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Jan. 10, 2025 - Bannon's War Room

48:52

Episode 4185: Knowing What The Real Objective Is

Participants

Main voices

james rickards

10:04

steve bannon

23:06

Appearances

ben harnwell

04:32

mike lindell

01:58

Clips

jake tapper

00:08

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Show episode speakers

Speaker	Time	Text
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		This is the primal scream of a dying regime.
unidentified		Pray for our enemies, because we're going medieval on these people.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Here's one time I got a free shot at 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.
jake tapper ▲ ● ▼		And where do people like that go to share the big lie?
unidentified		MAGA Media.
jake tapper ▲ ● ▼		I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.
unidentified		Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose?
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.
unidentified		War Room.
unidentified		Here's your host, Stephen K. Baff.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Here's your host, Stephen K. Baff.
		2025, 10 days away from now, we'll be into the ceremony.
		President Trump will take the oath of office, high noon.
		It's a change of command.
		And trust me, we're going to fire off the football.
		A lot going on.
		We'll develop more of this over the weekend, afternoon show today.
		I'll be back 5 to 7, then tomorrow, and then all week.
		A lot of stuff going on next week.
		We're going to try to get the Warren Posse engaged in some of it.
		We'll be making big announcements, myself and Captain Ben.
		Captain Ben is kind of running this deal, so we'll have her engage with you people.
		One thing we have to do, and I want to remind you, we've got to man the ramparts today.
		Why?
		These confirmations are very important.
		Now, the pressure you put on already has pulled up.
		I think Hegseth, and I think particularly Pam Bondi, is pulled up.
		I think Cash is going to get pulled up.
		Maybe Tulsi Gabbard, I think if she's ready or not.
		Heard some of the briefings may have not gone perfectly well, but the other ones are on fire.
		I want to put it in perspective here.
		I don't know, it was three weeks ago, four weeks ago.
		Remember, it was a Thursday, and Pete Hegseth was an hour away from being replaced by Ron DeSantis.
		And we just said, no, it's not going to happen.
		And we went live on the 5 o'clock show.
		Once again, we went fix bad nets.
		I said, Pete Hexes, our guy, said it was bad enough.
		And this audience and this show did not agree with the Matt Gaetz situation, letting Gaetz go.
		Worst case, we said Gaetz would draw all the fire, right?
		Best case, Gaetz would be there.
		And I'm telling you, if we'd hung with Gaetz, if people had hung with Gaetz, Gaetz would be...
		On a path to be Attorney General of the United States.
		Pete Hex said they want to take...
		I said, hey, you know, Pete Hex is great.
		He's perfect to be SecDef.
		I've known Pete for a long time.
		He's a warrior.
		I think you need a junior officer in the now.
		We've tried a couple of generals, and that has not worked out.
		Pete's the exact type of warrior that can inspire the guys that are actually kicking down the doors and actually at the tip of the spear.
		In these wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, understand modern combat.
		They understand one thing is how to motivate people and get warriors back and clean up this crap and nonsense that's been happening over the Pentagon.
		You want to see the results of that?
		Look at Pacific Palisades.
		You want to see woke?
		You want to see incompetence?
		You want to see hardcore left-wing politics?
		So look at Pacific Palisades.
		It looks like Kyoto in March of 1945. It looks like Tokyo after a firebombing.
		That's how bad it looks.
		Pete Hexen's the guy to do that.
		But remember, there were people around prepared to abandon Pete Hexen.
		This is just like I want to go back in time to Kavanaugh and Mike Davis.
		I was in Rome at the time and got pulled on a call.
		There were, you know, the Republicans always want to surrender.
		Right now, with Trump and this thing to say, you've got to move on.
		No, we ain't moving on.
		And Coney Barrett, you should be ashamed of yourself.
		And if you had any class, any principle, you would tender your resignation to President Trump on the afternoon of the 20th of January.
		That's what you would do.
		And let him fill that seat with a real Supreme Court justice.
		We're not going to move on.
		You don't win by moving.
		Remember, when they back down, we double down.
	Right?
	When they retreat, we advance.
	When they surrender, we fight on harder.
	It's the only way you get any progress in this.
	None of this is going to stop until you make it stop.
	If you don't make it stop, you can't wish it away.
	This is what's called controlled opposition in this type of politics.
	This is what the Republican Party, this is what Fox News, this is what they've been for decades and decades and decades.
	To always surrender, to go along, to get along.
	And yesterday, yesterday, you had Bush.
	Sit there to try to embarrass and humiliate President Trump by not acknowledging his presence?
	Acknowledging his presence?
	That's the dividing line right there.
	It's not Obama.
	And by the way, all the influencers sitting there saying that Obama and Trump are bro-ing out and laughing, no, no, no.
	That came later when President Trump engaged Obama.
	Look at Obama when he first walked in.
	He big-legged President Trump.
	So don't tell me, don't say, oh, they're broing out.
	That's because President Trump went out of his way to engage Obama.
	And anybody sat there and took the later clip, said, oh, yeah, they're like bros, look at this, they're hanging out.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	Inappropriate.
	He big-legged him.
	Didn't acknowledge his presence.
	Judas Pence barely acknowledged his presence.
	Bush went out of his way to try to humiliate the President of the United States.
	That's the fight we got.
	These nominations of President Trump seem, hey, remember a couple weeks ago, they got Gates and the Hegsethers on the ropes, Tulsi Gabbard's on the ropes, Bobby Kennedy's on the ropes, Kash Patel's on the ropes, they ain't on the ropes now.
	All they're leaking, they're leaking, you know, all the Republicans are going to vote for them, they're making progress now, we've got to do it quicker.
	Why is that?
	Because of this audience.
	You wouldn't back down, and you put these guys on notice.
	It's the only way you've got to do it.
	You can't play nice.
	You have to get on the phone with them, send the email, send the text message, say, hey, look, President Trump wants Kash Patel.
	He's going to get Kash Patel.
	President Trump wants Tulsi Gabbard.
	President Trump wants Kristi Noem.
	He's going to get Kristi Noem.
	And President Trump wants Pete Hegseth.
	He's going to get Pete Hegseth.
	You know why he's going to get Pete Hegseth?
	Because the country needs a warrior like Pete Hegseth in the Department of Defense right now.
	And President Trump will put around, you know, Pete has not managed an organization of that complexity.
	But tell me who has.
	Did Leon Panetta, when they had these congressmen that came into Secretary of Defense and didn't hear any, had those guys any managed anything?
	Leon Panetta, what did Leon Panetta ever manage?
	Right?
	No.
	Pete Hex is going to get a team around him, and he'll do just fine.
	He'll be a great Secretary of Defense.
	Lieutenant Commander Kaj Larson joins us now, who knows Pete Heggs as well.
	He's a Navy SEAL from SEAL Team 1 in the University of California at Santa Cruz.
	You know, Commander, I've got to ask you right at the bat.
	When I think of recruiting grounds outside the Naval Academy that are recruiting grounds for Navy SEALs, Santa Cruz does not hit.
	I thought that was a surfer.
	Kind of a Grateful Dead hangout, a surfer hangout.
	It's a little chill.
	It's probably the most chill of all the UC campuses, correct?
	How does a guy go from University of California to Santa Cruz wearing a tie-dye Grateful Dead t-shirt to be a lieutenant commander in the Navy SEALs, sir?
unidentified		Well, you nailed it, Steve.
		I'm a study in contrast, right?
		I actually grew up in Santa Cruz.
		It's my hometown.
		And in Santa Cruz, they actually have an incredible tradition of being a great waterman, which is a great precursor for being a Navy SEAL. So I spent my youth playing water polo, surfing big waves, and that turned out to be a great testing ground to go into the SEAL teams and serve my country.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, a frogman.
		We forget at the beginning you guys were the underwater demolition, the frogman.
		That's the tradition the SEALs come from.
		Pete Hegseth.
		This show, myself personally, I've known Pete for over a decade.
		And so I've had no Pete.
		I've waited and measured him in a long time.
		He's a great guy, good man, and a great warrior.
		This audience is 1,000 percent back of Pete Hegseth.
		And we were the guys that said, hey, when this thing started, Pete Hegseth was going to step down.
		Ron DeSantis said, no way.
		Pete Hex is the guy.
		Trump wants him.
		He's got to have him.
		Tell us about your relationship with Pete.
		Because you've kind of taken the lead on making sure there's a number of, I would say, younger warriors, right?
		Not the field-grade generals, but younger warriors going to have Pete's back.
		Tell us about Pete Hex.
unidentified		Yeah, Steve, I really think you nailed it at the top of this segment.
		This is about creating a culture of warriorship.
		And this really is about those of us who have been warfighting over the last 20 years and making sure that the focus and the emphasis of our military culture is on the warfighter and being the most lethal military we can be.
		Everything else is a distraction.
		And Pete understands that.
		At his core.
		So what we've done in the special operations community, a series of us veterans who know Pete, have gone together.
		You have almost an unprecedented event.
		100 Navy SEALs gathering in Washington on the 14th to support Pete during his nomination hearing.
		And the reason we're doing that, I know Pete...
		Through service to the veteran community, through media, and through an annual philanthropic swim that we do swimming around the Statue of Liberty to honor those who have served every year.
		What I've learned over the years of getting to know Pete is that his first principle is on warfighting.
		And those of us who fought the wars of the last two decades really believe that we need to course-correct and return to a culture that's focused purely on warfighting.
		We concur with you that Pete is the right man for the job, and we're grateful to your audience for stepping up.
		You know, we started together.
		Traditionally as a community, we don't...
		Actually engage in this kind of activity, we focus on the mission.
		But like you and like your audience, when we started to see all of the ad hominem attacks that were coming towards Pete, we felt that we had to rally and organize this community and embark on this mission to support him.
		So next Tuesday, the 14th.
		Hundreds of veterans who have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be meeting at the Vietnam Memorial carrying American flags just because we're those who have worn the cloth of the country and will be there to support Pete.
		Someone who, as you say, understands what it's like to be boots on the ground during combat.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Commander, how did we get so far off that?
		You know, I was in the Navy from, what, 76 to 83, right after Vietnam.
		I was the first wave of kind of the all-volunteer force, right?
		And it was pretty jagged there for a couple of years, right?
		People had had the opportunity.
		I was on a Navy destroyer, but a lot of my guys had the opportunity to jail or the service.
		And they were the salt of the earth.
		They were the greatest guys that had pulled together because they never really had a break.
		You know, the system was just stacked against them.
		But once you put them to work, They were magnificent.
		But back then, we didn't have the problems.
		I mean, particularly after fighting these wars, how did after the valor and the sacrifice and just the good old grit and able to take on an enemy in these kind of ill-defined wars, how did the overall apparatus get so woke?
		This is what's always befollowed me, sir.
unidentified		Yeah, well...
		Steve, I think you know that sometimes when you're serving in a peacetime military, you lose focus on your North Star and you lose focus on what the mission actually is.
		And the mission is warfighting.
		And that has to be the first principle of everything that you do.
		And sometimes when we...
		are privileged enough to have this peace dividend.
		People start to focus on other things that are not mission related.
		And as you know, culture flows from the top and over the last several years.
		We've had a culture where we're downscaling from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
		We have civilian control of the military, which is always a positive thing.
		But the priorities, we're not necessarily focused on warfighting.
		And whenever we have these peace dividends, we forget what actually matters.
		And we focus on stuff that's extraneous and irrelevant, you know, haircuts and uniform standards and and DEI and all of all of this stuff that's not relevant to what our actual mission is, which is defending the United States and being the most lethal fighting force in the world. which is defending the United States and being the most So you see this kind of mission creep.
		And I think it speaks a little bit to something you were talking about at the top of the segment.
		And part of the reason why Pete is actually going to be an outstanding sec deaf is.
		Traditionally, we've had secretaries of defense that have come up through the system.
		You know, they're four-star generals, they're flag officers.
		And those folks have a role in the Pentagon because they understand how the system works.
		But this time requires someone who can be disruptive to the system.
		And I think you talk to anybody.
		Who's been on the front lines?
		We are at what we call in the national security world a revolution in military affairs.
		Warfighting is fundamentally changing.
		And we actually need outside agitators who are not, who haven't spent 30 years taking orders or being complicit in the current system.
		And Pete is that guy.
		We need an outsider who can help.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Commander, hang on for one second.
		I'm going to hold you through a break.
		Commander Kaj Larson, a colleague from SEAL Team 1, a colleague of Pete Hexas.
		We're going to pick this up after a short commercial break.
		Jim Rickards and Ben Harnwell from Rome.
		Jim Rickards is going to join us to talk about Ukraine and Greenland.
		Next in the Word.
unidentified		Here's your host, Stephen K. Mann.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		So, Commander Larson, can you walk us through the logistics on the...
		And by the way, this audience, putting your shoulder to the wheel, already got this confirmation hearing moved up.
		Because we're not waiting.
		They were trying to drag these things to after President Trump to the committees.
		That's not acceptable.
		They've got to get these next week.
		The committee's got to vote to meet at the end of the week.
		Get them right to the floor.
		They've got to join President Trump.
		Immediately after he takes the oath of office.
		We need Hegseth, we need Pam Bondi, we need Kash Patel, we need Ratcliffe.
		Tulsi Gabbard, that may take a day or two, may take a little bit longer, but the other's got to be standing tall, blank swinging on Monday the 20th.
		So, Commander, walk us through the 14th.
		What's the order of battle here, and how can this audience participate, either online now?
		on Tuesday itself?
unidentified		Yeah, well, first off, I just want to say how grateful I am to this audience for supporting Pete.
		We in the special operations community, the ones who are organizing around Pete are absolutely grateful and recognize the contribution of helping get Pete's nomination back on track after all of these ad hominem attacks started to come out.
		On Tuesday the 14th for Pete's confirmation hearing, any veteran, any supporter can meet at the Vietnam Memorial at 9 a.m.
		We'll be carrying American flags and we'll be carrying American flags and we'll Anyone who's worn the cloth of the country is welcome.
		Anyone who supports Pete is welcome.
		These are absolutely peaceful.
		We're proud of who we are and we're proud of our support of Pete.
		This is a peaceful gathering in honor of Pete and to support what an excellent Secretary of Defense we think he will be at a time of incredible change.
		And volatility, not just around the world, but within the US military.
		There's emerging threats, both technological and the information battle space.
		And we think Pete's the right man to lead that mission.
		So we invite you to join us at 9am on the 14th meeting at the Vietnam Memorial, which we think is appropriate.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Okay, we're going to have, we'll talk to our review, we'll have the morning show, but we're going to open War Room down there at 10 with you guys, and we're going to follow live Pete's hearing throughout the day.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Commander, is the website, what's your social media handles, and then what website people can go to to get more information and make sure we get organized?
unidentified		Yep, so I am at Kaj Larson on all of the socials, and that's...
		K-A-J-L-A-R-S-E-N, just like you have up on the screen.
		We also have a website that's run by, there are two fellow SEALs who are organizing, three fellow SEALs who are organizing with me.
		That's William Brown, who organizes the Navy SEAL swim, which Pete participates in every year.
		He's a true warrior dragging himself around the Statue of Liberty with a bunch of SEALs.
		There's Jason Redman, another Frogman colleague of mine who's helping organize.
		And then Rob Sweetman, who runs sleepgenie.us.
		And he's put all of the information for our gathering on his website there.
		So I'll be posting about it on my socials at Kaj Larson.
		That's a great place to get information.
		Or on the sleepgenie.us we'll also have some of the organizational information.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Okay, if Mo and Grace can get that in the live chats, we'll make sure that we get big participation.
		And we'll see you on Tuesday, sir.
		Thank you for doing this.
		We'll be humping over the weekend, brother.
		Appreciate you.
		Commander Larson.
unidentified		Fire aside, Steve.
unidentified		Thank you.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, brother.
		Okay, next week, I'm telling you, you got Pam Bondi, you're going to have Pete Hegseth.
		There's going to be a bunch of them.
		And we're going to be...
		This audience, we're going to be all over him.
		President Trump, you know, he's going to get the team that he picked.
		Ben Harnwell, Ben, you've been amazing here, staying on top of this Ukraine situation.
		Jim Rooker is going to join us in a second.
		I want everybody to understand, the opening gambit in the Ukraine negotiations is Greenland.
		Okay?
		Step back and just think of what's going on.
		President Trump is starting the winding down of the Ukraine war.
		Ben, you're the one that found it and alerted everybody to what's going on here.
		Walk me through what you found in the Financial Times and other things.
		You take it away, sir.
ben harnwell ▲ ● ▼		Steve, good morning to you.
		Well, look, the war room is, as far as I'm aware, even to this day, the only news organization in the world that has been repeating the point.
		From the get-go, do not allow the United States to be pivoted into the security guarantees hoax by the neocons.
		And as I say, we're the only people pushing this.
		Every time it comes up, we're on this.
		There's no real scope for Ukraine to join NATO. That's just a negotiating, something that the Ukrainians can give away in negotiation.
		The fundamental point is that they want the United States to underwrite, Ukraine's guarantees, territorial integrity, after the peace negotiations, on the successful conclusion of peace negotiations.
		America will be more tied into Ukraine than if it simply lets Ukraine join NATO under that.
		Okay, so with that said, the Financial Times had an article yesterday, and the same themes were actually picked up in Politico this morning.
		And this is basically the pitch.
		Is that Donald Trump, having said on numerous occasions in the campaign, that he was going to...
unidentified		Did he freeze?
unidentified		Hang on, hang on.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Hang on, brother.
		We've got to reboot you, because you're freezing up on us.
		And we need to hear Ben Harnwell un-expugated.
		Did I use that correctly?
		I think so.
		Let's reboot Ben.
		I want to thank the engine room of the war room.
		Brings up that the act in White Christmas was Wallace and Davis.
		Not Kelly and Davis.
		Wallace and Davis.
		Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby.
		Thank you.
		Also, they bring up the fact we did get a big scalp the other day.
		With Larry Fink saying that BlackRock's not going to be any part of ESG. They're dumping that.
		In fact, Jim Ricker's going to come on.
		I've got geopolitics to talk with, but I've got to open with, and BlackRock, there's huge developing news in Texas.
		We're going to have the Texas folks on this evening about this speakers race, I think on Tuesday also.
		Boy, the 14's going to be a big day.
		We're going to be live with the Pete Hexeth confirmation.
		I think Pam's at the same time.
		I'll check it out.
		Tuesday.
		All next week in the run-up, folks, get ready.
		Get your Warpath coffee.
		Get a big old pot of it.
		The show's going to be on fire because we've got work to do next week.
		President Trump, when they hit, they've got to hit hard.
		And they've got to hit meaningful.
		And he needs his team.
		And so next week, starting on...
		Tuesday, I think it's Pambani and definitely Pete.
		We're going to get you all associated with the special operators and the Navy SEALs.
		We're working on that over the weekend.
		Also down in Texas, speakers race.
		Larry Fink turns out Black Rocks all over that too.
		Jim Rickards.
		Before I talk geopolitics, capital markets, this huge announcement that Larry Fink, who was at one moment going to be the master of the masters of the universe, his ESG, this was his, he's a progressive lefty.
		This was his whole thing to change the whole world using capitalism or using woke capitalism to basically – it was ESG.
		It was DEI.
		He had it all.
		He's raised the white flag.
		Why has he done that, Jim Rickards?
james rickards ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's one problem with ESG, Steve.
		Leave me aside, wokeness and political correctness and all that stuff.
		It doesn't work.
		There's a ton of data at this point – there wasn't originally, but there is now – that ESG-oriented funds underperform general market indices.
		They underperform other exchange-traded funds or other stock allocation strategies.
		It's just a really bad strategy.
		And there's a whole industry around it.
		You go to Bloomberg Analytics.
		You've got Reuters.
		You've got a couple different sources.
		And they have these ESG scores.
		I'm looking at market cap or stock prices and so forth.
		I'm like, what's this – I mean, I know what it is, of course.
		But I ignore it.
		But companies that bent their corporate policies to get a Good ESG score have done very poorly for their stockholders.
		So there's a little bit of reality sinking in.
		Of course, with the Trump administration, it's like Zuckerberg.
		He censors us for five years and all of a sudden he's Mr. Free Speech.
		Okay, let's give him a chance.
		But I don't take a lot of this at face value because they're just doing what's convenient, kind of sucking up to the new Trump administration.
		I would keep them at a distance.
		But it is good news.
		It's good news for stockholders.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Hang on for a second.
		This is the key point.
		Only Rickards can give you this.
		This guy's savvy.
		They're going down as supplicants now.
		They've got their million-dollar checks.
		You've got Zuckerberg.
		They're dropping the thing that was crushing us before.
		All of it.
		From Jim Rickards, the brain, you're saying, hey, I don't want to hear it from Fink.
		They still are going to do what they're going to do.
		So you're saying don't trust them, don't let them inside?
		Because they're all trying to either get cabinet appointments or get their guys around the cabinet appointments or talk to Trump directly about policy.
		You don't trust any of them, Jim?
james rickards ▲ ● ▼		No.
		And what they're really concerned about is not what they're talking about.
		They're worried about antitrust enforcement.
		They're worrying about all these companies being broken up.
		And they should be broken up.
		I have no question about that.
		But once the Justice Department of Antitrust Division kicks in, I mean, what they do, America's innovative.
		We've got great technology, great engineers.
		I know there's an educational problem on average, but when you look at the high-end, our math, science, technology, engineering graduates are the best in the world.
		Maybe we need a little more, but they're great.
		Speaking specifically about Facebook or Meta, Google, and a few others, when they see a hot company coming on, they just buy it.
		They don't want to wait until that company creates a threat.
		Schumpeter said the monopolist doesn't worry about the competition.
		He worries about the future, the unknown competitor coming out of the blue.
		And so their solution is just to buy them.
		Let's just break them up.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Hang on for one second.
		I love it.
		That's populist nationalist economics right there from the great Jim Rickards.
		Make sure you go to RickardsWarRoom.com.
		You get access to all his newsletters.
		I can tell you with Trump 2.0, Rickards is going to be at the tip of the tip of the spear.
		Amazing.
		Short commercial break.
		Ben Harnwell from Rome.
		Jim Rickards from the United States of America.
unidentified		Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next.
		Next.
		America's horror.
		Here's your host, Stephen K. Band.
		We've rebooted Band.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		So Ben, tell us about this buried lead, what you found, and how important it is to kind of strategically how we're thinking about this.
ben harnwell ▲ ● ▼		Steve, thanks very much.
		The FT and Politico between them are setting up this scenario where Donald Trump isn't going to follow through on his promise to disengage America from the Ukrainian war within the first 24 hours, but this could conceivably take six months.
		And they've based this on statements that Donald Trump himself has said, that he hopes to have six months, on what General Kellogg has said, that he hopes to get this done within 100 days.
		Of all people, Georgia Maloney, who's setting herself up in the press as being something of a Trump whisperer, saying that, you know, Trump's not going to abandon Ukraine.
		That would be an error.
		Look, in the same way, Steve, that the Warwick has been the only voice talking about the hoax that is security guarantees, I'd like to suggest something else.
		Donald Trump should not, obviously, not be drawn into this for six months.
		If he's drawn into this for six months, he will own...
		Whatever catastrophe the neocons prepare him in exactly the same way as they did to Biden on the disengagement from Afghanistan.
		It's my belief that America should disengage within 24 hours of the inauguration.
		Unilaterally.
		Don't wait for negotiations.
		I'm going to explore this point later on in the show.
		There is no need.
		America has nothing to negotiate for because it has no interests in this war.
		It never did.
		It was brought in by deception.
		So I'll give away now because I know that Jim Rickards has got some more points to make.
unidentified		No negotiations.
ben harnwell ▲ ● ▼		Pull out straight away.
ben harnwell ▲ ● ▼		That's it.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Pull out straight away.
		We have to take a hard line here because you're already seeing mission creep.
		The T was this Kagan article.
		Kagan's the same guy back in January 23 wrote the article, it may have been January 1st of 24, wrote the article looking for the, you know, Trump is Caesar and looking for the Brutus, right?
		That led to kind of gave the moral justification for these assassination attempts.
		Kagan has written this piece.
		It's called Trump's biggest defeat, or strategic defeat, and I'm going, what the hell?
		I look at it, and he lays Ukraine, the military defeat in Ukraine, at Trump's problem.
		But there's one way to avoid that.
		This is not Trump's problem.
		This is Biden, 100% Biden.
		And that's why we've got to cut bait here.
		The negotiations have to be quick, to the point.
		TASS is reporting today that Putin's prepared to sit down with no preconditions, Ben Hornwell.
ben harnwell ▲ ● ▼		Steve, look, Robert Kagan is who?
		Who is he?
		Victoria Newland's husband.
		This is the guy who 20 years ago lied and connived the United States into the war in Iraq.
		There's nobody more toxic, more neocom to the core than this guy.
		What he says, don't read the article, look at the headline, look at the byline, do the exact opposite.
		America has no interest in Ukraine, unilaterally, without sitting around with Putin, without waiting for negotiations.
		America should announce, President Trump should announce on day one.
		We are disengaging.
		We are withdrawing from this conflict.
		We have no interest to preserve.
		We are out.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		If this goes on for six months and we're still negotiating, they're going to blame this all on Trump.
		It's going to be Trump's war.
		They're going to say, well, Trump messed it up.
		We were all sitting fine until Trump came along.
		This is Trump's defeat.
		Brother Rickards.
		You're a pro at this.
		You're a geostrategic expert.
		I realize it's quite complicated.
		I think the opening gambit of this was Greenland, but I'll let you take it from here.
		Your thoughts on the Ukraine situation, what Putin just said about there's no preconditions to have a meeting, Greenland, and the Ukraine.
		Robert Kagan saying Trump is ready for his biggest strategic defeat already, sir.
james rickards ▲ ● ▼		First of all, Ben is exactly right.
		And by the way, this is not something recent, or this has been in the works for over a year.
		All of the money.
		All the weapons, all the escalation that Biden has pursued was never done to win the war because Ukraine was never going to win the war.
		It's a war of attrition.
		Russia's resources, population, technology, the Russian missile, which makes tactical nuclear weapons obsolete.
		That's how destructive it is.
		Russia was always going to win the war, but they take their time.
		It's the Russian way of war.
		They don't work on our tempo.
		So what the Biden administration did, give them all the weapons, give them all the money, and make sure the war continues.
		So when Ukraine falls, you can blame Trump.
		And this article by Kagan, this is just opening the curtain on something that has been planned all along.
		I'm a little concerned about General Kellogg and Walsh.
		They seem to be drinking a little bit of the neocon Kool-Aid.
		And Ben's exactly right.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Hang on, hang on, hang on.
		Keith Kellogg's a friend.
		I revere General Kellogg.
		Mike Walsh looks like a good man, but we've got to address this right now.
		I mean, you're hearing some statements.
		When you say 100 days, you've got Waltz and some of the guys are getting in the National Security Council.
		This should be a flashing, this should be the, you know, this is urgent right now to get on top of this.
		Senator Rubio, the people around President Trump on the national security side, General Kellogg, you know, Rick Grinnell, maybe even throw another guy.
		I would love to see Boris, who's done such a great job, you know, who is of Russian descent and done such a great job for President Trump on the legal side.
		I'm concerned about Kellogg and Waltz right now, Jim, to be brutally frank about it, sir.
james rickards ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, let's be clear.
		I respect them both.
		They've got great records, and General Kellogg in particular because of his military experience.
		No question about that, but they are walking into a trap, and I think Ben outlined it correctly.
		But the trap has been a year in the making.
		This isn't, oh gee, we didn't win the war, let's see what happened.
		They knew they were going to lose the war.
		It's been obvious for a very long time.
		So they're just saying, okay, let's extend it.
		Let's give Ukraine enough money, enough weapons.
		Let's just get this thing of the summer of 2025. And it'll be Trump's war.
		And so if Trump, by the way, all these negotiations, there was a big Swiss peace conference over six, eight months ago.
		There have been other conferences, NATO, Munich security conferences.
		All we do is talk to each other.
		NATO members talk to each other.
		U.S. talks to, again, NATO. Germany talks to Kiev, Poland, etc.
		Nobody's talking to Putin.
		The White House hasn't spoken to Putin in, I believe, almost three years, certainly more than two years.
		So that's the way to do it.
		Putin's conditions have never changed.
		From before the war, he said demilitarization, denazification, neutrality, and no NATO. Those conditions have not changed.
		The only thing that has changed is that Russia's taken more territory at a very high cost in blood and treasure.
		They're not going to give it back.
		Why should they?
		I mean, some of this is simple, Steve.
		If you win wars, you get to keep stuff.
		I'm not making a value judgment.
		I'm just saying that's what happened.
		So the lack of reality, the lack of Coherence, the lack of diplomacy, period.
		So, you know, look, Kellogg's a seasoned, brilliant individual, probably a good delegate.
		But I'm just basing this on his public statements.
		I'm not inferring anything.
		Just things that he said kind of line up with what Ben warned about, which is, hey, drag it out, you know, etc.
		I think the best thing is just say done.
		You know, January 21st, we're done.
		You know, keep what you got.
		Good luck.
		And for the reason Ben mentioned.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
		I want to talk about Greenland as part of this, the kind of Panama, the jutting forward of the Fortress America or the Western Hemisphere, the strategic designs.
		Is that Trump's opening gambit, or am I overthinking this?
		Is that related?
		Because, you know, the NATO's all worried about land power.
		We're worried about the Russians coming out of Murmansk.
		It's this fast attack and the boomers coming through the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap.
		That is our concern.
		Is Trump upending the strategic apple cart here by saying, hey, Putin, we'll negotiate on Ukraine quickly, but we're going to actually advance American interest near the Arctic, sir?
james rickards ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you're right, Steve.
		Those ideas are not mutually exclusive.
		Greenland makes sense on its own, independent of Ukraine.
		But sure, if you put Greenland in play, that's one more bargaining chip vis-a-vis Russia.
		But the reason we're on Greenland, obviously, is because of improved icebreaking technology, the Arctic ice pack, you know, ebbs and flows, etc.
		The so-called, well, the Northwest Passage is real, and also routes closer to the Russian coast.
		Just look at a polar projection on a map.
		We stopped teaching geography, but it's pretty clear.
		If you're China and you want to get goods to Europe, you've got two choices.
		You can go through the Panama Canal, take the long way, or you can go past Greenland.
		There are two choke points, and Trump is going for both of them.
		This comes down to naval power, always has.
		We've got to build up the US Navy.
		That's a separate issue.
		But you've got to control the choke points.
		There's this idea of the island barrier.
		You just go from the Korean Peninsula, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, down to Indonesia, Singapore, Malacca Straits.
		You can't get in or out of China without going through one of those choke points.
		And the U.S. has a pretty good handle of good allies on all of them.
		So if they create a new one, which is Greenland, then control Greenland.
		And by the way, the status, as I understand it, well, these are facts.
		Greenland was kicked out of the EU. They tried to get back.
		EU said, no, get lost.
		There's a Greenland independence or nationalist movement.
		They're forming their own government.
		We could buy Greenland.
		We could negotiate for it, or we could just make them a treaty partner.
		But either way, you need that choke point.
		It's like the Straits of Hormuz.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Unbelievable.
		Trump's taking the classic Athens-Mahan strategy with the Mackinder being the Chinese Communist Party and the Russians.
		Jim, before I let you go, the 10-year Treasury is getting up to five.
		The British guilt is blowing up.
		What's the bond market telling us now about the overall financial situation and also the questions they're going to have about President Trump's program?
		Because the bond market is starting to scare me, sir.
james rickards ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		Well, again, look at the whole yield curve.
		You're absolutely right about the 10-year Treasury note.
		Yielded maturity is pushing closer to 5%.
		That's the liquidity concern.
		But at the short end, one-month bills, three-month bills, six-month bills, etc., that's crashing, meaning rates are crashing.
		So the yield curve, this is called a steepener, where the long end gets higher interest rates, the short end gets lower interest rates.
		That's a very clear sign of...
		Probably the US going into a serious recession.
		In a recession, the short-term rates should plunge.
		The Fed is not leading the economy.
		They never do.
		They're following the economy.
		The Fed is following the market.
		Get rid of the idea that the Fed is leading the market.
		The Fed is following the market.
		The Fed's interest is at the short end.
		But meanwhile, at the long end, the market's saying we don't see much relief in terms of...
		Debt and deficits, you're going to have to issue a whole pile of 10-year treasury notes, so we want a higher yield to maturity.
		But that kind of steepener is a very bad sign for the economy.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Is it going to make Besson...
		Besson's job's going to be hard enough.
		He's coming in, he's going to have to refinance, I think, $7 trillion next year.
		Is the bond market telling you that their appetite may be limited for all this?
james rickards ▲ ● ▼		There's a global dollar shortage going on, and people find that hard to believe.
		Hey, the Fed printed $10 trillion.
		How could there be a dollar shortage?
		All that Fed money printing, so-called, doesn't go anywhere.
		The Fed buys bonds from Wall Street.
		They pay for it with printed money.
		That's true.
		But then Wall Street banks give the money back to the Fed, stick it on the balance sheet.
		The money doesn't go anywhere.
		It doesn't do anything for the economy.
		The money that does drive the economy comes from commercial banks, not central banks.
		And there is a liquidity crisis going on.
		Householdings of 10-year treasury notes have declined.
		And people look at that and say, oh, they're dumping their treasury notes.
		Well, they are selling them.
		I mean, they did decline.
		But the reason is they're desperate to get dollars.
		They're desperate to get the currency to prop up their own banking system.
		So we're on the brink of a global liquidity crisis.
		I think Scott Besson is going to have his job cut out.
		By the way, I have a very quickly approach.
		A pro tip for him.
		The Treasury can pull $700 billion out of thin air without printing money and without increasing the deficit or the debt.
		And the way you do it, the Fed has an asset on its balance sheet.
		This goes back to 1934. So when FDR took the gold from the Federal Reserve and gave it to the Treasury.
		The Federal Reserve is privately owned.
		Under the Fifth Amendment, you can't take private property without giving compensation.
		So what was the compensation?
		It was a piece of paper.
		You can market to market and get $700 billion without increasing the debt.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Inside baseball right there.
		Jim, hang on for one second.
		Jim Rickards, Ben Harnwell in Rome.
		We're going to sprint in the final segment here.
		Birch Gold.
		Go check out Birch Gold right now.
		End of the dollar empire.
		Modern monetary theory.
		We're going to talk about the liquidity crisis or the margin call that's coming, folks.
		Short break.
		Back in a moment.
unidentified		Here's your host, Stephen K. Mann.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Ben Harnwell in Rome.
		Take a bow, sir.
		I know you got a punch, but great work on this, on digging up this thing about people talking about saying this can't be extended, cannot be extended.
		They're setting up, and you're right.
		Kagan and Victoria Nuland, to me, they're war criminals, right?
		They got us into this mess with the color revolution.
		We're going to be deconstructing that over the next couple of weeks.
		Ben, where do people go to get you on social media between now and tomorrow when you're joining us on the Saturday show?
ben harnwell ▲ ● ▼		Steve, I want to promise the war room posse that we're going to be following these developments like a hungry eagle tracking a rather fat mouse.
		I'm on Get Us, my social media platform of choice, under my profile.
		to look at the war impossible to look out for this.
		There are a number of hoaxes going on on this front.
		And whereas you said just a few moments ago, Steve, that the trick is to lure President Trump in and stay in for six months and then they can pin this disaster on him and Jimmy Carter's making the same point, that is not an inauthentic move on behalf of the neocon establishment.
		It will, to some degree, be a legitimate act to make because President Trump will have been president for six months.
		If he does not want to get covered with the incoming on this, he has one simple thing to do.
		And that's exactly what he said he would do in the election campaign.
		Thanks, Steve.
		God bless.
		Catch you tomorrow.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, brother.
unidentified		So...
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Jim, you brought up something.
		I'll get you back on early in the week because I want to talk about this liquidity crisis, the signaling of a liquidity crisis, what I consider the biggest margin call in world history.
		But in the time I got remaining, I really want people to go to your site.
		I know already from the chat, people love your stuff.
		They love the geopolitics.
		They love the capital markets.
		So where do they go to get access to your newsletters, your books?
		I became acquainted with you with Currency War.
		I think it's 10 years old now.
		But it reads like you wrote it yesterday.
		So where do people go, sir?
james rickards ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, Steve.
		We have a landing page.
		It's at RickardsWarRoom.com, at RickardsWarRoom.com, R-I-C-K-A-R-D-S, so at RickardsWarRoom.com.
		You go there.
		You can get our newsletter, Strategic Intelligence, but we also have a new book offer.
		It's a free – if you sign up for the newsletter, you get a free book.
		It's my new book, Money GPT.
		It talks about the artificial intelligence in relation to capital markets and also nuclear warfighting.
		There's a chapter on that.
		It explains how artificial intelligence can sink the stock market – destroy the stock market.
		market.
		I'm not talking about AI stocks or NVIDIA and all that.
		I'll leave that to the Wall Street analysts.
		But artificial intelligence itself embedded in trading systems can actually destroy the markets.
		And people say, oh, is it going to malfunction?
		It's not a malfunction.
		It will work exactly as intended.
		It's the interaction with human nature that will cause a collapse.
		So I hope people enjoy it.
		But it's RickardsWarRoom.com.
unidentified		Money GPT.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Jim, honored to have you on here, brother, as one of our top contributors.
		Appreciate you.
		Rickettswarroom.com.
		Go check it out.
		What the world was not prepared for was a working class and middle class audience that had the same information you get if you're a CEO and chairman.
		That's one of the things we commit to you from my Pentagon days and days at Goldman Sachs and my own firm to make sure that you're briefed as well as any corporate CEO or chairman.
		There's so much going on and so much fight.
		Make sure.
		202-224-3121.
		You already saw the power of this audience having Pete Hexas back four weeks ago when they were an hour away of shifting out for Ron DeSantis.
		You guys stood up, stood in the breach.
		Also, this demand that these be pulled up and come forward.
		A lot of these are trying to, you know, sloughing around.
		Going to be the 17th or 18th.
		Hey, maybe be into the next week.
		Then the committee hearing.
		Then the next thing you know, you're in mid-February, late February.
		Not acceptable.
		We have to move, and that's this audience.
		202-224-312, and just tell the Senate, hey, President Trump's got to get his team.
		We need these hearings to take place next week.
		We need to quickly move through.
		They should ask all their questions.
		They can take all day if they want.
		Call them back for another day if they have to.
		But just expedite, get to a committee vote, let's get it to the floor, let's get these votes, and let's roll.
		Got to move out.
		We are burning daylight.
		Jack London had a great book by that title.
		It had that phrase from the 19th century, burning daylight.
		That's what they were doing, and we're not going to do it here.
		202-224-3121, or get to Grace Chung on Bill Blaster, or make sure you go over and check out Article 3. They're all over this, too.
		Mike Lindell, you're such a great page.
		People don't know behind the scenes, they're coming for Lindell every second of every day.
		I mean, they got the radical Attorney General.
		You think the guys in New York are bad?
		The guy in Minnesota is almost as bad.
		He's just slightly below the insanity.
		They're after Lindell all the time.
		So, Mike, talk to me about the product.
		Talk to me about the people.
		Talk to me about the offers for the Warren Posse.
mike lindell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and Steve said it right there.
		Keith Ellison came after my Lindell Recovery Network, that everybody to get people off their addictions and get them to Jesus Christ.
		That attack started about a month ago.
		The IRS is attacking us now.
		It absolutely doesn't stop because they want me to stop talking.
		They want my voice going.
		Everybody, we have the crosses.
		If you don't know, the cross that I wear all the time, we had made them actually for the Lindale Recovery Network.
		And I said, you know what?
		I'm going to give them out to the War Room Posse, put them on sale there first.
		You guys, this is an exclusive War Room special.
		You guys have so responded.
		And so you saved 30% men's and women's.
		Check that out.
		It's called MyCross.
		They're absolutely awesome.
		And I've been wearing mine for about 20 years now.
		If you go to the MyPillow website.
		And you scroll down, click on Steve there, and then there you see the new MyCross is added.
		We have this closeout event, you guys.
		All of our sleepwear, everything that we had in.
		So take advantage of that.
		Up to 80% off for the War Room Posse.
		The flannel sheets are still there.
		We've still got all the sizes and colors.
		You guys got that exclusive going on, too.
		Get yourself that bed.
		We left them on sale.
		And the mattress toppers.
		Everything we're doing, everything we can for the War Room Posse because you guys did it for us.
		Another thing, check out mystore.com.
		We also put the crosses over there.
		And you can use the promo code WARROOM there.
		That's all these entrepreneurs.
		I just had a big meeting with them.
		All the entrepreneurs, over a thousand other products.
		USA, made in the USA at mystore.com.
		So, promo code WARROOM, you guys.
		There's the number.
		Call my home reps.
		We're fighting back with all our employees.
		You guys, we've been so thankful to the War Room, Steve, and everything you've done for the country.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		One of the reasons we had such a big victory is Mike Lindell, four years laboring in the vineyard with all the Steve Stearns of the world, all the great people, to make sure we haven't gotten those platforms sorted, trust me, a long way from that, but hey.
		We made sure we got as accurate a count as possible.
		Some of the down ticket, I'm not so sure about, like in North Carolina.
		Mike, you're a hero.
		Patriot and a hero.
		See you this afternoon.
		Mike Lindell.
		Go to mypela, promo code WARROOM. The Magnificent from Robert, is it Conti?
		This won the Academy Award for Best Score.
		And he was brought in late into the film.
		The film's original score was quite different.
		He brought it in.
		One of the classic.
		American films, books, and music.
		The right stuff.
		Charlie Kirk is next.
		Poso finished that.

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