May 27, 2025 - Bannon's War Room
48:53
Participants
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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*Soul music* *Soul music* Come on, get out of bed. | |
| Hey, raise your name on this pad and see the ones they want. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Can I get out of bed? | ||
| appreciate theró지�туру你 dagger Of intense bombardment targeting civilian areas. | ||
| Ukraine's military reported another round of more than 350 drones and missiles launched throughout the country. | ||
| In the past week, Ukraine says, Russia has launched north of 1,300 drones and almost 100 missiles. | ||
| At least 30 civilians have been killed and more than 150 people have been injured. | ||
| And amid Russia's intensifying attacks on Ukraine, the Kremlin is pushing back at President Trump's recent criticism of Vladimir Putin, suggesting Trump is suffering from, quote, emotional overload that comes after Trump on Sunday said Putin had gone, quote, absolutely crazy. | ||
| Speaking to reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov thanked President Trump for... | ||
| Peskov then went on to claim Russia's intense bombing campaign over the past three days was retaliatory in nature. | ||
| Vladimir Putin met yesterday with Turkey's foreign minister at the Kremlin. | ||
| It's the same Turkish official who mediated the talks in Istanbul earlier this month between Russian and Ukrainian officials. | ||
| Meanwhile, Germany's new chancellor said his country and Western allies, including the UK, France and United States, are no longer imposing range restrictions on any weapons supplied to Ukraine. | ||
| From Bunker Hill to Bastogne to Cantonese to Coral Sea, from Gettysburg to Guadalcanal and Concord to Kabul. | ||
| America's best and America's bravest have fought, bled, and died so that we could pick up the torch of liberty, raise it high, high, high, and carry it onward to places they could never have dreamed of before. | ||
| The sacrifice that they made was not merely for a single battle, a long-ago victory, or a fleeting triumph decades or centuries past. | ||
| Their sacrifice was for today, tomorrow, and every morning thereafter. | ||
| Every child that lives in peace, every home that is filled with joy and love, every day the Republic stands is only possible because of those who did what had to be done when duty called. | ||
| And the cost was everything to them and to their families. | ||
| Our debt to them is eternal and it does not diminish with time. | ||
| It only grows and grows and grows with each passing year. | ||
| The greatest monument to their courage is not carved in marble or cast in bronze. | ||
| It's all around us, an American nation, 325 million strong, which will soon be greater than it has ever been before. | ||
| it will be. | ||
|
unidentified
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Давай, Идан. | |
| Идан, Идан. | ||
| Идан. | ||
| So, Mika, Chancellor Merz's announcement that the range limits will be removed is significant in terms of the damage that these missiles can do to Russian cities as far away as Moscow. | ||
| The German Taurus missile is reportedly able to reach 300 miles, which would allow it to hit Moscow. | ||
| The British Storm Shadow has got a range of 155 miles. | ||
| The Atakums missiles that the U.S. supplies can go 190 miles. | ||
| But there have been limits on how much of that range can be used. | ||
| And the Russians have simply moved their key airfields and supply depots back out of range. | ||
| So this is a significant step to put targets that would be valuable to Russia within range. | ||
| Of weapons that Ukraine either has or is getting in large quantities like the German Taurus. | ||
| More generally, Nika, this moment right now is crunch time for Donald Trump on Ukraine and on Russia. | ||
| Vladimir Putin, in effect, has disrespected him directly. | ||
| I made a survey of all the statements that Trump has made. | ||
| Since January, threatening sanctions, warning Putin, telling Putin if he didn't come to the table, there'd be trouble. | ||
| And Putin has ignored every one of them. | ||
| He's refused the compromise proposals that Trump has suggested. | ||
| He's refused to cease fire. | ||
| So now Trump really is in the situation where he's going to have to exert some real pressure on Putin to get these negotiations back on track or visibly give up. | ||
| As the Russians fire their ballistic missiles and drones on Kyiv, which would be a very, very unattractive, I want to say humiliating situation for Trump. | ||
| But under the Trump administration, those days are over. | ||
| We're getting rid of the distractions and we're focusing our military on its core mission. | ||
| Crushing America's adversaries, killing America's enemies, and defending our great American flag like it has never been defended before. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| The job of the U.S. Armed Forces is not to host drag shows to transform foreign cultures, Everybody around the world at the point of a gun, The military's job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America anywhere, anytime, and any place. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| A big part of that job is to be respected again. | ||
| And you are, as of right now, respected more than any army anywhere in the world. | ||
| And that's happening. | ||
| and I can tell you, you are respected like nobody can believe. | ||
|
unidentified
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USA! | |
| This is the primal scream of a dying regime. | ||
| Pray for our enemies, because we're going medieval on these people. | ||
| Here's the time I got a free shot of all these networks lying about the people. | ||
| The people have had a belly full of it. | ||
| I know you don't like hearing that. | ||
|
unidentified
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I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it. | |
| And where do people like that go to share the big lie? | ||
|
unidentified
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MAGA Media. | |
| I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience. | ||
|
unidentified
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Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? | |
| If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved. | ||
|
unidentified
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War Room. | |
| Here's your host, Stephen K. Vance. | ||
| Tuesday, 27 May, the year of our Lord, 2025. | ||
| It is Memorial Day week. | ||
| The House and the Senate are out back in their districts getting feedback on the big, beautiful bill. | ||
| A lot of updates on that later in the show. | ||
| Drudge, the Mac Daddy, over the last 24 hours has talked about the high likelihood that the kinetic part of the Third World War is actually going to metastasize. | ||
| And with the German decision to basically give authorization to the Ukrainians to start using missiles that hit deeper into Russian territory, Very close to metastasizing, as we've warned President Trump, obviously, all over this in the last 24, 48 hours and through today. | ||
| I'm sure we'll be hearing some announcements also what's happening in the Middle East. | ||
| I want to go first because at the same time we talk about the Third World War, the kinetic part around the rim of the Eurasian landmass. | ||
| The continued exercises of the Chinese Communist Party, the People's Liberation Army and the People's Liberation Navy around Taiwan can't be looked at as exercises. | ||
| I mean, there's no other way you can look at it. | ||
| And our great ally in South Korea that is right in the heart of all of it is under siege by the Chinese Communist Party. | ||
| That last clip in the – We have him here today. | ||
| Ambassador Tan, Colonel Grant Newsome, the great Marine Corps colonel, wrote an incredible book about when China attacks and, of course, our own Colonel John Mills. | ||
| Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. | ||
| As everything else in the world is on fire from Gaza to the Red Sea to particularly Ukraine and now around Taiwan. | ||
| Ambassador, let's start with you. | ||
| What is the current situation in South Korea with this very important election that is upon us, sir? | ||
| Yes, you have a gray zone war going on against the Korean democracy. | ||
| You have all sorts of ways in which cheating is being set up to happen, whether it's multiplying the votes from abroad, whether it's starting tomorrow, we'll see what happens. | ||
| But early voting starts tomorrow, and this is where they have cheated frequently in the past. | ||
| And one aspect of that is they're saying that you don't have to have a specific signature. | ||
| All you need is a pre-printed copy. | ||
| Well, that, of course, makes it much easier to cheat. | ||
| And so the steal is on, and we are trying to be a deterrent, a voice, and influence against that. | ||
| And we just had a major press conference over at the National Press Club today. | ||
| And we have a whole series of other meetings scheduled coming up as well. | ||
| But this is a place where China would like to take over. | ||
| The Chinese Communist Party would like to take over without firing a shot. | ||
| Before I go to the other guys, I want to continue. | ||
| Just talk to us about the Korean political establishment, particularly on the conservative side. | ||
| It has appeared to outsiders to be a tad disorganized. | ||
| And really not taking the fight to this kind of group of radicals that forced out the previous president and is seen to somehow be aligned with the Chinese Communist Party. | ||
| Is that a misinterpretation of ourselves and others in the United States or kind of confused how this could – how could this develop into this race where it looks like the opposition is leading right now? | ||
| No, I think you're right on. | ||
| And even in the Conservative People's Power Party, they are not standing up for election integrity. | ||
| And for whatever reasons, they are not in the fight along these lines. | ||
| Ambassador, can you hang on for a second? | ||
| We've got Colonel Newsom. | ||
| Our expert on the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army and Navy and their plans, particularly around Taiwan. | ||
| Also, Colonel John Mills, they're there with Ambassador Tan leading a delegation to focus on election integrity. | ||
| What we just saw in Romania, given what's happening in Germany with Alternative for Deutschland, they're trying to suppress that party, given what's happening in France with Marie Le Pen getting four years in prison. | ||
| What's happening in Brazil with Bolsonaro. | ||
| New report, they've opened an investigation in Brazil on Eduardo. | ||
| Bolsonaro, for this very reason, talking about the stealing of the last election. | ||
| His father's already on trial. | ||
| As you know, they want to put him in prison. | ||
| Eduardo Bolsonaro will be with us this evening on the afternoon and evening show to discuss this. | ||
| What President Trump and what this audience, what we went through from Election Day in 2020 all the way through the election 2024. | ||
| Election integrity is top of the list in South Korea. | ||
| Our most vital ally is now under the gun. | ||
| Short commercial break. | ||
| return to Seoul, South Korea in a moment. | ||
|
unidentified
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But I'm American, mate. | |
| I got American power. | ||
| I got American, babe. | ||
| Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon. | ||
| Okay, um... | ||
| Okay, welcome back. | ||
| Let's go to Grant Newsham. | ||
| You're an expert on the Chinese Communist Party, particularly their attack plans to roll us up in a kinetic part of the Third World War. | ||
| It looks like they're subverting actually the government of South Korea, the people of South Korea. | ||
| No, you're not. | ||
|
unidentified
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They're trying to win without fighting. | |
| The idea is to capitalize on hardcore radicals in South Korea, to have them take every lever of power in the country and just move the country over to Korea. | ||
| Over to North Korea, over to China, and away from the United States. | ||
| Most people don't want that to happen, but a hardcore group of committed radicals is within reach of really taking the country and moving it away from the U.S. to China. | ||
| So winning without fighting. | ||
| This – OK, if – and because the election is upon us, early voting starts tomorrow. | ||
| We'll know the outcome in a couple of weeks. | ||
| I understand you guys are there to fight for election integrity, which we need to do because they will try to steal it. | ||
| But if you think about it, if we were to lose South Korea in this election and turn over to this group of radicals that are aligned with the Chinese Communist Party, and we know that at least a third of the people, I think, 25 percent to a third in Taiwan. | ||
| Are open to CCP being a province and not an independent nation? | ||
| Maybe I'm a little high there, but I don't think I'm too high. | ||
| You then have two fifth columns. | ||
| Is this not the preamble to the Chinese Communist Party's assault on Taiwan? | ||
| I mean, these exercises, I'd like to get your opinion. | ||
| I've been following very closely. | ||
| Captain Fennell and others have been great in getting me information, but in others. | ||
| But you can't say these are exercises anymore. | ||
| This is essentially, you know, this is not just pre-planning. | ||
| This is they're going through the exercise of actually the air naval blockade and the air assault into Taiwan. | ||
| And so isn't the South Korean election, coupled with the fifth column, the large fifth column in Taiwan, the preamble for their invasion, sir? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, it is. | |
| It gives the Chinese a lot of momentum if they can win this. | ||
| Have their proxies in South Korea win the election. | ||
| So it gives them a momentum. | ||
| And with Taiwan, they've used some of the similar tactics, particularly in South Korea. | ||
| The leftist control of the legislature really hamstrung the conservative president. | ||
| The basically pro-Chinese KMT in Taiwan has done the same thing to the pro-freedom president of Taiwan. | ||
| They made life miserable for him with their control of the legislature. | ||
| So if you can get South Korea, you've got a huge distraction up there. | ||
| You've got momentum. | ||
| You may get the Taiwanese even to roll over. | ||
| But as you said, Steve, what they're doing militarily around Taiwan is not just posturing. | ||
| If they want to pull the trigger, they can move anytime they want. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| As the war room engine reminds me, it's a rehearsal for an invasion. | ||
| You have to see what you see here. | ||
| And I realize some of the folks say, hey, we can't get involved. | ||
| Well, you better be ready for your economy to drop 25% because all the advanced chip design and production is done there. | ||
| It will be a nuclear winter. | ||
| Forget the moral and the ethical and the standing with an ally and all that. | ||
| Put that aside. | ||
| Just look at the real politic of what's happening. | ||
| And I hate to add more bad news, but the last 72 hours have been an absolute fiasco in Japan in talking about their finances. | ||
| I mean the Japanese can't sell long-term bonds. | ||
| They announced today I think for the first time in 35 years they're not a creditor. | ||
| They're in these trade discussions with the United States, and I can tell you they're talking about the trillion dollars of government securities they own and how that has to be part of a package. | ||
| So our great ally in Japan is in horrible financial shape and distracted. | ||
| In South Korea, you have Chinese Communist Party trying to steal an election. | ||
| In Taiwan, you have a fifth column. | ||
| You already have, as you said, the election. | ||
| The president and the executive branch is conservative, but the legislature is quite leftist. | ||
| The Chinese Communist Party, whether it's Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan, has done an excellent job of infiltrating these. | ||
| So Colonel Mills, what do you guys intend to do? | ||
| Is this just symbolic, or do you guys actually think you're going to have an impact here, particularly on election integrity? | ||
| I mean, the reception you've gotten is extraordinary. | ||
| Given the size of the force that we're sending over there, it's been extraordinary. | ||
| So the Korean people obviously want this, but what type of impact are you guys going to try to have and what do you think you actually will have? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, Steve, this is political warfare. | |
| This is information warfare. | ||
| First and foremost, we want to show the South Korean people America is paying attention. | ||
| This is huge and shows an impact. | ||
| We want to let them know we have a special relationship that's been forged in blood, fire, and steel over the years, and that we are paying attention and we care about what's going on. | ||
| The second thing is paying attention and here's election observers to, uh, This is part of this international racket of election stealing that's been going on essentially since the 90s and the original writing of software for election machines in Serbia and Venezuela. | ||
| This is the fruit and the outcome of this international election racket. | ||
| And they've centralized the election. | ||
| So as opposed to the United States, where it's all about the county here, Everything is centralized. | ||
| They've already printed up the ballots with the pre-approved stamp of the precinct election officer. | ||
| And it's that Asian stamp they like to put on items, but it's not even personalized to the name of that election officer. | ||
| It's crazy. | ||
| They pre-printed the ballots with the approval stamp. | ||
| The thumbprints don't even work. | ||
| They don't match the thumbprint, and they immediately purge the image of the thumbprints anyway. | ||
| It's all a charade as far as election integrity. | ||
| And the early voting and the overseas ballots, just like they're playing with military ballots with us, it's the overseas ballots that the numbers are extraordinary and unprecedented. | ||
| So that's the third thing. | ||
| And we also want to be a deterrence to the foreign influence operation. | ||
| This is like Hong Kong 2.0. | ||
| And we asked them today, how did this happen with the Moon Jae-in signing the police agreement where you have Chinese personnel over here acting as paramilitary police, just like in Hong Kong? | ||
| This is crazy. | ||
| The people are angry. | ||
| They're scared. | ||
| They want to fight. | ||
| But we don't want to wake up June 4th and then have a debate over who lost South Korea. | ||
| We need to pay attention to this now. | ||
| So Ambassador Tan, here's what I don't get. | ||
| I understand Ukraine is a shooting war and it's actually – it looks like it's getting worse. | ||
| I understand in Gaza a disaster, the pushing of this thing of attacks into Persia, horrible, the Red Sea. | ||
| And we do have a carrier battle group, carrier strike group that's going back to Norfolk right now. | ||
| So we only have one there currently. | ||
| However, on a scale from one to ten, one being Bannon's hair is just on fire on a new topic, ten being DEFCON 1, how serious is the situation in order to be? | ||
| I would say it's a 7.5. | ||
| What we're seeing, it's like an anaconda, slowly Curling around and crushing its prey. | ||
| Because you have this rising tyranny of leftists that is going on because they have a supermajority in the National Assembly. | ||
| You have these North Korea study groups amongst the judiciary, and they've been making some awfully bad decisions in the Constitutional Court and in the Supreme Court. | ||
| For example, in the removal of President Yoon. | ||
| They're wrong on the facts. | ||
| They're wrong on the law. | ||
| And in fact, the martial law declaration itself was focused on awakening the Korean people to the election fraud that has been going on. | ||
| And so if they gain the presidency as well, they also have a lot of the schools, they have a lot of the media, they have the unions. | ||
| And so as they are marching through the institutions, they are strangling the country. | ||
| You've seen this playbook before, folks. | ||
| This is what you voted for, to have President Trump take it apart here. | ||
| We've got Harvard, we've got so much more to get into today. | ||
| Ambassador Tan, we're going to be following this daily. | ||
| What is your social media? | ||
| How do people follow you, sir? | ||
| I'm on Facebook, and that's the main social media that I post on. | ||
| And what's your handle there? | ||
| How do people get to you? | ||
| I think it's just my name, Morse Tan. | ||
| Okay, fine. | ||
| We will push that out. | ||
| Colonel Newsham, where do people get to you? | ||
| First, where do they get to your book? | ||
| Amazing book. | ||
| That'll make it tough to sleep at night after you read it, but where do they go? | ||
|
unidentified
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You can get the book on Amazon. | |
| That's usually the easiest way. | ||
| You can find me at Twitter at You can find most of my work or at the Center for Security Policy website. | ||
| Perfect. | ||
| Colonel Mills. | ||
|
unidentified
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And Colonel Rhett John, Colonel R.E.T. | |
| John on Substack, Colonel Rhett John 2 on X. Gentlemen, thank you so much. | ||
| We look forward to coming back to you in the next couple of days. | ||
| Godspeed. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| You see the playbook? | ||
| You see the playbook? | ||
| You see what they have come very close to the United States to do? | ||
| It's the same playbook. | ||
| It's the same playbook. | ||
| This is why President Trump, why do you think he's bashing these institutions? | ||
| Why do you think he's purging these institutions from law firms to the government, to the administrative state, to Harvard, to these universities? | ||
| We haven't made the assault on the deep state yet. | ||
| I know this audience is quite upset about it, and you should be. | ||
| We'll get into all of that. | ||
| I want to thank our sponsors, Birch Gold. | ||
| Particularly over the weekend, we were virtually commercial-free at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and then at Arlington National Cemetery. | ||
| Cover, I don't know, seven, eight hours of President Trump. | ||
| Live. | ||
| Just incredible. | ||
| Short commercial break. | ||
| Take your phone out. | ||
| Bannon at 989898. | ||
| The ultimate guide for investing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon. | |
| Okay, Birch Gold. | ||
| The Rio reset July 6th. | ||
| So there's a lot happening between now and July 6th. | ||
| A couple of massive elections working through the big, beautiful bill President Trump once had voted on by the Senate by July 4th. | ||
| So we're going to cover it all. | ||
| But make sure – this is all free. | ||
| Make sure you understand about the dollars, the prime reserve, currency, debt, deficits, all of it. | ||
| We make it all understandable. | ||
| Birchgold.com, promo code BANNON, get it. | ||
| The seventh free installment, the Rio Reset, on the road to Rio where the BRICS nations are trying to get off the United States dollar. | ||
| And that would have – that would be a tectonic plate shift as we say. | ||
| Mina Kim is one of the top influencers among the Korean people, particularly young people. | ||
| So, Mina, here's what I don't get. | ||
| I studied this pretty closely because I lived in and out of South Korea for years, loved the Korean people, had a lot of business partners over there, very entrepreneurial. | ||
| Very religious Christians, particularly the Baptist Church, very big over there, big evangelical community in the Korean population. | ||
| I don't get it. | ||
| It seems to me a lot of this is driven by young people on the left, and these young people seem even more radical in many respects than the leftists in the Europe, on the continent of Europe and in the United States. | ||
| It seems like a lot of these are quite attracted to – Can you tell us what's going on? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Young people in Korea are And as you know, a lot of social media we use as young people are affected, influenced by Chinese Communist Party, like TikTok and other Instagram social media. | ||
| You would see Chinese character pop up even though you don't watch, you refuse to watch something Chinese. | ||
| And that's what's happening in Korea. | ||
| So I would say right now in Korea, there's a real mix of emotions, everything from deep concern to genuine hope. | ||
| And with the June 3rd presidential election coming up, especially with the young people, we're at a major turning point. | ||
| And then the young people realize that the outcome will likely decide whether we continue down the road of freedom with the United States or shift towards more socialist China, pro-China direction. | ||
| And like you said, a lot of young people respond. | ||
| We see so many Chinese-speaking people these days, and we see so many Chinese restaurants. | ||
| And that's one of the tactics that Chinese people carry to subvert or infiltrate into one country. | ||
| They bring their food. | ||
| One of the famous food is the hot pot, and there's something called a fruit sugar, sugar fruit. | ||
| Which they bring to Korean streets and they would pretty much influence young generation to be addicted to Chinese food. | ||
| So I think that's one of the tactics that Chinese people use to support Korean young people to like them and like their policies. | ||
| Are you giving us a warning about TikTok? | ||
| Are there any restrictions on TikTok in South Korea? | ||
| Because we've talked about this whole thing, the deal's on hold here right now. | ||
| In fact, the Chinese Communist Party's put it on hold. | ||
| But explain to our audience the power of TikTok in this situation, ma 'am. | ||
|
unidentified
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So, okay, so we do not have anything against TikTok in Korea like in America. | |
| Not a lot of politicians would raise awareness on this. | ||
| But in Korea, it's mostly Instagram that people use as their main social media platform. | ||
| And a lot of Instagram posts we have here has the Chinese character algorithm for some reason applied to it. | ||
| And Koreans, when we scroll down our screen, like cell phone screens, we would only see Chinese. | ||
| Do you have a Chinese character pop up and see the video of Chinese people doing some serious weird things that would, you know, affect the Korean young people's mind? | ||
| And that's something that's a very concerning point and that's why we need that politician that could focus on banning the Chinese culture flowing into Korea like that through social media. | ||
| Has the conservative party over there just kind of given up? | ||
| I mean I'm kind of shocked about the lack of urgency in trying to get a candidate and get in the streets and make your case. | ||
| Maybe I'm just missing it, but it seems quite different than the Korea, the South Korea I knew and loved so much. | ||
| I just don't see any energy. | ||
| I don't see any urgency. | ||
| I don't see an understanding of the stakes here. | ||
| Am I off base in that? | ||
| Do I misunderstand this or is that reality? | ||
|
unidentified
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No, you're getting it exactly right. | |
| I think it's culturally because Korea has a Confucius culture where we'd like to obey older people or any kind of elites or politicians. | ||
| What they would say, we would just obey. | ||
| And that's just been our habit. | ||
| And Korea has a really relatively short history of freedom. | ||
| And our people, especially with the lack of the correct proper education, because people would not tell... | ||
| You know, gave us this freedom. | ||
| So I think that's where it came from. | ||
| People are asleep right now and we're so used to being supported by the left government and a lot of young people. | ||
| Our housings were supported, our school tuition was supported, and people | ||
| And especially in Korea, it's a lot more serious because we're surrounded by so many hostile nations like China and North Korea. | ||
| Unbelievable. | ||
| Amina, where do people get you on social media? | ||
| You are leaving in the next couple of days, so we will be able to get you in – we will be able to get you in – When do you leave? | ||
|
unidentified
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It's going to be in two, three days. | |
| So before the election, I would arrive in Korea. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| What's your social media? | ||
| Where do people... | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm more active on YouTube. | |
| It's called MKimTV. | ||
| It's a U.S. political podcast in Korean and sometimes in English. | ||
| I do run an organization called Build Up Korea, which is like Turning Point USA of America. | ||
| And then also you can find me on RealMinaKim at Twitter. | ||
| Mina, so great to have you on. | ||
| We've got your back in this fight, so keep us in the loop, okay? | ||
|
unidentified
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That means a lot to us. | |
| Thank you so much, Steve. | ||
| Thank you, ma 'am. | ||
| Folks, this is why we did all seven hours, eight hours at both West Point and at Arlington National Cemetery. | ||
| We're in the cusp. | ||
| We're already in the kinetic part of the Third World War. | ||
| If President Trump can't pull this off, I'm telling you folks, this is going to be so much worse than World War II. | ||
| And we're right on the cusp of it. | ||
| And it's on President Trump's shoulders as so much is to sort this mess out. | ||
| I want to go. | ||
| Dave Bratt is now. | ||
| We had a little technical problem. | ||
| Dave Bratt. | ||
| In fact, we're having a slight technical problem here. | ||
| They thought I was too well lit. | ||
| So they decided to go to another alternative. | ||
| You can't light me too... | ||
| Not that I need it. | ||
| Dave Bratt, we got a very special guest. | ||
| I want you to do the introductions and jump into this. | ||
| I've been waiting for this one for a long time. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Very important news piece. | ||
| Brought to a friend, a grassroots story here. | ||
| Doug DeGroote out in L.A. is like a dog with a bone. | ||
| He's like the war room posse. | ||
| He is the war room posse. | ||
| He's been fighting this one for years, bringing it to the attention, socializing the issue, finding the experts. | ||
| So he found our friend Ryan Westbury at First Trust. | ||
| They manage, what, $250 billion? | ||
| and he's got one of the leading financial papers in the country. | ||
| So he knows his stuff. | ||
| And you, Steve, you've been all over this issue, the Fed printing $8 trillion. | ||
| Now it turns out the Federal Reserve is paying interest on these bank reserves, and it gets even worse. | ||
| Now the American people are funding those interest payments through And so I brought on Brian Westbury, a friend and just a great monetary authority for our country. | ||
| We'll save us potentially a trillion dollars in the budget over 10 years. | ||
| So, Senator Ron John and House guys, here you go. | ||
| Brian, take it away. | ||
| Brian Westbury. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, Dave. | |
| How are you? | ||
| You know, we could talk about this for hours and still be a little bit confused. | ||
| The Fed loves us confused. | ||
| But the simple story is that back in 2008, the Fed used that Subprime housing crisis to grow its balance sheet massively. | ||
| I've tried to figure out ways to say this. | ||
| They went from a $700 billion balance sheet to an $8 trillion balance sheet. | ||
| Another way to say it is that the Fed, you look at the bank size, it was 5% of GDP. | ||
| Hold it. | ||
| Hang on. | ||
| Hang on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. | |
| Slow down. | ||
| The balance sheet of the Federal Reserve on the day they walked into the Oval Office with Bush was $880 billion. | ||
| I thought the max, because you're going to make my head blow up here, I thought the max they got to was $4.5 trillion. | ||
| When we took over in January 20th of 2017, inauguration day, it was $4.5 trillion. | ||
| Are you telling me they ran it up to $8 billion and they did quantitative tightening to take it down, or do they have other pockets? | ||
| They're hiding the cash, sir. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, no, they did it again. | |
| So when Paulson and Bernanke walked into W's office, Oval Office, in 2008, they printed $4.5 trillion. | ||
| That's what they did after that, during the subprime crisis. | ||
| Then they used that, like, if you think of it, that strategy. | ||
| All over again during COVID, and they did another $4.5 trillion. | ||
| And I always compare it to 2007. | ||
| So let's go back. | ||
| By the way, after President Trump took a trillion dollars off when Yellen was Fed chair in 2019, and this is what President Trump's growth in 19 over 3% was against the headwind of shrinking the ballot sheet. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They did it all over again. | |
| So if you think about it, what quantitative easing is, and so we just described the size. | ||
| It's massive. | ||
| They increased the size of the Fed's balance sheet at the peak by over 10%. | ||
| Ten times bigger. | ||
| In fact, if you take the Fed's balance sheet today, it's bigger than the top ten sovereign wealth funds in the world combined. | ||
| The Fed is by far the thousand-pound gorilla in the room. | ||
| And how if you buy all these bonds and you print all of this money, how do you keep it from turning into inflation? | ||
| Now, we know it happened once, but it but but how did they. | ||
| Well, what they did is they went in and they did three things. | ||
| They put massive new liquidity rules on banks. | ||
| They said, you have to hold this money we printed. | ||
| Don't lend it out. | ||
| Don't let it create inflation. | ||
| Then they raised capital requirements on banks to do the same thing. | ||
| And then the final thing, and this is what Dave was just talking about, they decided to pay banks to hold the money that they printed. | ||
| And so right now we're paying banks 4.5% on loans. | ||
| We're paying private banks. | ||
| $200 billion a year to hold all this cash that the Fed printed. | ||
| Because if they didn't pay them, it would turn into hyperinflation. | ||
| And so we've now created an absolute mess because the Fed's paying banks $200 billion. | ||
| They only earn about $100 billion on their bond portfolio, which means they're losing $100 billion a year. | ||
| And who pays for that? | ||
| The taxpayer. | ||
| And this is why if we stop this whole process and roll back the clock to 2007, we could save potentially $2 trillion over the next 10 years. | ||
| Hang on one second. | ||
| We're going to dive down deeper after a short commercial break. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We rejoice when there's no more. | |
| Let's take down the CCP. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Here's your host, Stephen K. Mann. | |
| *music* | ||
| If you like geopolitics and capital markets, Jim Rickards. | ||
| And Jim, I think he's going to be with us tomorrow, one of our top contributors. | ||
| RickardsWarRoom.com. | ||
| That's the landing page. | ||
| You get access to strategic intelligence. | ||
| This is a C-suite read. | ||
| As we say, you get access to it, plus he does in a free book on artificial intelligence and money and currency. | ||
| We're going to get to Joe Allen and talk about AI being out of control officially now. | ||
| They even admit it. | ||
| Make sure you go. | ||
| Rickardswarroom.com. | ||
| Check it out. | ||
| Capital markets, national security, intelligence, political economy, economics, all of it, and geopolitics. | ||
| Rickardswarroom.com. | ||
| Strategic intelligence. | ||
| Read what the C-suites throughout the world read. | ||
| This is why we put forward the Birch Gold. | ||
| This is why we put forward the Financial Times. | ||
| We want you to read what the decisions makers in the world read. | ||
| We know you don't agree with it. | ||
| You shouldn't agree with it. | ||
| It's all a con from the globalists. | ||
| Okay, so if Powell, who was not my choice for – One, I don't think we should have a Federal Reserve. | ||
| We should start with an audit. | ||
| Then we should start with an unwinding because it's always playing games. | ||
| Those two concentrations of concentrated wealth under Obama and then under Biden, the greatest ever in the history of this country. | ||
| That's what progressive Democrats do when they're really at work. | ||
| So if Powell was here, Westbury, what would he say? | ||
| He'd say, hey, Westbury, you missed the point. | ||
| This is why we need to have this and we need to pay for it. | ||
| What would his – Response being, what's your answer to his response, sir? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, Steve, as far as I know, he's only been asked once. | |
| See, you know, they control. | ||
| There's only 25 or 30 journalists allowed in the room to ask Powell questions. | ||
| But one time he left, he went to the Cato Institute, and they asked him, why do you need this? | ||
| Why don't you shrink the balance sheet back to where it was in 2007? | ||
| He goes, oh no, the world is a really dangerous place. | ||
| And what I would say is, It's just like government all the time, right? | ||
| We get a problem, government comes in to try and fix it, and then they make the problem worse. | ||
| And if you compare the amount of losses today, so the Fed held interest rates at zero, everybody bought bonds, then when they raise rates, you lose money on your bond portfolio. | ||
| So the Fed has a trillion dollars in losses. | ||
| Private banks have $600 billion in losses, and the whole subprime crisis was only $0.4 trillion, $400 billion. | ||
| So they've made the problem four times worse today than it was back in 2008. | ||
| And I would argue that the reason they've done this, or it kind of goes to Washington. | ||
| What does a bureaucrat want? | ||
| They want more power, more money, bigger staff, more control. | ||
| And that's exactly what the Fed's got. | ||
| In other words, don't let a crisis go to waste. | ||
| And so they've exploded the size of the Fed. | ||
| They've created more losses in the banking system as a result of this. | ||
| So I think his answer is actually terrible. | ||
| He doesn't understand the problems that they've created. | ||
| And then you have no journalists to cover it. | ||
| And so what happens is they keep getting away with it. | ||
| And let me just add one other question. | ||
| If we keep going down this road, we're heading for a national bank, not just a Federal Reserve that controls the money supply, but a single national bank. | ||
| And there are a lot of people, Elizabeth Warren is one of them, who have talked about a national bank. | ||
| Now, in the history of the U.S., we've talked about it many, many times, but we've never done it or it's never succeeded. | ||
| It would be a disaster. | ||
| And that's where you get the central bank digital currency, all of that kind of stuff. | ||
| And so what I want to do is roll the Fed back to 2007 at least, maybe even go back to a gold standard. | ||
| That's the only way to stop them from doing this insane money printing. | ||
| You mentioned journalists, but you failed to mention the guys in the House and the Senate. | ||
| They're looking at the big, beautiful bill in the Senate. | ||
| You can make recommendations. | ||
| Why didn't the House take care of this? | ||
| Why didn't the guys, Warren Davidson and these guys, you've got some pretty good hawks over there that hate the Fed. | ||
| I mean, he's grilling Powell all the time. | ||
| I think he's done a pretty good job. | ||
| Why did the House allow this to go on and didn't shut this down immediately? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, there's only a few members of the House or the Senate that understand monetary policy. | |
| And I kind of go back to Ron Paul. | ||
| I mean, Ron Paul had this 15 years ago, 20 years ago. | ||
| But everybody in Congress thinks he's crazy and they don't want to go against Powell. | ||
| But the Fed has a lot of political influence. | ||
| I worked as the chief economist through the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. | ||
| Greenspan was the chairman then. | ||
| And there is no senator and no congressman that I knew that would really go up against him. | ||
| Because he would make them look foolish. | ||
| I still don't get it. | ||
| I don't understand why. | ||
| But here they have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, maybe trillions of dollars that they could save the taxpayer and use to pay for the tax cuts. | ||
| Although they're just continuing the Trump tax rates. | ||
| And they just let this sit on the table. | ||
| They don't do anything about it. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Hey, real quick, we got about a minute left. | ||
| In 30 seconds, number one, you alluded to the Treasury rule. | ||
| That's the piece where the American taxpayer gets on the hook. | ||
| Can you give us 30 seconds on that and then 30 seconds on why this is not transparent like it is in other countries? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, it should be transparent. | |
| In Britain, for example, the United Kingdom, they did the same thing, quantitative easing, all central banks did, and they counted as part of the deficit. | ||
| Here in the United States, the Fed counts it as a, get ready, a deferred asset. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And what about Treasury? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Their losses are a deferred asset that they promise to pay back in the future. | |
| It's crazy. | ||
| And why is Treasury in the middle of this thing? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, Treasury's in the middle of it because now they're part of monetary policy. | |
| The Treasury used to hold $5 billion in a checking account at the Fed. | ||
| They now hold $500 billion in a checking account at the Fed. | ||
| The Treasury loves it. | ||
| They get a slush fund, basically. | ||
| Westbury, what's your social media? | ||
| We're going to have you back, dude. | ||
| My head's already blowing up. | ||
| What's your social media? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So my last name is Westbury with no T. I think they lost it at Ellis Island. | |
| So it's at westbury.com. | ||
| That's Twitter. | ||
| Thank you, brother. | ||
| Look forward to having you back on. | ||
| Brett, is Japan a lesson? | ||
| Japan is in the process of crumbling as a financial superpower before our eyes. | ||
| Bond investors throughout the world are telling whether it's Germany, the United States, or Japan, we ain't financing this stuff long. | ||
| We don't trust you. | ||
| We don't trust you. | ||
| Short break. | ||
| Second hour better than the first. |
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