Bannon's War Room - WarRoom Battleground EP 992: Crossing The Finish Line In Virginia; DOJ Goes After Southern Poverty Law Center
Aired: 2026-04-22
Duration: 48:16


=== Redistricting and Incumbent Seats (03:38) ===

[00:00:10]  I voted no, and I look at the history of voting in Virginia, and it's been fairly balanced, and I like that.
[00:00:19]  I like the competition between the two parties.
[00:00:22]  I voted yes, as many people have said, to level the playing field.
[00:00:28]  You know, it was not started by us, and I feel that we had to react to things that were going on in other parts of the country.
[00:00:36]  First it was Texas, then California, and today it's Virginia's turn to ride the redistricting.
[00:00:42]  Of this election cycle.
[00:00:44]  Voters there are considering a ballot measure that would redraw their congressional map.
[00:00:48]  If it passes, it could potentially give Democrats four more seats in the House.
[00:00:54]  Virginia is light blue, or if you prefer, purplish blue.
[00:00:59]  It's not California, and so you're not going to get a landslide.
[00:01:02]  That's for certain.
[00:01:03]  You're not going to get anything approaching Abigail Spanberger's 15 point victory last November.
[00:01:09]  Most observers here think that the referendum will probably pass.
[00:01:14]  I've noticed a lot of hesitation.
[00:01:17]  Not so much because of polling, public or private, but because people in talking with their friends hear surprising things.
[00:01:25]  From Democrats, for example, they are concerned about the idea of having this kind of redistricting at mid-decade and what it could lead to, understanding that Texas did it because Trump approached them to do it, and so did Missouri, and so did North Carolina, and maybe, maybe Florida will do the same thing.
[00:01:44]  So you have to fight fire with fire.
[00:01:46]  You can't unilaterally disarm.
[00:01:49]  So I would say.
[00:01:51]  You know, probably the odds are, given the Virginia electorate, that it will pass, but I don't think it's going to be anything close to a landslide.
[00:02:01]  It will expire in 2030 and go back to the nonpartisan panel?
[00:02:05]  That is absolutely correct.
[00:02:06]  Of course, remember, you're still going to have the congressional districts that were set up now.
[00:02:12]  They've already been passed.
[00:02:13]  If, in fact, the referendum goes through, we know what the districts look like.
[00:02:17]  So you're going to have incumbents in those districts, and nine or 10 of them certainly will be Democrats.
[00:02:24]  And incumbents tend to have an edge, you know, in getting reelected.
[00:02:27]  So yes, you will have a return to the nonpartisan redistricting.
[00:02:33]  But I wonder if those, quote, nonpartisan redistrictors or the state Supreme Court, if the legislature can't agree, it goes to the state Supreme Court.
[00:02:42]  I wonder if they're going to oust that many incumbents.
[00:02:46]  And of course, the incumbents can move to new districts that are established with an advantage being the incumbent.
[00:02:54]  My guess is, and I'm guessing, Katie, I just don't think in the end in November it's going to be that close.
[00:03:01]  The House usually isn't.
[00:03:03]  I know it is now, you know, three seats, or now I guess it's four, you know, with the resignation of the Florida Congresswoman just an hour or two ago.
[00:03:13]  But it's going to be probably the norm is, you know, 10 or 15, a margin of 10 or 15 for the party controlling, could be higher than that.
[00:03:25]  So, do four seats make a difference?
[00:03:28]  Of course, they give you some buffer in case things don't go your way in other districts.
[00:03:33]  But odds are you're going to have the party that wins, and right now, clearly leaning Democratic.
[00:03:40]  The newest poll has Democrats ahead in the generic ballot by seven points, which is definitely enough to win the House.

=== Rural Turnout Surges in June (14:31) ===

[00:03:48]  So, you know, does it matter?
[00:03:50]  Sure, it matters.
[00:03:51]  You never know how these things are going to turn out until people vote.
[00:03:54]  But as I say, the probability is that.
[00:03:58]  the party that controls the house will win by more than three or four seats This is the primal scream of a dying regime.
[00:04:10]  Pray for our enemies, because we're going to medieval on these people.
[00:04:15]  You're going to not get a free shot on all these networks lying about the people.
[00:04:19]  The people have had a belly full of it.
[00:04:21]  I know you don't like hearing that.
[00:04:22]  I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it.
[00:04:25]  It's going to happen.
[00:04:27]  And where do people like that go to share the big lie?
[00:04:30]  MAGA Media.
[00:04:31]  I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.
[00:04:37]  Ask yourself.
[00:04:38]  What is my task and what is my purpose?
[00:04:41]  If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.
[00:04:47]  War Room.
[00:04:48]  Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.
[00:04:55]  It's Tuesday, 21 April in the year of our Lord 2026.
[00:04:59]  We're going to go to the Commonwealth.
[00:05:02]  Deloitte Stallman joins us.
[00:05:03]  Jeff Ryder is going to be on.
[00:05:04]  The chairman of the GOP is going to be on in a moment.
[00:05:07]  Deloitte, you're actually at a polling station.
[00:05:11]  What's the feel that you've had today?
[00:05:12]  I know you've been talking to a lot of people going around your district.
[00:05:15]  What's the sense of things?
[00:05:18]  Honestly, Steve, it's like it's unbelievably high turnout.
[00:05:22]  We had last November, we had at this particular precinct 1,000.
[00:05:29]  171 votes, and we have currently 928, so it's just an unbelievably high turnout.
[00:05:36]  I'm in York County, historic York County, and I would say that this county is probably likely to go red again on this referendum.
[00:05:48]  But the feel of the people coming up a lot of thumbs ups, a lot of people reacting to the map.
[00:05:54]  Of course, we're showing the map, which the Democrats aren't, and some people.
[00:05:58]  Are pretty surprised by the map that they see because it's, as you've said, being marketed as fair and temporary and to restore fairness.
[00:06:06]  And once people lay eyes on that map, they realize that this is a total boondoggle.
[00:06:12]  So I'm feeling very good, at least where I'm at.
[00:06:15]  Well, you're saying that there's 928 voted and we got about an hour or less than an hour to go because the 1100 was in the gubernatorial race, correct?
[00:06:26]  That's exactly right.
[00:06:27]  So that statewide was about a 54% turnout.
[00:06:31]  This is an April referendum, absolutely well beyond what any of our expectations were.
[00:06:38]  I think we had originally sort of targeted for 30%.
[00:06:43]  Here's what's absolutely stunning this whole thing was gun decked from the Democrats.
[00:06:48]  First off, it's worded in a very complicated way.
[00:06:51]  They never show the map because the map is offensive.
[00:06:54]  They basically take the Washington, D.C. suburb with all the deep staters and basically make that, they infect the entire state with the lobster.
[00:07:04]  And destroy the rural counties.
[00:07:07]  And so they never want to talk about it.
[00:07:08]  And they set it up in April, which I don't think Virginia has ever voted in April.
[00:07:12]  It's a June primary and then November election.
[00:07:15]  This has been so gun decked by the Democrats.
[00:07:17]  Have you noticed?
[00:07:18]  Because one of the keys here tonight could be the silent no vote from the Democrats.
[00:07:25]  Do you get any sense of people coming in your area that there are some Democrats who are sitting there going, I can't do this because we've got a bipartisan commission and we just let them have it?
[00:07:35]  I mean, they get beyond the Trump derangement syndrome, what this is all about.
[00:07:40]  I definitely do.
[00:07:41]  I've definitely had some of those today who said this just is not what I'm about as a voter.
[00:07:47]  And maybe they'll split from party lines.
[00:07:50]  I think I told you the other day I had a Republican woman who had mistakenly voted yes because she was legitimately confused by the language.
[00:07:58]  So, one of the reasons that we're fully staffing these polls is to make sure that those confused voters are set straight before they head into the ballot box today to mitigate any confusion from the very shady worded referendum language.
[00:08:15]  DeLois, can you hang in one second?
[00:08:16]  I want to go to Jack Ryer, or Jeff Ryer, the chairman of the GOP.
[00:08:22]  Jeff, you've been handling everything all day.
[00:08:25]  I'm sure your phone's been blowing up.
[00:08:27]  Give us your assessment with about 50 minutes, 45 minutes to go.
[00:08:33]  We feel good.
[00:08:35]  We can't be sanguine about it.
[00:08:36]  We still got the phone calls going.
[00:08:37]  We just sent out another round of text messages in order to get people out to vote.
[00:08:41]  We're getting very good reports back from our polling places.
[00:08:44]  DeLois's experience is.
[00:08:46]  Is pretty familiar to us.
[00:08:48]  An unusually high turnout for an election held on a date when Virginia's never had an election.
[00:08:55]  And also just high turnout in the right places, at least so far, as far as places that we think would lean Republican.
[00:09:03]  We do have to keep in mind that this ballot doesn't have an R or a D on it, it simply says yes or no.
[00:09:09]  And so it's very important for us to have people at the polling places.
[00:09:13]  And as Lois mentioned, we're the only ones showing people what the maps are.
[00:09:17]  We're the only ones showing them what they do.
[00:09:20]  And it is having a reaction, especially in our rural communities where turnout seems to be eclipsing what occurred in the gubernatorial race last year.
[00:09:32]  Jeff, how did you get the word out?
[00:09:34]  Because you guys virtually had no money, you had $80 million spent.
[00:09:39]  I was in Texas when I got back here, given that the worm's in Washington, we get all the channels for Northern Virginia.
[00:09:48]  And I've never seen, I mean, it is unbelievable nonstop these democratic ads.
[00:09:53]  How did you guys get the word out to have even be competitive here?
[00:09:58]  We turned it over to our volunteers and our apparatus at the grassroots level.
[00:10:04]  We gave them names and phone numbers and addresses of people to knock, to call, to talk to.
[00:10:13]  We asked them to engage their own friends as well so that we would be able to do personalized texts as well as the standard blast texts, which are.
[00:10:23]  You see so many of those because they are a more affordable way to campaign.
[00:10:27]  And that's how we got it going.
[00:10:30]  And what happened was that our grassroots responded.
[00:10:33]  We told them from the outset that the cavalry may not be coming for us.
[00:10:38]  And we asked them to go ahead and be the cavalry.
[00:10:41]  And they did.
[00:10:43]  One of the things I like to point out to people is it doesn't matter where you go in Virginia, you will see a sign, a no sign that you haven't seen before.
[00:10:51]  And you will see other signs of really organic activity.
[00:10:55]  Behind the no campaign, that's being driven by our volunteers, and also, especially over the course of the last month or so, by the war room posse, which has been extraordinarily helpful to us making phone calls.
[00:11:08]  Delowis got a lot of that going, and we've had very good luck with that.
[00:11:12]  That's been great.
[00:11:15]  As you take an assessment, as you look around, how has the voting been in your assessment when you see the results, at least of what the raw vote is and who's participating in those Northern Virginia counties?
[00:11:30]  Because folks throughout the country should understand that Northern Virginia is now just simply a suburb of Washington, D.C.
[00:11:36]  And you've got the corridor out there in what the Dallas corridor that is all defense contractors.
[00:11:43]  You've got Pentagon City.
[00:11:45]  You have a massive defense buildup.
[00:11:48]  Roslyn, Tyson's Corner, I mean, high rises everywhere.
[00:11:51]  They're like, I think Tyson's Corner reminds me of Dallas, Fort Worth, the Metroplex.
[00:11:57]  There's been an explosion up there, and they've kind of dominated the state, but it's really not even Virginia.
[00:12:01]  It's almost like Washington, D.C.
[00:12:04]  The vote totals that you've been seeing in the participation, I know there's a lot of questions early in the morning, particularly on left wing media like MSNBC that were quite concerned.
[00:12:14]  Have they made up for that during the day?
[00:12:16]  Are you feeling good about what you're seeing as vote totals on game day in those strongly Democratic areas?
[00:12:24]  We're still feeling very good.
[00:12:25]  They still are lagging by and large behind.
[00:12:29]  And the other thing that we believe we have going for us in those particular areas, although Republicans are a decided minority in those areas, we have some of our best community, local Republican committees, and best activists in those areas.
[00:12:44]  They're very accustomed to finding Republican voters, ensuring that they vote.
[00:12:48]  And in this particular election, we think that's especially valuable.
[00:12:53]  So they've done an outstanding job themselves.
[00:12:56]  Of invigorating the brave Republicans that are living up there and more than a little frustrated because, as you've seen from some of the national headlines concerning crime, Democrat policies have taken over those areas.
[00:13:13]  Jeff, the same question to Delowis.
[00:13:16]  As you see the ads and you see the intensity, you see the people, they had some Democratic activists on CNN and MSNBC throughout the day.
[00:13:24]  They were very blunt.
[00:13:26]  This was about.
[00:13:27]  Stopping Trump.
[00:13:28]  This is about impeaching Trump.
[00:13:29]  This is about stopping the MAGA movement.
[00:13:32]  Talking about, hey, they did it in Texas.
[00:13:34]  They're going to do it in Florida.
[00:13:36]  We have to do it here.
[00:13:37]  And no qualms about is this fair?
[00:13:39]  Does it cut rural counties out?
[00:13:41]  Is it not one man, one vote?
[00:13:43]  Does this take away representation?
[00:13:47]  Do you have any inkling of is there a quiet no vote among Democrats of just people who are like independents but lean Democratic or Democratic voters?
[00:13:59]  Some moderates that just say this is too much.
[00:14:01]  We've had a commission.
[00:14:03]  We were trying to get gerrymandering out of the Commonwealth.
[00:14:07]  The Democrats really drove the commission.
[00:14:09]  They could have done this when they had power, but they didn't.
[00:14:12]  You think there's any no vote, silent no vote, among these totals we're seeing on the Democratic side?
[00:14:27]  Jeff, did we lose you?
[00:14:32]  Question was for Delowis.
[00:14:34]  Oh, no, no, that's for you, Jeff.
[00:14:36]  Oh, that's for me.
[00:14:37]  Is there?
[00:14:38]  Yes, there is definitely a silent Democratic.
[00:14:40]  In fact, no gerrymandering, Virginia has been operating their own campaign that's separate from anything that we're doing.
[00:14:50]  It's spearheaded by a former Democratic state senator, Governor Allen, who's obviously a Republican, and a Democrat who.
[00:15:01]  Put together the referendum that passed in 2020, creating the bipartisan commission.
[00:15:07]  And there are Democrats that are definitely with us, as evidenced by the fact that the Washington Post, of all editorial boards, happens to be on the side of the no campaign and has been throughout.
[00:15:21]  I think that many fair minded Democrats look at it and say to themselves, Do I want to have an election in November that counts or one in June when the decision is already made?
[00:15:34]  And that's Really, to some extent, what this is about because the Democrats have set it up so that all 11 districts will ostensibly be decided in the June party primaries.
[00:15:46]  Wow.
[00:15:47]  Last, before we let you go, Jeff, any guidance?
[00:15:50]  Where should people go?
[00:15:51]  You still got over a half hour to vote.
[00:15:54]  Any guidance for watching tonight?
[00:15:55]  What we should be looking for?
[00:15:58]  There's a variety of places in the Commonwealth.
[00:16:01]  Virginia takes some time to count, but we do think that this will be pretty quick tonight, primarily because there's only one item on the ballot.
[00:16:10]  So, the reconciliations at the polling places should not be too difficult.
[00:16:15]  We'll be watching very closely bellwether counties like Northampton, which for whatever reason tends to get it right consistently in statewide races.
[00:16:26]  We'll be watching the turnout in Fairfax County and also the turnout primarily in our many rural counties that are about to be disenfranchised if this awful referendum passes.
[00:16:40]  Yeah.
[00:16:41]  Well, Fairfax County, this was all set up.
[00:16:44]  So that the progressives in Fairfax County essentially run the state, correct?
[00:16:49]  I mean, that's why you're looking at turnout tonight there because this is all set up so that Fairfax County infects the entire Commonwealth.
[00:16:59]  Right.
[00:16:59]  And it's not only that, but they've already assigned the districts.
[00:17:03]  They've divvied them up between Fairfax County existing congressmen and the new individuals who they want to be congressmen.
[00:17:13]  It was acknowledged during the course of the Democrats pushing this through.
[00:17:17]  In the case of the map, that they actually had names on the maps, uh, as far as who was getting what, so uh, it's very nice that they've decided to you know tear us up, uh, like uh, China, uh, once upon a time.
[00:17:29]  Uh, Jeff, where do people go on social media to follow you, particularly this evening, sir?
[00:17:37]  VA underscore GOP, all caps, capital V, capital A, underscore capital G, capital O, capital P, over on X. Uh, and uh, we will be uh, we will be keeping things going.
[00:17:50]  We've been uh, Putting stuff up all day long, actually, for the last several days, because there have been so many rallies, including the fantastic war room rally that we all had on Sunday.
[00:18:01]  So, we will be letting people know what we know when we know it.
[00:18:09]  Jeff, thank you so much.
[00:18:10]  Great work.
[00:18:11]  Let's run through the tape and we'll talk to you later this evening.
[00:18:14]  Thank you.
[00:18:15]  Take care.
[00:18:17]  Thank you.
[00:18:17]  Deloitte, are you happy?
[00:18:19]  Did you get the turnout for poll workers?

=== Grassroots Agency in Texas (05:30) ===

[00:18:20]  That's one of the things you were concerned about today because you realized with these maps and the Democrats not showing anything that you were going to have to have people actually explain what's going on.
[00:18:30]  Did that turn out?
[00:18:31]  Yeah, we're fully staffed.
[00:18:33]  Absolutely.
[00:18:34]  I even had the opportunity to jump over to another county that was a little bit light and I was able to help out that chairman.
[00:18:40]  For a couple of hours, which was great anecdotal evidence for me just to know that in that other deep blue or deep red locality, they were outperforming expectations as well.
[00:18:52]  The people behind me, Bianca Soldo and Nat Webb, we've all been out basically since 5 30 this morning.
[00:19:00]  So we're pretty excited.
[00:19:02]  And I think that people see the wisdom of the no vote, like you were asking, Jeff.
[00:19:08]  There is a silent no, no, I would say you're.
[00:19:12]  Classic Democrat, maybe a fair minded Democrat, sees this as a really rotten way to move forward with running the state and representing people in a way that's completely disingenuous.
[00:19:24]  And the height of insult is the wording of the ballot that says to restore fairness.
[00:19:31]  So it was great that Fair Maps printed these four by fours of the giant current and future map if this passes.
[00:19:39]  So it's been illustrative.
[00:19:41]  The lobster today has been good.
[00:19:43]  The lobster.
[00:19:44]  How did the same question I asked Jeff?
[00:19:47]  How did you, your county, the Hanover, these other counties, how did you guys actually get the word out?
[00:19:53]  It's April.
[00:19:54]  It's not really the political season in the Commonwealth.
[00:19:57]  It's just not the way people think.
[00:19:58]  When spring comes to the Commonwealth, it's so magnificent, so beautiful.
[00:20:02]  The last thing you want to think about is a hard fought political fight that really the country's kind of hanging in the balance.
[00:20:11]  How did you guys, with no money, get the word out to put these kind of numbers up you're talking about in these red counties?
[00:20:19]  Well, I actually didn't get elected chairman until the middle of February, and my first meeting was March 5th, and early voting started the 6th.
[00:20:27]  So, as soon as I won, I really started hustling with the GOP data center and getting trained up on all the material that they have there, which is just an abundance of information for people who want to target voters, sort voters by frequency of participation, or since we don't have party registration, by calculated party.
[00:20:49]  We worked with people who had good cells, good home numbers.
[00:20:53]  We divided it up literally street by street and broke out old school maps and started grouping them in neighborhoods.
[00:21:01]  And I developed teams for each of my precincts underneath the supervisory district where we live.
[00:21:07]  So we kind of went Fallujah style, if you would like to say.
[00:21:12]  We literally did divide it up by street.
[00:21:16]  Fantastic.
[00:21:17]  Last question.
[00:21:20]  Your sense, as you've looked throughout the day at the rest of the Commonwealth, and particularly Northern Virginia and Southwest, because I understand they're both vital.
[00:21:28]  What's your sense of where you think we stand right now?
[00:21:33]  I'll be honest, I've really been knee deep in voter contact all day, but people are texting me.
[00:21:39]  People who are in the know feel like we're definitely in the hunt right now.
[00:21:43]  And so, you know, provided, you know, we're in the, our people actually work.
[00:21:49]  So I think our turnout's going to, you know, it's been consistent since about 5 30.
[00:21:54]  And provided that that keeps up and we don't get washed out in absentees, I think we're very competitive.
[00:22:00]  So I'm optimistic.
[00:22:03]  Any last words on where people can go if they need to figure out how to vote, where to vote, all of that?
[00:22:08]  So we run through the tape.
[00:22:09]  We got about 35 minutes.
[00:22:13]  Most people should know where their local normal voting precinct is, but they can always look it up on the GOP database or data center, which are our website, which Jeff gave, Virginia.gov.
[00:22:25]  You can find where your polling location is.
[00:22:28]  And what's your social media for tonight?
[00:22:31]  I know people are going to be following you.
[00:22:32]  Where did they go?
[00:22:34]  Oh, you can go to my Twitter, which is Delois Ray, R A E, or get her Delois.
[00:22:43]  Thank you, ma'am.
[00:22:44]  Appreciate you.
[00:22:45]  Great job and great way to run through the tape on game day.
[00:22:50]  Thank you.
[00:22:50]  And I am wearing the War Room merch all day long out here.
[00:22:56]  Our head of merch, Grace Chongs, will be very happy.
[00:22:59]  Thank you, ma'am.
[00:23:01]  Great branding.
[00:23:04]  I think one of the inspirations, folks, is that this is this in Texas back to back are two of the best examples I've ever seen of the grassroots using their agency.
[00:23:18]  If you think about it, back, I think we did the dinner in Texas on January 9th.
[00:23:23]  There really hadn't been much talk about the, although people were doing a great job, don't get me wrong, prepping this, but until Jenny Story and the team came together with Patriot Mobile to pull together that dinner with Geert Wilderss and Glenn Beck and Stinchfield and myself and others.
[00:23:39]  Then that kind of exploded off the football, went all the way through primary date on Prop 10 about prohibiting Sharia law in the state of Texas.

=== Overwhelmed Commonwealth Playbook (04:05) ===

[00:23:51]  Also, Paxton's campaign, no doubt, drafted off that and got just incredible energy.
[00:23:59]  And now he's up, at least by the latest polling, by eight points with virtually no money compared to Cornyn.
[00:24:06]  Cornyn, I think, is close to spending $100 million destroying Ken Paxton.
[00:24:10]  But it hasn't not had an impact as the grassroots are stepping up there, then roll right into the Commonwealth of Virginia.
[00:24:16]  And this thing was over.
[00:24:18]  Remember, Spanberger and this team destroyed the Republican establishment in the Commonwealth by 15 plus points and just an absolute blowout and actually took, particularly in the House of Delegates, areas that seemed like could never, ever, ever be won by Democrats.
[00:24:40]  And these were progressive Democrats.
[00:24:41]  And they were.
[00:24:42]  Of course, Spanberger, being a CIA operative, Was able to mask her color revolution, but it's all become she's unmasked now.
[00:24:51]  And actually, quite a weird, she's kind of a weirdo, right?
[00:24:54]  Which I think has been very evident to people in the Commonwealth since then.
[00:24:58]  But this riding to the sound of the guns has been extraordinary.
[00:25:01]  Back to back, if you add these patriots down in Georgia that are fighting for election integrity, you add on that this fight down in South Carolina where Lindsey Graham is currently under 50%.
[00:25:13]  As I keep saying, if you get the issue set right, and when I say issue set right, I mean, The issues that drive MAGA and the grassroots base, you can win.
[00:25:26]  And this one is with no money.
[00:25:29]  There was no paid ballot chasing.
[00:25:32]  There was no paid door knocking.
[00:25:34]  There was no paid working in the shopping centers or the parking lots on weekends.
[00:25:42]  None of that.
[00:25:43]  This was 100% grassroots that came out, and particularly the rural counties, which I think was extraordinary.
[00:25:49]  And they're right.
[00:25:49]  Some of these, even blue leaning, have these tremendous Republican activists that really know how to get out to vote in those districts where they're overwhelmed.
[00:25:57]  But I think it was the chairman of Hanover that had just this amazing analysis of how this was in the cradle of the American Revolution on the 250th year of our commemoration year, our year that we're celebrating this.
[00:26:13]  In the cradle of that revolution, it would be stolen by essentially the deep state, driven by foreign born folks, because that is what Northern Virginia has become with all the government bureaucracy and all the bureaucrats.
[00:26:29]  It's really overwhelmed the Commonwealth.
[00:26:31]  And this is the Democratic Party's playbook.
[00:26:33]  And you see it just up in your face.
[00:26:35]  And that's what's been so absolutely incredible about these grassroots volunteers saying it's not going to happen on my watch.
[00:26:41]  And really, for the last 45 days, or I guess now we're at 47 days, have just put their shoulder to the wheel.
[00:26:46]  It's been extraordinary.
[00:26:47]  We're going to take a short commercial break.
[00:26:50]  Virtual.com, the end of the dollar empire.
[00:26:52]  Now more than ever, with what's going on in the Persian Gulf, particularly this financing of the UAE that's even on the Table, understand why gold has been a hedge against times of financial turbulence for 3,000 years.
[00:27:09]  Short break, back in a moment.
[00:27:18]  Here's your host, Stephen K. Bass.
[00:27:22]  Okay, we're going to rump to the 7 o'clock hour.
[00:27:24]  The polls are going to close in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
[00:27:26]  I'll be up on Getter with Grace Chung and putting up comments, observations.
[00:27:35]  Grant Stinchfield is going to be live.
[00:27:36]  Of course, Studio 6B will be live.
[00:27:39]  Real America's Voice will be covering this just moments ago.
[00:27:43]  And Tyler O'Neill from Daily Signal is going to join us in the morning.
[00:27:46]  He's the reporter covering this for the Daily Signal.
[00:27:48]  We're going to have Tyler on.
[00:27:50]  Tyler O'Neill, who's writing this up even as we speak.
[00:27:53]  They just had a press conference over at DOJ with the cash return.

=== FBI Indictment and Fraud Allegations (15:10) ===

[00:27:57]  I think, and I think Todd jumped in there.
[00:28:00]  I want to play as much of this as we can.
[00:28:02]  I'm going to come in for some editorial comment.
[00:28:04]  This is on those demons at Southern Poverty Law Center.
[00:28:08]  Finally, we're going on offense.
[00:28:10]  Let's go ahead and play it.
[00:28:14]  Today, a few minutes ago, in the middle district of Alabama, a grand jury returned an 11 count.
[00:28:20]  Indictment charging the Southern Poverty Law Center with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
[00:28:33]  According to the charges in the indictment, the SPLC is a nonprofit entity that purports to fight white supremacy and racial hatred by reporting on extremist groups and conducting research to inform law enforcement groups with the goal of dismantling these groups.
[00:28:51]  As the indictment describes, the SPLC was not dismantling these groups.
[00:28:56]  It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.
[00:29:06]  The indictment describes this conduct in detail, but one troubling example is that the SPLC was paying a member of the leadership group that planned the Unite the Right protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, that resulted in the death of one person.
[00:29:25]  And injured dozens more.
[00:29:28]  This particular person being paid by the SPLC allegedly received approximately $270,000 over the course of eight years.
[00:29:39]  In total, according to the indictment, between 2014 and 2023, SPLC paid at least $3 million to eight individuals, at least.
[00:29:51]  These individuals were affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, United Clans of America, National Socialist Movement, Aryan Nations Affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, the Nationalist Socialist Party of America, Nazis, and the American Front.
[00:30:11]  Now, as the indictment lays out, after SBLC paid members of these extremist groups, it created work product that reported on these activities that the members participated in or contributed to.
[00:30:24]  And to that end, it was doing the exact opposite of what it's told its donors.
[00:30:29]  It was doing, not dismantling extremism, but funding it.
[00:30:35]  To carry out this scheme, SPLC created bank accounts in the name of at least five completely fictitious organizations that had no bona fide employees or legitimate business purpose.
[00:30:48]  The money was passed from SPLC to one sham account to a second sham account and then loaded onto prepaid cards to give to the members of the extremist groups.
[00:30:59]  This was designed to shield the source of those funds.
[00:31:01]  And because of this, SPLC is also charged with one count, as I said earlier, of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
[00:31:11]  In conclusion, I want to thank the acting U.S. Attorney in the Middle District of Alabama, Kevin Davidson, who's in his district right now and not able to be with us, for bringing this important case along with the FBI team in Alabama for their hard work during this investigation.
[00:31:29]  This investigation is ongoing, and I'd like to ask Director Patel to say a few words as well.
[00:31:40]  Thank you, General Blanch.
[00:31:42]  What we're here today is to announce what the What the general just told you.
[00:31:47]  The Southern Poverty Law Center, in a massive sweeping indictment, has been charged with allegations of fraud and using the banking system to perpetrate that fraud.
[00:31:57]  I just want to talk about a couple of brief things here.
[00:32:01]  The Southern Poverty Law Center themselves advertise to raise money to dismantle violent extremist groups for a period of at least a decade.
[00:32:10]  They use their donor network to raise money to purportedly dismantle violent extremist groups.
[00:32:16]  However, The SPLC, the Southern Poverty Law Center, used the money they raised from their donor network to actually pay the leadership of these very groups.
[00:32:27]  I just want to say that again.
[00:32:29]  They used the fraudulently raised money by lying to their donor network, thousands of Americans, to go ahead and actually pay the leadership of these supposed violent extremist groups.
[00:32:41]  The groups, as the general laid out, include the Ku Klux Klan, the United Clans of America, Unite to Right. National Alliance, the National Socialist Movement, the Aryan Nation Motorcycle Club, and the National Socialist Party of America, and also the American Front.
[00:33:00]  In at least one of these matters, our investigation revealed that funds were used to facilitate the commission of further state and federal offenses, totaling over $3 million.
[00:33:13]  Furthermore, our investigation revealed that the Southern Poverty Law Center, on top of perpetuating this widespread, decade long, multi million dollar fraud, Conducted more criminal activity.
[00:33:26]  They attempted to hide their criminal activity from our financial banking network.
[00:33:33]  They set up shell companies and entities around America so that the financial institutions that we rely on as everyday Americans were deceived in believing that money was not coming from the Southern Poverty Law Center in the perpetration of this scheme and fraud, but rather fictitious entities they stood up to perpetuate this ongoing fraud.
[00:33:53]  This is a serious and egregious violation of a group that purported to dismantle.
[00:33:58]  Violent extremist groups, but in turn actually only fueled the hatred.
[00:34:03]  This is an important case brought by the president by President Trump's administration.
[00:34:06]  We're thankful for the president for his leadership and funding of not just the FBI and DOJ, but his commitment to go out there and wipe out fraud and conspiracy and waste and abuse wherever it occurs, including the Southern Poverty Law Center.
[00:34:20]  Even though this money was made to appear to be coming from legitimate people and legitimate entities, we at the FBI, with our great partners at the Department of Justice and in the state of Alabama, were able to comb through.
[00:34:33]  A decade worth of material, a scheme that took a decade to build, so that we were able to follow the money, because money never lies, and they got caught.
[00:34:42]  As the Attorney General said, these charges are varying, they are widespread and wide ranging, and this investigation is very much ongoing.
[00:34:51]  Today we're here to announce the charges of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and this investigation and the individuals who are responsible will be brought to justice.
[00:34:59]  Thank you, General.
[00:35:02]  Thank you, Director Patel.
[00:35:03]  With any questions?
[00:35:06]  I'd like to know why individual people are not mentioned in this indictment.
[00:35:10]  Is that something that's going to come down the pike?
[00:35:13]  Is this just an indictment of the entity?
[00:35:14]  Can you kind of explain, could people face charges here, or is this the indictment and you're done?
[00:35:20]  So, yes.
[00:35:21]  I mean, as we said, the indictment, this investigation is very much ongoing.
[00:35:25]  And today, the grand jury returned an indictment against only one entity, the Southern Poverty Law Center.
[00:35:32]  And we'll go from there.
[00:35:33]  But as you'll see from the indictment itself, It should be obvious from the indictment that the investigation is ongoing.
[00:35:42]  I just want to make sure I understand.
[00:35:43]  You're alleging that the Southern Poverty Law Center was paying the leaders of KKK and other groups to continue their operations?
[00:35:54]  Is that.
[00:35:55]  I'm not alleging it.
[00:35:56]  The grand jury returned an indictment that says that.
[00:35:58]  And so what the investigation found, according to the indictment that was returned today, is that they were paying.
[00:36:05]  So the Southern Poverty Law Center is raising money.
[00:36:08]  Asking folks to give them money to dismantle racism.
[00:36:12]  And over a very long period of time, they were using some of the money they raised from donors to pay to, they call them field, you know, basically to informants, for information, for access, to just pay them for certain things.
[00:36:30]  And so, yes, that's exactly what the indictment charges.
[00:36:34]  I was wondering if this is going to expand perhaps to more groups.
[00:36:37]  Perhaps there's been a lot of accusations about particular groups like the Patriot Front that get a lot of traction.
[00:36:44]  And more so, is the government, or is this indictment, I should say, making the case that some of these matters where they've tried at great lengths to sort of make connections to people on the right per Santorini?
[00:36:58]  I mean, Charlottesville was very much associated by the media with being sort of like, you know, Part of a right wing kind of thing.
[00:37:06]  They're like good people on both sides type of thing.
[00:37:08]  I mean, is this, are we seeing a sort of the Southern Poverty Law Center was trying to create narratives using these types of groups to shape American public opinion?
[00:37:18]  Look, I think what the Southern Poverty Law Center has said over the years is available for the world to see.
[00:37:25]  It's on their website, it's in other forums.
[00:37:28]  The indictment speaks for itself.
[00:37:29]  I'm not going to talk outside the four corners of the indictment.
[00:37:32]  It lays out what the grand jury found.
[00:37:35]  And obviously, there's a whole body of public information around what the Southern Poverty Law Center has done over the past several decades.
[00:37:46]  I mean, in some of these instances, these are groups that have been either their membership has been dismantled or they've definitely fallen out of public view.
[00:37:53]  I'm just wondering the legal theory of how these payments allegedly went on to actually benefit the groups.
[00:37:59]  Did you see the money go to the groups themselves rather than just the individuals who were paid informants, essentially?
[00:38:05]  And then I have an off topic after.
[00:38:06]  So, look, I want to be careful to keep any comments that we make inside the indictment.
[00:38:15]  And so, what the indictment lays out.
[00:38:17]  Is payments to individuals who had leadership positions within these organizations.
[00:38:24]  If that's what the grand jury found.
[00:38:25]  And so, to the extent that those individuals receiving one received over a million dollars, okay, to the extent over several years, to the extent that there's any link between that individual receiving the money and benefits to that organization, that's not in the indictment.
[00:38:43]  But because again, it's not that that individual who's charged with a crime, it's that individual was an informant or what have you.
[00:38:51]  And it's Southern Poverty Law Center that made those payments to the individual, but it wasn't, you know, look, the payments were not made to these individuals in exchange for a service separate and apart from their work within these organizations.
[00:39:07]  So, you know, that's, I think, speaks for itself.
[00:39:10]  Just an off topic, obviously, you've read the Atlantic article that's now a subject of a defamation lawsuit probably.
[00:39:15]  I absolutely did not read that article, but go ahead with your question.
[00:39:18]  I just, you know, without, obviously, it's in litigation now.
[00:39:22]  Have you separately just heard any concerns?
[00:39:25]  Given your supervision over the FBI director, about any problems with drinking?
[00:39:32]  I have a lot of concerns, and my concerns are completely around the anonymous reporting that comes forth constantly.
[00:39:40]  That, you know, reporters have an obligation to report, and they have due diligence that they're supposed to do.
[00:39:46]  And when an entire article is based on anonymous sources, and there's things in the article suggesting, for example, for example, apparently, that senior DOJ personnel were informed of something, that's me.
[00:39:58]  I wasn't informed.
[00:39:59]  No one called me about that.
[00:40:01]  So, like, listen, I did not read that article.
[00:40:03]  It is a subject of litigation.
[00:40:05]  But, you know, I've already spent too much time talking about it.
[00:40:08]  Next question.
[00:40:09]  Go ahead.
[00:40:09]  On that, Todd, I'm sorry.
[00:40:11]  The FBI director is on camera with the U.S. Olympic hockey team chugging a beer.
[00:40:15]  I mean, do you think that that's appropriate conduct for the FBI director?
[00:40:18]  That has nothing to do with the article.
[00:40:20]  I mean, look, there's complete hit pieces, and you guys are in this business, and you know what they look like.
[00:40:30]  And the fact that you're asking repeated questions about them almost is an admission of such.
[00:40:35]  But when you have a bunch of people who are hiding behind closed curtains, saying things but not willing to say it publicly, and there are certain parts of the article that are blatantly false because apparently I was told something that I wasn't, it's suspicious in the back.
[00:40:50]  Thank you, Mr. Acting Attorney General.
[00:40:52]  Can you explain again what the fraud is here exactly?
[00:40:55]  Are you saying it's illegal for the SPLC to pay money to people that are in hate groups, or something about the way this was done makes it illegal?
[00:41:05]  Because it's not automatically illegal, is it?
[00:41:07]  No, that's right.
[00:41:08]  It's a good question.
[00:41:09]  So, again, I summarized the indictment and it's now public for everybody to read.
[00:41:14]  But the Southern Poverty Law Center is a 501c3.
[00:41:17]  Okay, they're required to, under the laws associated with a nonprofit, to have certain transparency and honesty in what they're telling donors they're going to spend money on and what their mission statement is and what they're raising money doing.
[00:41:29]  And so, as the indictment points out, there's different ways that they raise money, and in no fundraising efforts that the investigation found, Did they say, oh, and by the way, we're going to give a million bucks to the Ku Klux Klan?
[00:41:45]  So that's fraud.
[00:41:46]  So that's wire fraud.
[00:41:47]  And then the bank fraud part of it is you have KYC, you have an obligation to tell your financial institution what the corporation or the entity that you're opening an account for does.
[00:41:59]  And the allegations in the indictment are that these were fictitious companies that were set up.
[00:42:04]  And so there was certain information sworn to by SPLC executives about what the entities were doing.
[00:42:10]  That we allege is false.
[00:42:13]  Can I just follow up on the hiring of Joe DeGenova to work for the department?
[00:42:19]  Can you just tell us a little bit?
[00:42:21]  I understand you went down to Florida perhaps to take part in his swearing in or bring him on board.
[00:42:27]  Can you explain why he's being brought back to the department after 40 years?
[00:42:32]  So, I mean, look, I think that we, everybody in this administration, whether it's department chess or elsewhere, we're always looking for good people.
[00:42:40]  And he's somebody who has a deep bench.
[00:42:42]  As you said, he's been in this business for decades.
[00:42:45]  And when we had the opportunity to ask him to join the team and help, we readily did.
[00:42:51]  I have an on topic and an off topic, if you'll allow me.
[00:42:54]  Are you able to explain a little bit more about what led to this investigation?
[00:42:57]  Were you guys tipped off by a former employee, or how did you guys discover this?
[00:43:03]  No, I can't talk about that.
[00:43:04]  But it's been going on for a long time.

=== Brennan Investigation and Legal Memo (02:47) ===

[00:43:07]  There was a time that it was shut down for a while during the last administration.
[00:43:15]  I don't know why.
[00:43:17]  And it was started again over the past year or so.
[00:43:21]  And that brings us to today.
[00:43:23]  You mean the investigation began before this administration and then was shut down during the Biden administration?
[00:43:28]  That's my understanding.
[00:43:29]  I don't have information beyond what I just said around that.
[00:43:33]  I wanted to ask about the Brennan investigation.
[00:43:35]  The John Brennan investigation.
[00:43:36]  If you can explain why the career prosecutor who had been leading that investigation was removed, and if you have or had concerns that that investigation is not moving quickly enough.
[00:43:46]  I don't have any concerns about that investigation.
[00:43:48]  And again, the reporting around that really is just a source purely from leaks and not actually accurate reporting is not something I'm going to comment on and never will comment on.
[00:44:00]  Could I ask you just to clarify one thing?
[00:44:02]  Obviously, the Bureau had a long relationship with the SBLC.
[00:44:07]  Is it your understanding that the Previous leaders at the Bureau knew this was happening and didn't view it as a crime, or is that the Bureau did not know this was happening?
[00:44:18]  It is my understanding that SPLC never told anybody in law enforcement that they were paying off the Ku Klux Klan, and I don't think that should surprise anybody.
[00:44:28]  Thank you, Mr. Acting Attorney General.
[00:44:30]  I'd like you to both weigh in on a recent memo from the Office of Legal Counsel declaring the Presidential Records Act unconstitutional, so saying that presidents no longer need to preserve their documents or turn them to the government.
[00:44:42]  What do you say to critics who suggest this basically eliminates transparency and accountability around how the White House operates, especially given how much time you guys are spending investigating the previous administration?
[00:44:54]  Well, look, I think there is no dispute that this administration in just 14 months has been a lot more transparent than the last administration or in any administration.
[00:45:03]  So, if critics are suggesting that somehow we're not being transparent, I don't find that credible in any way, shape, or form.
[00:45:10]  As far as the recent OLC opinion regarding the PRA, that is something that has been heavily litigated in D.C. and elsewhere.
[00:45:18]  And OLC issuing that is not the first place that you see that, that it's unconstitutional.
[00:45:24]  I mean, I think there's a lot of places that you can go to think through why that is.
[00:45:29]  The memo speaks for itself, and I don't have much to say about it beyond that.
[00:45:36]  Do you want to weigh in on that?
[00:45:38]  The president has this pending billion dollar lawsuit against the IRS.
[00:45:42]  He sort of said that this is like he's negotiating with himself.
[00:45:45]  How can you assure the people that tax dollars are being protected?
[00:45:51]  The demonic Southern Poverty Law Center.
[00:45:53]  And hey, this is an ongoing investigation.

=== Cash Hedge and Recorded History (02:21) ===

[00:45:54]  They're going to get in there and find so much more.
[00:45:56]  So you see Todd Blanch.
[00:45:57]  I really want to thank Todd for handling those questions about cash because they're coming to cash, as you can tell.
[00:46:05]  And I thought Todd had a.
[00:46:07]  Just had terrific answers for it.
[00:46:09]  So, great job over there.
[00:46:11]  Tyler O'Neill from Daily Signal is going to join us tomorrow.
[00:46:15]  Tyler's been following this very closely.
[00:46:17]  He's going to break this all down for us.
[00:46:18]  So, we're going to have a lot more on this.
[00:46:20]  And I can tell you, I've had meetings all this afternoon, the last two days, back here in the Imperial Capitol, trying to make sure we make every second count.
[00:46:29]  I think there's a lot more that's going to be happening.
[00:46:31]  I think you're going to be, I think people are finally going to say, hey, look, I see where some of this is going.
[00:46:36]  I see where some of the action is taking place.
[00:46:38]  So, And I want to thank everybody out there that's working on these things.
[00:46:41]  They're really working nonstop, and it's a very, very, very understaffed team.
[00:46:47]  Patriot Mobile, want to thank Jenny and Glenn Story, been a great sponsor for War Room and particularly the work they do throughout the entire country on patriotic causes and for the groups that you love.
[00:47:04]  These guys are supporters across the board of your values as a Christian based company.
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[00:47:13]  Call or talk to somebody at their call center.
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[00:47:19]  Of course, they're not hillbilly's down there.
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[00:47:23]  Make sure you talk to them.
[00:47:24]  972 Patriot, best phone service around from the best company around.
[00:47:29]  Also, now more than ever, particularly when talking about, hey, they're going to give credit lines to these people, so make sure they keep using the dollar.
[00:47:35]  Now more than ever, you need to understand global capital markets.
[00:47:40]  Not a better way to start with the U.S. dollar and gold.
[00:47:44]  The relationship between fiat currency and a hedge, a monetary hedge against times of financial instability for 3,000 years of man's recorded history.
[00:47:56]  In fact, interestingly enough, down in that Tigris and Euphrates, Mesopotamia, right, in old Persia.
[00:48:05]  We're going to see you tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
[00:48:08]  I want to thank the Virtual folks.
[00:48:10]  Go there now, talk to Philip Packer and team.
[00:48:12]  We'll see you back here live.
[00:48:13]  And I'll be up all night on Getter about this.