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Aug. 9, 2024 - Bannon's War Room
48:10
WarRoom Battleground EP 588: The National Security Risk That Is The Harris-Biden Administration
Participants
Main voices
a
ammon blair
06:25
l
lara logan
16:27
Appearances
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s
steve bannon
00:27
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Speaker Time Text
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
This is what you're fighting for.
I mean, every day you're out there.
What they're doing is blowing people off.
If you continue to look the other way and shut up, then the oppressors, the authoritarians, get total control and total power.
Because this is just like in Arizona.
This is just like in Georgia.
It's another element that backs them into a corner and shows their lies and misrepresentations.
unidentified
This is why this audience is going to have to get engaged.
As we've told you, this is the fight.
All this nonsense, all this spin, they can't handle the truth.
War Room Battleground.
Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
It is the 8th of August in the year of our Lord 2024.
This is War Room and I am Laura Logan filling in for Steve Bannon who is on day 39 behind bars and is still looking at another 80 days If he is not able to get out any earlier, which is something that we should all be talking about.
It should bother anyone who believes in the First Amendment and in freedom of speech.
And yet it has disappeared from the headlines.
But it means a lot to me.
And that's why I'm here to support Steve.
And we have a pretty big hour coming up.
There are some things here, breaking news that you have not heard because they have not been reported.
And for our first guest, I'm going to turn straight to Dr. Keith Rose, who is someone I first met during the Afghan disaster, when this administration betrayed our allies in Afghanistan and pulled out.
And handed the country over to the terrorists who were responsible for 9-11.
It's hard to imagine that the United States government would do that, but that's exactly what happened.
Because the Taliban and the Haqqani Network, Al Qaeda, all of these people worked together in that attack.
Nobody knows this better than Keith Rose, who has worked in the intelligence agencies for the United States government.
clandestine operative for more than three decades, and much of that years, in fact,
spent in Afghanistan, where we overlapped during that time, although we didn't know each other then.
Keith, I know that you have an extensive network across Afghanistan, and I want to get straight to
the question of what you have learned recently about what has been going on there since the U.S.
unidentified
pulled out. Well Lord to really understand the complete picture.
We need to start a year before we pulled out Because a year before we pulled out a large delegation of Chinese officials military officials diplomatic officials intelligence officials met with the Afghan Ministry of Defense and It was a fairly significant meeting.
They tried to keep it quiet, but we had some people that were around during that time.
And we noticed it, but we weren't on the inside of that meeting.
We're not sure what was said.
Now, fast forward from that time to about a week and a half before we left Kabul Airfield, before we withdrew completely from Afghanistan.
During that week and a half before, There was an open source meeting or people knew about a meeting of the Director of Central Intelligence at the time, Burns, was down there meeting with other officials and members of the Taliban.
But I've talked to several people that have intimate knowledge of that meeting.
And they're telling me or they're asking the question, why were there two senior Chinese intel officials at that meeting?
Why was Siraj Haqqani, who at the time we had a $10 million bounty from the State Department on him at that meeting.
And the other thing is there was a senior official or senior officer from the IRGC, the Iranian Republican Guard, who was a Quds Force commander that we're very familiar with from Iraq.
He's a very, very competent officer.
He was there.
Another Pakistani official was there and then there was an quote-unquote unknown person there that we're still we have an idea but we're trying to figure out who that was.
And so these folks all met.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
Let me let me interrupt you there for one second.
So for people out there who might be wondering okay why are we talking about Afghanistan right now and how does this relate?
Well this this meeting was particularly significant because you're saying You have the head of the CIA, who is meeting, it was reported at the time that he met with Siraj Akhani, which was staggering, because this guy not only had a bounty on his head, but the US forces on the ground have been trying to kill him, supposedly trying to kill him for 20 years, and he had the blood of countless Americans on his hands, not to mention how many Afghans.
And so that meeting was reported.
They got away with selling the American public that because at the time it was, well, these are the people taking over.
And Siraj Akhani was the acting minister of interior for the Taliban.
And so security that was needed for the withdrawal was kind of, you know, within his responsibility.
Right.
And so that's how they sold that meeting to the American public.
But what you're saying is, according to Your sources, and I want to ask you more about that, but you're saying that it was not only Seraj Akhani who was at that meeting.
There were representatives of the Chinese Communist Party and Intelligence.
There were representatives of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who, you know, Iran, the number one state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and the IRGC responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq.
And others.
So can you just, for our audience, can you explain the significance?
What does it mean that these people were at a meeting with the head of the CIA?
unidentified
Well, and these are the questions that the folks that know about this meeting were asking me.
And the interesting thing was when they met at that time, they did not meet at the typical The typical area where the CIA was on the airfield, they met at a completely different site.
They didn't even use CIA personnel for security.
They were so concerned from what I'm hearing.
about the people they were meeting with that they used one of our tier one groups for security and they kept them on the outside.
They weren't allowed to listen in or anything.
But nothing about this made sense to a lot of different people.
And so it was really sent to me in a series of questions.
Why would they do this?
Why is it significant?
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
And this is something you just found out about?
unidentified
This is something that they were calling me about.
We knew about the meeting, but then Some we've gotten more recent calls.
And the reason we have is because if you remember, after we left Afghanistan, and after the pullout, Bagram Airfield, when we left there first went completely black, it was dark.
And there's varying reports.
And we have pictures from anywhere from two weeks to up to two months afterwards that we pulled out, that lights at Bagram Airfield were turned several different overseas news sources.
But the people that were there said that two large Chinese transport planes landed with troops and secured that area.
That's what is being reported.
Now, I wasn't there, but that's what I've had from several different reports.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
And while all that... But Keith, if we can understand, how significant is it for the agency to conduct a meeting, a high level meeting with the head of U.S.
intelligence in this manner?
I mean, and what does that, what are we supposed to understand from that?
unidentified
Well, that's the thing.
It's so opaque and it's so shrouded in mystery.
It wasn't just a meeting of the future government and the leaving intelligence services.
It was a meeting of the future government, other countries intelligence services from the reporting that we're getting.
The head of our CIA, so, you know, I don't know what the significance was then, but I can tell you as of today what the significance is.
And it makes a lot more sense about that meeting now when you understand today, because today China has engaged in basically a cut price, rapid expansion zone of influence in Afghanistan.
And I'll explain why this is so important.
We spent a lot of money in that country and left the footprint there.
The Chinese came in for less than pennies on the dollar.
took over and have expanded into the military security and intelligence networks in the Taliban.
They're actively working in all of these and providing their own officers to the Taliban security apparatus.
At the same time, they're doing independent espionage against targets of interest to China.
They're securing all the primary commodity supplies of the country by acquiring exclusive extraction rights for key minerals that are very important to them.
They have other investments in trade, and they've reoriented the entire infrastructure and communication links towards China, meaning they can hear everything.
And another thing is they're networking and co-opting targeting influence figures in the Taliban.
And I have some sources very deep.
Right.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
Keith, let me ask you something.
A lot of Americans might say, OK, so, you know, you've got a bunch of Taliban that are working with the Chinese.
Like, why do I care?
How does this relate to me?
unidentified
Well, it relates to you because the Taliban, Siraj Haqqani in particular, these are all individuals known to work with terrorist organizations.
They've been able to Develop over the past several years, we're in year three, several hundreds of madrasas training future jihadis, not just future... And these are not the normal madrasas that are attached to, you know, every mosque in Afghanistan.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
These are actual terrorist training madrasas.
unidentified
Right.
Madrasas that train people on small arms tactics, on bomb making, on basic intelligence tradecraft.
And we know for a fact, because we have several assets in all over Afghanistan, that they graduated this year was their largest graduating class from all the madrasas.
And these are for what they would call jihadis, guys that were going to go and fight the Holy War.
And they said they had over 70,000 graduates.
from these madrasas.
Now, add that on top of their ability and technical know-how that they're getting from the Chinese, and you've got to understand, we look at what the Taliban are bringing in financially.
In this past year, they brought in $2.7 billion, and that was a combination from their oil fields around Saripol, from their different trade agreements, from the drug trade, and from other You know, various things that they're doing to bring in money, and they're also taxing and going very hard against their own citizens.
And I had someone talk to me who was in a meeting with the Chinese and the Haqqanis, and he said it was very interesting because one of the Haqqanis And the family related to him, we don't agree on religion, but we agree on a lot of practical things because they don't care about social justice.
They said the Western countries, this is direct quote in the report, the Western countries are so worried about people's rights and the Chinese don't concern themselves with such things and we can get along with them.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
So Keith, I mean, this is an election year.
We have a candidate running for office that was the Border Czar and has presided over effectively an open border.
And when you're talking about this with a giant, I mean, about 70,000 Jihadis graduating from terrorist training in Afghanistan.
And we know that the numbers of people on the terror watch list alone that have crossed the southern border under this administration is through the roof, right?
In your three decades in working in intelligence, have you ever seen anything like this?
And can you give us a sense of What concerns you most when you look at that open border and you look at the infiltration of everyone from Afghans to Chinese to Venezuelans and so on, and how what you're learning about in Afghanistan plays into that?
unidentified
The Afghanis and the Chinese.
and have been so penetrated by China.
And they're getting so much technical advice, but they're also getting a lot of intelligence advice.
And the Chinese are using the Afghans to affect things in Pakistan and with other regional actors.
But the significance of what you just said, Laura, is that basically, the Afghans have the ability through their passport office to create biometric passports And when people come to Afghanistan to train, they will then get documentation that will allow them to travel to, say, a country like Turkey.
And then from Turkey, they can go to countries in South America, and then they can start the trek forward to the United States.
Now, this isn't conjecture because we have placed people and had them follow these exact same routes.
And we have these Marked out very clearly.
So you have a, a country that is not shrinking after we left it, but has expanded their capabilities to export people for terroristic or terrorist type operations or just infiltration operations.
And they have the ability to give them the documentation to do that.
Now, one of the things that really struck me, I gave you some pictures.
I'm going to have you put them up in a second.
But the Chinese, I have a thick report on the Chinese and how deep they're penetrated into Afghanistan.
They're at all areas.
They're working with the military.
They're watching these madrasas.
And the interesting thing is the Afghans are saying we'll help the Chinese do their one China expansion or the Silk Road or whatever they're trying to do.
They have no problem with that.
And both sides are also side dealing and working for their own benefit.
But the Chinese have watched the Afghans grow economically, militarily, and with the ability to project power in a regional area, that they have now done something that we've never seen in the history of either country.
You can put up the first picture.
This is the walking corridor, that little white and green post.
is the border between Afghanistan and China.
It's a very small area, a remote area, right in the middle of nowhere.
There is nothing for hundreds of miles of any significance.
If you wanted to go up there, you had to go up there in a four wheel drive.
I've been there and you the people around there have been there forever.
And it's just it's a very calm area.
There's no commerce.
There's no transportation.
There's nothing.
It's just in basically in the middle of the The most remote area in both countries.
And this is taken in the summer.
You can still see the snow-capped mountains at a high altitude.
This is an area that has looked like that for centuries and has never changed.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
Great Genghis Khan, you name it.
unidentified
There's never been anything there.
Now that China has thoroughly penetrated into Afghanistan, they understand the significance and the buildup in Afghanistan and their ability to push out terrorists to other areas.
And you can go to the next slide.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
So basically they know the danger of the terrorist threat that they've created is so significant.
unidentified
That they've been part of.
I mean, we can probably take a little credit for that by leaving $80 billion of ITAR and other technology that they shouldn't have.
But now if you look at that area, there's the security fence put up by China.
It's to keep people from coming across.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
And the irony is that coming across.
unidentified
Right.
So they China's never put this fence up.
They didn't have it up when the Russians were in Afghanistan.
They never put the fence up when the Taliban took over from the Russians and they never put it up when we were there.
But evidently, something has changed inside the country that has made the Chinese feel they need to protect themselves from incursion or unknown incursion.
from Afghanistan.
And this is this this is just unprecedented on any level.
And the irony is that our borders are wide open to people from Afghanistan and other countries that may not have our best interests at heart.
And China is actually locking down their border with Afghanistan.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
So, Keith, you touched on what we left behind in Afghanistan, and you also raised something there that you just went sailing past it.
Biometric passports, right?
This is not an insignificant thing.
I know because I was working on getting hundreds of people out of Afghanistan during the chaotic withdrawal.
I know you were working on similar things at that time, and that's how we got to know each other.
One of the things that has always concerned me that has been brought to my attention by
Afghan intelligence sources, confirmed by other American sources, is that we left behind
the biometric database that the United States had amassed over years in Afghanistan.
I was on operations, many operations, where there were people entering the biometrics
of terrorists arrested into that database.
And we not only left behind the equipment, we left behind the personnel.
I mean, we just abandoned them in Afghanistan.
And it's my understanding from Afghan intelligence sources that the Taliban has used that effectively
to alter the biometrics of some of these terrorists graduating, as you say, from these terrorist
training facilities.
And so now, if they can issue passports, they can issue their own passports with new—
new identities, right?
Altered biometrics for these terrorists who won't show up on any terrorist database when they cross the southern border.
I mean, they can not only come across illegally, but they can also fly in.
unidentified
Well, Laura, when we left Afghanistan, or when you leave any theater of operations during a war or some type of kinetic event, when intelligence services leave, we have something called a burndown, where you have to destroy every document, Every piece of equipment that you can't take back, there's machines we call grinders that you could literally stick a bowling ball in and it would just render it, you know, mush.
And so we didn't destroy things that we were supposed to destroy.
And it's my thought that we probably didn't destroy some things that we said we destroyed.
So not only did we leave behind biometric equipment, but the intelligence services are responsible for setting up the passport office, let's just say documentation stamps and things like that.
And there's been several questions asked, did we leave certain pieces of equipment that would be used in a passport office to authenticate passports behind?
And my understanding from what I've been discovering is we did.
And when we do that, it gives validity to passports being made in Afghanistan.
And then when you have a country very close, like Turkey, where they can go to Turkey on a visa and a lot of different things can happen.
Ultimately, you have someone traveling and we don't quite know who they are.
Now, that's not a big problem at our southern border because we don't care who anyone is.
But what we've done is we have opened the door in the United States, not only just from a physical security standpoint, But undermining the populace with people that don't, that haven't been brought into our country, that share our same ideals, that understand the founding of our country, understand our constitution.
And you don't have to look far to see where that's playing out right now.
Just look in Europe at the riots in England and other places.
So it doesn't make a lot of sense.
But again, I'm going to take you back to that meeting with the DCI Burns, Chinese officials, Pakistani officials.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
Basically a gathering of America's enemies, by the way.
That's what you're talking about.
A gathering of America's enemies at a critical moment in a country that has become a terrorist training facility that has incredible backing from people like the Chinese Communist Party, who we know have also infiltrated people across the southern border in record numbers.
unidentified
Well, and I and I look at it like this.
Basically, the way we left was humiliating.
And we left so much behind and we left this obvious vacuum.
It's more like a Thucydides trap, where we left a huge vacuum and another power like China stepped in.
Now, China didn't have to come into Afghanistan.
But they will take the rare earth minerals.
They will use them as proxies where they can have layers in between what they actually want to do.
And more importantly, in the standings of the world, that looks like we turned and ran and China came in and stood strong.
So it gives them a lot of face, a lot.
And that's very important to say face in the Chinese culture.
And it made America look weak.
And in the Afghan culture.
It's almost like the Chinese and our enemies planned out the worst way we could exit along with the head of our CIA.
Now, that might have been a stretch before, but look what's happening to President Trump right now.
He's not in an ideological battle.
He's being attacked by a well-oiled information operation or intelligence operation.
And that's what he's up against.
And, you know, that's a whole nother show.
But what you're seeing is we're seeing intelligence officials not acting in the best interest of our nation.
And that's unfortunate because there's a lot of folks, former intelligence officials that love this country.
And there's a big group of us that have banded together to keep things intact, praying that President Trump is reelected so that he'll have something to work with as he has to rebuild The infrastructure, not only of the government and how it's been eroded, but also our basic intelligence services.
Because right now, I believe we're blind around the world, or it's a willful blindness.
And either way, it's not serving the people of the United States the way they should be served.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
I'm sorry to interrupt you.
Before we run out of time here, I just want people to understand.
Obviously, I know that you are more comfortable working in the shadows.
That's where you spent most of your career.
But why should people believe you, first of all?
I mean, this is, from a meeting like that, the national security implications of that are absolutely Catastrophic and hopefully someone in this country will stand up and start asking questions about that so we get an answer there but not only that right I mean people will come after you for what you're laying out here because this this can potentially affect every single person in this country the the danger that this exposes ordinary Americans to in any American city at this point is
Cannot be overstated and and so can you give us a sense you cannot be the only person that knows this Surely there are people in the intelligence agencies in this administration There have to be people in this country today that know this and is anybody doing anything about it?
unidentified
Well, most of my reporting goes into central reporting is put into the system So I'm sure what I know other people know You have open source on July 25th when you had Hanafi, the deputy prime minister of the Taliban, in a meeting.
with the Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism for China in Kabul.
That's open source.
On July 28th, you have Siraj Haqqani, the Interior Minister of the Taliban that I believe we possibly still have a bounty on his head.
He met with the Chinese ambassador in Kabul and expressed, quote unquote, satisfaction with the dealings.
Now, this is open source.
This is in the news or in the news that's printed where maybe our news sources don't want to talk about.
But the two sides emphasized their desire for regional stability, yet Afghanistan's growing to a point to destabilize not only their region, but regions beyond their grasp.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
OK, Dr. Keith Rose, we have to leave it there.
We have a break from the war room in a moment.
unidentified
All this nonsense, all this spin, they can't handle the truth.
War Room Battleground with Stephen K. Bannon.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
Welcome back, everybody.
This is The War Room.
Steve Bannon, 39 days in jail and still counting.
Okay, so I'm going to just wrap up here with our guest, Dr. Keith Rose.
There's a lot to unpack there, Keith.
This is very, very significant, and I would urge people out there, you know, you can do your own reporting, but there's a lot of what you're talking about, Keith, You've put it into the system.
As you say, it goes into central reporting.
So there's no way people in the administration don't know about it.
But Americans are hearing much of this for the first time.
And so I wonder if you could just, you know, take us out quickly with the how you see this playing out right now in the election, given that, you know, how long has it been since anyone in this country has actually seen Biden?
I mean, he's he's been missing in action, not just for the last Three and a half years for much of the time, but especially in the last few weeks.
And how does that play into the situation that you're talking about, where it seems like our adversaries from the Chinese to the Afghan terrorist army, really, is what you're describing.
How does it play out that we have basically a president that is non-functional by anyone's standards?
unidentified
You know, Laura, I have a different take on this.
I think that Biden is probably functional for five to six hours a day early in the morning.
From watching him as a physician and a surgeon, I think he sundowns.
But I don't think any Democrat leader is in control in the singular.
They usually work in the aggregate.
And there is a, to use a lack of a better word, a cabal of people that are Moving and strategizing and what to do in the White House.
I think that starts with Anita Dunn, who was in the White House.
I think she's running Kamala's campaign now.
But all you have to do is look at what their overarching goals are.
Their overarching goals are not benefiting the United States of America.
They're benefiting the maintaining a personal and group power.
And the way you maintain personal and group power throughout the ages is to have strong intelligence assets that can do the correct propaganda, information operation or covert action.
Yuri Bezmenov talked a lot about this, to control the levers of power and keep who they want in power.
And that's what President Trump is up against.
And quite frankly, that's why people are so afraid.
Because when President Trump comes back into office, I pray that he does, and we have fair and honest elections, then the people that are doing this can be brought to task because intelligence, mainly foreign intelligence and a lot of intelligence agencies, are all under Title 50.
And President Trump or the executive branch is in charge.
of Title 50.
And I'm not even sure President Trump was briefed on all his Title 50 authorities prior to taking office.
So folks like me that sit back and look at this from 100,000 feet see a well-oiled, well-executed intelligence operation.
And it's my prayer that Whistleblowers will come forward that are already in these different areas and speak the truth.
We're starting to see it more in the Secret Service by what happened in the assassination attempt.
But it's going to take someone that their conscience just pushes them forward.
It's what pushed me forward.
It's what pushed a lot of my brothers forward who walked away from what we were doing because we saw that it wasn't for the betterment of our nation, but it was for personal power, group power, And the United States really wasn't taken into consideration.
And that's why I think we're having the troubles we are.
But I do believe there's people out there that can help the president, if he gets back in office, make this country great again.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
Well, I know what Steve Bannon would say if he was sitting here.
He would thank you for what you're doing, and he would ask you to keep pushing forward, right?
Because there's very little time left, and what you have laid out here, Keith, is of such significance.
It's going to take a lot for people to work their way through it, but I just want to thank you for it.
I know that this comes at personal risk.
And this is a time where people do need to stand up and be counted, right?
Because you can't stand on the shores watching this nation drown and hope that somebody else is going to take care of the problem, right?
And do it for you.
That's not going to get us forward.
unidentified
That's going to get us in a much bigger hole.
I went into the White House in 2017 when Steve Bannon was there.
And he kept trying to take me up to brief President Trump.
And it was amazing.
Every time he would take me from the West Wing up to the Oval Office, someone managed to make a phone call and run President Trump out of the office on something important.
And that's how you know it's an intelligence operation, because they're managing everybody and they're preventing the information to get to the decision makers.
Because all we do, intelligence is a formal report.
All we do is provide information based on atmospherics, what we hear, relationships we have.
And I just pray that enough people come forward to really do what they can to stop the craziness and the destruction of our nation because I do believe our best days are ahead of us if people will step up.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
Well, we're going to stay on top of this, Keith, and we'll definitely have you back on.
Thank you so much for joining us on the War Room.
I want to turn now to our next guest, Eamon Blair, who is a senior fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
He's a former intelligence analyst for the United States Army and also for many, many years a border patrol agent down on the southern border who has seen firsthand Exactly how this administration's open border policy is playing out.
Someone I've also known for many years during my years of reporting down on the border.
And Eamon, what I want to put to you, I know you were listening there to Dr. Rose.
And I have a feeling that there was something particular that was resonating with you, which is that China's system of backing the Afghan terror state is not confined just to Afghanistan.
They have been doing the same thing with the Venezuelan cartels and the Venezuelan government trying to Aragua and I know you've been tracking that.
Can you give us a sense of what that relationship looks like and what does it mean right now for people in this country who are looking at a border that, you know, this is an issue that touches every American.
And it is the number one issue for voters, according to many different polls, but also to many different voters that I've spoken to.
So can you lay it out from your perspective for us?
ammon blair ▲ ● ▼
Sure.
I'd like to go back in history a little bit.
So really, it kind of started when Hugo Chavez formed an alliance with Iran and Cuba in his Bolivarian Revolution back in the late 90s.
And fast forward to that, he spread that revolution through South America and the Caribbean.
And then he kind of turned that strategy into an asymmetric warfare strategy.
And that was with Venezuela itself and also Russia, Iran already in there, and then also China.
So now Venezuela is kind of a hub.
unidentified
Go ahead.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
It's just incredible.
If Americans think that, you know, while sort of Sleepy Joe has been in the White House, that our adversaries have been sitting back just, you know, allowing America to destroy itself, and they haven't been capitalizing on that.
It's like a party out there, right?
It's like a party of everyone who hates America and has the ability to destroy this country if they work together using asymmetric warfare, which is basically unrestricted warfare, right?
Like we've been asleep at the wheel.
ammon blair ▲ ● ▼
It's been for a long time.
So really, if you look at what's been happening at the southern border in terms of Venezuelan apprehensions, we can see that a lot of Venezuelans really weren't coming to the U.S.
In 2017, we only apprehended around 2,600 Venezuelans.
Fast forward that to FY 2023, we apprehended 334,000.
Fast forward that to FY 2023, we apprehended 334,000.
So we know that the Venezuelans, they were fleeing because, of course, after Hugo Chavez
died, Maduro came in, and then we saw that massive migration outside of Venezuela.
And so they were fleeing, but they were fleeing to other South American countries.
And then also, what people don't realize is they were also fleeing to Syria.
In fact, you have more Venezuelans, you have over 300,000 Venezuelans in Syria than you do in Brazil.
That's kind of a fun fact.
You mentioned earlier Tren de Aragua.
When those Venezuelans were fleeing, there was a transnational criminal organization that was built out of a prison system that was able to be built because it was backed by Maduro.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
And so that's what it means when we hear in the news that Venezuela has emptied its prisons.
Actually, what they're referring to is they have emptied the prison of the cartel that they pretty much grew inside their prison system and dispatched them to the United States, right?
ammon blair ▲ ● ▼
Yes, ma'am.
So they made like some sort of like political theater.
They came in in Venezuela because Tren de Aragua started making international news.
So they stated they went in there and took the leadership of Tren de Aragua out.
But it was all just complete theater.
Nothing really actually happened, other than now their leaders are in hiding, and now they're spreading worldwide.
So Trenidad Agua, they built their entire enterprise, like I said, off the backs of over 8 million Venezuelans leaving the country.
And so they built it off those smuggling networks.
Those smuggling networks found themselves up to the United States because of the Biden regime's policies of open borders.
And so based off that, the Tren de Aragua, they needed a way into the United States.
And the only way they could get here was off the infrastructure and the pipelines that were already created, and that's going to be the Mexican cartels.
So Tren de Aragua, the reason why they are in every single one of your communities, that's why we're seeing such violence, whether that is in New York or Chicago, or other areas like in Dallas, because those, that
infrastructure had already been set by the Mexican cartels.
And in fact, Tren de Aragua recently forged an alliance with CJNG, Cartel Jalisco New
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
Generation.
The most violent of the Mexican cartels?
ammon blair ▲ ● ▼
Yes, ma'am, the most violent.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
And what's the role of China in working alongside both the Venezuelan and Mexican cartels?
ammon blair ▲ ● ▼
Well they, our constitution and our constitutional republic is their greatest threat.
So they see that the Mexican cartels really already built a Silk Road for them, for the CCP, and for their nefarious activities into every one of our communities.
They didn't need a Belt and Road Initiative when the Mexican cartels already built that for them.
The Chinese have weaponized the Mexican cartels and used them as proxies in their unrestricted warfare on the United States.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
I want to bring in now our other guest, George Pond.
I want you to stay with us if you can, because what you're talking about has been captured in a book that George is involved with.
George has been in policy, he's a Texan, and he's been looking at this issue along with author Dr. Richard Funk.
Who is a close friend of his and Richard Funk has written a fictional novel which is about the Chinese and the Mexican cartels working together and an October 7th style invasion of the US.
Something that is certainly possible when you have effectively an open border.
And so I want to bring in George because it's kind of extraordinary to me that You saw what was happening from your perspective, George.
You saw that this was coming and you're trying to reach out across political lines using, you know, a fictional novel to get people to pay attention to this.
Can you tell us, can you tell us about this book and can you tell us why this book matters right now in your view?
unidentified
Okay, thank you.
Well, I am not the author.
Dr. Richard Funk is the author, but he's a friend of mine.
And the name of the book is Cartel Wars, uh, the consequence of America's open policy on the border.
And, um, four years ago, uh, we, we, we go to church together and he had written this incredible, uh, uh, transcript about an invasion, uh, on our border from, from Mexico and it included the cartels in China.
And, uh, But fast forward to October 7th, I have friends in Israel, and I've been very much involved with Israel, and when I saw what happened there, when, for example, the IDF is one of the best armies that we have in the world.
They have one of the best intelligence agencies, the Mossad, and they were taken aback.
I mean, they were invaded, and it was a low-tech kind of invasion.
And the Hamas are proxies from Iran.
So there's not much difference between what we're faced right now with China utilizing the cartels.
The fiction of this book really deals with an actual invasion in Texas.
It's fiction, but it deals with real landmarks.
It deals with an invasion where they take over Austin and the governor has to flee.
But the end of the book is one that I don't want to say the whole thing about it, but it ends on a good note.
But it has to do with the resilience and the courage of Americans making their stand.
And that's important.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
So really what you're talking about is this is a novel that has captured what this alliance between the Chinese and the Mexican cartels really means.
And Dr. Richard Funk, I believe, worked as a senior policy person for two administrations in the state of Texas, Governor George Bush when he was there and Governor Rick Perry.
And I know That the book is really closely based on real characters and as much from his experience.
But, you know, I want to put it to you.
I want to bring back Eamon Blair, if I can here, and just ask him, Eamon, you know, is this the kind of thing, what is your concern as someone, you know, who's worn the uniform for the U.S., fought in foreign wars abroad, Sure.
The front line is no longer on our back door at the border.
It's at your front door.
southern border, but now being in the policy side of this where you've had a chance to
really dig deep into the extent of this relationship and what it means is what is your concern?
Can you tell people how they should understand this?
ammon blair ▲ ● ▼
Sure.
The front line is no longer on our back door at the border.
It's at your front door.
It's in your yard.
And sometimes, unless, unfortunately, if you have a family member that died from a fentanyl
poisoning, the CCP is in your home.
And so, unfortunately, Operation Red Dawn, I mean, not Operation Red Dawn, but the movie Red Dawn, where we saw the Chinese invade, unfortunately, we've been under an invasion for a long time.
They're here.
But our limited concept or understanding of what war is, A lot of times Americans think that the term war means that it's kinetic action, that it's guns and tanks and bombs.
When the Chinese have been invading us and they've been setting the stage, or what we know in military is phase zero operations, for kinetic action later down the road.
But right now they're already decimating our cities and communities through drug warfare.
They're already decimating our moral decency.
through sex trafficking, through espionage, through intelligence sharing.
They already have access to our critical infrastructure through transformers, through you name it.
They're invading through human smuggling warfare on our southern border.
Thousands upon thousands of Chinese illegal aliens are entering into the United States.
And so the invasion has been going on for such a long time that even Director Ray has been stating that it's not if but when something kinetic is going to happen.
And so we continue to look for kinetic at the same time as we are completely blind to what is actually non-kinetic, what is actually happening right in front of us.
And we're just not making that leap.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
Okay, so we're almost out of time here.
I want to throw it back to George very quickly.
George, what do you think this means for the election?
I want to tell everybody, Cartel Wars is the book.
Dr. Richard Funk is the author.
And George, as his teammate, can you tell us?
I know you've been very involved in trying to get this out to people and trying to get them to pay attention to this issue.
What do you think it means for the election?
unidentified
Tell us very quickly before we close.
Well, I'm concerned that before the election, we're so vulnerable right now, the United States, we're about ready to have a major war in the Middle East.
We've been surrounded for a long time.
For example, the Russians have moved their assets into the Caribbean, the Chinese and the Russians have been operating off of Alaska with their supersonic bombs, bombers.
And if there would ever be a time for an invasion to take place on Taiwan, with our dysfunctional political system, and who knows is really running the White House right now, we could be in a major war.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
Okay, well, this is something that's certainly on the minds of many people across this country right now, especially with the lack of real leadership in the White House at what is a critical time in this nation's history.
It's kind of like the worst nightmare for anybody to see the Mexican cartels, Venezuelan cartels backed by corrupt regime working together with the Chinese Communist Party.
I can't think of a more dangerous scenario for this country and for our national security.
Eamon, you have 30 seconds to close us out because you are one of the smartest people I know.
ammon blair ▲ ● ▼
I guess to close this out really is just, first and foremost, I'd probably listen to everything that Lara says on her social media and follow everyone else.
In order for us to handle or counter this threat is to actually understand what is actually happening.
And the only way to do that is by parsing through all the massive amount of information and understand that a majority of people have agendas.
Larry does not.
So the only way that us as Americans can actually go ahead and do something is by one, getting ourselves informed and then informing our politicians.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
Thank you very much for joining us today.
This is The War Room.
Steve Bannon is 39 days in jail.
unidentified
Get out.
lara logan ▲ ● ▼
I know what he wants.
He's told all of us he wants you to get out and vote.
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