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Feb. 7, 2026 - Bannon's War Room
47:59
WarRoom Battleground EP 943: Top Neuroscientist Deconstructs How POTUS Wrongfoots Opponents And German Elites Importing Crime

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Participants
Main
a
arian aghashahi
10:51
b
ben harnwell
21:56
n
nicholas wright
13:20
Appearances
s
steve bannon
r 00:47
Clips
j
jake tapper
cnn 00:10
|

Speaker Time Text
America's New Geopolitical Strategy 00:12:42
steve bannon
This is the primal scream of a dying regime.
Pray for our enemies, because we're going medieval on these people.
Here's not got a free shot at all these networks lying about the people.
The people have had a belly full of it.
I know you're going to 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.
jake tapper
And where do people like that go to share the big lie?
MAGA Media.
I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.
steve bannon
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
Stephen K. Bass.
ben harnwell
Friday, 6th of February, Annodomini 2026.
Carnwell here at the helm.
Folks, unbelievably enough, we have made it through to Friday and what a week it's been.
Now, something that the International Bureau has been following quite a lot this morning, and I'm going to read out some headlines from the press just today.
Here's a couple from the UK's Daily Telegraph.
US tells citizens to leave Iran now and how Iran plans to go to war with the US and win.
And from the New York Times, we have Iran is at work on missile and nuclear sites, satellite images show.
And the Wall Street Journal comes in with a second wave of popular anger is building in Iran.
It says, there is something going on, and I'm hearing that myself right now.
There is a drumbeat.
The war toxins are certainly increasing in frequency and volume.
So are these kind of moments who better to bring on the show than the war room's favorite neuroscientist specializing in war, Dr. Stephen Wright, Dr. Wright, Dr. Nicholas Wright, excuse me, Dr. Wright, thank you for coming on once again to help break this down.
You're also going to tell us a little bit in the second half of your segment about Venezuela, how your insights tie in to both these arenas.
Let's start off with Iran because that's the one in the news right now.
You've been making the claim that right now you think the United States is emerging into an era of new type of warfare.
But fundamentally, this is always tied back to how the brain is wired, right?
Tell us your thesis as applied to what's going on in the Middle East right now.
nicholas wright
So I think, you know, back in 2003, the invasion of Iraq by the United States was about regime change.
It was about changing the regime and then implementing a new regime, bringing a new regime in Iraq.
And the United States is prepared to do what it took to create that new regime.
I don't think that's anymore how the United States is thinking about things.
I think that now it is going back to a much older way of using lethal force or the threat of lethal force, which is that you are trying to create effects in other countries, somewhere like Iran.
Now, if you can get them to change what they're doing, either because the regime changes what it's doing, chooses to do, or because that part of part of the regime is overthrown and, for example, a military dictator takes over or whatever, then you can achieve your goals.
And the goals for the United States, I think, now are, and this is really certainly, I think, you know, if you read a lot of what is said, it's not so much about democracy promotion anymore.
It is not about spreading American ideas so much directly in somewhere like Iran anymore.
I think it's much more about increasing American and American allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia, increasing their security, their profits and their power.
And to some extent, however that's achieved in Iran, I think that's the way the US will go.
And that's new in our time, although, of course, it's how most of the world has acted throughout human history.
ben harnwell
So you're making the claim here that engagement and even a bombing of Iran right now is not to be confused with, say, the 1990s or the 2010, 2010s neocon agenda.
You're saying very, very not the 1990s or the noughties, the 20 noughties.
It's not the old neocon agenda.
And you said something interesting that this is increasing, this is all about increasing America's allies in the region.
Tell me, however, if America overthrows the regime, let me just throw this out to you.
If America overthrows the Ayatollah and the Mullahs in generally, do you think America can just leave it there and say to its regional allies, okay, Israel, you clear up, we're off now, we've job done.
Or will this not be a case of binding America in?
And if it is, because a lot of the America First Movement within the broader MA movement, a lot of the people who follow the war room, will basically think, well, okay, so the motives might be different.
They might be more admirable or defendable this time around.
But the end consequence is, is that America is going to be tied in to the Middle East when it needs to be spending its resources more on the domestic agenda.
nicholas wright
So, I mean, that's for Americans to decide how much it wants to spend abroad.
But I think it's always important to remember that if other great powers dominate the Eurasian landmass, then, you know, America is not going to be secure.
Even if the United States dominated the whole of the Western Hemisphere, that is now only about 13% of the world's population.
So America cannot entirely withdraw purely to the Western hemisphere.
And even if it did do that, that doesn't mean other countries won't be worried about what America could choose to do.
Remember, the Japanese were the ones who bombed Pearl Harbor, right?
People will always be worried.
Other countries would always be worried about what America could choose to do.
So America, I think, has to, at least to some extent, remain engaged in the world.
The question is, how can it do that in a way, and this is my understanding of how things are changing in some of the American debates now.
How can it do that in a way that is economically sustainable?
So if you go back to somebody like Eisenhower, President Eisenhower, in the early part of the Cold War, what he tried to do is he tried to use things like covert action and effective,
cost-effective ways to create effects in the world that made America and its allies more secure and enabled the United States to get more profits and more money for the United States in the long run.
And I think that is to some extent what we're going back to.
It's much less about democracy promotion.
It's much more about trying to run a world that is more profitable for the United States.
ben harnwell
The counter-argument to that, Dr. Wright, would of course be that what Ike and of course the post-war presidents set up was effectively intentionally or not is what they ended up with is the military-industrial complex.
Now, that made the MIC made a lot of money out of being present all around the world, you know, with the CIA doing its covert operations, destabilizing governments left, right, and center.
And you can sort of, with the backdrop of the Cold War, you can sort of understand the dynamics, as you illustrated, with Iran, that if we don't get in there, one of our geopolitical rivals will do.
But a lot of people have said, okay, let's just basically, I think a lot of the anger within the MAGA movement is the idea building up from 2015 onwards that it is the wrong people that was making money out of this.
This was going into the munitions, armaments, the whole, the whole bank rolling of the military-industrial complex.
One of the large reasons, one of the significant reasons that America is now $38, $0.3 trillion in debt and growing.
So of course, the counter-argument would be that, yeah, okay, so perhaps China and Russia, you know, if we don't go in there and overthrow the mullahs, China and Russia will just go in there and continue to exploit Iran for oil and all the rest of it.
But I think there are a lot of people that say, well, okay, you know, but we still have problems on the domestic agenda that we need to deal with.
We can't anymore afford to be the world's policeman.
nicholas wright
Yeah, and I think that I think there's a huge amount of truth to that.
I think the challenge is always how do you balance what you need to do domestically with what you need to do abroad.
And I think, right, let's also just step back and think about the really big challenge the United States faces right now, which is that China, not the United States, China is the world's manufacturing superpower.
China manufactures more stuff than the next four or maybe even nine countries in the world combined.
It now has more robotized, it has more robots in its manufacturing.
Per a thousand manufacturing workers, it has more robots than any G7 country.
It now leads in many things like battery technology and like drones and a variety of other really cutting-edge technologies and advanced manufacturing techniques.
Now, that is the challenge the United States faces in the world.
Now, how can the United States meet that challenge?
Bearing in mind, it is now completely outproduced by China in terms of manufacturing and advanced manufacturing capability.
So how can it compete?
Right now, the United States still has the finest military in the world, right?
So, you know, we're going to talk about Venezuela a bit later.
The Venezuela raid, I don't think any other country in the world could have done what the United States did in Venezuela.
It required incredibly advanced high-end capabilities to take out the Venezuelan air defenses.
And that enabled the US special forces to go in and capture Maduro, the leader of Venezuela.
I don't think any other country in the world could have done that.
The British, for example, have special forces people who could do that, but I don't think we would have the capability to take out all the air defenses in the way the US did.
Now, this is if the US is going to compete against China, if it is going to have the capacity to compete against China, which, as I said, outmatches the US in manufacturing capability, the US, I think, is going to, or this is one version of how it could do it, is to build its networks across the world to give it additional and extra leverage.
Now, right now, it's the only country that can really do that as effectively as it does.
But of course, China is growing in capabilities all the time.
And I think what the United States could probably usefully think of is to use this window of opportunity to use its remarkable military capabilities now to influence regimes like Iran and make them more consistent with helping pay, as you said, pay for the US military presence in the Middle East and so on.
And that could be a way the US can meet its really big challenge in this era, which is China.
Birch Gold's Last Chance Offer 00:03:37
ben harnwell
Standby, Dr. Wright.
I'm going to come back to you just after we give a quick shout out to one of the show's sponsors.
I'm going to ask you to tie in now the general geopolitical outlay which you've been describing with regards to the Middle East, China, and the US facing pretty unique challenges there to tie that in to the hard, hardwiring of the brain, which is of course your speciality.
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Brains and Surprises 00:13:33
ben harnwell
Back now to Dr. Nicholas Wright.
So you've been explaining then, Dr. Wright, how America faces pretty unique challenges.
And this is the backdrop to the increasing tension that we've been reading about in the press over the last 48 hours.
Tell us as an expert in help us navigate if these are the outer manifestations of what's going on in the hidden wiring of the brain, tie it back to your area of expertise.
nicholas wright
Yeah.
So I think what we've got to think of here, if the United States is now not going to be dominating countries with hundreds of thousands of troops, which is where we were not that long ago, it is going to have to influence people, right, in other places.
So those people choose to do what is in the better interest of the United States, right, and the United States allies, and indeed in their own better interests, hopefully in the long run.
So how can it do that?
The United States can do that by affecting how those people choose to make decisions, right?
And that necessarily involves their psychology.
It necessarily involves their brains.
So for example, if you're thinking about the leaders of states like Iran or Venezuela, right, the unpredictability of Donald Trump is actually quite effective.
So we know that one of the biggest, like one of the basic principles of our brain works is that our brain really cares about things that are surprising, things that are unpredictable.
They often have by far the biggest impact on us and how we understand the world and make our decisions.
So when President Trump, for example, is unpredictable, that helps him influence the leaders of countries like Venezuela or Iran.
Now, in addition to that, we also need to think about how can any regime run any country, right?
How can one person lead 10 people or one person lead a thousand people or a million people or 10 million people?
And that comes down to the ability of those people to sit at the top of social hierarchies, right, within their countries.
Now, that, again, that's about their brains.
Now, if the United States is going to be able to influence these countries effectively, right, and not spend huge amounts of money doing it, then, for example, it may well be that what it ends up doing is installing leaders or encouraging regimes that may not be democratic, but, you know, just as in the Cold War in Guatemala or,
for example, in Chile, are more amenable to US interests.
Now, that may not be something that we want to do morally.
And in addition to that, that may be something that is an effective way of achieving US goals, at least in the near term.
ben harnwell
Would you just you said something um, quite really, quite profound there.
I wouldn't mind if you would just hit that again about how the the, the human brain, is wired to handle unpredictability as a phenomenon, and how Donald Trump is using his um inverted government's unpredictability to try to um manipulate the responses of his adversaries.
Would you mind just sort of um covering that again for me?
nicholas wright
Yeah, so so the way our brains work is, the whole time our brains are making predictions about the world.
So you know, there's too much information coming in all the time for us to just sort of see it like it's on a passive television set in our brain.
The way our brains actually work is is we're constantly making um predictions about how the world works, what we're going to be seeing, what we're going to be doing.
We work, um using predictions.
Now, what happens is that when those predictions are wrong right, when you expect something to happen and it doesn't happen, or you're not expecting something, and then suddenly it it happens, that is a prediction error, that's a surprise right, and that those surprises are the things that change our models of the world, that really affect our decision making.
Now um, we can see that, for example, in two different ways now with what's happening with Iran, right?
So the first thing is is that, you know, nobody doubts that Donald Trump is unpredictable and he could choose to do a range of different things.
Right, as a consequence of that um, people are generally going to be affected and deterred.
In my opinion, although you can argue about that, they're going to be affected by that more than somebody who is very predictable right now.
In addition to that, we also have, for example, why is he now going to be under political pressure to do something in it with Iran?
Right, and this again comes down to, he's created an expectation.
We're now, you and I are literally talking about it right now, we're predicting that he's going to be doing something and therefore, if he doesn't do something, then that him not doing it is, then a surprise, right?
He's set up the expectation of prediction he's going to be doing something.
If he doesn't do it, then that in itself is a surprise and therefore that will have a big impact.
So we, in all of our lives, we we are constantly um, thinking about how the world's going to be.
Is it going to be more predictable?
Is it going to be less predictable?
And this is a basic way that you can uh affect um, others and, just to give you one great example, this is actually something that Taylor Swift does.
So Taylor Swift wrote a piece in the WALL Street Journal in which she said, the way that you build relationships with your fans is through surprise.
Right um, not not shock, but surprise.
And so she, for example, will often turn up and suddenly play the guitar behind somebody a fan or whatever and that'll be on social media.
So this is just an effective way of communicating, and that type of communication could be on social media for Taylor Swift.
It could be between governments, right?
And the reason is, is that it's a basic feature of how our brains work, everybody's brains.
ben harnwell
I've seen, since I've been studying Donald Trump over the last 10 years, some geopolitical analysts have suggested that what this goes back to the first term, right?
That his strategy was the madman strategy, which is just to be chaotic, so chaotic people would fear to slight America because they don't quite know how he would respond.
And I think that there's a certain logic in that.
But the way you're, as a neuroscientist, the way you've outlined this, you've actually gone really far more into this and into the neuroscience behind this and then tied it together on a psychological level.
So just basically to recap what you're saying then is that human brains, because they are bombarded with far more information than they could possibly process on a day-by-day basis, in order to survive with that bombardment of information, human brains rely on predictability in order to put a pattern in all the information they're being presented with to be able to handle it and work around it.
Because therefore the brain is hardwired as part of that pattern-seeking approach, that predictability approach, so you can sort of preempt and you can preempt what's going to happen, predict what's going to happen, and act accordingly to get an advantage.
Donald Trump, and this is really quite a genius as a level of psychology.
This is, you know, I'm amazed.
I mean, you must be amazed that a layman would be able to intuitively pick this up, like a businessman, a property development, property development, property developer, would pick this up intuitively and use it in such an outstanding way to guide the most economically, militarily, financially, culturally powerful nation on the planet, right?
It is pretty amazing that on a psychological level, he has intuited sort of what you spent sort of 20 years as an academic understanding, looking at the hidden wiring of the brain here.
unidentified
Yeah.
nicholas wright
And I mean, the thing is, I mean, surprise will always be a tool that can be used.
And he is good at using surprise, which is one of the reasons why, you know, also, for example, he's a good entertainer.
You know, when you listen to him, he has good comic timing.
Now, again, it's a tool.
It doesn't necessarily mean that everything he's doing is right or it's necessarily the best choice, but he's obviously good at using these tools, tools that tap into how our brains work.
ben harnwell
You've got about 30 seconds before we close the show.
Let me give you a yes or no question.
Sorry, Dr. Wright, to put you on the spot.
Okay.
Do you think simply on this element that you're describing, would you say it's fair to describe Donald Trump as a genius?
How he does things?
unidentified
No.
ben harnwell
Go on.
nicholas wright
I thought you wanted a yes or no.
So I gave you a no.
I would say that, for example, this was something that Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger understood.
I was in Egypt a few weeks ago and I was reading about the first ever battle described in history and they used surprise in that first ever battle that was used.
In fact, they went through Gaza.
Interestingly, so this has been a difficult period, but this is something that has been used for a very, very long time.
He's just good at doing it.
ben harnwell
I could also say that Nixon and others were geniuses.
Stay, hold on the line.
We're back off this quick two-minute break.
unidentified
Still America's Voice family.
steve bannon
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unidentified
No.
What are you waiting for?
jake tapper
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unidentified
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steve bannon
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unidentified
That's right.
steve bannon
You can follow all of your favorites, Steve Bannon, Charlie Kirk, Jack the Soviet, and so many more.
nicholas wright
Download the Getter app now.
unidentified
Sign up for free and be part of the new band.
ben harnwell
Welcome back.
I think this is the first time we've ever done this since I've been hosting the Friday show.
We're actually holding a first block guest just over onto the second block.
Dr. Wright, I can't let you go, right?
I have to say, I think from the way you've outlined this to me, that is absolutely genius, right?
The intuiting, the intuiting of the needs of human psychology on a human level, without knowing the background of the neuroscience, which is obviously your forte, your expertise,
to intuit how sort of to intuit how the human brain functions on a socially human level and to use that at a geopolitical advantage from a non-neuroscientist, basically from a property developer i think that is um look anyone who follows me on getto knows that i'm not an uncritical i i i'm not an uncritical
I mean, I very much admire Donald Trump, but sometimes I will criticize him as an analyst, right?
But this, I think, is a case of Chapo.
Hats off, right?
I'm very, very impressed.
And also that the way you sort of outlined exactly on the neurological level what I think the president has intuited.
And you said you, I said, is that genius?
And you said, no, because Nixon was probably just the same.
I would say, okay, fair enough.
Then they're both geniuses.
I'm more than happy to do that.
Look, very grateful, as always, that you come on the show and bring your insights as a neuroscientist to these things.
I think it's a perspective we don't hear anywhere else on cable television.
Where do people go on social media to keep up with your analysis, which is absolutely superb?
nicholas wright
Oh, thank you.
So Nicholas D. Wright on Twitter and my book, Warhead, How the Brain Shapes War and War Shapes the Brain is available wherever you can listen to me doing the audiobook.
ben harnwell
Perfect.
Dr. Nicholas Wright, many, many thanks indeed for your time on the show.
We'll catch up again with you soon.
God bless for now.
nicholas wright
Brilliant.
Thanks, Ben.
Citizens Left Alone 00:03:38
ben harnwell
Okay, so my next guest, very kindly has come on the show to explain something that has been absolutely horrifying the German public, Erin Agashahi.
Thank you for coming on the show, Arian.
Basically, an 18-year-old girl was taken by a guy, a 25-year-old Sudanese, and dragged on to the train tracks before an approaching train.
Both were killed instantly.
There was no connection between these two individuals.
I think the guy said to her, I'm taking you with me.
Before he killed them both.
This story sort of has electrified the debate in Germany.
Why don't you tell me a little bit more about what has happened?
arian aghashahi
Yes, thank you so much for having me.
You know, this is not your typical story about white Germans versus others.
It is a story about citizens of every background left alone with the risk that their own elites created.
As you have already mentioned, at a Hamburg subway station, an 18-year-old Iranian woman was standing on the platform like any other commuter when a 25-year-old man from South Sudan suddenly grabbed her and pulled her with him onto the tracks.
Both were killed instantly.
That single moment crystallizes a much larger problem: a political class in Germany that imports risk under the banner of compassion and then asks the public to pretend there is nothing to see.
ben harnwell
Political class imports risk under the banner under the banner of compassion.
Right, perfect.
And then asks, gaslight the German people to say that there is nothing to see here.
Tell me, that's a very elegant way of describing what's taking place.
And not, of course, only in Germany.
It's taking place right across the West.
Tell me something, as a German in Germany, about the reaction to this.
It's not the first time it's happened.
It won't be the last time that it's happened.
But how is this affecting the debate?
arian aghashahi
You know, that's a very good question.
In Germany, any attempt to talk seriously about foreign crime, about the connection between migration and security, immediately triggers a moral alarm system.
Historical guilt is activated like a fire alarm.
The discussion is evacuated before it even can begin in the first place.
This means that the people who live with the consequences of specific decisions made by the elites are told that they have no right to describe what they see with their eyes.
The message is simple.
You fear is illegitimate.
Your experience in your life is unspeakable.
Your vocabulary is forbidden.
And we live in such a climate where honesty becomes more dangerous than violence.
So many people walk in our streets.
It's called the cityscape, right?
What happened in the last 10 years after essentially the German government opened under Chancellor Angela Merkel our gates.
The cityscape in Germany changed within one decade.
Criminals Forge Home Titles 00:02:01
arian aghashahi
Yet nobody feels able to talk about it because of this alarm system I mentioned before.
ben harnwell
Stand by, Erin.
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Assimilation Challenges in Germany 00:10:22
ben harnwell
Back now with Arian Agashahi.
Aaron, now you mentioned that the lady that was thrown under the train that was killed, brutally killed by this 25-year-old South Sudanese, was of Iranian origin.
And I get that's something that you yourself will share with her.
Tell me about the Iranian community in Germany.
How I gather that there's sort of a lot of people are saying we've had enough of all of this unrestricted immigration into Germany, which is fundamentally transforming and damaging the social fabric of Germany.
Tell me more about that.
arian aghashahi
Yeah, thank you so much.
You know, to be German is not only how you look.
Of course, there is a distinctive ethnic look, how Germans appear.
But today, German citizenship defines to be a German.
So somebody like myself who has Iranian origin is a German, as a guy who is tall, white, and blonde hair.
What we share is a certain set of values, a certain step of principles.
And what happened is that since 2015, essentially more than one million people, so-called refugees who look like me, for instance, come to this country, but they don't share.
I don't share anything with them.
I share much more, if you want, with the Germans who are old and white, because it's about the values, the principles, and the way of life you are living and you want to live.
And what the left is doing, the left is somehow speaking on behalf of Germans like myself, who are actually suffering due to the consequences of immigration in Germany, as of that we need kind of protection from the evil white Germans who only speak critical about Germans with immigration background or about immigrants.
So your question is very important because in Western societies, it is not only an issue of white people.
It is an issue of every citizen.
Every citizen suffers when you have uncontrolled illegal immigration.
And you can see what is going on in the US, in Minneapolis, in Minnesota, or you can see what is going on essentially at the train station of every single big German town, at least in the Western German states.
The people who are suffering, they are the citizens.
They have multiple backgrounds.
And the left is trying to portray it as some sort of this is white versus people of color, which is definitely not the case.
ben harnwell
Tell me something, because something on the warm that we talk about quite a lot here is assimilation.
And over recent years, the West has been absorbing increasing numbers of people, especially from an Islamic background who have no desire to assimilate whatsoever.
And that's not your story, okay?
How do you feel someone, how do you feel as a German of Iranian heritage who loves his country, his adoptive country, or his parents', I should say, adoptive country.
You love Germany.
Do you find the fact that Germany, especially under Angela Merkel, absorbed so many people who do not have any intention to assimilate, that has made it more difficult for you and your family on a day-to-day basis as regular Germans?
Because there's so much more suspicion in a country that feels itself being overwhelmed by people who don't want to assimilate, that the people who do want to assimilate are sort of picking up some of the anger.
arian aghashahi
Yeah, that is a very legitimate question.
You know, we in Germany have certain traditions which date back centuries.
For instance, when you have Christmas market during the Christmas period, where we have on marketplaces nice stands where you can buy food.
You know, 15 years ago, no family was thinking about if I go and visit with my little daughter a Christmas market, there is a real risk that suddenly an illegal aen will come and drive with a truck or do or commit any other crime so that we have actually a danger if we visit the Christmas market.
If you see how a Christmas market in Germany looks like today, it's like a military barrack.
It's like a fortress.
You have fortifications in the city around every entrance.
You have police and security forces.
Now, you could say that, you know, this is what happens when you have globalization and it's not easy and this is just part of how we develop in the world and it is not only about immigration.
To everybody who's responding in this way, I have one recommendation.
You know, Poland is the neighbor country of Germany.
Just drive three hours with your car from Berlin to Wroslav, which was for many centuries a German city, which is now thankfully under Polish control, I must say, and see how a European Christian city can look like.
Beautiful, safe, clean families who are walking the street and enjoying their life.
So we did a serious mistake, and this mistake was to have unvetted illegal immigration and also legal migration.
Don't forget that the 25-year-old South Sudanese was not an illegal alien.
He actually came to Germany based on a resettlement program of the United Nations and was classified as a vulnerable group, as a vulnerable person.
This was, of course, before he committed this tragedy.
ben harnwell
Yeah, so basically, not everyone who's creating problems in the world has entered illegally.
Would you, I want to come back to the point though here, because you can offer a really unique, and with the courage that you're speaking up on these things, and you can really offer a unique perspective.
But I'd like to clarify if I may, if I've synthesized some of what you're saying correctly.
Would it be fair to say that they're bringing in our global elites bringing in in such huge numbers people who have no intention to assimilate has made the assimilation process of those people who do want to assimilate into their adoptive countries far more difficult?
Is that a fair analysis?
arian aghashahi
Yes, definitely.
You know, I wouldn't speak about a global elite.
I think that, you know, the Polish elite thankfully decided not to let this happen.
The German elite, on the other hand, made the biggest mistake.
So it's about the decisions of the political class in Germany.
And you are absolutely right.
You know, imagine a system, a welfare state where you can just come into a country, you don't work at all, and you will receive free health care.
You will receive like kind of a free paycheck every month.
Your rent is paid by the state.
The state is responsible for finding an apartment or a housing place for you and assignments for you.
Why you have people like some in my family who work more than 40 hours per week at McDonald's for more than 15 years and essentially have the same living standard that 20-year-old people who immigrated and don't want to work.
Now, if you are 20-year-old and came from whatever country and you have the decision of just not doing anything and don't have to fear any sanction and still receiving all the welfare benefits,
why should you go and work like clean the street or work in a hard job if at the end of the day, because due to this tax burden and the bureaucracy, you have the same living standard.
So it is a multi-dimensional problem.
We have a welfare state which was created under Otto von Bismarck more than 100 years ago based on the idea that you have people who work and after 30 years of work, maybe you have suddenly an accident at the workplace and then you need the people taking care of you.
And this principle is now used by 20-year-old migrants who emigrate here not to work and assimilate, but to just live a good life.
I mean, if you are from a city, from a nation where the living standard is much lower than in Germany, and you can just come to Germany and the state is essentially funding your life, which is a much better life than it was before, you cannot even complain about the guy who is doing this.
You need to address this directly to the failed policy of this government.
And it is a bipartisan.
Bipartisan Policy Debate 00:02:01
arian aghashahi
It's not about Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, Green or Left.
It is over more than 10 years now a bipartisan failure, with exception, of course, of the AFD.
ben harnwell
Just tell me, just and if you give me 60 seconds or less as we approach the end of the show, just tell me what has been the level of engagement or how have people responded and engaged to the arguments that you're making in Germany?
arian aghashahi
You know, I can make this argument a bit more free than my fellow Germans who look more typical German because you know my parents came from Iran to Germany so the left guy cannot say hey you are just a white supremacist and you want to repeat what happened under the Nazi regime in Germany.
Generally I can say it is really really hard for the ordinary German guy to speak basic facts and truth about what is going on here because of the pressure which will in consequence put on him when he speaks about it.
ben harnwell
Arian Agashahi, that's very kind of you to come on the show and share your analysis with us.
Where do people on social media go to keep up with your commentary?
arian aghashahi
You know, I usually do LinkedIn.
I'm more a strategy policy guy, so I just started with social media.
So I have a freshly created X account, Aryan underscore Germany, where you can follow me.
As you can see, I have my two followers there already.
So I would recommend people maybe to read the policy paper.
This is an area where I can provide more asset, more benefit than on social media.
ben harnwell
Folks, folks, go give Arian Agashahi a follow on Twitter.
We'll be back next Friday.
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