Bannon's War Room - Episode 5276： Trump Threatens Mass Annihilation In Iran; Miraculous Rescue Mission For US Soldiers

00:00:00.000 this is the primal scream of a dying regime pray for our enemies because we're going to

00:00:10.380 medieval on these people here's not got a free shot all these networks lying about the people

00:00:16.980 the people have had a belly full of it I know you don't like hearing that I know you try to do

00:00:21.140 everything the world to stop that but you're not going to stop it it's going to happen and where

00:00:24.660 of people like that go to share the big line? MAGA Media. I wish in my soul, I wish that any

00:00:32.160 of these people had a conscience. Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? If that

00:00:38.900 answer is to save my country, this country will be saved. War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K.

00:00:47.480 back it's easter monday 6 april year of our lord 2026 um later today at one o'clock there's going

00:00:59.720 to be a press briefing by the president united states about the situation in iran and potential

00:01:05.660 ceasefire although i think that may have already been uh rejected by the um by the regime we're

00:01:13.720 getting to all that we've got an all-star lineup of analysts and observers to walk us through this

00:01:19.100 break it down all for you we're going to play and for those with a sensitive um ears or children

00:01:26.800 we're going to play the newscast from yesterday's news as we always do in the cold open lets you see

00:01:32.260 a wide range of what happened uh some of the language is a little harsh because they're

00:01:37.600 quoting a true social that the commander-in-chief put out at 5 a.m eastern daylight time yesterday

00:01:42.980 morning let's go ahead and let it rip to open the war room no longer he has just threatened iran in

00:01:49.600 extraordinary graphic terms giving the iranian regime just over a day to either make a deal

00:01:54.720 reopen the strait of hormuz or face hell if your children are watching be warned the president did

00:02:00.960 not use polite language quote tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in 1.00

00:02:08.020 in iran there will be nothing like it open the fucking straight you crazy bastards or you'll be 0.99

00:02:14.820 living in hell just watch we should note that destroying civilian power infrastructure is 0.99

00:02:20.440 generally considered to constitute a war crime under international law though the president

00:02:25.100 could argue that the infrastructure has dual use and also is utilized by iran's military

00:02:30.020 sure so then how does this uh resolve itself because let's assume that you know there isn't

00:02:36.900 a kind of totally dramatic escalation where you have a complete free-for-all, but Trump

00:02:42.200 decides to do more bombing and then just quits in, say, 10 days or two weeks. The strait

00:02:48.000 remains closed. At that point, is it left to, you know, countries like Saudi Arabia

00:02:53.520 to find some way to negotiate with Iran and open the strait?

00:03:00.660 For you, there's two great unresolved issues. One I know you'll talk about later, which

00:03:05.300 is the nuclear issue. And we could be looking at, if you will, open-ended bombing by Israel 0.50

00:03:10.800 and the United States, rather than having a formal negotiator arrangement, kind of red lines.

00:03:16.680 And if and when Iran were to move against them, there would be recurring military activity.

00:03:21.780 On the strait, it's what I've described as we broke it, you own it. The president could simply

00:03:26.660 walk away and say, as he's posted, that the United States is not directly dependent on energy moving

00:03:33.120 through the strait. And then I think it's unrealistic to expect the local Arab countries 1.00

00:03:38.700 or the Europeans to free it up. So I think then we're looking at a long-term situation

00:03:42.940 where Iran derives enormous revenue, not to mention political leverage, from operating the

00:03:49.780 strait. And I would think that that ought to be an unacceptable situation. If you add those two

00:03:53.640 things together, the strait and the nuclear, talk about being worse off after initiating a war of 0.75

00:04:00.120 choice that didn't have to happen strategically and economically. The United States and the world,

00:04:05.880 as your opening take suggested, would be far worse off than it was five weeks ago.

00:04:10.480 President Trump is expected to detail the rescue of an American airman whose aircraft was blown out

00:04:14.620 of the sky over Iran. He's also expected to take reporters' questions afterwards, and there are

00:04:19.460 many. Why the expletive-filled social media post on Iran? Will he stick to his deadline of 8 p.m.

00:04:24.720 tomorrow for creating, as he put it, hell on earth if Iran doesn't open the Strait of Hormuz?

00:04:29.820 And what's happening with ceasefire negotiations?

00:04:32.660 Hardly anyone could argue that Iran posed a threat to its neighbors,

00:04:35.900 let alone to the United States, which sits roughly 6,000 miles away.

00:04:41.020 Donald Trump effectively admitted this on Wednesday.

00:04:44.300 We don't have to be there, but we're there to help our allies.

00:04:47.920 It's worth noting that none of America's European or Asian allies were consulted,

00:04:52.880 and many have spoken out against the war.

00:04:55.380 In fact, reports suggest that Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu

00:04:58.820 who sold Trump on this war, not because Iran was an imminent threat, but because its unprecedented

00:05:06.200 weakness provided an opportunity to strike hard to effect regime change. Why else would Trump

00:05:13.480 have closed his brief announcement at the start of the war by urging the Iranian people to rise up

00:05:19.760 and overthrow the regime? A call echoed by Netanyahu in his own message. Tuesday will be

00:05:25.520 power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one in iran there will be nothing like it 1.00

00:05:31.920 open the fucking straight you crazy bastards or you'll be living in hell just watch praise be to 1.00

00:05:38.880 allah end quote that's what the president of the united states has just posted so you have a 1.00

00:05:44.740 theocratic regime with a lot of military power that has not been destroyed as much as the president

00:05:51.080 and Secretary Hegseth want to talk about the body count, as it were, of missiles and launchers and

00:05:57.000 the capability to shoot. Iran shot some more missiles into Israel just today. So you're seeing

00:06:05.060 a regime that's hanging on, that is saying we are now being attacked. It's hard to overcome

00:06:13.800 47 years of screaming at the U.S. and Israel that they are the great Satan. 0.96

00:06:21.060 We're even worse Satans now because we seem to be killing a lot of civilians 0.92

00:06:25.400 and trying to damage institutions which are rebelling against it.

00:06:29.940 So I think it's going to take a lot longer time,

00:06:33.000 and I agree with David Ignatius about letting it die its own death.

00:06:37.100 I also agree with Mark that it's going to die eventually,

00:06:41.280 but I think it's going to be much longer.

00:06:42.640 So, Joe, I think we're still balanced between the two fundamental themes of this war, tactical brilliance of the United States military.

00:06:55.240 It was demonstrated in a different way with this rescue mission, but it was an amazing feat of arms,

00:07:03.520 showed off our special operations forces, the ways they can do things nobody else on the planet can.

00:07:08.480 But it also showed that Iran can withstand our best punch and has got an asset in the Strait of Hormuz that it's very hard to take away absent diplomacy.

00:07:23.060 I've been thinking that if Trump did go through with his threat to blow to smithereens every power plant, bridge, etc., that would probably make the straight-of-home moves impassable for decades.

00:07:38.980 It would lead behind such ruin and rage that the idea of reopening it under any circumstances would be almost impossible.

00:07:46.600 I'm not sure Trump thinks through the consequences of that action.

00:07:50.060 So we're again at a moment where, to me, the path out of this towards something that will stabilize the region and achieve basic war goals of the United States requires us to work with our allies towards some kind of diplomatic solution.

00:08:11.900 The idea you could just keep pounding the other guy and he's going to eventually say, OK, that's it.

00:08:17.320 I think the evidence in this war points in a quite different direction.

00:08:22.780 So far, aside from devastating Iran and crippling its already weak military, which was predictable in such a one sided contest, few of the desired results have been achieved.

00:08:34.960 The regime has not fallen.

00:08:37.320 Key leaders have changed for the worse.

00:08:39.560 The 86-year-old Ayatollah Khamenei, who famously banned the development of nuclear weapons, was killed and replaced by his son, who is said to be more hardline than his father.

00:08:50.940 In general, the Revolutionary Guards, who have always been more militant, seem to be ascendant, which makes sense in times of war.

00:08:59.900 The Strait of Hormuz, which was free and open despite many threats through 47 years of U.S.-Iran tensions,

00:09:07.460 is now blocked by the new leadership, whom Trump terms much more reasonable.

00:09:12.600 President Trump says that after a few more bombing runs, the Strait will open naturally,

00:09:18.040 because Iran will want to export its own oil.

00:09:20.920 This misreads the situation.

00:09:22.380 The Strait is not closed.

00:09:24.320 It is open to Iranian oil, which is flowing freely, especially to China.

00:09:28.940 The net result of the war is that Iran now makes about twice as much on its daily oil sales compared to before the conflict.

00:09:38.040 In addition, if it continues to charge a reported $2 million per passing ship,

00:09:44.180 Tehran will make hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue every month, enough to rebuild its military and more.

00:09:51.580 America's Gulf allies now face a far more unstable and tense environment than they did before the war.

00:09:57.900 Their business models require peace, stability and economic integration.

00:10:03.200 Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had mended ties with Iran in 2023

00:10:08.520 because he wanted to calm geopolitical waters to pursue his ambitious program of modernization.

00:10:16.480 Today, all that progress is in jeopardy as oil exports are crippled

00:10:20.620 and the region has gone from having a path to be an oasis of stability rather than a cauldron of conflict.

00:10:27.900 We're learning more about the ceasefire and potential to see whether or not there could be a deal before the deadline tomorrow that the president has said.

00:10:36.020 I should note he actually extended that.

00:10:37.580 It was supposed to be this evening.

00:10:39.580 He then appeared to extend it until 8 p.m. tomorrow.

00:10:42.480 But to see if these potential talks could at least be staved off for the time being.

00:10:47.460 Because as we heard from the president, particularly in that expletive-laden post that he shared yesterday,

00:10:54.100 really threatening to bomb Iran, saying that he would go after infrastructure and energy sites as well

00:11:00.860 if they do not reopen the Strait of Hormuz by that 8 p.m. deadline tomorrow.

00:11:05.060 So what we're learning is really the countries who we know have been crucial negotiators throughout this entire process,

00:11:10.240 Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, they are among those who have been pounding out a 45-day ceasefire

00:11:17.100 to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and, again, try to buy some time before we could see

00:11:21.780 the United States military really escalate their attacks on these different infrastructure sites.

00:11:27.700 Now, the plan, we're told, was sent to the U.S. and Iran late Sunday and is viewed as a last-ditch

00:11:34.160 effort to try and see if they could find an off-ramp to this war, again, even if it is only

00:11:39.720 temporary. Now, we have also heard from the Iranians say that they said that they reject

00:11:44.620 outright this idea of a temporary ceasefire. But of course, throughout this entire process,

00:11:49.140 there's a lot we've been hearing publicly, not only from the Iranians, but also from the Trump

00:11:53.280 administration, while things are happening, of course, private behind the scenes. I will say,

00:11:58.060 we did hear from a White House official, they did confirm that this potential 45-day ceasefire is

00:12:02.980 just one, they said, of many options that the White House is considering as they look ahead

00:12:08.260 to how they want to proceed based on this deadline that the president has set for tomorrow.

00:12:14.140 I think we read the headlines, you know, when President Trump took action to take on Iran.

00:12:20.480 You know, for 50 years, presidents have talked about doing this.

00:12:23.960 And he's the first one to do it and face the scrutiny of instant gratification.

00:12:30.120 Everyone wants to know, is it two weeks? Is it three weeks? You know, give us a timeline.

00:12:33.680 But he understood that it was going to take risk, and it was going to take some short-term hardships for a longer-term gain for our country, for my three boys' future, certainly.

00:12:48.780 So I think this just shows that freedom is not free, and things have to be fought for and earned, and we have the best and the brightest in this country that are prepared.

00:13:00.300 You think of those going in to rescue these pilots.

00:13:03.340 They're trained, highly trained, the most trained people in the world to take this on.

00:13:07.880 So my thoughts and prayers are with them.

00:13:09.940 And this is the greatest country in the world, but it doesn't come without a cost.

00:13:16.700 But so far, has any American military action ever racked up so many costs for so few games?

00:13:27.660 Okay, welcome.

00:13:29.120 Like I said, Easter Monday, 6 April, Year of the Lord, 2026.

00:13:33.580 We're going to the White House at 1 o'clock, Real America's Voice.

00:13:36.900 We're going to cover that and do some pregame analysis.

00:13:39.880 The Israeli paper, Haritz, is just reporting now, up on zero hedge, that the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard is not prepared to agree to any concessions as part of a deal to end the war.

00:13:57.260 So like I've said before, we're in it.

00:14:00.020 President Trump threw down pretty hard yesterday, ticking time bomb, 8 p.m., I think, Eastern Daylight Time, Tuesday night is the deadline he's given them.

00:14:11.120 We're going to get into all of it, the economics of it, the geopolitics of it, the national security, an incredible, incredible, incredible joint operation yesterday to retrieve the weapons officer on the F-15.

00:14:26.480 just incredible. Of course, people are asking, was that really just a cover to go after the nuclear

00:14:32.860 dust? We're getting to all of that this morning. Eric Bolling, Sam Faddis, Trita Parsi,

00:14:38.900 and more, a cast of thousands here in The Worms. Short break, back in the morning.

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00:16:25.580 Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.

00:16:32.700 Yeah, the president, what you're saying, was a combination of Patton, about Rommel, and the general in charge of the 101st Airborne at Bastogne, his response to the Germans.

00:16:48.280 he was giving it to him with both barrels but sam fattis let me start with you i got eric

00:16:52.700 up here a lot to talk about on the on the straight of her moves and the 1.00

00:16:56.040 convergence of geopolitics and economics um

00:17:00.160 there's all these rumors going around of course on the internet about yesterday's

00:17:06.800 um really a 48-hour magnificent evolution as we call in the military to um

00:17:15.760 um uh retrieved the weapons officer uh from the downed uh f-15 and of course a lot of people

00:17:24.960 saying oh this is just a cover on a failed mission to go get the nuclear powder um your sense of

00:17:30.840 things what i think is striking to people even least in part of the conspiracy theory

00:17:34.660 is it was a pretty big firefight and there were a lot of seal team six and seals team six are

00:17:42.880 kind of the the assassins right the these guys go in as all seal teams are incredible as all of our

00:17:50.300 special forces delta force you know the green berets rangers all of it uh force recon for the

00:17:58.720 marines the the special unit the air force has but send in seal team six and have their fight

00:18:05.200 and we still don't know if they're casualties from that or not but i did i believe we lost two c130s

00:18:09.980 um and then this morning that the iranian revolutionary guard told president trump

00:18:17.880 no deals right nothing we're not giving we're not giving up on anything now that could change

00:18:23.520 in 30 minutes but at least that's what the israeli papers are reporting your thoughts on that sam

00:18:28.740 fattis right well first obviously uh all credit where credit is due to the amazing folks who

00:18:36.840 pulled off this op and we got the weapons officer out alive. And as far as I know, we did not take

00:18:42.060 any fatalities, although I do believe they were wounded. Okay, fantastic. Best military in the

00:18:47.100 world. And we should thank God for that. We should also take stock of what happened and what it took

00:18:54.880 to pull off this op. We had to send in, you know, this is not a chopper with a handful of guys that

00:19:01.260 hopped off the side and picked up a guy. This was a major operation and a major firefight.

00:19:06.840 And we ended up having to blow up two C-130s on the ground, I think a Little Bird helicopter as well.

00:19:13.980 And then there were multiple other aircraft hit during the course of the overall operation.

00:19:20.820 So, you know, some takeaways to come off the top of my head.

00:19:25.720 We were told these guys were getting ready to quit.

00:19:29.120 And in about three days of bombing, it would all be over.

00:19:32.680 That is not what we saw on the ground in Iran.

00:19:36.160 We saw guys prepared to throw down.

00:19:39.560 That does not mean we can't beat them.

00:19:41.620 It just means you better stop thinking that they're going to fold.

00:19:45.280 We were told their communications were gone.

00:19:49.260 They can't communicate anymore.

00:19:51.020 Well, we saw them in real time coordinate a very large operation to get this weapons officer and confront our guys.

00:20:00.600 So obviously they can communicate, and they are still an effective force.

00:20:06.840 We were also told, by the way, that their air defenses are no longer, are non-existent.

00:20:12.640 Well, there's the F-15 that went down tells you that that is not true.

00:20:19.900 I mean, we have destroyed some types of air defenses they have.

00:20:24.160 they have in place now very asymmetric non-conventional air defenses like they literally

00:20:30.440 have loitering munitions drones that just hover yeah yeah the the a-10 the a-10 also down by by

00:20:39.440 the strait itself also i think a couple helicopters got hit i don't think anything went down but i

00:20:44.240 want to go back to something you said from the beginning that they've got an operational plan

00:20:47.920 because they they had a contingency this day was coming so it's not like CENTCOM central command

00:20:54.320 they dispersed where this incredible rescue mission took place is in a pretty it's not a

00:21:03.220 suburb of Tehran right it's also not near one of their major where they dispersed defense

00:21:09.400 capabilities right it's a fairly remote uh part down uh close you know pretty close to Iraq

00:21:16.140 So your theory is not just simply a Tehran and these other four or five big military installations they've got, but it looks like they may have dispersed all over, correct?

00:21:28.920 Yeah, look, they spent 20 years watching the way we fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere.

00:21:35.000 They are smart boys and girls.

00:21:36.520 They developed a plan knowing precisely how we wage war and knowing that it would begin with decapitation, taking out major sites, essentially trying to destroy command and control.

00:21:50.800 Their response to that was to create 31 separate commands, autonomous commands all around the country, and those pieces continue to fight on their own.

00:22:01.760 and at each and each one of those commands has access to everything you need to continue to fight

00:22:07.280 including the external the military plus the basies the internal security guys the thugs

00:22:14.080 that beat people up in the street they are all they they understood what was coming they have

00:22:19.720 watched it for 20 years and they prepared for it so that's that's where we are now the theory that

00:22:26.840 you were going to hit them real hard in Tehran and they would collapse was never viable. It 0.97

00:22:32.220 didn't happen. It hasn't happened. It's not going to happen. So, okay, I'm not, that is not me

00:22:38.480 saying we lose. It's just saying you need to accept that face reality and adapt. Our strategy

00:22:46.260 has to be modified. We can't keep just thinking we'll repeat the same thing we've done and get

00:22:51.560 a different result also this fantasy at least a fantasy up till now that there's going to be some

00:22:58.900 massive uprising in the streets i think president trump said hey we sent some weapons because this

00:23:04.520 gets down to are these people armed can they fight back against the internal security and

00:23:09.860 we sent them to the kurds i think he said it looks like the kurds kept them which if i'm a kurds

00:23:15.720 probably not a bad probably not a bad alternative the americans are going to send us weapons you

00:23:20.080 Maybe we get them there and maybe we just keep them

00:23:23.240 because we're always being double dealt by everybody.

00:23:26.420 So let's just hunker down.

00:23:28.380 This goes back to my point.

00:23:29.980 We don't have any friends in this region, none.

00:23:33.540 America's the greatest ally, ain't a friend.

00:23:36.080 The Saudis are not a friend. 1.00

00:23:38.580 MBZ, who glazes President Trump all the time, he's not a friend.

00:23:42.440 They're all looking out for themselves.

00:23:43.620 And given what a cockpit that place is, right,

00:23:47.720 maybe it's uh maybe it's uh to their benefit to do that but don't think you've got any friends

00:23:52.260 over there you may have alliances of convenience yeah when it suits them hang on for a second

00:23:58.560 sam let me get back to you in a second all this i want to go to the uh to the economics of it uh

00:24:04.880 eric is it appropriate to say that even with the explosion of prices kind of over the weekend or

00:24:10.940 for the last trades that people are kind of on tenterhooks now waiting for what president trump

00:24:16.460 says at one o'clock and then this deadline which has been pushed i think theoretically to 8 p.m

00:24:22.640 uh eastern daylight time on tuesday yeah he added 20 hours they're supposed to end this evening he

00:24:29.980 pushed it to tuesday so very interesting phenomena happening but first of all regarding what's what

00:24:35.920 sam was just talking about guys we've been talking about exactly what's happening right now for the

00:24:40.380 past four weeks. We said, in fact, Steve, we sent, I sent a video of us talking this exact idea into

00:24:47.260 Hankseth and into Susie Wiles that you need to bomb the literal daylights out of these folks. 1.00

00:24:54.140 You need to take out their media, their infrastructure, their roads, their bridges.

00:24:58.820 Maybe, you know, clearly there'll be civilian deaths in it, but that's what you need to do

00:25:02.560 to get the IRGC back to the bargaining table, hat in hand, and then you can work out some

00:25:06.900 negotiations. It feels like Trump is melding together this kind of the art of war, as Sam

00:25:13.200 points out, with the art of the deal, which he is all about. And I just have this hope and suspicion

00:25:19.620 that he's going to get what he wants. The other side of that is, I also know Trump, as you do as

00:25:24.280 well, that he's not going to be, I guess, disrespected on a global stage with the IRGC

00:25:31.000 telling him to go take a hike with all his attempts on negotiations. And I believe he will

00:25:36.140 unleash hell on them. And I think that's what everyone's waiting for. Will this be the, 0.53

00:25:40.460 you know, will we get another 45-day pause? Will we get a ceasefire? Will we get

00:25:44.220 hell unleashed on Iran, which would be the oil markets? And so everything is kind of

00:25:49.440 in limbo right now, very nervously trading a very tight range. Oil, $112 a barrel. Gasoline,

00:25:55.720 up to $4.12 nationally a gallon. Brent is trading $130 a barrel right now. It could be a lot higher.

00:26:03.260 If we do do Unleash Hells, bomb them back to the Stone Angels, you'll see probably a $150 barrel of WTI and $180, $200 barrel of Brent.

00:26:13.880 And that would be very, very negative to the stock market.

00:26:16.980 The other thing that you and I chatted about, Steve, offline was this idea that, you know, this is, even if all things ended right now,

00:26:25.540 There's an international, I guess it was a UN study saying even if the strait were open today and ceasefire declared today, we're looking at months forward of pain at the pump, higher inflation, and maybe there's a possibility of sending the world into a global recession, which should be bad for everyone, us too.

00:26:45.600 But again, there's an off-ramp Trump maybe thinking about various options, but he's got to portray that the only option to him left is to bomb the crap out of Iran, which I don't think is a bad idea.

00:27:00.020 I think letting them know that he's willing to go and he's ready to go, that's what he's good at.

00:27:05.980 And they've clearly seen that sometimes he talks, but the other times when he goes, he allows you to sell.

00:27:12.280 you you're you're saying he's caught in an escalatory trap that he actually has to escalate

00:27:18.400 now is that what you're saying because these guys say nothing over the weekend has shown hang on

00:27:23.280 nothing over the weekend has shown they're even prepared to negotiate with people or talk to

00:27:28.520 people directly there's something that jd's been up all night and trying to communicate with some

00:27:32.220 guy but the the head the guys came back today and said we're not giving up on anything right

00:27:37.880 we're not going to give one inch one concession i think they're coming back with their own 15 point

00:27:42.580 plan i tell you what eric hang on for one second sam fettis eric bowling to kick off easter monday

00:27:49.140 really an incredible heroic and it tells you about the really the valor of our because the

00:27:56.820 equipment's incredible the communication is incredible when it gets down to it it's the

00:28:00.620 valor and savvy and toughness and grit of our troops. The pilot himself, what climbed up to

00:28:08.580 7,000 feet, injured. Just incredible. Incredible weekend. But we're now down into it. President

00:28:15.980 at one o'clock from the White House. Short break. Back in a moment.

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00:29:49.280 Here's your host, Stephen K. Vann.

00:29:53.520 um if sam let me get to what eric said do you think president trump right now is is a trapped

00:30:02.900 in what we call the escalatory trap that he's got to he's got to go up to the he's got to go up to

00:30:08.060 particularly if what haretz and some of the israeli media is reporting that the iranian

00:30:14.480 guard because people don't really know who speaks for who what faction who's in charge i mean one of

00:30:19.540 problems we got you've got the pakistanis and the egyptians the turks everybody's trying to 0.73

00:30:23.880 organize the saudis you know you got a couple of guys here a couple of guys there but at least

00:30:28.980 and harrett's a pretty good paper they they're saying the the the arena the revolutionary guard

00:30:35.160 is saying hey here's what you think about your 15 points there's no deal there's no ceasefire

00:30:40.640 we don't need a meeting we're going to send you over our 15 uh standby it sounds a little bit

00:30:46.680 that they they almost sound like they they are taking the style of president trump

00:30:53.460 and using against president trump sir yeah well i think we are potentially uh that's precisely

00:31:01.760 where we are i mean this is what i mean by we tried something based on an idea we had of how

00:31:10.040 what would happen that they would fold and now since that didn't work it appears our current

00:31:16.120 our plan is, let's just do more of that without reevaluating, without stopping and thinking about

00:31:24.280 what's really happening here. And as I keep saying, I mean, we're in this war, so we got to

00:31:30.820 win this war. We don't have a rewind button. We can't go back and revisit that decision. We cannot

00:31:35.920 walk away and have been defeated by the Islamic Republic of Iran. But we do need to think about 0.84

00:31:43.140 why is it not working? And let's change that. So if we're going to bomb them, what are we going

00:31:51.440 to bomb exactly, given that they have moved to a decentralized system? Because continuing to think

00:31:57.780 we're just going to bomb certain key nodes and they will collapse is not enough. We also have

00:32:02.980 to anticipate as we back them further and further into a corner, what are they going to do? Up until

00:32:08.020 now, you and I have been talking about how the Straits of Hormuz are the center of gravity here,

00:32:12.640 by which we really mean oil and gas coming out of the Gulf.

00:32:15.680 Okay, but when you get the Iranians in a corner and really out of options, 1.00

00:32:20.980 what happens when they decide to destroy the oil and gas infrastructure of the Persian Gulf?

00:32:27.420 So you're not looking at reopening the Straits.

00:32:29.940 You're looking at nothing's coming out of Kuwait and any other country in there. 1.00

00:32:34.600 One of the reasons, yeah, one of the reasons we,

00:32:37.940 and we're going to spend more time on this in the next couple of days,

00:32:40.280 One of the reasons we went back in recent history and talked about the 1980s is as they've gone down on the command structure and taken out the senior people, they're getting into mid-level and below.

00:32:53.720 These are all people that came in as volunteers, as first lieutenants, second lieutenants, non-commissioned officers, the nine-year-old, the 12-year-old kids that gave them a stick and said, the Iraqis over there, go charge, like in World War I and in Korea.

00:33:07.380 um these are not we're not getting as you go down the ladder you're not getting to

00:33:14.400 jeffersonian democrats uh or members or guys that went through the enlightenment you're getting the

00:33:20.380 you're getting harder core people who their entire life their formation of them as young men

00:33:27.160 was in a brutal war that was a war that they had to win against at that time saddam hussein in the

00:33:35.420 west right and and so you're getting people that know how to dig in and these are persians to start 1.00

00:33:40.900 with the layer on top of it this this radical theocracy right this martyr this whole philosophy

00:33:47.780 and religion based around martyrdom these are you know these these are tough people formed

00:33:54.060 in the crucible of an apocalyptic war which it was i think i think there was a million casualties

00:34:00.600 yes over the eight years of that war uh and you think about in vietnam the the casualties i think

00:34:06.820 we had 50 000 killed obviously tens of thousands of more casualties and millions on the vietnamese

00:34:13.200 side this was and people should remember and this i told the sunday times i said i said look

00:34:19.940 the military's had 12 000 sorties they're going to i think the target right now is 13

00:34:26.760 five or 14,000 sorties before they say at least their initial mission is accomplished uh we've

00:34:34.200 only had a couple planes shot down that that is a pretty remarkable but we're hitting these people

00:34:39.540 we hit them again last night it's a relentless hitting of the kind of defanging and declawing

00:34:45.780 of their conventional military apparatus sam but these guys are totally asymmetric now and they're

00:34:51.700 going to fight an asymmetric war. And these appear to be people who would rather die than surrender

00:34:59.020 or particularly capitulate to the great Satan, sir. Yeah. As I've said to you many times,

00:35:05.240 I worked against the Iraqis and the Iranians for many years. The Iraqis were absolutely ruthless. 1.00

00:35:10.240 The Iranians were every bit as ruthless, but frankly, a heck of a lot more organized in that 1.00

00:35:17.680 sense and smarter in the way they operated and more dangerous. They were the folks you really

00:35:23.480 had to watch yourself against. And your use of the term asymmetric is dead on, Steve. I mean, look,

00:35:28.680 you know, we're worried about missile batteries and them shooting down planes the way

00:35:35.300 we would. Okay, we should worry about that. But the fact of the matter is they've moved now to

00:35:40.580 using these loitering munitions. And I'm not talking about things that go up in the air and

00:35:44.600 and hit a tank on the ground. They're like sky mines. They go up and they hover thousands of

00:35:50.720 feet in the air, and they have passive infrared sensors. And when your F-15 Strike Eagle comes by,

00:36:00.200 they impact it. We're looking for radar systems. We're looking for SAMs. We're looking for all of

00:36:08.300 this stuff and they have relatively cheap munitions hovering over key areas this is back to

00:36:16.340 the psychology at least of the vietnam war right we're using massive conventional force

00:36:21.440 and we're fighting an enemy that's fighting us very unconventionally and asymmetrically

00:36:26.420 yeah uh hangar for in fact the bomb to the stone age came i think from curtis lemay

00:36:32.920 in uh in the vietnam war hangover one second trita where do we stand haritz is uh is reporting that

00:36:39.800 the revolutionary guard has responded to our feelers through various sources of trying to

00:36:46.460 you know trying to try to have a climb down at least before tomorrow evening's um uh deadline

00:36:53.880 and they're telling us hey no interest uh no deals um we'll come back to you later with our

00:37:00.340 own 15-point plan. Your thoughts? I think the Iranians are open for negotiations, but they're 1.00

00:37:07.380 not going to agree to a ceasefire unless they get what they want, because the track record of Israel 0.99

00:37:14.000 and the United States for the last two, three years when it comes to ceasefires in Gaza and

00:37:18.540 Lebanon has been very clear. Those ceasefires are rather quickly violated, and they're used in order

00:37:25.060 to be able to regroup, rearm, and then relaunch attacks. So the Iranians are not going to fall for 1.00

00:37:29.700 that. And particularly if it's these kind of phased ceasefires, first Iranians do everything 1.00

00:37:35.220 up front, and then in phase two or phase three, the US responds with some concessions. Those are

00:37:40.920 complete non-starters. And I don't think we should waste time on that because reality on the ground

00:37:45.760 is this is not the type of scenario that existed before the war in which the US had a lot of

00:37:50.720 leverage vis-a-vis Iran. Now the Iranians have a lot of leverage over the US as well. That requires 0.92

00:37:56.060 real compromises, and that's going to take some time. But if you start off those negotiations

00:38:01.200 with these kind of lowball offers, you're just wasting time, frankly. And right now,

00:38:06.880 time is not on Trump's side. If I were him, I would move much faster towards real negotiations

00:38:11.560 that did not require the audience to give up everything up front, and then the U.S. taking

00:38:16.020 measures in phase two, because those are just non-starters. It's not going to work.

00:38:21.200 Trita, help me out here and help the audience out. When you say real negotiations,

00:38:25.120 President Trump this is one of the things that drove him crazy and you and I talked about this

00:38:29.640 drove him crazy beginning that the Iranians would be in one room at the you know uh Whitcoff and

00:38:36.240 Kushner in another room you have either someone from Oman or some intermediary passing notes back

00:38:40.960 and forth who is he really supposed to negotiate with if you had a recommendation right now you

00:38:46.580 got the Pakistanis working one thing the Saudis working another the Turks working another you've 0.97

00:38:51.480 got guys coming up as spokesmen i mean if president trump wants to make a deal and talk to somebody

00:38:57.240 and jd's been up all night the the media is telling us talking to somebody who is the president

00:39:03.340 united states supposed to interact with that not only can deliver a deal or have a meaningful

00:39:08.620 conversation about what you just talked about but also if they reached a deal could actually

00:39:13.920 executed inside of Iran, sir?

00:39:18.580 So, Steve, earlier on, I think this was a very valid concern, that the methodology of

00:39:26.200 the negotiations were highly problematic, and that was overwhelmingly the fault of the

00:39:30.000 Iranians in which they originally only had these meetings in which notes were passed

00:39:34.540 from one room to another through the Omanis.

00:39:36.760 The talks in Geneva, Kushner and Witkoff sat in the room with Iranian negotiators, and

00:39:42.060 there were actually direct negotiations with them. So the methodology had improved and it

00:39:46.100 should have been done. So from the very outset, I think it was a huge mistake by the Iranians to do 1.00

00:39:50.240 it in the manner that they did. At this point, however, I don't think the problem is in the

00:39:54.700 methodology. The problem is that the two sides are too far away from each other on the substance

00:40:00.820 of the issue and that both sides are driving rather maximalist positions and particularly

00:40:07.120 Trump kind of still acting as if he can dictate the outcome here. That is not the reality on the

00:40:13.500 ground. The Iranians have the ability to squeeze the American economy in a manner that they didn't 1.00

00:40:18.740 have before this war was started. And as a result, even though, of course, the methodology needs to

00:40:23.840 improve, et cetera, et cetera, the real problem is in the substance here. Now, the U.S. side can

00:40:29.660 talk to the Iranians through the Pakistanis and others. There's nothing wrong with those channels

00:40:34.700 per se. But if the starting point is essentially Iran gives up everything in terms of control of

00:40:41.960 the Strait of Hormuz and then in phase two, the U.S. reciprocates, the track record of the last

00:40:47.020 couple of years have made sure that no country that has leverage will ever trust the U.S. to

00:40:51.940 get to phase two or phase three. And as a result, they won't even bother even contemplating phase

00:40:57.320 one. That's the problem of having done it the manner that the Israelis wanted to do it in Gaza

00:41:02.760 and Lebanon. It's just destroyed that credibility and has put us in a much, much harder position.

00:41:09.240 I'm not saying this is reality, but I want to know the reality as the Iranian

00:41:13.940 Revolutionary Guard and the folks running the country and particularly running the military

00:41:18.180 look at it. Do they believe that they have the initiative in this war right now and not the

00:41:23.060 Americans? I think it's quite clear that that is their perception. And again, whether that

00:41:28.600 perception is entirely true or not, it could be a very different story. But I think that they do

00:41:34.580 believe that they have an escalatory dominance here because, for instance, let's say that Trump

00:41:41.260 activates his threat. And by the way, the Israelis are currently bombing power grids and energy 1.00

00:41:47.740 infrastructure in Iran long before the deadline has been met. Whether they're doing it right now

00:41:52.620 in order to sabotage any small prospect for the Iranians agreeing to some sort of a ceasefire,

00:41:58.840 or if all of this is once again another ruse in which the diplomacy is not serious from either

00:42:04.320 side, we don't know yet. But nevertheless, they're doing it regardless of Trump's deadline.

00:42:09.240 But let's say that that goes forward. What the Iranians can then do, and they've already shown 1.00

00:42:13.160 the ability to do it, is to take out the oil infrastructure in the region, not just stopping

00:42:19.220 ships from going through the Strait of Hormuz. The reason why we have high oil prices right now

00:42:23.720 is not because oil is not being pumped out of the ground. It's because the oil is stuck in the

00:42:28.180 Persian Gulf and it can't get through. But once the Strait opens, the oil will go through very

00:42:32.460 quickly and oil prices can come down very quickly. However, if Trump activates his threat and goes

00:42:38.680 after the oil infrastructure and other power infrastructure in Iran and the Iranians retaliate

00:42:44.960 by taking out the oil and gas infrastructure in the GCC states,

00:42:48.900 then we're not just talking about oil getting stuck in the Persian Gulf.

00:42:51.760 We're talking about oil and gas not getting out of the ground.

00:42:55.120 And that will then require years of recuperation

00:42:58.440 before it actually gets back to a normal state.

00:43:00.620 And then oil prices will not come down quickly.

00:43:02.880 Rather, they will stay high for a long period of time.

00:43:05.460 That will be devastating for the global economy and for the United States,

00:43:09.400 and that will destroy Trump's presidency.

00:43:11.580 That's why I think the Iranians feel confident that they have an escalation dominance. 1.00

00:43:16.960 Trump can do a lot of things in terms of blowing things up.

00:43:19.920 But strategically, the Iranians can do a lot to destroy his presidency. 1.00

00:43:25.840 Trita, I know you've got to bounce. Just hang on for a second.

00:43:28.120 I've got a couple more questions on the other side.

00:43:29.800 Sam Faddis is going to stick with us.

00:43:31.860 We're going to get back to Eric Bolling on all things geoeconomics.

00:43:37.400 Short break.

00:43:40.940 We will fight till they're all gone.

00:43:43.520 We rejoice when there's no more. 0.95

00:43:45.400 Let's take down the CCP.

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Bannon's War Room - April 06, 2026

Episode 5276： Trump Threatens Mass Annihilation In Iran; Miraculous Rescue Mission For US Soldiers

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