Episode 4191： Don’t Fall For Zuckerberg MAGA Conversion; Weaponized Think Tanks
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
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Summary
In this episode of War Room, Stephan K Banan talks about the need to go back to our roots around free speech, censorship, and standing in the breach. He also talks about Mark Zuckerberg and the importance of standing up to censorship.
Transcript
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this is the primal scream of a dying regime pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on
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these people here's not got a free shot all these networks lying about the people the people have
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had a belly full of it i know you don't like hearing that i know you try to do everything
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in the world to stop that but you're not going to stop it it's going to happen and where do
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people like that go to share the big line mega media i wish in my soul i wish that any of these
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people had a conscience ask yourself what is my task and what is my purpose if that answer is to
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save my country this country will be saved war room here's your host stephen k bann
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hey everyone i want to talk about something important today because it's time to get back
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to our roots around free expression on facebook and instagram i started building social media to
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give people a voice i gave a speech at georgetown five years ago about the importance of protecting
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free expression and i still believe this today but a lot has happened over the last several years
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but the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes even if they accidentally
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censor just one percent of posts that's millions of people and we've reached a point where it's just
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too many mistakes and too much censorship more specifically here's what we're going to do first
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we're going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes similar to x starting in
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the u.s the reality is that this is a trade-off it means we're going to catch less bad stuff but we'll
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also reduce the number of innocent people's posts and accounts that we accidentally take down
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china has censored our apps from even working in the country the only way that we can push back on
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this global trend is with the support of the u.s government and that's why it's been so difficult
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over the past four years when even the u.s government has pushed for censorship by going after us and other
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american companies it has emboldened other governments to go even further these people from
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the biden administration would call up our team and like scream at them and curse and it's like
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these documents are it's all kind of out there did you record any of those phone calls i don't no i
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don't think i don't think we were but but i think i want to listen i mean there are emails the emails
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are published it's all it's all kind of out there and um and they're like and basically
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i can only handle so much of that it's 13 january monday in the year of our lord 2025
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and mark zuckerberg for all the money that you have you need to get a better acting coach
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wow the biden regime officials mark they cussed at you and your engineers wow and you folded like
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i've never seen anyone fold the entire maga movement had what every arrow in the quiver the entire full
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force of the state of this regime prison sentences assassination attempts stephen k bannon peter navarro
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donald j trump and they stood in the breach and took it like real men and fought for this country
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and some weird woke looking bureaucrat cussed at one of your engineers probably an h-1b
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and you folded and you sold this country down the river so much so that you gave what nearly a billion
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dollars to make sure that joe biden on very illegitimate grounds could become this country's next
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president maybe in all the new hobbies that you're picking up in your free time whether it's what the
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jujitsu or the wakeboarding whatever you're posting to try to pretend and dupe this country into thinking
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that you're a human maybe you should start reading history books and learn about the trials and
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tribulations that people have been put through and the courage that they have mustered to stand in
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the breach which you sir mark zuckerberg have none of speaking of history i'm so glad what was it five
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years ago five years wow five years ago you lectured at georgetown on free speech thank you thank you for
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your contributions to humanity thank you i am so embarrassed and appalled at so many people in the
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maga conservative right who have taken this conversion as something that is legitimate
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i have seen transgender surgeries and drag queens that are more convincing than this
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there are so many people who have fallen for what oh they took the tampons out of the bathrooms at meta hq
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oh now they're apparently not using dei well i missed the point where anyone mandated that they do any of that
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stuff it was on them they chose to do that so you can accept the consequences of your actions
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and if you think that mark zuckerberg is maga or if he is our new friend and that he's gonna help us
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well then that's almost as dumb as thinking when a stripper tells you that they love you that they
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actually love you and i might seem super enthused or agitated right now but it's because i'm hearing
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the conversations going on behind the scenes about how people are falling for this in the very intense
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and elaborate and well-funded lobbying campaign that the metas of the world and the tiktoks although
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they're already being successful on that front are waging right now on the maga right to get people
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to sign up and become on board with what zuckerberg is selling you to go a little more uh shall we say
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intellectual right what you're witnessing right now it shows you right in 2016 they infiltrated the
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white house they infiltrated the maga movement so they didn't even feel the need to co-opt our movement
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because it wasn't worth co-opting now that we're actually legitimate opposition they're pretending
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to be one of us right now suddenly they see the light they get the maga after what trying to spend
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what four years of censoring us de-platforming us de-banking us throwing us in jail and celebrating it
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right fact checking i don't know if you picked up in that video it's a limited hangout it's not about
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the fact checking it's about the algorithms the manipulation on both sides of the equation
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suppressing and shadow banning conservative content while promoting joe biden the fact that your website
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has been used to make it easier for human traffickers to carry out illegal immigration
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and human smuggling and drug smuggling the cartels love facebook and then he has the nerve by the way
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i don't know about you i didn't hear the word sorry in any of those interviews a sorry would go a long
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way right but then he has the nerve to say that we mistakenly mistakenly operative where they're
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mistakenly censored americans because i don't know our parameters were set too wide well hang on mark
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because i thought you were importing what the best and brightest all the h1b techies right but i guess
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they're not very good at their job okay well i guess we'll set that debate aside for a second but it was
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a mistake do you think it was a mistake when what everyone that they censored was people who voted for
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trump and basically the entirety of this audience i don't think that was a mistake i think it was
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wholly intentional right the only reason that we even know about this stuff that we know about the
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fact checkers is because this show and other investigative reporters dared to report on it they
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were not forthright i'm pretty sure they told us they didn't even have fact checking programs
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it's a testament to the power of this audience and independent reporting you think mark zuckerberg
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wanted to make that video hell no and i guess we'll do a little fact checking of our own
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because mark zuckerberg says oh china we can't follow the path of china the chinese communist
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party they're so evil well mark zuckerberg just to really put a nice strong period on the sentence
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that you're fake and you're phony and that you're a fraud you have been spending i don't even know
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how long longer than probably i've been alive trying to get in china trying to get facebook
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services meta services into china and the only reason that you're not a total sellout supplicant
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to them right now is because they don't want you because they understand the threat of having a new
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tech oligarchic monopolistic class of people like yourselves who become more powerful than the
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government so natalie you're being crazy well one of the stories that i broke many many years ago
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was that facebook actually funds their journalism project they funneled millions of dollars into
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partnerships with the international center for journalists to create it's called the singhua
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university's global business journalism school which is an explicitly self-declared marxist journalism
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school in beijing that trains individuals to work for chinese communist party run state-run media
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outlets facebook has even gone so far we can play the video i don't want the sound because we don't play
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chinese communist party propaganda on the war room but that right there is the vice president of
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facebook guest lecturing at this self-declared marxist facility
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but i thought mark i thought mark said oh we're gonna win the war we're gonna win the war for
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freedom right well how about this i'll read you the uh founding document from this journalism school
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that is funded by facebook we should be committed to a firm and correct political orientation
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our school has been actively exploring the theory and practices of marxist journalism namely to
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applying the marxist theory and observing the world selecting and handling news production
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and catch this mark zuckerberg as early as 2014 was actually going overseas to beijing
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he's actually on the advisory board at sinhua university and he lectures there sinhua university the
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same university that has repeatedly committed cyber attacks against the united states
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facebook then went far enough to quote team up to offer a course on insights from silicon valley
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which entailed sinhua flying in seven facebook executives over the semester to teach some of the classes
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you would be in china if you could they just didn't want you
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and you sit there shame on you for sitting there like a victim
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and doing these podcast rounds and putting out these weird videos
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americans lost their lives because of your actions and your inactions
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think about the patriotism and the courage and the convictions that every single january 6 prisoner
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and i use that word intentionally had when they had to decide to stand in the breach
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and face the full wrath the full fire and fury of this american regime
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and you had some weird wacko bureaucrats say hey we really think you should like censor this meme
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they were hoping for plea deals that was the best that they could get you got what million dollar pr agents
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you're not fooling absolutely anyone and i'm telling you just like the h1b stuff the elon stuff
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on our side thinking that this man is at an actual conversion my suggestion
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all the money that these tech oligarchs have donated to the inauguration the bezoses the zuckerbergs of
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the world yet those are the people that we should be investigating first and maybe we should use the
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money that they've donated to fund and bankroll those investigations it reeks of guilt
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from companies that i'm told what never even really had fact-checking entities to begin with
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here in the war room and it's not just because my last name is winters but we appreciate winter
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soldiers not sunshine patriots and maybe in the metaverse you can't distinguish the difference
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between that but that matters to maga so mark zuckerberg thank you but no thank you
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maybe you should just go back to the metaverse i'd be okay with that and speaking of people who i guess
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gavin newsom who's what state is quite literally burning down
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you know what he did today he secured 50 million dollars to quote trump proof his state
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now 25 million is going to their state department of justice to i don't know sue trump out of into
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oblivion and then the other half 25 million with with yet which yes students of history and government
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budgets will remember that what the lafd budget was cut by like what 17 million dollars well there's
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another 25 million to quote defend immigrants against deportation and detention so they're gonna get
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grants for legal non-profits and immigration support centers so when gavin newsom stands up
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there and says that he's already reimagining la 2.0 and that he wants a marshall plan bro you're not
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giving money to another country you're not giving money to rebuild europe you're not rebuilding mexico
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you're not importing the third world like you guys so desperately want to do it's called putting
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america first and that is the sick depraved nature of these people california is still actively working
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burning down sorry and gavin newsom is concerned about getting tens of millions of dollars so they
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can sue trump and make sure that criminal illegal aliens like the ones who killed lake and riley are
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but hey at least i can't get fact checked on any of this right because they dropped the fact checking
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program i think they call that a pure victory mark zuckerberg and we're not going to fall for it here
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in the war room so a lot of breaking news on all things media you'll see why i went so hard on this
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with our next guest who joins us we will be right back after this short break darren beady and some
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new really interesting reporting on the think tank influence scene in washington dc we'll be right back
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silver today and rubin and i'm norm eisen i am here to announce i am leaving the washington post
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in order to co-found with norm an exciting new online platform the contrarian we are going to
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bring you written material podcasts interviews social media all in defense of democracy our intent
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is to combat the authoritarian force that we all face to help us we have an exciting array of
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contributors from all walks of life all ages all backgrounds to help us in this venture we're going
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to do politics we're going to do law but we know that any successful pro-democracy movement also has
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to be very vocal about culture we'll have a humor column we'll even have a cooking column but we're going
00:17:11.020
to sprinkle in a little bit of pro-democracy flavor and we're going to have pets we're very pro-pets
00:17:18.600
so please join us in this journey we cannot do this without you we want your contributions
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your input your ideas thank you for joining the contrarian
00:17:30.960
that's not a deep fake that's real i will say i've i've tried the pro-democracy flavor
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not a fan of it i don't know what the heck that was i'm sorry it's like your weird wacky librarian
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and your like thespian uncle are these people serious they thought that that that was going
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to be the video to entice people to come and watch their new outfit the contrarian
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i would humbly suggest especially to dear norm eisen you guys know i love me some norm eisen
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color revolution extraordinaire you should just be focusing on preserving your documents for
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everything that you've done from the law fair in colorado to arizona all the way to the impeachments
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what you've done globally what you've done with who knows where with god knows i don't even want to
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get into what you've done if you think that that video is publishable something with your standards
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are very clearly off but you guessed it jen rubin is leaving the washington post to start whatever the
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heck that is i'm sure george soros is probably bankrolling it um but i want to bring on darren i
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think the uh the man who really brought norm eisen to the forefront of a lot of our minds certainly
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myself uh darren beattie joins us now of course revolver news fame darren i don't think when you
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launched revolver you ever had a uh a sizzle reel like that but all jokes aside i'm sure you will
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give us a wonderful repartee on what the heck we just watched but your thoughts on sort of the
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evolving you know media landscape shift jen rubin departing the washington post this new outfit norm
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eisen all that you know i'm still just digesting the video i saw it for the first time just about 30
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minutes ago and you know it really was like transported to a parallel universe in a universe
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in which saturday night live was actually funny this would be a perfect skit it was even set up like
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it um it's just the cooking show with a sprinkle of democracy um it's really amazing and you know i'd love
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to know what rich idiot they conned into funding this i'd like to know what rich idiot is going to
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dump millions of dollars into this i really want to know because there's so many of them but i want
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to know in particular which rich moron is writing a 20 million dollar check to get this off the ground
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that's that's what i'm interested in with this because you know there's going to be some idiot
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to write millions of dollars checked for this that's how how media works it's like jennifer rubin
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i never even heard her name in years uh you don't you don't hear about her for years i guess she was
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still at the washington post i didn't even know she was still there i guess she's leaving norm eisen is
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at least more relevant but even the idea that he thinks this is attractive that's how they spend
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u.s dollars in the state department to try to convince remote villages in africa to you know
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have a drag queen parade that's the level of propaganda that they put out there say hey villagers
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why don't we try a little sprinkle of democracy with jen rubin that's the quality of propaganda no
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wonder we're failing abroad no wonder we've become a laughing stock it's this weird combination of
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genuine power at least at the state department norm eisen had power and as you point out and as we
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famously reported he is a major and instrumental figure in color revolutions he's been the chief
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basically law fair um perpetrator against the trump regime he's he's filed lawsuits going back to
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basic he started it the day you know before trump was even inaugurated the first time this is not this
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guy's first rodeo but he goes from law fair to a cooking show for democracy and humor and humor
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i can't believe it so uh i just you know what what more is there to say is that and humor
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there's gonna be humor and a sprinkle of democracy so uh yeah but you know but the best thing is
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i guarantee you there is a very wealthy idiot who gave this 10 million dollars so i'd like to know
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who that is i think they should be deported frankly where would media like that be without
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the wealthy idiots to subsidize it it would be i'd love to see how it works you know the bulwark managed
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to get subscribers i have no idea how they did that um this is even like lower grade this is set up
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they did it by ripping off war room all they ever do is just play our clips and and react to them
00:22:44.540
but on i guess more more substantive no you know look i will say i watch a lot of msnbc one of the
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most common refrains that i hear is you know the left needs to find their own joe rogan humble
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suggestion norm eisen jen rubin not your joe rogan keep looking the sprinkle of democracy cooking show
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i can't argue with that but to that point i think it's sort of reflective
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norm eisen though right is sort of an interesting i think note in all of this you know he used to
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be very involved with the law fair then he was very involved with the sort of election rigging
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election integrity stuff then it was you know the impeachments right so he really is a jack of
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all trades i would say not whatever we just watched um but why do you think two-part question
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why do you think they're really doubling down focusing so heavily right now on the media being
00:23:40.440
the sort of warfare that they're trying to wage and to that point a bit of breaking news that
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rachel maddow who you know infamously despite making what 25 million dollars a year was broadcasting
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once a week on monday evenings now at least for the first hundred days that's the buried lead
00:23:54.540
of the trump administration she will be back on air every single night uh the slot of alex wagner
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she's now going to go do uh in you know on the ground field reporting um but why do you think it
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seems like media now is really becoming the the angle of attack that they're sort of doubling down on
00:24:10.560
you know that's a great question i can't for the life of me
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understand or even have a theory of mind as to how someone could think the norm eisen jennifer
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reuben thing was a good idea really like that they're really at the bottom of the barrel here
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this is this is scraping even deeper into the bottom of the barrel than than the bulwark at least
00:24:34.340
rachel maddow i think she has a genuine following there's something real there people watch it um so
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for the reuben eisen thing i have no idea it could really be just some like a single rich idiot can
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make something like that happen and just keep dumping money into it regardless of how unpopular
00:24:55.040
and cringe it is um as for the maddow thing um you know it's it makes sense i i don't uh i don't think
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i i think it could be popular i think she wants to see test the waters a little bit see how much
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outrage they can gin up and keep in mind you know they're still the democrats are kind of recovering
00:25:16.440
from this resounding and humiliating loss that really didn't give them any avenue of excuse you
00:25:24.660
know trump won the popular vote they couldn't blame it on the electoral college they you know
00:25:29.900
trump did very well with even minority groups so they didn't really even have that they dumped all the
00:25:36.000
lawfare on it didn't work and so they're in a pretty desperate situation so i can imagine them saying
00:25:41.600
okay well we're going to test the waters we're going to approach a media strategy and see if we
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can kind of build back some capital with the public uh through the media and through norm eisen's
00:25:54.820
democracy cooking channel i guess that's the best that they have to go for at the moment and so they're
00:26:00.220
still kind of flailing about and licking their wounds um from their resounding and embarrassing
00:26:06.460
and decisive defeat on this last election cycle
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darren if people want to follow you stay up to date with everything that you guys are working on
00:26:17.900
over at revolver where can they go to do all that i hope you don't post any videos like that
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or i will not have you back on the show no no no cooking content please no democracy cooking shows
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i promise revolver.news we have a big piece in the works on the pipe bomb report we have an
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interesting piece on amy comey barrett i think we called it a long time ago and few people did so
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some really big interesting pieces coming soon tonight definitely by tomorrow so check it out
00:26:48.260
revolver.news i'm on twitter at darren j beady darren thank you so much for joining us i'll have you back
00:26:55.760
soon thank you natalie and just flagging you guys know i uh very clinically watch norm eyes and i think
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he like i always say is a locus in this sort of deep state law fair uh apparatchik henchman type way
00:27:11.220
but believe it or not it's not a conspiracy theory even meta cannot fact check me on this
00:27:15.920
in 2024 he actually lectured believe it or not i'm just i'm just reporting the facts
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lectured in los angeles at the request of mayor karen bass the water department on ethics people may
00:27:31.040
recall that he was obama's ethics czar so that's why he has so much ethics street cred that and what
00:27:36.940
toppling and deposing a bunch of uh foreign regimes in the name of a sprinkle of democracy like the video
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suggests but uh you know we're all about pattern recognition here in the war room just an interesting
00:27:49.120
piece of data the next segment we're getting into very something i'm very interested in how think
00:27:56.140
tanks are all bought and paid for by basically everyone you hate um including this current
00:28:01.780
regime in the meantime birchgold.com slash bannon text bannon to 98 98 98 make sure you're getting
00:28:08.040
the latest installment of the end of the dollar empire and while you're at it warpath.coffee
00:28:13.740
you know it's the place to be we'll be right back after this drug break
00:28:16.640
it's obvious the unthinkable continues most americans know something is very very wrong
00:28:26.680
the people in charge keep telling you that everything's fine and to stop noticing but you
00:28:31.620
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welcome back to the war room we are joined now by ben freeman of the quincy institute who broke news
00:29:45.120
not too long ago i think the first time ever put up a really comprehensive sort of think tank tracker
00:29:50.680
showing how money flows whether it's from united states government foreign governments the military
00:29:55.480
industrial complex basically all the entities that want the policies that come out of this great
00:30:01.120
country this capital that is just a stone's throw away from me don't benefit you the american worker
00:30:07.400
the american citizen the american parent the american family whatever you may be but benefit them and it
00:30:12.880
seems like the interests that they have are always at odds with what you want no conspiracies no
00:30:18.340
coincidences but i'm just saying um ben joins us now ben i was reading through this report the numbers
00:30:24.680
are just staggering um in the last what is it few years more than 110 million dollars to the top 50
00:30:30.860
think tanks in the united states from foreign governments defense companies have contributed
00:30:35.420
over 34.7 million and over 1.49 billion from the united states government sort of walk us through
00:30:41.980
why you guys created this tracker basically presupposing the idea that they are getting some
00:30:47.760
form of roi whether it's influencing government policy propaganda narratives why did you guys set out
00:30:53.460
to do this yeah great question natalie first thanks for having me on um we started this project because
00:31:00.580
we were looking at a lot of the work that think tanks were doing and a lot of it uh seemed to indicate
00:31:06.340
that maybe it was serving the interests of some of their funders uh so we did i i think what a lot of your
00:31:13.300
viewers and you regularly do uh we decided to follow the money uh we decided to follow all of the money and we didn't
00:31:19.080
realize how much money we were getting into and ultimately as you mentioned we dug up uh over 1.5
00:31:25.060
billion dollars in total funding going to the top 50 think tanks in the u.s and that's just over the
00:31:31.880
past five years um and to be clear natalie that that's just the tip of the iceberg because one really
00:31:38.500
disturbing fact about think tank funding is that think tanks aren't actually required to disclose
00:31:43.740
any of their funding whether it's from foreign government the u.s government pentagon contractors
00:31:49.020
doesn't matter they're not required to disclose that information in fact over a third of the think
00:31:53.840
tanks that we looked at 18 of the 50 disclose absolutely nothing about their funding and so all
00:32:01.140
of these figures as enormous as they might be we really think this is just the tip of the iceberg
00:32:07.800
for the conflict of interest going on at think tanks in the u.s there's such a uh you know fixture of dc
00:32:16.160
right i think for those of us who've lived here and worked here they really are these sort of i think
00:32:20.580
originators of so many of these whether it's talking points i'd call it state sanctioned propaganda in
00:32:25.980
some cases um but i'm just curious because they do have the ability to you know astroturf these
00:32:30.920
narratives frankly i think in some ways the atlantic councils of the world and the brookings
00:32:34.700
institutions they're in some ways responsible for escalating you know everything that's going on in
00:32:39.080
ukraine they sort of created this whole you know democracy is dying and president trump is a
00:32:43.200
you know hitlerian fashion like they really provided these sort of academic muscle to back up these
00:32:49.980
bogus theories so i'm just curious from your sort of you know meta bird's eye view analysis of what
00:32:56.680
you think they're looking for their roi to be is this something that's country specific is it issue
00:33:02.240
specific in the case of the defense contractors is it just war you know what what are they what are
00:33:08.140
they looking for and how are they trying to achieve their their uh you know stated goals is it by
00:33:14.320
shaping political discourse the media how are they disseminating it uh i i would say unfortunately it's
00:33:21.480
all of the above uh you know everything you mentioned there is absolutely spot on um you know at the end
00:33:27.200
of the day when when a donor gives a contribution to a think tank um these these aren't really
00:33:33.260
charitable entities uh you know anybody who's been around dc knows that folks at think tanks you know
00:33:39.400
they're leading the media narratives you know they're they're being interviewed on you know fox
00:33:44.160
cnn msnbc too um and they're they're they're lobbying congress they're testifying before congress in
00:33:51.660
some cases think tankers are even helping to write laws so when these foreign governments uh the u.s
00:33:57.680
government and pentagon contractors make a donation to a think tank they're hoping to get in on that
00:34:02.980
and they're hoping they can effectively use think tanks at least in some level um as an influence broker
00:34:11.300
for them you know that might mean helping to shape a narrative uh in their favor in the media or you know
00:34:17.560
if you're a country like the united arab emirates as we found the uae uh was far and away the biggest
00:34:22.980
foreign government owner to think tanks in the u.s uh the uae over and over again wants us to turn a
00:34:28.940
blind eye to when to their latest blunder in the world whether it's in sudan yemen wherever um other
00:34:35.380
governments like saudi arabia they're really eager to use think tanks to help the u.s to get into a
00:34:42.260
security pact that would be just disastrous for the u.s and could start the next endless war so
00:34:48.200
depending on who's giving them money that really shapes what they want to get back but rest assured
00:34:54.740
when there's a donation coming to a think tank uh there's always going to be some strings attached to
00:35:00.300
it well i think in the same way too with you know uh institutions of higher education academia this
00:35:08.440
loophole where they don't have to report it it's such a flagrant national security threat it's so
00:35:13.900
obvious but i guess it's sort of part of the uh the insider trade the insider deal right they're not
00:35:18.800
going to regulate because it's their same donors and lobbyists who are funding them but you bring up
00:35:23.480
the uae obviously we focus very extensively and intensely on the chinese communist party and their
00:35:29.720
kind of influence peddling going on in this town that was something that sort of shocked me
00:35:33.760
from the the report that their numbers were sized like considerably less but is that more a symptom
00:35:40.280
of the fact that they're just not reporting it it's sort of stealthy sneakier or who are some of the
00:35:46.280
biggest shall we say offenders in terms of you know the foreign countries and and to that point
00:35:51.260
this is two questions but can you talk about the united states government funding of some of these
00:35:57.300
think tanks as well yeah absolutely those are wonderful questions uh you know i'll start with the
00:36:02.920
question of china because uh you know frankly natalie that really shocked me too uh we found very very
00:36:08.780
little funding uh coming from the ccp um and i think there's a very clear reason for that it's that think
00:36:16.640
tanks don't have to report funding from the ccp uh or as i mentioned any foreign government for that
00:36:22.860
matter or any donor for that matter and because of that when you have a country that that has a stigma on
00:36:29.600
it like the ccp does um if you are a think tank accepting funding from them you're just not going
00:36:35.080
to report it you you're just going to hide that you know you're going to keep that as dark money
00:36:39.380
so i again you know i said this was the tip of the iceberg um and i i i think if we look at that
00:36:46.420
iceberg of money that's below what we found here i think you would find a lot more money flowing in
00:36:51.600
from the ccp to u.s think tanks but because of all these loopholes in u.s laws right now they just
00:36:57.800
simply don't have to report that uh to your question about the u.s government funding think
00:37:02.320
tanks um this was an important issue for us because you know at the end of the day um uh you
00:37:07.460
know i'm a taxpayer you're a taxpayer i i think one of the last things that we want to see is that u.s
00:37:13.740
taxpayer dollars going towards influencing and you know spreading propaganda to u.s taxpayers and yet
00:37:21.100
what we documented was over a billion dollars in u.s government funding going to the top 50 think
00:37:26.100
tanks in the u.s um you know in some cases that goes to research that's only used within the
00:37:31.460
government you know then folks might not have a problem with that but in other cases you know
00:37:35.560
this is going to very prominent think tanks uh that are some of those think tanks you mentioned the
00:37:40.780
the brookings of the world the center for strategic and international studies the atlanta councils of
00:37:45.600
the world that are promoting what we would consider a hawkish agenda you know at the end of the day at
00:37:51.220
the quincy institute uh we're already trying to end the next endless war so when we see our taxpayer
00:37:56.840
dollars going to think tanks that are seemingly clamoring for endless war uh yeah we're gonna have
00:38:03.480
a problem with that and i'm curious your thoughts as we you know barrel towards the uh second trump
00:38:11.420
administration if you think the sort of jockeying around for think tanks to prop up these you know
00:38:17.140
astroturf narratives whatever the issue may be i think maybe you're gonna start seeing the you know
00:38:22.520
open borders advocates and big labor they want all their h-1b's sort of come out of the woodwork although
00:38:26.980
i guess maybe they never really went away to begin with um but how you think that this is a force in
00:38:31.620
terms of again it's not explicitly opposing trump but just whoever the elected president is in some
00:38:37.980
ways they sort of act as an unelected bureaucrat or an unelected i think input into the policy
00:38:44.980
debate but the american people i think are left like you were alluding to in the dark about who's
00:38:49.620
really funding them right all these experts that they have you know testifying up on capitol hill
00:38:54.020
they're they're not experts they're pay-for-play crisis actors for whatever the issue may be but
00:38:59.560
i'm curious your thoughts particularly come january 20th someone who has you know been a i would say
00:39:05.680
outspoken advocate of not continuing these endless forever wars if you think there's only going to be
00:39:10.080
more money uh plowed into these think tanks yeah i i really think with a new uh trump administration
00:39:17.640
uh you know some of these funders might be on notice i i i think towards the tail end of the uh
00:39:24.140
the previous trump administration uh we saw the trump state department issue one of the only
00:39:30.680
meaningful objectives to uh to bring more transparency to think tank funding and then you know my
00:39:36.580
pompeo state department you know were issued this decree that any anything tank that wanted to do
00:39:41.680
business with them had to fully disclose all their foreign funders um and the biden administration
00:39:47.680
promptly uh abandoned that and you know did nothing with it so we don't have that level of disclosure
00:39:53.000
anymore um but i think you know i mean trump 2.0 here i i'm at least hopeful that you know you have
00:40:00.300
an administration that is concerned about this issue cares about it and that we're going to see
00:40:05.460
at least some efforts to to bring more uh transparency about foreign government funding
00:40:10.680
of think tanks so at the end of the day you you know somebody like president trump he gets the game
00:40:15.180
you know he knows he knows what's going on here so we're very hopeful that uh he'll help to rein this
00:40:20.400
in and ben we have a very action oriented audience they love to be informed if they want to use this
00:40:29.700
database sort of look at the info that you've pulled so the next time they're watching hate watching
00:40:34.100
msnbc or whatever and they see some expert that's the probably most cheapened word in washington dc that
00:40:41.240
and maybe american citizenship um but if they want to really look at where these people are coming from
00:40:46.520
who's propping them up where can they go to do that is you know how is it operable how can people
00:40:51.780
sort of get all this information yeah thank you so much for asking you you can find all of this
00:40:57.540
information at think tank funding tracker dot org everything i've mentioned we're giving it all
00:41:03.800
away you can look up uh whatever think tank you're interested in whatever foreign government defense
00:41:08.820
contractor you want to see where the u.s government's money's going we've got it all freely available to
00:41:13.880
you at think tank funding tracker dot org uh if you want a nerd like me to break it down for you you
00:41:19.200
can check out our report on this at quincyinst.org uh and if you want to follow me i'm on x at ben
00:41:25.580
premium dc ben thank you so much for joining us we'll have you back on i can only imagine the hours
00:41:32.640
that it took to go through all of that so thank you for doing the the hardcore work to get that out
00:41:38.860
it's important work thank you so much of course thank you there's a new study out today i saw i think
00:41:47.580
maybe the other side of the coin on all this that i think over half of federal government workers they
00:41:53.860
were itemized as like federal government managers are planning on resisting president trump whatever
00:42:00.040
that may mean and i told you about the new group civil service strong which of course has links to i
00:42:04.740
guess newly found stand-up comedian norm eisen um a group called civil service strong that is actively
00:42:11.780
coaching federal bureaucrats on how to whistleblow how to file complaints how to uh
00:42:17.560
shall we say throw sand in the gears of uh the america first agenda like i said the real tell
00:42:26.180
with that rachel maddow going to broadcasting every single day of the week now i'm sorry america is that
00:42:32.840
it's for the first hundred days of the trump administration and that they took alex wagner off
00:42:38.160
the beat to go and do on the ground field reporting in other words they're going to want to have the
00:42:44.080
sob stories of the multi-generational family that got to port okay spare me we're about america first
00:42:51.720
here and we're not going to fall for your what appeal to uh not logos probably just more pathos and ethos
00:43:00.720
over at msnbc we're not falling for it and we're not falling for your transition mark zuckerberg
00:43:09.560
like i said i've seen transgender surgeries that are more convincing than your a newfound
00:43:14.700
maga love and i'm a tough critic you gotta be checking out birchgold.com slash ban or texting
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ban into 989898 we'll be right back after this short break with a very triggering cold open it's kind
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that is donewithdebt.com do it today action action action yeah i put in the application for a presidential
00:44:52.960
pardon because i believe that joe biden has the same responsibility to me that he had to his own son
00:45:00.160
and i would expect that the same exact pardon that he gave his son has to go to me and to anybody else
00:45:06.360
that's on that enemy's list whether they want it or not because i assure you solitary confinement where
00:45:13.160
i did 51 days sucks michael cohen i i believe wholeheartedly that the solitary confinement was
00:45:24.640
just a terrible experience for you and i think your point about the enemies the proverbial enemies list
00:45:32.200
right is a good one i wonder um have you heard anything back from the administration
00:45:38.620
it is my understanding that two things the administration one is not going to give a
00:45:42.860
pardon to anybody that doesn't want one so folks who have prominently gone out and said i do not want
00:45:47.820
a pardon the president is not going to issue a pardon to people that don't want one but two
00:45:53.320
they'll change their mind when they're sitting behind closed doors that i can assure you they're
00:45:58.160
going to kick themselves in the backside for that one i think hindsight will always be 2020 i guess
00:46:03.240
my question is have you heard from the biden administration and i am struck by your um your
00:46:08.660
your your comparing yourself and hunter biden um and i'm i wonder if well i'm going to tell you
00:46:16.960
michael causes we on national tv we have a conversation i don't necessarily think that's your best way to
00:46:20.500
go get a pardon i mean hunter biden is the president's last surviving son but your point your other point
00:46:25.780
why i do think i'm somebody's son also by the way agreed you are somebody's son but i mean to be very
00:46:31.240
clear you're not the president's son michael cohen do you remember when he would run around doing the
00:46:38.580
laps in media mr tough guy right how times have changed bro i don't think you need a pardon i think
00:46:47.880
you need some testosterone or some trt that has to be i think thus far in 2025 the most embarrassing
00:46:54.400
media clip that i have seen yet groveling on msnbc to the point where they're mocking you
00:47:01.000
where simone freaking sanders is giving you like life advice like an akumbaya trying to help you on
00:47:09.240
live tv but it goes back to the zuckerberg conversion stuff all of these men who were so tough
00:47:18.960
who celebrated the jan sixers going to prison celebrated steve bannon going to prison celebrated
00:47:26.200
and mocked peter navarro mocked the assassination attempt censored the assassination attempt against
00:47:31.420
president trump on facebook they were so tough such real men and now it's a little tough because they
00:47:41.080
know that the investigations are coming and they fold like i've never seen
00:47:47.960
compare and contrast that with what stephen k bannon did when i sat here for four months
00:47:56.500
because he was in a federal prison when peter navarro every day was sitting down for a misdemeanor in a
00:48:02.780
felony correction center every single thing that they have thrown against president donald j trump
00:48:09.180
including not one but two assassination attempts and they'll probably be more because they're that
00:48:14.500
deranged and these real strong men have continued showing up and fighting for this country just
00:48:20.160
like you guys this audience you've been tested 1000 times over than michael cohen or mark zuckerberg any
00:48:26.300
of these people and you've emerged victorious and now these people are doing sob story crimea river
00:48:36.860
laps on msnbc groveling for preemptive blanket pardons
00:48:42.080
i mean let that sink in i mean pat yourself on the back first think about how embarrassing and cringe
00:49:00.000
and i stand by what i said maybe mark zuckerberg too you get a two-for-one deal
00:49:05.920
on some trt and just some common sense and i don't know stop committing crimes so you don't
00:49:12.120
need blanket preemptive pardons stop hating this country more than you love yourselves and your
00:49:16.720
globalist agendas that you're using to destroy this country and displace american workers and start
00:49:21.920
more endless forever wars and then cry and victim blame the american people for spreading misinformation
00:49:27.000
and then euphemizing it that you're censoring us because you care so much about democracy
00:49:31.420
just stop and then you won't have to emasculate yourself publicly on tv for the sake of everything
00:49:40.820
normize and i'll throw that cringe video into just stop
00:49:47.700
someone who is going to join us now who i know is definitely not
00:49:52.240
the mastermind behind bankrolling normize's new uh contrarian outlet is the one and only
00:49:59.140
mike lindell who joins us now i'm sure you're getting excited getting ready for all the inaugural
00:50:03.720
stuff but in the meantime hit us with the latest and all things my pillow
00:50:08.020
well you guys you know we all have we launched just for the war room the crosses i wear we're going
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we have that you say 30 percent on the war room but i wanted to quick tell you all this
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the best time to get them or call the call center i'm in minnesota right now i'm actually going to be
00:51:50.060
going downstairs natalie and taking a couple calls myself i'm here i get involved with my call center i
00:51:55.620
love to take an old call so i might get one of you guys from the war room might take you personally and
00:52:00.340
uh and answer the phone so that'll be that'll be kind of fun going back in time
00:52:04.140
whatever you do don't give mark zuckerberg a my pillow promo code as he tries to complete his uh
00:52:11.020
maga conversion that's how you know your full maga that didn't happen what's going on there i can't
00:52:17.180
believe it i mean he wouldn't let me use my image before the 2020 election in a my pillow ad
00:52:22.460
i had to take my face out of the ad because i was so branded with the president and what a shameful
00:52:27.660
thing the stuff he did back then and now you're saying come on you know they don't call him
00:52:33.040
absolute disgrace war room is conversion therapy for rhinos i stand by it and uh mark zuckerberg
00:52:41.620
thanks but no thanks thank you guys for hanging with me i'll see y'all soon have a good one
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