The FBI searched former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence as part of a classified records probe. Former Trump aide Steve Bannon and his podcast guests melted down over the news.
Steve Bannon’s show melts down over the FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence
Written by Justin Horowitz
Research contributions from Jacina Hollins-Borges
Published
After Bannon said that the search was timed to coincide with the anniversary of President Nixon's resignation, Rep. Matt Gaetz told viewers that “Let us put on the armor of God and go fight.”
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From the August 9, 2022, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room: Pandemic
STEVE BANNON (HOST): No conspiracies, but no coincidences. This is the – yesterday and today, the anniversary of Richard Nixon resigning his presidency, which they timed this all around. Okay. Today, that was my speech at CPAC on Friday night. And like I said, this thing is not that difficult to think through. You know exactly what they're going to do. So today we've lined up nothing but killers. People born for this fight. We have Ambassador Rick Grenell. Congressman Matt Gaetz. Miranda Devine from the New York Post. We have Matt Schlapp from CPAC. Russ Vought, Peter Navarro, Steve Cortes, the great Joe Kent, also Boris Epshteyn and many others. Today at 5:00, we're going to have Kari Lake tee off, going to have a whole new group at 5 and at 6. I want to start with Congressman Matt Gaetz, joins us by phone. Congressman Gaetz, give us your assessment of what went down yesterday and where do we stand this morning, sir?
REP. MATT GAETZ (GUEST): Well, they couldn't beat Trump at the ballot box in 2016, so they tried with impeachment and the witness box. Rhat failed. So then they ran to the mailbox in the 2020 election, and now they've literally shown up at President Trump's home to take his boxes.
This was not law enforcement activity, Steve. This was a performance. It was a political performance. Over thirty FBI agents, heavily armed. The circle around President Trump's beautiful American flag at Mar a Lago filled up with black SUVs. They rented a Ryder truck so that people with guns could jump out of the back of it. There was even a tense standoff at the beginning of this raid because there were folks at the Secret Service who were wondering whether or not there even was a warrant. When lawyers began asking if they could see the warrant, there was initially reticence on the part of the FBI to even show it. They just wanted to storm the place like the East Germans Stasi.
You know, this is, in my opinion, the most defining moment of the Joe Biden presidency. Before this, it would have been Afghanistan, but other American presidents have failed withdrawals. Here you have something no other American president has ever done. It is laughable. The reports out of the White House that they were not involved in this decision, of course they were. And here's why. The Democrats have got their polling back on the Inflation Reduction Act, and they know it's a total zero. At the same time, they see that we are closing in on Hunter Biden with all of the records we already have from the laptop. And they see the political winds at our back where we're going to be able to pull those investigative threads with subpoena power, with in-depth depositions, with all of the investigative tools we would have in the majority that we don't have now. They see that President Trump has a job approval in the eighties right now, about to announce his campaign.
And so they're trying to create this air of criminality around him. But I really don't think it will work. So if that's the diagnosis.
My assessment is the antidote has to be not one more damn penny for this administrative state that has been weaponized against our people in a very fascist way. You know, they want to, you know, ensure that they centralize this power. And so it's my perspective that, you know, if they want to limit the choices of voters with this performative activity, then we ought to limit the resources that they have to be able to execute on it. I have never seen a coalescing of the Republicans like I've seen over the last 24 hours. I mean, you've got people who don't even like Trump, like Asa Hutchinson, the governor of Arkansas, people all over this country. I've had so many moderates and centrists in the Congress texting me saying, we are ready for this battle. Let us put on the armor of God and go fight. So this is a terrible day for America. It's a terrible day for Joe Biden. But I actually think, Steve, we're going to look back at this as a galvanizing moment for our movement, because now we see clearly what the fight is and what we have to do about it.
Ric Grenell likened the search to “fascism and totalitarianism.”
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From the August 9, 2022, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room: Pandemic
STEVE BANNON (HOST): Ambassador Grenell, can we have your – you're one of the closest senior people to President Trump. You've been in many of the fights with us. Give us your perspective, sir.
RIC GRENELL (HOST): Well, he's stronger this morning, there's no question about it. I agree with Matt that our people are seeing this very clearly. I think that, you know, when you look across the spectrum of the United States, first and second-generation Americans, which traditionally have not voted for Republicans, have overwhelmingly raised their voice of concern. They're like the canaries in the coal mine. First and second-generation Americans are seeing what is happening to this country and coming over to conservative principles and voting Republican like never before. They understand this because they left fascism and totalitarianism. They know this.
Steve, I worked at the State Department for 11 years, as you know. And when we see this type of political prosecution going against your political enemies to try to get them to not run, we usually put it in the human rights report. We condemn it at the State Department. We call it out. Sometimes these other countries suffer in their relationship with the United States. I never thought that I would see this in America, but this is happening.
And I think very clearly – I see very clearly that Americans across the spectrum, left, right and center are very concerned at the authoritarianism of this left-wing administration. And this is a terrible precedent for people like Susan Rice, for people like Ron Klain. They have to be looking at this and saying, this is a terrible precedent. I hope that we can dial this back somehow.
But make no mistake, conservatives, Republicans, Trump supporters, they are all totally focused. They're geared up.
I'll finish with this. You're listening to War Room right now. Gone is the day where you get to just listen to a whole bunch of other people talk about fighting. If you are not gearing up to fight yourself, bring your strong voice to social media. Maybe you have to write a bigger check. But every single person listening to this War Room broadcast right now has to ask themselves on a daily basis, what are you doing to save this country? It is no longer appropriate to sit back and hope that someone else does something.
BANNON: That's perfect. That's why I wanted to have this with the people we have on today that are the leaders of this fight. But we're all in this fight. That's what this is, an activist show.
After Bannon said that MAGA was past videos and rallies and now was the time for action, Boris Epshteyn said that everyone must uniformly unite behind Trump in 2024.
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From the August 9, 2022, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room: Pandemic
STEVE BANNON (HOST): Andy McCarthy's got a – who's no Trump fan, as you know. He's got a big piece in The New York Post this morning saying, don't believe everything you see. It's not about – has nothing to do with the archives because just like you said, they've already been engaged in this discussion. They're talking about it. He thinks that they're in a fishing expedition for January for – six – for January 6 materials. What's your what are your thoughts?
BORIS EPSHTEYN (GUEST): Well it's an intimidation tactic. That's what it is. And, you know, we don't – we have no idea at this point how the DOJ was able to get this warrant from a magistrate judge, what they – we do know what they put in the documents, how they convinced the judge. We do know that in the past, especially with FISA, the DOJ has been absolutely not forthcoming. The FBI absolutely lied when it pertains to President Trump and his supporters and those who worked for his campaign.
So there's a there's a modus operandi that. Right. There's there's a precedent for the FBI and the DOJ not being forthcoming with the judge. Did they tell the judge that, hey, there's been cooperation in this case? Did they tell the judge that there's already been substantive back and forth between the president's lawyers and and the DOJ? If they did not, that's that's misrepresentation and it's very material. So it'll be very interesting to see what information comes out over the next, you know, weeks and months.
But here's the bottom line.
...
This was a naked, craven attempt to intimidate President Trump, to scare President Trump and the movement because they're seeing President Trump's strength. Look at just this weekend, right? No coincidences, but no conspiracy, but no coincidence. No conspiracy, but no coincidences. Just this weekend at CPAC, President Trump had 69%, you know, the other potential candidates in the twenties. Among Hispanics, President Trump and 81 others, the next ones at 16.
President Trump is the irrefutable, undisputed leader of the country, the Republican Party, and the MAGA movement. And of course, the other side is so scared of it. And that's why they're still Trump Derangement Syndrome is still at its height. Nobody's talking about Joe Biden the fact that he has COVID for about two years already. Right. The guy's been, you know, been out with COVID and now he's a hacking up a lung, you know, the first day he's back. Nobody's talking about Joe Biden. Nobody's talking about the stagflation bill that they passed this week, which they somehow touted as this big historic thing.
Every single news, every single story, every single show is all about President Donald J. Trump, because the mainstream media knows he's the most powerful political figure in America. The Democrats know it. MAGA and Republicans, of course, don't because they recognize it. And what the Democrats and the GOP are doing is using third world, as I've said before, banana republic tactics to attack their political adversary, their political opponent.
We've never seen that before in this country. It's unprecedented, but unfortunately, we've seen it all over the world coming from radical woke liberals, including, hey, my family witnessed it, right? We're refugees from the former Soviet Union. And this is exactly, exactly how the corrupt law enforcement agencies, the weaponized law enforcement agencies of the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, other tyrannical states, Iraq, all over the country, all over the world. That's how they behave. This weaponizing and targeting of law enforcement against political adversaries is textbook tyrannical and textbook radical woke socialist communist.
BANNON: So where do we go from here? What are the actions? You know, I saw a video last night that came out. It was a beautiful video. But I think we're past videos. I actually think we're past rallies. I think it's time now for action. I know the War Room posse wants to get engaged more than ever. You saw Matt Gaetz and, you know, McCarthy put out these things, you know, save your documents. But where do we go from here? What? Where how do you think this plays out? Because this is an outrage. They desecrated one of the most iconic presidential residences in American history. That's what they did. They desecrated it and they did it on purpose. And they did it to rub MAGA's nose in this. This comes off the great Kari Lake victory that Joe Kent – Joe Kent's going to join us in the second hour, Kari Lake tonight or this afternoon. Where do we go from here? Boris, I know you're an action, action, action guy. So tell me, where do we go?
EPSHTEYN: Steve, here's what we have to go from here. We have got to make sure that as we have we have primaries tonight. We have primaries all through August and then even into September in New Hampshire. We've got to be electing MAGA candidates all across the country. All across the country has got to be all MAGA.
And then as we hope and expect President Trump when he decides to announce, we have got to ensure that there is absolute and total coalescence, that there's not even a voice in a MAGA primary. You know, Liz Cheney, the loser out of Wyoming, wants to go in and make noise or Chris Christie, you know, that has been from ten years ago, wants to – let him do it. But MAGA has got to be fully united behind President Donald J. Trump, as we hope and expect decides to run for president. That is we need – that's the broad shoulders we need in the Oval Office.
And frankly, the Democrats are telling us the same exact thing because he is the one they're singling out. He's the one they're targeting. She's the one they're petrified of because President Trump brought this country back to greatness in just four years. He brought it from the precipice of a cliff under – after Clinton and Bush and Obama, President Trump brought us universal energy dominance, brought us absolute annihilation of our adversaries, brought us strength domestically as strength on the border.
ACU's Matt Schlapp claimed that CPAC this past weekend triggered the search:
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From the August 9, 2022, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room: Pandemic
STEVE BANNON (HOST): Want to go to Matt Schlapp. Matt, you know, it's pretty stunning – to think how you guys at CPAC programed a CPAC where the media all melted down. And then to have Mar-a-Lago happen, what happened in Mar-a-Lago, the raid yesterday. It's almost like – it's so prescient. I mean, if you think about the speakers, think about the keynote, you think about the panels, you think about the discussion. It was virtually all about what happened yesterday. Walk us through that. How did you guys know at CPAC? I mean, it's it's pretty stunning. It's almost like you picked the weekend that the raid was going to happen because what happened, the jackbooted nature of this yesterday was really foreshadowed by virtually every breakout session, every panel, every workshop, and every speaker. Matt Schlapp.
MATT SCHLAPP (GUEST): Yeah. No, it's true, Steve, and it was a central theme of your remarks as well, which is we're in a very dangerous place. They talk about endangering the democracy. They don't care about democracy. They care about their authority and their political power. We're the ones who care about the republic. And Steve, I believe it's CPAC that triggered the raid. Yes. They've been going after Donald Trump, but they saw that man take that stage. He was very presidential. He was very graceful. He was hard-hitting. It was a speech like I hadn't seen at CPAC before. I'm sure you were commenting on it. Mursi and I, we're sitting together and we're like, Wow, this is a blockbuster speech. It just looks perfect. The weekend went just it was pretty flawless, starting with Viktor Orbán, which they all melted down over. And he gave a speech they couldn't find really any fault with, you know. And so, Steve, when Trump comes across in a way where he's threatening politically, threatening them politically, they're going to attack. We provoke them by giving Donald Trump that stage and letting him get all that positive media. That's what provoked them. And remember what Russ just said, they have a very short time to indict, sadly, maybe even to prosecute Donald Trump, because when we get that power, I do think the Republicans have figured this out. We got to use every inch of that power to shut down that government, defund these agencies. Don't vote for anything that allows them to continue to use this corruption to go after anyone that stands with Donald Trump, including the man himself.
BANNON: Are you confident that – you've seen I mean, McCarthy and people I mean, it's coming in a little hot now. Matt Gaetz supposed to be getting on a conference call here. I think right now as a group. Are you confident from what you've seen so far that you that you're seeing the steely resolve that Russ Vought – because what Russ Vought talks about is not business as usual. What Russ Vought is talking about is using the filibuster right now to stop the appropriations process until you get answers to get guys in front of hearings and you had Wray just punch out in front of grass the other day, said, I got to catch a plane, was the private jet flying up to his house in the Adirondacks. So so are you confident you're seeing that not just unity but steely resolve you need to execute and implement what Russ Vought's talking about?
SCHLAPP: No, this is where I disagree with a lot of people I've watched in the last 24 hours. I actually think our people do need to take to the streets. I think it was right to go to Mar-a-Lago last night. I think our people should get before the FBI. No violence. Don't break the law. Don't don't go after cops. But we've got a role to play. We've seen in the streets, we've seen it. All these tactics to the left. They've got everybody scared sitting in their basements. Get out of your basement. That's why we had so many people at CPAC and watch the conversation I had with Jim Jordan and watch Steve Bannon's speech. This is this is the playbook. Jim Jordan talked about how important that first budget is when we get power. And they all know that the Democrats know that, which is why they're moving so quickly now to get Trump off the field and to get so many of us off the field. That first budget deal after we win these majorities is critical. And so focus on these weak Republican sisters. Some of them are already out saying, well, we have to see, we have to learn more before we react. We don't have to learn anything, by the way, we all make mistakes. But let me tell you something. There's nothing that Donald Trump has done that warrants the raiding of his house and, you know, the blowing up of his safe and all the theatrics, when you put it just vis-a-vis Hunter Biden, the Clinton Foundation, Hillary and Bill Clinton, all the other wrongdoing. You know, Hillary Clinton stole $200,000 worth of furniture from the White House when they left for Little Rock in New York. And you know what they told her? Oh, just return it. It's fine. Now, maybe they're accusing Donald Trump of taking a scrap of paper and they're going to throw him in prison. This is outrageous. And the American people see it for what it is.
Steve Cortes urged Trump to declare another run for the presidency.
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From the August 9, 2022, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room: Pandemic
STEVE BANNON (HOST): Cortes, you announced today – talk to me about Kent and Russ Vought. We've had a range of people, Ambassador Grenell, Gaetz, everybody talking about the actions that need to be taken to set things right here – besides the political process for actually running. What is Steve Cortes's recommendations for what needs to be done to take on the administrative states sir?
STEVE CORTES (GUEST): Well, other than President Trump, which, again, I think that's the most immediate and consequential step of action to be taken, is President Trump announcing, but other than that is to be laser-focused on the elections. We need America First warriors people like Joe Kent, I think John Gibbs in Michigan three is another example at the house. There's a lot of them in the Senate, a lot of them running for state houses around the country. But we cannot – if there's one takeaway, I think, and there's a lot of takeaways, but if there's one regarding the election, regarding this current election season that we're at one takeaway from last night that I hope all of the America First deplorables will absorb it is this – that we have no time for corporatist, milquetoast Republicans.
We are no longer in a political debate where we are debating marginalia and we agree with the opposition on sort of fundamental first principles. No, as you very presciently laid out at CPAC days ago, Steve, we are in a cultural and political war. The other side recognizes that and the other side is willing to use any tactics at their disposal to defeat us. We need to I'm not saying we should use any tactics, but we need to embrace the mentality, unfortunately, that we are in a cultural and political war. And to fight it, we need people who are willing to be brave, like Joe Kent. We need them in the Congress. Simply taking over with a Republican majority that ends up being a Paul Ryan-style House majority is totally inconsequential, will not heal the wounds that have been inflicted upon this country by Joe Biden in the last year and a half.
So I think we need to realize what time it is in this country. We need to realize the stakes and we need to realize and to elect candidates who recognize as such. And again, to me, the foremost candidate is Donald Trump himself. Look, again, we did not ask for this escalation. Our opponents brought on this escalation. Why? Because they recognize how weak their political position is because of their policy failures, because of their created crises. But now that they have brought this escalation, Stephen, is it incumbent upon us as patriots to meet it?