A local GOP leader criticized “War Room” host Stephen K. Bannon for his throwing water on the Virginia Republican governor’s all-out effort to lead his party to win control of both chambers of the General Assembly.
Posting on GETTR the day before the November 7 Election Day, Bannon wrote: “Glenn Youngkin is David Rubenstein’s Globalist Bitch and a Bush Establishment Cuck —If You Support Him on Tuesday You are No Better Than ‘Never Trump’….”
The post was accompanied by a screenshot of Youngkin telling “this week” host George Stephanopoulos.
But Virginia attorney and regular “War Room” guest DeLois Stallman (pictured above) told radio host John Fredericks she took issue with Bannon’s last-minute attempt to shut down Virginia Republicans.
“I’m a big Steve fan obviously, but a year and a half ago, he activated a group of people referred to as the War Room Posse,” she said.
“We joined, we started backing candidates, we started recruiting candidates, and we have been active for that entire time – I mean, I’m now vice chairman of the county party and a precinct captain,” she said.
Fredericks, who brought his bus tour to the Newport News headquarters of the York County Republican Party, where Stallman and other local GOP leaders and candidates joined him on the air, told Stallman that Bannon was wrong-headed.
“It is insane,” the host said. “We have to win. We cannot not win. Going into the 2024 election, we want Republicans in charge of Virginia.”
Bannon’s post needs some deconstructing.
Billionaire David Rubenstein is the founder and chairman of the Carlyle Group, where Youngkin made his won fortune, and he was instrumental in Youngkin’s progress at the investment firm and the governor’s eventual rise to become the co-CEO himself. Rubenstein was a White House staffer for President Jimmy Carter, which is when he met his wife, also a Carter staffer. The couple divorced in 2017, after his wife Alice Rogoff backed the 2016 presidential campaign of New York real estate developer Donald J. Trump.
Rubenstein is an active Washington-area philanthropist, and he became a national story, when it was reported that he had financed a woke reworking of exhibits at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home.
Youngkin and his former mentor remain close and have participated in public conversation appearances, such as at The Economic Club of Washington, where Rubenstein is the club chairman, interviewed the governor on stage for an hour.
A ‘cuck’ is a man whose woman cheats on him, short for “cuckold,” but Bannon is really using the term in its 2016 context when it referred to someone weak or unreliable politically.
Bannon’s takedown of Youngkin comes after the governor made it his personal mission to lead the GOP’s battle to hold control of the House of Delegates, where the party has a 48-46 edge, with six vacancies, and take control of the State Senate, where Democrats hold a 22-18 advantage.
State Senate Democrats have effectively blocked Youngkin’s conservative agenda in the upper chamber, which takes on a poignancy because the governor is limited to the one-term he won in 2021.
If Youngkin is to have any chance at a gubernatorial legacy, he needs both chambers in the hands of the GOP.
For Bannon, the concern is that if Youngkin succeeds, he will become a national figure, taking the commonwealth from a purple state trending blue to a state with Republicans in sole control of the state government. The pop from this achievement would make Youngkin a potential challenger to President Donald J. Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Interestingly, the Republican National Committee, which insisted in hosting three presidential candidates debates that Trump did not attend – hardly a surprise considering Trump’s double-digit lead over all other Republican candidates – just announced a fourth debate to be held in Alabama.
Could this fourth debate to set up for Youngkin?
Stallman said it was unfair to spin up a movement of citizens and then direct it to shut down.
“We gotta get serious about this, it’s absolutely essential that MAGA both volunteer and be elected.”
Delois Stallman joins Steve Bannon to talk the importance of getting involved with your county party.
Watch #WarRoom with #SteveBannon here: https://t.co/MipqiVTzZd pic.twitter.com/QuvQ9pGO3J
— Real America's Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) February 1, 2022
“We’ve all busted buns, and for him to say: ‘Oh hey, forget it?” she asked. “You activated the posse, Honey Badger, and now we’re active, and we’re rolling.”
The attorney said the Republicans were not just focused on the legislative races.
“We stand in Virginia to take the majority on at least 15 school boards, and that’s by hot-button issue,” she said.
“I love Steve,” she said.
“I know what he’s thinking, but I’m not going to cut my nose off to spite my face, and I’m not going to screw the kids in Virginia’s public schools whom I’ve worked hard for two years because Glenn may or may not run against Trump–He can’t win either way. It’s a non-issue.”
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Neil W. McCabe is a staff reporter for The Virginia Star.
Image “Delois Stallman” by Bannon’s WarRoom.
