Bannon's War Room - WarRoom Battleground EP 910： The Rise Of Christian Nationalism And AI’s Potential To Destabilise Democracy

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

00:00:10.500 medieval on these people here's not got a free shot all these networks lying about the people

00:00:17.100 the people have had a belly full of it I know you don't like hearing that I know you try to

00:00:21.120 do everything the world to stop that but you're not gonna stop it it's going to happen and where

00:00:24.780 to people like that go to share the big line mega media I wish in my soul I wish that any of these

00:00:32.580 people had a conscience ask yourself what is my task and what is my purpose if that answer is to

00:00:40.140 save my country this country will be saved war room here's your host Stephen K. Band

00:00:48.020 Friday 12th of December Hanwell here at the helm Steve Bannon's war room we've made it folks to

00:01:02.680 the end of the week um I saw as you know I read about 750 800 850 articles every day as part of my job

00:01:12.600 and I saw a very very interesting article this week uh by Professor Alejandro Reyes who is the

00:01:20.740 adjunct professor and senior fellow at the center on contemporary China and the world at the

00:01:27.220 University of Hong Kong and this article was in a magazine which I do peruse constantly foreign policy

00:01:35.440 I think Steve Bannon says it's one of the most important foreign affairs um magazines news

00:01:43.640 magazines in the business foreign policy foreign affairs they are two very well respected and

00:01:49.680 established news portals it really sort of lets you know how the globalist elites are thinking you're

00:01:58.460 listening into that interior conversation and the article that we're discussing today is will

00:02:03.660 Pope Leo stand up to Christian nationalism um professor Reyes thank you very much indeed

00:02:11.540 for coming on the show today somewhat very brave and courageous of you to step

00:02:18.560 into the lion's den um your article

00:02:23.760 your article um opened in fact with a reference to Steve Bannon

00:02:31.780 uh and an early interview he'd given to the economist where he said that Donald Trump was a vehicle of

00:02:39.820 divine providence and an instrument of divine will and that's really the the starting point

00:02:46.800 for your excursion here um now you you you put together some interesting arguments and I wanted to

00:02:55.600 talk to you because often you know perhaps we're two sides and talking amongst ourselves

00:03:03.440 and I really wanted the opportunity

00:03:06.820 to

00:03:08.740 to

00:03:09.820 dive in a little bit about what you're saying because your your thesis in this article is that

00:03:15.340 Leo Pope Leo Leo the 14th might well indeed be

00:03:20.320 a point of opposition to the Christian nationalist agenda

00:03:27.300 let's start off with something that you say in your article and go from there

00:03:33.060 uh because you say that Steve was articulating a political theology and a claim

00:03:42.620 that a leader if chosen by God stands above human law and temporal limits

00:03:48.940 and that that idea wants and still is the claim of monarchs and that it's re-entered

00:03:55.920 modern politics um that's a very interesting way of looking I don't know if Steve has ever

00:04:01.480 quite put it in those words um but you go on to say that the movements that we that we follow

00:04:10.520 very much on this show uh differ in creed and converge in disposition which is an interesting

00:04:19.340 way of putting it because a lot of these populist nationalist iterations do have conflicts between

00:04:26.280 them but sort of can unite around a border position what I want to start off with asking you is this

00:04:34.060 because you say that they sacralize exclusion distrust pluralism and cast political opposition as moral decay

00:04:42.160 what what do you mean um because you obviously not really you know there's no problem with that but

00:04:48.820 you're not clearly not part of the Christian nationalist movement what what does it mean for someone who

00:04:56.300 opposes the Christian nationalist movement to suggest that what we're doing is sacralizing exclusion

00:05:04.860 right um thank you for um having me here I'm sorry it's uh first of all it's two in the morning in

00:05:15.340 Hong Kong where I am and my voice is somewhat hoarse from having a cold and from it being the time it is

00:05:23.440 um to your question you know I I I think um uh Christians have always believed God sort of works

00:05:32.000 through history but you know never the leaders above uh are above judgment so I I I think when when

00:05:40.660 I talk about sacralizing exclusion uh the idea that um uh you know the uh Christianity the political

00:05:49.800 Catholic theology theology of exception you know that there's some um that there is some kind of

00:05:56.260 exemption and that's exactly what the church has resisted this idea of ex um uh accepting certain

00:06:04.000 people from uh responsibility from judgment but also excluding uh uh people the stranger the stranger is a

00:06:13.440 an important um figure in uh Catholic theology in particular um and and how one must look after and care even for

00:06:23.840 the foreigner um and consider the foreigner as indeed your neighbor

00:06:29.440 so this is the um so you think from your perspective that what we're doing here is othering

00:06:38.320 to use the contemporary verb where we're othering um people who aren't part of the movement

00:06:48.260 for political motivation well that within the politics of uh Christian nationalism there clearly is

00:06:57.520 especially with regard to the issue of immigration that there is a sense that a key part of of of that

00:07:05.460 politics the Christian nationalism politics has to do with excluding immigrants excluding particularly

00:07:15.040 um um um people possibly of different faiths uh people who are outside that kind of Christian

00:07:24.260 community uh that um Christian nationalists seek to uh promote and preserve and maintain as kind of the core

00:07:34.960 of uh culture uh uh particularly the western civilizational culture

00:07:40.420 when i hear you talking professor reyes um i get a thought an idea which i'd never it's never occurred to me

00:07:52.620 before um and i need to think about this some more but the oh you know the old in Catholic theology

00:07:57.740 there was this old principle of extra ecclesia nulla salus right there's no salvation outside the church

00:08:04.820 what you're suggesting is that sort of that theological idea has been transposed if you will

00:08:12.260 within the Christian nationalist movement um as as part of its core philosophy is is that really what

00:08:19.780 you're suggesting you know i'm suggesting you know i'm suggesting you know i'm not a theologian

00:08:25.960 i'm not a theology major i'm just the observer political observer and indeed uh part of the reason

00:08:32.760 i wrote this piece is because it's not it's not within actually my uh general expertise which is on

00:08:39.780 um asia pacific indo-pacific politics uh geopolitics but because i have observed and written about the um

00:08:48.900 the catholic church before uh i felt inspired uh to to to write this um this piece of analysis

00:08:55.580 um i i think i'm merely saying that within the agenda it would seem at least from uh what i have

00:09:03.840 observed is uh that in the um christian nationalist agenda there is a immigration plays a significant role

00:09:13.760 uh uh is a significant issue and um the idea is that you know um christian nationalism or the christian

00:09:24.320 communities are somehow um under threat by um the advent of uh immigration of migrants of different 0.98

00:09:34.600 particularly of different faiths and in certain communities of of of of different um races now uh you

00:09:42.900 know i i wrote a piece after you know this all started because i am in reacting to the assassination

00:09:50.080 of uh uh charlie kirk the very you know tragic and horrific assassination of charlie kirk um i wrote a

00:10:00.220 piece also in foreign policy uh reflecting on the global aspect of charlie kirk because uh folks might

00:10:10.220 might might not actually know that just before he was assassinated he had been to korea and to japan

00:10:17.500 and um uh had spoken at events organized by right-wing political parties in those countries and his

00:10:26.980 message had really resonated and was interesting to me the phenomenon of a kind of a white christian

00:10:34.500 nationalist uh figure of such prominence that particularly when after he was assassinated that

00:10:41.620 his uh there was a significant amount of mourning in this part of the world in and where he had been

00:10:49.220 in korea and japan and indeed even in india why did that message i think you know uh resonate with uh

00:10:58.500 non-whites uh in in majoritarians uh in in in this part of the world and i think part of it it goes down

00:11:08.020 just to the basics of uh of immigration the idea that even in a sort of a majoritarian society

00:11:16.260 uh your culture your identity can be at risk if uh given uh immigration or given cultural threats from

00:11:27.780 wherever and that uh that message of of um um you know that there might there needs to be reflection

00:11:36.660 on whether uh to uh preserve or strengthen your culture your community there has to be some kind

00:11:45.060 of exclusion or at least vetting or um security concerns that this message has resonated around the

00:11:54.820 world and that's in different communities not necessarily even just christian communities and

00:12:01.220 and and and so um i was fascinated by that and i wrote about that and that's kind of the stepping

00:12:06.500 stone from where i approached uh this article about pope lio did you um see just just i'll take this um

00:12:17.220 this point now did you see in hong kong any particular response to charlie kirk's killing

00:12:28.260 um yes indeed uh i i i do uh know that there were certain uh communities here i mean we have a

00:12:36.740 significant christian community here uh that um certainly expressed their um grief uh um on on

00:12:47.140 his killing and um and and you know but it was not as much as in some places like in korea for

00:12:53.780 example there were you know particularly among uh the communities that hosted him uh there was

00:13:00.900 significant expression of grief japan and as i mentioned in india too um i didn't really uh and

00:13:08.660 i know in the philippines as well because i do have um uh i'm originally from the philippines

00:13:14.820 i did have a lot a number of um i do have a number of relatives that i'm connected to and i know that

00:13:20.660 there was there were expressions of grief and uh shock and grief uh at at the assassination uh on their

00:13:29.140 social media so yes i think uh you know charlie kirk's message did resonate in uh around the world and

00:13:36.740 in this part of the world including in communities that you know that are um uh local communities

00:13:45.300 rather than uh necessarily communities of americans that was an interesting and digression i wasn't

00:13:52.900 expecting to hear that today uh we'll be back with professor reyes in just two minutes when inflation

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00:15:09.460 nine eight nine eight now let's get back to professor reyes well i wasn't expecting to ask you um about your

00:15:16.260 personal uh experience in hong kong on uh of what you witnessed on the the global outpouring of grief

00:15:27.780 about charlie kirk you did mention however in your article something interesting which i picked up on

00:15:34.980 and then i did want to dig down on on the the pope leo thesis but staying on the subject of charlie you

00:15:41.780 said that martyrdom has given christian nationalism what it had lacked a canonized story of sacrifice

00:15:49.380 usable by movements in the united states and beyond um well i read that and that struck me as being true

00:15:57.060 um in and of itself but i also think that you could equally make the same suggestion i'd exactly i'm not

00:16:04.260 taking that as a criticism or even as an accusation of cynicism on behalf of the christian nationalist

00:16:10.500 movement just it's a simple empirical observation but isn't there a parallel do you think between

00:16:16.820 what you say there about the martyrdom of charlie kirk and the uh public assassination of martin luther king

00:16:25.460 in the 60s i don't feel qualified to really talk much about um martin luther king i mean i'm i'm not that old

00:16:37.700 yet to you know i wasn't uh really uh thinking and analyzing the situation at that time um i would

00:16:47.620 say yes i mean you know i think that uh in in any kind of movement and and and i think the christian

00:16:54.340 nationalist movement is certainly a a global one um one need only think about um what we see in

00:17:02.820 in hungary what we see in other parts of europe uh in italy um and then of course you can go to um latin

00:17:12.820 america and um argentina and um other places to to to uh to accept that that this christian nationalist

00:17:22.820 movement well it does seem to be coalescing into a global movement um that that it is it has that

00:17:32.900 kind of scale now um should i compare should we compare uh the martyrdom of charlie kirk to uh the

00:17:41.460 martyrdom of uh um martin luther king i think maybe uh time will tell in terms of how how how much

00:17:49.620 the the the the assassination of uh charlie kirk will indeed resonate and the impact kind of um

00:17:59.220 multiply or mount if you will um i mean clearly um martin luther king's uh the the the impact of that

00:18:07.540 is still uh being felt today now um i i i i think time time time we we need time to see well what is the

00:18:16.900 real full impact of the significance of charlie kirk's uh assassination okay um the part of your

00:18:26.100 article we have like a seven or so minutes left of this interview the part of the article i i do want

00:18:31.300 to push back on now is the idea that leo pope leo the 14th can be um a unifying point in opposition to

00:18:44.660 christian nationalism and the reason why i want to push back on that argument and you talk about

00:18:49.700 his uh the fact that he has moral authority and his appeals to conscience the reason why i want to

00:18:56.420 push back on that professor reyes is because i don't think he has the credibility that would take

00:19:02.340 with people who are in the christian nationalist movement in order to talk them out of their positions

00:19:07.940 because if you yeah the christian nationalist movement is largely numerically evangelical rather

00:19:16.580 than catholic so they're going to start off with evangelicals are going to start off with a negative

00:19:22.660 view of the pope and of itself they'll think you know basically he's just a communist agitator and

00:19:29.700 arguably not even christian um and when he's pushing the position here that you mention in your article

00:19:38.660 about the inhuman treatment of of immigrants and what have you in the the the juxtaposition

00:19:44.820 between pro-life uh that that leo made but uh and the death penalty and what have you all that's going 0.66

00:19:52.740 to do is cement people who aren't disposed to him to being even less deposed uh disposed to him and i would

00:20:01.300 suggest that the consequence of that is going to be he will in fact he will act as a unifying

00:20:07.780 figure he will act as a unifying figure for people who are against him and it will solidify them in in

00:20:15.620 the christian nationalist movement i wanted to get your reading on that right i i think where i'm coming

00:20:23.460 from um and maybe i'm mainly influenced because i'm approaching it as a practicing catholic and

00:20:31.380 you know coming with the catholic perspective um big and and frankly this this this the genesis the

00:20:38.740 article um it doesn't it goes even further back then um uh charlie kirk's assassination but it goes back

00:20:48.260 to just a selection of pope leo as uh the holy father as the pontiff um because of course we were all

00:20:56.900 surprised that um an american was chosen and i i you know the words of bishop baron at a um when he

00:21:06.340 um um was asked the question before the conclave about um you know would could an american become pope

00:21:17.540 um i vague i i remembered that bishop baron and and and and i i i don't want to say i'm quoting him

00:21:24.500 exactly but he he dismissed the idea that there could be an american pope because of course he

00:21:31.540 he said that well typically uh the cardinals didn't want to have um you know the most powerful uh temporal

00:21:40.260 leader in the world to be um an american and and and then the a very powerful uh religious leader to

00:21:48.580 also be american but and then bishop baron said well but perhaps when america's position in the world

00:21:57.700 is diminished right or something to that effect then they might decide to choose an american then

00:22:04.500 lo and behold a day or two later we have an american pope and that set me going i said well

00:22:10.180 what what what was the thinking of the cardinals uh behind the choice of robert prevost and you know

00:22:19.140 one can say well it's the holy spirit at work right and that's but but but surely there must have been

00:22:25.860 some kind of geopolitical and and we've talked about the trump effect in in elections um well i think this

00:22:33.060 was in some ways and and and no different that uh uh when the cardinals came together uh i think they

00:22:41.140 you know we were all expecting another cardinal a cardinal from the global south would come because

00:22:46.500 that's where the church is growing that's where they need to get a pontiff to to become a big role

00:22:51.380 model and a leader from the global south but instead we got an american and i think that the choice was

00:22:57.460 very much geopolitical this idea that um you could have a a pope who was steeped in the vocabulary of

00:23:06.020 the global south but also coming right from um the midwest of the united states right from the the heart

00:23:14.180 to some extent of that christian nationalism uh movement um a cradle of it and and um i think that

00:23:22.900 the uh at least um the thinking was well can we counter the um uh growing um christian nationalist

00:23:33.940 movement within the catholic church right and not necessarily the whole of it but i think there was

00:23:41.060 an important sense in um the cardinals choosing if they were stressed if they were really strategizing

00:23:49.140 that it it would be important to um you know you understand that the uh um converts or the

00:23:58.820 the communities in of catholics in the united states are actually increasing but these tend to be very

00:24:04.500 young people who are indeed within the christian nationalist strain and um uh sorry if i can use that word

00:24:13.300 but um i think that the cardinals were concerned that they wanted to be sure that

00:24:20.020 catholics were joining in the united states not just because of the attractions of catholicism

00:24:27.060 for christian nationalists but for attractions uh to catholicism because of the moral qualities the

00:24:34.660 moral theology the uh what the pope stands for and what the pope has kind of been trying to express

00:24:41.860 little by little over the last few months

00:24:43.780 that's okay professor reyes um that thanks for for encapsulating where you're coming from there

00:24:50.660 i you know we'll get your the link and i suggest people to read the article it's very interesting

00:24:55.460 article very well written article um you know i am a christian nationalist i'm catholic as well

00:25:02.420 um and i i i would point my my my point of starting is is the beginning paragraph when you quote steve uh

00:25:12.180 steve bannon uh articulating the the point that um that a political leader may be a vehicle of uh divine

00:25:23.460 providence and even an instrument of divine will um the the reason what i really wanted to to chew over

00:25:31.300 with you is this idea is whether pope leo might be a unifying point against christian nationalism

00:25:40.420 and i sort of think basically what you were just saying is that most people inside of the maga

00:25:45.620 movement most people inside of the christian nationalist movement will look at pope leo and they won't see

00:25:52.420 him they don't see him as an american and i think that's why the conclave might have made a misstep

00:25:58.660 on that if they thought he was going to be able to neuter donald trump they see him as a latin american

00:26:04.020 and i mean he has peruvian citizenship um and his thought is more typically i would suggest latin

00:26:11.060 american than than north american professor reyes grateful for you coming on the show to to explain

00:26:20.020 your thesis to us come back in the in the meantime where do people go on social media to keep up

00:26:25.780 with your research and your writings and they can go to linkedin and look for me and another reyes

00:26:33.060 and i'm the only one and i think in hong kong on linkedin well okay alejandro reyes professor at

00:26:42.500 hong kong university very grateful for you coming on the show and for staying up in the early hours of

00:26:47.940 2 a.m in the morning get some sleep relax this weekend and thank you very much for joining us

00:26:53.780 on the show god bless for now folks we'll be back in two short minutes after this break

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00:31:45.300 welcome back well my next guest professor bruce schneier has co-written a fascinating book called

00:31:54.420 rewiring democracy how ai will transform our politics government and citizenship professor

00:32:02.980 schneier thanks for coming on the show let's kick off straight away you you make the claim that ai will

00:32:08.820 change democracy the only question is how um just give me like two minutes as an introduction off the

00:32:15.780 back of that uh as the your your motive for for writing the book please you know we wrote it because

00:32:22.340 things are happening i think people don't realize it the debate is all about deep fakes and propaganda

00:32:28.260 but that i think that is like the smallest part of ai changing democracy we write about ai in in

00:32:34.980 politics uh campaign strategies doing polling even things like get out the vote campaigns you write

00:32:41.860 about ai in legislating writing legislation passing legislation getting involved in the debate of what

00:32:47.940 legislation does ai in government administration doing the work of government ai the judiciary system

00:32:56.020 how it's going to change the courts and what they're doing and finally ai and citizenship and how

00:33:00.900 citizens are organizing and getting information and you know getting political views i think changes are

00:33:06.900 happening everywhere not just the u.s uh i mean across the world a lot of really interesting stories and

00:33:13.540 the question is is it going to concentrate power or distribute power is it going to help democracy or hurt

00:33:19.860 democracy that's what we want to write about um i'm going to talk about your insights when it comes to

00:33:26.740 justice later on in this interview but let's start off with the beginning okay um i'm not really on

00:33:35.300 the twitter platform i'm on getter um but i can't help but notice whenever i'm just perusing

00:33:41.620 twitter i i would make the claim that the single phrase that has been asked most in 2025 is grok is this real

00:33:52.500 um because if you're if you're scanning through to do your twitter feed again and again and again you

00:33:59.140 see something and you have literally no idea now whether it's real whether it's a genuine something

00:34:05.860 that someone caught with their phone or whether it's manufactured and there's always go you go to the

00:34:11.220 comments to find out and someone's top comment is always grok at grok is this real um and i would

00:34:19.620 suggest that really does it's created it it's created an um epistemological doubt really now

00:34:27.300 fundamental you have no idea anymore what whether what you're seeing is real or not and there is a

00:34:35.940 question that you know you you starting off from that reflection there is a question as to how viable

00:34:41.700 democracy is after that because democracy is all about looking at the world around you and making a

00:34:48.740 judgment if you no longer and i know you said this isn't that you know this is only like the starting

00:34:54.100 point of your thesis because you actually go into this sort of in a lot more detail but i think the

00:34:59.140 point it's important to make the point that if you no longer have any um solid confidence

00:35:08.100 that most 99 of your source of information is actually true beyond an ai video generator how on earth

00:35:20.660 can you make the calculations necessary in order to form political um judgments yeah i think this is a

00:35:30.660 real interesting question it's not new right you know uh doctor for doctored photographs as old as

00:35:36.500 photography photoshop's been around since the 1980s what's different is it's now easier to fabricate

00:35:43.700 images and voices and and videos i think about it if like if we are ever going to argue about what to

00:35:51.380 do i mean the the actual business of politics we have to agree on what the world is if we can't agree

00:35:59.460 on that then the arguments about what the tax rate should be or the immigration policy or anything

00:36:04.180 make no sense because we're not starting from the same reality this is the problem of propaganda

00:36:09.380 i mean this is as old as the 1960s uh so i think we're going through a new phase of it but i think

00:36:15.620 we're going to default on to trusted sources now how do you know how did you know an image was true

00:36:22.180 20 years ago if you were in a courtroom the court demanded that uh you produce evidence of how it was

00:36:29.780 created it didn't just take photographs as prima facie evidence because it could be doctored back

00:36:34.580 then i know and my guess is we will eventually all be more savvy right this this this transition

00:36:41.140 period is really difficult and you're right i think the the answer is people are going to believe nothing

00:36:45.860 unless they come from a trusted source make a newspaper they trust a publication they trust

00:36:51.540 a website they trust kind of just as they've always done but i mean you you're right in this

00:36:58.420 larger point that if we can't agree on the state of the world we can't have a serious discussion about

00:37:04.500 what to do next and i and i do worry about democracy under those circumstances that i don't

00:37:10.420 think it's an ai problem actually that's a social media problem which is and hence you know

00:37:15.460 a surveillance capitalism problem but that is definitely a problem well we've had social media

00:37:21.060 i guess and social media in and of itself has fundamentally changed the landscape of politics

00:37:25.780 it's difficult to think that we would have had the phenomenon um of donald trump the donald trump

00:37:31.540 insurgency um if social media hadn't existed so we had let's say we had a run-in of about 20 years

00:37:38.900 15 20 years of social media without ai and now we have the the ai component to it you meant you

00:37:45.220 mentioned the images point and the starling point that's you know in in your book you point out that

00:37:49.220 starling in in the 50s airbrushed people out of photographs once they'd become uh uh enemies

00:37:57.700 to the regime or they've just fallen out of favor with the regime but even so we all have the empirical

00:38:04.180 our own empirical life experience of life before ai if you saw a photo um unless it was perhaps a ufo

00:38:12.580 themed photo if you saw a photo you basically had the confidence that that was real and could act

00:38:18.980 with a reasonable degree of security on the assumption that it was real and it's not just

00:38:23.380 images of course it's videos and i think one of the reasons why um democracy though it's going to

00:38:29.700 be interesting to see how democracy plays out i sort of think we're in end-stage democracy anyway

00:38:36.180 as it is even without the existence of ai but if you know if you're looking on social media where

00:38:41.620 most people get their news now and you're seeing a video let's say donald trump or let's say i i don't

00:38:47.540 know um hillary clinton anybody you have literally it could be you know anybody right um but you have to

00:38:56.580 you know just about you can just about tell a bit um whether it's a or not but that technology

00:39:03.300 within a couple of years will go and you won't be able to tell um so you'll see you'll see a video

00:39:08.500 you'll hear a political discourse and you won't know whether it's real i but but you don't see those

00:39:13.620 in isolation so i mean i know some of the companies are working on tools that people can use to check if

00:39:20.900 a video or an image is real now they're going to have to want to do that right you know and most

00:39:26.580 people are watching these platforms not to get new opinions but to have their world be validated

00:39:35.220 i think of it as politics of sports you know my team good your team bad anything that happens for my

00:39:41.300 team is positive this is very much the polarization of the algorithm now these are ai algorithms the

00:39:48.180 algorithm that determines your feed on facebook or tiktok or or twitter slash x those are all done

00:39:54.180 by ai and they're done not to inform you right they're done to keep you on the platform because

00:40:01.220 that's how these platforms make money based on engagement they show you ads that are personalized

00:40:06.020 to manipulate you and then is this business model much more than the images i mean you think about uh

00:40:12.180 you know all the talk about uh russian propaganda i mean a lot of the a lot of the images are not

00:40:19.220 they're not they're not fake pictures they're just memes they're my team good your team bad the problem is

00:40:25.460 in the images the problem is the algorithm magnifies them and shows them to people so whatever our teams

00:40:32.580 are we're seeing different images right that are microly targeted so the thing that outrages us or makes us

00:40:39.380 passionate that keeps us on these algorithms i worry about that much more than the ability to create

00:40:46.020 a realistic video of you saying something you would never say in real life

00:40:53.060 back with professor schneier in just a quick moment what if you had the brightest mind in the war room

00:40:58.420 delivering critical financial research every month war room listeners know jim rickard as our wise man

00:41:05.620 a former cia pentagon and white house advisor with an unmatched grasp of geopolitics and capital markets

00:41:14.100 jim predicted trump's electoral college victory exactly 312 to 226 now he's issuing a dire warning about

00:41:22.100 a moment that could define trump's presidency and your financial future his latest book money gpt exposes

00:41:29.460 how ai is setting the stage for financial chaos bank runs at lightning speed algorithm driven crashes

00:41:37.380 and even threats to national security right now war room members get a free copy of money gpt when they

00:41:44.580 sign up for strategic intelligence jim's flagship financial newsletter time is running out go to

00:41:50.740 rickardswarroom.com now and claim your free book that's rickardswarroom.com okay professor schneier um

00:41:59.700 i sort of think that that point about the algorithms is you know they're on a port they're on a par um

00:42:06.820 in in terms of the danger uh with ai because into this what you already have is like a feedback loop a

00:42:14.500 negative feedback loop you now have ai coming in as the amplificator it what it what was already

00:42:22.580 something that was destabilized because of the the feedback um i don't i don't see how ai can help us

00:42:30.180 out of that particular uh that particular problem that we have so so the the issue isn't the tech it's how

00:42:38.260 we choose to use the tech ai can help us out of that if we choose that i mean right now there are

00:42:45.460 a handful of tech monopolies controlling the controlling that tech and how how it's being

00:42:50.900 made it doesn't have to be made the way it is so we actually do have choices problem is we've

00:42:56.980 abdicated the choice and give them i think to a bunch of of unelected companies and i worry a lot

00:43:01.860 about that i mean we can use this technology to allow for more collaboration uh more consensus

00:43:10.340 building and there are examples from countries around the world that are trying these tools

00:43:15.860 from municipalities in the united states we see nothing at the national level of course gonna

00:43:20.340 be hard we're a big country very divided country but you know i worry a lot more about the tech

00:43:26.340 monopolies who are controlling this than the tech itself there are other ways to

00:43:31.620 do it can you um well we'll you know it's can you um can you tell me just because i know we have

00:43:40.900 like sort of six minutes left of this interview could you tell me a bit about your thoughts on justice

00:43:47.940 because you mentioned something in your book about how ai might be employed to help judges form their

00:43:55.940 sentences or even effectively substitute that that role which i had which is an application i

00:44:01.460 hadn't actually considered because of its notional impart impartiality impartiality could you just

00:44:06.980 explain a little bit how that might work in practice all right so this is very controversial

00:44:10.900 i'm not saying i agree with this but it's things we have to think about we're already seeing judges use

00:44:16.020 ai uh you know to write decisions i think that's bad but being used to query like what is the plain

00:44:22.500 meaning of a term the judge needs to know what a term means because it's in a contract he has to

00:44:27.060 interpret it so he asks an ai what the term means it's an interesting use probably a good use of the uh

00:44:32.500 the technology because the ai synthesizes what we all write and think and and produces an answer

00:44:39.540 but ai has the potential to interpret what a statute means and that could be used by a judge to uh you

00:44:47.940 know take the text of a law and depending on our politics it could take the text and then the the

00:44:53.380 debate by the legislators information about the world or it could just take the text i mean we

00:44:58.740 would decide politically you know what is in you know what should be in the purview of what the ai

00:45:04.340 considers you can imagine a legislature encoding a law in ai one of the problems we have with

00:45:11.620 legislation is that it's not specific enough and then the courts start interpreting the legislation

00:45:18.340 and you know if they interpret the way we like we're happy into what we don't like we're not happy

00:45:22.100 but you know whose job is it it should be the legislature's job so maybe the legislator encodes

00:45:28.660 its thinking in a model and the idea is that the courts query that model to ask so there's a

00:45:35.220 was a case in in massachusetts a few years ago which hinged on the question whether a burrito is a

00:45:40.980 sandwich the law was written like in the 1950s when they're like people didn't know about burritos in

00:45:46.420 massachusetts and here we are in the 2000s a judge has to figure out whether a 1950s legislator would

00:45:53.940 think a burrito is a sandwich kind of a you know a bit a very bizarre situation but that kind of thing

00:46:00.580 happens all the time and ai could help with that we we might not like that you know because we have

00:46:07.860 different opinions on what how much leeway judges should have but you know someone's got to figure out

00:46:13.780 if a burrito is a sandwich because there's a case and there are two restaurants the zoning laws

00:46:19.540 how do we do that ai could conceivably help i agree with on this point and anyone who's been

00:46:26.980 through legal cases as i have has been a defendant in criminal cases as i have um or anyone who's

00:46:34.500 actually been a victim of a miscarriage of justice as i have will be intrigued by the possibility

00:46:41.060 that the ai might actually be um potentially a dispenser of justice because of its impartiality

00:46:52.020 we might sorry we might say that the ai will make mistakes but you know human judges make mistakes

00:46:56.900 all the time and in all these situations very important to ask compared to what

00:47:02.580 i mean we think about ai's driving cars compared to what compared to humans who get drunk driving cars

00:47:08.260 and when it's ai's you know making judicial decisions i mean sure they they might be

00:47:13.700 racist or biased but you know so are so are humans

00:47:20.580 so humans um well yeah as i say i've i've i've lived through that myself um

00:47:27.140 back to the to the democracy thing you mentioned uh in the book that uh one of the most important

00:47:34.340 information flows in democracy is legitimacy um as i said before i think democracy is in late stage

00:47:42.020 positive art in a terminal stage um and i i was i thought that anyway before the advent of ai ai i

00:47:48.660 think will acts an accelerant towards that that process that that's already taking place but could you just

00:47:55.780 um say a bit more what you mean about the legitimacy aspect with regards to the the role ai might have

00:48:06.020 in uh in democracy some people are imagining that ai take over the decision-making process like instead

00:48:11.700 of arguing about interest rates we'll program an ai and let it figure it out you know and whatever it says

00:48:17.860 we do it democracy is more than getting the right answer democracy is the process of getting the answer

00:48:25.940 and we can't just have a system that produces the answer it won't be legitimate it won't be

00:48:31.540 recognized we have to go through the messy democratic process i actually agree with you that democracy is is

00:48:39.060 is in trouble largely because it was invented in the mid-1700s for mid-1700s technology in the mid-1700s

00:48:45.700 world and it's just not suited for the information age i mean i want what comes after to be

00:48:50.740 more democracy more democratic but i think it's going to look very different than mid-1700s technology

00:49:00.740 so i mean i mean the optimistic view which i which i don't subscribe to because when it comes to ai i am

00:49:06.500 a pessimist but the optimistic view which you outline in your book is that ai has a role to play might have

00:49:12.820 a role to play in sort of the technocratic process of merging all of the all of all of the voters

00:49:21.300 intentions together in a way that democracy just fails to do uh substantially in practice right

00:49:30.420 well i mean that's i'm not sure that's a utopia or a dystopia but the notion of an ai i mean i can

00:49:36.100 tell you i mean i'm not proud of it but the way i vote in local elections is the day before

00:49:39.380 day before i go online i find a voting guide i read about the local candidates and i decide who

00:49:44.420 to vote for right you can imagine an ai advising me and and germany is experimenting with a conversational

00:49:51.460 ai that helps people figure out which of the many german political parties they should support

00:49:58.180 and it's one step more where the ai just votes for me now i'm not sure that's a good idea but i think we

00:50:05.540 are headed in that direction and it's worth thinking about what the ramifications of that is you know

00:50:12.500 i'm neither and i guess i'm more an optimist about democracy i think there's gonna be a lot of

00:50:17.620 challenges i agree that that you know a lot of things are not working today but i think we as humans

00:50:23.860 you know get it right eventually even though we get it wrong along the way so i think we will figure out

00:50:30.500 how to incorporate these technologies into a democratic system but right now with the old

00:50:36.020 system new technologies i think you're seeing this this bad mismatch as lots of powerful people

00:50:43.140 are really good at what i think of as hacking democracy you know but before we leave i'm going

00:50:48.420 to want to know from you is a burrito a sandwich

00:50:50.740 i'll tell you what the court said but i don't know what you think i need to ask chat gpt

00:51:01.780 all right so the massachusetts court said no but an indiana court a few years later said yes

00:51:09.460 so i'm hoping the supreme court eventually has to rule on whether burrito is a sandwich

00:51:13.220 yeah i i think that's about the level that i would trust them to to decide on and not hire

00:51:21.460 professor professor schneier bruce schneier thanks very much for coming on the show very quickly where

00:51:26.420 do people go on social media or on amazon for example to get your book or to keep up with your

00:51:31.540 writings all right so everything i do is on schneier.com that's my last name dot com super hard to spell but

00:51:37.860 you can find it you spell it wrong and uh google will correct it and uh that's where i am and on

00:51:44.740 social media uh i don't do social media you're kidding makes me a freak but i'm highly productive

00:51:52.420 professor schneier thanks very much indeed come on uh the show again um uh and expound these thoughts

00:51:58.180 in more detail at a future many thanks indeed for joining us thank you god bless for now the end of

00:52:03.300 the show folks thanks to cameron wallace our producer will and his crack team in denver and

00:52:09.700 victorio franco who put this show together god bless for now see you next week do you owe back taxes or

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Bannon's War Room - December 13, 2025

WarRoom Battleground EP 910： The Rise Of Christian Nationalism And AI’s Potential To Destabilise Democracy

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