Bannon's War Room - Episode 5328： Founder's Fire From 1776 Tp the Age Of Trump Cont.

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

00:00:10.540 medieval on these people here's not got a free shot all these networks lying about the people

00:00:17.120 the people have had a belly full of it i know you don't like hearing that i know you try to do

00:00:21.300 everything in the world to stop that but you're not going to stop it it's going to happen and

00:00:24.640 Where do people like that go to share the big line?

00:00:27.940 Mega Media.

00:00:29.260 I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.

00:00:34.700 Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose?

00:00:38.460 If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.

00:00:44.660 War Room.

00:00:45.660 Here's your host, Stephen K. Vann.

00:00:52.600 Okay, welcome.

00:00:53.760 You're in the War Room.

00:00:54.640 in the run-up to the celebration, the commemoration of the 250th founding of the nation with the

00:01:01.900 Declaration of Independence. A book is out that takes the optimistic, I think a realistic assessment

00:01:08.180 of the nation. Both these individuals called founders have been so important to our nation,

00:01:14.800 not the founding generation, some of that, but really founders of institutions, movements,

00:01:19.320 and companies and entice it directly to the evolution of American history.

00:01:24.640 Arthur Herman, thank you so much.

00:01:26.860 Glad to be here, Steve.

00:01:28.280 The book, you lay out some gifts you talked about the other day in the previous hour about

00:01:34.080 the president itself, that office.

00:01:36.880 There's some others that you call the gifts.

00:01:40.000 The gifts.

00:01:40.560 They're gifts from the founding fathers, both from the Declaration of Independence, but also

00:01:45.520 from the Constitution that allowed this extraordinary moment, the founding of the country, to be

00:01:53.380 not just a one-off, but something that is continuous and becomes a legacy that they

00:01:58.760 leave for us. And it allows founders like themselves, people with the vision, the drive,

00:02:05.120 the willingness to take risks, and even risk it all in order to achieve great vision, to achieve

00:02:12.560 great things. And one of those gifts is the role of the president, the president as chief executive,

00:02:20.520 as commander in chief, as the chief law enforcement officer. We were talking about that last time,

00:02:27.220 but also as someone who can, when he feels it is necessary, even take a stand against the

00:02:34.200 legislative majority to say, this is important we do this, and we're going to move the country

00:02:38.800 and move our nation in this direction.

00:02:42.140 And American history is dotted with examples of presidents

00:02:45.780 who took that power and used it effectively to move the nation forward.

00:02:51.180 The second gift I'll mention is one I don't think a lot of people think about

00:02:55.660 as part of one of those gifts, and that is the creation of the U.S. Patent Office.

00:03:00.460 This was something that was fundamental to the way in which the Founding Fathers

00:03:04.740 thought about what the future of the nation is.

00:03:06.820 It's in the Constitution.

00:03:07.320 It is.

00:03:07.640 It is Article 1, Section 8.

00:03:10.780 Why do guys from the Enlightenment that are driven by the Enlightenment, why did they decide to put the Patent Office in the Constitution?

00:03:16.740 It's precisely because they were enlightened gentlemen.

00:03:19.440 It's because they understood the degree to which human creativity needed to be something that would be protected and protected as a right of property.

00:03:31.020 You know, it's interesting that you have, on the one hand, in the Declaration of Independence, no mention of property.

00:03:37.640 there. But you do in Article 1, Section 8, when it comes to the patent. It's a right. In fact,

00:03:47.600 it's the only place in the Constitution outside of the Bill of Rights that actually uses the word

00:03:52.800 right, the right of inventors, of creators to own what it is that they have created as an idea,

00:03:59.720 as a technology, as an invention. And it is that right, the right of intellectual property

00:04:08.360 to take what I have done and created and to use it as I see fit, not as the government see fit,

00:04:14.760 not as a big corporation sees fit. It is that which unleashes what Abraham Lincoln called the

00:04:21.880 fire of genius, of being able to think of great ideas, great innovations, and to apply them into

00:04:29.540 the world in terms confident that what you have done, you will help retain ownership.

00:04:36.700 What is so extraordinary about that is given the context of the time, it's not really big

00:04:41.500 corporations, other things are, it is monarchies. Everything with the king had, just because you're

00:04:47.560 born in some geographical region, you don't even have land and not indentured servant, but every

00:04:53.740 idea you have is is that is there's not just the elite goes all the way up to a monarch how did

00:05:00.300 they come up to that they see that as a central part of the revolution or the central part of

00:05:05.840 really making this this experiment totally different than everything that come before it

00:05:10.960 they had to and i think it was partly because they understood that what the revolution had

00:05:16.740 set in motion was more than just a political revolution it was an intellectual revolution

00:05:21.380 And that always, and this is part of that enlightened outlook, is an understanding that there is no division between the realm of the theoretical and the mechanical and practical.

00:05:34.460 All the great enlightened thinkers thought about the application of ideas in the world to make new devices, to create new inventions, to make advances in agriculture, in mechanical arts, in metallurgy.

00:05:49.320 This was part and parcel of what the Enlightenment outlook was involved.

00:05:53.920 I mean, look at the founders themselves, Benjamin Franklin, a key inventor and key businessman at the same time.

00:06:01.480 Thomas Jefferson, right?

00:06:03.080 We all know about him, his role as an inventor.

00:06:05.840 This is not some little eccentricity on their part.

00:06:09.520 It's central.

00:06:10.120 It's central.

00:06:11.660 It's central.

00:06:12.600 Well, it's central to their person, but it's also in the framing and founding of the country.

00:06:17.940 It's central to that.

00:06:19.040 That's right. And also how applied science is part of the advance of civilization.

00:06:27.260 And if you had a new nation, which was going to be liberated in all other kinds of ways, that to free up the life of the mind to achieve the things that it's possible to achieve.

00:06:37.140 Not the life of the mind, but also set a framework that the manifestation of that can be monetized for the benefit of the creator.

00:06:46.380 Or the creator would have control, you couldn't steal it from him, he could manifest it, or he or she could manifest it, and you build wealth that way.

00:06:54.340 That's putting it really well. That's an excellent way to look at it.

00:06:58.260 Because with that right of ownership comes a decision when you're going to use it.

00:07:02.880 And for example, you may decide, hey, the market is waiting for my widget.

00:07:09.420 This is the right time to unleash it on the public and to create a market, make some money for myself, but also change the world as a result of it.

00:07:17.800 And this is why patents, the holding of patents is so fundamental to the way in which founders are able to create businesses and institutions and so on.

00:07:28.260 You know, the last chapter of the book, I talk about the TV show Shark Tank, which I think is a great example of how that founder, a founder mindset is built into the culture.

00:07:39.760 Hugely popular program, hugely popular, and 90 percent of these things are tiny little startups.

00:07:46.800 They got they got the founders fired. And so many want to do that.

00:07:50.440 That's right. That's right. And so many of them, every time they go up in front of in front of the sharks.

00:07:56.440 right what's the question all the sharks always ask them it is how many patents do you have right

00:08:02.260 and they'll say well i'm applying for a patent for this or i already have patents for this

00:08:05.840 etc you look at the whole history of business founders in the country and they all have fistful

00:08:11.780 of patents because that it is that's what's the anchor in terms of ownership of the business or

00:08:18.220 the even the industry and technology but founders fire you get all these stories it's amazing it's

00:08:24.500 tied directly. It's intricately linked into American history. That's where I have to get the

00:08:28.360 book. I want to go back. Then you talk about patents and one of the controversies that come

00:08:31.520 up the last couple of years. Edison is in the book. But compare Edison to Tesla, because there's

00:08:37.380 always been this concept that Edison stole these ideas or his Menlo Park crowd waited for Tesla to

00:08:43.980 create them. And Tesla just wasn't enough a businessman or didn't know the language well

00:08:48.620 enough to be able to monetize. So Edison gets the credit where really Tesla was the genius and

00:08:55.600 back of so much that hasn't even been manifested today. Well, in that particular case, what you

00:09:02.120 see is, and I talk about this in the book, that at the same time that you're creating this sort

00:09:07.820 of marketplace for ideas through intellectual property and patents, you're also creating,

00:09:13.500 of course, a battleground at the same time of who can get the patent first and who is

00:09:19.420 successful in doing so.

00:09:21.140 And whether you're talking about-

00:09:22.020 And it's pretty cutthroat oftentimes.

00:09:23.760 There's a lot at stake.

00:09:25.160 There's a lot at stake.

00:09:26.860 And in the case of Edison, with regard to Tesla, with regard to Alexander Graham Bell,

00:09:32.560 for example, and his competitors in the creation of the telephone, that in many cases, it's

00:09:37.740 a question of who gets to the post first.

00:09:40.180 It makes the application, who wins it.

00:09:42.200 But that's where the courts come in, because courts will come in and sort out these kinds of differences and recognize these patents are virtually identical.

00:09:51.720 And the very fact that this one had managed to, you know, by a curled lip, secure the patent first does not necessarily freeze out the other from their rights to their technology.

00:10:04.120 I have the patent office.

00:10:05.860 And then the third one.

00:10:06.740 The third one is the creation of the Springfield Armory.

00:10:10.640 The Springfield Armory

00:10:12.800 These are three pretty disparate

00:10:14.560 They are in some ways

00:10:16.340 Springfield Armory

00:10:17.760 This is the first Silicon Valley

00:10:20.920 It's what it becomes

00:10:21.960 And the man who really made that possible was Thomas Jefferson

00:10:24.840 Jefferson

00:10:26.180 Had gone to France

00:10:28.420 And had seen an inventor there 0.99

00:10:29.920 Who was making muskets out of

00:10:32.040 Interchangeable parts 0.95

00:10:33.420 Unheard of

00:10:34.680 Usually a gunsmith would shape his parts

00:10:37.800 The stock, the trigger

00:10:39.880 the lock

00:10:42.340 all of those and so on

00:10:43.800 to be crafted to each weapon

00:10:45.360 this guy was using interchangeable parts

00:10:48.140 in fact Jefferson himself

00:10:50.300 said I got to try that and put it together

00:10:52.220 so he writes to the Secretary of War

00:10:54.220 Henry Knox and says we got to start doing

00:10:56.240 this we need a place where we can begin

00:10:58.340 to create

00:10:59.740 and give contracts to people to start

00:11:02.420 doing interchangeable parts

00:11:04.000 Springfield Army is

00:11:06.300 first the second

00:11:08.260 And one is the Armory at Harper's Ferry, not very far from here, as a matter of fact, in 1798.

00:11:13.140 It comes up in American history later.

00:11:14.700 Several times. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed.

00:11:17.800 In fact, an interesting book, wouldn't it?

00:11:19.480 Harper's Ferry is sort of the hub of American history in so many respects.

00:11:24.180 Big time.

00:11:26.080 But what happens is—

00:11:27.860 And Henry Knox, by the way, was Washington's artillery officer.

00:11:30.660 Artillery officer, part of that original team with the landing—

00:11:33.660 The band of brothers around Washington.

00:11:34.740 That's right, who participated in the raid on Trenton.

00:11:38.260 What happens is these arsenals become much more than simply storehouses for weapons.

00:11:44.660 They become laboratories where a number of inventors and technologists.

00:11:50.240 These are our first Bell Labs, essentially.

00:11:52.640 In effect, yeah.

00:11:55.000 They're paid by the government, but the people working there are private contractors, the ones who are making changes in how this works.

00:12:03.480 One of them was Eli Whitney, for example, inventor of the cotton gin.

00:12:06.620 But he's also somebody who got a contract to work building muskets with the same revolutionary technique, which is interchangeable parts.

00:12:15.520 Well, by the middle of the 19th century, what's happening at the Springfield Armory has become so distinct.

00:12:21.560 And European observers go and they're amazed at what's happened, being able to make these weapons so much faster than gunsmiths and makers in Europe, that it becomes known as the American system.

00:12:33.260 And the American system is really the grandfather of mass production.

00:12:40.540 The techniques of mass production that build America's industry into the greatest in the world, and then in my book, Freedom's Forge, is the secret to strategic advantage over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan during World War II.

00:12:57.620 all trace their roots back to that Thomas Jefferson letter to Henry Knox saying,

00:13:04.840 we need a place where inventors can go and experiment with new revolutionary techniques

00:13:12.000 for making weapons, because what will happen then is we'll create a revolution in manufacturing

00:13:19.400 and we'll gain not just strategic advantage with our enemies when it comes time for war,

00:13:24.780 but also an economic advantage by the energies and, again, the founders' fire, which can be released to defend this country.

00:13:34.700 And that's why, look at the history of American defense industry, unlike European countries,

00:13:41.620 you don't see it dominated by a single great megacorporation like Vickers in England, like Cusso in France, like Krupp in Germany.

00:13:51.900 The World War II miracle was made possible by assembling a number of private companies, all of them working on specific projects, but which came together and could be coordinated together in a way which builds, as we were saying last time, the greatest military industrial complex ever.

00:14:12.760 Let's take a short break.

00:14:13.960 I want to thank the team at Birch Gold, obviously.

00:14:17.120 Now it's in the headlines every day, particularly when we talk about,

00:14:21.360 it turns out it's not a bailout of UAE or the Saudis or Qatar.

00:14:25.380 It actually is a, what do we call it, a credit swap so they can support the U.S. dollar.

00:14:32.500 Birchgold.com, promo code Bannon, end of the dollar empire.

00:14:36.060 Most importantly, get to talk to Philip Patrick and the team.

00:14:38.680 They're our Saturday sponsor and have been for many, many years.

00:14:41.120 Short commercial break.

00:14:42.760 author Herman on the other side.

00:15:00.080 Everyone's focused on how the conflict in the Middle East is raising oil prices,

00:15:03.860 but there's another grim reality to this contention. Oil isn't the only resource being

00:15:10.100 constrained, about one-third of global fertilizer trade happens through this region. And with spring

00:15:16.280 planting season on top of us, American farmers are sounding the alarm, with some saying they can't

00:15:21.660 afford to plant their fields. When one piece of the supply chain gets hit this hard, you know what

00:15:27.240 comes next. Higher food prices, reduced availability, maybe even panic buying. That's why having an

00:15:33.860 Emergency food supply at home makes so much sense.

00:15:38.100 And that's where our friends at MyPatriotSupply come in right now at preparewithbannon.com.

00:15:44.780 That is preparewithbannon.com.

00:15:46.960 We've set up an entire just site for the War Room Posse.

00:15:50.780 You go to preparewithbannon.com.

00:15:54.520 That's all one word, preparewithbannon.com.

00:15:57.080 You get a three-month emergency food supply.

00:15:59.920 They'll include a free mega protein upgrade, an incredible $200 bonus you don't want to miss.

00:16:07.540 It's a simple way to protect your family from whatever comes next.

00:16:13.020 Go to preparewithbannon.com.

00:16:14.940 That is preparewithbannon.com to get your emergency food supply today.

00:16:19.800 That's preparewithbannon.com.

00:16:22.560 Do it today.

00:16:23.800 Go check it out.

00:16:25.180 War Room.

00:16:26.220 Here's your host, Stephen K. Mann.

00:16:29.920 Welcome back. There's a fourth gift.

00:16:32.560 The fourth gift, I think, is in some ways the most extraordinary of all.

00:16:36.500 And it's embedded in, of all places, the Declaration of Independence.

00:16:40.540 And that is the right of pursuit of happiness.

00:16:45.420 What other document offers this as part of the rights endowed by the creator?

00:16:52.580 That's his document in the time of history because it's nasty, brutish, and short.

00:16:57.020 Sure. If you're not part of the aristocracy, you would think so.

00:17:00.800 That's true. In Europe, your your your life is OK.

00:17:05.020 But the monarchy and the aristocracy, like in pre-revolutionary France, are not interested in the people in Paris's pursuing the pursuit of happiness.

00:17:15.920 You would agree to that? So just in the whole context of the world history.

00:17:19.000 It was. But, you know, and I've written about this elsewhere.

00:17:21.620 It was an idea that was very much part of the Scottish Enlightenment.

00:17:25.260 And if you go to my How the Scots Invented the Modern World, the thinkers there. 0.81

00:17:30.180 You wouldn't think the dour Scots would be interested in inventing golf.

00:17:33.980 You would be interested in the pursuit of happiness, a game that breaks you down. 1.00

00:17:39.020 That's really true. But of course, for every Scot, the greatest happiness of all was getting out of Scotland and living anywhere else.

00:17:46.380 so so the pursuit of happiness is basically a ticket to london a ticket across the atlantic

00:17:53.700 ticket to anywhere else to to go but seriously the the idea of it was that there is that part

00:18:01.680 of what it is that is to be human and part of the civilizing process is to arrive at a state of

00:18:07.600 moral well-being that we through our interaction with others through our interaction with our

00:18:13.000 things through property. We come to have an understanding and a sense of emotional and

00:18:18.420 moral satisfaction. That's one reason why Adam Smith's first book is The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

00:18:25.900 It's about the ethical foundations of civilization and what it is to be someone who can share with

00:18:33.300 others our sense of well-being, our sense of happiness. This carries over to the founding

00:18:39.140 father, particularly Jefferson. And it's why, to everybody's surprise, this gets embedded in the

00:18:45.400 Declaration of Independence. Steve, what should it have said? What it should have said, and there

00:18:50.380 are many who argued this, that it should have said, included are these are the rights of life,

00:18:55.940 liberty, and property, right? Property should have been it. It was very much part of the 18th

00:19:01.200 century point of view with regard to the inviolable nature of private property. By the way, it's one

00:19:07.060 of the reasons why the issue of slavery had come up. It's property. You can't threaten that right.

00:19:13.260 It's inviolable. But property does come in in the Constitution with the Patent Office,

00:19:20.080 but not in the Declaration. And what's striking about that notion of happiness

00:19:25.060 is how subjective it is. Property is not. Property is, I own this, here's my title deed.

00:19:32.960 right? Property is defined by law. Happiness is not. It really depends on an interstate.

00:19:40.820 It depends on our own sense. I'm happy. I've achieved a level, a way of life that works for

00:19:47.920 me and that gives me that sense of satisfaction. What that does, I think, I believe in the case

00:19:54.960 of America is is that it means that for people who live here who are part of American society

00:20:02.160 that how you choose to leave is your business and to pursue your own to follow your own bliss

00:20:10.380 to follow your own path including as a founder as a creator of a startup to appear on Shark Tank

00:20:18.940 That's your right

00:20:20.460 That's part of why you're here in America

00:20:22.880 To enjoy that

00:20:23.780 In no other society

00:20:25.740 In Europe or in Asia

00:20:27.680 Are people given that sense of

00:20:30.140 Having that kind of right

00:20:31.580 No, if anything

00:20:33.720 Your business is to stay where you are

00:20:36.220 In your class and society

00:20:38.900 It's stamped on you by your education

00:20:41.520 It's stamped on you by your accent

00:20:43.340 It's stamped on you by your ancestry 0.99

00:20:45.620 Only in the United States 0.98

00:20:47.520 are you able to throw off everything that has connected you to your past and to become an

00:20:54.160 entirely new person because that's what's going to make you happy extraordinary how what was the

00:21:01.020 reaction when the declaration came out in your mind what was the reaction to it because they had

00:21:05.660 this this um philosophical and uh yet practical way it talked to people before you get into the

00:21:15.120 list of kind of the war document um what was the reaction to it i think when you get the reaction

00:21:22.340 from people from john adams and so on it's pleasant surprise this is a great idea we really

00:21:27.200 need to put this in here it's hugely important in terms of the enlightenment view of what this

00:21:32.460 new nation should be and become i also think although you don't get this in the debates

00:21:37.780 themselves and the correspondence between Adams and Jefferson is that precisely it by leaving the

00:21:45.520 word property out of the document it also meant that the issue about slavery is one that could

00:21:52.840 be kicked down the South Carolina it would not be possible for them to say that because right

00:22:00.240 of property is the reason that we've created a new nation therefore you can't violate that right

00:22:05.460 One of the things that, look, the power of this book and his other writings, the power of this book, particularly tied to the commemoration of our 250th, is you get to spend some time with a brilliant man.

00:22:16.820 I mean, when you read the book, you really get into it and you understand that.

00:22:19.460 one of the things that you've been most extraordinary about you go back and look at all

00:22:24.440 these the various topics that you've taken on in the other books you are if nothing else and a you

00:22:33.440 have a genius for pattern recognition right you can see things out there that i think others can't

00:22:41.220 like this you come up with books like how the scots invented the modern world the whole thing

00:22:45.040 of the fortune markets. In 1776, we have, I think, within a 90-day period, the publication

00:22:53.940 of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, Gibbon's first volume of the decline and fall of the

00:23:02.020 Roman Empire, and the Declaration of Independence. That's like a role that the world's never

00:23:08.800 been on since then what was it among uh not just educated people but people that could read and

00:23:17.660 understand these ideas that led within basically a 90 to 100 day period the publication of three

00:23:23.820 things that have really have as much of the foundation of the modern world you talk about

00:23:28.760 the idea of decline or how we think of history came from gibbons how we think of economics so

00:23:35.100 much of it in human nature and how it's tied to it comes from smith and everything you just said

00:23:39.080 about the declaration and it's not just a a war document it's not just a we're becoming independent

00:23:44.660 from a monarchy it talks about the core of what it means to be human how did it all come about

00:23:51.600 it's a really fascinating question in a 90-day period it's a really interesting question to ask

00:23:57.380 And I think that

00:24:01.200 I'll answer the question this way

00:24:04.800 All three works

00:24:06.920 Gibbon's Decline and Fall, The Wealth of Nations

00:24:10.000 And the Declaration of Independence

00:24:12.640 Are all in their way reflections on history

00:24:15.360 In Gibbon's case, it's more obvious

00:24:19.480 Namely, he's looking at the history of

00:24:22.660 Not just the Roman Empire

00:24:24.480 Because if you get through all six volumes, it's not just about the history of the Roman Empire. 0.97

00:24:30.420 No, it takes the Crusades with the Muslims. 0.91

00:24:32.940 Right, all the way up through the siege of Constantinople in 1453.

00:24:36.140 In fact, you can find out so much today about our conflict in Iran by reading those last couple of volumes.

00:24:42.500 Don't you think so?

00:24:43.340 Absolutely.

00:24:44.060 I think you really can.

00:24:44.680 Because people think it just goes like 435 of the barbarians in the West.

00:24:49.240 It goes for another thousand years.

00:24:50.900 It goes forward because what he's also talking about is the great transition from the world of paganism, of classical culture, to the world of Christianity.

00:25:03.600 Of which Gibbons was not a great fan.

00:25:05.240 He's not a fan of it.

00:25:06.140 He's not a great fan of it.

00:25:07.080 He actually blames.

00:25:08.940 He hearkens back.

00:25:10.180 Well, the thing, and it gets me back to you in particular, your book on Decline, is that Gibbons comes up with the idea when he's sitting on that church that's right near the forum today.

00:25:23.240 He's on the steps when the monks come through and they're singing Vespers.

00:25:26.500 And he looks around, he's there in the mid-18th century on a grand tour.

00:25:32.540 and he looks around at all the all the in rome like the ark of titus everything he says

00:25:38.680 this was the greatest empire in the history of man these people achieved so much and i'm sitting

00:25:44.160 here and it's a dump i mean it's magnificent but i'm looking around i got a handful of monks

00:25:49.080 the places in ashes what happened what happened to these people who were they they were giants

00:25:56.160 on the earth and but more importantly their institutions were giants i mean you've got a

00:26:01.360 great part in here about the Roman Empire and about Justinian, etc. But Gibbons, it hit him

00:26:07.440 in the solar plexus that he spent the rest of his life investigating about what had happened.

00:26:13.980 This magnificent edifice. And here I've got a handful of monks and people that are dirt poor.

00:26:21.220 And you're right. And what he was also seeing was that is that moment of confrontation.

00:26:27.340 How did this great edifice of empire and glory, the most powerful military and economic force in the world, how did these little monks, how did they bring this down?

00:26:45.660 How did they bring this crashing to the ground? 1.00

00:26:47.540 Oh, you mean the whole thing of the Christian part? 0.99

00:26:50.000 The advance of Christianity, the triumph of Christianity.

00:26:52.020 The triumph of Christianity.

00:26:52.620 But also lurking in givens. 0.59

00:26:54.340 Because he loved antiquity in the pagan religion.

00:26:58.080 But he also loved modernity.

00:26:59.420 And the subtext of Gibbon's history is that what happened to the Roman Empire happened because it lacked a world built, an economy built around trade and commerce.

00:27:18.860 It was a slow moving agricultural empire based on slavery, based on slavery, whatever all the magnificent works in literature and philosophy and art.

00:27:33.380 All of it rested ultimately on a very primitive and exploitative system of economics. 0.75

00:27:39.420 He learned this from his Scottish friends like Adam Smith.

00:27:43.540 Hey, we're taking a short commercial break.

00:27:45.960 The power of Founders Father is one, you have a totally new perspective on the history of our nation.

00:27:52.620 It's tied together, but you will get to spend many hours with one of the most brilliant minds we have in this country, Arthur Herman.

00:27:59.800 Short break, back in the morning.

00:28:15.960 fellow patriots the federal reserve has betrayed america for over a century

00:28:28.100 printing fiat inflating away your savings serving globalist masters but president trump is ending

00:28:36.080 it president trump is wielding a 112 year old law to reclaim control from the rogue federal

00:28:44.360 Reserve. He's replacing Jerome Powell, slashing rates, igniting America's re-industrialization.

00:28:50.700 Now, this is not theory. Government-backed industry plus low rates unleashes super cycles.

00:28:57.400 History does repeat. Gold's already exploding. Miners are up over 400 percent in the last year.

00:29:04.620 What Rickards is calling Trump's gift is wealth for American patriots, not global handouts.

00:29:11.020 now it's america's turn jim rickards former cia and pentagon veteran says act now go to insider

00:29:20.780 2026.com that is insider 2026.com to get jim rickards strategic intelligence newsletter today

00:29:30.000 strategic intelligence based upon predictive analytics it's what chairman and ceo throughout

00:29:36.360 the world read and you should too war room here's your host stephen k van

00:29:42.660 the power of your books i found a fire is another one from 1776 to the age of trump

00:29:50.320 is that as you read your your books i underline a lot but i'm also jotting notes down i noticed i

00:29:57.000 noticed i'm jotting notes my notebook of other areas of inquiry i want to pursue or other books

00:30:03.740 of yours I want to read that's because you if nothing else folks you're going to have

00:30:08.420 many hours of good company good intellectual company so that's I think the power of your

00:30:13.320 writing is my wife will tell you part of this is also I am a relentlessly curious person

00:30:20.280 I always have to find out what's going on I'm like I'm one of the worst people to visit hospitals

00:30:27.180 because every time I see a closed door I have to push it open see what's going on the other side

00:30:30.960 hotels the same way and my wife is like don't go don't the door is closed honey but i think it's

00:30:37.360 locked don't try to try to do it i am relentlessly curious so every book that i've done inevitably

00:30:43.200 leads to the next one or the next two as a matter of fact because i learned something about let's

00:30:50.020 say the british navy our audience and particularly the older part of the audience is the same i

00:30:55.120 I noticed that in people as they get older, the way you stay young and stay connected with people is it's curiosity.

00:31:03.160 How can people that maybe don't have that?

00:31:05.900 How can you instill that?

00:31:07.860 I don't know.

00:31:10.020 Maybe it's something that's innate.

00:31:12.200 Maybe it's something that you pick up from habits going back to when you were a kid and it just carries you forward.

00:31:19.420 But, you know, over the last decade, I've spent a lot of time, for example, working on quantum technology and artificial intelligence.

00:31:28.900 To understand that, to put it into the book.

00:31:31.020 Well, no, not to put it into the book, just because I'm curious.

00:31:33.220 I want to know what's going on, what's happening, what's the next big thing?

00:31:36.320 And in fact, you may be interested to credit this, but I, in fact, even organized in 2018, 2019, organized a consortium of labs and companies to create a global standards for quantum key distribution networks and for quantum random number generators.

00:31:58.240 and we took them you know we did we took them to the international telecommunications union in

00:32:02.700 geneva and presented them there to the to uh to the the security section section 17 we got passed

00:32:11.640 even the russians and the chinese said you know what these are good standards we should use them

00:32:15.780 etc that's that's the kind of trouble i can get myself into when i get on a jag like that

00:32:21.440 all of my books come out of trying to answer a question i don't i can't find another book that

00:32:26.740 answer. And when that happens, I said, someone's got to write a book out about this. And it usually

00:32:31.880 ends up being me. Before I get to the discussion, Gibbons-Smith and the Declaration of Independence,

00:32:39.180 tie it together. In the background of Gibbons' decline and fall is Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.

00:32:45.480 And understanding that through trade and commerce, that through the free exchange of goods between

00:32:52.620 free individuals, a new kind of society was taking place that was not going to revert to

00:32:59.360 barbarism as the Roman Empire had done. When the great imperial edifice came crashing down,

00:33:07.420 when the armies dispersed and would no longer fight to save that empire, it descended into

00:33:13.120 the Dark Ages. In Gibbon's mind, there is no Dark Age coming because we live in a different world.

00:33:19.180 We live in a world of trade and commerce. And the book that and the view that he gives reflected in that is the one that is encapsulated by Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations.

00:33:30.760 It's a realm of trade and commerce has created a new level, captured somewhat in the Declaration of Independence.

00:33:38.380 And it's also about history, which is we're at a culminating moment in history in which the rights given to us by our creator can now be fully realized.

00:33:51.460 In a new nation, in an independence from an empire, we can achieve what it is that would seem otherwise beyond capabilities of ordinary nations and ordinary peoples.

00:34:06.920 How was it that the Americans at that time were able to think that through, the founders were able to think that through and set up some sort of framework where the intellectually more evolved French in their revolution couldn't?

00:34:27.400 They actually, in fact, it ended into not just the bloodshed and everything they tried to do in tearing down the institutions, which some of those institutions needed reforming dramatically, maybe even destruction.

00:34:40.620 But it ended in a military dictatorship that then had led the bloodiest wars that Europe's had since until World War II.

00:34:47.480 And also led to a view about the role of government and the role of individuals as being subordinate to the needs of the community.

00:34:56.880 Well, it's still it's still it's still it's the groundwork for communism, communism, Marxism and communism springs out of the French Revolution model.

00:35:03.260 The famous story with Nixon there with Mao and there's this thing of the conversation is not going in show in line.

00:35:09.280 Nixon and Kissinger are talking.

00:35:11.480 Kissinger made conversation goes, well, you've come from a revolution.

00:35:14.640 What's your thoughts about the French Revolution?

00:35:16.840 He goes too early to tell.

00:35:18.300 Too early to tell.

00:35:20.280 The but for the I think what it gets you gets you to the core of your question.

00:35:26.880 Those American founding fathers, when you look through their writings, you look at the debates in the Continental Congress and then later in the U.S. debate on the Constitution, there is always an awareness of their place in history.

00:35:40.980 and in order to have that sense of one's place in history you need to know history you need to have

00:35:49.640 an understanding of how the past worked and a framework by which to understand its relationship

00:35:55.860 with who you are and what you're doing and that's true for the founding fathers and actually steve

00:36:03.340 that's one of the reasons why i wrote the book because i wanted to give people a way to understand

00:36:07.940 And not just a new look about American business and the history of American business, but also a new way to think about American history and how their experience relates to it.

00:36:18.500 They're giving you a totally different framework based on this constant struggle between the founders on the one hand with the drive and the vision and the willingness to take risks and those for whom that vision is going a little too far.

00:36:34.200 You know, stay in your lane, stick to your knitting, look before you leap.

00:36:40.740 That mindset, which is also part of the American experience, part of the human experience, is constantly butting up against the one that wants to thrust forward, that wants to go off in a brand new direction.

00:36:54.600 It was true, wasn't it, during the Continental Congress?

00:36:59.220 Yes.

00:36:59.480 But people have said, whoa, wait a second, independence.

00:37:03.120 Too much.

00:37:04.120 We never talked about that.

00:37:05.480 To use that phrase, it's a bridge too far.

00:37:08.460 We don't want to go there.

00:37:09.860 It's a big mistake.

00:37:11.360 Are your books so popular?

00:37:15.080 Because we don't teach history correctly when people are getting the more formal education.

00:37:23.180 Like your book, How the Scots Invented the Modern World.

00:37:26.360 New York Times bestseller.

00:37:27.260 Not just that.

00:37:28.360 It's a blockbuster book.

00:37:29.320 I remember when it came out, everybody was reading that book.

00:37:34.440 But you would think.

00:37:36.880 Including Bill Clinton.

00:37:38.460 Everybody read it.

00:37:39.580 Gave it a blurb, as a matter of fact.

00:37:42.260 That book published in when?

00:37:43.900 That published in 2001.

00:37:45.560 2001.

00:37:46.720 It came out almost a week after the attack on 9-11.

00:37:53.220 And I thought that was going to kill the book.

00:37:55.680 I thought, that's it. 0.97

00:37:56.600 this book is done because everything's going to be focused on Islamic terrorism, on the threat

00:38:02.180 to America, et cetera, et cetera. I actually think what people wanted in that moment was

00:38:08.420 an awareness of why are we being attacked? What are the values, the values that we in America and

00:38:16.060 the West embody that, first of all, draws the hostility of barbarians like this, but also at

00:38:24.180 the same time that we want to hang on to and that we prize and value and the scott's book i think

00:38:30.000 in that sense the timing turned out to be fortuitously right how did you come up with the

00:38:35.780 idea there have been so many people that looked have looked at history i'm always fascinated with

00:38:41.360 how do writers come up with an idea and then manifest it that it's like a breath of fresh

00:38:46.980 and this this book was so talked about when it first came out because you took something that

00:38:51.560 people just kind of glossed over you you were able to see pattern recognition and then bring

00:38:57.420 it out in vivid detail but how did you get the original idea well it really came out of the idea

00:39:01.800 decline because you know many ways with that book how the scots is book is about is that group of

00:39:09.440 scottish thinkers in the 18th century who lay the foundations for the theory of progress

00:39:13.800 and scotland was it had its back against the wall it wasn't like it was a paradise it was not

00:39:19.100 By no means.

00:39:20.640 This is what's so shocking about the book.

00:39:22.320 When you lay it out at the beginning, it's like anywhere on Earth should it come up with this except Scotland.

00:39:27.540 It was a pretty dismal, dismal situation at the beginning of the 18th century.

00:39:33.240 And then it experienced this enormous, gets this enormous gift through the Act of Union and that it links up with the trade networks that that England had built across the Atlantic and into Asia and in Europe.

00:39:46.200 And so Scottish merchants find themselves now suddenly being able to do business around the world, in Europe, in America, and so on.

00:39:56.200 And this sets in motion thinking by that core group, that coterie of enlightened thinkers who occupy the central chapters of how the Scots invented the modern world, to think about how, again, commerce and trade changes society for the better.

00:40:14.960 And brings not only more prosperity

00:40:18.520 But also more freedom

00:40:20.300 To individuals to think and act in the world

00:40:24.400 As they see fit instead of their superiors

00:40:27.520 Social superiors, religious superiors, whatever

00:40:30.280 And that sets in motion then

00:40:34.240 The ideas about capitalism

00:40:36.700 The way in which capitalism is a liberating force

00:40:41.320 In the world

00:40:42.620 sets in motion ideas about how commerce creates bonds between a bonds of trust and rests on those

00:40:51.120 bonds of trust, bringing people together, not driving them apart in any kind of way,

00:40:56.380 and how the profit motive or pursuit of it in our own self-interest, ironically and paradoxically,

00:41:05.700 helps to bring benefits to others by the products and the goods that we provide for them.

00:41:09.900 So the book originally started, Steve, as a book about Adam Smith and his friends.

00:41:15.880 And then as I was putting it together, my agent at the time said to me, you really ought to bring this up to the present.

00:41:24.520 So I expanded it out into the 19th century, which meant bringing in the Scottish diaspora, the spread of Scottish immigrants all across all across the Europe and the world to Africa, to India, and of course, also to North America.

00:41:39.900 And that's what really drew me into the nexus between the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment, Adam Smith, David Hume and others, and what the founding fathers were up to and what they were thinking about the role of liberty, the nature of liberty.

00:41:56.520 and how you would create a country, create a nation in which individual liberty could be realized to its fullest extent

00:42:07.140 more than any other place in the world at any other time in history.

00:42:12.360 We have about a minute here we're going to hold you through before the last break.

00:42:15.720 Because of the advances in surveillance technology and the scale of technology,

00:42:21.080 have we lost the power of the idea of individual liberty?

00:42:26.520 I think we faced a lot of challenges. They did then, too, after all. At that time, the challenge was the very existence of large traditional social structures and religious structures.

00:42:39.260 You think about it, in 18th century Europe, in every country, you have state religion, which dictates how you worship, dictates what schools you get into.

00:42:51.580 In England, getting to university required religious loyalty to the Church of England here.

00:42:59.500 And so the very notion of separation of church and state embedded in the Bill of Rights was itself a revolutionary break from where the rest of the world was and what was taking place there.

00:43:13.100 There are always challenges.

00:43:14.560 The technological challenges we face today seem to be on a different scale.

00:43:19.420 And yet it's many of those same technologies which can also be the most liberating ones we face.

00:43:25.040 Let's take a short commercial break.

00:43:26.200 going to wrap up. Arthur Herman, Founders Fire. Get it, and get it for a young person in your life

00:43:33.440 today. We rejoice when there's no more. Let's take down the CCP. The American healthcare system is 0.98

00:43:40.920 broken, and for most Americans, nothing changes. There's still delays, denials, high-cost insurance

00:43:47.480 roadblocks. So when I find people doing things differently, I talk about it. All-family pharmacy

00:43:54.680 is not your typical big-chain pharmacy.

00:43:57.840 This is an independent, family-owned pharmacy

00:44:00.100 that gives you access to over 400 medications

00:44:03.080 delivered straight to your door.

00:44:05.760 They've got ivermectin, antibiotics, antivirals, NAD+,

00:44:11.440 even your daily maintenance medications, and so much more.

00:44:15.780 If you already have a prescription,

00:44:18.020 your doctor can send it directly.

00:44:19.440 If you don't, their doctors handle it.

00:44:22.320 As long as there is a medical necessity

00:44:24.420 they'll take care of you and i'll tell you this the feedback from people listening to this show

00:44:29.500 and watching has been incredibly strong people are using it it's working for them and they're

00:44:35.060 sticking with it that's because it cuts out the delays the middlemen and all the usual nonsense

00:44:40.960 this is about being ready before you need it go to allfamilypharmacy.com that's all one word

00:44:48.960 allfamilypharmacy.com

00:44:51.160 slash Bannon and use code

00:44:53.040 Bannon10 to save 10%.

00:44:55.220 The healthcare system is

00:44:56.960 broken. Your pharmacy

00:44:59.160 doesn't have to be.

00:45:01.520 War Room. Here's

00:45:03.040 your host, Stephen K. Bannon.

00:45:07.140 Okay, I want to thank our sponsors of Birch Gold.

00:45:09.080 Make sure you go to Birch Gold. Maybe the

00:45:10.980 easiest way to do it this weekend is to

00:45:13.040 go to, take your phone and

00:45:14.780 text Bannon, that would be

00:45:16.900 me at 989898 you get the ultimate guide for investing in gold and precious metals in the

00:45:22.400 age of trump most importantly it's free no obligation obviously but you get to talk to

00:45:27.340 philip patrick and the teams to do that today find out where gold has been a hedge against

00:45:31.660 times of financial turbulence i don't know two three thousand years of mankind's turbulent

00:45:36.880 financial history uh our this has been extraordinary to give this kind of time for us

00:45:42.720 author herman is uh his 11th book uh and it's going to be a blockbuster founder's fire that

00:45:49.400 ties together the the um not just the entrepreneurial spirit but the founder spirit

00:45:54.560 very different the founder spirit and vision and what it takes ties it directly to american history

00:45:59.940 couldn't be a better way to kick off to kind of have another understanding of the united states

00:46:04.560 and optimistic this book is very optimistic it is and it is one that i think it has infuriated

00:46:12.360 certain reviewers who say we can't fault him on his on his facts or on his framework but surely

00:46:19.740 there must be surely there there has to be some doom waiting out for us out there in some kind

00:46:25.420 of way particularly in the age of trump uh that uh that i haven't that i haven't really uh haven't

00:46:30.480 really addressed in the course of this discussion we gotta make sure that it is it is a book uh it

00:46:34.900 is an optimistic i mean i think i think it's true for all my books actually uh starting with the

00:46:40.140 idea of decline, because the idea of decline was it's wrong. We're not in decline. No matter how

00:46:45.520 many times self-appointed prophets try to tell us that is so, and they do it for self-interested

00:46:51.500 reasons. One of those chapters, as you remember, is on Al Gore and the ecological movement,

00:46:59.120 which I think my prediction is about how that intellectually bankrupt it was.

00:47:04.020 I think you came out on the better side of that argument.

00:47:05.640 Way better, I think.

00:47:06.880 What I want to go back to that blank page when we first sat down, because people are so fascinated, like, could they be a writer? Could they do this?

00:47:14.340 When you're sitting down that time to do that first book proposal and you just had the typewriter, what is it that you have to do to make sure that you can actually come up with an idea and put it down succinctly on paper?

00:47:26.420 So what works for me, and this has been the case with just about every book that I've written, is drawing upon my experience, as we were saying, at the teaching of the Smithsonian Institution, in which I was doing these eight-week courses twice a day for eight weeks.

00:47:41.860 So for me, every issue, everything I talk about almost automatically falls into eight parts, right?

00:47:50.740 Gaul is divided into three parts for Julius Caesar.

00:47:53.780 Every one of my books starts divided into eight parts.

00:47:57.600 And that's my starting point.

00:47:58.940 That's just the construct you came up with.

00:47:59.780 I think about it as eight lectures.

00:48:02.480 And then, of course, it doesn't stay that way, but you add one or two.

00:48:06.780 But by and large, the construction of the book from an outline standpoint tends to follow in multiples of eight.

00:48:15.000 What can I say?

00:48:16.180 16 chapters, 12 chapters.

00:48:18.760 That's where I start.

00:48:20.040 And then you begin to assemble the material to support what it is you want to say in each chapter.

00:48:27.780 And then it's the process of sitting down and putting together in prose that you think a general reader, not your academic colleagues, are going to be able to follow and understand.

00:48:42.980 So the 11th book, the first one was 1997?

00:48:46.440 Yeah, 1997.

00:48:47.420 So how many years of research?

00:48:51.600 Usually it's a two-year process.

00:48:53.140 Two years for the whole thing?

00:48:54.380 You had a down two years.

00:48:55.000 One year of research?

00:48:55.940 This one was a little faster.

00:48:57.220 One year of research and one year of writing?

00:48:58.960 Yeah, this one was a little faster in a way because I was able to draw on research that had been done elsewhere.

00:49:04.820 And to draw on themes from my other books, like Freedom's Forge, for example.

00:49:08.720 Like how the Scots invented the modern world.

00:49:11.480 I know this came out quicker because I just finished Viking's Heart.

00:49:13.920 yeah that was a really that was a wonderful book to write too fabulous book to read you can do so

00:49:20.100 much how do people go so founders fire is in bookstores right now it's in bookstores at this

00:49:26.320 very moment you can go to amazon you can go to barnes and noble and buy it online there or go

00:49:32.140 to your barnes and noble store i encourage that uh you can go to my website to place orders there

00:49:38.700 as well, arthurherman.com, with a dash in between arthurherman.com.

00:49:45.180 And you can also check out my other books and the articles on the various things I work

00:49:50.680 on, from technology to defense industrial base.

00:49:54.380 It's all help yourself.

00:49:54.860 If people want to meet you at a book signing or at a lecture, that's always up on the website.

00:50:00.540 They can track you.

00:50:02.480 Do you also have social media, or is it best to just go to the website?

00:50:05.260 X.

00:50:06.080 X.

00:50:06.300 I'm definitely an X guy.

00:50:07.500 You're an X guy.

00:50:08.040 Yep.

00:50:08.700 Very much so.

00:50:09.840 And what's it under?

00:50:10.980 What's your handle?

00:50:11.780 The handle is at Arthur L. Herman.

00:50:14.400 Pretty simple, pretty basic.

00:50:16.200 What Founders Fire, and my strongest recommendation, not simply get the book, obviously, to read the book and enjoy the book, savor the book,

00:50:27.040 but also particularly if there's someone maybe down in the dumps and you want to get them jacked up for the founding of the country, get them this book.

00:50:36.040 If there's a young person that you are having a hand in their formative years, get them the book and make sure they read it.

00:50:43.240 And I wanted this to be a book which people would come to understand not only their own history, but maybe themselves.

00:50:49.800 And think about themselves in a new, in a different light based on how we got here and what we're doing here.

00:50:57.180 And who knows, you may find that you're your founder yourself.

00:51:00.620 You didn't know it.

00:51:02.080 Take that side hustle and turn it into something.

00:51:04.960 Turned into something really big.

00:51:06.440 We're waiting.

00:51:07.500 Your task and your purpose, as we say here.

00:51:11.540 I want to thank you for spending the time.

00:51:13.300 Oh, it's been great.

00:51:14.200 It's been extraordinary.

00:51:15.000 You're one of the great writers in America today.

00:51:19.640 And you have the topics.

00:51:21.960 If you go to Arthur Herman's website, you'll see the topics.

00:51:25.220 So many of my favorite books are there.

00:51:26.700 And quite frankly, so many of the books that have helped have been intellectually formative for me.

00:51:32.000 The McCarthy book was really, because in those days, he was so demonized on a huge...

00:51:38.460 Unbelievable.

00:51:39.380 And I come from Virginia, and you were taught to, General Lee and General Marshall are the

00:51:47.620 two top of this, and it's only when you get into McCarthy that General Marshall is looking

00:51:54.020 a little different, right?

00:51:54.740 Well, I still admire him.

00:51:55.660 I tried to buy his place down at Pinehurst.

00:51:58.260 Did you?

00:51:58.800 Yeah, he had a little cottage down there.

00:52:01.580 And Pinehurst didn't actually cross the trade, as we say, but there's always hope.

00:52:07.520 Arthur, once again, it's just taking this amount of time.

00:52:10.480 It's fantastic.

00:52:11.860 Thanks so much.

00:52:12.580 We're going to leave you.

00:52:13.720 I'll be up on social media all weekend.

00:52:15.760 Of course, we have the pressing concerns of the day in front of us.

00:52:21.580 And we're cleaning this war.

00:52:23.380 We're up 24-7 on that.

00:52:25.340 I don't think this weekend we're going to have a Sunday show.

00:52:28.740 I think we're just going to cut it at 6.

00:52:30.520 we'll kick back on the Sunday show

00:52:32.740 if necessary

00:52:33.600 see you back here Monday morning

00:52:35.720 10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time

00:52:37.640 and we'll be back in the world

00:53:00.520 Do you owe back taxes or you haven't filed your taxes in years?

00:53:05.420 Now is the time to resolve your tax matters.

00:53:08.600 With the national conversation around abolishing the income tax,

00:53:13.420 the IRS is fighting back and proving it's here to stay by becoming more aggressive than ever before.

00:53:19.780 They're sending out more collection notices, filing more tax liens, and collecting billions more in recent years.

00:53:26.740 If you owe, the IRS can garnish your wages, levy your bank accounts, seize your retirement, and even your home.

00:53:36.120 If you owe or haven't filed, it's not a question of if the IRS will act, it's a question of when it will act.

00:53:44.280 Right now, Tax Network USA is offering a completely free IRS research and discovery call

00:53:50.260 to show you exactly where you stand and what they can stop before it's too late.

00:53:56.740 Their powerful programs and strategies can save you thousands or even eliminate your debt entirely if you qualify.

00:54:03.640 Don't make a costly mistake.

00:54:05.660 Representing yourself or calling the IRS on your own waives your rights and costs you more money.

00:54:11.160 They are not, and let me repeat, the IRS is not on your side.

00:54:15.380 Get protected the right way with Tax Network USA and start the process of settling your tax matters once and for all today.

00:54:23.860 Call 1-800-958-1000

00:54:28.140 That's 1-800-958-1000

00:54:31.740 Or visit TNUSA.com slash Bannon

00:54:35.720 For your free discovery call with Tax Network USA

00:54:39.680 Let me repeat, 800-958-1000

00:54:43.300 Tell them Bannon sent you

00:54:44.540 Don't let the IRS be the first to act

00:54:48.300 Take advantage of first mover advantage

00:54:51.380 You move

00:54:52.580 Thank you.

Bannon's War Room - April 25, 2026

Episode 5328： Founder's Fire From 1776 Tp the Age Of Trump Cont.

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript