Stephen K. Bannon and Brian Harrison celebrate a Supreme Court victory validating Texas redistricting maps, countering claims of racism while exposing internal GOP conflicts with figures like Karl Rove and James Tallarico. The discussion extends to Virginia's ongoing legal battles over map compactness and concludes with Matt Boyle analyzing President Trump's "hemispheric defense" strategy. This approach prioritizes controlling global choke points like the Strait of Hormuz against China's predatory capitalism, leveraging naval power inspired by Alfred Thayer Mahan while criticizing NATO's inadequate defense spending and engagement in regional conflicts. [Automatically generated summary]
He had to go on stage and start with Brian Glenn, so we're going to get to that.
If not later, we're going to do it tomorrow morning.
Great little interview.
Kevin O'Leary and Ashley Davis.
Today, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, put an in your face that completely reflects the population movements into the state and within the state.
Now that we have a registration advantage of 1.5 million in Florida, he put an aggressive, which I love because it's all red, 24 to 4 once we get this passed, and they're going to get it passed, and it's going to stand up to court challenges.
I want to bring in Brian Harrison.
This cycle, it started really in the great state of Texas with this hero.
Brian Harrison, you would not back off this.
When a lot of people down in Texas, a lot of the establishment, just the Karl Rove's of the world, the Bush apparatus, they wanted to go away.
They wanted you to go away.
They actually ran a rhino against you in the primary.
Talk to me about the journey you've had.
Where do we start on this?
And today, the Supreme Court of these United States said this affair map.
A big victory out of the Supreme Court today, coming down six to three.
And yeah, it's a journey that took a long time, longer than it should.
It was a harder battle than it probably needed to be in such a red state like Texas.
But this is the real victory, the real credit.
And I'm very proud to have been part of this.
Steve, your show, The Posse, huge part of it.
But the real credit here goes to the grassroots Patriots all across the state of Texas.
And quite frankly, All across the country.
I don't think the liberal establishment power brokers that have controlled the liberal uniparty Austin swamp for far too long ever would have done this on their own.
I don't think they wanted to do this, but it wasn't just me in elected office that didn't back down, it was the hardworking, overtaxed, patriotic men and women of the state of Texas that held their elected officials' feet to the fire and kept ramping up the pressure.
The posse made a huge impact on this, melting the phone lines underneath the Pink Dome in the capital of Austin, Texas, to demand.
That we get our redistricting map done.
And quite frankly, it's a redistricting effort that should have happened before now.
And between us, I actually think we should have gone bigger.
I think it should have been more than five seats now that California has gone and done their thing.
But look, five is still big, five's an improvement.
And to have a victory go from a small, relatively small number of grassroots patriots, middle of last year, saying, we got to do, we got to act, and we got to act now, all the way through getting maps out of the Texas House, the Texas Senate, and then now multiple litigation challenges.
This thing has gone twice to the Supreme Court of the United States.
We have won two times.
And it's a big victory, no matter how you slice it coming out of the Supreme Court today for Texas, for freedom, for the Republican Party, and I would argue for the future of the country, given how slim, razor thin the margins are in the US Congress.
I just read his tweet, and like I said to you off the air, liberal tears, they taste great in the morning with a good cup of coffee, but they also taste great in the middle of the afternoon with a cup of water as well.
And I couldn't stop laughing when I read his tweet.
The Democrats, here's the thing.
The Democrats, these are so holier than thou, sanctimonious, crocodile tears.
Spare me the hypocrisy, okay?
They have no problem whatsoever with states redrawing their congressional maps to maximize partisan political advantage.
They're just angry that Republican states are finally doing what these woke leftist progressive blue Democrat states and Democrat governors have been doing across the country for well over two decades.
Texas is finally coming to the ballgame here, putting points on the board.
They can't stand it.
And then, as you mentioned, a fantastic leadership coming out of Florida today with Governor DeSantis unveiling his map.
But if you look at it, it is almost all red.
It's a thing of beauty.
It looks wonderful.
And I would just say a word of encouragement to my colleagues, my counterparts in the state legislature down in Florida.
Take some word of advice from somebody who just went through this battle.
Put the noise aside.
Don't listen to the media.
Don't listen to the critics.
Don't give any attention to the radical Democrats in your chamber.
You do what's right for the people of your state, the people who elected you, the people that want bold Republican representation.
Coming out of Florida and Washington, D.C., and you ran that map through.
You put those four congressional seats on the board for Republicans, for freedom, and for liberty.
Brian, we got acquainted with really the internal politics of Texas on the impeachment and trial of General Paxton.
And then this effort with the redistricting.
And people throughout the country, this became a global story on War Room, as it did when we went down and spent three months, I think, in Texas.
In January, February, and March for the primary.
But people around the country were shocked that the grassroots is so powerful and so dedicated down there, but the establishment fights them every day.
Is this effort now that we've gone all the way through the Supreme Court and they've verified this, are we seeing any shift at all?
Or is the establishment still, we still have a civil war between the grassroots folks in Texas and the Republican establishment?
Yeah, no, look, so there's the bad news and there's the good news, okay?
The good news, I'll start with that, is that when the grassroots, when Texans have their eyes open, And when the corruption and the betrayal of the voters of Texas who want bold conservative Republican leadership, when that betrayal is exposed, Texans don't tolerate it.
They make their voice heard.
They demand action.
And that's how we get results, exactly like how we got on these new congressional maps.
So the bad news is yes, there's absolutely still a civil war going on down here because we have a bunch of fake Republicans who, unless they're forced to act like they were in this case, they continue to collude with the Democrats and empower the Democrats over the objection of the Republicans.
The voters who overwhelmingly elected Republicans.
And I'll give you an example.
Um, the Democrats who broke quorum, by the way, have still never been punished for this.
The leadership of the Texas House, supposedly a Republican, was literally elected by the Democrat caucus in the Texas House.
And part of this, so people like radical leftist James Tallarico, you know, six genders Tallarico helped elect.
I'm not making this up.
James Tallarico literally was part of the coalition that helped elect the Republican, Republican speaker of the Texas House.
And in turn, the Republican Speaker of the Texas House rewarded James Tallarico.
He empowered him.
He platformed him.
He put him on four committees, gave him two vice chairmanships, okay, and put him on the committee that was in charge of how to punish the Democrats.
So the Republican leadership in the Texas House is actually who helped elevate radical leftist James Tallarico in his rise to national prominence.
So while this is unmistakably a huge victory and we should celebrate it, we cannot rest on our laurels.
There are still Fake Republicans who control the Texas House of Representatives and the voters of Texas have got to understand we've still got a lot of work cut out for us because I'm sick and tired of Democrats getting to pick the Republican, nominally Republican leadership in the Texas House.
Texas should have the boldest, most pro liberty, conservative government in all of the United States of America, but we've got a handful of rhinos that are still colluding with Democrats to keep large parts of our agenda from advancing.
But it's only because the Republican speaker let them break quorum.
When we had them all on the chamber on the floor and had a quorum and had the maps, he could have kept them there.
He chose to release them to, as you say, flee to hide in Illinois.
They hid behind, you know, Governor Pritzker.
And I got to give them that there's a lot of room to hide behind Governor Pritzker.
So I guess I get that.
But yes, they finally got back, okay, because we mocked them and we exposed the fact that the shenanigans were happening.
But no, If Texas House had real Republican leadership, those Democrats would have been punished for their dereliction of duty.
And for them, we basically gave them a three week platform to dominate the national media and gin up the initiatives out in California.
So, no, they have not so much as lost their committee chairmanships.
Democrats chair committees down here, still have their chairmanships.
They've got their vice chairmanships.
They have not been stripped of their committee assignments.
They've not had their seniority take.
And as you mentioned, they have not so much as had their parking spots taken.
But hang on, it gets worse.
This just happened last week.
Nope, media didn't cover this.
The Texas House leadership finally had a hearing on how to punish the Democrats.
Number one, they put James Tallarico on the committee to determine how to punish the Democrats.
And number two, the only thing the committee did was vote to lower the fake fines that they're never going to pay anyway.
So, yes, the Texas House finally, a year later, took action, and the action was to lower the fines that the Democrats were never going to pay anyway.
So, yeah, you have to laugh about it.
Otherwise, you're going to cry.
But, yeah, the Texas House is corrupt.
Democrats still control the Texas House.
And if we're not for patriotic, Freedom loving Texans and Americans, just like the posse and folks who watch this network, guys, I don't know that we would have had this success.
And I'm very grateful that despite the challenges, we do have a victory.
Why has the Republican establishment gone out of its way to make Tallarico a thing?
I mean, right now, I think you would concur that, let's say, General Paxton in this very hard runoff is going to beat Corner and at least lead him right now.
He will face Tallarico.
But Tallarico is a creation not simply of the left wing media.
He's really started with it being a creation of the Republican establishment.
No, I think it's one of the most misunderstood and the most scandalous aspects of the James Tallarico story.
He's not a creation just of the liberal media.
He didn't just rise through the ranks organically just from within the Democratic Party.
No, what's shocking, I mean, I can't say this 10 times.
You got to get your heads around this, guys.
James Tallarico was aided in his rise to national prominence by the fake liberal rhino sellout leadership of the Texas House because James Tallarico, I'm not making this up, was a core part of the coalition.
That helped elect and voted for our Republican speaker.
And that in exchange for getting his power from James Tallarico's caucus, the Republican leadership of the Texas House repaid James Tallarico.
They platformed him, they gave him prominence, put him literally in House leadership.
He's in House leadership right now today.
I have demanded that our fake Republican speaker strip him of his leadership positions, but those calls have gone unanswered.
So as we talk today, James Tallarico is in the leadership, multiple leadership positions.
In the Republican dominated Texas House.
And I would argue, if it were not for the fake Republican rhino leadership of the Texas House, James Tallarico would never have had a platform from which to assume the Democrat nomination for the United States Senate from the great state of Texas.
It's one of the, as I said before, it's one of the most misunderstood, most non reported, but I think singularly the most scandalous aspect of the James Tallarico story.
It's our side, us, the freedom loving conservatives who wanted those congressional seats.
And what I would just say is if there are any avenues available to you, substantive, procedural, legal, litigations, whatever tools you have that are permissible under the state and federal constitution, the only guardrails you should have is it constitutional under the federal constitution?
And is it constitutional under your state constitution up there in the Commonwealth?
If you have, those are the only limiting factors.
Okay, if you can stay within those two guardrails, which are pretty wide, pursue every possible tool, avenue, plan of attack that you possibly can between here and there.
If you have options for delaying the selection process, pursue that.
Don't let that stop you because I can promise you the other side never lets anything get between them and their plans and their attempts to take over and further socialize this country at a state level all the way up to the federal level.
And then what options may be available to you, whether you've considered them or not before?
It's irrelevant.
If you can do it and it's constitutional, put your foot on the gas and push as hard as you possibly can.
The future of our country literally hangs in the balance.
And what they do up there in fighting against this may be the determining factor for whether or not the United States Congress falls into the hands of the radical Marxist progressive Democrats that are hell bent on destroying our country.
Go to Brian E. Harrison on X. People always ask, how do we fix Texas?
Well, the first step is just exposing the corruption.
The best way to do that's on social media.
Brian E. Harrison on X. Go right now.
Stop what you're doing.
Take five seconds.
Go to at Brian E. Harrison on X. Like, follow, share, do your civic duty.
If you want to do just one thing today to piss off a rhino, go like and follow and share my X account at Brian E. Harrison.
And if you're one of the Patriots, if you're one of the posse that called into the Capitol last year to help put pressure on getting these congressional maps done, A final thank you.
God bless you.
We have a great partnership because we got it done.
And I don't think we could have done it without the grassroots.
So thank you.
God bless you to every one of you who played a role in that.
Well, in talking to other attorneys during the course of the day, their take was similar to Patty's.
That, first of all, it was very heartening to see that based on the questions, the justices had fully read the briefs and that they understood what our case was.
And frankly, that the Democratic side, and I think Patty may be right, that might have been an Elias associate, that the Democratic side did not have very good answers.
They had a lot of excuses, they had some justifications, but when it came to questions of constitutionality or following the law or following proper legislative procedure, I would say they came up short.
Now, that being said, we can't be certain about the outcome of this.
The Supreme Court heard the first one today, and this is one that was originally ruled on by Judge Hurley back in either late January or early February.
It was, and this is McDougall versus Scott.
This is the first of three different cases that are coming forward.
This one has to do with the constitutionality of how the General Assembly actually passed this and whether or not there was an intervening election, whether they followed the Virginia law concerning the posting of the amendment, and whether, in fact, the special session was properly in session.
All legitimate concerns.
Constitutional questions and also questions of the law.
So that was this case.
The second case, which would have been highlighted very heavily last week on your program, the day after the election, Judge Hurley again issued an injunction against the State Board of Election from certifying this based on not just these issues, but also the misleading nature of the language that was used on the ballot.
He had a more comprehensive ruling after the election.
In joining the state board from certifying it.
And then there's a third case that's out there that we just got a ruling from circuit court against us, which is being appealed to the state Supreme Court.
And that's on the nature of the maps that the Democrats approved and whether or not they violate the Virginia Constitution and its requirement for compactness of districts.
War Room posse members who saw the lobster district on your program would probably question whether it met any compactness standard.
Yeah, we have to use everything we've got at this point.
So far, our attorneys have not been able to determine a quick or possible federal angle.
But I know that that's been a focus as well.
And it is going to depend on, imagine, on what happens at the state level.
So far, though, everything is being fought out in the state court because the Democrats have been pretty clever in not trying to challenge any issues concerning the United States Constitution.
But we have attorneys for a reason, and we are going to do everything imaginable to move forward.
And the attorneys, as Patty mentioned on your program this morning, are coming courtesy of the Republican National Committee.
For our social media, and we are keeping track of people who are saying things online concerning the Case, et cetera.
It's capital D, capital A, underscore, capital G, capital O, capital P on X, and you'll see it right there.
And boy, are we filling it up lately, including with a lot of clips from War Room, because War Room posse has been really kind of the impetus and the backbone for what we've done so far.
Our regular site is virginia.gov, and we have not given up on our stop rig maps effort.
We're now looking at trying to continue to.
Raise money to help defray costs of attorneys, but we feel pretty good about where we are right now.
Go to birchgold.com, promo code Bannon, end of the dollar empire, eight free installments.
Most importantly, you talk to Philip Patrick and the team today to find out why Scott Besson is saying, hey, we may need to give some credit, some swap lines to the Arabs to make sure that we, what's the phrase?
Lock in dollar supremacy.
Well, we're all for that.
Don't know if I want to give credit lines to the swap lines to the Arabs to do that.
But you'll find out what that all means.
You'll understand it and you'll understand how that directly ties to your financial stability.
Get to Philip Patrick and the team today.
Birchgold.com, promo code Bannon.
Talk to him and his team.
Neil McCabe, we'll wrap it up here with you at the White House.
What a day today!
Press briefing at the White House, arraignment over in federal court.
The King of England drops by and sees the president.
Hey, folks, I'm Matt Boyle, the Washington Bureau Chief of Breitbart News.
So I run U.S. politics coverage at Breitbart.
First off, I'm learning some Greek on my third trip here to Greece, so Kalispera, which from what I understand is good afternoon.
So we're excited to have this conversation.
This is my third trip to Greece.
I was here for the Delphi Economic Forum last year, and Mr. Simeon Samokos, who's incredible, the host here of the Delphi Economic Forum, Was excited to get me back.
And so, really, really exciting stuff happening around the world, and Greece is at the forefront of a lot of it.
So, we have, I believe, on the video link here, my old boss, former executive chairman at Breitbart News, currently hosts The War Room, which is one of the biggest podcasts in the United States in live television shows.
I'm a frequent guest on his program.
I've actually been on his show multiple times here from Greece, including yesterday.
And he obviously also famously ran President Trump's campaign in 2016 in the final months and helped make sure that President Trump was in the White House.
So, what we want to do is really do a deep discussion about where President Trump is taking the world.
So, President Trump obviously is taking some very, very big swings around the world, no doubt about that.
So, I think we do have Steve on the line, so we want to bring him in.
Warham, former executive chair of Breitbart News, former CEO of the Trump campaign in 2016, and the host of Warham.
So, sir, thanks for joining us here at the Delphi Economic Forum.
Matt, thank you so much for having me, and obviously the forum for having me.
And the 250th anniversary in the commemoration of our freedom as a Republican, a democracy, it's great to kick off this celebratory season by actually addressing the Delphi Economic Forum.
It's just fantastic to go back to the heart.
Of American democracy that was founded really from our ancestors, our Greek ancestors that gave so much and really was a foundational element of Western civilization.
So, thank you.
I might add also, Matt, for the audience, that you're the only individual in the world that you were mentored by Andrew Breitbart, Tucker Carlson, and Stephen K. Bannon and lived to tell about it.
Steve is a very tough boss, we'll put it that way.
But very fair, too.
I learned an enormous amount from Steve.
So, Steve, one of the big things that I think we're seeing in President Trump's second term here is let's put it this way President Trump is not afraid to take some very big swings to execute the vision that he envisions worldwide to set the United States up.
Look, we're celebrating our 250th anniversary as a nation this year.
Upcoming on July 4th of our great country.
But the fact is that the big question that we're facing is do we have another 250?
And I think the president is trying to set us up for that.
What are your thoughts, just very big, broad picture, about where the president is going with, you know, whether it's trade, geopolitics, our military actions to build out the United States from here?
Well, I think the essence of this is you've got to go back.
To the years in the wilderness when the 2020 election was stolen and President Trump went back to Mar a Lago.
I mean, those four years, Matt, as you know, because you're very close to the president, is a time of reflection and study and thinking about his first term and how he was thwarted in trying to do the geopolitical realignment that he wanted to have.
And I think that's why the first year of this administration, we kind of flooded the zone with so many different economic policies, so many different geopolitical policies that it came from those four years of working.
With these different think tanks that have been set up around the MAGA movement, I believe that you can see whether it's trade, whether it's national security, everything centered around this populist nationalist vision that President Trump has of how it's best to govern, and particularly how best to govern in the United States.
And I think that if you look at his trade policies, his economic policies, everything was predicated upon bringing manufacturing back to the United States, focused on the American working man and woman and high value added jobs, and to make The United States, a manufacturing hegemon, which we were in the post World War II era.
Geopolitically, also, I think you see this massive shift to what I call hemispheric defense.
And that hemispheric defense is not simply a fortress America, but I think much more sophisticated a naval strategy that really talks about choke points throughout the world, free navigation of the oceans, and based upon an integrated military and economic strategy for the entire Western Hemisphere, which goes all the way through.
The Central Pacific to the three island chains in Asia.
And I think President Trump is pretty far down the path of doing this.
And this is, you can see in his budget, the $1.5 trillion defense budget he's put forward, how he's looking to change the access of American national security.
You can see this here in the last couple of days with these memorandums of understanding that he signed with Indonesia, talking about the Malacca Straits, what he's talking about.
In Monaco with the Mediterranean and Gibraltar, what he's talking about with this emphasis on the Panama Canal or Greenland, the Greenland Iceland UK gap, discussing the Arctic as the new great game of the 21st century.
So, consistently, I think it's about bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States, predicated upon working men and women in this country, and geopolitically to look at a focus of what is.
What's in America's interest, America's first interest, and particularly American citizens' interest?
Yeah, so Steve, now, one of the reasons why I think this Delphi Economic Forum event has been such a success is last year when I was here, it was right in the immediate aftermath of Liberation Day, which Liberation Day was the major tariffs that President Trump announced on the whole world.
And the whole world was freaking out about it.
And at the time, there was one world leader who actually defended the president on this.
It's the prime minister here in Greece.
It was Kiriakos Mitsotakis in an interview with me.
And we published that interview right before the Delphi Economic Forum last year, last April.
And then right after the interview came out, President Trump weighed in on it and praised the prime minister and came out.
And the gist of the prime minister's argument was everybody in the world needs to stop freaking out about this.
It's all going to work itself out.
We're going to get the trade deals between the EU and the United States.
It's going to be a win win trade deal for everybody.
Well, we have a trade deal with the EU now.
We have trade deals with Japan, with Korea, with, you mentioned Indonesia, I believe we have one with them.
We have one with Vietnam, we have one with the United Kingdom, et cetera, et cetera.
I think more than 90% of world GDP after India just joined has now made trade deals with President Trump here in the second term.
So, Steve, can you lay out for us?
Because I remember when we were talking about the Belt and Road Initiative and we were first learning all about it over the last decade or so, especially back in President Trump's first term.
And I remember sitting there with you in Washington, I think this was right after you left the White House, and you drew a map for me around the Pacific Rim and you started showing what the Chinese are doing.
Through the Belt and Road Initiative, and they were drawing lines across the map into the Eurasian landmass, into Africa, et cetera.
And it feels like for the first time ever, we have an American president that is implementing an offensive strategy back against them rather than just trying to thwart them and playing defense around the world.
There are two different ways, these are two radically different ways.
President Trump about trade is based on reciprocity.
I think the reason that your interview was so powerful last year, because the prime minister really under and got it, is that President Trump's trade policies, what we call Liberation Day, was based upon trade deals and a trading relationship was based upon tariffs and trade arrangements that are reciprocal to trading nations.
And those are done at an arm's length level, and you figure it out.
And I think you're correct outside the Chinese Communist Party, which May be done as early as mid May when President Trump makes the trip to Beijing.
I think you're correct.
I think we either have deals or, at least in terms agreed in memorandums of understanding, with most of the big trading partners, whether it's EU, Japan, South Korea, India, et cetera.
And it's based upon reciprocity.
The trading partners actually get to be able to work and protect the industries that they have.
And I think this is why it's been so successful.
It's also, I believe, why the Supreme Court.
This ruling of the Supreme Court left a kind of a backdoor way that President Trump can still put this together because I don't believe there's a lot of economic disagreement with trying, particularly in the United States, with trying to return us to become a manufacturing hegemon again, which will benefit the world.
And so I think the key there is reciprocity.
The Chinese Communist Party is the exact opposite.
The Chinese Communist Party, the One Belt, One Road initiative, is really just taking the model of the British East India Company of predatory capitalism and just putting it in reverse.
And I believe that this is why there's been so many unfinished projects, why there's such discontent, whether that's in South Asia, Sub Saharan Africa, in Pakistan, and various places where the Chinese Communist Party are not looking for reciprocity.
They're looking for the exact opposite.
They're looking for elite capture.
And they do that through a predatory form of capitalism that, quite frankly, the British East India Company and the British perfected in the height of colonialism.
President Trump is anti colonialism.
He wants nations of the earth to be able to work with each other.
In a basis that's based on reciprocal interest and interest.
And this is why he's a nationalist.
When people put their nation's interests first, the community of countries throughout the world work together.
And this is the basis of his trade policy, it's the basis of his national security policy, if you look at it.
The Chinese Communist Party is the exact opposite it's predatory capitalism.
It's already been a huge failure, it's been a huge failure for the Chinese people.
It's drained resources.
You have dozens and dozens of unfinished projects throughout South Asia and Africa.
You have a lot of discontent now with people in those countries as they understand the elites were basically bought and paid for by the Chinese Communist Party.
It's really a reversion to 18th century and 19th century colonialism.
And that's why I think it's not going to work.
And it hasn't worked to date, and it's not going to work.
And I think President Trump's set of the structure, his framework for his trade policies and how nations work with each other is really the template for the future.
Yeah, so now, Steve, so we're seeing a major focus right now on, of course, the Strait of Hormuz because of the ongoing hostilities in Iran, the war that's happening there.
Obviously, President Trump late last night came out and announced an indefinite suspension, extension of the ceasefire that was reached two weeks ago.
We'll see where the talks go from here.
I'm not entirely certain.
But the fact is that the discussion on seaways and trade and shipping, I think, is really important.
By the way, one of the things I picked up on here over my several trips to Greece over the last year has been that 25% of the world's LNG moves on Greek ships.
So, the Greeks are innately aware of this fact.
So, can you talk to us a little bit about where this goes with regard to seaways and sea lanes?
Because one of the things I would argue is that, yes, we're focused on the Strait of Hermuz right now, but the real future fight is over the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea.
And more broadly, you mentioned the Panama Canal.
Obviously, we have big disagreements between us and China over who's going to get to control the ports on either end of that.
But talk to us about the seaways and the trade and how that factors into this 21st century fight.
Well, one of the predicates, I think, of President Trump's, this gets back to trade and economic policy and the community of nations looking after their interests.
Remember, it's ironic you're there in Greece right now because Greece is a superpower when it comes to free navigation, it comes to basically the logistics of the world.
We tend to think in a world of artificial intelligence and all this advanced 21st century.
Technology that the basic fundamentals and foundations of how you move material goods throughout the world is something that's antiquated.
Nothing can be further from the truth.
Actually, logistics and supply chains are at the forefront right now of modern economics, both macro and micro.
And the Greeks are a superpower in that regard.
And I think no audience appreciates the issue of free navigation, particularly given some of the straits that are very near Greece itself and have been fought over.
For millennia, President Trump is very much a student of military history.
He's very much a student of naval history.
Samuel Elliott Morrison, we've talked many times about victory at sea and President Trump's study of that.
I would say President Trump has a very Mahanian, based off Admiral Mahan's study of the world of the choke points.
And you can see this in basically his economic policy, whether it's the South China Sea, the Straits of Taiwan, the Straits of Malacca, Diego Garcia.
This is why Diego Garcia became such a big issue.
Here recently.
You know, it matters you remember.
I have a personal kind of expertise in this area.
I was a naval officer for the first eight years of my professional life in my early 20s, all the way to almost 30 before I went to Harvard.
I was in the Pacific Fleet.
In fact, we deployed during the Iranian hostage crisis up to the Strait of Hormuz, which I've sailed through before, an American combatant.
My kid brother was a Navy helicopter pilot on a frigate during the tanker wars.
In, I think it was 86 and 87, when we had to keep free navigation of the Strait of Hormuz following the brutal World War I type conflict between Iraq and Iran.
So, President Trump, whether it's the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, whether it's the Panama Canal or Gulf of America, the Caribbean, particularly Greenland, if you look around some of these supposedly controversies of what President Trump's been doing, it's all predicated upon a naval strategy.
This is why I think for the audience it's so important.
I believe the way that he looks at the world now, when you talk about hemispheric defense, Is Mackinder's old theory about the heartland?
You can control the world by controlling the heartland of Eurasia.
And that was what World War II was about, somewhat Napoleon was about.
President Trump has a very different thought of that, that the Central Pacific is actually the pivot for the security of the United States and for the economic abundance of the United States.
But I think you're seeing right now, daily played out, the Strait of Hormuz and, which I think is even more important, the Gulf of Oman in the North Arabian Sea, where two or three carrier battle groups right now.
Are blockading the entire Persian Gulf and making sure what goes in is approved by the Americans and what goes out is approved by the Americans also.
And I would just tell people, I think that this is going to be the biggest area of conflict, right?
I think space and the oceans are going to be the two biggest areas of conflict in the coming decades.
And so I think Greece is very well situated in this, having been such seafarers, but the Greeks are going to be a critical part of this, particularly in the logistics chains.
Going forward, which I think a lot of the fights are going to be about.
Yeah, and so speaking of which, Steve, to kind of bring this in for a landing and where we're going here, I think, moving forward, is we've seen all this discussion.
Of course, President Trump has been very critical of NATO.
In many respects, frankly, I mean, he's not wrong in that NATO already won the war 35 years ago, that it was built to win, in that the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, the Berlin Wall came down.
That's what NATO was formed to fight.
But the fact of the matter is, he's been critical of NATO countries saying that they need to go to 5%.
But it's worth noting, by the way, our friends here in Greece went to 5% without us even having to ask, right?
Like, so that's one of the reasons why I think Greece is, you know, making some big moves is that they went there without any pressure.
But we've seen now with the Iran conflict over the last six weeks or so, Steve, is that the French and the British were nowhere to be found.
They were going to send stuff over after we already won, right?
After we already wiped out the The Iranian military structure.
Afterward, their navy was no more.
Then they were sending ships.
But the fact of the matter is that, again, getting back to that critical question about the focus of NATO, NATO was built to win the Cold War and defeat the Soviet Union.
Do we need a new 21st century NATO?
That, you know, maybe we roll existing NATO into it, but the United States is at the forefront of it, and, you know, we bring in our Pacific partners, like places like Japan and Australia.
New Zealand and Taiwan and et cetera, to be able to confront the challenges of the Chinese Communist Party moving forward.
I think this conflict in Iran and the Persian Gulf is going to be what I call a forcing function.
I think that just like when you talk about NATO, really from World War I to World War II, this was about American involvement back into the European theater.
It gets back to this theory about Mackinder and about control of the Eurasian landmass.
The Cold War was definitely that's kind of the third time.
I believe today you have to question that.
You have to particularly question that when you put American national security interests first.
Is that in the vital national security interests of the United States?
This was the whole debate over Ukraine and the Russian speaking eastern border of Ukraine.
And of course, populists like myself and nationalists like myself were very critical of Ukraine.
We didn't want any involvement because we thought that dragged us back into this theory of the case that was maybe relevant in the 19th and 20th century, but certainly not relevant today.
The one issue with, and no one I think knows better than the Greeks of the horrors of World War II, I believe the countries in Europe have to do a gut check.
About allocation of resources.
And because when this war, however it's taken place, whatever is the outcome of the Iranian conflict, there's no doubt to me that things like Straits of Hormuz, the protection of the North Arabian Sea, and particularly the entrance to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, of which Europe is absolutely predicated upon, that is going to have to be patrolled.
That's going to, a big part of that security is going to have to come from the European nations.
And you see that.
And the Greeks know this with the Royal Navy was able to send, when Cyprus was under attack, was able to send just one British destroyer that immediately had to pull into port and go through technical upgrades and a kind of a mini refit because of mechanical problems.
The Royal Navy, the French Navy, the Italian Navy, the countries of Europe are going to have to realize that the future is about logistics, the future is about supply chains.
And if they want to be a major world power, they're going to have to participate.
American carrier battle groups have essentially, since spring of 2025, have really kept the sea lanes open, particularly in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, against the Houthis, who are pretty determined and have a pretty good chokehold down there in that Gulf of Aden where you really come into the Red Sea.
So I think going forward, it's going to be a real gut check.
I believe that the alliances you see formed out of Iran with South Korea, with Japan, with some of the maritime nations.
Of the Pacific is going to be the new formation for alliances going forward.
But in alliances going forward, people should understand the United States of America is not prepared to underwrite what the defense industry and really the globalists in the United States had us underwrite in NATO since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It's really been obscene.
And that won't happen again.
We're under tremendous financial pressure.
It's a $1.5 trillion defense budget.
President Trump has put forward, Matt, as you know, we're going to have a huge fight on Capitol Hill.
To get that approved.
So I think people ought to just follow this very closely and see the alliances that come out of it.