Steve Bannon on a government shutdown: “I'd like just to shut it down. Go home.”
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From the December 19, 2024, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show, streamed on Rumble
CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): Now let's get to the immediate, the here and now. Again, I've been planning this event, and this is not me just playing coy. I can't keep up with the CR stuff. Right? I mean, it's coming at a high, high pace. The incoming is remarkable. You see the clock here. Just let's draw that down. Take the — educate our audience that isn't in the the bunker right now.
STEVE BANNON (GUEST): As you know, the War Room posse and The Charlie Kirk Show, we don't like CRs. We like to have 12 appropriations bills, get it done. This is why McCarthy's gone.
Johnson, this should have been a layup. It should have been a two line CR to kick into President Trump's term. We would agree to that, or you add, you know, a 10 billion for the farmers, some money for the FEMA, and you get on with it.
Johnson didn't tell Elon, didn't tell Vivek, didn't tell President Trump. He went to the UFC, he went to Army-Navy game, never told him fifteen hundred pages, all Democrat. It's not acceptable.
They're up there thinking something else. We just have to — and look, folks, it's gonna be a little messy because what the country's in, you got wars in Ukraine, wars in the Middle East, deportations on the border. This is — we're gonna try to get this to be a close run thing. We're gonna help here, at AMFest over the next couple days of the breakout session, get everybody up to speed. I have more to say about this late. But right now, President Trump's thrown in the debt ceiling. It's a little gasoline on the fire.
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KIRK: But Steve, what is the ask? What is a result out of this Congress that we can stomach? Not the ideal. You and I want 12 aprops bills. We want real spending. That's not gonna happen in this session.
BANNON: No. I think —
KIRK: But what can we tolerate?
BANNON: I'd like just to shut it down. Go home.
KIRK: I know. But what what is something we could tolerate?
BANNON: I think the most we can tolerate is some money for the farmers — desperate. You know, a couple of billion dollars to the farmer to bridge him into President Trump. Some — a couple of billion for whatever FEMA needs to do now if there's not money there, and then sign it and kick it into President Trump's. And then next Congress —
KIRK: And I think there is wisdom to this idea that Trump should not inherit the dysfunction of this Congress.
BANNON: Yes.
KIRK: A clean slate. Right?
BANNON: Yes.
KIRK: And I don't like talking like that, but Trump day one should not have to fix the problem of this madness.
BANNON: The debt ceiling and all of that.