This video features a wide-ranging and provocative interview with Steve Bannon, former White House strategist and chief architect of MAGA politics, covering topics from prison reform and economic inequality to immigration, the administrative state, and the future of American politics. Bannon discusses his early experience with prison, calling for serious reform, and details the failings and delays of current reform efforts. He shifts to American economic structure and political allegiance, critiquing wealth concentration, tax policy, and the abandonment of the working class by both Democrats and establishment Republicans. Bannon argues for tax increases on the wealthy, an overhaul of government spending, and a realignment of the GOP as a party for the middle and working classes rooted in economic populism.

A central topic is Bannon’s critique of both administrative and deep states, calling for a deconstruction of the bureaucratic apparatus while also retaining some regulatory agencies for effectiveness and oversight, particularly advocating for aggressive antitrust action against Big Tech oligarchs. He addresses questions about the tension between freedom, inequality, populism, and governance, firmly rejecting open immigration and guest-worker visas while laying out his vision for a restored American middle class through economic reform and prioritization of American workers. He also weighs in on the global order, discussing U.S. relations with Russia and China, and the dangers posed by unregulated artificial intelligence and demographic shifts, stressing urgency, national sovereignty, and family stability as vital for the country’s future.

Main takeaways from the video:

Please remember to turn on the CC button to view the subtitles.

Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. radicalize [ˈrædɪkəˌlaɪz] - (verb) - To cause someone to adopt extreme positions or beliefs, especially political or social issues. - Synonyms: (incite, provoke, polarize)

And did prison radicalize you or were you already radicalized?

2. schism [ˈskɪzəm] - (noun) - A split or division between strongly opposed parties, caused by differences in opinion or belief. - Synonyms: (division, split, rift)

we're close to a schism in the church between Bergoglia in this kind of radical way he's taking it.

3. credentialed class [krəˈdɛnʃəld klæs] - (noun phrase) - Refers to people with professional qualifications or higher education, often implying elitism or separation from the working class. - Synonyms: (educated elite, professional class, intelligentsia)

The reason is the Democrats, the credentialed class, completely abandoned the Democratic Party.

4. anarchist [ˈænərkɪst] - (noun) - A person who believes in or tries to bring about an absence of government or authority. - Synonyms: (rebel, revolutionary, nihilist)

I'm not an anarchist and we're not libertarians.

5. ephemeral [ɪˈfɛmərəl] - (adjective) - Lasting for a very short time; fleeting. - Synonyms: (temporary, transient, short-lived)

And if you look at these cuts, it's kind of ephemeral.

6. praetorian guard [priˈtɔːriən ɡɑːrd] - (noun phrase) - A group of people who are perceived as protectors for powerful leaders, often used to describe entrenched, unelected authority figures in bureaucracies. - Synonyms: (bodyguard, protectors, elite force)

The deep state is the kind of rogue praetorian guard of certain elements, the Defense Department, Intelligence, FBI, DOJ that run the deal and have to be.

7. habeas corpus [ˈheɪbiəs ˈkɔːrpəs] - (noun) - A legal principle that protects against unlawful and indefinite imprisonment, demanding that a person under arrest be brought before a judge or court. - Synonyms: (writ, legal order, court order)

We are going to suspend the writ of habeas corpus if the courts keep ruling against us and don't allow these mass deportations to continue.

8. oligarch [ˈɑːlɪˌɡɑːrk] - (noun) - A very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence. - Synonyms: (magnate, tycoon, plutocrat)

We have the oligarchs up against the wall. We have Google.

9. antitrust [ˈæntiˌtrʌst] - (adjective / noun) - Relating to the regulation of monopolies and promotion of competition among businesses. - Synonyms: (competition law, trade regulation, monopoly regulation)

This is the FTC under President Trump, Ferguson, Gail Slater and the team over the antitrust division at doj, Main justice, the fcc.

10. indentured servant [ɪnˈdɛn.tʃɚd ˈsɜː.vənt] - (noun phrase) - A person who is bound to work for another for a period of time, often under exploitative or involuntary terms. - Synonyms: (bondservant, laborer, peon)

we're bringing indentured servants over here from other countries who shouldn't be.

11. demographics [ˌdɛməˈɡræfɪks] - (noun) - Statistical data relating to the population and particular groups within it. - Synonyms: (population statistics, census data, population composition)

First, let's talk about demographics

12. deconstruction [ˌdiːkənˈstrʌkʃn] - (noun) - The process of analyzing and breaking down structures or institutions, often to reform or reconstruct them. - Synonyms: (dismantling, analysis, breakdown)

The deconstruction of the administrative state.

13. administrative state [ædˌmɪnɪˈstreɪtɪv steɪt] - (noun phrase) - A form of government in which most decisions are made by state bureaucrats rather than by elected officials. - Synonyms: (bureaucracy, regulatory state, government apparatus)

You want to cut the fiscal deficit, right? I mean, you've just been outlining what it's six and a half percent of GDP right now. We have to get down to three. Three. Is the IRS part of the administrative state? Yes.

Steve Bannon - ‘President Trump will serve a third term’ - FT

Thank you, Steve. Well, for walking on stage with an ft. It's my comfort blanket. And I said to somebody earlier, you're the only person I remember at least being photographed going into jail with an ft. That was prison. Prison. No, no, I appreciate the distinction. And did prison radicalize you or were you already radicalized? I was radicalized, but it opened my eyes to a lot. To a lot. Prisons. These prisons are very dangerous, extremely dangerous for the non violent young drug offenders who put in there for 10, 15, 20, 25 years. Danbury is a very small place when you have to live the next 20 years of your life in a prison that's 100 years old, that's supposed to have 800 inmates, that has 1200 because of the overcrowding, because so many foreign nationals. It's very dangerous and the prisons have to be reformed. I'm working with Jared and Peter Navarro to get the BOP candidates in and start to do some serious prison reform. And Jared and I know this is actually, this is a rare cross party issue. Jared hasn't had jail experience, but you and. Well, his father went to prison. That's what Jared's in. Back of the first step back. First step back is revolutionary. It hasn't been implemented. The thing I found shocking has been implemented. I don't want to say it's because it was Trump's bill. I think a lot of it was incompetence or just lethargy. But the first step back is, you know, it can cut people, cut inmates, nonviolent criminals, time in half. And it hasn't been implemented. So Jared is really the author of that. He did a brilliant job. I wasn't that into it when he first did it. I got into it late, didn't get it, help get it passed because of the politics, but it's brilliant and we're trying to do so much more. The prisons are a disgrace in this country. Absolute disgrace. I think a lot of people would agree with you. I want to get into the meat of what MAGA is and what the real end game is. Beyond the trolling. If there is a beyond the trolling, I mean, which is sort of my suspicion. And you can allay it if you like. But let me start with current affairs, which is that Cardinal Prevost, who is now, of course Leo XIV, you said a couple of weeks ago, or no, 10 days ago, whenever it was, that he was the dark horse candidate and then he became Pope. So you've got a pretty good predictive record. I mean, I have to say I find you know, there is a sort of Trump reaction going on around the world. And I see it as Canada, Australia, Vatican because. And you've described him as a, you know, basic, I think a cultural Marxist. Well, from Bergoglia, Remember Bergoglia was anti Trump from the beginning. In the 16 campaign. He criticized, when he did the mass down on the, on the border, he criticized our building the wall president at that time, candidate Trump. And I recommended he come back strong in that. And Bergoglia the entire time has been very anti Trump. But that's not the, it's not just being anti maga, anti Trump. That's the politics of it. Right. And Prevost is a continuation. But it is for the traditional Catholics in the crowd, the Latin Mass Catholics, the pre Vatican II Catholics, we're close to a schism in the church between Bergoglia in this kind of radical way he's taking it. And Prevost, what my research found, we have lots of contacts in the Curia, we have lots of contacts in the Vatican. You know, I've spent a lot of time in Italy. We had a, we had a monastery that we actually owned for the government. Took it away from us to be kind of a counter to what was going on the Vatican. So we have a broad network of the traditionalists. And Prevost, and I'm saying this, the conclave for the Pope was more rigged than the 2020 election. Now why did I say. Let me back it up, some facts. On Piers Morgan's show, 10 days before the conclave started, I called, I said Prevost is the dark horse. He wasn't in any betting pool. If you look at Italian tv, nowhere. The reason is, is not only is the. He's only been a cardinal less than two years. He was the perfect acolyte for Begolia to continue his thing on the front page of the New York Times says that today if you read the whole huge front page story, more importantly, because of our efforts and other because the traditional church in America is on fire with vocations and young people and vibrancy and urgency, that we help cut off the money going to the Vatican. And so the Vatican, the Wall Street Journal had a huge article this week to show the Vatican has tons of assets, but they're illiquid. They need the American cash. They would never put a traditional American in that role because they think the American church has too much power. Prevost, what is going to be the contact for the big American donors? I know. I mean, there was a joke at the Time couple of days ago when he got mayor Pope that Mayor Daley had rigged another election. Chicago cardinal. But I mean his brother did, his brother did say he was not underestimating the reaction against Trump here and the influence of Pope Francis on having appointed 2/3, 3/4 of the cardinals, whatever it is. That's true, but he was. It is. And he worked in the dicastery for the archbishops. However, he was virtually totally unknown. The, the American cardinals came out today and said, you know, he's the least American of the cardinals, so we don't really know him. This was a true dark horse. And it only took three ballots, folks. It took one day, they had one vote late in the afternoon. Next day came back. It is impossible. And he talked. The Daily Mail reports he talked to his brother two days before the conclave and they were talking about picking Leo. He wanted to pick Leo, but he thought it might be the 13th and then they figured out it was the 14th. How would you talk to your brother about, about that? This was totally rigged by the Curia to be both anti Trump and, and, and, and, and, and to drive. We're going to have a schism in the church because the traditional Catholics are not going to go along with the continuation of Berglio. So let's park the Pope for a moment. I want to get. No, no, I asked, I asked you, I asked you about the Pope. Just to be clear, I told you not to go there. Yeah, yeah, let's start with it. Let's start with taxes. I'm not yet regretting having gone there, but let's park him. I want, I want to get into. I think it's fair to say that you are the best explainer of maga, particularly to audiences like this. And you know, you read the FT for a reason and that you present a theory of the case. And I was trying to think you were strategist during the 2016 election and then in the White House in Trump's first term. And you, you know, have been the chief explainer of MAGA to many, many audiences who equivalent of you. And the answer I came up with from past eras of figures who aren't necessarily elected but have a sort of command over shaping the zeitgeist was Grover Norquist. And Grover Norquist had a huge influence, very different, but a huge influence over Republicans in Washington by getting them to sign the anti tax pledge which you know, was binding and sort of militantly enforced. And he really shaped the Republican Party into being purely a party of tax cuts. You're Quite different. But I want you to explain first before I sort of follow up in why you're different. I mean, you don't believe in tax cuts, right? I believe in massive tax cuts for the middle class and the working class and permanent. I believe if we can't cut federal spending, that the wealthy in this country at least the millionaires ought to be at 40% as a start. The country's in a financial crisis. The people that may. We've had the greatest concentration of wealth under President Obama because of the bailouts in 2008, how they were done. And now because of COVID we have a tremendous concentration of wealth in this country. Such we have a capitalist system with very few capitalists. I think 75% of the people don't own any real assets or financial assets. So we have to have fundamental change in this country. Part of that has to come from the tax structure. I think you see from Grover Norquist, they're playing from a playbook. We've changed the electorate in the Republican Party. We are a working class and middle class party. And the reason is the Democrats, the credentialed class, completely abandoned the Democratic Party. I come from a Democratic family. We were Irish. You know, people, firemen, phone workers, cops, that type of thing, union people. And the Democratic Party abandoned us. And that's why, you know, 100 and some days into this, there's no real theory of the case on the Democratic side. Bob Reich, the Labor Secretary, wrote this brilliant piece in the Guardian the other day calling for a left wing populism. But there's no left wing populism until you start talking about economic issues. You can watch MSNBC or these things all night long and you never see Ro Khanna is never on Fetterman. They're trying to run out of the party. Sherrod Brown's defeated. They never talk about the core issues of, of economics that are important to the American people. And we're going to get into that just, I mean, quickly. How often do you talk to President Trump? I think if you watch the show, we're four hours a day. He gets clips every day. And I think you can see that a lot of the truth, socials or things come out of some of the stuff we say. But it's frequently enough. Frequently enough. I don't want to listen. He's got the weight of the world on his shoulders. The last thing he needs is a Steve Bannon calling him up all the time. Hey, here are my thoughts. My thoughts are out. My thoughts are on that show every Day. The reason the show is so powerful, it's a working class audience in a middle class audience who are activists. It's all about using your human agency. No. And we. And so, and so by doing that he sees it. Is it sort of daily, weekly? No, no, I don't call it. I don't talk to him once a day. No. He's got the way the world shows where he's banned. Why isn't he banned? Bugging him for on some, I ask in this context is there's a budget before the House and that budget says, says we will pay for the tax cuts with cuts to Medicaid, essentially 880 billion, whatever it is to the middle class. Well, hold it. He's not on. And he's clearly, Trump is clearly conflicted on this. He's got Elon Musk on this shoulder and Steve Bannon on this. Right. Or maybe it's Tucker Carlson, I don't know. But he has. Well, Tucker not on the economics. He has different perspectives on the economics on both Medicaid and the tax cuts. He watches the show. He knows where I stand. We send the staff a lot of information. And the Jason Millers in the world that are not in, remember there are many prominent people that, that give advice to President Trump, Boris Epstein, Jason Miller who are not in the administration. You know, Scott Besant was a contributor on our show. Navarro was a co host. Russ Vogt was a contributor. So it's not that we lack for these things. And President Trump, I think that shows you the difference. The Republican Party that, that you talk about with Grover Norcus is dead. Okay. The electorate has totally changed. We haven't changed the apparatus on Capitol Hill. That's why we still have these fights. They want to cut $880 billion out of Medicaid and you can't do it because MAGA MAGA is on Medicaid because there's not great jobs in this country. Okay, so let's say that it happens that let's typify it as a Grover Norquist bill because that is a Grover. I would rather, I'd rather say I was Mark Rylance and Cromwell in Wolf hall than Grover Norquist. It certainly, it's certainly more gripping to watch. Well, no, it's not. This is, this is gripping to watch. And right now it looks like Grover Norquist bill is going to be passed. I totally, I told, I totally disagree with. Okay, first off, Grover Norquist doesn't want no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime. He's a protector of what the Republican Party was kind of still part of it is, is a big donor party. It's one of the problems with the Democrats. The big, the big donors run the Democratic Party also. Everything you see on MSNBC and Fox is all pro wrestling. It's not the heart of it. The heart of it is money and power. And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to do this by breaking the Grover Norquist mentality on Capitol Hill and is a struggle. But I think if you see this bill right now, that's why they didn't. They haven't put out whether the upper brackets are going to be permanent. There's all types of moving pieces on this. And the date you have to look at is the debt ceiling in August. This is going to be fought, negotiated, marked up, debated intensely over the next couple of months. Now I take it you would support a tax increase on the very wealthy. Oh, definitely. A serious one or a symbolic one? No, seriously, the math doesn't work unless you do that. You have to for the upper bracket. I think the entire upper bracket but I would go to $1 million and above. Have to pay to 40%. Have to pay 40%. They don't get and they definitely don't get a tax cut permanently. And if they can't help on cutting the spending which they're one of the drivers of, eventually taxes may have to go up from that. But you can't. The system we have is unsustainable. You can't have $2 trillion deficits annually and continue to try to finance those where the world's reserve currency now. But the brics nations and the rest of the world are getting smart to the scheme. The reason I'm sort of pressing you on this is because you are really. I mean you diagnosed. I agree with your diagnosis of what's happened to the middle class in the last 40 years or so. They have been squeezed and there has been a rising inequality and there has been populist resentment. Some of it comes from that, not all of it but. And we can get on to the other bits, but some of it comes from that. And so you identify inequality as an issue. But the sort of simple way of looking at this thing is if you want to redress inequality, you're going to have to reduce freedom. Freedom and inequality are a zero sum game. Yet your freedom for the billionaires. Is that my trade off? Well, that might be, but that's rhetorical. Let me finish my. I'll hit the Bid on that. Okay, but the freedom inequality thing is generally seen as a trade off. And yet your solution to the, I think, correctly diagnosed, for what it's worth, middle class problem is for more freedom is the deconstruction of the administrative state. Yes. Which makes life easier for billionaires. There's a real tension there. Yes, but look, okay, but hang on, let's be specific right now. And this is what populist nationalism is doing right now in this city. We have the oligarchs up against the wall. We have Google. This is the FTC under President Trump, Ferguson, Gail Slater and the team over the antitrust division at doj, Main justice, the fcc. And hey, we're all advocates of Lina Khan, who was one of the best chairmen of the FTC ever had and hung out to dry by the Democratic Party because they're owned by the oligarchs. We have the oligarchs. We have Google. We're breaking up Google. We have the search engine in one court in Northern Virginia. We have the ad sales apparatus in the other, Facebook. He went and begged Trump in the Oval Office multiple times, don't send me to trial. He's in trial right now. Are you sure this isn't a shakedown and that at some point Google, Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai will be able to call off these antitrust actions by going to Trump and saying, we'll give you a billion dollars of free legal advice? Look, President Trump, by selecting this team, this team, we are neo Brandeisians like Lina Khan. This is the most aggressive antitrust apparatus we've ever had. This goes back to, like Teddy Roosevelt or fdr. You're confident that this is. Here's where I'm confident. I'm confident that they all came and begged for mer. They all came to beg for mercy. And they're all in federal court getting broken up right now. Now, are they going? The city people know this. The city's run by the by big pharma, big tech and the big defense industry. Let's not kid ourselves. Let's have an adult conversation. They own it. They own the law firms. They own their partners with the private equity firms. They own all the lobbyists. They own the media, except for the Financial Times and a few brave others. No, but you know this. And so, yes, it's an uphill struggle. And I think President Trump's been particularly heroic in this and hasn't gotten any credit. Every day in the Oval Office is a pressure cooker right where they're coming at him from every different angles. And, you know, the broligarchs, you know, Elon Musk wrote a big check to back a ground game that without that check, we would have won. But it had been a much tougher tractor pole. I don't think we would have heard about it at 10:00 clock at night on the 5th. Okay, so they get some Runway. But Trump is crushing the oligarchs right now. You described Elon Musk as, I think, a parasitical illegal immigrant. Is that right? Or words to that effect? Words to that, yes. And I'm very proud of the fact that I'm the only person, except some folks on the left that stood up to him because of the H1B visas. That's where it started. Which is a total scam to do nothing but take jobs away. This is why we have no minorities, no blacks and Hispanics in Silicon valleys, because the H1B visas, we're bringing indentured servants over here from other countries who shouldn't be. It's outrageous we're doing that. But that was just one. Elon Musk and I had many, many fights. But Elon Musk is gone, right? Elon Musk is gone and I'm still here. I will concede that point. I mean, and you also, you called him a racist and said he should go back to South Africa. And what we are seeing though, on the other side of the ledger is that the only refugees being admitted to this country are Africanas, Boas or whatever. I disagree with that totally. It does. Look, I mean, if I understand that there is a sort of Fortress America element to maga, but do you see how the rest of the world sees this? Look, there's. I don't agree with everything. You're not going to agree with everything. There's so many huge things going on and President Trump on so many different levels is delivering so far beyond, you know, whether it's national security strategy, America first economics or the deportations, the ceiling of the border in 60 days when people told it's going to take 10 years and 2 million more invaders. He's doing so much. Some of the stuff I don't agree with. I think a lot of that's on the margin. I'm a believer that right now, to protect the African American and Hispanic community in this country, working class and middle class people, that we ought to cease, at least temporarily, all visas into the country. All. I don't care if you're from Norway, South Africa or wherever, just work or work visas or no work visas. When President Trump said he wanted to put a green card, staple it to every college degree, I said, and I said, look, I love the President. I know what he wants to make this the best and the brightest. I would staple an exit visa that gives them 30 days to go back home. The American kids in this country under 30 can't get jobs they can buy houses on. The only way you're going to do that is start. Stop having the world come to their country and compete against them. And so I'm, I'm a hardcore. We have to stop it temporarily get all the scams out of these visa programs because they're riddled with scams by the corporations. We have to make them for the American citizen first, in the country first, and then open it back up, says, Doge been a failure. Doge was not. Here's look, I was deconstructing Ministry of State and destroy the deep state. What Doge did, I think you did have to give kind of a trauma blow to the administrative state to get their attention. What I didn't like about Doge and I said it from day one, it's getting the people on Capitol Hill off the hook on this, on the smart cuts we have to make to federal spending. We spend about 1.7 trillion discretionary before you get to the entitlements, because you're never going to get to the entitlements. The American people will never trust you until they see what you can do on discretionary. And discretionary has to start in the Pentagon. We can't afford. And we don't need a $1 trillion defense budget. Okay, but you have to do it smartly. Look at all these. All the congressmen were running around like little kids, thinking he's some fairy godmother that's going to give him a trillion dollars in fraud. That's not going to happen. There is fraud in the system. There's plenty of fraud over in the Pentagon of which they didn't turn. At least they didn't expose any. So it gave people off the hook. So now we're in May with a debt ceiling that's going to come due. And Scott Bessens, as smart as you get with a debt ceiling, is going to come due in, in, in August. And if you look at these cuts, it's kind of ephemeral. It's 163 billion. But they didn't touch defense. You don't know if they're really real cuts we've wasted in that regard. I think, you know, three or four valuable Months because Doge didn't deliver. And if they have, I would love to do it. I keep asking Ross, vote every couple of days, have we codified the waste, fraud and abuse that was supposed to be seen by, by Doge? I saw yesterday on the Hill, I think the Senate voted against some, some bill to actually codify the Doge cuts in one department. So, no, I think overall what it's done is okay, but it's been like an IT department. So one of your most quoted comments is deconstruction of the administrative state. Yeah. You want to cut the fiscal deficit, right? I mean, you've just been outlining what it's six and a half percent of GDP right now. We have to get down to three. Three. Is the IRS part of the administrative state? Yes. So how are you going to cut the deficit if you're not collecting? Well, I did say, listen, it's, it's. Do you cut blindly? No. The administrative state has become a fourth branch of government that's not elected. Whether aoc and I saw it up close and personal in the, in the White House, whether AOC's president or Donald Trump's president. The administrative state and the deep state run this town. Okay. They don't really. You're just passing through. That's what we have to break up. This, this fourth branch of government that was never conceived in the Constitution. This is where I'm confused though. Okay. I mean, so I mean, is the DOJ and the FTC that are prosecuting Google, are they the deep state? The, the, the other. No, the deep state is that. No, that's the administrative state. And we fought, but there's two. The administrative state is the bureaucracy in the administrative state that runs things. The deep state is the kind of rogue praetorian guard of certain elements, the Defense Department, Intelligence, FBI, DOJ that run the deal and have to be. And have to be rooted out, root and branch. The administrative state. We fought the other day on the show. We lit up Jordan's office when it came that they want to do away with the ftc, they magically want to do away with the FTC and make one agency right as a cost cutting. Just when FTC's got Zuckerberg, you know, in court, and we came on and said, no, you can't do it, and they backed off the other day. I'm not an anarchist and we're not libertarians. We don't say you can't have any state. What you can have is an administrative state that has a $7 trillion budget that is out of control. You have to deconstruct that. You have to get down to the limited government. Conservatives have talked about it forever. We're actually doing it now. And you can do it. And you can keep an ftc, you can keep an fcc, you can keep a doj, FBI. Quite frankly, I think the FBI should be eliminated. And Cash Patel is a very close friend of mine. And Cash Patel clearly has other ideas because he went to Congress yesterday and asked for a billion dollars more than President Trump put in the budget. So, no, there's aspects of this that have to be taken apart. There are other aspects that have to be streamlined for more efficiency, more effectiveness. But we're not anarchists. We don't want to get. We want. We don't want to do away with all of the state. So I'm aware of the time. I've got tons of questions, but I'm aware it would be selfish to take up all the remaining time and so there will be some left for the audience. The other phrase that you're most quoted as having said is flooding the zone with shit. Now, flooding the zone with shit implies some of the stuff you're flooding isn't shit, right? So I promised. I promised. I promised I'd get back to the Pope. Clearly, Clearly Trump, you know, picturing himself sending out a picture, a meme of him as the Pope. That shit, right? And we all get outraged. And our outrage is part of the pleasure of politics. It's two or three maggots. It's two or three things. It was in the first term because we didn't, you know, we came from behind. We had no team, no organization. There was no bench. And I said, at the time of pbs, we were trying to put up two or three things a day. So the media jumps on one, and the other two. They're not trolling. We get. Now, this is why it was. So that was trolling, though. And then it worked, right? I mean, I'd like to be pope. I'd be a great pope. Elect me Pope. Clearly, the reaction was outrage. And it's quite. I was amused. But that's how the left. The left kills himself, because they jump all over this and they have trolling. That's trolling. But then some of the stuff isn't shit. Some of the stuff's real. Do you know instinctively when Trump, how, however often you talk to him, do you know instinctively which shit and which is. No, because you can see, this is Project 2025. The. The phrase that shall not be used Right in the. This is why the providential win in 16, the steal in 20, was actually just as providential from our perspective. We could see just how radical this government would be. Remember, all of us in Trump's inner circle and Trump himself debanked deep platformed IRS audits, eventually prison. They tried to send Trump to prison for 700 years. So in. But in doing this, in coming back as Trump did, in understanding what they're going to do, we had to. A political strategy was the precinct strategy to get people active, to use your agency to go take over every precinct, to take over the Republican Party and build a real base of MAGA for Trump. The other was these public intellectuals. Stephen Miller at America First Law, America First Policy Institute, with Brooks Rollins, Russ Vogt at CRA DeMint and Meadows over at CPI. And the kind of overarching was the heritage Dr. Roberts in Project 25. That was to take every vertical that we had to hit the deck plates. And we had not done it in the first term. And actually, when you hit this time, instead of two or three things, you're going to have five executive orders, you're going to have five executive actions, you're going to have actual things that you're going to flood the zone and so overwhelm the opposition that can't come up. And that is what the first hundred days, I think, has shown you. There's been some trolling. You can, you can decode what Trump really means from what I mean. And presumably trade wars are easy to win. There's something he's believed for many decades, or at least trade wars are worth fighting. The trade deficits are a measure of how much we're being ripped off. That's not flooding the zone with shit, right? That is something that he actually believes. Well, yes, we believe that to the core of our being, our movement. Can you tell? Because there's stuff in between. Can you tell? I don't know. When he says abrego Garcia has ms.13 on his knuckles. I mean, we know that Photoshop. But hang on. But when you've got. He's a Maryland man and you know that he worked for a human trafficker in Houston. He was picked up in his car in Tennessee. We have police reports about that. And the media is going to sit there like he's some innocent victim. Stop it. This guy's a hardened criminal and he's leaving the country. And if the Democratic Party wants to argue about a guy like that coming back from El Salvador from our prison, go ahead and argue it. It's a 9010 issue. And you only. This shows me how out of touch the Democratic Party is, because that issue is about protecting Hispanics and African American working class in this country. You might be right about him. I don't know. But I mean, I think the argument's also, does he get due process? That's the real argument. But a guy. Hold it. You don't. There is no due process. If you're not an American citizen, you're here illegally. There's no due process. And I'm telling you, this is coming to a head because President Trump, we started it on the show and this is how it picks up momentum. We are going to suspend the writ of habeas corpus if the courts keep ruling against us and don't allow these mass deportations to continue. Just like President Lincoln. This was an invasion. The country's at war. He's commander in Chief. It's Article 2 Power. And this is going to come. Are you predicting that will happen or argue first off, there is going to be a constitutional crisis before the court leaves. You know this. You just saw the federal judge, judge in San Francisco last night ruled against him his article 2 power to basically rearrange and take, you know, fire people in these agencies, etc. There's a challenge. The only way the Democrats are even winning right now is to delay, is to deny, is to delay. They have no political operation. They have no counter argument. They have no populist economics. So what they're doing is getting more and more radical on these raids like they did in New Jersey yesterday, and the judges are trying to stop him. The Supreme Court's going to have to make a decision about President Trump's Article 2 powers and we're going to see it. And I believe if the courts keep trying to slow him down, you're going to see him as Stephen Miller laid out pretty well yesterday. And it'll be, I'm sure, developed over time, suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, just like President Lincoln did in the Civil War. But if, and this is, I'm asking for a prediction. If the Supreme Court votes the wrong way, from your point of view, do you predict that Trump will ignore it? I think we'll have to wait till that time. That's what I'm saying. What's your instinct? I don't think first, I don't think we'll lose. We'll win at least five, four, probably more. But I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, handcuff President Trump on what he's going to do and what his possibilities are. He's the commander in chief. He is, we are have been invaded. This is the easy part too. These are the criminals and the terrorists. We have 10 million more people that have to leave the country or we don't have a country. We have to do it humanely. We have to do it with Judeo Christian values. But they have to go. And this is what the Democrats know by jamming us up in court right now and making this so painful, how tough it's going to be. But before the Supreme Court leaves for their summer break, there's going to be, there's going to be a constitutional crisis going on. Can we have like a four minute rapid fire round before I'll open it to the audience? Will Trump run for a third term? Yes. So. And he'll win the third term and he'll be, well, what does the court think about that? I mean we'll have to see at the time. Okay. I mean it does. The 22nd Amendment is pretty clear on this, right? There's, it's pretty clear what his Article 2 power is. And I think we have 250 lawsuits in federal court right now. So when people tell me that it's pretty clear, it's pretty clear what the President's power is, it's pretty clear what his power is to basically reprogram. And he had a federal judge yesterday said it gave a temporary restraining order for the entire Nation on 21 different agencies. So when I hear that argument, I say, hey, there's a, the Constitution's clear on a lot of things until it's defined. President Trump will run again. He will run again and he will win again. And he'll be the president on the afternoon of 20 January 2029. But you're justifying him breaking 22nd amendment by saying you think you're questioning judges orders on various executive actions is saying. I didn't say, I'm going to say we're going to break the 22nd Amendment. There are multiple workarounds. You mean running as debt? Running is running. There's many, there's multiple. At the appropriate time, probably after the 22 midterms, I will lay out the case of the president. Trump has nothing to do with this. He's already said, hey look, I want to be here four years and do a great job. And you can tell the pressure on him every day. He's leaving for Saudi Arabia, what, tomorrow. The pressure on him every day. This is something that we're totally doing on the outside. But it's a very serious effort. And the reason it's a serious effort, a guy like Trump comes along once in a country's history. We've had General Washington at the, at the birth of the country. We've had Lincoln at the rebirth. We've had President Trump. This is the age of folks. You can like it or not like it. Let me give you a fact. You're living in the age of Trump. This is the age of Trump. He's totally redefined American politics. He's totally redefined politics going forward. He saved our nation from going down at the hand of these globalists. So let's get back to rapid fire. I mean, and I was going to move. The question was going to be, is Vladimir Putin a force for good? No, he's KGB agent, not a force for good. The Russian people. You saw the ceremony the other day. Russian people were our great ally in World War II. 35 million gave their lives fighting the Nazis like Lao Baijing, the Chinese. And we abandoned both of them at the end of the war and threw them to the dogs. And then in 89, when both of those systems collapsed, we threw them to the dogs again. Those are our allies. No, Putin's not a good guy. He's not a force for good in the world. He's a KGB guy. Was Joseph Stalin a force for good in the world? Are you asking me? No, I'm saying because we were partnered with Joseph Stalin. He's right up there with Hitler. Okay. We've partnered with very bad people in the past. And what you saw happening in Moscow the last couple of days was Xi and Putin looking like two teenagers on a first date is not good for this country. We had every opportunity to try to have a Russian rapprochement and pull Russia out of that relationship with China. And this is going to have now a massive, terrible impact, not just for our current generation, but for future generations. Are you turning a bit on Putin? No, I've never been a pro Putin guy. He's a kgb. Do you think Trump is turning a bit on Putin? I don't think so. I think, look, he understands. These guys are the mullahs, Xi, the criminals in Beijing and in Moscow. These are bad hombres. Nobody says they're good guys. They're bad hombres. Trump knows that. They didn't cross Trump. They wouldn't have gone to Ukraine. They didn't go to Ukraine when Trump is there because they're not going to cross him. But President Trump, seeing it right now and trying to get to some solution in Ukraine. He sees exactly how they act. They're going to do what's in their interest. Right. And this is going to be a grind. And that's, I think, with President Trump going to the Gulf Emirates this week is a start. Right. He just, they had some sort of involvement in this Kashmir thing. I think what people understand, that arc of instability from Ukraine all the way down through Turkey. That arc of instability is like a tinderbox right now. You're one, one misstep away from the whole thing going up. This is, this is the kinetic part of the Third World War. It's much bloodier what's happened the last since Ukraine than what happened From Poland to June 41with a Vermont going into Russia. It's much bloody. It's five times bloodier. We're in a kinetic part of a global struggle right now. So two very final, I mean, rapid, if possible, more rapid than it's been. Which Democrat do you most fear right now? None, really, because they haven't embraced economic populism and economic nationalism. There's a lot of talent over there. It just seems to kind of wander around. You have a lot of governors that could be very competitive, although I think we're past that era. You've got maybe it's a Mark Cuban, you know, you don't know how Newsom is going to reposition himself. And we'll have to see. It's going to be. They have to get a idea of how to turn the country around economically, the final one. Then we'll get to the comment that Trump made the other day with Terry Moran of ABC that, no, he's not going to run for a third term. He's not going to take your advice. And it should be Vance or Rubia. That sounded to me like a classic set your underlings against each other. Are you set? Among others. But, you know, if you were to choose, who would Trump's successor be? Who would that be? Trump. It's going to be Trump because otherwise you're going to get around all the court intrigue. We have to focus. We have to monogue. We have a, we need a sense of urgency on what we're doing. And that to me is the best way is to just focus on it's going to be Trump. We'll figure out how we get there. We're already way down the road on that. Focus on now. Between now and the midterms of everything that has to happen, national security wise, the economy, the deportations, You've got so many huge. Think about it. Every day there's some historical event going on. We have to focus on that. And if we get caught up in the court intrigue, and that's what the media wants. The media wants a horse race. They want court intrigue inside the White House between Marco and J.D. it's not relevant. It's irrelevant. It's actually relevant. Trump wanted that, though. I mean, that was my point. So sorry, I've been stealing time, first of all here and then there and then. Dimitri. Yes. One, two, three. Steve, can you preview. Hello. Can you preview what's going to happen locally in D.C. if the bowser act passes and home rule goes away? You have any knowledge on that? Well, how could, how could it get, as a resident of dc, how could it get any worse under home rule? I mean, home rule has been a disaster. I think, I think this, that's why I wanted Ed Martin to be D.C. attorney. But Gene and those people who didn't like Ed Martin, Judge Jeanine will be 10 times a bigger hammer. But you know, they already took down the crime, I think 20 or 25%. This is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It ought to be one of the safest cities in the world. And it's a very unsafe city. I live right in back of the Supreme Court on Capitol Hill, and it's very unsafe there. And so we have to do something. I think it's got to be pretty dramatic. Second, then third. So the gentleman there. And then. And then Dimitri. Hi, Steve. I'm James Laddie Williams. Would you say the American people have a common narrative or perception of how well the country is doing or not doing? And secondly, would it be advantageous to the President's success in leading the nation for the people to have a shared narrative on how well the country is doing or not? And finally, what is the role of the media in driving to that shared narrative, if it is indeed advantageous or desired? I think, I think the shared narrative, if you look at working class people, there's 9 million people that have working two jobs is what, 1.43. There's $1.4 trillion of credit card debt. 10% of that's non performing. The life of the working class of people that get up every day, black, Hispanic, white, Asian and go to work, is terrible in this country. They can barely make it. They're falling behind every day. This is why they don't want to be on Medicaid. The reason MAGA's on Medicaid, because the jobs we shipped, all the high value added manufacturing jobs Wall street did and the private equity firms did overseas so they can make Lao Beijing slave labor. So there's a common narrative and the media doesn't go look for it. And this is why Trump keeps coming up as a surprise. Why does Trump keep winning? Why does Trump have increasing support among particularly black men? Why does Trump have support of Hispanics? Why did Star Valley? Star county in Texas is 97% Hispanic. Down the Rio Grande Valley, it's the most hardscrabble county in this country. We lost it by 60 points in 2016. We won it by 16 points in 2024. The Hispanic communities coming our way, the black community is coming our way. That's the common narrative. It's right there. If the credentialed class of the Democratic Party gave a shit, they just went out and just saw what they saw, they would understand what the common narrative of this is that the working class and middle class in this country are getting screwed by the elites in this nation. Steve Dimitri from the ft, how do you defend to the MAGA camp that you are a fan of the newspaper that's loved by the credentialist class in America? That's my simple question. My other question is in the last few decades, one of the most conservative justices in the Supreme Court, Scalia, he and Ginsburg didn't agree on very much. They both agreed that people in the United States, whether they are citizens or an Irishman like me, are afforded the same rights under the Constitution. Why was Scalia wrong? I don't think foreigners are courted the rights. But I'm not a Constitution. Well, it's my own personal belief but I think that will also be tried again with the same with the 14th amendment. Your first question I teach this how is War Room so powerful to a blue collar and working class audience? We teach this newspaper every day. We pull Ed's clips on Morning Joe and it's interesting. The only time you see the Financial Times, the only time you see people really talking about issues on msnbc, either Morning Joe or Stephanie rule early in the morning, late at night. The whole rest of it is nothing but pro wrestling, totally irrelevant. That's why the Democratic Party's not going to change. It's just grievance and Trump, they're blowing their heads up this paper. You guys are globalists. I understand that. I don't fault you with that. The best way to teach a working class audience how the nation really works, not what they see on Fox. All that phony crap on Fox is to show them how money and power work, to show them what capital markets are, why the 10 year bond's so important, why Liz Truss got turfed out by the bond market. Why we as Americans are now going to have our own moment with the bond market. Because when this comes this August with the debt ceiling, don't think we have unlimited alternatives. We as Americans, because we either kick the can down the road or let the elites in the country make decisions, we are every day having narrower and narrower alternatives. This is why now we have to go into discretionary spending. That's going to hurt. And guess what, that's just, that's just the first level. It's going to hurt a lot more. So the FT and I also, when I taught my class in prison, I used the ft. Thanks. Sorry, I didn't see hands. No, I can't believe there are no questions. I can see a hand there. Sorry, it's a bit bright. Thank you. Steve, can you speak to deregulation and AI and the effects on the electorate and how the administration may reconcile that tension between achieving that and helping American workers? It is the most serious thing I think we have. And I do respect the Pope yesterday when he said he took Leo XIV as. Because Leo XIII was about social justice and the industrial revolution and he wanted to be that. About artificial intelligence. Right now a nail salon in Washington D.C. has more regulations than these four guys running wild on artificial intelligence right now. We have no earthy idea what's going on. Remember the Democratic Party made a deal with those oligarchs in 2000 when Obama ran that they would have no antitrust. You know, Facebook, Google, Twitter, all of it, all the big five. And what happens? The Chinese come out with TikTok and show on the social media side that we're years behind. We're like were like model T cars compared to their addictive social media. And then Deep Sea comes out, whether it's a Chinese psyop or real and shows us that our method of artificial intelligence is not the best. And what do the oligarchs ask for right away? They ask for a bailout. They want $500 billion and they want us to turn the national weapons labs over to them. These people's greed and avarice know no bounds and they are working on things right now that we will not be able to control. I call for, I think we ought to have tremendous regulations on artificial intelligence. And I don't want to hear the Chinese are so far behind, so far ahead. Okay, that's an excuse. We can work this out. And if we have to, you're going to get to a time that you're going to have military intervention on these data centers to take care of out of control artificial intelligence going down the path we're going, which is quite dangerous. So I think time for one. Well, depending on the length of your answer, maybe two more questions, but certainly one. Sorry, I can't really see. We haven't had a woman asking a question. Hi, Steve. Thank you. I have a question about jobs. So you said that you'd like to bring good jobs back to America. So two part question. First is if you deport all the illegal immigrants, who is going to mow your lawn, clean the kitchens, you know, pick fruit and all that? These are not very good jobs. So who's going to do them? And then the second question is about good jobs. So the good jobs are for lower class is building iPhones and for middle class is tech jobs. And a lot of people have said that there are not enough skilled people here in this country to do these jobs. You know, tech, tech companies are not stupid. They hire H1B people because they're skilled. They have the skills. Not enough. No, stop, please stop. That is not true. That is not true. This is the false narrative they put out. I have asked for the millions of HB1 people that are here. I have said show me one, not two, not three. Show me one that has a higher education level or better job training for the billet they're in than an American citizen. This is a total scam. And your question, quite frankly, is all this is all the Wall Street. Oh, no. The American people are too lazy. They're too uneducated. You know what? The American people have freed more people and built more wealth than any other nation on this earth. And if I get a bet, I'm going to bet on them and we're going to win this bet. So yes, the people here, you have indentured servants that came into the country illegally that are going to cut your grass for less money than you pay an American. And that's appropriate. It's not appropriate. You don't have a country like that. But it's not a good job. Mowing a lawn is not a great job for anyone. I started mowing lawns. People start. This is how people start. And if at some point in time you need worker visas, whatever, you can work that out after you've taken care of the problem. Let's see if that's a problem. Let's see where these labor shortages are. And right now you can't tell me there's not enough qualified American kids coming out of engineering schools that could fill every job in Silicon Valley. The reason is they're paying them 50% less in their works and their lifestyle. They're working. You know, it's like slave labor. It's not right. It's indentured servitude. It should never go on in our country. And we're not going to show the working class in this country, we're particularly not going to show African Americans and Hispanics that you actually have a way in a modern industrial society until we make these changes. And yes, they're going to be hard. I'm not sitting here saying it's going to be easy, but we're America, this is what we do. We're not going to just sit there and go, okay, let's have the whole world here because Americans are too dumb and lazy to take these jobs. So are we. Sorry, I can't really see anybody. Am I supposed to end now? It's been at zero for a while. We could end on lawn mowing. Is anybody all right? Oh, Mark, sorry. All right, Mark Blythe. Steve, longtime listener, first time caller. I agree with so much of what you say is your diagnosis. But then we break. There's certain bits where I just can't take it. And one part of this, the follow up on what was just said isn't. I absolutely agree. We shouldn't be, we shouldn't be celebrating people mowing a lawn for two bucks. It's ridiculous. Right? But there is such a thing as demography. We didn't have enough kids. The population is getting older. Look at the average age of this room. Right, hang on. No, seriously, why do we have. We don't have family. Because people under 35. Steve. No, come on, let me finish. Right. Immigration is part of the human experience. I am a Scot who lives in America. I'm a naturalized citizen. I love this country. I Do you want to deny that to everyone? What is going on here? Of course I don't want to deny it to everyone, but we got to get our own house in order. First, let's talk about demographics. Why are we having fewer kids? Because the economic formation of people comes later. Young men don't have great jobs right now in this country. Young women, there's not. My dad was a foreman for the phone company. We had five kids that went to Catholic school and a mom who was a homemaker who raised us. That's the country we've got to get back to and that's the country we can get back to. I didn't say that you had. Come on. I didn't say that the wife had to be the homemaker. You can make a pick. This is why you're not serious. This is why you're not serious. We have a demographic problem in the country because of an economic problem that underlays it. You've got to solve that economic problem. Kids under 40 today, they're nothing more than Russian serfs. They don't own anything and they're not going to own anything. And that's not. We haven't done this for 14 generations to leave it like that. That has to be changed. We have to change that. And yes, the people that want to come over here and immigrate, there's a system for that and we're not going to shut that down. I think we have to shut down the scams of these visas right now to give priority to American citizens. And yes, we can get back to a situation where you have one provider, whether it's the husband or the wife, the other is at home and you can raise kids like we used to raise kids in this country with hands on from their parents. And that's. We're going to turn this country around. And if you, and if you're going to laugh and mock at that, fine, laugh and mock of it. But that's what we're working on. The family as the unit. Steve, I mean, first of all, let me just, I have to end it because it's now sub sub zero and they've had enough to say what? No, no, I think it's been very engaging. And I will say one thing. I mean, you engage with us and I can think of people who manage institutions not very far from here who are not very engaging on your side of the political spectrum. And so thank you for being here and engaging with us. Thank you, thank you, thanks for having me.

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