Bannon's War Room - Episode 5293： War Enters The 6th Week Of The War; Trump Puts Naval Blockade On The Strait Of Hormuz

00:00:00.000 We've defeated them militarily. They've dropped a couple of water mines. You call them water mines in the boat. We've defeated all of their water boats, too. Their Navy has gone 158 ships. They have 28 water droppers, mine droppers, they call them. All of them are sunk. They probably have a couple of mines in the water. We have mine sweepers out there. We're sweeping these straight. In addition to that, we're negotiating whether we make a deal or not makes no difference.

00:00:30.000 me. And the reason is because we've won. Whether you listen to the fake news or not, you know,

00:00:37.080 it's amazing. Their credibility is down to 13 percent. The media credibility down to 13 percent.

00:00:45.180 Think of it. We defeated their Navy. We defeated their air force. We defeated their anti-aircraft.

00:00:51.200 We defeated their radar. We defeated their leaders. Their leaders are all dead.

00:00:56.560 And now all we do is we'll open up the strait, even though we don't use it, because we have a lot of other countries in the world that do use it that are either afraid or weak or cheap.

00:01:10.440 I don't know what it is, but we were not helped by NATO.

00:01:13.180 That I can tell you.

00:01:14.160 We heard from a spokesperson from Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying that the two sides couldn't agree on two to three key issues.

00:01:23.200 That is those issues we believe, obviously, around the Strait of Hormuz.

00:01:28.480 That's been a core dispute between the two sides.

00:01:31.440 J.D. Vance also alluding to Iran's nuclear enrichment program.

00:01:36.280 We also know that Iran had asked for sanctions relief and that they had also asked for a regional ceasefire, including Israel and Lebanon.

00:01:45.040 It seemed that the U.S. was unwilling to meet there.

00:01:48.560 A couple before these talks started, U.S. President Donald Trump came out and said that it really made no difference to him whether these talks were successful or not.

00:01:57.680 He said that the U.S. had already won the war. We kind of heard a similar sentiment from Iran.

00:02:03.260 They definitely felt they had the upper hand. They certainly had a lot more leverage given their control over the Strait of Hormuz, which is absolutely, you know, disrupted global supply chains. 0.95

00:02:14.500 And we know that Iran will not open that up until a reasonable solution is met. 0.87

00:02:20.040 So where does that leave us now? 0.56

00:02:22.420 Unfortunately, a lot more questions than answers.

00:02:25.220 We know that Qatar had mentioned they were going to restore full maritime navigation in the Persian Gulf today.

00:02:31.580 We know that the U.S. Navy was working to remove some of those mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

00:02:36.760 And we know that Israel and Lebanon were in talks to hold ceasefire talks next week.

00:02:41.540 So now all of that kind of up in the air. This comes after yesterday, no reported attacks on Iran and no reported attacks from Iran onto Israel or their Gulf Arab neighbors, which has been a welcomed sign of some sort of peace and stability.

00:02:57.560 But now all of that up in the air. Becky, I have in front of me, though, you know, the Potsdam Declaration, July 1945.

00:03:04.960 I wasn't even going to mention this, but I have it.

00:03:07.820 And then we have the instrument of surrender by the Japanese, September 2nd, 1945.

00:03:13.420 And in order to implement the Potsdam Declaration and get them to surrender to the terms that the Allies wanted, we dropped two atomic bombs. 0.93

00:03:22.800 Now, I'm not encouraging it. I'm asking about the law.

00:03:25.780 Is that legal today under the law of the war or not?

00:03:29.960 yeah so the the calculation is a bit different when it comes to weapons of mass destruction

00:03:36.920 because that's really a those are munitions that have a strategic level effect and so for for us

00:03:46.600 it would be the president of the united states who decides whether to launch a nuclear weapons and

00:03:52.720 so which was also the case back in world war ii the considerations are probably a bit different

00:03:57.720 now, but it's still, this law of armed conflict still applies. It's just the decision-making

00:04:04.140 process for weapons of mass destruction is elevated because of the strategic nature

00:04:09.300 of the impact of those weapons. So I take that as a possible yes. I'm not encouraging it. You know,

00:04:16.660 the left goes crazy and they try to put words in our mouths. I'm just trying to get the law now

00:04:21.680 down here. I think it would be very helpful to go back and read the terms of surrender for the

00:04:27.400 Japanese for our envoys to read it because the Japanese were dug in, even after the dropping

00:04:33.380 of two atomic bombs. And it took a lot of pressure, even after that, to get them to surrender.

00:04:41.220 The campaign is not over yet, but it is already clear. We have historic achievements. I want to

00:04:48.000 remember where we were. Iran tried to encircle us with a stranglehold. Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in

00:04:55.100 Lebanon, the Assad regime in Syria, the militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen. Iran itself,

00:05:01.820 I mean, they wanted to strangle us and we are strangling them. They threatened us with 1.00

00:05:06.140 annihilation and they are now fighting to survive. We have prepared them. We still have more to do.

00:05:11.700 Well, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clearly said right at the top of the video message, 0.74

00:05:15.520 you saw that top right there, that the campaign against Iran isn't over yet. He didn't specifically

00:05:20.920 say whether he was for or against the ceasefire negotiations, but he and Israeli officials

00:05:25.900 clearly believed from the very beginning that they would fail, just as they believed that

00:05:30.160 the diplomatic effort between the U.S. and Iran before the war, some 40 days ago, would

00:05:34.880 also fail.

00:05:35.880 Now, Israel hasn't simply restarted strikes on Iran and attacks on facilities there just

00:05:41.580 because the ceasefire talks fell apart, but that is clearly what Israel is preparing for.

00:05:47.540 That being said, it's likely President Donald Trump who has the ultimate say there and Israel

00:05:52.040 knows that, Netanyahu knows that.

00:05:54.340 Still it was very clear going into these ceasefire talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, that Israel

00:05:59.540 wasn't done yet.

00:06:00.620 It had a longer target list, it was ready for more days or weeks of war, and that's

00:06:06.080 the position Israel is in right now. 0.52

00:06:08.580 We've heard from a few of Israel's ministers that they demand that the highly enriched

00:06:13.160 uranium be removed, and if not, it'll be either an agreement or back to war.

00:06:17.340 So we have seen some comment, none from Netanyahu since the statement last night.

00:06:21.540 But it's clear that Israel's position is it's not done yet. 0.65

00:06:24.920 It's ready to resume the war as we've seen it before.

00:06:28.060 And that's that's his position at this moment as it waits to see what the next steps are from the U.S.

00:06:33.680 as there is still time left officially in this two week ceasefire.

00:06:37.680 Now, when it comes to Lebanon, as you point out, Netanyahu said he had authorized the direct talks that'll take place on Tuesday.

00:06:45.020 but it's the same question as we saw with the Iran talks. Are these going to lead anywhere?

00:06:49.720 Netanyahu said he's demanding a complete disarmament of Hezbollah as part of the agreement

00:06:53.840 and something that he sees as a true peace agreement that he said would last for generations. 0.91

00:06:58.440 From where we sit right now, that's very difficult to achieve, so it's possible we're looking at

00:07:03.280 simply a smaller version of what happened in Pakistan. Significant direct talks, a noteworthy

00:07:09.120 agreement, but one that ultimately leads nowhere. Meanwhile, unlike the ceasefire in Iran, we are

00:07:14.120 seeing continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon. You pointed out the smoke rising from the suburbs of

00:07:19.640 Beirut, and we are seeing sirens warning warning of incoming Hezbollah fire in northern Israel

00:07:24.120 today. So no ceasefire in Lebanon as we await these talks in D.C. in just a couple of days.

00:07:30.220 This should be more about surrender, the terms of surrender than not. Now, remember, I said 0.67

00:07:35.720 there's two issues. The second issue involves us, we the people. What are we prepared to support?

00:07:42.520 Now, the vast majority of us do not directly feel any negative impact from this military

00:07:48.680 operation like past generations of Americans have, other than a temporary increase in a gallon of

00:07:54.360 gasoline, an increase that is lower than the increase during the Biden regime over climate

00:07:59.120 change. We don't have a draft, so those in the military chose voluntarily to be in the military.

00:08:07.340 Unlike prior generations, there really is no significant sacrifice for us,

00:08:12.140 if you really think about it, certainly not at the level, as I said, of our parents and

00:08:17.060 grandparents that they experienced. Yet I sense even beyond those individuals and groups I

00:08:22.340 discussed earlier who are trying to sabotage us, some skepticism, maybe some wariness among some

00:08:28.180 of our fellow Americans. I don't believe it's widespread. I certainly don't believe it's

00:08:33.080 fever pitched, even though the left and the woke right are trying to create that environment.

00:08:37.760 However, they were not able to bridge these huge divides going into these talks between the two sides.

00:08:45.020 Now, what we heard from Vance was that it was really down to this key issue of Iran's nuclear program.

00:08:50.900 This is something that had bedeviled negotiators even prior to the start of this latest round, before the start of the war.

00:08:57.940 This was something that had been the main focus of a lot of the talks leading up to this moment.

00:09:03.860 A few months ago, President Trump weighed in with an announcement. Here's what he posted

00:09:07.940 on social media. Quote, effective immediately, the United States Navy, the finest in the world,

00:09:14.380 will begin the process of blockading any and all ships trying to enter or leave the Strait of

00:09:20.660 Hormuz. The whole notion of the Iranians backing down on that, I mean, it was pretty clear,

00:09:27.060 at least in the first round of negotiations, they said it's a nonstarter. So do you believe

00:09:31.800 that the U.S. military special forces and those who support special forces just need to go in and

00:09:37.940 extract the enriched uranium? I think that's probably what it's going to come down to. I

00:09:43.680 mean, this is a special force mission. It would take about a week to 10 days to get done. They

00:09:49.080 know how to do it. It's dangerous. It's not something that we can just sit and think it's

00:09:55.240 casual. I think they have to do it. But once they do that, they're taking away literally one arm of

00:10:01.080 the Iranian regime to where they no longer can threaten any of our allies or threaten us anymore.

00:10:08.780 I think they've already known it's a small special operations force that they would have to do to 0.82

00:10:13.140 be able to extract that uranium. Not just any military man or woman could do this. This is

00:10:19.280 special forces for sure. We are energy independent again. A propaganda is propaganda and repetition

00:10:26.580 of propaganda is a powerful tool

00:10:28.820 for thought control.

00:10:33.840 Tel Aviv Levin,

00:10:35.280 telling us the way it is.

00:10:36.300 It is Sunday, 12 April,

00:10:38.100 in the year of our Lord, 2026.

00:10:39.480 I really want to thank my crack team

00:10:41.780 here at the War Room

00:10:42.920 and the Denver team

00:10:45.200 at Real America's Voice

00:10:46.460 for putting together that,

00:10:47.640 quite frankly, magnificent cold open,

00:10:49.800 which I think gave you the best summary

00:10:51.120 of what has happened or transpired

00:10:55.140 since yesterday's show.

00:10:56.580 um and you heard tel aviv levin right there trying to set the looking for the looking for

00:11:03.720 the terms of surrender to have terms of surrender you have to have an enemy that thinks they're

00:11:10.480 beaten this enemy right now in their mind whether that's reality or not does not think they're

00:11:17.560 beaten now the administration has gone to something that we've called for for a while

00:11:22.700 a naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman nothing goes in nothing goes out the terms and particularly

00:11:29.100 the two principles involved in this and the two principles are not the United States of America

00:11:35.320 in Iran is the United States of America and the Chinese Communist Party their um their allies

00:11:41.860 including the ones in Islamabad and President Trump just put out another true social a moment

00:11:46.440 ago, thanking the field marshal, was it Munry, who has a close relationship with, but Pakistan's

00:11:54.900 a client state of the Chinese Communist Party and kind of owned by them because of one belt

00:11:59.120 and one road. 0.96

00:12:00.600 The Iranians have, in fact, if we can get that clip later, the Iranians are dependent

00:12:06.100 upon the Chinese Communist Party.

00:12:07.320 President Trump said yesterday there would be bad news in Beijing if Beijing was caught

00:12:13.740 arming the Iranians.

00:12:16.440 and there's been all types of reports coming out of europe and coming on intelligence services

00:12:20.120 they're doing just that now we've got a uh we have thayer and faddis and bowling and captain

00:12:27.560 finnell and trita parsey so you're going to get the wide range of thoughts here because folks as

00:12:34.360 i keep saying this is you know we're in the kinetic part of the third world war and folks

00:12:41.480 in our country got to be very serious about this and very focused about this because now more than

00:12:45.560 ever we are putting young Americans in harm's way for national goals and we have to be very specific

00:12:50.880 are those national goals involved in what's going on in Lebanon or is it directly related to the

00:12:56.700 United States and the Chinese Communist Party in a great power struggle between the two I also think

00:13:03.160 it behooves us to be very very clear what's going on we were told that the 10 15 points the Americans

00:13:11.020 put forward and the 10 points that the Iranians put forward, the 10-point maximalist plan

00:13:18.320 of the Iranians were in fact not true. There was a modified 10-point plan, much of which

00:13:24.780 had been agreed to. Although the vice president talked about the nuclear program, I don't

00:13:29.500 see any agreement on any of the basic things of which we said, why are we even meeting?

00:13:33.360 They still claim the Straits are Hormuz. They still claim that they wanted sanctions, if

00:13:39.620 not reparations, they wanted all their assets freed up in sanctions relief. And they talked

00:13:44.840 about it had to be a regional deal. That means including the Israelis. But on those first three

00:13:50.200 points, the Iranians weren't backing off. Now, we highlight the nuclear program, of which we said 0.99

00:13:57.860 time and time again, we totally obliterated. So in going forward and galvanizing the nation

00:14:03.520 in back of this policy and now that you've put a naval blockade in uh that folks write this down

00:14:10.460 with your number two pencil we just went up the escalatory ladder big league we believe you have

00:14:16.640 to do that but you have to get the american people on board here and to get the american people on

00:14:22.080 board that has to be very straightforward where's the bid and where's the ask on this

00:14:26.460 and for mark levin to get terms of surrender you have to have a party that thinks they're beaten

00:14:32.260 these persians do not think they're beaten in fact they believe they have the initiative

00:14:39.540 they believe they changed the center of gravity of this war they believe not only are they not

00:14:46.300 beaten they think they are winning this morning on the war room we're going to break it all down

00:14:52.200 for you in our special sunday edition short break

00:14:54.880 okay i'm gonna get eric bowling up for an overview of what the markets are telling us

00:15:07.720 because remember price is truth okay take number two prince alone this sunday and write that down

00:15:13.500 price is truth uh we're gonna get to captain finnell uh is gonna walk us through the details

00:15:19.160 of exactly where we are and what does this all mean but i want to play again real quickly let's

00:15:24.540 play Mark Levin, laying the legal framework for the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Let's go

00:15:30.440 and play it. I have in front of me, though, you know, the Potsdam Declaration, July 1945. I wasn't

00:15:36.960 even going to mention this, but I have it. And then we have the instrument of surrender by the

00:15:41.680 Japanese, September 2nd, 1945. And in order to implement the Potsdam Declaration and get them 0.68

00:15:47.920 to surrender to the terms that the Allies wanted, we dropped two atomic bombs. Now, I'm not

00:15:54.660 encouraging it. I'm asking about the law. Is that legal today under the law of the war or not?

00:16:02.700 Yeah, so the calculation is a bit different when it comes to weapons of mass destruction,

00:16:08.240 because those are munitions that have a strategic level effect.

00:16:16.160 And so for us, it would be the president of the United States

00:16:19.460 who decides whether to launch nuclear weapons,

00:16:23.980 which was also the case back in World War II.

00:16:26.880 The considerations are probably a bit different now,

00:16:29.520 but this law of armed conflict still applies.

00:16:32.980 It's just the decision-making process for weapons of mass destruction

00:16:37.680 is elevated because of the strategic nature of the impact of those weapons.

00:16:44.340 So I take that as a possible yes.

00:16:46.740 I'm not encouraging it.

00:16:47.780 You know, the left goes crazy and they try to put words in our mouths.

00:16:50.760 I'm just trying to get the law nailed down here.

00:16:54.160 I think it would be very helpful to go back and read the terms of surrender for the Japanese,

00:16:59.460 for our envoys to read it, because the Japanese were dug in,

00:17:03.440 even after the dropping of two atomic bombs.

00:17:05.840 And it took a lot of pressure, even after that, to get them to surrender.

00:17:13.260 I'm not encouraging this.

00:17:15.140 I want you to know I'm not encouraging this, but I do believe you ought to read, go back to the pot stamp conference and read the accord and then read the terms of surrender in September of 45 that we finally got the Japanese to sign on the deck of the USS Missouri.

00:17:30.900 um we did have not just simply firebombed them we did have a wait for it naval blockade around

00:17:38.280 japan for a while uh i'm gonna get to captain finot in a moment but um eric bowling the global

00:17:45.240 markets today i realize many things are not open but the field that you've got particularly that

00:17:50.640 president trump has uh after being rejected by the iranians let's be blunt it was rejection by

00:17:57.440 the Iranians because they think they're winning, right? Or certainly they don't think they've

00:18:02.260 lost and they're not prepared to sign a surrender document. Your thoughts, sir?

00:18:08.940 First thought when I saw it last night and I texted you, Steve, is this is really bad.

00:18:13.580 Vance walked out. I had thought he was going to stay a lot longer and maybe try and negotiate,

00:18:18.140 keep the negotiations going. But he left after 21 hours and headed back here. I'm trying to

00:18:24.160 figure out why. I mean, this is global oil. This is a global economy at risk. Can I just very quick,

00:18:29.720 I'll tell you, the first thing I did is I called a couple of my friends who are major brokers of

00:18:33.980 international oil. And I said, what do you think? It feels like a lot higher. And they said, yes.

00:18:38.340 I said 110. And the quote was very soon. So we finished Friday at about 96, $97 a barrel.

00:18:46.320 So these people think at least 100, I do too, at least 110. I went to CalSU, which is a betting

00:18:51.380 market. Since the financial markets are closed, the oil markets aren't trading at the moment,

00:18:56.960 but Calci is a betting market and Pali market are betting markets. Smart money goes into these.

00:19:01.660 I think there's something like $300 million are betting on whether or not we actually put boots

00:19:06.880 on the ground in Iran in Calci or Pali market. So there's a lot of smart people putting smart

00:19:13.060 money and they believe, I think there's a 55% chance of $103 a barrel tomorrow and about a 33%

00:19:21.060 chance of $104 a barrel tomorrow, about a 25, one of, I believe, will be on our way to 110,

00:19:27.520 which brings me to Mark Levin's comment. I like Mark a lot. I do. I think he's a very,

00:19:31.500 very smart man. He is completely wrong on this. And I will tell him this. I'll have this

00:19:35.240 conversation with him or debate him on the economic effects of what's going on. He wrote

00:19:39.920 it off as the American people are going to feel the price of a gallon of gasoline for a little

00:19:43.980 while. That is frankly BS, my friend. Everything is fuel related. Everything is petroleum related

00:19:50.180 products, transportation. And when you have this situation, we're pushing $110 a barrel here,

00:19:55.340 $130 a barrel for Brent, $150 a barrel for Mid-Eastern Crudes, all prices will go up.

00:20:01.020 They have to go up and they'll continue to go up. So a temporary blip is insulting to me. It's

00:20:06.660 frankly insulting. I'm Mark Levin. I would love to have this conversation with you directly.

00:20:10.460 Here's why. It's not temporary. And we literally removed a president, President Biden,

00:20:16.240 for bringing inflation up.

00:20:17.860 The last inflation number we just saw, Steve,

00:20:20.300 has inflation tripling, energy inflation tripling

00:20:23.220 month over month from February to March.

00:20:25.420 That's one month that we started the month of March very low

00:20:28.300 and worked our way all the way up through the month.

00:20:30.560 I will tell you, I believe we'll have a 5% inflation,

00:20:34.700 6% inflation.

00:20:36.200 Okay, and I'm going to do it again.

00:20:37.580 And people hate when I do this

00:20:38.600 because this is a very important moment in history.

00:20:41.380 But I think it's also a moment in history

00:20:43.820 for the Republicans, for conservatives,

00:20:46.240 to keep the house if you lose the house and god forbid you lose the senate at this point

00:20:50.960 you know it's looking like that what do we have are we going back to woke you know the woke

00:20:56.160 world that we were just horribly thrust into over the last four years i hope not and and forget

00:21:03.620 aside that he would become a lame duck president in six months it's horrible for the party in the

00:21:08.900 country i mean eric yeah yeah but i think eric i think that's all put aside here's the reason

00:21:13.780 the naval equivalent of boots on the ground is a quarantine or blockade in the Gulf of Vermont

00:21:22.140 for everything coming in and out of Hormuz. This is a game changer because call your buddies back

00:21:27.880 now. What the president is saying about this blockade, there's no oil going to India. There's

00:21:32.760 no oil going to China. He's going to put pressure on the people funding the Persians and the people 0.99

00:21:39.960 that are arming the persians india is not arming but their cash is helping to finance this and the 0.94

00:21:46.580 chinese are arming and financing so hang on so call them back today and say hey look let me let 0.54

00:21:51.240 me ask this question again what about nothing comes in and out what about it's totally sealed 1.00

00:21:55.480 hermetically sealed uh at least for a while anyway bowling stay right there we're gonna come back to

00:21:59.980 you captain finnell you've walked us through the defanging and declawing as much as they were

00:22:06.220 defang to declaw, they still didn't think they lost, right? Whether that's technically that they

00:22:11.340 have or not, they don't think so. But now the president, after sending those two, I think,

00:22:16.880 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers through Hormuz yesterday, has now ratcheted up, gone up the

00:22:23.460 escalatory ladder and said, hey, guess what? I'm tired of the Chinese. I'm tired of the Indians. 1.00

00:22:27.860 I'm tired of listening to these guys in Tehran think they've got leverage. I've got the leverage 1.00

00:22:33.880 and I'm blockading the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.

00:22:39.160 Tell the audience, explain to the audience what that means, sir.

00:22:43.280 Yes, Steve.

00:22:44.140 I mean, the president clearly didn't like what happened that came out of the talks in Islamabad.

00:22:49.560 And he saw that his team was moving in to do what had been on their plan,

00:22:55.380 which was to start clearing the strait.

00:22:58.060 And so he sent through yesterday two guided missile destroyers,

00:23:02.020 Michael Murphy and Frankie Peterson. And this is in response to what Iran put out on Thursday,

00:23:10.060 the 9th of April, this chart that shows where they laid mines. It was the first time since

00:23:16.380 the war started that Iran had even acknowledged that they put out mines. And if we can get the 0.99

00:23:23.060 chart up, it'll show a red box in the center of the Strait of Hormuz. There it is. And so where

00:23:28.620 it says hazardous area is where the old traffic separation scheme was, that ships would go in and

00:23:35.920 out of the Strait of Hormuz. The two corridors to the north of that that go through Iranian waters

00:23:42.780 through Keshem and Larak Island on the inbound and then south of Larak Island on the outbound,

00:23:47.940 those were established in mid-March by the Iranians, and some ships were paying this toll

00:23:53.020 to Iran. So when the talks failed here last night, you know, the Iranians thought that they had

00:24:00.280 checkmate on us. And then the president's team countered that with saying, hey, we just sent

00:24:05.500 two destroyers through. And, you know, you don't lead in a minesweeping effort sending two Aegis

00:24:12.020 destroyers through. Now, Admiral Cooper down at CENTCOM said that, you know, this is the beginning

00:24:17.800 of setting the conditions for mine countermeasure clearances to ensure the strait is fully clear

00:24:22.840 of sea mines. And there was some, you know, conversations about drones and unmanned systems

00:24:29.180 and other EOD services. And I think the president said, I'm not going to play this game. I'm just

00:24:34.480 going to blockade this and everybody's going to suffer until the world finally gets enough of 1.00

00:24:40.860 this and tells Iran to stop. And so I'm very glad that he's done this. It is escalatory in the sense 1.00

00:24:47.920 of economic escalation for the rest of the world. But in terms of military escalation,

00:24:53.020 it has actually kept our forces from actually having to be picked off or that golden BB that

00:24:58.600 we saw against the F-15 last week. A similar kind of event could happen against a ship

00:25:04.540 doing mine clearance measures in there. Why risk that? Let's just tell everybody you can't

00:25:09.900 come through the strait until Iran is broken on this. And so they're going to have to give this 0.97

00:25:15.460 up. And that'll be the test to see how long the world will put up with having zero ships go

00:25:21.360 through. And I'll just tell you this thing on the mines, one last thing. There's the United

00:25:25.860 Kingdom's Maritime Trade Office that has been putting out these reports since the war started.

00:25:30.940 They put out 31 reports every couple of days. And I counted them up. I went through every report

00:25:37.300 today. There has been 202 tankers and cargo ships, big bulk cargo ships that have gone through the

00:25:45.020 Strait of Hormuz since the war started. Vastly down from, you know, from the normal transit of

00:25:51.800 135 ships a day. But still, 202 ships went through the Strait of Hormuz. Most of those were on AIS,

00:25:58.660 all of those were AIS tracked. Some went through the toll booth, but many went through the middle.

00:26:04.660 And we had a larger number of dark ship vessels that went through, turned off their AIS,

00:26:10.000 and went through the strait. And in those 40 plus days, there hasn't been, according to the United

00:26:15.860 Kingdom's Maritime Trade Office, which is feeding the Lloyds of London's paradigm, zero mines have

00:26:22.960 been confirmed. So there hasn't been a confirmed mine, yet the whole world shut down and refused

00:26:28.340 to go through. And it was really a based upon, you know, in the tanker wars, ships continue to

00:26:34.640 go through even though ships struck mines in the 80s but now there's zero risk uh from the

00:26:41.280 international shipping community and i think president trump has just said that's it okay

00:26:46.160 yeah captain finnell hang on we're going to continue this conversation after a short commercial

00:26:52.520 okay uh sam fett is going to join us in a little while dr thayer the treat of parsi

00:27:08.860 you can get jack basopic in the second hour we're also going to go into ireland also about

00:27:13.820 the revolution in the streets by the truckers and the farmers to get to all that um

00:27:19.320 bowling i'm coming right back to you uh because folks this is we are now thrust upon the world 0.63

00:27:29.140 stage we had this uh because of imminent threat nuclear weapons i argue that israel dragged us

00:27:36.580 into this war for their own greater israel project but hey be that as may that is water

00:27:42.640 under the bridge now president trump did try to accommodate and sit down and had the first

00:27:50.700 meeting of senior officials of the u.s government since we were unceremoniously turfed out back in

00:27:57.080 1979 when the shah got thrown out and we got thrown out with them and then they seized our

00:28:01.900 embassy so we've been around that neighborhood for 47 years president trump tried to do it 0.96

00:28:07.040 it looks like the Iranians don't think they're losing their arrogance in this is is pretty 0.70

00:28:15.860 up front and in your grill so Captain Fennell we've been arguing here and Scott Besson's been 0.99

00:28:22.440 arguing here in the war we've been arguing for a while instead of boots on the ground or taking

00:28:27.700 Carg Island because Carg Island's up near the Tigris Tigris and Euphrates just block we have

00:28:33.660 two carrier strike groups and put a third down there um just blocked the Gulf of Oman be far

00:28:40.240 enough standoff he has to just block the Gulf of Oman before it gets to the Arabian Sea and turn 1.00

00:28:46.460 back every ship don't let anybody come in and turn back every ship and don't let any of these dark 0.81

00:28:51.900 ships and don't let the Chinese Communist Party get their fuel because you got to give a wake-up 0.97

00:28:56.960 call to Xi because they also think they're on the winning side right now um you have argued I want

00:29:03.240 should go with details we weren't there yet in fact you're saying hey the mining situation was

00:29:08.120 very cloudy uh although it looked like there was no mines you sent the two arlie burk class i think

00:29:13.980 destroyers through yesterday you kind of now have proven or at least proven i think

00:29:19.140 to enough people that there's not really it hasn't been a big minefield laid um and now

00:29:25.140 because of other things that we did uh to make sure that we could defang and declaw you can

00:29:31.760 actually do a naval blockade. Is that your theory of the case here, is that it took a while

00:29:35.760 for Admiral Cooper and the team at CENTCOM to do this, sir?

00:29:40.560 Yes, that's exactly right. It's taken just over 40 days to be able to essentially roll back

00:29:47.440 the Iranian's ability to have this coordinated ability to strike our naval forces off the coast 0.88

00:29:56.240 of Iran. And in order to do that, they had, you know, integration of national overhead systems,

00:30:03.360 intelligence from satellites that's being fed to them from China and Russia. They have their own

00:30:08.240 airborne surveillance platforms. They have their own ground-based surveillance platforms. They have

00:30:13.420 their own command and control nodes that integrate the data, the targeting data that then is fed into

00:30:18.600 their ballistic missiles. And we had to roll all of that back systematically and to destroy it.

00:30:25.400 And the results of that have been that they have not been able to hit any of our ships, and our ships are much closer to the coast now than they were, and they have been unsuccessful.

00:30:35.500 And I think it's important for people to remember because there's been a lot of, before this war, there's been a lot of talk, especially with regard to China, that, you know, the U.S. Navy's carrier fleet would be sunk in the first 15 minutes of any war.

00:30:47.780 And what people really don't understand how hard it is to hit a ship at sea, a moving target with ballistic missiles and with actually hypersonic or supersonic cruise missiles.

00:30:58.840 It's no easy feat. It takes a lot of geometry and a lot of accuracy.

00:31:03.000 And then to get inside the bubbles of our carrier strike groups that have, you know, Aegis awareness, National Overhead System awareness, has, you know, systems that are designed to shoot down missiles before their missile even gets inside of our bubble to turn on their sensor to find out where we are in the final home game of the missile coming in.

00:31:23.780 we can destroy the missile with the SM-6 before it even gets able to get an update on where it's

00:31:29.700 at. We've disrupted their data links. We've disrupted their ability to help cue that

00:31:34.440 missile to us. So we have rolled that back. And now we're in this position where we're able to

00:31:40.340 effectively conduct a blockade. And oh, by the way, this break in the ceasefire has allowed us

00:31:46.160 to refuel, to rearm, to get fresh food and vegetables to our sailors afloat. There's

00:31:52.320 reports of ships gone down to diego to get new munitions or interceptors hang on hang on i agree

00:31:59.300 with that that's exactly why the iranians are saying you can't trust the americans the americans

00:32:03.020 want these ceasefires so they can restock and rearm and then at the other end of it come out

00:32:08.220 and say hey guess what i think we're now that we're reharmed and restocked we're going to put

00:32:12.260 a full blockade on from their perspective they kind of played into trump's i mean we've done

00:32:17.300 this before and this is one of the things they keep arguing they have to have a regional shutdown

00:32:21.840 because they don't trust us because we've used these situations, these stand downs to basically

00:32:28.200 strengthen our forces and pour more forces into the area to then ratchet up the pressure on them.

00:32:33.080 Correct? Correct. Which is to say what you're essentially saying is that they're operating

00:32:37.980 from a position of extreme weakness. But as you also say, their attitude is that they're not

00:32:43.400 defeated. That's the Iranian statement after the president posted his truth social about the

00:32:48.100 blockade, here's what the Iranians said, quote, any wrong move in the Strait of Hormuz will trap

00:32:52.940 the enemy in deadly whirlpools. That's pretty weak. What whirlpools? They're not going to be

00:32:57.960 able to do anything there. And we're going to be able to blockade. And oh, by the way, there's even

00:33:01.900 reports that China is preparing to send manpads into Iran. So, you know, if the Chinese think

00:33:08.140 that they are not going to get any oil, but maybe they're going to supply Iran with, you know, kind

00:33:12.880 of other weapons but they need to be on advisory notification that maybe those ships will be sunk

00:33:19.220 as well i'm not sure the president will go there but that would i would advise him that that's

00:33:24.020 something that we need to make sure the chinese know you don't think he will turn it well well

00:33:28.460 but this is the point of it this is why naval blockade is a different animal right you're now 0.95

00:33:32.860 thrust upon the world stage i'm blockading uh the gulf of oman in the streets of her moves you don't

00:33:38.580 think that you think that to me the purpose of it maybe i'm missing it the purpose of it he 0.94

00:33:44.960 understands that the chinese communist party are double dealing us as they've always done along

00:33:49.380 with the pakistanis and the iranians and oh let me throw in there too our great allies in saudi

00:33:54.200 arabia and qatar and uae in in tel aviv all of them are and they're they're doing what's best

00:34:00.760 for them they could care what what is the best of the united states interest but you don't believe

00:34:05.960 by stating we have a naval blockade that we're going to turn back the oil coming out of there

00:34:11.420 from the regime to the Chinese Communist Party? What's the purpose of a blockade?

00:34:16.580 Well, we'll probably do like we've done in previous things. We'll set up some kind of

00:34:20.780 an area where we're going to quarantine those ships and just hold them at Anchorage 0.98

00:34:26.160 and not let them transit. We won't sink them. We won't let them go back in, but we won't let them 0.81

00:34:32.180 go anywhere else. And so there'll just be a bunch of ships sitting there. That's how a blockade

00:34:37.520 effectively will work. And oh, by the way, we have one other carrier that left on the 31st of March,

00:34:42.980 the George Bush. That's 12, 13 days ago. So we have three carriers that are going to be involved

00:34:48.920 with this along with all the other air assets that we have. So we can do this. And the pressure

00:34:56.540 is on NATO, the EU, our allies in Japan and Korea and Australia, how much more can they take? Are

00:35:04.540 they just going to let this go and be closed forever? Maybe, maybe not. Hang on for a second,

00:35:11.560 Eric Bolling, the guys you've talked to, these oil brokers and the refiners and all these guys

00:35:20.120 that that are not speculators has has have they absorbed what president trump's actually done

00:35:27.040 which is not just walking away from the table last night he's essentially putting a full blockade

00:35:32.600 or i would say a quarantine on anything coming in or out sir it's a brilliant strategy actually i

00:35:40.620 think this is the one that may have teeth the problem is these guys won't believe until they

00:35:46.440 see it, right? And I think what we're missing here is that just by blockading the mouth of

00:35:53.240 Oman into the Strait of Hormuz, eventually China and India are going to have enough of it and lean 0.92

00:35:58.440 into Iran and say, we need to get this oil through, and they'll be the ones who facilitate some sort 0.87

00:36:03.580 of negotiation. Again, I throw back at you, Steve, you're the political guru here. What are we asking

00:36:10.600 for right now? In other words, we're going to blockade the oil, which was a brilliant strategy

00:36:15.420 is I think our U.S. oil will probably regulate in the $100 a barrel area, which is horrible,

00:36:21.500 but better than the outlook is right now. The Middle Eastern crudes are going to explode higher

00:36:26.440 because you can't get them, and the rents are going to explode higher. So what are we asking

00:36:30.380 for? So we're going to blockade this oil, which is great. We'll be fine here. We don't need the

00:36:34.420 oil. So great. But is it regime change? Is it obliteration of their ability to deliver a nuke?

00:36:39.940 I think we've done that. 0.84

00:36:41.760 If I take one step further, Captain Fadis read part of the Iranian statement coming out of that meeting.

00:36:47.480 If I may just, Steve, for a second, this is the IRGC within minutes of Vance leaving, which means this was in advance of – this was prepared in advance of Vance leaving. 0.61

00:36:56.400 The American enemy, which is vile, wicked, and dishonest, or perfidious, evil, and deceitful, attempted to achieve on the negotiating table what it could not achieve through war.

00:37:06.220 Iran has decided to reject these terms and continue the sacred defense of its fatherland 0.88

00:37:11.760 by any means necessary, military, diplomatic, meaning they will fight to the death.

00:37:16.300 What are we asking them to do, Steve?

00:37:17.800 What do we need them to do?

00:37:19.580 I mean, is it a complete overthrow of their government or is it somewhere in between?

00:37:24.820 Who cares if the Strait or Hormuz is open and they're not controlling it?

00:37:29.680 It's just a free, wide open market like it has been for the last thousand years.

00:37:33.820 um let's go to that first of all i think president trump has reiterated and been adamant he's not

00:37:41.560 looking for regime change he's not maybe in tel aviv they are but i think he laid out in those

00:37:47.320 15 points uh particularly you know the total obliteration is shut down of their not just

00:37:53.160 nuclear program but also the nuclear material what happens to that we either buy it or it's

00:37:58.260 got to be we got to take it etc he's listed out those four points i think what the blockade does

00:38:03.020 I'm going to get Faddis in here. I think one of the things a blockade does, it tries to get

00:38:07.520 everybody lined up on a certain side of the football. NATO's had a free ride in this. Europe's

00:38:12.960 had a free ride in this. And they're very mouthy about what they can do or can't do. The NATO

00:38:17.140 Secretary General came to the White House last week. As we covered live at the time,

00:38:22.040 he did not go to the sticks. They had the microphone set up and all the international

00:38:25.760 media you know um our guy you know our team was there and he didn't come out why because it was

00:38:32.900 a very tough meeting why because i believe the president of the united states said where are

00:38:37.720 you guys and particularly where is your where are your navies where's the world navy the french navy

00:38:42.500 the italian navy let me pick three random that should be down there helping us in straighter

00:38:48.180 Hormuz. It should be them doing it. Why are we there? Ask Captain Faddis. Why are we helping

00:38:59.240 European nations get their crude, or China for that matter, or India, when we don't really need

00:39:06.140 that strain of Hormuz open greatly? Yes, there's helium. Yes, there's some petrochemicals that

00:39:10.500 come through that make their way to the United States. But generally, is it worth risking more

00:39:15.560 blood and treasure over something that really will benefit india china and frankly europe that 0.78

00:39:20.820 couldn't even lift the finger to help this whole situation to eliminate the global threat for 0.92

00:39:25.620 nuclear warfare which i believe i've heard nothing but we've obliterated their ability to deliver a

00:39:31.320 nuclear weapon to the united states once that objective is met we obliterate feels to me like

00:39:35.920 what's our next objective yeah but we obliterated quote-unquote but then the vice president said

00:39:42.080 when he came to the microphone yesterday this this this is the principal reason we took off

00:39:46.400 they wouldn't agree to uh the nuclear uh material they had and they wouldn't agree to any more a

00:39:52.300 program even if it was uh peaceful they wouldn't agree to any of our ideas in this program they

00:39:57.520 rejected everything so hang on for one second i'm gonna get to your points i want to bring faddis

00:40:01.420 in for a second uh sam on on eric's points the iranians and you saw by that what the the

00:40:09.600 Revolutionary Guard said. I tell you what, we only got 40 seconds here. We're going to bring

00:40:13.520 Fettis in right after us. We've got Trita Parsi. Eric Bolling, we've gone now to a naval blockade 1.00

00:40:19.180 that hasn't been totally defined about what it means. The specifics of that, particularly,

00:40:24.940 are we going to turn back or put over an anchorage, as Captain Fettis says,

00:40:30.740 the oil heading to the Chinese Communist Party? The Chinese Communist Party is a strong ally

00:40:36.860 of this theocratic regime in Tehran as they have been for decades.

00:40:43.900 This blockade, I believe, is a forcing function.

00:40:46.840 Put everybody's cards on the table.

00:40:48.700 Who lines up on what side of the football?

00:40:51.560 Short commercial break.

00:40:53.100 Back in the worm in a moment.

00:40:58.020 Here's your host, Stephen K. Vann.

00:41:03.020 Okay, Sam Faddis.

00:41:04.600 By the way, birchgold.com.

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00:41:08.700 Go to burstgold.com, promo code BANNON.

00:41:11.380 A3 installment about the pressure on the U.S. dollar.

00:41:15.580 Now, more than ever, you can see this about want to have the tolls in either Chinese currency, the yuan, or in crypto, right?

00:41:23.720 As those pirates down there trying to control the strait, defy the United States of America.

00:41:31.640 Make sure you go to burstgold.

00:41:32.520 Understand the capital markets part of this equation.

00:41:36.300 birchgold.com promo code bannett you get all seven installments free and the eighth new one

00:41:41.160 is up free too but talk to philip patrick on team uh our next two guests sam faddis and trita

00:41:47.040 parsi have done i think a very good job of uh describing not just who the enemy is but their

00:41:52.020 mindset they come at it from two different angles sam faddis you spent a couple decades your life

00:41:57.780 in service to your country dealing with these guys you know how tough they are how radical they are

00:42:06.060 how they uh many of them aspired to this radical uh islamic theocracy this this martyrdom uh cult

00:42:14.280 uh you we talked a lot about this last week you were not surprised at all of what happened in

00:42:22.820 islamabad right and you particularly not surprised about their their dug-in positions and the fact 0.53

00:42:30.240 that they kind of gave us the middle finger when it was over and instead of you know somehow we've 0.93

00:42:35.260 had the first meeting and, you know, it's the, the, the, the,

00:42:38.340 the revolutionary guard could not have been more brutal and up in our grill

00:42:42.800 about what they thought of the United States of America,

00:42:45.580 what they think of our military, what they think of the American people,

00:42:48.620 what they think of, of, of, of what we stand for, sir.

00:42:54.880 Yeah, obviously I'm not surprised at all. Um,

00:42:59.520 that's, that's exactly what I think I said was going to happen. Um,

00:43:04.300 Look, these guys are not defeated. We keep talking about all the targets we've hit and all of this, and God bless the United States Armed Forces. I mean that sincerely. I come from a military family. They're doing what they were told to do. It doesn't change the fact that we have not defeated these guys.

00:43:21.580 It's not just like they don't get it yet. They just need to go away and realize we won, that we have not won. So I'm all about the blockade. I mean, I've been recommending that as well for a long time. Let's leverage our strengths. Let's fight smart. We own the oceans. Seal it off.

00:43:41.680 It's not enough. And also, it doesn't account for the fact that since they have not quit, and aren't anywhere close to quitting, they're going to respond.

00:43:55.700 So they're not just going to sit there and say, you blockaded the Gulf, and I guess we lose now.

00:44:03.300 They're going to start playing all the cards they have on their side.

00:44:07.280 They already hit the pipeline across Saudi Arabia at least once and temporarily disrupted it.

00:44:14.260 It's repaired now. That's the lifeline now for Saudi.

00:44:17.600 You can guarantee that they're going to do everything they can to take out that pipeline.

00:44:22.960 And they're going to start hitting production facilities.

00:44:25.040 And they're going to start hitting the plants that turn seawater into drinking water for 100 million people.

00:44:30.760 And they're going to start at some point turning on their proxies in a big way worldwide against us and our allies.

00:44:40.000 So that's not me saying we lose, not at all.

00:44:43.240 It's just let's not wait till that happens and then figure out how to respond.

00:44:49.280 Let's move right now to prevent them from doing that.

00:44:54.800 And by the way, we're sealing off the Gulf.

00:44:57.400 That's great. 0.99

00:44:58.740 We got to seal off Iran completely if we're doing this. 0.99

00:45:02.580 We got to get neighboring countries to close land borders, and we got to seize their funds and banks all over the world. 0.99

00:45:09.380 And, you know, this has to be a comprehensive thing, not just one action, and now we're back to waiting for him to quit.

00:45:19.320 This is, hang on for a second, you bring up a key point.

00:45:21.620 This is one of the, this is kind of got buried in the, a lot of the proclamations that came out.

00:45:27.420 But one of the biggest sticking points was the $27 billion that turns out that they've got banks all over, not even discussing.

00:45:34.340 I think it's the $500 billion in the Pirate Cove of Dubai.

00:45:38.080 But their ability to get their hands on cash money is vital to this regime.

00:45:45.060 You know, in the state collapse, you devolve down to a barter system.

00:45:49.480 These guys are smart.

00:45:50.540 They're savvy.

00:45:51.200 And they understand they've got assets all over the place.

00:45:53.440 They need access to it.

00:45:54.320 One of the biggest negotiating points was we need access to that $27 billion, and somehow you've got to give us sanctions relief.

00:46:01.280 Besson's economic warfare in January, folks, was working.

00:46:06.100 Now, it does have implications against the dollar because people say, I've got to get off of this thing.

00:46:10.420 I can't let Trump and his madmen choke us down with the SWIFT system and the fact that they got access to all the dollar-denominated assets in the world.

00:46:19.340 We've got to do something else.

00:46:20.500 but it was the economic destroying their currency is what drove those people into the streets of

00:46:26.380 which 30,000 were then slaughtered but there's no doubt the economic warfare part that a naval

00:46:31.700 blockade Sam do you agree is is the instrument of economic warfare from time immemorial this

00:46:39.120 you put a quarantine on somebody this is the Brits perfected this sir yeah look you're 100% right I

00:46:46.060 I mean, we are now finally psychologically moving to the part of this where we fight smart and we use our leverage against their weakness instead of just being wedded to we're just going to bomb things.

00:47:03.600 And I don't mean to trivialize that.

00:47:05.700 We've caused massive damage.

00:47:07.760 But we have all kinds of other capabilities here.

00:47:10.480 I mean, this is a much more productive, smarter, more strategic way of approaching than where we were a few weeks ago when people were feeling locked into, we got to start landing Marines on Iranian soil.

00:47:23.960 We have huge leverage. 0.95

00:47:25.560 We ought to take all of their money.

00:47:28.160 And frankly, if they're not going to get their heads around, you know, dealing with us, then we keep all of their money. 0.87

00:47:35.680 as far as i'm concerned if they if there's iranian oil in a ship and we've given everybody notice

00:47:41.440 that you can't go in there we take the iranian oil and sell the iranian oil and keep that money too

00:47:48.320 let him let him starve as a as a regime that this is a smart way to approach this

00:47:55.520 but it's got to be bigger and longer hang on sam i need you to stick around we got captain faddis

00:48:02.480 We've got Eric Bolling.

00:48:05.560 Trita Parsi is going to join us.

00:48:08.460 It's one of the things we try to get the information, get you up to speed, your learning curve.

00:48:12.720 What Sam and I and others are talking about, Scott Besson on economic warfare, there's a flip side of that.

00:48:17.840 Remember, there's no easy choices.

00:48:19.520 When you're playing at this level, every choice has a dark underbelly to it.

00:48:26.660 One of the reasons the end of the dollar empire, they want to get off the United States as the prime reserve currency,

00:48:31.740 is exactly this point to saying, hey, look, the Americans have too much leverage over us.

00:48:36.760 When push comes to shove, Sam Faddis' voice will be heard, and they say,

00:48:40.320 not just let's freeze it, let's seize it, and let's seize our oil and monetize it.

00:48:46.360 Economic warfare writ large.

00:48:48.900 This Morning in the Worm, Trita Parsons, up next.

00:48:51.700 Short break.

Bannon's War Room - April 12, 2026

Episode 5293： War Enters The 6th Week Of The War; Trump Puts Naval Blockade On The Strait Of Hormuz

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