Steve Bannon and guests have a meltdown over defeat of Ohio's Issue 1 ballot initiative

Bannon: “There’s not a donor and a big donor, even the pro-life donors going to give a penny after this fiasco in Ohio”

Video file

Citation From the August 9, 2023 edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

STEVE BANNON (HOST): You’ve had Kansas, Michigan, and now Ohio, right, excuse me, Kansas, Wisconsin, and Ohio, Michigan I don’t know that well. You’ve had three in a row, where that case hasn’t been made or it’s not resonating. And these are not close, these in modern American politics these are blowouts, these are blowouts.

You’ve had three shots. These are not left-wing places. Kansas and Ohio? Brother, I mean you’re not going to get more MAGA. And I realize Kansas has got its own -- the way it was worded, and it’s all this, it’s a little different [INAUDIBLE] Kansas on some issues, I got that. 

But Ohio is the bastion of MAGA, right? And so how do you guys -- I mean, this is a warning shot. I don’t know what it takes, when you say ego and organize and everything like that, you guys have hung together for 50 years, you’ve finally got the Supreme Court, you know, you finally, with Trump’s victory.

You’ve got the judges and you’ve got the victory. And now, quite frankly, you guys, I’m telling you that if it doesn’t get organized, and I mean organized quickly, there’s a lot of voices in the donor community and others are saying hey, what are we doing here? Because these guys -- they’re a drag right now when we can’t afford -- and I hate to be so blunt. Caroline, let me come in, am I being overly harsh on this Caroline Wren?

CAROLINE WREN (GUEST): No, even Trump’s spoken openly about how he’s frustrated by this and there’s not a clear cohesive messaging strategy here.

We’re not resonating with anyone because we’re not really having any sort of cohesive ideology as to what we want moving forward.

I was in Ohio for two days, I knew, I could see what was -- there was no message. It was just vote for Issue 1, and the Democrats made it all about abortion. We made it about this kind of complicated 60 percent threshold. Regular people don’t understand that.

BANNON: We love you guys but I will be blunt. There’s not a donor and a big donor, even the pro-life donors going to give a penny after this fiasco in Ohio given what’s happened and given what’s [INAUDIBLE] until you guys come together with a coherent, understandable plan that you can then back up with the muscle that you can then deliver for the grassroots. There’s no doubt you guys have the ground game and have the ability to deliver that.