Live from Virginia Tuesday morning on The John Fredericks Show – live weekdays on WNTW AM 820/ FM 92.7 – Richmond, WJFN FM 100.5 – Central Virginia, WMPH AM 1010 / FM 100.1 / FM 96.9 (7-9 PM) Hampton Roads, WBRG AM 1050 / FM 105.1 – Lynchburg/Roanoke and Live Weekdays 6-10 am and 24/7 Stream – host Fredericks welcomed political strategist Stephen K. Bannon to the show.
During the show, Bannon examined the Trump campaigns response to the never-ending Trump tax saga stating that it’s a convenient hit piece and there will be many more to follow as the media is looking to ultimately destroy the President. He added that although the Trump campaign should be playing more offense that the President’s taxes won’t matter very much to the voters.
Fredericks: Joining us now. Stephen K. Bannon. Stephen Bannon, as you know, the host of the ever-growing, expanding, burgeoning show of shows, the War Room Pandemic 2020. Heard 10 am to noon Monday through Saturday here in The John Fredericks Radio Network. And joining us now, Steve. Great to have you.
Bannon: Thanks for having me on.
Fredericks: Steve, let’s start with the taxes. I don’t like the way the White House or the communications team at the Trump campaign has positioned this. I mean first, they say it’s fake news. Then they want to go after the leaker at the IRS. That doesn’t make any sense to me. They’re playing defense. I think they should play offense. All right?
Trump has created tens and tens of thousands of great paying US jobs over a long period of time. Some of the enterprises he started lost money at the beginning over time. That gets carried over. He simply and took advantage of the tax code that was written by Joe Biden. Why isn’t he on offense here?
Bannon: Yeah, I don’t even know if he had taken advantage of it, he just comported to what the text was, and took the appropriate tax credits and depreciation. And I think this is once again a well-timed hit by The New York Times to chop-block him right before the debate, and create a false narrative. If I was President trump I’d be very much on the offense about the benefits his companies had. And just like any real estate guy, he took the appropriate things.
I haven’t seen anything in there question about, you know, that he overstepped the line. He’s got terrific tax lawyers and great accountants. I think this is a businessman. I mean, I see this all the time as a, when I was an investment banker, financial advisor. And still, today that people are very smart and very aggressive about the tax code, which as you said is to reward to reward risk. And that risk is for entrepreneurs to create jobs and to create value.
Fredericks: Exactly. And a lot of times you start a business, you’re going to lose money over time. If there was no way to carry that over, you wouldn’t do it. I mean a lot of times you just wouldn’t do it. I started a new business, The Virginia Star. Took on debt and took out loans, losing money. It is for a while.
If I had no way to carry that over, I would have thought two times before I did that, because I don’t have the wherewithal to continue with it in perpetuity, losing money. But you try. Look, I’ve created five jobs out of that thing that didn’t exist a month-and-a-half ago, Steve. They didn’t exist.
Bannon: And he had created thousands of jobs now. I think they ought to be very aggressive. Look he’s a businessman particularly as heavy into the golf course, you know, hospitality and real estate. Everything there looks legit. The people I’ve talked to, it all looks legit.
And if it wasn’t legit, he would have been you know, he would have been up before tax tribunals over the past decade. They’ve been all over Trump for many, many years. So no, I think it’s I think they ought to be on the offense. And that you know, this is what an offer does.
You know, there’s a tax code out there, and that’s why Libertarians and others like yourself have argued for years, hey, maybe you ought to go to a flat tax and maybe go to other aspects of it. One of the reasons those things haven’t really gone through, is this whole thing about what you’re trying to use the tax code to up that risk and reward.
And so I think they ought to be much more aggressive on doing this. But at the end of the day, I don’t think it’s going to really matter. I think people are not worried about Donald Trump’s career as an entrepreneur. I don’t think they’re worried about this. I don’t think what’s going to make a difference in 2020 is what they think about his taxes or not.
Fredericks: So basically, Stephen K. Bannon, this is going to go on through November 3rd right, every single day. The New York Times and The Washington Post, the LA Times, and CNN. Somebody’s going to have a hit on them right now.
Bannon: I think it’s going to be longer than that. I think is going past November 3rd. Then the whole struggle to consolidate the victory. They are never going to win on November 3rd if everybody gets out and does their job of getting out the vote, and dragging other people, and getting people registered and doing what you’re supposed to do.
Like I said, November 3rd is just one signpost on the journey. You got to get all the way to January 20th. We have to stop this effort to steal the election. You know, the plot to steal 2020, which I’m going around the nation right now every day, and giving talks to groups about motivating people to get involved.
No, and it’s even after that, you know, the day’s inaugurated at high noon on the 20th, and if she’s going to try to impeach right afterward. So people just got a strap in. This is not going to stop. It’s not going to go away. The media wants to not just defeat Trump, but they want to destroy him. You’ve heard already, the jackals are out there saying, you know, DeBlasio saying that we’re going to go after him criminally for his taxes.
It’s actually, this is just another aspect of this. So it’s I would, you know, I would get, I would be prepared for, you know, for President Trump. It’s going to be a grind. He knows that. But it’s don’t think it’s going to let up, you’re going to see it every day, you go see hits from the mainstream media every day.
Fredericks: Stephen K. Bannon with us. Steve, before we get to the debate, we’ve only got a couple of minutes. What’s your tour stop next?
Bannon: We’re really focused on Pennsylvania and Florida. We’re going to be doing a bunch of Pennsylvania. Most of these can be done digitally, just of people getting together. We did one with the largest in the history of the Young Republicans National Federations, the largest live stream event they’ve ever had. They’ve loved it.
We’re going to be now talking to their state groups. What I’m trying to do is get young people motivated to get out there. We got to get election officials, people got to go volunteer to the local canvassing board. They have to go to the RNC, or their local state committees, and volunteer as poll watchers.
We need poll watchers, but particularly the key thing we need is people in the room. These ballots are going to be looked at to be certified. It’s going to be a knife fight. We need tough people in there that are fair, but are tough and not prepared to back down. So this is going to be about a big voluntary effort, right? You got one.
You got to get the vote out. Number two you got to have poll watchers. But most importantly, we have to have people volunteer as election officials. So I’ll be doing a ton of digital talks. Hopefully three, four, five a day in the Pennsylvania, Florida area, which to me right now are the most urgent things.
We’ve been doing it all over the country, but we’re trying to focus on police in Pennsylvania and Florida to get both lawyers who are motivated, to go to sign up for the lawyers for Trump. I think there’s a discussion of the day in Politico. I think over 1,200 to 1,500 lawyers have now signed up. We also need election officials. You don’t need to be a lawyer to do that. You just need to be a citizen and standing. And then poll watchers.
So this is a voluntary effort. Everybody’s got to get to the barricades in this thing, because it’s going to be an enormous effort by the Democrats and the left and the mainstream media to take this bold red fact that’s it’s going to happen on the evening of November 3rd, that’s a Trump victory. They’re going to try to unwind that over the next, you know, six, nine, or ten weeks.
Listen to the full show here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUVZ9TNn-ug&feature=youtu.be
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