Stephen K. Bannon is back in the War Room to talk about the debt ceiling and debt ceiling crisis, and how to deal with it. He also talks about the impact on the midterms and the upcoming primary election in Montana.
00:03:50.740It's got a lot of great things in it on debt ceiling, on spending, on the rule.
00:03:55.800If you look at three buckets, on kind of rules and processes of what I call regular order,
00:04:00.080spending is another bucket with debt ceiling, spending, restrictions.
00:04:05.080They're talking about going to a fiscal year 22 baseline, all kind of complicated stuff about getting control of the spending.
00:04:11.880And then you've got the investigations, and particularly you've got this joint committee or a subcommittee now on the weaponization of government,
00:04:20.720really what is called a church committee.
00:04:22.300I want to get Matt Rosendale in here, and I just want to make sure people at home understand Scott Jennings is a former McConnell running dog,
00:04:33.380and he's on CNN, very slick guy, comms guy.
00:04:37.820Right there, that's the big misdirection play.
00:04:40.000You know, everybody in the – because all Republicans and all MAGA like the shiny toy, right?
00:04:45.560They like the shiny toy, and so they're looking at the shiny toy investigation.
00:04:48.120The investigations are coming, and they're going to be systematic, and they're going to be serious.
00:04:53.860Whether that happens today, next week, or the following week, it doesn't matter.
00:04:56.460You know, people are already pulling this information from last year, et cetera.
00:05:00.620Also, the number one thing is the investigations are absolutely critical and very important,
00:05:06.940but the number one thing is obviously get control of the country's finances.
00:05:10.700And that's what Mitch McConnell and his running dog, Scott Jennings, never want to talk to you about.
00:05:13.860The number one priority, Brother Jennings, write this down, take out your number two pencil, is to get control of the spending.
00:05:20.860And yes, sir, since your former boss was the guy that jammed through with the collaborators, the omnibus bill,
00:05:29.880the number one thing Mitch McConnell wants to deliver for all the lobbyists, all the corporations,
00:05:35.720all the Wall Street cronies and oligarchs is a huge debt ceiling increase.
00:05:40.400So no, Scott, we're not taking misdirection play.
00:05:42.320Congressman Matt Rosendale from Montana, too, the subject of that last.
00:05:59.300You guys adjourn until 10 o'clock tonight.
00:06:01.620I'm sure there's a couple of star chambers going on in the dead of night.
00:06:06.760We're going to talk about some of the games they may play.
00:06:08.920But give us your assessment of where you think we stand right now.
00:06:12.320So we had a not what I would call a highly successful day for the people of America.
00:06:18.800We did lose some ground on the support that we had gathered together to move forward the agenda to actually make real reform in the House of Representatives,
00:06:29.120to change the rules so that we had a more open system so that each of the members were able to represent their districts equally
00:06:36.800and to make sure that we had leadership in place that we could rely upon to help us achieve that.
00:06:48.320You know, Steve, when you are cooking and you're trying to create a really nice sauce for a dish that you're going to serve up to your wife for a special event, Valentine's Day,
00:06:59.440the more you reduce it, the better it gets.
00:07:02.520So, by golly, you know, I would like to think we've got the special sauce right now.
00:07:06.420And we are still trying to deliver the message to the American people that we are fighting for them.
00:07:12.200The team may be small, but we are solid.
00:07:14.860And we are trying to make sure that we push forward.
00:07:17.360There are negotiations that are going on.
00:07:19.580We had pushed forward many of these concepts early on in this process.
00:07:24.700As you know, we've been discussing this for quite some time, all the way back in the summer.
00:07:28.920And it seems that they are trying to refine more of the points.
00:07:34.980But as you made perfectly clear, the rules won't be voted upon until after the speaker is seated.
00:07:41.140So, that's a bit problematic if they seat a speaker that you're not so sure that will actually push those rules forward and advocate for them and champion them and then uphold them.
00:07:56.440So, there's an incredible leap of faith that there's a lot of people taking right now that clearly I have not been willing to take that leap of faith.
00:08:08.380I talked to a lot of people in the hedge fund community on Wall Street, throughout the world, different capital markets and corporate executives.
00:08:16.600One thing to get started, when you first approached McCarthy and others first approached McCarthy, was it in the summer?
00:08:22.980How long ago have there been discussions about what had to change?
00:08:29.380There was a written list of amendments to the rules that needed to take place, both the conference rules and the House rules, in order to give people the ability to represent their districts better.
00:08:43.040Yeah, that's sort of back in the summer.
00:08:44.380And we really weren't greeted to have those conversations at that time.
00:08:51.780And as I've said, that's because Kevin thought he was going to have 250 or 260 members in the Republican conference and really was not going to have to contend with the people that were there to truly restore this system, our republic.
00:09:09.040So, it took until November the 9th before we really started having substantive conversations about these rules packages.
00:09:16.480Now, I do know that they are putting some very good language in place to allow the body to control spending and appropriations as it goes out onto the floor.
00:09:30.940So, I know that they are trying to do that.
00:09:32.840But you have to remember that sometime or another, Steve, the Speaker of the House is going to have to go over to the Senate and or the White House and negotiate from some point of strength that here is the best deal that they're going to be able to get.
00:09:52.500And if they don't negotiate from a point of strength, then they will return to us and bring a product that's just not going to be acceptable.
00:10:03.020And unfortunately, that's what we've seen many times with Kevin in 2015 and 2017 and 2018 and 2019.
00:10:09.660And the spending measures that were adopted while he was in the leadership that he helped participate in crafting always ended up getting more Democrat votes than they did Republican votes.
00:10:21.020And right now, while we are facing $31 trillion, while the rules might allow us to propose amendments and to try and reduce this spending, there's nothing that is proposed in the rules package right now that would have eliminated the $1.7 trillion omnibus deal being passed that we just saw go through.
00:10:51.620It doesn't force it to come to the floor earlier?
00:10:55.040Because I thought they were trying to put it in regular order.
00:10:57.800It would bring it to the floor, but you are still going to be able to push that instrument through.
00:11:04.360And again, so my wishes were to try and make sure that we could refine the rules process to the point that the members would be able to have more control.
00:11:16.420And so much of that control wasn't consolidated within the rules committee, which is nine members and the speaker, him or herself.
00:11:25.000I want to go back, you know, because you talk about this and you talk about you're saying, hey, look, you can draft all the packages as possible.
00:11:34.560I'm just not comfortable with leadership.
00:11:36.140Kevin McCarthy and correct me if I'm wrong.
00:11:38.300Kevin McCarthy sat in the Roosevelt room.
00:11:40.380I don't know, four or five weeks ago at a lunch with Schumer, with McConnell, with Nancy Pelosi and Biden, and he came out.
00:11:50.800And this is what I'm talking about getting the omnibus through both houses.
00:11:54.160The reporting and the reporting was had unanimity on this.
00:12:00.660Now, it was afterwards when there was a firestorm, and I think that the war room had something to do with that, a little something to do with it.
00:12:07.140There was a firestorm in the House with people like yourselves.
00:12:12.600That he then came a couple days later and kind of said, well, you know, he had the press conference.
00:12:15.920I really know that spending here is just terrible.
00:12:18.320But once again, his heart's just not in it.
00:12:21.420Is that a false accusation or incorrect observation of Kevin McCarthy?
00:12:25.960That's the perception that we all had, that he was voting no and praying yes.
00:12:32.160You know, I mean, that is the perception.
00:12:34.320And then the other thing that we talk about, when people say we have got to get to work, we have got to get to work, I can describe two things that we're going.
00:12:42.980Sure, we need to start doing the oversight.
00:12:45.440We need to start doing these hearings and finding out and opening up the doors to the FBI and demonstrating exactly what they did.
00:12:54.780But, Steve, you and I both know, as long as we have a Department of Justice that's compliant with this administration, that the likelihood of us seeing charges and prosecutions coming out of these investigations is pretty thin.
00:13:09.440So if the oversight and the investigations take a little bit longer to get organized and begin, I really don't see that as being a problem.
00:13:17.900And then I talked with many of the members on the floor today.
00:13:20.520I mean, you guys watch C-SPAN, you see everybody every time you're you're in between votes, as long as they're not close to your name, you're circulating around the room and you're talking to your colleagues on the Republican side.
00:13:33.160You're talking to your colleagues on the Democrat side of the aisle as well.
00:13:36.860And the reality is, when that omnibus bill passed, it removed all the leverage points from the Republicans to actually start doing something meaningful about securing our southern border and about increasing our domestic energy production until the omnibus expires and we have the new budget to present in September.
00:14:00.300So really, between now and September, we can plot and plan, but you're not going to be able to there will be trust me, there'll be a lot of messaging legislation that comes out and they're going to send a bill out that says we're going to defund the eighty seven thousand IRS agents.
00:14:17.660And they're going to send a bill out that says we're going to provide funding for the wall and to secure our border again.
00:14:26.100But those aren't going anywhere until you can.
00:14:28.720Will the lack of a red wave during the midterms lead to a more emboldened Biden, more wasteful government spending, higher taxes, a deepening of inflation?
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00:15:38.580Congressman Rosendale, can you, the folks in Montana too, in fact, the folks in the entire state of Montana,
00:15:45.560I don't think there's any doubt they know that you're going to be all over supportive and getting on with the investigations into the Biden administration, Biden regime, and others, right?
00:16:10.280I mean, a little bit more time to plan this process that they're going to eventually is going to take place is not hurting those investigations one single solitary bit.
00:16:21.800I think we've got the highest likelihood of having some kind of success on the Fauci investigations.
00:16:28.500I mean, my personal opinion, I'm not an attorney and I don't even sit on judiciary, but the Fauci investigations and the Mayorkas investigations.
00:16:37.520Mayorkas, I do not think it's going to be too much of a stretch to demonstrate that he intentionally has compromised our national security by ignoring policies that would have helped us secure our southern border.
00:16:50.180And we're not talking about just the number of people that have come into our country, Steve.
00:16:54.760We are under a chemical attack from China via the drug facilities in Mexico.
00:17:01.340All the components come from China, go to Mexico, they make the fentanyl, it comes into our country.
00:17:06.660Close to 200,000 people have actually died from drug overdoses in our country over the last couple of years.
00:17:12.460And that's a direct result of most of it from fentanyl from Mexico.
00:17:17.240And then when you start factoring in the additional human trafficking and the rising crime rates, we know that that poor prosecution and prosecutorial measures have contributed to those problems.
00:17:31.900But I thought the law enforcement all across the state of Montana and they attribute the increase in crime directly to the poor southern border, the fentanyl, and it has actually reached into the state of Montana.
00:17:43.940So I believe Mayorkas, we have the highest likelihood of having some kind of legal outcome against him.
00:17:51.860And I think that the Fauci investigations must be done so that we can at the same time tie in the suppression of facts by big tech from being able to be shared with the general public.
00:18:06.260And all of that sort of culminates together.
00:18:10.480And an additional couple of days for us to have this debate and to make sure that we have the best leadership in place for our republic, it's worth it.
00:18:21.940Did they – this package is – you know, you've got Daniel Horowitz, you've got other people I really respect putting up that this historic package where Chip Roy and people have negotiated.
00:18:30.960You've got the three buckets on the debt ceiling and the spending.
00:18:33.280You've got the rules in regular order and you've got the investigations, particularly the church committee or whatever, this weaponization of government to really go after the FBI, DOJ, and others, national security, DHS.
00:18:45.480Do – is it your belief that because we were going to see something – you know, McCarthy put out something, right, that was not acceptable.
00:18:56.600And then they came back with something – the letter that came – Scott Perry sent with nine signatures was much sharper.
00:19:04.080But they said there's going to be another – actually a deal they're working on is going to have language to exactly your point that if you vote, then rules have got to be set up and things have to happen.
00:19:13.680You're not going to get the bait and switch.
00:19:15.080Do you believe that Scott Perry and others that voted today to support McCarthy are giving up their leverage in this historic package that they're trying to – remember, they're comfortable with McCarthy.
00:19:30.960So that's a big difference than the hard six.
00:19:34.560Do you believe they're giving up their leverage in going down the path they're going down right now?
00:19:49.680You've already entered into this agreement.
00:19:51.880They've already entered into the agreement, and they have taken an incredible leap of faith that I said I wasn't able to do, wasn't willing to do.
00:19:59.060I am very pleased that Chip Roy is still a part of that process, I will tell you, because he's an incredibly intelligent individual that I have an immense amount of trust for.
00:20:10.680And I hope that they are able to conclude this.
00:20:14.300But they have just taken an incredible leap of faith, and we are going to be completely reliant on the goodwill and the honor of Kevin McCarthy if he, in fact, becomes the speaker to pass and to uphold this rules package.
00:20:32.140So they're depending upon the tender mercies of essentially the cartel because their thing is they make changes, and these are historic changes people have been talking about for 20 years.
00:20:41.800They are historic, and Daniel Horowitz and others will back that up, but it's far from a done deal.
00:20:47.180Oh, I absolutely think it is far from a done deal.
00:20:51.260There's a lot of things that must take place in order for those rules to be passed and implemented.
00:20:58.080You know, Commander Zinke is a friend of mine, and, you know, I've known him, helped him get to come into the Trump administration, think very highly of him.
00:21:12.140But he said some things here recently that, you know, are not exactly, I don't totally agree with.
00:21:18.600But here's one thing that's interesting.
00:21:20.400I just want to make sure I got this right.
00:21:21.860Because the Commander Zinke was very much for let's just get Kevin McCarthy from the beginning.
00:21:27.580If we had not gone through this process, and particularly your brilliant speech on the House floor yesterday in this four or five days that's been painful but had to happen,
00:21:37.080would we be close to having a reform package that people have talked about for 20 or 30 years but have not done?
00:21:44.040If McCarthy had been just signed off on immediately, would any of this in your mind have happened, sir?
00:21:57.240It just simply would not have happened.
00:21:58.640And we saw that as we tried to engage in these conversations back in the summer when it would not have taken this public display of the republic.
00:22:08.240And I personally think that this has turned out to be a good thing so that the public can see what is going on.
00:22:18.380And there has been a lot of daylight shed on how the House actually operates and how people across this country think it operates.
00:22:27.080And I can assure you that had it not been for the 20 of us standing forward and forcing these votes that we would not be proposing and listening to and discussing the dramatic restoration of the House rules that we are right now.
00:22:49.180So where you stand right now is that unless there's a change in leadership, you're one of the hard six.
00:23:02.860I mean, we have to we have you can't just change the rules because at the end of the day, we have to have confidence in the leadership that's going to be implementing those rules.
00:23:11.260And sooner or later, that individual is going to have to go back over to the Senate and or to the White House to negotiate in good faith for the Republican conference of the House of Representatives.
00:23:25.020And that is the you know, that's the person that we have to have that faith in.
00:23:29.820It's going to say the same thing in that room and on the other side of the building or the other side of the city that they're saying to us in the conference room.
00:23:39.660How do you think this plays out tonight?
00:23:42.600Before I let you go, I think it's adjourned till 10 o'clock.