Transcripts from Bannon’s War Room on Rumble:
Cold Open. CNBC
“Follow because every month it’s going to change, but here’s the key. First of all, January is not the highest read. Okay. In 2021, the high read was July. In 2022 it was March. In 2021, it was November. Yeah, but that’s again, March told you over. If you look at, if you look at all the seasonality we’ve revised. I have these big charts all over the room of all the numbers. That’s what I look at to give you, big boards, I had to redo them. There’s been so many revisions. Why? Because they want to get the seasonalities better. So, I understand that January might be a little freaky sometimes, but it certainly doesn’t need to be a standout. And if this number was half or much less than half of the current inflation rates, would all of the people talking about, it’s one off, but they say it’s a one-off cooling of inflation. There’s a huge bias here, okay, inflation is running hotter. Growth is slowing. That is the definition of stagflation. Whether it actually happens or not, nobody on this panel, nobody at the Fed, and nobody in DC knows for sure. Three months ago, they thought all these numbers were going to be significantly smaller, and they were wrong.”
Steve Bannon
Oh, by the way, Nike just announced that laying off 2% of their employees, that’s 1500 jobs cut in a massive restructuring. EJ Antonin, the floor is yours, Sir.
EJ Antonin
Steve, you know this is one of those cases where I really hate to say I told you so, because it’s not good news. This is fundamentally terrible. As you said, we’re talking about republic ending stuff right here, but the CBO has finally admitted to what you and I discussed about half a year ago, which is that the debt is becoming so big and servicing the debt is becoming such a problem that we’re actually going to hit a new record high, not just in terms of how much we’re spending and interest on the debt, but the size of those interest payments relative to the size of the entire economy that’s going to hit the new record high next year.
The CBO has finally admitted to that. But here’s where the forecast starts to diverge. Whereas the CBO says interest rates are somehow magically going to start going down and also inflation is magically going to go down and the flood of immigrants across the southern border is not only going to continue but is somehow going to add $7 trillion of economic value to the economy over the next 10 years.
And by the way, there’s no recession in the forecast for the next 10 years. So, with all of these insanely rosy assumptions, you get the chart that you see before you right now. As soon as you start taking out any of those overly optimistic assumptions that the CBO makes it all falls apart and we go off the cliff very, very quickly. So, this idea that that somehow what the CBO has laid out while it’s bad, the idea that it’s realistic. I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy it. Everything, I mean just the stars have to align absolutely perfectly.
This is a best-case scenario. And it is still terrible. And then you have people who say oh my goodness very soon interest is going to eclipse major categories like defense spending. It already has. Again, this is something we talked about months ago, except that you have people playing these shell games where they start talking about gross interest on the debt, excuse me, they’re talking about net interest when they should be talking about gross interest.
Net interest is basically a made-up category from the Treasury where they essentially play with the numbers and they say well, let’s subtract out any interest income that the Treasury is receiving. So, if people are behind on their taxes, let’s say and interest is accruing on those accounts they start subtracting it from the interest on the debt.
The actual amount we spent to service the debt during the last fiscal year was $879 billion, but the Treasury and the CBO recorded net interest as only $659 billion. In other words, they knocked off $220 billion.
So, if you actually look at the true amount we’re spending the service, the debt, it is already larger than defense, it’s already larger than Medicaid. There are only two line items in the entire Treasury budget that are bigger right now. It’s the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Everything else, interest is already bigger and it’s getting worse and fast. This is why it is so important that the true conservatives in Congress really put their foot down right now. There is no more time for games. There is no more time to kick the can down the road. We need real cuts. We need them now. If you’re not going to make those cuts, then shut the government down. You get your way in either of those cases. Either you get substantial cuts and you pass a real budget, or you don’t pass a budget, in which case the cuts are going to happen because the government can’t spend money that’s not allocated.
Steve Bannon
EJ Antonin, your closing thoughts. You’ve been amazing. In fact, I want to send you. Is it? Is it dirch or ditch? I want to send you two guys back into the whatever room Kevin Roberts has got over at Heritage, I want to put you guys back in and keep cranking numbers.
EJ Antonin
In the in the down in the Heritage skiff absolutely. Steve, I think one thing that we want to we want to keep in mind here and it flies in the face of a lot of these CBO assumptions is the fact that these interest rates that we’re currently seeing on treasuries are going to go up.
They have to, because we have just under $500 billion of cash on the sidelines right now and the only reason it’s being kept on the sidelines is because the Fed is paying interest at over 5% for banks to keep it there. So, the only way banks are going to shift from lending all that money to the Fed to lending it towards the Treasury is if the Treasury is offering a higher rate because the Fed gives them flexibility.
They’re only lending it for 24 hours. The Treasury is asking to tie it up for a minimum of four weeks at a time, and obviously all the way up to 30 years. So, there we’re going to see these rates go up on treasuries, which means the borrowing costs on the debt are going up even more, which means also the deficit is going to be worse. So, it just underlines how bad this situation is.
Steve Bannon
Hang on, I want to hit rewind to give it a minute, ladies and gentlemen, EJ Antonin is about to give you super inside baseball about how the system actually works okay and then this is what they’re doing to keep rates down. Explain the overnight what they’re doing right now. Remember we told you Jim Carville used to say when he comes back for his other life. He wants to come back as the bond market because Bob Rubin ran the Clinton Administration and the reason they had a pretty good economic run there. He ran it for the 10 years to focus on the 10-year bond. As we’ve told you before, the 10-year Treasury is what sets the interest rate for so many others.
Right now, Janet Yellen ain’t selling 10s and 30s right. #1, Nobody wants to buy them because they’re so petrified, they see that chart. They had the BRICS nations, remember the other guys trying to get away from the dollar. They’re running the numbers. They see the same chart.
In fact, I think their internal chart’s probably worse. They say the United States is going to spend, tax revenue is going to be less than going to spend much more. It’s going to be a fiasco. But how does what’s the scam right now? How does she keep it down? Talk about the 24 verses. And now they’re on 30. When I say bills and notes, she’s doing 30s, 90s. They’re, they’re financing this as short term as they have to. But those rates are eventually going to pop. Tell me how she holds it down right now. Give me a minute on that.
Steve Bannon
Oh, by the way, Nike just announced that laying off 2% of their employees, that’s 1500 jobs cut in a massive restructuring. EJ Antonin, the floor is yours, Sir.
EJ Antonin
Steve, you know this is one of those cases where I really hate to say I told you so, because it’s not good news. This is fundamentally terrible. As you said, we’re talking about republic ending stuff right here, but the CBO has finally admitted to what you and I discussed about half a year ago, which is that the debt is becoming so big and servicing the debt is becoming such a problem that we’re actually going to hit a new record high, not just in terms of how much we’re spending and interest on the debt, but the size of those interest payments relative to the size of the entire economy that’s going to hit the new record high next year.
The CBO has finally admitted to that. But here’s where the forecast start to diverge. Whereas the CBO says interest rates are somehow magically going to start going down and also inflation is magically going to go down and the flood of immigrants across the southern border is not only going to continue but is somehow going to add $7 trillion of economic value to the economy over the next 10 years.
And by the way, there’s no recession in the forecast for the next 10 years. So, with all of these insanely rosy assumptions, you get the chart that you see before you right now. As soon as you start taking out any of those overly optimistic assumptions that the CBO makes it all falls apart and we go off the cliff very, very quickly. So, this idea that that somehow what the CBO has laid out while it’s bad, the idea that it’s realistic. I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy it. Everything, I mean just the stars have to align absolutely perfectly.
This is a best-case scenario. And it is still terrible. And then you have people who say oh my goodness very soon interest is going to eclipse major categories like defense spending. It already has. Again, this is something we talked about months ago, except that you have people playing these shell games where they start talking about gross interest on the debt, excuse me, they’re talking about net interest when they should be talking about gross interest.
Net interest is basically a made-up category from the Treasury where they essentially play with the numbers and they say well, let’s subtract out any interest income that the Treasury is receiving. So, if people are behind on their taxes, let’s say and interest is accruing on those accounts they start subtracting it from the interest on the debt. The actual amount we spent to service the debt during the last fiscal year was $879 billion, but the Treasury and the CBO recorded net interest as only $659 billion. In other words, they knocked off $220 billion.
So, if you actually look at the true amount we’re spending the service, the debt, it is already larger than defense, it’s already larger than Medicaid. There are only two line items in the entire Treasury budget that are bigger right now. It’s the Social Security administration and the Department of Health and Human Services. Everything else, interest is already bigger and it’s getting worse and fast.
This is why it is so important that the true conservatives in Congress really put their foot down right now. There is no more time for games. There is no more time to kick the can down the road. We need real cuts. We need them now. If you’re not going to make those cuts, then shut the government down. You get your way in either of those cases. Either you get substantial cuts and you pass a real budget, or you don’t pass a budget, in which case the cuts are going to happen because the government can’t spend money that’s not allocated.
Steve Bannon
EJ Antonin, your closing thoughts. You’ve been amazing. In fact, I want to send you. Is it? Is it dirch or ditch? I want to send you two guys back into the whatever room Kevin Roberts has got over at Heritage, I want to put you guys back in and keep cranking numbers.
EJ Antonin
In the in the down in the Heritage skiff absolutely. Steve, I think one thing that we want to we want to keep in mind here and it flies in the face of a lot of these CBO assumptions is the fact that these interest rates that we’re currently seeing on treasuries are going to go up. They have to, because we have just under $500 billion of cash on the sidelines right now and the only reason it’s being kept on the sidelines is because the Fed is paying interest at over 5% for banks to keep it there.
So, the only way banks are going to shift from lending all that money to the Fed to lending it towards the Treasury is if the Treasury is offering a higher rate because the Fed gives them flexibility. They’re only lending it for 24 hours. The Treasury is asking to tie it up for a minimum of four weeks at a time, and obviously all the way up to 30 years. So, there we’re going to see these rates go up on treasuries, which means the borrowing costs on the debt are going up even more, which means also the deficit is going to be worse. So, it just underlines how bad this situation is.
Steve Bannon
Hang on, I want to hit rewind to give it a minute, ladies and gentlemen, EJ Antonin is about to give you super inside baseball about how the system actually works okay and then this is what they’re doing to keep rates down. Explain the overnight what they’re doing right now. Remember we told you Jim Carville used to say when back for his another life. He wants to come back as the bond market because Bob Rubin ran the Clinton administration and the reason they had a pretty good economic run there. He ran it for the 10 year to focus on the 10 year bond.
As we’ve told you before, the 10-year Treasury is what sets the interest rate for so much others. Right now, Janet Yellen ain’t selling 10s and 30s right. #1, Nobody wants to buy them because they’re so petrified, they see that chart. They had the BRICS nations, remember the other guys trying to get away from the dollar. They’re running the numbers, they see the same chart. In fact, I think their internal chart’s probably worse. They say the United States is going to spend, tax revenue is going to be less than going to spend much more. It’s going to be a fiasco. But how does what’s the scam right now? How does she keep it down? Talk. Talk about the 24 verses. And now they’re on 30. When I say bills and notes, she’s doing 30s, 90s. They’re, they’re financing this as short term as they have to. But those rates are eventually going to pop. Tell me how she holds it down right now. Give me a minute on that.
EJ Antonin
Well, Steve, what they’re what they’re trying to do, both the Treasury and the Fed are essentially working together, are colluding on this as they’re trying to engage in yield curve control, meaning they’re trying to keep down the interest rates on those bonds. The longer-term debt. And so, they’re allowing the interest rate on the short-term debt to go up faster. And the reason they’re trying to do this is because they’re petrified of letting those 20- and 30-year bonds get, 5 or 6 or even 7% interest, which is where they should be right now.
And so even as the even as the Treasury is issuing all of this short-term debt, what is the Fed selling? They’re not selling off those long term securities. They’re mostly selling off the short term securities. So that’s how they’re working together. But where they’re at logger heads is the fact that the Fed has been sterilizing 2 1/2 trillion dollars of cash. In other words, they created all this money for the Treasury to spend, but then they paid banks to just keep it locked in the vault. That has been coming down, but to get that last half a trillion dollars or so out and back into the market so the Treasury can borrow it, the Treasury is going to have to offer the higher interest rate than the Fed does.
Steve Bannon
Right. Also, this is the whole thing about that thing with the regional banks. They’re propping them up with this other facility. Oh, by the way, the facility buys treasuries, but that’s for another day. It’s a con, ladies and gentlemen, you’re being screwed and you’re paying for it. That’s why you’re kind of the protagonist in this Greek tragedy, right, because you’re the the decent person. You’re the good householder, right which is the foundation of any civilization. But the good householder here literally gets screwed every second of every day. EJ Antonin, where do people get you. Where do people find you?
EJ Antonin
Best place to find me is on X. The handle there is at real EJ Antonin.
Steve Bannon
EJ, thank you. Thank you for running the numbers. Fantastic job.
END
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