He was brilliant, ambitious, controversial, and one of the most influential secretaries of state in American history. Henry Kissinger was a man of great accomplishment and controversy. Born in Germany in 1923, Kissinger s Jewish family fled to America as Hitler rose to power. He became a U.S. citizen, served in World War II, and earned a PhD at Harvard where he became a professor. He caught the eye of Richard Nixon, who made him national security advisor, then secretary of state, the only person ever to hold both jobs simultaneously.
00:00:00.000this is what you're fighting for I mean every day you're out there what they're doing is blowing
00:00:17.380people off if you continue to look the other way and shut up then the oppressors the
00:00:24.360authoritarians get total control and total power because this is just like in Arizona this is just
00:00:30.280like in Georgia it's another element that backs them into a quarter and shows their lies and
00:00:35.020misrepresentations is why this audience is going to have to get engaged as we've told you this is
00:00:39.300the fight all this nonsense all this spin they can't handle the truth war room battleground
00:00:45.620here's your host Stephen K Bannon he was brilliant ambitious controversial and one
00:00:54.220of the most influential secretaries of state in American history I think we've made further
00:00:59.740progress Henry Kissinger served Richard Nixon Gerald Ford and was consulted by presidents of both parties
00:01:07.100on international issues throughout his life Henry Kissinger has been a friend of mine Nixon made
00:01:13.880him a national figure and together they reimagine U.S. foreign policy detente with the Soviet Union
00:01:20.460relations with China shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East Kissinger helped shape Nixon's policy in Vietnam
00:01:28.320and negotiated an end to the war famously declaring success prematurely just days before the 1972 election
00:01:37.800we believe that peace is at hand he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize nothing that has happened to me in
00:01:48.580public life has moved me more than this award though his co-recipient North Vietnam's Le Duc Toh declined the honor
00:02:00.660four years later President Ford awarded him the Medal of Freedom he was a master of pragmatic big picture
00:02:09.140diplomacy but he had his critics who described him as manipulative and insecure some called him a war criminal for his role in
00:02:17.780bombing Cambodia and widening the war in Vietnam born in Germany in 1923 Kissinger's Jewish family fled to America as Hitler rose to power
00:02:30.740he became a U.S. citizen served in World War II and earned a PhD at Harvard where he became a professor
00:02:38.580he caught the eye of Richard Nixon who made him national security advisor then secretary of state the only person ever to hold both jobs simultaneously there is no country in the world where it is conceivable that a man of my origins could be standing here next to the president of the United States
00:03:00.580but their relationship was complicated and White House tapes reveal that Kissinger sometimes enabled the worst in Nixon it was a very curious relationship because we were not personally very close the night before he resigned
00:03:18.580in disgrace Nixon asked Kissinger to kneel and pray with him and of course it was a crushing event but I think of that evening as an experience with dignity and it was very moving
00:03:35.540Kissinger was no faceless bureaucrat he was a world-renowned celebrity
00:03:40.580I loved your foreign accent and he loved the spotlight he was even something of a pop culture icon after leaving government he opened his own consulting firm remaining active and sought after for decades at 95 eulogizing John McCain's life Kissinger sounded a wistful note about his own
00:04:03.580like most people of my age I feel a longing for what is lost and cannot be restored Henry Kissinger was a man of great accomplishment and controversy but as he once told NBC's Barbara Walters he had no regrets
00:04:29.580if I had to do it over again I would do again substantially the same way which may make me unreconstructed
00:04:37.600maybe one reason why I'm at peace with myself Lester Holt NBC News New York
00:04:43.800Thursday 30 November year of alert 2023 welcome for the second hour of our late afternoon early evening coverage here in the war room
00:04:54.320um complicated this one because of um the Phyllis Schlafly's of the world and her book Kissinger on the couch I think is uh is one of actually the most important uh text out there
00:05:08.940Dr. Kissinger uh and he tried to weasel his way in through certain members of the uh of the Trump entourage in 2016 after we won
00:05:20.120of which uh we would have none of it uh we would have none of it and really wouldn't have a way to make sure that he didn't um didn't get into the uh
00:05:27.140into the administration or really have much influence as he tried uh just like he tried with Ronald Reagan and was shut off
00:05:33.680also uh the most important damage he did and lasting damage he definitely did was not simply in Southeast Asia
00:05:41.620uh in the killing fields uh the I don't know 20 or 30 million uh folks in Southeast Asia slaughtered
00:05:48.640after his kind of abrupt um surrender in the um in talking Nixon to the surrender in um
00:05:55.620in uh South Vietnam uh with uh when he was Jerry Ford's I think National Security Advisor and Secretary of State
00:06:02.560I want to bring in Brad there you wrote a pretty smart obituary
00:06:06.300when the Chinese Communist Party makes a big deal and comes out with official statement it calls him
00:06:13.280an old and valued friend what does that term mean for people in the audience out there in our
00:06:18.600particularly in our vast international audience we have a lot of folks in Australia and in the
00:06:23.860lateral nations around the South China Sea when when the CCP refers to someone as an old and valued friend
00:06:30.580uh what does that mean sir well Steve it means that um he was valuable to the Chinese Communist Party he
00:06:38.240was a useful idiot to use uh Lenin's term uh regarding an individual who is going to uh serve the interests
00:06:45.920of the Chinese Communist Party uh which is why um their mourning has lost so uh from our perspective of
00:06:53.920course uh Kissinger's death to the extent any death can have a silver lining is is positive and it's
00:07:00.360positive in the following respect he touted himself as a great strategist and indeed he was a great
00:07:06.820strategist for the People's Republic of China he wasn't a great strategist for the United States
00:07:12.380or for America's interests which is very important to keep in mind what you've been talking about Steve
00:07:19.420for years the growth of the Chinese Communist Party its influence in international politics
00:07:25.140is due to the extent it is to any one individual it's due to Henry Kissinger if there's a father of the
00:07:32.680growth of the Chinese Communist Party it's Henry Kissinger and what he allowed he allowed investment
00:07:39.720trade all of those elements that he that facilitated that were the rocket fuel for the People's Republic of
00:07:46.640China Henry Kissinger's uh opened the the floodgates uh for through Kissinger Associates
00:07:53.960his law firm's ties obviously to Wall Street financiers uh K Street uh and Washington lawyers as well as on the hill
00:08:02.540this guy is responsible for what Cleo Pascal talked about this morning uh the Chinese showing up with
00:08:11.220mountains with uh with uh tons of cash right well where did they get that cash they got that cash
00:08:17.820really from the policies that Henry Kissinger allowed uh and facilitated through Kissinger
00:08:24.420uh associates so he was indeed an old friend of China the Chinese Communist Party he was their best
00:08:30.440friend but from our perspective he had the Midas touch in reverse right this guy was a was a disaster
00:08:37.660he's responsible for the engagement school right for allowing that to capture if you will the strategic
00:08:45.520mindset the economic mindset of the American national security but but but whoa but but whoa but whoa but
00:08:52.000whoa whoa it's deeper than that though let's go back in time they this uh obsession with the Peloponnesian
00:08:58.840war and with the this theory of Athens and Sparta uh in this concept of the Thucydides trap
00:09:06.580which is a declining power and a rising power uh Graham Allison and Henry Kissinger ran the exact
00:09:14.400same scam the exact same scam in the early 70s in his original rise to power where he was the advocate
00:09:22.620in in all the inner circles of government of saying that the Soviet Union in their system is a better
00:09:29.300system and remember this was all the phony numbers were coming out about the Soviet economy
00:09:34.940and he and Graham Allison and Graham Allison remember was the great nuclear strategist like
00:09:41.500Herman Kahn and Graham Allison were were about decision theory and you know he was at Harvard all this
00:09:47.160decision theory they came up with the concept that we were the declining power and they were the rising
00:09:52.340power and we had to reach some sort of rapprochement and that led to detente and that led to all the
00:09:57.680the reason I know this as a young naval officer I took the courses from the naval war college
00:10:04.040and we start with the Peloponnesian war and I said look I love history I love reading the
00:10:08.760Thucydides I love reading about the Peloponnesian war but why in the hell is a naval officer
00:10:13.040in the Pacific fleet in the mid 1970s why are we doing that and that was informed that oh no this is
00:10:21.020the this is actually the intellectual construct of how the senior members of our government think
00:10:26.580about this that we're declining power and they're a rising power and I said that's kind of odd because
00:10:31.040I look around as a young naval officer going throughout Asia I kind of see the United States
00:10:35.400as being a pretty good not just power but we're still on the rise Reagan came in and rejected that
00:10:42.120that's why he was not in the Reagan administration Reagan said I want anybody but Kissinger and they
00:10:46.640try to force him on he said no no no this is why he picked Richard V Allen and he told Richard V Allen
00:10:51.200and Richard V Allen's kind of going through and getting caught up in this geostrategic mumbo jumbo
00:10:55.840he goes hey Dick how about this we win they lose they're the evil empire now that took it away for
00:11:02.30020 or 30 years they took the exact same construct in the exact same two guys because they weren't in
00:11:08.300the they weren't really in the in the flow anymore because America first had kind of dialed them out
00:11:14.240and and and they and they knew this day was coming of populist nationalism he took his client and once
00:11:20.680again ran this whole facilities trap with Graham Allison that once again we're the declining power
00:11:26.160and now it's China the CCP's rising power and we have to do all types of engagement and all types of
00:11:32.740uh coupling and all types of risk management am I wrong in that overall context that he ran this scam
00:11:39.280for basically 50 60 years that America was always in decline and that these autocratic empires on the
00:11:46.240Eurasian landmass were ascended now that's exactly right that he was the strongest advocate of detente
00:11:54.820with the Soviet Union in essence trying to appease the Soviet Union he was a vociferous critic of Ronald
00:12:02.080Reagan and Steve that's exactly right that Reagan wanted to win the Cold War something Kissinger thought
00:12:08.840impossible and Reagan showed of course that it could be done and it was uh done so this individual who's
00:12:16.680um again being by the way hang on for a second hang on for a second he called Ronald Reagan he called
00:12:23.160Ronald Reagan in the seven Reagan was coming out of being governor of California was starting to get on
00:12:28.500the national stage and was running in the primary against Gerald Ford he told the American people in the
00:12:34.680media that Ronald Reagan is the most dangerous man in the United States of America for the simple
00:12:40.960reason is as Reagan goes what are we talking about this is a Cold War right it's ideological it's
00:12:46.780economic it's political it's diplomatic it'll be military where we need military but we can win this
00:12:52.960not only can we win this we must win this Kissinger called him the most dangerous man in America for
00:12:58.660simply having the construct of victory something we've lost since President Reagan Dr. Thayer
00:13:06.580and something to which he blinded us Kissinger blinded us right again with all of his advice and all of
00:13:11.940his uh uh arguments about why we needed to assist China again the logic of the engagement school of
00:13:19.620which he's the father right that that by engaging with China we were going to change them uh we were going to
00:13:25.860influence them so the guy is a strategic idiot uh and I don't know why anybody listened to him ever
00:13:32.580uh given his track record uh in terms of what he did in the Nixon administration Ford administration
00:13:39.620and then afterwards so um it was uh his advice was just disastrous so the um Hitchens wrote that book
00:13:48.500in 2001 about why he should be put on trial for the crimes against the Yende in Chile right and
00:13:54.420in East Timor and Bangladesh Kissinger should have been tried for how he betrayed the country
00:14:00.340right how he betrayed our country by facilitating the rise of uh its greatest enemy uh and um the fact that
00:14:08.260you have such deal was he not was but was he was he not correct at the time to think that we could bring
00:14:15.060China at least over temporarily to be a counterweight to the uh Soviet Union and basically
00:14:22.660Reagan did use that leverage with much else and really economic warfare and technological warfare
00:14:29.140the issues we should be doing today to essentially break the Soviet Union was the initial foray or the
00:14:35.380initial opening of China with Nixon as a strategic counterweight to uh to the Soviet Union and to break
00:14:42.900you must always break the Russian-China bond which you know now our elites force Russia and the KGB into
00:14:50.180the arms of the CCP and we've got this debacle in the Eurasian landmass that we're going to pay for
00:14:55.540right now was he not smart at least in the initial strategic construct of it but that's Nixon driving
00:15:01.380that Steve Nixon did it for balance of power reasons and he also saw that as a way to contribute to the
00:15:07.300end of the Vietnam War uh to stabilize the situation uh in Vietnam so Nixon is driving it and yes Kissinger
00:15:15.460was instrumental in that role to his credit uh uh certainly we wanted to use to give the Soviet Union
00:15:22.900another front right to uh force them to deal with uh the communist Chinese again their relations between
00:15:30.180Beijing and Moscow had really soured and they fought each other of course on a border war in 68 and
00:15:35.780then again more significantly in 69 when Soviet troops basically killed uh approximately a thousand
00:15:43.140Chinese but look uh that is uh that was the Cold War Steve what this guy did is through his policy
00:15:51.300through his desire his avarice his greed uh was um put us in a position that greatly hurt us uh in the
00:16:00.340new Cold War that we're facing with uh that we're in right now with uh the People's Republic of China
00:16:06.580so that has to be um you can't erase that stain right that's that's uh lasting damage to our country
00:16:13.940that was lasting sacrifice of our interests uh when we had even greater leverage against China we could
00:16:20.180have employed it but Henry Kissinger was there saying don't do it right uh go along with the Chinese
00:16:26.420Communist Party they're in essence he's arguing they're a positive force so it's a disaster this
00:16:32.260guy was just a strategic uh moron and that needs to be recognized um despite what happened with under
00:16:40.820Nixon's guidance again you want to keep that in mind uh that Nixon is it was a strategic thinker truly uh
00:16:47.780a strategic thinker um and uh Kissinger obviously had an instrumental role there but was uh the national
00:16:55.620security advisor not Richard Nixon who had a vision for Asia and had a vision really for uh
00:17:02.260advancing America's interests against the Soviets and ending the Vietnam War um
00:17:08.500Dr Thayer where do people get you've got your article up on warroom.org where they get you on
00:17:12.740social media and where they get all your writings now uh at x at uh Brad Thayer and uh then a truth
00:17:18.660and get her at Bradley Thayer uh Steve uh thanks very much for uh calling attention to this it's a
00:17:24.500a very important uh issue they're saying he was an old friend uh that's because he was an old friend
00:17:32.180uh of China and he was their strategist he wasn't an American strategist he wasn't out for America's
00:17:37.140national security interests no yeah not a good guy thank you very much uh but we won't talk badly about
00:17:45.380the dead um Dr Thayer thank you so much honored thank you a reality check my dad this facilities
00:17:54.100trap is still it's the the declineist mentality it's still the it's still the organizing principle
00:18:00.260of how the decline is how our elites think about this relationship with the Chinese Communist Party
00:18:05.220that we have of course here you know that our focus is to take down and destroy or assist
00:18:10.100Lao Bai Jing in taking down destroying the Chinese Communist Party uh brother um Ben Harnwell from
00:18:18.420Rome uh Ben of course this they're heating up it's a firestorm on Capitol Hill now behind closed doors
00:18:24.180on this situation with Ukraine but as we're looking at this another 80 billion dollars we're taking our
00:18:30.100eye off the ball strategically in the central pacific which is we fought and died for back 80 years ago
00:18:36.100as we're doing this we can see it's evident what's happening Europe is quickly rapidly heading towards
00:18:43.540an internal civil war country by country the Guardian filing today had this brutal article about France
00:18:50.100walk me through the the from Dublin to the Netherlands to Sweden uh to France uh a civil war
00:18:57.220is kind of in the early early stages sir Steve I wonder what the common denominator the
00:19:03.380not common denominator might be of all these countries and the civil wars that are brewing in
00:19:08.260each and every one of them uh I've got two articles to illustrate this yeah yeah I'm going to take a wild
00:19:14.980guess might it have something to do with mass unlimited uh forced immigration onto a populace into a nation
00:19:22.500state of am I is Victor Orban look like an oracle every day that this goes on sir an oracle and a prophet
00:19:30.260um I have two articles to go through with you today that illustrate precisely what's going on here
00:19:38.100in mainland occupied Europe um they're coming at this from different angles as you might expect
00:19:43.860there's a fantastic article here in today's daily telegraph all of the links of this will be posted
00:19:49.860um on my feed uh specifically I might add on on on uh on Bannon's war room on on rumble we can get that via
00:19:57.300a ghetto when when I post this the first article here from the telegraph the telegraph carries the
00:20:03.060headline France could be on the brink of civil war now I'm just reading that out because to make this
00:20:09.060make this absolutely abundantly clear this is the mainstream media saying this isn't the war room
00:20:14.260though we are saying this and have been saying this for a long time this is the main admittedly
00:20:19.380admittedly towards the right of the mainstream media but it's still very much um controlled opposition
00:20:25.140um and it's basically digging down to what's going on in in France here what happened um to this