Bannon's War Room - Episode 5407： Flip Flop In Iran Discussions

00:00:00.620 Yeah, the two sides do seem to be moving closer here, but I have to say it is very difficult to tell whether this is real or whether this is just another mirage.

00:00:09.780 You know, we've been down this road before where it appears as if a deal is in hand only to see it all collapse.

00:00:16.800 Now, the way I understand it is that the Iranians came to the U.S. this week, said they were comfortable with the text of the plan.

00:00:24.620 President Trump asked for a few more days to decide whether he was going to sign off.

00:00:29.500 We heard from J.D. Vance, the vice president, who has been leading these negotiations yesterday.

00:00:34.680 He described it as not quite finalized yet.

00:00:37.580 Listen here.

00:00:40.340 Well, I think it's hard to say exactly when or if the president is going to sign the MOU.

00:00:44.660 We're going back and forth on a couple of language points.

00:00:47.140 I do think that we've made a lot of progress here. 1.00

00:00:49.100 It's very clear that I think the Iranians, they want to deal and they want to open the Straits of Hormuz. 0.99

00:00:54.520 We want them to open the Straits of Hormuz. 1.00

00:00:56.180 There are a couple of issues on the nuclear stuff, the highly enriched stockpile, and also the question of enrichment.

00:01:04.180 So, you know, we're going back and forth with them.

00:01:06.480 There's any way President Trump walks away from this conflict with a deal better than President Obama got in 2015, which he scuttled?

00:01:14.600 I understand it's just too early to tell, only because this is the pre-deal to get to the negotiations for the big deal.

00:01:22.840 And so we are so far away from that.

00:01:25.060 I mean, we're basically negotiating here to get back to zero, which is to a situation where the Straits of Hormuz were an international waterway with free passage for everybody.

00:01:36.060 That wasn't even on the table when this war started.

00:01:39.560 And only then can we get into a negotiation over the fissile material, the near bomb grade fissile material.

00:01:50.400 And, you know, when you look at the difficulties they're having with just this issue, you can imagine what's going to happen with that one.

00:01:57.200 You know, when you think about it, Anderson, if you step back, think about what's going on here.

00:02:00.880 You've got a supreme leader in Iran who's hiding somewhere.

00:02:04.560 He has no cell phone with him because he doesn't want to tip off the Israelis or Americans where he is.

00:02:08.980 So people are passing notes back and forth to him.

00:02:11.200 Then they're passing notes back and forth to Qatar and Pakistan, who are mediating between Jared Kushner and Whitcoff, the presidents of negotiators, two real estate developers.

00:02:23.380 Where the State Department is, I don't know.

00:02:25.440 We've got the vice president talking about it.

00:02:27.740 We've got the secretary of treasury talking about it.

00:02:31.780 It's the most, you know, kind of multi-hydra-headed negotiation I've ever seen over such a complex issue.

00:02:40.140 I'm not optimistic.

00:02:42.380 Maybe they'll be able to get something down on paper,

00:02:43.920 but how you get this to hold and sustain it

00:02:46.640 and then get into the real negotiations for the nuclear material,

00:02:50.340 it's going to be very difficult.

00:02:51.300 We will see a phase one deal,

00:02:54.360 which is essentially for both parties to end their mutual blockade

00:02:58.540 of the Strait of Hormuz,

00:02:59.700 because Iran's economy is really suffering,

00:03:02.680 perhaps as much as $450 million a day.

00:03:05.680 It's losing as a result of the U.S. blockade.

00:03:08.580 And President Trump wants oil and gases to come down ahead of the summer travel season.

00:03:14.500 So the first phase of this deal, I think, is going to happen at some point.

00:03:19.540 The second phase is going to be the very difficult part, resolving the nuclear issue.

00:03:24.540 They went in there on the assumption that they were going to change the regime with the aerial bombing.

00:03:30.520 It was going to happen quick. 0.90

00:03:31.760 They would be replaced by pliant Iranians, and they would then do a Venezuela-style deal with Trump. 0.98

00:03:38.580 When that didn't happen, Trump had no plan B. 0.89

00:03:42.100 Iran had a plan B.

00:03:43.840 It had a plan B and a plan C. 0.94

00:03:45.300 Plan B was take over the Straits of Hormuz using drones and cruise missiles and attack America's Gulf Arab allies and frighten them so badly that they would deter Trump for the future. 0.95

00:03:58.820 So Iran had a plan B. 0.91

00:04:00.780 We had no plan B. 0.97

00:04:02.200 And we're kind of been making it up ever since then. 0.64

00:04:05.720 Even the idea that it's going to return the strait to the status quo, I mean, Iran, with the differences, even if there is free passage, Iran now knows they can shut down the strait at any time.

00:04:17.520 And now it's a proven hypothesis. 0.86

00:04:20.100 yes we in our pursuit of stripping iran of its weapons of its potential to make a weapon of

00:04:28.280 mass destruction we gave them the fuel and the idea to develop a weapon of mass disruption

00:04:35.400 for so much less money they've got in effect a a nuclear weapon of their own and um they did not

00:04:43.100 have that before this war and we'll have to live with that and the world will have to live said

00:04:48.080 what are his choices at this point, Joe? The deal you can get the Iranians to accept, or what?

00:04:56.340 You're not going to get regime change. You're not going to get Iranian capitulation. So just say he

00:05:01.860 does what the finish the job gang wants him to do. It's a slogan, not a strategy. So what? He

00:05:07.580 resumes bombing against what? The only meaningful targets we haven't really gone after is the

00:05:12.860 Iranian energy infrastructure. Kind of a problem, though. If we do that, guess what Iran's going to

00:05:18.060 do. They're going to go after the energy infrastructure, every one of its neighbors. 0.93

00:05:22.240 And as bad as this crisis is, that would make this look like a tea party, because then you

00:05:27.520 would see the long term destruction of 20 percent or even more of the of the world's

00:05:34.620 oil and gas capabilities. So, you know, what is Donald Trump going to do? I think also, Joe,

00:05:40.520 a lot of this returns the question. I mean, you know, you and Jake think about this is,

00:05:45.300 You know, we had a moment. The president keeps saying we can't allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon.

00:05:48.940 OK, everybody agrees on that. But we had an enormous opportunity both to lock that in and to bring about regime change after June. 0.99

00:05:57.580 That was when Iran was at its weakest after the Israeli and American strikes.

00:06:01.220 And rather than taking advantage of that and trying to press diplomatically and turn up the economic heat, we ultimately moved towards this war.

00:06:09.560 So you keep coming back to that. We are going to end up. The only question I have is how much worse off are we now than we were before this war began?

00:06:19.800 Donald Trump's going to have to spin it. He's going to say we're better off.

00:06:22.520 But quite honestly, no one who has an ounce of objectivity is going to agree with him.

00:06:29.080 Friday, 29 May, year of our Lord, 2026.

00:06:31.960 So we are packed this morning to go through all of that.

00:06:34.180 Also, the grassroots efforts, what's happening on Capitol Hill and much, much more.

00:06:39.760 I'll start with John Solomon.

00:06:41.380 John, I want to go back to what you talked about yesterday, but just a quick, you saw the mainstream media.

00:06:48.980 We want to give everybody an update on what the conventional wisdom in Washington, D.C. is saying.

00:06:55.840 your thoughts about the, I guess, the deal to get to a deal, this pre-deal.

00:07:02.400 Do you have any assessment of where we actually stand on this?

00:07:06.540 Yeah, listen, what I hear in talking to people is that what you see publicly and hear publicly,

00:07:11.660 the rhetorical propaganda is not a reflection of what's actually being discussed in the private

00:07:17.520 settings, that the Iranians in the private settings are very clear that they want to make

00:07:22.640 a deal, that they're tired of the war, they have nothing to fight with.

00:07:25.840 Yes, they still have their skirmishes, but they really want to make a deal, but there needs to be a trust factor to get to a deal.

00:07:35.360 And they also have a communications problem, which is that because the second IRGC people show up, they get whacked with a missile, they don't want to communicate.

00:07:44.640 And so they have a real challenge in getting communication and consensus among a very bifurcated relationship. 0.66

00:07:51.040 Iran was always intentionally bifurcated leadership for a scenario like this, but they're 0.56

00:07:55.740 more bifurcated by the fact that we've leveled basically their entire communications infrastructure.

00:08:00.560 So the president is willing to test that theory and see if it's real. But I think the most

00:08:07.080 important thing that people are missing in the mainstream media is that Iran has been

00:08:11.300 told unequivocally that the president has some very, very clear red lines. There are

00:08:16.200 three things either. No chance he will not accept. Iran is clearly aware of those three lines and

00:08:22.560 they have now agreed to an outline of the 60-day ceasefire. That comes with enormous consequences

00:08:29.920 for the Iranian government. If they try to change those red lines later, they're just going to get

00:08:34.380 blown to smithereens. I think they know that. So yeah, the communications internally are just

00:08:41.120 different. Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Yeah. Just give us those red lines once

00:08:44.880 again just give us the three red lines his red lines as you know nuclear weapons program ever 0.78

00:08:49.300 again uh turn over the uranium and a free and open uh straight of hermuzh those are the three

00:08:55.180 red lines uh and trump has signaled hey listen we're not saying we have to control the straight

00:08:59.780 of hermuzh you just have to keep it free and open it's in your territory fine but you gotta keep

00:09:03.640 free and open no weaponizing it so those are the red lines and there is absolute clarity on that

00:09:09.620 And the fact that the Iranians know that and are agreeing to this deal is significant. 0.93

00:09:15.960 Now, they are not trustworthy. 1.00

00:09:18.340 We know that.

00:09:18.920 We have 47, now almost 48 years of proof that they're not trustworthy.

00:09:23.180 But they are beaten down.

00:09:24.920 They are flattened.

00:09:26.020 They got nothing to fight with.

00:09:27.180 They put up four drones.

00:09:28.200 We blow the hell out of them in five seconds.

00:09:30.460 They don't have a way to beat us.

00:09:32.280 They don't.

00:09:33.060 All that rhetoric you heard on television is BS.

00:09:35.360 They got a few missiles here and there.

00:09:36.700 They can be a menace.

00:09:37.480 they cannot be a significant power anymore. They know that. The Persians are very pragmatic people,

00:09:44.040 all of their rhetoric aside. And I think that the president believes that the expressions that are

00:09:48.900 at the table with Jared and with Steve Witkoff are worth testing, but short and quick and intense.

00:09:57.840 And if they get to the next level, things will be great. If not, he has no problem opening up

00:10:03.040 the skies. And I think this time the president will likely use some shock and awe. I would not

00:10:07.660 be surprised if some new weaponry like space-based lasers were used to show Iran, hey, you think 0.98

00:10:14.200 conventional warfare stuff? Check this out. That would be a supersonic transformation of warfare 0.91

00:10:21.800 overnight. So Iran knows that what comes next is going to be worse than what it's been through.

00:10:26.940 And I think that that is given, you know, put them in a position to try to negotiate. There

00:10:31.320 are a lot of thorny issues it's a deal to get to a deal to get to a deal so it's three steps

00:10:35.840 but but i think the biggest thing i've learned as a reporter in the last 48 hours is whatever

00:10:41.820 rhetoric you're hearing in the you know the propaganda of iran it's very different at the

00:10:45.700 negotiating table and that has not been something we've seen in the last 47 years

00:10:51.860 uh also i want to go back to yesterday you dropped a couple of bombshells on here but i

00:10:57.760 understand there's some there's some pushback on that among two of my favorite people so can you

00:11:03.560 explain what you laid out yesterday and where we actually stand on these bombshells so the first

00:11:09.220 thing is the power of your show right when something happens on your show people take

00:11:13.220 notice and so yesterday I talked about the fact that I believe that there are very important

00:11:17.140 documents inside the USAID's custody which is inside OMB right now OMB isn't temporarily

00:11:24.120 running USAID, so Russ Vogue's team is running it, that are relevant to a possible plot to route

00:11:31.780 taxpayer money that came through USAID to Ukraine and allegedly went to Donald Trump's

00:11:38.880 2020, excuse me, Joe Biden's 2024 campaign. We had this intercept that Tulsi Gabbard released at our

00:11:46.780 request a few weeks ago, and that intercept shows NSA knew that the Ukrainians were talking about

00:11:53.480 having worked with USAID to get a large grant that was then going to be laundered back to the

00:11:58.400 Joe Biden campaign. I learned of that intercept because I was informed from a, so let me walk

00:12:05.940 you through the history yet, because I think there's some disinformation flowing around

00:12:09.720 the White House. So after I was on your show, I mentioned this yesterday, there were people in

00:12:13.880 the White House trying to say, this isn't true. Dulce Gabbard has everything she needs. That is

00:12:18.700 not true. So I'm going to tell you exactly what happened. I received information from my longtime

00:12:24.960 U.S. intelligence asset with deep ties to Ukraine, who is extraordinarily trusted by all of our

00:12:31.580 intelligence agencies. They had heard of this plot in real time. That led me to a conversation

00:12:36.980 with the intelligence community that led me to the discovery that Tulsi Gabbard had found this

00:12:41.400 intercept. Tulsi declassified it. We got the first part of it out. But the intercept is not specific

00:12:48.820 enough to make a criminal case or to prove the money flow. You got to follow the money.

00:12:52.340 The fastest way to follow the money is to get inside the USAID email database, the low side,

00:12:58.820 the non-classified side, and the high side, the classified side. My U.S. intelligence source,

00:13:04.660 who is actually a source for the intelligence government, had the specific names of people

00:13:10.100 who were involved in this alleged plot.

00:13:13.140 In March, a contractor working for OMB,

00:13:18.320 assigned to USAID, was contacted by ODNI

00:13:21.280 and did a series of searches.

00:13:23.900 He found searches that appeared to be talking

00:13:26.360 about this very troublesome contract.

00:13:28.220 In fact, one of the emails this contractor found

00:13:31.320 said that this contract doesn't pass the smell test,

00:13:34.980 meaning that career people were seeing this money moving around

00:13:38.100 and it looked incredibly suspicious and it looks just like what the intercept was talking about

00:13:43.000 instead of taking that information and turning it over to Tulsi Gabbard OMB and uh rolled up

00:13:49.840 that contractor took his laptop away temporarily removed him uh and did not convey the information

00:13:56.200 to ODNI and did not convey the information to me even though I personally asked for it

00:14:00.380 as a reporter. Instead, OMB and USAID have just ignored emails. They've ignored requests.

00:14:10.140 And to date, I just checked this out as late as yesterday, ODNI has never gotten the emails

00:14:15.020 that that contractor found. Now, that contractor has been restored to duty, but he doesn't have

00:14:20.120 access to the emails he found. These were non-classified emails that directly fit the

00:14:24.840 pattern in there. Two to three months of valuable investigative time have been lost.

00:14:30.080 And for all those who are in the White House yesterday saying this isn't true,

00:14:34.080 first off, the people in the White House who matter know it is true

00:14:37.340 that these emails exist and they haven't been turned over.

00:14:40.420 And my encouragement to those who run OMB and to run the White House 0.97

00:14:44.140 and run USAID is get the darn emails and get them over to ODNI, 0.97

00:14:48.020 get them over to me. 0.98

00:14:49.540 I have new information that this intelligence asset just brought back

00:14:53.360 from Ukraine a few days ago with more names and more details

00:14:57.160 and dates and times of money.

00:14:58.520 and we can find out if the intercept turns out to be true,

00:15:01.920 but you can't find it out if games like this go on.

00:15:05.940 So this is important enough.

00:15:07.560 I want to thank Rob and Parker Sig.

00:15:08.900 We've blown the brake, which we only want to do when the president's on.

00:15:13.780 This is so important.

00:15:14.840 I just want to go back a little bit to make sure people want to.

00:15:17.580 When the contract, when the inside USAID,

00:15:22.720 the person said this doesn't pass the smell test.

00:15:26.100 that doesn't pass the smell test was done during the Biden regime, right?

00:15:31.220 That's how egregious this part of that operation was, sir?

00:15:36.760 That email is sent exactly when this intercept is captured.

00:15:40.160 So it's real time. 0.52

00:15:41.180 So you got the Ukrainians being told, hey, you're going to do this scam deal 0.62

00:15:45.460 and you're going to give the money back. 0.61

00:15:46.940 We intercept that.

00:15:48.100 And then inside USAID, the scam deal is starting to move forward.

00:15:51.700 And someone who's a career procurement officer goes, hey,

00:15:55.100 Yeah, this doesn't pass the smell test. And it's the exact name of the company, exact name of the contract that the U.S. intelligence asset.

00:16:02.240 But that that that that that is a massive smoking gun when the as a corrupt as they were.

00:16:08.120 Right. When they sit there and go, this doesn't pass the pass the smell test.

00:16:12.580 You know, Houston, you have a problem, correct?

00:16:15.020 Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And and there are other indicators of this now.

00:16:19.660 There are other names of now government officials that this U.S. intelligence asset, who has regular contact with the Ukrainian government, has provided in the last few days.

00:16:30.560 At some point, I should be in a position to help get more information to whoever's going to happen.

00:16:35.400 But what we need to do is find a willing partner who's willing to go into USAID and get these documents.

00:16:41.620 The project was done.

00:16:42.640 Odi and I had asked this contractor with the White House's blessing to do a search.

00:16:46.520 He did.

00:16:47.020 For some reason, a top lawyer at OMB shut down that operation.

00:16:53.500 And there are many possibilities.

00:16:55.340 One of the things is this company that's involved has a history with the CIA.

00:16:59.540 Maybe we've stumbled into something a little bit more complicated.

00:17:02.460 I don't know.

00:17:03.100 But whatever was being passed around the White House yesterday, that everything is transparent,

00:17:07.840 all these things have been turned over, is simply not true.

00:17:10.240 And by the way, the decision makers in the White House know it's not true.

00:17:13.520 So people who are wasting their time are also wasting their credibility by going around saying, hey, we don't have anything.

00:17:19.600 There's full access. If anyone at OMB would like to call me today, I'll help them find the emails in five minutes and they can send them to the FBI.

00:17:26.520 So you're discussing some of the most some of the smartest, toughest, most loyal people to the president and to the cause of transparency of personnel.

00:17:41.520 Now, but you're also addressing something that really needs to be addressed.

00:17:45.820 You're going back to the railhead of, you know, 2014, this this war that's killed millions of people, the color revolution that Victoria Nuland and the state, our State Department initiated the impeachment of President Trump. 0.73

00:18:01.680 I mean, Ukraine is a is a is a is a scab. 0.73

00:18:06.660 Once you pick that scab, a lot of pus comes out and it has to come out.

00:18:10.220 We have to have a full accounting. It's like in the Nixon movies when they talk about Project

00:18:15.720 Anaconda and everything they were doing around Cuba back in those days. You have to get to the

00:18:21.900 bottom of this, John. We can't look the other way. I think this is one of the reasons Tulsi Gabbard

00:18:25.660 is considered by our audience in this show as being such a hero, right? And you're laboring

00:18:32.180 in the vineyard for years when they hounded you about the Ukraine situation, Rudy Giuliani and

00:18:37.580 others. It is absolutely essential for this administration now under President Trump to

00:18:44.120 get to the bottom of Ukraine, no matter where it leads. We have to turn over every document. We

00:18:49.220 have to be totally transparent. We're not there. There's no effort against the deep state. There's

00:18:53.940 no effort against the apparatus that internally that actually makes decisions in this country

00:18:59.040 and the people at the core of trying to thwart President Trump personally, President Trump as

00:19:06.600 commander in chief and in the MAGA movement and they were public overall. So I don't understand

00:19:13.140 why we're not doubling and tripling down on everything with total transparency and more

00:19:18.160 importantly, with urgency, with urgency, with urgency. John Solomon. I think I think the

00:19:24.020 president has unleashed a new mechanism to speed transparency that will probably take effect next

00:19:30.440 week and it will allow the White House to move more quickly and not have to rely on

00:19:35.420 deep state bureaucrats and agencies to do things. I think that the president has that urgency.

00:19:41.300 His chief of staff, Susie Wiles, has that urgency. And I think they've created a novel solution to

00:19:46.560 speed this up. You mentioned one thing, CIA, Ukraine, absolutely. And let's just remind

00:19:52.040 everybody that USAID has long been a cover agency for some CIA operations. It's well known. It's an

00:19:57.300 open secret. But we may be sitting over something that has some intelligence community connections.

00:20:04.000 And I think that may be the sensitivity here, but this can be fixed.

00:20:08.320 And I think when people get to the bottom of it, we'll find out.

00:20:11.300 Did it happen? Did it not happen?

00:20:12.500 But there are emails that suggest it was in motion and we should get those out to the American public.

00:20:19.400 Right now, we call this an inter-squad scrimmage.

00:20:22.040 John Solomon, where do people, you're going to be back up following me today at six.

00:20:26.440 Where do people get you in the interim? All your content, sir.

00:20:29.740 Yeah, justthenews.com is the website.

00:20:31.540 Jay Solomon Reports is the handle on all social media.

00:20:34.400 And I'm lucky enough to follow you every night at 6 o'clock on this amazing

00:20:37.180 Real America's Voice Network, just the news, no noise television show.

00:20:41.600 And thank you for breaking up your day and doing these hits in the morning.

00:20:44.460 I know the audience greatly appreciates it.

00:20:46.360 And just to everybody at the White House and the other agencies are working on this.

00:20:50.480 We're all on the same team.

00:20:52.600 That's Team America trying to get to the bottom of this. 0.98

00:20:55.080 And like I said, you've got to rip the scab off of Ukraine. 0.99

00:20:57.560 let all the puss come out in all its glory we need to do that we we owe it to this republic 0.90

00:21:03.040 john solomon patriot and warrior thank you sir appreciate you

00:21:06.640 indication we got something big we're working on that that was a blown break

00:21:14.140 thank robin parker sig um i've got a short i got trita parsi here uh jim rickards is going to join

00:21:21.840 us. Actually, I think we've got Cleta, Wade Miller, Cortez. We've got a lot to get to,

00:21:28.780 but I want to play a short, before I bring in Trita, I want to blow his head up a little more,

00:21:33.360 but I want to play a clip from the great Lady Lindsey Graham last night on Fox. Let's go and

00:21:39.000 play it. He can pull this off. If he can get Saudi Arabia, the center of Islam for the entire world

00:21:45.600 to recognize the Jewish state, Israel, he will have ended the Arab-Israeli conflict 0.89

00:21:51.180 that's been going on for thousands of years, they should change the Nobel prize to the

00:21:56.000 Trump prize. If he can do that, and I think he can, it's the biggest change in the history,

00:22:02.900 in the modern history and in the ancient history of the Mideast, where the Arabs and the Jews 0.72

00:22:09.040 live together, where it becomes a center of power economically, not a powder keg. And

00:22:15.560 once you put Iran in a box and he's going to do that, we're going to have peace between 0.91

00:22:19.860 Saudi Arabia and Israel. Nobody thought that was possible. I believe it's possible. And 0.94

00:22:24.800 there's one guy can do it. Donald Trump.

00:22:28.900 I know you're in contact with, with all of the countries in the Middle East. Are you

00:22:33.040 getting any indication?

00:22:34.040 My phone's been ringing off the hook.

00:22:36.180 Sir?

00:22:37.180 My phone is ringing off the hook. My phone is ringing off the hook because he said I

00:22:41.540 should link the two. He's saying to the Arabs, look what I've done for you. He saved MBS.

00:22:48.100 the best friend Israel's ever had. Everybody in the region should rally around the idea

00:22:53.400 of adding Saudi Arabia and other countries to the Abraham Accords. It would change the 0.97

00:22:57.780 makeup of the Mideast in a way that nobody could envision just a year ago. It would change 0.98

00:23:03.420 the Mideast for the better, the biggest change in thousands of years. To our Arab allies, 1.00

00:23:09.300 you need to help President Trump. You need to embrace the fact that it is now time to

00:23:14.120 to end the Arab-Israeli conflict,

00:23:16.320 make peace with Israel, build on the Abraham Accords,

00:23:19.800 and if you say no to him, you say no at your own peril. 0.89

00:23:22.900 Look what he's done for the Arab world.

00:23:25.300 Look what he's done to your biggest enemy, Iran. 0.87

00:23:28.040 Look how he stood by you

00:23:29.300 when other people were going to abandon you.

00:23:31.540 As to our friends in Israel,

00:23:33.200 you have no better friend than Donald Trump.

00:23:35.700 Quite frankly, Donald Trump, you owe it to him.

00:23:39.880 You owe it to your people.

00:23:42.320 it to the world to do what he's asking you to do. Build on the Abraham Accords. I've 0.93

00:23:49.540 never been more optimistic than I am right now. My phone's been ringing off the hook.

00:23:53.800 President Trump, stay on this. You're right to want to expand the Abraham Accords. You

00:23:58.020 can do this.

00:24:00.920 I think we've identified a problem here. One of the basic problems, there's too many cooks 0.84

00:24:07.940 in the kitchen and there are too many people who think they're the head chef they're in the kitchen

00:24:13.080 knowing that Lindsey Graham is taking phone calls my phone's ringing off the hook

00:24:17.820 and giving his opinions to leaders in the region is a I think one of the issues of how do we

00:24:26.620 actually get there now Trita Parsi's on here Trita you said something on this show I think

00:24:30.920 four weeks ago you go hey Steve I don't think we're ever getting to a overall signed deal on

00:24:36.240 this it's not going to be like the battleship missouri in tokyo harbor in september of 45

00:24:40.400 there's not going to be a surrender document you'd think there you at the time said i don't

00:24:44.900 think there's going to be an overall document at all this thing will probably be piecemeal

00:24:49.020 it appears that i think you made closer to right than people think hey you get a pre-deal and then

00:24:55.680 in 60 days you're going to get an overall deal because it's going to take it's taken us 60 days

00:25:00.040 to get here and then you have the lindsey grahams of the world that are my phone's ringing off the 0.96

00:25:05.140 hook, that means Lindsey's inserted himself into the middle of this negotiation. Trita, 0.94

00:25:10.700 make this make sense to us. Where do we stand on all this?

00:25:15.940 Good to be with you, Steve. Let me just first say, you know, I'm sure Lindsey Graham's phone

00:25:20.400 is ringing quite a lot, but he has a tendency of overstating his own importance. So I'm not

00:25:26.300 necessarily sure that he is as involved as he wants to be or as he wants people to think that he is. 0.84

00:25:31.680 bringing in the Abram Accord into this is a poison pill. It's a way of sabotaging the deal. It is not

00:25:38.560 a way of actually assuring the deal. Now, if the administration wants to make sure that after this

00:25:44.320 deal, there is further effort to be able to add additional agreements and expand on things and

00:25:51.020 potentially get a lot of different countries to be able to normalize relations in various ways,

00:25:56.220 not necessarily the Abram Accord, but nevertheless, that's a different story. That's a great idea.

00:26:00.440 go for it. Although I personally believe that one of the things the United States should do

00:26:05.080 once it gets this deal, and hopefully it does, is to encourage the region to take responsibility

00:26:11.260 for their own security and shoulder it themselves rather than, depending on the United States,

00:26:17.020 driving the diplomacy or anything of that kind. This is the region that is fully capable of taking

00:26:22.160 care of that and allowing US soldiers to come home and not having to worry anymore about what's going

00:26:26.860 on in the Middle East. But nevertheless, if you want to do it, you do it afterwards. You do not

00:26:31.560 inject this into this mix at this very, very sensitive stage of the negotiations, knowing

00:26:38.180 very well that there is almost no support in Saudi Arabia and in many other countries right

00:26:44.500 now to normalize with Israel, mindful of what Israel is doing in Lebanon, in Gaza, and the

00:26:48.920 West Bank. This is a way of sabotaging the negotiations. Now, I understand that Trump

00:26:53.440 throws this out there and says, hey, it would be great to do this. And I think he does it for a

00:26:59.280 variety of reasons. He wants to show that he is sensitive to Israeli interests. He wants to remind

00:27:05.260 the pro-Israel crowd in Washington who will come out swinging against his deal if he manages to

00:27:10.920 get it, that he has done more for Israel than anyone else, that he is the one who moved the

00:27:15.760 embassy, recognized the Golan, all of these different things. I think he wants to remind

00:27:19.920 that audience that he's done so much for them. So if they declare war on him over this deal,

00:27:25.000 he will be able to show his provisional credentials or push that into their faces.

00:27:31.080 But if you actually make this a condition for the Iran deal, that is a very, very clever way

00:27:39.920 of sabotaging these negotiations at the last second. Trita, can you hang on? I'm going to go

00:27:45.960 through a break. I want to keep you, and then Jim Rickards is going to join us and others.

00:27:53.380 Trita, in the mindset, I'm not saying this is reality. I'm saying it's the reality of how they

00:27:59.680 think. Do the Persians right now, particularly with this new high command they have on both 1.00

00:28:06.080 the Ayatollah, the Mullahs, and the reconstituted military structure, do they believe in their

00:28:14.540 mind that they have lost this war? No. They are very confident. They believe that they have

00:28:21.980 inflicted a strategic defeat on the United States. Two nuclear weapons states attacked it, one of

00:28:29.200 them a superpower, and vied for a ceasefire after 39 days. Almost none of the original objectives

00:28:37.120 have been achieved. And instead now we're talking about reopening the straits, something that was

00:28:42.640 opened before the war had started. Having said that, I want to be very clear about this. Just

00:28:50.060 because they believe that they have come out of this war, perhaps stronger or either way not as

00:28:55.440 a loser, does not mean that they do not need a deal. They absolutely need a deal. Their economy

00:29:02.640 is predicted to shrink, not just slow the growth, shrink 10% this year as a result of this war.

00:29:10.820 Their economy was already in shatters before this war.

00:29:14.600 So they are in dire need of a deal that entails sanctions relief.

00:29:18.880 And they need it not just because of economic reasons, they need it for security.

00:29:22.540 They're not going to be able to secure themselves if their economy is going down the drain.

00:29:26.420 And I believe that Trump absolutely needs a deal as well.

00:29:29.740 I think it was a mistake to go into this war, but he can turn it around and turn it into something,

00:29:34.860 perhaps not the type of a win that some people would love,

00:29:38.200 but something that nevertheless moves things forward in a very good way.

00:29:42.420 Hang on one second, Frida.

00:29:43.800 We're just going to keep you through the break.

00:29:46.560 I know you're pressed for time, but a couple other issues I've got to get on the table.

00:29:50.140 Trida Parsi joins us.

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00:31:25.220 War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.

00:31:28.460 trita parsi's with us trita you said you see there's a deal there

00:31:34.960 and the president trump's the guy that could deliver it and they realize

00:31:38.720 behind the bravado is that they need a deal i just want to make sure i got one point right in

00:31:44.780 my own head scott besant had an economic order plan that the president authorized he was doing

00:31:50.460 to destroy their currency do everything this is what drove these people to the streets back in

00:31:55.460 January. Then we added the naval blockade after the kinetic part. Is there anything in the kinetic

00:32:02.480 part that's led to this issue? Because you said, hey, it's the 10% collapse of their economy that

00:32:08.240 has their attention. They understand they can't go on like this. Was it the economic warfare and

00:32:14.480 the blockade that did that? Or is there any part of the kinetic part going after their military

00:32:19.440 apparatus that led to that? Sir? Steve, I think it's actually a bit different because the way

00:32:25.540 you're presenting it makes it sound as if they were unwilling to make a deal and then the kinetic

00:32:31.420 economic sanctions and the blockade convinced them that they had to. That's not really how

00:32:37.040 things went down. They were at the table before this war. They were making major concessions in

00:32:42.800 the negotiations that were taking place in January and February. They were the ones who were putting

00:32:47.200 out op-eds in Washington Post, actually. I think the foreign minister put an op-ed. They're saying

00:32:53.060 that there's a trillion-dollar opportunity for American businesses if there is a deal and there

00:32:58.040 is sanctions relief. So they were already there. They were already understanding they need to make

00:33:02.560 a deal. They need to get the sanctions relief. Has the situation become worse economically for them

00:33:08.220 as a result of the war, as a result of the currency manipulation or attacks on it, as well

00:33:14.940 as the blockade, undoubtedly, it has become worse. There's no doubt about that. But it has also become

00:33:20.540 much worse for the United States. Devonians have escalation dominance right now at the table. I'm 1.00

00:33:26.180 not so sure the dynamics are improving for the US side compared to where it was in February or before

00:33:33.380 February 28th. Because we have one thing that has dramatically changed here, which is that for the

00:33:39.260 last 25 years, the neocons have constantly been debating and urging the United States to go

00:33:44.880 bombed Iran and that a military campaign against Iran would be a huge game changer and it would

00:33:51.620 force the Iranians to agree to all kinds of different things, including a surrender. 0.73

00:33:55.520 We have now tried that. We had one third of the U.S.'s navy there. This was a real military

00:34:01.280 effort and it did not succeed. It did not bring them to their knees. It did not cause them to

00:34:07.120 surrender, which means that the threat of using military force is no longer as potent as it was

00:34:12.560 before, because before, it did catch the Iranian's attention. I'm not saying that it's not catching 0.99

00:34:17.100 their attention now. But now we have a track record of recognizing it is much, much more

00:34:21.920 difficult than what the neocons said that it would be. And it's not something that I hope any future

00:34:26.500 administration tries, because I don't think it ended up becoming helpful to U.S. interests.

00:34:31.500 But nevertheless, they understand they need a deal because their economy is really tanking. And it

00:34:37.640 was tanking even before this war. And so they're at the table and they have been at the table.

00:34:43.140 It's just a shame that the Israelis have bombed them twice while they were at the table and have 0.54

00:34:47.520 assassinated their key negotiators precisely because the Israelis don't want Trump to strike 0.50

00:34:52.180 a deal. What do you see as the outlines of something that the president that's actually

00:34:57.420 achievable for the president and his negotiating team right now? I think what Solomon was saying

00:35:04.800 early on is pretty close, I would say. First of all, he wants to make sure that he can say that

00:35:10.080 there is no nuclear weapon in Iran, that they're not going to build a nuclear weapon, and there's

00:35:14.300 definitely pathways to that. And on some of the nuclear variables, he is going to get more than

00:35:20.020 what Obama got. For instance, the Iranians appear to be close to agreeing to not enrich uranium for

00:35:26.260 five, 10, perhaps 12 years. They did not agree to even three days of no enrichment during the JCPOA.

00:35:33.660 The shipping out of the stockpile is going to be a tricky issue, but I think that there

00:35:39.160 can be a compromise that will work.

00:35:40.660 But beyond that, the Iranians, at least in February, were offering to not have a stockpile

00:35:45.920 at all, meaning it's not just that they ship out what they have.

00:35:48.280 They will not amass more enriched uranium at all, whereas in the JCPOA, they would be

00:35:56.160 able to have up to 300 kilos of enriched uranium on their soil at any moment.

00:36:01.000 So on several variables, Trump is going to get a better deal compared to what Obama did, if we, of course, get past the finishing line.

00:36:08.460 I think on the strait, there's going to be some sort of arrangement.

00:36:11.620 I think from the U.S. perspective, if there is a regionalized mechanism, so it's not just Iranians and not just Iranians and the Omanis, but several different states that are involved in the management of the strait, that is going to be an acceptable solution.

00:36:25.640 I think there's a pathway to that one as well.

00:36:28.020 Now, Trump, I think, is going to put a lot of sanctions relief on the table.

00:36:31.920 And I think that's the right thing to do because one of the ways that he will be able to sell

00:36:36.980 this to the American people is to point out that this sanctions relief is going to make

00:36:42.060 sure that the Iranian market opens up for American companies.

00:36:45.380 That will be the largest market that has opened up since the fall of the Soviet Union.

00:36:49.520 It will have tremendous benefits for middle America, for the manufacturing industries

00:36:55.580 in the United States.

00:36:56.640 And that is another way in which he can say this is a better deal than the JCPOA, because the JCPOA did not allow any American companies to trade with Iran.

00:37:05.820 And that gets into the thing of the $12 billion downstroke, all that.

00:37:09.960 I'll get into that with Rickards.

00:37:11.440 But what you just said there, sanctions relief.

00:37:15.960 The Lindsey Graham and the Mark Levin crowd, obviously I don't agree with them, but just to present their case,

00:37:22.500 they're going to say if you do that you're essentially funding the regime yes you killed

00:37:27.820 some of the senior guys you took out the ayatollah uh you took out a bunch of the mullahs you took

00:37:32.640 out much of the high command of the revolutionary guard in the in the regular military but you've

00:37:38.800 essentially left the regime it's still a theocratic regime that's prepared to put immense pressure on

00:37:44.400 its people you haven't really done regime change if you lift sanctions you're just underwriting

00:37:49.640 this regime and this pestilence that is a modern Persian authority, government, is in place.

00:37:59.500 How do you answer that, sir? 1.00

00:38:04.280 So, first of all, we have to ask ourselves, what's the point of these sanctions?

00:38:08.340 From the standpoint of someone like Mark Levine and Lindsey Graham, sanctions were never supposed

00:38:13.700 to be used as a leverage in order for the U.S. to get what it wants in return for something,

00:38:18.860 in returns for sanctions relief. Rather, it was supposed to be permanent punishment of a country.

00:38:24.800 That's part of the reason why the U.S. Congress almost never lifts sanctions. We just impose them

00:38:28.920 and then they're there forever. And it destroys economies. It doesn't bring down regimes. We

00:38:33.320 have very few cases in which we can say that an entire government collapsed and transitioned

00:38:38.460 towards democracy as a result of sanctions. The only example we have in the world is actually

00:38:43.520 South Africa under apartheid and was very, very different circumstances. So the question then is,

00:38:50.500 if you're not going to use it for leverage to actually get things such as major concessions

00:38:56.760 from the Iranians on the nuclear issue, it kind of means you're not looking for a deal. And if

00:39:02.360 you're not looking for a deal, what are you looking for? Well, you're looking for war and

00:39:06.340 you're looking for a regime change, which is exactly what the neocons oftentimes were honest

00:39:11.000 enough to say that that we're looking for. And we have to ask ourselves, is that what the American

00:39:14.920 people want? Do they want more war? And do they want more regime change operations? Trump partially

00:39:20.040 won the elections because he said no to those things. Yeah. No, I think that's the rock and

00:39:25.140 the hard place right now. I think, and I, to their credit, I don't think Levin and Lindsey Graham

00:39:30.800 and that group, they're pretty upfront. They want regime change and you're not here. And if you do

00:39:36.240 it now. If you cut this interim deal now, you're just funding guys. They're the worst guys on earth.

00:39:41.340 Trita, where do people go on social media and your website to keep up with all your thinking on this?

00:39:48.000 Thank you. They should go, first of all, to my sub stack, which is at Trita Parsi,

00:39:53.020 and then to my Twitter is at T Parsi. And of course, to the Quincy website, which is

00:39:58.740 quincyinst.org. Thank you, Trita. Thank you for spending time with us.

00:40:04.360 Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it. Thank you.

00:40:06.720 Thank you, sir. Jim Rickards, make it all make sense. You've been at this. This is your line

00:40:12.960 of country. You've been doing this for when most of us were in short pants. What's your assessment

00:40:20.220 of all this? Yeah, a couple of things, Steve, going back to the earlier guests and the opening

00:40:26.180 of the show. When I see people like Richard Haas and Tom Freeman and some of the other people who

00:40:32.180 were on these news clips the first question i asked myself is when were you right about when

00:40:36.820 was the last time you were right about anything and i usually can't go back that far like maybe

00:40:42.180 the 90s i don't know bosnia the reason we do it why are they they're on the show why is the

00:40:47.960 conventional wisdom why is the conventional apparatus never get rid of people that are

00:40:52.160 that are wrong on everything and they continue to put them up and and and they're kind of the

00:40:57.140 conventional thought in town why is that why is there no penalty for being dead wrong

00:41:02.240 I have no idea.

00:41:03.440 I have a lot of sources, and the way I evaluate my sources, like, hey, I got the information.

00:41:08.180 Let it play out.

00:41:08.840 If you're right, okay, you got a plus, and I'll listen to you more.

00:41:11.540 And if you're wrong, okay, eventually I'll disregard you.

00:41:13.660 But these people, they were wrong about China.

00:41:16.040 They were wrong about Ukraine.

00:41:17.960 They're wrong about Iran.

00:41:19.320 Go back even further than that.

00:41:20.700 I'm like, okay, you got a seat.

00:41:23.700 Knock yourself out.

00:41:25.040 But I don't pay any attention to it.

00:41:26.580 Now, with John Solomon, that's completely different.

00:41:29.160 John Solomon is probably the best reporter, best investigative reporter out there.

00:41:34.180 His sourcing is excellent.

00:41:35.700 His reporting is completely accurate.

00:41:38.140 I listened closely to what John Solomon said, so he got it right.

00:41:41.400 But my question is, so what?

00:41:43.400 And when I say that, I don't mean any disrespect.

00:41:45.640 What I mean is John Solomon has excellent sources in the White House, in the Pentagon.

00:41:49.840 His reporting sounds completely accurate to me when he says, you know, Trump's red lines 0.63

00:41:54.500 are, you know, open the strait, give up the uranium.

00:41:57.460 You can't have a bomb. 0.98

00:41:59.020 Iran has nothing to beat us, et cetera, can cause mischief. 1.00

00:42:03.340 That's all accurate. 1.00

00:42:04.900 But when I say, so what?

00:42:06.060 This is asymmetric warfare, and this is economic warfare. 0.73

00:42:09.680 Iran's not out to defeat the United States.

00:42:11.580 They're not going to invade the beaches of New Jersey.

00:42:15.280 And so when you talk about the art of the deal, OK, what is the art of the deal?

00:42:19.800 Well, basically, you figure out what your leverage is.

00:42:21.960 You go in.

00:42:22.700 You make outrageous demands.

00:42:24.080 You hold the leverage over the guy who said.

00:42:25.720 You scale back your demands, but you still get way more than you want it, and then you do the deal.

00:42:29.740 That's the art of the deal.

00:42:30.860 Who has the leverage?

00:42:32.280 Iran, not Trump.

00:42:34.240 We can start bombing again.

00:42:35.820 We could do that tomorrow, but it hasn't worked, and it's not going to work.

00:42:39.080 None of our goals have been achieved.

00:42:40.300 We don't have regime change.

00:42:42.420 They still have the uranium.

00:42:44.320 Well, hang on.

00:42:44.880 Hang on.

00:42:45.300 Hold it.

00:42:45.720 Hang on.

00:42:46.160 Hang on.

00:42:46.420 Hold it.

00:42:46.880 Hold it.

00:42:47.040 Hold it.

00:42:47.300 Hold it.

00:42:47.520 Hold it.

00:42:47.660 Hold it.

00:42:47.860 Hold it.

00:42:48.280 Hold it.

00:42:48.460 Hold it.

00:42:48.520 Hold it.

00:42:48.580 Hold it.

00:42:48.660 Hold it.

00:42:48.680 Hold it.

00:42:49.060 Hold it.

00:42:49.160 Hold it.

00:42:49.660 Hold it.

00:42:50.160 Hold it.

00:42:50.660 Hold it.

00:42:55.720 One of the red lines was not regime change.

00:42:58.940 America's greatest ally and Lindsey Graham and Mark Levin and these guys, and look, to their credit, they're up front.

00:43:05.220 They're not hiding this.

00:43:06.820 They're saying, no, you have to have regime change.

00:43:08.940 If you don't have regime change, number one, this wasn't worth it.

00:43:12.360 But more importantly, in their thinking, until you get rid of the apparatus that controls Persia, right, this theocracy, you're just kicking the can down the road. 0.83

00:43:23.900 Who is right? 0.93

00:43:24.680 Are they are they right? Because I've been anti regime change, you know, because I knew that this would take an extended, long, bloody conflict.

00:43:32.800 Are they right? Because we're kind of now at the nub of it. President Trump's red lines does not include regime change.

00:43:38.700 I think this whole thing with the Abraham Accords is their treat is right about that. 0.65

00:43:43.480 That's a throw some sand in the gear. So there is no deal right now. 0.96

00:43:46.500 but if there's no if regime change is not on the table is one our ally america's greatest ally

00:43:54.300 israel but more importantly their their relationships here in the in the country

00:43:59.120 in the senate particularly are they going to allow us to get president trump to get to an

00:44:03.520 interim deal now sir well we'll find out we'll see what kind of deal it is but going to lindsey

00:44:09.400 graham's point you know abraham accords saudi arabia u.s they owe us all this stuff he left

00:44:14.000 out one thing. It's one word he didn't mention, which is Palestinians. You're not going to

00:44:19.280 crack this nut until you have some solution to the Palestinian problem. So I don't give Graham 1.00

00:44:24.100 any credibility on that fashion of the Abrahamic courts, because he completely ignored the biggest

00:44:28.700 single issue, which is not the war in Iran. It is the Palestinian situation. So I think we can

00:44:34.460 disregard that. Again, getting back to John Solomon, again, he's a guy you can totally rely

00:44:40.240 on. But the Americans are very... Hang on one second. Hang on one second, because I'm running. 0.84

00:44:44.640 I got to go to commercial break. I'm going to give you plenty of runway. I think the Palestinians

00:44:49.220 understood something. That's why they and their terrorist buddies had October 7th. I think they 1.00

00:44:55.200 looked at the future and they were going to get dealt out. And you were going to have Abraham

00:44:59.100 Accords. You already had UAE, which is the central military power in the Gulf Emirates.

00:45:04.320 They inserted themselves back into the equation. That's just a hard fact. That's why you've got

00:45:10.140 At the beginning, this proto-two-state solution happening with Qatar and the Turks in Gaza right now.

00:45:17.220 Jim Rickards on the other side. 0.84

00:45:20.720 We rejoice when there's no more.

00:45:22.140 Let's take down the CCP.

00:45:24.820 War Room.

00:45:25.760 Here's your host, Stephen K. Band.

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00:46:23.140 Rickridge, you heard Solomon.

00:46:24.560 You heard Trita.

00:46:25.960 You got your own thoughts.

00:46:27.120 We got a couple of minutes.

00:46:28.000 Walk us through.

00:46:29.300 Is President Trump, who's the ultimate dealmaker,

00:46:31.680 is he going to get to some interim agreement here, sir?

00:46:35.600 Not anything of substance,

00:46:37.300 and I don't see that happen anytime soon.

00:46:39.580 Taking a treatise commentary,

00:46:41.400 sounded exactly right.

00:46:42.500 You said the economy is going to shrink 10%,

00:46:44.500 currencies in the trash can and all.

00:46:48.320 That all sounded right.

00:46:49.940 But go back to what I've said for three months, Steve,

00:46:52.520 and a number of interviews on your show on The War Room.

00:46:56.640 This is a game of chicken.

00:46:58.100 It's the best way to understand it.

00:47:00.020 And is Iran under stress?

00:47:02.180 Are they suffering economically?

00:47:03.260 Yes.

00:47:04.140 But you're just weeks away

00:47:05.760 from turning out the lights in South Korea.

00:47:07.880 In other words, who's going to blink first?

00:47:10.120 That's really the only question.

00:47:11.440 Who's going to blink first?

00:47:12.600 Iran is under stress.

00:47:13.900 The global economy is under more stress.

00:47:16.660 Now, Trump, and I've got to give Besson some credit,

00:47:19.400 they've been talking this up.

00:47:20.840 You know, see Marco Rubio out the other day,

00:47:22.980 I think it was in India.

00:47:23.900 He took his jacket off.

00:47:25.020 It looked like a Brooks Brothers product placement.

00:47:27.360 But they're all saying, you know, we're really close.

00:47:30.100 Everything's going well.

00:47:31.140 The Americans are really good at talking to themselves. 1.00

00:47:33.760 They're not so good at talking to the Iranians. 1.00

00:47:35.220 if you're the Iranians, why should they give Trump anything? Are they under stress? Yes. 1.00

00:47:40.300 But will they crack before the global economy? No. And that gives them the leverage. Plus,

00:47:45.420 it's because of the Straits of Hormuz, obviously. So Trump has the same three choices he's always

00:47:51.440 had or since the start of the war. Surrender. Trump will call it a victory, but it's surrender.

00:47:57.940 Stalemate, which is we just keep going the way we are. Well, the global economy is going to come

00:48:01.500 to a halt or large portions of it. 0.68

00:48:04.600 And the third is escalation, which I've always analogized to Vietnam. 0.87

00:48:07.980 I don't see any change in that. 0.92

00:48:09.480 I think those are the same three choices.

00:48:11.480 Now, just to go back a little bit to the JCPOA, I gave, I was in touch with the Treasury

00:48:16.500 at the time, I gave the Treasury a lot of credit because from 2011 to 2015, when we

00:48:21.500 got the JCPOA, Obama wage a very effective economic warfare, to your point.

00:48:25.880 Can you do it with economic warfare without dropping bombs?

00:48:28.440 The answer is yes.

00:48:29.400 And they got there.

00:48:30.180 But then they did the JCPOA.

00:48:32.240 People don't understand the JCPOA memo, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, it was never

00:48:36.500 signed.

00:48:36.920 It was a handshake deal.

00:48:38.440 Both sides had a piece of paper, but it was never signed, certainly nowhere near a treaty

00:48:42.620 or UN Security Council resolution, number one.

00:48:45.720 Number two, we had the English version, and the Iranians had the Farsi version.

00:48:49.600 That's their language.

00:48:50.900 I talked to expert translators who translated from Farsi to English.

00:48:54.520 They said they're not the same.

00:48:56.000 So I don't know what that was.

00:48:58.280 And it was a bad deal.

00:48:59.120 I'm glad Trump tore it up.

00:49:00.840 But that was what Obama proved is that economic sanctions do work.

00:49:05.820 They have to be good.

00:49:06.840 They have to be persistent.

00:49:07.780 They have to be comprehensive.

00:49:08.800 And you need allies and give it enough time.

00:49:11.080 It works a lot better than bombing them.

00:49:12.620 That's not going to do anything.

00:49:14.280 There's been no regime change.

00:49:15.460 So I would say the short answer is it's a game of chicken.

00:49:19.060 The only question is who blinks first.

00:49:21.380 My assessment is that the U.S. blinks first because there's more at stake.

00:49:27.280 Jim Rickert's last thing.

00:49:29.120 Do you think, because you kind of had a radical view of this, do you think we're going to

00:49:33.400 get a rate cut, a hold, or a rate increase in June from the new chairman of the Federal

00:49:37.540 Reserve, sir?

00:49:39.420 Either a hold or an increase.

00:49:41.660 Now, you know, my advice is cut rates, they're way behind the curve in terms of cutting rates.

00:49:47.240 The only reason the US GDP, it is what it is, you know, it's kind of over 2%, not bad,

00:49:52.820 but the vast majority of that is infrastructure spending on AI chips and data centers.

00:49:59.060 It remains to be seen.

00:49:59.980 None of that has made any money, by the way.

00:50:02.120 And a lot of it's being done with debt, not equity.

00:50:05.220 It remains to be seen how much it's going to produce.

00:50:07.420 But you're right.

00:50:07.680 No, I keep saying it.

00:50:09.700 It's all in the papers again today.

00:50:11.620 We have the economic plan of the United States right now is very simply a highly leveraged bet on AI productivity.

00:50:19.820 And that includes mass job layoffs.

00:50:22.560 So I don't know if that's a wise bet.

00:50:24.880 And I think you're seeing now there's a lot of questioning of that.

00:50:27.140 we're going to get into the details over the weekend about that, about artificial intelligence.

00:50:31.400 Is it even coming close to paying off economics? Right now we have a highly leveraged bet as a

00:50:36.320 country, both government wise and in the private sector, highly leveraged bet with some very

00:50:41.980 unsavory characters making those bets in the private side that will have ramifications to

00:50:48.380 this nation for decades to come. Jim, one more time, RickardsWarRoom.com. You get to go your

00:50:55.760 landing page. Tell about, give us the, give us a minute on why people should be reading strategic

00:51:01.480 intelligence. Yeah, thanks. Rickardswarroom.com is our landing page. You can go there. You can

00:51:07.600 subscribe to our flagship newsletter, Strategic Intelligence. What we offer is, as I said, we

00:51:13.340 don't tell you what happened. We tell you what's going to happen. Our predictive analytics are

00:51:17.320 second to none. Our track record backs that up. There's never been a time when it was more

00:51:21.960 important to look forward with not wishful thinking, but very disciplined models and

00:51:27.680 analysis. We use everything from behavioral psychology to history to Bayes' theorem,

00:51:31.960 but it works, and our track record speaks for it. So I hope people have a look and get the

00:51:36.960 newsletter. Jim, before we close, I really want to thank you for coming on Memorial Day special.

00:51:43.080 The feedback I got about you talking about your father and these young Marines, 17, 18, 19 years

00:51:48.500 old, the young Marines of Peleliu and Terawa was unbelievable.

00:51:52.840 So I just want to thank you.

00:51:54.060 And obviously, your father is not simply a hero to you and your family, but he's a hero

00:51:58.520 to all of us.

00:51:59.160 So thank you so much for joining our Memorial Day coverage.

00:52:01.740 It was fantastic.

00:52:03.380 Thank you.

00:52:05.600 Jim Rickards, pretty extraordinary guy.

00:52:11.820 I think it's one of the reasons I love doing the show so much is the people we get on here

00:52:15.020 and the topics we talk about.

00:52:16.200 We're not going to chase the trends and what's hot in today's news.

00:52:19.960 We're going to take a short commercial break.

00:52:21.660 We're going to come back with a clip of John Tudor Jones, one of the most important guys on Wall Street, biggest hedge fund manager.

00:52:29.680 I think the underwriter also of the University of Virginia.

00:52:33.300 Kane over there at Citizen Kane over there at CFP.

00:52:36.600 By the way, he's been on fire.

00:52:38.060 Make sure you go to CFP, Citizens Free Press.

00:52:43.040 he's been all over this deal putting up headlines linking you to the most 0.80

00:52:47.120 important stories when we give a hat tip to a Wahoo it's hard for very hard for

00:52:54.080 me to do birch gold also Philip Patrick make sure you go get all the information

00:53:00.260 there is no commitment it's totally free make sure you load up on it see what

00:53:06.580 you see do it for yourself you should not buy gold because of anybody's

00:53:10.760 recommendation you should purchase gold if you think it's the right thing to do for you

00:53:15.900 that puts the onus on you to roll your sleeves up get some dirt under your fingernails do it

00:53:21.100 today birchgold.com slash bannon did i do that

Bannon's War Room - May 29, 2026

Episode 5407： Flip Flop In Iran Discussions

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