Bannon's War Room - WarRoom Battleground EP 755： The Lords Of Easy Money Three Years Later

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

00:00:11.180 these people here's not got a free shot all these networks lying about the people the people have

00:00:17.780 had a belly full of it i know you don't like hearing that i know you try to do everything

00:00:21.540 in the world to stop that but you're not going to stop it it's going to happen and where do

00:00:24.920 people like that go to share the big line mega media i wish in my soul i wish that any of these

00:00:32.620 people had a conscience ask yourself what is my task and what is my purpose if that answer is to

00:00:40.200 save my country this country will be saved war room here's your host stephen k band

00:00:54.920 welcome it is uh friday 25 april year of the lord 2025 we're still here in kansas city missouri

00:01:02.500 love this town and man so lucky christopher leonard arthur one of my favorite all-time favorites

00:01:08.420 lords of easy money now you live here just so happens that the hillsdale college conferences

00:01:14.360 here you're actually uh you're actually live in the greater kansas city missouri area i do i live

00:01:19.820 about 10 minutes from here uh lived in dc for about 10 years but moved back here in 21 couldn't

00:01:24.900 wait to get back i couldn't wait to get back yeah i grew up yeah yeah let's talk about a couple

00:01:29.400 things today i know you're working doing a lot of research first off our your book we refer to all

00:01:34.320 the time i think i've given out a couple hundred copies over the last couple of years everybody

00:01:38.580 that's read it is like shocked why nobody knows the story about wall street the lords of easy money

00:01:44.200 just an absolute it's a foundational text of the mega movement although i know you're not political

00:01:50.180 but you've been doing research and something that's very relevant to the day this whole president

00:01:56.540 trump trying to reorganize the world's commercial kind of system peter navarro who was a co-host here

00:02:03.660 for years in the interregnum is now back over as the trades are in the manufacturing czar this is about

00:02:09.860 the defense industrial base this is about actually is the united states even possible because i talked at

00:02:16.260 the world economic forum conference the other day over at semaphore with all the globalists a lot of

00:02:21.080 guys pulling me aside said hey it's it's really nice that you guys have these aspirations but the

00:02:26.420 united states is so far gone as far as an advanced industrial power it's not it's not going to not just

00:02:32.040 be easy it'll be impossible to bring the type of manufacturing that you want back here so talk talk

00:02:37.560 to me about the the history of this and your research i will thank you and and thank you for having

00:02:43.760 me on um i've been working on a book about the defense industry really hardcore full-time for

00:02:50.360 about a year and a half for a couple years now and i'm very concerned about what you just talked about

00:02:55.820 about the defense industrial base and the way it would tie into this new era that we're living in

00:03:00.340 right now and i guess the way i could put it and and i know you you we have a little time so you

00:03:06.640 might indulge me to talk about a little history we have the entire we're going to do this for an

00:03:10.640 entire hour okay here's here's the headline uh in my mind right now is is what you're talking about

00:03:16.320 um you know a retired army colonel who teaches out at leavenworth now put it really well to me

00:03:22.980 that's at the staff college the commander general staff college yeah a lot of smart folks out there

00:03:28.220 and and he he said you know all wars are wars of attrition that's what they always turn into and it

00:03:35.160 it it tends to turn into a contest between two nations full society conflict and it really can

00:03:42.920 kind of turn into a contest between two industrial bases and and when we look at the united states

00:03:47.980 right now uh in my mind the most important story of the day right now is obviously the liber

00:03:54.760 liberation day tariff regime but but when you back up in in my mind one of the most important stories

00:04:01.080 if not the most important stories the deindustrialization the united states over the last 40

00:04:05.560 years accelerated uh after china joined the wto in 2001 and and that has grave uh grave consequences

00:04:15.880 for our national security and here's how i'd put it you know the the book i'm working on now goes back

00:04:21.240 to 1940 and you know this this is a truism we won the world war because of the power of of our

00:04:27.880 manufacturing we were the arsenal of democracy arsenal of democracy and and how we exist right

00:04:33.800 now today is that we have lost the manufacturing ecosystem that we had in 1940 and going all the

00:04:41.560 way back really to 1900 and and what that means when i say ecosystem when you're a manufacturing power

00:04:48.600 in the way that china is today you don't just have factories you you've got all these attendant

00:04:53.800 people that work around the engineers the the the tool producers the guys and gals who work on the

00:05:00.680 manufacturing line all these people trained and thinking about and working in manufacturing all the

00:05:05.480 time going back and forth between all these companies the defense industry relied on that that's

00:05:11.640 what made it great and so here we are in this position in 2025 where the defense industry but hang

00:05:19.320 over here i'm going to take i'm going to go from 1940 so we and it shouldn't be lost anybody it was

00:05:27.640 the ramp up in 39 and 40 that got us out of the great depression he tried everything when he first

00:05:33.960 took when fdr first came in in 1932 he tried all the different types of industrial policy he had and

00:05:39.960 they were throwing and they admit it they were throwing stuff up on the wall and it worked for a while

00:05:44.120 right the bank in in particularly in 34 35 36 starts slowing down by uh 38 they're just about

00:05:52.360 back to where they were in 32 you know it wasn't 25 unemployment but it was a lot in the and it was the

00:05:58.040 ramp up of the industrial power pre-pearl harbor right they kind of saw over the horizon

00:06:05.800 what was coming whether they initiated part of it or not is another question but they certainly saw

00:06:10.920 what was engulfing the world how so at 19 in 1945 we're untouched our two allies the chinese or

00:06:19.720 besides the brits but our chinese chinese and the and the russians are completely eviscerated

00:06:24.760 right with they fought the land wars in their territory our other partner the british is essentially

00:06:31.400 destroyed you know they're hanging on to the empire but barely and their industrial base has been

00:06:35.560 essentially eviscerated we're untouched how do we go from a manufacturing hegemon to cut to the early

00:06:45.400 1970s or whatever this decline and why would anybody ever give it up you're a hegemon have total world

00:06:53.720 control and can see peace and prosperity you can actually see the sunlit uplands as you're the

00:06:59.800 manufacturing thing and it's taking you from the industrial revolution which is really created in

00:07:05.000 england you kind of become the big player in it for a hundred years the people who were so smart

00:07:12.440 that helped win the war how did the how did the quote unquote the greatest generation when when

00:07:17.960 kennedy and and and lyndon johnson the 1960s come in how did essentially the greatest generation as

00:07:23.800 leaders allow our greatest power the manufacturing hegemon superpower to just leave i mean

00:07:31.640 the multi multi-trillion dollar question and the huge question and a complicated one um this is

00:07:38.680 essentially what you're studying how that happened how that happened what it means for us where it

00:07:42.680 leaves us today what it meant for us all along the way to become the world superpower at the end of

00:07:48.920 world war ii and exactly what you're talking about you know the roosevelt administration was studying

00:07:54.440 this stuff in the in the late 30s they were caught by surprise by pearl harbor i i know that whatever's

00:08:01.240 going on with that but we we were ready but let me say so so hitler and roosevelt come to power in

00:08:06.600 the same year yes 1932 yes the germans have are actually in a worse finance the great depression as

00:08:12.600 bad as is the germans are actually in a worse situation they got the hyperinflation they have the

00:08:16.200 bread lines i mean they're they're actually in worse shape in one level it seems to me they immediately get

00:08:22.360 the joke that if you're going to pull out of something that you've got to go back to the basics

00:08:27.560 they start rearming immediately and that rearming starts to take their economy out of and this is why

00:08:34.200 kidler gets so so much popular support he's put people who had no hope to work it's not the political

00:08:40.840 ideology they don't even understand that that kind of comes later they have jobs they have manufacturing

00:08:45.640 jobs all of a sudden people have income young people are put to work roosevelt tries many different

00:08:51.080 things in that time but not an arms not not a rearmament not a rearmament program we lagged that

00:08:58.120 but then somehow the light bulb goes on right the light bulb goes on because i think they're also

00:09:03.240 looking at germany and saying look how those guys are doing it and you can tell they're getting more

00:09:07.400 and more dangers because eventually you got to use the weapons you're getting right into it it's it you

00:09:12.840 know in the 30s uh fdr was watching germany rearm getting very concerned but there was tremendous

00:09:20.440 opposition within the u.s body politic to a the arms industry yes and be the idea of foreign

00:09:26.120 interventions yes one of the guys i'm writing about was the senator from uh i think he's from

00:09:30.920 iowa or nebraska gerald nye yes he led this commission that was looking into the arms companies

00:09:35.480 world war one the nye commission well because i go back more history this is why there were not so

00:09:41.000 many huge movies about world war one in this country left a bitter taste yes it was not you

00:09:47.000 know world war one the yanks are coming everything like that it left a bitter taste and particularly

00:09:52.120 we didn't approve uh the what the world the world league we didn't approve the nations the league of

00:09:57.720 nations we wanted nothing to do with it we had gone to europe because we it was a slaughterhouse i

00:10:01.960 think we lost 250 000 troops in about 100 days of fighting and people wanted nothing more to do with

00:10:08.120 this the particularly the heartland of the country the america first movement the original american

00:10:13.000 first which was isolationist has said hey rose uh wilson and these guys sucked us in here after

00:10:19.240 he promised us we'd never get involved we got involved we showed we could do it but there was

00:10:24.280 very few patriotic movies or waving flags or anything like that people were quite bitter about world war

00:10:29.320 one and that rolled into the 1930s it totally did and it's fascinating when you look at it you think

00:10:34.920 people were disillusioned by vietnam world war one was way more intense i mean people talking about

00:10:39.800 that i tell this all the time just tell us about that we know vietnam because it's so recent and

00:10:44.920 media was so much bigger but the disillusionment over that the spanish flu the league of nations

00:10:50.920 they it was it was bitter and they didn't want anything more to do with it and i've been reading

00:10:54.760 all these senate hearings from the 30s and and the transcripts of that there was a broad movement

00:11:00.200 in the u.s as you said based in the heartland literally america first charles lindberg all that

00:11:05.240 stuff there was a sentiment that we had gotten drawn into an imperial war you know anti-imperialism

00:11:11.720 is woven into the fabric america revolutionary thing we're not an imperial power that's what i think

00:11:17.240 back then it was still alive we're living breathing thing particularly in the heartland of this country

00:11:22.120 absolutely and pardon me um let me mute this but you had fdr and the people around him saying uh this

00:11:32.440 thing's going to come to us okay uh germany's re-arming europe is but that's also we're starting

00:11:37.320 to see the first of kind of the globalist right so some with wilson and thing but that exists these

00:11:42.680 guys are thinking how these parts interconnect and how the economy get in and you have and they blame

00:11:48.200 it now as a fascistic movement it wasn't the america first it wasn't it was very much in the direct

00:11:53.800 lineage of kind of jackson and the revolutionary generation and what they warned us about no foreign

00:12:00.200 entanglements don't go looking for monsters to slay we got enough to do here it was a huge divide in

00:12:05.800 this country huge divide uh you know fdr did not have the political capital to arm or mobilize or send

00:12:13.640 troops overseas he fought again at constant fought against it constantly if i could back up for one

00:12:18.040 second because one thing i want to talk about i could talk about this for days i can tell i know

00:12:23.640 you're in my wheelhouse now i know and and the stuff about them studying the global system in 1940

00:12:29.400 is it would blow your mind uh have you i mean you probably know about it but you've heard of isaiah

00:12:34.280 bows uh bowman isaiah geographer but i want to get into all that i want the audience but let's let

00:12:40.200 this is what the book is going to be about part of it totally oh you're going to blow people's minds

00:12:44.120 and but because this history is not known well only to very specific period that stayed the period

00:12:50.040 well and and it's so it's so important for today it it shapes our world it shapes our world

00:12:57.400 um but to keep it kind of focused on the defense industrial base and the military industrial complex

00:13:03.560 look at the world that existed in 1930 in the united states okay let's actually go back to 1914 right

00:13:08.840 before world war one we were the manufacturing powerhouse of planet earth we produced 33 percent

00:13:14.840 of all manufactured goods in the world our economy was bigger than germany france and britain combined

00:13:20.600 okay we had built up that system over about a hundred years so we had this enormous manufacturing power

00:13:28.440 at the disposal of the roosevelt administration but tremendous political resistance to using it for war

00:13:36.120 people truly were uh embittered did not like weapons companies i mean these debates in the 30s were brutal

00:13:43.720 because they said that the war there was recriminations about how we got in here about was it

00:13:51.400 global financiers or was it weapons manufacturers for profits people because of the dead because of the

00:13:57.720 level of casualties that people were not prepared for because of mustard gas and the horrible techniques

00:14:02.920 that were used there were a lot of people particularly people whose sons had been sacrificed that wanted

00:14:08.760 to know exactly how this what happened and there was a lot of finger pointing in these commissions

00:14:14.520 in committee hearings on the arms manufacturers was this profiteering where did the people get into

00:14:20.600 did we get sucked into this thing to make people money exactly you know you've been accused of fiery rhetoric

00:14:28.680 at times um that was it was superheated back then so let's get pleased what do you mean superheated

00:14:36.200 and what we had to give me an example god man you look at this guy gerald nye um a senator and i'm

00:14:42.520 sorry uh you're kind of catching me off guard i'm in the weeds i think he was from nebraska and he was

00:14:49.560 accused of everything under the sun and then there was this whole ecosystem of journalists and politicians

00:14:55.000 around that because he was trying to get the arm he was trying to go after the arms manufacturers

00:14:59.000 to see what happened go after the arms manufacturers and so he's a midwest populace he's one of these

00:15:03.560 guys absolutely and when i say fiery i mean all this uh rhetoric around the merchants of death um

00:15:11.080 the the financiers i mean this stuff it was ugly this stuff was hot yes let's jump to 1941 fdr has been

00:15:19.720 trying to build political support for this program because he sees a real real danger on the horizon

00:15:23.960 pearl harbor happens now at that time as i said we are the manufacturing powerhouse of the world

00:15:33.080 and fdr consolidates control you know we talk a lot about the new deal

00:15:38.680 as uh sort of this new hybrid of government industry partnership or control that stuff was

00:15:44.280 actually built on the the first prototypes of government controlled industry was from world war

00:15:48.520 one the the war production board okay so fdr gets the entire force of government to essentially it's

00:15:55.320 not a hyperbole to say this to take over american industry and this is the world war ii world war

00:16:01.800 production we are now in world war ii okay the japanese have bombed pearl harbor americans are on board

00:16:07.880 we've been attacked let's fight and and when we think about where we are today what's important

00:16:13.720 is that the u.s government was able to harness the manufacturing power of commercial industry they

00:16:19.800 took over ford general motors they took over the airplane company took over to tell people how what

00:16:25.640 level of this was pretty shocking what level of takeover was it by the federal government i mean

00:16:30.360 one of the characters in the book is this guy robert lovett okay pablo who was the book the best and the

00:16:37.640 brightest starts the whole first part is love it how revered he is among the establishment and young

00:16:45.160 jack kennedy is just president the whole thing's about love it and it flashes back to what he had

00:16:50.920 done in world war ii and why he was kind of a dean of the american establishment and he built the air

00:16:57.640 force his group built the united states air force we were producing like 7 000 planes a year in early

00:17:03.800 1940 by 1945 it was like 50 000 at least my numbers are a little fuzzy forgive me i'm in the weeds but

00:17:11.400 when you talk about the level of control i mean the war production board was telling people you can make

00:17:16.200 this many screws this many nuts this many bolts you will produce this many planes we will uh you know

00:17:23.560 we will regulate your profit margins i mean they had u.s military personnel inside the airplane factories

00:17:29.640 it was um it is not an overstatement to say the government took over i mean they told general

00:17:35.560 motors and ford hey good morning you're going to make tanks now thank you for the red uh rouge river

00:17:41.480 plant and um and and i kind of want to always keep bringing it back today so could i jump okay go ahead

00:17:50.120 i've got a question because i've said this a lot in the last couple weeks okay that um

00:17:55.960 um right now we have a full embargo against the chinese communist parties coming to the united

00:18:02.520 states i think the people going to walmart and costco going to talk to talk to president trump

00:18:06.920 and saying hey look in about 90 days we're going to have empty shelves and it's not going to be

00:18:12.360 biden's empty shelves on baby formula or things like this this is going to be empty shelves because

00:18:17.240 you have a full embargo on with your 145 percent tariffs you have a full embargo and i keep talking

00:18:23.160 about we went up the escalatory ladder on the terrace part quickly but because they've blocked

00:18:29.880 us from uh from rare earths which is important for magnets from ball bearings from this that for us to

00:18:36.520 go up the escalatory ladder would be even more restrictions on chips to cut them off but that

00:18:42.200 that would be analogous to cutting off japan in july or august of 1941 of oil which was really the third

00:18:49.560 act of the of the pre-war drama that essentially the japanese that drove them to to attack america

00:18:55.960 because we america is basically saying we're going to cut you off economically given the fact that

00:19:01.240 people tell me steve you can't go up the escalatory ladder for chips as we have no industrial base we

00:19:07.080 could not actually thwart the chinese even if we went to war particularly since they are so the

00:19:13.400 supply chain they control the supply chain particularly so much military technology

00:19:18.120 it's the exact opposite of 1941 where we actually had the entire supply chain here is that accurate

00:19:24.520 that is accurate you you know now you're jumping ahead i i think the military industrial complex has

00:19:30.040 three phases what we're talking about world war ii cold war up until the end of the cold war

00:19:35.400 that's the phase one and we're relying on our manufacturing base to create our military

00:19:40.680 industrial power right and then in 1993 i think we have the so-called last supper where the pentagon

00:19:49.000 tells all the defense contractors to merge and combine and that this is the war this is the cold

00:19:54.200 war berlin wall's fallen the russians the bolsheviks have fallen uh where now it's the end of history

00:20:01.320 coordinator fukuyama fukuyama and so this actually happens in the pentagon they caught the last supper they

00:20:08.200 actually sit and say guys if you're going to survive you have to consolidate from 12 great companies

00:20:13.800 down to a handful yeah and we can talk about that so that initiates phase two which brings us up to uh

00:20:20.280 basically february 2023 when putin invades ukraine and thus begins where we are now but where we are

00:20:26.520 now to get back to your question the manufacturing might that i just described to you that existed in

00:20:32.120 1940 now essentially exists in china mexico vietnam and elsewhere it is not on our shores and the

00:20:39.160 defense companies are kind of like these islands of of high-tech sophisticated manufacturing inside the

00:20:46.040 united states that live in a in a kind of desert manufacturing or assembly do they actually

00:20:51.400 manufacture or they assemble final assembly with parts key parts from other places okay so it's like

00:20:57.960 the automotive industry the ford motor doesn't really make any car they don't manufacture cars

00:21:02.760 here the ones they do the small percentage they do or the percentage they do they assemble

00:21:07.400 from high value added parts made in other places i mean that a great point and i mean like i was down

00:21:14.120 in lockheed martin's fort worth complex where they make the f-35 and you're right like the magnets the

00:21:20.520 rare earth a lot of stuff that goes into that plane comes from china parts of that plane are produced in

00:21:26.280 europe and then assembled but they i i i think i will stand by my thing they do still manufacture

00:21:32.040 in the united states they're they're fabricating yeah they're fabricating parts from raw aluminum

00:21:38.600 um they're they're putting these planes together the hellfire missile down in orlando florida they're

00:21:43.000 putting this stuff along assembly lines but the pinch point to me is you've got these shipbuilding

00:21:48.680 facilities out let's say in virginia uh newport beach or norfolk newper news tenneco the the shipbuilding uh

00:21:55.960 the ship major shipping that's the only place we can still build a submarine isn't it and they

00:21:59.800 maybe groton maybe up in uh groton but it's one of the biggest ship building they do the carriers

00:22:04.280 there and everything 100 yeah and they can't find welders they can't find welders they've got to

00:22:09.000 train welders up from nothing over a long time and then maybe lose that person whereas when you've got

00:22:14.520 the ecosystem in place you've got all these welders uh tool machine operators engineers all these people

00:22:22.920 you can draw from that's what the world looked like during world war ii is you know lockheed mart

00:22:27.480 or lockheed aircraft had this burbank facility that was surrounded by a douglas aircraft and all these

00:22:31.640 other people and they shared a personnel so now we're at this point where we're trying to develop

00:22:38.280 military industrial might without that commercial manufacturing base around it to and and it has put

00:22:44.520 us in a precarious situation i i think that that's accurate to say it's put us in a precarious situation

00:22:49.640 where we're drawing down our munitions and so forth well this is what we did in the first trump term i

00:22:54.680 mean we use the military industrial emergency to to i think it was three or one we used a bunch of

00:23:00.520 these things to basically steal an aluminum i mean we used the defense production act didn't we

00:23:06.120 i mean peter navarro is not sure peter navarro is not shy about about having president trump implement

00:23:12.040 this to try to get at least some manufacturing going is he not well he is and as you know navarro is

00:23:17.000 talking about that right now yes i mean navarro is still talking about that right now so that's

00:23:21.480 in my mind the the the bigger project um let me go back in world war ii we're a hegemon at the end of

00:23:29.320 the war untouched how over time because is it just economics they want to get to cheaper labor

00:23:35.960 we're the dominant and we have the ecosystem and it's all working society is kind of happy the war is

00:23:42.120 over this is you have the baby boom of the 1950s because people have well paying good jobs from

00:23:48.840 big companies in the all smaller companies that feed around it whether you're in wichita kansas

00:23:53.480 or fort worth texas or in southern california i mean i lived in manhattan beach for years

00:23:58.600 and in turn from manhattan beach and towards these places and then out in burbank the entire aircraft

00:24:03.960 industry was out there that a lot of that's gone now so what happened to our leadership to allow us to

00:24:10.680 basically give up being a hegemon you would seem like you'd want to keep that forever okay as a

00:24:16.440 crown jewel enormous question and also i've got a caveat you caught me unexpected this morning i'm

00:24:21.960 still working on this i'm not done i got it i've got a lot of work left to do but in i will say okay

00:24:27.960 i gotta say that we're gonna go to break here in a second i'll give you when uh so knowing christopher

00:24:33.400 and and he knew how i fell in love with the book immediately we spent a lot of time i just wanted to

00:24:38.200 understand and understand because he went back to the research he went back to the minutes of the

00:24:41.560 of the federal reserve your book is magnificent i mean you lay out such a compelling case just on

00:24:46.360 the facts no editorializing at all on the lords of easy money when you read it your head blows up

00:24:52.760 and so as i asked chris because he's such a christopher so such a a great researcher and author

00:24:59.720 what are you working on next and he says i'm thinking of something on the defense industrial

00:25:04.520 complex in the defense department i go man you can't waste your time on that you got you can't

00:25:09.320 waste your time on that you got to do something you're a finance specialist there's so many other

00:25:13.400 things to do and then as i've thought about it over the last year or so it's absolutely genius because

00:25:19.480 now in the heart of this gets to be one of the biggest things we have to talk about which is

00:25:24.920 we have a defense budget it's over trillion dollars and we can't centerpiece i made of the argument

00:25:30.040 last night the converging crises we have of the beginning of the kinetic part of the third world

00:25:35.000 war in this we're shifting more to a hemispheric defense which is a totally different outlook of

00:25:41.720 what we do we don't need big army in the in the eurasian landmass particularly in cencom

00:25:47.160 that we have to turn the defense budget back to what our strategy is where the central pacific

00:25:52.680 becomes like a barrier and you could cut the defense budget hundreds of billions of dollars if you did

00:25:58.680 that in fact i've argued you could cut it 200 billion dollars in the back of an envelope

00:26:02.680 and of course that's meeting with a stony silence in washington dc in the republican party there's as

00:26:10.520 i've actually had people say and i'm the advocate of raising taxes for the for the upper bracket as

00:26:16.520 much as they hate that i've had people i that are close to me going of the ideas they hate the most in

00:26:23.000 the imperial capital you're cutting the defense budget right now is the idea they hate the most because

00:26:28.280 that's really the industrial policy united states that's of the little bit of manufacturing we have

00:26:33.080 in huntsville alabama and all these places in these red states that's what got christopher leonard's

00:26:38.360 with us the author of lord of easy money we're talking about the defense industrial base as you

00:26:42.280 know peter navarre in his four years here is a co-host one of the topics that he had between the first and

00:26:47.080 the second term absolutely vital to the day uh we're going to return back to the worm in a moment

00:27:00.040 there's a lot of talk about government debt but after four years of inflation the real crisis is

00:27:05.160 personal debt seriously you're working harder than ever and you're still drowning in credit card debt

00:27:11.560 and overdue bills you need done with debt and here's why you need it the credit system is rigged

00:27:18.440 to keep you trapped done with debt has unique and frankly brilliant escape strategies to help

00:27:25.400 end your debt fast so you keep more of your hard-earned money done with debt doesn't try to sell you a loan

00:27:33.000 and they don't try to sell you a bankruptcy they're tough negotiators that go one-on-one with your credit

00:27:38.760 card and loan companies with one goal to drastically reduce your bills and eliminate interest and erase

00:27:44.760 penalties most clients end up with more money in their pocket month one and they don't stop until

00:27:51.720 they break you free from debt permanently look take a couple of minutes and visit donewithdebt.com

00:28:00.520 talk with one of their strategists it's free but listen up some of their solutions are time

00:28:06.280 sensitive so you'll need to move quickly go to donewithdebt.com that's donewithdebt.com

00:28:12.120 stop the anxiety stop the angst go to donewithdebt.com and do it today the april 15th tax deadline is

00:28:21.320 coming and it's coming fast do you have unfiled tax returns can't pay the irs the irs is more than

00:28:28.360 aggressive and the more aggressive than ever and the longer you wait the worse it gets wage garnishments

00:28:33.960 bank levies even property seizures are all on the table you need to get ahead of this you need to

00:28:41.080 get ahead of it today but going up against the irs alone is a big time mistake take my advice call

00:28:47.320 the experts at tax network usa they know the system they have an edge a preferred direct line to the irs

00:28:55.720 they know which agents to deal with and which ones to avoid whether you owe ten thousand dollars or ten

00:29:02.120 million dollars their genius strategies are designed to quickly settle your tax problems in your favor

00:29:09.080 tax network usa's attorneys and negotiators have already resolved over one billion dollars in tax

00:29:15.080 debt let me repeat that they've already resolved over one billion dollars in tax debt

00:29:21.720 tax network usa can help you too but you need to move you need to move fast because april 15th

00:29:27.400 it's already here remember if you get that letter don't put it in the drawer it just metastasizes

00:29:33.080 talk with one of our strategists today it's totally free stop looking over your shoulder stop the

00:29:40.840 anxiety stop the worry put it all behind you call tax network usa at 1-800-958-1000 that's 800-958-1000 or

00:29:51.880 visit tnusa.com slash bannon that's tax network usa go to tnusa.com slash bannon health isn't just a

00:30:02.920 personal issue it's a family issue a community issue we're living in unpredictable times supply

00:30:08.360 chains can break down hospitals can get overwhelmed and let's not even start on the natural disasters

00:30:14.040 these aren't hypotheticals they're happening you see it here in the war room and we all know it

00:30:17.800 the question is simply are you ready that's where jace comes in this isn't just a kit this is a jace

00:30:26.600 case it's a lifeline it's a personal supply of prescribed emergency medications that puts the

00:30:34.600 power back in your hands whether it's an unexpected illness or a global disruption of supply chains you can

00:30:41.080 act fast and protect yourself and your loved ones this february show them you care in a way that really

00:30:47.480 matters be prepared get the jace case today so you'll have the right meds on hand the moment you

00:30:53.840 need them visit jace medical.com and use the code bannon b-a-n-n-o-n at checkout for a discount on your

00:31:00.800 order that's jace medical.com promo code bannon get the jace case and do it today china's undertaking

00:31:09.900 the fastest most rapid most expansive peacetime military buildup in the history of the world

00:31:16.440 not in modern history in the history of the world meanwhile the united states has lagged behind for

00:31:21.220 a variety of different reasons you talk about the navy as an example we don't have a shipbuilding

00:31:26.100 industry we have some shipbuilding in the united states but not nearly at the scale the chinese do

00:31:30.260 it's not just that we're not spending the money on it it's we don't have the ability to do it because

00:31:34.420 we allowed the nation to be de-industrialized we allowed the united states to become de-industrialized

00:31:40.000 especially since 1991 with both free trade agreements and the cheating that we allowed when we

00:31:45.120 assumed that allowed china to ascend to the world trade organization and what it has done is

00:31:49.940 de-industrialized this we can't just build ships boeing struggles to build planes we can't make

00:31:55.140 pharmaceuticals we depend on china for 88 of all the active ingredients in most of the pharmaceuticals

00:32:01.520 that we rely on in our country you can go down issue after issue after issue and and and you can see

00:32:06.620 that it's not just that we're not spending money on it it's that we can't do it because the industries

00:32:10.740 that would produce it domestically are long gone they were outsourced they were sent somewhere else

00:32:15.160 not just to china but other places but primarily to china that's dangerous it cannot continue

00:32:19.840 uh christopher leonard is is secretary of state rubio have a deal on your book because right there

00:32:27.140 he's pitching he's pitching industrial defense industrial base we don't have it it's a huge

00:32:31.560 restriction we don't have any shipbuilding we don't have anything what uh is this a topic at top

00:32:37.000 of mind of the u.s government right now this is a topic that is top of mind and i mean i'm telling

00:32:42.720 you i had not seen that rubio clip um navarro is really really keen on this has been from the first

00:32:49.580 administration but i'm telling you down to the kernel level inside the pentagon and this started

00:32:54.220 in 2022 when we uh there is real concern about our ability to keep up um from 2022 why because of the

00:33:04.980 beginning of the ukraine war and understanding you're back in a big ground war on the eurasian

00:33:09.240 landmass exactly and the thing that caught everybody by surprise in ukraine was that we were having a

00:33:15.100 world war ii style uh trench warfare again everybody thought now military conflicts are quick and fast

00:33:21.440 with precision bombing and all the rest of it the lessons from the gulf war all the way up through the

00:33:25.980 war on terror and what we were doing and and listen by the way like i i really try to stay non-political

00:33:32.060 you know i prize my independence you you were totally non-political in the wall street book

00:33:36.140 that's the power of it you're not you don't have a point of view you're laying out a set of facts

00:33:40.220 backed by documents that are so that blow you away because you're not taking a point of view same thing

00:33:45.900 here that's exactly right and so like when we get to the the war in ukraine i'm not going to weigh in

00:33:51.940 on it but what i will say is talking to people in the pentagon there was a concern that we were

00:33:56.040 essentially burning our seed corn if you will sending these munition stocks over there at the same

00:34:01.380 time we had to supply other countries and supply our own military we had a finite you remember the

00:34:06.100 biden administration had to resort to using these cluster bombs yes that they did not want to use

00:34:09.960 because we were burning down these inventories yes and so then you think about and they got grief from

00:34:14.340 the left who had supported the war about the lethality of the cluster bombs and how inhumane they

00:34:19.780 are that's right and uh within the administration itself there was a lot of that uh concern was voiced

00:34:27.360 and the the point is china right now i've read has a manufacturing advantage against us of 200 to 1

00:34:36.460 uh manufacturing power compared to the united states now what do you mean by that that's shocking

00:34:41.180 that is their industrial capacity compared to ours and i'm talking domestic on shore that they have

00:34:48.020 a manufacturing capability that is 200 to 1 and i'm taking this from a really great article in uh american

00:34:55.200 affairs that journal um i think i forget the name of it forgive me but you know when we went to war

00:35:02.160 against japan in world war ii we had a manufacturing advantage of 30 to 1 against japan and a lot of

00:35:07.940 people said it was the japan could not beat us so a lot of people on the japanese i mean inside the

00:35:15.440 japanese staff and particularly the navy a couple of guys had gone to harvard remember a lot of guys were

00:35:21.560 educated here and they were saying what are we doing here if we don't take these guys out totally

00:35:27.040 they're just not going to sit down there there's such a manufacturing superpower eventually because

00:35:32.680 all wars are wars of attrition they'll get us and that's why the the japanese high command felt that

00:35:39.120 they had to have a knockout blow against the foreign devils the beginning to to scare us off i mean

00:35:45.480 that was not lost on people that were smart at the time how big a manufacturing superpower we were then

00:35:50.100 that's exactly right i'm reading a book now about the aerial bombing of japan really great book called

00:35:54.640 reign of ruin and um you know what we had to build to get to the point that we were and we're not

00:36:03.700 weighing in on the morality of any of this war is hell but to get those bombers to japan was an enormous

00:36:09.620 industrial effort i mean those b-29s were burning up in the air they had a huge failure rate

00:36:14.800 and you got to ask yourself right now where's where's the capacity to do that now technology

00:36:22.140 innovation these things matter a lot it's not just raw manufacturing power uh but but these are

00:36:29.700 enormous questions that are definitely top of mind for government they're inside they're inside the

00:36:33.720 look when you talk about aerial bombings one of the obsessions here uh in fact the uh is it glasner

00:36:40.060 gladwell gladwell wrote the kind of i thought ripped from the pages of the war room how obsessed

00:36:45.200 we are with 12 o'clock high about focus on command and duty but the precision daylight bombing was that

00:36:52.420 you couldn't get it done at night there's mathematical formulas of lift capacity you send over amount of

00:36:57.960 bombs you got to drop to take down an industrial power and it wasn't getting done because guys were

00:37:02.960 waving off and just natural human they were afraid and in the formations and it was really the whiz kids and

00:37:09.780 and and the math it was the mathematics and you see this and was a fog of war that great documentary of

00:37:16.260 earl morris on mcnamara the mathematical precision that a lot of the guys there were may were then shifted

00:37:21.760 to the pacific because they were going to firebomb and they firebombed i mean as bad as the nuclear weapons

00:37:29.340 were as far as destructive power the firebombing of kyoto and tokyo probably had more inhumane if you have to

00:37:37.300 call it like that destructive power than dropping nuclear weapons that's exactly right um you know more

00:37:43.840 people might have died in those fire bombings uh i think maybe more people died at hiroshima and

00:37:48.800 nagasaki but i think the thing about the atomic bomb was it was this matter of uh i don't want to use

00:37:54.220 the word efficiency but it was this thing we can do this with one bomb but we had been in that's

00:37:59.200 oppenheimer i mean you have to detach yourself when i said but it was about efficiency it was a

00:38:03.180 this all this is what happened in vietnam later later it got too mathematical the human element got

00:38:08.920 taken out of it those guys thought as an industrial power they fought an industrial war

00:38:13.700 the the russian the russian the red army would have never won if our production capacity

00:38:19.220 had not been able to give them the arms and the and the and the munitions they needed to take on the

00:38:25.160 vermark now they lost what i don't know 20 million people in that effort but it gets down to modern

00:38:31.120 warfare at least in the 20th century the most barbaric century we've ever had

00:38:35.080 was a combination of advanced mathematics and calculus coupled with technology and science

00:38:41.120 on the on the art of of the the the thing that's cruelest in the world war and that's why

00:38:47.040 those lessons you know i keep saying we got to learn how to beat our plow our swords in the plowshares

00:38:52.820 which we have not done yet could i share a thought uh when you talk about that i've studied the rise

00:39:00.800 of american air power from the 30s up through nagasaki and it started as a theory a small group

00:39:08.140 of people gladwell wrote about this a little bit but i think the thing we need to remember is that

00:39:13.080 when you have a technology at hand there's a logic to war and it takes over and that's exactly what we

00:39:19.720 saw in world war ii which is that by the end curtis lemay was immolating cities in in a way that

00:39:26.740 um a lot of the military brass was completely against in the 30s and and i'm thinking about

00:39:31.780 this right now with ai you know we've got this uh tool on the shelf and i've met i've met a lot of

00:39:39.940 folks who are good people yes like patriotic thoughtful people developing this technology

00:39:47.460 whom i can relate with but what i'm saying is that once the technology is on the shelf the logic of war

00:39:53.580 is going to mandate it yes i want to go back to the lemay thing because they had done such a good

00:39:59.100 job and remember the story's kind of there was another general was kind of about lemay in 12 o'clock

00:40:03.340 high that the general had to lead and was going to lead the bombings because guys were afraid and

00:40:07.900 would break up from the formation and the formation not the individual the formation was the thing that

00:40:13.560 you had to keep even if it's your roommate or your best friend you got to let the plane go and keep

00:40:16.740 the formation the formation is the objective to get the bombs over mathematically when lemay went back

00:40:23.620 because remember lemay's group didn't know anything about an atomic bomb they knew nothing their mission

00:40:29.380 was to take down industrial japan and and make sure we didn't have to land four million men and lose a

00:40:36.420 million men in the process and so they had a mandate that's why island hop to get you know saipan was

00:40:41.780 going to be a major air base right to get closer there's a story i think it's in a book called uh

00:40:47.860 take torch to the enemy it's a book right after the war like in the late 40s early 50s and there's a

00:40:54.740 scene in there where they're calculating um that the staff and lemay is known as a taskmaster and

00:41:01.780 they're tackling the now the bombing of kyoto and tokyo at low levels because they're not being that

00:41:08.180 accurate high he wants to go in at treetop level basically with napalm which is a new thing because

00:41:13.700 the ball and they're invented at harvard invented harvard hold it and uh technology finding a purpose

00:41:20.020 right for war and um and they're doing calculations because the japanese had taken the factories

00:41:26.740 and put them into the rice huts the town is basically made of wood right but they got the ball bearing

00:41:32.020 plants again or the manufacturing little man the manufacturing ecosystem in this because guys are

00:41:37.300 saying we can't do this tokyo is a civilian population said no they have this and they're

00:41:41.220 doing calculations and and lemay saying you can't go in here i want it down high and there's some guy

00:41:46.740 on the staff that's doing some math and goes look um you know if we do that and the napalm works

00:41:53.460 you're going to have tornadic activity and this will actually create firestorms what's a fire

00:41:59.300 so firestorm it could burn down the entire you could lose you could kill two million people

00:42:03.620 and they go hmm interesting what's that calculation again what's the what do we have to do for the

00:42:08.660 tornadic activity and i think it was mentioned at the time hey we got to win this because this is

00:42:15.220 the kind of thing maybe they get guys for work crimes for later on so we got to win this war and make

00:42:20.180 sure that we're running the thing they had even on the staffs it just wasn't guys outside in the 30s

00:42:27.460 even on the staffs they were doing it there were some questions about what are we doing here right

00:42:33.060 what is the logic of this we understand we have an overall thing we got to destroy this industrial

00:42:37.540 base we have to do it because we don't want to have to invade because then the japanese will be

00:42:41.780 destroyed will be destroyed because this is getting more and more bitter more islands we take you know

00:42:48.340 iwo jima it's just more and more bitter the air war is more bitter the japanese people but in the

00:42:53.860 calculation of the the logic of war taking over what science and technology has given you is a

00:43:00.900 perfect example and that is absolutely artificial intelligence today that's why i'm the big i'm a

00:43:05.780 luddite i'm forming we're working a group of a lot of progressives and and people on the right that

00:43:11.060 are coming together and saying there's more if you look at the four oligarchs in this country that run

00:43:19.060 artificial intelligence uh you have to have there's more regulation for uh a korean young korean uh

00:43:28.340 girl to open one of these nail salons in washington dc than there is on artificial intelligence and the

00:43:35.060 destruct potential destructive power of artificial intelligence could be far worse than nuclear weapons

00:43:39.940 i'll i'll i'll leave it at that i mean powerful technology will ultimately um become a subject

00:43:50.980 to the mandates of war once the shooting starts it has a logic of its own and this stuff must be thought

00:43:56.660 about very carefully from a lot of points of view um you know i could try to tackle the question of why

00:44:03.300 we gave away our manufacturing might can you do that why did we do that because this is kind of why

00:44:08.180 we're in the shape we're in today this is my best assessment at this point still working on it but

00:44:13.060 you know first of all when we talked about that manufacturing powerhouse that existed in the 40s

00:44:17.060 that was built over 100 years using tariffs with a lot of other tariffs were part of the president

00:44:23.620 trump mckinley and his favorite group back there in the late 19th century and i am not in any american

00:44:28.260 plant but it's hamilton it's it's it's it's lincoln that whole throughput part of the not just civil

00:44:35.700 war but part of the tension in the country has always been the non-tariff guys versus the

00:44:40.500 tariff and protectionist guys but you got to look at who we were at the time the tariffs were a wall

00:44:44.740 to keep out uh britain and other developed powers from dumping on us we needed to build up our own

00:44:50.580 industries so we built a wall around the economy and it worked and we had this huge thing there's

00:44:57.780 obviously the super pivotal moment when we win world war ii and we are a superpower like no other

00:45:05.860 that has ever existed in the history of the world greater than the british greater than anything greater

00:45:10.820 world's greatest hegemon greater than all of it and the people running the country which was a

00:45:15.860 surprisingly small group of people and they all went to harvard they all went to yale and they all came

00:45:20.980 from this world and uh they looked at the globe like a map but of course it wasn't just like a small

00:45:29.060 group of people here's here's what i'm saying there was this tectonic shift where we realize we're not

00:45:36.020 the colony anymore trying to stoke our own we are the empire now we are the hegemon we like free trade

00:45:43.380 because now we're the global banking capital of the planet earth the dollar becomes the reserve currency

00:45:50.020 we create the imf we create the breton woods accord all of these things and so we started saying okay

00:45:56.820 now we're in the catbird seat and we're essentially running the global economy we are the peak the

00:46:03.780 pinnacle of it and it's therefore in our interests to be engaged more in running the entire system than

00:46:12.820 than being the workshop of the system and so that's kind of the fundamental mentality shift that starts to

00:46:18.020 happen and then you see it accelerate through the 1970s because we kind of hit this moment of economic

00:46:24.100 crisis you know uh there's less profitability for us corporations and that's when the offshoring really

00:46:31.300 starts because companies are searching to boost profit margins and all the rest of it and the other

00:46:37.700 nations are getting built up through our largesse by the way you go you go let's go back to into the

00:46:43.220 60s because you have vietnam you we do have an industrial base that's supplying vietnam a lot

00:46:48.180 of people accuse people today that the vietnam war was driven by the profitability of the arms just

00:46:53.300 the same types of things they argued in world war one you have lyndon johnson passes the great society

00:46:58.340 you have the guns and butter we're not although we're a manufacturing superpower when nixon comes in

00:47:04.340 kind of the crisis of the arab oil embargo the dollar we get off the gold standard you have the arab

00:47:09.140 oil embargo all of a sudden america goes from this whatever he just says from the post-war era of

00:47:15.620 like we're the we're the most biggest power in the world we're losing in vietnam with all these advanced

00:47:20.740 weapons the cities are on fire we're not we have runaway inflation we have gas lines around the country

00:47:27.620 how did that all go when it's still at the time we still are the manufacturing superpower we're about to

00:47:33.380 lose that the 70s we're about to farm that out but how do we have that crisis of confidence that all

00:47:39.940 these things happen and this is what i'm saying today we're right in and out in a series of we're

00:47:45.540 going to have a convergence of many crises that's going to last years and no easy decisions because

00:47:51.860 the easy decisions are decades ago it's going to be back to like the 60s and 70s when we had a similar

00:47:57.620 thing and we kind of abandoned core things like being a manufacturing superpower we walked away from it

00:48:02.980 jeez yes i mean these are huge huge forces you're talking about and also when we talk about

00:48:10.660 converging crises not to get back to the fed but as you know our interest payments on debt right now

00:48:17.220 cost more than the entire military budget but it's 1.4 tree and a lot more so that is gross yeah

00:48:23.780 that's everything that's that's what i said like that is the central that the still the fed and the

00:48:29.700 economy and and and and no growth rate and all that no manufacturing base no high value added jobs

00:48:36.100 on top of the debt that's why i just figured out in this conversation leonard

00:48:40.980 you're the guy that's actually looked at the two central parts of the crisis now for the last 10

00:48:46.500 years of your life you're probably the only individual you're not probably the only individual

00:48:50.180 that's done this you've looked at the financial fiasco and if you read your book you're shocked that

00:48:56.100 it could happen like this right what the fed was argue the time and now you're into the defense what

00:49:02.020 you're seeing what happened to the manufacturing base well the thing is as a reporter you want to

00:49:06.900 look at what matters and and it's not too difficult to pick out really powerful institutions and parts

00:49:12.820 of our economy start looking at how do things work it's pretty simple i guess at the end of the day and

00:49:18.020 i think that the defense industry is at the core of american power particularly since world war ii

00:49:23.540 when we became a globe-spanning truly hegemonic power this thing's been wrapped up with that from

00:49:29.540 the get-go i i guess to get back to the crisis of the 70s and this and the offshoring that began at

00:49:37.060 that time we felt we could trade away the manufacturing base and that we would benefit

00:49:43.300 from the trade that would result from the financialization that we're the world's bank right

00:49:48.340 and then it accelerates it accelerates into the 90s and it particularly accelerates during the 2000s

00:49:54.420 after china joins wto in 2001 with the china shock i mean that's when it really gathers speed and what

00:50:01.140 i'm saying is that now the policies are being reevaluated i think it's fair to say we're like wait a

00:50:07.860 minute let me let me tell you this i was just at one of the world's largest arms trade shows it was wild

00:50:15.220 man you had people from saudi arabia israel pakistan the russians the chinese they were all there

00:50:21.620 and i'm stating the obvious but it's fair to say we're entering a new geopolitical era

00:50:26.980 of blocks blocs and like a divided world where we're facing this kind of

00:50:36.020 i i don't want to use the word conflict but a dynamic we haven't faced i'm telling you in in

00:50:41.940 decades this is the heart of my speech last night the the the converging crises and what's going to

00:50:46.580 happen like i say the early kinetic place of the of the second of the third world war if president

00:50:52.500 trump doesn't try to get or doesn't get peace if you look at from 1939 in poland to 1941 the invasion

00:50:59.220 of uh russia and operation barbarossa by the by the germans uh the casualties there are nothing compared

00:51:07.060 to ukraine and gaza we got to go we're going to get a minute left you're amazing hey thanks for the

00:51:11.700 time i can't believe the the the the the heart of the issues you're getting to are just so incredible

00:51:17.380 for today i look forward to having you back and uh amazing research can't wait for the the book to

00:51:22.100 come out lords of easy money if you want to understand the financial situation we're in it is

00:51:28.420 absolutely a primer you read that you will be gobsmacked one of the concerns i have is it regardless of

00:51:35.300 politics you have president trump but that second and third tier of leadership right as a nation

00:51:42.020 because you look at the the the giant we're standing on shoulders of giants from back in

00:51:45.940 the 19th century in the early 20th century that had a view and had a vision and had america both

00:51:53.060 prosperous and peaceful at one time okay uh 10 a.m tomorrow morning we'll be here we'll be live

00:51:58.580 from rome president will be there for the funeral of uh bergolia and uh we'll be live in rome with

00:52:05.140 ben harwell see you tomorrow morning attending what if he had the brightest mind in the war room

00:52:11.140 delivering critical financial research every month steve bannon here war room listeners know

00:52:16.980 jim records i love this guy he's our wise man a former cia pentagon and white house advisor

00:52:23.060 with an unmatched grasp of geopolitics and capital markets jim predicted trump's electoral college victory

00:52:29.220 exactly 312 to 226 down to the actual number itself now he's issuing a dire warning about april 11th a

00:52:39.620 moment that could define trump's presidency in your financial future his latest book money gpt exposes

00:52:46.580 how ai is setting the stage for financial chaos bank runs at lightning speeds algorithm driven crashes

00:52:53.460 and even threats to national security right now war room members get a free copy of money gpt when

00:52:59.700 they sign up for strategic intelligence this is jim's flagship financial newsletter strategic

00:53:05.860 intelligence i read it you should read it time is running out go to rickardswarroom.com that's all

00:53:12.020 one word rickardswarroom records with an s go now and claim your free book that's rickardswarroom.com

00:53:19.460 do it today hey war room hope you're all doing well my name is trevor comstock i'm one of the

00:53:26.180 co-creators of sacred human and i wanted to share just a little bit more about our brand for those

00:53:30.500 who may not know of us yet but about six months ago we decided to launch sacred human with really

00:53:36.340 the simple mission being to provide american-made natural supplements without all the artificial

00:53:42.260 nonsense so unfortunately as many of you know a lot of these big corporate supplements will include

00:53:48.100 things like preservatives artificial ingredients and other additives that really aren't benefiting

00:53:53.140 your health so that's why we created sacred human really trying to fill this gap of quality

00:53:58.260 supplements and of course the beef liver being our flagship products for those who don't know

00:54:03.860 beef liver is loaded with highly bioavailable ingredients such as vitamin a b12 zinc coq10 etc and

00:54:12.420 because it is 100 percent grass-fed and natural your body is able to absorb these nutrients far better

00:54:18.500 than taking any other synthetic multivitamin or any other synthetic vitamin in general so we have some

00:54:25.620 other amazing products but if you'd like to check us out you can go to sacredhumanhealth.com

00:54:30.180 and cheers to your health

Bannon's War Room - April 25, 2025

WarRoom Battleground EP 755： The Lords Of Easy Money Three Years Later

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript