Episode 5266: Where We Stand In An Offramp To The War; Cutting An America First Deal
Stephen K. Bannon and guests dissect President Trump's ultimatum to Iran, warning of a return to the Stone Ages if oil infrastructure is destroyed, which spiked global prices from $98 to over $112 per barrel. While Trump demands China and NATO secure the Strait of Hormuz within two to three weeks without seeking regime change initially, analysts fear an escalation trap akin to Vietnam involving ground incursions and uranium hunts. With direct Washington-Tehran talks murky and reliant on JD Vance, the segment concludes that this aggressive stance risks destabilizing the region further while MAGA media amplifies narratives amidst jittery refiners facing sustained high costs. [Automatically generated summary]
terrorists who have nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat.
The most violent and thuggish regime on earth would be free to carry out their campaigns of terror, coercion, conquest, and mass murder from behind a nuclear shield.
I will never let that happen, and neither should any of our past presidents.
This situation has been going on for 47 years and should have been handled long before I arrived in office.
This short term increase has been entirely the result of the Iranian regime launching deranged Terror attacks against commercial oil tankers and neighboring countries that have nothing to do with the conflict.
This is yet more proof that Iran can never be trusted with nuclear weapons.
They will use them and they will use them quickly.
Iran has been essentially decimated.
The hard part is done, so it should be easy.
And in any event, when this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally.
It'll just open up naturally.
They're going to want to be able to sell oil because.
That's all they have to try and rebuild.
It will resume the flowing and the gas prices will rapidly come back down.
Well, perhaps politically he is, but militarily he talked much more about escalation and effectively using words like the Stone Ages, sending them back to the Stone Ages.
That sent the market tumbling in the wrong direction.
So there's no doubt that politically the White House is hoping for this to come to an end, but that is not what the president signaled last night.
But I think the biggest sort of takeaway is that there was so little new in that speech.
And had he given this five weeks ago before going into Iran, or perhaps right after, would that have changed public opinion?
Next, and here's what I learned Iran makes a deal to make sure they never do this again, or we will destroy their infrastructure to survive as a nation.
While he had a chance to speak to the Iranian leadership, the replaced Iranian leadership, he did not make an offer or any discussion of what the U.S. Iran relationship could look like.
I mean, these are two countries that have every reason that they could be natural allies historically at various moments.
Long time ago they were, but there was only threat to the Iranian leadership.
There was no incentive.
I thought the second really interesting thing was that the president basically dismissed the operations to go get the nuclear material.
You may remember that when this war started, that was supposed to be the number one objective, keep Iran from making a bomb, and that means taking away the near bomb grade material.
This time he said, It would take months for them to get near the nuclear duct.
It is Holy Thursday, 2 April in the year of our Lord 2026, the four most important days in the Christian calendar Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday.
And of course, the world will be here to commemorate those with you all these days.
Many specials we're working on right now for the Easter weekend, a lot going on.
Of course, the speech last night, I want to thank Real America's Voice for allowing us to do live coverage and then commentary and observations last night.
Of the speech.
Of course, the president, I think, laid out what his beginning objectives were, whether you agree with it or not.
The progress he felt that the armed forces had made, that the military forces, the very specific military objectives, and I think laid out a two or three week program to defang and declaw the Iranian military and the existing regime or whoever's taken over and what part they've actually taken over.
Um, and kind of defined, uh, you know, hey, uh, straight or Hormuz, if you're taking oil out of there, it's you should cherish it and you should uh and you should uh step up to the plate.
Now, he did have an escalatory latter part where he told the uh Iranians, which I think is not exactly clear of what he's looking for, whether it's a ceasefire or an actual deal, and who can actually make that deal.
The reports last night that uh, I think Israel tried to take out or attempted to take out or did take out is still pretty muddled.
Who JD Vance is trying to work through to actually set meetings up because there's no direct communication right now with Iranians.
It's all through third parties.
So that part's pretty murky.
But the president did say that there would be a major escalation if they couldn't come to some sort of arrangement and actually was in quite stark terms of what he would do, including take down the electrical grid and destroy their oil infrastructure.
I think that's that part of it, given the rest of it was pretty methodical about what he set out to do.
What he's done and what is left to do is caused, I think, a little, how would you say, turbulence in global markets.
Eric Bowling joins us.
Eric, talk to.
I want to go back because last night we didn't have you as a commentator because you were watching the markets full on.
I think it's an important exercise for the audience to see it through the eyes of how the markets see it.
So let's go back.
To right before the speech started, because you were tracking this quite closely as the speech progressed, and then overnight, because overnight now we're in a situation where I think that the global oil markets are saying they're not enthusiastic about what they heard in the speech.
So let's go back over time.
Let's take your time on this.
Last night, as you were behind the scenes working this, as we were listening to the speech and then doing commentary with John Solomon Pasovik and the rest of the Real America Voice team.
Steve, before the speech, I sent you, we were at $98 a barrel after market trading, sitting very comfortably, you know, down off the highs, but not where we should be.
We should be in the 60s or 70s.
However, I sent you, you asked me, what is the oil mark?
What are the oil guys, the real boots on the ground, what are they thinking?
I said, something like to the moon or something with that respect.
Because someone, one of the traders had emailed me, a guy who doesn't need oil prices higher, refiner, who needs them lower, so it's cheaper to run through his system.
He said, Off to the races or to the moon or something like that.
I watched the trade.
It really didn't move very much during the speech.
I kept updating you.
When he talked about the part where he said, we're going to send them back to the Stone Ages, I think that triggered something because that's really where it started to tick up to $99 a barrel, $100 a barrel.
When he finished, I think traders were hoping to hear some sort of legitimate off ramp and it just spiked 101, 102, 103, 105, 107, 108 or so.
This morning I got up, Steve, and I was just shocked.
$111, $112 a barrel.
That's $13, $14 a barrel higher.
And I just have to tell you, that translates, folks, into on the pump, just the overnight move in crude oil.
There's 42 gallons to a barrel of crude oil, 55 in the industrial world, but crude oil barrels are 42 gallons.
Unfortunately, that turns into about a 60, 70 cent move up on the pump price just on the overnight alone, what it did overnight.
So anything that's purchased at these levels, it's going to make its way to the system, and you'll see a You know, you could see a 470, 475.
Again, the longer we stay at these elevated levels, the more likelihood it continues to go higher.
My concern is Trump addressed this.
He addressed it like he said, you know, they'll come down soon.
I've been doing this a really long time, Steve.
He can get the oil price down soon.
He can't get the pump price down unless he wants to go and like government manipulation of pricing, which we don't want.
We just do not want our, you know, open that Pandora's box because the minute Democrat gets in there, then, you know, they can destroy the economy.
So there's a lot going on.
I think there is also very quick, Steve.
We, you and I have been talking for three weeks what's the best off ramp?
We sent it to Susie Wiles, we sent it to Pete Hegseth, they've got it.
We said they need to pound Iran hard, hit them hard, hit their water infrastructure, hit their highway infrastructure, even maybe hit their media infrastructure, and then get them to relent.
And maybe, just maybe, and I'm very hopeful on this, that that's what's going on right now.
He's going to literally lay into them as hard as he can right now to bring them to the bargaining table and cut whatever.
Deal he wants.
I hope he picks our deal.
Our deal is the best, the smartest.
Everyone walks away with a little bit of their own skin, but we walk away like a rose, and he becomes the businessman that gave us energy independence for real, forever.
And as soon as we get somebody to read it, it just came to me.
There's been some update on Tina Peters.
This Tina Peters situation, the clemency situation, we're going to get on top of that right now and be back to you guys momentarily.
Colorado Court of Appeals just put forward a document that was supposed to be at 11 o'clock, came in a little bit early.
So, Eric, the president went out and defined as much as you can define, because remember, you're in the middle of a war and you don't want to tell the enemy too much, although you do want to signal maybe your overall intent.
He did, and when we talk about an off ramp, he did say, hey, look, we've decimated their military.
There's still more to do because they're still getting scattershots into, and I think at Israel last night, my understanding is that they had 10 missiles launched at them.
So, I guess that's more in scattershot.
But he did lay out, hey, this is where we're going to do this.
As soon as I've done that, we're finished.
Except for he laid out some deal with the regime.
I'm not so sure, as much as the regime is getting pounded, that they feel in their heart of hearts that they're losing this.
I think a lot of people in that regime feel that they've shifted, that they've taken the initiative.
And although they're crippled through conventional military aspects, that they have shifted the center of gravity of this fight to the Persian Gulf.
And I think it's pretty evident.
To everybody, although the president praised the Arab states last night, we know specifically that the Arab states have not stepped into a military situation.
Whereas UAE was rumored, and I think it was the Wall Street Journal, said they were telling President Trump and prepared to actually participate in active military engagement to open the Strait of Hormuz.
The Jerusalem Post is reporting this morning that that's, in fact, maybe inaccurate, that UAE was not that tough on it.
So, given the fact that President Trump, two things I think ruled the markets is number one, he did leave it kind of open of whose actual responsibility is to open the Strait of Hormuz.
Part of the implication, it would be the Chinese and Chinese Communist Party, because he was very specific on those of you who take the oil, not those of you who produce the oil.
So, he got, I think, the Arabs or tried to get the Arabs off the hook of any obligation they have, which I think is a huge obligation.
It should be theirs.
But he said those who take the oil, which is clearly Japan, the Chinese Communist Party, and the NATO nations, it's your responsibility.
In addition, he was very specific and used the bomb them to a stone age phrase of, I think, Curtis LeMay from the Vietnam War in talking about if he didn't get a deal.
Now, I want to go back.
What do you think happened overnight?
How the market's processing this?
Because the numbers we're seeing this morning are.
You know, much higher, and the volumes have been kind of greater.
So it looks like it's going to, you're going to have even a tougher time of drawing these back.
And it looks like nothing the president can say is going to do that.
Steve, speculators right now are a fly on the ass of the oil market right now.
It's the people I was talking to in Dallas last week.
It's the transport companies, the people who are shipping it or even piping oil.
And it's more importantly, the refiners.
The refiners are very, very jittery.
They're very scared of a massive spike, which we've got, or for it to stay this high this long.
Because remember, They have to buy oil.
It takes 30 days sometimes to get it through the system, sometimes more if they have to ship it and get it through the system.
And so they're susceptible to these higher prices down the road.
And that hurts their business, it hurts their margins.
And they're very, very skittish on higher oil prices.
But to the T, to every refiner I talk to, and I met with them in Dallas, one of the biggest in the world, and others I talk to, they're very nervous about higher prices.
I haven't yet to hear someone, and these aren't speculators, these are actual physical delivery folks trading it who are to a person.
Brandon, your assessment the president, I believe, felt that he gave, he talked about the off ramp, two more weeks, maybe three, of an intense bombing campaign to defang and declaw what's remaining.
And he said it's not much remain, but what's remaining of the conventional military forces and the industrial base, the military industrial base of the Iranians.
He did at the end say, hey, look, we're looking for a deal.
We didn't want regime change.
I didn't start with regime change, but we got regime change.
I'm dealing where we are dealing with more logical people, and we want to get an arrangement.
But if we don't get an arrangement or some sort of ceasefire or at least some sort of agreement, we're prepared to amp this up as a threat, amp this up and take out their energy infrastructure and their oil producing and distribution capacity.
Well, I thought at that point he was going to say we're done, but unfortunately, and he could easily, I mean, he's right.
They've degraded everything they need to, there's not much for us to do anymore.
Unfortunately, though, the speech didn't end there.
He talked about Korea and World War II being longer than this.
And, you know, that gets me a little worried when the president, and I think this might be why the oil markets started spiking, because it sounds like he wants to, as he said, he wants to get the job done quickly, he said, but two to three weeks isn't very quick.
So, in my opinion, I think that he is still stuck in an escalation trap.
And it looks to me, just looking at the fact the Nevada Air National Guard has now deployed.
Deployed 24 hours ago.
You've got more of the 82nd Airborne coming in.
You've got these two MEUs there, Marine Expeditionary Units.
You've got the French military.
There was in their media, there's a general who's saying that he knows he's gotten word the Americans are planning to do this uranium hunt in the heart of Iran.
So to me, this looks like when he says two to three more weeks, maybe that's the timeframe he's operating off of.
But I think he's got one more escalation in him, which is going to be some form of ground incursion, either to pop open the straight or more likely now to do this Tom Clancy run and gun in the desert with uranium hunting going on.
So I'm not convinced that this thing is an off ramp yet, unfortunately.
And Brandon, I thought he was pretty specific about the uranium that they had done it, that he had eviscerated their capability.
And that, in fact, I think the signal, at least a signal I took, was that there wasn't going to be this hunt as the Mark Levins go get the nuclear pixie dust, go get it, and you got to send people in to do it.
That, in fact, he wasn't doing that.
Did you actually take it?
Because I know you've been one of the ones most concerned about a combat insertion of combat troops, whether in Karg Island, Along the coast in some beachhead or in some expedition to go find the uranium dust.
Did you actually take that speech as teeing up that possibility?
Because I interpret it as that, particularly not talking about it, that it's two or three weeks bombing campaign.
If they don't cut a deal, I'm going to really unleash a bombing campaign on their infrastructure, but no combat troops.
I am very concerned just looking at the flows of troops into the region, listening to what our allies are saying in their own media.
The fact that the Israelis keep clipping these negotiators that Vance is supposed to meet before he can meet with them, to me, it seems like we are in an escalation trap.
And so I, and frankly, the speech yesterday was very ambiguous.
That was the most ambiguous speech.
I mean, Trump's very decisive.
I mean, you know this.
He gives these very powerful speeches.
He says we're doing this.
But yesterday, it was almost on the one hand, on the other hand type of speech, which is not something I'm used to seeing from him, which indicates to me that A, he hasn't made up his mind, and B, It sounds like the gravitational pull of this conflict is still pulling him toward escalation.
Even if he does do an increased bombing campaign where he targets that electrical and energy infrastructure, that's going to have blowback for us because there are capabilities the Iranians still have in the cyber realm.
There's possibly electromagnetic pulse capabilities the Iranians have that could potentially lead to real damage being done on the home front here.
And I think the president should want to avoid that at all costs.
So I would advise avoiding those target sets at all possible because that basically puts your enemy into an impossible position where they won't be able to negotiate.
So that's why I say, Steve, I really do think that we're still stuck in an escalation trap and there's not yet been an off ramp.
Take your phone out, text Bannon, B A N N O N. At 989898, the ultimate guide for investing in gold and precious metals in the age of Trump from Birch Gold.
Talk to Philip Patrick and Philip's with us on Saturday morning.
As reported yesterday, some of the tolls that are being charged are being paid in Chinese currency.
US dollars under pressure.
We're going to talk tonight.
Bloomberg's got a story that I'll address this evening on the evening show about the 2027 budget.
It looks like, I think mathematically, even a bigger budget deficit.
We'll talk all about that.
US dollars under pressure.
We've done the eighth free installment in the end of the dollar empire, it's about the US dollar.
Make sure you go to birchgold.com.
Promo code war room and make sure that you get the free.
It's totally free.
First seven editions, first seven installments free.
They're now in a bound edition, but you can still get them free.
Get the eighth edition.
And we're going to talk with Philip Patrick about that on Saturday, but I want everybody to be up to speed on that.
Also, our sponsor, the great team at Patriot Mobile 972 Patriot, call right now.
Talk to somebody with an East Texas accent.
Find out everything the company does to support causes.
That supports your values.
Also, it's the best phone service in the world.
Go check it out today, Texas based.
Patriot Mobile, Jenny and Glenn Story, just two incredible individuals.
972 Patriot, go talk to one of the customer service reps today.
Do it immediately.
Kurt Mills is going to join us in a moment, but I want to go back to Weichert and to bowling here because I want to make sure the speech I gave at CPAC is important for this audience to come to their own conclusions and think through this complexity through the fog of war.
And what we hope to do is provide you the information that you can start to think this through.
Because that's what the president needs for people to have his back as he works through this.
You can tell last night he is working through it every second of every day.
Brandon Weichert, you bring up a good point about escalation and the escalatory trap, which I want you to define in a moment.
But you say that it's quite evident we are still committing assets and significant assets to the region.
I don't believe that Gerald R. Ford, which is up in a A naval base in Croatia going through some repairs has been ordered home yet.
I think they're continuing to be part of this operation, and the bush is on its way.
So you now have three, at least generally three carrier strike groups associated with this, and you've got additional assets, particularly potential ground assets and the air cover ground assets would need, like A 10s, pouring into the region.
Define for this audience what do you mean by an escalatory trap?
President Trump, and Bowling's going to talk about this in a minute, because for a day or two, Things were starting to calm down as President Trump was talking about he's going to make this address, but it was going to be, you know, implied it was going to be an off ramp and talk about an update of when this war is coming to an end.
You said, hey, that may be his intent, but the actions right now lead these smart people in the world, particularly the traders in these commodity markets, to take a different interpretation.
Yeah, so basically, and I highly recommend your audience look up Dr. Robert Pape because he is the godfather of the escalation trap.
So I'm just going to.
Kind of parrot what he's been saying here.
Basically, it's a feedback loop.
It's, you know, you try to make a different course correction.
Unfortunately, though, you keep flowing in, you keep doing things that are going to make that course correction impossible.
Vietnam is one of the great examples of an escalation trap.
We went in, it was supposed to be an air war, remember?
Then it became we're going to do defensive ground troop movements, we're going to protect our bases, protect our ships.
And then, of course, the enemy gets a vote and the enemy keeps doing things.
They're not getting defeated the way they're supposed to.
So then you have to counter punch in a way that you think will then allow for them to be defeated.
And then you can go home.
And in that whole process, basically, you've now essentially become fully committed.
You didn't intend to.
Lyndon Johnson never intended to get involved in Vietnam to the level that he ended up being involved in.
And that's the escalation trap because you can't go down without being defeated.
So you're not going to want to surrender.
You're not going to want to be seen as.
Having lost, but then you also the only way to go forward is to go higher on that escalation ladder.
And the enemy, as long as the enemy keeps meeting you there, which the Iranians are like the North Vietnamese, you're going to be stuck then in this endless loop, this doom loop of, well, let me go up to the next run.
Let me go up to the next run.
Maybe I can outmaneuver them at that higher level.
And every time the enemy is able to stay with you and able to basically continue fighting back.
Are the world's markets also telling us that, look, as much as President Trump may want that, that they see the NATO allies in their navies as deadbeats?
They know the Indians have nothing and they don't trust the Chinese Communist Party to do anything appropriate or for the benefit of others, sir.
Some of them love me, but they can track me at WeedTheBrandon on Twitter, X, NatsecGuy at Emerald.tv, and NatsecTalk on Rumble and get my books anywhere they're sold, Amazon or anywhere.
There's three of them right there.
And the fourth one is A Disaster of Our Own Making How the West Lost Ukraine.
And by the way, you've got one of the best books about Iran.
It's an amazing book.
Go check Brandon Weichert's writing out.
Kurt Mills, thank you for joining us.
We're going to get Liz Mitchell up in a moment.
Kurt, you were unimpressed.
We thought that the president laid out why he did this, whether people agree with it or not, what he's accomplished to date, what he feels he needs to accomplish, and gave a two or three week off ramp till it's over, until at the end he did talk about.
You know, wanting a deal or negotiating a deal, and that if the Iranians didn't get with the program, there would be their potential additional hammer would drop.
You were unimpressed, I take it, looking at your Twitter feed by the speech.
I thought Kurt Mills would love it because it finally said, We're out of here.
And, you know, Brandon Walker disagrees with me, but I thought he's pretty definitive, or it sounded like he had no interest in ground combat troops, sir.
Well, what he has interest in and what he's Doing maybe two different things.
I have no doubt that President Trump remains very much the same man who is skeptical of the Iraq war, skeptical of escalation in this conflict.
But the fact remains that he is surrounded by a set of sycophants and advisors potentially that are steering him in this direction.
What I heard from the address last night was a speech that maybe the president shouldn't have given.
He indicated that we would be out of there in two to three weeks.
And I agree, that's a nice sentiment.
But the problem is that a lot of people are having flashbacks in this moment to COVID, which is, you know, the president also said 15 days to slow the spread.
And additionally, the president announced, and the secretary of war was licking his chops to announce that we were going to bomb the Iranians back to the Stone Age.
So, I mean, what is it?
And the administration hasn't shown any command of events thus far.
If they bomb the Iranians and the Iranians escalate right back and start bombing desalination plants and Saudis start Doing drone strikes and missile strikes on the Gulf and Israel again with real verve, this situation could easily spiral out of control.
The president has said a number of things, and some of them are just self evidently contradictory.
And so until we leave, I don't think we're out of it.
And additionally, and this will be my counsel to him, he's obviously losing his ability to manipulate the markets.
The markets didn't like the speech, and that's going to be a problem for him and a problem for MAGA.
Let's get to the heart of it because in a military conflict, one of the central things is to be able to enforce your will on your opponent.
Now, he has taken one of the most powerful militaries in the world and is in the process in just a couple of weeks of defanging and declawing.
And he said, look, I'm two or three weeks away from, I think, two weeks, maybe three weeks from actually accomplishing that and having shattered not just their military, but their industrial base.
Okay, I think the Athena Peters is the remanded, the appeals court remanded trial court for resentencing.
I'm going to find out what all that means momentarily.
We're going to get some people up here in the next hour.
Kurt Mills.
You said we don't have command of events.
It implied that the initiative has shifted to the Iranians, that they've shifted the center of gravity of this to the Persian Gulf and the Strait or Hormuz.
I believe that that was, although I agree with the president's sentiments, NATO's got to step up and others.
I think one of the reasons we had the reaction in the oil markets is that the oil market is pretty sophisticated and they just don't think these guys are up to it.
They look at them as a bunch of, you know, as President Trump's saying, kind of disorganized clowns that haven't put any resources into naval assets, which is what you need to control the Strait of Hormuz and air assets.
What should people look at?
If your theory is right, we don't have command of events, what would you see happening over the next couple of days that would put us in a more perilous situation than the president, who has now come out addressing the nation, not just doing it at an Oval Office availability or something like that, has addressed the nation and said, hey, We're there for two or three more weeks.
I have this on my punch list militarily to take care of.
If they don't come to the table, then hey, maybe we have to escalate, but I'm going to try to deal with that.
What should people look for to your theory that maybe the Iranians actually have the initiative here?
Well, number one, the Israelis keep trying to assassinate interoculars on the Iranian side with the Americans.
So the Americans' ability or lack thereof of constraining our quote ally, I think, is a key facet here.
Number two, within that, is whether or not the Israelis start some of these more gnarly attacks, bombing the oil facilities, which blackened the skies of Iranian cities, that sort of thing.
I think there's every indication that they might start doing that.
And then additionally, you know, just remembering the macro.
My understanding is there's direct order that that is not to happen by the commander in chief.
And this is why he said if I can't get a deal, we'll take out the grid and maybe even get to taking out their energy resources because that would get you to $150 pretty quickly.
My understanding, and so do you have information out there that is differently that since they did it at Tehran a couple of three Saturdays ago, and then the inflection point of this war was attacking the Qatar's gas field, the joint gas field they managed with the Iranians, that the president.
In no uncertain terms, told Bibi, Hey, that's not to happen again, and that is a standing order.
Do you think that America's greatest ally would actually go against a direct command of the commander in chief to take it upon themselves to attack the oil infrastructure and gas infrastructure of the Iranians, sir?
And I think, or another spectacular operation that is spiritually similar.
And so I think the reality is that they are trying to eliminate.
Off ramps for the president to take.
That is why they assassinated Laranjani, who was the most likely interlocutor with the administration to get this war done.
And I think Israel wants this war to continue for the foreseeable future, and they want the Americans to bear the battle.
I mean, very tellingly, the Israelis ruled out ground troops of their own for the war, which is, I think, a spectacular admission that they are willing to fight this war to the last American.
And so you think when he says two or three weeks, we will have all of our objectives, and he went through those objectives again as Ruby has been pitching them, all of those objectives, which can be done essentially by air, you still believe it leaves open the possibility of ground combat troops?
In fact, it was barely, I think Israel was only mentioned once, and he did give a shout out to the To the Arabs is being involved in this.
And the one thing I would disagree with the president, I don't think they've been engaged at all.
In fact, the Jerusalem Post is reporting counter to the Wall Street Journal that UAE actually, the Wall Street Journal has reported that, hey, they were all in militarily to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
And now the Jerusalem Post, I think, is reporting the exact opposite.
Anyway, Kurt, thank you so much for joining us.
We're going to get you back on.
Where do people in the interim, you're in the lineage of Pat Buchanan?
So www.theamericanconservative.com is the American Conservative magazine here in Washington, D.C. You can find my own work at C U R T M I L L S on X. Thank you.