In this special edition of the podcast, we discuss the impact of Geert Wilders' victory in the Dutch elections, the French presidential election, and the impact this has on the European elections. We also talk about the impact that the far-right has had across the EU, and what it could mean for the future of Europe.
00:05:06.160You know, threats to democracy here in the United States.
00:05:09.380When we look across the Atlantic at what happened over the course of this weekend with the European Union's parliamentary elections,
00:05:15.280and we see the gains that have been made by the far right, in a way you see something different but similar happening,
00:05:21.200which is the normalization of policies which were once considered out of the norm, which were once considered extreme.
00:05:28.020I think my takeaway from the elections in Europe this weekend is that that contingent of far right policies is now mainstream in the United States.
00:05:36.340How do you look at what happened over the weekend in those parliamentary elections,
00:05:39.820and how do you tie it to what's happening here in the United States?
00:07:18.920We'll see what actually happened in the European parliamentary election, which may not be as many seats as possible.
00:07:24.400But the direction of this and what happened at the national level is pretty shocking.
00:07:29.000We have Ben Harnwell, our international editor, is in Rome.
00:07:32.940Rahim Kassam, who is en route to go to the People's Convention this week in Detroit and then leave immediately to England for the U.K. election.
00:07:43.620And I think we're going to get Rahim, particularly if we get some support over at National Pulse, we need some more people signing up.
00:07:50.240And that's, I think, pretty easy to do.
00:07:51.680He's going to stick around for the monster French election.
00:07:59.260I think part of that's the end of June and then part of it's in July.
00:08:10.800Then we'll talk to Rahim about implications for the U.S.
00:08:12.980because people are looking at this as a – is all of this that's happening over the next month laying a predicate like Brexit did in 2016?
00:08:22.840And, of course, we know Rahim Kassam was intimately involved in the Brexit, the historic Brexit movement.
00:08:27.380So, Ben, first your thoughts overall of the European Parliament, how the right-wing parties did.
00:08:32.840And then let's talk about these national governments, many of whom are in the process of either have already fallen or about to fall.
00:08:39.160Well, Steve, when I started off on this show about three years ago, we spoke in loose terms that across the European Union,
00:08:47.740the far right, the non-establishment right, the alt-right had around 10 percent, we sort of speculated, across the Union.
00:08:56.860It's now clearly around 20 to 25 percent.
00:08:59.660Of course, it very much hinges on the national iteration of the Populist Nationalist Party in question.
00:09:07.680But what it does show – my takeaway on this is that there hasn't been a visible riptide towards Populist Nationalism,
00:09:16.000that the mainstream media was clutching its pearls over in the way of speculating, say, 200 seats for the Nationalists.
00:09:23.800But there is clearly an undercurrent that is moving in our direction.
00:09:27.400For me, I think that the clear winner is Marine Le Pen in France, who is now set to have the largest political party in the European Parliament.
00:09:39.360Won't be the largest group, but she will be – her delegation, her national rally will be the largest party delegation to the European Parliament.
00:10:33.800But her ambition is to leave herself free, not to enter, not to stand in the National Assembly elections, but to run directly against Macron or Macron's successor, I should say.
00:10:46.360He can't – he shouldn't be able to stand again.
00:10:49.420You can't do in France more than two consecutive mandates.
00:10:52.800But, of course, part of the speculation behind his snap dissolving of Parliament is to resign if it doesn't go his way.
00:11:00.680And there's no commentator that thinks it will go his way.
00:11:04.380Basically, the European elections yesterday, the National Rally pulled twice his Renaissance party, 32 to 16 percent.
00:11:14.340It's really – it's an astonishing result, a clear – I mean, as I said, I think she is, in the European Union, the clearest victor amongst all the victors.
00:11:33.440Part of the speculation is what Macron is trying to do is that he wants to set the predicate for resigning the presidency after a dismal showing at this imminent general election.
00:11:43.520And then stand again, which would ordinarily – as I say, ordinarily be prohibited.
00:11:48.440But that would leave him a direct runoff against Marine Le Pen in 27.
00:11:57.280Raheem, let me bring you in for a second.
00:12:00.200We're going to go – because this is so reminiscent, I think, of 16.
00:12:05.340Listen, I want to focus on Macron for a second.
00:12:35.240Yeah, I think that's probably an accurate – that's probably an accurate dichotomy to pull there.
00:12:45.660There was definitely a different vibe when Obama used to go over there.
00:12:49.920And there was definitely a different way in which it translated to popularity, translated to votes when it was seen that, you know, whether it was the French president, the German president, Italian, Spanish, you name it, was, you know, cavorting with the leader, the ostensible leader of the free world.
00:13:07.460Yeah, he has – Biden has kind of – I wouldn't even say cooled that.
00:13:11.740I think he's put a hex on it, quite frankly.
00:13:13.480His very presence has probably done nothing net positive to any of these leaders he meets with, Macron included.
00:13:20.380And additionally, as more numbers start to come in from, you know, how people voted, why they voted, the way they voted in Europe over the next couple of days, I think we're going to find out that actually, you know, standing with Joe Biden is probably a negative pull on whoever – the ticket of whomever is doing it.
00:13:39.160So, you know, you did have major flashpoints in Europe over the last three days.
00:13:44.380You definitely had a major flashpoint in France.
00:13:48.860Get on to Macron's motivations for that as well.
00:13:51.780You had a major flashpoint in Germany.
00:13:54.060This morning we hear that actually the alternative for Deutschland, who had a little breakup with Marine Le Pen's national rally in France over the last few weeks, may end up reuniting over the next couple of days in order to bolster that right-wing European parliamentary group.
00:14:10.580But we also need to make sure that we are being level-headed about this.
00:14:15.000While there are big flashpoints in France and Germany, probably less you could say in Italy, Spain, for the Dutch, and for the Swedes especially, not quite the night they had hoped for.
00:14:27.280But some big nights in Belgium, also I think Ireland on the national – the local elections, the right rises maybe not as quickly as we want it.
00:16:19.320To what's happening here in the United States.
00:16:21.300So I was actually hoping I could cheer you up a little bit about the European elections because, in fact, it's 27 different elections and some of the results were pretty good.
00:16:32.400There was no far-right surge in Scandinavia or in Poland or in Spain.
00:16:37.500Actually, the reverse happened in several places.
00:16:40.180The center-left were covered in a number of countries, including the Netherlands, including actually even France, where it had almost disappeared.
00:16:47.300But it's true that the really big story – well, the two big stories are in Germany and France, where in Germany, a far-right party that has used explicitly kind of violent and extremist language did do very well.
00:17:05.360And, of course, in France, where Marine Le Pen's party, which has a long history going back many decades and had been sort of ancient roots, really, in Vichy, did extremely well, so well that the president of France has decided to call snap elections.
00:17:23.160I mean, I would only say this cautionary thing, which is that European elections are often – they're a little bit odd.
00:17:31.920They're often used as a kind of protest votes or people experiment, voting for different kinds of parties that they don't usually vote for.
00:17:39.320It may be that Macron's decision to call snap elections, for example, is because he thinks the French – I mean, he's gambling, of course – but he thinks that the French won't vote for Le Pen if they think it means she would actually run the country.
00:17:54.280To tie it to the United States, again, is a little dicey, but I think your basic point, that the language that used to be considered out of bounds in the U.S. language attacking the U.S. Constitution, attacking other U.S. institutions, undermining law enforcement, all that kind of language that used to be – would have been considered far out of the mainstream is now normal.
00:18:18.020And you do have a change in the way people are talking about European politics and European democracy as well.
00:18:24.500And so I think that language that was once on the fringes is now mainstream.
00:18:32.640And Alpabom, who's a huge fan of President Trump's, as you know Raheem.
00:18:36.000Raheem, is underneath this the signal and what she's talking about that – it's not just about what group's going to be in the European Parliament, how they're going to tee up, but you're seeing a tectonic – you've seen a shift to the Overton window.
00:18:48.020And a shift, a tectonic plate shift, and it's being driven really by what's happening here in the United States.
00:18:53.180A lot of what's been happening here with MAGA and President Trump.
00:18:56.920And since you were there, you were one of the architects of Brexit, and Brexit was the predicate for the Trump win in 2016.
00:19:04.560Are you seeing the same types of elements come together?
00:19:10.880You know, I'm less of the cheerleader type for everything that went on in Europe over the last 72 hours, but I do still think it was a net positive, a net positive movement for the political right.
00:19:23.500I think there are lots of lessons to take away, which are very useful lessons.
00:19:27.100And I think there are lots of little things that you'll start to see at a European parliamentary level, which will have consequences.
00:19:33.520You will have more coming out of the Commission.
00:19:36.140The type of coalition that Ursula von der Leyen pulls together at the Commission level will have consequences.
00:19:42.740And, of course, you have national domestic consequences in Belgium, of course, but predominantly in Macron's France.
00:19:49.380And all of that will have a knock-on effect will also, by the way, not just have a direct knock-on effect to what happens in the U.S. in November, but it will have a knock-on effect to what happens in the U.K. on July 4th.
00:20:00.680And that, in turn, so you've kind of got this snowballing effect, whereas you can say, all right, you know, did the populist nationalist parties win in Europe as massively as, you know, you or I, you know, in our far right fever dreams could have hoped for?
00:20:25.940And I think you'll see the other parts of that come together at the French elections, as you say, on June the 30th and then July 7th, a two-round electoral process for the French domestic legislature.
00:20:38.260And then, of course, on July the 4th for the British general election.
00:20:43.720Now, Macron, it's really interesting, the gamble he's made here, and I think it's made for two reasons.
00:20:49.800Number one, you heard just there, basically he's saying, hey, you know, maybe the French will elect people like Rassemblement National and Le Pen to the European Parliament, but the European Parliament is often seen as kind of a protest vote.
00:21:04.880They definitely won't elect them in such swathes to the National Parliament.
00:21:08.740I think he's probably got that calculation incorrect, but I do think the calculation he's got correct is that on the back of an election like this, the European elections, a party like the Rassemblement National will have expended most of its energy, most of its money on that election.
00:21:25.700And they can't immediately pivot to a new election right now.
00:21:29.760So he's hoping that they're drained of resources.
00:21:32.720They can't fight this one quite as strongly.
00:21:34.960And he doesn't want to wait until they get their hands on the money that they will be owed from having a larger representation at the European Parliament.
00:21:43.580So the best time to do this, the best time to kind of consolidate and protect his base is now.
00:21:51.840Ben, your thoughts and observations, particularly people like Gert Wilders, there's some people who could have some real pickups here, right?
00:21:58.220And if AFD merges back, my point is the right is on the rise in Europe.
00:22:04.760It might not be on the rise as much as you want.
00:22:06.520But I think people also go to these center-right parties as a way station, like maybe they come and vote Republican because they're a little intimidated by MAGA.
00:22:16.040The more they know about MAGA, they understand the water's fine.
00:22:22.040Well, looking specifically, Steve, at the European People's Party, the traditional Christian Democrat center-right grouping, that's emerged as it was before the elections.
00:22:33.880It's still the largest political grouping, and in the European Parliament, it's gained 10 seats.
00:22:40.000But what is it, moving on outside of that, and you can look, and I will make the argument that you can look at the EPP as a sort of gateway drug to the hard stuff, if you like,
00:22:53.300because there seems to be a shift of people moving to the right, but they're moving one party at a time in each election cycle.
00:23:00.860So you go from, say, the hard left to the socialists to the Greens to the EPP, and eventually you're going to cycle through and come out in one of the two nationalist groupings,
00:23:11.500the pro-Atlanticist grouping, which is sort of Georgia Maloney's grouping, the European conservatives and reformists,
00:23:19.100or you'll come out with the identity and democracy grouping, sort of the anti-Atlanticist nationalists.
00:23:26.720And that seems to be the broad progression. And I say that by looking at some of the other parties.
00:23:32.280At the implosion of the Liberals, the Greens, socialists have lost, the socialist group lost five seats.
00:23:40.320So the left have actually done quite badly.
00:23:42.120And you can intuit that the left have done badly by looking and seeing what the mainstream media is homing in on.
00:23:51.000They're really trying to change narratives, say, well, look, the nationalists haven't done brilliantly.
00:23:55.520They haven't got the 200 seats. There's not the riptide.
00:23:59.120It's all been that they're sort of for nothing.
00:25:13.580You know, threats to democracy here in the United States.
00:25:16.400When we look across the Atlantic at what happened over the course of this weekend with the European Union's parliamentary elections and we see the gains that have been made by the far right, in a way you see something different but similar happening, which is the normalization of policies which were once considered out of the norm, which were once considered extreme.
00:25:35.220I think my takeaway from the elections in Europe this weekend is that that contingent of far right policies is now mainstream in the United States.
00:25:43.640How do you how do you look at what happened over the week?
00:25:46.520OK, we go we go we go we go right back.
00:25:49.140We're going to get that cut eventually tight.
00:25:53.100You had this amazing rally in in Vegas yesterday, but that comes on what Charlie Kirk and the team put it with the Hispanic and evangelicals in Phoenix.
00:26:02.200You had David Sachs and the in the tech overlords as supplicants to Trump.
00:26:06.960Just went to Beverly Hills, had a massive turnout in Beverly Hills.
00:26:09.800You had Amber Rose's fantastic response to TMZ about they're not brainwashed anymore.
00:26:32.340That is that is why I think the economists original analysis on what happened in Europe was the right way to look at it.
00:26:39.440It wasn't it wasn't a lurch to the right, but it was inching to the right.
00:26:42.860And you've had that now for, well, you know, I would say I would say longer than a decade in the United States is reorienting this this shifting of the Overton window.
00:26:53.620So it's almost like the left normalized climate change right to the center parties.
00:26:59.580I was talking to Jack Posobiec last night on on my podcast.
00:27:04.520We did a whole hour on this on this European results.
00:27:07.520And he sort of said, well, look, you know, isn't the left's losses, the progressive left's losses, a ding to the climate change stuff?
00:27:14.380I said, well, look, with the EPP, the centrist party, you know, climate change is as much dogma is as much religion to them as it is the Social Democrat parties.
00:27:22.300So they kind of shifted the Overton window on that issue.
00:27:24.540But but on things like migration, especially on the economy, the the Overton window has shifted so far to the margar right now that actually I was stunned when I looked at some of the CBS and YouGov polling that came out over this weekend.
00:27:38.420I took a very early look this morning at that.
00:27:41.060And and, you know, I have to say, last week, I wrote a piece about some of the numbers in the Rasmussen polls not looking so good on the back of the conviction.
00:27:50.420These updated numbers actually give me more hope.
00:30:58.440And it's got some very powerful news there.
00:31:00.860I make the statement, Raheem, that Biden's the cooler because he was there for D-Day, but Macron went out of his way to go all over France and to Paris on national team over and over and over again with Biden and make it like a state visit, make it the biggest deal.
00:31:13.480They had the formal dinners, all that, made sure all the media was there.
00:31:45.720Yeah, so it absolutely is showing up in the U.S. numbers as well now.
00:31:50.140And these numbers, by the way, getting buried by the corporate media when they report these things out at the National Pulse.
00:31:56.380We have we have an analysis up this morning about some of the most critical numbers in the YouGov and CBS poll, a 2000 person poll, 3.2 percent margin of error.
00:32:04.900And in that, 84 percent of Americans, likely voters, have said that they expect to be worse off under a second Biden term.
00:32:14.640That is to say that they expect financially things to either get worse or stay on the same downward trajectory as currently.
00:32:51.28084 percent of the – 84 percent of the American people don't agree on anything.
00:32:55.520They say – 84 percent of the people say that they'll be in the same shape as the downward trajectory or worse under Biden economically if he gets a second term.
00:33:10.500And it's a bruising number for the Biden campaign.
00:33:13.700The numbers across this poll play into line with that as well.
00:33:18.640We've got – you know, you can look at the – well, I looked at the strength.
00:33:22.960Okay, let's look at the strength of conviction behind people's votes.
00:33:28.360So for the Biden supporters, 69 percent of his supporters say that they have decided and that their support is strong.
00:33:37.520But that number is 78 percent for Donald Trump.
00:33:41.400So there is a massive margin of difference there.
00:33:44.260The other difference is no Trump supporters, as in 0 percent of Trump supporters in this poll, say that they will probably change at some point.
00:33:54.600There's 6 percent of people who say they're supporting Joe Biden's to say that they still might or probably will change, and 24 percent of them say that there is a likelihood of them changing.
00:34:08.140So these are incredibly flimsy numbers for Joe Biden that shows that there is not a strong base.
00:35:16.380And you can see in terms of migration, we have similar numbers.
00:35:19.760Again, we talked about the economic numbers there as well.
00:35:22.920One of the things that I thought was really interesting here, Steve, is that while people thought – while people are pretty split, 57-43, on whether or not the trial in New York was fair,
00:35:34.42071 percent of people responded by saying the conviction of President Trump is not a factor either way in how they will vote.
00:35:43.100I think that is another serious, massive number, an indictment against this process, against the DOJ's process.
00:35:49.860And there's only probably one thing that you might dislike in this poll, and that's that 72 percent of people say they do not want Donald Trump to seek retribution in a second term.
00:36:16.500This is why you saw all the stories last week about the Republican operatives and the money as it's coming in turning to are you better off today than you were four years ago.
00:36:29.300That gets back to the 84 percent number.
00:36:31.220People are – the Republic – people should know.
00:37:19.680It's thenationalpulse.com forward slash war room.
00:37:23.240If you want us to be able to do this, to bring you real news from on the ground, to bring you real up-to-date reports on war room, on humid events, on Charlie Kirk, across RAV, thenationalpulse.com forward slash war room.
00:37:36.540Let's try to get 200 people signing up for annual memberships today and basically take that budgetary consideration off my mind.
00:37:44.600I can focus on doing the news, thenationalpulse.com forward slash war room.
00:39:02.720On this show, we have been hitting for the last 18 months the farmers' protests, the tractor protests, day after day at some points.
00:39:15.020But these things were growing and growing.
00:39:16.900What is the net consequence of those protests across Europe?
00:39:21.200The green vote fell by 34% of their seats in the European Parliament.
00:39:27.220This is people waking up and thinking for themselves and realising that they're not going to accept the official propaganda that comes at them from the mainstream media and making the jump, right?
00:39:39.700Now, they haven't all jumped over to the nationalists.
00:39:42.480As I was saying before, a lot of them seem to have gone over to the European People's Party.
00:39:47.780When they're in the European People's Party, they're going to realise it's totally performative and it's not actually going to do anything for them.
00:39:54.900But having made the jump, they're going to, I think, find themselves refined and come further on in our direction.
00:40:02.480So, you know, the Amber Rose thing is perfect.
00:40:39.420And if that's the case, what is a constitutional sheriff?
00:40:43.240Well, most of them are constitutionally elected.
00:40:46.960But as far as adhering to the constitution as part of their job as sheriff, many of them are not.
00:40:53.600And that's what I've been trying to fight against ever since I started the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association.
00:41:02.340And we do our training all over the country, inviting sheriffs and public officials, county commissioners, county attorneys.
00:41:10.500All of them need a dose of the constitution and the performance of their job.
00:41:15.880Let's take, for instance, Grady Judge, Sheriff Grady Judge in Polk County, Florida.
00:41:20.480Great sheriff, great sheriff, great man, great leadership skills, but he supports red flag laws.
00:41:28.120And all I would like to do is talk with Sheriff Judd and say we can still be constitutional sheriffs and we can still be the great leaders that we are, just like he is.
00:41:38.360I think he's a tremendous man, tremendous sheriff, but he has got to add a dose of constitution to his persona as this great sheriff in America.
00:41:51.400And so I would say Sheriff Ivey and Sheriff Lamb and Sheriff Judd and Sheriff Norris and Sheriff Skinner here in the Phoenix area, all of these sheriffs have got to focus on what is, who is violating the constitution today and take action.
00:42:11.120For instance, the January 6th arrests that happened nationwide, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people are being arrested and pulled out of a jurisdiction that requires extradition.
00:42:24.320The constitution requires one jurisdiction to another that you must go through the state to do an extradition.
00:42:31.680The FBI did not do that one time and no sheriff said anything about it.
00:42:38.980The sheriffs now are in a position where they can stop these horrible federal and FBI attacks against President Trump and take a stand and stand in the way and interpose and stop the abuses that the federal agents in this country have been getting away with for decades.
00:43:01.320And it's time to stand in the way and have stand up sheriffs that will enforce the constitution and make the other agencies in the federal government and sometimes the state governments as well, toe the line and adhere to the constitution and adhere to our oaths of office.
00:43:18.440Sheriff Mack, just hang on, I'm going to hold you through the break.
00:43:22.700Sheriff Mack's going to join us from the constitutional sheriffs and peace officers.
00:43:26.300Birchgold.com slash Bannon, the end of the dollar empire downloaded free today.
00:45:24.120With the biggest speakers in the movement.
00:45:26.560Featuring President Donald J. Trump, Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, Governor Kristi Noah, Dr. Ben Carson, Tulsi Gabbard, Steve Bannon, Candace Owens, Laura Trump, Senator Rick Scott, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Congressman Matt Gaetz, Ben Johnson, Jack Posobiec, Lee Zeldin, Congressman Eli Craig, Brandon Tatum, and more.
00:46:40.660So in the worm, as you know, we break down in the information war, MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times.
00:46:47.220We spend a lot of time on The Guardian because that's the most powerful progressive paper in the world out of England.
00:46:52.500And I would have to say, Sheriff Mack, of the top five, of The Guardian's top five demons in this country, Donald Trump's obviously in a class by himself.
00:48:22.940I want to ask every sheriff and peace officer, if you were called back to Montgomery, Alabama, December 1st, 1955, would you have arrested Rosa Parks?
00:48:33.280I hope every sheriff and cop in this country would say absolutely not.
00:48:59.740We swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution.
00:49:03.520And I believe that every sheriff in this country should be investigating, one, election fraud, and also the crimes committed by the FBI and other federal agents, the IRS, and others, and investigate these crimes.
00:49:17.000And also the illegal arrests being conducted by other law enforcement agencies and AGs who are obviously using their positions to go after innocent people.
00:49:33.480So continuing on with the critics, I would say, hey, look, that's fine, but your job is to enforce the law as the sheriffs and the peace officers.
00:49:42.520You have local DAs, you have U.S. attorneys, you have Merrick Garland and Lisa Monica and that crowd.
00:49:50.040That's really their responsibility, and you guys are just supposed to lock up the hooligans.
00:51:09.280Why would somebody complain about that?
00:51:11.300Because they are intentionally trying to destroy our Constitution, and the sheriffs of this country have an obligation to stand against that and do just the opposite, restore the Constitution as the supreme law of land and put it in its proper place as the rule of law.
00:51:28.920I've got – I'd like to hold you for a few minutes on the other side.
00:51:35.740But before we go to that break, where the Guardian and people really lose it is when you just said election fraud.
00:51:41.180They are absolutely concerned about you stepping in and making sure we have free, fair elections with only certifiable chain of custody, American city voting.
00:51:50.300How high a priority for the Constitutional sheriffs is looking at making sure we don't have election fraud in November this year, sir?
00:51:58.060That's in the top two of our entire programs, everything that we're trying to do.
00:52:03.620You don't have a country if you don't have secure and safe, fair and honest elections.
00:52:09.280And, yes, there are mountains of evidence of election fraud, and they have lied and used that as a talking point along with the White House saying there is no election fraud.
00:52:21.680Well, if there's none, then what does it matter if we investigate it and look at it and try to guarantee that there is not?
00:52:28.640But they get all squampus and out of control if we ever say anything about making sure there's some safeguards put into place so that we can make sure that the elections are fair and honest.