Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/7/25: Steve Bannon WH Correspondent On Elon, Trump, GOP Infighting!!

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Ryan and Emily are joined by Natalie Winters to discuss her roll as a White House correspondent for Steve Bannon's War Room show.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus.

So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? and subscribe today. his irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, the unexpected, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the

name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. On Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage, you'll hear about these heroes and what their stories tell us about the nature of bravery. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Apple Podcasts, or wherever to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com. As somebody who is generally supportive of MAGA in there pressing the White House press secretary of an opportunity to do it, how are you thinking about that? We are forthright in our support for President Trump. And I'm aware that maybe

that's hard to square with the idea of like being a journalist. I don't want to be a Trump cheerleader for four years. I don't really find any intellectual merit in doing that either. If you can tell, like I love digging into documents. I don't like standing there and being like, oh my gosh, we took over Gaza. I look at what Elon Musk is doing, getting rid of USAID, amazing, cathartic, beautiful, a masterpiece. At the same time, you now have like a genuine oligarch running loose in the government.

Yeah, I don't think it's great to have unelected billionaires running any government agency. But spare me, mainstream media, the performative outrage that you guys either A, care about the Constitution, or B, that you care about

unelected bureaucrats or billionaires running government, right? So it's the framing of it I sort of reject. All right, over here at CounterPoints, you know that we like to have long-form conversations with people in the journalism industry, find out where they came from, where they're going. Independent journalist industry. Independent journalist. It's a corporate apparatus. We had Ezra Klein. The New York Times loves to call itself independent. That's true. Which it technically is. Technically. They own themselves. That's right. Fair enough. We had my Dropside colleague, Jeremy Scahill. We had Matt Taibbi on. That was a fun one.

Today, we've got another fun one. We're joined by Natalie Winters, who is the White House correspondent for the War Room podcast. Hi. Natalie, thank you so much for joining us. And I just want to say, I think one blind spot in D.C., especially among Republicans, and maybe you've run into this, Natalie, I'm curious. This might be a good place to start. They don't realize how powerful War Room is. If you look at the podcast charts, War Room is routinely near the

very, very top. It is an extremely powerful outlet. What can you tell us about the numbers? Sure, sure. With an internal look, because it does seem like, because when you guys ask your posse or what, is it posse? The posse. The power of the posse. When you ask the posse to do stuff, the phone lines melt down. So the numbers have got to be big. What, can you put some, like, what are your highest numbers? What are your average numbers? Sure, sure. I feel like it was a dark moment when you just called me a journalist. To me, it's still like a slur. No, no, independent media. Welcome to the club. I'll take it. I know, right? I guess I got to, I got to accept it. Look, I think our audience is so powerful for

two reasons, quality and quantity. What do I mean by that? We're first and foremost a TV show. We're on Real America's Voice, which is in, I think, 9 million plus homes. I think our average viewership average is at least around 700,000, plus or minus probably a few hundred thousand. But that's just people who are watching on a traditional TV. That excludes all streaming, all Rumble, all Twitter livestreams. 700,000 watching live? Just on a TV.

Yeah. Just, yeah, just... But that's not including, like I said, Rumble, which is another, you know, 60,000 or so, Twitter, the clips that go viral after, everything like that. So it's just a massive audience. But to the quality,

and I don't mean that our viewers are better than yours. I just mean in terms of engagement and grassroots activism, there really has never been, I think, a more impactful or powerful audience. I would say just ask Kevin McCarthy. But anytime that Steve Bannon, who I always feel like when I call him my co-host, I am demeaning him. It's Stephen K. Bannon's war room. But they will do it. I've literally met audience members who take days off of work to make phone calls, to call the Senate, to call members of Congress. And in some ways, I think it's interesting, actually, just last night, they had Ezra Levin of Indivisible on Rachel Maddow talking about their sort of resistance tactics, right? And they

want to be burning down the phone lines. They want to be writing op-eds in the local papers. They have a very systematic sort of characterization of how to push back through their manuals. And I think War Room has sort of culturally appropriated a lot of the left's tactics, which I guess goes back to sort of McConnell in the early, like, 2000s, right? So, you know, you can have a debate over whose tactics they were. But I think Steve Bannon has really capitalized on the art of the phone call. And, you know, I'm friends with a lot of members. They're always texting us saying thank you for giving us the cover to stand in the breach, to hold the line, particularly against CRs, the kind of omnibus spending bills. So our audience really, really does have power.

I'm honored to even be able to speak to them. But I think people really underestimate the power of our audience. But like I said, I just asked Kevin McCarthy about the power of our audience. No, it's real. No, no, no, not about it. It seemed like the audience got steamrolled a bit by Musk in the, so let's talk, let's start, well, actually, let's start with the Daily Mail attack on you, because I think that's a lot of think that's what a lot of people are going to be curious about. You can put up this first element, and then we'll get to some more serious stuff. So if you're just listening to this on the podcast, this is a Daily Mail headline. You're not a hostess at Hooters.

You work at the White House. Kennedy's maternal warning to the scantily clad correspondent moaning about her fashion critics. So walk us through what happened here. So this goes back to the new White House opens up its press briefing room to non-traditional folks. Breitbart, you know, got a little seat along the side there. Other people, they said, go ahead and apply. I applied for one. You know, I used to, I had this permanent-ish badge under Obama, then Biden for a while, then they took away a bunch of badges. Four or five of them. Yeah. So now I've, I wonder if mine was one of those. They're like, everybody has to reapply.

And I was like, I'm not reapplying because KJP is like not answering any questions. I'm just going to go to the State Department. Like, stop wasting my time. So I didn't even reapply. But I have applied to this new one. So they're letting in new people. So then they let you in. And then there's this social media meltdown over how you look.

What was, walk us through what happened. And before, let me also ask, because it was a lot deeper than how you look. How you look, and maybe you can weigh in on this. It was even just the fact of you being there was controversial to the old guard, who really is uncomfortable. And in the old guard's defense, like as you just said yourself, you're brand new in thinking of yourself even as a journalist. Yeah, sure. So you can imagine other journalists are like, wait a minute, what's wrong with me? And then look, I think the way you framed it is the right way, right? The buried lead, the significant angle of the story

is that new media is in there in a press briefing room that for so long has sort of been inactive, or really, I think, just sort of propaganda-esque in terms of not answering real questions, kicking out journalists that they disagree with. And now President Trump and Caroline Leavitt are taking historic steps to put in new media voices. And I think the story should have been, wow, Steve Bannon's war room is in the White House. Yeah, it's a controversial 23-year-old girl who's maybe said some edgy things, which I all stand by. But that should have been the story. So I sort of viewed it when it really started to, I think, snowball and become a bigger and bigger thing.

It was like article after article after article. And the Kennedy piece, which I think is a ridiculous accusation to say that I was dressed like a hostess at Hooters. I don't think a cashmere sweater. Wasn't that like Alice and Olivia? I was going to say, I think like all of Fox has that Alice and Olivia sweater. Everyone has it. It's like the most basic, like I'm very basic. It's the most basic sweater that exists. I think that was obviously outlandish, but more precisely, I just think it's sort of, rather going back to the original story,

they had said that I was being slammed on Instagram in comments for saying that I was dressed inappropriately. I've gone through my comments. The typical haters who will always comment on anything I wear or anything I do, sure, they said what they said. But overwhelmingly, it was an outpouring of support from our audience and from people who are really, truly excited to have War Room in the press briefing room. Like I said, our audience played a critical role in President Trump's victory. So they saw, I was like, wow, this is amazing. So I know that's what the Daily Mail does. That's

their business model, the rage bait, the clickbait headlines. But it wasn't like I was being slammed for what I was wearing. So when I saw the stories continue to pile up, and then the Kennedy article, which was just so offensive. And if you read it, she refers to herself as like a fellow hot person and saying that I showed up to the White House trying to look like Barbie, just all these really bizarre attacks. I was like, this feels like more to impugn my character, our show, and make us seem unserious and mock this sort of whole new media operation and take away, sort of reframe the story as opposed to, wow, let's give the Trump White House credit for putting in alternative media

voices. Instead, it's like, oh, they're putting in, you know, just some good looking chick because, you know, whatever. And it's an annoying story, too, to, I think, engage with. I mean, for starters, I think our show has been deplatformed, desensored, demonetized, like everything. They only threw my boss in prison for four months. So we're used to the attacks. So, you know, a Daily Mail criticism on my outfit kind of pales in comparison. But I just think more broadly, it sort of represents really an effort to just

delegitimize us. And now I feel every time that I walk into the press briefing room, it's like just a loaded situation. And I mean, the first time that I opened the door and walked in, everyone looked at me was like, what the heck are you doing here? Like, who are you? And I get it, it's an institution and I respect that. But I do think that my presence being there, what we were just talking about in terms of War Room's viewership, it sort of holds a mirror to their face. And I think it raises more broadly the question, which is something we always dive into at War Room, which is sort of the idea of credentialism or the idea of like, what even is the mainstream media and why they're referred to as the mainstream media because we trounce them in viewership and if you look at

the trajectory of viewership i would take our trend line over theirs because they're essentially perpendicular um and we trounce them in impact too in terms of our audience calling phone lines so i'm just curious by what metric and what standard, right, that they would think that they're more deserving to be there. But it's just annoying because I think to respond to these accusations, I then become like the trope of what they want me to become, where I'm sitting here saying like, sorry, I wore a sweater, like, sorry, I'm blonde. And I'm like, that's so, and it cracks me up too. And I know I'm blonde um and I'm like that's so and it cracks me up too and I know I'm rambling but it's serious but it really cracks me up because like for your audience who's not familiar

with me my background was in investigative reporting I was the person who had no social life all I did was stay up and go through like fair filings and the federal register and usaspending.gov and reading Brookings Institution reports. I have never traded off being a young girl in media. I love, I always refer to myself as an autistic incel. I love researching. And it was just funny to be portrayed as something that I so don't view myself as,

but then deciding how to push back against it was my first time ever really being smeared as something that I just felt so disparate from. Let's hear some more background, like where you came from. Sure, sure. So where'd you grow up and how'd you become political for the first time? Sure. So I was born and raised in Los Angeles, in Santa Monica. And my parents were conservative, but more run of the mill, kind of like apolitically conservative, like just default, like, oh, I just don't really want to pay taxes, like the classic trope. But I was fortunate enough to go to a very—

Are they Democrats now? Are they still— No, no, they're still—my mom is like a Mike Lindell superfan. She's watched too much War Room. My dad's maybe not so much on the MyPillow trade, no. But I was very blessed to have gone to probably one of the most prestigious high schools, certainly in California, even in the country,

Harvard-Westlake, which is... Is that where Alex Marlow went? Yes, and Julia Hahn. I was going to say, this is not uncommon in Bannon world, that you come from... The defects from elite institutions. Is that a private school, public school? It's private, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And the year that I was applying to college was the year that Operation Varsity Blues, if you remember the girls like pretending to be on the rowers. So actually one of my best friends from elementary school was the daughter of the individual who sort of, I guess, like ratted to the feds or leaked on the whole thing. So that was an interesting just sort of like class system understanding where I was like, oh, and for me, getting into college at Harvard Westlake was like the apex. It was why you existed, the paragon of existence, right? And seeing a sort of admission system where it was like you either had to be a first-gen LGBTQ, you know, whatever to get in, or you had to be some like old guard, old money,

super blue-bloody type donating, you know, $10 million to a fake sports program. I was like, oh, that's an interesting way to conceive of American society, which I think is very Bannon-esque, right? It's not Republican versus Democrat. I was never really into that, but it was very like, oh, the elites and their sort of woke pet projects and then everyone else. And concurrently on that timeline, it was also, or the years prior, it had been 2016. So I graduated high school in 2019. And so I'm 23. And I was in 10th grade during President Trump's 2016 election cycle. And I was not like the cringe person in the MAGA hat, like trying to just cause conflict for the

sake of causing conflict. I remember at first I had like an English teacher who was so radical. I mean, like the short dyed hair, she ultimately became a they them and encouraged other kids in our class to like transition, like the whole, like literally the meme that you hear on Fox News. Like it was that kind of teacher. And I remember one day I had lied to her because it was the election day. And I was like, oh, because we were going around. She wanted us to all tell stories of like how, you know, politically and civically engaged you were. And I was like, oh, I saw like a young family voting and they all had like Hillary wear on. And it made me feel like really empowered.

And it was like the worst feeling that I ever had because I was like, I don't ever want to lie to people. And I don't want to live a truth that is not my own and very shortly after I was like I'm never doing that again got into a very long form like controversial debate because they were having a gender pay gap bake sale um and I was like the gender pay gap doesn't exist rattled off to like quintessential peak 2016 culture war like Prager pray are you talking points. And from then on, I think got sort of typecast, at least in high school, as like the MAGA turning point girl, which was so not me. I always pride myself like I love my job, but I have a, you know, whole life outside

of it, too. And I think that there's sort of this weird urge to like typecast all conservatives on campus as sort of like zoo animal. That's your only personality. And I did a podcast because they had started a show called Right on Point. And I was under the impression that it was like, oh, we can say what we want. And I had been sort of pushing the administration to bring conservative speakers. They had literally had a member of the Communist Party USA come and speak. And they had sort of abdicated their role, I would argue, of admissions. And they kind of weaponized that whole process just to accept essentially like, you know, minorities, the whole DEI trope. But I was very disheartened

sort of seeing all this happen around me. So I tried to push back, not in like a hair on fire kind of way, but just like raising points. You guys say you care about diversity. What about diversity of thought? And apparently what I said on the podcast was really controversial. They had to call an emergency meeting with like the Gay-Straight Alliance, the Feminist Club,

like the Black Kids Club. Do you remember, what'd you say? I just said I wasn't a feminist. I was like, you know, I kind of explained why I like Trump, particularly on immigration. It wasn't, we're radical now, probably.

You've since – in fact, when Ryan announced you were coming on the show, you've since referred to, like, trannies and gone further along those lines. Which I think is probably an arc that a lot of people in your generation have gone down in the last several years, too. Yes, I think for sure. I mean, also, too, just from my perspective, before Steve went to prison, I was doing more investigative reporting, particularly on Chinese Communist Party infiltration, which I guess is where I was getting to with my story. And I'm very proud of the work that I did. You know, members of Congress, the Republican Study Commission cited at the National Association of Scholars. I broke a lot of stories about the origins of COVID, stories from Hunter Biden's hard drive that led to the removal of Peter Doshak from the COVID origins investigative team. Doing, like I said, the exclusives, listening to the audio tapes from Hunter Biden's hard drive is, I think, an extremely cool career accomplishment.

I was 19 or 20 at the time. So I always focused on that. And my approach to doing media was like, I never want to be an opinion commentator because I was very cognizant of my age. And I think being a woman too, I was just like, I don't ever want to come off like my opinion matters because it doesn't. Like I don't have experience. Like I was very cognizant of that. So I always abstained from doing opinion commentary. And then when Steve went to prison and I joined a show about two years ago as a co-host, I couldn't just rattle off my like deep dive researching for an hour while hosting a show,

right? It's a different gig. So I always joke that like the worst thing they did was send Steve to prison because it helped me kind of find my broadcasting voice and go on the rants, which I know we were talking about. But that sort of forced me, pushed me into that role. But to my core, deep down, I'm like an oppo researcher. And I wish I had the time and the chance to do that more. But I also think people like the rants. They like the kind of inflammatory content. Not that I'm trying to be like the Daily Mail and go for clickbait. But, you know, if you're doing these long-form investigative pieces and no one's reading them, it's kind of like, what's the point?

Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind VoiceOver, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be.

These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States.

Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty.

You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical

and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait.

Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. We have a clip from one, a short clip from... You're going to make me watch myself? I hate that. It's pretty short. Yeah, let's roll EX2 here. These House Republicans, they love to focus on the culture war so much, right? The limited hangout, the trannies in the bathrooms, right?

Well, Speaker Johnson and most of your colleagues, maybe there are a few good ones, the ones we have on the show. But I would humbly suggest that before you start screaming about transgender surgeries, that you focus on yourself. Because last time I checked, you don't even have any balls. And I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that. I'm actually just quoting you, Speaker Johnson. Let's introduce you to a version of yourself just a few months ago who pledged that we were not going to have a Christmastime omnibus, but oops, here we are. Denver, let's roll it. So it goes on from there. So obviously from the left, people don't use phrases like trannies. But one piece of that i wanted to pick up on sure um is is what is an inherently left-wing analysis in there which is that elites use culture war yeah drama to distract

from material analysis um and i was telling you before you came on the show that oftentimes i'll listen to your rants and i'll be like nodding along. He's a very regular listener. I'll be like nodding along for all. Yep. Yep. Yep. Check, check, check, check.

And then it'll veer off. I'm like, whoa, OK. This is where I get off. Yeah. And you head over here. I wonder and I'm looking forward to following your career because I wonder if and same with you. I feel like there's more space on the left for you guys if you can recognize fully that this culture war stuff is genuinely what you were saying it was in that clip. That it is an elite distraction intended to divide the working class so that the elites can go ahead and then accomplish their agenda. In this show, we're always in left-wing populism and right-wing populism are always in tension. And my argument consistently is that whatever the kind of motivations of good right-wing populists,

actual right-wing populism in practice winds up being co-opted by the Elon Musks. Like, Ken Martin, who became the DNC chair recently, rightly has gotten pilloried for this hilarious clip of him where he says, we're not going to take money from bad billionaires. Only the good ones. But there are good billionaires. And good. He should be pilloried for that because that's completely absurd. Right-wing populism often falls into that same trap. And that's why sometimes it falls into conspiracism, too, and anti-Semitism, because the left has a structural

analysis. It's the 1%. Those are the bad ones. And there's no division within the 1%. They're all bad. They're all capitalists. They're all ripping off the workers. For the right, when they say it's these cosmopolitan elites that are the bad ones and there's some good ones like Musk or others, sometimes what that analysis needs is anti-Semitism to say it's actually the Jews who are doing it. I'm not saying that the war room does that. But I think that's why you get the strain of anti-Semitism and right-wing populism. And left-wing populism as well. Far left-wing populism has the same problem.

Well, it shouldn't because it can say that all bankers are bad. It doesn't have to say that Jewish bankers are bad. Yes, but they will say that all of the bankers are Jewish bankers. Sorry, Natalie. And you say, I'm part of your show for saying tranny. No, I'm kidding. And if they do, they should be run out. But anyway, so there's this tension between the different wings of populism. And I often hear you talking about, you and Steve Bannon as well, talking about the way that they're trying to divide people. Bannon recently in that New York Times column was saying, yeah, the Democrats screwed up because they beat Bernie Sanders.

And I've spoken to him over the years, and I know he's being, he's said this in real time. Genuine. He thinks Ro Khanna has a good analysis. He thinks Elizabeth Warren had a good populist, economic populist analysis. And that if Democrats had effectively been able to render that, then they would have had more purchase with regular people than with whatever this Ken Martin style DNC stuff is. So, yeah. So how did your politics wind up kind of where they are? Well, I too am an avid consumer of MSNBC. We're the same kindred spirits and I'm trying to

understand why I like watching it so much. I think I like hate watching. My conclusion I've come to is it's like a slot machine. It's very dopamagenic because you never know when they're going to say something crazy, right? So you're very hooked in. But I think that clip is sort of, I think, very, I would say, representative of the distinction between war room and traditional conservative media. Because that night, probably, Fox News's main story was the transgender bathroom bill and the whole, like, Nancy Mace debacle. And we're like, okay, yes, that's an important issue, but it's sort of a shiny toy. It's a distraction. And I think that that's how Washington has operated for a very long time. I know when Steve was in prison, we were really staunchly against the CR plus Save Act because we're like, you guys have done nothing for election integrity for the

two years you've been here. Don't tell us now, like a month before the election, that you suddenly care about, you know, securing elections. So that's why we need to get behind omnibus spending like you guys have done for what, like 16 times in the past few years. So that is, I think, you know, the tranny reference aside, an interesting, I think, sort of clip that shows you the difference where our show, I think, sort of excels in terms of actually taking on these issues. But I think it's interesting, and this is something too that Steve and I have sort of talked about on the show a lot, which is how Democrats will triage their 2024 loss, because whatever they choose to identify as being the variable will obviously sort of dictate how they then progress forward. And I think in the beginning, you saw a lot of meltdown over like misinformation and disinformation and we need our own Joe Rogan.

And, you know, then that's sort of a different position that they would take of like, OK, well, we've got to double down on the censorship. We need to like fund independent media, though I think the way they use the term independent media is a little cagey. But I think the civil war that's brewing that I think, frankly, if it pans out the way that you're probably more inclined for it to, if it does pan out that way, it's bad for Republicans. It's bad for, like, my side, the populist right, is that the sort of more, I think, non-establishment wing of the Democratic Party wants to take us on, and I think probably has more similarities with us,

on protecting workers' rights. You're against the H-1B visa stuff. And that's what most Americans, I think, support, right? It's sort of the reorientation of the political system outside of Republican versus Democrat, but like American workers and the ruling class, like Steve always says. And I think what you're seeing now is, even with Ken Martin, like the Democratic establishment in the same way that they sabotaged Bernie Sanders, just a refusal to hand it over to the And I think what you're seeing now is, even with Ken Martin, the Democratic establishment, the same way that they sabotaged Bernie Sanders, just a refusal to hand it over to the sort of more activist wing of their party, which they like to decry and I think sort of villainizes a bunch of Hamas cosplayer protester types, which is part of your party, I'm sorry to report.

But I also think that there are a lot of the more disaffected Democrat coalition. And I think if you guys were to take those issues like immigration, like workers' rights, even Bernie Sanders was on the war room side of the H-1B visa debate, right? That's a lot more politically salient. I do think, however, that the version of left-wing populism here in the United States is, I think, sort of weighed down by the identity politics in terms of you guys can't support, you know, deportations or ICE raids or strengthening the border or the idea of sovereignty. Because I think you guys, I'm not saying you in particular, but have really bought into some really radical propositions about, you know, like, you know, starting off the DNC

with like the stolen land declaration and just the idea that deportations are racist. And that if you talk about, you know, a great replacement theory that like, that's totally not happening, that's a conspiracy. It's like, well, that's not a racialized sentiment. It's a replacement theory of, and it's happening of American workers, right? They're importing our replacement and they're making Americans train their replacements. So I think that the refusal for the populist left to sort of engage with that issue, please keep doing it because it helps us. But if you guys were to really embrace that, like Kamala Harris said, I guess for the first time ever in her history, the word sovereignty down while she was talking at the Arizona border during the campaign trail or the patriotic flags inside the DNC, it sort of took everyone for a shock. They're like, what the heck? This is so new. But I don't think that the Democratic elites will allow that to happen. And even that senator, I forget who, did a whole tweet thread where they basically said that,

like, it's bad for our donors if we embrace populism. I missed that one. But yeah, it certainly is in tension with the donors. Well, and this is obviously a huge conversation about the ideological overlap. We have a question from one person in our audience, Nathan Feinberg. We asked readers or viewers to send stuff in. And Nathan asks, what would it take for the populist left and the populist right to agree to disagree on culture and unite against the techno feudalists and transhumanists? Otherwise, I don't see how we humans win. And this is a really interesting question because of kind of the H-1B visa dust up that we were talking about earlier in that Elon Musk, super pro H-1B visas behind Neuralink and a lot of AI software. He's a complicated person, but that's the bucket that he's in. And for a lot of people on the populist right, this is really offensive and is sort of exactly what the fight against the left was positioned as. Who was that? Let's give him credit. Nathan Feinberg was positioned as for a really long

time. So I'm curious what you make of Nathan's question, Natalie, from your vantage point. Can everyone agree to disagree on culture? Or is this actually part and parcel of the culture war in and of itself? Well, I think that H-1B, all of you, there's so many visa categories. It's insane. That debate, it's wild. Like, that sort of represented that sort of reorientation, like the political fracturing. I think you saw it most acutely on the Republican side of things. I will say, I think it was really just kind of war room from like a media perspective

who, and Steve, who held the line. Most people, right, really kind of jumped on the Elon Musk bandwagon. And I don't know, I mean, I think for starters, I love the idea of a big tent, right? I love the idea of bringing people in and it's maybe great to see the tech bros liking us. But, you know, I also think, too, like you have to preserve some of the reasons that those people didn't like us in the beginning. And that was because we weren't like, I would argue, the Obama White House that was just like, hey, here's free unlimited money. We're not going to regulate you. Just like, please support us. And Musk didn't like Trump in the beginning. And Musk took a lot of money from Obama to start Tesla when it was not start, but to reinvigorate Tesla.

Exactly. And we've, even more broadly, I think, have been very critical of the tech bro, like, newfound MAGA conversion. I think it's very performative. I think they have tried to do a kind of limited hangout version of what they did to the MAGA movement where they're like, oh, sorry, we accidentally censored you. I'm like, no, no, you algorithmically manipulated, blacklisted, censored, debanked, deplatformed, spent, what, a billion dollars to, like, mess with the 2020 election. So we're not going to let you get away with that on, like, a two-page letter, Mark Zuckerberg. But I think that to me, the H-1B visa debate was something that was very eye-opening because I have done War Room Wet for four-ish years now, which makes me feel very old. It's like your entire adult life, really.

Since I did it, I did the show for the first time when I was 19. Fun fact, I had no Wi-Fi connection at my house, so I had to do it in a friend's kitchen, and I was standing up. So we've come a long way. I'm sitting down in a studio. But I had never received such an outpouring of support from our audience, because we took a really hard line. I did an hour-long episode with Steve where I sort of dug into the myth that is, A, we need to be importing a bunch of foreign workers, and B, that the people who we are therefore importing are the best and the brightest. And it wasn't, I think, talking points that anyone had really heard. I stayed up literally all night, and I just read every government testimony, every government report, read a book. I was just like, the data is truly astounding. You never hear about it. This was all based on a lie. And of every issue I've ever

covered, I never received so many messages from people not just saying like, yes, you're on it, you're on the right side. But more importantly, people being like, this is my lived reality. Like I was replaced, I had to train a replacement, my wife did this, my son can't get a tech job. And that was when I really had a realization. I was like, wow, this really is a politically significant and palpable issue. Like, talk about the bathrooms, okay, whatever. That's the crux of it. And frankly, I think the sort of irony or paradox of the whole Vivek situation was that I think the H-1B, H-2B, all the visa categories, I think that's something that just sort of gets swept under the rug. Like people don't really know about it. Like they do know about it, like,

you know, vaguely. It's like a nebulous thing. It's like, yeah, we're certainly like importing a bunch of workers. It's kind of symbolic. Yeah. But it's not like, oh my gosh, when you actually get the numbers and you see who's overstaying, you're like, wow, this is a really, really, really deep problem. And I think that they sort of unintentionally expose themselves by like forcing a conversation. Because now, you know, when the H-1B, H-2B, whatever visa sort of regulation or legislation comes through Congress or President Trump speaks on it, it's now such a hot button issue where I think we're on the right side of it. But are you destined to divorce with Musk? I mean, he gets a seat at the table. And you know what I mean? I think he recognized what was going on in Pennsylvania. I think they

were smart to not put all their money into just like stupid TV ads. But it was like boots on the ground, door knocking grassroots like we have an affinity there. But he gets a seat at the table. He doesn't get like a commandeering presence to co-opt the entire MAGA movement. And I think that War Room has really been instrumental in pushing back against him. Like imagine a world in which Steve Bannon wasn't there from within the MAGA tent to be pushing back against some of the stuff that Elon does. And I also think too, like there's a very strong mindset to make everything very black and white. Like it's gray. Like some of the stuff Elon does is black and white like it's gray like some of the stuff elon does is good and some of it is probably not good and maybe msnbc's criticisms of him are accurate

and maybe they're not um but i think it it shows why frankly i think they they don't want a sort of shall we say rogue kind of war room-esque outlet, right? Because we call it, we call the balls and strikes, like we are not afraid. We don't cater or kowtow to anyone. I would argue we're actually independent. We're not beholden to anyone in MAGA world or the other side. But you're planning to ask tough questions then of Caroline Leavitt, which if people don't listen to war room, very critical of Musk, very critical of certain moves when you get on the wrong side. So I think that's actually very- If people want mass deportations, and we need them, and if we are not meeting that

benchmark, then I'm going to be asking about it. If we're not meeting the benchmark on certain policy proposals or campaign promises that our audience worked so hard to get them elected, I'll be asking about that, which I think is really funny, the idea that I'm there as some lackey to just make the Trump admin look great. I think they've been doing wonderful stuff so far, for the most part. But my job there is to sort of speak for our audience. And we've been very forthright in criticizing when criticism is necessary. We shouldn't be stapling green cards to diplomas.

And we criticize that. And I think the tro trope of us is like Trump sycophants or something is, is very off base. If you actually, and this you too, like you were saying so many people don't actually watch War Room. And some of the most like interesting, funny conversations I've ever had is when people start, you know, totally apolitical ask like, Oh, like, so what do you do? And I'm always like, I work in media. And they're like, you know, finally it's like the eighth question. I'm like, okay, I'll just tell you what I do. Oh, you work for Steve Bannon. I thought he hates women. And he's like, you know, finally, it's like the eighth question. I'm like, okay, I'll just tell you what I do. Oh, you work for Steve Bannon?

I thought he hates women and he's like a Nazi and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, actually, no, Steve is for like taxing the billionaires as much as possible. He's against concentrated wealth. He's for breaking this up. And, you know, he's all about the American work. And they're like, oh, my gosh, that's so not what I thought he was. Which I think sort of speaks to the way they've sort of defamed the right-wing populist movement because it is such a politically powerful force.

Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be.

These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship

is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to Boy Sober on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution.

But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame

one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it.

I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself. And I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first Black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice.

Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And so compared to Musk, there are a lot of people on the left that would prefer that Bannon, when it comes to those pieces that you laid out, not necessarily the master deportations, but the other parts, that he beat Musk. And so we have a question here from David Flagg. He says, what can liberals do to support Bannon over Musk? So, you know, what would you what would you tell? That is a good question.

Let's see. I got to put myself in the mind of both liberals and Stephen K. Bannon. Not really because pretend the liberals are going to do what you tell them to do. I think their question is because they don't really understand the right-wing ecosystem, and they don't know what levers to pull and what would help and what wouldn't help. Sometimes what they do would backfire. If they support something, then it might lead someone on the right to be like, well, if Bernie and AOC are for that, it must be bad. I think what I would say is I think the media has a playbook with how they are covering the Trump administration. And to sort of back into this, they don't have any levers of governmental or institutional power right now to necessarily

push back, right? They've lost everything. And I think if you read or just listen to MSNBC, but sort of historically their playbook, and I'm inclined to bring up sort of like the Norm Isons of the world, the Brookings Institution, their democracy playbook, how they've sort of pushed for regime change in foreign countries. It's been through the idea of civil society in an opposition to what they call democratic backsliding. of President Trump as a dictator, as an autocrat, as an authoritarian, as part of a sort of narrative game to sort of stick us in the mindset of like, oh, we're having democratic backsliding going on. Therefore, even though we don't have the constitutional or electoral authority to impeach Trump or push back against him, we're justified because we're defending democracy.

And I think the Elon Musk coverage, oftentimes when it gets reduced into like, Elon is acting like an autocrat, and it's a hostile takeover of the United States government, it's not really all that hostile. I think Elon played a pretty visible role in the campaign trail. I think Doge was probably one of the most visible campaign promises of President Trump's 2024 campaign. I just would sort of reject that framing. So if you want to criticize Elon Musk, I don't think it's a very powerful tactic to decry him as like unelected dictator, shadow president, evil man, I think it's more powerful when he messes up on issues like the H-1B visa to just call it out more plainly for what it is. And I think remind Trump, right, that the people elected you for the right-wing populism stuff,

the Bannon worldview stuff. I would attack it more from the angle of like put American workers first, not, oh, we have to get rid of Elon Musk and defend USAID because Elon's being an autocrat and he wasn't elected. I'm sorry, the whole agency is run by unelected bureaucrats or billionaires from the Democratic Party. So I think those attacks are a lot more powerful than like buying into the paradigm that it's dictator Elon and dictator Trump. So from the perspective of a conservative populist, I look at Elon Musk and sort of like what Ryan Gerduski, I don't know, did you see his post about Musk? He said, let's just say there was a billionaire who's made most of their money from businesses whose success was based on government contracts and subsidies. The way you go from being a billionaire to being a trillionaire is getting a hold of

government data and using it for your next business. I thought that was pretty interesting because, again, as another conservative populist, I look at what Elon Musk is doing, getting rid of USAID, amazing, cathartic, beautiful, a masterpiece. But at the same time, you now have a genuine oligarch running loose in the government. And I can see easily how it would be a way to enrich. He could use it as a way to enrich himself. And I feel like people who were against the concentration of power in the hands of people like Elon Musk on principled ideological reasons, I worry that we're sort of getting numb to having him run loose in the government. And I'm curious what you make of just like from the principle of Elon Musk

coming in and cleaning house, potentially in a way that could enrich himself. What is that? Do you have similar sort of like principled ideological aversions to the idea of, as you said, well, okay, under Biden, it was unelected bureaucrats in the pockets of billionaires. But then do we end up with like replacing those unelected bureaucrats in the pockets of billionaires. But then do we end up with like replacing those unelected bureaucrats in the pockets of billionaires with other unelected bureaucrats in the pockets of billionaires? Our bureaucrats are better than their billionaires. I think there's so many verticals that they're kind of carrying out this, what I'm sure Steve would call like deconstruction of the administrative state. And I think you just

have to take kind of each agency, each department through its own paradigm. And what do I mean by that? Like what's going on with DOJ and FBI? I think that's more like a legal battle, like unitary executive theory, like is President Trump the chief magistrate? Like does the president have authority over, not as the mainstream media makes it like, oh, he wants to control over all three branches, but no, of the entire executive branch, does he have the right to hire and fire? And I think that's what you're seeing go down right now with, like, the FBI purge, right? The lawsuits that they're putting out, getting rid of January 6th agents, like, that's the paradigm to view that through. The USAID thing, yeah, I don't think it's great to have unelected billionaires

running any government agency. Of course, that's bad. But spare me, mainstream media, the performative outrage that you guys either, A, care about the Constitution or, B, that you care about unelected bureaucrats or billionaires running government. So it's the framing of it I sort of reject. But I think you just have to take it, I mean, day by day. I mean, I also think, too, I'm also sort of inclined, and maybe think you just have to take it, I mean, day by day. I mean, I also think too, I'm also sort of inclined, and maybe this is a little less ideological, but I remember when President Trump, what did he say in 2016 when he was talking to African Americans? He was like, what do you guys have to lose? And I sort of feel like that's the approach of the Trump

administration now in a more broad sort of whole of government, whole of society approach, what do I mean by that? It's like we're so fiscally insolvent, fiscally it's so bad. Like, what do we have to lose by maybe taking a chance on another way of running the government? And yes, I'm sure you would give me a whole litany of what we have to lose. But on the other hand, what we're doing is not working. And what we've been doing at USAID is not working. And I think that there's this desire to sort of whitewash and euphemize, particularly in the context of USAID, is like, oh, we're helping Bangladeshi refugees eat. And it's like, well, maybe. I mean, what is

it, like 12 cents to the dollar actually makes it over to whatever country it actually is. But a lot of those USAID programs not only are a really concerning and have to do with like funding biological weapons in China and collaborating with DARPA and stuff where you're like, what is going on here? But as someone who frequents the USA spending, you know, database website a lot, there also is no oversight. And I think that that lack of oversight is almost equally bad as maybe lack of oversight on Elon Musk. For example, there are a ton of government grants, and they all curiously popped up starting around 2016, combating misinformation, disinformation, I'm talking like thousands, in foreign countries,

in, I mean, Pakistan, in India, in the UK, like everywhere. Ukraine, yeah. Everywhere, everywhere, right? And you're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars. And if you read the UK, like everywhere. Ukraine, yeah. Everywhere, everywhere, right? And you're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars. And if you read the grants, it's literally just like to empower journalists and combat misinformation in Uzbekistan. And you're like, well, what the heck does that mean? And then I've gone a step further. If you look on Google Maps,

like you look up the addresses to the places that these sizable sums of money are going to, there's shacks on the side of the road. Like they're not real. It's fun. People should go and do it. It's wild. Okay. It's insane. And that's where I'm like, I think if you look, I think why they're melting down about USAID.

I think sometimes it's because these are basically almost spy programs and they're trying to, they're covering the real identity. But I also think it's how this town has gotten rich. I think through USAID, I think they've laundered money. And I use that in the truest sense in the name of democracy, through a bunch of NGOs that you're like, what are you even doing? And two, I think why they're melting down about the USAID stuff. And I do think it is interesting watching the mainstream media sort of decide what to take the bait on, because I think that was the lesson that they learned from the Trump administration, the first iteration. They're like, we can't melt down. We can't become apoplectic over everything.

But I think their resistance strategy this time around, or what they now are terming the opposition, since they can impeach opposition, since they can't impeach him, since they can't really do anything. I know they were standing on the steps of USAID saying, you know, shut down the Senate. I'm like, all right, recess appointments, fine by me. No. But their plan, and I think you see it in the groups that they've been setting up, like, for example, Democracy Forward, which is the, like, kind of consortium of a bunch of resistance-type orgs, they've started a group called Civil Service Strong, which was outlining and coaching civil servants how to be whistleblowers, how to sue if they're feeling, you know, put upon or whatever. And I think that the crux, the sort of cornerstone

of their resistance tactics was going to be whistleblowing and leaking and doing their kind of typical sabotage from inside of these agencies. And now that they can't do that, I think they're panicking, right? Because they're like, how do we go after the Trump administration now? And more to that, moreover to that point, and maybe this is where we get a little more conspiratorial, but as someone who has read a lot of the texts coming out of these resistance type organizations, there's always a sort of undercurrent of, well, maybe we need to partner with international organizations. We need to like go global, which they have done, I would argue, with a lot of the censorship stuff when they couldn't totally do it here. They outsourced the infringement of the First Amendment to international groups. I think the UK has been a hotbed for it. But I think, too, another reason, kind of a compounding factor as to why they're so nervous about USAID being shut down is that I think, again, maybe they weren't planning to launder the money. I'll be a little nicer. I'll be more charitable. They

were just planning to send the money. But I think they really wanted to kind of bankroll the resistance internationally and sort of use that as a roundabout way to come after President Trump, because they couldn't really, they can't really do that much. They can call the Senate, you know what I mean? And War Room's great at that, but they don't really have the ability to push back in a meaningful way. That's why they're, you know, groveling on the steps of USAID, looking rather cringe, I would add. Like,askin's gone from what, impeaching President Trump twice and running circles around us from a lawfare perspective to now groveling outside of USAID with a bunch of freaks. So I'm like, I guess times are tough for Democrats. Yeah, it does have them in a bind because they're trying to figure out how to defend USAID.

And, you know, initially they were defending it as, you know, foreign aid is important. And pointing to, like, if you shut down PEPFAR, you shut down this protection for, you know, spending around infants in Sudan. And, like, people are going to die and people literally are going to die if you do that. It's a clever insurance policy. But then Rubio can counter and say, well, we're going to keep those programs going. And so now you've started to see, I think it was Chris Murphy, who was like, the reason we're funding USAID in Africa is to counter China. And so that we can extract the resources from Africa. I saw that and I was like, okay.

Like, now we're talking about what's actually happening. Like, it's out in the open. Like, that is, it's always bothering me. It's like, oh, foreign aid. I hate foreign aid. It's so wasteful, foreign spending. Yeah, he said USAID spends money to make sure that we're countering Chinese influence inside of Africa. And... Make sure we don't lose minerals.

To make sure that we don't lose access to critical mineral supplies. And that we're fighting against Hezbollah. Like, I hate this, like, idea that the U.S. is some charitable organization that is just so benevolent and wasting people's money because we're so soft-hearted that we're out here helping people. No. We're like a ruthless empire that is trying to extract resources from Africa. And USAID is the soft power way that we go in and do that. China's got its Belt and Road and its other efforts that it uses to try to get resources. It's a competition for resources. So finally, at least we're talking about it openly. And then you can debate it. Like, do we want to use this?

And clearly what the MAGA folks are saying is we don't actually believe that it's for American soft power. We think you're going to use it as your own partisan weapon in this intra-Civil War fight, which to me, if that helps to bring down the American empire, good. Well, and I was just going to say, we have, speaking of the American Empire, we have a question from Kevin McGonigal who says, I was going to ask this one too. I like this one.

Will there be a right populist pushback for American troops being, as he puts it, cannon fodder for Israel? I mean, securing Gaza. It's been a whirlwind of the last 12 hours, Natalie,

but as you know, before we were booked to do the show, apparently now we are taking over Gaza. Seriously, yeah. So we're taping this within like 12 hours of all of that happening. And you're sort of in a position hearing from your listeners who I'm sure are probably more in the Josh Hawley camp of saying, I don't know that this is the right use of U.S. resources.

A similar argument that's made against USAID, in fact. So how are you, how's the War Room audience kind of grappling with this massive, dramatic new Trump plan through the lens of everything you've talked about, imperialism, USAID, and all of that? Sure. Well, I think to sort of conjoin what both of you said, I think the issue first and foremost derives from the lack of transparency. And I think one way to view what President Trump is trying to do or doge or anything, they view it as like, oh, they're stealing the contracts and they're doing this and they're shutting it all down. And they, you know, I think are maybe a little harsh in their sort of depiction of it. But I think the more maybe euphemistic way of describing it is they also just want radical transparency for the American people. And I do

think that that transparency maybe is a little concerning if you try to really understand what exactly has been going on at these agencies. I'm inclined to bring up the final months of the Biden regime. We call it a regime. It's a war room. I sound like a reflexive. I can't call it an administration. As long as we can call it the Trump regime, we're good. Sounds cool.

It sounds better that way. That is an extremely... That moment is extremely, I think, like instructive. Yeah, there you go. That's the clip. But when the American people, when the support was cratering

for Ukraine aid, there was, I think it was October of last year, or maybe it was 2023. But there's a whole Politico story where they had sort of leaked. They were like, okay, the White House knows that Americans are kind of like cagey

on supporting Ukraine. So our new effort, or our new sort of like propaganda campaign to get Americans to support Ukraine aid is going to be the messaging, which they were pumping out through local papers and local media, was the idea that Ukraine aid is actually good for our industrial base and that it's good for our economy

and that it creates American jobs. And we don't have to have that debate now. We're just getting rid of these surplus weapons anyway so we can make new ones. Yeah. And that was such an interesting moment for me because I was like, no, no, no. If you want the American people

to support giving aid to Ukraine, the number one thing that you should do would be an audit and show us that our money is A, actually making it there, which what Zelensky said just yesterday, he's like, I only got 77 billion. What about the outstanding 170 billion or whatever? And it was that moment where I was like, oh, they will not audit it because they can't, because if we were to know where that money's actually going, it's not good for anyone. And to answer your question, I think – look, I think the Gaza thing is a little absurd. It just kind of happened, right? the way that I've sort of been observing it is more just watching if the media takes the bait on it,

which I think they have. I was watching MSNBC this morning and they seem a little more upset over like the FBI lawsuits. Like they're kind of focusing on that. No surprise to Ryan. But you see it as bait. Well, because I think their whole paradigm

is like cover what Trump does, not what he says. And I think it'll be interesting. So generally smart, probably. Yeah, but I also think that I personally sort of view this kind of bold proclamation, which I would also love to know, like, behind the scenes, if this was something that he had talked about with Netanyahu. Because if you look at the, like, facial reactions, it sort of seems like Trump just said it.

Which, I mean, for Trump to be telling in what, a matter of like 24 hours, Israel, China, Mexico, and Canada, like actually we're the top dog. We're going to choose what's going on here, I think is something we haven't seen in a while. But to that point, I think, I mean, it's not a cliche or, you know, novel take, but the thing itself is sometimes not the actual thing itself. It's not actually about Gaza. It's, for lack of a better word, it's the art of the deal in the same way that the tariffs, was it actually about putting those tariffs in?

Who knows? It was about extracting concessions. I will say this is sort of a narrative paradigm shifting idea where it maybe almost brings it, whatever we want, we don't want that. But I don't know, I think our audience obviously the Israel issue, I always call it a lose-lose, no matter what you say

you're going to get harassed by everyone. But the way that I've always approached it, and I think our audience too, is just from the America First perspective I think there's sort of a mere Scheimer-esque kind of quality to it where it's just like, are we super invested in it? What, you know, the offshore bound, like what exactly is our

investment in the region? How does it benefit us to either have, you know, a more or less terrorist state that absolutely hates us and is trying to attack us, but it's also not our job to prop up the opposition to said state. And I think our audience, when it's come to anything related to Israel, Palestine, Gaza, whatever, is first and foremost, we don't want any refugees from Gaza entering the United States. Like that is sort of where I think we really toe the line. And I think we will definitely push hard on that. But I think, you know, if we were recording this episode tomorrow, right, like it'd be a different news cycle. And I don't really think that it's about taking over Gaza. I think it's, I hate to use the words 4D chess because I'm not one of those people, but there is an element to it. Have you ever thought about going

voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind VoiceOver, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together.

How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to Voice Over on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States.

Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake,

the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies

were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories

of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. You described Israel's issue for you guys as lose-lose i'm curious like where your audience comes down on the on the question because from a obvious internal logic perspective america first and isolationism would include israel like it would it would it would call into question our like reflexive unapologetic endless support for what what they're doing yet there's so much cross pressure to make an American first exception to Israel and also apparently to South Africa because Elon Musk is upset about the law that they're passing in South Africa, coincidentally to Israel. So on the one hand, I'm curious where

they are on that. And then separately, oftentimes on the war room, you'll have people like Frank Gaffney and others who will give this like really vulgar like history of like Islam and talk about how like actually, you know, they're all polygamists and like war longers. And if you look at the Koranran like they're just violent people and like it's really about the culture um and oftentimes bannon himself um i haven't heard you on with those types of folks often bannon himself will will say just as a caveat we're we're not referring to the law-abiding muslim citizens of the united. And like, so you'll, you can sort of see his wheels turning, like, hmm, that's a little bit, like, aggressive in how it's being phrased there. Yet those types of people keep coming on and, and, and making the case, just last night, one of those guys was on talking about the, you know, the history of Gaza and making the case that the Palestinians are just kind of irredeemably violent or something.

So like, how do you blend and think about that? Like that, I guess you don't guys don't like the phrase Islamophobic strain, but like a fairly vulgar thinking about a billion people or two billion people, how many Muslims are on the, compared to thinking about America first populism, which says if you're a citizen of the United States, you're entitled to equal dignity and respect, and it doesn't matter what your race, religion, or anything else is. I think it's sort of the Steve paradigm of wanting allies and not protectorates, and

I think that where our audience sometimes maybe gets a little tripped up or is sort of anti-aid to Israel, I think it's just because the sheer magnitude of the funds that are going to them. And I don't think that it's ever really been clearly articulated to the American people, like what exactly we're getting in return for that. And I think too, I mean, you know, as someone who's covered foreign influence, right, and foreign lobbying, you know, the idea of any foreign country having a strong lobbying presence in D.C. is something that I take aversion to. And I think that, you know, whether it's AIPAC or whatever entity it may be, I think that that is just sort of hard to square. Conversely, it's like, well, I also don't want, and I think if you go back to the infamous Steve Whiteboard pick, what was it, designating the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization?

From the White House. Yes. He always says that his biggest regret was never doing that. And for Steve Bannon, who's had a lot of lives and a lot of cool things, for that to be his biggest regret, I think, tells you something. And I think the way that our show sort of conceives of Islam is probably a little more on the, not Islamophobic scale, but I think we would maybe reject the framing that it's a phobia, because I do think some of the fears are rational in the sense that I think if you look at, well, it's funny, I sort of feel like the Chinese Communist Party threat, and even if you look at the trajectory of someone like Frank Gaffney, sort of superseded the idea that it was the Muslim Brotherhood who was coming to overtake

the global hegemony of the United States with the caliphate. And then suddenly the Chinese Communist Party became the new threat. And I'm always cagey of that kind of stuff because I do think it can very quickly turn into reductive neocon warmongering, right? Where it's like, well, I'm a really bad, squishy Republican senator, but I'm really tough on China, right? But I'm really anti-Islam. Or I really hate Muslims. Yeah, I really think we need to, so I'm aware it can become performative very quickly in the same way, like the transgender

bathroom stuff, right? It sort of becomes a cultural thing. Which goes to my point earlier that Muslims were like holding hands with... And that's where it's like, oh, it sort of comes back. Which goes to my earlier point that right-wing populism often needs, because it won't go after the 1%, it often needs, oh, it's the Muslim Brotherhood. I also think that that's a function, too, of right-wing media in terms of, I think our show, and it's funny, I'm even sort of struggling. You played one of my rants. I much prefer having something to rant about as opposed to something to celebrate about

from just a broadcasting perspective. And I think we thrive on like having an enemy. And I do think sometimes the MSNBC critique of us is like, we do better in opposition than actually ruling is sort of an interesting critique if you look at it through the lens of right-wing media in other words like we were all united right during the campaign because we had a clear and defined enemy and a clear and defined goal but then very soon after you sort of started to see the fracturing of the base the h1b stuff happened the sort of like yeah it was fast right, it was fast. Right? It happened very quickly. And that's why in some ways, and this may be a hot take, I almost think that it would have been better for Republicans, not actually, but like had Democrats taken the

House or something, because then we would have had something to really push back against as opposed to be infighting, because it'd be like, oh, we're all concerned that they're going to impeach President Trump. Like, we're very good. I would maybe push back on the framing of conspiratorial. I think, is it conspiratorial? Is it coincidental? But just sort of the like linking of a bunch of stories. I think it's pattern recognition is maybe how I would describe it. And I think that now we're sort of like, not struggling, but the resistance is very weak. And I if I had to host the show this evening, like, I could have, you know, two months ago done a whole rant about every way that in our view, they were trying to sort of, you know,

fool around with election stuff. And they were trying to, you know, lie or smear president Trump. And now like the best that I can do is dig into the, you know, attorney who's representing the nine anonymous FBI agents who in 2022 was tweeting up a storm about how quote, all of MAGA needs to be fired from the United States government. So it's, it's just a shift. And I'm just like, I want to like, I'm like, give me a chance to rant. And so this brings me at least to my last question, because I could keep doing this forever. This is from M&N. This is a viewer who says, what ethical considerations should be top of mind for War Room and other new media outlets as they report on the White House with their newfound access? We talked about this a little bit earlier

and how you feel like from the America First perspective, you're calling balls and strikes. So as somebody who is generally supportive of MAGA in there pressing the White House press secretary, you have an opportunity to do it. How are you thinking about that to the point that MNN is making? Is this like a is it a priority to push the White House? Is it a priority to use your time in a way that advances maybe concerns? How are you thinking about this as somebody who's a journalist, but also sort of in the camp of the White House? Well, I would say my first and foremost ethical consideration is what I wear. No, I will.

I will. The skirts are not going anywhere. Sweaters, top of the list. the skirts are not going anywhere. You know, it's funny, they were mad at me for wearing sneakers, which I was like,

everyone does when they're not on camera. And I was like, look, I was actually being eco-friendly and I walked

to the White House from Capitol Hill. So I was like, I love walking, that's my favorite thing to do. So I was like, I was trying to reduce

my carbon footprint and then I got ratioed for it. But not ratioed. We ratioed the Daily Mail, and they had to take the journalist's name off the story. It's another War Room win, the power of the War Room audience. But no, I think that's an interesting question, and I think that it's something that I've kind of internally struggled with, I've always said, despite my, you know, rather bombastic rhetoric, like, I have, I spent a lot of my free time actually trying to deduce how to be a responsible steward of this platform that I have not stumbled into, but just, you know, at 23, put yourself in my

shoes. You're speaking to hundreds of thousands, millions of people, the most powerful political, like, it's a lot to conceive of. And not to sound cliche, but I've always just sort of let the truth guide me. That's why I've always stuck to sort of like primary source based reporting. Also made writing copy easier, because I could just sort of copy and paste from what the documents or the grants were saying. But I also think too, like, it's an interesting question, because we are forthright in our support for President Trump. And I'm aware that maybe that's hard to square with the idea of, like, being a journalist. But I'm sorry.

Every time I walk into that press briefing room and everyone's sitting there who has their, you know, superiority complex and, like, you know, I guess really a chip on their shoulder. But, like, the idea that, like, we're a clownish operation by being there. It's like, you guys are probably more partisan than we are. And that's sort of what I find to be the most cognitively dissonant or just gaslighting experience of that press briefing room where I'm like, I have to sit here and pretend like what you guys are doing is telling the truth. They act so professional and so serious. And I'm like, you're a bunch of liars

and you're advancing a certain talking point or certain narrative. So I, just to keep our audience kind of ahead of the curve, because I don't want to be a Trump cheerleader for four years. I don't really find any intellectual merit in doing that either. If you can tell, like, I love digging into documents. I don't like standing there and being like, oh my gosh, we took over Gaza. And how I've sort of come to really, I think, square that is focusing on the resistance

because it gives me something to latch onto because I guess maybe I needed an enemy or something to cover. So I really want to focus on that angle. But I also think, too, like I want to cover the media. Like there's enough people who are going to be trying to ask questions. I, you know, learned the hard way, like this is where I stand. This is where I sit. I'm like, okay, sir, I'm not trying to come for your seat. I'm new.

Like I got it. And I think covering the media is more interesting. And sure, it civil society and the media is the crux, is the cornerstone of their ability to push back on President Trump right now. It's all they have. And being in that press briefing room, therefore, sure, it gives me access to the White House, the president, but it also gives me access to sort of ground zero of the resistance. And that is what I want to cover and sort of use that as like primary source reporting to supplement the reporting that I've been doing kind of independently on tracking the resistance stuff. So that's how I view it, which is, you know, maybe not the traditional ethics-based journal. But I think we live in a post-journalism ethics world.

And I think I'm the first to admit it. If they want to admit otherwise, I would just point them to their viewership. I mean, to support your point, and this probably happened when you were in elementary school, back when Time magazine was a big deal in Washington, Time magazine's White House

correspondent transitioned to become Obama's spokesperson. So it went from the seat to the podium. Caroline Levitt's been on War Room a ton. Which, no, I would humbly suggest that the resistance is boring and that you should take your talents and focus them on Musk, corporate America trying to co-opt the MAGA movement, and the intelligence community.

That element of the resistance I I think, is very interesting. And that brings me to this very interesting question that I'm curious about, too. GBRU says, is Donald Trump aware of the statements Steve Bannon has been making about Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Andreessen, and their intellectual guru, Curtis Yarvin? Has War Room, Bannon, you or any other MAGA affiliated person or organization brought these concerns about techno-feudalism to President Trump? Is it breaking through? I think that person asked on that would be Steve, right? I don't want to speak about their conversations. But I mean, I don't even think it's just like a, you know, Steve,

President Trump conversation. I think that you can't like turn on a TV or the media without being inundated with like this is the thing itself. Right. This is the the story right now. You know, Steve and President Trump talk. Obviously, he's not shy about that. But, you know, Elon obviously has a seat at the table, too. But I do think, I mean, also, too, the sheer power of our audience, like I said, that's a very powerful grassroots force. So I don't think they're going to want to alienate us. But like I said, it's all about having a seat at the table and we can debate it out. And when you have full transparency, like we will win. I have full faith in Stephen K. Bannon and myself and our kind of approach to the issue. I mean, you see Mark Zuckerberg and all these people,

they're getting, like, totally ratioed and trolled. No one believes their conversion. So I think it's just sort of a time will tell thing. Like, you know. And maybe this could be the last one. There's a ton of interest from our lefty audience here in i was scared they were gonna be mean to me well they they did want oh they are a bunch of them said they they wanted uh to ask you about the correspondence typo which i don't know what

that means do you know i know this whole interview i'm like i'm so smart i'm so good at my job i'm 23 i'm like the youngest white house correspondent ever. I'm so intelligent. No. When I tweeted out the now infamous picture, I spelled correspondent with one R. Oh, that's a bad one. And it was because I was getting ready to like go on air. And you don't understand. I love Real America's voice, but I put them in the category of like tech startup. So it's very like ratchet um and and I'm like getting

pulled in this direction I have like my airpods in my phone's not connecting like every journalist that like we've ever attacked I think Steve the second before he came to me they were like we need to send these people to prison like and I'm like well Stephen you just called like three of the people that I just saw walk by like that they should go to jail um so I'm like, well, Stephen, you just called three of the people that I just saw walk by that they should go to jail. So I'm standing there, and I wanted to tweet out the picture because I was like, this is a cool picture. It's like, you know, we'll make some people jealous. That's in the West Wing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right? And so I know that when I had typed out correspondent, which is sort of like a difficult word to spell. I'm like, the first, right, okay, it's a little complicated. I always say I'm very honest. And I just kind of, you know, like when you just want to use autocorrect, so you just kind of like get the gist of the word out there and then you let it do its thing.

Trust the machine. So I guess for some reason autocorrect thinks that I am like, well, you know, correspondent with one R means like the affair partner is named in a divorce. Oh, I did not know that. I guess autocorrect thinks I'm having an affair. I'm not.

Wow, you learn something new every day. But that went super viral. Autocorrect would know, though. I guess I'm doxing myself. No, I'm not. But yeah, so that was kind of annoying. And then they all piled in. But I will defend my honor and as a true opposition researcher the lady who first quote tweeted me that led to like i think 40 or 50 million

impressions i was like oh my gosh this is so embarrassing um she spelled correspondent wrong too i went through rachel bitterkoffer i went through her twitter and twice in february it was february 7th and february 8th of 2019 she was tweeting about the virginia correspondents association they were having their like big annual dinner and she spelled it with one r and she did It was February 7th and February 8th of 2019. She was tweeting about the Virginia Correspondents Association. They were having their big annual dinner, and she spelled it with one R. And she did it twice. So if that's reflective of your intelligence, I am smarter than her. But aside from that, there does seem to be a lot of lefty hope that your faction is going to beat the techno-feudalist authoritarian faction. And one of these, I'll make this the last one,

is related to, I think, asking you to look at some of the left-wing stuff that was done and evaluated in a fair way. So they say, what are your thoughts on the Inflation Reduction Act, which promotes reshoring American jobs combined with imposing tariffs on imports to boost the U.S. energy manufacturing sector,

which is an accurate description of the IRA. Well, I will say, I think they did an absolutely horrific job on messaging on some of their wins. Like I said, we call balls and strikes. But from a more, I think, meta kind of bird's eye view perspective, you can't really tell me they did a good job with reducing inflation. And I think if you look at their economic track record, whether it's the revisions of the jobs reports, I think what was like 12 out of 13 times downward or the fact that so many of the new jobs that they created, I think it was at the end of it like a net loss for Americans and the net gain was happening among non-citizens or like immigrant workers. So I always find, and I'm the first to admit it, that like economic data, really confusing and overwhelming because there's so many layers to it. And they're like, well, consumer confidence or the price index is really high.

And I'm like, well, what is that based on? Americans' lived experience is absolutely horrific. So I don't, I mean, I think if they want to hang on to what they did with the economy as being something really strong, I would highly advise against that. I also think, too, it's a broader, I think, issue in terms of, I don't think any president who oversaw an invasion of 15 million illegal aliens, the most oppressive force on American workers' wages. You can't say that that was good for reducing inflation or helping American workers. Separate it from Biden and partisanship, the idea of the Inflation Reduction Act,

where you are subsidizing American jobs and a transition to a clean energy economy, which China is killing us in. Like in general, directionally, if you separate it from Democrats, is that something that fits into a Bannon style like industrial policy? I think the supporting American manufacturing base, of course, I think President Trump kind of went a different way

of trying to do that more like tariff, kind of that sort of approach. But yeah, I think Peter Navarro, who obviously helped co-host the show while Steve was in prison, is close friends with all of us. We work very closely with him, is very supportive of that, too. We're very for reshoring. I mean, if it were up to Steve, we would like kick out all Chinese companies and maybe the big tech ones, too, while we're at it. But he did say break up the big tech companies.

Yeah. But he said they should have left the economy in place. But I just think it's sort of performative and not just a democrat thing not to skirt your question but like the idea that they're actually genuinely trying to reshore manufacturing jobs they're still out sort you know what i mean like it's it i don't think it had the impact that they intended not because the legislation was bad or ideologically unprincipled, but this city is just, and big business, big donors, corporate interests, they want to outsource. And that's the fundamental issue. Like they just hate American workers. So I think you have to negotiate with them much more intensely, like carrot stick. I think tariffs are more of the

stick. I think stuff like that is a little more carrot-based. And they're not going to take the carrot. You have to smash them. Smash the rich. Fascinating. Yeah. Natalie, thank you for joining us. Thank you so much. I'm so glad I wore that skirt. Otherwise, I don't know if it would have been.

No, I mean, listen, the media infiltration of the White House press room is long overdue. New media infiltration of the White House press room is long overdue. Like new media infiltration of the White House briefing room is long overdue. I'm sure I'll see you in there. Yes, that's right. But thank you so much for coming. Yeah, you want to get in the seat.

Thanks for being on and taking the time. We appreciate it. Thank you, guys. Awesome. Well, we'll be back with more CounterPoints next week, so stay tuned for that. Appreciate it. See you soon. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute,

John, who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily it's your not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast. So we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son. But I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight-loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie.

Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, the unexpected, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day. On Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage, you'll hear about these heroes and what their stories tell us about the nature of bravery.

Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.