In this episode, Stephen K. K. Bannon and James R. Carvalho discuss the latest in the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran, including the reports that Russia is providing intelligence on U.S. military targets in the Middle East, and that China is considering joining forces with the effort.
00:05:48.000Trump specifically cited Iranian support, weapons that killed U.S. soldiers in the war in Iraq
00:05:54.000as one of the justifications for this war.
00:05:55.000So, you know, presumably Russian support that would endanger U.S. soldiers would be something that would spark a reaction.
00:06:00.000What the president means is that when he, as commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces,
00:06:05.000determines that Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States of America
00:06:10.000and the goals of Operation Epic Fury has been fully realized,
00:06:13.000then Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional surrender, whether they say it themselves or not.
00:06:20.000Akela, what she just described is not the same as Iran surrendering.
00:06:26.000What do you make of what we heard from both Trump and Carolyn Levitt?
00:06:31.000I mean, it's a huge caveat, whether, you know, it's by Iran's terms or President Trump's terms.
00:06:37.000But I think what has been increasingly clear over what has been almost a week now of this ongoing conflict
00:06:43.000is every time the president talks about Iran, he's raising the stakes.
00:06:48.000Before this conflict happened, it was about ensuring that they didn't have a nuclear weapon.
00:06:53.000Now it's about destroying all of their naval assets.
00:06:56.000It's about destroying their ballistic missiles and preventing their vast terrorist network from destabilizing the region,
00:07:03.000which is something, frankly, that I still don't understand how that impacts the ceasefire agreement that was made in Gaza.
00:07:10.000The president keeps raising the stakes here.
00:07:13.000But what is increasingly clear is he feels very proud of the operation so far.
00:07:18.000He continues to call it very successful and he said as much in conversations with journalists.
00:07:23.000But I don't think anyone questions whether the U.S. can do this.
00:07:26.000And they are very much doing this with a huge amount of firepower.
00:07:30.000It's the question of whether they should be doing that.
00:07:33.000And that is not something that the president has really been able to articulate to the American public.
00:07:38.000Well, if it's something serious and not a bargaining position, then it would connote an entirely different set of mission objectives for the U.S. military.
00:07:46.000I mean, by design, an unconditional surrender means that the vanquished has to submit to the victor in every regard politically, economically, militarily, even socially.
00:07:56.000So if he's serious about that and we'll see what he says tomorrow, then certainly you would expect that the military will be getting different guidance and different structures and different orders to conduct the operations that they're now conducting.
00:08:10.000Because originally it was couched from Secretary Hagseth and the chairman as a limited set of objectives.
00:08:53.000The president also spoke by phone with CNN's Dana Bash today, telling her that he's involved in picking a new leader for Iran and saying, quote, it's going to work very easily.
00:09:03.000It's going to work like it did in Venezuela.
00:09:05.000CBS News has three sources telling us that Russia is providing intelligence to Iran on U.S. positions and movements.
00:09:15.000The average American might hear that and think that's a big and dangerous deal.
00:09:20.000Our commanders are aware of everything.
00:09:21.000We have the best intelligence in the world.
00:09:23.000We're aware of who's talking to who, why they're talking to him, how accurate that information might be, how we factor that into our battle plans, our CENTCOM commander.
00:09:54.000Well, President Trump, as people have seen, has a unique relationship with a lot of world leaders where he can get things done that other presidents, certainly Joe Biden never could have.
00:10:04.000And through direct conversations or indirect, through him one-to-one or through his cabinet, messages definitely can be delivered.
00:10:11.000Does this put U.S. personnel in any more danger than they otherwise would be, the Russian involvement?
00:10:26.000But the only ones that need to be worried right now are our Iranians that think they're going to live.
00:10:30.000You know what David was noting earlier about cooperation between the Iranians and the Russians, that's the type of thing that was very foreseeable.
00:10:38.000You could have put this problem to me seven years ago and I would have said that one of the first things you're going to need to worry about is do the Russians enter the conflict because they've been deepening their relationship with the Iranians for the past 15 years?
00:10:51.000And then my second question would be, do the Chinese do the same?
00:10:54.000Do the Chinese come in and start to arm the Iranians?
00:10:57.000And do you worry about this spiraling into a bigger war?
00:11:15.000But you have a team that's unprepared, a team that's unserious.
00:11:18.000And they've gotten us into a much bigger mess than they realized.
00:11:22.000The Iran and the FBI piece of this for a moment.
00:11:25.000But the president doesn't seem overly concerned about giving the comments of Time magazine about increasing attacks in the U.S., the potential of that.
00:11:34.000Should we all be concerned about that?
00:11:39.000And I say that in the context of behind the scenes, secretly, in ways most people don't know about it.
00:11:45.000Iranian operatives have been on the ground here plotting things for a long time.
00:11:51.000There are even now Iranian operatives in the United States.
00:11:54.000One would have to assume that given the number we have taken off the game field and the idea that Iran would have no motive not to replace them with some other covert operators, you have to operate on that assumption.
00:12:08.000But we also and I think what the president was saying is we're under constant threat from the remnants of ISIS and Al Qaeda.
00:12:15.000We saw the Bourbon Street attacks in New Orleans on New Year's Day two years ago.
00:12:19.000We've seen the plots that have been interrupted and thwarted.
00:12:22.000This is a post 9-11 constant as long as that propaganda is out there.
00:12:27.000The factor of Iran, though, is they do this very professionally and they are in a position where they've always done targeted violence, targeting particular people.
00:12:39.000This is the kind of environment where they could go to a mass casualty incident.
00:12:42.000I mean, people who have been caught in the past, what are they doing here?
00:12:47.000Are they do they have diplomatic immunity or they what is sort of infiltration is their life?
00:12:53.000So you've had covert Iranian intelligence officers who have come in and out of the United States under various covers and then recruited individuals associated with violence or criminal organizations to target particular people for them for a hit or for an assault or a kidnapping or a murder.
00:13:11.000But we've also seen them use elements of Hezbollah that were planted in America, Anderson, for the specific purpose of cataloging targets, studying them, mapping them, developing target books and transmitting them back to their handlers in Iran.
00:13:28.000So this is something that Iran has been thinking about and planning for for 20 years or more.
00:13:35.000Are any signs that you have seen so far that indicate to you that the government is that Trump is getting ready to deploy boots on the ground, something that the average citizen and us journalists wouldn't necessarily pick up on or notice?
00:13:47.000Certainly there are a lot of forces in the region.
00:13:49.000But again, putting in a small contingent of U.S. forces, where are you going to do that?
00:13:54.000You're going to drop them in the middle of Tehran when you still have the besiege and you still have revolutionite guards there?
00:13:59.000There would be, you know, it's almost a suicide mission. You would need to have a very large scale force, just like moved into Iraq.
00:14:07.000It moved in over land into it. You need to bring in the weapons, the equipment, the heavy weaponry and other types of things.
00:14:14.000So I don't see right now that they're ready to do that. Maybe they're planning to do it.
00:14:19.000I think they're trying to play catch up with Donald Trump's policies. So I don't know what he is planning to do.
00:14:26.000And this is where I think his haphazard, reckless nature of this policy really could put U.S. forces in grave, grave danger.
00:14:34.000Let me just say this. Go America. Go president. You got 92 percent of MAGA behind you.
00:14:40.000And I bet you have most of the country behind you. We're going to destroy this enemy, free the people in Iran.
00:14:46.000China's upset. The Russians are upset. And the Democrats are upset. That's it. I'm done.
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00:16:21.000It's Saturday, 7 March in the year of our Lord, 2026.
00:16:36.000President Trump just spoke at the Shield of America.
00:16:42.000This is his hemispheric defense strategy.
00:16:45.000The entire weekend is going to be going to be various speakers down there.
00:16:50.000And Rav Espanol is going to cover it wall to wall.
00:16:55.000Also, we have a dignified transfer of the remains of our honored dead that is supposed to take place at approximately 1.30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
00:17:09.000At Dover Air Force Base, the president is going to be in attendance and will, as commander in chief, oversee the ceremony.
00:17:18.000And he will leave shortly from South Florida.
00:17:23.000In addition, we are going to do a war room, our Sunday special.
00:17:28.000We're going to continue on seven days a week until that time that the major combat operations slow down, cease, end off-ramp.
00:17:38.000Or, as President Trump's been talking about, an unconditional surrender.
00:17:42.000And today is even going to be a little truncated given the timing that we've got and try to jam everything in.
00:17:49.000So we're here today, Rahim Kassam is going to join me.
00:17:52.000We've got Dr. Bradley Thayer, also Philip Patrick.
00:17:55.000We're going to go a lot of geopolitics and strategy, update on the military operations.
00:18:02.000And Philip Patrick is going to talk about capital markets.
00:18:04.000In addition, the other thing to be watching is it is a long way from over from John Cornyn and Ken Paxson in Texas.
00:18:15.000Over the last 24 to 48 hours, you see at Breitbart and Caroline Wren and many, many others going through John Cornyn's really not just lack of support for President Trump, but really against President Trump in so many major areas.
00:18:33.000These clips are starting to surface and get traction, and you have major voices on the right, including, I think, Jesse Kelly was on Megyn Kelly yesterday.
00:18:42.000Another voice in there just bringing up the concept that John Cornyn has not had President Trump's back.
00:18:49.000Even more importantly, having spent, I don't know, the last five or so weeks in Texas and getting to know the grassroots.
00:18:56.000And the grassroots in Texas is enormously powerful and really are the key and the cornerstone of the Trump movement here and having President Trump's back.
00:19:05.000I just think given, and I think this can actually have an inflection point, hopefully, in modern politics, the scale and the vitriol coming after Ken Paxton with $80 million essentially of negative ads was a big eye-opener to people in Texas, the grassroots.
00:19:24.080And I believe, and more analysis has to be done, I just don't think this whole, that John Cornyn is by nature the guy that could be Tirico.
00:19:35.080Number one, I think Tirico is a much, much weaker candidate than people, particularly the DC and the political media in DC.
00:19:44.080If you saw him on the campaign trail here and you've seen his previous, what he's really stood for and what he's presented, he is a far left radical and kind of a weird guy.
00:20:06.080Her campaign at the end didn't really have much of a ground game.
00:20:10.080I think that's what the big thing is separated.
00:20:12.080Plus the whole, the democratic establishment didn't want her.
00:20:15.080You saw the whole Colbert, that whole situation was set up to thwart her, but I don't think he's, they make him out like some incredibly powerful candidate.
00:20:33.080Raheem's going to be here in a moment to talk about it.
00:20:36.080Also in addition, I think one of the galvanizing things we've seen here in Texas over the last couple of weeks is this Proposition 10, which is about banning or prohibiting, I think the term is, prohibiting Sharia law in the state of Texas.
00:20:52.080And now you're seeing the second wave as Brian Harrison and others talked about trying to get public hearings in the Texas legislature because Texas legislature, unless they call a special session, doesn't meet till next year.
00:21:03.080I do believe they're going to call a special session.
00:21:05.080Governor Abbott has designated the Muslim Brotherhood and CARE as terrorist organizations already, I think, listed.
00:21:16.080Particularly CARE has fought everywhere, but it's very important in, especially as you see what's happening in this war.
00:21:25.080And particularly see what's happening with our allies in Great Britain, the entire phoniness of the first couple of hours of the military operation when the United Kingdom would not let us use the airfield to do strikes out of because of the power of the Muslim members of the House of Commons in the Labour Party.
00:21:51.080And now we find out they wanted to have Starmer and this crowd wanted to have some kind of phony, oh, just give us six hours.
00:22:00.080And this is all inextricably linked with what's happened in Europe, the migrant invasion in Europe, the Islamization of Europe and what's happening in the United States.
00:22:07.080That's why Texas was so important to actually be the place where we stop it and reverse it.
00:22:13.080And you can see right now, overnight, one of the biggest developments is one of the things we've been most focused on here is the center of gravity of this, which I believe has been the center of gravity of really the context and strategic context of the war.
00:22:27.080Maybe not the center of gravity in a Klaus Witzian sense of battle, because that's clearly been around Tehran and command and control.
00:22:38.080And as the military goes through a very set, CENTCOM goes through a very set target list to degrade the Iranian military.
00:22:48.080And President Trump says today it would really be destruction.
00:22:52.080He considers – he's talking about unconditional surrender.
00:22:55.080And unconditional surrender, as Caroline Levitt refined, was President Trump's thinking that it would be the inability of the Iranian military or the Revolutionary Guard to both do power projection on their own people or certainly power projection in the region.
00:23:11.080And that's one of the things I find most fascinating.
00:23:14.080And now overnight – we made a big deal about it yesterday – but overnight, the Iranian foreign minister has come out and said they will have, for right now, have no more strikes on their Gulf neighbors.
00:23:26.080The biggest part of this story to me in the first couple of days is Shiite versus Sunni, Muslim versus Muslim, Persian versus Arab, the strikes on the – in the Persian Gulf.
00:23:41.080I think one of the things that triggered the Iranians to say this is, as we talked about yesterday and we'll talk further today, is the seizing of financial assets.
00:23:51.080Just like the West seized the financial assets of the Russians in the Ukraine-Russian war and I think had a major impact on Russia.
00:24:01.080It's one of the many reasons I think they haven't made a lot of progress.
00:24:06.080They're still about 20%, 25% of Ukraine.
00:24:08.080They haven't made a lot of progress, I think, because of the financial restrictions put on them when the Western banks seized their assets.
00:24:14.080Something we hadn't done to the Nazis or to Imperial Japan in World War II or to the Bolsheviks or even to the Chinese Communist Party.
00:24:22.080Dubai, which is, I call like, was it Tortuga, for the Caribbean pirates, this center, a little-known fact is that the Iranians, as much as the Gulf Arabs have always been at their throat and vice versa,
00:24:37.080the banking center, the financial center for them is not Switzerland, it's really Dubai and this is the way that they've gotten around sanctions.
00:24:44.080Well, the UAE, because they took enough hits, said, hey, we are thinking of a contemplating seizing the Iranians' assets in our banks.
00:24:53.080And lo and behold, 12 hours later, the Iranians say, well, upon further review, maybe we're going to have a timeout.
00:24:59.080We're going to have a pause on any more strikes into the Gulf.
00:25:03.080Now, Qatar said yesterday, it's reported in Reuters and in the Financial Times of London, that the Qatar oil minister said, hey, because I think they've shut down one of their big gas fields.
00:25:14.080I think it's the gas field during joint operation with the Iranians said oil could go to $150 a barrel.
00:25:20.080Now, a lot of that is just propaganda, but there's clearly oil, I think it's gone up 35%.
00:25:26.080I think it's gone up almost 40% or 50% since Netanyahu went to Mar-a-Lago in December.
00:25:34.080As we now know, it's one of the big kickoff meetings.
00:25:37.080The oil market is an efficient market.
00:25:39.080Tons of information out there, a lot of traders that trade.
00:25:47.080We're going to take a short commercial break just to go back tomorrow at 10 a.m.
00:25:52.080If we can pull it off technically, which I'm sure we can with Real America's Voice, our great team in Denver, and also our team here, the War Room team.
00:26:01.080We're going to have another Sunday morning special at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time to 12 noon.
00:26:07.080Today's going to be a little bifurcated because there's so much going on.
00:26:11.080Like I said, we've got Shield of America's right now in Miami, and that's the hemispheric defense.
00:26:18.080You're going to want to dip into that all day.
00:26:20.080The Espanol guys, perhaps a new channel, are going to cover that wall to wall.
00:26:26.080Also, the dignified transfer of our honored dead will take place approximately 1.30 p.m. at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, and the President of the United States as Commander-in-Chief will be there.
00:26:40.080I want to thank all of our sponsors, particularly Patriot Mobile, 972 Patriot.
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00:26:55.080And Texas, and I say this as a Virginian, is the jewel in the crown of our republic.
00:27:03.080I want to thank Patriot Mobile, 972 Patriot.
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