Bannon's War Room Episode 5330 analyzes the Strait of Hormuz as a modern "pirate alley," proposing that bypassing Iranian control by shifting oil and helium production to Saudi Arabia and the UAE is essential for peace through strength. The discussion contrasts media inflation alarms with data showing core rates near 2% under Trump tariffs, while addressing King Charles III's visit and Virginia Supreme Court redistricting arguments. Ultimately, the episode argues that strategic autonomy and economic resilience are critical to countering Iranian threats and undermining legacy media narratives. [Automatically generated summary]
This Iran conflict could actually lower energy prices over time, saying a long standing Iran terrorist premium has been keeping oil and gas costs at artificially elevated levels.
Maria, the historical context here is really interesting.
It was Madison and Jefferson who first cracked down on the Barbary pirates.
They wanted tribute for ships to sail around, and then a century later, Teddy Roosevelt sailed the Great White Fleet, established this doctrine of peace through strength.
This is where we are now.
With a fourth president, a great president, Donald Trump, doing the same thing.
I can't tell you what's going to happen in the short run, but here's what's going to happen in the long run, and it all works for the United States and the rest of the world.
What Iran has shown unequivocally is that everything that comes out of that strait is going to move away from the Middle East, whether it's oil and natural gas, helium and aluminum.
What's interesting is that the U.S. is particularly well positioned.
For all of that, we have a strong position producing both aluminum and helium, as well as, of course, petroleum.
And that's the long game.
The other thing is, I think the Saudis, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, they all have to understand if there's going to be boots on the ground in that area, it's got to be their boots because it's time for them to protect their interests.
So that's where things are going.
And if Iran thinks it can play the long game, It's not going to work because the long game basically takes them out of the whole equation.
Both Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, when they were managing at the Fed, had oil price shocks to contend with.
And both of them were consistent.
To say that you never raise interest rates in response to a supply shock, and you could well lower interest rates because the supply shock of oil is very different from, say, demand inflation.
If you look at what the legacy media says, every time a report comes out, and Maria, you cover this, every one of these reports that come out, they're always like running around with their hair on fire, screaming inflation or whatever.
But the data, what the data tells us, Maria, very clearly is that the core rate continues to trend down.
Towards the 2% target.
Manufacturing has begun a robust recovery, as one would expect from the Trump tariff policies that are attracting a lot of investment onshore.
And we, as an economy, are well positioned.
I think one of the reasons why the market has been so resilient and bullish is because traders vote with their dollars and they understand what the underlying elements are.
We're going to have to watch this carefully.
The lived experience of Americans still is troubled by some of the things going on.
I'm doing a lot of work with the Department of Justice and Brooke Rollins over at the Department of Agriculture, working to deal with higher meat prices, big beef, pork, chicken.
When you're on Maria next time, can you give a footnote as I, when you're talking about the straight and the Barbary pirates and all the solutions?
Can you just give a footnote and say, Maria, I just want you to know I lifted this from Steve Bannon's and Eric Bowling's monologues, two guys you know well?
I think they were a little before you, but yes, Steve.
It's a tip of the cap to the Admiral because what I love about your show, among other things, is the historical context you always put things in.
And if we take you back, To 1801, right, at the dawn of our republic, Jefferson's dealing with these potentates over in Libya, you know, the shores of Tripoli, right, the Marines, Tunisia, and this whole Barbary Coast set of pirates were demanding tribute for passage through what was open waters.
And Jefferson said, no, I don't think so.
Fought that, and then 14 years later in 1815, Madison basically finished the deal, and in the second Barbary Coast War, wiped them out.
And that inspired Roosevelt in 1907 to float the Great White Fleet around the world.
Steve, that's where the whole concept of peace through strength was born.
It wasn't with Ronald Reagan, it goes back to Roosevelt.
We have a very similar analogy here.
If Iran thinks that they can turn the Strait of Hormuz, Into a pirate alley where the rest of the world's got to pay them tributes in the form of tolls, that's not going to happen.
And they need to recognize the longer game that's going on.
You're going to see, Steve, a far more rapid adaptation in that neck of the woods.
Basically, as the world adapts, they're going to buy more and more oil and natural gas, more and more helium, more and more aluminum, more and more fertilizer.
Well, out of the way of the Strait of Hormuz, so they don't have to worry about it.
The countries that actually produce these things there are going to find alternatives.
And what Iran has shown us, and if anybody needed to be shown this again, I mean, dates back to 1979, they simply cannot be trusted to act as a responsible world party in world events.
It's just, they just don't.
They're pirates.
And they want to hold the world hostage.
And I think it kind of puts an exclamation point on why you don't want to give them nukes.
I mean, can you imagine if they had nukes now?
They'd be hitting Saudi, Kuwait, Europe.
So this is the hand with Dell.
I mean, you said very often you didn't want this to happen, but now that we're in it, we've got to win it.
I'm going to emphasize victory has a very long term benefit here for the American people in terms of.
Not just of peace in the region, but of economic benefit, sir.
Steve, one other thing I want to observe here when you get, again, historically, if you go back to 1801 or 1815 or 1907, Jefferson, Madison, and Roosevelt, you didn't have the opposition party and the newspapers at the time basically stirring up all sorts of propaganda that the Barbary pirates themselves could use against the United States.
And that's a very different situation now.
You have a coalition that we've seen dating back to 2016 of Democrats who want to control the powers of government.
And the legacy media who simply hate Donald Trump, providing aid and comfort to the enemy in terms of raising all these questions about what Trump is doing, whether we can do this or that or whatever.
And look, it's, I don't want to call it treason, but there's a fine line between loyal opposition and treasonous activity that undermines us when we are in a war.
And I think that it's high time for the media and the Democrats to get a hell of a lot more responsible than they are now.
Unrefuted and undisputed three volume Navarro report at peternavarro.com.
And I'm glad you mentioned that because tip of the cap to Senator Chuck Grassley and his top aide, Josh Brown, they are digging deep and getting to the bottom of what is a long running attempt by the left and woke rhinos dating back to 2016 to the end of the 2024 election to basically overthrow.
The government and take Trump out.
And if you look at the ways that was done, and by the way, Solomon's doing God's work here as well.
I'm waiting for our deep state bureaucracy here, and they fight Trump every way, they fight Cash every way, they fight Todd every way, to release the documents on the CCP manipulation in the 2020 election, which is really going to, I think, open some eyes to the people in America across the political spectrum.
That is total traffic transiting the strait right now, down from 140, 150 per day.
And remember, Steve, the Iranians are trying to offload some oil a little bit outside the strait into the Gulf of Oman, ship it black, make it go dark, no flags on it, ship it, transfer it, blend it, and flag it in other countries.
They're trying to get around it that way.
But for right now, it seems like the shipping industry, not only just oil, but everyone is just not ready to take the chance of getting caught in any sort of crossfire.
When we get back to the break, we're going to talk about what the impact is on oil because the Iranians have offered, or has been reported, they've offered a proposal.
Like I said, who can actually execute on that proposal?
That they actually have control of the pirate gangs down on the Hormuz.
You've seen Hormuz, the coastline there.
It looks like the Rocky Mountains or the surface of the moon.
Take your pick.
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Yes, the age of Trump.
I think President Trump confirmed that, right?
Talked about Lincoln and Washington the other night.
Major, major forces in American history.
You get to fill up Patrick in the team.
That's key.
It ain't the price of gold, it's the process that drives the value of gold.
When they call themselves a hedge fund, Steve, and I think this is an issue that they may get sued because they call themselves a hedge fund, which would, Typically, mean you're hedging some sort of supply or demand side of the equation.
These guys were just specking.
They were specking long oil and they were buying it.
They were doing very well on the way up.
And that, they have a mini move down a couple of weeks ago and then that big move down about 10 days ago cost them very dearly.
They bailed out at the low.
They couldn't take the pain.
There's blood in the streets and they sold on the low and it bounced right back up in their face.
This is very typical for the oil market.
May just relate that to what Bartiromo said.
Listen, I respect Maria, but she's never been a trader.
She's never been in the pits.
I spent my lifetime in the pits.
I know now that the oil market is so fluid, it's so vast that we don't have, there's no premium for Iran's fanaticism.
There's no premium in oil because these positions move and it's liquid enough to change from a long position or a short position.
So, this idea that we need to do this because we'll pull away an Iranian sort of nuclear threat premium in oil, that's BS.
There's nothing in there.
We can move things a lot faster.
I will tell you the idea of getting our oil companies into these countries to bring out more oil because they can all produce more with our technology, with our expertise.
That is the premium that would be a negative premium, lower prices for oil going forward.
And I think Trump has that opportunity to nail that.
Now, one last thought.
Kinetically, if he goes back in, you're looking at $150, $180, maybe even $200 a barrel.
On the flip side of that coin, if Trump cuts a deal, a peace deal, you could see $70, $60 for oil relatively soon.
But what's the political capital to certainly the base, the MAGA base, who Or let's put some of the people who believe that end it now, the Maria Bartiromos who say we got to end it now so we don't have any sort of premium on oil going forward from their Iranian fanaticism.
Well, if you do that, will you lose support from the people who just want to end it right now, kill them, put them down, and rebuild their economy, their civilianship?
So it's all over the board right now, Steve, I'll tell you that.
I think they knighted Rupert down in Australia or something.
Now, listen, I'm not to the degree that some of the War Room posse who come to me when we did the Queen's, out of respect, try to do the Queen's funeral, and they're blowing me up in the chat saying, these are lizard people.
So I'm not there, but I'm not a fan of the Royals.
But we will cover it wall to wall day.
He's going to speak to it.
The King's going to speak to a joint session.
I don't think that's happened since Queen Elizabeth came over.
There's a difference in nomenclature to set the scene in the UK as we go up to the break.
Just to put the category of differences between these things.
Americans, you're going to need to know this if you visit the UK, otherwise, you won't be able to survive.
So basically, you have afternoon tea, which is like the full spread of finger sandwiches, often with the crust removed, and you have cakes, and of course, you have.
Tea to be drinking between, say, three and five o'clock.
Really, what, and that was invented by the aristocracy in the 19th century to bridge the gap between lunch and the scandalously late dinners that the aristocracy had in those days, because of course they didn't need to get up and work in the following morning.
So to bridge that gap, you had afternoon tea.
You have cream teas, which is what you're going to get if you're going to the Ritz or anything like that, which is basically scones, cream.
Jam and tea, drinkable tea.
And that's really what most people would get these days.
Of course, there is a civil war in the UK between whether you put the jam on first and then the cream, the clotted cream, or the clotted cream and then the jam.
We're not going to get into that now.
The diplomatic tensions are already high enough as it is.
And then, of course, you have high tea, which doesn't mean high in terms of abundance.
It means you have it at the major dining room table rather than.
The drawing room.
It's what most people would call dinner these days.
Of course, if you're from the north like me, dinner is what you have at lunchtime.
And tea is what you have at tea time in the evening.
I think part of it is going to be open to media, part of it is not.
He's not going to have an open going to the oval.
And sit in the gold chair and bring the media in.
I think they ruled that out.
The king is not quite as quick on his feet as President Trump, so they're not going to do that, particularly with the war and everything else going on.
So, Ben Harnwell, we're kicking off the 250th commemoration that leads to July 4th of our Declaration of Independence, which is essentially a declaration of war against the crown.
Of which you guys immediately hammered us because you already sent the largest expeditionary force in human history to New York Harbor to crush us, landing first on Staten Island.
Why are we kicking off essentially the run up to the Declaration of Independence by having my favorite King Charles and Queen?
Is Camilla, is she the Queen Consort or is she actually the Queen?
So when Queen Elizabeth II was still alive, she had decided that Camilla would be known as Queen Consort once her son Charles acceded to the throne.
And everyone said, Yes, Your Majesty, that's exactly how we'll do it.
And I'm sure that's exactly how they intended to do it.
Of course, the moment Charles himself had the crown on his head, he said, No, no, my wife will be known as Queen.
Technically, of course, you're absolutely right.
The proper title would be Queen Consort rather than Queen, because the Queen would be the monarchical figure, and Queen Consort would be the lady married to the King.
But in everyday speech, It's simply the Queen in either case.
But the titles do mean something.
She is the Queen consort, though.
Charles has already decided.
I think the thing is, especially because of the situation with Diana and the fact that the heir to the throne was fruit of the previous marriage, there was some diplomatic incidents.
I know you don't like any of this nonsense, Steve.
I sort of.
But this is what fills our tabloid pages and even our broadsheets on a day by day basis.
They asked people in the United Kingdom, they asked people in Great Britain, if you had to be in a state in the United States of America on per capita income by state, where would you land?
And they said, oh, we'd be, I don't know, sixth or seventh, somewhere around like, you know, lower than California, lower than New York, lower than Florida and Texas, things like that.
But, you know, around Virginia or Massachusetts or.
You know, some Ohio, some big industrial state like that, Pennsylvania, they're actually 51st.
They would be lower than Mississippi, which is the lowest.
Outside of London, it's a third world country economically.
So, why so much focus?
And why are we kicking off our revolution to gain independence and become the most powerful nation on earth and really the most powerful nation in the history of the earth?
Why would we kick it off by inviting over the crown, sir?
Because 250 years ago, when you all decided to be very naughty boys and throw your toys out of the pram, the UK was the most powerful nation in the world.
And over the course of the last 250 years, the situation has inverted.
So it's historical symmetry.
The king's coming now, as the queen went over in 1776 for the bicentenary when Joel Ford was still president, as a sign to say, basically, no hard.
No hard feelings.
And, you know, these things, they might be ceremonial, but they do carry some weight.
And it sort of vindicates, I think, the fact that the UK isn't still laying siege to your ports and what have you, is an indication that the revolution on its own terms was a success.
There is a question, of course, and I think a 250th anniversary is a perfect point to have that conversation for Americans themselves to ask themselves to do a profit and loss sort of an analysis.
How true are we being still to the revolutionary ideas that our forefathers fought for and died for?
If I were American, that's what I'd be doing.
Of course, I'd be having the barbecues and the fireworks and all the rest of it, but I would be asking myself, how are we doing?
in defending those values and those principles because America is the only nation in the world that says some of the things like the idea that rights come from God.
That's America's gift to the world.
And it's for other nations, I think, to see that and try and implement that in their own political and cultural milieu.
There's a whole bunch of talk about the special relationship, particularly the special relationship that grew in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.
And maybe even say the Gulf War and at least the beginning phase of the global war on terror.
That special relationship, has it been shattered now?
Is the United Kingdom enough of a military and economic power to matter as far as the United States when the United States looks out there geostrategically, sir?
It's, I think, big enough to matter to America, depending on what America's desires for military reach are.
Around the world will be.
If you are serious about continuing along in a semi imperial fashion, then you do want a country, a base in where you can have airports and where you can land your planes, where countries aren't going to turn around and say, no, you're not allowed to land.
And I think because of the relationship, the historical, cultural relationship, the affinity between Great Britain and America, the UK will always be a landing pad if you will.
And a trustworthy one.
The UK has its own problems, of course.
You mentioned that it's sort of descending into a third world country.
All of that's true.
But the fact is that America, more than perhaps any other country that sent waves, later waves of immigrants over in the 19th and early 20th century, the UK and America have that historical relationship that goes back to the Pilgrim Fathers.
Way before the 250th anniversary.
And those are things that.
Those are emotional ties that can either be artificially or synthetically created.
And they'll take a lot to destroy.
So when the king comes over, and you mentioned the present difficulties, let's not pretend that those difficulties don't mean anything.
Really, I would say, as the UK's chief diplomat, fundamentally, of course, ambassadors around the world, the Crown's ambassadors are ambassadors to the King rather than to Parliament or the Prime Minister.
But in this instance, he's coming himself as the UK's foremost ambassador to try to do something on an emotional level to say, look, to America, to the President, to the Americans, look, we're not going to be with you on the Middle East war.
But we still value the fundamental basis of our relationship and friendship.
And so it has a value if you think that's valuable.
I think it's going to be the King, or really sort of Keir Starmer, trying to make the appeal that don't let the present difficulties undermine what has been and is.
A historically key relationship in geopolitics.
Look at the things that we share that we can promote together on the world stage.
Charles is not a confrontational person in any state, neither was his mother.
And that comes, I think, from the personality of someone who never sought power, who was born into it.
So he's very moderate and low key.
And he'll be there in his way to try to repair the relationship while saying that the UK isn't in a position to budge on it.
And it will be a lighthearted pat on the back to America for its success.
Because the UK doesn't have the discretion to do that.
The royal family, the monarchy, doesn't have that discretion.
It's well aware that its importance is based on precedent and on history.
But it has no democratic, in a world where democratic countries have governments and leaders and principles who have democratic mandates which give them their legitimacy for their public agitation, the royal family is very aware that it has none of that.
And it would be difficult for it to face down those who do.
Far more pressing.
That said, than the invasion, the third world illegal invasion, which is an existential crisis for the UK, is the situation over the Queen.
I think this is the most substantial constitutional issue that I find that was ever made against the Queen's long reign.
And that is, she allowed Parliament to give powers to the European Union effectively, literally, so that Brussels could overwrite UK parliamentary law, destroying the UK's. sovereignty without any referendum that the country had ever voted on to say that that was acceptable.
And the Queen obeyed her constitutional role and signed off on those laws.
And there was a question, a serious question, that said, look, perhaps we do need an elected president here in the UK.
Perhaps we've gone as far as we can with a ceremonial head of state because we need someone to come in and fill this vacuum and to push the integrity, defend the integrity of the British institutions.
And that's a really substantial constitutional question for the UK.
But it passed that by, and the UK came out fine.
In answer to your direct question about the invasion, Steve, it's not within the King's remit to enter.
He'd create what is called by constitutional historians a constitutional crisis if he came in and publicly challenged the government.
My big takeaway is that the people of Virginia, who we believe that we represent and that Judge Hurley's wonderful opinion represents, the people of Virginia are standing on the law and the rules as written for constitutional amendments.
The government, the current government of Virginia, is standing on the Democrat motto, which is rules don't apply to us.
In all seriousness, Steve, I listened to the entire argument today.
I was impressed with how intelligent the questions were from each of the justices.
Very intelligent, very probing questions.
They had clearly read and studied everything.
And I just felt good about it.
I'm not going to make predictions, I'm not in the prediction business, but I am very, very encouraged by the depth of the questions, the reasonableness of the questions, and the substance and respect.
Shown by the side of those of us opposing this, asking to have it overturned.
The respect shown to the court was palpable from our side.
I think not so much from the other side.
I thought they were actually rather flippant with the court.
And, you know, everyone's got, I think this was some Mark Elias lawyer that they brought in from California with state funds to pay.
The First Lady of the United States putting Jimmy Kimmel on blast, put out an ex or Twitter call him a coward, says Kimmel's hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country.
His monologue about my family isn't comedy.
His words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness.
Within America.
Couldn't say better.
We'll discuss that at five o'clock today.
Mike Lindell, you're about to hop on a plane.
Everything you're doing, running the company and running for governor.
Yeah, you guys, I'm heading to northern Minnesota to do a big governor event.
And you guys can check that out at mikelindellgov.com.
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There's about three quarters of that semi, Steve.
They just text me.
So you guys have emptied that out.
Like I say, their loss is your gain, and it's a win win win, you guys.
It's my social media platform of choice, Steve Getter.
Tap in my surname, Harnwell.
And there you will find all of my outrageous provocations at the top of the feed awaiting your attention.
Steve, I do hope, I know, okay, I'll be on the show tomorrow, but I do hope you and Patty Lyman will be out there in Virginia on day four of the visit with your Union Jack flags and your bunting and your top hats to show due respect to His Majesty.
Well, the process, Steve, you have to understand that this injunction, the arguments that we're making were made a couple of months ago, and the court chose, they said they couldn't rule on the merits until after the election.
So that's where we are now.
They've had our arguments for quite some time.
We filed briefs last week, and then today we had the oral arguments.
These are judges who are very sharp and very, very well briefed on the issues here.
They know what they're talking about.
So I think they will go to work right away.
For all I know, they may be meeting now to decide how they're going to vote and then how they're going to write the opinions.
I don't know how the internals of the court work.
I do know that the certification of the election is supposed to be done by May 1st.
That has been stayed by this latest injunction.
The powers that be have said that if they don't have a decision from the court by May 12th, it's probably not going to be possible to change things prior to an August primary.
I believe that the court, I wouldn't be surprised if they gave a ruling this week so we can move forward on this.
And again, there are reasons why there are so many exacting rules for doing a constitutional amendment in Virginia.
Because, believe me, if we had to go through and do an amendment to overturn this, we would have to follow every single rule.
It's a massive process.
And that's why every rule has to be followed for this.
A constitutional amendment can change the law for generations.
It's not like a statute.
So they will move on it.
They'll move on it quickly.
We are ready to move forward.
And I'm very grateful again to the RMC.
They continue to cover our legal expenses on this case with top notch legal help.
And they couldn't have been more helpful.
Chairman Joe Gruders was on the call with us last night in Virginia.
They're all rooting for us.
I'm personally asking, as a fellow member of the posse, I'm asking the entire posse.
To pray that God will give us favor with these Supreme Court justices and that we can carry out the will of the people that they've trusted us with.
Again, our 250th anniversary slogan in Virginia, Steve, is America made in Virginia.
And we're going to continue to do it right in Virginia.