Build Up Korea concluded at KINTEX in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, on the 5th and 6th, offering a stage filled with profound knowledge and inspiration. / Hanmi Ilbo 

Steve Bannon (pictured), former Chief Strategist at the White House, encouraged the audience by stating, “A political party that stole an election under the cooperation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will attempt to suppress South Korea and its great people with an iron fist. The only power that can shatter that iron fist is the younger generation, just like you.” 

Bannon, considered one of the closest aides to U.S. President Donald Trump, delivered this powerful message of hope to the younger generation in a video message sent to the Build Up Korea event, which was held over two days on the 5th and 6th at KINTEX in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, saying, “This is your moment. Election fraud is rampant.” 

As the host of ‘War Room,’ the famous U.S. podcast that serves as the headquarters for the ‘MAGA (Make America Great Again)’ movement, Bannon garnered explosive interest with his deep insights into the current situation in South Korea and his powerful message. 

Screenshot from Build Up Korea.Former strategist Bannon emphasized, “There is no doubt that you, the Korean people, have had your election stolen,” adding, “That is why the Korean (Lee Jae-myung) government is responding with excessive harshness to suppress the voices of the people, especially the younger generation.” 

He asserted, “(The Lee Jae-myung government) knows full well that a revolution against dictatorship is about freedom, sovereignty, individual liberty, and the self-actualization of each person. Self-actualization means recognizing that we are all created in the image of God, and atheistic, secular Marxists despise that (realization), which is why they have no choice but to hate you (in the process of pushing their strategy).” 

He went on to emphasize that the world currently stands at a historic turning point with South Korea at its center, urging the younger generation of Korea to step up and play their role. 

Bannon criticized, “The recent military parade by the CCP is proof that we are at a critical juncture in world history,” adding, “The CCP is explicitly stating that it intends to go beyond dominating East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Western Pacific to become the ruling power of the Eurasian continent and, eventually, the entire world.” 

He continued, “This is something that (MAGA supporters) have been warning about for years, and South Korea, in particular, has been on the front lines of this fight for decades,” sharing his personal view that “the Second World War truly ended only after the battles against the CCP on the Korean Peninsula and the subsequent armistice agreement.” He praised the Koreans, saying, “The courage and valor displayed by the Korean people at the time were second to none.” 

He also chided that we must not overlook the leaked conversation between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, who, thinking the microphone was off, spoke about ‘organ transplants’ and ‘immortality.’ 

Former strategist Bannon strongly criticized them, stating, “These two figures and the high-ranking officials of their criminal organizations are pursuing eternal life through organs freshly harvested from ordinary citizens. Their depravity knows no bounds.” 

He concluded by emphasizing, “They fear most when young people rise up and shout, ‘We will not tolerate this anymore,’” adding that the Communist Party fears most when the younger generation yells, “You will not do this to me, to my family, to my community, and especially to my country.”

Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, giving a lecture on the 6th, the second day of Build Up Korea. / Hanmi Ilbo. 

“Slipped up by trusting mainstream media”… The active role of conservative YouTubers who provide ‘accurate reports on America’ 

Build Up Korea is a conservative youth activist group founded three years ago by CEO Kim Min-ah. An ordinary Korean-American at the time, Kim left a strong impression on conservative Koreans and the Korean-American community by broadcasting a 17-hour live, real-time translated coverage of the U.S. presidential election on November 3, 2020, when President Trump lost to Biden due to what many claimed was election fraud. Since then, she has traveled between Korea and the U.S. to promote the awakening of young Koreans. It is reported that she founded Build Up Korea with ‘Turning Point USA,’ led by Charlie Kirk, whom she invited as a guest speaker this year, as a motif. Immediately after President Trump’s re-election last November, she was the only Korean invited to the VIP reception in Palm Beach, Florida. Earlier in August, she invited Donald Trump Jr., the son of President Trump, to Korea to lecture at the Build Up Korea 2024 stage and arranged for activities such as testimony at the Yoido Full Gospel Church. 

There has been a persistent concern that President Trump’s true intentions are repeatedly distorted in Korea, differing from the actual atmosphere in the U.S., due to the left-leaning media landscape in America and the ‘gatekeeping’ (selecting or excluding specific messages based on ideological bias) of domestic media outlets that translate and present these reports without cross-verification. Consequently, Korean or Korean-American YouTube channels that attempt to discern the intentions of the U.S. government and honestly inform the public about our countermeasures have gradually bypassed mainstream media and gained consistent popularity among conservatives. 

Alongside CEO Kim Min-ah, known for the ‘MKimTV’ channel, other popular channels that have provided accurate news on Trump since the 2020 U.S. election include: △Sung Ku Hong, CEO of the News & Post (NNP News) channel, which has a special partnership with Hanmi Ilbo; △Michael Shim (MS) TV, run by former University of Massachusetts professor Michael Shim; △Won Yong-seok’s Truth Politics, led by a former bureau chief of The Korea Daily; and the ‘Goddess of Study’ channel, run by a Seoul National University valedictorian currently studying at a U.S. law school. 

In Korea, channels that have maintained their presence since the 2020 U.S. election and have gained praise by pointing out the problems in the logic of pro-Democratic mainstream media—which intentionally distort Trump’s news—and presenting counter-evidence from social media (SNS) include: △Kang Mi-eun TV (Room Corner Foreign Press) by Professor Kang Mi-eun of Sookmyung Women’s University’s Department of Media and Information; △Ground C channel; and Lee Chun-keun TV by Dr. Lee Chun-keun, an expert in international politics. These have earned the trust of subscribers seeking accurate information on U.S. affairs. Additionally, countless other quality YouTube channels extensively covered the election fraud in Korea and the U.S. in 2020, but suffered the misfortune of having their channels ‘bombed’ (a slang for being deleted) and disappearing without a trace. 

Recently, one cannot leave out the ‘Cheonjoguk-parang-i’ (Heavenly Nation Blue) channel, which warned of the left-wing rot in the entertainment industry and among the domestic ‘Gangnam leftists’ by reporting ‘insane’ fashion-leftists—who boast of anti-Americanism while sending their children to study in the U.S.—to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Furthermore, channels like △Psychology Conservative Gong and △Seoul Hanryang are gaining popularity by directly translating news video clips that mainstream media miss, leaving judgment to the subscribers to help foster a healthy public opinion. 

The defining characteristic of these YouTube channels is that, while they may sometimes lack the polished expressions typical of professional journalists, they produce content based on a balanced perspective, a sincere commitment to not distorting information about the U.S., a keen eye for international political trends, the ability to discern information, and profound insights combined with expertise in various fields. Because of this, the likelihood of distortion is significantly lower than that of domestic mainstream media, and they are highly regarded as alternative media that are very beneficial for the mental health of the conservative base. One acquaintance remarked to a reporter, “They are busy branding even decent people as ‘far-right,’ yet they throw a fit if someone calls them ‘far-left’ and even try to use legislation to prevent people from saying such things in the future,” pointing out their contradictions and suggesting that it is necessary to encourage people to watch balanced conservative YouTubers rather than legacy media. 

☞Distribution of U.S. Dominion voting machines begins amid concerns over ‘security vulnerabilities’ 

In particular, it is pointed out that the reason the Lee Jae-myung government is stumbling recently is that they know too little about the U.S., and their diplomatic line has primarily interacted only with the U.S. Democratic Party or ‘RINOs (Republican In Name Only)’ within the Republican Party, failing to understand both the outward gestures and the hidden intentions of a second Trump administration. There is persistent, genuine concern that by being trapped in their own leftist values, they ‘self-misinterpret’ the messages coming from the U.S., thereby missing the golden time—the appropriate window for policy response—and ending up like “a dog watching the sky after missing the chicken,” or like driving a car at high speed while trusting an incorrect sign, leading to a plunge over a cliff. The criticism is that the Korean government is grossly misreading Trump’s rhetoric—such as his claim of being on good terms with Iran while simultaneously ordering the U.S. Air Force to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. It is pointed out that one cannot help but lament the absurdity of the Presidential Office proudly uploading a photo of the signature President Trump wrote on a menu during a bilateral summit. 

As a recent example, the large-scale crackdown on illegal immigrants at the Hyundai Motor Group-LG Energy Solution plant in Georgia is understood to have its fundamental cause in the missteps of the Lee Jae-myung government, which misread the true intentions of the second Trump administration, resulting in a near-catastrophic outcome. However, the problem is that domestic mainstream media are contributing to creating a false public opinion that blames the Trump administration. While the Trump administration had already issued a strong warning in June this year by putting the brakes on sneaky dispatches and illegal labor activities using the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), the Korean government has effectively ignored this. Moreover, they were busy self-congratulating, misinterpreting the August working-level bilateral talks as a success, which leads to criticism that they failed to proactively read the angry sentiment of the U.S. In September 2020, during the first Trump administration, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency arrested 13 Korean nationals who were illegally employed at the SK Battery America (SKBA) plant construction site in Georgia, although they were released shortly thereafter. Because of this, there is widespread fear in the U.S. that the current Trump administration holds a negative view of Korea, yet the Korean government is obsessed with misjudging it as a successful summit, and domestic media are contributing to the expansion and reproduction of such “frog in a well” perception by the Presidential Office, leaving the nation helpless in the face of major economic and industrial losses. The criticism is that because our government alone failed to grasp the background and subtext of why President Trump explicitly revealed his uncomfortable feelings in a public setting with the press immediately after the August 25 bilateral talks, the national loss is only growing. 

Against this backdrop, the Build Up Korea 2025 event, which aims to foster a younger generation that accurately recognizes and prepares for the U.S., was packed with citizens accompanied by their children and young people. 

Meanwhile, this year’s event featured speakers who either visited Korea in person or delivered video messages, providing a stage filled with knowledge and inspiration to the Korean audience: △Charlie Kirk, CEO of Turning Point USA; △Rob McCoy, TPUSA Faith Chairman (Pastor); △Alex Bruesewitz, current Trump advisor; △Maureen Bannon, daughter of Steve Bannon and CEO of War Room; △Jack Posobiec, a renowned political commentator and former U.S. Navy intelligence officer; △Ryan Helfenbein, Executive Director of Standing for Freedom at Liberty University, an institution based on traditional American Protestantism where Ambassador Morse Tan serves as a faculty member; △William J. Federer, president of Amerisearch and political/cultural commentator; △Joe Ahn, associate pastor at New Hope Church of Maryland; △influencer Kangmin Lee; and △Abigail Dejarnatt, founder of Counteract USA. 

☞Click here if the video does not play: Full video of the second day of Build Up Korea. Korean subtitles provided.