Stephen K. Bannon and Ben Harnell join host Stephen K. Lee to discuss the latest on the latest in the Putin-Trump relationship, including a possible assassination attempt on President Vladimir Putin, and the growing evidence that Putin is playing with fire.
00:01:17.400If you can please read this tweet, I want to bring you in right afterwards, because I think it reinforces my theory of the case from this morning.
00:01:26.360We had so much going on that we've asked Ben to join us in the 6 o'clock hour to give us his perspective as our international editor out of Rome.
00:01:35.920One of my great fears – by the way, Dave Brat is going to join us as soon as we get him up here in a moment.
00:01:41.140And we're going to be talking about the situation in – with Peter Navarro put this magnificent – something we've been calling for.
00:01:50.640In fact, I think some of it is off some of the analysis that we've been putting out that you've got to look at the big, beautiful bill.
00:01:56.400It's part of whole cloth of what's going on with what else President Trump's got to do, and you've got to add those numbers.
00:02:03.000But I also want Dave Brat to comment on this geopolitical situation.
00:02:08.620Ben, here's my concern, is that we had Mark Mitchell on this morning, and Mark Mitchell Rasmussen goes through these amazing numbers of President Trump,
00:02:16.420where the American people now think the country's on the right track, and this is coming off of his Middle East trip,
00:02:21.120that people now are supporting Trump probably more than ever between an election day.
00:02:27.800And yet we're inexorably drawn in, and this is – over this weekend, and I drilled down on this thing pretty thoroughly,
00:02:35.240we are being drawn in more and more into the kinetic war.
00:02:38.880The President Trump has made his number one priority to actually have people put their guns down and let's get to a deal.
00:02:45.560We're inexorably drawn into this moment by moment.
00:02:49.180One part of it is that the Americans' weapons manufacturers have used Ukraine as a lab in these drone strikes, which are very serious.
00:02:56.320And if you don't believe me, maybe I can play the Alex Jones clip either late in the show tomorrow.
00:03:01.140Alex does a great job of walking through how there was a significant assassination attempt on Putin by a – basically an attack, I think, of 500 Ukrainian drones
00:03:10.740with essentially American artificial intelligence and target acquisition and fire control solutions.
00:03:16.420Last night in Moscow, 300 drones got through, I think, of a 500-drone attack and actually attacked the city.
00:03:25.340The tweet I just gave you is that there's a discussion.
00:03:29.360Look, you've got all these sites in this war that are false flag sites giving you false information.
00:03:37.280But they're saying how Russia's had it, and with Mertz kind of driving this, that they're actually having discussions inside the Russian military about targets in Berlin.
00:03:49.260And this is – my fear is that just like in 1939, this war is expanding.
00:03:58.180Ben Harnwell, from your perspective in Rome, and someone who's been dead spot on in this thing since the evening before the invasion back in, I think, was it February 22?
00:04:10.800Steve, well, President Trump – good afternoon to you.
00:04:14.680President Trump put out, I think it was on social media, that President Putin is playing with fire, and that he called him crazy in capital letters.
00:04:27.580Look, I will defend President Trump until I'm blue in the face.
00:04:31.660In every way I can, I will always see how I might take his side in an argument.
00:04:36.160But I have to say, looking at the facts, I don't think it's President Trump who's playing with fire.
00:04:42.260I think it's President – I don't think it's President Putin who's playing with fire.
00:04:45.120It's President Trump who is playing with fire.
00:04:48.180And with regards to the crazy accusation, I have to be consistent.
00:04:53.620As an analyst, Steve, coming on the show, I have to be consistent.
00:04:56.720I have to say the same thing that I said three years ago when Ursula von der Leyen and President Biden were pushing out this line that President Putin was crazy.
00:05:07.860And I said – I have to repeat now what I said then.
00:05:10.020If you guys really think Putin is crazy, this man is armed with nuclear missiles.
00:05:17.860Why are you antagonizing him if you think he's crazy?
00:05:21.560And I have to say the same thing to President Trump.
00:05:23.300If you think President Putin is crazy, why are you dragging – no, he's not dragging – President Trump is not dragging the United States into this war.
00:05:35.980He's allowing himself by other actors to be dragged in.
00:05:39.200And that's worse because it shows that President Trump isn't in control of the narrative here.
00:05:43.860Let me give the blinding example of how President Trump is not in control of this situation.
00:05:50.220Two days ago, on Monday, the new Reichskanzler in Germany, in Berlin, Friedrich Mertz, had a press conference.
00:06:00.240And he stated that – and you mentioned this on the morning show – that Germany, France, the UK and America
00:06:08.400had now removed all the long-range inhibitions on the long-range missiles that the various countries had provided to Ukraine.
00:06:24.920Yesterday, Mertz walked that back ever so slightly, saying actually he was talking about things that had already been happening for the last couple of months.
00:06:33.240Also, yesterday, I think a friend of yours, Steve, Tammy Bruce, was asked whether she's – you know, does she have a statement to make on Mertz's declaration?
00:06:45.320And she said, we're not going to be commenting on this.
00:06:49.620Because November last year, Biden – you might remember, I remember this very well – Biden announced that he was removing the distance inhibitions on the ATACMS missiles that he had provided Zelensky with.
00:07:04.560And I remember there was a specific weekend that I actually thought we were going to possibly see some kind of nuclear exchange.
00:07:10.760About 30 hours after that, I don't know if Biden walked it back or if he just clarified something that had been misunderstood by the press.
00:07:21.040When I said that Zelensky could use these ATACMS missiles inside Russia, I was simply referring to the Kursk region conflict.
00:07:32.200Now, Kursk, as the war impasse will know, is on the borders, on the Russian side of the Ukraine-Russian borders, where Zelensky took the war to Russia.
00:07:41.380And he said, only there, not deep within Russia, and absolutely not towards Moscow or St. Petersburg or anything like that.
00:08:12.740Now, there are two possibilities, Steve, to this.
00:08:15.360Either Merz is right, and that at some point, presumably from the inauguration to the present date,
00:08:22.960President Trump has indicated behind the scenes that to Ukraine, that Ukraine might now use those missiles to attack deep within Russian territory.
00:08:35.320If Merz has got it wrong, I don't understand why Tammy Bruce won't walk it back.
00:08:39.760If Merz is telling the truth, however, Steve, that's terrifying for a number of reasons.
00:08:44.380Firstly, firstly, why is President Trump allowing a European leader to announce what the United States policy position is on an issue that could lead to a nuclear element to the kinetic stage of World War III?
00:09:02.660Point two, as I said, if Trump is putting out on social media that he thinks Putin is crazy,
00:09:07.920and as I just said in my introduction, Putin is – Russia is the most nuclear-armed country on the planet.
00:09:17.900Why are you authorizing Ukraine to use long-distance missiles that could potentially reach Moscow if you think President Putin is crazy?
00:09:29.620Jim Rickards said this morning, do you agree or disagree?
00:09:34.120He said, hey, this clearly has the implicit OK by the United States because Tammy Bruce didn't come out and say anything.
00:09:42.460And the United States is allowing Merz to say this and going quiet publicly, but they would have had to approve it for Merz ever to include it because Merz said France, UK, and the United States all agreed.
00:09:57.120They were all given permission to strike inland to Russia.
00:10:01.960Look, Steve, I've been involved in politics for 25 years.
00:10:06.940My first rule of thumb is never underestimate the degree of incompetence that takes place at the highest levels of government.
00:10:15.640So there could be – the moment I'm leaving space for the possibility that Merz got ahead of himself on this.
00:10:22.600But I don't understand, you know, Jim Rickards makes the point that right now, tacitly at least,
00:10:28.520the fact that the United States hasn't walked that back, hasn't explicitly contradicted Germany on this does indicate a sort of degree of permission.
00:10:37.380But I have a wider question on regards to this, Stephen.
00:10:40.360Again, for coherence, I have to say exactly what I said when Biden was president.
00:10:47.900If you are giving Ukraine free reign to use U.S.-provided long-distance missiles to attack deep within Russian territory,
00:11:01.040you are effectively outsourcing your own role in a war of which you are not formally a part to another country,
00:11:11.040another country that has the most massive vested interests to drag you into it.
00:11:16.460Steve, I can't – I can make that point ten times in a row and literally repeat it.
00:11:23.720If President Trump has given this permission to Zelensky, he is allowing Zelensky to dictate whether America is now formally involved in a war with Russia.
00:13:24.700We had Mark Mitchell on this morning of these unbelievable numbers, not just the MAGA because we love it.
00:13:30.960But now people are waking up to what he's doing, Middle East, tariffs, the economy, all this.
00:13:36.320You've got – he's on a roll on so many – we just got the – we're supposed to spend the whole hour on Peter Navarro.
00:13:42.280We are going to get to it, this incredible piece in the Hill to talk about the economic upside of where we're going.
00:13:48.460What do you mean it's all in jeopardy?
00:13:51.100Do you think he loses all of that if we're drawn into this war in Ukraine, which obviously we're being drawn in every second of every day, sir?
00:14:00.100Yeah, if you just look at any information source, right?
00:14:06.080I was looking at the conference board today, whoever runs that joint, right?
00:14:10.100It turns consumer confidence has jumped up spectacularly.
00:14:14.780And expectations – consumer confidence up 12 points.
00:14:19.120Expectations on the future is up 17 points.
00:14:22.020What do you think a war does to those expectations?
00:14:25.280What do you think a war does to Wall Street, right?
00:14:27.680They're walking a tightrope right there, right?
00:14:30.260Trump's throwing spaghetti out there on the wall just brilliantly.
00:14:34.620And he's searching for that golden sweet spot, that equilibrium between the bond market and economic growth and the big, beautiful bill and monetary policy and geopolitics and the labor force and education and Harvard and all of it, right?
00:15:55.240He knew he was doing this because it's the only way they could try to get this huge bill passed to support Ukraine, which turned out to be an epic fail.
00:16:03.380But you got so many out-of-control deep state hawks in the Senate that – I don't know if you're going to get it.
00:16:12.120Ben Harnwell, your thoughts on Brother Brat?
00:16:16.620Steve, they're not deep – hey, Dave, good afternoon to you too.
00:16:26.880To give them the magnificence of referring to them as hawks is slightly misleading.
00:16:32.420Look, I want to come back to something that Dave mentioned about the Constitution.
00:16:36.800Just put this to the side about the fact that Congress actually has the role here over declaring war.
00:16:43.200Just for – I want to make a philosophical point.
00:16:45.620Congress – it's a nest of vipers and snakes.
00:16:50.920The present Congress, as it is constituted, is the last organization on the face of this planet that I would delegate war-making authority to.
00:17:11.820It's when he gets wrapped in and sucked in and encapsulated and surrounded by Congress that I think that there are the issues to behold.
00:17:22.520And the big, beautiful bill is just an example of that.
00:17:26.520Any organization that presents to the American people this big, beautiful bill and say we've done a great job is the last organization I would let anywhere near to this war with Ukraine.
00:17:40.120Donald Trump needs to – MAGA, effectively, with all the agency that this great movement has, that the war in Posse has, MAGA, with his agency, needs to hold Donald Trump's feet to the fire.
00:17:53.920He promised to do something, which is end this war within 24 hours.
00:17:57.700He started to walk it back saying he was exaggerating.
00:18:00.480And this movement, if I can say this ever so gently, with all love and respect to POTUS, he has been commissioned by this movement to do a job.
00:18:11.920Fundamentally, the president, Donald Trump, is responsible to this movement.
00:18:17.640He is there to represent this movement.
00:18:20.520And when he said – sorry, I'll give way on this point, Steve.
00:18:22.660When he says he will end that war in 24 hours, that is exactly why he was elected into office and that's when he needs to reclaim.
00:18:32.020But you heard Rickards – I got that and this movement knows that.
00:18:35.980But you heard what Rickards said today.
00:18:38.040We could end the war immediately, but you have to give in to the Russian maximalist.
00:18:46.400And remember, we have been against this war from beginning.
00:18:49.020We have been against the party of Davos, Brussels, the whole EU, what they've done to instigate this.
00:18:55.240But to solve it now, you would have to give in to Putin's maximalist positions on everything across the board.
00:19:03.640Do you think President Trump should do that or he's trying to work to get at least a fair deal?
00:19:07.640Look, we oppose, as you know, the economic deal with Ukraine.
00:19:11.560But President Trump is at least trying to get something that appears to be fair to both parties.
00:19:16.940Do you think he just ought to cave to Putin and say, hey, it's yours and move on?
00:19:21.600Well, you know, in a sense, the suggestions are a false dichotomy because it's reality that Congress believes that it can somehow manipulate the outcome of this war without entering into full-on kinetic Third World War level.
00:20:19.740And you say to me, you know, OK, Han, well, do we give in to Putin's maximum demands?
00:20:24.320Well, frankly, we created, you know, the West NATO, we created this in the first place.
00:20:29.320There was either the outcomes were either we would back down and after spending 200, 300 billion, we would end up backing down humiliatedly.
00:20:42.940Or we'll go all the way through and have some kind of nuclear war with Russia or Russia stroke China.
00:20:49.760I don't see what the third possibility is, apart from this long meat grinder type war of attrition,
00:20:55.460which we're not going to win for a number of different reasons, least of all because this is an existential war for Russia, as it's not for us.
00:21:41.260And you better make a deal of any sort before the terms get even worse.
00:21:45.540Ben Harnwell, can you give your social media, how do people keep up with you?
00:21:53.480Because do you agree with me that we are now in a absolute crisis mode in this Ukraine situation?
00:21:59.780What's happened over the last 72 hours, folks, if you're not paying attention, you better, because they've got a full scale air war, a modern 21st century air war.
00:22:08.100And I believe Alex Jones 100 percent on this, about this assassination attempt on Putin.
00:22:13.040You've had fleets, I mean, 500, 600, 1,000 of these drones, highly sophisticated drones with advanced target acquisition, fire control solutions hitting on both sides.
00:22:55.240What would the United States military do if the president's plane, if Air Force One was taken down and we knew the nation that did it, right?
00:23:05.260What do you think the United States would do as a response?
00:23:09.460You know, this is the degree of folly that Zelensky is in.
00:23:12.380And President Trump needs to clarify this situation for the American people, whether he is delegated to Zelensky, the ability to choose whether America gets pulled in against its will into this war even further.
00:23:27.080We are in a crisis situation, as you said.
00:23:30.680Do you believe this tweet that Russian military command is – not that they're saying to do it, but they're running alternatives about the targeting of Berlin?
00:23:44.080I have – look, when you're talking about the drone attacks, I try not to form my analysis on the basis of these tit-for-tat drone figures and anything coming out of Russian media.
00:23:57.260The only reason I believe this TASS story with regards to Tammy Bruce is because it seems credible to me.
00:24:05.040But I haven't found – and Steve, look, this is a story in and of itself.
00:24:08.660Why is there zero reference to this Tammy Bruce declaration in any Western newspaper?
00:24:57.600They've proven it over the past couple years.
00:25:00.260But the president needs to shine the light on Congress and make them come up with authoritative statements on all the pressure we can bring to bear on Russia.
00:25:08.700And we need to use the trade war and every lever we have to go after China to put maximal pressure on Russia as well, as long as Europe and all our friends.
00:25:18.400Right now, we need to play very strong and hard.
00:25:20.900Okay, Brad, you're going to stick with me.
00:25:24.760We're going to go through the president's economic plan as outlined by the great Dr. Peter Navarro.
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00:29:58.160He's our wise man, a former CIA, Pentagon, and White House advisor with an unmatched grasp of geopolitics and capital markets.
00:30:05.780Jim predicted Trump's Electoral College victory exactly 312 to 226, down to the actual number itself.
00:30:14.440Now he's issuing a dire warning about April 11th, a moment that could define Trump's presidency in your financial future.
00:30:22.840His latest book, Money GPT, exposes how AI is setting the stage for financial chaos, bank runs at lightning speeds, algorithm-driven crashes, and even threats to national security.
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00:30:40.560This is Jim's flagship financial newsletter, Strategic Intelligence.
00:30:59.620The most important trial ever begins in Denver next week.
00:31:05.940If that sounds like a bit of an exaggeration or perhaps a completely wackadoodle claim, you should know that it's coming from my pillow guy and election denier Mike Lindell.
00:31:15.420Now, in fairness to Lindell, I am sure that it is the most important trial ever to him because he is the one who is going to be on trial, accused of defamation for saying that Denver-based Dominion voting systems and one particular Coloradan rigged the 2020 election against Donald Trump.
00:31:35.260Truth is an absolute defense against defamation.
00:31:38.480So, if Lindell can come to court and prove that he was telling the truth about election rigging, he's in the clear.
00:31:46.620I actually think that this upcoming trial deserves more attention than it's getting because this is the chance for election deniers to provide their proof of the alleged conspiracy, the one that the most powerful man in the world, President of the United States, will not stop talking about even now that he's back in the White House.
00:32:04.060But I think I know why this upcoming trial in Denver is largely being ignored.
00:32:21.440I also believe that a number of Colorado's local journalists are skittish about covering political extremism.
00:32:27.720It draws accusations of bias and threats of violence.
00:32:31.460And if we're being totally honest, it's a lot more complicated to cover than much of what ends up on the evening news.
00:32:38.600Now, let's talk about the general public.
00:32:41.140I think a lot of Democrats are hesitant to talk about Mike Lindell's election rigging claims because they don't want to give fuel to theories that erode faith in our elections.
00:32:50.980I think a lot of Republicans are hesitant to talk about this, too, because while you see a bunch of Republicans nod along in agreement with Trump's election rigging claims,
00:33:01.000when people have to explain exactly how the elections are rigged, that's when folks start to sound goofy.
00:33:08.900Like the swirl of claims that Dominion is rigging the vote with help from Antifa or Venezuela or George Soros.
00:33:18.580The people pushing those theories for years have always said they want their day in court.
00:33:24.660Well, they're going to get it in Denver starting next week.
00:33:28.300Wow. We played that this morning and it blew people away.
00:33:41.300I think this they're not covering it because, first off, they don't want to see the facts out there.
00:33:47.020This this trial could be a game changer.
00:33:48.780And you're an American hero for pursuing it because you could have settled your your folks should know this is a roll the dice move of a former degenerate gambler, Mike Lindell.
00:34:21.840What lawfare with the day that when Smartmatic sued Fox News on February 4th of 2021, that started lawfare in our country.
00:34:30.320And according to Alan Dershowitz, it hadn't been done since 1790, the 1790s.
00:34:35.040And it was over 100 people or close to 100 and platforms that were sued and also threatening letters sent out to many, many individuals back then.
00:34:46.460And but all these people, they got scared, you know, they and their insurance company, we have to settle.
00:34:56.100I've been here with the lawyers and stuff for about a week.
00:34:58.900And they said to list all the experts that have worked with me on this and all the cyber people and the government and colonels and generals.
00:35:19.140I've seen deviations in the in the elections, all the elections.
00:35:23.260I mean, everybody's seen them now, Steve, where you see 81 million people that voted for Biden, 65 Obama, 60, 66 or whatever it was for Harris.
00:35:32.780And and going back to 65 for Clinton, you got all this in 81 million.
00:36:15.700It's so sad that this attack and this suppression here in the state of Colorado, everybody, in the spring of 2021, they did something called the trusted bill.
00:36:25.640Remember, I was sued by Dominion and they did this trusted bill.
00:36:29.320Well, that trusted bill was deleted, you know, thousands and thousands of files that by by by federal law, you have to hold those records for 22 months here in Colorado.
00:36:52.720And so the right now in Arapahoe County, this is two weeks ago, everybody, just two weeks ago, this is going to be brought up in the trial.
00:37:01.020This all came out two weeks ago, there was stuff that happened in the 2020 election, and everyone says, well, why do you keep looking back to that?
00:37:09.440Well, those are the biggest deviations, but it happens in every election.
00:37:13.080And as you all know, what have I been fighting for, Steve, to get to paper ballots, hand counted?
00:37:18.180A hundred and thirty two other countries have banned electronic voting machines.
00:38:49.380But I got to get Brian Costello in here for a couple of minutes because this morning Brian was watching the show.
00:38:54.040Brian, you're our expert on with Joe Allen, artificial intelligence.
00:38:58.440You really did disagree with Jim Rickards.
00:39:01.020I need to get that out there before I go through this economic report, because I think the economic report is based upon advances in artificial intelligence.
00:39:17.140I mean, I sent you the perfect example, right, is they have people need to understand there's different types of artificial intelligence.
00:39:24.060And we also have a couple of things going on.
00:39:26.180We have artificial intelligence merging with autonomous technology and robots right at the same time.
00:39:32.740So there is a lot of creative innovation going on here.
00:39:35.840You know, this stuff learns on its own, right?
00:39:38.840Like we know that artificial intelligence, and this was a while ago, I forget the actual year, but there's something called Move 37 where a type of AI called reinforcement learning beat the best co-players in the world.
00:39:51.540And it did a move that nobody else didn't do.
00:39:54.020We're working with this stuff every day, Steve.
00:39:56.260And it has the ability to create unique information, discover patterns at scale.
00:40:01.160There's a reason, you know, all these companies are throwing money into biotech, R&D, using AI.
00:45:34.140But in the meantime, you've brung all the capital back into the U.S.
00:45:38.380And any business guy, he says, any business person knows when you bring capital back, that's the best thing you can ever have for our economy.
00:46:23.620I think a percentage of deficits to GDP.
00:46:27.680This is getting more and more serious.
00:46:28.820Because what Navarro is showing you with adding in the real growth rate, which means more tax revenue, adding the tariffs, which means more cash, actually trying to put a number around deregulation and lower energy costs.
00:46:44.800That $2 trillion deficits per year, which is everybody's concern, until you get to the mandatory cuts, you could cut that down.
00:46:52.760You actually may be able to cut that in half.
00:46:55.280And if you cut it in half to a trillion or less, then all of a sudden you're at 3.5 percent.
00:48:46.300And there's some real good news buried in how this all works out.
00:48:49.640It's just a matter of – we've got to have our House and the Senate still cut spending.
00:48:54.300This in no way relieves Congress of the duty to cut spending, right?
00:48:59.340And the unsustainable piece – I've got some charts I'll do at a later date.
00:49:03.540But the debt blowing up and the consequences of the Federal Reserve and inflation over the years has just been horrendous and put us in this position.
00:49:18.420You're putting up charts all the time.
00:49:19.640You get down to the math of it because a lot of people think Dave Bratt is just a pretty face, that he's just a – looks like a movie star.
00:49:26.660You know, Brad Pitt, but actually he's a Ph.D.