Bannon's War Room - Episode 5269： US Fighter Plane Downed In Iran

00:00:00.000 Yeah, I think the legacy of Pam Bondi is going to begin with her politicization of the Department

00:00:04.720 of Justice to go after Donald Trump's political opponents. So I think that's like top line,

00:00:09.760 right? The fact that she was willing to open criminal investigations and pursue

00:00:13.600 political investigations, it will be the biggest legacy. It's going to be her use of the Department 1.00

00:00:21.820 of Justice, not just to gut enforcement of the civil rights laws, but to actually reverse them,

00:00:26.860 to actually turn the Department of Justice for the first time under either Democratic or Republican presidents

00:00:31.680 into a tool of the vote suppressors and the people who want to overturn minority voting rights.

00:00:38.100 And that is a dark legacy that, unfortunately, like the first one, is going to be really hard to shake.

00:00:44.300 I mean, it's going to be hard to unring the bell about the political, the politicization of the Department of Justice.

00:00:49.120 It is also going to be hard to unring the bell about all the damage that has been done

00:00:53.820 by having an election denier, not just in the White House,

00:00:56.920 but an election denier running the Department of Justice

00:00:59.200 willing to do anything to undermine the rule of law,

00:01:02.980 the Constitution, and the voting rights of Americans.

00:01:06.120 Notice, notes that some senators are pushing for Senator Mike Lee.

00:01:11.020 Hmm, wonder why.

00:01:12.020 Some senators are pushing the White House to appoint Senator Mike Lee

00:01:15.360 as Attorney General and plan to pitch Trump directly on the idea,

00:01:19.740 according to two sources with knowledge of the matter,

00:01:21.840 largely because they like him out of the Senate because he's been making folks uncomfortable there for some reason.

00:01:27.600 The other, which is another interesting one from the flashback, the Texas Tribune, Donald Trump at the time noting,

00:01:36.800 I would actually, Trump said Saturday when asked by KDFWTV if he would consider Paxton for National Post, quote, he's very, very talented.

00:01:48.820 I mean, we have a lot of people that I want that that want that one and will be very good at it.

00:01:55.320 But he's a very talented guy. And there's a little bit of noise to promote him,

00:02:00.520 largely because he's got a Texas problem right now with Paxton and Cornyn running for that U.S. Senate seat.

00:02:08.640 How do you see this thing landing from your experience inside the building?

00:02:13.200 looking back into it now. Who do you think the president would likely lean on if the goal here

00:02:23.400 is to prosecute his political opponents? It's really hard to say in this kind of

00:02:32.380 circumstance because Trump has been so unconventional all around in his handling of

00:02:36.720 all matters related to the Justice Department, including the leadership. Pam Bondi is coming

00:02:41.620 into DOJ. She came into DOJ without any experience working in that organization whatsoever, which is

00:02:46.960 very unusual for an attorney general. And if he's willing to bring in somebody who's never been in

00:02:52.120 DOJ before, that really opens up the field to potentially many, many people. And I think that

00:02:57.680 it really is anyone's guess right now who it will be. But I'm not sure that who is serving that sort

00:03:03.440 of figurehead role that Bondi served is actually the person we really need to be worried about.

00:03:09.040 It's Todd Blanche who's been running the day-to-day operations of DOJ behind the scenes under Bondi's leadership.

00:03:16.320 He's now been elevated to the number one position, but he's already been playing a very important role behind the scenes

00:03:22.740 that in many ways has been more important and more impactful than what Bondi has been doing in front of the cameras.

00:03:29.380 Why is there objection to sending ICE officers to polling places?

00:03:33.900 Illegals can't vote. 1.00

00:03:39.040 it doesn't make any sense. Mark, to ask a rhetorical question, is the DOJ any safer in

00:03:44.640 the hands of anyone whose name is currently on the president's shortlist? No. In fact,

00:03:49.480 I think it could get quite worse. I mean, the thing about Pam Bondi is she was, you know,

00:03:54.040 she was of the election denier movement, but she also fashioned herself to be a, you know,

00:04:01.220 a prosecutor. You know, this is the reason why some people early on when she was first nominated,

00:04:05.440 I think, were taken in by her. I never was, but there were people who were because they said,

00:04:08.520 look, she'd been an attorney general. There are a lot of people that can be put forward who are

00:04:12.820 much worse, who are just straight up election hires and are just, you know, are much more

00:04:18.100 cold blooded in their willingness to overturn the results of free and fair elections. And there are

00:04:22.680 a lot of those names that are familiar. There are some of those names that would be less familiar

00:04:26.080 to people. But just to answer Todd Blanche's question, you know, the two the two people who

00:04:32.160 were most famously gunned down and killed in the streets of Minneapolis were both U.S. citizens.

00:04:37.240 The people who we see had their windows broken in their cars and dragged out and their seatbelts cut off, those were U.S. citizens.

00:04:44.880 The people who were harassed and tear gassed for simply standing and holding up a cell phone to record what was happening, those were U.S. citizens.

00:04:55.460 So why should U.S. citizens be worried about ICE at the polls?

00:04:59.820 I can I can name dozens and hundreds and thousands of tragic incidents in which U.S. citizens were victimized.

00:05:07.140 So those are just some of the reasons why they should be worried myself and my colleagues.

00:05:10.580 And that is that despite close to five weeks of war now that Iran maintains, as you said, John, significant ability, 50 percent of its launchers, 50 percent of its one way attack drones,

00:05:24.800 a significant percentage of its coastal defense missiles, as well as large inventories of both

00:05:32.400 medium and long-range missiles. One problem we're hearing is that Iran has maintained a capability

00:05:39.600 to move those missiles around with mobile missile launchers and hide them underground, which has

00:05:45.560 made it difficult for the U.S. and Israel to take out all of them, despite more than 12,000 targets 0.99

00:05:53.000 hit since the start of this war. And I'll tell you that continued capability explains what we've

00:05:59.460 been experiencing quite consistently here in Tel Aviv, John, over recent days, which is consistent

00:06:05.520 incoming fire from Iran. Yesterday, one of the busiest days since the start of the war. And of 0.85

00:06:12.920 course, this contradicts what you've heard from President Trump last night, but also the Pentagon,

00:06:16.860 that that missile capability has been dramatically destroyed, reduced maybe, but not eliminated.

00:06:26.080 And some of the sources telling us that Iran may be holding back some of those capabilities,

00:06:32.600 which explains some of the reduction in fire in recent days.

00:06:37.040 I should note here was the White House response to the story.

00:06:40.420 White House spokesperson Anna Kelly saying, quote,

00:06:43.340 anonymous sources desperately want to attack President Trump and demean the incredible work

00:06:48.240 of our United States military in achieving the goals of Operation Epic Fury. We should note

00:06:53.820 that this is a U.S. military assessment that has found that continuing Iranian capability.

00:06:59.880 Iran is undeterred, and China is more powerful, Russia is richer, NATO is weaker, and Americans 0.84

00:07:08.380 are less safe and more isolated. This has been Operation Epic Failure, and this president owns

00:07:15.980 it in entirety. There have been presidents in the past, John, that have started wars that they've

00:07:20.900 had to hand off to their successors. There have been presidents in the past that have had to end

00:07:25.520 ingloriously wars that were not working. But Donald Trump is going to be the only president

00:07:31.320 in American history to single-handedly start and lose a war. And this is what the president's

00:07:36.640 getting briefed on, I mean, what would you say to him? How would you put it to him, given what

00:07:41.660 he's also considering and the exit and how that works? I would say the thing that I'm saying to

00:07:50.640 you, and that is you have to be really clear about your purpose in your end state. There are lots of

00:07:56.320 different options you can choose. We have fewer now than we did at the beginning, notwithstanding

00:08:01.360 The fact that we have certainly degraded a malign regime, we have certainly disabilized it. 0.99

00:08:09.760 But the idea that that an air and maritime assault would overthrow a regime or leave a nation of that heft without action still to play is just is not realistic.

00:08:24.500 So my question would be, here's the situation on the ground. Here's what we assess. What are we going to do now?

00:08:30.500 And the other thing I'd just say is people don't intend to escalate.

00:08:36.580 They tend to escalate because they will think it will lead to deterrence.

00:08:40.900 And so I think that's one of the soundtracks you're hearing by both the president and by Iran is they're doing this thing of can I make a threat? 0.93

00:08:51.620 Can I escalate?

00:08:53.440 And where we've left ourselves is words won't be enough to achieve the outcomes that we probably require.

00:08:59.660 is trying to cover his tracks on a strategic failure, claiming that there is regime change

00:09:07.900 because we've replaced an 86-year-old terrorist hardliner with a 56-year-old terrorist hardliner,

00:09:12.860 claiming that somehow Iran has been deterred from ballistic or nuclear power projection.

00:09:19.960 Meanwhile, he's frantically dialing 911 in the form of paratroopers and the Marine Expeditionary

00:09:25.700 units. And what Congress needs to do in the face of this strategic incompetence is prevent the

00:09:33.600 deployment of ground forces on any of the islands or the shoreline around the Strait of Hormuz.

00:09:38.100 Because if this president deploys these Marines or paratroopers to seize these islands,

00:09:42.640 they'll take them. But then after 15 to 30 days, they're going to need reinforcement and resupply.

00:09:46.920 And we are in a boots on the ground quagmire for the third time in the 21st century.

00:09:51.480 The American public is exhausted by these failed forever wars. They don't want them.

00:09:55.700 They want us investing here in the United States.

00:09:59.200 They want us working with our allies.

00:10:01.480 And instead, this president is berating NATO, making it weaker,

00:10:04.680 and he's strengthening our adversaries in China, Russia, and Iran.

00:10:07.800 Job, job, jobs report, expecting 65,000.

00:10:12.000 We are significantly stronger, 178,000.

00:10:17.840 However, there's a pretty big revision in the rearview mirror.

00:10:21.440 If we look at the minus ninety two thousand, it becomes minus one hundred and thirty three thousand.

00:10:27.720 So the two month revision ends up, actually, if you look at the previous month, only minus seven thousand.

00:10:34.960 So not as bad. One hundred and seventy eight thousand.

00:10:38.300 One was the last time we had a number that strong.

00:10:40.600 We have to go in the way back machine all the way to May of twenty three when we were, excuse me, June of twenty three, where two hundred and twenty five thousand.

00:10:49.380 This is a big number.

00:10:51.400 Excuse me.

00:10:52.540 Excuse me.

00:10:53.360 We have to go back to Dees of 24, Joe, 237,000.

00:10:57.800 So it's still a very solid number going in the way back machine.

00:11:04.000 This is the primal scream of a dying regime.

00:11:09.080 Pray for our enemies, because we're going medieval on these people.

00:11:14.260 Here's the time I got a free shot at all these networks lying about the people.

00:11:18.460 The people have had a belly full of it.

00:11:20.540 I know you don't like hearing that.

00:11:21.960 I know you've tried to do everything in the world to stop that,

00:11:23.660 but you're not going to stop it.

00:11:24.600 It's going to happen.

00:11:25.880 And where do people like that go to share the big lie?

00:11:29.260 MAGA Media.

00:11:30.600 I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.

00:11:36.020 Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose?

00:11:39.800 If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.

00:11:45.460 Save War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Mann.

00:11:55.400 It is Good Friday, 3 April, in the year of our Lord, 2026, the most solemn day in the Christian calendar, Good Friday.

00:12:04.520 We'll have our programming today, plus special programming tomorrow on Holy Saturday, and then Easter Sunday.

00:12:10.140 I'll talk more about that in a little while.

00:12:12.940 As we come on the air, I think, and I'm not sure we've gotten confirmation from CENTCOM, but I believe there's at least enough reporting out there that a F-15E Strike Eagle has been shot down or the pilots have ejected in Iranian territory.

00:12:32.940 territory. We've got Dr. Bradley Thayer is going to join us in a moment, and Brandon Weikert is

00:12:39.460 going to join us, and we're going to talk through everything about the escalatory trap. What's

00:12:43.740 happened in the last 24 hours as the war intensifies, we said President Trump in looking

00:12:50.560 for a, not an off-ramp, but looking to roll this thing up in two or three weeks. He said he was

00:12:56.540 going to, if they didn't look like he was going to get a deal, he was going to escalate. I think

00:13:00.680 they kind of escalated a little early they took out bridges and infrastructure uh bb netanyahu's

00:13:06.540 been on israeli tv uh talking about the infrastructure and the um and other aspects

00:13:13.180 of iranian civil life that the israelis are pounding so last night another intense

00:13:18.620 uh bombing campaign um we're also going to have uh we're going to talk about pam bondi this entire

00:13:24.900 situation. There's so much going on, particularly in the state of Texas. Julie Pickren and others

00:13:32.040 are going to join us to talk about this Texas School Board meeting on Tuesday. We need people

00:13:37.340 lined up today by 5 p.m. Central Daylight Time. We need you to sign up if you're going to address

00:13:44.920 the Texas Education Board. We need to do it by today, and that's where I'm going to have almost

00:13:49.980 a whole lot going on. Birch Gold, we have the, Philip Patrick is going to join me for a couple

00:13:56.880 of segments tomorrow morning. We're going to walk through everything in the global capital markets

00:14:02.320 and commodity markets, particularly precious metals. Now more than ever, we've put out series

00:14:07.520 number eight, the eighth installment at the end of the dollar empire. You can get it by going to

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00:16:20.880 to 989898 and do it today here's your host steven k bann

00:16:28.200 okay uh so this is um very very very sketchy but we'll report to you unless we've got uh dr

00:16:37.680 thayer and uh brandon uh weikert uh brandon i think they're reporting in the uh near the town

00:16:44.320 of isa in kuzistan which i believe is near the iraq border and it's where a lot of the horrific

00:16:54.060 Iraq-Iran war took place um give us what we know so far I think there's an F-15E that's down

00:17:02.620 yeah and the Americans we have sent in it looked like forces strike eagle we've sent in Blackhawks 0.79

00:17:08.780 and others C-130 gunship uh to uh retrieve the pilots give us what you know yeah it looks like

00:17:16.460 there's a search and rescue SAR operation going on and one of these videos that you were showing

00:17:21.380 I saw earlier because apparently the locals are shooting at our Blackhawks and the C-130.

00:17:29.800 They were apparently mid-air refueling and they were flying low and people on the bridge

00:17:36.740 started shooting at our planes. But they are looking for the pilots. It's a two-seater.

00:17:43.580 So my assumption is that our guys got out. We've got some pretty great ejection systems. So I'm

00:17:49.740 sure that our guys survived um and hopefully they are you know laying low the locals there's a local

00:17:56.260 news report in that district of iran in which the um the anchor of the news uh there is encouraging

00:18:04.180 all the locals to go out and uh arrest the pilot pilots and and hand them over to the irgc 0.92

00:18:10.900 so so much for this being a people's revolution uh also unconfirmed reporting that might be

00:18:17.200 connected to whatever the plane was doing that was shot down. I am hearing that there is a UH-60

00:18:23.560 Blackhawk that crashed in southern Iraq right across the border. So there's no further reporting

00:18:30.600 on that. CENTCOM hasn't even commented on this one. But clearly the operational tempo, as you

00:18:37.260 noted, Steve, is increasing after the president's speech a couple days ago. Yeah, I think that

00:18:45.040 people shouldn't um think that uh in in the winding down he's going to keep the pressure on

00:18:51.520 i mean the last last night or since the president talked has been pretty intense um dr thayer uh

00:18:58.180 and of course this is what's going to happen in war you're going to get people particularly

00:19:01.740 running these many uh combat sorties i think the combat sorties have been now almost 12 000

00:19:08.140 So the op-tempo of naval air and also our Air Force assets in the region have been incredibly intense.

00:19:17.080 And this is about the defanging and declawing.

00:19:20.240 I mean, the way that you take down this regime's conventional forces is you just pound.

00:19:26.280 The president said that's going to happen.

00:19:28.260 Any updates that you've got on this situation, Dr. Thayer?

00:19:31.340 Other than to what Brandon provided, that it was it seemed to be about 50 kilometers inside or that is north of the Persian of the Persian Gulf.

00:19:43.460 So it looks like southwestern Iran in terms of the location.

00:19:51.560 And I hadn't seen Brandon mentioned a 60 down and I hadn't seen that.

00:19:57.020 but uh obviously that's uh we obviously pray for the crews of both the 60 if it went down and then

00:20:03.620 of course of the f-15e well what what it people should uh take heart that uh you know you've got

00:20:11.520 american search and rescue looks like you get a c-130 and a bunch of black cars and they're trying

00:20:15.740 to get the pilots i understand that it appears and i think this is why they weren't on local media

00:20:21.560 to have locals go and search for the pilots that they're both it looks like the ejection seats

00:20:27.660 were hit uh i mean were were were um used and so the pilot use the pilots look like they've

00:20:36.100 at least made it out of the plane before it crashed that's what it looks like and obviously

00:20:42.300 if the locals are are putting out these these news so-called news reports encouraging

00:20:47.320 their tribesmen to go out and hunt these uh these pilots down obviously they have very good reason 1.00

00:20:54.220 to believe that the u.s pilots are uh alive now these pilots as you know steve are trained in

00:21:00.080 evasion tactics um they actually my understanding is i think they go through seer training as well

00:21:05.680 so these are these are not just uh fly boys these these guys are designed to to evade and

00:21:12.760 withstand a lot if they are shot down so it's a it's a matter of time now it's a race to the

00:21:18.160 to the finish our guys get them or god forbid the iranians find them

00:21:23.120 i'm sure it's uh the air force also but the navy every pilot my kid brother's a lamps helicopter

00:21:30.040 pilot who was in the gulf during the um during the tanker wars of 86 and 87 uh you had to go

00:21:38.520 to seer school and seer school is very intense so the training for the pilots to evade and to stay

00:21:43.420 alive until they're rescued uh is is almost as intense as their pilot training which is the best

00:21:49.040 in the world brandon i want to go because um you know both you guys are authors of amazing books

00:21:54.840 it's one of the reasons i think you're both you guys although you kind of take different

00:21:59.300 views of the world are such good observers and analysts because you've done deep research into

00:22:05.640 the topics you have your book on iran i think is spectacular just this part of the of uh iran where

00:22:12.460 they are i people people forget you know after the uh failed house you know after the shah fell

00:22:19.980 and they took the in in 79 and they took the uh they then took the uh embassy in early november

00:22:26.320 and that's when my ship deployed from the pacific fleet we sent carrier battle groups which

00:22:31.400 and that we had never done before the the fifth fleet at that time was you know a couple of ships

00:22:36.680 i think were painted white like the british fleet uh in bahrain it was very small but ever since

00:22:41.920 that time the americans have really the north arabian sea has been back then it was camel 1.00

00:22:46.600 station and gonzo station where the two battle groups were but a lot of people don't remember

00:22:51.760 probably outside of world war ii one of the most horrific wars of the 20th century took place

00:22:58.880 shortly thereafter between iraq and iran and remember yeah in our fiasco in iraq a big part

00:23:05.200 of iraq today is is basically controlled by the shiites because uh the vatican of the of the 0.98

00:23:12.480 shiite religion happens to be geographically i think it's in the jaff right where we had that

00:23:18.160 during the uh during our movie the last 600 meters we showed uh we showed the assault on that in fact

00:23:23.600 If you look at Moulton, the congressman, who's a left-wing congressman now, he was the kind of heroic Marine captain that led that assault for a couple of weeks.

00:23:33.480 Talk to people about this 10-year war, because right now it looks like our pilots are down in that region that was so intensely fought.

00:23:39.700 I think there was a million casualties.

00:23:41.780 Am I correct on that, between both sides?

00:23:44.060 I think it was one of the bloodiest wars of the 20th century.

00:23:47.280 And it was very similar to World War I, where you had sort of you initiated with a war of maneuver and then it just became this locked in trench warfare struggle for 10 years in which the U.S. nominally backed Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

00:24:04.620 He even gave them precursors for chemical weapons, sarin gas and whatnot, which they then promptly used on the Iranian front lines. 0.57

00:24:13.760 And then the Iranians, who were still sort of rebuilding from the revolution that overthrew the Shah just a few years before the war began,

00:24:23.120 they started conducting human wave attacks where they basically would round up people as young as nine years old,

00:24:30.880 give them a Koran, give them a green bandana, the color of Islam, 1.00

00:24:34.880 and tell them, run at the Iraqi front, run at the foxholes. 0.99

00:24:39.720 And, of course, the Iraqis were well-armed, but they were not as numerically superior.

00:24:44.800 And, ultimately, the green wave is what it was called.

00:24:47.860 And that was how the Iranians pushed the Iraqis back. 1.00

00:24:51.920 And if you listen to the rhetoric ever since then of the regime in Iran,

00:24:56.200 They speak about the Iran-Iraq war in much the same way the Russians and the Soviets talk about the, quote, Great Patriotic War.

00:25:04.060 In fact, there was a lot of similarities between the Eastern Front, between the Soviet Union and the Nazis of World War II, and the Iran-Iraq war.

00:25:12.780 The Iraqis had technology.

00:25:14.900 They had our support.

00:25:16.400 They had a lot of advantages, but they weren't able to overcome the will, the ideological will of the Persians and the Islamists of Persia. 0.93

00:25:25.100 And the fear today, I talked with Matt Bracken, a former Navy SEAL on my show a couple weeks ago. He said his fear is that the United States is essentially on a grander scale, possibly replicating the Iraqi basically failure in the Iran-Iraq war.

00:25:42.040 And we don't understand the Persian mindset, and we certainly don't appreciate the ideological fervor with which the Islamic Republic rules Iran.

00:25:52.380 And if they're shooting at our search and rescue birds, as you see in those videos, that indicates to me that the Shiite resistance mentality, going back to the breakdown of the Sunni-Shiite split, you know, hundreds of years ago, I think that's now informing their response to us. 0.77

00:26:12.820 They're not pro-overthrow.

00:26:14.900 They're not pro-regime change.

00:26:16.900 They are very much one of us away.

00:26:18.880 even even even the ones you know you get a combination of persian nationalism because

00:26:24.940 these are very proud people it's an ancient civilization and it's fought the west it's

00:26:28.940 fought the roman empire from the beginning i want to go back to this time though because i think it's

00:26:33.580 important to think about the other day uh brandon and then dr they are bringing in the other day

00:26:38.980 there was a report coming out of tehran that the uh the ideological masters of iran this

00:26:47.220 of theocracy were saying and going to round up i think kids as young as they were talking about

00:26:53.820 children kids as young as 10 11 12 to 12 to augment and and and people when it first came

00:27:00.920 out people said well these guys are horrible that will never happen this is how they broke

00:27:04.980 the iraqis they just use cannon fodder they had no concern whatsoever if these kids they weren't

00:27:11.600 even armed i mean they had no concern at all whether these kids lived or died i mean it was

00:27:15.280 just you're going to get it's like the the chinese in in korea right in north korea when we fought 0.80

00:27:20.920 in the korean war you just hit wave after wave most of them don't even have weapons it's just

00:27:25.840 it's just a human wave well they were told to pick up the weapon yeah yeah yeah yes hang on for one

00:27:33.280 second we'll bring you back through the break human life to these people means nothing means

00:27:38.960 absolutely nothing is a totally different and complete mindset i'm not saying the persian

00:27:43.960 mentality this is the this is the theocracy that is now in charge and like i said i think we've

00:27:50.920 got a hardcore hardcore people so the iran iraq war is uh is still a living thing to many of these

00:27:58.520 people particularly because they think it was one of the great victories if not the greatest victory

00:28:02.760 besides overthrowing the shaw and running the americans out um of their uh of their regime 0.95

00:28:08.920 Short commercial break, search and rescue for an American pilot right now in the Iran war.

00:28:16.300 Back in a moment.

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00:29:57.080 today here's your host stephen k bannon

00:30:01.540 brandon we got an update um on the uh uh 60 can you give us an update uh one of the one of the

00:30:11.900 osent uh people that i i deal with told me that it was a special forces uh-60 black hawk it was hit

00:30:20.200 did not crash in southern made it made it across the border to safety in southern iraq and

00:30:25.500 apparently it has returned to base that is what i'm being told um so uh yeah and there's that

00:30:31.260 video there uh um they're shooting from this bridge the people on the ground in iran these

00:30:36.480 are just ordinary people, are shooting at our birds there that are conducting search and rescue operations

00:30:44.660 for that F-15 Strike Eagle, the two pilots, or the pilot and the Wizzo, that are down in Iran somewhere.

00:30:53.220 So this is a developing situation, but the Blackhawk is fine, I am told.

00:30:59.360 Yeah, and look, CENTCOM obviously has preparation for all this,

00:31:03.220 but i will tell you that is looks like pretty barren territory you see what our kids so keep

00:31:09.060 telling folks this is like the freaking moon when you're over there right so um once again the

00:31:14.320 heroism and valor and training they're trained for this this is why these pilots can go in under

00:31:19.180 enemy fire and uh and do this also you might know one of the things we did say dr thayer let me get

00:31:25.520 in the conversation here we kept saying that the uh the expeditionary operation in late june

00:31:33.560 to totally obliterate the nuclear weapons program then the venezuelan and the venezuelan heroic i

00:31:41.400 mean a special forces and they took they took a um you know they almost lost uh the helicopter

00:31:48.280 that went in if it was not for the incredible um airmanship and bravery of the pilot who was

00:31:54.540 awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for that by President Trump. Here you're going in

00:32:00.940 and, you know, they talk about air supremacy, air superiority. Those are kind of

00:32:05.700 military terms and mathematical equations. But you've got resistance. I mean, these people are

00:32:13.200 resisting. The Iranians are going to put up a fight. And like we said, they've shifted the 1.00

00:32:17.520 center of gravity of the battle to the Persian Gulf. And they've shifted it to the, and in many

00:32:23.660 respects they've taken the initiative it shouldn't be lost on people that the search and rescue area

00:32:29.000 is down close to the persian gulf close to the tigris and euphrates close to iraqi territory so

00:32:35.040 it's closer to there it's hundreds not thousands of miles away from tehran uh you had been uh one

00:32:42.740 of you had been very not adamant but you say hey look i don't think president trump's gotten into

00:32:47.440 an escalatory trap right i think that he's really thinking this thing through and he's trying to

00:32:52.020 avoid that can you give us your update on that as you see because last night was a quite intense

00:32:58.620 and i think what surprised some people they said he started to take out particularly the bridges

00:33:04.460 they took out some bridges where one would say well hang on i thought we weren't going i thought

00:33:09.960 we were going to wait if you couldn't get a deal you know in a in a week or two you're going to do

00:33:14.700 that looks like it came up pretty early in the in the punch list or target list uh for centcom

00:33:21.300 your thoughts. My thoughts are two, Steve. First, we want to remember that Saddam Hussein attacked 0.97

00:33:27.920 Iran in 1980 because he thought the Iranians were going to be a pushover. He thought that

00:33:34.540 revolutionary Iran was weak and that he could just slice off a province of Iran, the southwestern

00:33:42.460 province, and occupy it, and the Iranian regime would yield to that. So he was thinking he had a

00:33:50.760 limited-aim strategy, was going to fight a limited war. And that turned in immediately, almost

00:33:56.300 immediately, to total war that lasted eight years. So we always want to bear in mind, of course,

00:34:02.560 the Persians, that Iran is not going to be a pushover, that the regime and the Iranian people,

00:34:10.820 the Persian people, are formidable, of course. And we're seeing that as we're looking at the

00:34:16.520 videos that you're showing today. Second point to keep in mind, so Saddam Hussein thought he was

00:34:23.960 going to get a quick and easy victory. And it turned out that he got a hellish conflict that

00:34:29.400 rivaled World War I, as we referenced earlier. Secondly, with respect to the target set. So

00:34:36.420 President Trump said, of course, in his address, that he was thinking, considering expanding the

00:34:42.960 target set from the military targets and the objectives that Secretary Rubio laid out and

00:34:48.220 that President Trump laid out to infrastructure, right, to the oil, to water, and other aspects of

00:34:58.520 civilian infrastructure. And you did see with that bridge hit, obviously, a taste. I see what

00:35:06.580 president trump is doing is conveying to the iranians of course that we can escalate we can

00:35:13.260 broaden the target set but uh and that was an indication that we could do so if they don't

00:35:20.060 yield more is to come right so that there would be additional attacks leaving aside what israel 0.99

00:35:27.480 would do but from the u.s perspective there would be uh additional how is that but how is that

00:35:32.880 civilian infrastructure hang on how is that and i want to get to wikert in a second about this

00:35:38.640 because i think delving into the iraq around war is quite important here for people to understand

00:35:44.520 because these folks in the middle east i mean they think they got vendettas from a thousand years ago

00:35:49.720 right they got a vendetta from the crusades it's not like in america where people right most people

00:35:56.220 are not the war audience because you guys were up to speak on this but you go on a cnn or msnbc

00:36:01.540 or some of these youth groups, and they're going, Iran-Iraq fought?

00:36:05.000 What are you talking about? I didn't know that.

00:36:07.980 The Iranian people, the Persians, they don't know any of this.

00:36:14.260 And we're not even sure what the leadership is because they're so dispersed,

00:36:17.660 but the Internet's totally shut down.

00:36:20.180 All they see is that they're bombing first military targets or communications,

00:36:25.200 and the next thing you know, you're taking out bridges

00:36:27.860 and taking out the basic functions of life.

00:36:30.020 It was like the Israelis bombing the the oil, you know, the oil depots on Saturday night and causing a firestorm like Dresden a couple of Saturday nights ago. 0.83

00:36:41.700 And then and then coming back a couple of days later and bombing the week later and bombing the gas fields.

00:36:47.560 The Iranian people are completely blacked out. Right. There's there's no Starlink. 1.00

00:36:52.940 There's no Internet. That is one of the reasons we took took out command and control.

00:36:57.780 so how is this signaling is this going just to we hope the the iranian whatever's left of the

00:37:05.180 iranian guard and all this dispersion and still we can't get uh we can't get face-to-face

00:37:10.940 negotiations we're going through some of the most nefarious people in the world the pakistanis or 1.00

00:37:16.820 the turks or i mean this is kind of what i'm not saying upsets me but in this region of the world

00:37:23.040 starting in israel and going to saudi arabia and going to uae and going to pakistan you can't trust 0.99

00:37:29.700 any of them you can't trust any of them none of them have america's interest in hearts and so

00:37:35.960 dr thayer when you're saying this bombing how is that what is what is being communicated to the

00:37:41.620 persians what's being communicated of course is that we can escalate and that we could go after 1.00

00:37:47.740 additional targets, an economic target set that would greatly hurt the Iranian economy. We haven't

00:37:58.100 done that yet. Our objectives, as they've been laid out, don't require that, but it's something

00:38:05.240 that we could do. Likewise, the threat is present from the 82nd and from the Marines that the United 0.50

00:38:13.340 States could take. Karg Island has been discussed many times or other parts of Iran. So there's

00:38:23.440 the threat of escalation to attempt to coerce clearly the Iranian government to come to some

00:38:31.320 type of an agreement, which is what President Trump wants. All of this should be expected as

00:38:36.860 President Trump has identified this is going to be going on for weeks, right? We're going to have

00:38:42.540 yeah uh you know weeks two or three weeks more of course in the conflict

00:38:48.880 but you believe now it's going to go more than two weeks but hang on a second i'm gonna come

00:38:54.320 back to you i want to go back to this round war because one of the engine room one of our engine

00:38:59.020 room uh personnel just brings to mind said hey look at the time that this war took place

00:39:06.840 people got to remember what it was like back then the uh the persians under the shah

00:39:12.280 they were it was a different middle east israel wasn't our big ally our big ally was iran the

00:39:21.640 shah yeah they had the most sophisticated weapon systems in fact one of the reasons that 0.95

00:39:26.620 it got so big and intense is that the weapons industry had a customer another customer besides

00:39:33.660 uh the u.s government and particularly with the wind down of the vietnam war they're always

00:39:39.040 looking for new markets they were they were loaded up when i went to officer candidate school in

00:39:43.280 newport i think we had a couple hundred midshipmen go through every class you know we're 90 day

00:39:48.100 wonders there were 500 iranians they would all send them to newport or island for their first

00:39:54.460 training and then they would disperse them out to go get air down to texas or pensacola to learn

00:39:59.580 how to fly or they go to other aspects for military preparedness we were my point in that

00:40:05.520 time in the all-volunteer force post-vietnam we were training as many persians over here as we

00:40:11.880 were training people to go because at that time we didn't have reagan's 600 ship navy you had 200 i

00:40:17.280 think we had 250 ships the navy was quite small when i got in and we were training as many as

00:40:22.580 iranians when the shah fell that was the strategic ally of the united states and we pumped in the 0.99

00:40:28.860 most sophisticated weapon systems in the world when uh when we were thrown out unceremoniously

00:40:35.580 right in 79 when the shah left and then when they seized the embassy uh brandon weicker in your book

00:40:41.620 what what sodom was saying because he's always the the cleverest guy right it wasn't just taking a

00:40:47.920 province he was going for a deep strike to take the oil he thought hey these guys are all messed

00:40:53.060 up you got the you got this crazy guy from paris they're they're all you know they've thrown all

00:40:57.500 their officers are dead all the leaders of the iranian milit they don't know how to use this

00:41:01.520 equipment and i just want people to understand something when they had their because you see

00:41:06.040 president trump telling the europeans hey hormuz is precious you just go in and seize the oil

00:41:11.900 the last time someone tried to seize their oil they sent nine-year-old kids and and they took

00:41:17.600 a million casualties you know why because they don't care okay they don't care they sent nine

00:41:23.060 year old kids to beat saddam hussein you know what they did they fought him to a standoff and i would

00:41:28.800 actually say i think they kind of in their mind they beat him brandon well if i can just build

00:41:33.780 off that i would argue the the straight line from the end of the iran iraq war to desert storm to

00:41:39.960 2003 collapse of saddam hussein it all goes back to the iran iraq war had saddam never done that

00:41:47.220 i don't think there would have ever been any problems with iraq and kuwait or iraq and us

00:41:52.640 that was all a downstream unintended consequence of the iraq war because hang on you're sticking

00:41:58.660 around hang on okay people don't okay 1979 three things happened that changed and this was the

00:42:07.140 most important geopolitical year post-world war ii they the shah fell this you know the islamic

00:42:15.240 revolution because up until then most of these guys were arab nationalists it was kind of secular

00:42:20.260 the shah was obviously very secular but the arabs were secular the muslim brotherhood was getting in 0.99

00:42:25.860 there in both egypt and and you know where nasser had been and and so and in syria you had the you

00:42:31.960 had the fall of the shah in 1979 you had the siege of the great mosque which they never they never

00:42:38.240 talk about it anymore they seized the great mosque right it in the saudis this was the beginning and 1.00

00:42:45.140 then you had the russians going to afghanistan yep of which the americans obviously we funded

00:42:50.740 the mujahideen to beat them back and so all of this from 1979 is all in a strictly linked

00:42:57.360 to today and those people don't forget that history that history is as alive to them today

00:43:04.820 as it just happened to us you mentioned 1979 people go well oh you know what wasn't uh what

00:43:12.120 was the rock music that was number one or didn't the yankees win the world series no they they

00:43:16.460 don't think like that they think very differently history is the lived history of that of today of

00:43:22.560 today's lived experience is informed by their history and as now we have a search and rescue

00:43:30.080 attempt in a province near the tigers tigris and euphrates river right down there on the iraq

00:43:39.160 border. Keep that in mind. Keep that in mind as you pray today on Good Friday for our American

00:43:45.840 pilots and the search and rescue teams that are there to retrieve them. Short break, back in a

00:43:52.000 moment. If you're 65 or already on Medicare, listen up, folks, and grab a pen, maybe even a

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00:45:29.500 so i don't think the networks are confirming this but cnn's had some reporting up let's play cnn

00:45:39.460 jack basobo is going to join brandon weikert and uh before we go to that real quickly brandon

00:45:45.420 um about uh the iran iraq war remember you mentioned sarin gas and the gas um that was

00:45:53.240 used later when he used it because he was outnumbered and he had these nine-year-old

00:45:57.180 kids coming in when not all nine years but but young people coming in waves he did use sarin gas

00:46:03.580 he did use on the kurds of course that was used against him years later in his weapons of mass

00:46:10.080 destruction that's the same people on fox cheerleading this war right now with the same

00:46:15.420 exact crowd lindsey graham and that crowd cheering you know bill crystal we're going to be you know

00:46:20.420 they're going to be throwing roses in front of uh the u.s marines as they go to baghdad those guys

00:46:25.200 are the guys that were saying saddam hussein is the biggest monster in the world right because he

00:46:31.160 used uh he used gas didn't the united states didn't we make it i memory serves me correctly

00:46:35.860 Didn't we make a deal to provide that to him?

00:46:38.760 Yes, we claimed it was to provide pesticides.

00:46:41.600 It was the precursor for pesticides, but in fact it was the precursor for sarin gas.

00:46:45.820 And it was the young Don Rumsfeld who became George W. Bush's secretary of defense during the Iraq war.

00:46:53.140 Young Don Rumsfeld was the front man for that deal in the 1980s between Saddam and the U.S.

00:47:00.520 Hang off one second.

00:47:01.620 Let's play CNN's reporting of this, and we'll bring in Jack Posobiec to join us.

00:47:05.860 Tell us more about what you're learning about these claims from Iran that its forces downed a U.S. fighter jet.

00:47:13.980 Pamela, I'm going to be very careful because the information we have at this point is incomplete, but here's what we know.

00:47:20.420 Iranian state media is reporting that search and rescue operations are underway in southwestern Iran by the U.S. for downed pilots.

00:47:29.060 As you noted, they previously claimed today that they had shot down a U.S. aircraft.

00:47:34.800 There are videos that have been circulating online which appear to show a refueling operation in the air,

00:47:43.060 an aircraft refueling to helicopters, which would at least be consistent with a search and rescue operation.

00:47:51.120 Earlier, as you noted, there were pictures posted and shared by Iranian state media

00:47:56.480 which appear to show a piece of wreckage from a U.S. aircraft consistent with an F-15.

00:48:05.420 CNN has repeatedly reached out to Central Command, U.S. Central Command,

00:48:09.100 and has not yet received comment on whether a jet was indeed shot down

00:48:14.060 and whether search and rescue operations are underway.

00:48:17.440 We continue to seek comment from them.

00:48:20.000 I don't have to tell you, Pamela or Wolf, the seriousness of this if it is confirmed

00:48:25.840 that a jet has been shot down and that those pilots are on the ground,

00:48:29.720 either been captured or that Iranian authorities are now looking for them.

00:48:34.800 But again, we're treating this with caution because the information is incomplete at this hour.

00:48:40.080 Our reporting from CNN regards a U.S. military assessment that has found that even after close to a month of war now

00:48:48.000 and the U.S. striking more than 12,000 targets in Iran, that Iran maintains a missile capability,

00:48:56.100 that it still has 50 percent of its missile launchers, 50 percent of its one-way attack drones,

00:49:02.860 as well as a significant percentage of its coastal defense missiles,

00:49:06.140 those particularly important because it allows Iran to project power over the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz,

00:49:12.800 to threaten shipping there, not just shipping of oil, fertilizer, containers, etc.,

00:49:17.920 but also potentially U.S. warships operating in that area.

00:49:22.620 We're told that according to the assessment, while the U.S. has had great success striking multiple ballistic missile targets,

00:49:29.500 launchers, missile storage facilities, that it has been more difficult to strike mobile missile

00:49:35.100 launchers and to strike both launchers and missiles that are stored underground. The response has been

00:49:41.660 to try to strike the entrances to those underground storage facilities to block them in, and it seems

00:49:47.380 that they've had some success there. But at a minimum, Iran maintains what I think you could 0.95

00:49:52.340 call remarkable capability a month into the war, and that helps explain the fire, the continuing

00:49:56.800 incoming fire we've seen here in Tel Aviv. In fact, just a few minutes ago, we were back in

00:50:00.880 the shelter here in Tel Aviv once again. It looks like it's real, unfortunately. And based on the

00:50:07.020 pictures that we've seen so far, it is consistent with an F-15, not an F-35, as the Iranians have 1.00

00:50:12.960 said, but an F-15. So one of the key things about this is the F-15 is not a stealth fighter. It's

00:50:18.740 an older generation aircraft. It is designed for multiple missions, but mainly air superiority

00:50:25.700 And it is vulnerable to the kind of anti-aircraft fire that the Iranians are capable of conducting. So, you know, in conjunction with the reporting from the U.S. intelligence community that says that the Iranians still have major capabilities, this is one more evidence, piece of evidence that they have those capabilities and it's dangerous still for our pilots. 0.97

00:50:50.160 You know, Jack Posobiec is pretty amazing after, I think, 11,000 or 12,000 combat sorties.

00:50:59.500 They finally, if this is true, CENTCOM has not confirmed it, but it's been a remarkable record so far.

00:51:05.820 But these type of things happen when you're in a shooting war.

00:51:09.700 You're going to have pilots shot down, you're going to have planes shot down, you're going to have search and rescue.

00:51:13.660 And the danger of search and rescue is orders of magnitude even more than the pilots going in the first time.

00:51:20.160 your thoughts, sir? Well, Steve, that's absolutely right. And I would remind everyone that it was

00:51:25.920 that friendly fire incident over Kuwait, where there was, again, three of the F-15 Eagles that

00:51:33.480 were shot down in that friendly fire incident. But in that incident, all of the pilots and crew,

00:51:39.600 the WIZO, the weapons officers, were able to eject and were safely recovered. So there are

00:51:46.480 indications that we've seen this already in Operation Epic Fury, where there's been ejections

00:51:51.260 and recovery. Now, of course, not over Indian territory, Indian country like this is here in

00:51:56.760 Iran. And that's why those CSAR missions are out there the way that they are. But it seems to be 0.66

00:52:03.000 that every indication is that with them flying low and slow the way they are, that they do perhaps

00:52:07.840 have indications that an ejection did take place so that the pilots can be recovered. Of course,

00:52:13.420 We're also monitoring Iranian channels on Telegram and other places to see if locals attempt to pick up the pilot.

00:52:21.360 We saw that in Kuwait a number of times. So we will see what happens there.

00:52:25.420 And Steve, I just got to say, man, Jim Shudo. Seriously, this guy is the he'd like never served a day in his life.

00:52:31.920 He is the biggest wannabe over at CNN sitting over there in Tel Aviv.

00:52:36.540 Look at me. Look, he's an Obama staffer. All right. This guy was an Obama staffer.

00:52:40.620 they stuck him over with gary lock in the u.s embassy in beijing and he's running around look

00:52:45.020 at me look at me like he served it's he's the biggest joke every time i see him unconstituted

00:52:50.080 russia gator all of it um real quickly cencom has not confirmed any of this correct has been

00:52:57.300 total locked down on uh any any confirmation well i saw at one point that cencom was actually

00:53:02.120 denying uh i think that they were denying that an f-35 had been shot down and yet uh we are getting

00:53:08.800 Axios, CNN, and the reports are beginning to come out.

00:53:11.520 No official word yet.

00:53:12.600 Hang over a second.

00:53:15.720 Short commercial break.

00:53:16.580 Back in the warm with the entire team in a moment.

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Bannon's War Room - April 03, 2026

Episode 5269： US Fighter Plane Downed In Iran

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