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 0.98

00:06:19.720 besides the brits but our chinese chinese and the and the russians are completely eviscerated 1.00

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 0.99

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 0.66

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 1.00

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 0.67

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

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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

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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 1.00

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 0.96

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 0.97

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 1.00

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 0.99

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 0.98

00:43:28.340 girl to open one of these nail salons in washington dc than there is on artificial intelligence and the 1.00

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 0.99

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 0.77

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 0.71

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 0.52

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 0.96

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

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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

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