Bannon's War Room - WarRoom Battleground EP 837: Remembering The Fall Of Kabul; The Risk AI Is Impending On American Jobs

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Aug. 27, 2025 - Bannon's War Room

47:59

WarRoom Battleground EP 837: Remembering The Fall Of Kabul; The Risk AI Is Impending On American Jobs

Participants

Main voices

bradley thayer

12:00

dave brat

20:38

maureen bannon

08:20

Appearances

samuel hammond

04:57

Clips

jake tapper

00:10

steve bannon

00:43

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Show episode speakers

Speaker	Time	Text
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		United States Marine Corps Sergeant Joanne Rosario Picardo was part of the Marines female engagement team.
unidentified		She was a native of Lawrence, Massachusetts, a 2014 graduate of Lawrence High School and attended Bridgewater State University.
		She was full of light, armed with valor and bravery, who at the young age of 18 decided to raise her hand to serve our country as a member of the United States Marine Corps.
		Corporal Umberto Sanchez, United States Marine Corps, was a native of Logansport, Indiana, 2017 graduate of Logan's Fort High School.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		He bravely answered the call to serve his nation.
unidentified		He was honored to be putting on the Marine uniform and serve his country.
unidentified		Staff Sergeant Ryan Noss, U.S. Army, motivated young man who loved his country from Knoxville, Tennessee.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		He joined the Army shortly after graduating high school.
		He was part of the 8th SYOPS group and was looking forward to moving to DC upon his return home.
		Staff Sergeant Darren Taylor Hoover, United States Marine Corps, known as Taylor, former high school football player from Midville, Utah.
		He spent his entire adult life as a Marine for the last 11 years.
		His father said his son did what he loved, was leading his men, and was with them to the end.
unidentified		He loved the United States and proved it by his service.
		Sergeant Nicole Gee, United States Marine Corps.
		She was a Marines Marine, loved helping people, and she did it until the end.
		She's a native of Sacramento, California.
		Lance Corporal Dylan Verala, United States Marine Corps, from Rancho Cucamonga, graduate of Los Osos High School, had only been in Afghanistan two weeks, planned to study engineering in college after his military service.
		His mom said he was kind, loving, and giving to every single person.
		He would give anything for anybody.
		Lance Corporal Kareem Nikawi graduated from Norco High School in 2019.
		He loved what he was doing.
		He always wanted to be a Marine.
		David Lee Espinosa, United States Marine Corps, Laredo, Texas.
		Graduated from Lyndon B. Johnson High School.
		Grew up in Rio Bravo.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		Corporal Hunter Lopez, United States Marine Corps from Riverside, California.
unidentified		His parents are Riverside Sheriff's Deputies Captain Herman Lopez and Deputy Alicia Lopez.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		He was a brave and selfless soldier who answered the call of duty.
unidentified		Riley McCollum, United States Marine Corps, graduated in 2019 from Jackson Hole High School, was going to be a father in three weeks and was a newly wed.
unidentified		He joined the Marines the day he turned 18.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		Lance Corporal Jared Schmidt, United States Marine Corps, from St. Charles County, Missouri.
unidentified		Graduated high school in 2019.
		He became a Marine in 2020.
		He had always dreamed about being a Marine and he was on his first deployment.
		Corporal Dagan William Tyler Page, graduated from Miller South High School in Omaha, Nebraska.
		Joined the Marines in 2019.
		He loved the brotherhood of the Marines.
		His parents said he was a genuinely happy guy that you could always count on.
		And Navy Corpsman Matt Exton Soviet from Berlin Heights, Ohio.
		He graduated in 2017 from Edison High School.
		He was excited about the opportunities the Navy would offer him and planned on making the Navy a career.
		This is the primal scream of a dying regime.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼		Pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on these people.
unidentified		Here's not got a free shot on all these networks lying about the people.
		The people have had a belly full of it.
		I know you don't like hearing that.
		I know you're trying to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it.
		It's going to happen.
		And where do people like that go to share the big lie?
jake tapper ▲ ● ▼		MAGA Media.
unidentified		I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.
		Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose?
		If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.
		Here's your host, Stephen K. Vance.
		All right, everyone.
		Welcome to the war room.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		This end from the Department of Defense honors fallen heroes on the fourth anniversary of the Abbeygate attack.
unidentified		I think you all recognize that voice on this day of remembrance.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		I hope you will all take a pause, bow your head, say a prayer to God in thankfulness to the great souls, the 13 souls we lost, their physical lives down here, but they serve their country with honor.
unidentified		And so we're very thankful to them and to the pain their families have gone through.
		We hold them in our memory today.
		And so Mo Bannon, no better person to help us in this day of remembrance.
		Mo, give us your comments on this day.
		Thank you, Dave, for having me.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		And like you said, we should remember the 13 souls lost.
unidentified		You know, back four years ago, it was a botched withdrawal.
		And these 13 were murdered at Abbey Gate.
		And there were at least 20 to 28 wounded on that day four years ago.
		And they have to live with the injuries they sustained every day for the rest of their lives.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		And those 13 service members' families have to live with the loss of that service member and not being able to have grandchildren or spend the rest of their lives with their children.
unidentified		And their lives were cut so short.
		A lot of those service members were 20, 21 years old, some even 19, and they lost out on their future.
		And I know that President Trump is doing his part in holding the people for those 13 murders accountable.
		You know, in March, he arrested the ISIS-K member known as Jafar that was responsible for the planning of these attacks.
		However, why four years later have General Milley and General Austin not been held accountable for their parts in what happened?
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		This was a botched withdrawal.
unidentified		And I know a lot of people say, you know, we were there 20 years.
		We could have gotten out sooner.
		And there were four different presidents that could have gotten us out.
		But it came down to Joe Biden.
		And he did the withdrawal in the worst manner possible.
		I was part of the withdrawal out of Iraq and it wasn't perfect, but we had no souls lost during that withdrawal out of Iraq.
		And it is absolutely disgusting that those responsible for what happened have not been held accountable four years later.
		Yeah, Mo, we were chatting a bit about that before you came on.
		And say a little bit more about that.
		You're on an important board up there now with the military.
		President Trump, we see there's a lot of turnover going on in DOD under Hagseth and others, State Department.
		You know, it's too bad that the sharks rise to the top in these bureaucracies.
		How we let that happen.
		But it was all too familiar.
		Do you get a sense we're turning the ship around and that we got good ethical people that are patriots that care about these troops and the, you know, so we don't lose.
		Trump really seems to emphasize that in all of his talks on the war.
		He hates seeing the lost young men and women on the battlefield.
		And I buy it.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		And so is there room for optimism and hope that we got better people coming in now?
unidentified		I think so, Dave.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		I think that we are turning the ship around.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		I think President Trump is doing a good job.
unidentified		However, I think that he needs to hold.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		I think he needs to bring General Mark Milley and General Lloyd Austin back on active duty and court martial them and hold them accountable for what happened on August 26, 2021.
unidentified		I think that with Hagseth, the Secretary of Defense, we're doing a great job in turning things around.
unidentified		I think that he is focused on warfighting and not what the last administration was focused on, gender theory, pronoun training.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		We're actually focusing on getting back to what we should be focused on.
unidentified		God forbid we get into another war.
unidentified		But I think that we are starting to turn the ship around.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		I think it's going to take time.
unidentified		But I think that President Trump needs to hold those people accountable for what happened in 2021 because I get withdrawing from Afghanistan.
unidentified		What bothers me to my core is the way it was done.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		Those 13 service members should still be here today.
		Those 28 that were wounded should still have all of their limbs, should not have to be dealing with wounds, physical and invisible for the rest of their lives.
		We shouldn't also have service members committing suicide every day because of what they went through.
unidentified		That is not okay.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		We need to show these families that lost service members that we are holding the people responsible accountable.
unidentified		And I think that when President Trump does that, then we will fully turn the ship around.
unidentified		And I also want to address President Trump does do a good job of honoring those service members lost.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		Joe Biden did not, when they had their dignified transfers, when their remains came off the aircraft in the cases that they were transferred in to the funeral homes, Joe Biden looked at his watch every time a service member came off the plane.
unidentified		That is completely disrespectful.
		They deserve better from their commander in chief.
		So I think that once those leaders, all of them that were responsible for this botched withdrawal are held accountable, we will fully have turned the ship around.
		Yep, very well said.
		Mo Bannon and Steve Bannon have been doing the call.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		If we don't get accountability across the board, not only here at Abbey Gate, but with Russia Gate and the coup d'etat, it looks like the 2020 election evidence is coming in by the day as well.
unidentified		The CIA, the FBI, we'll lose our country, right?
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		We will lose this country if we do not hold these people accountable because it will happen all again in short order.
unidentified		And everybody will know there are new rules of the game.
		But right now we're winning.
		We're on the offense thanks to you and your dad.
		And so, Mo, thanks for being on today.
		And God bless you.
		And thanks for bringing your voice to bear for the families and the pain and these great patriots who gave everything for their country.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		God bless you.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Mo.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		Thank you for having me on, Dave.
unidentified		And like you said, take a little time today to remember those 13 lost and those service members' families.
maureen bannon ▲ ● ▼		I've had the honor of getting to know a few of their families over the last four years.
unidentified		So please think about their families today as well.
		Amen.
		You got it.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Mo.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		See you soon.
unidentified		All right, folks.
		So we're going to artificial intelligence.
		A little bit different take on things today.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		We've got Sam Hammond coming on.
unidentified		He's an expert on AI in the China race.
		And so, Sam, welcome on the show.
		And why don't you just tee us up?
		Everybody knows about the, you know, the economic competition.
		Later in the show, I'm going to go into a little bit, the war between the race to get the alliance, right?
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		A rapprochement with Russia, hopefully of some sort.
unidentified		India is leaning over to the China camp a little bit right now.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		So all this matters.
unidentified		What are the real trade-offs that are most important that you see?
		It appears China has us, has some leverage on the rare earths and all that.
		And so when it comes to the AI and the chips, are we making the right choices going forward?
		And what's it look like in the next few years?
samuel hammond ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for having me on, Dave.
unidentified		Yeah.
		So with AI, I mean, the race is on.
		You know, this year so far, data center buildouts has comprised 2% or two quarters of U.S. GDP.
		We've been spending more on data centers this year than we have on all consumer spending.
		So you can see the infrastructure buildout is underway.
samuel hammond ▲ ● ▼		And this is because ultimately, these AI systems require only a handful of inputs.
unidentified		They require the data, the training data.
		They require the energy and they require the hardware, these data centers, these chips.
		And on data and energy, China has us beat or at least a parody, right?
		So they added 400 gigawatts of energy to their grid last year.
		Ours is flatlined.
		You know, the Trump administration is making valiant efforts to try to break that gridlock and put more energy on the grid.
		But fundamentally, our advantage comes down to these chips.
		And the question is, who gets them, right?
		Because these systems are going to get increasingly powerful over the coming years.
		And every chip that we export to China or abroad is essentially exporting labor.
		It's exporting a future genius that we could use in our own country.
		Yeah, very good.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to this tech race also on the show, there's kind of mega world and then there's the tech bros.
unidentified		And as an economist, I do not like monopolies.
		And it appears we got about, you know, the magnificent seven monopolies at a minimum.
		And there's big everything in the air right now, right?
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		There's big government, big healthcare, big banking, big Federal Reserve, big green energy, big tech.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		As an economist, how do you tell us what you're seeing in your crystal ball?
unidentified		Can we have a détente and a peace between the mega and the tech bros?
		Is there a way of having a conservative AI race with China that serves the American worker?
		I hope so.
samuel hammond ▲ ● ▼		I mean, there's different pieces to this.
unidentified		If you think about how Google got so big, it did it by monopolizing ad revenue and sucking up all the revenue that was going to small newspapers and so on and so forth.
		And I do worry that AI, especially artificial general intelligence, this thing that the companies are all racing towards, essentially an AI system that could do anything a human can do.
		Once you've crossed that threshold, you become the everything company and suck up a whole cross-section of the U.S. economy.
		And we need to watch out for that kind of power concentration risk.
		But by the same token, the first country that gets to that point could also have an equally geopolitical scale advantage.
samuel hammond ▲ ● ▼		And this is where I think some of the lessons of MAGA have not fully penetrated with the tech community.
unidentified		We saw during the inauguration, all the leading big tech founders in the rotunda with Trump.
		There was one notable exception, namely Jensen Wong, the CEO of NVIDIA, the company that has a 90% plus monopoly on the production and design of these chips.
		He was in Beijing, and he was in Beijing several more times this year.
		He was recently interviewed in Beijing and said, I am Chinese, and then I became American Chinese.
		And so he's really been playing both sides of the race in this context.
		And there's also some risk that China may have leverage over the company.
		In their most recent 10K, which is an SEC disclosure, they note that if they comply with U.S. export controls, in other words, if they follow the law and not sell China these most advanced chips, that they could be subject to retaliation by the Chinese government.
		Right.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		Very good, Sam.
unidentified		Tell me this one.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		Economics is often called the dismal science for good reason.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		Back during the dot-com, probably the most famous economist on productivity, Bob Gordon, out at Northwestern University, right?
unidentified		Not a MAGA guy, but everyone around him, you know, these cell phones were going to transform productivity and make us all better workers.
		And he famously, or Robert Solo, or a couple of the guys said, they said, don't you see technology everywhere?
		And he said, yeah, I see it everywhere except in the data.
		And so this week, an MIT paper came out and it said, you know, 95% of firms have not embedded generative AI yet into their firm behavior, you know, everyday business activities.
		What do you, you know, what do you mean?
		I think AI is way more promising.
		So I'm not a Luddite, but at the same time, that's a pretty fascinating paper outcome.
		What's your take on that, Sam?
		Yeah, it's very early, right?
samuel hammond ▲ ● ▼		So these systems sort of cross reliability thresholds.
unidentified		And before then, it's sort of like self-driving.
		Until self-driving was safer than humans, but 100x safer than humans, we're not going to get autonomous cars on all the roads.
		And similar in a lot of these other contexts.
		But what I worry about is we've got over a trillion dollars of CapEx going out into these data centers.
		You mentioned the Mag 7.
		It's really these six or seven companies are driving all the stock market returns over the last year or so.
		We're balancing a huge part of the economy on these systems.
		And so there has to be a payoff at some point.
		What I kind of worry about from an economic point of view is once you've crossed over into the threshold of systems that are superior than humans in every possible way, that includes superior in the ability to design better AI systems.
		And you could get this feedback loop where the company that is even a few months in the lead ends up holding ahead from the rest.
		And sort of like my Google example or like the Amazon warehouse effect, it becomes the everything thing, the everything company.
		And then we got a real problem on our hands.
		I think the goal should not just be a pro-worker agenda for AI, but also one that distributes power, distributes it to not just workers, but also smaller businesses, little tech.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		Right.
unidentified		So other players have a stake in this.
		You mean federalism and the free market system?
		What a novel idea.
		It's good you're in with Adam Smith and the greats.
		I think we got a mini cold open for you, Sam.
		Denver, why don't you roll that and we'll react for a minute.
		Okay.
		First of all, I'm Chinese and then I became an American Chinese.
		And I happen to be in semiconductors.
		No, no, no.
		It's a crane.
		He's working, doing his job.
		And I'm in AI.
		Sam, why don't you give us your reaction to that and give us some closing comments on where we stand with all this?
		Yeah, you know, that was Jensen Wong, CEO of NVIDIA.
		You know, a decade ago, NVIDIA was known for building the best computer chips for playing video games.
		Right.
		And when you're playing video games, you know, everything, you know, the world's royster.
samuel hammond ▲ ● ▼		Do whatever you want.
unidentified		But now these chips have become functionally dual use, right?
		These same chips are being powered for your chat bot, for your AI therapist are also being used to surveil Christian minorities in China to build the stuff that they export to autocracies around the world to power their autonomous weapon systems.
		And he has yet to get through with the program.
		You saw him there say, I am Chinese, and then I became American Chinese.
		Not Chinese American, my view.
		I think that was quite intentional.
		And it really says something about the dual loyalties or at least the lack of American patriotism that some of these globalized tech companies have yet to incorporate.
		Yeah, Sam, thanks for being with us.
		We got Brad Thayer coming up next, and we're going to get into that relationship on these shared values.
		And, you know, I saw you, Mason, Grad, and I got a bunch of libertarian friends.
		And as Bannon will tell you, I have Chicago libertarian tendencies.
		But this China thing, the idea that you can trade with a communist totalitarian system that doesn't use the price system, right?
		I mean, it's hard.
		I know it's trade.
		Yeah, but it ain't free trade.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		And so I'll get you back next on that one.
unidentified		And thanks for being with us, Sam.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		Great job.
unidentified		Thank you.
		You bet.
		You bet.
		All right.
		Hey, folks, I'm going to give some thanks to one of our great sponsors, Birch Gold.
		Is the continued divide between Trump and the Federal Reserve putting us behind the curve again?
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		Can the Fed take the right action at this time, or are we going to go looking at a potential economic slowdown?
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dave brat ▲ ● ▼		If you have an IRA or an old 401k, you can convert that into a tax-sheltered IRA in physical gold.
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dave brat ▲ ● ▼		Consider diversifying a portion of your savings into gold.
unidentified		That way, if the Fed can't stay ahead of the curve for the country, at least you can stay ahead for yourself.
unidentified		And so special thanks, Birch Gold, great team over there.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		They support Steve and the show, and so please support them.
unidentified		All right, folks, we got Bradley Thayer coming up, but we got a few minutes left in this block, Bradley.
		And so, Brad, are you there?
		There he is.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		Brad, why don't you, you just heard the AI and the China piece.
unidentified		And there's interesting news.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		You know, last few weeks, India, you know, feels aggrieved over the tariffs.
unidentified		And they're making noise.
		They don't want to acknowledge the tough love part, right?
		They got a trade deficit problem.
		They have a tariff and non-terror barrier problem with us.
		They've got an oil problem subsidizing Russia with us.
		And they say, we're, you know, we're not being good friends and whatever.
		And then if you're that way to us, we're going to go with China.
		And so catch us up on this.
		And, you know, Russia, what's going on there?
		You know, Steve's always calling for a rapprochement.
		We don't trust Putin, but it's much better to have him on our side than on China's side.
		So get us up to speed, Bradley, and thanks for being with us.
		No, Dave, great to join you.
		And thanks to Steve in the earlier show, and then for you having Mo on to remember the 13 Gold Star families and those who were lost and the withdrawal, Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
		Happy to, Dave.
		There's really, if you have, if you recognize there's a kind of a triangular relationship going on between Russia, India, and China, with the United States playing, if you will, the meta-role, obviously, because the U.S. is still the dominant power in international politics and that we have the most military power in international politics.
		And that's the coin of the realm when we're looking at that.
bradley thayer ▲ ● ▼		So a couple of points to begin, Dave.
unidentified		First, tomorrow, August 27th, tariffs are going to be imposed on India.
		There are some important exceptions to those tariffs, but they're basically going to be 25% to 50% tariffs on Indian exports into the U.S. That's going to hurt the Indian economy greatly.
		And about one-fifth, almost one-fifth of Indian exports go to the U.S.
		So you can see there's going to be a blow that the Indians are going to incur.
		And so that has upset Modi with the U.S.
		But I think that's just a hiccup in the relationship, Dave.
		And I'll explain why.
		Even though there's been, secondly, a relaxation in tensions between China and India, there's still really deep, profound problems and intense security competition between China and India.
		And that's not going away anytime soon.
bradley thayer ▲ ● ▼		So India still wants to have a good security relationship with the United States despite the tariffs issue.
unidentified		And that's because China is a major threat, the major military threat to India.
unidentified		And we want to keep in mind that China also backs Pakistan and Pakistan and India.
bradley thayer ▲ ● ▼		If you remember, Dave, in April and May of this year, had a clash, a pretty sharp clash, which President Trump de-escalated, which had he not, it might have escalated into a conventional war or heaven forbid, a nuclear exchange between those countries.
bradley thayer ▲ ● ▼		So China is the threat to India directly as well as through its proxy, Pakistan.
unidentified		Bradley, let me stop you right there.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		We're going to come back to you.
unidentified		Great analysis.
		Those last points were very significant.
		Stay tuned for Bradley Thayer in the war room.
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unidentified		I'm going to go through a few charts real quick.
unidentified		None of these are going to be perfect, but they're going to lay a foundation.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to get to a story coming up from Zero Hedge: Europe's new war economy from green collapse to military Keynesianism.
unidentified		And Bradley Thayer is coming right up after these charts.
		I wanted to show these because they have something to say about China's economy, too, right?
		The European economies, as you'll see in these charts, are very slow growing.
		You know, you can lie with a statistics lie and charts lie.
		I tried to be very fair in the next few charts just to give an overview.
		But roughly speaking, this Keynesianism, you know, it's a solution for every economic crisis.
		The condensed version would go something like this.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		Nearly every recession stems from a demand shortfall by consumers.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		The state's job, therefore, is to create artificial credit to fill this demand gap.
unidentified		Think of the U.S. in 08, lower interest rates, print credit.
		So the fairy tale goes, the economy takes off.
		In reality, what remains is a mountain of state debt, a swelling bureaucracy, distorted financial markets, and declining productivity.
		And that's what I want to highlight in these next few charts.
		The demand side of Keynesianism versus the supply side of the war room and President Trump.
		So here's UK economy forecasts for 2023 and 2024.
		You look up at the top.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		UK is forecast to shrink in 2023.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		German growth, anemic.
unidentified		Russia middling there, stronger than the Euros.
		Italy, small growth.
		France, low growth.
		The U.S., a bit better.
		Canada, okay there.
		And China growing.
		And that's, I'm going to get with Thayer on this.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		Next chart, Denver, just real quick.
unidentified		Here's India up at the top.
		OECD, those are the rich countries, economic growth, GDP forecast for 2024.
		India, Indonesia, China, Turkey.
		And then down at the bottom, you see again the Europeans, France, Italy, Japan, UK, Germany, with zero growth.
		They've made all the wrong decisions.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		They went green.
unidentified		They went all green.
		And the polling data in Germany, the people are still happy.
		Two-thirds of Germans still saying we're happy with this green stuff.
		And the Germans are known for human reason and rationality.
		And how they let that happen, I have no idea.
		And now they're going to go from that green economy to a war economy.
		And so the U.S., we've got to be very careful too in our interpretation of what's going on with our economy.
		President Trump is doing everything right.
		The tariffs, he's realigning geopolitics.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		He's getting capital investment on the supply side, which causes economic growth.
unidentified		But that takes a year, year and a half.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		So we're very much still in a Biden economy.
unidentified		We're living off his lag.
unidentified		And let me show you what that looks like.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		That next chart, Denver.
unidentified		You know, this is from Bob Gordon, I mentioned.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		He's the guru on long-run productivity.
unidentified		Here's one of his charts.
		Shows the last 70 years.
		Looks at the far left.
		Labor productivity growth is in the dark green.
		And then real hourly wages go right along with it, with productivity, right?
		So you want to know why wages are down?
		It's because productivity is down.
		So it used to be 4%, 5%, 6%.
		And then in the middle of the chart, 20, 30 years ago, it was at 3% or 4%.
		And now we're at 2%.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		The long-run term is 2%.
unidentified		And Trump's got to dig our way out of that trend.
unidentified		The next chart, Denver, I'm just putting all this up.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		This is out there at Brad Economics on Getter.
unidentified		But that last number on the far right, 1.7% is the forecast from our government statistics, the long-run, you know, macroeconomic models for the next 30 years.
unidentified		And this wasn't one-off from a Biden report or whatever.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		This has been the long-range forecast zooming in at 2%.
unidentified		And so we have a lot of work to get out of that mess that's been left by the Keynesian economists who run the Federal Reserve and our U.S. government.
		Last couple of charts, Denver, next one.
		Why are we in this position?
		You just heard an economist on AI and the debt, right?
		There's our debt position, 37 trillion, and we're adding another 20 trillion.
		If you listen to CBO over the next 10 years, so we'll be at about 60 trillion.
		That's wasted resources.
		President Trump, as a business guy, is horrified by wasting resources.
		We have a $7 trillion government budget.
		$2 trillion of that are deficit financed.
		We're ripping off the kids.
		We're spending their money on green stuff.
		And the kids are going to have to pay it back.
		And so the debt is a major cause of inefficiency, low productivity.
		We've got to shove that back into the private sector.
		Last chart or two, Denver.
		I just showed since 18, all the net new jobs went to foreign-born workers.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		Trump has already turned that around on a dime.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		So that's some good news coming at you.
unidentified		Last chart, I think Denver might have one more.
		I just want to go to Bradley Thayer now and ask him for his crystal ball on China.
		China is very similar to Europe, right?
		They have a demographic problem.
		They've got a resource allocation problem with ghost cities.
		But boy, they're smart.
		They're clever.
		They can move money they steal from their workers and shove it into capital.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		They have military bases all over the world, billions and billions and billions.
unidentified		And I don't think that can last for too much longer.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		But Bradley, a lot hinges on our answer to that question.
unidentified		How productive do you think the Chinese economy still is?
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		They're saying 5% growth still.
unidentified		I don't buy it.
		But what's your analysis showing?
		Well, Dave, when the Chinese talk about their own economy, they're communists, right?
		So they're going to lie.
		And you want to remember the Mary McCarthy rule when she dismissed Lillian Hellman, right?
		Word that she wrote was a lie, including and and the.
		So, every word that the Chinese say about their economy is a lie, including and and the.
		Um, you want to keep in mind that we're talking about these numbers, uh, they're going to be manufactured and that the Chinese, being ruled by a communist party, of course, are doing their utmost to inflate them and to convey to the world as well as to the Chinese people that everything is okay, when in fact, everything is not okay.
		And it's not okay because structurally they're ruled by a communist party.
		Uh, so communists have never been able to effectively run an economy anywhere, just the reverse, they run it into the ground.
		We always want to keep that in mind.
		In addition, there are other profound problems that they have in their real estate market.
		Uh, they have still profound uh corruption, they have profound uh problems in their banking, uh, obviously, in finance, and then, of course, in exports as well.
		So, uh, the Chinese are in an economic doldrums, and they're not getting out of it anytime soon.
		So, next week, when Modi, for example, is going to be in China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting, very important summit, Putin will be there as well.
		Uh, Xi Jinping is going to do his utmost to hype the relationship that he has with India and the relationship that he has with Russia and the rest of the world.
		But, in fact, that's grossly inflated, and particularly with Modi, right?
		Who, again, as we were talking about earlier, has the profound problems, security problems, and intense security competition with the People's Republic of China.
		The greatest threat to New Delhi is Beijing and Xi Jinping's rule.
		And Modi knows that when he pays his first visit in seven years to the PRC.
		And it's still fresh in Indian minds the clashes that they had in 2021, the border clashes between the PRC and India.
		So, the Chinese economies and the doldrums, Xi Jinping does not have an answer to it.
		So, much depends, of course, on what President Trump chooses to do with the tariffs that he might impose on China, greater levels of tariffs, of course.
		And so, we'll have to see with respect to that.
		But there's no escape really for the Chinese economy.
		At the same time, that doesn't keep them from spending money on defense.
		They've announced this year they're further increasing defense spending, and we've seen tremendous growth.
		What leaders of Strategic Command have termed breathtaking expansions in their nuclear capabilities, as well as their conventional capabilities, as well as their aggression in the South China Sea against the Philippines that we're witnessing almost on a daily basis.
		So, the regime is in trouble, and that obviously is a cause of great concern in Taiwan among our allies in Japan and the Philippines, and of course, for the Trump administration.
		Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.
		You know, the Chinese and the South China Sea, they draw these dashes around what they say is their own right to the waterway, and it's basically all of it.
		There's no buffer, it's supposed to be 200 miles off the coast or whatever.
		There's no buffer for Japan or for the Philippines or any of the neighboring countries.
		They have no rights to the waterway at all, given the Chinese lines that they've drawn.
		And then, you know, the Chinese are building up a fairly significant blue water navy.
		There's news clips of them driving our boats or our allied boats off with water cannon that are just shocking.
		And then they have the equivalent of aircraft carriers on all those islands in the middle of the South China Sea where they're making claims.
		And the tens of billions, I don't know where they're, that's what the problem is.
		I cannot figure it out because it looks like the Belt and Road has taken a hit.
		But they are still embedding billions throughout Africa and strategic friendships with other countries.
		They're not friendly.
		Their tone is never friendly.
		It's just strategic.
		But what's your best guess as to are they running?
		Do you see the Belt and Road Initiative losing steam?
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		Can you see that in a relative sense from your analysis?
unidentified		Yeah, it already has.
		I think that we want to keep in mind when we're thinking about communist China, we want to keep in mind that Xi Jinping has priorities.
		His priority is first his own survival and his continuation of his rule.
		Secondly, the rule of the party has to continue.
		That's absolutely essential.
		Then thirdly, there are going to be maybe desirable goals like the continued, there's the military has to be, of course, supported, and the security services have to be supported.
		And we move beyond that.
		There are going to be desirable goals, perhaps, like prosperity or resources that they can devote to other countries.
		But the Belt and Road Initiative, of course, is dependent upon not only the economic element, Dave, but also the strategic element.
bradley thayer ▲ ● ▼		So the Belt and Road Initiative advances China's, the PRC's strategic goals, as well as, of course, their economic partially.
unidentified		But the economic is definitely secondary to the idea of gaining influence in countries around the world, from Africa to Polynesia, for example, Europe, South America, etc.
		But nothing is going to stop their aggression, right?
		I think we want to keep that in mind that we're dealing with this hyper-aggressive state.
		And as long as Xi Jinping is in control of it and the party is in control, we're going to see that.
		Next week, they're going to have a major military parade on September 3rd, the day after the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
		And that military parade is significant for a couple of reasons.
bradley thayer ▲ ● ▼		First, it's an important signal about China's, the PRC's military capabilities, what the PRC has and what it's developing.
unidentified		And that's a warning to the U.S., Taiwan, the Philippines, and India as well.
		The parade also is there to shore up his rule, right, to show that he's in charge.
		Xi Jinping is in charge of this major military force.
		And it's to convey to the Chinese people that the party is still in control.
		And Xi Jinping, despite a bunch of rumors, is still in control of the PRC.
		So next week is going to be a very important week, Dave, with respect to first the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting, then the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the surrender document signed on the deck of the Missouri.
		And then, of course, Xi Jinping's military parade, which is a political weapon, right?
bradley thayer ▲ ● ▼		He's using that to convey a message to the rest of the world and to the Chinese people.
bradley thayer ▲ ● ▼		So a very important week from the standpoint of geopolitics.
unidentified		It's important to note also finally, Dave, that Modi will not be at that parade, but Vladimir Putin will be at the military parade in Beijing next week.
		Yeah.
		Let me let me.
		I was using this article from Zero Hedge, just outstanding article.
		Everyone ought to look it up.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
unidentified		Europe's new war economy from green collapse to military Keynesianism.
		When I linked it to the growth, the growth stats of Europe are all down in the doldrums, as you're saying, where I would think China's would be as well.
		And then they conclude the article: having failed with the Green Deal, Europe's politicians are now trying a new pseudo-economy, a debt-fueled military-industrial complex.
		According to a study by Ernst ⁇ Young, Germany's DAX companies cut 30,000 jobs the first half of 25, except for defense contractors, which went up by about 17%.
		The EU's plan by 2035, the EU, Europe, European plan, by 2035, half of European defense goods from artillery, cyber defense, precision munitions will be produced within their block, creating 660,000 jobs.
		But of course, there's no sector that produces further away from the real consumer demand than the arms industry, right?
		And this is what I don't get about China either.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		It's so distorted, right?
dave brat ▲ ● ▼		This, I'll close with Erbah.
unidentified		This is Keynesian pseudo economics in its most extreme form, buying time with debt.
		And I'm bringing this up as a warning shout to the United States here, too, right?
		Buying time with debt while starving the private capital markets on this defense strategy now.
		So they're going from the green to defense.
		And this UK and France are making more war noises than anybody over there, but they're going broke doing it.
		And so how do you read it going forward, Bradley, over the next few years?
		How does this play out with U.S., Russia, Europe, China, India?
		Well, we're going to see, of course, Dave, is going to be much more security competition in that relationship.
		But President Trump is doing his utmost to ensure that the focus, the major security concern that the U.S. has is the Chinese Communist Party, right?
		Xi Jinping's rule of the CCP and in the People's Republic of China.
		So President Trump is doing his utmost to end the war in Ukraine, which is absolutely essential so that you can have a greatly improved relationship with Russia.
		With a greatly improved relationship in Russia, you then can enlist to a degree Russian help in dealing with the threat from the PRC.
		That's giving the PRC a northern flank, right?
bradley thayer ▲ ● ▼		So we always want the PRC to have a multiple warfront problem, multiple fronts that they have to address.
unidentified		Because their relationship with Russia has been very good during the war with Russia's war with Ukraine, that front has disappeared.
bradley thayer ▲ ● ▼		President Trump wants to reinstore that and to ensure that the U.S. and Russia working together within certainly boundaries.
unidentified		Putin is a wily fellow, of course.
bradley thayer ▲ ● ▼		We want to always recognize that.
unidentified		And Russia will probably never be an ally of the U.S. again, but it may be a great partner in dealing with our mutual threat, and that is the PRC.
bradley thayer ▲ ● ▼		So there's hope, obviously, for much improved relationship with Russia, and then with India as well, similarly threatened by the PRC.
bradley thayer ▲ ● ▼		And the hiccup of the tariffs are going to be attenuated.
unidentified		Dave, you know, markets adjust, right?
		So the market will adjust and India and the U.S. can get over the trouble of the tariffs to deal with the mutual threat that they face.
		So there can be, there's the great potential that President Trump can achieve and I think will achieve of a great security relation, greatly improved security relationship with Russia.
		Of course, India already is a partner in the Quad.
		And that relationship will continue and deepen.
		And then other allies that we have, like Japan, for example, and the Philippines.
		Bradley Thayer, thank you so much, Bradley.
		Put down a clinic today in the war room.

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