations with Lutnick.
I think this is an important issue that a lot of people don't even understand.
And it goes right hand in hand with the president's correct instinct to pass the bill that I authored, the same act to guarantee that only citizens vote, American citizens vote in American elections.
We need to have voter ID.
We need to have other reforms.
But this is the one that I think gets to the heart of how they're abusing the process to make sure, you know, to guarantee that they're able to get the districts that they want to get, which, by the way, is at the root of all of this stuff.
All of the things you're talking about with this event you have in Dallas, Fort Worth tonight, what we're seeing in Minneapolis, the organized effort by the radical left, the Marxists, through all of the NGOs, through Arabella, through United Nations funding, through George Soros funding, through Bill Gates funding, our taxpayer dollars.
They're taking all of this to engage in massive, not just fraud, but an effort to pack America with non-citizens so they can take our country over.
That's what's happening.
You know it.
I know it.
And we've got to be militant about this.
And we've got to make sure that only American citizens are voting.
Only American citizens are making the decisions about who their electorate is.
And they're only counted in the census.
So 100% agree with Wade and Russ and everybody that's trying to work on this.
I think Howard's on top of it, but we need to see fast action by the administration on this point.
steve bannon
Look, you and I have talked a lot over the years, but particularly here in the last couple of months, because you know, I was not an advocate.
You're such a critical voice in the House on the Freedom Caucus of what's happening.
But one of the reasons you wanted to go back to your home state and run for attorney general is the fact of this issue about this Islamic invasion and Sharia law, particularly as Attorney General.
What are your thoughts?
It's on the ballot in the primary on March 3rd.
What's your ballot?
What's your thoughts about this, about shutting down Sharia law?
I mean, the New York Post just has a report out this morning, an investigation that Soros, indivisible, but care is financing what's happening in New York City.
What's happening in Minneapolis is resistance.
And what's happening in Portland?
The resistance because they don't want to see mass deportations.
And CARE has been designated by the governor, Governor Abbott, as a terrorist organization.
The Santa said the same thing, quite frankly, more bravery than even the federal government right now, because they're just talking about Muslim Brotherhood.
These brothers said Muslim Brotherhood and CARE.
What is your position as running for Attorney General of this great state?
chip roy
Yes, Steve.
Number one, like I agree with you.
I hate leaving the House and my brothers and sisters in the Freedom Caucus where we've been trying to fight for change up here.
And we've been actually getting incremental change, but we see what happens in real time.
Just yesterday, the Freedom Caucus largely voted against the massive CJS appropriations bill that continues to fund the very sanctuary cities that are giving sanctuary to criminals and to the illegals that have come here, including Somalis that are attacking our law enforcement.
You can only do so much as one 435th of one half of one third up here.
As Attorney General, the reason I'm running is I want to save Texas.
Texas is under assault and it is directly in conflict with Western civilization, Sharia law, CARE, like you said.
The governor's absolute right to declare them a terrorist organization.
I introduced legislation to take their tax status away earlier this fall, before that designation, because I recognize what's going on.
People don't understand in Dallas-Fort Worth, right?
It's the epicenter of what the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to do to take over America and Texas.
That is ground zero, right where you are right now, Steve.
There are no go zones in parts of the area around the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex where American citizen women don't want to go because they're going to feel like they're going to be looked at, shamed.
They're going to be put in harm's way.
And that's because of what we've done with immigration, but also allowing all of this Sharia to get entrenched.
As Attorney General, you can use the existing statutes, the Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
You can go try to shut down things like that epic city that they're now calling the meadows.
But you also have to use the bully pulpit to stand up and call this out for what it is, a political assault on America, a political assault on Texas.
This is not just you can believe what you want to believe.
This is a coordinated political effort to Islamify Texas.
And you've got to say it.
You've got to mean it.
You've got to push the legislature to pass laws.
We've got to tweak the Texas Constitution, whatever's necessary to protect Texas from being Islamified by the radical Marxist, the red-green axis.
steve bannon
You've seen the disaster in what's happened in the imperial capital of Washington, D.C. to allow these types of things.
Like you said, you're voting yesterday.
The Freedom Cars are finally saying, guys, we can't pass these appropriations bills when President Trump's sitting there saying he doesn't want any more of this.
And we're actually funding more of it of what ICE is there in Minneapolis trying to reverse it and get it out of here.
Why is this happening in the Imperial Capitol?
It's not just Democrats because people look at point of the Freedom Cards and said, oh, you guys are obstructionists.
It's tons of establishment Republicans.
What don't they get about the destruction of this republic, sir?
chip roy
They have not yet embraced that there is a war going on against our way of life and that if you don't act against that war, you're going to lose it.
They won't even recognize the war exists without ensuring that they're, sorry, someone's calling in my Zoom.
They've got to recognize that there's a war against our way of life.
They're trapped in the idea that they've got to pass appropriations to go buy votes.
Americans don't need their votes bought.
The American people want members of Congress who are fighting to save the country and they just don't get it.
And look, we've made progress, Steve.
We are now talking about spending levels that are still roughly flat.
We are holding everything in the right direction because of our work back during the speaker's fight three years ago, the changes we put in place with putting conservatives on appropriations and on the rules committee.
Rust vote now over at OMB.
We're making progress.
But what people don't understand is when you pass CJS appropriations, the Justice Department appropriations bill, and in it are burned jag grants that go to Minneapolis, New York, Dallas, and Houston, and have no constraints on that money from saying, hey, you can't be a sanctuary city.
You can't stand up and say ICE can't come in to enforce immigration laws.
When we have additional funding that are going through other grant programs that we know are getting abused, just like we're seeing in Minneapolis, we should shut that down.
And by the way, we should pause all immigration.
I introduced a bill to do that because we should just stop.
We did that in the 1920s.
We have 51 and a half million foreign-born people in the United States.
That is the biggest percentage in our history.
And now we are educating them with a corrupt education system that teaches our kids that America is the devil, that doesn't teach the Constitution, that doesn't teach our Christian and Judeo-Christian principles.
And we've got to stop it.
Stop importing people who want to kill us.
It's maddening.
And Congress hasn't caught up to the fact that they're at war with us.
You got to act like they're at war with us or you're going to lose it.
steve bannon
Chip, where do people go to find out more about what you're doing at the Freedom Caucus, this amazing plan you guys put together that wasn't discussed enough the other day over at the Kennedy Center?
We had Andy Harris on yesterday.
And you're run now for Attorney General of Texas.
Where do folks go?
chip roy
Yeah, Chiproy, T-X-C-H-I-P-R-O-Y-T-X on X slash Twitter.
Chiproy.com is a website.
And yeah, and look, one last point on this.
The reason I'm running for Attorney General is because we got to have fighters to preserve and protect Texas.
I've got a proven track record.
I've got all the scores show me directly in line with President Trump's agenda.
Literally, I'm number one in Texas, number two in the House, number five out of the Senate in the House in terms of my voting record in line with President Trump and the MAGA agenda.
And we need someone who gets it, who will be willing to stand up and fight.
And by the way, who is a federal prosecutor and the former first assistant attorney general of Texas?
I'll miss the Freedom Caucus, but we got a new generation, people like Eli Crane and other great Americans that are here.
And we got to come together to fight to save this country.
And Texas is the epicenter and ground zero.
So thanks, Steve.
steve bannon
Chip, you're 100% correct.
That's where we're down here.
And we're going to make a big announcement about War Room in Texas tonight at this event because I got to tell you, Texas is everything right now.
We lose Texas.
It's gone, folks.
As Texas goes, so goes the nation.
As the nation goes, so goes the world.
Chip Roy, thank you so much.
Appreciate you, sir.
chip roy
God bless, Steve.
steve bannon
Huge event tonight.
Stinchfield's going to emcee and do his show live tonight from the venue.
You're going to have Brian Glenn is going to be there.
Peter McAlvaney from England has come in.
We've got Geert Wilderss.
I will say a few words.
I'll make some appropriate remarks as I normally do at these events.
And Glenn Beck has changed his schedule to come in.
He thinks it's important enough.
And Glenn's been all over this Islamic revolution from the beginning.
Glenn Beck's going to close it out tonight.
So a lot going on.
Short commercial break.
Taj Gill, Brian Harrison, John Gordono next.
unidentified
In America's heart.
Stephen K. Bannon.
steve bannon
Hey.
Welcome back.
Warner Roll.
Taj Gill's here with me in Texas.
Taj, thanks for doing this.
Taj, your experience, how many deployments did you have for either as a Navy SEAL or as essentially a contractor kind of off the books of the government, but still doing the same work with the SEALs and others?
tej gill
16 times to Iraq and Afghanistan.
steve bannon
So you've had the pleasure of going over to Islamic countries in defense of your country 16 times.
You're here and you said, hey, I hear you're going to Texas.
This Texas thing's out of control.
I've got so many buddies here from Texas.
I think Texas provided the most troops in total.
If you looked at all the states, I think Texas, you know, with Florida and California, but I think Texas provided the most troops in these wars in the Middle East.
Your thoughts about what's happening here in Texas and what we need to do about it.
tej gill
It's got to be stopped, Steve.
Like Charlie Kirk says, Islam is not compatible with the West, especially when they're starting to do this Sharia law stuff.
We can't have it here.
If they want to be here, they have to assimilate.
They have to love America.
They have to pledge allegiance to America and they have to put America first and the Constitution first.
They can't bring Sharia law.
They have to assimilate.
If you can't assimilate, then you got to get out.
steve bannon
I agree with that.
If you don't, if you're not going to assimilate, you can't have the Sharia law.
You got to leave, right?
And otherwise, we're setting up a problem for future generations.
That's exactly what's happening in Europe today.
Paris is gone.
London is gone.
Berlin and Germany are close to being gone.
The Netherlands, Gert Viller is coming over tonight to talk.
That's how adamant he is.
He's been fighting this for 20 years in the Netherlands.
He's now the leading politician.
But his fight, finally, they've awakened and he would tell you, hey, it's probably too late to reverse it.
tej gill
Right.
You have to respect the heritage of the country you're going into as an immigrant.
You can't go in there, take over the country and push out the locals.
You have to respect the heritage, especially here in Texas.
This belongs to Texans, not Muslims.
They have to respect the Texans.
They have to respect the Americans.
They have to respect the Constitution and they have to love the American flag.
They have to pledge allegiance to America.
steve bannon
And we know they don't.
It's all BS.
Warpath Coffee.
We're at a place yesterday that Kevin Freeman had.
We are at his studio, The Economic Warfare.
You're going to load that place up with Warpath coffee.
They're excited about it.
Talk to me about Warpath for a minute.
tej gill
Yeah, the website is warpath.coffee.
We just bumped the promo code up to 20%.
The promo code is War Room.
So all weekend long, we're doing 20% off your entire order.
Plus, there's free shipping over $85.
So warpath.coffee, promo code Warroom.
We're up at 16,000 five-star reviews.
People love this coffee.
You can drink it straight black.
And then we've got a huge following for our decaf.
It's 100% Colombian decaf, which is crazy, I know, but people love the decaf, which is insane.
People, we can't roast the decaf fast enough.
steve bannon
You drink decaf in the name, you got to put a skirt on, right?
tej gill
Exactly.
Exactly.
steve bannon
You had this whole idea because the Navy coffee is so bad.
tej gill
I know people have been asking us for years to do decaf, so we finally did it.
And now we can't roast it fast enough.
steve bannon
It's one of the biggest sellers.
No, but that, you know, what it shows you is how good this coffee tastes.
One of the things about Warpath, and it was so, your work on it was that it is the champagne of coffee.
You can drink this coffee without, people put cream and sugar in coffee because of the acid, the acidity.
That's what they do to cut it.
Here, you drink coffee like it's supposed to be consumed.
tej gill
Straight black.
steve bannon
Straight black, hot and black.
That's the way, and the taste is so amazing.
This is why you have so many people that say, hey, I want some decaf because I may want to cut, you know, I really can't drink my Warpath.
You know, I will do it on the 5 o'clock show, but if I do it on the 6 o'clock show, I'm going to be up, right?
This thing is jacked.
No, but that's why people, they love the taste of it.
So they love, it's an experience of drinking coffee.
And that's why I think.
tej gill
The espresso, we played around with the espresso recipe for a while to get the right blend.
And you can drink the espresso straight black.
You don't need to put milk and sugar in the espresso.
You can just do straight black espresso shots.
It is smooth and it is still strong.
steve bannon
Strong.
It's super strong.
Okay, one more time.
Where do they go?
I want everybody just to go to the website, read the reviews.
Don't take it from Steve.
Don't take it from Taj.
Read the reviews.
tej gill
Warpath.coffee and use promo code Warroom 20% off your entire order this weekend.
It is the best coffee.
Just read the reviews.
The reviews are insane.
They speak for themselves.
And we don't pay anybody to do the reviews.
We just send out an email and people respond to them.
steve bannon
I appreciate what Taji's done with.
He won't let me get in too much trouble.
So thank you for coming down here.
You're walking away from your beloved Idaho.
Brian Harrison, brother, we're down here in Texas.
What in the hell is going on, brother?
What in the hell is going on with the situation out of Texas with Sharia law?
brian harrison
Well, I mean, some people use the word invasion.
I think that there's no real way to overstate, as some of your previous guests have talked about, the staggering numbers of people affiliated with violent strains of Islam that are terror affiliated that do advocate for the violent overthrow of the governments of the United States of America.
And just a couple of statistics on that that I think people may find staggering.
We've got over 200 mosques currently operating in the north central Texas where I am, in the Dallas area.
We have over 100 down in Houston, and they're growing.
We're opening up approximately two new mosques every month here in the state of Texas.
And here's the biggest thing I want to leave folks with, because there's been a lot of gaslighting and misinformation about this issue in terms of the Texas government's response to this.
There are a lot of people in the Austin establishment that have been putting out public statements saying, you know, we're good down here.
We have banned Sharia law.
And I'll say this real quick about Sharia law.
Sharia law is not compatible with the founding precepts of our country, that all men are created equal.
Sharia law is not compatible with the Constitution of the state of Texas, not compatible with the Constitution of the United States.
Sharia law is not compatible with Western civilization.
But despite the rhetoric that folks may have heard coming out of the establishment and the Texas government, the Texas government, if you hear only one thing, Steve, I want to get across to people, the Texas government has not banned Sharia law in any meaningful way whatsoever.
I'm going to say that one more time.
The Texas government has not banned Sharia law.
We've got a lot of good rhetoric coming out of Austin.
But if that's the position of the Republican Texas government, supposedly Republican, let's make it not just rhetoric.
Let's make it a reality.
We can go back into special session.
We can hold hearings.
We can pass bills to do more to combat this rising threat.
And that's what I'm advocating for down here.
steve bannon
Well, it's on the ballot for the Republican primary in March 3rd.
That's one of the reasons we're here today to kick this all off.
What are you recommending that be done kind of on the detail level of what has to be done?
Because the bottom line is this has to be banned.
The people in Texas can't be under the pressure anymore that they got the Sharia law.
So what are you recommending actually be done?
brian harrison
So there's a couple of things on that.
I mean, number one, I think the lowest of low-hanging fruit is, and again, people are going to be shocked to learn this is happening.
Stop funding these organizations that have ties to violence and militant Islam with tax dollars.
My office has confirmed that, yes, in fact, coming out of the government of the state of Texas, millions of dollars of tax money has gone to these organizations.
So that's number one.
Number two, stop creating carve-outs.
People say we've passed laws to ban Epic City.
Well, Epic City just re-banbranded.
It's called the Meadows, and it's proceeding on as fast as ever because of exceptions into laws we've passed that are supposed to deal with things like that.
And then number three, which again, I put these all in low-hanging fruit, should have been done by now, but it's far harder than people would imagine, even though we're a Republican government down here.
The parts of the law that we have touched regarding Sharia, it's only one little part of the family code.
At a bare minimum, we should expand that to all the other relevant parts of the statutes and the codes down here in Texas.
We should be holding hearings on this, by the way, right now, something that I don't think has ever happened here in the state of Texas, not in many years.
So we need to be holding hearings and then doing those three things.
And there's nothing stopping us from doing that right now, today, tomorrow, this week.
The only reason we're not taking action, quite frankly, is because what Austin lacks is courage.
And it lacks it on many issues.
You know, we've talked about that many times.
steve bannon
I want to go back to the money.
I saw an analysis yesterday.
I think minimum coming from the state of Texas was $90 million.
And I don't think that included these Harmony schools, which is a whole radical sect of Islam from Turkey, right?
That they're financing these schools.
They had another number, which I think was federal spending and state spending for over 10 years was something like $4 billion.
There's money going from taxpayers in Texas, citizens of Texas, and citizens of the United States that are funding radical Islam here in the state of Texas.
How can that possibly be?
brian harrison
Well, I mean, just throw it on the laundry list of shocking, abhorrent, but true ways in which the Texas taxpayers, hardworking, overtaxed men and women of the state of Texas, have for far too long, we're talking decades here, had their money taken from them by the state government, the supposedly Republican Texas government here, and weaponized against them, their children, and their value.
And the list is long.
They've been funding the biggest DEI program maybe in the country, some of the biggest transgender indoctrination in the country.
And then you're exactly right, Steve.
We don't know the exact number.
I don't think anybody does.
My office, best we can determine, at least in the tens of millions of dollars that have been flowing through grant programs through the state government out of Austin to these organizations that almost certainly have nexuses and ties to violent strains of Islam or terror organizations that do have the intent of the violent overthrow of the government of Texas, the government of the United States.
And the reality is the Texas government has been asleep at the wheel on this for far too long and it's long past time to change.
And that's why I'm excited about the event we're doing down here tonight because until people's eyes are opened, because again, I'm at the risk of putting too fine a point on this.
Texans have been lulled into complacency because of the statements from the Austin Uniparty establishment, which has been telling them for years that the Texas government has handled this.
It's not a threat here, and that we have, quote, banned Sharia law that it's false.
And then the final point on that, the governor, to his credit, thank you, governor, he did designate Muslim Brotherhood.
He did designate care as terror organizations.
And that's great.
unidentified
And that's good.
brian harrison
And thank you.
We should do that.
But words without action are meaningless.
And if these are terrorist organizations, and that's the official position of the government of the state of Texas, where are the investigations?
Where are the arrests?
Where are the people being put in handcuffs and charged with criminal or terror-related offenses?
And unfortunately, we just haven't seen that yet.
So what Texas is on the door today and we want bold action, not just bold words.
steve bannon
New York Post has a story that cares in back of the resistance in Portland, Minneapolis, and New York City.
Anyway, we got to go.
Brian Harrison, what is that Twitter feed?
The one that lights them all up in Austin?
What is it?
brian harrison
Yeah, the most hated Twitter feed in Austin at Brian E. Harrison.
Please go there right now.
Like, follow, share at Brian E. Harrison.
And then because the swamp is trying to take me out in his March primaries, please go to votebrianharrison.com.
Help us out there.
Vote Brian Harrison.
We've got to save Texas.
As goes Texas, so goes America.
So goes America.
So goes the world.
Always great to be with you, Steve.
I look forward to seeing you tonight.
steve bannon
Look forward to seeing you.
Okay, we're going to go live.
Let's cut live to Minneapolis, the Secretary of Treasury, Scott Bessick.
scott bessent
I want to thank you all for joining us today.
I am here in greater Minneapolis-St. Paul, and I am optimistic that we are going to put an end to this waste, fraud, and abuse, that we are going to have recoveries for the American people, and that we are going to hold people accountable, set an example, and make sure that federal aid gets to the people it was intended for and not to these fraudsters.
Minneapolis and St. Paul, like many communities, has suffered for years from the egregious negligence of the radical left's rule.
President Trump is committed to restoring accountability to put Minnesota back on the right track.
Under President Trump's leadership, the entire administration is focused on delivering results for the American people.
Our citizens have a right to know that their tax dollars are not being diverted to fund acts of global terror or to fund luxury cars for fraudsters.
Democratic Governor Tim Waltz has allowed welfare programs and fraud to spiral out of control, out of control.
Billions of dollars intended for hungry children, housing for disabled seniors, and services for children with special needs were diverted to people who cheated the system, some of whom are not even American citizens.
At Treasury, we are thoroughly investigating the fraud, including funds sent to Somalia through money service businesses, which provide financial services outside of a formal bank.
These funds could have potentially been diverted to the terrorist organization Al-Shabaab.
We have traced where the money went and are examining it.
Treasury's financial crimes enforcement network, known as FinCEN, along with the IRS, are leading our investigation to examine whether financial institutions have complied with their legal obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act and Treasury's regulations.
These requirements are designed to detect money laundering and other illicit activity, counter the financing of terrorism, and safeguard the United States financial system from abuse.
Earlier this morning, I met with several financial institutions and made clear we must do more to safeguard our nation from waste, fraud, and abuse.
The time has come for accountability.
President Trump wants accountability.
I want accountability.
The American people want accountability, and they will get accountability.
That is why I am announcing several initiatives Treasury is taking to target fraud here in Minnesota.
And the Minnesota protocols will serve as a genesis and a launching pad for investigations into other states.
First, we have followed the money and identified the money service businesses that may have transferred taxpayer funds overseas.
Our team at FinCEN has just provided formal notification to these businesses that they are under investigation.
These businesses had an obligation to comply with anti-money laundering laws, and they will be held responsible for any crimes they committed.
FinCEN has also issued a geographic targeting order for Hennepin and Ramsey counties that require banks and money transmitters to report additional information about funds transferred outside of the United States.
This will put a microscope on these businesses, advance prosecutions, and assist in the recovery of funds laundered internationally.
Fraudsters in Minnesota stole at least $300 million meant for children in need, and we must prevent fraud of this scale from occurring in the future.
Accordingly, FinCEN today issued an alert to financial institutions that will help them identify and report specific warning signs of fraud and federal child nutrition programs.
Fraud must be stamped out early, and this alert will help law enforcement do just that.
Our investigators at IRSCI have played a critical role in uncovering fraud, and the role of the IRS in these investigations will continue.
I am pleased to announce that IRS Civil Enforcement is auditing financial institutions that facilitated the laundering of Minnesota funds in addition to helping support criminal and civil enforcement efforts.
The IRS will also soon announce the formation of a task force to investigate any fraud and abuse involving pandemic-era tax incentives and misuse of 501 tax-exempt status by entities implicated in the Minnesota-based social services fraud schemes.
We are committed to preventing fraud and non-fraudulent nonprofits from taking advantage of the American taxpayer.
Lastly, Treasury is providing training to Minnesota law enforcement on how to utilize financial data, such as suspicious activity reports, to better combat these fraud schemes.
We will not let the incompetence and recalcitrance of Governor Waltz stop law enforcement from holding these perpetrators accountable.
President Trump is dedicated to ensuring honest Minnesotans are not cheated and their hard-earned tax dollars are not being abused.
Treasury will deploy all tools, all tools, to bring an end to this egregious unchecked fraud and hold perpetrators to account.
We look forward to sharing our findings and keeping you all updated.
Now I will turn it back over to my team and I will take some questions from the press.
Thank you.
unidentified
Thank you so much, Mr. Secretary.
We have time for a few questions from reporters.
If you would like to ask a question, please use the raise your hand function on Zoom.
Thank you.
Question will go to Mary Margaret with the Daily Wire.
Mary Margaret, please ask your question.
mary margaret olohan
Thank you, Secretary Bessins.
I wanted to ask if you can share what role Governor Tim Waltz has played in any of this, if any, and whether you have any indication that you won't seek re-election because of anything that you may have uncovered so far.
scott bessent
Thank you.
I can't talk about ongoing investigations.
It's clear that Governor Waltz has been negligent in his fiduciary duties as a chief executive of the state of Minnesota, that this would happen on his watch, and we are actively pursuing all leads to see the level of involvement, whether it's limited to just negligence and incompetence, or is something more than that.
unidentified
Thank you.
I see Fatima with the Associated Press has a question.
Fatima, please ask your question.
fatima hussein
All right.
Thank you, Secretary Besson, for taking questions on this issue.
I have a question related to the task force.
Does Treasury plan to work with the Justice Department on this new division for fraud enforcement that was announced yesterday?
How are you working to ensure that some of these functions that are all being announced related to the fraud aren't duplicative?
scott bessent
Well, I think the better question is: how did these things slip through the safety protocols, the financial safety protocols that we had in place?
So, if for a while we have duplicative processes that stop this and bring this to heel, because and again, this is a larger scandal than Minnesota, then it is all hands on deck.
Once we get the huge amount of fraud under control, then we can worry about streamlining the procedures.
But as I said, President Trump has instructed several agencies in his administration, led by this new assistant attorney general, to end this fraud and recover funds for the American taxpayer.
unidentified
Thank you.
I see Claire Jones with the Financial Times has a question.
Claire Jones, please ask your question.
claire jones
Thanks a lot.
Thanks a lot for the opportunity to ask the question and for making time to do this today.
You mentioned at the Economic Club of Minnesota yesterday that this is costing U.S. taxpayers $600 billion in fraud, in fraud.
What's your kind of baseline targets for how much you expect to recover with the sorts of measures that you've announced today?
And do you have any sorts of timeline to really close this rather substantial gap in what the U.S. taxpayer should ought to be receiving?
scott bessent
Well, again, because of the gross incompetence by the Waltz administration and the lack of leadership, we are just putting all that together now.
But as I just said to the previous question, all entities in the administration will be pursuing this so that we can get the biggest recoveries possible, and we will see.
And we are going to leave no stone unturned, whether it was fraudulent real estate, whether it is money that has been wired overseas.
We will be tracking it to the Middle East and East Africa.
This is why Treasury is involved.
This is what we do.
We track, we follow the money, and we intend to follow it as much as we can, prosecute the individuals, no matter where they are, whether they are in the Minnesota government or they are sitting in East Africa.
We will find them.
unidentified
Thank you.
And I see Richard Escobedo of CBS has a question.
Richard, please state your question.
richard escobedo
Thank you.
Thank you, Spencer, and thank you, Mr. Secretary, for doing this this morning.
I have two questions.
I'm wondering if you can explain or elaborate on whether or not you've found any evidence that indicates taxpayer dollars have flowed directly to terrorist organizations and then I do have a follow-up after that.
scott bessent
Given the geographic proximity and the wires to East Africa, we are in the middle of investigations, and what we have found is highly concerning.
I cannot talk about ongoing investigations, but think of the absurdity.
Think of the absurdity of money being wired from Minnesota by these individuals that could have come from government programs or from excess benefits.
This should not be wired out of the country, and we are going to be cracking down on that.
richard escobedo
And then my second question is: you said on Fox last night that as a part of this geographical targeting order, the threshold for surveillance is being lowered to $3,000.
Do you anticipate that that will be lowered to, that will also be expanded into other states, that lower threshold?
And do you have any sense on what other states You anticipate having to do this in?
scott bessent
So we have lowered the, it's called a geographical targeting order, the GTOs.
We have used lower thresholds to get at the cartels along the U.S.-Mexico border.
And we view this crime as very similar to the cartel's money laundering, many of the same approaches, many of the same shell companies.
So we will see where it goes out from here.
That will be a starting point.
And as I said, Minnesota is going to be the protocols, the procedures, and the investigative techniques, as well as the collaboration with other agencies.
Minnesota is going to be the genesis for a national rollout.
richard escobedo
Thank you.
unidentified
Thank you.
And it looks like we have time for one more question, and that will go to Alana Austin with Newsmax.
alana austin
Hi, good morning.
Thank you so much, Secretary Bessant, for your time.
I was wondering if there are any specific financial institutions that you think had lax practices that you're willing to name at this time.
And also, I'm trying to understand if Somali government officials actually directed individuals from the country to come to Minnesota to exploit vulnerable systems, or whether you think that the bad actors were acting on their own.
scott bessent
So, with the first question, as I said, we have targeted enhanced investigations for four MSBs, money service businesses, in greater Minneapolis, St. Paul.
As they are under investigation, I cannot name those businesses.
We will make the details of the investigation available as they become as we gather further information.
And your last question is an excellent one: that we do not know the depth, breadth, and collusion in this financial calamity that Governor Waltz has allowed to have happen.
That was this directed from overseas.
Is it an endogenous flourishing of these fraudsters that Governor Waltz allowed to grow right here in the backyard and take advantage of hardworking people of Minnesota?
We'll see.
So, we are going to track this everywhere from top to bottom, and we will get to the bottom of it.
And as we have more details, we will make those available.
unidentified
Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
That's all the time we have.
Thank you all so much for joining.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
And that's all the time we have.
steve bannon
Okay, welcome.
That's the Secretary of Treasury, Scott Besson.
He's out in Minneapolis.
He went out there.
There was a previously scheduled talk he was going to have with the Economic Club of Minneapolis, I think it was, scheduled months ago, and he decided to stay overnight.
He's seeing factories.
I think our friend Marty Davies is going to go by Marty Davis's factories out there.
Jack Basobi is going to do an interview with him on Real America's Voice, all of it.
First off, I'm here with Glenn Story, the founder and CEO of Patriot Mobile.
Just Scott Besson is Secretary of Treasury.
Do you like to cut up his jib?
What he's doing, the President Trump's economy now for an entrepreneur, a company under a billion dollars of sales or a billion dollars of value, one of these emerging growth companies, your thoughts.
glenn story
I love him.
I think he's the best Treasury Secretary we've had in a long time.
steve bannon
Why do you say that?
glenn story
Ian, because he's making business.
He's really helping the small business guys.
Entrepreneurs like us.
I just think he's doing a fantastic job and he's standing up for America as opposed to standing up for others.
steve bannon
This event tonight, the event tonight is not about a religion.
It's not about freedom of religion.
It's about something very, very different.
We've had some great Wade Miller, Chip Roy, Brian Harrison.
Tomorrow, because the show was so jammed today, we're going to have many other guests.
Texans are going to join us to talk about the event tonight and going forward, particularly this Sharia law situation.
It's going to be on the ballot in the primary on March 3rd.
Just give me your sense, right, of what's going on down here.
I mean, yesterday, I spent the whole day after the show in really meetings and presentations, and I thought I knew a lot that was going on down here.
I was shocked.
The amount of money the state of Texas and the federal government has put in, I mean, hundreds of millions of dollars to support things down here.
And this is one of the reasons you can see why there's, what did Brian Harrison just tell us?
I think he said there's 300 mosques in central and north Texas and another hundred mosques in the Houston area.
And you're growing at, and particularly in north central Texas, two mosques per month.
glenn story
Yeah, that's exactly right.
If you look at a map, it's just littered with mosques.
And, you know, I want to qualify this.
Look, I believe in the freedom of religion.
You know, I don't care if you're Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Christian.
I want you to be able to worship freely.
However, it's not about that.
It's about the Sharia law component and coming in and taking over our U.S. Constitution, you know, and that's that's where it gets most of us Texans.
And, you know, when we started talking about this back in August and then again in December, you know, you said, why don't we do something?
And I said, okay, let's figure out how we can do it.
And you know what?
We did.
steve bannon
But here's the amazing thing.
Gert Filders, who's one of the most famous guys in Europe for stopping this and for warning people about it 20 years ago, he and Peter McElvaney, who we broadcast his show, and he's London.
You know, Gert was available, I think, coming to the West Coast.
There was a slot on the 9th.
I think I called you guys Christmas Day or the day after.
I mean, it was the middle of holidays.
I said, look, I know this is going to be impossible, but there's a thing he's coming.
We can build an entire evening around it if you guys think you can do it.
And you got back to me in a couple hours, said, not only we can do it, we're going to do it because we've made a few phone calls and people are so excited about actually having something pull together.
Talk about this.
glenn story
Yeah, I got to say, I want to qualify this a little bit.
You know, we talked, I think it was the day before Christmas.
And I said, yeah, we'll do it.
I guarantee you we can fill a room, three or four hundred people, no problem.
steve bannon
Glenn stories like Steve Bennett.
If you call him, say, yeah, that's it.
We can do it.
Not a problem.
glenn story
But it's true.
steve bannon
No, but then we got your adult supervision.
Jenny, your wife.
glenn story
Yeah, you know, I walked into our COO and I said, hey, it's about nine o'clock at night.
And I said, hey, we're going to do this.
And she was like, you know who has to do it?
It's me.
And so I ended up saying, yeah, I get it.
I'm going to help everything I can.
You know, I'm really good at it.
Anyway, she said, she was a little bit upset, went to sleep, and she woke me up in the middle of the night and said, Glenn, I'm at peace with this.
I had a dream or I had a vision.
And I think God spoke to me.
And she goes, He said to her, I'm going to help you build a coalition of local politicians and groups.
And she woke up by the time I got up, made breakfast.
She had this look about her, and we talked about it briefly.
And it was really interesting because that evening we met with Colonel Alan West, who runs the Dallas County Republican Party.
And we met with others.
And within a couple of days, we had about 10 organizations.
Today we have 25 different organizations that have come together.
And if I may, it reminds me of these old scripture when the walls around Jerusalem came down, they were taken over.
And these groups didn't really like each other.
They didn't like each other at all.
But however, they knew they had to have the wall around their city.
So they worked together.
Not that we don't get along together.
We have ambition.
And our common cause is to defend.
steve bannon
And the 25.
And look, I can tell you, as you know, Texas politics, people are fighting all the time, the grassroots.
This brought everybody together.
One of the reasons it did, and the principal reason I think is people understand there's a problem down here.
And they have targeted this Islamic kind of takeover by not religion, right?
This is kind of political Islam, radical Islam.
They understand the importance of Texas in the calculation of what happens in the United States.
Remember, Soros targeted us forever, right?
And nothing.
We beat it back.
In fact, Trump won by, what, 14 points?
The New York Post this morning, exclusive investigative report about who are financing the ICE resistance in Minneapolis, in New York City, in the sanctuaries, in Portland.
It is George Soros and Indivisible and CARE.
unidentified
Yeah.
steve bannon
Right.
CARE is one of the big issues that we've got tonight.
You've designated CARE as a terrorist organization.
The governor has.
That's one of their issues.
But those 25 groups come together.
I know some of these groups and they're great, but they have different aspects on different things.
They came together for the common purpose.
Everybody understands how important this is and how you have to rise above your sectarian differences and other politics to come together and get this done.
glenn story
That's right.
That's 100% right.
You said it better than me.
That's why you're in the seat.
And I'm not, you know, but at the end of the day, you look at it, we all love our country and we're going to give everything we can to make sure that, you know, my dad was a World War II vet.
He fought for the freedoms that we have today along with the greatest generations.
And it's, I'm not going to pick up a bayonet or I'm not going to pick up a gun.
We're going to fight this squarely to save our country.
Because as Brian said it earlier, you lose Texas, you lose the nation.
And the left knows that.
steve bannon
I have come to appreciate, you know, since running Breitbart and we started Breitbart, Texas, and doing working for President Trump, the importance of Texas as a Virginian, right?
Because Virginia, we're raised and thinking that Virginia is the centerpiece of the revolution, the Civil War, all of it, you know, the mother presidents.
But to understand Texas, right, and how powerful Texas is.
I've got this story when I was in the Navy of coming out after OCS and got my commission.
I was driving across country to go to my ship in San Diego at 32nd Street.
And my dad, who worked all the time, so we didn't, we, you know, he would spend time with as a kid, but he was actually going to take a week off and drive across the country with me.
So we're so excited.
And one of the reasons we're excited, I was a John Ford fan.
He's a John Ford fan.
And we're going to go see Texas really for the first time.
And we're driving across Texas in the summer of halt.
I think it was 76, 77.
It's like 100 degrees every day.
And we leave Fort Worth and we're driving and we're like, you know, several hours.
glenn story
10 hours later.
We've got one through El Paso.
steve bannon
Well, no, we're not even there.
We're just seeing.
And I would say, as much as people love Texas, that part of West Texas, we leave Fort Worth.
This is just a lot of Texas.
It looks the same.
And I'm expecting Monument Valley.
And I go, Dad, when do you think we're going to hit, you know, the John Ford?
And we didn't.
It was later that we found out that they shot that actually in Monument Valley.
So there was a whole lot of West Texas.
But no, the importance of this state, I can tell you, as Texas goes, so goes the nation.
As the nation goes, so goes the world.
I want to thank you for putting it on and doing everything.
I do want to talk about Patriot Mobile because you guys have, we're so glad you're a sponsor of Real America's Voice of the War Room.
We've spent so much time down here.
Your studio is amazing.
Talk to me about the company because your model is totally different.
You're a Christian company that supports the values and not just the values and talking about it.
You guys are actually out there in the field backing like we're doing tonight.
You're one of the principal sponsors of it.
Just talk to us about the company.
And I want to make sure everybody gives them a chance because you have an Oklahoma accent to go to the marketing team calls it the hillbilly East Texas accent of your customer service.
So talk to me about it.
glenn story
Yeah, well, you know, I am a redneck and I call it redneck.
There's this East Texas hillbilly thing, but the reality of it is: look, we are an activist organization funded by a cell phone service.
It has, it's just this, and it works everywhere you go.
But what really separates us, we don't build a better mousetrap.
We support the mousetrap better than anybody because we're 100% U.S.-based customer service.
Like you said, when you call somebody you pick up, somebody in Texas picks up.
steve bannon
A U.S. citizen.
glenn story
A U.S. citizen.
They love their God.
They love their country.
That's what's different.
But here's also something else is, and more importantly, we put God first in everything we do.
He is at the helm of our business and we're his stewards.
And we try to glorify God in everything that we do.
And we want to defend our God-given rights and freedoms that he has given us and enabled us through the Constitution, right?
Through that good group of Christian men.
steve bannon
So 972 Patriot is where you call.
glenn story
That's right.
unidentified
Right.
steve bannon
And you talk to our customer service rep. You're layered on top of all the big phone services.
We've had so many people we're going to have more on in the coming days and weeks ahead that's saying they're in Israel or they're overseas and the service is the best service they've ever had.
glenn story
Hey, I would love to put Coach Kennedy on because he was in Shiloh, Israel.
And he says, he got on his phone.
He goes, guys, I want to tell you this.
I'm on my Patriot mobile phone and nobody else has service.
So I've turned on my Wi-Fi and everybody's piggybacking off of Patriot Mobile.
You know, you look at that, right?
steve bannon
Glenn Story and the Patriot Mobile team, 972 Patriot.
Let's go light up those phones today.
Talk to one of these customer service reps.
They'll walk you through everything of one of the best companies in this country and the single best company for having our back, whether it's first responders, first or second amendment, all of it.
Glenn, thank you so much for tonight and for you guys putting this together.
We're going to leave you now with the right stuff.
Natalie Winters will be here for the five o'clock Ben Harnwell right after her.
We're going to stream tonight, the Real America Voice team.
We're going to put up everything.
In fact, Grant Stinchfield is going to do his show, I believe, live on the stage at the event.
Glenn Beck will speak.
He closes things out, Gert Fielders, and I will say a few appropriate remarks.
We'll see you back here this afternoon.
Charlie Kirk show is next.
Pozo is out in Minneapolis and he's going to be interviewing the Secretary of Treasury.
Don't miss it.
Action, action, action all day.
And tomorrow morning's show, we're going to have clips from the night and I'm going to interview some Texans about what's going to happen out Premier here in March 3th.
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