Hi, this is louie gohmert. Im thrilled to be here today with keith koffler. Author of bannon always the rebel. This is really a book, i thoroughly enjoyed it this weekend and totally commend it. But i was looking up about you and since most conservative writers, people that are conservatives in general life and having a Wikipedia Page that makes them look somewhat crazy, i was pleased, i guess, to see you dont have a Wikipedia Page, most conservatives like me, you can go through, read the Wikipedia Page and if you really know them well, you say this is a bunch of garbage, this makes them look crazy. Im thrilled to have you on. I was going to ask you about some of the things that made you look crazy on wikipedia that were not accurate. Not there. Thats fantastic. But we do want to have you above the radar as you talk bannon and your work on white house dossier exposing things that have been going on in the last several years in the white house and on through today and continues to be a passion of yours, isnt it . It is very much. White house dossier is something that i started in 2010. I had been sort of a mainstream reporter for many years, in fact, i was so good at hiding my political sympathies which are fairly conservative that nobody except a couple of Close Friends in the media knew that i was a conservative. Maybe thats why you dont have a Wikipedia Page. Yeah. Im thankful for that. Also because i didnt have to put my age on there. In addition to whatever else they might put there. But, in fact, i was so successful at hiding my sympathies that i was once offered a job in frances office and yelled at for asking questions that never would have asked as democrat, as mainstream reporter when little did he realize that i probably agreed with everything he was saying but i felt it was my duty to hide political sympathies that is something that we know its less so in the mainstream media. Accountability on president obama and also have humor and some analysis and news im credited at the white house still as a reporter with white house dossier and so all through most of his presidency, i held him to standards and pointed out things that he was doing wrong, both things that objectively and conservative standpoint as well and today with President Trump, sometimes its saying, hey, wait a second, what are you doing here but also saying, hey, the media maybe treating him unfairly in certain respects and so so thats the purpose of it today and still continues, still something im passionate about. Sometimes people do take offense if it seems to be a hostile question when it actually one to have most liberal trial lawyers, plaintiffs lawyers, democrat in the country i learned so much 30 years ago, he was saying if youre selecting a jury and you get an answer you dont like, somebody says something, you ought to jump across and shake his hand. That guy is now giving you a chance to explain something thats troubling people that might otherwise like but unfortunately youve seen it, keith, too many times today, people ask questions and they are gotyou questions. They are not going to give you a chance to explain. They want to come after you and be aggressive. I felt like you certainly gave steven k. Bannon a very fair treatment in the book. So i would to get to the book, but you start off with a prologue as the rebel. But you go through and you take him through growing up, quotes from the family, who all in the family did you talk to . Oh, well, i talked to all of his siblings, he has two sisters and two brothers and older brother and younger sister and they it is a very closeknit family. He goes home to richmond, with his crushing schedule at the white house and still now and they adore him. Interestingly among siblings no resentment among him for his success and only pride. The most startling person that i talked to was his dad, i think he was 95 when i talked to him and now hes 96. I just saw bannon at an event somewhere. Sounds like his dad is on top of things. He is sharp as a whip. Little ironic sense of humor and and is able to remember little vignettes about how he was drafted as a professional baseball player but didnt pay like it pays now. As i recall, 50. Something like that. They upped it to 75. Trying to get him to come on because he didnt report for 50 but for 75 they were hoping he would and he didnt and so they could him. He was a holdout. [laughter] back then, you know, a country had just come out of depression and much more stable job with, you know, going to get married and so forth to work with a phone company and thats where he ended up but unfortunately, baseball career ended in infancy with his dad but very short funny guy. Well, you get into chapter two about well well, chapter 1, born fighter, chapter 2 exposed the guy thats getting into politics. Student politics. Yeah. Tell us how he got throne thrown into politics. Right, student politics. He was at Virginia Tech, thats where he went to college and he was sort of involved in this and is and that and eventually he decided to run for student body president but he wasnt the next in line. Even then at Virginia Tech there was an establishment. Always is. To oppose. Every school has it. Every organization, i think, a lot of times theres a group and expected succession and so forth and so he then was the rebel, the book is called always the rebel but that his rebelliousness is more something. Hes always fighting for a cause. Hes rebel by nature but not thoughtless Rebel Without a causetype of thing. Here they were trying to get students more involved and decisions that the deans were making, a lot of changes in Virginia Tech then. He decided he was going challenge the orthodox and represent the average man, again, average student at Virginia Tech, right, and one of the things he did was he showed a little bit of his political early on as he put a woman on his ticket as Vice President to run with him on the ticket. And that done both because they had worked together and respected each other enormously. She today i spoke with her for the book speaks glowingly about him and said that back then he was fighting for the same things hes fighting for in a way, average student, fight the establishment and worked extraordinarily well together and brought her on to the ticket and Virginia Tech only recently had admitted women, more and more women in the electorate, aka the campus and that helped him towards the victory and he defeated the establishment and became student body president for his senior year. Sounds like he very much involved the Vice President and she was quite influential in the things that they did, positions they took. Susan oliver, she said and sort of contradicted things that she said today, as woman she felt that he empowered her entirely and a quote about how he let her do her thing and wasnt overbearing and had complete confidence in what she could do. Remember, this is early 1970s, not a time where women are necessarily participating in Student Government or any kind of government. I thought it was interesting with both Stephen Bannon and President Trump, they both had unsuccessful marriage, seems to be in a successful marriage now and there he was, amidst all the Christmas Decorations and a little kid that said you looked like an angel. [laughter] but a lot of people take that both with regard to bannon and with regard to the president. Well, they must not be good in working with women because theyve had failed marriages and it is a bit of a dichotomy there because both steven and the president worked successfully with women. Youve done research and talked to the women hes worked with and from what you say in the book, he worked with them very well. Did you find any women that he worked closely with that had problems with him, negative opinion . I would say no, i didnt hear anybody express that opinion. I did talk to a lot of people who knew him from college and even today at breitbart, many, you know, women working on the staff. When he was in the white house, i think his key aide was julian, brilliant young conservative woman who worked at breitbart and focused on immigration and other issues and he brought her into the white house. I think shes still there and she was i dont want to say the brains behind bannon because hes so smart that thats almost impossible from what i found, but she has helped him a lot and key assistant of his and why hes still close to his first wife, susie, in fact, one of the times that i spoke with him for the book, it was just the two of us, but his his first wife susie had been there with his daughter and they had been hanging out in washington and so forth, so hes still close to her and i just didnt pick up on, you know, he can be a rough guy, he can and he will admit this. Very blunt. Temper, i dont think he discriminates whether its female or male. Probably the southern gentlemen in him will refrain from firing away at a woman. Im not sure about that part. Maybe not. Somebody thats driven and you paint him as being a driven individual, always the rebel, but they seemed to be much more forgiven forgiving, but they will immediately tell you when they disagree and they think youre on the wrong track, they wont think anything out of it at all, ive had steven be blunt with me when we disagree but, you know, ten minutes later, thats not supposed to be carried on because we are moving on. We are beyond that. What people told me is that its not personal so much. Its about the job, so he will get very blunt and he does have a temper, but its because he wants to get whatever job needs to get accomplished and he has very high standards, maybe too high for a lot of people, he works endlessly. There was one time when i was trying to get in touch with him, try him at 1 00 in the morning, i text him then because then east easier to get. He doesnt sleep much, he works hard and he kind of expects that of other people and in the book, you know, in his businesses, people would say, well, i dont quite have or my kid is sick, thats your problem, you know, personal problem. We have to get this done. So, you know, he can be tough, maybe unreasonable tough sometimes but definitely hes driven like you say. Well, since many of my communications with Andrew Breitbart were 3 00 and 4 00 in the morning i had a compadre and i wonder if that was something that brought them close together, they both worked endlessly and were up much in the night. Do i that all i do that myself. In fact, knowing andrew, i mean, he introduced me to bannon, but steven had never said a whole lot when i was around and andrew was around. But its really he has plenty of opinions, but it surprised me. I was in i had an Army Scholarship at texas a m. Bannon finished, got his degree at Virginia Tech, he has no military commitment, hes free and clear, hes got some Great Potential offers coming because he did so well in Student Government and doing well, smart guy and he goes and joins the navy. What was the purpose of that . Yeah, thats a good question and i asked people. His his friends at Virginia Tech were very surprised by that. Theyd figured he would go onto something and his family said that he had an offer from philip morris, who was a big employer in richmond and, of course right. They do a lot of things, but it was different then also. That was the employer there and i had a major offer there, but he i think what happened was they had been raised with a sense of duty. His parents were very traditional americans, they are actually fairly liberal. They were sort of kennedy democrats, oldstyle democrats. Thats part the catholic background. It is. The first catholic to really have a great shot at being president and so a lot of catholic families whether republican or democrat, hes one of us. This is awesome. Did you get that feeling from the family . Well, that was part of it the sense of service and it occurs to me just now as we are talking, kennedy had been in the navy. Kennedy was a big hero of bannon maybe some of that. But also his his father had wanted to be in the military and was not able to, there was some small technical issue and we wanted to serve in world war ii and wasnt able to do this. There was always the sense of fulfilling the mission and service back the country and i dont want to sound corny about it but i think that was large part of motivation, what his father kind of wanted for the family, plus its a sense of adventure, youre going to go out on a destroyer and which he did and sailed around the world and he was a big fighter when he was young, got in a lot of fistfights and maybe sort of adventure and duty. It did surprise a lot of people but fit with the way he was raised and own character to join the navy. They cared nothing about anything but money. Right. And it is true in 2008. We saw the worst of Goldman Sachs come out. We saw unrestrained greed come to the forefront, but this seems to be such mutually exclusive parts of a person, here is this guy that would work for Goldman Sachs as a reputation of 2008, i know too many people that thats not them, but on the other hand, he walks away from all of that first and goes and joins the navy. Right. Not just for one or two years, how long was he . Six years. Yeah. Apparently enjoyed the time and was very reliable and there was some group that he was part of that was supposed to help when emergencies, come up with solutions, apparently. When he was in washington, senior people kind of he had this very bannons attitude is do it now, so he one of his friends says bias towards action. He can get out of line a little bit but they like that he got things done and that was whether on the ship or in washington. When he was in washington, there was some little pass that was formed by senior people, people that would figure out a way through bureaucracy to get things done. Yeah. Bannon was sort of involved in that. Perhaps that helped draw bannon and President Trump together back when it was candidate trump. Very much so. Similar personality. Do it now, dont wait, say it, sometimes maybe trump moves a little too quickly. [laughter] even he is allies might admit but similar personality like that. Well, one of the chapter 6 is generation zero, can you explain generation zero . What caused you to name that chapter generation zero . Generation zero was the name of a movie that bannon did which talked about the 2008 crash and and basically the idea was that the future was being robbed, that americans given all the wealth that was lost, average middleclass people and the debt and so forth and the debt that was being accumulated that the generation that exists now which is really sort of the millennials and younger people, when you look at the size of deficit, we are going to have nothing left. Where was he working in 2008 when the crash happened . In 2008 when the crash happened he was still out in california doing his own business, but he had left Goldman Sachs. He left Goldman Sachs a long time ago, actually, he went out to california and he got first it was out there to drum up business for Goldman Sachs but then he formed his own firm, but increasingly he got into documentaries and into making his own conservative filmmaking, he initially made one about reagan in 2004 and then in 2008 started making other documentaries related to the tea party and conservative movement and so what he wanted the chronical was how the elite, essentially, got off pretty much scotfree in the crash. So the beginning of his political opposition to the establishment that was the head of Goldman Sachs. Right. Former head. Former head. He lets Lehman Brothers go because he couldnt stand them. I wasnt fair, balance, so to speak. Yeah. But he was out there and he got into the moviemaking business, so where did he get the title generation zero . Row you talk about the generation. You have weve been talking about generation x and generation y and which is the generation that may have nothing left if the economy, you know, the debt continues to build and the economy continue to meander along as it did with president obama. We have seen revival but as you know theres a great parallel out there we are 20 trillion in debt and not just that but when you look at entitlements over its Something Like 70 trillion thats owed that we are not conservative. Maybe its more than that. And so that was kind of his ideas that the elite have, you know, in washington, in places like Goldman Sachs, in business, they dont care as much. They are going to do okay but the average people are are going to end up suffering and he took that from his dad in part. What happened was his dad as the markets declined he invested so consistently right. Had worked for at t. Cmp. Yeah. And and i think it might have been part of at t, he had put his money away for years and he had used traditional sort of savings, work and save like a regular sort of fellow and he had a little bit of money stuck away for retirement. He hoped maybe one day to pass that onto his kids or grandkids and so forth and then all of a sudden, the overlending that has occurred, the sort of profit motive that profoundly affected him. He saw his dad lose so much. Lost all of his money and he felt that what happens to people like my dad while others, you know, go run and say, hey, help me out and and give me a break here and meanwhile theres nobody to help someone like his dad. Sort of ironic to see all of the comments from those an to antagonist who say hes nothing about money but you read the book and you start tracking his life and his life hasnt been all about money, you talked about a place he had in long island, a chair and a cot. It was in florida, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Its funny because he did go and this is people will see that as inconsistency. He did go to Goldman Sachs and made himself a multimillionaire and part of that was growing up where he did, middleclass fa