Bannon's War Room - March 29, 2026


Episode 5255： War Rages As Iran Attacks Airport; No Kings Protests Across The Nation

Topics
no kings protests
Hosted by
Steve Bannon
Mentioned
Donald Trump Marco Rubio Eric Prince Hormuz Steve Houthis Cardinal Pizzaballa Bradley Thayer James Fennell Ben Harnwell Jim Rickards Joe Biden Gallipoli Stephen K. Mann Stephen K. Band The Babel Mandaab Natalie Dominguez Georgia Maloney Walter Cronkite Robert McNamara and 22 more
Episode 5253： War Escalating Into Lebanon; Texas Is The Railhead Of The Country Episode 5253： War Escalating Into Lebanon; Texas Is The Railhead Of The Country Episode 5259： SCOTUS To Hear Birthright Citizenship Case Wednesday

Episode Stats


Length

57 minutes

Words per minute

154.31

Word count

8,939

Sentence count

433

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

12

sentences flagged

Hate speech

29

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we discuss the latest Iranian missile strike on a Saudi Arabia air base, as well as the massive protests across the country in support of the No Kings movement and the No King in America rally in New York City.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters a short time ago that he was expecting Iran's
00:00:04 response to a U.S. peace proposal at any moment.
00:00:08 The Trump administration has offered to Iran a 15-point plan to end the war, and this comes
00:00:12 as the two sides could potentially begin face-to-face negotiations in the near future.
00:00:17 At the same time, the U.S. is sending thousands of troops to the Middle East, though Secretary
00:00:21 Rubio says that Iranian military capabilities can be destroyed without putting any American
00:00:26 troops on the ground.
00:00:28 Listen.
00:00:30 We can achieve. We are achieving all those objectives. We are ahead of schedule on most of
00:00:34 them, and we can achieve them without any ground troops, without any. Now, in terms of why there's
00:00:39 deployments, number one, the president has to be prepared for multiple contingencies,
00:00:45 which I'm not going to discuss immediately. And again, I refer you to the Department of War,
00:00:48 who will probably tell you the exact same thing. But we can achieve all of our objectives with
00:00:52 our ground troops, but we are always going to be prepared to give the president maximum
00:00:56 optionality and maximum opportunity to adjust to contingencies should they emerge so we don't
00:01:03 have the exact number of servicemen or women who were actually injured during this attack but i was
00:01:10 just told by a source moments ago that two of the service members did have shrapnel wounds but they
00:01:19 were clear to say that these were non-life-threatening wounds. I'm also told that
00:01:25 aircrafts, at least one aircraft was damaged in this strike, but it's not something that's going
00:01:30 to totally take out their capabilities on that air base. Now, in terms of the shrapnel wounds,
00:01:36 in terms of the wounds overall, the injuries overall, we do not have clarity on how many
00:01:41 service members, men and women, were actually injured. We do not have clarity on what those
00:01:48 injuries were other than the at least two servicemen and women who were injured with a
00:01:53 shrapnel injury. Now, of course, all of this is going to further complicate what is supposed to
00:01:58 be happening behind the scenes right now and what we are told is happening, which is this quest for
00:02:04 diplomacy, these ongoing negotiations. And I will say we heard from the secretary of state earlier
00:02:09 today who said that they were waiting to hear from Iran on that 15 point plan and that they
00:02:14 still didn't know who they were supposed to be talking to and what they were supposed to be
00:02:18 talking about. And the reason why that's so critical, that 15 point plan, I mean, that's
00:02:24 supposed to be the basis of these negotiations. So if Iran doesn't accept that, what are they
00:02:29 actually going to talk about if the two sides sit down together either late this weekend or early
00:02:35 next week? But when it comes to what happened in Saudi Arabia, I mean, this was this information
00:02:39 is still very fluid. It is coming in. It does sound like the injuries that we know of were
00:02:46 non-life threatening. But again, this is still a very fluid situation after this Iranian missile
00:02:52 strike. Now, one other thing. Troops on the ground. He said no troops on the ground.
00:02:59 I don't remember that in any campaign speech either. But why would we need troops on the
00:03:04 ground well there's a lot of reasons and we wouldn't need 300,000 of them it's
00:03:11 this uranium too we've got to get the uranium if it cannot be destroyed if it
00:03:20 cannot be altered we got to get it for the reason I just said you can make
00:03:26 dirty bombs and over time you can still make sophisticated missiles so you need
00:03:33 to get to the uranium. That's why I'm reading in the paper, we're talking about the 82nd Airborne,
00:03:40 we're talking about these very special forces and the various military services and so forth.
00:03:45 He's not talking about sending regular army and infantry in by the hundreds of thousands.
00:03:51 All day long, through rain or shine, massive crowds poured into the streets in big cities
00:03:57 and small towns alike, all with a unifying message. There are no kings in America.
00:04:02 And Justin, the No Kings Coalition, which is made up of organizers of rallies nationwide, tells MSNOW that an estimated 8 million people showed up to today's demonstrations, making it the largest single-day nonviolent protest in modern American history.
00:04:20 Organizers in Chicago estimated that about 200,000 people turned up there alone.
00:04:25 And here in New York City, organizers told me that an estimated 350,000 people showed up.
00:04:31 For reference, the first No Kings Day last June drew an estimated 5 million people.
00:04:37 The second one, held in October, an estimated 7 million.
00:04:41 The flagship No Kings rally was held today in Minneapolis,
00:04:44 which has, of course, become the site of some of the Trump administration's most glaring examples of overreach.
00:04:51 Every morning when I get up, I reach for my phone to look at the headlines of the day.
00:04:55 And for some time now, I start every morning depressed about the latest outrage from our
00:05:01 would-be king. I mean, it's amazing. Every f***ing day, there's something new and crazy.
00:05:07 But it's different on this day, because all over the country, in cities and towns and factories 0.97
00:05:14 and on farms, north, south, east, west, millions of us are coming together to declare no kings.
00:05:21 It is indeed a beautiful, hopeful day in the United States of America.
00:05:27 And you, Minnesota, are at the epicenter.
00:05:30 It is your courage and your commitment that have inspired all of us.
00:05:34 You have shown the power of nonviolent protests.
00:05:37 You have shown bravery in the face of armed attack by government thugs.
00:05:42 And you stood together and ran them out of town.
00:05:45 Toast yourselves, pat yourselves on the back, take a bow, but don't take a break.
00:05:50 because today and everything that has gone before
00:05:53 is just a start, a rehearsal for the big show that's coming.
00:05:58 You know the arrogant would-be king is absolutely scared to death
00:06:02 about losing his power and will do everything he can to hold on to it
00:06:06 without regard to legality, morality, humanity, nothing.
00:06:10 We will face greater challenges down the road.
00:06:13 For everything you've done, thank you.
00:06:15 And now expect to be asked to do more.
00:06:18 I know you will answer the call.
00:06:20 Thank you.
00:06:29 Hello, Minnesota.
00:06:34 Welcome to the freest state in the nation.
00:06:40 A state where you love who you choose to love.
00:06:44 A state where you make your health care decisions.
00:06:48 a state where you worship or not according to your own beliefs
00:06:54 and maybe most importantly a state where everyone belongs
00:07:01 well this past winter federal troops brought death and terror to the streets of minneapolis
00:07:15 Well, they picked the wrong city.
00:07:20 The power and the solidarity of the people of Minneapolis and of Minnesota
00:07:25 was an inspiration to the entire country.
00:07:30 Your strength and your commitment told us that this is still America.
00:07:37 And this reactionary nightmare and these invasions of American cities will not stand.
00:07:45 You gave us hope. You gave us courage.
00:07:49 And for those who gave their lives,
00:07:52 Renee Good, mother of three, brutally murdered,
00:07:56 Alex Preddy, VA nurse, executed by ICE,
00:08:01 shot in the back and left to die in the street
00:08:03 without even the decency of our lawless government
00:08:07 investigating their deaths.
00:08:12 Their bravery, their sacrifice,
00:08:15 and their names will not be forgotten.
00:08:18 Pakistan is hosting foreign ministers from Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia
00:08:22 to talk about ways to de-escalate this joint U.S.-Israeli operation in Iran.
00:08:28 Now, the countries have seen their borders and energy security come under threat as well.
00:08:33 I believe Russia is actively helping Iran target American forces in the Middle East right now.
00:08:39 think that Russia in Russian interest to help Iranians and I not believe I know
00:08:49 that they share information if they make images once they are prepared if they
00:08:56 make images the second time it's like simulation the sore time it's been that
00:09:04 one two days they will attack that's right yeah this is what you know that's
00:09:08 why if i get not once the information from my intelligence that they are that they make images
00:09:16 of american base i'm this this is the answer do they help iranians of course how many percent
00:09:27 100 percent yes you think it's in vladimir putin's interest for this world yeah at least
00:09:33 I think that Russia needs long war in Middle East because the focus will be on Middle East. 1.00
00:09:43 And you know what else? I remember from my days in the Reagan administration.
00:09:48 Many of them are trained for a moment like this to try and secure enriched uranium.
00:09:57 Many have been trained for moments like this.
00:10:00 i guess what i'm trying to say is we're in good hands no not with all state but with president
00:10:07 trump because he's a man with enormous intelligence enormous common sense he's not an ideologue he
00:10:15 doesn't run around with slogans he's prudential he looks at the facts he looks at the challenge
00:10:22 and he's dealing with it now you might say but he's negotiating a peace deal first of all
00:10:27 Did you look at those 15 points that were in the media?
00:10:31 You know what that was?
00:10:32 That was unconditional surrender.
00:10:34 The Iranians apparently said no.
00:10:36 The president said, okay, who's up next?
00:10:40 Since 9-11, a whole bunch of the leadership, including bin Laden's son, escaped from Afghanistan to Iran,
00:10:47 were given sanctuary by the Iranian regime, and they've been using it as a hub for terror around the world. 0.99
00:10:54 And al-Qaeda and Iran have teamed up for a series of terrorist attacks against us.
00:10:59 People don't realize this, but we remember the bombings of the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania,
00:11:03 which should have been our warning that 9-11 was coming.
00:11:06 That was planned, and the terrorists were trained by Iran for doing that because al-Qaeda 0.78
00:11:12 didn't know how to bring down buildings, so they turned to Iran in order to get the training to do 0.95
00:11:17 that. So the idea that Iran, which is Shia, and al-Qaeda, which is Sunni, would cooperate is not
00:11:25 beyond measure. In fact, I mean, you know, Hamas is Sunni also. Iran works with Sunni terrorists 0.98
00:11:31 around the world. And if we don't get that enriched uranium and they want to get back at
00:11:36 us for what we've done, the easiest way to do it would be to give it to al-Qaeda and let them use 0.69
00:11:40 it for a dirty bomb. So we have got to get what Donald Trump correctly calls the nuclear dust
00:11:45 before this operation is done?
00:11:47 Well, the president said,
00:11:48 look, we've accomplished the gross majority
00:11:50 of our military objectives.
00:11:51 I think you can make a good argument
00:11:53 that we've accomplished all of our military objectives.
00:11:55 The president's gonna keep at it for a little while longer
00:11:57 to ensure that once we leave,
00:12:00 we don't have to do this again for a very, very long time.
00:12:02 That was fundamentally the president's goal.
00:12:04 He said, look, this country,
00:12:05 they're threatening us in all these ways.
00:12:07 They're still trying to build a nuclear weapon.
00:12:09 We need to neuter them for a very, very long time.
00:12:12 And that's the purpose.
00:12:13 You're right.
00:12:13 Gas prices have certainly gone up because of what's going on in the Middle East, but they're going to come down, right?
00:12:19 This is a very, very temporary reaction to what is going to ultimately be a short-term conflict.
00:12:24 I think the president's been very clear about this, that we're not interested in being in Iran a year down the road, two years down the road.
00:12:32 We're taking care of business. We're going to be out of there soon, and gas prices are going to come back down.
00:12:37 I've never seen – I know that people turned against the Iraq war after a period of time.
00:12:42 They turned against Afghanistan after a period of time. The Democrats did. But I never seen a war where the Democrats turned against the war on day one and are rooting for defeat.
00:12:53 You know, there are people in this country who hate Donald Trump more than they hate the Iranian regime that just massacred 32000 people in their streets. 1.00
00:13:01 You know, they were all very upset about about what was happening in Gaza, but 32000 people massacred.
00:13:08 And then Donald Trump comes in to wipe out the genocidal regime that actually was committing genocide against its own people, massacring them in the streets like that.
00:13:17 And Donald because it's Donald Trump, we have to play it down.
00:13:20 We have to say it's a defeat. We have to say we're losing and they're all going to have egg on their face because we got we're about halfway through this thing.
00:13:26 And when this is all over, this is going to go down in history as possibly the greatest military campaign the United States has waged since the American Revolution.
00:13:39 Come, mothers and fathers, throughout the land, and don't criticize what you don't understand.
00:13:50 Minneapolis, Minnesota is beyond your command. 0.68
00:13:56 Your old road is rapidly aging, so get the f**k out the way if you can't lend a hand.
00:14:05 The times are changing. 0.97
00:14:12 This is the primal scream of a dying regime.
00:14:17 Pray for our enemies, because we're going medieval on these people.
00:14:21 I got a free shot all these networks lying about the people the people have had a belly full of it
00:14:28 I know you don't like hearing that I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that but
00:14:32 you're not going to stop it it's going to happen and where do people like that go to share the big
00:14:36 line mega media I wish in my soul I wish that any of these people had a conscience ask yourself
00:14:45 what is my task and what is my purpose if that answer is to save my country this country will
00:14:53 be saved war room here's your host stephen k bannett
00:14:57 it's palm sunday 29 march year of our lord 2026 want to thank real america's voice for all the
00:15:08 support uh and great uh great work at cpac also with helping us on now our new sunday show in
00:15:16 particularly here on on palm sunday um we've got we're going to go through obviously a lot of
00:15:21 detail in the war this is the beginning of holy week and i think it will be a pretty intense week
00:15:27 in the middle east breaking news so i've got eric prince dr bradley thayer captain jim finnell to
00:15:34 start off this morning and to set us right here on what's going on. But breaking news, I've got
00:15:40 Poso Posovic and hopefully Ben Harnwell from Rome in the second hour. Breaking news, very disturbing
00:15:47 story this morning about Palm Sunday. Israeli police prevented Cardinal Pizzabella from entering
00:15:54 the Church of the Holy Sepulchre early today as he went to, say, Palm Sunday Mass. They put out a
00:16:00 press release from the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem in the custody of the Holy Land.
00:16:06 This morning, the Israeli police prevented Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pizzabella,
00:16:12 head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, together with the custodian of the Holy Land,
00:16:17 from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem as they made their way to celebrate
00:16:22 Palm Sunday Mass. Georgia Maloney and the Italian government, I think, have already
00:16:28 called for the israeli ambassador to come have a visit so we're gonna get break all that down
00:16:32 find exactly what happened uh eric prince you join us eric thank you and thank you for the
00:16:38 obviously the guidance you gave from the stage at cpac um right there we've got we've got two
00:16:45 messages we have a message from the national security advisor to the president marco rubio
00:16:51 and also, I think, backed up by the vice president that says we don't need combat troops.
00:16:59 We're going down, as Jim Fennell has been showing us every day, a methodical process of defanging
00:17:05 and declawing the traditional combat arms of the Iranian government and the Revolutionary Guard.
00:17:15 that continues on i think they say they have 3 500 targets left uh and it's a it's a just a
00:17:22 massive pounding every night unrelenting although i would say that the i believe ever since the
00:17:29 israelis attacked the gas fields of the qatar that the initiative the center of gravity of this 0.56
00:17:36 battle has shifted to the persian gulf uh the toll gate that now somehow you know the houthis
00:17:42 have in the Red Sea and the Revolutionary Guard fields they have in the Strait of Hormuz.
00:17:50 There's, I think, about 8,000 combat troops between 82nd Airborne and two Marine Expeditionary
00:17:57 units that now are essentially on station, if the president so chooses. But Marco Rubio tells us,
00:18:03 and he told us many times, we're not going to need that. You've got the vice president saying,
00:18:09 We're almost done. A little while longer, I think what the quote was.
00:18:13 But you have the Mark Levins and Thysons and all the cheerleaders for the Iraq war. 0.78
00:18:17 Everybody got it wrong in the Iraq war. 0.83
00:18:19 They're telling us that there's nuclear dust or there's some there's some cause,
00:18:24 their current version of weapons of mass destruction that we have to go in and send troops in.
00:18:29 Your thoughts on all this, sir?
00:18:32 Well, first, Steve, let me speak to Palm Sunday in Jerusalem.
00:18:35 I know Cardinal Pizzaballa. He actually contacted me after the Gaza debacle started, and he said the Holy Father had instructed him to get involved, and he asked me to make a plan to build a whole refugee camp to take care of the Gazan civilians, and was blocked by the Biden administration.
00:18:56 But imagine for the first time in centuries since the Ottoman rule, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, Christians are denied to have mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
00:19:09 This is truly unprecedented times.
00:19:12 I cannot see any legitimate reason security wise to ban people from going to mass.
00:19:20 I mean, if they're going to Mass, they're clearly in community with their Lord.
00:19:28 If they're killed going to Mass, I think they'll take that risk.
00:19:31 It is a horrific affront to Christianity, and every Catholic, evangelical, every Orthodox in America should be irate about it. 0.99
00:19:40 It is unprecedented and wrong.
00:19:43 Second, we now live in a world of truth.
00:19:48 Hang on one second. Before we go to number two, I want to go back to number one.
00:19:54 My understanding after this story broke and with my inquiries, and that's we're trying to get Ben
00:19:59 up from Rome in the second hour, is was there any, to your knowledge, was there anything
00:20:05 transmitted to the church through official channels to tell them, because this is unprecedented
00:20:11 For hundreds of years, since the Ottomans controlled Jerusalem, was anything communicated through official channels to the church that this might happen, sir, to your knowledge?
00:20:25 Not that I know of. In fact, the cardinal in his statement even said that he has been adhering to every request and security stricture.
00:20:34 stricture he was not going with some grand procession even he was going privately with
00:20:38 another clergy to the the church to say mass on palm sunday and barred so it's when you if you
00:20:48 give a gun and a badge you get a bigger one and uh perhaps that's the case of some security uh
00:20:56 apparatchik uh in jerusalem that doesn't care that it's a cardinal has no respect uh for christendom 0.93
00:21:02 This is a really, really bad look for – look, it starts to take away any understanding about – or I guess it adds to understanding of even Muslims that are angry at their access to Al-Aqsa Mosque and, again, a completely unforced stupid error by Israeli security forces today. 0.85
00:21:32 eric go on your your bullet point number two bullet point two stave uh we live in a very in a 0.92
00:21:42 in a world of transparent battlefields if you get within 30 40 kilometers of the front line
00:21:48 in era in ukraine you are completely at risk because of the amount of surveillance uh and
00:21:56 drones sensors. The idea that you're going to hide an amphibious ready group, or MU, with
00:22:04 an LHA, that's probably a, what, 800 or 900 foot ship, weighs 40 or 50,000 tons.
00:22:13 Believe me, there's multiple countries in the world that own the means to track that in real
00:22:19 time. And so if you, by doctrine, if you try to get that entire amphibious group within a range
00:22:29 of them starting to discharge their troops, they're going to be heavily and highly targeted
00:22:34 for the same reason that they pulled the carrier air wing back mysteriously after the laundry fire
00:22:45 on board the uss ford so uh highly dangerous to put amphibious troops uh into that area because
00:22:54 of their so many precision missiles and obviously there's no surprise left uh if they somehow
00:22:59 manage to get all those marines off and move them somewhere else to launch an amphibious operation
00:23:06 to try to force open the straits of hormuz maybe but um hard to do deception now and second they
00:23:14 truly don't have maritime superiority when the iranians can launch as many missiles drones
00:23:19 uh and suicide um suicide vessels against them as they can
00:23:24 could you um could you actually um do a uh without active arab support could you actually take
00:23:35 karg island from um the um could you actually go to karg island unless you got the lhas unless
00:23:42 you got the amphibious ready group at least part of the uh contingent into the persian gulf or
00:23:48 would you do it stand off and and and station the helicopters and the uh and the osprey i guess
00:23:54 it's some you know up in qatar uh you know to the to that point you know up i think i think i think
00:24:02 the mu has in iran in iran iraq i mean is that as i recall that that mu would have a maximum of 10
00:24:09 v-22s on board um and so you're not going to move more than 20 or 30 troops per lift
00:24:15 so yeah your initial assault to the karg island is going to be mighty thin because those aircraft
00:24:20 have to cycle and that's assuming you don't have any losses for maintenance or for missiles um
00:24:25 uh do you do a mass drop of the 82nd on the karg island again that's uh that's pretty sporty um
00:24:34 and an airborne invasion in a place that has thousands and thousands of missiles,
00:24:42 not to mention the Iranians have been learning.
00:24:45 They've certainly been paying attention to modern drone warfare
00:24:48 and have certainly implemented FPVs down to the squad level.
00:24:53 I mean, you see videos of the Israelis in southern Lebanon losing tanks,
00:25:00 losing armored personnel carriers to the same FPVs that the Russians have been using with great 0.84
00:25:04 effect in Ukraine. So it is, again, a fight against Iran, they're not Arabs. They're Aryans. 0.87
00:25:15 They are highly intelligent, highly skilled warfighters. And it would not be the pushover
00:25:24 by comparison that you see of the Iraqi army that worked.
00:25:30 The other thing the Iranians have done, seeing what the U.S. military did to Iraq in 2003
00:25:38 and 2004, where they decapitated all the military command structure, is they decentralized the
00:25:43 decision-making into 31 military districts with a standing order to make war, as much
00:25:48 war, for as long as you can.
00:25:50 and the only person that can countermand that is the supreme leader not their minister of defense
00:25:56 or their chief of the armed forces or their president only the supreme leader so it's um
00:26:03 at that point even hard to uh to negotiate with any of the other people that come to uh to meet
00:26:09 jd vance or whatever um and i think we just killed the uh the head of the parliament who was the
00:26:15 other guy that was supposed to come and negotiate with with jd vant so um i'm not sure that u.s
00:26:22 interests are even in parallel at all to israeli interests because they seem they seem to be
00:26:27 whacking a lot more of the leaders um taking those names off the board people that are supposed to
00:26:33 be negotiating peace with look clearly president trump i keep saying and and rubio picked it up
00:26:41 optionality he he needs optionality needs a range of alternatives and you're never going to give
00:26:46 your strategy how that being said the national security advisor marco ruby and the vice president
00:26:52 were pretty adamant to go back to the military objectives president trump doesn't even refer
00:26:56 to it as a warning more it's a military operation you've got those four or five objectives of you
00:27:01 know de-industrialize them taking out the navy taking out the air force their their their defense
00:27:07 capabilities air capabilities we have air supremacy now at least air superiority um you know
00:27:13 and marco was adamant or pretty adamant and repeated many times we're not going to need
00:27:17 combat troops for this is is is the combat troops we have in another 10 000 being prepped
00:27:25 is that so president trump has another option is it for leverage against these guys or how real
00:27:31 how real do you feel right now moving in to take uh to make sure they take that those those couple 0.94
00:27:37 islands down by straight or whore moves than carg island and you're thinking this through and
00:27:42 putting in that logistics base or that logistics premise a predicate uh how real do you think we're
00:27:49 moving on uh with the cheerleading of mark levin and teeson and all these other you know the lindsey
00:27:53 grahams of the world how realistic do you think it looks like combat troops well unlike the 0.98
00:27:59 chattering classes in Washington, Steve, I've actually sailed through the Straits of Hormuz
00:28:03 on a sailboat, oddly enough, with a huge Blackwater logo on the sail doing a race,
00:28:09 the Dubai to Muscat race. It's narrow. And those two islands on the north side,
00:28:16 one is Keshem and one is Larrick. Keshem is the size of Okinawa. Larrick is the size of Iwo Jima.
00:28:22 Anybody that knows anything of American maritime amphibious history knows those names and how many
00:28:28 thousands and thousands of soldiers were killed by a very dug-in enemy. Now, those islands are
00:28:35 generally flat. So even if you put guys over the beach and you take them, the bunkers,
00:28:44 prepared fortifications, which I would imagine are there. Worse than that, on the mainland Iran, 1.00
00:28:51 There are mountains very, very close by, which are also laced with caves, tunnels, and survivability from which can be launched rockets, missiles, and drones, making both of those islands that you're trying to put, potentially putting Marines ashore as one large beaten zone.
00:29:12 And I think it's important to think of other military history of a grand amphibious operation planned by the British in World War II at Gallipoli, which is to try to take the Dardanelles and take out Turkey from the war.
00:29:28 And it ended very badly because they never seized the highlands.
00:29:32 And so seizing those highlands is ugly.
00:29:35 It's critical.
00:29:36 Hang on one second.
00:29:38 You went there.
00:29:40 You brought up Gallipoli.
00:29:41 We're going to make you stick around.
00:29:43 Eric Prince is with us on Palm Sunday.
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00:32:49 War Room.
00:32:50 Here's your host, Stephen K. Mann.
00:32:52 so ben harnwell has gotten us uh the times of israel uh is reporting now about the incident
00:33:00 uh eric with uh the cardinal uh and italy is furious about this i think they've called the
00:33:06 ambassador over maloney is is taking this personally for action so we'll have more on
00:33:11 that ben harnwell jack basopic in the next hour uh before i get back to gallipoli or
00:33:16 to uh to uh um the great one alexander the great um and his uh his trial and tribulations in the
00:33:27 same part of the world uh where we have our navy and we're sending uh potentially sending young
00:33:32 american uh men and women um give me a second on the cardinal you know him personally uh what type
00:33:40 a guy is he he's a very no-nonsense guy um in um certainly was a candidate to be uh to be the pope
00:33:50 uh but a serious guy not a crazy um not a crazy person and so again keeping with his obligation
00:34:01 um and joy to celebrate mass on palm sunday to be blocked is is just ridiculous and i'm and he
00:34:09 Knowing that guy, he did not do that as some provocation, but an expectation, as his forefathers did, as his predecessors did for centuries, even during other wars, World War I, World War II, other clashes in the Middle East, mass was always open for business, but not apparently under the IDF now.
00:34:33 yeah there we're gonna get more into that by the way so you were talking about gallipoli
00:34:40 right and and this is from the landmark uh arian the great historian of alexander the great's
00:34:47 campaign on his retreat back from india where i guess uh eric his generals they had a council of
00:34:54 war they got too far in india after they'd gone through the the kyber pass and fought their way
00:35:00 what 8 000 miles they said hey maybe we ought to just go back to baghdad or babylon and regroup
00:35:05 that's the coast you're talking about if that camera can be pulled in
00:35:09 and if you read this uh history as you know eric it was absolutely brutal in fact it was such a
00:35:16 brutal retreat uh or march back up country that he put half of his army with one of his generals
00:35:23 on on a fleet that went through Hormuz when people say it's 21 miles wide the channel itself
00:35:31 I think it's like two miles they say five but having I didn't have the pleasure of going on
00:35:36 Eric's Blackwater excursion I actually did it on a Navy combatant but you're right it's not a
00:35:43 it's a very dangerous sea detail and that's under the best circumstances right just with so much
00:35:49 traffic and these little dows going around it's kind of like going into hong kong in the old days
00:35:53 um but eric you brought up gallipoli talk about this second see this is very in hospital you got
00:36:00 right when you go through hermuz you got those cliffs in fact i don't even think that the the
00:36:04 tribes down there i believe are not even persian i think it down there they get some arab tribes
00:36:10 that think it's their territory they're very territorial these are kind of like the the houthis
00:36:16 these are tough kind of mountain people the very tough uh you know ornery uh and we try to take
00:36:23 them out with uh with the what the 2 000 pound bombs um and uh you know these guys are uh these
00:36:30 guys are fighters but why do you why do you do the comparison to gallipoli well that was a planned
00:36:36 massive amphibious operation planned by the british against the turkey at the turks in world
00:36:41 War I, and it went terribly. 60,000 dead, 250,000 casualties, dozens of vessels lost,
00:36:51 again, assaulting up difficult terrain. Those islands, like I talked about in the Gulf,
00:37:00 are fairly flat, but they're immediately backed by steep terrain, which contains lots and lots
00:37:07 and lots of fortifications. Again, 15-point plan, whatever. I want, trust me, I want America to
00:37:15 succeed. I want this to be done. I don't believe this was in our strategic interest in the first
00:37:22 place. So I would like to extricate the United States as quickly and as painlessly as possible.
00:37:28 But smashing in with an amphibious operation in the front door is an exceedingly dangerous
00:37:37 course of action, especially if we think, again, the mantra in Washington is, oh, we've serviced
00:37:50 all these targets, and there's only a few left, and it's great. We did that already, supposedly,
00:37:55 to the Houthis, who had been shut down the southern end of the Red Sea, another choke
00:38:02 point waterway called the babu mandab um pouring billions of dollars worth of precision weapons
00:38:08 supposedly into those houthi positions now the houthis compared to the irgc are a ragtag bunch
00:38:15 of guys and yet over that year and a half two years never affected their ability to choke off
00:38:22 that waterway and so now if we think we're going to force our way in yeah to hormuz just for for
00:38:30 For our audience on a Sunday morning, just for people that have been over there and had to deal with this, you've got the Houthis, you've got guys in Afghanistan.
00:38:38 This is kind of, I'd say, the equivalent of the Scotch-Irish in Appalachia.
00:38:43 These are tough hombres.
00:38:45 The Houthis, the Egyptian army lost, I think, 25,000 men decades ago under Nasser trying to take them out.
00:38:52 50, the British. 0.96
00:38:54 These are tough hombres.
00:38:55 uh that we've just seen since president trump came into power in 17 we saw the saudis which 0.98
00:39:03 are a disaster they're they're pretty pathetic but then you had uae you've had some pretty 0.99
00:39:08 good operators take their best punch at these guys and including the united states navy last 0.98
00:39:14 summer and they're still kind of around hang over a second because i know i got
00:39:18 captain let's bring a captain finnell captain finnell uh marco rubio and the vice president
00:39:24 are kind of taking your line to saying hey look we've got military objectives this is a military
00:39:29 operation uh we're pounding this we're defanging and declawing historically we got a couple more
00:39:37 weeks maybe that's two weeks maybe it's four weeks but there's some period of time that
00:39:41 admiral cooper has a timeline and and the uh chairman of the joint chiefs general kane has a
00:39:46 timeline and we're moving down here uh do you still believe and i know because you're you're
00:39:51 you've got a lot of insight baseball on this. Do you think we're still progressing down that
00:39:56 at the rate that you felt at first? There's no question about it, Steve. We are progressing,
00:40:05 even that CENTCOM commander said on, I think on Friday, that we are on schedule or ahead of
00:40:10 schedule to the plan that they've had. I think there's a bit of cognizant dissonance going on
00:40:17 in the media and what we're hearing and being subjected to. And I saw the front page of the
00:40:24 New York Times today. There's an article top above the fold, quote, a toothless Iran,
00:40:30 question mark. Missiles and drone strikes show it can still inflict pain. So that's the messaging
00:40:35 that we're hearing from the media and from all kinds of sources. And if that's true, and I think
00:40:42 it is. I think there's still some capability in Iran, clearly. But if that's true, then how come
00:40:48 we're not getting kind of an objective assessment of what 11,000 strike flights, flights, combat
00:40:55 missions, and over 11,000 targets have struck, and targets that are like the Iranian command
00:41:02 and control centers, Iranian communications, military communication stations, IRGC headquarters,
00:41:09 IRG intelligence sites, ballistic missile sites, drone sites, ballistic missile production
00:41:14 facilities, drone production facilities, and their Navy, with over 150 vessels struck,
00:41:20 92% of their Navy is erased.
00:41:23 Their entire Air Force is erased.
00:41:26 And we are flying A-10s.
00:41:28 We're flying Apache helicopters in and around and over Iranian territory, plus F-15s, F-16s,
00:41:36 F-22s, F-35s.
00:41:37 We're dominating them, but we're not getting that appreciation. So what we hear is, well, we're going to get a non sequitur about the Dardanelles and Gallipoli, as if we didn't ever study history ourselves.
00:41:49 We're getting a lot of negativism where we should be asking ourselves, what is the impact of four weeks of daily strikes by the United States and Israel?
00:42:01 And when then you listen to the leadership, the president, the secretary of war, the national security advisor, the vice president, all saying we're there to neuter Iranian military capability, they're not saying they're invading anything.
00:42:16 They're talking about getting rid of the gun from the Iranian regime.
00:42:21 And we're working on that.
00:42:22 Does that mean every pistol will be destroyed?
00:42:25 Does that mean every guy in a cave will be destroyed?
00:42:27 No. But what it means is the massive buildup that they've had for 50 years, funded by the United States, funded by Russia, funded by China, that's all being destroyed systematically.
00:42:41 And that is the mission that the president said.
00:42:43 And I think what's happened over since Vietnam, since I was a young man and watched the Vietnam War and watched Walter Cronkite, we have seen the politicization of our military analysts, our military personnel, our admirals and our generals, and the people that report on it.
00:43:01 So now when we talk about war, we want to talk about, you know, go in four weeks right to some kind of what is the political outcome?
00:43:10 How come we haven't solved this?
00:43:11 As opposed to saying we're going after a nation that spent 47 years arming itself as one of the most armed nations on the planet, and we're systematically destroying it.
00:43:23 And that this idea that we're going to want to have immediate results, you know, instant gratification without addressing if we're if we're if we're if we're if we're if we're if we're just hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, because I feel like I'm getting I feel like I'm getting Robert McNamara's report during Vietnam.
00:43:44 If this is the case, you made a very compelling case, and you're saying, hang on, hang on.
00:43:51 You give me the moral equivalent of a body count.
00:43:53 You give me a rocket count.
00:43:56 You're doing nothing more than giving a body count.
00:43:59 However, if that's the case, how did the Iranians shift and take the initiative?
00:44:03 They're getting so bombed.
00:44:05 They've shifted the center of gravity.
00:44:06 You do agree the center of gravity of this war is not Tehran.
00:44:09 The center of gravity of this war is the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, sir?
00:44:14 the center of gravity is the iranian regime and their ability to threaten and inflict harm 1.00
00:44:22 on united states and i just ask you in that region then then then you don't then you don't
00:44:27 then you don't understand where the center of gravity this battle has been for three weeks
00:44:30 since the since the since the israelis bombed the uh the gas field the center the center the center
00:44:37 no no no not important the center of gravity of this battle if you think the center of gravity
00:44:42 of the battle is tehran you're not understanding what's going on here the center of gravity this
00:44:48 battle has been now for two weeks the persian gulf and the strait of hormuz that's obvious
00:44:53 how do you control the strait of hormuz
00:44:57 you should go you control the strait of hormuz
00:45:00 and not important we've got to get the military to destroy their capability
00:45:07 hang on then why then hang on when we were there in night hang on when we were there in 1979 1980
00:45:18 we controlled the straighter hermuz we sent combatants up there to do early warning for 1.00
00:45:23 russian aircraft so we controlled it then we don't control it now the united states navy has
00:45:28 not gone near there has it sir or am i missing yeah that's my point we're being we don't have
00:45:35 You've shut down, you've shut down, you're in the process of destroying the world's economy.
00:45:43 My point is the center of gravity is there.
00:45:46 Don't get me wrong, for a limited military operation, which we are doing against the regime, and I think doing magnificently, that's what's happening.
00:45:54 But that's the moral equivalent of the body count of continuing to chop up.
00:46:00 Okay, go ahead.
00:46:01 Let's talk about facts.
00:46:02 The four of yours.
00:46:03 Well, the facts are there hasn't been a mine in the strait.
00:46:09 The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Office and their joint maritime information reports are consistently saying there is no confirmed mines in the strait.
00:46:19 Secondly, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
00:46:24 We're going to go to break.
00:46:25 I'll be right back.
00:46:27 But you do agree that the Revolutionary Guard has set up a toll booth?
00:46:32 For the first time, they have a toll booth and they let in who they want.
00:46:35 I think they let out 10 ships over the last couple of days, of which they take a toll to go to their partners, of which I think we allow them to monetize their role.
00:46:44 Anyway, Captain Finnell, Eric Prince, all of it next.
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00:48:00 and ceo throughout the world read and you should too war room here's your host stephen k man
00:48:08 so eric i'm gonna go right back to captain finnell but jump in any any uh any observations
00:48:14 and please no non-secretaries like gallipoli again sir look they had to they had to drive
00:48:22 a MU over from the Pacific area, and they had to launch another MU urgently all the way from
00:48:29 California because I don't think they really figured they were going to close the Straits
00:48:34 of Hormuz. Yeah, the Straits of Hormuz are the center of gravity. And the question is,
00:48:39 it will remain closed and it will remain under the control or influence of the IRGC for a long,
00:48:45 long time, their ability to inflict pain on any vessel transiting there will remain extremely high.
00:48:53 Even if you take the first 50 or 100 miles of the Straits of Hormuz, they can still launch
00:48:59 and smash commercial vessels. There haven't been any commercial vessels attacked or mines,
00:49:07 apparently. Yeah, because they haven't been trying to transit. Any vessels that are transiting are
00:49:13 now being forced through a narrow channel, not through the normal shipping channel, but through
00:49:19 the toll gate erected by the Iranians going between Larik and Keshem Islands. So you're right. 0.77
00:49:25 The center of gravity is the Straits of Hormuz. That is basically the pulled grenade pin they
00:49:31 have against the rest of the world economy. When you have all of East Asia's economies 1.00
00:49:36 going on severe fuel rationing now, 30% of the world's fertilizer supply, 22% of the gas,
00:49:44 20% of the crude that's supposed to pass through the Straits of Hormuz largely is not, other than
00:49:49 the ones solely authorized by the IRGC, like to their friends, the Chinese Communist Party.
00:49:56 This is not, or the first thing you're supposed to learn when you join the U.S. Navy is power
00:50:02 projection, choke point control. We now, the U.S. Navy does not control two choke points in the
00:50:08 world. This is bad. The other choke point being the gated tiers down there at the Red Sea,
00:50:16 off where the Hurtis are? The Babel Mandaab. Hang on one second, Eric, hang around. Captain 1.00
00:50:22 Fennell, your assessment of this situation in the Strait of Hormuz and all the way up to
00:50:29 Carg Island, your assessment? Well, there's no question. It is an important, the point 0.54
00:50:37 that you've all said, and I'm not disagreeing with that fundamentally. The question is,
00:50:41 how do you open it? And the answer has to be to continue the plan that we're working on.
00:50:47 And don't rush in there before you're ready. And so, yes, it costs, the price of gas has gone up
00:50:53 a dollar. It's still under what it was when Joe Biden was president. The point is, is that you
00:50:57 have to make the battlefield ready and clear that. And I would say the indicators are that it's
00:51:04 becoming more and more ready to be transited by warships that are escorting and providing these
00:51:10 escorts for these tankers in and out. Yes, they're running a towboat through Keshem and Larek. We've
00:51:16 seen that. But there are other ships that are not squawking AIS that are coming through.
00:51:22 Very small numbers, less than a dozen, but this is happening.
00:51:26 So why is that happening?
00:51:28 Why is it that the Iranians can't see those ships and are not squawking AIS? 0.99
00:51:32 Why is it that the number of missile attacks and drone attacks have dramatically dropped since 12 March?
00:51:40 And I would submit that it's because we are systematically destroying their capacity to do anything in that region.
00:51:47 and all up through the Strait of Hormuz and up to Carr.
00:51:53 We're working that.
00:51:54 It's not finished yet, but we're working it,
00:51:56 and we're moving in and having the capacity to have other carriers there.
00:52:02 The Fordo, by the way, with the fire, didn't go back to Konis.
00:52:05 It left Sudabay, and guess where it is right now?
00:52:08 It's in split Yugoslavia, Croatia,
00:52:10 and it's going to be repaired and probably come back to the gun line.
00:52:13 The USS George Bush is now leaving the East Coast and heading over to the fight as well.
00:52:19 So we are not backing off on the campaign to vaporize, essentially, their missiles, their drones, their mine layers, their fast attack speedboats.
00:52:31 The fact that we're flying over the strait all the time and nobody is shot at it, despite what Eric mentioned, that the head of the IRGC with their down echelon command structure ordered their down echelon commanders to make war and make as much as you can.
00:52:48 That order was given four weeks ago. So where are the results of those orders? If that's all they can produce, then I'm trying to get across that maybe the Iranians are hurting more than we're appreciating. And that the fact that they get off a missile here and there does not mean they're controlling the tempo or the timing or this operation. That's not my point. 0.64
00:53:10 They are not in control of this. We are. And we have to be able to appreciate what the cumulative effect of 11,000 targets being struck and many, many more to be struck are having on that regime, especially after you take out layers and layers and layers of leaders and their ability to communicate.
00:53:28 If the Russians and the Chinese are providing the Iranians with such exquisite, and as the Financial Times reported, real-time targeting, then where are the results of that real-time targeting combined with the orders to make war and do as much as you can? 0.83
00:53:45 The rhetoric is not matching the Iranians' output while our output is being underappreciated.
00:53:51 And I'm not saying we're winning.
00:53:53 I'm not saying anything else.
00:53:54 I'm not giving you a body count.
00:53:55 I'm just saying that it's not as bad as the world's media is portraying it.
00:54:01 And I think we should be patient and continue to do what we're doing and stay on the plan 0.98
00:54:06 and let the flack of all the naysaying go by us and keep driving in to destroy and kill that enemy. 1.00
00:54:12 If I was Iranian, I'd want them to know we're coming for you and we're going to kill you. 1.00
00:54:19 I don't think there's any doubt about that. 0.99
00:54:20 I think Admiral Cooper and General Cain have given that.
00:54:26 Hang on for a second, all you guys.
00:54:28 We're going to take a short commercial break.
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00:55:38 All of it today on a Sunday, Palm Sunday.
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