All Episodes Plain Text
March 13, 2026 - Bannon's War Room
48:58
Episode 5214: The MAGA Base Demands Mass Deportations Out Of The Admin

Bannon's War Room Episode 5214 addresses a Michigan anti-Semitic attack before analyzing polling showing 66% voter support for mass deportations, contrasting White House messaging with internal GOP debates over the Save America Act. The discussion shifts to military strategy, warning that deploying 5,000 Marines to the Middle East diverts resources from China, where purges and deflation threaten Xi Jinping's control. Bill Gertz argues Beijing prioritizes totalitarianism over economics, fearing a Trump visit could yield a trade deal harming Taiwan, while the episode concludes by reinforcing the stolen election narrative amidst sponsor promotions. [Automatically generated summary]

Participants
Main
b
bill gertz
07:56
s
steve bannon
r 23:15
Appearances
e
elissa slotkin
sen/d 01:21
e
elizabeth troutman mitchell
dailysignal 03:30
g
gretchen whitmer
d 01:23
m
mike lindell
r 01:46
r
rosemary jenks
04:26
Clips
d
dana bash
cnn 00:20
j
jake tapper
cnn 00:09
|

Speaker Time Text
Fighting Anti-Semitism and Hate 00:06:37
gretchen whitmer
Yesterday's attack was anti-Semitism.
It was hate, plain and simple.
We will fight this ancient and rampant evil.
We will stand together as we do it, and we will call it out.
We must lower the rhetoric in this state and in this country, especially at this moment where we've seen such a rise in anti-Semitism and more attacks on the Jewish community.
Must keep each other close.
This community is on the edge, very understandably.
We've seen a rise in attacks, especially over the last decade, especially over the last 10 months.
And so it is important for us to stand up, to stand against it, and to thank the people who showed up to support the community, but also call out where we see acts of anti-Semitism, where we see threats, where we see something, how important it is to say something, and to recognize that each of us has a responsibility.
People like the person that attacked this community yesterday get fomented by rhetoric that they see online and that they see on television and they hear on the radio.
It radicalizes people and it endangers our fellow Michiganders.
We cannot let this continue.
And so each of us has a duty to take action, where and how we can.
elissa slotkin
I just want to reiterate, I think it's clear that if it were not for the private security and the staff at Temple Israel and then the first responders first on the scene, local law enforcement, if they had not all done their jobs almost perfectly, we would be talking about an immense tragedy here today with children gone.
This could have been much, much worse.
So I give incredible credit to law enforcement and the people who were in the room putting themselves and their own families at risk.
I think, you know, the governor said it very, very well on the way this community has responded.
It's been incredible to watch neighbors in the community here, both organizations and just regular old citizens open up their homes literally yesterday to help care for people who were fleeing from this.
And this is a place that I have a very personal connection to.
I feel I've spent a lot of my time growing up in and out of this temple, and I feel just an immense amount of pain, as does the rest of the community, that incidents like this even happen.
And I think it's just important to be clear, as the governor said, that whether anti-Semitism is coming from the left or the right, whether it's coming from some group that you like or don't like, you have a responsibility to call it out.
bill gertz
So do you think that Paxon or Cornet?
unidentified
I'm going to David Crockett, do you think?
bill gertz
I don't think so.
So I'm going to have to do a DNA.
I don't know if she was due with 23andMe, but we could look into it.
steve bannon
Paxon.
unidentified
Check it out.
I will.
bill gertz
I have a lot of free time.
So you're going to stay out of the primary then?
Paxon Corner?
unidentified
I'm not going to say it.
No, I want to do something.
But the main thing I have to do is find out who's going to get the Save America Act approved.
bill gertz
Well, I guess Senator John Thune's kind of at a log jam.
unidentified
Look, I think he's a wonderful person.
I do.
But he seems to be not that he doesn't want to do it.
He doesn't think he can do it.
And that's bad.
I mean, how can you not get voter ID approved?
How can you not get, you know, citizenship approved?
Proof of citizenship.
Listen.
I hear you.
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 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.
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
Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.
steve bannon
It's Friday, 13th, March, in the year of our Lord, 2026, so we have lots of updates and things we want to get to in detail.
About the war and the reaction to the war, we saw a couple of incidents yesterday and the implication from the FBI, et cetera.
Everybody ought to be on alert because there could be more down at Old Dominion University.
I think the ROT students took it into their own hands when they were attacked by an ISIS guy.
A guy had been sent to prison, federal prison for 10 years, served seven.
I said yesterday when they reported three.
That couldn't have been correct.
Even Biden wouldn't let somebody out just after a couple of years on the charges that he had.
But the ROTC unit, where he did kill the major that was in charge of it, they attacked him with their essentially bare hands and killed him, knifed him.
Close order combat.
In Michigan, and maybe they have information that we haven't seen and put forth, but my understanding is that the individual, and by the way, the first guy is a naturalized citizen.
The second guy's a naturalized citizen.
It's a ticking time bomb, a major problem.
That's what's got to be addressed.
The anti-Semitism, I believe, at least the information has come out from Ryan Grimm and some other people that have not been refuted.
This guy's from Lebanon, and I believe that part of his family or his children or some part of his family were hit with bombing from Israel in this war.
If that's the case, I'm not so sure that falls under anti-Semitism.
I think that falls under the guy reacted to a war that we have going on.
And now people should understand with a major escalation today, the announcement from the Pentagon, or at least leaked to the Wall Street Journal, that we're sending 5,000 combat troops from Japan, a Marine ready group.
And normally it's 2,500.
I think they've announced it's 5,000.
Polling Trump Voters on Deportations 00:06:12
steve bannon
This war is only going to get more complicated.
And they were specifically targeted for the Straits of Hermuz, which, as you know, has been a big matter of controversy about the military's focus on that and what's to be done with the United States Navy and others.
But I want to get to this issue because we had the mass deportation announcement this week, but that was all predicated upon math.
One of the things that we're trying to do is look at those groups that are deeply involved in certain issue sets, certain verticals that have been part of the coalition.
The part of the coalition that brought President Trump back from the political dead after the 2020 election was stolen from him and he was exiled to Mar-a-Lago.
And now you see a guy like Cornyn who's having to live with his hating on President Trump in those days.
It's had a big impact.
We had right there, Killmead, Brian Killmead interviewing the president, where President Trump says, hey, I'm still interested in doing it, but I want to see the outcome of the Save America Act, which President Trump is once again about immigration, about no foreigners can vote, only American citizens in U.S. elections.
And that's going to start next week.
It's going to be hugely controversial.
And President Trump's saying, hey, I don't want to hear happy talk and I don't want to see optics and I don't want to see Kabuki Theater.
I want to pass it on my desk.
And if you have to change the customs and traditions of the Senate for a one-time deal, I remember many people back the 60, the 60-vote filibuster as to break cloture.
And to be brutally frank, and Rosemary Jenks is going to join me in a second, we would have had.
We would have had amnesty and I think DACA and everything else if it hadn't been for people got to remember that 60 vote saved us a couple of three times.
But the Democrats have signaled that they're not going to, you know, Mansion and Cinema prohibited them last time.
They're gone.
So as soon as they get back in, they're getting rid of it.
This adds to the complexity.
But the center beating heart of the problem is that we've allowed, first off, 15, 20, 25 million illegal alien invaders on Biden's watch, which was very systematically thought through.
Plus, we have a regular immigration system.
And you see both of these individuals, who one, we know was actively ISIS because he went to federal prison about it.
And I don't know why the FBI wasn't on top of this guy more, but hey, that's for the FBI to answer.
The other, and maybe it's response to the Israeli attack, but clearly he had, you know, he had inclinations.
And another guy that's one of these guys in the immigration system that gets naturalized or is here on some sort of program that's got to be stopped.
Elizabeth Mitchell is with us and Rosemary Jenks.
Rosemary, I want to start with you because Elizabeth's reporting on the firestorm up on Capitol Hill about this topic and this issue.
I want to talk to you about you actually went out and said, hey, what we're going to do is very much what Jeffrey Tucker did about Bobby Kennedy and Make America Healthy Again.
He goes, I'm not really believing these polls that I'm seeing.
And I'm certainly not believing some of the things I'm hearing out of the White House or the West Wing that they're showing President Trump and some of this polling.
I'm going to go do my own poll.
Talk to us about it.
Because you are looked at as one of the leaders of this movement.
You're now part of also the mass deportation coalition.
But you actually went back.
And I think the genius of it is you went back and got the president's, his two lead pollsters are Tony Fabrizio and John McLaughlin.
You went and got McLaughlin's organization to actually, and John's got his brother also.
You went back and got them to actually do the polling.
So walk me through why did you do that?
Why did you feel it was necessary to do that?
And what questions did you ask?
And what does the math show you that it kind of informs the political firestorm that Elizabeth Mitchell is reporting on?
rosemary jenks
Well, first, Steve, we did this because so many of the polls that you see in the public arena now have oversampled Democrats.
So of course they get lower numbers.
So we wanted a poll that actually sampled Republicans, Democrats, and Independents at their shares of the voter base.
So that's exactly what we got with McLaughlin and Associates.
That poll is of likely voters.
So it's not just any random guy off the street.
It's actually people who are intending to vote.
And that matters when you're polling.
unidentified
Hang on.
steve bannon
And most importantly, hold it, hold it.
So to the audience, this is just not registered voters.
You went right to the people who are telling you they're going to show up and actually vote, which is a much more, and you normally do that closer to election day, but that's kind of the gold standard when people are looking to where do I target on what I have to do, correct?
rosemary jenks
That's absolutely right.
You know, the fact that we have a large enough sample size that we could pull out specifically Trump voters so we could test how important mass deportations and his promise of the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history was to how they decided to vote for him.
We also had a big enough sample size to pull out Hispanic voters.
So, you know, this is a very well done poll.
We asked a whole series of questions.
All of this is on our website at iaproject.org.
You can find the entire poll, the top lines, the summaries of it, everything at iaproject.org.
And, you know, we asked about a variety of things, not just straight-up deportation, where we got 66% of the American likely voters support mass deportations, but also things like mandatory E-Verify.
That pulls at 78% support.
Worksite fairness.
State Data Sharing Debate 00:02:29
rosemary jenks
Should wealthy elites be able to profit from illegal immigration when Americans have to pay for it?
And that polled between 75 and 80%.
We tested government cooperation.
Should agencies like the Social Security Administration and the IRS be cooperating with DHS to enforce our immigration laws?
Should state and local governments have to turn over information about illegal aliens to the federal government?
All of that stuff had a majority support, including among Hispanics.
Now, obviously, the support was higher among Republican voters than it was among Democrats, but independents and Hispanics all support immigration enforcement overwhelmingly.
It's not even a question.
So, you know, this should settle the debate.
If Republicans want to turn out their base in the November elections, this is the issue to do it on.
We need to follow through with what the president promised.
And that is the whole point of the Mass Deportation Coalition: to give the administration more ideas on how to accomplish mass deportations because the voting public wants them and we want them too.
steve bannon
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Short break.
Back in a moment.
unidentified
Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.
steve bannon
Okay, Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell from the Daily Signal and make the Daily Signal part of your morning media diet.
It is a fantastic site, Rob Louie and the team over there.
Criminals vs Illegal Immigrants 00:10:50
steve bannon
Elizabeth, this is about as important a story as we have because tied to what Mike Howell came on this week and, of course, the polling of Rosemary Jenks and her team over the Immigration Accountability Project, you kind of get into the heart of the politics of it.
The story, and if we can, and I want to make sure we do two things in this segment: If Mo and Grace and Elizabeth can put up, I want everybody to read the poll and go through the entire poll that was done and we talked about earlier in the week by Rosemary Jenks, because that sets kind of the predicate for what reality is.
Here's the reality.
A lot of the information you're hearing when people come out and said, we're not going to use the word mass deportation or anything, it's counter to what the facts are.
That's all donor-driven.
That's donor talk, not voter talk.
They're two different things here.
Elizabeth Mitchell, give us, talk to us about your story.
Just go through the reporting, ma'am.
elizabeth troutman mitchell
So it was reported by Axios earlier this week that James Blair, Deputy Chief of Staff for the president, told Republicans to emphasize deportations of criminal illegal immigrants, that's illegal immigrants with a criminal record, rather than mass deportations.
And I looked into, I was able to confirm this with people who heard it from Blair himself and then was able to look into reactions from various wings of the Republican Party.
There are some Republicans who are more conservative who said that President Trump ran on mass deportations and he didn't want, this lawmaker did not want the media or Democrats to slow Republicans down from that mission, citing a poll, another great poll that says that 73% of Americans believe an immigrant, a legal immigrant, is a criminal just by crossing the border, no other crimes necessary.
So that was the reaction on one hand.
Many Republicans think that the president needs to stick with that mass deportation promise rather than just focusing on criminals.
While other Republicans told me that this is actually something that they've been asking the president, asking the White House to change their focus on.
One representative, Ralph Norman, even told me that this has been the focus of the administration all along has been on criminal illegal immigrants.
The White House cited statistics showing that 70% of deportations have been criminals and 30% have been other illegal immigrants.
And so there's definitely not a unified stance right now in Congress and the Republican Party about the mass deportation issue.
steve bannon
What is now that you have a group that's coming together with all the grassroots leaders and the institutional leaders that have worked in this immigration situation for years under the umbrella of the mass deportation coalition, and these are some of the most aggressive, I mean, up-in-your-grill people because they understand that this issue is to the heart of so many of the problems here in the United States.
How do you think that will change people's minds on Capitol Hill?
And particularly when you showed the math that Rosemary Jenks has and the math that you just talked about, changed their minds that the base of this party, and particularly this is a turnout, these midterms are turnout elections.
How do you think you think that'll change the attitudes of some of the more moderate or because look, we got in this situation with a Republican Party that was compliant with all this?
This situation is so deep.
We got such a hole to dig ourselves out of that we only got here with the open borders radical Democrats, but you had a controlled opposition, business-oriented, donor-oriented Republican Party that kind of went along with it, right?
And only gave kind of a kabuki theater of fighting.
Do you think now that there's a coalition, now that there's additional polling, and now that people are saying, hey, you ran on this, you won on this, and we need this in our own communities, you think that'll change attitudes up there, ma'am?
elizabeth troutman mitchell
Yeah, I think that this coalition putting pressure on Republicans saying that the president promised the largest deportations in U.S. history is what he promised to deliver.
And I think this coalition will continue reminding Republicans on the Hill that this is what the president ran on, how he won the presidency, how Republicans won the House and the Senate, and they stand to lose those if they back away from what the American people expect to see.
I mean, at the RNC 2024, not long ago, people were holding mass deportation now signs.
This is something that was very popular with the party.
And I do think the White House's strategy of highlighting the worst of the worst criminals has been very successful, showing on the screen at the press briefings the people who have assaulted children, murdered people, raped women, highlighting those people being deported because it's really hard to argue with the argument that those people should be removed from the country.
But it remains that the president did run on deporting more than just those criminals.
And I think, yeah, this mass deportation coalition will likely apply pressure on that.
steve bannon
No, I mean, we're supporting, we think the angel moms and what he's done with the angel moms is quite brilliant.
But now that we're in this war, you're going to see these issues pop up more than ever.
Before I let you go, you keep very close to this.
Let me just ask you the energy.
One of the things that struck me, because we covered live the Republican House, you know, the Doral meetings and when the president went.
And what struck me as interesting is that when the president said, that was the day he actually said, because the capital markets have been terrible that day, he actually said, I think he talked at four in the afternoon, he said, hey, this is going to be a short war.
I think we could wrap this up this week.
It may be Thursday or Friday.
He had two standing ovations.
They jumped out of their seats and had standing ovations.
As the president went on and even talked about the Save America Act, particularly at the end, he was pretty adamant.
He's saying, hey, I need this.
The country needs this.
This has to happen.
There was almost a tepid, it was like you're at a tennis match or a U.S. GA golf, you know, golf championship.
It was very tepid kind of golf clapping or tennis clapping.
Is the energy of the members are they looking toward this midterm?
Are they afraid of it?
I just, I'm not seeing the energy you would want out of somebody that are saying, hey, we got great, we have great policies that we're fighting for.
We're all in this fight.
I kind of see deer in the headlights, ma'am.
elizabeth troutman mitchell
I think you're right.
That lack of energy could be demonstrated by the lack of movement we're seeing on the Save America Act.
President Trump said he will not sign any legislation until the Save America Act is on his desk.
I can't remember another bill that has had so much emphasis on it from the White House besides maybe the one big beautiful bill.
They have really put their full weight into the Save America Act, and yet we're not seeing a lot of movement in the Senate.
It seems like there's not willingness to invoke the talking filibuster, which is pretty much the only way that this seems like it could get passed now.
And so you're right, I think we are seeing a lack of energy on the Hill about these subjects, which are going to be so important in the midterms to MAGA voters.
steve bannon
Before I let you go, James Blair is the political, deputy chief for politics.
Did he give that to Axier?
Was that a trial balloon they were raising up to say no mass deportation to see what the feedback was?
Or was that something that they're dug in that they only want to focus on the bad ombres and there won't be anything, any other real actions taken on mass deportations, ma'am?
elizabeth troutman mitchell
The White House has repeatedly responded to reports on this, saying that they have not changed their immigration agenda.
So I think what we're seeing here is more of a shift in messaging emphasis where James Blair told Republicans ahead of midterms that he thinks they'd be best suited to win in their districts by focusing on criminals rather than deporting every illegal immigrant.
steve bannon
Elizabeth Mitchell, where do people get you?
Daily Signals, fantastic.
Where do they get you?
Social media, all of it, to get your writings in your thinking.
elizabeth troutman mitchell
You can read my stories at dailysignal.org or follow me on X at theEliz Mitchell.
steve bannon
Thank you, ma'am.
Great reporting.
I want to make sure everybody reads this because this is another fight we got.
So, Rosemary, I'm going to go back.
What numbers are they looking at and showing the president in the House Speaker and things versus what you're showing?
Do you have any idea?
Because there's obviously some gap here.
What is so important about what you've done, and it's so important about what Dr. Jeffrey Tucker did on the Maha, as you both went back to core issues.
You had huge sample sizes of people that matter, likely voters.
And the results on both were overwhelming.
I mean, some of these on Tucker's were two-thirds, one-third, 80%.
Some of yours are numbers blow me away.
So, how can it be that gap?
How is the White House, who obviously have the president's back, what are they looking at that's different than what you're looking at?
rosemary jenks
Well, I think they're looking at, you know, the legacy media.
Every headline from the Washington Post and the New York Times and on and on is bad for immigration enforcement.
It's a sob story about, you know, the kid with the bunny ear hat that is completely untrue.
You know, they've left out major facts, but that's what they're reporting.
You know, I think it was the CBS story that said that 15% or something of the illegal aliens who've been arrested and put into detention had violent criminal records.
Okay, well, that's great, but it was actually 70% that had criminal records.
And, you know, we need to go beyond that.
But I think if you're scared of headlines like that, and I guess a lot of people read those headlines and think, well, this is too far.
But I can tell you from our polling, they don't believe them all and they don't think it's too far.
They understand that what the Biden administration did to America has to not only be stopped, which the president has done, but it has to be reversed.
And that is, you know, at some point, Steve, the Republicans are going to have to choose between the donors and the voters because they are diametrically opposed to each other on this issue.
So are you going to go along with cheap labor for the donors or are you going to do what the president promised and do what the voters want?
steve bannon
Okay, we got to bounce because I get to the war.
I wanted you to go, but I'm going to bug you later to get you on the show over the weekend because I want to tie what you're doing also to the war aims.
War Aims and China's Role 00:15:49
steve bannon
You can't look away from this thing anymore.
You have to address what quote-unquote legal immigration has done to this country to expose us in a time of war.
Maybe the most dangerous front that we have.
Where do they go now for the immigration accountability project in your poll, ma'am?
rosemary jenks
Go to iaproject.org for all of the polling information.
The entire poll is up there, iaproject.org.
We need your support to keep this work going.
And you can follow us on X at IAProject.
steve bannon
Amazing.
Thank you, ma'am.
Bill Gertz joins us next.
Patriot Mobile, the finest mobile company out there because they layer on top of the other mobile companies, 972 Patriot.
Go talk right now to someone with an East Texas accent about making the switch.
unidentified
When it's over, and I don't think it's going to be long, when it's over, this is going to bounce right back so fast.
When are you going to know when it's over?
When I feel it.
Okay.
Fill it up my bones.
dana bash
When I feel it in my bones.
The Trump administration is also downplaying the escalating crisis in the Strait of Hormuz as Iranian attacks choke the world's oil supply.
The president told, excuse me, told Fox, quote, these ships should go through the Strait of Hormuz and show some guts.
There's nothing to be afraid of.
steve bannon
Okay, President Trump is a field player.
Everybody knows that.
So he's thinking this through.
Bill Goertz, our number one reporter, you've been covering the Chinese Communist Party and the threat, the existential threat.
You've got an amazing piece up in the Washington Times, as you always do.
This is about their nuclear storage capability.
But I got to ask you first about the breaking news today.
The amphibious ready group, I guess the fleet marines at a, I guess it's Yokohama.
The air base is Yokuska, but I think that base is actually at Yokohama where the Marines are, I think.
They're heading towards South China Sea, Straits of Taiwan, South China Sea, Straits of Malacca, past our new strategic atoll at Diego Garcia, Indo-PACOM, all the way to North Arabian Sea, Gulf of Amount, Persian Gulf.
Is this a major escalation, sir, to take 5,000?
I think the Pentagon's saying 5,000.
One of their ports is 2,500.
But basically, a Marine Ready Group with the support ships to the region, sir.
bill gertz
Yeah, you know, this has always been my concern about this Iran conflict is that it will diminish military power in the Asia Pacific where we absolutely need it to deter China.
You know, as well, they're also moving elements of the THAD anti-missile system and Patriot anti-missile systems from South Korea to the Middle East theater.
Again, we're in a major conflict in the Middle East, and I'm very concerned using up important precision-guided weapons and systems and forces that we urgently need to maintain in the Asia Pacific.
We could see a risk of China's Xi Jinping capitalizing on this heavy military focus on the Middle East to take his action against Taiwan.
steve bannon
Well, let's talk geostrategically.
I mean, we just found out yesterday, and this came with Scott Besson saying, well, the straits are not actually mined because some flags are getting through.
We understand that China or the CCP flags getting through.
I think it's 11 million barrels.
Now, I don't understand in a war aim why we're letting that happen and let the Moolahs get cash to continue their war machine.
But Xi clearly is desperate to get the oil.
But geostrategically, I've been kind of shocked.
He's actually a more important ally to them than the Russians.
And we know the Russians have been doing, at least the reporting, I think, has been pretty accurate about the Russians have been helping them with targeting.
At the same time, we are, because they're so desperate for this, we're letting the sanctions on already afloat.
I think Russian oil be sold to people.
Are you surprised at how cucked Xi has been both in Venezuela and now in Iran?
And you could argue that they're, what, half of his energy needs and have been major allies.
And he's essentially sat there and whatever equipment they've given him hasn't particularly worked well, but she's not made any moves at all, sir.
bill gertz
Yeah, you know, I did a big piece for this in the Washington Times, looking at the impact of the Iran military operation on China, and it will have a major impact.
I believe that if they continue and see it through to the end, China is going to be in a major hurt when it comes to oil.
90% of Iran's oil is being sent to China, mostly on ghost flu that evade sanctions against Iran.
And they've been getting cheap oil.
China has no oil.
They're basically out of gas when it comes to oil, and they need it urgently for their modernization and their economy.
So, one of the positive strategic elements of the Iran operation is that it's a dagger pointed at the heart of Beijing for its energy consumption, as well as its localized strategic efforts to expand the communist influence in the Middle East.
steve bannon
Walk me through, because simultaneously we've had this situation, and there were so many rumors, and so many of the China experts had disagreements.
We've seen Xi on this restocking of the senior command of the PLA, whether it's a purge or whether guys try to have a coup against him, and he purged it.
But it's happening at a time that clearly, with the United States on the march militarily in Latin America, and part of that you can look at definitely trying to drive the CCP out of there.
Now in Iran with their biggest ally, given that we had Taiwan on the front burner, being cucked in Iran, in Venezuela, and this whole all these perturbations around the military command, the uniformed military command of the PLA and the People's Liberation Navy.
Is Xi like strategically in the worst position he could possibly be, or is he making moves that we don't fully understand to make himself stronger?
bill gertz
I think that the military purges that have taken place within the People's Liberation Army are designed to strengthen that force for military action in the coming years against Taiwan.
That said, I believe Xi Jinping is deathly afraid of Donald Trump.
They are very cautious when it comes to their actions militarily.
They'd prefer to take over Taiwan annex Taiwan without waging military battle, you know, defeating your enemy without firing a shot.
The president is also headed to Beijing.
I think Beijing wants the meeting with President Trump.
Again, they are very much afraid.
They've seen military action by the successful military action by the U.S. and Venezuela.
And now they're seeing a major military campaign against Iran.
And they're clearly, I mean, the Indo-Pacific commander, Admiral Sam Poparo, has said several times, and I've interviewed him, that he'd win against China right now if they went to war.
And I think the Chinese understand that.
Now they're making great progress in developing their forces, specifically with hypersonic missiles, drones, asymmetric weapons that could give them an advantage in a conflict with the U.S., but they're not there yet.
steve bannon
I don't understand.
Help me out because you're my mentor in this.
He's lost.
I don't understand this meeting at all now.
I barely understood it before.
But walk me through how she can have a debacle in Venezuela.
And it was only Trump saying, hey, we're going to let him sell oil to the Chinese that even allows him to get any Venezuelan oil.
Basically, a command by President Trump to make that happen.
President Trump has full ability to stop these Chinese flag or ghost ships coming out of the Hormuz, which we know, in fact, it's happening so that our Italian and French allies have been outed by the Financial Times going directly to the Iranians and say, hey, I want the same deal the Chinese got.
I got to get that oil.
He's shown that the weapon systems they provide, at least to date, have not worked against the American military.
How possibly, particularly in the Asian mind, can President Trump show up on the 21st of April for a state visit?
Isn't the moral equivalent of a conquering hero showing up into Beijing and that Xi is actually the supplicant for all those years, looked like the Chinese were better placed, but now you've seen under Trump, particularly on the tariff situation economically,
the growth situation, artificial intelligence, where it's only the big tech bros, you know, yammering to sell the chips to him and all this that and President Trump does allow it, but they wouldn't be there on every aspect of geoeconomic, geostrategic, geopolitical, military, all of it.
President Trump is the Mac daddy.
How does that meeting take place?
I don't get it.
Isn't he a supplicant?
Doesn't he have to kowtow or he is kowtowing to Donald Trump to allow President Trump to show up in Beijing on the 21st of April, sir?
bill gertz
Yeah, I followed this really closely.
And flashback to October when the Chinese announced new restrictions on the export of rare earth minerals.
These are the key minerals that are needed for everything from fighter jets to automobiles.
That marked a major shift in President Trump's approach to China.
He stopped all kinds of critical rhetoric against the Chinese.
Now, if you notice, every time President Trump mentions China, he's about how great his friend Xi Jinping is and how he gets along with China.
This is a major strategic vulnerability for the United States that Trump is desperately trying to remedy.
And we're doing it as fast as we can.
We're trying to find alternatives for these rare earth minerals.
But China, going back to Deng Xiaoping in the 80s, has said that it's going to dominate the world in rare earth minerals like Saudi Arabia once dominated the world in oil.
And I think that that's an impact.
So he's trying to come up with some kind of trade deal.
I think China wants it as well.
They want to reduce the tariffs.
Their economy is taking some hits from the difficulties in dealing with their economy, which for the Chinese Communist Party is one of their top priorities.
So that's kind of how I see it.
The meeting in Beijing, I'm very fearful that Trump could make some kind of deal that could injure Taiwan, that could somehow lessen the U.S. ability to arm and defend Taiwan, help Taiwan defend itself against a future Chinese assault.
To me, the hottest spot in the world right now is not Iran.
It's the Taiwan Strait.
steve bannon
Okay, I agree with you.
And I do have that fear, although President Trump has kind of run the tables on these guys.
But I just want to go back to Xi.
How does Xi, because he's clearly worried about the military because that's why they've had this purge, correct?
He wants his guys in.
It's not just corruption and competence, but there has been rumors that some guys think about making some moves.
He's purged all that.
He's not in the strongest position that he's been like in years past.
The economy's got big problems.
They put out the lowest growth they have.
They're talking about, they're actually mentioning the D-word deflation, which is a whole different animal.
How can he, Trump's a conquering hero right now, right?
And maybe, you know, they'll talk about deals, but Trump walks in.
He's run the table on Xi everywhere.
How does she, how did they handle that?
And how do they message it to the Chinese people?
And I understand they're only telling them that the Americans are bogged down in Iran and everything's been a disaster, but the Chinese people are smart.
They get access to it.
We got about a minute here.
Bill, I'm going to hold you through.
Isn't just a huge loss of face for Xi?
bill gertz
Actually, no, because the Chinese Communist Party has a stranglehold on information.
They are masters of information warfare, and they control all information within the country.
I say it's a totalitarian level.
People like to say it's just an authoritarian system.
They have totalitarian control over information, so they can play the narratives that will make them sound as if they are on the march.
Their major propaganda theme is that the U.S. is a declining power.
That's obviously been undermined by President Trump, and that China is an advancing power.
Again, that has not been debunked.
They still consider themselves in many parts of the world to be on the march ideologically as well as economically, politically, militarily, and others.
It's a major challenge for the United States to deal with this guy, Xi Jinping.
We don't have time now, but I'll tell you what Xi Jinping thinks about the military, and it goes back to Bo Shi Lai.
steve bannon
Hang on, I want to hold that there for the break.
I want to give you plenty of runway on this one because you know it better than anybody.
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unidentified
Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.
steve bannon
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Ideology Drives Xi Jinping 00:02:03
steve bannon
Bill Goertz, you were going to tell us about the Chinese military?
bill gertz
Yeah, to understand Xi Jinping's mindset towards the People's Liberation Army, you have to go back to 2012, right?
As soon as he took power, became the Central Military Commission Chairman.
At that time, they had a major crisis involving the regional party boss named Bo Shi Lai, who was eventually ousted.
But Bo Shi Lai actually bragged publicly that he had a group army under his control, as opposed separate from the Beijing-controlled PLA.
And this, again, was a major scandal that unfolded.
They put Bo Shi Lai in prison.
His deputy tried to defect to the U.S. Consulate in Sichuan.
They had a major standoff, military forces standing off.
Bo Shi Lai's security forces versus Beijing's forces.
This had a major impact on Xi Jinping and his control of the military.
What President Trump doesn't really understand is that this system in China is motivated by one thing, control of power and keeping the Chinese Communist Party in power.
It's not about China's economy.
It's not even about China taking over the world as much as it is about China maintaining its grip on power.
Again, this is a totalitarian system that has unbelievable technology that is used to keep control and put anybody that has any opposition to the party in prison or worse, have them executed.
So this is a major, this is a major motivating factor for Xi Jinping.
And it's vital that we understand that this, you know, it was Carville who said it's the economy, stupid.
I say it's the ideology.
This is what motivates the Chinese.
And unless we attack that ideology and defeat that ideology, we'll never mitigate the massive threat posed by communist China.
Trade Deals and Future Shipping 00:04:54
steve bannon
Bill Gertz, you're saying the meeting is going to be on.
I'm going to have you back on here to drill down on that more plus this current article you got up about their nuclear storage.
Where do people go and get you?
You've still written a definitive book in this.
You're still the dean of the China, the old China hands reporting on this in Washington, D.C. Where do people go for the Washington Times and everything else you got?
bill gertz
Washington Times website where my stories are.
I also have a website, thegertsfile.com.
And on X, I'm at Bill Gertz.
steve bannon
Gertz, you're the best.
You're my mentor in this.
As Captain Finnell says, we keep the main thing, the main thing.
Bill Gertz, thank you so much, brother.
Amazing insights.
When Bill Gertz says the meetings are going to take place, that means the meeting is going to take place.
I think Bill Goertz is right.
I'm kind of shocked.
I don't know how she, I don't know how she takes the loss of face because Trump right now, he walks in there like a conquering hero.
And I know they want a trade deal, he and Secretary Besson.
I think we get the trade deal on our terms because I think the CCP is really sitting there going, wow, we didn't realize not just that the American military is that amazing, but that you have a commander-in-chief that's prepared to use it.
Mike Lindell, thank you for joining.
I know you're absolutely slammed.
Thank you for joining us on the five o'clock show.
We're going to have you back on tomorrow from the factory.
You're about to get a blizzard to hit Minnesota.
What do you got for us today, sir?
mike lindell
Well, I'm on my way.
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You can see this whole new campaign we're doing that we started two days ago.
But in the meantime, yes, my factory is getting ready for this huge blizzard that's coming.
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Actually, we won't even be able to move a lot of it.
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unidentified
Wow.
steve bannon
You're amazing.
Okay, look forward to seeing you tomorrow, Mike.
The most mypillow.com and the most powerful promo code in the business.
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Total public service.
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Ben Harnwell is next.
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