The Great America Show - AMERICANS ARE UNDER SEIGE BY WHAT STEVE BANNON CALLS THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE

00:00:00.000 Hello, everybody. Welcome to The Great America Show. I'm Lou Dobbs, and the Biden secret document

00:00:06.100 scandal worsens by the day. But really, what did you expect? I don't think many of us are surprised

00:00:12.980 by the FBI's discovery of yet another cache of top secret documents in the possession of President

00:00:19.280 Biden. I think we're all well beyond surprises when it comes to this impaired, immoral puppet 1.00

00:00:26.260 president who consistently bears out our low notion of the man's character, his capacity and

00:00:32.720 conduct. It appears the president's attorneys have reached a similar view of their client,

00:00:37.540 and those lawyers, led by prominent Democrat lawyer Bob Bauer, apparently asked that the FBI

00:00:44.220 go to Biden's Wilmington residence and search for more top secret documents. His attorney asked for

00:00:51.340 that search. Imagine that. Where's the FBI? Where's search and seizure? The SWAT teams? What's going

00:00:57.920 on? What the FBI found was the fifth stash of top secret documents found in Biden's residence and

00:01:05.460 the Chinese-funded Penn Biden Center, and the second such discovery since the White House had said

00:01:12.540 there were no more documents to be discovered. And these latest documents reportedly go back to

00:01:18.500 Biden's years in the Senate. Biden said last week he had no regrets. I'm fairly sure if he didn't

00:01:25.580 then, he surely does now. It's unclear whether the latest discovery contributed to the announcement

00:01:31.900 over the weekend that Biden's chief of staff, Ron Klain, is leaving the White House and doing so in

00:01:39.360 something of a hurry. Sometime around the State of the Union address coming up in less than two weeks,

00:01:44.900 the Marxist Dems unified front has held through Biden's first two years. But now it's straining

00:01:51.600 under the pressure of these unrelenting scandals and the congressional corruption investigations

00:01:57.640 into the president, his family's business dealings, border and immigration policies. Even Congressman Adam

00:02:05.100 Schiff has said he's worried that national security has been breached. In my opinion, this scandal blows up

00:02:12.000 the Jack Smith special counsel as well. A joke to begin with and even worse now. And it certainly complicates

00:02:18.980 Biden's decision to run for a second term. You may remember that's why the Marxist Dems started two special

00:02:25.320 counsels to go after President Trump and, oh yes, two presidential impeachments. We'll see what happens.

00:02:33.080 Republicans are in a strong advantage now. Control of the House of Representatives, control of all its committees,

00:02:39.280 of course, and investigations are already underway. They'll be dominating the headlines for much,

00:02:45.840 if not all, of this year. Not good for Biden and the Marxist Dems. But there is a building political 0.57

00:02:52.840 public perception problem for the Republicans. They've decided to take on the Democrats over the

00:02:58.700 debt ceiling and why they would want to give the Marxist Dems a gift with which to distract the voters

00:03:04.880 from what are likely to be a string of big GOP wins. The Biden hearing and investigations championing

00:03:12.960 middle-class Americans standing up for working men and women and their families taking back control of

00:03:18.880 the southern border from the drug cartels. There's just no excuse for the Republicans to hand the Dems

00:03:25.000 the gifts of distraction and the bats and clubs to beat the GOP over the head, as they always have in

00:03:31.820 debates over the debt ceiling issue. The Republicans have never won that debate. It's up to Speaker

00:03:37.960 McCarthy, and I hope he decides to defer what is a losing issue for the GOP. My friend Steve Bannon and

00:03:45.860 I usually agree on nearly all policy and political issues. But for some strange reason, he strongly

00:03:52.420 disagrees with me on the debt ceiling issue. Steve Bannon, former Trump chief strategist and advisor,

00:03:58.780 CEO of Trump's 2016 campaign, Wall Streeter, naval officer, now host of the popular podcast Bannon's

00:04:06.500 War Room, we continue our heated discussion about why the Republican Party wants to take on a fight

00:04:12.480 they've never won, the policy and politics of the debt ceiling. Here now is my friend Steve Bannon on

00:04:19.220 what I say is a loser for the Republicans, and he says, well, I'm just wrong. Here's Steve with his

00:04:25.300 views. I strongly suggest they're deeply flawed. But nonetheless, here he is, Steve Bannon.

00:04:32.240 I pride myself in taking tough, tough stances, so that you bring the negotiations closer to where

00:04:38.240 you want to get. On this, let's step back for a second. The only way, this debt ceiling, let's talk

00:04:45.400 about the debt ceiling. The only way we would default on the securities issued by the United States and

00:04:53.300 backed up by the full faith and credit of the United States, which would be $32 trillion now,

00:04:59.020 face amount at Treasury, and another, remember, $9.5 trillion on the balance sheet of the Federal

00:05:04.860 Reserve. So right now, and this is what is really going to jack and be much higher, but I think right

00:05:11.080 now, the interest payments, it looks like looking forward now to, you know, to the end of this fight,

00:05:19.220 at least for this year, is roughly $500 to $600 billion of interest. And it's kicking up both numbers,

00:05:24.860 $500 to $600 billion. Probably a trillion dollars next year for $500 to $600 billion. We know from the numbers

00:05:30.720 that just came in last year because of the Trump tax cuts and what the Trump tax cuts did increasing

00:05:35.420 the overall economy, that total revenues, Lou, on just taxes, fees, and Trump tariffs are going to

00:05:44.080 be around $4.5 to maybe $5 trillion of cash. A Secretary of the Treasury, Joe Biden's regime

00:05:51.120 Secretary of the Treasury, will have to willfully, willfully miss an interest payment or any of the

00:05:56.720 face amount of the debt that comes through and has to be rolled this year. So we have the cash coming

00:06:02.200 in. You have the full cash to make all the payments associated with Social Security, not just the

00:06:07.720 retirement package of Social Security, but also, which I know people are talking about, is about

00:06:11.520 the disability, which has many, many problems, but all of Social Security can be paid for, all of Medicare

00:06:16.240 can be paid for on what we call our prioritization of plans. So there will be no default of government

00:06:23.420 securities. The United States government is impossible, mathematically impossible to default on

00:06:28.440 that debt, unless Janet Yellen, and she will be the Secretary of Treasury because they can't get 0.98

00:06:34.240 anybody confirmed in this period. She's the most incompetent in history, unless she willfully skips an 1.00

00:06:39.820 interest payment, unless she willfully skips a face amount period. So full stop. There can be no,

00:06:47.500 and we have to get out of the thing of letting them use nomenclature and drive a process. Here's what we

00:06:53.040 need right now. It's very simple. They have what they call extraordinary measures, which will take

00:06:58.960 them at least till, you know, July and August. And I think it goes a lot further because some of these

00:07:03.720 are non-contractual, but let's say they say they can get to June, July, August.

00:07:08.080 Let me just interject, if I may. By my reading, we're talking about, conservatively, the middle of June.

00:07:17.700 We're in the negotiation now. That gives us about four and a half, five months of padding. But this

00:07:25.480 is the ramp toward what will be a very different situation. By then, in comes the omnibus at $1.7

00:07:33.720 trillion. We're talking about deficits of a trillion dollars. We're talking about obligations.

00:07:41.040 You hit the nail on the head. You hit the nail on the head. The financial business model we have for

00:07:48.020 this country right now is not sustainable because, as you mentioned, during this entire time period,

00:07:53.560 because we promised, remember, one of the promises we made is we won't drop an omnibus at the end.

00:07:58.380 They're going to have the 12 different appropriations built, worked on the entire year,

00:08:01.740 because they just took, as you know, the omnibus, the reason McConnell passed it is to take the gavel

00:08:06.960 away from the Dobbs, Bannon, Trump, MAGA wing of the party. They didn't want us to have that right now

00:08:15.180 because if they had not passed the omnibus, we could literally shut down the FBI today, okay?

00:08:19.720 They took that away from us. But in this process, as you correctly point out, in the process of negotiating

00:08:25.400 a debt limit, an increase in debt limit, which I believe we don't need, but that discussion,

00:08:31.140 you are passing and putting together the appropriations bill. And, Lou, as we stand right now,

00:08:36.100 when it will be another trade, the Congressional Budget Office, not Steve Bannon, not Lou Dobbs,

00:08:41.800 not the Great America Show, not War Room, but the Congressional Budget Office is projecting

00:08:45.900 a trade into a trade and a half dollar deficit this year, principally driven because of discretionary spending

00:08:52.980 over and above the entitlement programs. It's not sustainable. And we can't sell the debt.

00:08:57.680 You can only sell Japanese insurance companies. The Chinese Communist Party, the Gulf Emirates,

00:09:04.400 are only going to buy so much. So once again, we go into the game of having basically the Federal

00:09:10.400 Reserve buy bonds issued by Treasury that are – it's monetizing the debt. So once again,

00:09:15.880 we just print more money, okay? So we're in a situation of increasing the debt. Again,

00:09:21.860 it's not sustainable. And that's why you have to lance the bull about it. Here's what I would say to

00:09:25.300 everybody. We're in no hurry. This is the beginning of a negotiation. We cross the Rubicon,

00:09:30.100 but we're – she has plenty of cash to pay it. Here's the only thing we need right now is the – we

00:09:36.980 need every letter. She sent another letter today, and she's entrapcing in Zurich with Lee He,

00:09:43.160 as you know, Lou, the chief negotiator of the Trump deals, and he's the smartest guy they've got.

00:09:48.100 He and Juan Shishon. Here's what we need today. We need – we need – every one of her letters,

00:09:53.760 who is absent, any numbers. Do you understand? The Biden administration – they keep telling us this,

00:10:00.100 maybe it's June, and maybe it's not. I don't know. You don't know. Well, so far –

00:10:04.640 Most importantly, Kevin McCarthy doesn't know.

00:10:07.520 So far, I have to say, not only is the Biden White House not very good with numbers,

00:10:12.700 I haven't seen any numbers coming from Kevin McCarthy's office either.

00:10:17.820 And what you're saying –

00:10:19.360 Hang on. Hang on. I agree with you. I agree with you. Having done this for a living at Goldman,

00:10:25.760 am I a firm? We don't – the last thing we need to do is put a – we don't – how can we put a deal

00:10:30.440 out? Because they're saying, put your – last thing on Stephanie Rule, who's a former banker. 1.00

00:10:34.720 They're hammering us. Where's McCarthy's deal? Where's the deal? Hang on.

00:10:39.200 We haven't – how can we give a bid when we haven't seen the ask?

00:10:43.300 What we need right now is something very simple. Janet Yellen and the Biden regime slash administration 0.68

00:10:50.120 needs to come forward with their financial model that actually shows us the projected tax revenues,

00:10:58.580 what the debt is, the waterfall, how it rolls off, what the spending is, and the interconnection

00:11:04.480 with the Federal Reserve of how they've been paying for it today and how the Federal Reserve – because

00:11:08.720 Lou, Mercatus – I'll get this over to you. I haven't done it because I've just gone through it myself.

00:11:12.720 Mercatus, the great group, as you know, over George Mason, they have an analysis of the $9.5 trillion

00:11:19.460 on the balance sheet of the Fed that were sitting on a trillion-dollar loss because the inverted yield

00:11:26.840 curve, the interest rates have exploded. So they used to make money off of the Fed's balance sheet.

00:11:33.900 Now they're actually could have been sitting on a $1 trillion loss from what they did in the pandemic.

00:11:38.460 But here's my point. The U.S. government, Janet Yellen, the Treasury, and the Biden regime,

00:11:43.280 to start this entire process needs to show us a financial model that the Republican House can

00:11:48.580 respond to. And I keep telling the Republican House, don't do your own model because you're just

00:11:54.120 guessing. You don't have access to the information. The Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the Biden

00:11:59.480 White House have this information. To me, they have to come forward. Once they come forward,

00:12:03.420 then you can start to look at alternatives. But I am an absolute dead-ender on this. Not one

00:12:11.340 penny increase to the debt ceiling. You're not going to touch Social Security. You're not going

00:12:15.840 to touch Medicare. And by the way, Lou, as you know, and you rightly pointed out, they are going

00:12:19.600 to be on the airwaves every day saying, the heartless Republicans, the mean Republicans.

00:12:24.380 But it's not sustainable. The American people, I think, will understand this. Because as you

00:12:28.520 rightly point out, by the time we get into the hard negotiations, we're going to have to pass

00:12:33.700 next year's fiscal year. Because we've promised, Lou, we've made a commitment it's going to be by

00:12:38.000 September 30th. An appropriations bill and a budget for the U.S. government will be passed for next

00:12:44.040 fiscal year before September 30th. So you're absolutely correct. We're going to negotiate both

00:12:48.640 at the same time. And I'm telling people, hey, it's another $3.5 deficit next year. And guess what?

00:12:54.720 Next year and next year and next year. Unless we lance the boil now, we're just kicking the can

00:12:59.760 down the road. And I tell people, you've got to strap in because it's going to get intense like

00:13:03.540 you can't believe you're going to be called every name in the book. And MAGA are going to be called

00:13:07.280 the extremists that have the world's economy on the edge of the cliff about to go over.

00:13:15.660 I think that that sounds adventurous, Steve. But does that sound like I'm about to disagree with you?

00:13:23.580 The reality is this. You talk about the $9 trillion sitting on the Fed's balance sheet.

00:13:31.400 They've been rolling it off at about, well, they've rolled off maybe a half trillion dollars tops

00:13:37.200 in the last six months. They wanted to go 50. They've gone 20 per month. And the truth of the

00:13:45.720 matter is, we are looking at a Fed balance. And this is really in the weeds, folks. And I'm sorry

00:13:51.400 for doing this.

00:13:52.320 Oh, I want to make sure the audience, you understand, is they've been doing the quantitative tightening.

00:13:55.580 Now, what they told us was they've been taking off. Lou, as they roll that off, my understanding,

00:14:00.520 I'll get you the Mercatus paper, they've rolled that off at a profit. They've actually rolled that

00:14:04.960 off at a profit. That profit they've sent back to Treasury to, I think, a couple hundred billion

00:14:10.080 dollars of a hundred billion dollars of profit. So that roll off is profitability. The nine and a half

00:14:15.560 trillion that's sitting in now, I think because of where interest rates are gone, I think Mercatus

00:14:21.280 basically assumes it has done the math that it's a trillion dollar loss, another one that's going to

00:14:25.880 be picked up by citizens. On top of, remember, the interest cost this year, it looks like the new

00:14:32.340 budget, is going to be an additional almost a trillion dollars.

00:14:35.340 Let me put that interest cost.

00:14:37.600 It's not sustainable.

00:14:39.400 It's not sustainable, but it's not sustainable for the Fed to be holding at nine trillion dollars

00:14:44.380 either. And to make this clear, in 2008, the balance sheet was somewhere around a half trillion

00:14:52.580 dollars. We're now at a little under nine trillion dollars. We are, we have not.

00:14:59.040 With no congressional, no congressional authorization, no oversight, no nothing.

00:15:06.580 When Donald Trump, by the way, let's go back to that. It was about, I think it was about $880

00:15:10.580 billion on the day that they came into Bush on September 17th, I think it was, or 18th of 2008

00:15:17.860 that we needed, remember, we needed a trillion dollars in cash the next day or the country was

00:15:22.180 the financial system above. When, and this is Obama's reign, when Donald Trump raised his hand

00:15:29.760 on 20 January of 2017, the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve was four and a half trillion dollars

00:15:36.880 then. That's how much they had juiced the liquidity in the system and the top 1% made more money under

00:15:42.900 Obama, the most progressive president. What Donald Trump doesn't get credit for is the 2019 year,

00:15:48.600 that magnificent year economically where this tax got sticking in, the growth that, you know,

00:15:53.060 Lou, we've talked a number of times about the blue collar workers. What he doesn't get credit for

00:15:57.820 is that he took a trillion dollars off, he took a trillion dollars liquidity off. He, he, he put

00:16:04.520 additional headwinds on the economy because he knew he had to shrink the balance sheet of the Federal

00:16:08.560 Reserve. It went down to about three and a half, I think it was $3.6 trillion at its lowest under Donald

00:16:14.200 J. Trump. And quite frankly, he never took the credit I thought he should take from that because that,

00:16:18.600 that gets excess liquidity out of the system and lets the little guy have a better shot.

00:16:24.560 That's what Donald Trump did in 18 and 19 to turn this thing around and actually presented us with

00:16:29.140 an economy that, uh, we, we, we will not see the likes of again, sir, for quite a while.

00:16:35.300 Well, I, you know, that's the likely scenario for the, for the future, but it's also, as we know,

00:16:41.160 it's a, it's a wondrous mechanism, this economy of ours. So I, I have faith that we can correct

00:16:47.460 this once we reach the, the level of willpower required of the part of the electorate to, to deal

00:16:53.220 with it. Uh, to that point, my point is this, we have a fed that is screwed up. We are in unknown

00:16:59.720 territory when it comes to rolling off debt, uh, and securities from, uh, the, the balance sheet of

00:17:08.040 the federal reserve. We are in unknown territory. When we look at interest rates being tripled over

00:17:13.960 the course of 12 months, we now know that the, uh, the interest on the national debt, uh, is more than

00:17:21.260 double what it was just about a year ago because of the increase in interest rates and they're headed

00:17:27.240 higher. There's no doubt about that. How high is critically important. This is the worst possible

00:17:33.240 time for the, for a new Congress that doesn't have control of the budget and won't until October 1st

00:17:41.800 of 2023. This is baked in. This is Biden's budget. It's Biden's framework, and he is responsible in the

00:17:50.000 Marxist Dems for everything in front of it. Kevin McCarthy and the Republicans in the house where it

00:17:56.160 matters most are going to get, they're handing them a bat to hit them over the head consistently,

00:18:03.840 constantly, every damn day, scaring the hell out of both markets. No, no, just let me, let me finish

00:18:09.980 this, Steve. They're handing them a bat by getting into this silly fight that they have never won in

00:18:18.100 history and they will, and they are less prepared to do it now because the atmospherics are awful.

00:18:24.860 We are on the precipice of recession. We are in hyperinflation.

00:18:29.820 If what you're saying is that you want Biden to come forward with a plan about raising the debt

00:18:34.820 ceiling and the Republicans should not respond until, until he gets it, until he presents it,

00:18:39.740 I'm a hundred percent for that. That's kind of what I'm saying that, that, however.

00:18:44.080 I'll say it any way you want me to. I just don't want that fight.

00:18:46.540 No, no, no. First, I got my work cut out. Now I got my work cut out. I got to get Lou Dobbs on my side.

00:18:51.000 No, I'm an absolute dead end hard, a hardliner on this. Not one penny increase to the debt

00:18:57.500 ceiling. Biden can do anything he wants to do, but not one penny debt increase. And as Lou Dobbs

00:19:01.960 just pointed out, that ain't going to hack it because this year, even with the Republicans in

00:19:07.340 charge, the deficit of the U.S. government will be at least $1 trillion. And so somehow that somehow

00:19:14.620 they have to figure out how to finance that. And so I'm a hundred percent, but here's what I know we

00:19:20.200 can't do. We cannot raise the debt limit one penny. But on the current model we have, it's not

00:19:26.080 sustainable. There has to be fundamental change to the way this government's run and to the Federal

00:19:31.500 Reserve that funds it. Right now, the regime of the administrative state, the Marxist Dems have a

00:19:37.260 perfect system. Their perfect system is continue to pass train to train half dollar deficits every

00:19:42.760 year, continue to have the Federal Reserve just print the money to finance it. And you get up,

00:19:48.120 you end up with an FBI all over you, a Department of Justice all over you, an open borders, homeland

00:19:53.460 security, the invasion of the country. So it's not a sustainable model. If Biden comes forward and

00:19:58.940 puts you a plan, people respond to it. But until that time, I would tell Kevin McCarthy, don't even

00:20:04.400 take a phone call if he's at the debt ceiling. Let him come forward with a plan first. There should be

00:20:08.180 no negotiations. Because quite frankly, I think I know these numbers as well as anybody.

00:20:13.880 And I will tell you, it's very difficult to get straight answers on the math itself. And as you

00:20:18.900 know, Lou, you never do a restructuring. And we have a bankruptcy. We have to look at this

00:20:24.040 as a bankruptcy, a bankruptcy where MAGA right now is the creditors committee. They're the creditors

00:20:29.980 committee. So Biden, to me, the Biden regime has to come forward and put together a plan. And let's

00:20:34.520 see what the plan is, to get to a sustainable financial and economic model for the country.

00:20:39.540 Let me take you back to your days on Wall Street. If these markets get a whiff that there is going

00:20:47.520 to be the possibility, in addition to a $9 trillion Federal Reserve balance sheet that they can't even

00:20:56.720 roll off right now because they're raising rates. Think about, by the way, that's another issue here.

00:21:00.860 The Fed is committed to raising interest rates, which has the greatest impact on its two mandated goals,

00:21:12.160 which is to preserve high employment in this country. They're going to kill employment in this

00:21:18.580 country if they continue to raise rates. Secondly, they could achieve the same goals by rolling off that

00:21:26.860 debt from the balance sheet. And that is not even being discussed by anyone in the business press.

00:21:33.900 It's not being discussed by any of the politicos of either party. It is the only smart thing to do

00:21:39.820 to avoid the pain that Jerome Powell has promised. Isn't that great when a Fed chair promises pain?

00:21:46.800 And at the same time, we have a federal government that is out of its mind, but it's been out of its mind

00:21:53.960 for quite a long time. And the Republicans have bought into it. Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy

00:22:01.720 signed off on the omnibus. They could have had a fight. They could have been, they could have not

00:22:05.980 facilitated it. They're partners in that. The controlled opposition of the Republican Party and the 18 0.92

00:22:12.840 collaborationists are guilty. There's no doubt that's what we've got here with. But that is MAGA is

00:22:18.120 hardcore. Just once again, it is impossible. The only way we can default on the debt, and I mean

00:22:25.220 miss an interest payment or miss any payment on our face and mouth of a government security

00:22:29.340 that's backed by the full faith and credit of the American people and our government,

00:22:33.400 the only way to do that is for Janet Yellen to make that decision as Secretary of the Treasury, 0.99

00:22:39.460 backed by Joe Biden, to miss it. There's more than enough cash. We're dealing in a bankruptcy.

00:22:44.620 In a bankruptcy, you always do reorganization. You do what's called a waterfall. That's what this

00:22:48.660 prioritization of payments plan that's being worked on right now. Plenty of cash is coming in. Now,

00:22:54.040 she won't tell us because we don't see their model, but cash is coming in. We can mathematically impute

00:22:58.640 that. Wall Street can pull their hair out all they want. There's not going to be, and there's no

00:23:04.720 possibility of a default of any security. That will be covered. Medicare and Social Security.

00:23:12.100 By the way, you and I agree on that part. It is the four to five months that we will watch the

00:23:19.580 Democrats, you know, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden, each with a bat in hand,

00:23:28.040 beating the Republicans over the head every day, irrespective of what is happening in the

00:23:33.000 investigations into weaponization of the federal government, irrespective of the Biden family,

00:23:38.580 the crime family investigation, irrespective of all of the other advances that, as you say,

00:23:45.680 MAGA is going to make here, legislatively and politically, it's all going to be lost because

00:23:52.020 the headlines will be dominated by the awful Republicans who don't understand economics and

00:23:59.200 who don't understand the plight of millions of Americans who are going to be harmed, going to be.

00:24:04.660 Whether truth or false, that will be their war cry. And I've seen it too many times, Steve. I've just

00:24:13.960 seen it too many times. And the Republicans, no matter how smart, how well-informed I think they

00:24:18.600 are at that moment, suddenly go dumb. And it's just a fight that they can't win. Why do that when you've

00:24:25.080 got so many victories in front of you? Because those victories are important, but those victories

00:24:30.880 only are at the margin. But the problem is, yes, a DOJ is out of control. Invasion on the southern

00:24:38.240 border. Parents, domestic terrorists, because of this gender ideology and radical CRT schools, all those 1.00

00:24:45.280 are manifestations of the central problem. The central problem is we have an administrative state

00:24:51.680 controlled by a uniparty that is a Leviathan that grows every day in its scale and is funded.

00:24:58.540 They have a Federal Reserve that will continue to fund it. Until we lance that boil, everything else

00:25:03.400 is, I'm not saying performative because it's not, but it's kind of performative. This is the fight.

00:25:09.620 Look, I have my work cut out for me because I've got to convert. I've got to convert Lou Dobbs and I've

00:25:14.680 probably got to convert Trump, but or at least part of it. But this is the fight we have to have.

00:25:19.720 And now's the time to have it. I wanted to do this back in 17 when we had a debt ceiling issue,

00:25:24.680 the appropriations bill and the border all coming up, but because they wouldn't want to,

00:25:29.640 they didn't want to fund Trump's wall and they didn't fund Trump's wall. That was a fight we

00:25:33.320 should have had then. I think we have to have it now. But like I said, Lou, as you know, I'm a dead

00:25:38.240 ender on this. Part of that comes from my Goldman Sachs experience to take every piece of leverage

00:25:44.400 and crush him with it. But I agree with you, the optics here are going to be tough and we have to

00:25:49.120 make this a teaching moment for the American people. And the mainstream media is going to be

00:25:52.960 all over us. And quite frankly, I think big elements of Fox and other conservative media that you didn't

00:25:58.320 see back us up in the five days to save this country. Just go back to the five days, the first

00:26:03.700 five days of the house when everybody was against what the 20 were doing in the six. And it turned out

00:26:10.700 that basically changed the arc of what's possible in this house. And it's just incredibly,

00:26:16.440 incredibly positive. Even people that didn't support it in the house are saying, hey, it's

00:26:20.160 great. We're on offense now, et cetera. So yes, we have a lot of investigations. We have the

00:26:24.840 appropriations fight, but we got to give the appropriators, we got to give the appropriators,

00:26:29.280 we have to have their back. And one of the ways, Lou, to get closer to a balanced budget is to say,

00:26:34.500 hey, guess what? We're not increasing the debt ceiling. So you guys have to figure it out. And you're

00:26:38.360 right. If this government shuts down, it's Biden that shuts it down, not the Republicans. And if

00:26:42.700 we miss, if we default on the debt, Joe Biden and Janet Yellen default on the debt because there's

00:26:47.760 plenty of cash. The cash comes in. They have every ability to pay all the interest payments and pay

00:26:52.740 all the face amount of securities. And if they decide not to do it, Walsh should understand they

00:26:57.580 made a conscious decision not to do it. I've got to tell you, it's been a hoot talking with you today.

00:27:03.720 I love you. God, I love you. And you have been to these fights so many times and you have so many

00:27:14.000 scars. That's why I think it's great. Well, I've got scars, but I've, I've given up a, you know,

00:27:20.060 I've given up a few scars too. The fact of the matter, the fact of the matter is the American people

00:27:26.400 right now are looking at a situation that confounds our policymakers, our lawmakers.

00:27:33.040 And as you said, the so-called government, which is nothing more than a uniparty,

00:27:39.200 a deep state run by the Marxist Dems. My view is very simple. This has been an engaging conversation.

00:27:49.440 I hope it hasn't, you know, I, I hope that everybody has forgiven us are going into the

00:27:54.700 weeds, but the weeds sometimes is exactly where the truth rests. Let me say one thing. These are

00:28:01.240 types of discussions that have to happen on our side over the next couple of months. We do have

00:28:06.520 an incredible moment to a teaching moment for the American people. Remember Lou, as you know,

00:28:13.240 having covered this now for 30, 40 years, they try to make, they try to make this so obscure.

00:28:17.700 They don't want the American people actually understand the budget process. They don't want

00:28:22.360 them to understand the appropriations process. They don't want them to understand the Federal

00:28:25.980 Reserve, how it funds the government. They want the American people to be kept in, in, in blinders 0.58

00:28:31.780 in that. And they, and they throw out shiny toys to people to play with. This is central to the

00:28:37.180 direction of this country, the administrative state, that the, the, the radical Marxist Dems who are

00:28:42.840 in fault, are, are, are, are, who really man our government, right? They have a funding mechanism

00:28:48.960 allows us, it allows us government to grow, to get in every aspect of your life. And they have a

00:28:54.100 funding mechanism. To me, this is a fight. You got to always follow the money. This is the way we cut

00:28:59.320 them off from their oxygen, which is basically cash that the American people put up either in taxes or

00:29:05.500 their kids are going to pay for it as far as debt goes. So it's, this is the fight we have to have.

00:29:09.560 And we have to have many, many more conversations like this, because I would tell you, even among my,

00:29:14.540 even among my, my brethren, I think, I think more come down on your side, Lou, than come down on my

00:29:21.120 side. But that's why, that's why I'm, I'm always happy to be the hardest of the hardliners.

00:29:25.660 Well, you know, and, and, and God bless you. Uh, and I'm, you know, I'm going to do something I hate

00:29:30.660 to do because you've had so much airtime here today, but it's our role, our role, uh, to give our guests

00:29:37.520 the last word. So on top of everything else, I'm going to ask you for your concluding thoughts,

00:29:42.160 Steve. The last word for your audience is I always trust the wisdom of Lou Dobbs. He's a guy that's

00:29:47.580 been there from the very beginning. I know president Trump learned a lot from him. I've learned a lot

00:29:51.240 from him as a, as a young Naval officer. I've watched Lou Dobbs and Lou, I can tell you, you taught me a lot

00:29:57.540 more than most of the class I took at Harvard business school. So you've taught a lot. You've got

00:30:01.580 tremendous wisdom. I just think it's great. You got the podcast, it's on fire and, uh, your voices out

00:30:07.100 there in these, in this very 2023 is going to be a very big year in American history. And, uh, just

00:30:14.160 honored to be on the show and honored to call you a friend. And I assure you that is absolutely a

00:30:20.620 reciprocal sentiment. And I thank you so much for being with us and, uh, sharing your wisdom and

00:30:26.220 perhaps we can meld those, those points of view and thoughts into a policy someday. Uh, Steve Bannon,

00:30:33.360 thanks so much for being with us. God bless you. Love you, brother. Thank you so much for having me.

00:30:38.200 The mega warrior, Steve Bannon. He's a great American, a great friend. And I had a lot of fun

00:30:44.100 with that discussion. And you might have noticed that neither one of us changed his mind. Thanks

00:30:50.620 everybody for being with us tomorrow. We take up the Biden scandal and the role of the FBI and deep state

00:30:55.740 in what is a worsening presidential corruption scandal. Our guest tomorrow is former FBI assistant

00:31:02.120 director, Chris Swecker. Please join us right here tomorrow. Till then, God bless you and God bless America.

The Great America Show - January 24, 2023

AMERICANS ARE UNDER SEIGE BY WHAT STEVE BANNON CALLS THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE

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