In this episode of The War Room, host Steve Kamb and White House correspondent Natalie Winters break down the latest shake-up at the FBI, including the firing of some of the most senior agents and field offices, and what it means for the future of the agency.
00:00:30.000I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.
00:00:39.820Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose?
00:00:43.600If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.
00:00:49.880War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.
00:00:53.200It's Friday, 31 January, year of our Lord, 2025.
00:01:02.760You're in the late afternoon, early evening edition of the War Room.
00:01:08.360We're going to go to White House, our White House correspondent, Natalie Winters.
00:01:12.900Natalie, I want to talk to you about this purge at the FBI, senior leadership, also the field offices, hit like a thunderbolt this afternoon on days of thunder.
00:01:25.080Cash Patel had a good day yesterday, but they were all over him.
00:01:31.760Maybe I don't think the committee's voted, and certainly they haven't voted on the floor.
00:01:35.700Schumer today is bragging about how the resistance is forming.
00:01:40.840I mean, what's the White House thinking?
00:01:42.180Why would President Trump authorize Emil Bovey to go start purging the FBI before the...
00:01:48.640Is this show this level of confidence of President Trump?
00:01:52.120I mean, it's the exact opposite of how most political figures in this town would operate.
00:01:58.600Well, setting aside the firing of the attorneys, this is something that was originally sourced, I believe, from the Associated Press, in addition to, I think, some people speaking anonymously to Politico.
00:02:10.660So it wasn't necessarily a broad declaration that came out, but this, of course, is coming on the heels of an FBI personnel shakeup happening just a few days ago.
00:02:20.060But from what we're learning about it, I do think it does, frankly, reek of confidence coming from the White House.
00:02:26.260I think a lot of the campaign promises, not necessarily of retribution, I know we aren't allowed to use that word, certainly not, on the White House lawn.
00:02:32.860But if you really understand who is affected by this move, it's people who have weaponized the justice system, the FBI, not just against President Trump, but against his most fervent supporters to that point.
00:02:45.680It's senior managers in some of the FBI's largest field offices, in addition to various departments within FBI headquarters, including national security, criminal, cyber response, and services, science and technology, information and technology, and human resource branches.
00:03:03.700But, Steve, I will say I was reading through the legacy media's kind of coverage of this, which, by the way, it's interesting.
00:03:09.440This topic did not come up in today's press briefing.
00:03:12.320I've heard really no murmurs or rumors about this until it broke, what, about an hour ago.
00:03:18.680But they're already quoting, whether it's the FBI Agents Association, a bunch of lawyers.
00:03:23.400I'd posit it's probably whistleblower attorney Mark Zaid of double impeachment fame.
00:03:28.480But talking about how they're going to fight this, which I really think harkens back to a lot of sort of the architect, the blueprint of the resistance pushback.
00:03:36.540I think one of the, I think, offenses that they really wanted to mount was the idea, not just through the paradigm of Schedule F, but the mass firing that they view as being unjustified.
00:03:46.960In this case, I think the FBI is sort of, I guess, the white whale, right?
00:03:50.400You can't come for the FBI, especially if you look at it through the lens of the independent executive theory.
00:03:55.820But I think right now what you're about to witness go down in terms of this purge at the FBI is essentially the first showdown between, I think, elements of the resistance movement, the sort of rebranded, now that Trump is back, lawfare branch and brigade against the White House, against President Trump.
00:04:12.540So we'll definitely be following it closely, but it's, it's just, things are just starting to pop off.
00:04:19.980Now, they got rid of Jack Smith's team the other day.
00:04:24.060Today, just announced right before he came on, the J6 prosecutors over at the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C., Matthew Graves' crowd, which is the worst.
00:04:34.340They've fired all of these folks too, correct?
00:04:37.960We have the picture, if we want to put it up on screen, but the letter being sent around to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C., but all the January 6th federal prosecutors have basically been ordered to leave.
00:04:52.240It's in the Appendix A, though that's not on the screen right now.
00:04:55.520It's the names of the people who were involved with that.
00:04:59.200So they, I think you said you're going to have Mike Davis on, he'll break it down.
00:05:02.580But this was just breaking about 20 minutes ago on top of the FBI stuff.
00:05:06.920And it's funny, I've already started sort of tracking the way that the mainstream media is starting to cover it.
00:05:11.340You're already starting to see, you guessed it, the R word, retribution kind of come out in a lot of the copy.
00:05:17.640The idea that this is now what President Trump promised.
00:05:20.200And they're already going too, I think, a testament to this show.
00:05:23.040CRA, Jeff Clark, how we've been ahead of the narrative.
00:05:25.780They're sort of, I think, hunkering down and really drilling down on the idea that the DOJ is independent.
00:05:32.380And, of course, FBI being under their purview that President Trump, for extra reasons beyond just the idea that they, of course, detest anything he does, doesn't have the authority to do what he's doing, especially when it comes to the DOJ.
00:05:43.440Natalie Winters, as she normally does, just hit the nail right on the head.
00:05:48.940That is the, that's the buried lead in the signal.
00:05:52.040Back to the unitary theory of the executive.
00:05:55.000He's the chief executive of the U.S. government.
00:05:57.520He's the commander-in-chief of the military and the uniformed services.
00:06:01.980And he is the chief magistrate and chief law enforcement officer of the United States government.
00:06:08.980That would not be the attorney general.
00:06:13.160Natalie, they had the press briefing all day long.
00:06:15.140It's been about this horrific crash, this horrific accident at Reagan National Airport.
00:06:22.840And it's very confusing what's going on.
00:06:24.820But what's more confusing is that the Army this afternoon, just a little while ago, said they are not going to release the name of the female pilot because, at the family's request, that's pretty extraordinary.
00:06:39.640Do you have any updates on that or any word around the White House about this?
00:07:02.200And I think it was sort of an interesting framing.
00:07:05.020A lot of the questions weren't necessarily talking about, as you could probably guess, how wonderful and how good for the American consumer and American workers that these tariffs are.
00:07:12.660But sort of trying to get ahead of the president asking if there would be lag times and if there are any concessions that these countries could potentially make to try to either drop them or just eliminate them completely.
00:07:23.720I guess the press corps has not read the art of the deal.
00:07:26.120They know you certainly don't negotiate from the press podium.
00:07:28.980But I will say today was the first time that there was a question from someone sitting in the new media seat.
00:07:34.260It was a member of the Ruthless podcast.
00:07:36.360And starting off hot, he asked a question basically haranguing the mainstream media, saying that they've already been sort of lying about all things immigration.
00:07:45.700And it was kind of funny to watch the faces of the legacy media in that room.
00:07:50.300They did not like that that question was being asked.
00:07:53.320And I was talking to even some foreign reporters today who were saying that they've never seen the press briefing, at least since the last four years, this busy, this packed.
00:08:01.640They said they used to be able to come two minutes before these briefings would start and there would be just rows of empty seats.
00:08:08.340Where one correspondent from Italy remarked to me, he's like, probably for the next four years, I won't even have the opportunity or chance to sit down and ask a question.
00:08:52.280It is a very good day because President Trump's Justice Department is actually delivering justice.
00:09:01.360A. Mel Bowles, the acting deputy attorney general, is one of President Trump's former lawyers.
00:09:08.340So he has experienced this lawfare for several years now.
00:09:13.260And so he knows who the bad actors are.
00:09:15.180And he's been ready to go since day one to get rid of these bad actors from the Trump Justice Department.
00:09:25.160These people who politicized and weaponized intel agencies and law enforcement are now – they were the hunters, as we talk about a lot, Steve.
00:09:36.480And now they are the hunters, and they are unemployed today, and I hope that they're prosecuted very soon.
00:09:44.240Mike, in the way this city operates, it's the lawyers in the big law firms, more than the lobbyists, more than even the sociopathic overlords, tech.
00:09:57.360All those people are players and funny things.
00:09:59.400But this is a town of lawyers, and it's run by lawyers, run by the big power law firms in town, run by individual lawyers.
00:10:24.820Well, I don't know what these Democrat lawyers and other operatives in D.C. are thinking, but there is a new sheriff in town, and that new sheriff is Ed Morton in the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office.
00:10:40.620Another new sheriff is Emil Bove, the acting number two.
00:10:44.380And when Pam gets confirmed as the attorney general, she will take over that Justice Department and continue to do what Ed Morton and Emil Bove have started.
00:10:54.640And they are going to make sure that there is accountability for this unprecedented Republican-ending lawfare that we've talked about on your show, Steve, since the Mar-a-Lago raid for nearly three years.
00:11:06.740And we're going to restore justice to the Justice Department, including the FBI, when Cash Patel is confirmed.
00:11:12.440And we are going to have the Justice Department, including the FBI, focused on real crimes like our southern border and the resulting rapes and murders and kidnappings and robberies from the violent Venezuelan gangs.
00:11:28.420And we're not going to be focused on political crimes.
00:11:31.400We're going to end this weaponization of our law enforcement once and for all.
00:11:36.640And the people who perpetuated this are going to be held accountable.
00:12:23.480It should let these people in D.C. know that President Trump and his Justice Department team are not messing around this time.
00:12:32.900President Trump learned his lesson from the first term, and that is that he's not going to pick bad personnel, including wimps in the Justice Department, who turned the other cheek the last time after a crossfire hurricane, after the Russian collusion hoax.
00:12:50.640And so the Democrats saw our weakness the last time, and that's why they ran this unprecedented Republican in lawfare against Trump.
00:13:00.700His top aides, like Hugh Bannon and Peter Devaro, who went to prison, his supporters on January 6th, parents, Christians, were not putting up with this BS this time.
00:13:11.200And you have savages in the Justice Department, like Amal Bove, the acting number two, along with Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney in D.C.
00:13:21.380And what a difference four years in the White House and four years of reflection has made for President Trump.
00:13:28.840He is ready to govern on day one, and he is delivering on the mandate he received from the American voters to end the weaponization of law enforcement and intel agencies.
00:13:41.620And he's bringing much-needed accountability, and a hell of a lot more is coming.
00:13:46.700So to these lawfare Democrats, buckle up, boys.
00:14:07.700The most important thing you can do is go light up your home state senators, take action on Tash Patel, on Tulsi Gabbard, on RFK Jr.
00:14:17.340We need to get the president's team over the line.
00:14:20.740Hope we don't pick senators' staffs, and they shouldn't pick the presidents, so long as they are qualified.
00:14:27.340These great Americans are certainly qualified, as we saw at their confirmation hearings.
00:14:31.620And we will destroy the political careers of Senate Republicans who tried to obstruct President Trump's agenda by obstructing his cabinet picks like they tried to do last time.
00:15:42.180How bold was this, given the controversy yesterday, particularly the targeting of Kash Patel and the targeting for what they call retribution?
00:15:52.760What does this tell us about the White House?
00:15:55.680What does this tell us about the confidence of President Trump and his team, ma'am?
00:15:59.540Well, look, like I said, this purge in particular is being sourced primarily through the media, I believe, was the Associated Press that first broke it.
00:16:09.760I'm talking independent of the D.C. Attorney's Office.
00:16:13.840But I think there's two ways to look at it.
00:16:15.540One is maybe through the paradigm of confidence coming out of the White House.
00:16:19.480Obviously, they've been standing by Kash Patel.
00:16:22.920But if anything, my take on it, you know, I think we were talking yesterday about the concept of kind of taking the bait, right?
00:16:29.460It was obvious that on the foreign aid freeze, that that was something that they really took the bait on.
00:16:33.520That was what they spent all their questions on, whether it was the press conference or Stephen Miller.
00:16:37.460But I think they've decided, as you saw from Nicole Wallace's, you know, MSNBC open.
00:16:41.540This is they they are taking the bait on this when they are really honing in on this.
00:16:44.880So maybe it projects confidence from the White House.
00:16:47.120But if anything, I think they're trying to show the stakes of what, you know, Kash Patel, who they've smeared as an agent of retribution,
00:16:53.260to the point where, you know, you have senators making bingo cards because you know what their lines of attack are going to be against them.
00:16:59.460And someone like Kash Patel, who's been so thoroughly vetted, has, you know, every security clearance known to man.
00:17:04.300I guess the news story that they dropped last week was that during a hostage negotiation,
00:17:07.700he sent an email when he shouldn't have or something to that effect.
00:17:11.240But they don't really have much to go on him since he's been so thoroughly vetted.
00:17:16.660So I think in this case, you're also seeing them, I think, try to kind of up the ante on the retribution narrative.
00:17:21.340But I think it's a bit of a different angle of attack because, Steve, I think if we learned anything from the Hegseth confirmation process,
00:17:28.140the more that the mainstream media attacked him, the more that I think it gave, frankly, our audience the MAGA grassroots
00:17:34.540to sort of make the case to these squishy rhino senators that they have to vote to confirm Hegseth,
00:17:40.000to confirm whoever that pick may be, certainly if the mainstream media is opposing them.
00:17:44.120So I think this is certainly an evolving story in terms of how to perceive of it.
00:17:47.840But I think Ed Martin, certain people over at the DOJ, I think they are really, even prior to Pam Bondi,
00:17:53.260I think that they are representing what President Trump talked about on the campaign trail.
00:17:57.100And for anyone who's having, wavering about if they were going to follow through, I think it's a good sign.
00:18:03.600Ed Martin, an old friend, Phyllis Schlafly, ran the Schlafly Institute, was very close to her,
00:18:09.120just a fantastic guy, been on the show a lot, friend of the show.
00:18:12.180Offices used to be right around the corner here in the boardroom right across from the Supreme Court.
00:18:16.120I just couldn't pick a better pick because he is a very, very focused guy.
00:18:20.980Natalie, last but not least, another story.
00:18:23.460I think on the Daily Mail, putting a shot across your bow on your, any comments or observations?
00:29:01.420Giving you access to all three major networks without your dollars funding the left.
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00:30:06.860Shortly after the government pushed through the Patriot Act.
00:30:09.860This gave the government power to spy on innocent Americans by monitoring our phone and email and tracking our movement across the Internet.
00:30:17.360Now, Jim Rickards, editor of the independent financial newsletter Strategic Intelligence and New York Times bestselling author, is warning about a coming event that could elevate this governmental surveillance to a terrifying new level.
00:30:31.060In fact, some of the guests I've had on the war room believe that the government will soon expand their powers to track our every move.
00:30:38.940If we say the wrong things on social media, donate to the wrong causes, buy firearms, or even vote MAGA, the government may be able to shut us out of our bank accounts.
00:30:49.200I can't say for sure if this will happen, but it's an interesting and dire warning.
00:30:55.280Fortunately, Jim Rickards, an American patriot and friend of mine, has made it his mission to educate us on what he believes is coming and how to protect yourself from the possibility of programmable money.
00:31:07.900Watch Jim's warning video now before it's censored like I've been in the past.
00:31:32.960So Elon put out a tweet, I think overnight early this morning, saying they're on the path and they're looking at how they cut $1 trillion out of the $2 trillion deficit.
00:31:43.380And remember, this is so important to get inflation out of the system, all of it.
00:32:35.280That that is all going to come to conclusion around the 15th of March when the government runs out of money again.
00:32:43.160And there's no appetite, particularly no appetite among the war room posse to have just to kick the can down the road to have a one year CR.
00:32:49.420Susan Collins has already raised the flag.
00:32:52.460We want independent appropriations bills that people can see because we want to know where the money is going.
00:33:17.520And what we can't do because it's redonkulous, we cannot pass a spending bill or keep a CR that has a two trillion dollar deficit that by definition, by your definition, has a trillion dollars of wasting or has a trillion dollars of inefficiency or has a trillion dollars of programs that we feel we don't need right now.
00:33:40.280We don't essentially because we have to get the spending down.
00:34:24.320Even executive actions have certain limits to it.
00:34:28.900And this is why President Trump got frustrated the other day.
00:34:30.840And this led to the OMB memo temporarily stopping it because our Constitution lays out the House of Representatives kind of like the British Commons.
00:34:40.040All revenue, all taxes, all tariffs, duties, fees come from there.
00:34:49.560On a temporary basis, you can do it differently.
00:34:51.740That's why President Trump tonight is going to impose 25 percent tariffs.
00:34:55.100And there are laws, and Navarra's worked this all out, that you can do it.
00:35:00.140But the spending cuts eventually had to be codified in something called an appropriations bill.
00:35:06.360And that's what the CRs kind of kicked the can down the road.
00:35:08.540And to it, we have to just get directionally, tell us where you're going.
00:35:14.500Tell us where this tree in dollars is.
00:35:15.740It doesn't have to be the fifth decimal place, but just tell us.
00:35:18.780Because I'll say this over and over and over again.
00:35:23.580Unless we can show the American people that the defense budget has been looked at, it just isn't.
00:35:48.680And the more lies and the can gets kicked down the road, we end up with $36 or $37 trillion of debt and $2 trillion deficits.
00:35:59.960And things exploding in the interest rate, the 10-year bond out of control, and your credit card, and your mortgage, and your student loan, and your auto loan, and all of it getting out of control.
00:36:13.720And those people that are adults must bind together, regardless of your political philosophy and other things, and say, we've got to stop this madness.
00:36:31.400And if the wealthy and the donors and the corporatists and the oligarchs and the apartheid state of Silicon Valley and the lords of easy money, if they will help us because they run the town, let's be honest.
00:36:43.160The politicians don't make these independent decisions.
00:38:14.060You must get your hands on federal spending.
00:38:18.640And then, you're going to have a – either – if you can't get the spending down, then you're going to have to raise the revenue.
00:38:23.960And this is why I say you've got to go to the wealthy and say, guys, if you don't put your lobbyists on it, if you don't put the – because you're welfare queens.
00:38:31.580Everybody's underwritten on the back of the little guy, and it has to stop.
00:40:10.160So I started – I had to take it because I couldn't stop, you know, just thinking nonstop, anxiety, pressure, freaking out, not answering the phone.
00:40:23.040And so what Done With Debt will do – and I know that there are so many of you out there that are in this and you feel like you're alone
00:40:30.620because you're not going to tell, you know, the kids.
00:41:18.820And the first step is calling them or going to donewithdebt.com because the more you ruminate, the more you sit, like you said, the worse it is because of penalties.
00:41:38.260You're going to owe more the next time you come up, right?
00:41:40.320So what Done With Debt will do is just take all of that away from you, get you on a plan.
00:41:47.940And in some cases, people actually end up with money in their pocket.
00:41:52.540And it's just an incredible resource to have that people don't really know because it's such a secretive and emotional thing being in that kind of debt.
00:42:02.060And I don't know if it could be $15,000.
00:44:24.920Tonight, the White House is going to be dropping other bombs, right, of actions they're taking, executive orders, executive actions through the weekend.
00:44:34.640On Trump train 47, it's seven days a week.
00:44:38.520We'll be back here live tomorrow at 10 a.m.
00:44:40.960This show is going to be on fire tomorrow.
00:44:43.560Catherine O'Neill, you've worked in the White House for President Trump.
00:44:55.220You know, I just got a call today, actually, for them lobbying me to come back in.
00:45:01.500But, you know, as you guys know, I'm the CEO of Mary Weathered Farms.
00:45:05.260Full stop, no, no, no, no, no, full stop, full stop.
00:45:07.880For full disclosure, I've been pushing Catherine O'Neill, as all the young people in the War Room, I think we have five or six going in, to go back in.
00:45:15.260We'll put her great husband to run the company.
00:45:30.940You know how much I love and respect and support President Trump and have been doing that since 2015.
00:45:38.960You know, my family has been supporting him since then.
00:45:41.440And as you remember, my late grandmother, Faith Whittlesey, Ambassador Faith Whittlesey, was one of the first senior members of the Reagan administration to publicly endorse President Trump in as early as 2015.
00:45:56.100So there's no question to my loyalty to him.
00:46:01.160And like I said, I got a call today to come back in.
00:46:05.420But, you know, I do have a two-year-old daughter who is my first priority.