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Bannon`s War Room

WarRoom Battleground EP 912: Three Giants: Falwell, Dobson, And Robertson

16 Dec 2025

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the significance of Falwell, Dobson, and Robertson in American history?

2.9 - 24.523 Unknown

This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies, because we're going medieval on these people. I got a free shot on all these networks lying about the people. The people have had a belly full of it. I know you don't like hearing that. I know you've tried to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it. It's going to happen.

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24.543 - 34.56 Unknown

And where do people like that go to share the big lie? Mega media. I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.

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34.54 - 51.441 Stephen K. Bannon

Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved. War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Bann.

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51.461 - 58.59 Unknown

Tuesday, 16 December, year of our Lord, 2025. Welcome for the

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59.498 - 84.966 Unknown

second hour of the late afternoon early evening edition of the uh of the uh war room i am very uh pleased we were able to put this together the reason put together and put together quickly i thought it was very important before because it's going to be a bunch of big old fights over the christmas season and then into new year about exactly where we stand and what we're trying to accomplish here and i wanted to go back in time and point to another time that we had issues

85.25 - 110.524 Unknown

kind of like this, and people stepped into the breach and really had courage. So it's about three giants, Dobson, Falwell, and Robertson. Dave Brat, you're at Liberty now. I know you love that institution. You talk about it all the time. Set the perspective. We've got Bill Federer, who's one of the best historians out there and a great Christian writer. why is this important?

110.544 - 131.389 Unknown

We're doing this now. Why is it important to remember Dobson Falwell and Robertson? Because they come from, you know, the height of their game was the seventies, really the eighties, maybe into the nineties. Of course, all of them left institutions that live beyond them, but why is it important for us today to understand why they, why they are giants, sir?

132.382 - 157.9 Dave Brat

Yeah, well, I was watching your show earlier today, and it was the perfect setup. I mean, the men in this country and the muscularity of Americans is just down the tubes right now. We're no longer strong. The evangelicals used to have these strong men and leaders across the country. Today, we've still got a few powerhouses left, but it's a few.

157.88 - 185.316 Dave Brat

And so your news today, you got Rachel Maddow mocking U.S. constitutional rights. You got a beautiful young woman down in Georgia that just had acid thrown on her face. And it appears there's not enough masculine deterrence. going on in Minnesota, across the world. And so we need to get our game back up. The idea, right, this country has been very generous when it comes to human rights, right?

Chapter 2: How did the rise of these three giants influence American evangelicalism?

379.412 - 394.858 Unknown

You knew all three of these guys. And Brett and I really thank you for doing this and carving out the time that we've done and kind of practiced, et cetera. Go back to the time. America had basically come out of World War II as the only unscathed power.

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395.21 - 418.582 Unknown

Obviously, China had lost 35 million people and was overrun by communism, part of which we turned over to the communists, our State Department at the time. Russia was destroyed. Germany was destroyed. Western Europe was destroyed. America was a superpower and had a deep faith. It was a deep faith that won that war. But by the 60s, something happened.

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419.183 - 441.977 Unknown

Now, I'm a believer in the turnings, and you go through a fourth turning, but something clearly happened. That was where Dobson, Falwell, and Robertson came from, right? Because later in the 80s and the 90s, or really late 70s, 80s, and 90s, when they rose to power, all three as national figures, and built institutions that outlasted them, something drove that.

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442.037 - 459.085 Unknown

So take us back in time to the country. What was it that drove these men, all three very different, on their path, not just to their personal search, for the Savior and for God, but then they made this really courageous decision that I'm gonna go into the public square, sir.

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460.195 - 479.7 Bill Federer

Right, so World War II, we went a two-front war, and the socialists realized they can't defeat us on the battlefield, and so the Antonio Gramsci, the long march through the institutions, their goal is to rot us from within. And even Albert Herlong, a congressman from Florida, reads into the congressional record in 1963, the 45 communist goals.

480.141 - 497.962 Bill Federer

It's destroy the churches, destroy the families, destroy marriage, destroy traditional morality. And so those three men, Pat Robertson and James Dobson and Jerry Falwell, realized and sensed that this is where the new war is. This is a war that's on the inside.

498.483 - 522.41 Bill Federer

It's like they've introduced an autoimmune disease into the body politic, and we have this fighting going on inside, and it's over the morals. And so each one of them realized that they couldn't just live their life inside the four walls of the church, they had to impact the country. And they had to take the step and say, we have to impact politics, right? Here we have the midterms.

522.99 - 547.257 Bill Federer

My dad was in real estate. Location, location, location were the three rules, right? Right now it's midterms, midterms, midterms. Everything needs to be focused because if we lose that, then all the gains that we've gotten could be wiped out and we could just... Don't want to go down that road. We need to realize that these three men knew that Pat Robertson had a million viewers a day.

547.297 - 574.789 Bill Federer

And Jerry Falwell had, I think, 50 million. And James Dobson's radio program had 220 million listeners a day. And they realized that we can't just talk to them. We have to activate them to save the country. I was with Charlie Kirk four days before he was shot in Seoul, Korea, and they're interpreting his talk. And he goes, the first thing is to put Jesus first in everything you do.

Chapter 3: What were the main challenges faced by Falwell, Dobson, and Robertson?

599.163 - 613.242 Bill Federer

I've been on the board of Regent University for the better part of 20 years and now with Gordon Robertson. But just to see that here's somebody that just, the Lord put the idea in his heart. To start this university?

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613.262 - 640.073 Unknown

Hang on. But I want to get to that. Correct me if I'm wrong. Dobson and Robertson started out as men in the world. Dobson was a clinical psychologist. Pat Robertson went to Yale University. His father was a very prominent senator, a powerhouse from the Commonwealth of Virginia, Willis Robertson. They were a very establishment family. He goes to Yale. right? He goes to Yale.

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641.014 - 659.951 Unknown

He serves in the Marines, but then he goes, he's a lawyer. These are two men of the world. How did they, what was their calling first to the Lord? How did they even come into the business of dedicating their life to religion and to the Christ and to the church? And then we'll get to the next step of how then they took it out into the world.

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659.991 - 677.245 Unknown

But, you know, Falwell was, although Falwell, I think Falwell's father was a bootlegger, right? At least the legend has it. These guys were not super holy as they were younger. They were men of the world, and then they got saved by Christ and drawn to the church, sir.

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678.052 - 706.987 Bill Federer

Yeah, well, I think you're hitting it right on the head. They had an experience with the Lord. Pat Robertson, probably around 1956, he sat for the law exam, the bar exam, and failed. And then after that, he met Harold Bredesen, and he was a Lutheran minister, the pastoring in New York, a Reformed church, but he was charismatic, and the movement was sweeping through America at the time.

707.367 - 736.745 Bill Federer

If you saw the Jesus Revolution movie and Greg Lowery in the with the guitar in churches and music, but that touched Pat Robertson. And so then the idea is he read through the Bible and not just reading it as a history book, which it has definitely history in it, but reading it as God speaking to me right now. And he would be confirmed by other different verses.

736.845 - 759.363 Bill Federer

Anyway, in 1960, he had the idea to buy a UHF TV station. And back then, UHF, you had your three big, ABC, NBC, and CBS. The UHF, you had to have those rabbit ears on top of your TV and put aluminum foil around them. He didn't even have a TV when he bought this UHF station.

760.043 - 788.289 Bill Federer

And he just had this, the Lord spoke to his heart to do it, spent years doing fundraisers, the 700 Club, people that would donate to it. And it grew and it touched lives. But then at one point, he realized that we have to leverage this. And he started the CBN University that turned into Regent University. And then he started the Operation Blessing. And then they started going international.

788.991 - 807.59 Bill Federer

But this is an inspiration to us. Because he had $70 in his pocket when he first started it, that the idea is that you can take a little. You know, God told Moses, what do you have in your hand? Well, a rod. Okay, I can use that. Instead of waiting, it's like it's availability, not ability.

Chapter 4: How did Jerry Falwell's approach to church and politics differ from others?

1016.363 - 1035.954 Dave Brat

In the pulpit, there was no one better. Total courage. He agreed with you and some of the tough folks these days. There's no such thing as bad press. He didn't care. He would just let it rip. He got into trouble all the time. By the way, some of my good friends put together put some of this stuff together for me.

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1036.335 - 1060.864 Dave Brat

Daryl Edwards down the hall and Susan Berenger both worked with Jerry Senior personally for years and years and years and gave me some great stuff. But here's some of Jerry's titles for his sermons and chapters. 1975, Revival in America. 76, Can America Survive? The Greatness of This Nation, Cleaning Up America, Our Immoral Society, America's Moral Issues.

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1060.844 - 1078.093 Dave Brat

getting involved in turning the nation around. So this harkens back to the old time virtues and values of the founders and the Puritans that made us great. America's sins in 1980, the Christian Bill of Rights, I love that contract with America kind of idea, changing America's morals, getting back to God's principles.

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1078.073 - 1101.588 Dave Brat

And the moral majority, it's important to note in the pulpit, there was no compromise. It was 100 percent Christian orthodoxy, period. But when it came to the moral majority, it was everybody get on. If you've got problems with the current morality going on, the depravity in this country, Protestants, Catholics. Jewish, Mormons, Pentecostals, et cetera, everybody welcome.

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1101.708 - 1121.257 Dave Brat

If you've got a problem with morality in this country, and right now we do not have that. The left somehow has LBGTQ, ABC, whatever it is, aligned with Islamic leftism who opposes everything, and they're all on board attacking Christians these days. And so we need to get the band back together.

1122.339 - 1146.718 Unknown

But Federer, that's a good point. uncompromising as a preacher, uncompromising as he took that out across the nation with the old-time gospel hour. But he named it the moral majority because his point was there are a majority of the people in this country that are moral, are seeking to be moral and have America be moral. And I will have a big tent. It'll be on the right, but it'll be a big tent.

1147.139 - 1151.483 Unknown

But we need to come together to take the country back, sir.

1152.577 - 1170.703 Bill Federer

Yeah, the Continental Congress met in September of 1774, and there was a motion to open with prayer. And it was opposed by the delegates of Rutledge from South Carolina and a couple others because they were so divided in their religious sentiments is what John Adams wrote.

1170.683 - 1195.305 Bill Federer

And he said that there were Episcopalians or Anglicans and then Congregationalists and Dutch Reformed and Baptists and Lutherans and one Catholic, Charles Carroll Carrollton. And so it almost fell apart. And then Sam Adams stands up and he goes, I'm no bigot. I can hear a prayer of any man of piety who at the same time is a patriot of our nation. And then they open with prayer, right?

Chapter 5: What role did media play in the success of these evangelical leaders?

1357.525 - 1377.27 Unknown

These people brought hardcore religious views. The evangelical right was hardcore, get back to the basics of the Bible. And the traditional Catholics, the right-to-life Catholics, were hardcore about abortion and a handful of things related to life. But that group... gave the foundation for the Reagan Revolution.

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1377.33 - 1393.285 Unknown

You wouldn't have had these big blowout wins if you didn't have that beginning of a coalition coming together that was something greater than the Republican Party. Talk to me about that. That moment in the 70s is going to come down as one of the most important moments in the country's history.

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1394.682 - 1411.102 Bill Federer

Yeah, I totally agree. You know, in Europe, it was one denomination per country, and so people fled. But they don't realize that every colony in America was started by a different denomination. Virginia was Anglican, Massachusetts was Puritan, Rhode Island Baptist, Maryland Catholic. And so you literally had churches founding cities.

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1411.883 - 1428.386 Bill Federer

And so Providence, Rhode Island was founded by the first congregational church, Hartford, Connecticut. rather was founded by the First Congregational Church and Providence by the First Baptist Church and Maryland by Catholics. And so everybody's involved in church and everybody's involved in politics because it's the church founding the city.

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1429.628 - 1450.319 Bill Federer

It wasn't until the 1700s with the Great Awakening revival that this movement came along that if you're really spiritual, you'll withdraw from worldly things, including government. And so it was the early 1700s, you get this idea, I'm more spiritual than you are because I'm not involved in politics. It's like, that wasn't the 1600s. 1600s, everybody's involved in politics.

1450.339 - 1474.627 Bill Federer

The word polis means city. Politics is the business of the city, and it's the church founding the city, so they're all involved. But in the 70s, they realized that We need to, you know, in reading American history, you have multiple decades where Protestants and Catholics were hitting each other in loggerheads, right? And it was not good. But in the 70s, we realized, wait, this has gone deep.

1475.628 - 1499.85 Bill Federer

Now, when they first took prayer out of schools, it was Protestants and Catholics arguing over it. And they said, let's just not have it at all. And they left a vacuum. And within just a short time, that vacuum was filled by all the sexual promiscuity and the atheism. And so we're coming back, trying to regain ground. We used to have, saying, look, we need to make up...

1499.83 - 1522.716 Bill Federer

I was reading Washington when he was there, you know, Dorchester Heights in Boston and in the Harvard Yard had some soldiers from Connecticut, and they were going to do the annual burning of the pope in effigy. And Washington said, guys, we're not going to do that anymore. We have Catholics fighting with us against the British, so no more of that.

1522.696 - 1532.732 Bill Federer

But just the idea we have to work together to save the country. And that's what they realized in the 1970s with Pattinson and Jerry Falwell and James Dobson.

Chapter 6: How did the moral majority movement shape American politics in the 1980s?

1691.023 - 1720.477 Unknown

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1869.815 - 1899.602 Stephen K. Bannon

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1900.325 - 1920.532 Unknown

Okay, welcome back. We're talking about the three giants. That would be Dobson, Falwell, and Pat Robertson. And these were three giants that saved the country back in the 1970s, 1980s. Federer, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on here, you knew all three. You're still on the board at Regent. You knew Pat Robertson very, very well. But you're a great writer.

Chapter 7: What lessons can be learned from the leadership styles of Falwell, Dobson, and Robertson?

2016.686 - 2036.169 Bill Federer

And there's a 1,400-year track record of how all Christianity was driven out of two continents this way. But I go through it logically. I go through it from St. Thomas Aquinas, what he said about Islam, and John Wesley, and Martin Luther. And so it's a fascinating book, Barbary Pirate Wars. St.

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2036.269 - 2054.891 Unknown

Augustine, St. Augustine was, St. Augustine was from, I think he was a Berber. He was from North Africa. The great fathers of the church, people forget that. It was deeply Christian, not just Christian. It was fathers, the desert fathers, some of the fathers of the church, those first couple of centuries. It was unbelievable. And Islam came up in like 600.

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2054.971 - 2078.308 Unknown

It was really, it was very close to the infancy of the church. Another book you've got, I love it because it talks about the 16th century, kind of the predicate to the founding of the United States, and a lot of people don't focus on this. It was a rough time and a time of empires. Talk to me about this because this is one of my favorite writings of yours, sir.

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2079.115 - 2094.982 Bill Federer

Yeah, you have Chinese emperors, Indian maharajas, Russian czars, African chieftains, Mongolian khans, and Muslim sultans, and kings of Spain, France, and Austria. The whole world is kings. And if you're friends with the king, you're more equal. If you're not friends, you're less equal. If you're an enemy, you're dead. It's called treason.

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2095.462 - 2116.853 Bill Federer

And you had to believe the way your king tells you to believe, or you're killed. So it gives a background of why the pilgrims came over. But I get into the details of it, how, you know, the King of France was captured by the King of Spain, and Francis I goes over, makes a treaty with the Ottomans called the Franco-Ottoman Treaties. And so Spain can no longer defend North Africa.

2116.893 - 2139.104 Bill Federer

The Muslims conquer it. One of the pilgrim ships in 1625 was sent back to England with 800 pounds of beaver skins, and a Turkish man of war captures it in the English Channel, takes it to Morocco, sells the crew into slavery. The Muslims in the 1600s captured an entire Irish village, Baltimore, Ireland, the stolen village. They even attacked Iceland and carried away to Morocco.

2139.585 - 2152.643 Bill Federer

And so they even had to deal with the same things we're dealing with today. Fascinating book. It gives you a new appreciation for the pilgrims and how they came over and set up a government where it's bottom up. We the people versus top down.

2152.859 - 2173.329 Unknown

And tough hombres. That's what people forget. They see them in the big hats and the thing. They say, no, no, no, no, no. These people were as hard as boot leather, tough as boot leather. Hang over a second, Federer. Dave Brat. These three giants, we're going to delve down more and make sure we put together maybe a conference because these giants saved the country.

2174.03 - 2191.928 Unknown

And we need people like this to step up and be the new giants to save our country today. Your thoughts about what were the common characteristics of these three men that led them to show such courage? And folks, don't remember, these people were attacked viciously, sir.

Chapter 8: What is the current relevance of the principles advocated by these three giants?

2307.708 - 2318.301 Dave Brat

Joel Osteen, a little too modern and soft. We need to harden and steel the backbones of all these preachers. So they understand that this country is under attack.

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2319.101 - 2330.992 Unknown

We need old-time gospel hours. Yes, we need the old-time. Jerry Falwell, man, he didn't soften it. He gave it to you with the bark on.

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2331.372 - 2333.394 Dave Brat

Give it to you. Give it to you.

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2334.055 - 2354.582 Unknown

Dave, hang over a second. Bill, we've got a minute or two. Your closing thoughts as we're going to have you back on. I think we're going to take each individual maybe over the Christmas season and break down. Because the Giants need to be understood, what they stood for, why they stepped into the breach, why they put it all on the line. And quite frankly, they were victorious. They were a bridge.

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2354.662 - 2359.716 Unknown

They bridged us to where we are today for the fight that we've got today. Bill Federer.

2360.405 - 2382.835 Bill Federer

Well, they realized that the battle is for the hearts and minds of the people in America. And so you had to use every way of communication. And so Pat used the UHF TV station and then it branched into CBN and the 700 call. But then he realized that you had to start a university to teach the kids, Regent University. And then the same thing with Jerry Falwell, use media.

2383.276 - 2407.166 Bill Federer

And James Dobson, 220 million daily radio listeners today. Today, it's the internet. Today, it's social media. Today, the battle is for the hearts and minds of the country. And so we need to use all the modern technology to reach where the kids are at, where the young people are at. You know, we're spirit, mind, and body. Your mind's like a super fancy computer.

2407.186 - 2427.204 Bill Federer

It's more than that, but it's at least that. And your body's like a computer case, which makes it silly for people to argue over what color the computer case is. But the battle is who gets to load the software on the next generation's brains. And if we sit back, they're going to load all kinds of trans stuff and confusing stuff and mutilate these kids. And so we want to put God's word on there.

2427.224 - 2450.79 Bill Federer

We want to put truth. We want to put good things. And so that's the battle. And James Dobson, And Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson understood the battle was for the mind. It wasn't just denominational. It wasn't just, you know, my turf. It's like, we have to save the country. They understood that. They were willing to take the criticism for it. And personally, it's only when you have a...

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