The Charlie Kirk Show - The Providential Nature of the 2020 Defeat

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

Both 2020 and 2022 were bruising defeats for MAGA, for America, and Charlie. In his CK Exclusives interview at AmericaFest, Steve Bannon talks about how those losses were actually providential, allowing for the far more effective 2024 comeback that wouldn't have happened otherwise. Steve also discusses Charlie's role in staffing up the new administration and his belief that the Gaza War will lead to a new "two-state solution" for Israel/Palestine, then takes a few questions from CK Exclusives members. Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com! Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful. College is a scam, everybody. You've got to stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible and have as much.

many kids as possible. Go start a turning point USA College Chapter. Go start a turning point you would say high school chapter. Go find out how your church can get involved. Sign up and become an activist. I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade. Most important decision I ever made in my life and I encourage you to do the same. Here I am.

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Without further ado, Steve K. Bannon. Oh, he's got his Washington book. That's when you know it's serious. Officer Ronde. I like that. Take your seats. If you got him, smoke them.

Stephen K. Bannon, it's an honor to have you here. This was a tradition that started with Charlie. You guys would basically do this interview every Amfest, sometimes do an Action Summit. And so thank you for making the time to sit down with us. The first time it really hit me that, I think I told you, the first time it hit me that Charlie was gone, because, you know, I came to Utah those days and spent a couple days of you guys,

but the first time it hit me. was when you two came up to do the transition on the show, which we always do at Amfest live, right? Yeah, we were texting about it the night before, and you were the one who said it's tradition. We have to do it. Well, Charlie, you guys start the show, spring of 22 on RAV? Well, on RAV, it was July 2020.

July 2020. And you guys had the podcast. You had had a show. We started it in May of 2019, and we were just doing once. a week actually at first. Charlie didn't think he could get fit much more into his schedule. And then COVID happened. And he was like, let's do three times a week. And I was like, okay, here we go. And then literally within one week of doing three, three shows in a week,

he was like, okay, let's do five. Let's do five a week. We're going to do five a week. And then it was like maybe more like 10 eventually. He was just a content machine. He was stuck because of COVID. We couldn't do as much as we typically did. And you couldn't do it. There was no college tour or anything. So he was just like making my life. miserable. It was amazing. And then COVID went away and he just kept doing it and did all the other stuff. Charlie was a, he managed by, you guys

figure it out, right? Figured out. Oh, yeah, it was pure chaos, pure insanity behind the scenes. You know, he picks people so that they can figure it out. He doesn't want to micromanage and just make it happen. But look at this, what, 31 Amfest was always so big and so intense, right? Student Action Summit's big, but it's got a different

vibe to it, right? Younger crowd. It's mostly students. Students and in different breakout sessions. Amfest because you always have vice president of the United States I mean the heaviest hitters you have in the political movement but to know that you've got 31,000 and walking on that stage last night

when you look out there you just see of people you just see I mean it's got did you fit like 20,000 in that you know it's crazy that that room I think maxes out at like 18 or something we fit 21,000 in there for Trump last year on the Sunday so he came as remember it was his first

kind of event after winning the election So he flew all the way out to Phoenix. Trump does not like to go west that much the trip. He also doesn't overnight. Yeah, right, exactly. So he's got to be able to get in. Everything is a day trip. Exactly.

So anyways, he came out for that 21,000. I think that's the most we've ever fit inside the actual, the main ballroom. So we're going to try and do something similar because there is 31,000 people at this event. And I, you know, I told people it's like, you know, somebody after Charlie died kind of thought, oh, we should probably look at Amfest tickets to see where we're at. And instantly it was like, I think we should probably turn off ticketing, you know, quickly. And so, but we off with 31,000, you still have another list who couldn't even get tickets. We could have doubled it.

Just to be perfectly clear, we could have sold 60,000. No, I remember this because we did, Charlie had come to us in August to make an early announcement. In fact, I asked Charlie, I said, are you guys going to have the stadium this year? He goes, no, no, no, same place. I go, early says, no, we just want to do it. So we did announce it like on August 19th or 20th. And then by the 10, because normally we start. sell them in October. And we always have a war room code. So our people get a special deal

and get it. So by the time everything got organized to really do the things and get the code, I think our team came in there and go, hey, it's actually sold out. Maybe we can fit some more people in. Yeah, because Charlie was always, you know, we have this inside joke. It's always like, more, more, you know, in all our group chats since Charlie's was killed, just more, more. So turning off the ticketing for this event was actually pretty traumatic for us because, you know, you got fire marshal stuff. I mean, you saw night one. It was people, people were getting upset. They couldn't get into the main ballroom space and it was just getting congested.

I mean, there is a fire marshal for a reason. I mean, but we're- Is there an overflow? Is that with the other 10,000 people go? Yeah, we have a bunch of overflow. And basically all the media robooths are going to be having it up, VIP's having it up. Everywhere that, you know, for JD especially, you know, guys like yourself, we want to make sure you can watch it in different various places if you can't get into the venue. But it's, this is a good problem to have, and we're going to be creative with solutions in the future, certainly. But we've got some more surprises up our sleep, so even for this event.

The content is great, and the breakout sessions are made. When you look through that schedule, everything you guys put up, it's amazing. Action, action. And the breakout sessions, as you said, were Charlie's, that was Charlie's favorites, because that's people talking on stage. That's actually getting things done. Yeah, I saw somebody on X saying, like, well, it would be nice to have some normal people instead all these, like, influencers. up on stage. Have you looked at the breakout sessions?

Have you looked at like everybody that's in the halls? I mean, okay, this is a populist movement, all right? You know, I'll never forget one time I ran into Stephen K. Bannon at the, I was at some hotel. We were passing each other in South Florida? And I was like, Steve, are you coming to the gala tonight? He goes, man, I'm a populist. I'm not going to that.

Yeah, don't do gala. Yeah, I was like, wait, no bow tie, no black time for you. I would love to see you come into an event wearing your, uh, Your customary get up at a black tie event. I just, I just, a quasi, it wasn't total black tie event, but I just gave away Peter Navar's bride at his wedding in Marlago. And I had, I had a nicer version of this, most of a version of this.

They wouldn't have felt comfortable. It was very sweet. They, you know, they got engaged, I think, where he was in prison, so just got married. I know, Marine was, your daughter was saying, it was about time or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, good for Peter.

Steve, there's been a lot of chatter about some of the things that have been said. Has there been? I missed that. A little online chatter. It's mostly getting drowned out by other things. No. No, but it's also mainstream media. I mean, the New York Times, Washington Post picked up Thursday night, obviously.

Media. Then they picked up last night, myself and Megan and Jack, right? What do you make of it? Here's what I make of it. I think this is what I tried to say last night. And this is what part of the aspect, maybe everybody didn't see a Charlie, because people know Charlie from turning point in the summits and, you know, and Amfest and doing all the stuff and going to do the, and doing, you know, change my mind, right, all of that.

Prove me wrong. Yeah. It's fine. You couldn't change his mind. Different influencer. Yeah, different. Different, different controversial online influences. The, um.

Who's great, by the. But Charlie was also, I mean, in transition, well, first of all, just in the campaign, I mean, because of his judgment and understanding how things roll, he was one of the most senior advisors to the campaign. And quite frankly, I think given the grassroots nature and the turnout, which won everything, he was probably as influential as the campaign manager and other people because of knowing what to do. then on the transition Charlie Kirk I mean he camped out in Marlago that's where you guys were doing the show 72 hours after the election

he was on a plane to Mara Lago and I think they'd virtually the whole time he may come back a little I think you guys were in having to juggle the show with the way he was doing he was I think one of the two or three key advisors to the president of personnel

of particularly vetting and who was MAGA and who had President Trump's back then when the administration started it. Charlie spent, you know, and people didn't really understand this. He spent so much time in the White House. In the White House, he's working on Sergio Gore on personnel also, on doing the vetting. Because remember, the guy get 3,000 people that are not, not, don't have to be confirmed in. You've got to hit the deck place front of the flood the zone and days of thunder. Also, a thousand of the confirmation people all have to be bettered. Charlie was given senior advice, and Trump respects his advice, respects the way he thinks, his judgment at 31 years old. And in a In addition, he's in big policy decisions. Why? Because people respect Charlie's opinion. I mean, he comes at it with a certain sense of gravitas. He's really, and that shows you that from 18 to 31, those years really in political combat, he just, he had a learning curve. Everything you guys did wasn't perfect at first, including when he first came to Breitbart, when you guys first did the big turnout thing in 22, everything. your learning organization. Your learning curves like that, right? And it's just work and effort in Charlie and on policy. And so in these policy debates in the summer of 2025, Charlie Kirk

was one of the most important people because Charlie's also a networker. He knows how to bring people together. He knows I get the best ideas out of them. And so I think of what a lot of what you see on the stage. And Andrew was a big First Amendment free speech guy. And Charlie is too. I mean, there's nothing closer to Charlie's heart than open debate. But this is just not about, oh, is this guy in or that guy in or who's going to be, you know, even Vivek last night and Schneider. And I respect both those guys, but they're talking about who's in, who's out. People are going to decide that. It's not for us to decide.

People are going to decide that. But it's something deeper. It's not just are they in or out or able to talk. What are they talking about? What are these big issues? And that's why I wanted to bring up one last night that Charlie was key on it. It's one of four or five that we have. have to get decided, I think, relatively quickly. And that's basically who governs this country,

right? And I say this, I think from a position of strength, because as someone that's actually been in the field running media companies and being a political activist, I don't think anybody out there has a record better than mine than defense of Israel. I am a Christian Zionist and I'm a Christian nationalist. Now, I'm not a Christian Zionist like some people are, but I'm a Christian Zionist and a Christian nationalist. Hey everybody. Balance of Nature's whole health system supplements are the perfect resolution for the new year. If you want to get in a better place in your health journey, you need to check out Balance of Nature and their whole health system. Balance of Nature's whole health system supplements are versatile. Two scoops of fiber and spice mix easily into drinks, adding a warm, aromatic depth. You can also open three of your fruits supplement and mix the powder into a smoothie or sprinkle three of the veggie supplement over a six. savory dish. Balance of Nature's whole health system supplements feature ingredients like Pasolium, husk, flaxseed, cinnamon, turmeric, fenugreek, mango, pineapple, wild blueberries,

shataki mushrooms, spinach, kale, cayenne pepper, and more. Supplements include 47 ingredients of 100% whole fruits, vegetables, spices, and fibers. Perfect for your daily routine. Balance of nature is an amazing, amazing way to supplement your health journey to make sure you are as healthy as you can be in 2026. This new year's lock in 50% off for one year when you subscribe to the whole health system supplements as a preferred customer. Go to balance of nature.com. Again, balance of nature.com 50% off for one year when you subscribe to the whole health system supplements as a preferred customer. Do it now. At Breitbart, bar none, at Breitbart, when I ran it, it was the biggest defender of Israel

going. When I got to the White House, I was the lead on so many things, but particularly trying to get the Muslim Brotherhood designated terrorist organization, of which I failed miserably. It was the hardest thing we did, and it got nowhere. The deep stay inside the government shut it down. But really trying to move the embassy to Jerusalem, I wanted to do it day one. My whole plan for day one, it was. Shocking on. Well, yeah, it was to have the present, because I wanted a populist. I'm not a big gala guy I wanted what I recommend it was

you have the ceremony and we give the speech and the things centered around the speech and in fact we should take the podium about halfway through the speech and turn it and he would just talk to the to the deep state that's all sitting there in those things

oh no no no no we mill and I talked about it could you and then you have the camera view of President Trump with a million people in back of him and he's just lecturing these guys right? Remember Bush said after the speech that's some crazy right? Just in the speech, we're going to give it to him. Crazy. So we roll that. But instead of having the big lunch in the Capitol while people are freezing and President Trump is really, love the

parades. Just let's start the parade. Don't spend two hours with the people freezing. Let's just do the parade immediately. Get it done. Go to the White House. Everybody come by in the parade. President Trump would love it. Then he'd go in the Oval Office. And the very first thing we would do is he would sign an executive order moving the, uh, moving the, uh, the embassy to Jerusalem, very first activist presidency, because it would be so historic. Then he would, we'd do some more work. He would go back to the Capitol and address Congress, Paul Ryan, these guys. And he'd lay out his agenda for the first 100 days and saying, this is not where I'm proposing.

This is what we're going to do. And you guys better get some racks in here because you're going to stay around the clock for 100 days until we do all this. that was Charlie was really big on making Congress work making Congress work you go back and do it now obviously my plan was not chosen that the best I did and I went they had a few gala so but it was fine people wanted to celebrate and it thought it was great president Trump had my plan would go to one ball the veterans ball and he and the first lady would dance and then she would dance with one the veterans but it's telling because the second inauguration is much closer to that it didn't flip the podium around but that stunt of being in

in the Oval Office at the desk, just signing all of the executive orders, and he got to 50 and two days or so. Here's the reason. In 16, we had nothing. I mean, we won and I come from behind. I mean, on the night before in the polling, we were still down. That was all turnout and people just coming out that people never realized low information, low propensity voters.

The second time, we had four years, that was years in the wilderness. And this is why I keep saying, 16 was providential. 20, the big steel was providential because it gave us the four years of the precinct strategy of turning point getting up to speed. Those four years, I would say, were the most valuable years of Charlie Kirk and turning point, learning, learning, using the 22, not just midterms, but the Arizona races to learn more to figure out what works and what doesn't work, to continue to learn, and then 24 have a machine that actually deliver places like Pennsylvania and Michigan and Arizona. We needed those years, and that's why the shock and awe in days of thunder, they had 15 executive orders because it'd been years in the making. And that's what's – that was what's so powerful about where we are. But it's all providential. The 24 election is providential, and that's why, you know, we've got to grind on here.

Well, so you got the bona fides as a pro-Israel voice over many years, but last night you – you sounded a slightly different note. Well, I don't think it's a different note. I think I'm actually a defender of Israel. You have these people that have made, there's two concepts called Greater Israel, right? Greater Israel is not Israel. Greater Israel is a geopolitical entity that takes part of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan,

Sinai, all the way in Egypt. All the West Bank. All the way, all the, that's tiny. I'm talking about it all the way into Iraq and has a defeat of the Persians as part of it. That's a grandiose plan. And there are people in Israel that are fighting for this. That's a real thing.

Just so you guys know, this is a real backing. No, this is Netanyahu. Remember, also Israel's changing, and you should talk to your friends in Israel. Israel's changing radically. I believe under Netanyahu, who I think is just doing this for his own political survival, that I would say that Israel is on the path to become a Jewish Pakistan, which is more a hardcore right ethno state. And I think you see this from who's leaving Israel and going to Portugal and going to Spain and going to Greece to live.

On top of that, there is a portion of the media and people here that are Israel first. They just are. And the perfect example was this current war that we went through. Everything about that war was a lie. We know that for a fact now. The whole intensity of having to bomb the nuclear facilities, he eventually Netanyahu had to give up the documents to his cabinet, everybody to go through it. in the Times of Israel said it was two years. As you know, it wasn't two weeks.

It was two years. They started a war that they couldn't finish. They were getting pounded. President Trump saved Israel. Because remember, at the very first, you know, we sent Aegis cruisers into the eastern Mediterranean with the air systems they have. We sent our Patriot missiles, our THAAD missiles, 25%.

It was the U.S. We were an active combatant in that war from the very first, an active combatant in the war. Now, on the offensive part, It wasn't just the B-2s taking out the caves. I was in the North Arabian Sea in 1980 as a young naval officer on a destroyer that carry battle groups after the hostages were taken. We still have essentially a carry-battle group are submarines there today.

It was the submarines, I think they were fast-attack submarines, that launched 30 cruise missiles, which is a technology from the 1970s, that took out all the surface facilities that the Israeli Air Force couldn't take out. And President Trump didn't call it 12-day war. The whole initial part of the, when Fox was going crazy, how much they were winning, how much they were winning on the previous Friday, was a decapitation against the regime's head because they wanted regime change. And that would require combat troops, at least commandos.

Charlie Kirk understood, as all of us understood, that's not the defense of Israel. That's the expansion of this greater Israel, and we can't do it as a country. We've spent $9 trillion in the Middle East. We've lost 10,000 troops killed in action, right? Another 50,000 casualties, another 5 to 10,000 contractors. So, and $9 trillion. And the country's just not there. And the carnage in the personal lives and all the guys that came back.

And what's happened in the, yes, the PTSD, the suicides, plus what's happened to the country. My recommendation, and Laura Lumer and Rabbi, you know, Rabbi Willicki is very close to Amfess. He's got a media thing here. Today is obviously on an observation. There of the opinion I am, that Israel has got to become sovereign, and it doesn't need our $5 billion, right? They just had, they sold a $10 billion thing of arms to Germany the other day. I mean, they're a very sophisticated defense industry. And I think that would take off the burden because there's going to be more.

more constraints. And here's why I've always fought, always fought the two-state solution. I've always thought that Israel would just be contiguous. And now we have a two-state solution. You have a two-state solution? And the Wall Street Journalist's morning, the lead story, has this like, it's like the Jetsons. It's this picture of the city of the future. It's got all this stuff, you know, people on air packs flying around. It's Gaza. It's a print of a present, from a presentation that Jared and Whitkoff just made to some financiers. I think it's $300 or $400 billion to rebuild Gaza into a Mediterranean resort, but state of the art. And in that, a $60 billion commitment of the United States for debt financing, it's just not going to happen.

You know, they've got now Qatar, and I'm the most anti-Katar guy in the world. Qatar, you should understand, has put a lot of money into Washington, D.C. to change the opinion on Qatar. Qatar is the financier of the Muslim Brotherhood. Full stop. And the Muslim Brotherhood is an absolute enemy to the Christian West, to our Jewish, Judeo-Christian civilization, and particularly to the United States of America. Turkey second. So when President Trump even assigning the designation of terrorism, they wanted to do a study in Jordan, they want to do a study in Syria, and they want to do a study in someplace else, leaving off Qatar and Turkey, which is a centerpiece. So I think that it has to go. So you've now created it to, you have a

Proto two-state solution. In Gaza, you're going to have 2.2 million Palestinians. You can have fully financed by Qatar, except for the money they're going to look from us, but you're talking hundreds of billions of dollars. In Turkey, right, who we drove out, you know, Lawrence of Arabian, the British Army and the West drove out of the Ottoman Empire, drove them out 1917. We're basically inviting the Turks back in who controlled the two holy sites in Jerusalem, I think for a half millennia. We're inviting them back in as the military. And so when I look at Ben and I look at Levin, I said, you guys created this. This was total overreach. And now you have a two-state solution. And President Trump, let's be honest, they met yesterday in Miami to negotiate

Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey with Jared and with Whitkoff. And what they're negotiating is both Israel and Hamas of both slow walking, trading in arms. And the reason is both, I think, realize Netanyahu and Hamas that once they get to the conclusion of phase one, they're kind of out, right? It changes over. To me, that's catastrophic. But that's what they brought on. This is why I'm an advocate and a strong advocate of a Christian state. If you're going to have two states, if you're going to have Israel, and you're going to have part of Israel is going to be the beginning of a Palestinian state, which will be Gaza, with the Turks and Qatar. To me, you've got to take the Christian quarter of Jerusalem with Bethlehem.

And we start there. We should have our own. Because I think if you don't get a Christian state in Israel and get people feeling they have, you know, ownership of the Holy Land or some obligation as Christians, I'm not so sure Israel as we know what today exists in 20 or 30 years. And that's brought on not by people who are the defenders of Israel. That's brought on by people that bought into this kind of imperial Israel expansionist Israel that was back, but what I call the Israel First, And that, Charlie Kirk, you know, people say, well, all the stuff, you know, Nick Fuentes and that's the surface. And that's kind of the minor leagues. Below is about the policies. And below you have deep policies on the oligarchs, on artificial intelligence, on on Israel, on the globalist about Ukraine. There are five or six fundamental basic issues about who governs this country. President Trump walked into a catch-22 when taking office, do nothing and a nothing. America would be staring at a ticking debt bomb, the kind of crisis that could cripple our future. Instead, he's taken action with strong policies to slow the train and buy us some time. But the effects of past administration's spending are still working through the system,

and experts predict dramatic price increases and market uncertainty. Trump is doing all he can, but no matter who's in office, protecting your retirement savings is ultimately up to you. And that's why many Americans are turning to real assets like gold and silver. Preserve gold is our go-to choice here at the Charlie Kirkshire. show. We use them because they make it easy to own physical gold and silver, even inside your retirement accounts like an IRA or 401K. Now, hear from Charlie in his own words. Preserve gold is my go-to choice for all my precious metal needs. They are the real deal, and I recommend them to my

friends, family, and viewers. Get their free wealth protection guide now by texting Charlie to 50505. President Trump is fighting for America's future. Now it's your term to help protect yours. And one thing I'll tell you about Charlie is that to his core, although he came over a very traditional Republican training, to his core, he was a populist nationalist, America first and American citizens first, and that's why he built Turning Point like he built it, right? It's you figure it out. Let these kids figure it out. They'll figure it out. And that's the core of populism. And so that's why last night I thought it was important to also, let me be blunt. I've known Ben Shapiro a long time, right? I've just known him a long time. time. Make sure you get this one in the mic here. Oh, but he's just, look, listen, in the, particularly in the year 15, after Andrew died and I took over Breitbart,

we did have a slight change in editorial policy. It became more America first. It became more populace. It definitely became more nationalist. If Andrew had been alive during that time of those transitioner years, he'd have been right with us. his inclinations were to do that that's why he Andrew was the central figure of the tea party the tea party was kind of the beginning of that we didn't really have it formulated right

and we had some huge election wins remember we won 63 house seats in 2010 63 house seats now most of those members pretty quickly flipped into the republican establishment yeah but at least it showed you there was a thirst out there an appetite for peace grassroots that wanted change and wanted a pretty fundamental change so in 15 and 16 when Trump came along You know, Matt Ball, Tony Lee, and I was running it, and you had Joel Pollack and Alex Marlow, you know, all these people today who were very junior at the time. And, you know, Ben hated Trump. And he was open about that. And I didn't have a problem with that.

I don't have a problem with other voices talking. He worked for never part of the company, but a contractor as an editor. And then you had this incident in Marlago, which was a very marginal incident with Corey Lewandowski in a stringer that we had hired. You know, he shoved her arm or hand or something like that. It was very confusing. I believe the testimony was he grabbed her. He suplexed her. Yeah, exactly. It was blood everywhere. Right everywhere. Because it was right before Super Tuesday. And they wanted Trump. These guys were adamant. They had to do something to shop black Trump. And I just wanted to stand for it. So the story goes, he either quit or I fired him. And there's probably a two-minute gap between both of those happening.

But, and he said, Bannon's turn, Breitbart entered Trump Pravda. And Megan Kelly, I know if she told the story last night when she asked those questions, which we would think would be pretty innocuous today in the first debate on Fox. Of course, we went to high dungeon. Oh, this is awful. And I unleashed the dogs. And to the fact that, you know, she had to get security. And Roger Ails Come me, I said, you've got to back off.

I go, no, we don't back off. We have one, we have full, all ahead flank. Because it was Trump, that they were trying to take out Trump, the Bush, faction, you know, Fox is very pro-Bush, to take him out. And I said, we're not going to do it. And that's stabilized. And Breitbart was his most powerful media thing. In fact, later, Harvard, a year after the election, Harvard did a study on all media in the 2016 election, because they hadn't figured out how they won. And they realized that with the Pepe's and, you know, we had the Mean Wars.

The Mean Wars. It was the Mean Wars. Because Trump really had no money and had no organization. So you had the Mike Sernovich, like Mike Sernovich's, the Meemores, the Pepe's. We're all in social media. And Hillary Clinton gave an interview about two months ago. She said, Bannon and those influences at the time before influencers were a thing. And she had a huge operation. We just ran circles around them because it was self-organizing. And people would just, you know, intense Trump.

And they said later that the most important media outlet by an order of magnitude was not the New York Times or not the Washington Post or not the nation or MSNBC was Breitbart for Trump. And I'm very proud of that. It was why I was selected to come into the campaign because we were doing such a job. I knew nothing about it. We only had 100 days ago, and he's down, I don't know, 10 points. I didn't know anything about campaigns. I'd never been into a campaign office in my life.

But we specialize in taking down Hillary Clinton, right? And so that was our, we had just done Peter Schweitzer's book, which I worked on with Peter, and Peter did the research and wrote it everything. Clinton Cash had come out a year before. and Bernie bros were looking for a place to go, so we put a movie out. We made a movie called Clinton Cash,

it's just like a video, but it got like 14 million views because we put it up for free. A lot of the Bernie bros, because remember, if you just get people to stay home, that's a vote. If you actually get them to come and vote for you,

that's two votes. And all we wanted was those kind of Bernie bros, disaffected Democrats, and Union Democrats, and independents who leaned working class of populists who weren't prepared to vote for a Republican just to stay home. And so we did that.

point is that then Ben made a big deal about not voting for Trump in 16. You know, this is a he was all over thing. And so I just don't, I don't buy it. It's just that you're, they're pushing another agenda. And that agenda failed. And not just that it failed, I kept warning them all the time on the show and behind the scenes. This is going to fail. And the damage you're going to do to Israel is incalculable. And now we have it. And now we have a two state. For people that were adamantly against a two-state solution, just look at the Wall Street Journal today. They're going to build a city of the future there with $300 billion of Qatari's money and other money from the Gulf Emirates and from Saudi Arabia with a security force led by the Turks that have

Egyptians and Saudi troops on that strip in Israel. So they brought it on themselves. And so I agree with Lumer. I think Israel ought to get their total sovereignty and they're total independence of like today in Syria. Williki and the hardcore guys that kind of have a vision, they're not for what we're doing in Syria. Because the Syrian situation with the ISIS guy is really, that's a Turkish proxy.

That's Erdogan's expansion program. And so when we're up there siding with them, a lot of the Israelis are saying, well, hang on, that's not helping us and not helping the Druze. So I think they need their total full independence and they'll take care of themselves. They'll get on with it without constraints

the United States. One of the most common... I think they want us to go with Q&A at this point. We've been going for... That went quick. Did I dominate the microphone? That's what they're here for. They're not paying for us.

They're not paying for you. So let me ask one last question here, though. One of the most common critiques that I've heard, even just walking the floor, people talk to me about Israel, but before that as well, is there's a feeling that from the pro-Israel side or even if they are Israelis, but it could be Mark Levin. be whatever, that they want to get as much out of Trump out of these next three years. And it's a feeling like they're trying to maximize everything they can, even if it's going

to torpedo the administration. Is that a concern that you have? I don't think there's any doubt. I think this is my complaint. I went back. You know, I try to, how to say this, not bug the president by calling you on every topic, et cetera. When we talk, we talk for a length of time and I go see him very, very rarely. But when when I do, it's something important. And so people had asked me to come back, and I went back two days before the bombing and we spent, I don't know, like three or four hours. And with President Trump, one thing I will tell you, he is the, and in my experience

at Goldman Sachs, at Goldman Sachs, you're there to work with CEOs and chairman, right? He is one of the best listeners. When you're in a meeting with him, he's not like talking all the time. He wants to hear what you have to say competing ideas. He asked questions and he takes it on board. So we spent a lot of time that day. And when I got there, who was there working? I got to the West Wing a couple hours early.

The person had set up the meeting, the lunch, had asked me to come a couple hours early. And I walked in, and who's sitting right there? Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk had been there on and off for two weeks, right? You guys had to juggle all this stuff. And when Charlie was back at the White House, Charlie's working 12 and 14-hour days. And part of it was still vetting and helping people to vet, but a lot of it was working on ideas that he felt the administration had to capture. On this one, when I got there, we had been talking, and he had a very definitive plan on this very topic.

I mean, this was about because the thing, and he was adamant like I was, we could not allow ourselves. is to be pulled in to a regime-change war. Also about regime change. You know this from our work on the CCP, which you guys have been part of. I don't believe you can do regime change from the top. You can't go in a decapitation. We can't just go in and take out the Chinese Communist Party.

We just can't go out and take out the mullahs. We can't, I'm not a big believer, you just can go and take Maduro out. Other people have different theories, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. But you saw this in Vietnam. When we were in, had a big commitment, and all of a sudden it wasn't working out for us,

wasn't going, what did we do? The CIA assassinated DM. And then what happened? A complete disaster for their country and our country. Change has to come from the bottom. I'm all for cutting off all the oil, not allowing any of the Mullahs oils to go to the Chinese Communist Party to cut them off. And so then you get revolutionary change. A decapitation, right, strike that then would lead to some civil war internally, we're going to get pulled into that. And that's a 10 or 20 year process with a ton of American cash troops, but more importantly, time, it's opportunity cost. We have so many problems here that we have to solve. We don't have the ability to get the public's attention, but more just the work of people there because they're working for 16, 18-hour days anyway. They need

all that energy to solve, you know, you rank order of things, and Charlie was a huge believer in this. And so, no. And I would say that there's no doubt that they're trying, that was a big one chance. They're trying to take their one chance. That's the logic. But President Trump, here's the beauty of President Trump. He really thought through how to end it. Remember, not until he ended it, he came out and named it. It was a 12-day war. When President Trump puts a brand on it, the brand sticks.

Okay, it ain't a 13-day war. It's not going to be a 30-day war. And he was adamant. And then when Netanyahu, because remember, Netanyahu decapitated the team that Wyckoff was negotiating with the Iranians on that first night. And then when Netanyahu tried to go and decapitate the team negotiating for Hamas, in Qatar, it crossed the line with Trump. Ever since then, just reality, Israel's been kind of a side-show in this.

It's all been working the thing. And now we found out last night in North Carolina, there is no meeting scheduled over Christmas with Netanyahu. It's something he's thinking about. And the press says, I'm going to get it on the books. But this is how it's kind of gone. That's a signal. It's a signal.

And so, for those, and listen, they're adamant. It's going to be their way. They're not going to back off this greater Israel project. They're not going to back off Israel first. You're going to have, you know, we're going to have all kinds of things around us. That's fine. But we have to be adamant. It's done.

You guys brought it on. I don't like it. I don't agree with it. But there's a Palestinian state going to be set up with Qatar and Turkey. That's going to happen. And we have to figure out how to work around that. And so, no, I think there's going to be, and I think if you walk around here, just talk to people, you'll get to feel that certain forces are trying to get the most out of it in the time.

And we have to be ever vigilant. to make sure. It's about the access of the president to information. This is one of the great things about it. This is a huge untold part of the Trump admin, Trump 2.0, the feedback loop. You know who knew that better than anybody, Charlie Kerr. Charlie knew this. Listen, you have an operation that could put on a 31th that could double the size of already the most important conference in all the world for conservatives.

You've doubled the size of that in a couple weeks, given the tragedy you guys had and the work you have to do to keep the show going at the level. and Erica, everything on her plate, and you can do it. And Charlie built that organization, had all that, did the college tour in the spring, and started to know, like I told Charlie, said, dude, do you need another college tour in the fall? You're doing so much. And when he's back in the White House, it's not just for getting people on board. It's the exact thing.

It's making sure, when I said he's a networker, Charlie was always making sure that the right people at the right time with Sergio were getting in front of the president. That lunch, they had tried to schedule that lunch for months, and I just wasn't in D.C. that much. And it was Sergio that came to me, and Charlie was working there the week before and said, hey, we need you here on Thursday. It's blocked out. And I go, okay, this is the thing, the shooting you started, says, it's Thursday at noon, but come, or come right after the show at noon, and we'll get you in there at 1.1.30, and we'll be here. Because Charlie was working with Sergio to make sure the president was getting a broader access.

And another person who works in this, too, is the vice president. the vice president's team, Sarabian and those guys, constantly trying to get more voices in front of the president. And so I think that that is the thing we have to fight going forward. Yeah. This is Lane Schoenberger, chief investment officer and founding partner of Y Reefi. It has been an honor and a privilege to partner with Turning Point and for Charlie to endorse us. His endorsement means the world to us, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Turning Point for years to come. Now, hear Charlie, in his own words, tell you about Y-R-R-R-R-E-F-Y-F-Y.

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Private student loan debt relief, Y-refi.com. Let's get some Q&A. That was great, Steve. Thank you. Q-N-A. Do we have a microphone? Yeah. Does that explain what I was trying to do last night?

Yeah. Leaving out the nasty, snarky part, which, you know me. I've got to go there, right? One of these days I'm going to tell the story about when we start the, when we started the handoff and I go, so you're going to mention it? Wow. Hi, Mr. Bannon. My name's Emma. My dad loves your show. We watch you every day. Your dad's a man of discernment. So somebody who was born in 2003, I was a day old when Mosama bin Laden was killed. It feels like my entire life it's been this confusing mess of endless wars in the Middle East. Other than, as a Christian, I do want to protect our holy sites.

Why does it feel like even in the conservative movement, we're constantly being dragged into all of these conflicts rather than focusing on all of our problems here and worrying about the midterms and putting America and American citizens first? So it's a great question. That's a great question. From the mouth of babes. One of the biggest issues, it seems like, is that so many of the problems that we have failed to solve or gotten dragged into have blown back and have come here now. I mean, the central issue we have today is who actually runs the country, right?

Who makes the decisions? Who actually empowers the chief executive to make? And this is why the big focus on his article two powers. What are those powers? You watch a show we've been adamant about that. That was one of the things in the years in the wilderness that Russ Voting guys came up with that. We've got to maximize the Article 2 powers of the chief executive

because that's ways to get things done, particularly in crisis. You still have a network, this kind of globalist system, that people make an awful lot of money and have an awful lot of power and having the United States as kind of the security guarantee around the world. If you look at, just take the Eurasian landmass quickly, You look from Europe to the Gulf and the Gulf Emirates, the Middle East, around to the South China Sea, and then up to Japan and Korea. Those four big nodes are the basic trading parties in the United States. We have trading relationships, commercial relationships, capital markets, but it's also an American security guarantee.

We have NATO. We're in the Middle East. And this is why we have a $1.2 trillion defense budget. Now, those trade deals are upside down because we've shipped off. the jobs that's worked to the detriment of the American people, the middle class and working class. But the elites have made a tremendous amount of money in this system. And they continue to make a tremendous amount of money in this system. And they're going to continue that until we actually take power away from them. And that's one of the reasons I have to fight. So they always want

to focus on everywhere else. And quite frankly, they don't care. They just don't. They don't care about the American worker. They don't care about the American family. And you can tell this by their policies of immigration. They're always trying to, whether it's massive legal immigration from Mexico and from Latin America to drive down the wages of African Americans and Hispanic American citizens at the lower end are flooding the zone with these bogus H-1B visas and all these visa programs so that kids coming out of college have to compete against the world here in the United States and drive their wages down 50%. So the problems that we have been involved in the world have kind of come back to us. Now, one of the biggest problems we have here today is that we've

looked the other way for years on this Marxist-Jihadist coalition. And this red-green coalition that people like Frank Gaffney and Trevor Loud and others have been warning people about for 20 or 30 years is now a reality. You see that in New York City with the new elected mayor. You see that in Chicago where they forced out ice. You see it in L.A. You see in these sanctuary cities that are basically independent. And we have 15 or 20 million illegal aliens here, and they're not about to be deported. In fact, they're going to do everything to stop that.

That's the forces. And now this is why we're making such a big deal about Texas. in Texas, and we had on the show today in the audience, one of the women fighting this in the United Kingdom. Because people in the United Kingdom will tell you in England and in France, they're five or ten years away from a civil war, right? They've allowed it to go on so long. And so we have to nip in the butt. We've allowed it to get out of control in Dearborn, Michigan. It's going to be very tough to deal with. Minnesota. In Minnesota, looking to Samayans. But in Texas, it's just beginning. They're building two mosques a month. And here's Harris County.

and Tarrant County are the two counties. They realize if they can take over Tarrant County and Harris County, they can flip Texas, and if they flip Texas, we can never win again. So that's why I just announced tomorrow on January 9th, because this is how we play at the war room, we're bringing Gertvilders, the hardest core anti-Islamist in Europe, the Netherlands, a guy that has been hardcore, we're bringing him to Plano, Texas, on the 9th,

And we're throwing down hard. We're having him as a speaker. They're going to go crazy. Look, the message of Charlie Kirk and his work, if you cut through everything, is that Charlie, and this is why I said last night, he's a Christian martyr and therefore a Christian saint, even more than an American patriot.

He understood that the country's gone through a decristianization process over the last 60, 70, 80 years, in that the purpose of power is not power for power's sake. The purpose for power is the re-Christianization of our institutions. And that is the work, that is the task for us at hand. And so I think that, and I think we can not just think,

I know we can do it. We've won seven of the last eight. They will never tell you that. Since 2015, when Trump really came on the scene, there have been eight national elections, either primaries, off-year elections, which is a national election for Congress, or presidential elections.

We've had eight. We've won seven, okay? And I'm telling you, it's very doable for us to win this year, and here's why. I believe the bets we made on the economy are going to stop paying off, and that's when it's going to get ugly. When they can't fall back on affordability or playing by the rules and some economic argument, it's going to get Charlie Kirk type of nasty, the way they treated him everywhere he went. So we just have to hunker down, understand we had one of the greatest leaders.

I think if you look at history, that Charlie is as close to the revolutionary generation where you had many of the stars, the revolutionary generation, were in their 20s, early 20s to maybe early 30s. Charlie Kirk has had more impact on our country for his age than anybody really from the revolutionary generation. So you guys have here, right? So, you know, we have to pick up the mantle. It's a, you know, cry havoc and unleash the dogs of information war. So. Well said. Very question.

Hi, Mr. Bannon. My name is Cole. I am a high school senior, and I plan to ship out for Marine Corps boot camp this summer. Amen. Thank you. I was wondering what your advice would be to find political and just general success following military service. Thank you. What I would do, you're making the – every time I talk to audiences, I say do this. I served eight years in. It's just go out.

The first thing you should do is either enlist or if you're in college, go be an officer in the military. And here's why. The most formative decade of your life is your 20s. It's one of the reasons of the crisis we have today because we are taking a lot of. away opportunities from people in this late family formation, late home ownership, and even learning as an apprentice, as an artisan, a profession in your 20s. The best thing you can do is in the military, don't worry about your political future going forward. Just hit it every day. Take as many tough assignments. Go as travel the world. If you got an assignment that takes

you overseas, take it. If you got something that's particularly hazardous, take it. That that building of your character is everything in that decade. And you're going to a place that is one of the finest institution. Remember, 250 years is like the Royal Navy. Why is the Marine Corps so special? Because the Marine Corps is going to strip you down of all your false ego and get back to the core of your character. And it's a tough process.

But they're going to build back up through daily actions. And daily, you're holding yourself accountable and working as a team. Remember, in the war room, when somebody comes to work for me, I make them watch a film called 12 o'clock high. It's about the 8th Air Corps in the first days of World War II. In situations like this, it's all about working together as a team, right? As imperfect as you are.

And the sacrifices that have to come with that, because working as a team means supplementing some natural human tendencies. The Marine Corps is the perfect institution. You know, as a naval officer, we're pretty good, and the Army's pretty good, but the Marine Corps has perfected taking basic American citizens, young kids, and turning them into something that's very special and very lethal. So don't worry about your career going forward. Maximize every day you're in the Corps, and you'll turn out fine.

Steve Bannon, everyone. Yes. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, thank you, guys. By the way, I'm so proud of what you guys have accomplished and all the grief you've gotten and all the hate you've gotten. It is amazing. This conference, look at the energy,

look at the kids. We're in good hands. Amen. Thank you, Steve.