Bannon's War Room - Episode 5193: UAE Freezes Iranian Assets; Economic War Grows In The Middle East
Aired: 2026-03-06
Duration: 48:51


=== Iran's Primal Scream (10:37) ===

[00:00:00]  I'm once again calling on all members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the military, and the police to lay down their arms.
[00:00:07]  They're only going to be killed.
[00:00:09]  And now is the time to stand up for the Iranian people and help take back your country.
[00:00:14]  You're going to have a chance after all these years to take back your country.
[00:00:19]  Accept immunity.
[00:00:20]  We'll give you immunity.
[00:00:22]  And we'll be giving you really the right side of history because that's what it is.
[00:00:28]  So you'll be perfectly safe with total immunity or you'll face absolutely guaranteed death.
[00:00:36]  And I don't want to see that.
[00:00:37]  They don't want to see it either.
[00:00:39]  We also urge Iranian diplomats around the world to request asylum and to help us shape a new and better Iran with great potential.
[00:00:49]  It's a country with great potential.
[00:00:50]  It's a much better future for Iran.
[00:00:53]  It's now beginning.
[00:00:54]  It's going to be, I think, a great future.
[00:00:57]  And the United States will ensure that whoever leads the country next, Iran will not threaten America or its neighbors, Israel, anybody.
[00:01:05]  And we begin with breaking news in the war with Iran.
[00:01:08]  The push to punish Iran is expanding from the battlefront to the banking system.
[00:01:15]  Morning Joe has learned that the United Arab Emirates moved forward early this morning on its threat to freeze billions of dollars in Iranian assets.
[00:01:25]  That's according to a top official in the region speaking with Joe.
[00:01:29]  The UAE has long been a financial hub for Iran and its business interests, seeking to avoid Western sanctions.
[00:01:38]  The Wall Street Journal had reported that such a move by UAE officials would sever a key economic lifeline for Iran and cut off its access to foreign capital and trade.
[00:01:51]  The Iranians who have fired over 1,000 missiles into the UAE have suffered a sharp economic downturn that was responsible for public demonstrations that led up to the American and Israeli attacks on that country.
[00:02:08]  President Trump told Axios he needs to be involved in the selection of Iran's next leader.
[00:02:14]  Asked about reports that the son of the now deceased Ayatollah may be picked to lead Iran, Trump called the Ayatollah's son a, quote, lightweight who would force the U.S. back to war in five years.
[00:02:26]  President then compared the situation to Venezuela, saying he needs to be involved in picking the next leader, like he did with the now acting president of Venezuela, Del T. Rodriguez.
[00:02:56]  President Trump has not ruled out boots on the ground in Iran.
[00:03:05]  Are you afraid of a U.S. invasion in your country?
[00:03:09]  No, we are waiting for them.
[00:03:12]  You are waiting for the U.S. military to invade the ground troops?
[00:03:16]  Yes.
[00:03:17]  Because we are confident that we can confront them, and that would be a big disaster for them.
[00:03:25]  So you're saying that Iran is ready and willing to take on the U.S. military if there were to be ground troops?
[00:03:32]  Well, we were ready for this war even more than the previous war.
[00:03:38]  So you can see the quality of our missiles, how much they are upgraded after the last war, because we learned lots of lessons.
[00:03:46]  And we are prepared for any other eventuality, even a ground invasion.
[00:03:52]  So our soldiers are prepared for any scenario.
[00:03:55]  When I said we are waiting for them, it didn't mean that we are waiting for continuation of the war.
[00:04:01]  No.
[00:04:01]  But we have prepared ourselves to confront with any scenario, with any eventuality, any possibility, and we know that we can handle that.
[00:04:10]  When it comes to the war itself, it seems that Lebanon is quickly becoming a major front, with Israel targeting Hezbollah fighters there.
[00:04:17]  The U.S. and Israel continue striking Iran, and Iran is attacking several countries in the Gulf.
[00:04:22]  Some European nations are now deploying their planes and ships to the area, but they insist it is only to protect their people and their interests and not to join the attack on Iran.
[00:04:33]  Meanwhile, the House narrowly voted down a resolution today that could have reined in Trump's war powers in Iran.
[00:04:40]  The Senate did the same thing yesterday, which means that whatever happens in this war going forward, Republicans in Congress own it just as much as President Trump does.
[00:04:51]  Well, we just had an important series of votes on the House floor.
[00:04:54]  As you know, the war powers resolution failed.
[00:04:56]  That is the right result.
[00:04:58]  We are not at war.
[00:04:59]  We have no intention of being at war.
[00:05:01]  The President and the Department of Defense have made this very clear.
[00:05:04]  The Department of War has made it very clear.
[00:05:06]  This is a limited operation.
[00:05:08]  It's an operation that's limited in its scope and duration.
[00:05:12]  It has a very clear mission, and that mission is nearly accomplished by all estimates.
[00:05:18]  We are taking down Iran's ballistic missile capability, its stockpile, and its ability to produce more.
[00:05:25]  They were doing that at a scale and a speed that was more than our regional allies could keep up with.
[00:05:33]  And it was a serious and imminent threat to the United States.
[00:05:35]  We don't need to relitigate all that today.
[00:05:38]  But also, we wanted to take down the capability of their Navy, and all of that has been very successful.
[00:05:43]  So this needs to continue.
[00:05:44]  It would have been a very dangerous gambit to take the Commander-in-Chief's ability away to complete this mission.
[00:05:50]  It would have been a very serious misstep by Congress, and I'm grateful that that resolution failed.
[00:06:09]  Marco, you've been doing a fantastic job.
[00:06:12]  And you've been doing a fantastic job on a place called Cuba.
[00:06:16]  What's happening with Cuba is amazing, and we think that we want to finish this one first, but that will be just a question of time.
[00:06:24]  He's doing some job, and your next one is going to be.
[00:06:27]  We want to do that special.
[00:06:29]  Cuba, he's waiting, but he says, let's get this one finished first.
[00:06:33]  We could do them all at the same time, but bad things happen.
[00:06:35]  If you watch countries over the years, you do them all too fast.
[00:06:39]  Bad things happen.
[00:06:40]  We have Dana Bash with us right now.
[00:06:42]  And Dana, I understand you just got off the phone with President Trump.
[00:06:47]  What did you hear from him?
[00:06:49]  I did, John.
[00:06:50]  Good morning.
[00:06:51]  He, just broadly speaking, insists that on a scale of 10, with 10 being the best, he thinks that the war is, I would say, at 12, maybe 15.
[00:07:04]  He said that the U.S. is doing very well militarily, quote, better than anybody could have dreamed.
[00:07:12]  He said that he rebuilt the military in his first term.
[00:07:16]  He's using it in his second.
[00:07:18]  And then he quickly turned to Cuba.
[00:07:21]  He said, without being asked, Cuba is going to fall pretty soon, by the way, but Cuba is going to fall.
[00:07:28]  They want to make a deal.
[00:07:29]  So Badly, and I asked, how so?
[00:07:31]  He said, they want to make a deal, so I'm going to put Marco over there, and we'll see how that works.
[00:07:37]  But we're really focused on this one now, meaning Iran.
[00:07:40]  We've got plenty of time on Cuba.
[00:07:43]  Image abroad, and specifically, how are our NATO allies computing all of this?
[00:07:49]  I think this is a gigantic blow against America's soft power.
[00:07:55]  I mean, the last time we took a hit like this was probably the Iraq War in 2003, when our positive rating all around the world was like in the teens.
[00:08:05]  I think, you know, we're risking this kind of clash of civilizations with the West against the Muslim world.
[00:08:13]  I think America's brand now, even though Trump says it's the hottest in history, by the way, whatever that means, the hottest in history, like a 1980s phrase.
[00:08:22]  I mean, it's exactly the opposite of that.
[00:08:24]  What's your biggest concern?
[00:08:27]  My biggest concern is that the ramifications of this will go all around the globe, that China and Russia will get involved.
[00:08:35]  Not only will China and Russian get involved, China and Russia will feel that they can have autonomy in their own areas.
[00:08:41]  China would think, what's stopping me from invading Taiwan now?
[00:08:45]  Putin will justify his invasion of Ukraine.
[00:08:48]  I think it's a much darker, harsher world.
[00:08:52]  If superpowers can do what they want and decapitate other regimes, it's not something I look forward to seeing.
[00:09:01]  This is the primal scream of a dying regime.
[00:09:05]  Pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on these people.
[00:09:10]  Usually it's not got a free shot on all these networks lying about the people.
[00:09:15]  The people have had a belly full of it.
[00:09:17]  I know you don't like hearing that.
[00:09:18]  I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it.
[00:09:21]  It's going to happen.
[00:09:22]  And where do people like that go to share the big lie?
[00:09:25]  MAGA media.
[00:09:27]  I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.
[00:09:32]  Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose?
[00:09:36]  If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.
[00:09:43]  Here's your host, Stephen K. Vance.
[00:09:51]  Friday 6th, March, in the year of earlier, 2026.
[00:09:54]  Do you feel that we're in a fourth turning yet?
[00:09:59]  Are you now believe in our theory of turnings?
[00:10:04]  So there's so much going on.
[00:10:06]  I want to cut through all the noise and focus on the signal.
[00:10:09]  One thing, can I play the – so I've got Brandon Weikert up here for some military observations about this ongoing military operation.
[00:10:19]  President Trump did come out a few minutes ago, I'll get to that, and put out a true social where he said he was looking for unconditional surrender from the regime.
[00:10:28]  Raheem Kassam also is going to drum.
[00:10:30]  We've got updates from Raheem and thinking this all through, plus this situation in Texas with the Senate race.
[00:10:36]  I want to go back.

=== UAE's Move Against Iran (03:24) ===

[00:10:37]  Can we play the Morning Mika clip and I'll explain why this is so important?
[00:10:42]  And we begin with breaking news in the war with Iran.
[00:10:45]  The push to punish Iran is expanding from the battlefront to the banking system.
[00:10:52]  Morning Joe has learned that the United Arab Emirates moved forward early this morning on its threat to freeze billions of dollars in Iranian assets.
[00:11:03]  That's according to a top official in the region speaking with Joe.
[00:11:07]  The UAE has long been a financial hub for Iran and its business interests, seeking to avoid Western sanctions.
[00:11:15]  The Wall Street Journal had reported that such a move by UAE officials would sever a key economic lifeline for Iran and cut off its access to foreign capital and trade.
[00:11:28]  The Iranians, who have fired over 1,000 missiles into the UAE, have suffered a sharp economic downturn that was responsible for public demonstrations that led up to the American and Israeli attacks on that country.
[00:11:45]  Okay, as we tell you in war, particularly economic war, this is one of the dirty little secrets that a lot of people don't talk about because you would think that naturally UAE and Iran in the Saudis particularly, those two have always been directly confrontational with the Iranians, whereas Qatar maybe was in business with them, had the gas fields, part of them are jointly run.
[00:12:11]  The reality is, and this is why this is such an important development, we'll get into some of the economics of hitting these refineries, hitting desalination plants.
[00:12:24]  Dubai is the equivalent of, was it Tartuga for the Caribbean pirates, Captain Morgan in that crowd, and also a financial center back then where they could actually trade their stolen goods into cash, into gold.
[00:12:41]  Same thing here.
[00:12:43]  The financial center in Dubai, the reason that the Persians can get around sanctions, the reason that they could still survive is they used Dubai and used the banks.
[00:12:54]  Just like in the Ukraine-Russian war, when the EU and the EU banks and Biden regime talked about seizing the financial assets of the Russian people, and clearly that had a major impact, a massive impact on Russia's ability to continue the war here, the same thing.
[00:13:15]  The economic war, the total war that's happening around Iran is only metastasizing.
[00:13:23]  This is why the Chinese Communist Party, the Russians who have been, the Chinese Communist Party has been just sitting there, because one of the ways they do their trade is through this Dubai.
[00:13:31]  But UAE actually announcing they're prepared to, didn't say they're doing it, but prepared to seize the financial assets will change the game here and really start to cut the Iranians off from any ability to actually do financial transactions.
[00:13:45]  So it's not through Switzerland they do this, but it's really through Dubai.
[00:13:49]  And that is a major announcement.
[00:13:51]  Also shows you the types of hits that the Iranians, although they're being very, the degradation of their systems is pretty advanced.
[00:13:59]  They're still hitting oil refinery.

=== UAE's Financial Strike (15:06) ===

[00:14:02]  They're targeting desalination plants.
[00:14:04]  Someone in the region told me today, folks in Dubai and UAE ought to start filling their bathtubs up with fresh water.
[00:14:11]  Anyway, we're going to get into all that.
[00:14:12]  Brandon Weichert's with us, Raheem Kassam.
[00:14:15]  We are absolutely packed wall to wall this morning.
[00:14:19]  Birch Gold, now more than ever.
[00:14:21]  By the way, we finished the eighth free installment that'll be out, hopefully, in the next week or two as we finish up the graphics.
[00:14:28]  We added some detail about this current war and its impact on the dollar.
[00:14:35]  End of the dollar empire, birchgold.com, promo code Bannon, promo code Bannon.
[00:14:41]  You go get it.
[00:14:42]  It's totally free.
[00:14:44]  Seven free installments online, or you can talk to Philip Patrick in the team about why gold has been a hedge in times of financial turbulence for 5,000 years of mankind's history.
[00:14:56]  Short break.
[00:15:00]  Here's your host, Stephen K. Vance.
[00:15:08]  Friday 6th, March River Alert, 2026.
[00:15:10]  Just want to make sure we get the timeline here correct.
[00:15:13]  I think we're in the seventh day of this.
[00:15:16]  I guess the sixth day of this war will be rolling into the seventh.
[00:15:19]  By the way, we are going to do a Sunday show.
[00:15:21]  Like I said, we're going to do seven days a week until, I don't know, there's some clarity on this entire situation.
[00:15:27]  If people, if our armed forces, our men and women, are 24-7 seven days a week.
[00:15:33]  The least we can do is inform the war posse and make sure we give as much information to you guys as possible.
[00:15:39]  So obviously our Saturday show tomorrow morning, 10 to noon, as we always do, Eastern Standard Time.
[00:15:44]  And on Sunday, thanks to the team at Real America's Voice and our War Room production team will also do a Sunday show.
[00:15:52]  Brandon Weickert, is it Napoleonic or Klausvitz?
[00:15:57]  I guess Klausvitz took the lessons in Napoleon and codified it, but the center of gravity of battle.
[00:16:04]  And one of the things we're trying to do here is to make sure that you have as good a comprehensive view of exactly what's going on.
[00:16:12]  And so then you can start to pull your own, this audience can start to pull their own assessments.
[00:16:17]  We're going to treat you like adults and give you as much information for as many different experts as possible who are on very different sides of this conflict.
[00:16:26]  And that's why you'll see Rabbi Willecki and you'll see a Brian Kennedy and a Frank Gaffney and you'll also see Trita Parsi and Kurt Mills.
[00:16:36]  We try to get you all the information.
[00:16:38]  Eric Prince, who I think did a great job this week.
[00:16:40]  And I've been talking to Eric.
[00:16:41]  He's currently engaged in something, but we're talking Eric nonstop.
[00:16:46]  I want to go into the reason.
[00:16:47]  This is why the financial part of this, because we were the first ones to identify the financial aspects and the economic aspects of the Ukraine-Russian war.
[00:16:56]  And it's one of the reasons that there's many operational reasons, but one of the reasons that the Russians really, you know, the 20% of Ukraine they've taken, it's been kind of stagnant for the last couple of years.
[00:17:07]  One of the reasons is that they've had some real financial and economic problems.
[00:17:10]  And that was part of that was what was done by seizing their assets, which is this is also for those of you that were smart enough to get into the into gold back when it was 2,000 bucks that we started talking about it or really partnered with Birch when it was $1,100.
[00:17:27]  But that part of the Russian-Ukraine war, we said had never been done before.
[00:17:33]  We didn't do it with the Nazis.
[00:17:34]  We didn't do it with the Imperial Japanese.
[00:17:37]  We didn't do it to the Bolsheviks to actually seize their assets here.
[00:17:41]  The center of gravity of battle, part of it on the kinetic part, obviously is Tehran.
[00:17:48]  The IDF had a massive 50 fighter-bomber jets going last night.
[00:17:53]  They did.
[00:17:54]  We did.
[00:17:55]  They did it and went in and had a massive strike on one of the remaining command centers.
[00:18:00]  But as I look at this, the most interesting and fascinating part to me, the real center of gravity I think of this war right now is the Persian Gulf in the Gulf, and particularly the Emiratis, you know, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, the Saudis, and Bahrain.
[00:18:16]  That's to me is one of the most fascinating parts of this, how the war is metastasized there.
[00:18:22]  And if you look at it, as much as Israel is taking incoming or the amount of incoming that the degraded forces of the Iranians can hit, and the Israelis right now, I think, are as focused on Lebanon almost as they are on Tehran.
[00:18:36]  The center of gravity of this battle and where it may be determined is in the Gulf states, both financially and economically, with commodities like water.
[00:18:46]  Brandon Weickert, you're one of our experts.
[00:18:48]  Your thoughts, sir?
[00:18:50]  Well, I think that's an excellent assessment on your part.
[00:18:54]  Bravo.
[00:18:55]  I do want to challenge the traditional interpretation of the Klaus Witzian model only because I think we live now in the age of war that is decentralized.
[00:19:05]  So I actually think you will have multiple centers of gravity.
[00:19:08]  Back in Klaus Witz's day, it was always, as you know, the primary center, and we're going to break that apart.
[00:19:14]  But ever since 9-11 and having lived through now two wars in the Middle East, we should all be aware we're not fighting centralized enemies really anymore.
[00:19:24]  We're fighting decentralized enemies.
[00:19:26]  Even in Ukraine, you have a decentralized network approach, which means you have sort of these multiple theaters and multiple centers of gravity all pulling our attention.
[00:19:36]  And so one of those centers of gravity is the conventional realm, which is the bombardment of Iran.
[00:19:42]  And as I noted yesterday, we have local air superiority that gives us pockets to maneuver and really conduct strikes.
[00:19:50]  But as you rightly note, the Iranian front is really focused on haranguing not only the Israelis in their backyard, but haranguing the Arabs in their homes.
[00:20:02]  And so far, that has been the really untold story.
[00:20:06]  We talk about the Strait of Hormuz closure and its effect on oil.
[00:20:10]  We talk about the refineries being struck, but it's not just that.
[00:20:13]  It's the whole approach that Iran has for basically cutting down the Arab states, basically in an FU.
[00:20:21]  If we're going to go down, we're going to take all of you down with us.
[00:20:24]  And so far, that's the problem.
[00:20:26]  Hang on.
[00:20:27]  That's what I'm saying.
[00:20:27]  It's kind of got to Dhamma wrong among the Muslims.
[00:20:30]  Don't get me wrong, they're hitting Israel as much as they can hit it.
[00:20:33]  And I do believe that Captain Finnell and CENCOM is going through this punchlist of degradation of their missile, you know, missile program, air program, all that.
[00:20:45]  But the center of gravity, at least the major center of gravity, is Muslim versus Muslim.
[00:20:49]  That's right.
[00:20:49]  Right.
[00:20:50]  And I realize it's during Ramadan, but people say, well, that's not that important.
[00:20:53]  It's in Ramadan.
[00:20:55]  And you really see the Muslim countries going after each other.
[00:20:59]  The Iranians, I think it was a 200 drone strike onto the oil refinery the other day.
[00:21:04]  They're hitting desalination plants.
[00:21:06]  You have Qatar in the financial.
[00:21:09]  That's key, by the way.
[00:21:11]  So those desalinization plants are basically the lifeblood for the citizens of those Arab countries.
[00:21:18]  I mean, remember, this is a giant desert we're talking about, yet they have these magnificent cities they've built in the middle of these harsh environments, and that's because of desalinization.
[00:21:27]  And once you pop open those tanks, they're not coming back online for a while.
[00:21:33]  So that means, as you noted, you better start filling up your bathtubs now because now we're talking about water shortages.
[00:21:39]  And we're talking about this not only being an oil war, but now this being a water war.
[00:21:44]  And water wars, we're talking mad backs here.
[00:21:46]  So this is exactly what the Iranians want, though.
[00:21:49]  And you note the intra or the inter-Muslim fighting.
[00:21:53]  I would caution, I would only say this.
[00:21:55]  That's correct on the superficial level right now.
[00:21:58]  But we have to understand the regimes that run these Arab countries are pro-American and they're nominally pro-Israel even now.
[00:22:06]  But the people of the region are not necessarily pro-American or pro-Israel.
[00:22:12]  And the longer this war goes on and the more those governments look incompetent and ineffective, the more likely there will be revolutions in these Arab states that will threaten and probably overthrow some of these friendly Arab regimes and replace them with Islamists.
[00:22:29]  And this gets us into the nightmare scenario that my friend Dr. Michael Scheuer has Been talking about for 15 years, which is the fusion of Shiite and Sunni extremism into one.
[00:22:40]  And it's not unprecedented, Steve, because during the global war on terror, Iran was allowing their territory to be used as a transit node for al-Qaeda fighters coming out of Afghanistan going into Iraq and vice versa.
[00:22:53]  So it is not unprecedented.
[00:22:54]  So this is the real concern I have is the Iranian attacks on these Arab governments is meant to show that they are feckless and weak and they are gelded and it will trigger a natural response from the Arab people who are going to want to overthrow those governments because they want water, they want money back, they want their lives back.
[00:23:13]  Let's just pull back for a second.
[00:23:16]  As the American offensive, President Trump just put up a true social earlier this morning calling for unconditional surrender.
[00:23:22]  Last night, I think we had the clip play.
[00:23:25]  He was adamant with the military.
[00:23:28]  You either surrender and you'll get to live and maybe you'll get immunity or you're going to die.
[00:23:33]  I mean, his warnings on this couldn't be starker.
[00:23:36]  Obviously, he's been calling for people to up, you know, he's looking for the Persian people to, as he was a month ago, to take this in their own hands and rise up.
[00:23:44]  Are you saying that the Iranian strategy on the counterside is saying, okay, there's 3 million people in Qatar.
[00:23:50]  There's only 300,000 in the tribe that runs the country, right?
[00:23:54]  All the guys we see all the time are from the 300,000.
[00:23:56]  It's really only a couple thousand that run it.
[00:23:59]  The same UAE's got issues with the tons of foreigners.
[00:24:02]  I think a lot of Shiite.
[00:24:03]  And they've been trying to topple the 22 million in Saudi Arabia.
[00:24:09]  Are you saying that you believe the Iranian strategy, hey, if Israel and America is going to do it to us, we're going to see how long you stand?
[00:24:17]  Is that your point?
[00:24:17]  Bingo, that's my point.
[00:24:19]  I just want to also add the president's strategy is deeply flawed.
[00:24:22]  It's based on a very flawed understanding of the Iranian regime.
[00:24:26]  Remember your son Su.
[00:24:27]  And I know you're not only a military guy, Steve, but you're also a business guy.
[00:24:31]  So I remember the 80s.
[00:24:32]  I know they were teaching this to you guys.
[00:24:33]  Sun Su, he said, always leave your enemy an avenue of escape because otherwise, and I'm paraphrasing now, otherwise that enemy will become a fanatic and will fight you to the death.
[00:24:45]  Well, guess what?
[00:24:45]  We're fighting not only Persians, but we're fighting Islamists right now in Iran.
[00:24:51]  They want to die.
[00:24:52]  They are happy to die.
[00:24:54]  They want to fight us and they want to show that the American God-King can bleed.
[00:24:59]  And right now, they are showing that every day they last.
[00:25:03]  And that's the key here.
[00:25:04]  This is why we have to have an off-ramp.
[00:25:07]  Don't you think his point is he's trying to let those people know that, remember, 60% of the country, I think, is Persian.
[00:25:14]  You've got these other disparate elements of the other 40%.
[00:25:18]  There is a hardcore, you know, maybe a plurality of Islamists, but he's trying to reach out when he talks about unconditional surrender.
[00:25:25]  He talks about immunity.
[00:25:27]  He's trying to reach out.
[00:25:28]  He knows he's got lots of dead enders there, right?
[00:25:31]  It's a, it's a dead enders.
[00:25:33]  I want to make that clear.
[00:25:34]  This is more than dead enders we're dealing with.
[00:25:36]  But yes, please go ahead.
[00:25:37]  No, so my point is that there are people that he think he's trying to turn against the existing regime by giving them a call to action.
[00:25:47]  He doesn't expect, you don't expect the hardest core of the death cult that is the Islamic Republic because they are a death cult.
[00:25:56]  I mean, martyrdom is there.
[00:25:58]  This is how they overthrew the Shah.
[00:25:59]  They weren't afraid of death.
[00:26:01]  And the Shah's guys had been trained by Western military.
[00:26:04]  They were, a lot of them were secularists.
[00:26:06]  There were 500 Iranian midshipmens when I was at Officer Canada School.
[00:26:11]  The Iranian midshipmans were greater number in Newport, Rhode Island, than the American cadets, the American midshipmen that we had at Officer Canada School.
[00:26:21]  They outweighed us.
[00:26:22]  And a lot of those obviously were Muslim, but they were quite secular.
[00:26:27]  That's the guys that kind of left the country.
[00:26:29]  Anyway, Brandon, hang on.
[00:26:30]  We're going to go through this in depth.
[00:26:32]  Raheem Qassam is going to be with us.
[00:26:34]  A lot going on here in the war room.
[00:26:35]  On a Friday morning at war or major military operation, you pick it.
[00:26:43]  Short break.
[00:27:01]  stephen k bam okay we're gonna get back to the uh to the golf part of this Also, Bibi, it seems like this may be the last scene from the first Godfather film, but we'll get into that with Brandon Wickert in a moment.
[00:27:16]  Raheem Kassam, your observation.
[00:27:18]  I've got you here because of the primary reason is because of what's going on in Texas, but I want to get to that in a moment.
[00:27:25]  Your thoughts and observations on where we stand.
[00:27:28]  Mike Johnson went out yesterday after the, and there's not going to be any war powers act movement, at least now, and said this is a major military operation focused on taking out the weapon systems, taking out the ballistic missile capability and also the ability to manufacture them, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:27:46]  It looks like the objectives may have shifted overnight from the president, but your observations overall, sir.
[00:27:54]  Yeah, thanks, Steve.
[00:27:56]  Well, this will be a situation I think that will change day to day quite drastically.
[00:28:02]  I really, and I hate to say this, I really don't think that the administration in the United States had thought through just how much the Iranians had thought through this, especially after previous attacks, especially after previously, you know, having their nuclear enrichment programs somewhat crippled.
[00:28:20]  They have been making a number of different contingency plans for months now.
[00:28:26]  And I'm not sure, especially given the intelligence relationships around the world at the moment, that the U.S. administration went into this with completely clear eyes.
[00:28:35]  I have spoken to a lot of senior people and sources across the government in recent days.
[00:28:42]  And in fact, we were the first to break this weekend, way before anybody gave it in an interview, the idea that they prepared for a four-week engagement here.
[00:28:54]  I do think it'll be longer than that.
[00:28:56]  At this point, especially with what you're seeing as this war sort of expands into Lebanon and so on and so forth, you're starting to see that mission creep.

=== Geopolitical Conflict Expansion (11:24) ===

[00:29:08]  And you're also starting to see some movement by the Islamic regime in Tehran to lure America in to a ground operation.
[00:29:18]  I think that is the next part of this.
[00:29:21]  I don't think they're going to surrender.
[00:29:23]  I don't think they're going to allow President Trump to be handpicking the next supreme leader.
[00:29:30]  Firstly, that would be a spiritual sellout as far as they're concerned.
[00:29:36]  But also, of course, a geopolitical one.
[00:29:39]  And I think also they prepared for this by massacring so many people who probably would be out on the streets of Iran across the country right now had they not been slaughtered a month or so ago.
[00:29:52]  And on the basis of, you know, they went out there because the United States said that if you go out there, we will have your backs.
[00:30:01]  And if the regime touches you, we will punish them.
[00:30:05]  Now, maybe that punishment is happening now.
[00:30:07]  And of course, for the people who have been rightly decapitated in the Iranian regime by the US government, that's true.
[00:30:16]  But for the ordinary Iranian people, they simply cannot feel confident right now that this is going to end in anything other than an even more heinous, even more dictatorial, even more authoritarian regime out of Tehran.
[00:30:31]  They are a cornered animal.
[00:30:32]  They are lashing out.
[00:30:33]  And the worst thing that the president can be doing now is thinking, right, we've got to start thinking of putting boots on the ground here because that is exactly what they want.
[00:30:42]  That is more caskets.
[00:30:44]  That is more body bags.
[00:30:45]  That is more Dover.
[00:30:46]  That is more American flags as droped on coffins.
[00:30:49]  And that is precisely what the Iranian regime wants.
[00:30:53]  How long, hang around, I got to get to this Paxon thing in a moment.
[00:30:57]  But I look at our allies, and this goes back to Rubio's speech and really a look at the war.
[00:31:04]  And it's one of the reasons we're in Texas and put this Proposition 10.
[00:31:08]  How long can the Labor government actually be an quote-unquote ally of the United States when you have a significant radical voice of Islamists actually in London and some in parliament?
[00:31:24]  Is this war going to spread to Europe as part of the issue of these Islamists really taking on these governments that supposedly are allies?
[00:31:34]  Well, I mean, the Labour government in the United Kingdom has all manner of problems on this, right?
[00:31:38]  Number one, their own backbenches are probably more in the camp of the Iranian mullahs than they are in the camp of the United States.
[00:31:46]  I mean, a lot of the parliamentary Labour Party has been seen to be up in arms about what's going on here.
[00:31:52]  And look, there are right reasons to do so, strategic, geopolitical considerations that need to be taken place, but they're not operating from that basis.
[00:32:01]  They're operating from the fact that they do actually feel more solidarity with Islamist Muslims the world over than they feel with perhaps Donald Trump and his administration.
[00:32:12]  The Labour Party, the Labour government, they know this government itself knows it's on its last legs, right?
[00:32:19]  You've got major elections coming up in May, local elections all around the country.
[00:32:24]  They are losing in special elections all over the place.
[00:32:27]  They lost to the Green Party last week in a special election.
[00:32:31]  They lost two more council seats to the Reform Party last night.
[00:32:37]  And everybody I speak to, whether it's over here or over there, I'm talking on the left.
[00:32:42]  I'm talking people who associate with the Labour Party.
[00:32:45]  Tells me that Kirstalma doesn't have long to go as prime minister.
[00:32:49]  He knows he doesn't have long to go as prime minister.
[00:32:51]  So the last thing he wants to do, as in chronologically, the last thing for him is going into and sending troops into a war here.
[00:33:01]  He doesn't want to do it.
[00:33:01]  He doesn't want that to be his legacy.
[00:33:04]  Not that it's going to be pretty good anyway when he leaves, but this he feels would be the ultimate blow to his backbenches, to his supporters, which, as we know, especially up and down the country, are significantly Muslim voters.
[00:33:18]  Yeah, no, I was told yesterday by a number of people I talked to that this whole situation with the airfield is that the British government is actually proposing, said, hey, hang on, just for the optics politics with the radical Muslims we have in the Labour Party, these guys in Commons, that we're just going to block it for like five or six hours, and then we're going to give you full access.
[00:33:40]  But we have to come out and block it for the specific reason that they have a Muslim base that will literally try to topple the government right now if they did that.
[00:33:49]  They try to do these phony optics.
[00:33:51]  And that shows you this is why we're having this fight in Texas right now, Raheem.
[00:33:55]  You've called this for a long time.
[00:33:58]  This is a massive problem.
[00:34:00]  These Western governments are really not with us.
[00:34:02]  And now we're in this conflict in the Middle East against some of the most radical Islamists around.
[00:34:09]  And you're seeing people are choosing sides, right?
[00:34:13]  Well, Steve, you know, the British government now has probably two things it's operating with that are hanging over its neck, right?
[00:34:24]  Like the Damoclean sword.
[00:34:27]  Number one is, we can't anger our Muslim voter base.
[00:34:32]  You know, they are terribly worried about that, especially because of what happened in Gorton and Denton, the special election last week, where they lost that Muslim supporter base to the radical left Green Party.
[00:34:44]  And there are so many things that are still being unpacked in British politics as a result of that election last week.
[00:34:50]  And number two is, if we do go in for this, if we're seen to side with the Americans, especially if we're seen to side with the Israelis, then we're going to have reprisal attacks in the United Kingdom or on UK citizens around the world.
[00:35:04]  And again, you know, these are two elements where, and I focused on this heavily over the course of my entire career.
[00:35:11]  You know, I wrote the book No Go Zones in 2017, which was a bestseller at the time.
[00:35:16]  And I thought, great, that means somebody's going to pay attention to what I'm saying and perhaps change policy course.
[00:35:22]  Turns out not so true.
[00:35:23]  They just sort of read it and went, yeah, maybe.
[00:35:25]  And this is what's happening.
[00:35:27]  These Muslim-dominated enclaves have now turned into Muslim-dominated cities, Muslim-dominated constituencies, Muslim-dominated parliaments, Muslim-dominated city halls.
[00:35:40]  And it's happened at a pace that I don't think anybody truly got to grips with even nine or ten years ago.
[00:35:48]  That's two sides of where Muslim communities in the Western world are asserting their influence at the ballot box and with that overhanging terrorist threat.
[00:36:00]  And this Labor government doesn't want to do anything about it.
[00:36:04]  Brennan Weickert, the Greater Israel Project, and I said it was like the last scene in The Godfather 1.
[00:36:11]  Bibi, talk to me.
[00:36:12]  You got this expanding war now in Lebanon.
[00:36:14]  I think they had a mass exodus last night or yesterday from Beirut.
[00:36:18]  You've got this whole working with the Kurds, the Iraqi Kurds and the Kurds on the border up there in Iran.
[00:36:29]  You've got even there's some discussion.
[00:36:33]  People are putting out, I don't know if it can be verified, they may be even not that unhappy with some of the things going on in the Gulf where it's Arab versus Persian, but Muslim versus Muslim.
[00:36:45]  Your thoughts on all of that?
[00:36:47]  Well, I think that the war is metastasizing.
[00:36:50]  This is most assuredly a regional conflict.
[00:36:53]  And as the British and the French and the Russians and the Chinese become more involved in the background, this is very much becoming a world war.
[00:37:01]  Right here, I wrote in my book, The Shadow War, I said that if we go to war in Iran, it will be a world war.
[00:37:07]  And we are at that point now.
[00:37:10]  And you're seeing it notably in places like Lebanon.
[00:37:13]  Now, during the 12-day war, actually, from 10-7 onward, the Shiite militia, Hezbollah, which is Iranian-backed, sort of stayed on the periphery of the inevitable fight that ensued from those 10-7 attacks.
[00:37:29]  But what that allowed for them to do is, yes, they lost those leaders with the Pager attack.
[00:37:34]  They were degraded for a period of time, but they've reconstituted their force.
[00:37:38]  That's why they were staying quiet.
[00:37:39]  They were slowly and quietly reconstituting their force for a moment like this.
[00:37:44]  And that is why now Israel is having to divert limited resources away from the big fight in Iran to try to go after and preempt what I think is coming soon, which will be strikes on Haifa with precision-guided munitions.
[00:38:00]  It's part of the precision project in Lebanon that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps was building with Hezbollah.
[00:38:07]  These are thousands and thousands of missiles.
[00:38:10]  They have octogen fuel.
[00:38:12]  These are systems that will devastate the ammonium tanks in the Haifa port that will basically destroy the Haifa port and render Israel economically unviable for a long period of time.
[00:38:25]  And so I think that's why the Israelis are now having to strike out.
[00:38:29]  Hang on, let me just ask you.
[00:38:30]  I thought the Hezbollah thousands and thousands of missiles was a problem that had been taken care of.
[00:38:35]  You're saying it has not been taken care of?
[00:38:37]  I don't believe it's been.
[00:38:38]  I think it's been degraded.
[00:38:39]  Again, I think all of these claims by the United States and Israel are not accurate.
[00:38:44]  They are for public consumption.
[00:38:46]  It's for narrative shaping.
[00:38:48]  It has been one misdirection and lie after another, which is needed sometimes for OPSEC.
[00:38:52]  I agree.
[00:38:53]  But just as an analytical, independent point of view, I do not believe for a second that the missile threat has been negated either in Lebanon or in Iran, nor, by the way, do I believe they have fully degraded Hamas's capabilities in Gaza.
[00:39:09]  And now you're seeing this kind of pincer movement happening.
[00:39:12]  Also be watching for the Houthis.
[00:39:14]  The Houthis have been keeping their powder dry because they are ready to deploy their hypersonic weapons targeting Israel.
[00:39:21]  Why have they the Houthis, which are always an interesting crew, they have been noticeably silent in this entire time.
[00:39:29]  And these were brothers that were in the fight with the United States.
[00:39:32]  They were taking on the United States Navy in the Red Sea, right?
[00:39:35]  And actually got a beat up hit.
[00:39:37]  I mean, let's get real.
[00:39:38]  They beat us with strategic level.
[00:39:39]  They beat us.
[00:39:40]  They pushed us out.
[00:39:41]  We haven't been back.
[00:39:43]  In terms of the Houthis, the Iranians are clearly engaged in a long-term staggered strategy.
[00:39:49]  So they are not going to throw everything at once at the enemy.
[00:39:53]  They're going to do these sort of bursts to keep operational tempo, sort of like a concerto, a symphony.
[00:40:00]  You have different parts operating at different times, but it's actually all in sync.
[00:40:05]  And so I believe that the Houthis are in reserve.
[00:40:07]  They're actively as basically a reserve force now, and they're going to come online when we least expect them to.
[00:40:14]  I think it's very important to note that the Iranian military pointed out that the Americans appear to have thrown everything at the opening, which is our strategy usually.
[00:40:26]  We throw overwhelming power at the opening of an engagement.
[00:40:30]  That way, we break the enemy's will, shock and awe.

=== Texas's Electoral Battle (07:22) ===

[00:40:33]  But guess what?
[00:40:34]  It didn't work.
[00:40:35]  The enemy's will continues because these people are fanatics and they want to die.
[00:40:41]  So, you know, this is where we are.
[00:40:43]  And the strategy that Iran is employing, these are Persians.
[00:40:46]  These are not Arabs.
[00:40:47]  They're very smart.
[00:40:49]  Hang on one second.
[00:40:50]  We're going to take a short break.
[00:40:51]  Raheem Gassan, Brandon Weickert, with us this morning.
[00:40:54]  We rejoice with the Lombard.
[00:40:56]  Let's take down the CCP.
[00:41:00]  Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.
[00:41:06]  Okay, we're juggling a lot of balls here on information that you folks need today.
[00:41:11]  Raheem, a major situation in Texas, been a lot of developments overnight.
[00:41:16]  This is still a moving fluid situation, I will call it.
[00:41:20]  Can you tell us exactly where we are in this Senate runoff, and particularly about Ken Paxton, sir?
[00:41:29]  Yeah, absolutely.
[00:41:31]  And, you know, on no better day to do it than on the 190th anniversary of the Alamo, I have been saying to people in the last 24 hours that it's almost like President Trump has as big a war in Texas as he does in the Middle East right now.
[00:41:51]  It's one of these things that is getting people, not just in Texas, but all around the country, absolutely invested and in some cases irate at the fact that President Trump might endorse and is indeed half expected to endorse one of his greatest detractors over the last decade, John Cornyn.
[00:42:12]  Now, a significant development happened yesterday with Ken Paxton, who really does, to my mind, represent the most loyal MAGA type of person that you could possibly get.
[00:42:26]  I mean, this guy has been in Trump's corner, not just chit-chat and happy talk for the last decade, but actually on the front lines of this fight, on the legal front lines of this fight, on the political front lines of this fight.
[00:42:39]  And he comes out and he says, look, you know, I understand the president has a hard decision to make, but I'm willing to stand aside in this race if the Senate immediately passes the Save America Act, which, you know, effectively is an invocation of a version of self-political sacrifice that somebody is willing to make for the country.
[00:43:04]  But it's also very clever.
[00:43:06]  It's also, as I said yesterday, kind of genius because what it does is it turns the whole race into a referendum on the Save America Act.
[00:43:16]  We know that Jon Thun and Cornyn and these guys do not have the same fervor and passion about American elections, their security, voter ID that the president and his base have.
[00:43:30]  We know that they are reluctant to do anything about the filibuster.
[00:43:36]  We know that the Senate GOP doesn't have the passion, the stamina to work with a talking filibuster over this.
[00:43:43]  And so Paxton is basically lobbying one up in the air and saying, go on, hit that.
[00:43:49]  And they're not going to be able to.
[00:43:51]  So what it means is that he gets to stay in the race.
[00:43:54]  And the race is now a conscience race.
[00:43:57]  It's a race about whether or not you want your election secured.
[00:44:03]  It's no longer about these two personalities.
[00:44:05]  And of course, Cornyn falls right into the trap yesterday afternoon.
[00:44:10]  And as soon as Paxton makes this announcement, releases a six-minute long cinematic attack ad on Ken Paxton the man.
[00:44:19]  Well, that's not what Texans, that's not what Americans see this race as anymore.
[00:44:24]  And all the while, what Ken Paxton has done here is hand President Trump more leverage because he's now able to go, look, I've got one guy who says he's willing to do something, but you guys have to pass this bill.
[00:44:37]  They're not going to pass the bill.
[00:44:38]  They're not even going to try and pass the bill.
[00:44:40]  They might lie and say they're going to knuckle down this weekend and get their heads into, it's not going to happen.
[00:44:49]  And so if I were the president right now, I'd be looking at all of this and go, right, Paxton's my guy.
[00:44:53]  He's always had my back.
[00:44:54]  He's making this conciliatory offer.
[00:44:57]  He's made this thing into a referendum on something that I really want passed.
[00:45:00]  I'll tell you what.
[00:45:01]  I was going to make the Cornyn endorsement because Chris Lasavita and Susie Wiles have asked me to do so.
[00:45:07]  And they're working for Cornyn.
[00:45:09]  But actually, I'm going to stay out of this race and let Texans choose for themselves.
[00:45:12]  That, I think, is the best case scenario.
[00:45:14]  I think, too, that there's a it's not just that Cornyn, and you can see this in the scale and the viciousness of the attack ads on Ken Paxton.
[00:45:26]  But the grassroots out here in the heart and the hardcore Trump base, it's not simply that Cornyn's a rhino.
[00:45:34]  It's not simply that Cornyn's a manifestation of the Bush situation.
[00:45:40]  It's not simply that all of us standing together to take out the Bush grandson a couple of years ago, the Ken Paxon, that he was the instrument to do that.
[00:45:51]  That really shattered the Bush dynasty.
[00:45:54]  It's not simply the fact of how they tried to impeach him for that and how the whole idea for War Room Texas came on our defense of Ken Paxton and that bogus impeachment of which galvanized the country and the grassroots.
[00:46:10]  It's not just Cornyn's complete blowoff of any of the MAGA policies.
[00:46:16]  Okay, now he's running as a border guy and all that, which is, they're all lies.
[00:46:20]  It's the fact that there is a certain percentage of the MAGA base that will never vote for John Cornyn.
[00:46:27]  And why?
[00:46:29]  Because John Cornyn obviously hates Trump and is hated on Trump.
[00:46:33]  After the stealing of the 2020 election, the Jack Smith situation, these clips that are out there just infuriate people that Cornyn and Cornyn untethered in a term where he would never run again.
[00:46:46]  You have no earthy idea what this guy would do.
[00:46:49]  It's his hate on Trump that has Trump's most fervent followers saying, I will never pull the trigger for that guy.
[00:46:56]  I think he's the least likely to actually beat Terico.
[00:47:01]  Ken Paxon, Mono Amano, will beat Terico.
[00:47:04]  I think you'll hold the seat.
[00:47:06]  We got about a minute, Raheem, your thoughts.
[00:47:09]  I completely agree with that, by the way.
[00:47:10]  And there is polling that shows that even if President Trump endorses Cornyn in this runoff, that Paxton can still win.
[00:47:18]  And I sent that as an email out to our subscribers at the National Pulse last night and said, listen, if I were a betting man, I'd throw in for Paxton.
[00:47:29]  You know, firstly, I'd donate money to him, and then I'd put some money on him.
[00:47:33]  I think.
[00:47:34]  But I'm not even talking about the runoff.
[00:47:37]  I'm not talking about the runoff.
[00:47:38]  I'm saying in a general, there's a core of President Trump's most fervent, die-hard followers that just will not vote for Cornyn.
[00:47:48]  Raheem, National Pulse.
[00:47:50]  Santa Ana and Paxton's are Davy Crockett, but we can't let this one die.
[00:47:54]  We've got to win this one.

=== Markets Turbulence Analysis (00:55) ===

[00:47:55]  Wow.
[00:47:56]  How great.
[00:47:57]  Sir, where do people go?
[00:47:59]  National Pulse is on fire.
[00:48:00]  You're getting scoops all the time on the war and on the politics.
[00:48:03]  Where do they go?
[00:48:05]  I got more coming today.
[00:48:06]  Thenationalpulse.com.
[00:48:07]  And remember, we're 100% reader-funded, ladies and gentlemen.
[00:48:10]  Go there, hit that donate button now.
[00:48:12]  The nationalpulse.com.
[00:48:15]  Thanks, Steve.
[00:48:15]  Have a great one.
[00:48:17]  Thank you, sir.
[00:48:18]  War and the rumors of war.
[00:48:22]  We're going to go from Texas back to the capitals in the Middle East.
[00:48:28]  Exactly what's happening.
[00:48:29]  Birch Gold, I think now more than ever.
[00:48:30]  Philip Patrick.
[00:48:31]  Philip may make a guest appearance today, but tomorrow he's going to spend some time with me on our Saturday show.
[00:48:37]  Walk through everything you need to know right now about capital markets, about turbulence, whether it's commodity markets, equity markets, bond markets, and of course, the market for physical gold.
[00:48:48]  Birchgold.com, promo code Bannon.
[00:48:50]  End of the dollar empire.