The War Room is a weekly podcast hosted by Senior Editor-in-Chief of The War Room, STEPHEN K. BONFILLA. This week, the War Room features a special guest, Brandon Weikert, who joins us to talk about the new national security strategy that President Trump has been working on for months, the Monroe Doctrine 2.0, and the pivot to a new focus on the Middle East and Latin America.
00:02:59.000The repositioning of the U.S. grand strategy.
00:03:03.000This is something that Trump is masterminding with his team, including Hegseth and Bridge Colby,
00:03:09.000who's one of the bright stars in my opinion, which is why they're trying to take Bridge out.
00:03:13.000But they have basically, since this summer, been working on a new national security strategy that would reorient our forces away from focusing on European area of command,
00:03:25.000the Middle East, even the Indo-PACOM area, to prioritizing Western hemispheric defense.
00:03:32.000The administration has been talking about actually getting rid of AFRICOM.
00:03:37.000There was one conversation that happened over the summer about that and merging it with EUCOM, which is European command,
00:03:43.000and then deprioritizing CENTCOM so that we can send those resources to Northern and Southern command.
00:04:02.000And so Trump has recognized this, and he's reprioritizing our base, that is, our hemisphere, the way that Russia's prioritizing their hemisphere,
00:04:11.000the way that the Chinese are prioritizing their hemisphere, because the world is now tripolar.
00:04:16.000It is three powers that are competing with many other powers rising behind it.
00:04:20.000And if you don't secure your own home front that includes Latin America, South America, and the polar regions, you don't have security at all.
00:04:28.000And right now the Chinese are crawling all over South America.
00:09:43.000That's because they want to put Tom Cotton in the Secretary of Defense's position.
00:09:46.000This is all about putting Tom Cotton in.
00:09:48.000They have two great – Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll and Bridge Colby think like the war room and think like the America First movement.
00:09:58.000In fact, we've got to be super strong, but we're not interventionists unless there's some emergency that has to be intervened.
00:10:06.000Colby and Driscoll are coming up with strategies that the neocons are going crazy.
00:10:10.000They want to insert Tom Cotton into – or Tom Cotton or Lindsey Graham type person that's all wars all the time everywhere, particularly on the Eurasian landmass.
00:10:50.000If you listen to what he's been saying since he was elected, whether it's about Canada, Greenland, or the Panama Canal, and in the case of Venezuela and in Colombia, this is also about getting our people in a position where we can basically put the squeeze on Panama so we can finally get the Panamanians to agree to give us back the canal so we can kick the Chinese out because the Chinese have basically taken over the canal zone.
00:11:14.000And so when we talk about dominance, what we're really talking about is controlling the choke points in our hemisphere, Panama Canal being the big one.
00:11:22.000But we also want to control the Caribbean Sea Basin.
00:11:24.000We also, like I said, want to have access to the South Pole through Argentina.
00:11:29.000We want to rebuff China's advances through that region.
00:11:32.000And we want to control the Greenland access as well.
00:11:35.000So what we're talking about is a hemispheric defense, hemispheric dominance strategy where we control the major arteries of the region, of the entire hemisphere, north to south, and everything in between.
00:11:48.000And so Trump is focusing so far on these big arteries that we can control and go from there.
00:11:54.000Because if we don't build the foundation in our own hemisphere, there's no competing with China.
00:11:59.000Look, China has already taken the first island chain, basically.
00:12:02.000They're already meddling in the second island chain.
00:12:04.000Like I said, I talked to Dr. Buchanan last night.
00:12:07.000Hold it. Hold it. Hang on. Hang on, man.
00:12:15.000Some people are going to say, hey, look, I love the way you started about the Islamic problem in Texas and in New York City.
00:12:22.000You had me there. But now you got and I would love to kill the, you know, stop the cartels and the fentanyl coming through the southern border.
00:12:29.000But you're when you say America first, the vision you're laying out is much broader than that.
00:12:34.000It goes literally from the Antarctic in Argentina and that horrific sea pass that you get from the Atlantic to the Pacific, still the heart most horrible in the world, all the way up to the Arctic Circle in Canada.
00:12:46.000You got the Pacific, you know, the big, the pivot in the Pacific.
00:12:51.000You're biting off a lot that doesn't feel America first.
00:12:54.000Give me the argument why your argument and many in the Trump administration say, no, you're wrong.
00:12:59.000To be clear, to be clear, I am very concerned about military action as well in Venezuela.
00:13:05.000But I will tell you, I'm not advocating for military.
00:13:08.000I'm advocating for using economic and diplomatic power to get the locals to start playing ball with us rather than China and Russia and Iran.
00:14:10.000How the nations of the earth that own the resources have kind of ganged up on the United States, led by the Chinese Communist Party to say, hey, we don't want to do these transactions in dollars.
00:20:31.000Well, Steve, look, we've got the USS Ford.
00:20:33.000That's 5,000 American sailors aboard our most capable, our most advanced, our most expensive, the most advanced aircraft carrier platform on the face of the planet and on the seven seas.
00:20:45.000And that is there to exert full spectrum dominance and hemispheric dominance on not just Venezuela, not just the Caribbean, but the entire Western hemisphere.
00:20:56.000So the hemispheric dominance, that's the term that you and I came up with earlier this morning while we were speaking via phone.
00:21:03.000And look, we're not we're not in the business of regime change war.
00:21:09.000But we do want to remind everyone is that the United States is turning its eye away from thousands of miles away from every conflict around the planet, every podunk dictator and saying, you know something?
00:21:20.000It's time that we pay attention to our neighborhood.
00:21:23.000It's time we pay attention to the Gulf of America.
00:21:25.000It's time we pay attention to what's going on directly next to our homeland.
00:21:29.000And that means those those sea lines of communication, those blocks, those choke points in and around the continental north, the continent of North America.
00:21:37.000And that's, of course, as Ben was talking about, Brandon, the Panama Canal, the GIUK Gap, Greenland.
00:22:06.000You've got the Jack Posobiec, Turning Point USA.
00:22:08.000They're going to the Heart of the Beast, Madison Square Garden to partner up and to meet and greet the UFC fans and to hand out three thousand freedom T-shirts.
00:22:18.000Charlie Kirk so memorably wore war on the day of his assassination.
00:22:27.000And I echo, by the way, what you said about the scandal in Ukraine.
00:22:31.000We've been talking about the corruption in Ukraine since day one of this war.
00:22:35.000And we see what's going on down there in Pocrosk.
00:22:37.000They want to turn Pocrosk into a mass grave because Alinsky is trying to do everything he can to wag the dog and draw attention away from this massive scandal.
00:23:04.000I don't want to talk about the first island chain now.
00:23:06.000That's a topic for a different day and we've got to go in more in depth.
00:23:09.000But you have, I think, a little different take on what President Trump's doing with the carrier strike force and the amphibious ready group off of Latin America, sir?
00:23:18.000Well, Steve, great to join you this morning.
00:23:21.000I think, sure, what the fourth group is doing is signaling, of course, to Venezuela.
00:23:28.000As Brendan has mentioned and Jack mentioned, of course, that's very important to signal to Mondero that this could escalate in a way that's not favorable to his interests.
00:23:41.000But I see what President Trump is doing is really adding his own corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, Steve.
00:23:50.000Monroe Doctrine said, of course, we're not going to allow Europeans to interfere in the Western Hemisphere.
00:23:56.000Roosevelt added a corollary in 1904 where he said the U.S. might use military force to keep the Europeans out.
00:24:04.000What President Trump is doing is adding his own corollary to Monroe, where he's saying he's not going to tolerate foreign powers, whether they're based in the Western Hemisphere or they're using the Western Hemisphere to hurt the American homeland.
00:24:21.000So it's really a Monroe Doctrine, which is externally faced, but it's also internally directed because, to my mind, what President Trump is doing is laboring so hard to restore the American spirit, right, to restore American identity, which is so important.
00:24:42.000Under threat, obviously, from political Islam or under threat from drugs, for example, whether those are the opioids and the synthetic opioids coming from China or other narcotics coming from Latin America.
00:24:59.000Do you think President Trump is saying we're going to stop this chemical warfare?
00:25:03.000Do you think the Venezuela has a component that's the Chinese Communist Party?
00:25:09.240I mean, there are people that come forward and say, hey, why do you say that? Give me a minute on that.
00:25:15.000Absolutely. Because of the presence that the CCP has in Venezuela, and not only Venezuela, but there.
00:25:24.240So the CCP wants to use, of course, the Venezuelans against us, right?
00:25:29.760They want to use Venezuela as a base to hurt us.
00:25:33.480Is this part of cleaning out the entire Caribbean of a major infusion of the People's Liberation Navy and what they've got in the Bahamas with these phony embassies that are really military installations?
00:26:23.520I see Trump is adding muscle to the Monroe Doctrine, right?
00:26:26.280What Trump is saying is you're not going to hurt the American people using what bases in the Western Hemisphere or using countries in the Western Hemisphere targeting and damaging the American people.
00:26:39.320We're not going to tolerate that, whether that's China, the Chinese Communist Party, or whether it's other actors, narco, essentially narco terrorists or Cuba.
00:26:52.840But President Trump has that vision of hemispheric defense, which is absolutely essential.
00:26:59.540But what hemispheric defense is, to my mind, is a restoration, a major contribution to the restoration of the American spirit, which is what President Trump is after, right?
00:27:11.160What he's giving the American people and why so many people voted for him.
00:29:52.800So what Trump is trying to do is he's trying to secure all the major flows in the North and South American area and the polar region.
00:30:00.680If we lose these regions, Steve, we don't have America first.
00:30:04.340We have basically, we're surrounded and isolated, and we become what the Soviet Union was in the Cold War, contained and isolated by our enemies.
00:31:18.480Yeah, I think President Trump has always had it right.
00:31:23.740He has a very simple formula called America first that would stop the border invasions, stop the endless wars, stop Biden inflation, do what's good for the working class.
00:31:44.280But if you go kinetic in Venezuela, are you starting a if you go kinetic or the way you go kinetic, are you starting a 20 year civil war down there, sir?
00:33:54.040Ben Harnwell, talk to me about, give me a couple of minutes on what's happening in Ukraine, and particularly this talk now that Zelensky may be turfed out and heading to Florida, sir.
00:34:06.180Well, let's start at the end of that question and work back towards the beginning.
00:34:09.760There are some people who think if that were to happen, if Zelensky were to flee Ukraine, that might hasten the end of the war.
00:34:19.180I would caution massively against that interpretation.
00:34:22.840If this were to happen, the reason he would be ejected by his own domestic political class is that he's no longer able to provide the one reason that has sustained him for, what, a year and a half beyond his presidential mandate.
00:34:40.200And that is, he's no longer bringing in the money, he's no longer bringing in American money, specifically, and there'll be no prospect of that, and that's why they will get rid of him.
00:34:49.980And presumably bringing someone like General Zelensky, who's currently in exile in London as ambassador, beloved figure by the military, by the Ukrainian people.
00:35:03.280So that would only mean, the switcheroo would only mean that this war is going to go on and on rather than tidy up quickly.
00:35:10.580No, Steve, the reason I really want to come onto the show today and share this with the warring posse is this is one of my all-time favorites coming out of Ukraine.
00:35:19.860You remember we said sort of three years ago how the Ukrainian political class was taking advantage of having gold-plated facials.
00:35:30.220You remember that? And we all laughed and said, you know, that's, you know, folks, that's where your heart-earned tax dollars are going, right?
00:35:37.820Can you afford gold-leaf facials? No, but they were being hoovered up by the Ukrainian political class.
00:35:46.180Well, there is one thing better than that now.
00:35:47.980In these raids that have taken place over the last 48 hours in Ukraine, in amongst the different bags, stuff, stuff full of cash, in addition to the sort of, I think, how many sort of 200 hours worth of intercepted phone calls,
00:36:05.460they found in one of Zelensky's key political operatives, they found a gold, golden toilet, not a gold-plated toilet, Steve, a golden toilet, solid gold.
00:36:20.380And this is related to the fleeing from Ukraine of Timur Mindich, that's his name, who's diverted up to $100 million worth of illicit funds through his office.
00:36:36.780Thanks, Denver. Yes, do please put up that photo now. That is it.
00:36:40.940And that is where your heart-earned dollars have been going, right, Americans?
00:36:47.600And on the one hand, you know, you think this is outrageous, and on the other hand, to add a lighter note,
00:36:53.280one can understand, Steve, that the hallowed nostrils of Zelensky and his oligarchs can't be expected to snort cocaine off your common or garden porcelain toilets.
00:37:06.040They need something more suitable for their station, and there it is, right in front of you.
00:37:11.900My plea, Steve, I'll hand back to you on this.
00:37:14.420My plea is to President Trump to withdraw fully, decisively, the United States from the scenario
00:37:25.000and make it clear to the political class that America is out.
00:37:29.440Once you kill the hope, the lifeline, then perhaps this war might end.
00:37:33.960They're doing the raids because the corruption is so out of control, as we said.
00:37:38.040They're doing the raids to try to cover, you know, they're trying to do something so they can continue to get more money.
00:37:42.040It's not going to work. This thing is going to collapse.
00:37:44.240It's been a disaster. You have a million and a half Ukrainians dead.
00:37:47.440You've got a million and a half Russians. You've got three million people dead or wounded.
00:38:32.460From your perch in the Eternal City, yes or no?
00:38:35.060Do we go kinetic in Venezuela in the next 72 to 96 hours, sir?
00:38:40.500I'm with Dave Blatt on this. I hope not.
00:38:44.220Sir, thank you very much. Look forward to seeing you Monday.
00:38:46.580We'll follow you on Getter over the weekend.
00:38:48.200Ben Harnwell, head of our international desk out of Rome.
00:38:55.740Nothing could be more urgent, I think, in everything that's going on is make America healthy again.
00:39:00.360It's actually a healthy movement. Claire Dooley's here.
00:39:03.180So this summit the other day was closed to the media, right?
00:39:07.720But you had one big hitter after the other.
00:39:09.740In fact, J.D., I haven't had a chance to play it. I will play it Monday.
00:39:12.000He actually was up there with Bobby Kennedy and gave a great, I think, summary of America First and MAGA about in Appalachia and the folks that he kind of came from and, I guess, eastern Ohio.
00:39:22.520Claire Dooley, you've now had a chance to kind of analyze this and write a piece about it.
00:39:26.700We've got about four minutes here and you're going to hold you through the break.
00:41:31.720You're a filmmaker, but it's mainly from the activist base of the Children's Health Defense.
00:41:36.000And the people that, quite frankly, were considered absolute wingnuts but now have Bobby Kennedy as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
00:41:43.780And you have President Trump not just flying air cover.
00:41:48.180President Trump in the Roosevelt Room presentation he did about autism and the vaccines, I mean, he's almost as big an advocate as Bobby Kennedy.
00:41:57.160So to come as a most marginal group and now get to the summit, give me a couple words.
00:42:03.760We've got about 30 seconds before we go to break.
00:42:05.560As you see where you guys have come and you've seized power in the imperial capital and now you've got a bunch of tech – let's be blunt – a bunch of tech bros looking to grift off the system, right?
00:42:45.540Claire Dooley on a hostile takeover of the Maha movement in a moment.
00:42:51.880You know, I didn't know this until the guys at Field of Greens, the doctors and the experts, told me about it and then gave me information.
00:45:11.760So we were just talking about an article I wrote called Inside the Maha Summit, an ex-vaxxers take.
00:45:18.960And, you know, we've been talking about, you know, the big tech takeover type themes when it comes to the Maha space.
00:45:27.380I kind of wanted to share a little bit, too, about some of the details in my article.
00:45:30.240And, Steve, you know, at a summit, the most important thing that doesn't actually happen on stage, it happens in the conversations in the room.
00:47:48.300She's got some thoughts on really Prisoner's Dilemma AI.
00:47:51.220And she's got some very definitive thoughts about this summit.
00:47:54.880What Nicole Shanahan, the Children's Health Defense, and Bobby Kennedy, and what you guys did 10 years of your life, decade of these films,
00:48:02.080you took what was considered a quite marginal group.
00:48:05.020And you showed immense political power by kind of partnering up.
00:48:09.460Let's say right now the junior partner to the MAGA movement with President Trump won a tremendous victory.
00:48:14.760And you have Bobby Kennedy, and it confirmed Secretary of Health and Human Services, which if you had said this a couple of years ago, people would have said that's total madness.
00:48:22.800It has come because you have rallied the American people on a grassroots basis.
00:48:50.000It's like they're anti-MAGA on the other tech bros.
00:48:52.260It's just the nature of the structure of those industries and how they apply capital to it.
00:48:56.800So this is why I think people – now you have a creme de la creme of the biotech industry sitting there licking their chops as the little lambs of Make America Healthy Again come through.
00:49:08.080And I think people are the Claire Dooley's and the Cole Shanahan's and all these grassroots people have been fighting for years.
00:49:15.040Are you guys smart enough and tough enough to understand that you've seized some power, but people are trying to come and they're trying to take over the movement?