Stay ahead of the censors - Join us warroom.org/join Aired On: 1/9/2026 Watch: On X: @Bannons_WarRoom (https://x.com/Bannons_WarRoom) On the Web: https://www.warroom.org On Gettr: @WarRoom On Podcast: Apple, iHeart Radio, Google On TV: PlutoTV Channel 240, Dish Channel 219, Roku, Apple TV, FireTV or on https://AmericasVoice.news. #news #politics #realnews
| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| This is the primal scream of a dying regime. | ||
| Pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on this people. | ||
| 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 line? | ||
| Mega media. | ||
| 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. | ||
|
unidentified
|
War Room. | |
| Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon. | ||
| Friday 9th of January, Anno Domini, 2026. | ||
| Hanwell here at the helm on Steve Bannon's War Room. | ||
| Folks, we've made it through to Friday. | ||
| It's the end of the week. | ||
| We're all in one piece. | ||
| Great show coming up for you this evening. | ||
| We've got Gunther Ferlinger-Jahn, who is the chairman of the Austrian Committee for NATO Enlargement, to discuss some of the things he's been saying. | ||
| Gunter, welcome onto the show. | ||
| Good evening to you. | ||
| Thanks for coming on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks a lot. | |
| Thanks for the invitation. | ||
| Just to say hello, America. | ||
| No, You're most welcome. | ||
| Just to give a few words of introduction about you. | ||
| We'll talk about the Austrian Committee for NATO Enlargement in a moment. | ||
| But your political background is the European People's Party, which is the center-right collective across the European Union. | ||
| We criticise on the show quite a bit the EPP as we tend to favor the more nationalist right-wing movements. | ||
| I'm very grateful, therefore, that you stepped into the lion's den this evening. | ||
| Your professional background is that you were the Secretary General of SME Europe, which is the main organization representing small, medium-sized businesses to the European Union, which is obviously something that knowing a little bit about the European People's Party, especially in the German-Austrian context, is politically taken very seriously. | ||
| We've got you on the show this evening, Gunter, to discuss some of your comments that you've made on social media, specifically about your contention that if President Trump should take Greenland, then Austria should seize the US bases in Austria. | ||
| First of all, we'll hear that you say that in your own words right now, and then we'll come back and dig down on your thesis. | ||
| I just said very clearly that America should not touch our land and no to any kind of annexation of Greenland. | ||
| And please, we will take all your bases in Europe if you do it. | ||
| That's fine. | ||
| We're going to play a quick video, however, as an introduction. | ||
| Stand by. | ||
| Every single base of the Americans from Aviano to Ramstein, from Romania to all the other military bases will be confiscated and you will lose it. | ||
| And the whole position of American power since World War II, if you take Greenland, you have to leave. | ||
| It's very simple, Mrs. Miller. | ||
| This is the leverage we have. | ||
| You need the spaces for global power protection. | ||
| You won't have it. | ||
| And we can defend ourselves very well and we will do that without the US nuclear shield, without the US troops in Europe, without the American bases. | ||
| We will simply run these bases ourselves and we run your boys home into Chicago and Ohio. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And goodbye. | |
| You go extreme, we go extreme as well. | ||
| Be sure about it. | ||
| Well, normally on the show, Gunther, we have people who broadly agree with the general editorial thrust of the war. | ||
| And this is going to be a different type of show this evening. | ||
| We're going to have some real differences of opinion. | ||
| First off, perhaps you just say a little bit. | ||
| We're going to dig down on what you said most recently, your most controversial, if I may, thesis. | ||
| But before that, just say a little bit about what the Austrian Committee on NATO Enlargement is and what it is that you stand for as chairman. | ||
| I'm the leading Austrian pro-American, and I want Austria to join NATO. | ||
| That's why I created this committee. | ||
| And I want an enlarged and strong NATO where Ukraine, Kosovo, Bosnia, and all the countries are members. | ||
| And we want to have a strong, united Europe. | ||
| We want to defeat Russia, liberate Ukraine. | ||
| And we want actually to be very friendly with the United States and to help us and to be united together with the United States in the victory of the free world. | ||
| Of course, Austria is famously neutral. | ||
| How does this go down, this view, in your native Austria? | ||
| Look, Austria was liberated by the Americans and by the Soviet Union in 1945, and we were divided and occupied for 10 years. | ||
| Then we got our sovereignty. | ||
| We had to accept by the will of the Soviet Union this neutrality status. | ||
| But it's no longer valid and we need to be in NATO. | ||
| And the Americans would also benefit from Austria to be in NATO. | ||
| And it's absolutely time for us to join NATO. | ||
| It's not the majority in Austria at the moment, but I will change the public opinion, same like in Sweden, same like in Finland. | ||
| And these two other neutral nations, they came to the wisdom to join NATO in 2022 because of the Russian war against Ukraine and all of us. | ||
| And Austria will come as well to the wisdom and join NATO. | ||
| Austria has about 20,000 troops, I think, in uniform at any one time. | ||
| And America has, I think, a million troops in uniform at any one time. | ||
| How exactly do you propose to seize via force the US bases in Austria? | ||
| Look, there are no American bases in Austria. | ||
| The American bases from World War II are in Italy, in Germany, in Turkey, in Norway, and in several other countries. | ||
| So we will not seize by military means any of the bases of the Americans because you are our friends. | ||
| And you will not seize Greenland because it's European territory. | ||
| And we shall focus on winning the war against our enemies, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, North Korea, China. | ||
| This is the normal thing. | ||
| But if you do it, we definitely will cancel the status of forces agreements which you have with Germany, with Italy, with all the host nations of your military bases since the Second World War. | ||
| You have these agreements, and we can question them. | ||
| And don't underestimate our resolve in Europe. | ||
| We will not cave in to this outrageous and unjustified demand to get our territory. | ||
| Because you are very welcome to base as many troops as you want in Greenland. | ||
| You can invest in Greenland as much money as you want, but to humiliate us and to insist on a transfer of the land to the America is a completely outrageous thing to say. | ||
| And so you shall not do that. | ||
| So just to be precise, when you said that Austria should seize by force, if necessary, US spaces, you weren't literally saying that Austria should be doing this. | ||
| It's more your European coalition, your European military partners. | ||
| That's fine. | ||
| What I want to ask you is basically on the very day, I think that three days ago, on the very day that Ursula von der Leyen, again, your political family, the EPP, the president of the European Commission, was laying down to America the unacceptability of America taking Greenland. | ||
| You had the curious sight in Paris with President Macron and you had the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and what have you, along with the two envoys, US envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. | ||
| They were there underlining the absolute essential role of America in the European position, pretending protecting Ukraine from Russia. | ||
| How do you, can you say a little bit about how you juxtapose the idea that NATO could survive without America on the one hand and on the other hand the absolute essential role of America in helping to police the eventual ceasefire in Ukraine? | ||
| There will be no ceasefire in Ukraine because this is all humbug. | ||
| Russia wants war and Russia must be defeated and only once Putin is dead and does it we will have peace in Ukraine. | ||
| So ultimately this is all a waste of time the negotiations. | ||
| So it's very clear. | ||
| NATO is about European freedom, European security and America has guaranteed that and will guarantee that forever because it's in your interest. | ||
| It's in your interest to have stability here because as you know very well in the First and Second World War you had to bring millions of soldiers in order to sort out European failures and you don't want to do that. | ||
| NATO brings stability, security and it's a very very good investment for American taxpayers to have that. | ||
| But you're already spending close to a trillion of dollars every year on your military budget and so why not help us to win this war and kick the Russians out of Ukraine because they shouldn't have nothing to do there. | ||
| And it was the weakness of your President Obama who allowed them actually, did nothing to push back in 2014. | ||
| If you would have a decent president, he would have contained the Russians back then and we would not have all this mess and all this death and all this bloodshed. | ||
| So what we need to do, stand together, win the war and liberate Ukraine. | ||
| So you don't see any dissonance on the one hand of threatening America with expulsion from NATO over an eventual seizing of Greenland on the one hand and the dependence on American military to face off Russia on the other hand. | ||
| You don't see any dissonance in those two positions, holding those two positions at the same moment in time. | ||
| Look, we are like neighbors and friends. | ||
| We are like a family. | ||
| But you don't come and fuck with us. | ||
| You don't get this Greenland. | ||
| It's not yours. | ||
| You can base your troops there. | ||
| You can have the minerals if you invest in it. | ||
| It's very expensive, by the way, but you cannot take other people's land. | ||
| In which American city can you take the house of your neighbor by force? | ||
| Is this the new standards? | ||
| You cannot do that. | ||
| The Greenlanders don't want it, the Danish don't want it, and we Europeans don't want it. | ||
| And it's a completely ridiculous idea to do it. | ||
| We are also, you remember Zimmermann when he proposed Mexico to attack. | ||
| This is a hairbrain scheme. | ||
| You cannot do that. | ||
| And whoever has invented this debate is really trying to harm NATO, America, and Europe and should be banned from social media. | ||
| This is my response. | ||
| And if you do it, don't underestimate us. | ||
| We are serious people. | ||
| We have honor. | ||
| We have pride. | ||
| We have patriotism. | ||
| We are Europeans. | ||
| We will not go down without a fight with 22,000 uniformed troops. | ||
| It's not the Austrians who will defend Greenland. | ||
| It's first of all the Greenlanders. | ||
| Secondly, it will be the Danish. | ||
| And thirdly, it will be all Europeans. | ||
| And we will not fight the US Navy. | ||
| If you really have the indecency to invade Greenland, nobody will oppose you. | ||
| You can go. | ||
| But we will take your military bases. | ||
| We will cancel all your status of forces agreement. | ||
| And you will be in an airplane back home from Aviano and Ramstein. | ||
| And goodbye, America. | ||
| This is the royal we, Gunther. | ||
| When you say we, we'll do this. | ||
| It's Italy and France rather than Austria itself. | ||
| That's fine. | ||
| We'll be back with you in just one quick moment. | ||
| I want to give a quick shout out to one of the show's sponsors, Birch Gold. | ||
| Let me be blunt. | ||
| Gold is up around 40% this year. | ||
| That's not speculation. | ||
| That's reality. | ||
| And if a portion of your savings isn't diversified into gold, you're missing the boat. | ||
| Here are the facts. | ||
| Inflation is still too high. | ||
| The US dollar is still too weak. | ||
| And the government debt is insurmountable. | ||
| This is why central banks are flocking to gold. | ||
| They're the ones driving prices up to record highs. | ||
| But it's not too late to buy gold from Birch Gold Group and get in the door now. | ||
| Birch Gold will help you convert an existing IRA or 401k into a tax-sheltered IRA in gold. | ||
| You don't pay a dime out of pocket. | ||
| Plus, from now until January the 30th, when you complete a purchase with Birch Gold, they'll send you a copy of the exclusive Patriots Edition End of the Dollar Empire. | ||
| It's a limited edition book for free. | ||
| So if you want that Patriots edition end of the dollar empire, go to birchgold.com. | ||
| That's all one word, birchgold. | ||
| Birchgold.com. | ||
| Forwardstroke Bannon now to claim your eligibility. | ||
| That's birchgold.com forward stroke bannon. | ||
| Okay, back now to Gunther Ferlinger Jarn. | ||
| Gunther, so I admire your tenacity on holding this position. | ||
| If you forgive me, I really just must, however, insist on this point. | ||
| There are other things I want to ask you this evening, but I must just hold you on this point. | ||
| What moral authority does the European Union have? | ||
| Does Ursula von der Leyen have? | ||
| Does the European People's Party have? | ||
| What moral authority do you guys have to say this to the United States regarding Greenland? | ||
| And yet, at exactly the same time, in split screen, are actually essentially standing next to America in defence of Ukraine in Paris this week. | ||
| Sir, I don't understand how, if you feel, and many people do in the European People's Party, if you feel so strongly against the potential American seizure of Greenland, why are you standing side by side with America proudly in Paris To defend Ukraine against Russia. | ||
| I have 30 years of public record to be the most pro-American voice in the European theater. | ||
| I've been standing with America at 9-11. | ||
| I've been standing with America in Iraq. | ||
| I was one of the last ones or the only one in European politics who has defended the Iraq liberation of George W. Bush. | ||
| And I stand today to say that this was a rightful liberation. | ||
| I stood with you in Kosovo and Bosnia, and I will always stand with America. | ||
| But you know what is too much is too much. | ||
| If you then start to attack us and take our land, I mean, we are not servants or not kind of pushovers. | ||
| We are proud Europeans. | ||
| We have our pride and we have our history and we have our place. | ||
| We are also a strong economy and we can defend ourselves if somebody attacks us. | ||
| And even if, by some confusion of the American president, he suddenly wants our land where he can lease it, he wants to take it militarily. | ||
| This is completely unacceptable, and nobody with proud and decency would accept to submit to such nonsense. | ||
| And this will simply not happen because we will not allow it. | ||
| I just want to clarify: you are quite famously known to be an Atlanticist. | ||
| Okay, that's not in doubt. | ||
| And I'm not accusing you of anti-Americanism. | ||
| However, especially on this show, the term Atlanticist is seen as a pejorative because it's fundamentally fundamentally seen. | ||
| Now, this is the problem with the European People's Party. | ||
| It's fundamentally seen. | ||
| Atlanticism is fundamentally seen as center-right in name political groupings who are sort of rather too close to the American military-industrial complex, which obviously huge swathes of MAGA and the America First Movement are very skeptical about. | ||
| So, I just want to make that point. | ||
| No one's accusing you here of anti-Americanism, but it's your famous Atlanticism here, which is what makes us somewhat skeptical. | ||
| Point one. | ||
| The second point I want to ask: in your advocating, you're agitating to get famously neutral Austria into NATO. | ||
| Are you having an honest conversation with your fellow Austrians about the increases in taxes they will have to pay to shoulder the extra defense burden that will legitimately then fall on their sort of on their responsibility? | ||
| Yes, you know, I'm famous for also advocating the flat tax for Austria and for the United States, by the way, as well. | ||
| So, I advocate for 15% taxation, income, and corporate. | ||
| And of course, we have to reduce the welfare state and all this migration-inducing kind of social spending, which Austria loves. | ||
| This has to reduce. | ||
| Absolutely, it's too much. | ||
| We attract the whole world because we have such a generous subsidy system. | ||
| That's not good. | ||
| We must cut that and we must reduce welfare spending and we must cut taxes. | ||
| And then we can definitely afford also an increase of security-related defense spending, and we shall. | ||
| Because why should only the Germans, Italians, and Polish, and Hungarians pay for our defense and the Ukrainians pay with their blood? | ||
| We must also contribute financially. | ||
| We are a rich nation. | ||
| We have $55,000 of GDP per capita. | ||
| We are one of the tenth richest nations, so we can afford our defense spending, and we shall. | ||
| Can you tell me which country you think of if President Trump were to seize Greenland, from your perspective, which country represents the greater threat to the European Union, America or Russia? | ||
| Russia is our enemy. | ||
| You know, Russia is our eternal enemy. | ||
| We don't like Putin, he has attacked us, he is evil, and he is a genocidal maniac, and it's our common enemy of America and Europe, and of everybody who is decent. | ||
| So America will never be our enemy. | ||
| We will still love you. | ||
| But if you take Greenland, you will have a price to pay. | ||
| What is the price? | ||
| We will not shoot at your navy. | ||
| We don't even have the military assets and we will never shoot at America. | ||
| You can go take Greenland. | ||
| The price is Ramstein, Aviano, and the other basis is you need these basis. | ||
| But if you prefer to have it in Greenland, good luck with that one. | ||
| It's your choice. | ||
| But you will never fly from Frankfurt to Ramstein anymore. | ||
| You will never have your Aviano. | ||
| And if you think about it, Naples in Italy, where your Sixth Fleet is based, will also not be yours. | ||
| And we have several other less famous bases in Romania, for example, where America has considerable investments and you will never have access to them anymore. | ||
| And it will be a completely legal process. | ||
| It will be not a military thing. | ||
| We will not shoot anybody. | ||
| We are friends. | ||
| We are your allies. | ||
| But we simply legally will kick you out. | ||
| I just wanted to underline the fact then that should America seize Greenland, you will still continue to believe Russia is the principal enemy to continental Europe. | ||
| By the way, on the flat tax point, I couldn't agree with you more. | ||
| I'm very much in favour of a flat tax. | ||
| And if you can get it down to 15%, I think that would be excellent. | ||
| Now, you mentioned the migration issue in Austria, which is obviously quite politically sensitive. | ||
| You said a couple of things on re-migration, or which is the term in Europe, what we tend to call in the Anglosphere, repatriation. | ||
| Now, you said on the one hand you support remigration of enemies, but on the other hand, you say that remigration is racism. | ||
| First, about the latter point first, tell me what did you mean when you said that remigration is racist? | ||
| Look, I think that we should forcefully send out of our jurisdiction only our enemies. | ||
| So if somebody has committed serious crimes, if somebody has committed a crime of treason, like Tucker Carlsen and his people, we should forcefully send them out of our jurisdiction. | ||
| They are like parasites living in our jurisdiction. | ||
| They must go. | ||
| Goodbye, Tucker Carlsen. | ||
| But if somebody is a peaceful migrant who just wants here to work and to make a little bit of income from Mexico in your case, or from, let's say, Syria in Austria, I have nothing against people who want to work and have a normal life here. | ||
| Why not? | ||
| Let them stay. | ||
| So the mainstream center-right European political positionist Tucker Carlsen is a traitor. | ||
| Yeah, okay. | ||
| I think everybody recently thinks that personally, I don't know anybody who who thinks that. | ||
| I would support I would start the remigration programme in a very different direction. | ||
| But you have said you think that the Putinists need to be sent to Putin in Russia. | ||
| Yes, that's a very good idea. | ||
| I'm totally in favour. | ||
| Everybody who is performing, we send him to Russia immediately. | ||
| We sent them on the cattle wagons in the airplanes off to Russia. | ||
| Everybody who loves Putin sent him directly to Russia and we'll see how long it takes. | ||
| Three months, four months, two weeks, until they cry, please, European Union, can we be back? | ||
| We don't like Russia so much. | ||
| And then we just have five months. | ||
| No, that's very good, I think. | ||
| That's never going to happen. | ||
| Okay, because therefore the huge absorption of massive numbers of Islamic, what we call invaders on the show. | ||
| We don't call them migrants. | ||
| We call asylum seekers. | ||
| We call them invaders. | ||
| So you have nothing to say. | ||
| The center-right, European, supposedly Christian democratic political sphere has nothing to say about the invasion of Islamic third world invaders into Austria. | ||
| But Tucker Carlson, right, he's not allowed. | ||
| He's got to go. | ||
| He's got to go, absolutely. | ||
| And when it comes to the invasion, we in Austria have a lot of experience with real invasion from Islamic countries because we had several times the Turkish army, the Ottoman army in front of Vienna, and we were always able to kick them back successfully in the 16th century, in the 18th century, and we did so. | ||
| So we know exactly how that works and we have done it. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Today's poor migrants, when they come even from a Muslim background, who are desperate because Putin has waged a war against them in Syria and he has barrel-bombed Aleppo and then they had to run away because Obama was so weak. | ||
| Obama did all this disaster and the American power was too weak to intervene in Syria. | ||
| I don't think Jack Posebic would allow your last statement to pass. | ||
| I think it was the Poles. | ||
| I think it was the Poles who lifted the siege of Vienna, Jan Crechy Sobievsky. | ||
| It was the Polish king rather than the Austrians themselves. | ||
| But I very much admire your fighting spirit. | ||
| Well, I very much admire your fighting spirit. | ||
| I wish only it was directed in a certain different direction. | ||
| I'm very grateful for you coming on the show. | ||
| This isn't your natural political home to come in and share these views. | ||
| I'm grateful that you, in the time we had, offered to put them under a gentle probing. | ||
| On social media, which I say you're very active, where do people go to bombard you with opposition? | ||
| I have this account, Gunter Fehlinger, and also the YouTube page Gunter Fellinger Podcast. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You're very welcome. | |
| Gunther Ferlinger, Jan, very, very grateful that you spent the time to come on the show. | ||
| Now, staying, and do come back soon. | ||
| Staying on the theme, because Gunther mentioned the Syrian invasion question. | ||
| Stay with us after the break. | ||
| We have an American hero coming up on the show in just two minutes' time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Kill America's Voice, family. | |
| Are you on Getter yet? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| What are you waiting for? | ||
| It's free. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's uncensored, and it's where all the biggest voices in conservative media are speaking out. | |
| Download the Getter app right now. | ||
| It's totally free. | ||
| It's where I put up exclusively all of my content 24 hours a day. | ||
| You want to know what Steve Bannon's thinking? | ||
| Go to get her. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's right. | |
| You can follow all your favorites. | ||
| Steve Bannon, Charlie Polk, Jack Posobiech. | ||
| And so many more. | ||
| Download the Getter app now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sign up for free and be part of the new thing. | |
| That knife slit my eyelid. | ||
| It slit my eyelid right here. | ||
| It slipped my eyelid, went into my nose, went down inside my mouth, and out came around here. | ||
| Kind of thing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This particular incident has drawn significant international attention. | |
| Even the renowned New York Post has extensively reported on it. | ||
| A young American man was brutally assaulted and gravely injured with a knife while riding a tram in Dresden. | ||
| One millimeter more, and that would have taken my eye. | ||
| It would have been a very different situation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The 21-year-old wanted to help a group of women who were being harassed by several migrants. | |
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's when you intervene. | |
| That's when you try to make a change. | ||
| And her demeanor was very like, Don't know it, ladies, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, it's okay. | |
| Don't make it any worse, kind of thing. | ||
| I'm like, nah, I'm going to help you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And the other woman was also one, scared, two, didn't know what was going on. | |
| Nobody really did. | ||
| It had it happened so fast that it got out of anybody's hands. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| Well, I want to thank Vadim Dirksen, a great friend of the warrior. | ||
| He's been on many times for giving us permission to use that short clip of the interview he did with John Rudat, the American hero of Dresden, who had his face slashed, intervening to protect some young girls on the public transport. | ||
| John joins us this evening. | ||
| John, welcome on to the show. | ||
| I have to say, there aren't many guys who've been on the show who double up both as a paramedic and as a model. | ||
| But in the model, you know, famously, because this has had a huge resonance in continental Europe, and we're going to dig into this in the show now. | ||
| But your modeling career was cut short almost as quickly as it began because of the horrific scar right across your face. | ||
| Just tell us a little bit, if you wouldn't mind, what happened on that night, on that evening? | ||
| Of course. | ||
| So on August 23rd, I was going out with my host brother and a close friend of mine. | ||
| It was my first night in Dresden, really, from getting back from a recent trip in Zurich, Switzerland. | ||
| We went out, we're going to a few venues, and we got on the tram from one to another. | ||
| And that's when it all went down. | ||
| A lady behind me was sitting there alone, and a man approached, aggressively shouting, yelling at her, being like physically, verbally aggressive. | ||
| I stood up originally and asked, Hey, man, what's going on? | ||
| Like, stop, stop, stop. | ||
| She was looking scared. | ||
| She was like, No, no, it's okay. | ||
| You can sit back down. | ||
| Everything's fine. | ||
| And in the back of my mind, I'm like, no, it's not fine. | ||
| Guy went the other way. | ||
| Lady sat back down. | ||
| I sat back down as well. | ||
| And then just moments later, he came back. | ||
| She stood up, punched her right in the face, grabbed her, threw her down in the corner. | ||
| That's when I stood up, had a short altercation with him. | ||
| And unbeknownst to me, from my right, another migrant had come up from the side and was waiting for the ripe opportunity to slash me in the face. | ||
| And he did. | ||
| Now, when you said a migrant before, and I've listened to a couple of the interviews that you've given, these two guys were Syrians, weren't they? | ||
| They weren't legally present in Germany, right? | ||
| No, they were both illegal immigrants from Syria. | ||
| Tell me, this tram that you were on, who else stepped in? | ||
| So, obviously, you, as an American, immediately sees danger and steps in to help these girls, these young ladies. | ||
| What were the native Germans doing? | ||
| They were sitting down and watching. | ||
| Just watching. | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| Even after the incident, even when my face was open, bloody, and pouring out on the floors of the tram, they were sitting down. | ||
| And it actually troubled me a little bit re-watching this video, wondering how it all went down, how it happened so quickly. | ||
| And I couldn't help but notice even some people in the video, some German citizens smiling as this went down, as this was something funny. | ||
| And it shocks me. | ||
| But at the same time, this is very, very evident to what's become almost socially acceptable, socially normal here in Germany. | ||
| These kind of attacks happen left and right. | ||
| Even the host brother that I went out with that night had a friend that had the previous year been killed from a knife attack. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| You yourself, you're no stranger to Germany. | ||
| You've been, you were living in Dresden for about a year, right? | ||
| What's your perception of the violence, the immigration-based violence in Germany? | ||
| Do you think that the media is truly reporting the nature of this? | ||
| Because here's my instinct, and this is what I'd like to see if you'd confirm for me. | ||
| My instinct is, as I say, your story particularly had huge resonance. | ||
| But if you had been German and not American, and these kind of things happen every day, and the press really, the mainstream press really doesn't like to touch it. | ||
| The fact that you are American, the fact that you are doing something so typically American, which is stepping in to help someone who was vulnerable, quintessentially American, if I might sort of put it like that, I think that that sort of meant that even the mainstream media wasn't able to suppress this. | ||
| Someone with experience in Germany, tell me what it's like there. | ||
| Is it as bad as Americans at home are seeing and hearing through informal channels? | ||
| Yes, it's very bad. | ||
| And the mainstream media will do anything to not address these problems in this epidemic in Germany. | ||
| They'll sidestep it, they'll push it to the side. | ||
| Even me, after intervening in this case, when I recently went and visited the AFD, thanks to them and Parliament and the Parliament in Germany, the media originally just there switched up and called me a racist and a fascist and a Nazi, not understanding what's really going on in Germany when just a few months prior they were singing my praise when I stepped in to defend that woman. | ||
| Germans here don't feel like they can speak, don't feel like they can connect with the AFD because they'll be labeled as exactly that right-wing, fascist, Nazi, just because. | ||
| And it's absolutely abhorrent that the mainstream media are attacking the own civilians this way too, to the point that they feel like they can't do anything. | ||
| Where if they were to stand up, nobody would hear about it. | ||
| They'd push it by the wayside like they have done with all these other cases. | ||
| And it's so sad. | ||
| Us in the USA see this happening. | ||
| And as Americans, we step in when we see something like that occurring. | ||
| We stop that because that's not American. | ||
| That's not European. | ||
| That's not Western right there. | ||
| But in Germany, it's slowly becoming the norm. | ||
| You mentioned some of the criticisms and accusations made against you personally of being right-wing and all the rest of it for simply highlighting what had happened to you, simply highlighting having your face slashed as you were protecting a couple of vulnerable girls. | ||
| You're not from, you're from a progressive household, though, right? | ||
| Your parents were both progressive. | ||
| They brought you up as a progressive, though I think you're now sort of slightly more open. | ||
| Tell me about your current political inclinations and whether your experience in Dresden has changed. | ||
| Originally, as you said before, I was raised in a progressive household. | ||
| My mother worked in very democratic agencies. | ||
| My father, more on the middle of the political spectrum, serving in the military for 20 years, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and many more. | ||
| I was raised in a diversified environment, not only of sites, but of opinions. | ||
| The most important thing, the diversification of ideas. | ||
| And that's something that they're even clamping down here in Germany now. | ||
| But it provided me with an opportunity and a new way to look at the global affairs that are going on here, specifically in Germany. | ||
| But this is an epidemic in the EU at large. | ||
| And honestly, the solution really needs to be circumferential in order for the problem to get away. | ||
| You know, Germany is just a symptom. | ||
| This is really just a symptom at the end of the day. | ||
| And I'd like to see it fixed. | ||
| Back with John Rudack, American hero of Dresden, in just a quick moment. | ||
| What if you had the brightest mind in the war room delivering critical financial research every month? | ||
| Warroom listeners know Jim Rickards as our wise man, a former CIA, Pentagon, and White House advisor with an unmatched grasp of geopolitics and capital markets. | ||
| Jim predicted Trump's Electoral College victory exactly 312 to 226. | ||
| Now he's issuing a dire warning about a moment that could define Trump's presidency and your financial future. | ||
| His latest book, Money GPT, exposes how AI is setting the stage for financial chaos, bank runs at lightning speed, algorithm-driven crashes, and even threats to national security. | ||
| Right now, war room members get a free copy of Money GPT when they sign up for strategic intelligence, Jim's flagship financial newsletter. | ||
| Time is running out. | ||
| Go to ricardswarroom.com now and claim your free book. | ||
| That's ricardswarroom.com. | ||
| Rickards Warroom or one word, R-I-C-K-A-R-D-S, RicardsWarroom.com. | ||
| Okay, back to John Rudak. | ||
| Now, John, to tell me a bit then about your modeling career, when it started, when it finished, what happened? | ||
| So my modeling career quintessentially started a month before this event. | ||
| And as you said and introduced with, it was cut short immediately, pretty much, from the knife attack. | ||
| But that wasn't the only reason. | ||
| The other reason, the bigger reason, actually, is my political opinions after this event. | ||
| I had brands reach out to me right after it happened, right after the knife attack happened, and then just a few days later withdraw their statements and withdraw their invitations right after my interviews with some conservative media outlets and personalities here in Dresden and Germany went on air. | ||
| And that just highlighted to me the discrepancy underlying, infested, integrated in the German society, not only politically, but culturally, in media. | ||
| And that's actually why, funnily enough, I started my own clothing brand to give people that have been victims of that bias a platform to still work. | ||
| Tell me a bit about that new project that you've launched. | ||
| But I just want to underline here, because when people heard that your modeling career was cut short because of the scar, no, when people hear that your modeling career was cut short, they think it's because of the knife attack, because of the scar. | ||
| It's not. | ||
| It's because of the political controversy that arose out of the context of the knifing, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Exactly. | |
| Yep. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's a strange thing. | ||
| That's a strange thing. | ||
| I think that will cause some dissonance in a lot of people's minds. | ||
| I won't ask you to name names, who the brands were, who disassociated with you. | ||
| Just seeing as you mentioned it, tell me a bit about this project then that you've launched subsequent to that experience. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| So I've started my own clothing brand called Kosos. | ||
| And my aim with Kosos is to do a couple of things. | ||
| One of them is to give the right-wing models that have been exiled, at least in the German sphere, possibly moving to the United States later if this really takes off and builds a good foundation here. | ||
| But give those people, those personalities, those that image here in Germany a voice because they don't have it. | ||
| It's being taken away. | ||
| The mainstream media is just shunting it down. | ||
| And it's terrible to see because we all know where this goes. | ||
| And the Germans don't want to suffer in a place like that. | ||
| So I'm trying to, as well as, you know, come in the media space here strong in Germany and advocate for that free German speech and German safety, as much as I am in the political and media fields, as much as I am in the fashion fields. | ||
| Just trying to send it home, man. | ||
| Well, you're very coherent and very persuasive. | ||
| I'm sure the attention that has come to you, the media attention has come to you, you're going to be able to use that very convincingly to explain to people what's going on. | ||
| Just tell me a little bit, if you wouldn't mind, about that political reaction, certainly in Germany. | ||
| I know you met Alice Weidel, right? | ||
| The leader of the AFD, the alternative for Deutsche. | ||
| Just tell me a bit about that and what the general political response in Germany has been to this incident. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| Now, the Sebastian Munzenmeier was graciously generous enough to invite me out for a day in the Reichstag and take me around, have some interviews, speak about the future of Germany, talk about how we may be able to work together to bring about a better, safer, stronger Germany in the future. | ||
| And I was so excited for that. | ||
| And I had an amazing time. | ||
| Alice Vedel, as you guys saw, spent some time with me and took a picture. | ||
| We spoke for a bit and then we went on our way. | ||
| But the next day, when all this stuff aired, when all this stuff came out, when all this new information was presented to the public, there was still mixed reaction. | ||
| But I'll tell you something: man, everybody that reached out to me was positive. | ||
| And everybody that reached out to me, whether it's on Instagram, social media, X, personally, all said here in Germany that they feel afraid to even support this publicly, that they feel afraid to even advocate for this brighter future in Germany that the AFD now holds the majority popularity of. | ||
| I believe it was 26.2% last time I checked, and it's only rising. | ||
| And I'm very excited to see what kind of change they can bring to Germany here, hopefully when they win this upcoming election. | ||
| Were you a political at all before this incident? | ||
| No, I kept my political views to myself until a Syrian national decided to slash me in the face, and now they will be public. | ||
| Yeah, it is funny what it can take in terms of personal experiences to put the steel in the spine. | ||
| I've been through, I haven't been knifed in the face, but I have been through my own trial here in Italy fighting against the political establishment. | ||
| Talking about trials, tell me a bit about what's happening now. | ||
| They've caught the guy, right? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| So the original guy that was assaulting and beating up that first woman was captured that night. | ||
| He ran down to the next tram stop, even though the tram that this was all conducted on obviously wasn't going anywhere because it was now a crime scene. | ||
| The other one in the video dipped out, went to the left, and we actually really don't know where he went because he led a five-day police manhunt behind him, at which point he turned himself in. | ||
| And then, yeah, they got the two guys there and it seemed over. | ||
| But that was really the beginning of all this and the beginning of people speaking about it and advocating for themselves. | ||
| Tell me about the trial. | ||
| When's it due to take place? | ||
| So we don't know yet. | ||
| Got a message a few days ago from the police, and it was public that the prosecution will take, I believe they're going to try to get the man that slashed me in the face with aggravated assault, and he'll be tried as a minor. | ||
| As far as the other guy, I don't think he'll be getting anything. | ||
| So, the guy who actually wielded the knife, and it was some kind of flick knife, right? | ||
| He was underaged. | ||
| I believe so. | ||
| I thought he was 21 when he tried. | ||
| He claims to be underaged. | ||
| This is, of course, exactly what happened. | ||
| And there's no date for the trial. | ||
| Tell me, aggravated assault. | ||
| That doesn't sound particularly serious. | ||
| No, it doesn't. | ||
| No, it doesn't at all. | ||
| But that's the norm. | ||
| And I'm glad, despite what happens here, I'm glad that Americans can see this, can see the German justice system treat one of their own, see the German justice system treat an American who had his face slashed while trying to visit his host's father in Germany, because that's what it's come to here. | ||
| And still, we're called radical, as you talked about before, when we point this out, even in the foreign country. | ||
| And they're doing their best to keep that from getting any media outlet. | ||
| In terms of an eventual conviction, have the prosecution indicated to you what potential sentence would be handed down on a crime like this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Nope. | |
| Nope. | ||
| They couldn't get like attempt, Gatochlach, I think it's called, like an attempt on my life, an attempt on murder kind of thing. | ||
| So I think he'll get probably maybe six months, a year in jail, maybe. | ||
| But at this point, he's already been coming on the end of this month, six months in custody. | ||
| So I guess the German judge will subtract that from the larger sentence. | ||
| So he may get no time, he may get six months, but I don't think he'll get anything over a year. | ||
| Just on that point, and I think this is all going to have time to fit into the show now. | ||
| Just say in your own words, exactly what happened with the knife attack, because you mentioned attempted murder. | ||
| I gather from hearing you speak elsewhere, if you hadn't turned round alerted by the sound of the flick knife blade coming out, that slashing movement would have got you in the jugular, basically. | ||
| That would have been murder. | ||
| You just happened to turn around at the right time, as it were. | ||
| Just give me 60 seconds about exactly what happened on that. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Going into the nuisance of it, sorry, the nuance of it, the really specifics of the event was I got on that tram, sat down in that tram seat, was talking with my host brother, my friend, when that lady behind me made a few sounds, sounds like cry for help, turned around, and that's when the man originally came towards her, aggressive physically, verbally. | ||
| She shouted at him. | ||
| He shouted at her. | ||
| I stood up, tried to defuse the situation. | ||
| He took a couple steps away after shouting at me. | ||
| She turned around and said, It's okay. | ||
| It's okay. | ||
| Kind of clenching up against herself. | ||
| It didn't look like anything was okay. | ||
| And it didn't look like anything was going to get better. | ||
| And it didn't. | ||
| He came back just a few moments later, started shouting her out again. | ||
| She stood up. | ||
| He struck her in the face or in the upper body, grabbed her, threw her down into the corner of the tram seat. | ||
| That's when I got up, had the altercation with him. | ||
| And as we mentioned before, unbeknownst to me, that other attacker came up from the side. | ||
| And right as I was open-palm, yelling, stop, stop, stop, at the first attacker of the woman, I heard that click. | ||
| I know what an assisted opening knife sounds like. | ||
| And it sounded to me like it was one. | ||
| And if I hadn't, just like you said, turned to the right, that knife probably would have been aimed at my jugular carotid, and I would have been dead. | ||
| 100%. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would have been dead on that tram within 90 seconds, the same way Arena Zewitska got killed. | |
| And everyone else sat on the tram, watched some smiling, and no one came to your aid. | ||
| Absolutely incredible. | ||
| John Rudak, you really are an American hero. | ||
| Honored to have you on the show today to recount this in your own words for us. | ||
| Where do people go on social media to follow the contribution you're making to public life following this outrageous attack on you? | ||
| Of course, yeah, you can go to Instagram at john.rudat, j-o-h-n.r-u-d-at-t. | ||
| You can go on x at jonathanrudat and tick tock as well at johnrudat. | ||
| John, very, very grateful. | ||
| And indeed, that's, folks, all we have time for. | ||
| We'll be back next week. | ||
| I want to thank Will and his crack team in Denver at Real America's Voice. | ||
| And of course, Victorio Santi Franco, who worked behind the scenes to put this show together, and Cameron Wallace, the show's producer. |