In this episode of The War Room, host Stephen K.K. Bannon is joined by Natalie Winters and Brian Kennedy of the Claremont Institute and Frank Gaffney of the Nation to discuss USAID and the color revolution.
00:03:47.000I will say, you know, Frank Gaffney and I, Frank's one of my heroes.
00:03:52.000And Steve's not here, so I can just say whatever I want to until you try to wrestle me to stop me.
00:03:58.000We're living in this very precarious time where government is spending a lot of money.
00:04:05.000And Frank and I were arguing earlier this week about how much money we're spending on defense.
00:04:10.000And President Trump had this proposal with the Chinese and the Russians that if we cut 50% of our defense budget, they'll cut 50% of their budgets.
00:04:21.000And Frank called me and he was in moral outrage about the whole thing.
00:04:27.000And I thought, you know, this is Trump's genius that he's going to cut 50% out of our defense budget and it's going to be, you know, condoms to Mozambique or, you know, transgender surgeries in the military and all this wasteful spending.
00:04:45.000We're going to cut 50% out of our budget that goes in those kind of crazy things.
00:04:50.000And the Russians and the Chinese would have to cut 50% out of their budget.
00:04:54.000And it would be actual programs they're using to build, you know, nuclear weapons or tanks or airplanes, what have you.
00:05:01.000And so I think one healthy byproduct of finding out where the money goes is what can our priorities or what should our priorities really be?
00:05:11.000Should they be these silly programs around the world or should it be what does it take to defend the United States?
00:05:18.000And I know you guys might have a little bit of a debate over World War Three, but I'm curious if you agree with Brian's assessment of the concept of United States American soft power abroad.
00:05:29.000I think it's sort of a, I would say, false projection, the idea that we are actively competing with the CCP in any meaningful way, shape or form on the world stage currently, or at least under Joe Biden.
00:06:38.000As Natalie can appreciate, it appears that about half of the people in the room she works with now were on the USAID payroll, for God's sake.
00:06:52.000Now, it starts with the fact that that last time I checked was a program designed to pay for foreign activities.
00:07:06.000And we can argue about the value of them and, you know, the merits of the way they did it in particular under the Biden years.
00:07:13.000And I would just stipulate, it was waste, fraud, and abuse stem to stern.
00:07:22.000I happen to believe that there are some places where you could usefully use foreign assistance, but I'm not convinced that they were doing much of it on those guys' watch.
00:07:34.000And as a result, they've given the whole thing a bad name.
00:07:37.000But what is absolutely unacceptable and should be criminal and should be prosecuted, something that Natalie is rather big on, as you know, is the fact that they were plowing some of this money into propagandizing the American people.
00:08:00.000And I don't think we've gotten an indication of the full measure of how bad it was.
00:08:06.000Which brings me to another exciting topic, which is what we're doing with our defense spending.
00:08:15.000Now, Brian and I did have a little bit of a debate.
00:08:20.000My piece of the debate was mostly, I personally don't believe that there is 50% of the defense budget that is in condoms going to Mozambique or transgender surgery.
00:08:36.000In fact, one of the things that I said to Brian that I'm hopeful of is if Elon Musk and his team do, as Steve has constantly now been exhorting them to do, to go into Virginia.
00:08:52.000Go into Virginia, just like in, you know, the Civil War.
00:08:57.000If they do, and they actually can bring the kinds of techniques and technologies to bear that they've used handsomely on USAID and a number of other outfits,
00:09:10.000maybe they will find what has been eluding us to this point, which are line items dedicated to waste, fraud, and abuse.
00:09:23.000And if they do, we should strike them for sure.
00:09:28.000And they might find other programs that they think are not meritorious or at least not as high a priority as they should be.
00:09:35.000And we should have a debate about that.
00:09:37.000But I would like to suggest, ladies and gentlemen, and this is a point on which Brian and I agree,
00:09:47.000that as we are in a war, we ought to think very carefully about either taking the money out or being perceived as taking the money out,
00:10:38.000Did it actually make a sound since nobody was there to hear it or something like that?
00:10:44.000Anyway, the point is, she said, if there is a war underway and nobody is paying attention, can you still lose it?
00:10:54.000And the answer, of course, is yes, you can.
00:10:59.000And we're testing the proposition right now.
00:11:02.000And one of the things, and I see the great Steve Bannon is in the house, for which I will always be personally grateful,
00:11:09.000and I suspect the rest of you feel the same way, is he has helped people like our Committee on the Present Danger,
00:11:17.000China, and countless others, elevating these sorts of issues that the American people have to know about.
00:11:26.000Have to know that when we're deciding about defense expenditures, or what they should be, or how much they should be,
00:11:34.000we're having it in the context of the fact that we have mortal enemies, starting with the Chinese Communist Party,
00:11:43.000who are emboldened by what they see us doing.
00:11:47.000And if they are emboldened, they will press forward, I'm afraid, from what I believe Natalie has done heroic work to describe,
00:11:57.000the unrestricted warfare they've engaged in against us for 30-some years,
00:12:05.000the people's war that they announced publicly, that they had declared against us back in May of 2019.
00:12:16.000And yes, the shooting war that they have been preparing for inexorably,
00:12:22.000and which could be upon us at any time, and last point, which is really exciting,
00:12:28.000is we have barely had a conversation in this country about the fact that the Defense Department of the United States
00:12:39.000had better be structured, equipped, trained, and prepared to contend with something that I submit to you they are not any of those things right now.
00:12:52.000And that is dealing with multiple divisions of Chinese People's Liberation Army personnel in America right now.
00:13:04.000How exciting is that, ladies and gentlemen?
00:20:10.000Look at the radical nature of everything they attempt to do.
00:20:17.000This is why it's providential that they stole the election.
00:20:20.000Because then you can see that average Americans who don't pay, the low information voters who don't pay a lot of attention can say, that is not my country.
00:20:29.000That is not the United States of America.
00:20:31.000And I don't know about all this stuff, but I want Trump.
00:24:28.000I spent almost all of my professional life working against addled-minded arms control.
00:24:39.000And the idea you're going to get into one process, as they call it, with the Russians and the Chinese where they're going to actually agree to cut their military by half, ain't going to happen.
00:24:59.000But what could begin happening, and I've seen it again and again and again, is it immediately starts constricting us.
00:25:47.000Not so much a rebuttal as to amplify something the President said, which I think is the most important point he's made on national security.
00:25:58.000He talks about an iron dome because you know about the iron dome that's in Israel.
00:26:02.000He wants to make sure we're defended from ballistic missile attack from Russia, China, and Iran.
00:26:09.000Today, right now, if Russia, China, or Iran launched a nuclear ballistic missile at us, we could not stop it.
00:32:20.000Shout out to everyone here who's on team with President Trump.
00:32:24.000One thing I like about what President Trump is doing is he is coming in bold, taking action and moving fast, keeping the enemy off guard.
00:32:33.000And I'll use the term the enemy because the deep state, call it what you will, the administrative state, the bureaucrats, they are overwhelmingly aligned with the movement of the leftist Democrats.
00:33:06.000We're going to come back to Derek Carvey on his discussion on the deep state here in a moment.
00:33:09.000Let's go ahead and throw it up on the screens.
00:33:11.000From Detroit down to Houston, and New York to LA, where there's pride in every American heart, and it's time we stand and say that I'm about to be an American where at least I know I'm free.
00:33:38.000And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me, and I gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
00:33:51.000Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land.
00:38:38.000Musk. He's been making a little news lately, hasn't he, though? Very positive news. Stand up, Elon. He's a great guy.
00:38:50.060We did a little show last night. I heard they got very good ratings, too, by the way. We did. Hannity. Sean Hannity is fantastic. A fantastic man, a fantastic guy, and he did a show, and it was great being on the show with you last night.
00:39:03.680I come today with a simple message for business leaders from all across the nation and all around the world. If you want to build the future, push boundaries, unleash breakthroughs, transform industries, and make a fortune, because you want to make a fortune.
00:39:19.280Most of you have already made a fortune. I don't want to say that. There's no better place on Earth than the current and future United States of America under a certain president named Donald J. Trump.
00:39:31.400I think that you're going to do very well.
00:39:36.880They're saying that November 5th, Election Day, 2024 will go down as one of the most important days in the history of our country.
00:39:45.000They said in 129 years, the most consequential election. I don't know if they're right about that or not, but it sounds good.
00:39:54.120I wanted to see if I could get a couple of more years tacked on, but I figured the fight wasn't really worth it.
00:40:01.240And as of January 20th, 2025, the dark days of high taxes, crushing regulations, rampant inflation, flagrant corruption, government, weaponization.
00:40:11.580Oh, I know about weaponization. And total incompetence will be gone forever.
00:41:38.940I didn't realize it was that bad for so long.
00:41:41.160But it was just announced by one of the nation's most historically accurate and respected pulses, Rasmussen,
00:41:47.140that the number of Americans who believe our country is on the right track now exceeds those who think it's heading in the wrong direction for the first time in 20 years.
00:42:12.780The best and most successful business leaders on earth are now racing to invest in the United States since November.
00:42:20.640DeMac has announced plans to invest $40 billion in the U.S., creating at least 10,000 jobs.
00:42:26.940SoftBank has announced investments of between $100 and $200 billion, creating at least 100,000 American jobs.
00:42:34.920Oracle and OpenAI and SoftBank are now collectively committing $500 billion to keep the United States on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence.
00:43:06.260But on his recent visit to the White House, the Prime Minister of Japan announced he anticipates Japanese investment to the United States of well over a trillion dollars.
00:43:16.160And we're working on an Alaska pipeline already, which is the closest point to Asia.
00:43:21.640And as you know, the ANWR, which we've started, Ronald Reagan couldn't get it approved.
00:43:27.680Nobody could get it approved for so many years.
00:49:42.080But, you know, it'd be nice to have some people up there that he's a seriously high IQ individual.
00:49:48.220Now, he's got his faults also, I will tell you that.
00:49:51.900But not too many of them, which is now really waging war on government waste, fraud, and abuse.
00:49:56.960And they're curbing inflation and saving taxpayers billions and billions of dollars every single day.
00:50:03.140And there's even, under consideration, a new concept where we give 20% of the Doge savings to American citizens and 20% goes to paying down debt.
00:50:14.000Because the numbers are incredible, Elon.
00:53:28.980$2.3 million for strengthening independent voices in Cambodia.
00:53:33.460$14 million for improving public procurement in Serbia.
00:53:38.340$486 million to the consortium for elections and political process strengthening, including $22 million for inclusion, inclusive, participatory political process in Moldova.
00:53:54.820And $21 million for voter turnout in India.
00:53:58.700What do we need to spend $21 million for voter turnout in India?