Speaker of the House of Representatives Steve Bannon joins the Great America Show with Lou Dobbs to discuss the latest in the ongoing scandal surrounding the $5 million bribery case against President Joe Biden. Plus, the latest on the McCarthy-Jeffries-Biden debt deal.
00:04:08.740Your thoughts, your reaction to what was by any estimation a gargantuan betrayal by Speaker McCarthy.
00:04:15.140That's what I don't think is – I'm not looking at one.
00:04:17.540We're ready to fight because you saw the beginning of the emergence of really you had the donor party, the unit party, and you have the opposition of that.
00:04:49.700They forced him to go to Hakeem Jeffries and to beg on the floor of the House.
00:04:54.620He turned the House over a floor over to Hakeem Jeffries, who's really his coalition partner.
00:04:59.500And Hakeem Jeffries cut a deal, as Hakeem Jeffries, a smart, tough guy, did.
00:05:03.680He demanded more of earmarks, bigger earmarks, more rapid earmarks.
00:05:08.080And McCarthy was asked specifically by every reporter there, when you talk to Hakeem Jeffries, were there any side deals cut in order to get the Democrats to come above the rule?
00:05:18.020He looked him in the eye and said, no, there are no deals that cut.
00:05:40.180We're going to get to that very shortly.
00:05:41.520But right now, the coalition government he had with MAGA and with the conservatives who's finished, his partner in coalition, is really majority leader.
00:05:52.520Steve Scalise is not the majority leader.
00:05:54.720The majority leader is Hakeem Jeffries.
00:05:56.460The big win was the Democrats, a huge win for Biden and the radical Democrats on taking this, really giving them two years with no cap is, I think, the worst thing I've ever seen the Republican Party do to the American people.
00:06:11.400Well, the way we've discussed it here is Speaker McCarthy goes over to the White House to negotiate the debt ceiling.
00:06:21.980And President Biden simply said, I've got a great idea.
00:06:25.560Let's just get rid of the debt ceiling.
00:06:27.000We don't need to do it except, ah, we could let it run to January of 2025.
00:06:36.100I mean, this is the most brazen, absolute capitulation I have ever seen on Capitol Hill by any one of the absolute frauds that have been running the place.
00:06:52.580You've been doing this for a couple of three years.
00:06:54.820I want to hit the rewind button on that because it's so important.
00:06:57.500In watching this, and, man, we had Boehner, we had Ryan, you know, you've had Hacet, you've had, you know, Mitch McConnell forever.
00:07:05.020In your mind, because I agree with you, but I want to hear it from you because you've got much more experience at covering this over decades and decades and decades.
00:07:12.340Is this the worst portrayal and the worst capitulation you've ever seen?
00:07:16.420They literally, we gave them a one-year deal, $1.5 trillion in one year, which we weren't happy with.
00:07:21.920But because it had that cap and that time, duration, we would accept it.
00:07:26.020The first thing they did was take it off, give them an unlimited debt ceiling for two years, right, to spend $14 or $15 trillion, have $4 trillion minimum of deficit.
00:07:37.620Is that the worst betrayal, the worst capitulation you've ever seen?
00:08:08.040And the result is he turned his back on his conference, not just the Freedom Caucus, as you know, and the conservatives.
00:08:14.440This man went full Marxist-dim, Biden regime acolyte, and is right now kissing the feet of Joe Biden as he considers his next political venture.
00:08:29.040Lou, I can say it much better than I said it on the show today, but that's – and we're at – now we've entered into a real crisis.
00:08:36.440McCarthy and the unit party, which is really the donors party, they represent the donors.
00:08:40.220The reason – people should understand, the reason that the cap and the duration, the one you were taking off, is because the donors, in May of next year, there will be a dumpster fire on this economy.
00:08:51.020They'll have blown through the cap, and they're going to want more money and bigger deficit.
00:08:55.940They're going to be jammed up against the wall.
00:08:57.920And a conversation is obviously going to be – part of that is going to be tax increases.
00:09:01.940It's just going to be part of the conversation.
00:09:03.120The donors – I know this from people around him.
00:09:04.900The donors said we don't – we cannot have a conversation about taxes at the beginning of a general election.
00:09:13.880You've got to get us through the election.
00:09:15.180This is the old – as you know, Lou, you've been here enough – McConnell's trick.
00:09:18.860Kick it through the election a couple months and take it off so the low-information voters don't get included in this conversation.
00:09:24.820We know this because the CNN polling – all the polling shows that 60 percent, 6-0 percent of the American people want only debt increases with significant budget cuts, significant cuts in federal spending, 45 percent of Democrats, and I think 75 or 80 percent of Republicans.
00:09:43.160The betrayal here was a betrayal of the American people, betrayal not much more than the Freedom Caucus, but a betrayal of everybody that's really a Republican voter, a stark betrayal.
00:09:53.940But also a betrayal of the American people who want to have a conversation, particularly want to have one next year.
00:09:59.160As they've given Biden, the Biden regime, another year, another trillion and a half dollar deficit, another seven trillion in spending, they want to have the ability to review this.
00:10:12.160What Kevin McCarthy did is a crime against the American people, and he will be held accountable.
00:10:17.440It's going to be a bigger crime than the business press or the so-called – the Illuminati of the opinion pages are at least admitting.
00:10:30.140Within this, we have a fiscal policy disaster with that question.
00:10:34.960And $4 trillion is just a handy number to throw at what was a 3x over the $1.5 trillion raise that the Republicans were willing to give, something they should never have, by the way, in my opinion, ever offered.
00:10:49.720As a matter of fact, we can have a discussion about strategy and tactics here, but this couldn't have been much worse in the way of even the beginning strategy.
00:10:57.960But why in the world isn't anybody talking about what the position this leaves the Federal Reserve in?
00:11:07.960It's going to be not only Biden's runaway inflation.
00:11:12.640It is going to be significantly greater pressure on the Federal Reserve now to raise rates.
00:11:21.200And it is the worst decision that they could make because it is going to create recession.
00:11:26.100And the Fed itself, just to digress for a moment, the Fed has had at its fingertips a way to not raise rates and to run off the balance sheet and accomplish precisely the same thing, but they chose not to.
00:11:44.000And the reason they did is they were so screwed up at every previous effort that they decided they would just simply put it all on the working man and woman in this country, our middle class, and say, screw them.
00:12:00.080We've got an impaired puppet president and an impaired, pathetic caricature of a Federal Reserve chairman.
00:12:08.700One of the key points you made of many key points, but I want the audience to focus on, is this thing of recession and the slowing of the economy.
00:12:18.600Because remember, this is going to exacerbate the problem.
00:12:21.680And the Fed is clearly going to have to raise rates.
00:12:23.980You're going to have to give at least another 25 base points, probably more.
00:12:27.460As the economy, to get the overhead economy, slow it down, you're going to have lower growth and lower tax revenues.
00:12:35.300At the tax structure you've got, and you're not going to change that tax structure.
00:12:40.980This is why the donors wanted this conversation away from the general election.
00:12:43.900And this is not just Republican donors.
00:12:46.380The people that will fight tax increases the most are the progressive left oligarchs, the barons of Wall Street, the hedge fund managers, the tech oligarchs in Silicon Valley who are super anti-Maga, anti-Trump.
00:13:25.560More juicing up of the Federal Reserve.
00:13:27.620We are now, and this is the crime of McCarthy, and to kowtow to Jeffries in the White House, in the Schumer, is the Uniparty.
00:13:36.520We are now essentially institutionalizing or hard, we're now going to be hardwired in, hardwired to the institutional stagflation.
00:13:48.200This is the beginning of the lost decades of the 1990s with the Japanese.
00:13:54.780We're going to follow the exact same model here with low growth, 1 to 1.1%, 1.5%, low growth, condemned to low growth, high inflation, high interest rates, limited opportunities, contraction of banks, balance, creditability, particularly in regional banks, less opportunities for entrepreneurs.
00:14:19.040And remember, the Uniparty brought this to you.
00:14:21.280It used to be the radical Democrats, but hey, with the Uniparty, the 19 senators that joined in with this spending last year, and everybody remembers that, they were all signed up for all these spending bills.
00:14:36.000And all 149 to me, if the audience likes the fact that they took any control away from the audience,
00:14:42.900if they like the fact that they condemned you to a Japanese model of stagflation, I think for decades, if you like that, then keep supporting them, keep sending money, keep knocking on doors.
00:14:56.380But now's the time, I think, to hold them accountable.
00:14:59.120And even guys I admire like Jim Jordan and others ought to be primary.
00:15:02.180There's no – until they can answer the question why they – and I don't want any happy talk about appropriations and no happy talk about we took $140 billion or $400 billion out of –
00:15:12.900or $140 million or $40 million out of the CDC and all these shiny ponies they got, shiny toys, answering the question, why did you take the cap off?
00:15:28.380Why did you lock in all the radical programs with the two-year – so you gave a two-year clean debt ceiling lift.
00:15:33.800That's what you gave it with no conditions, none.
00:15:36.840But this is the most absurd thing I've ever seen, and these people are no different than Benedict Arnold at West Point when he was there and betrayed General Washington and the Continental Army.
00:15:56.400And the 149, I think a lot of people listening to you right now, Steve, are shocked to hear you say what you did about Jim Jordan being among those 149 people.
00:16:08.580But they made their choice, and they are what they are.
00:16:12.620And by the way, Jim Jordan, there's very few people I think you hold on higher regard than Jim Jordan, and I'm one of those.
00:16:34.720I think it's the most important vote we've seen in decades, and certainly the most important vote in this 118th Congress.
00:16:40.960There will be nothing else close to it because it's locked in years in the future.
00:16:44.600And quite frankly, not only taking a great tool out of the toolbox, the tool out of the toolbox of President Trump when we start the general election next May, but even more importantly, has shackled him in 2025.
00:16:57.040I'm running some numbers with Russ Vought and the team of the week, and we'll share with you, Lou, and your audience of The Great America Show.
00:17:03.540But we're running some models of what is 2025 going to look like from today with this deal?
00:30:02.060Well, I've just got one question here.
00:30:04.080If they're going over to serve that subpoena, how about they – I mean, they should really ask the FBI to disarm itself first so it's an even match.
00:30:13.540Because they're not going to follow the law.
00:30:16.260This is going to be some kind of – this will have to be settled by arm wrestling or something.
00:30:22.160Because the law – we know where the law in this country, the Department of Justice in particular, will land.
00:30:28.220We're going to take that up with Steve Bannon, the great Steve Bannon, when we return.
00:35:12.480In this country, our universities and colleges have taken positions.
00:35:16.320They don't have intellectual discussions or a search for empirical evidence that would guide them one way or another about what works, doesn't work.
00:35:26.480I mean, I don't think I'm too different from anyone else in the country when I say I don't know what all the transsexual gender assignment stuff –
00:35:39.760I don't understand why LGBTQ isn't thrilled to be where they are in our society with equal rights
00:35:49.740and why they are insisting on demanding so much of the majority and of the power structure.
00:35:57.120And the middle class and working men and women are being relegated to second class citizens in the media.
00:36:04.080No one cares what happens to the middle class, working men and women, 150 million workers in this country who are being basically just run over,
00:36:16.580whether it's through the inflation of the Biden administration, whether it is the elitism of the national media,
00:36:23.520whether it is the indifference and essential exploitation in this country of working men and women
00:36:30.200who have had wages that have been basically stagnant for three decades.
00:36:34.900Our middle class has not done well at all.
00:36:38.240Our CEOs, as you were talking about earlier, I mean, they're not only making 400 times what their average corporate employee makes,
00:38:52.740Lou, you've been doing this a long time, brother, and you know Wall Street as well as anybody.
00:38:56.700When I saw Bill Ackman yesterday, the destructive hedge fund guy, put out a long Twitter thread about Jamie Dimon, Jamie Dimon running for president, and that he should come and serve his country.
00:39:13.520And then Jamie Dimon, the front of the Financial Times today, is a recording of a private meeting with Jamie Dimon and other people in a conference where it's a lead story in the Financial Times.
00:39:25.060He's saying that tensions, that tensions between Washington and Beijing are causing an upset to the world order and that it must stop.
00:39:35.780Your thoughts, Lou Dobbs, of Jamie Dimon as a potential, given that you were one of the first guys to back the President Trump and saw the potential of President Trump, and people should know that I talked to Lou Dobbs many, many years ago before President Trump about actually running for president of the United States because I thought Lou would be a magnificent president.
00:39:55.540Given your knowledge of that, given your support of President Trump, your MAGA roots, your understanding of populism, your being an economic nationalist, could you give the audience, the Great America Show audience, your thoughts on Jamie Dimon as a potential president of these United States?
00:41:04.400He's a tough guy, smart guy, all of the above.
00:41:07.580And by the way, he also apparently discussed Jeffrey Epstein's accounts at J.P. Morgan, Joe Staley saying that he did.
00:41:19.560That's inconvenient coming amidst that sudden and I'm sure spontaneous burst of publicity that he received for his ambitions to rule the world.
00:41:32.140Are you implying also that being Sandy Wiles, and Sandy Wiles was a tough hombre, that being his hatchet man, which Jamie Dimon was for decades, that being Sandy Wiles' hatchet man does not prepare you?
00:41:47.680It's not a good preparation to be president of the United States of America?
00:41:51.040A lot of more authoritarian countries would probably appreciate his skills, but I don't think they would particularly be useful.
00:41:59.760Well, they may be at the rate we're going.
00:42:02.920Here's, I guess, where I come down with oligarchs and politics.
00:42:40.360And just like, you know, your friend Brother Ma, as the Chinese now call Elon Musk, he wants easy money.
00:42:47.200I guess all of us would accept easy money.
00:42:50.580But this is at a cost to the republic.
00:42:54.340When we have oligarchs now, and what's really funny to me, and it truly is laughable, is to start watching all of these billionaires who've decided, and I'm going to exempt one billionaire, and that is Donald Trump, from what I'm saying.
00:43:07.760These billionaires have decided to cut out the middleman.
00:43:11.440I mean, Donald Trump set the standard for billionaires.
00:43:20.180A billionaire himself, that seems to be the credential to get into the race.
00:43:25.540Putting one of these people who has made a mess of this economy, contributed to it, as they have the overwhelming political power they already enjoy, the consolidation of banking, for example, as you well know.
00:43:41.280We have now, what is it, 6,000 fewer banks than we did in the mid-80s.
00:45:06.740And where is that peace dividend that we were supposed to be able to cash when the Soviet Union went down in flames?
00:45:15.700We have lived a nightmare in terms of leadership and in terms of what we have done with our wealth.
00:45:23.460And, by the way, including what we have done to the middle class in this country, which is to serve them and those who aspire to that middle class horribly.