Bannon's War Room - WarRoom Special Coverage： The Israel-Iran War

00:00:00.000 I know you don't like hearing that, I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it, it's going to happen.

00:00:06.760 And where do people like that go to share the big line?

00:00:10.140 MAGA Media.

00:00:11.500 I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.

00:00:16.900 Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose?

00:00:20.700 If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.

00:00:26.880 War Room, here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.

00:00:36.000 Evening, Saturday, 21 June, Year of the Lord, 2025.

00:00:41.920 The president is at, I guess, Morristown, just getting ready to leave, fly back to Andrews Air Force Base.

00:00:47.240 He's then going to take Marine One, go to the White House and the public.

00:00:51.220 We have the footage.

00:00:52.640 Let's go ahead and watch, is it B-roll?

00:00:54.560 We have anybody there?

00:00:55.660 Let's go ahead and watch B-roll.

00:00:56.880 There we have, right there.

00:01:02.280 Let's go ahead and cut it in.

00:01:03.260 There we go.

00:01:04.060 I want to thank, by the way, we're putting this together, as you can imagine, on the first day of summer.

00:01:10.300 We have a couple, three of our starters on the production side that are off with family, so we're putting this together.

00:01:16.160 Right there, President leaving, coming back.

00:01:19.360 He's in the air right now.

00:01:20.420 So, there we go, right there.

00:01:23.760 President of the United States.

00:01:24.900 I'm going to get to, there's some unconfirmed media reports.

00:01:33.440 They're up on Israeli media right now, but the Israeli media is saying they're unconfirmed.

00:01:38.580 We're going to get to it in a second.

00:01:39.560 There's President Trump heading up the steps of Air Force One.

00:01:45.760 A short trip to Bedminster.

00:01:52.360 We turn back.

00:01:53.340 There's a little bit of no salute, no wave at the top.

00:01:57.880 Okay.

00:01:58.400 Welcome here.

00:01:59.000 We're going to get some of our folks in here.

00:02:03.040 Matt Boyle is going to try to drop by from Breitbart.

00:02:06.920 Jack Posobiec is going to join us, if he can tear himself away.

00:02:10.320 There is, there's unconfirmed reports up on Israeli media right now that there may be some activity by either the IDF or the Israeli Air Force.

00:02:22.680 There's either, there's actually a couple of things up on Twitter have not been confirmed, but Israeli TV is picking them up, saying these are unverified about potential activity, kinetic activity at Fordor by the Israelis, not by the Americans.

00:02:39.120 Those like maybe Israeli Air Force or commandos, we'll find out on the outer security door, and we're going to, we're going to get to that as we possibly get to it.

00:02:50.220 But here's the, the reset from this morning.

00:02:54.660 President Trump has given, you know, two weeks extension to the, to the Ayatollah and the Iranian regime.

00:03:05.740 It's very difficult to kind of find anybody to negotiate with.

00:03:08.920 They're very slow in getting back.

00:03:10.120 We understand Steve Wyckoff has been very frustrated and actually trying to get somebody to sit down.

00:03:14.920 A lot of, you know, a lot of rumors about Turkey, other people trying to get involved and trying to make something happen here.

00:03:21.340 Of course, one of the, one of the officials from, although not on the official negotiating team, was in Geneva with the Europeans.

00:03:29.820 And right now, President Trump is saying, hey, you got two weeks, but we got to see some progress.

00:03:37.440 There's also reports that the, the Persians have come back, the Iranians have come back and said, look, there's got to be a ceasefire.

00:03:44.920 We can't do this while we're getting pounded.

00:03:48.360 We're getting pounded clearly by someone who has air supremacy or air superiority.

00:03:54.420 And, and folks are saying, hey, if you can get them to a ceasefire, maybe we can get some people to the negotiating table.

00:04:01.180 President Trump is saying, look, it looks like they're winning.

00:04:04.060 I'm not so sure they're going to give you a piece, a ceasefire.

00:04:07.200 And so there we have it.

00:04:09.020 President Trump's heading back.

00:04:10.900 He's supposed to arrive here momentarily.

00:04:13.600 We started here at five.

00:04:14.700 President Trump is supposed to be back, I think at 540.

00:04:17.360 We have David Zier at the White House.

00:04:19.560 We are also, Real America's Voice is in the pool for the arriving of Marine One.

00:04:26.120 And so we're going to get David Zier up as soon as we can get him up.

00:04:29.880 Also trying to get Eric Prince to join us, maybe even General Mike Flynn.

00:04:34.580 I'm both producing at the same time that we are, that we are putting this together.

00:04:42.460 We said earlier, and this came from the classic movie Bridge Too Far.

00:04:48.560 If you remember, if you haven't seen Bridge Too Far, it's about an attempt in September of 1944 to try to expedite and bring the war to net.

00:05:01.420 Remember, we had had D-Day on 6 June.

00:05:05.200 And then afterwards, after the great invasion of Normandy, and we got a toehold there, we clearly had air superiority already over France and over Nazi Germany.

00:05:15.840 We had a very difficult time breaking out of the hedgerows.

00:05:18.960 Patton then was brought back.

00:05:20.480 He had been cashiered for a while.

00:05:22.440 He was brought back, led us out of the kind of the hedgerow situation we'd gotten bogged down in.

00:05:28.400 The British Army had gotten bogged down to our north.

00:05:30.560 And what happened, I think we took Paris in August, in mid-August, but it was slow going.

00:05:38.600 People were thinking, how do we actually use maneuver warfare?

00:05:42.840 How do we actually get smart and do this?

00:05:46.080 They came up with a plan to have a massive, I think, 35,000 drop of Airborne, because Airborne had done a pretty good job at Normandy behind the lines.

00:05:54.660 And so they came up with the idea of doing the 82nd, 101st, you know, the revered 82nd President Trump was just down there last week, the 101st Airborne.

00:06:03.140 Also a Polish brigade, I think it was a Polish brigade of paratroopers, and I think it was the British 8th Paratroop Unit was famous.

00:06:13.680 It was their paratroop division.

00:06:15.720 So to use all the parachute assets we had and really do a series of taking these, I think, five or six bridges across these different rivers in the low countries and really get right up against the Germans quickly.

00:06:30.220 There was a controversy about how quickly it was going to go, and when they had these series of meetings, and the intelligence people came, the intelligence people came and said, hey, we think there's a problem.

00:06:43.960 The panzers might have been pulled back, so the Germans were retreating.

00:06:46.800 They're going to be right in the line of some of these bridges, and we need to do more intelligence.

00:06:52.180 We ought to delay this.

00:06:53.780 And there's a famous scene where the British general says, the party is on.

00:06:58.440 And that was a phrase that was used in World War II, I think, was also in one of the movies in Normandy by Cornelius Ryan, the writer of The Longest Day and also the writer of Bridge Too Far.

00:07:12.560 And that's what we were saying this morning.

00:07:14.560 There's something clearly happening right now.

00:07:17.900 Now, President Trump has already said, or I shouldn't say he said, he has, it has been reported, and Mark Caputo this morning reiterated that, that the president looked at a range of alternatives, and that if he feels, because he's already said, under no circumstances are they going to have a nuclear weapon or the ability to make a nuclear weapon.

00:07:37.100 And in that, he was trying to do it via negotiations, but he said, hey, if I have to go kinetic, I'll go connect.

00:07:47.880 They've looked at a range of alternatives, and President Trump at least has been reported, has signed off on a plan if he's prepared, if he's, if that's the way that we have to go.

00:07:58.180 There's no way to do negotiations.

00:08:00.880 It, in that, in that plan, you have to have assets, and it looks like they've pre-positioned B2s, they've pre-positioned some of the tankers, that everywhere from, from Guam to other areas around the, around the Middle East, that certain assets are in place.

00:08:19.960 If President Trump was going to, was actually going to, was actually going to, here, they're changing my clock, even as we speak, that if you're going to go and have, go kinetic, that you have those assets, you have those assets set up right away.

00:08:35.900 Those assets, it looks like many of the assets you would need have been pre-positioned.

00:08:40.940 So, President Trump would just have to issue an order, the strike plan would be promulgated.

00:08:46.560 There is reporting on Twitter, early, looked like it was pretty well verified, that no strike plan has been issued by the Pentagon.

00:08:54.460 So, it looks like on the American side, it's pre-positioning of assets, as best as we can tell.

00:08:59.520 Like I said, there is reporting on Israeli TV, and they're the first to say this is totally unverified.

00:09:06.420 But they're hearing, and, and I'm hearing from, from other folks right now, there actually may be, the party is on, and it may be the IDF and the Israeli Air Force.

00:09:17.740 Remember, we've been a huge advocate of this.

00:09:19.520 In fact, I said today, I've got a, I got a tweet up, I should say that, Getter, that I posted on Getter, and I ended the show this morning.

00:09:27.380 The party is on, but who's going to be the host?

00:09:29.260 And we've been a big advocate that the Israelis ought to be a host, and we're a big advocate that the Israelis, they should go for it.

00:09:37.480 Whether they do it through commando raids, whether they do it through a series of peeling bombs, or to peel layer by layer.

00:09:44.700 Understand, they do not have the throw weight of the weapon systems we have in this regard.

00:09:50.520 They also don't have the stealth capabilities, totally, that we have.

00:09:54.500 It would be much more dangerous.

00:09:56.480 But this is their mission, and I think, I don't know, we may be getting some kinetic activity that I think would be a good sign.

00:10:03.300 It would show that they're very serious in getting this done, at least going to take a stab at it.

00:10:07.300 President Trump was pretty, I don't want to say adamant, but he was on the tarmac yesterday.

00:10:13.260 President Trump addressed this.

00:10:14.900 President Trump addressed both the situation of a ceasefire, and he said, hey, the Israelis look like they're winning right now.

00:10:22.100 The Iranians are not.

00:10:23.320 I don't know how we're going to get to a ceasefire if someone's winning.

00:10:26.940 And like I said, the back channel has been the Iranians are not prepared to sit down, even if he can find the people to sit down with.

00:10:33.700 Right?

00:10:34.080 Not prepared to sit down until there's some sort of ceasefire.

00:10:37.680 Also, President Trump reiterated, he says, hey, look, I'm not so sure the Israelis actually have the military capacity, the military capacity to do this.

00:10:45.300 And so that's where we stand, although I think there are many, many, many wheels in motion.

00:10:51.260 When I say that, I think there's negotiations and contacts all over the region.

00:10:55.580 I think the Arab nations are very involved in this.

00:10:57.660 Turkey's very involved in this.

00:10:58.780 I wouldn't be surprised Russia how involved they are in trying to get people to the table and maybe get people to say, hey, stand down here and let's see if we can't get a real negotiation.

00:11:07.440 President Trump is very adamant on the diplomatic side, and he's saying he's not going to get tapped along again.

00:11:14.000 He's not there, and he's really not there to do a verification, a verification program.

00:11:21.360 He wants something that totally deconstructs their capability of making a bomb or if they have a bomb or close to a bomb, takes all that pause.

00:11:29.700 So that's very different than, you know, some of the some of the deals you heard in the future.

00:11:35.300 We are going to take, as we go through these next couple of hours, we are going to take our traditional commercial breaks.

00:11:40.840 Now, if things happen and President Trump's arrive and all that, we'll float the brakes or we'll just avoid him as real America's voice always does.

00:11:50.080 Like I said, President Trump is on his way back to the White House.

00:11:53.500 There's some controversy about how was this previously scheduled or was it not?

00:11:58.400 And definitely in the National Security Council briefing, it looks like that'll be his top people.

00:12:03.940 It will be the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of State Pete Hegseth, Director of the CIA John Ratcliffe, others.

00:12:11.800 There's some controversy about who actually gets in the room and who doesn't get in the room.

00:12:15.620 They were, it's quite interesting, they actually put on the public schedule, it's going to be in the Oval Office.

00:12:19.640 So at least the way it was published, it's not going to be down in what's called the Kennedy Room in the National Security Area, which is really on the first floor of the of the White House.

00:12:29.940 So they've been pretty public about stating they're going to have this briefing and and actually where it's going to be.

00:12:35.800 One of the controversies is who's in the room.

00:12:38.420 The whole controversy over the last couple of days is Tulsi Gabbard.

00:12:41.680 Is the president getting alternatives?

00:12:43.960 The big controversy about the CIA's intelligence.

00:12:47.580 We found out this morning from Marco Puto that 80 percent of it dovetails with the Mossad's intelligence.

00:12:53.720 There have been a big controversy.

00:12:55.120 Is the president getting a broad range of of access to intelligence?

00:12:59.840 Or is it all coming to essentially 80 percent through one source, both the Mossad and the CIA seem to be in agreement?

00:13:06.800 OK, we're going to take a short commercial break here.

00:13:09.480 I want to thank every Real America's Voice, Robin Parker, Sig, the entire team, Wendell in Denver.

00:13:13.700 Everybody had pulled this together.

00:13:15.220 As you can imagine, most people had weekend plans, but it looks like something, if not underway.

00:13:23.280 Right. Maybe maybe people rethought this.

00:13:26.000 There's something definitely happening in that regards.

00:13:28.340 I mean that the wheels are turning with various alternatives.

00:13:32.140 I don't think that either Israel or the United States is just going to sit there and have these attacks and not really go after a four down.

00:13:40.560 Right. So I think we'll see some activity.

00:13:43.120 Like I said, unverified, but it is on Israeli media that the Israelis have looked like they've made some.

00:13:50.400 I think there's a couple of security doors in four door.

00:13:53.200 There may be some aspect of either air and or commando.

00:13:57.320 Like I said, totally unverified. We're going to try to get more.

00:14:00.280 We've got hopefully I think we've got General Flynn, maybe Eric Prince, maybe Jack Posobiec, maybe.

00:14:06.400 I don't think we'll go for three there.

00:14:07.960 So we'll have some really good talent here.

00:14:09.520 Plus, the great Matt Boyle will be with us also.

00:14:13.140 He's out and about in D.C.

00:14:14.820 He will actually be in the War Room.

00:14:16.160 Short commercial break.

00:14:18.240 By the way, maybe it's time to take your phone out.

00:14:21.000 Birch Gold, big sponsors of R.A.V. and War Room.

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00:14:43.320 Here's your host, Stephen K.

00:14:45.520 Bannon.

00:14:48.800 Let's go to our own David Zier at the White House.

00:14:52.020 David, what are you hearing there?

00:14:54.080 We're awaiting the president to land at Andrews and then take Marine One.

00:14:57.700 What do you got for us?

00:14:59.820 Yeah, waiting for the president's arrival here.

00:15:02.260 He'll go into the Oval Office for a closed national security meeting.

00:15:06.260 We've got a large group of protesters gathered across the street from the White House here with Iranian flags, it looks like.

00:15:12.700 So, a lot going on and we're trying to follow reports on, you know, further strikes by Israel on nuclear facilities inside Iran.

00:15:23.260 A lot going on overnight, taking out ballistic missile launchers, more UAVs.

00:15:29.140 They attacked the port of Bandar Abbas.

00:15:32.460 A lot of activity going on.

00:15:34.240 And yesterday, you know, Iran dropped a missile into Israel that wounded 45 people here.

00:15:40.380 But there doesn't seem to be any give with Iran.

00:15:47.020 They're saying they're going full on.

00:15:48.940 Israel's saying they're going full on.

00:15:50.660 So, there's no break in the action here.

00:15:52.800 And it continues.

00:15:53.500 The New York Post reported today, David, what we're going to do is finish with David and let him get back in the position for the arrival of the president.

00:16:01.580 A great shot right there, though, in our traditional on Pebble Beach.

00:16:05.240 Real quickly, the New York Post reported, BB said, hey, and they report, we're not going to wait forever for the Americans to make their mind up.

00:16:12.280 Thank God.

00:16:12.920 Right.

00:16:13.300 And we're going to go and we can do this ourselves.

00:16:15.700 Any sense of that, David Zier?

00:16:17.540 They are saying that.

00:16:22.140 And Danny Dannen said they're going to do whatever it takes to continue.

00:16:25.400 The ambassador to the U.N. for Israel also here.

00:16:28.920 But Russia chimed in and said that they would not support taking out the supreme leader of Iran, especially if the U.S. is involved.

00:16:37.980 There would be consequences for that.

00:16:41.020 And, you know, a lot of action going on here.

00:16:43.740 And I just wanted to talk about regime change for one second.

00:16:47.100 You know, I don't see a lot of revolutionaries in the street.

00:16:50.220 I see a lot of pro-government people, even though they shut down the Internet over there.

00:16:54.880 So IRGC is entrenched in their oil business and everything over there.

00:16:59.640 So I don't think Iran is going to back down.

00:17:01.760 And are they just doing it to fight it out, to draw this thing out?

00:17:05.620 Did they just entertain Europe yesterday to draw this thing out with no intention to back and down?

00:17:10.660 And now the Houthi rebels are threatening our commercial shipping and our U.S. warships again, you know, through Iran.

00:17:20.360 So I want to I want to try to ask Trump about that if I get to in a few minutes.

00:17:25.260 You're going to be in the polls, so you get to toss a question.

00:17:30.740 We'll see if you're as good.

00:17:33.060 Zira, this is your this is your challenge to see if you're good as our own Brian Glenn, right?

00:17:37.360 Brian always gets a gets a question in there.

00:17:39.940 So make sure make sure you ask the president.

00:17:42.900 About this, I know people in this town, I know there's people in this town, David, are right now working through the consequences.

00:17:51.160 If the Israelis either won't do it or can't do it, and it looks like there may be some potential activity, potentially.

00:17:57.240 If the Americans have to get involved in a combat situation as a combatant, more so than we are now, the blowback into the region.

00:18:05.140 You know, we've got we've got 50,000, I think, troops and sailors in the general area.

00:18:09.640 That does not include what we have in the carrier battle groups.

00:18:12.600 I know people are quite concerned about the Iranian potential to hit that, because I think Iran has surprised people with their ballistic missile capability piercing the Iron Dome and David's sling, sir.

00:18:29.480 Yeah, well, about a thousand ballistic missiles have been launched already.

00:18:33.560 Israel is claiming to have taken out over half of their ballistic missile launchers.

00:18:38.300 But the worry is, will it spill over to the Gulf states and will they attack U.S. bases and U.S. interests over there?

00:18:45.200 And can they successfully hit them?

00:18:47.380 I don't know if they want to go that route, but I guess then, you know, we're in it for sure.

00:18:53.620 And we added our fifth destroyer.

00:18:55.580 I know you were saying you served on a destroyer.

00:18:58.020 Our five destroyers now helping Israel defend against missile attacks in the Mediterranean right now.

00:19:04.760 Yeah, you have five or six destroyers in the Arleigh Burke class also.

00:19:09.720 In the Eastern Med, they're providing, you know, anti-air assets and missiles and radar, fire control radar.

00:19:18.380 That doesn't even include, I think it's now with the Nimitz arriving, three battle groups in the North Arabian Sea and the Red Sea.

00:19:25.200 And then we have B-2s that are heading to Guam.

00:19:27.980 We have them heading to Diego Garcia.

00:19:29.780 We have them on the other side.

00:19:31.480 Folks, you know, we've got plenty of assets.

00:19:33.620 I think you're going to have plenty of ability to make a strike here, not even including the Israelis.

00:19:39.160 And I think that gives President Trump a bigger range of options.

00:19:43.600 But I know people are very concerned about the blowback.

00:19:49.040 And I think people are working through those scenarios.

00:19:50.860 David, you've got to bounce.

00:19:51.800 I want to make sure you and our cameraman get back into position so that you're fully – you can ask your question, right, as you become the new Brian Glenn of our weekend.

00:20:03.340 No.

00:20:04.300 He's top.

00:20:05.000 If we have to put anybody as a replacement, as a backup, we want David Zier there asking the question.

00:20:12.840 So why don't you and Austin get positioned, and we'll pick you up as soon as you're ready.

00:20:18.940 He's taken them from me before, so, yeah.

00:20:23.800 The assets are provided for us, by the way, in the White House, for the White House coverage and other coverage.

00:20:30.100 It's just been extraordinary.

00:20:31.520 We want to thank everybody.

00:20:32.180 You hear right there from just our mic, those are the protesters that are right out off of Pennsylvania Avenue, right there in Lafayette Square, where the statue of General Jackson is, and protesters.

00:20:46.460 And they're quite vocal today.

00:20:47.780 They're protesting.

00:20:48.880 I think they're – I don't think these are protesters about the war per se.

00:20:53.240 I think there are obviously some aspects of gossip, but you're seeing the red-green merger.

00:20:57.680 And, you know, it's interesting.

00:20:59.640 We're here doing a special on a Saturday afternoon.

00:21:03.520 I want to thank everybody that's pitching in to make this happen with a skeleton crew.

00:21:07.980 And just, you know, remember, we're supposed to be spending time – two weeks ago, it was in Los Angeles – focused on the mass deportations.

00:21:15.560 I still argue that as important as it is and higher priority it is to stop the nuclear program at whatever stage it is for the Iranians.

00:21:26.740 For us, you know, if you've got a rank order of strategic concerns, the vital national security interests of this country lies with us making sure that the 10 million, 10 to 12 million illegal alien invaders that came here on Biden's – the illegitimate regime, Biden's watch, have to be deported.

00:21:46.780 That is the big fight.

00:21:47.660 It's the fight in the courts.

00:21:48.620 It's a challenge to President Trump as commander-in-chief, his powers as commander-in-chief to essentially repel the invasion.

00:21:55.480 This is a central front of what we call the Third World War.

00:21:59.080 You already have a dramatic kinetic part of that going on the Eurasian landmass, everywhere from Kursk and Ukraine, all the way through this arc of instability in the Middle East, and particularly in Gaza,

00:22:12.200 going all the way down now to Iran, to Persia, all the way to the North Arabian Sea.

00:22:19.100 The Persian Gulf people should not be lost in the fact that folks are really very concerned about the Straits of Hormuz in case anything happened.

00:22:26.280 Now, the Iranians would be blocking the easiest way they can transport their oil to the Chinese Communist Party,

00:22:32.840 which, remember, is about 22 percent of the total energy of the CCP.

00:22:37.600 The KGB slash Russia and the CCP are allies of this regime, particularly the CCP has done a long-term output deal.

00:22:47.700 They've actually done it as has been reported.

00:22:49.700 It wasn't – it's not done in petrodollars.

00:22:53.020 It was not done in U.S. dollars.

00:22:54.140 This is where the Chinese Communist Party and Iran, both as two prominent BRICS nations, have set up to try to break the U.S. dollar.

00:23:05.780 And we know from the New York Times reporting, the finance minister of – and associate with the Bank of China said the other day,

00:23:14.380 they're coming to Rio, and they're coming with an alternative because they think, quote, unquote, the world is too unstable depending upon just the American dollars, the prime reserve currency.

00:23:28.060 They want to give an alternative.

00:23:30.520 When we talk about the BRICS nations, you should think broadly of the global south, kind of the anti-Judeo-Christian West or advanced industrial economies.

00:23:39.800 And you can throw in – you can throw in a couple of other nations in there too.

00:23:44.460 And although we have some strong allies in the BRICS nations like India – you just saw what happened in the India-Pakistan standoff in Kashmir – that's another hot zone right there.

00:23:56.280 And, of course, I think India has 100 nuclear weapons, Pakistan, which has never been that stable.

00:24:02.640 And ISI, their intelligence service, is replete with radical jihadists.

00:24:07.840 I think they have 181 nuclear weapons.

00:24:10.780 In fact, people say all the time between North Korea and Pakistan, they're shocked that Iran doesn't already have a couple of three hot ones right now,

00:24:20.340 given their relationship with those guys and given how advanced in nuclear technology those countries are.

00:24:27.240 As a reset, we're getting David Zier and our cameraman, who's part of the pool, back over to cover the president arriving.

00:24:34.380 He's going to be at Andrews, I think, in a moment, and then he's going to be taking a Marine One, the helicopter coming to the White House, supposed to land, I believe, at roughly 540.

00:24:46.200 He's immediately going into the West Wing, I think through the south entrance, going to the West Wing.

00:24:51.840 It's been publicly reported now on the schedule.

00:24:55.280 He's going to have a national security briefing by his – at least some version or some truncated version of his National Security Council, his primary advisers in this.

00:25:05.500 And then that's all supposedly closed to the public.

00:25:08.580 We're going to stay around for as much of that as we possibly can.

00:25:10.800 And like I said, there are unverified reports, but enough to make some of the TV stations in Israel that there's been potentially some kinetic activity by the Israelis,

00:25:23.980 either IDF with the commandos or potentially even air assets around the nuclear processing facility at Fort Dorr.

00:25:31.360 So the Israelis said many times a day, hey, we are not going to wait forever.

00:25:36.040 The president of the United States thinks he's got an alternative, you know, go with God, do what you can do, but we're not going to wait for the two weeks.

00:25:41.840 We're going to go when we want to go.

00:25:43.940 So far to date, they haven't really checked in with many people as they've gone.

00:25:49.160 We're a big advocate of the Israelis finishing what they started.

00:25:53.200 So we hope that it's true, that they've gotten on with it.

00:25:57.080 It's going to be a it's going to be very difficult.

00:25:59.560 We understand that a lot of lives are going to be at risk.

00:26:02.120 This will be a very audacious and bold move.

00:26:04.640 But the IDF and the Israelis have a history of bold and audacious military activity.

00:26:11.600 They also don't they don't telegraph their punches, just like President Trump.

00:26:16.740 President Trump doesn't do a long, long windup.

00:26:18.720 But you saw with what Solomayn and and so many others, even the taking down of ISIS, as I say, President Trump pitches from the stretch, doesn't do a full windup.

00:26:28.440 They get you when you're not not you're not watching.

00:26:31.360 Short commercial break.

00:26:32.560 You're hearing the worm in a special edition.

00:26:34.460 Real America's voice, the war room on a Saturday awaiting the commander in chief to return to the White House.

00:26:42.180 Take out Fordow, for example.

00:26:43.820 Has it really damaged Iran's nuclear program as much as it says that it that it wants to?

00:26:49.660 Well, as that piece demonstrates, Prime Minister Netanyahu has been very alarmist for a long time about the Iranian nuclear program.

00:26:56.860 And obviously, in hindsight, a lot of that alarm was exaggerated.

00:27:00.280 But I think it is the case that the Iranian nuclear program has accelerated since President Trump's disastrous decision in 2018 to exit the Iranian nuclear accord.

00:27:09.420 But at that point, we know that the Iranian breakout time, the amount of time they would take to have enough physical material for a bomb was over a year.

00:27:17.040 Now, I think everybody agrees, including U.S. intelligence, it's down to a week or two.

00:27:21.500 I think the question mark is how long would it take them to actually weaponize that material?

00:27:26.420 And that's, I think, where you have a dispute between the Israelis who are saying they could weaponize very quickly and the U.S. intelligence community, which is saying it would take a longer period of time.

00:27:34.780 But I think you're on to a key point here, Abby, which is what happens if the Israelis do not or the U.S. or somebody does not take out the Fordow site?

00:27:44.620 And the reality is the Iranian nuclear program will pretty much continue despite all the damage that the Iranians are suffering in this Israeli air campaign.

00:27:52.900 So that's why. But even keep in mind, even if Fordow is taken out, that doesn't mean that Iran will never be able to get a nuclear weapon because the know-how, probably a lot of the enriched uranium, all that stuff will remain still in Iranian hands.

00:28:04.840 But clearly, Fordow is a very big deal.

00:28:07.340 And I think what President Trump has to calculate is, is it worth going after Fordow, given the risk that the Iranians, who have so far been refraining from attacking U.S. bases or shipping in the region, given the risk that they will escalate?

00:28:23.720 And so, you know, you see all these U.S. bases, which are very close to Iran and, in fact, much closer than Israel.

00:28:30.720 And so, you know, Israel is about a thousand miles from Iran.

00:28:34.440 These bases are much closer. So Iran has a lot more missiles that they can shoot at them.

00:28:38.400 They have drones. They also have the capability to sow mines in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.

00:28:42.980 So there's a lot more damage they can probably do even in their weakened state.

00:28:46.380 And so that's what I think President Trump has to balance here.

00:28:49.420 Is it worth the risk of going after Fordow if it means getting the U.S. involved in the middle of these hostilities?

00:28:55.320 There's tons of conflicting reports coming out of Israel right now.

00:29:01.760 A lot of those are being blown up as being false.

00:29:03.520 Israeli media are putting some up as unverified.

00:29:07.340 There's other people talking about a massive drone attack tonight.

00:29:09.620 So there's a lot going on, as you can imagine, as the Israelis.

00:29:14.000 I do think what is quite positive from the special relationship with Israel and with the United States is that clearly the message has gotten across that this is their fight.

00:29:31.220 They started it. We have a special relationship.

00:29:33.520 We clearly agree that Persia should not have a nuclear weapon, cannot have a nuclear weapon.

00:29:40.940 President Trump was trying diplomacy, as he is wont to do, right?

00:29:44.800 Make sure it's peace to strength. You've got the strength to back it up.

00:29:47.660 I think you've seen the assets.

00:29:49.980 No nation on Earth could bring the military assets that we have brought to the region.

00:29:55.640 Now, the question gets to be, is this just empire maintenance or is this national security, right?

00:30:01.280 I do think there is still a big question about the viability of the Iranians actually delivering a nuclear weapon on top of the United States.

00:30:10.700 And you have to rank order the threats against the United States where that really stands.

00:30:14.240 That being said, we've made a decision.

00:30:16.780 President Trump has basically made a decision that 10 years ago he started saying that they can't have a nuclear weapon.

00:30:21.200 Now, he was in the middle of negotiating that.

00:30:24.580 They had a meeting scheduled for, what, Sunday, a week ago, last Sunday, with Steve Witkoff in Muscat Oman to continue the sixth or maybe the seventh round of negotiations.

00:30:37.280 And it was not going as quickly as President Trump liked.

00:30:40.860 I think he believed he might be getting tapped along by the al-Atollas, particularly some of the public comments they were making.

00:30:46.900 That being said, the Israelis, on their attack Thursday night and then Friday, did kill all the negotiators.

00:30:54.120 President Trump was pretty open about it on Friday when he was talking.

00:30:59.760 He says, hey, we had a meeting scheduled, but I think everybody is dead.

00:31:02.400 Now, it turns out a couple of those guys may not be.

00:31:04.520 But the Persians being very, very, very bureaucratic, right, very bureaucratic has been.

00:31:10.540 And the Ayatollah seems to be in hiding and not exactly readily available because I think his probably his belief, his thought process, are anybody else that was readily available has been killed.

00:31:23.280 So maybe I'll make myself not so available.

00:31:25.900 Be that as it may, it's been very tough.

00:31:28.760 It's been reported.

00:31:29.540 Witkoff really can't find anybody to negotiate with.

00:31:31.760 Either they don't have a mandate, they've been killed, or the Ayatollah will not empower them.

00:31:39.520 President Trump, I can tell you, he is, the two weeks is to see if there's a diplomatic and a way to do this without getting kinetic.

00:31:49.080 But, you know, President Trump's not a guy that's going to wait around forever.

00:31:52.400 So you get back to the kinetic part of it.

00:31:54.500 President Trump has already gone out of his way to say we're not doing regime change.

00:31:57.820 He did not authorize when the Israelis did come to him, and I say it's an upsell from the very beginning to let's go to regime change,

00:32:05.080 that he didn't want he wouldn't sign off on the Ayatollah being killed.

00:32:09.300 Although the Ayatollah is one of those guys that, as I said, an outlaw Josie Wales deserves killing.

00:32:14.800 Right.

00:32:15.000 He said he wouldn't do it, I think because of the chaos that might entail.

00:32:21.440 Remember, the United States did not execute Hirohito, the Emperor of Japan.

00:32:26.780 We did not bomb the Imperial Palace.

00:32:28.580 We went out of our way to make sure that there was no damage, bomb damage there for a host of cultural, societal, and religious reasons.

00:32:37.380 I think here, although the mullahs have been insane, I think President Trump is taking a prudent thing to say,

00:32:42.960 hey, look, we don't want to break this thing and end up owning it.

00:32:45.620 Our mission is to, if we so choose, is to make sure that we can finish what the Israelis maybe not be able to,

00:32:52.940 and that is to take down all of their 100 percent capacity to actually make a nuclear weapon.

00:32:58.240 Now, the Israelis, I think Bibi Netanyahu came out today in the New York Post and said they can actually finish it.

00:33:05.940 There's a report in Agency France Press, AFP, one of the, it's like the Reuters of Europe,

00:33:16.120 that said there's IDF individuals that are at a high level that are saying they've already crushed and hit the Iranian bomb-making capability,

00:33:29.600 weaponization capability, enrichment capability, that they said push it back two or three years already.

00:33:35.940 So then that calls for, hey, what does Fordor actually bring you now?

00:33:39.740 Obviously, this facility is so complex.

00:33:42.520 It is the heart of their operation.

00:33:45.500 And I believe, I think, you've seen a sea change, right?

00:33:50.280 The way I see it and I see people interacting is that the Israelis, instead of kind of very much from the beginning,

00:33:56.120 oh, the Americans are going to give the coup de grace, the Americans are going to be here,

00:33:59.460 because of, I think, President Trump's prudent nature when it comes to military engagement.

00:34:06.480 Remember, the Solomayne and other things are thought through for a long period of time

00:34:10.960 and then kind of come out of nowhere to hit the target.

00:34:14.780 This is why I say he does not telegraph, traditionally does not telegraph or does not do a long windup

00:34:20.540 before he delivers the pitch.

00:34:22.780 He kind of pitches from the stretch, and you really don't see it, right,

00:34:26.540 until it's actually the cruise missile or whatever the kinetic activity is right upon you.

00:34:32.760 That's when you become aware of it.

00:34:34.560 He has a little bit kind of walked through.

00:34:37.660 Now, he hasn't talked the specifics.

00:34:39.040 There's been all types of plans thrown out there and a lot of loose talk about how easy this is,

00:34:45.320 how it's done.

00:34:45.920 It's enormously complex.

00:34:47.620 It's very dangerous, obviously, to the people that are going to be on the business end of it,

00:34:52.440 the receiving end of it, but also for our pilots and anybody else involved.

00:34:56.840 These are complex military evolutions that, you know, you've had a chance to do rehearsals of these

00:35:04.140 and exercises, but clearly you haven't actually gone and had a chance to do it near the location

00:35:10.800 that this will actually be pulled off.

00:35:12.840 And this is one of the problems in the hostage rescue that I was involved in as a junior naval officer,

00:35:19.280 at least in the workup and the rehearsals for it.

00:35:22.540 You're off the coast.

00:35:23.640 We were, I think, relatively close to where the carrier battle groups are today.

00:35:29.220 We were on a place, navigational settings called Gonzo Station and Camel Station, too,

00:35:35.020 where we had two battle groups.

00:35:36.480 That was off the coast.

00:35:37.560 You really couldn't get inland to actually do, and I'm sure they had some commando helicopters

00:35:42.820 and others go and do terrain checking, as the military, you know, often does.

00:35:47.300 People go in to check.

00:35:48.800 But that's different than sending a bunch of pilots there in the middle of the night

00:35:51.900 into a foreign terrain thousands of miles away.

00:35:55.540 And so the workups for that, which were months and months and months,

00:35:58.480 I think all the way from the time first people started arriving in late November, early December,

00:36:03.920 all the way until the spring of when the assault was given.

00:36:08.180 But even with all that practice and rehearsal, things went awry,

00:36:11.960 and they went awry relatively quickly at really the rally point

00:36:15.980 where everybody was going to get to all their helicopters and get together, refuel,

00:36:20.540 and then do the final assault launch into Tehran.

00:36:24.740 Here, obviously, you haven't had the opportunity to do overflights consistently.

00:36:30.400 There might have been a couple of you haven't been able to do overflights over Tehran.

00:36:34.780 One thing that's quite positive here is that the Israelis have, I'm not so sure, air superiority.

00:36:41.800 I think they have air supremacy.

00:36:42.960 It looks like they've been able to knock out most of the anti-aircraft around Tehran,

00:36:49.060 at least what we're hearing and what we're seeing in reporting that's coming back.

00:36:53.220 In that regard, this would make it at least marginally easier,

00:36:58.920 although I realize this has stealth, it's at an altitude,

00:37:02.060 but that was one of those things you want to make sure are taken care of.

00:37:05.320 Like I said, unconfirmed, unverified reporting online and in Israeli media,

00:37:12.060 there may be actually some kinetic activity.

00:37:14.700 And I think you see the reception of this.

00:37:17.740 I think the Israelis are excited about this.

00:37:21.240 I think they're excited about actually taking this and getting it done themselves.

00:37:25.380 You know, the IDF and others have these mottos that we essentially don't need your help.

00:37:29.800 We're going to do it alone.

00:37:30.700 And that's one of the reasons they're one of the greatest fighting forces in the world.

00:37:33.800 If you think about it, you go back to 7 October.

00:37:36.760 And remember, 7 October, folks, those who are here, we did it live on the show.

00:37:40.800 Pasobek, I got Pasobek on here, and we actually went live that day.

00:37:46.480 If you think about since then, particularly with Hezbollah,

00:37:50.840 I think Hezbollah, the proxy of the Persians, proxy Hezbollah,

00:37:56.660 which had such an amazing reputation, quite frankly, an earned reputation,

00:38:00.100 because they had been on a roll, that in Syria with Hezbollah,

00:38:05.580 really in Gaza with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas,

00:38:08.140 they've delivered some death blows to these organizations and either terrorist organizations

00:38:14.780 or really paramilitary groups that have been incredibly tough to defeat in the future.

00:38:21.100 I think that is one of the reasons, not just simply Bibi's political situation

00:38:25.380 with all the madness that entails oftentimes Israeli domestic politics.

00:38:30.180 You know, that is politics the hard way.

00:38:33.320 They're very, very contentious all the time that it was a time to strike.

00:38:39.740 They had an opportunity and maybe they could box Trump in

00:38:43.220 or maybe they get a commitment at Trump right now.

00:38:45.540 And I think a lot of that is coming from the pushback of the Tucker Carlsons

00:38:50.060 and the Jack Posobics and the Charlie Kirks and the Benny Johnsons

00:38:54.320 and many, War Room and many others say,

00:38:56.120 hey, look, you know, even for those of us that are big supporters of Israel,

00:38:59.820 this is something, you started it, you've got to finish this.

00:39:02.700 I think that's been positive.

00:39:04.480 For those in the audience, Mark Levin has something up on Twitter tonight

00:39:09.680 that I think, let's just speak for itself, it's so revolting and disgusting,

00:39:13.040 particularly somebody who's never served his country and is not a veteran.

00:39:16.820 His use of language is so inappropriate.

00:39:19.900 For someone who's too gutless to serve his nation, right?

00:39:24.960 What he does in trying to smear people about their patriotism

00:39:28.400 and their love of country and their commitment to this nation.

00:39:32.060 Like I said, I think he and I think many people at Fox

00:39:35.100 and the whole network in the Murdoch should be put under investigation

00:39:37.800 as under foreign investigations as basically agents for a foreign government.

00:39:42.780 I think it's quite clear that he's not pitching this

00:39:47.260 in the interests of the United States of America or American citizens

00:39:50.500 and particularly those in harm's way, right?

00:39:53.900 Since he's never been in harm's way

00:39:55.400 and I don't think any of his children have been in harm's way, right?

00:39:58.360 It's not a super, it's not a very patriot.

00:40:00.420 His love of country and patriotism is just as solid as his being MAGA,

00:40:07.180 which you know he was one of the most vicious voices of President Trump

00:40:10.300 when we ran in 16 and then in 21 he's one of the first people to bail

00:40:14.560 with all the people at Fox taking paychecks from Rupert Murdoch

00:40:18.460 who bailed to go to DeSIMP and Nikki Haley

00:40:22.280 and that whole crew of neoliberal neocons.

00:40:25.740 President Trump is quite different

00:40:26.880 and President Trump is returning to the White House,

00:40:29.500 going to get a briefing by his National Security Council on the situation

00:40:34.260 and we'll see how this develops tonight.

00:40:37.320 Special edition of The War Room, back in a moment.

00:40:40.300 Here's your host, Stephen K. Band.

00:40:46.340 Okay, like I was saying, we're trying to get people out doing their things on Saturday,

00:40:51.080 but many are coming back and we're going to have them up as we plow through this.

00:40:54.860 We have footage now of the President at Andrews Air Force Base

00:40:58.300 and getting on Marine One.

00:41:00.040 Is that the case?

00:41:00.560 Can we go ahead and play that right there?

00:41:02.000 Playing right there.

00:41:03.120 As you can tell, I don't have my glass.

00:41:04.460 I don't have my glass.

00:41:04.980 There's the President of the United States coming down the forward hatch of Air Force One.

00:41:17.840 There he's got some of his military escorts there.

00:41:20.380 He gives a sharp salute.

00:41:21.820 And President Trump, I love those salutes he was giving at the parade that day.

00:41:25.820 I don't want to say his salutes were the best of all, but Pete Hegg says,

00:41:30.900 I might check into a couple or three of those other salutes I saw around there.

00:41:34.780 They were not too shabby.

00:41:35.740 President Trump was giving a very sharp, snappy shot.

00:41:38.360 There's President Trump going with one of his military aides.

00:41:42.600 He's going to Marine One.

00:41:43.880 It's just a, I don't know, seven or eight minutes.

00:41:46.900 I think it's eight minutes, nine minutes.

00:41:49.740 I might be off on that, but I thought it was seven or eight minutes from Andrews to,

00:41:55.340 I think it's under 10, depending on who's flying, right, to the White House, South Lawn.

00:42:03.180 Our own David Zier is there, also one of our crack cameramen.

00:42:07.480 I think we're in the pool day.

00:42:08.720 We may be the pool camera.

00:42:09.980 And so there you see President Trump very graciously, if you're able to watch this,

00:42:16.980 I'm very graciously shaking the hand and thanking the reception by the military commander.

00:42:23.440 There he is, and Marine One's going to be taken off momentarily, heading to the White House.

00:42:31.240 There is scheduled in the Oval Office a national security briefing.

00:42:34.800 There's a lot going on.

00:42:36.020 My sources in Israel are telling me they expect a long and bad night.

00:42:41.240 They think there's going to be additional hits by the Iranians.

00:42:45.020 A lot of these is, like I said, the Iron Dome.

00:42:48.000 The Iron Dome at Davis Lane, which had done so well, it is, you know, mathematical probability,

00:42:53.460 and the Iranians have been hitting them with a number of ballistic missiles and other missiles.

00:42:59.100 One of the reasons that, you know, B.B. Netanyahu gave, in fact, the second first reason was the nuclear weapons program.

00:43:08.200 The second was that, hey, they're so much more advanced in ballistic missiles and building at such a rate

00:43:13.720 that we're not going to be able to withstand a constant onslaught.

00:43:18.220 So the ballistic missiles became a thing, and you can see that that is obviously an issue

00:43:24.900 because I think a lot more of these have gotten through than people anticipated,

00:43:30.200 and it's done some real damage.

00:43:32.660 Israeli civilians are, particularly folks in Haifa and Tel Aviv, are really under assault.

00:43:40.560 If you see some of this footage, particularly some that's not making it to the American media,

00:43:44.580 it's very, very, very brutal.

00:43:47.160 Dave Bratt, you have joined us.

00:43:50.080 Thank you for changing your plans around.

00:43:51.920 Dave Bratt, your thoughts as President Trump, the commander in chief,

00:43:55.460 heads to the White House in a national security briefing, sir.

00:44:00.220 Yeah, well, the events of the last week, to me, as a former congressman

00:44:05.920 and as an American citizen, are very frustrating.

00:44:08.600 We live in a representative government, representative republic,

00:44:12.080 where the representatives are supposed to listen to the people,

00:44:15.780 but when the people are not informed about anything that's going on,

00:44:20.000 and when we're not given intelligence, and I'm going to get into that word in a minute,

00:44:24.480 this intelligence is not that intelligent, right?

00:44:28.180 So a week ago, Bibi Netanyahu, I'm all pro-Israel.

00:44:32.300 I want them to get rid of the evildoers in Iran.

00:44:35.760 That's all great.

00:44:36.640 But then things pivoted to regime change.

00:44:40.620 And then Bibi went on the TV and said,

00:44:42.160 hey, we're doing Israel first, America, you do America first.

00:44:45.340 I was like, okay, that sounds good to me.

00:44:47.740 But then the regime change started pivoting to the United States of America

00:44:51.660 are going to be in on regime change.

00:44:53.900 President Trump has made clear he wants a negotiating posture of some sort, right?

00:44:59.180 That's key.

00:44:59.920 So where does the president of the United States,

00:45:02.420 the leader of the free world, fit into Bibi's plan here?

00:45:05.600 And then things get really complicated with the bunker buster bomb, right?

00:45:11.660 So then we're asked for help on that, or I don't know how that took place.

00:45:16.840 But then that became the issue of the day.

00:45:19.180 And of course, that's to make sure the United States gets on board with the program.

00:45:23.700 Today, Bibi says, okay, we can handle that part.

00:45:27.340 And Eric Prince was brilliant on that point, right?

00:45:29.560 15 years ago, and I can build one of these things in my backyard.

00:45:32.900 I'm exaggerating, right?

00:45:34.420 But that is not the complicating factor that puts us in the war.

00:45:39.340 Israel can handle that for 15 years, and they want us in the middle of this again.

00:45:44.300 And then Bibi comes out again and says, don't worry, we've got it.

00:45:48.460 But now it's real problematic, because they've got it, and they're being bombed,

00:45:54.200 and they're bombing.

00:45:54.820 And so there is a war going on, and where does President Trump's initiative fit in here?

00:46:01.180 For a dialogue to bring peace, and maybe like Posobiec has been saying, a grand triangulation

00:46:07.420 with Russia, Ukraine, Iran, all of it bringing about peace.

00:46:11.820 And boy, I want that outcome.

00:46:15.140 But it looks like Bibi has foreclosed that.

00:46:17.800 There's no way Iran is going to agree to, you know, I don't like the word ceasefire,

00:46:22.980 but some window of opportunity where President Trump sends our representatives when Israel is

00:46:29.160 in the middle of bombing them.

00:46:30.420 If it's one-on-one Israel to Iran, you know the mullahs are never going to save face in that

00:46:37.220 case, right?

00:46:37.760 So the key to peace is President Trump does have to be in the middle of this.

00:46:41.940 He's got to broker the deal.

00:46:43.320 That's our only prayer for peace.

00:46:45.820 And the CIA guys and the Congress guys, I would like them to go over to Al-Assad, the airbase,

00:46:53.140 right across the water, where the biggest troops, American troops are, and be forward deployed,

00:46:59.460 right?

00:46:59.600 When you're making your decisions on this intelligence, and you say, hey, this is just a little

00:47:03.740 strike.

00:47:04.140 This is just a little targeted, myopic thing.

00:47:06.020 It's not a war.

00:47:07.660 Good.

00:47:08.120 Well, put your money where your mouth is, and go make that decision on the base with

00:47:12.520 the young boys and girls who are going to die if we get this thing wrong.

00:47:16.320 Then we'll know, right?

00:47:17.820 If you go over there and make your forward deployed decisions, then I'll know, okay, you've

00:47:23.020 got the situation in hand.

00:47:24.640 Without that, I don't buy it.

00:47:27.160 This idea of intelligence, right?

00:47:30.420 That word needs to be carefully monitored.

00:47:32.620 I'm not getting any intelligence about what's the polling and the intelligence if we lose

00:47:39.540 200 young boys in our troops over there.

00:47:43.040 What do the American people think about that, right?

00:47:45.880 Where do the American people get to weigh in?

00:47:47.680 They weighed in to elect President Trump twice.

00:47:50.900 This happens in every war.

00:47:53.420 This happens in every war when the polling is such a couple of weeks into it.

00:47:56.880 There's a couple of weeks into it when the reality of it.

00:47:59.500 Anyway, it looks like there's a lot of activity.

00:48:01.800 Also, a lot of activity.

00:48:03.060 They've been hitting.

00:48:03.900 The rain has been hitting hard near the Israeli nuclear facility down at Dimona.

00:48:09.740 We'll get into that next.

00:48:11.180 President Trump heading to the White House.

00:48:13.900 Your War Room special crew is here.

00:48:16.060 You got Brad, you got Bannon, Bowles in route.

00:48:18.620 We're going to get Poso, hopefully General Flynn, hopefully maybe even Eric Prince.

00:48:23.280 A whole cast of characters here in the War Room on a Saturday night.

00:48:27.180 Back in a moment.

00:48:27.800 This is the primal scream of a dying regime.

00:48:49.240 Pray for our enemies.

00:48:51.220 Because we're going medieval on these people.

00:48:54.280 Here's the time I got a free shot at all these networks lying.

00:48:57.800 About the people.

00:48:58.800 The people have had a belly full of it.

00:49:00.740 I know you don't like hearing that.

00:49:02.140 I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that.

00:49:03.880 But you're not going to stop it.

00:49:04.820 It's going to happen.

00:49:06.080 And where do people like that go to share the big line?

00:49:09.480 Mega media.

00:49:10.840 I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.

00:49:16.220 Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose?

00:49:19.400 If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.

00:49:26.240 War Room.

00:49:27.260 Here's your host, Stephen K.

00:49:29.300 Bannon.

00:49:34.980 Okay, welcome back.

00:49:36.460 It is Saturday, 21 June, year of our Lord, 2025.

00:49:39.940 I believe it's already the 22nd of June in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

00:49:43.120 Some folks there are telling me they think it could be a long night.

00:49:47.480 As Israel and Iran continue to slug this out, Israel clearly with the surprise attack and then their kind of momentum at the beginning.

00:49:56.940 But then the Iranians have hit back, I think, has surprised actually some, if not officials, definitely some civilians about the hard hit that the Iranians have given with their ballistic missile and other programs.

00:50:09.260 Dave Bratt, you know the Israelis very well.

00:50:11.880 Do you think that some of them are quite surprised by how much fight the Iranians have had in them, particularly with some of these weapons that can actually reach places like Haifa and Tel Aviv and do such damage to civilian populations?

00:50:27.480 Yeah, I think we're all surprised.

00:50:31.240 We're all learning.

00:50:32.240 The Iron Dome is built for, you know, smaller scale missiles, et cetera.

00:50:39.160 It's not built for an ongoing long war, right?

00:50:42.860 And so they've been very protected.

00:50:45.320 You know, they have the smartest people in the world, the best intelligence in the world, likely.

00:50:50.360 And so, yes, and the people now, they're living underground in Haifa and up north, and they're saying, we can't do this forever.

00:51:00.680 We can't live this way forever, right?

00:51:02.400 I mean, it's just the necessities of life.

00:51:05.140 And so we're starting to see the fog of war already.

00:51:10.700 And so, you know, Bibi needs to list his objectives very clearly.

00:51:15.020 What is his end state very clearly, and what is the role?

00:51:20.220 I mean, why is he leading?

00:51:22.080 President Trump is the lead.

00:51:24.240 He is the president.

00:51:25.700 He's the CEO of this country, and he needs to take over the process here because Israel is putting us in a bad spot, right?

00:51:34.500 It's this latest turn that's real problematic as well.

00:51:37.780 Bibi just says, you know, today in the New York Post or somewhere, I can't remember where I saw it,

00:51:42.400 but he says, I've got it now at the last minute.

00:51:45.960 So these are major pivots in the last week, and our intelligence agencies aren't equipped to process that.

00:51:53.580 And all the secretaries, can you imagine the scrambling going underneath the presidency?

00:51:58.880 Every sentence coming out of Israel matters for them, of course, and we want what's best for them.

00:52:06.240 And I think they're doing themselves some long-run damage, right?

00:52:09.720 We haven't even mentioned the rest of the world.

00:52:11.560 Where's the intelligence on that from our CIA, right?

00:52:15.200 Where's Pakistan?

00:52:16.260 They have nukes.

00:52:16.820 They weighed in, and they said no.

00:52:18.620 Russia was kind of on the side.

00:52:20.120 Now they weighed in, and they're saying no.

00:52:22.440 And there's more and more and more, and Turkey is a major power.

00:52:25.840 Well, when you say no, I mean, Russia and Pakistan have come in on the side at least softly of supporting Iran.

00:52:35.720 I mean, the Chinese country party, more than that.

00:52:38.160 I mean, that alliance, let me, the breaking for the New York Times, and let me just read this.

00:52:42.720 Several U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers appeared to have taken off from a base in the United States and were headed across the Pacific.

00:52:49.120 As President Trump was scheduled to meet at the White House with his national security team on Saturday evening to discuss joining Israel's attacks on Iranian nuclear sites.

00:52:58.040 The Trump administration has not told the Israeli military whether the United States plans to join the war on Iran, two Israeli defense officials said on Saturday.

00:53:08.980 Okay, so the Trump administration has not told them they're prepared to come into the war, according to Israeli defense authorities.

00:53:16.840 But the two officials speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters said that after conversations with their American counterparts over the last two days,

00:53:29.680 they believed Washington was likely to enter the war in the coming days and was already making preparations to do so.

00:53:38.540 Dave Bratt, your thoughts on that?

00:53:40.280 We're not there.

00:53:41.360 We're clearly looking at alternatives, putting assets so they can be used.

00:53:45.320 And as you know, once assets are there to be used, oftentimes people feel a little more itchy trigger finger to do them.

00:53:53.060 But that New York Times report that says, do we have, is the pool camera out on the South Lawn yet?

00:53:59.440 We're trying to get it.

00:54:00.240 My very frustrated producer is giving me stink eye and says, go back and focus on Bratt.

00:54:05.060 He'll take care of the pictures.

00:54:07.260 So Bratt.

00:54:08.080 Yeah.

00:54:08.820 Yeah.

00:54:09.180 Bratt, you see right there where President Trump hasn't made a decision.

00:54:14.860 They're leaning, I think, in that direction.

00:54:16.620 He has said that he has a military option that he's quite, can we go to that right now?

00:54:21.640 There's the President of the United States coming in on the South Lawn.

00:54:25.980 That's not the President of the United States.

00:54:28.840 Okay, there we go.

00:54:30.840 We're going to land it right there.

00:54:32.360 Let's bring it down.

00:54:33.240 For those of you watching at home on the live stream, isn't it magnificent?

00:54:39.520 The President is going to come past, I think, a pool of reporters, our own David Zier.

00:54:45.200 There we go.

00:54:45.820 Look at that audio.

00:54:46.880 No questions.

00:54:48.180 Okay.

00:54:48.600 No nothing.

00:54:50.280 It's pretty serious.

00:54:51.160 Look at that.

00:54:52.280 Perfect landing right there.

00:54:54.600 Boy, that's magnificent.

00:54:58.420 What a beautiful day.

00:54:59.600 Hot day.

00:55:00.400 Hot all throughout the United States, Bratt.

00:55:02.860 Right there, you're seeing the President of the United States, Marine One.

00:55:05.820 He will exit here momentarily.

00:55:07.540 He will go into the, well, you know, maybe we've got to check it out.

00:55:14.120 Maybe he goes into the, maybe he goes directly to the Oval Office.

00:55:17.280 You can go to the Oval Office, and President Trump does that on occasions.

00:55:20.900 Or you can walk right off Marine One and go right to the, and go right into the South,

00:55:26.560 under the South portico of the White House.

00:55:29.320 And you go down there near the, there are various beautiful rooms down there.

00:55:33.900 Take a left and go through the portico, past the Rose Garden, and into the, into the West Wing,

00:55:40.920 and into the Oval Office that way.

00:55:42.740 We'll have to see.

00:55:43.620 So the President is back.

00:55:45.580 That was a quick trip.

00:55:46.640 Less than 24 hours to Bedminster.

00:55:50.600 I don't believe he took any questions at, Dave, I don't think he took any questions at Morristown.

00:55:58.000 Just got on the plane and let's, let's go.

00:56:00.060 And we'll see right now if he takes any questions from the, from the, from the reporters.

00:56:05.780 Our own David Zier is down there, and others is the pool.

00:56:09.820 Back, National Security Council has reported the Director of Central Intelligence is John Ratcliffe from Texas.

00:56:16.540 You got Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, former U.S. Senator.

00:56:20.000 You also have Pete Hegseth, our own Pete Hegseth is, is their Secretary of Defense.

00:56:27.720 There'll be a couple of, three others.

00:56:29.640 If President Trump does not have these huge briefings during the first term, he was all,

00:56:34.780 every now and again he would go down to the Situation Room and there'd be many, many more people,

00:56:39.800 deputies, principal deputies, all that.

00:56:41.280 President Trump is not into that.

00:56:42.660 He's not into having a ton of people sit in these meetings.

00:56:45.500 And so this is one of the reasons he downsized, he downsized the, the National Security Council a couple of weeks ago.

00:56:54.460 Thought it was unnecessary to have some of these people, particularly these people that, Dave Bradd, as you know,

00:56:59.160 are seconded from the apparatus or what we refer to as the deep state.

00:57:04.200 I want to give Real America's Voice a heads up.

00:57:06.560 We might want to blow a break here if the President goes in and we can follow it all the way to the,

00:57:11.200 follow it all the way into the, to Oval Office.

00:57:13.760 There's Marine One on a, on a hot, sunny afternoon in June.

00:57:22.640 And you would think it would just be another day at the beach, but it's not.

00:57:26.740 President Trump's coming back here, of course.

00:57:29.000 As the New York Times is reporting, they're weighing and measuring the most important thing a president can do, Dave Bradd,

00:57:38.600 that is Commander-in-Chief, is actually the, the decisions to put American combat troops,

00:57:45.780 both airmen, sailors, and, and soldiers in harm's way for the vital national security of the United States.

00:57:55.500 Yes.

00:57:55.980 There's the president right there.

00:57:57.400 Yes.

00:57:58.320 Nope, that's not the president.

00:57:59.420 I don't have my glasses on.

00:58:00.540 I mean, I have more, but I can't see.

00:58:01.940 My screen here, folks, is microscopic compared to yours.

00:58:08.440 The gonzo nature of the actual war room is not, you know, this is not a, as Dave Bradd knows,

00:58:14.440 you've got to really squint to see that, to see the screen.

00:58:16.900 Yeah, my charts.

00:58:17.720 The charts are hard to read.

00:58:20.740 Charts are very, you've got to know the charts.

00:58:23.000 Hang on.

00:58:23.400 I know the charts.

00:58:24.180 Can, can, can, uh, we actually have, and we're a little, we're a little staffed here.

00:58:29.480 Can we take a short, uh, can we take a short break and let, uh, yeah, no, no, no.

00:58:35.000 Can we take a short, you take a short break and let Matt Boyle in?

00:58:40.600 Hang on.

00:58:42.300 Yeah, just hang.

00:58:43.720 There we go.

00:58:44.480 We got a cameraman.

00:58:45.440 We got, uh, the president.

00:58:49.040 There's President Trump.

00:58:50.120 There's President Trump.

00:58:54.180 President Trump right there is looking at his flagpole and the new flag.

00:58:59.000 When you're there, there's waving to the, he's, he's pointing, he's very proud of that flag.

00:59:05.120 You see, Brad, Brad, you see that magnificent, huge flag and think we've always had a very

00:59:10.220 small flag on the top of it, top of it.

00:59:12.660 You, you actually, I was in the other day when he was in, I was sitting in for you when

00:59:16.860 he was installing it and he was smiling from ear to ear.

00:59:20.600 He loved it, didn't he?

00:59:22.500 Yeah.

00:59:22.720 He absolutely loved it.

00:59:23.540 It was just, uh, it was just absolutely extraordinary.

00:59:26.320 Um, you, you, you asked the, you know, you asked when you're there or you see it, why

00:59:31.340 didn't no one think of that before?

00:59:33.140 Why was it?

00:59:34.040 I mean, this is another genius move of Trump.

00:59:36.380 You know, you don't have a, you don't have a, uh, you don't have a, uh, a flag.

00:59:40.420 Now you've got a big, beautiful flag, magnificent.

00:59:43.320 And, and President Trump just absolutely, uh, absolutely loves it.

00:59:46.940 Um, he's there exactly.

00:59:48.840 I don't know, 15 or 20 minutes late from what they thought.

00:59:52.300 Uh, he is now going to go, uh, uh, gather his, uh, gather his folks and he'll be in the

00:59:58.880 Oval Office, which is, he went in actually the, do the, under the South Portico.

01:00:02.300 He did not go directly to the Oval Office.

01:00:03.980 He went to the South Portico.

01:00:04.820 That's why he went right by, right by the flag.

01:00:07.900 What did you think about the, by the way, we can go ahead and take the break.

01:00:10.420 We don't need to blow it.

01:00:11.720 Um, we're directing and producing as we go here.

01:00:15.160 Brad, your, your, your, your thoughts on him coming back, returning on a Saturday.

01:00:18.860 You just heard the New York Times saying these decisions haven't been made, but Israeli officials,

01:00:24.340 defense officials believe that the United States is coming closer to a decision to join

01:00:30.000 as an offensive combatant in this.

01:00:33.520 Uh, your thoughts, sir?

01:00:35.760 Well, you, you put your finger on it when you close the sentence of the New York Times,

01:00:40.220 right?

01:00:40.380 The language is very loose for our national security interests.

01:00:44.020 Oh, really?

01:00:45.300 Could someone please define what that is?

01:00:47.600 I mean, we're all dying to hear that.

01:00:49.200 Sam Fattis the other day had an incredible argument about Fordo and all that.

01:00:53.700 The Fizzalt material is all right.

01:00:55.920 That's a dumb deal.

01:00:56.980 Either they got it or they don't got it.

01:00:58.400 Right.

01:00:58.680 And it's, if we're scared of an immediate urgency, uh, this week intelligence of nukes,

01:01:02.980 the Fizzalt material is not even play.

01:01:05.180 So Fordo's not in.

01:01:06.740 So then the logic is inescapable.

01:01:08.580 They want us in for one reason.

01:01:10.060 They want the United States of America in the game.

01:01:12.900 For what?

01:01:14.200 And that's, I, I have not heard a reasoned answer to our national security interests.

01:01:20.520 I feel like President, uh, Trump is having his legs cut out from what he is trying to achieve

01:01:25.640 with negotiated talks.

01:01:26.980 If those fail, uh, then it, then it's another game.

01:01:31.100 Okay.

01:01:31.360 Then it's, you know, game on as you're saying, right?

01:01:33.400 That's the thesis.

01:01:36.700 I've got the, I've got a, a great, this is a great thing about having the word written

01:01:40.240 back to the Capitol and Supreme court.

01:01:42.540 We've got, uh, can we, um, yeah, momentarily, by the way, you're going to, if you, if I can

01:01:49.020 get your earpiece in, if you at least listen, you can hear the great Johnny Kahn.

01:01:52.000 We go out with, we go out with American heart and in the A block, we always go out with

01:01:56.220 the great Matt Boyle joins us.

01:01:58.920 Matt Boyle, you're in DC.

01:02:00.380 Thank God you're here this weekend.

01:02:01.720 You were doing, we're going to hook you up officially.

01:02:03.380 You don't have to get, uh, no, no, no.

01:02:04.840 We're going to put it in the back of your collar.

01:02:06.040 We got it.

01:02:06.580 Just, just, you can take it out.

01:02:08.060 We got it.

01:02:08.960 I just wanted to tell Johnny that we're negotiating with his, his agent right now, the copyright

01:02:14.240 for the, for the song.

01:02:16.660 The great Matt Boyle joins us.

01:02:18.740 We're going to leave you with American heart.

01:02:20.380 But when we return, we have Dave Bratz with us.

01:02:23.260 Matt Boyle's just joined us.

01:02:24.420 Matt Boyle, the, uh, national political editor for Breitbart News with a lot of, uh, to say

01:02:29.800 about what's currently going on.

01:02:31.580 And then, uh, hopefully we're going to have General Flynn, maybe, uh, maybe General Flynn,

01:02:35.620 maybe, uh, Eric Prince, maybe Jack Posovic.

01:02:38.440 All the military national security types are out and about as they are often want to do on

01:02:42.860 a Saturday.

01:02:43.500 We're trying to track them all down.

01:02:44.460 The president of the United States is back at the White House.

01:02:47.480 He is heading towards the Oval Office.

01:02:49.200 He's about to have a briefing by his National Security Council, Central Intelligence, John

01:02:55.320 Ratcliffe, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, of course, the Secretary of State,

01:02:59.540 Marco Rubio, who's both Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, and a couple

01:03:04.220 of three others.

01:03:05.000 It'll be quite interesting who is there.

01:03:06.920 Matt Boyle, Tulsi Gabbard, maybe, hopefully, the Secretary of Treasury, Scott Besant, maybe

01:03:11.640 throw in there the economic impact of all this.

01:03:14.180 Short commercial break.

01:03:15.060 We're here at a special on a Saturday evening in June as the nation's on the precipice of

01:03:21.740 war or peace.

01:03:23.500 We'll be right back in a moment.

01:03:30.500 You know, I don't want to jump ahead.

01:03:48.000 I kind of think Monday, if the rest of the weekend goes as it's going, I kind of think

01:03:52.700 Monday may be a little turbulent in world capital and financial markets.

01:03:57.280 You know, we try to be the still point in the turning world.

01:04:00.800 One of the reasons we do that is our partners at Birch Gold.

01:04:03.160 We want to make sure you get all aspects.

01:04:05.800 It's not about the price of gold.

01:04:07.240 It's the process of how it got there.

01:04:08.880 Why has gold been a hedge for 5,000 years of man's history?

01:04:12.040 Go to birchgold.com slash Bannon, the end of the dollar empire.

01:04:16.400 Four years, seven free installments, the seventh's out.

01:04:18.660 The Rio Reset talks about the BRICS nations.

01:04:20.740 And as you know, the Iranians, the Persians, the Chinese, everybody's trying to get everybody riled up.

01:04:25.740 Chinese foreign, the head of the Bank of China and their senior finance minister came out there.

01:04:30.640 They said they're going to present in Rio an alternative to the good old U.S. dollar.

01:04:35.300 because they said the world is too unstable now because we're depending upon one currency.

01:04:41.020 So make sure you learn and find out all about it.

01:04:42.800 Talk to Philip Patrick and the team.

01:04:43.920 Matt Boll, the great Matt Boll, joins us.

01:04:46.300 Matt, you've been out and about.

01:04:47.100 Let me go to David Zier at the White House.

01:04:49.080 David, you were right there.

01:04:50.460 The president did, came in through the South Portico.

01:04:53.580 He gave a hat tip to his favorite, the new flagpole.

01:04:57.120 He loves that big, beautiful flag.

01:04:58.800 I mean, that's the first thing he wants to show you when you're there.

01:05:01.080 David, get us up to speed on what's happening, including some breaking news.

01:05:04.660 He's still a little bit unverified, but being reported on some of the TV stations in Israel about some kinetic activity.

01:05:11.040 What do you got, sir?

01:05:12.920 Yeah, it seemed like Trump was running behind on his way to the Oval Office.

01:05:16.840 Did not stop for questioning, but did tip his hat to the American flag and his beautiful new flagpole here.

01:05:23.100 But Axios was reporting about an hour ago that there was a potential meeting between Erdogan, Trump.

01:05:29.100 And Trump and Erdogan were both coordinating a meeting with the Supreme Leader, Khamenei, of Iran.

01:05:34.660 But that the Supreme Leader went dark on them and couldn't do it.

01:05:38.340 There's also a report from the Israeli government that there was a terrorist plot broken up in Cyprus.

01:05:43.520 I don't have any further details.

01:05:45.040 And there's chatter on, like, the Israel War Room site that Israeli fighter jets were opening the paths for potential B-2 routes into Fordow.

01:05:55.600 But I cannot verify that for you.

01:05:58.300 There's a lot going on.

01:05:59.640 And two more IRGC commanders were taken out.

01:06:02.820 And one of them was taken out.

01:06:05.020 He was the supply guy to all the Middle East proxies in Yemen.

01:06:09.160 And like Mark Caputo pointed out, you know, Trump may have—Iran may have tipped their hand too far here because, you know, they had a lot of power with Hamas and Hezbollah and in Syria and in Yemen.

01:06:20.520 And now they've lost all that.

01:06:22.100 So maybe they've got nothing to lose now by prolonging this war.

01:06:25.680 I'll be following things as close as I can, and I'll give you some more info.

01:06:29.340 Yeah, folks I know in Israel have been telling me that they expect a long, difficult night there again in that the nuclear facility and research facility at Damona, that Bersheba has been hit constantly all week, and they expect more barrages tonight.

01:06:44.200 David, hang on.

01:06:45.680 Brat, hang around.

01:06:48.220 Matt, you've covered this a lot.

01:06:49.540 Are you surprised by the amount of tonnage of ballistic missiles that have gotten through the Iron Dome and actually hit Israeli civilians?

01:06:58.760 I mean, Israeli civilians are frontline combatants in this thing, are they not?

01:07:02.660 It's definitely, I think, rocked Israel a little more than they expected.

01:07:07.100 And so, I mean, the narrative, if you will, from the Israeli government has been that the Iron Dome was impenetrable, and that's not been the case.

01:07:16.640 And I think that they know that there are serious costs to doing what they're doing here.

01:07:22.720 That doesn't mean it's wrong, right?

01:07:24.400 Like, that doesn't mean that what they're doing is wrong.

01:07:26.300 And, in fact, I know a ton of American leaders that are rooting for the Israelis in a big way right now.

01:07:32.380 I spoke to the Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, this morning.

01:07:36.080 Well, we're rooting for the Israelis.

01:07:37.580 We want to get through.

01:07:39.060 If you've got to go through hell, go through as quickly as possible.

01:07:41.420 Exactly.

01:07:42.120 But, I mean, and by the way, the Israelis have been through hell.

01:07:44.800 Like, I mean, they've been through a lot of hell the last several years.

01:07:47.640 I mean, dating back to October 7th.

01:07:49.940 Yeah, and since then, and frankly, but I do think that they're a little bit caught off guard about how aggressive these Iranian responses have been.

01:07:58.740 And how tough it's going to be.

01:07:59.960 David, what is your – do we have that – is that shot right for Matt with the – should the microphone be down a little or over?

01:08:05.880 I'm going to start directing again.

01:08:07.860 There we go.

01:08:08.380 David, Zier, I know you have tons of contacts in Israel.

01:08:15.100 What are the thoughts that you know from people there, particularly civilians?

01:08:20.180 I have clients from Israel.

01:08:22.300 They're very worried.

01:08:23.220 They're digging in.

01:08:24.060 And I think it was the foreign minister in Israel who said this is going to be a protracted war.

01:08:28.360 This is going to be long and drawn out.

01:08:30.480 It's not going to end overnight.

01:08:31.860 I think everybody's concerned, especially, you know, maybe with another thousand ballistic missiles in play, all the Iranians have to do is get lucky once, right?

01:08:40.860 And there could be a mass casualty event.

01:08:42.920 I think everybody's on edge.

01:08:45.720 By the way, a report of an attack on a missile depot down in Bandar Abbas, which you know is near the oil fields down there.

01:08:51.600 Yeah.

01:08:51.800 All you've got to do is knock out the oil fields.

01:08:53.400 All you've got to do is knock out the oil fields or sink a couple of these cargo ships in the streets of Hormuz, and next thing you know, you're going to have a world economic problem here, sir.

01:09:01.200 Well, one of the things I would say, getting back to where your other correspondent here was just talking about, about the report in Axios about Erdogan and about the issue in Cyprus.

01:09:11.360 First off, Erdogan is extremely tied up with the Chinese Communist Party, and there have been reports all over the last week and a half that the CCP has been sending planes into Iran.

01:09:20.120 I'll tell you, the entity that is loving this, the fact that America is distracted and Israel is the Chinese Communist Party.

01:09:27.800 And it's worth noting I have not independently confirmed the report of Cyprus, what happened there, of an apparent attack on Israeli citizens in Cyprus.

01:09:40.580 But I have spoken to the president of Cyprus in the past, not that long ago, and also the prime minister of Greece, Greece and Cyprus very close.

01:09:49.660 And Cyprus is, you know, right down the middle of Greece and Turkey, right?

01:09:54.120 And so I think there's just something—

01:09:55.780 I think both of those would argue actually Cyprus is theirs.

01:09:58.540 Right, right.

01:09:59.300 The Greeks would certainly—and the Cypriots would argue that they should be fully—but the point is that there's something going on here with the Turks and the Chinese.

01:10:09.500 And I think that President Trump needs to be very careful who he trusts in these moments.

01:10:15.960 They're trying to reach out to Erdogan.

01:10:16.800 I 100% agree.

01:10:17.860 I don't think he can trust Erdogan.

01:10:19.560 I have—David, Brad and Dave Zurt, jump in here with Bolan.

01:10:23.380 I have argued now for a while that as lethal as the threat is from Persia, that Israel's two big threats, I think, right now are the axis between Turkey and Qatar.

01:10:33.480 Right, because Turkey—Erdogan wants to reestablish the Ottoman Caliphate.

01:10:38.360 That's what he wants to do before he dies.

01:10:39.960 And the key to the Ottoman Caliphate is to control the two holy sites, which they had before Lawrence of Arabia in the Arab revolt in World War I and the British Army taking Damascus.

01:10:50.220 When that whole Jerusalem and Damascus, that—he is adamant about reasserting that.

01:10:55.000 And Qatar would be at the top of the—the top of the chain as someone to help them because they would love to make sure that the Saudis did not have control of the two holy sites, Emeka and Medina.

01:11:05.640 Now you're playing with fire, right?

01:11:07.300 This whole region—this is what's—so all this loose talk you see in some of the other networks about, you know, we're going to do this.

01:11:14.000 It's just one swoop away.

01:11:15.440 This is a powder keg.

01:11:16.840 This is a tinderbox.

01:11:18.060 You light the match on this thing.

01:11:19.360 You have a great—and as Thayer, Dr. Thayer, who may try to get up, he says, now we're not in a global war and tarry mode.

01:11:25.760 This is a great power struggle.

01:11:27.760 You have the Chinese Communist Party.

01:11:29.680 You have the Russians.

01:11:30.860 You have the Americans of the Judeo-Christian West with Western Europe, right?

01:11:34.960 And you're sitting here in the Middle East, and this thing could go up.

01:11:38.500 And once it goes up, the law of unintended consequences is because of vengeance, and I want to get back, and wars of attrition.

01:11:46.440 It's what's happened in Ukraine and Russia.

01:11:48.460 You can't get it—President Trump said I have a tough time getting to the table because you have a million dead and one on either side.

01:11:54.660 So the whole thing of vindictiveness and vengeance and, you know, not just territory, I want to get you back for killing my family or torturing my son.

01:12:02.920 This is the type of thing that can spin quickly out of control, Matt Boyle.

01:12:06.900 I agree, and I think that the geopolitical consequences here, I think that if you're talking about a new axis rising,

01:12:12.600 it is abundantly clear that Beijing is pulling the strings.

01:12:18.800 Xi Jinping—so Trump shouldn't even waste his time calling Erdogan.

01:12:21.960 Erdogan is Xi's lapdog.

01:12:24.280 He needs to be calling Xi Jinping every day.

01:12:27.280 I think that President Trump is obviously things very highly avert of one.

01:12:31.020 I think he does.

01:12:31.940 He's more highly than Matt Boyle and Steve Bannon, right?

01:12:34.820 And by the way, in a similar type of a situation with Putin in Russia, but this is one of the things.

01:12:42.200 If you go back and look, there's an interview I did with Secretary Rubio shortly after his confirmation,

01:12:46.960 when the peace talks were just beginning.

01:12:49.940 This is before—

01:12:50.880 The Ukrainian peace talks.

01:12:51.960 Yes.

01:12:52.420 This is before even Zelensky came to the Oval Office with that whole blowup of a meeting, which did not end well.

01:12:58.480 That will go down in history as the worst Oval Office meeting of a foreign leader ever.

01:13:02.040 I don't think anyone is that stupid.

01:13:04.420 To date.

01:13:04.900 To date.

01:13:06.000 We have no idea what's in front of us.

01:13:08.020 To date.

01:13:08.560 Right?

01:13:08.920 So, by the way, after that, I think we saw, what was it, Keir Starmer came with an invitation from the king that he pulled out of his pocket.

01:13:17.420 So smart.

01:13:17.920 Class act, right?

01:13:19.220 So smart.

01:13:19.420 State visit with the king.

01:13:20.340 And I think Burr's from Germany came over with a little sign that he gave him framed.

01:13:25.460 And in a suit.

01:13:27.040 Yeah, and in a suit.

01:13:28.340 Right?

01:13:28.500 But the thing is that if you go back and look at that interview I did with Rubio way back in—it was early February, early to mid-February.

01:13:35.940 I asked him if what Trump is trying to do here with Russia and Ukraine is almost a reverse situation of what Nixon did.

01:13:44.380 Remember, Nixon went to China to get them off of Russia.

01:13:48.660 At the time, the Soviet Union was the power.

01:13:51.920 Now the CCP is the power.

01:13:54.180 So is this a reverse Nixon goes to China?

01:13:56.260 Is it a Trump goes to Moscow?

01:13:57.180 But are we—now that these things have come up, are we not so far—look, 90 days ago, we would talk every day on this show about a Russian rapprochement,

01:14:05.420 that a rapprochement with Russia, both Ukraine and the Persian situation, got solved because they're part of that.

01:14:12.960 Now we're so far removed from that.

01:14:14.820 We're here on a Saturday night.

01:14:16.220 The president of the United States is in the Oval, which you've been many times.

01:14:19.380 Zier's going to report who's there with him.

01:14:20.580 He's not at Bedminster.

01:14:21.600 Not at Bedminster.

01:14:23.420 Where he'd like to be, by the way.

01:14:24.500 Well, he always loves doing the cookout for the people.

01:14:27.180 I mean, he's a guy that not just entertains, but makes you feel so welcome.

01:14:31.500 It's like Rocky Balboa in his restaurant or something.

01:14:33.980 Exactly.

01:14:34.580 He wants—now he's at—the last place on earth Donald Trump wants to be on a Saturday evening in the summer is in the Oval Office having a national security briefing on war and peace,

01:14:46.860 on are we going to commit combat troops and that some of these young men and women may not come back from this, that this is at a vital national security level.

01:14:55.240 He's doing this because, obviously, he's president of the United States.

01:14:57.660 He's a dedicated patriot, but this shows you the intensity of this moment, and I've said, of coming down the escalator 10 years ago on last Sunday,

01:15:07.380 with all the victories and defeats we've had, all the good times and bad times, the tragedies and triumphs, all of it, this audience, everybody,

01:15:14.900 particularly the folks that stuck all together and in 21 said, hey, it's not DeSantis, it's not Nikki Haley, it's him.

01:15:21.740 That's just a preamble for the next 200 days.

01:15:24.740 This is where the legacy—because you're facing a war—

01:15:27.680 It's a legacy-defining moment.

01:15:28.960 Yes.

01:15:29.200 Like, this is a legacy-defining moment.

01:15:30.640 Take a short commercial break.

01:15:31.880 Matt Bowles in the house.

01:15:32.940 David Zier's at the White House.

01:15:34.500 Dave Bratz riding shotgun.

01:15:36.900 Maybe a couple, three others.

01:15:38.360 Short break.

01:15:38.940 Back in a moment.

01:15:42.160 Here's your host, Stephen K. Vance.

01:15:46.400 I'm going to go back to David Zier for an update.

01:15:48.200 By the way, the audience, some of the audience is asking, is Dave Bratz wearing pink tonight?

01:15:51.980 Dave, I know it's a weekend, but don't go crazy on me, okay?

01:15:54.940 It's the light up there.

01:15:56.500 I got on some tanned Brad Pitt shirt.

01:16:00.600 Salmon.

01:16:01.740 Salmon.

01:16:02.300 It's salmon.

01:16:03.040 I'm sorry.

01:16:03.420 It's a salmon.

01:16:04.020 Salmon color.

01:16:04.620 Salmon's completely defensible.

01:16:06.240 Man!

01:16:06.640 Salmon's totally defensible.

01:16:08.800 Also, Matt Boyle, we're hearing already from some of our international correspondents in Turkey,

01:16:14.940 we're going to make you, we're going to make a Matt Boyle edition of my free Constantinople shirt.

01:16:19.420 That should sell millions.

01:16:21.380 Oh, yeah.

01:16:21.780 No, by the way, and we'll take it, as soon as Kimberly Guilfoyle is confirmed as U.S. ambassador to Greece,

01:16:26.340 we'll take it to Greece and we'll sell them there.

01:16:28.000 We'll sell 10 million.

01:16:29.680 Unbelievable.

01:16:30.220 Yeah.

01:16:30.320 David Zier, can you tell us anything about what's going on in the Oval Office?

01:16:36.080 Have you seen anybody coming and going?

01:16:37.720 Do we have any sense of how, one of the controversies, Matt, and Dave Bratt has been,

01:16:43.140 who exactly is sitting in these meetings now, right?

01:16:45.680 Is Tulsi Gabbard in there?

01:16:46.920 Is Joe Kenner, chief of staff, in there?

01:16:48.940 Is he getting a broader range?

01:16:50.580 I think J.D. is on his way back.

01:16:53.060 Is J.D. on his way back from Los Angeles?

01:16:54.620 Have we confirmed that yet?

01:16:55.500 I have not spoken to the vice president's staff about that.

01:16:58.100 Okay, J.D. was in L.A. doing, by the way, which is the most important battle in this front,

01:17:03.580 which is repelling the 10 million illegal alien invaders and telling the neo-Confederate,

01:17:08.480 Governor Newsom, that we don't care how you'd sue us in court, it's not working.

01:17:13.240 We're going to ship out of here.

01:17:15.120 It would be so great if everybody was focused on that right now.

01:17:17.040 It would be fantastic, right?

01:17:18.560 This is what they do.

01:17:19.440 So, Zier, give us up the date.

01:17:20.820 What's happening at the White House, sir?

01:17:23.900 There's a pretty tight lid on everything.

01:17:25.680 There's no word.

01:17:26.540 There were very few staffers outside with us and inside when we were going to wait for

01:17:32.520 the helicopter, Marine One, to arrive here.

01:17:35.000 But, Steve, if I could just add, I would agree, don't trust Erdogan.

01:17:39.100 And he's been trying to, like, unite the Arabic world, right?

01:17:42.140 Saudi Arabia, Hanbali and Salafi.

01:17:44.460 One percent of the world's Muslims are Salafi.

01:17:47.000 Qatar, big Salafi state, right?

01:17:49.700 Cooperation with the International Brotherhood of Muslims.

01:17:52.240 And Saudi Arabia, my friend Phil Haney always used to tell me, God rest his soul, you know,

01:17:57.220 he always told me that the Saudi government, he was wonderful, he was a great friend, and

01:18:01.900 he told me that the Saudi government was actually bombing Salafi terrorists around the world and

01:18:06.380 in Egypt and in that area and cooperating.

01:18:09.540 So, like you said, I think you're correct.

01:18:11.400 It's a very complex situation here.

01:18:13.880 And Erdogan is probably not to be trusted.

01:18:18.140 Is this one of the criticisms from the Arab world?

01:18:21.520 I mean, one of the things I've been advocating is that given President Trump's recent trip,

01:18:26.300 the first person I would make a phone call to would be MBZ.

01:18:29.560 I think he's the most stabilizing character in that region.

01:18:32.980 UAE.

01:18:33.780 UAE, right?

01:18:34.460 Yeah.

01:18:34.600 And I know he and President Trump are in a very close relationship.

01:18:37.280 He's also, that military is probably the same, one notch down from the IDF.

01:18:42.720 In other words, they punch way above their weight, like the IDF does.

01:18:46.860 And they're also the most Western of the Arab nations, right?

01:18:50.420 They joined the Abraham Accords.

01:18:52.320 Yeah, sure.

01:18:52.860 Very close to certain of the Israelis.

01:18:54.740 A lot of Israelis now, actually, I shouldn't say a lot, but a number of young Israelis,

01:18:58.420 I think, actually live or have cards to live in Dubai to work on financing.

01:19:03.340 They're a member of the IMEC corridor as well, which is the big Western-led trade corridor

01:19:07.860 to counter-development.

01:19:08.940 Also, the quite controversial advanced artificial intelligence and advanced chip deal we just

01:19:15.320 did with you.

01:19:15.840 He would be someone I would use as an anchor because I think you need, first of all, we

01:19:20.620 need basing rights.

01:19:21.500 We need flyer rights, which I don't believe have been granted in this activity right now,

01:19:27.320 which I think you need, right?

01:19:28.420 I know we have certain rights, but we don't have overall rights, particularly to be a combatant

01:19:32.980 against another, not Arab nation, obviously, but another Muslim nation.

01:19:37.180 So I think that's a consideration that has to be given.

01:19:41.280 Erdogan is an interesting character here because unlike Iraq, right, maybe even unlike the Gulf

01:19:49.700 Emirates or even like Afghanistan, Persia and Turkey are two ancient civilizations that

01:19:57.020 the Romans fought constantly on their eastern flank, right?

01:20:01.060 Before them, the Greeks.

01:20:02.400 Before them, the Greeks, right?

01:20:04.180 And the Romans kind of inherited from the Greeks, right?

01:20:06.840 So the great Thermopylae and all these battles you see.

01:20:10.440 That's why I refer to them as Persians.

01:20:12.880 And the reason is that, can you, by the way, just, we're going to get General Flynn up now.

01:20:19.820 Can you get General Flynn up or get his, right here?

01:20:22.920 I'll give that to you right there who just called me, if you want to just pick that up.

01:20:26.660 We'll produce this as we go.

01:20:28.120 What I would say, Steve, is that these ancient civilizations are, we're talking about America's

01:20:32.400 250th, right?

01:20:33.520 Like we're coming up, July 4th is the beginning of the 250th year of the United States.

01:20:37.000 They're waiting us out.

01:20:38.520 They've been around thousands of years.

01:20:39.880 They think that we're the new kids on the block, we're the, you know, hot stuff, and

01:20:43.600 we're not going to make it.

01:20:44.720 But they are waiting out Trump.

01:20:46.040 There's no doubt about that.

01:20:47.460 That is a clear and convincing strategy I've taught to people who are in communication with

01:20:53.600 the Chinese in other governments around the world.

01:20:57.760 Their intent right now is to wait out President Trump.

01:21:01.140 They want him distracted, and they think that if they can ride out this three and a half years

01:21:05.640 left of Trump.

01:21:06.860 Is there a better distraction to get sucked into another war in the Middle East, particularly

01:21:11.020 not with like an Iraq or Afghanistan, but with an ancient civilization like Persia, where

01:21:15.160 it's a 30-year war?

01:21:16.440 And even though maybe you're not, maybe you're not responsible for regime change, you're at

01:21:21.260 least a co-combatant in it, and somehow the whole world, the whole region's blaming you.

01:21:25.460 They're loving it right now.

01:21:26.460 They're loving it.

01:21:27.600 They're loving what's happening right now.

01:21:30.200 The Chinese are.

01:21:30.840 Beijing is like applauding it and cheering it on.

01:21:33.440 But the fact is, is that I said this earlier, Trump, the biggest moment of Trump's first

01:21:39.280 term, I said this on my radio show earlier, Steve, the biggest moment of Trump's first

01:21:43.640 term, and people think I'm a little crazy when I say this, is that when Jean-Claude

01:21:48.380 Juncker from the European Union came over to the White House and they announced a trade

01:21:53.600 agreement between the United States and the European Union.

01:21:56.080 Now, I think that Trump had less leverage than he has now in the trade agreements and the

01:22:01.420 trade fight that he's fighting worldwide, but this could change with a really complicated

01:22:05.820 war like this.

01:22:07.040 But the fact is, is that what did that agreement with the European Union and Trump's first term

01:22:12.380 do?

01:22:12.820 It set the stage for the eventual phase one deal with China.

01:22:18.140 What did the phase one deal with China do?

01:22:19.960 What did they do right after that?

01:22:21.560 Within weeks, we were affected by COVID, right?

01:22:24.860 Now, whether the virus came out of the lab, the virus came out of the lab, but whether

01:22:29.260 the virus was intentionally released or whether it was accidentally released and they covered

01:22:33.480 it up and used it to attack the West, regardless, the outcome is the same.

01:22:40.500 So the fact is, is that that first trade deal, that first, which wasn't even the greatest

01:22:45.860 trade deal, by the way, it was okay.

01:22:47.820 Well, to go back in time, that was called the skinny deal.

01:22:51.060 The real deal was the Lighthizer-Navarra two years that took care of all the original

01:22:55.280 stuff in May of 19, where they had the one belt, one road with Putin and then kind of

01:23:00.040 spit, tore it up and spit in our face.

01:23:01.740 Lee Hu said, you know what?

01:23:03.020 Upon further review, Wan Shishan, and she said, we can't do this.

01:23:06.860 Afterwards, they declared a people's war.

01:23:08.720 And then in August and September in the Wuhan military games, people started getting sick,

01:23:15.040 right?

01:23:15.340 And so this is why the CCP has targeted Donald Trump from the beginning.

01:23:20.380 He's the one they fear.

01:23:21.680 Right.

01:23:21.880 And what's been happening here in the second term since Liberation Day is Trump has been

01:23:27.420 with more leverage and more, if Trump likes to say he's got the cards, he has the cards

01:23:31.920 in a bigger way than he ever did in his first term.

01:23:34.740 He has the cards.

01:23:35.720 He's got the leverage.

01:23:37.300 In the second term, he has been, again, making all the right steps towards eventually forcing

01:23:44.120 the handed.

01:23:44.900 This first deal that Besant and these guys went over to negotiate with the Chinese in

01:23:48.580 London, that's the beginning.

01:23:50.400 That's the beginning of something bigger.

01:23:52.020 Eventually, because Trump's already got the deal with the United Kingdom, and I know they're

01:23:56.060 deep into talks with the EU and India and South Korea and all these other countries.

01:24:02.320 Once those deals start coming out, that really puts the heat.

01:24:06.320 Oh, OK.

01:24:06.840 Hang on for a second.

01:24:07.380 By the way, I think I'd like the first 10 days after Liberation Day that I'm liking now,

01:24:11.920 but we'll get into that discussion later, because he had them all backed up, right?

01:24:16.340 This could blow the whole thing up.

01:24:18.340 That's what I'm saying.

01:24:19.040 He did reciprocity.

01:24:19.500 OK, hang on, Matt Boyd.

01:24:20.380 We've got General Flynn.

01:24:20.980 General Flynn, the president's come back to the White House.

01:24:23.800 He's in the Oval in the national security meeting.

01:24:26.560 Can you walk us through?

01:24:27.520 We're hearing unconfirmed reports out of Israeli media that maybe the Israeli either commandos

01:24:33.040 or air assets were taking a shot at Fordor.

01:24:35.660 Can you get us up to speed on what you think is going on, sir?

01:24:37.720 Yeah, so here's, you know, I laid it out this morning, and I know, I knew earlier that this

01:24:45.960 is probably going to occur today.

01:24:48.140 What they have done, I believe, is the Israelis have given a much greater level of detail

01:24:53.300 about their campaign plan, what I call their campaign plan, to the White House, specifically

01:24:59.480 to Trump.

01:25:01.020 And my guess is also to Eric Carrillo down at CENTCOM.

01:25:05.100 So what is likely happening is there is an assessment for a targeting solution being

01:25:13.440 done on Fordow to make a determination, what will it take if there is going to be a decision

01:25:19.840 to destroy it?

01:25:20.820 And I mean, destroy it, like send it back, like into the next, to the last century.

01:25:25.820 That assessment is being done on the ground right now.

01:25:31.040 And keep in mind the time zone differences.

01:25:33.340 So your early morning hours are occurring right now.

01:25:36.580 So you probably got very specialized forces, human beings on the ground in locations with

01:25:42.100 some very sophisticated communications and targeting capabilities to be able to make a

01:25:48.460 run at this thing if that decision is going to be made.

01:25:51.140 My guess is that the president is going to get a full briefing.

01:25:56.080 He's probably gotten a little bit more information over the course of the day from the Israelis,

01:26:03.340 is my assessment.

01:26:05.820 And he's probably got a much stronger idea about his decision-making process at this point.

01:26:13.060 So that's where we are.

01:26:14.840 Uh, he's going to gather some more, some more information, get a sense of where his team

01:26:20.880 is at.

01:26:21.680 One of the other things, Steve, is our readiness to be able to conduct this operation, forces

01:26:26.980 positioned in Guam, forces positioned in Diego Garcia, forces positioned in theater in case

01:26:33.720 if we, if in fact we did fly airplanes, also escort aircraft in case something went down,

01:26:40.480 you got to have the resources to do pilot rescues on the ground.

01:26:43.940 So there's a lot of moving parts right now that have to be in place.

01:26:47.860 And more than likely we are there and the president is getting that update.

01:26:53.380 Mike, uh, I want to, I'll get to the intel in a second, particularly the Mossad CIA.

01:26:57.980 You were head of DIA, the Tulsi Gabbard looking like maybe on the outs, but I got to ask you,

01:27:02.140 uh, BB said today, and there's obviously been a lot of pressure here in the United States,

01:27:06.320 finish what you started.

01:27:07.900 BB came out and said, Hey, if we got to do it, we've got to do it.

01:27:10.640 And in fact, if the president doesn't make a decision here within the next two weeks,

01:27:14.780 we're going to go do it.

01:27:16.080 What's the probability that the Israelis can at least get the ball in motion and take a crack at this?

01:27:23.180 Yeah, very high actually, Steve.

01:27:25.160 I mean, so the, the, uh, three objectives.

01:27:28.600 Okay, folks, three objectives is no nuclear, uh, capability for Iran.

01:27:34.740 The second thing is really the diminishing or the destruction in the Israelis have already done

01:27:40.620 quite a bit of that of the three primary surrogate forces of who, Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas.

01:27:46.200 And the third thing, which is a really more difficult task.

01:27:49.900 And that is going to be, if it, if there is a regime change, who takes over?

01:27:55.160 And, you know, what we really want is we want the Iranian people to make that decision.

01:27:59.780 But clearly, clearly the, the nuclear capability for Iran is no longer going to be, uh,

01:28:07.120 they're no longer going to be able to do that.

01:28:08.840 I can guarantee that.

01:28:10.460 And you, but that has to come with a total destruction of Fordow, right?

01:28:15.980 If you don't accomplish that, you don't get to that objective.

01:28:20.280 You don't check that box.

01:28:21.340 Correct?

01:28:23.120 Yeah.

01:28:23.440 Well, you know, I mean, the destruction of Fordow and Eric and a couple of these other spots,

01:28:29.180 but principally that one, you know, you, you put, you put a, a hurt on that.

01:28:34.080 You, you conduct such extensive levels of damage that the ability to be able to recreate that

01:28:42.960 will take years upon years upon years.

01:28:46.080 So I don't have any doubt that the Israelis are going to completely negate the ability

01:28:53.560 for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, period.

01:28:58.380 If they take a shot at Fordow and it starts going well in the next day, if they like do it

01:29:03.000 tonight, start tonight, but it's obviously going to be a process.

01:29:06.900 Do you think that that leads to a stand down from at least where we are in, uh, in, in

01:29:13.280 president Trump thinking of going kinetic here?

01:29:17.260 You know, I don't, and I want to remind people when we went into Iraq and I think it was the,

01:29:23.040 well, in the 2003 timeframe, our bombing campaign, U S bombing campaign with all the

01:29:27.500 sophistication that we had then, which was significant, we didn't have the drones that

01:29:31.440 we have now. But that was, that lasted six weeks, Steve, six weeks. So, you know, don't

01:29:37.500 think that this thing is going to end anytime, you know, in the next 24 hours. So this is

01:29:42.420 going to go on for a while. The Israelis are, to me, are clearly on a, on their campaign.

01:29:46.820 Uh, they're being very effective. Uh, you know, the, the, the Iranians are, are definitely moving

01:29:53.080 forces around that they have remaining some of their ballistic missile launcher capabilities.

01:29:58.280 I got some of those reports today. Uh, the, the, uh, the intelligence community is aware of a lot of

01:30:04.840 this stuff. I, I, I think that Trump is going to just get another update on where our positioning

01:30:11.540 is at in the middle East and in other parts of the region. But the other side is, is also,

01:30:17.520 this is for the, the thing that you must look at is one of their, one of the Iranian reactions that

01:30:22.460 some of these threats coming out of the regime, you know, we have to also take a look at what our

01:30:27.600 homeland security posture is from a military defense and a law enforcement perspective,

01:30:33.520 because if all of a sudden we get some other information that these guys have capabilities

01:30:39.140 already here in this, in this country, we have to be ready for that too. And I guarantee that the

01:30:44.140 president's asking those questions. Are you surprised by the ballistic missile capability,

01:30:49.240 Matt and I, and the guys were talking earlier about how, uh, the Israelis hit pretty hard given

01:30:54.980 the volume of ballistic missiles hit at them. Has that surprised you? No, no. And I, I, and, and I can

01:31:02.420 tell you that they have, they have a lot of, they get a lot of these ballistic missiles and they

01:31:06.900 got a lot of the launchers and there's, there's different types of launchers too.

01:31:10.720 Ones that can launch, you know, up to, I think it's three to five, uh, missiles at one time. So

01:31:15.720 there's a lot of sophistication in this country and they've had a long time to prepare that. I mean,

01:31:21.360 just look at the Houthi capabilities that came out of Iran. I mean, Jesus, they almost took out an

01:31:25.720 aircraft carrier, what, two months ago. So, uh, U S aircraft carrier. So, um, I'm not surprised one bit

01:31:33.400 they, at a certain point in time, that ability is going to not be as, as, uh, substantial as it,

01:31:40.780 as it, uh, as it was at the beginning. And I do think that even though we see pictures of

01:31:46.900 like the hospital being destroyed in Israel, uh, the Israelis have, you know, their iron dome system,

01:31:52.920 you know, with, with some other sophisticated, uh, air, uh, air-based capabilities has been actually

01:31:58.860 very effective. I actually think that they've been very effective. And Netanyahu on the very first

01:32:03.080 night, he, he basically instructed the people of Israel to go to ground and, you know, and they

01:32:08.340 did, they, they followed the, they followed the, and they're the people of Israel are for their,

01:32:13.520 their government, where the people of Iran are not for their regime. And that's a problem for,

01:32:18.800 for internal, uh, uh, security right now, domestic security inside of Iran. That is definitely a

01:32:24.720 problem that they're having to deal with. Is it, uh, general, um, about regime change,

01:32:31.420 they've already decapitated much of the military, uh, command structure. They have taken out a number

01:32:36.940 of the secular leaders, including the negotiators that Steve Wickhoff were dealing with. Is your

01:32:41.680 definition of either regime change or regime destruction means that the Ayatollah and the

01:32:46.860 senior clerics all have to be taken out? Yes. I mean, I think the Ayatollah has to go. My,

01:32:53.160 this is my personal opinion, Steve, the Ayatollah has to go. I don't care if he goes to Beijing,

01:32:57.700 Moscow or Paris. That might, that make a bit of difference to me. He's got to go. I do believe

01:33:04.020 that there are some generals. See, there's two armies in the, in, in Iran, right? There's the

01:33:08.860 IRGC and there's also the Iranian army and the Iranian army is not, you know, they're not as,

01:33:14.780 as, uh, tight around the, the security of the regime because the IRGC is what has basically kept

01:33:21.140 these guys in power. But there are, there are leaders in that country that are sick and tired

01:33:26.460 of living the way that they do. And, and that's always been the case. We've all, we've known that

01:33:31.200 for a long time. They just never had an opportunity to, to take advantage of a situation like this. So,

01:33:38.080 so you've got some people there that I know that the, the Israelis have to be aware of, and they

01:33:45.220 probably have, have, uh, considered some of these people and have probably, you know, there's probably

01:33:51.060 been some covert operations to talk to them. So I, I, I'm, I'm interested in that part of this

01:33:56.440 campaign and this, and this conflict right now is who will rise out of the ashes to take over Iran.

01:34:05.220 And once I want to make an announcement, we've real America's voice. We're going to stick around

01:34:08.360 another hour because we have so much more to go through. We have some other people want to come on

01:34:11.660 to, uh, David Zeros, obviously at the White House for us. Dave Bratt is, uh, my co-host is always

01:34:16.600 boils in the, uh, in the, uh, co-captain chair right here, General Mike Flynn, former DIA and former

01:34:23.000 national security advisor, President Donald Trump, General Flynn, you know, MacArthur and Truman made

01:34:28.940 a very specific, well thought through not to take out Hirohito, uh, because of all the cultural

01:34:34.280 religious, uh, things related to Japanese society and culture. If we are to get into the situation

01:34:41.640 of, of supporting and clearly, you know, BB tried to upsell us in the first 48 hours for regime

01:34:47.260 change or regime destruction. I would say here, cause I don't think anybody's got an idea who's

01:34:51.600 going to, who's next. Do you think that we're opening Pandora's box? And let's say, let's say

01:34:57.680 in the next week, we don't even have to get involved kinetically that the Israelis, however they do it,

01:35:03.360 take care of Pandora. So we're here, we've aided them on air defense. We're clearly their big sponsor,

01:35:08.140 but do you still think, uh, we're opening a can of worms? Uh, if, uh, if, if, if people in

01:35:15.360 particularly the Israelis go through and actually do regime destruction, is there, is there any path

01:35:20.060 back from that general? You know, I don't think there's a path back from that Steve for, uh, for

01:35:26.920 Israel, unless, unless all of a sudden BB Netanyahu realizes that, you know, we bit off too much here.

01:35:32.320 I don't think that they've decided that yet. Uh, but I don't think there's a path back from,

01:35:37.220 uh, getting rid of this, uh, this, this tyranny that exists in, in Iran. And frankly, Steve,

01:35:44.720 you know, as far as I'm concerned, that's, that's kind of my, where my head is at now,

01:35:48.560 how do we do it? And, you know, the one thing that I definitely trust right now, and it's, you know,

01:35:54.780 it's from, it's from good, good, you know, it's from my own analysis, but it's also from no one

01:36:00.400 who we're dealing with is I trust the instincts of Donald J. Trump. His instincts on this have

01:36:05.900 been really good and he hasn't been pushed into anything yet. And, and he won't be pushed into

01:36:10.400 anything. So, so I, I believe that he's, he's doing exactly what he needs to be doing. He's

01:36:15.920 very steady on the tiller here and, uh, and he's gathering all the information. He'll make the

01:36:20.820 right call. And when he does, it'll be what's best for this country.

01:36:24.120 Right. We just heard from the white house, they put a lid on, uh, so the president got

01:36:30.540 a briefing. He ain't going to come out. He's not going to let anybody go in the oval office

01:36:33.760 to ask any questions, right? Not a knife for questions, Matt Boyle. Well, lid means that

01:36:37.680 they're done for the night, right? So they're sending the reporters home. Um, now they can

01:36:41.640 always lift that by the way. So that's happened before, believe me, with world events. So it's

01:36:46.100 possible, but let's say, I tell you what, we're going to hang on. We're doing another hour.

01:36:49.240 We've got somebody to go, uh, general Flynn, we're going to let you bounce, but general

01:36:51.980 phone, let me ask you, cause you've been very, you've been very focused on the Chinese communist

01:36:55.580 party in your assessment of where we stand today. How is this aided and abetted the CCP

01:37:01.840 and, uh, and, and their rise to actually take over from America as a global hegemon?

01:37:08.440 Yeah. So people have to understand that Iran is being used as a hub and spoke for a giant

01:37:14.440 chunk of the Chinese belt road initiative into Europe and into Africa. So this is a big deal.

01:37:20.360 The port facilities from Hadar in Pakistan to Bandar Abbas. So the Chinese have taken big

01:37:26.900 advantage of this. Now, what's going to happen though, Steve, is that the Chinese, they are

01:37:31.380 going to feel the pressure because 90% of the, uh, oil that's coming out of there, uh, coming

01:37:36.080 out of Iran right now goes to China and they get 40% of their energy resources from, from

01:37:43.300 Iran. So, so there's a lot at stake here for China. The Chinese are, are going to try to

01:37:48.900 play the, you know, a mediator here on the world stage. They're in, they're in a tough

01:37:53.980 spot. I think the Chinese are in a tough spot. And I like the, I like the position that Trump

01:37:58.240 has put in them, put them in with, with the tariffs on one side and then just being, you

01:38:03.980 know, the smart warrior that he is right now on this side, you know, like waiting to see

01:38:09.360 what this thing is going to do when they, when the Israelis play this campaign out. Very,

01:38:14.680 very shrewd as far as I'm concerned, uh, on Trump's behalf. Uh, general Flynn, where do

01:38:21.380 people go for your content? How, how did they get to you and all the, I know you're doing

01:38:24.960 a podcast. You've got these sit reps. I already ought to read the sit reps every morning.

01:38:29.120 Yeah, I'm on the 10th sit rep. I just, I decided to do it because I couldn't find anywhere

01:38:33.340 where people were actually talking about the different issues. So at Jen Flynn on X, and then

01:38:38.800 I cross post those on every other platform that I got. I'm also, I also got a great new

01:38:43.520 book out, Pardon of Innocence. Uh, it's a great book about warfare actually. So, uh, at

01:38:49.320 Jen Flynn, I'll, I'll be putting sit reps out sometimes at least once a day, if not a couple

01:38:53.800 of times a day on what's happening.

01:38:56.520 General Fontaine, I tell you, there's a lot of chatter, General Flynn, as you leave that

01:38:59.960 are, there are members of the media and other people that are talking to people around saying,

01:39:03.300 I don't know, either Israel or America, the party could be on tonight. So, uh, we're going

01:39:08.700 to stay here for another hour and break it all down. General Flynn, thank you. And thank

01:39:11.440 you for the sit reps. Grace, we've got to make sure everybody gets them. Thank you, sir.

01:39:17.440 Boyle's going to stick around. Uh, Zier's at the White House, although they put a lid on

01:39:22.320 it. Um, put a lid on it means the president's not going to say anything else tonight, right?

01:39:27.300 Officially the comms department said.

01:39:28.900 Means the reporters can go home.

01:39:30.220 Go home. Then President Trump will work the phone and talk to 200 reporters.

01:39:34.300 He's actually the comms director himself. Um, of course, Dave Brat in his salmon, it's

01:39:40.480 salmon, right? It's not pink. He's salmon. Salmon. Okay. Dave Brat or Brett Brat, Dave

01:39:47.060 Brat Pitt, as he calls himself, uh, going to stick around. We've got a lot more Bradley

01:39:50.740 Thayer, hopefully Eric Prince, hopefully Jack Paso, but a lot going on as we now get into

01:39:57.100 the evening of the 21st of June in the year of our Lord, 2025, another historic day. Remember

01:40:02.820 Lenin said, there are decades in which nothing happens. And there are weeks in

01:40:07.400 which decades happen folks. I think this week has been one and guess what? We're

01:40:12.840 about to start another week here in a few hours. And I think we're about to face

01:40:16.820 another one. You're here at the still point in a turning world, the war room back in a moment.

01:40:22.320 This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies. Cause we're going medieval on this

01:40:39.320 people. You're not got a free shot. All these networks lying about the people. The people have had a belly full of it. I know you don't like hearing that. I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it. It's going to happen. And where do people like that go to share the big line?

01:40:46.320 Mega media. I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.

01:40:53.320 Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? If that answer is to save my country this country, this country is going to happen.

01:41:00.320 It's going to happen. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. And where do people like that go to share the big line?

01:41:08.320 Mega media. I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.

01:41:15.320 Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.

01:41:25.320 War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Banff.

01:41:29.320 Saturday, 21 June, Yerville, or 2025 in the fading light, the gloaming. Let's go to David Zier.

01:41:36.320 David, I might mention that Brian Glenn, I think, took your lighting package.

01:41:39.320 I also want to make sure the president didn't give you time to ask a question for your big star turn here on Saturday on the path to war.

01:41:49.320 Sir, got any closing comments before we let you go?

01:41:51.320 Yeah, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I tell you, it's been an exciting few days here.

01:41:56.320 And I just wanted to add, you know, that Houthi cruise missile that almost hit the Harry S. Truman came within like a half a mile or a mile.

01:42:03.320 And if it wasn't for that phalanx close-in weapon system, that carrier might be gone.

01:42:08.320 Very serious stuff here. And I just want to report, U.S. CENTCOM was saying now, according to Israeli media,

01:42:14.320 that Iran was a week away from nuclear-grade uranium before the preemptive strikes here.

01:42:20.320 And I just want to add one thing about Erdogan. He was the benefactor of the Syrian takeover by HDS, right?

01:42:27.320 Another Salafi group. And he's trying to concentrate his Sunni power and was even behind some uprisings in Iran because of the Shiite contingent.

01:42:35.320 But it looks like Erdogan is, like you said, maybe trying to make some moves himself.

01:42:42.320 You know, David, and you're the expert in this. And by the way, the phalanx gun system is basically a wall of steel.

01:42:48.320 It's like a Gatling gun, right? It's advanced technology for fire control and target acquisition.

01:42:53.320 But it's kind of old-fashioned. When it's past everything else, we just pop a wall of lead and shred it, right?

01:42:59.320 So that's how close it got to an aircraft carrier of actually taking it down.

01:43:05.320 But as you mentioned that, David, it's like flashbacks and you get the sweaty palms.

01:43:10.320 I mean, do we want to go back? This is the problem with getting involved in this.

01:43:14.320 We should be talking about Vice President J.D. Vance out in Los Angeles doing mass deportations and federalizing the armed forces.

01:43:23.320 We should be having a debate. We should have Mike Davis on here and Julie Kelly and Boyle and all of us arguing about posse comitatus

01:43:31.320 and Breyer's brother who's taking us now to a federal judge. We should be talking about the big, beautiful bill.

01:43:38.320 There's such a big gap between the bid and the answer.

01:43:40.320 There's so many huge issues on the tax and spending bill right now that they're working on that people are not.

01:43:46.320 The reason is we spent two hours this morning and two hours and four hours already in the war room with the top people.

01:43:53.320 And we're getting into the details of Persia and this. And you mentioned that right there.

01:43:57.320 Right there. And we talk about Erdogan and Turkey and Qatar and all you bring up and all the different tribes and have.

01:44:03.320 Dude, this can suck. I'm telling you, this is what people don't want to do.

01:44:07.320 I don't want to go back to that place. You know, you're the expert on all the 90s.

01:44:11.320 If I wind David Zier up, he can go for two hours on just the attacks in the States in the 90s.

01:44:18.320 We don't want to go back to that place, David. And here's the reason. Here's what's going to happen.

01:44:22.320 No, we're getting sucked into this and actually drawn back into a Middle East war that's going to take all the attention of Trump.

01:44:30.320 Trump just came back on a Saturday evening and he's had a briefing and they put a lid on it.

01:44:35.320 You know, he's thinking he's having other meetings are probably giving other details.

01:44:39.320 It's war and peace. He may be making a decision on that right now.

01:44:42.320 When you're that occupied with these kind of big issues, you're not focused on anything else.

01:44:47.320 You can't focus on anything else. This is it's the opportunity cost, not just the direct was it take to fly the B-2.

01:44:54.320 And, you know, we've got all these young men and women in harm's way and all these other costs.

01:44:58.320 It's also the opportunity cost. The big opportunity cost. Right.

01:45:02.320 As sure as the turning of the Earth, this is where we're going to be focused.

01:45:06.320 And guess what? The Chinese Communist Party and the progressive Democrats and the deep state,

01:45:13.320 they want Trump mired down and focused in Persia on, you know, taking on this ancient civilization.

01:45:20.320 Am I wrong? And this is one of the reasons I said we can't do this.

01:45:22.320 No, we can't do this. By the way, I think that this is a huge moment for President Trump.

01:45:26.320 And I think he deserves an enormous amount of credit here. Right.

01:45:29.320 The fact that he is slowing down. Big time. If this was George Bush. The apparatus.

01:45:34.320 If this was George Bush, I mean, he probably would have bombed them like 50 times already. Right.

01:45:39.320 Because you see the intensity. And by the way, President Trump may end up making that decision.

01:45:42.320 And by the way, if he does, he's the commander in chief. He has every right to do it.

01:45:44.320 Look at Fox News. Look at Fox News. They hyperventilate every day. It's absurd.

01:45:46.320 They hyperventilate every day. You agree. They hyperventilate every day.

01:45:48.320 Fox News is totally absurd. And I saw your comments the other day, Steve, about that, that there should be like a fair investigation or something.

01:45:55.320 Am I over the top on that? Is that logical? No. No. You're 100% right.

01:45:58.320 Like, I think that Fox News has been totally ridiculous. And frankly, look, at the end of the day, the president may make the decision to do that.

01:46:06.320 Exactly. If he does, he's the commander in chief. He has every right to do so.

01:46:09.320 And by the way, he's been very consistent over the course of a decade plus.

01:46:12.320 I remember. I don't know if he did it in the speech where he announced his campaign, but very shortly thereafter.

01:46:18.320 I think it was in September. He was here in September 2015. He was doing a big event here in Washington, D.C.

01:46:25.320 And Senator Cruz was there and Mark Levin, who was on Ted Cruz's side against Donald Trump, by the way.

01:46:30.320 Whoa. I remember that.

01:46:32.320 The super never-Trumper.

01:46:34.320 They all came and did a big rally right over there across the street at the U.S. Capitol against the Iran deal, right, like back during the Obama presidency.

01:46:44.320 President Trump's been remarkably consistent on this.

01:46:46.320 Actually, I think you and I were part of it, and Trump showed up.

01:46:48.320 I remember interviewing Mark Levin there.

01:46:50.320 Mark Levin.

01:46:51.320 I think that was master ceremony or something.

01:46:53.320 And then Trump shows up.

01:46:55.320 It's got to be 99 degrees and 95% humidity.

01:46:59.320 Even Ted Cruz's thing show up in a shirt.

01:47:01.320 Trump shows up, the blue suit, the red tie, the full thing, and he goes and gives the whole thing of how they can't get it.

01:47:07.320 So he's been, that was in 14 or 15.

01:47:09.320 Might have been his first time to D.C. after he announced his campaign.

01:47:12.320 But that was in 15, I think.

01:47:14.320 So it was right after he announced his campaign.

01:47:16.320 But the fact is that President Trump has been remarkably consistent about how Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon his entire time in public life.

01:47:24.320 So if the president and the commander in chief makes a decision to strike Iran, he's well within his right to do so.

01:47:31.320 But at the same time, he needs to weigh the consequences.

01:47:34.320 And the fact that he's doing that, as we're seeing play out over the course of the last 10 days since Israel started their bombing campaign, is responsible.

01:47:43.320 It's very responsible.

01:47:44.320 This is what MAGA appreciates.

01:47:46.320 He didn't get steamrolled by these guys.

01:47:47.320 He said two weeks.

01:47:48.320 He's thinking about it.

01:47:49.320 Everything he's doing is weighing and measuring.

01:47:51.320 Right.

01:47:52.320 Measure twice.

01:47:53.320 Cut once.

01:47:54.320 Is the great Jack for service.

01:47:55.320 Hang on for a second.

01:47:56.320 David Zier, I'm gonna let you wrap up, brother.

01:47:59.320 Give me your closing thoughts.

01:48:05.320 David Zier is still there.

01:48:06.320 He's gone.

01:48:07.320 Okay, fine.

01:48:08.320 We shut him down.

01:48:09.320 Okay, fine.

01:48:10.320 That's okay.

01:48:11.320 White House threw him out.

01:48:12.320 When they put a lid, they ain't kidding.

01:48:13.320 When they put a lid, they put a lid.

01:48:14.320 They put a lid.

01:48:15.320 They put a lid.

01:48:16.320 That's not a kid.

01:48:17.320 That's not a kid.

01:48:18.320 Get off my lawn, right?

01:48:19.320 Poor David.

01:48:20.320 We might get him in the penalty box.

01:48:21.320 He may be in there.

01:48:22.320 Nah, they'll be fine.

01:48:23.320 They love the world over there.

01:48:25.320 David Zier.

01:48:26.320 He was moving.

01:48:27.320 Okay, fine.

01:48:28.320 We're moving for any daylight that's left.

01:48:30.320 Brad, give me your, give me your thoughts, sir.

01:48:33.320 Well, you just stole my thunder a little bit.

01:48:36.320 We haven't mentioned domestic policy at all.

01:48:39.320 It's not in the headlines at all.

01:48:41.320 The stock market's forward looking, right?

01:48:43.320 And they got no, no significant blip from going to war.

01:48:47.320 And I think they're interpreting it as a strike.

01:48:50.320 I don't think it's going to be a strike.

01:48:51.320 If you go to war, you go to war.

01:48:53.320 The war since 9-11 cost the U.S. economy eight trillion dollars,

01:48:58.320 according to Brown University.

01:48:59.320 Hang on.

01:49:00.320 That's without Russia, Ukraine in there.

01:49:02.320 I want to be, I want to be very specific.

01:49:04.320 I want you to go back and be very specific about this.

01:49:06.320 Because when the president thinks about this at all,

01:49:10.320 and he knows collateral damage, bull, he's thinking about a highly focused hit

01:49:17.320 that takes care of a tactical problem that the Israelis themselves cannot complete

01:49:22.320 to complete the foredoor, take it down and make sure there's no more program.

01:49:26.320 Brad, you're saying by definition, because they'll hit back or something.

01:49:31.320 Once you're a combatant, you're a combatant.

01:49:33.320 Is that the, is that the advice you've got to the president?

01:49:35.320 Is that once you're in, you're in.

01:49:37.320 It doesn't matter if you just do one tactical strike, you're a combatant

01:49:40.320 and you're going to be treated like a combatant.

01:49:42.320 Sure.

01:49:43.320 And the proof, war is all consuming and I'm not discounting war here.

01:49:47.320 He's the commander in chief.

01:49:48.320 He's the head of it.

01:49:49.320 It's existential.

01:49:50.320 So, of course, it's the number one issue, the most important to the president.

01:49:54.320 But he knows, right?

01:49:55.320 Afghanistan, Iraq, eight trillion dollars.

01:49:59.320 He's trying to save 200 billion, 500 billion.

01:50:03.320 There's no discussion of the big, beautiful bill, which is going to frame his legacy

01:50:08.320 and his agenda going forward.

01:50:10.320 That's going to be what's remembered in 10 years from now.

01:50:13.320 When you look back at this war, what good is going to come out of this war?

01:50:18.320 If you spend eight trillion dollars on war, that's totally wasted money.

01:50:22.320 That is not productivity enhancing.

01:50:24.320 His bringing manufacturing back, his trade policy is productivity enhancing.

01:50:31.320 That will be his legacy.

01:50:33.320 And by the way, why do you think it is that the United States is in a position to fight this war?

01:50:37.320 Because we've had massive economic growth and we're the most successful country on the earth.

01:50:42.320 If we lose that and we're losing it, right?

01:50:45.320 I mean, the left is just kind of silly in their reporting on economics and finance, right?

01:50:50.320 So, oh, they all of a sudden they notice debt, 37 trillion dollars in debt.

01:50:55.320 And, oh, they've even discovered the bond market vigilantes.

01:50:57.320 And that's a real problem, right?

01:50:59.320 That's a problem paying back the debt, the Federal Reserve's in the headlines.

01:51:02.320 But they haven't put it together.

01:51:04.320 What's the cost of this war in added deficits just going to be coming up this year?

01:51:10.320 It's all-encompassing, like you said.

01:51:12.320 Every secretary he has will shift their entire agenda because of this war.

01:51:19.320 It's not a little targeting exercise.

01:51:21.320 We're going to war.

01:51:22.320 I've only got zero.

01:51:23.320 Yeah, you stick right there.

01:51:24.320 You hang.

01:51:25.320 I'm going to come back to bowl.

01:51:26.320 We're going to, Dr. Thayer, hopefully Prince, I'm going to lose zero.

01:51:30.320 David, you sent chills down my spine as you start going through all the details you know of all the different groups that are fighting and this sheik and that sheik.

01:51:37.320 And that just, I said, oh, my God, we can't go back there.

01:51:40.320 But we're going to go back there.

01:51:41.320 David Zeer, the question to you is, as we close for your segment, even a limited tactical strike by President Trump just to take it out if the Israelis can't do it, does that make us a major combatant in this war?

01:51:55.320 Is that going to suck us in to a new Persian war, sir?

01:51:59.320 Aren't we already shooting down incoming missiles in Israel?

01:52:04.320 And the Iranian leadership said it's a non-starter.

01:52:07.320 If they've got to give up ballistic missiles and end their nuclear weapons program, they're going to drag this out and prolong this.

01:52:13.320 And I just would close with when you talk about Klausowitz and the fog of war here, we lost $200 million in fighter jets just on the Truman since December.

01:52:22.320 And we have the best military in the world.

01:52:24.320 But by having three carrier groups and 40,000 troops over there, things can go wrong, unexpected events.

01:52:30.320 And I wish our guys Godspeed.

01:52:32.320 It's an honor to be here at the White House the last few days.

01:52:35.320 And I think even though your getter chat was lit up with some divisiveness, you know, some people want it, some people don't want to do it.

01:52:42.320 You know, I think that they'll rally behind Donald Trump.

01:52:46.320 And I think a lot of people have faith in him that he's a true leader.

01:52:51.320 Thank you, David Zier.

01:52:52.320 David Zier, social media, where do people get you over the weekend?

01:52:54.320 You're one of the best guys of understanding this region and understanding all the vendettas and everybody that's at each other's throats constantly.

01:53:01.320 Thank you so much, Steve.

01:53:04.320 I'm at Dave Zier on X.

01:53:06.320 I'm at David Zier on Getter and on Facebook and David W. Zier on Insta.

01:53:11.320 Thank you so much.

01:53:12.320 No matter how we do it, we've got a minute before we go to break.

01:53:15.320 Two minutes.

01:53:16.320 Brad, hang on.

01:53:17.320 No matter how you try to do it and the discernment that President Trump is clearly doing as commander in chief, you're kicking over a hornet's nest, right?

01:53:25.320 I mean, this is a bad a place in the world as ever.

01:53:27.320 And this is our third turn here since the beginning of this century.

01:53:30.320 This century has defined America as Middle East was.

01:53:33.320 The Persian Empire is not Iraq, okay?

01:53:35.320 Like, I mean, this is a very, very...

01:53:38.320 You know what's interesting?

01:53:39.320 I watched...

01:53:40.320 I know that everybody freaks out about the handful of clips they see go online, but I watched the entire two hours of Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz's interview.

01:53:49.320 And one of the...

01:53:50.320 But one of the clips that did go viral was when Tucker was asking him about the population and the demographics.

01:53:55.320 Not the best.

01:53:56.320 Maybe not the most important moment, but...

01:53:58.320 I thought it was really important.

01:53:59.320 It was very important.

01:54:00.320 If you don't know anything about it, come on, man.

01:54:01.320 But the fact is, you're talking about a country that has 90 million people, 92 million people.

01:54:05.320 That is as big as...

01:54:07.320 I mean, it's bigger than Italy, it's bigger than Germany, it's bigger than France...

01:54:11.320 And size, it's three times the size of Texas.

01:54:13.320 Right.

01:54:14.320 This is a massive place.

01:54:15.320 It's like one of the top ten countries, population-wise, worldwide.

01:54:19.320 It ain't Iraq.

01:54:20.320 Right.

01:54:21.320 It ain't Iraq.

01:54:22.320 Like, this is not gonna be okay walking apart.

01:54:24.320 And they're gonna fight back.

01:54:25.320 And they've been...

01:54:26.320 Listen, that's why I call them Persians.

01:54:28.320 They dropped the CIA named Iran.

01:54:29.320 Yes, they got other groups, but they're Persians.

01:54:31.320 This is the same group against the Romans and the Greeks and then the Romans for two or three millennia.

01:54:37.320 I mean, they've been at it, right?

01:54:39.320 And, you know, the Romans didn't put that big a dent in them.

01:54:42.320 And there's gonna be...

01:54:43.320 We need to be on guard for possible sleeper cells.

01:54:45.320 100%.

01:54:46.320 We need to be on guard for every type of thing.

01:54:47.320 In the region.

01:54:48.320 Look, I just saw a report in the last half an hour that CBS News reports that the U.S. State Department has begun evacuation of Americans from Israel.

01:54:56.320 So, the State Department is evacuating Americans from Israel right now.

01:55:01.320 That is a big deal.

01:55:02.320 Game on.

01:55:03.320 Okay, short commercial break.

01:55:04.320 Stick around.

01:55:05.320 There's a lot more here on a Saturday evening in the War Room.

01:55:08.320 Short break.

01:55:09.320 Back in a moment.

01:55:10.320 So, I suggest you take a look inside.

01:55:15.320 Cause I think you changed already.

01:55:22.320 You went and lost your pride.

01:55:26.320 But I'm American made.

01:55:30.320 I got American partner.

01:55:34.320 I got American, baby.

01:55:38.320 In America's heart.

01:55:41.320 Here's your host, Stephen K. Vann.

01:55:44.320 Alexander Ward of the Wall Street Journal reporting that the Secretary of State Rubio has been on the phone yesterday and today talking to leaders in Europe and saying, quote,

01:55:57.320 President Trump's preferred option, President Trump's preferred option is a diplomatic negotiated deal, talking in there, including France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Italy, and Cyprus.

01:56:11.320 And Cyprus are kind of deal guys here, so that's important.

01:56:13.320 They're in the loop.

01:56:14.320 Matt Gaetz, former congressman and one of the leaders of this movement, joins us.

01:56:18.320 Matt, you've been on fire on the coverage of this.

01:56:22.320 Where do you think we stand on this Saturday night, sir?

01:56:26.320 Well, I want to thank you, Steve, for running the power leg of the relay for peace.

01:56:31.320 Our friends like Charlie Kirk and Tucker Carlson have spoken to the president since your meeting.

01:56:39.320 I have encouraged the president, speaking directly to him, because there is no greater force for peace in this world today than Donald Trump.

01:56:47.320 That man deserves the Nobel Peace Prize because you and I both know, Steve, if any of the other serious contestants in the last presidential election had won.

01:56:58.320 If you had a president, Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis or Kamala Harris or Joe Biden or, you know, God forbid, Mike Pompeo, there would be bombs in Tehran tonight.

01:57:13.320 But there would have been there would have been bombs in Tehran a week ago and there would be 20 to 40 million war refugees on the move, toppling governments, destabilizing Middle Eastern countries and creating the greatest hotbed for terrorism that the world would have ever known.

01:57:32.320 It would have made it would have made it really would have made ISIS look like the JV team in comparison to the terrorism that would have arisen had anyone other than Donald Trump won this election.

01:57:43.740 Now, I wish I was getting better news from the Arab world right now about the the Iranian reaction, because, frankly, if those folks had any sense at all, they would do exactly what Donald Trump is saying right now, save their regime, save their lives and save an entire region from falling into ruin by their hands.

01:58:05.400 That would be their bloodstain for all of history.

01:58:35.380 So, you know, that a little cascade of horribles didn't happen.

01:58:37.120 So could that happen with with a very limited U.S. engagement?

01:58:41.920 I think that's a that's something that's on the president's mind right now.

01:58:45.400 Matt, you know, today, and Bull's going to jump in here in a second.

01:58:51.640 Today, B.B. finally came up to the post and said, hey, we can get this done.

01:58:55.720 Do you think it behooves us to continue to press the Israelis to finish what they started here

01:59:02.140 and then leave us with at least not getting involved in offensive combat operations,

01:59:07.800 although we've been very involved in the defensive to date?

01:59:11.040 Do you think that that is a course of action that we should continue to push?

01:59:16.980 This is where you and I may diverge.

01:59:20.700 But what exactly does this mean?

01:59:22.680 Like, does this mean an Israel-caused regime change in Iran?

01:59:28.800 Because here's my theory of the case.

01:59:30.840 If you really study this target package from the IDF

01:59:35.240 and how the target package has really changed since the first few days of this war,

01:59:40.340 this is not a denuclearization campaign by Israel.

01:59:45.280 This is a decapitation campaign.

01:59:47.540 If you look at who they are killing, who they are taking out,

01:59:50.300 I mean, if Trump wasn't so wise as to see the consequences of this,

01:59:56.280 they would have already killed the Ayatollah.

01:59:59.040 I'm sure you don't dispute that.

02:00:00.500 Left to their own devices, without Trump, they would have killed the Ayatollah.

02:00:04.020 Now, what would have happened then, Steve?

02:00:05.700 A country of 90 million people would have broken out into civil war.

02:00:09.960 Now, why would Israel want that?

02:00:12.100 Why would Israel want chaos in Iran, which is definitely what would happen, okay?

02:00:17.480 I think it is because there is such a jealousy and resentment over Trump's first trip to the Middle East,

02:00:25.580 highlighting these emerging capital markets in Riyadh.

02:00:29.240 And I've got my problems with the Saudis.

02:00:30.760 But in Riyadh, in Doha, in Abu Dhabi, and, you know, more and more people are looking at, like, Oman and this type of Gulf Orient.

02:00:41.060 And I think the Israelis believe that a Middle East in chaos with tens of millions of war refugees

02:00:48.500 is one that will stop the world from positioning towards some of those capital markets.

02:00:53.860 Wow.

02:00:56.680 So you're saying that as they move forward, it's not just simply to take out for door and make sure they limit the thing.

02:01:04.280 We said on Friday morning after the first night of the strike,

02:01:07.960 it struck us that taking out so many military leaders that are not directly involved in the nuclear program

02:01:13.980 looked like a decapitation move.

02:01:15.460 It is.

02:01:16.180 There's something I want to go back to something.

02:01:18.080 Hold on, hold on, hold on.

02:01:19.360 You have heard all of this stuff from Bibi for decades about the need for regime change in Iran.

02:01:27.580 That is what he has preached since the 90s.

02:01:30.540 And if you all believe that he woke up and is going to have a successful denuclearization campaign,

02:01:36.320 have total air superiority because Mossad brilliantly took out the SAM-400 air defenses,

02:01:41.840 they have total control of the skies.

02:01:44.160 They are going to pursue regime change unless Donald Trump stops them.

02:01:49.040 And by the way, Donald Trump already did.

02:01:51.340 Why are we even debating this?

02:01:52.800 Do you all dispute the reporting that they wanted to kill the Ayatollah?

02:01:56.760 If you don't dispute that reporting, then why are we debating what this is about?

02:02:02.580 There isn't maybe even worse than regime change.

02:02:04.780 It's regime destruction and just let it fall into chaos.

02:02:07.700 Matt Boyle from that.

02:02:08.620 Yeah, so I want to go back to something the congressman said a couple of answers ago,

02:02:11.540 which is about President Trump, and thank God that he's there as the president and not one of these other people.

02:02:17.380 Because just in the last few weeks alone, we've had some major developments in peace in other places around the world,

02:02:24.600 thanks to President Trump.

02:02:25.900 In fact, just today, I believe, or in the last couple of days,

02:02:29.220 we've seen the Pakistanis offer up President Trump to win the Nobel Peace Prize for the war that he averted between India and Pakistan.

02:02:37.440 And it's thanks to President Trump, I think both sides would admit that.

02:02:41.140 And his intermediating between the two sides, mediating between the two sides,

02:02:46.380 has stopped that from spiraling out of control.

02:02:49.060 And then in addition to that, President Trump announced last night on True Social that he and Secretary Rubio have been able to negotiate a mediated solution between Congo and Rwanda in Africa.

02:03:01.880 So these are major conflicts around the world that President Trump is solving.

02:03:05.420 And so I think that as the president makes his decision here, and again, I know he's going to make a decision however he's going to make it.

02:03:11.720 He's the commander in chief.

02:03:12.700 We elected him for this moment.

02:03:13.940 I think he's just going to trust his instincts.

02:03:16.620 His instincts are right.

02:03:17.800 Like, he knows that if something feels funny, don't trust these people.

02:03:23.760 Ask the right questions.

02:03:25.000 He doesn't need to be pressured into making any decisions.

02:03:27.120 Matt, we've got a couple of minutes.

02:03:28.480 If you had him on the phone right now or in the Oval, give me two or three minutes of your advice to President Trump on this night.

02:03:34.260 Where do you recommend he takes it from here?

02:03:37.700 I think President Trump always sees the full maps.

02:03:42.860 So many of these other leaders have always seen the next step.

02:03:47.280 President Trump plays chess, not checkers.

02:03:49.480 And what I know is that President Trump seeks to avoid a circumstance where tens of millions of war refugees destroy borders, destroy nation states, topple regimes, drain resources, erode investment and opportunity.

02:04:07.040 I mean, President Trump just went and got $4 trillion in investment in this part of the world.

02:04:10.500 He does not want to see it fall into chaos.

02:04:13.220 And regime change in Iran with no plan equals chaos.

02:04:18.740 That is an easy formula that if we know that formula because President Trump rescued us from the neoconservative lies of the Bush era.

02:04:30.360 And so there is no plan.

02:04:31.940 Repeatedly, I've had Congressman on my show from the Foreign Affairs Committee, from the Armed Services Committee, saying zero planning has gone into the day after the regime falls in Iran.

02:04:41.920 And I think I've laid out to the two of you, without any pushback from either of you, that Israel's goal is regime change.

02:04:51.180 And so President Trump has got a lot of headwinds here in a complex environment.

02:04:55.820 Matt Boyle correctly pointed out where his skills have really, really saved the day in the past.

02:05:02.440 Congressman Gates, how do people get to the show?

02:05:04.620 How do people get to your Twitter feed?

02:05:06.360 You've been quite on fire this past week, sir.

02:05:09.200 I make a show every night on One America News.

02:05:13.240 It's 9 Eastern, 6 Pacific.

02:05:14.820 It's called The Matt Gaetz Show.

02:05:16.220 You can get our app on OAN Live.

02:05:17.800 I post a lot of our clips at Matt Gaetz and at OANN on social media.

02:05:23.760 And again, the reason I was calling was to thank you, Steve Bannon, for running the most important leg in this relay.

02:05:29.360 Everyone's had their part.

02:05:30.560 But you ran the most important leg.

02:05:32.300 Now President Trump can deliver the victory.

02:05:35.040 Well, Matt, thank you.

02:05:36.120 But it was you.

02:05:36.800 I mean, it's Tucker.

02:05:37.620 It's you.

02:05:38.040 By the way, your producer, I will say your producer is Bannon Train, but you've got the second best producer in all television in back of my own camera.

02:05:45.240 And you've got Vish Burra, who is a man on fire also.

02:05:48.160 You've done such a magnificent.

02:05:49.320 And your content this week has been both eye-opening and head-turning.

02:05:55.860 And I think that takes real courage, sir.

02:05:57.940 Courage that many, many people don't have.

02:05:59.660 So thank you and go with God.

02:06:02.220 Thank you, Steve.

02:06:03.100 Much appreciated.

02:06:04.000 A young man who is a leader.

02:06:07.800 Do we miss Gay?

02:06:08.720 I love Pam Bondi.

02:06:10.260 Pam Bondi's a lover.

02:06:11.600 But I do wish that Matt was the attorney general.

02:06:14.960 Right?

02:06:15.100 Maybe we need him back in Congress.

02:06:16.740 Well, I maybe.

02:06:17.620 Stir some stuff up in there.

02:06:18.040 No, I think President Trump, hang on, President Trump tweeted out, right?

02:06:23.400 Yeah.

02:06:23.560 I don't want to say it was after my lunch, but President Trump tweeted out on True Social that it's time to get a special prosecutor on top of the stolen election of 2020.

02:06:31.540 Now we know the CCP is in there.

02:06:35.060 And that would get into.

02:06:35.960 It would be great.

02:06:36.320 Well, and that would get into 6th January.

02:06:38.780 It would get into, you know, all of it.

02:06:41.080 I can't think of a better guy than Matt Gaetz.

02:06:43.340 Can you?

02:06:44.460 Not off the top of my head.

02:06:46.460 He's a warrior.

02:06:47.600 Yeah.

02:06:48.000 It's a good idea.

02:06:48.740 His show is a much-watched show also.

02:06:50.520 I mean, the content's incredible.

02:06:52.180 Vish has done a great job, but Matt is a unique personality.

02:06:55.380 Okay.

02:06:55.920 We got Brat.

02:06:56.840 Dr. Thayer is with us.

02:06:58.400 Matt Boyle is in here, is in the war.

02:07:00.120 Thank you for dropping by.

02:07:01.040 You had a full day today.

02:07:01.880 I really appreciate it.

02:07:02.640 I did.

02:07:04.080 You know, Boyle's claim to fame.

02:07:05.500 He's the only man on God's earth that worked for in sequence.

02:07:10.800 Tucker Carlson, Andrew Breitbart, and then Stephen K. Bannon.

02:07:14.860 And lived to tell about him.

02:07:15.880 And lived to tell about him.

02:07:17.160 And is a better man.

02:07:18.340 And as he tells himself, I think I'm a better man for it, right?

02:07:21.400 I think so.

02:07:22.280 I think so.

02:07:22.800 In fact, we had many of those great meetings right here in the Breitbart Embassy right

02:07:27.680 here with Tucker and Andrew and Matt Boll, all of it.

02:07:30.320 Okay.

02:07:30.500 Short break.

02:07:31.860 We're back on a special.

02:07:33.040 I want to thank the Real America Voice team for letting us roll into the evening.

02:07:36.820 Short break.

02:07:37.320 Back in a moment.

02:07:40.380 War Room.

02:07:41.380 Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.

02:07:43.740 I want to thank, if we start clipping, because Matt Gaetz was dropping one bombshell after

02:07:49.940 another right there, was he not?

02:07:51.540 Gaetz is on it.

02:07:54.840 I want to go now to Dr. Bradley Thayer.

02:07:57.820 Dr. Thayer, you're a military historian and strategist.

02:08:01.880 You focus at the Chinese Communist Party, but put in perspective where we are tonight.

02:08:06.220 Is this getting to be like a Cuban Missile Crisis moment for the president as we roll

02:08:13.280 through this weekend?

02:08:15.600 It is, Stephen.

02:08:17.400 It certainly has, as some of your guests are in previous days, he's argued, it certainly

02:08:22.380 has an inflection point moment.

02:08:25.100 And much is at risk here.

02:08:26.500 I think three points need to be kept in mind here, Steve.

02:08:30.700 First point is, this is a regional war between Israel and Iran, but it also takes place in

02:08:36.680 the context of a great power cold war between the CCP and the United States.

02:08:41.900 So what's going on between Israel and Iran matters greatly, because it's going to impact

02:08:50.000 directly, and U.S. actions are going to impact that great power competition with the

02:08:56.480 CCP.

02:08:57.560 The second point is, U.S. interests have to be well-defined here.

02:09:02.900 And it's not, we need to go back to the Weinberger Doctrine, or later the Powell Doctrine, right,

02:09:08.560 with an emphasis that there have to be clear, vital national interests identified and advanced,

02:09:15.260 importantly.

02:09:18.040 That's significant because we cannot allow the CCP to win this war.

02:09:23.180 The CCP's on the ropes.

02:09:26.160 Obviously, they're under enormous pressure.

02:09:28.940 Many actions that President Trump has taken, the February 24th memorandum, Steve, you'll

02:09:34.640 remember that, obviously, focusing, trying to cut off investment, taking other measures

02:09:40.300 against the CCP.

02:09:42.780 Obviously, the tariffs, other measures that have been taken.

02:09:47.320 So in this conflict, we cannot allow the CCP to win it, right?

02:09:53.440 U.S. has to be clear about what its interests are, and it has to win this conflict, not only

02:10:00.240 in the sense of the regional tension or the regional war between Israel and Iran, but in

02:10:05.280 that great power Cold War with the Chinese Communist Party.

02:10:09.560 So when we're thinking about that, the last point, third point, is power is the coin of

02:10:15.620 the realm in international politics, and power is relative.

02:10:19.660 It's not just about how much we have, but it's how much we have in comparison to the CCP.

02:10:25.820 And so in the course of this conflict, we cannot allow this regional conflict really to damage

02:10:33.580 our regional power, the relative power that we have with the CCP.

02:10:39.720 Hang on, Bull jump in here, and Brad jump in here.

02:10:41.640 By the way, I want to get some breaking news.

02:10:45.880 The House and the Senate are going to get a classified briefing, finally, from Tulsi,

02:10:51.120 Ratcliffe, and Raising Cane on Tuesday when they're all back.

02:10:56.180 Well, that means that they're not calling them back this weekend to do it tonight, which

02:11:00.880 means we're probably not going to get a decision tonight, would be my guess.

02:11:04.860 This is a pretty good tell for us, right?

02:11:06.500 I think so.

02:11:07.300 And look, this is a proper use of the DNI and the CIA director.

02:11:12.680 They should be going in to go brief the lawmakers, because the lawmakers make decisions.

02:11:16.840 But the fact is, is that I do think that this would signal that there's not some kind

02:11:21.980 of a rush from the president.

02:11:23.280 He's still, you know, gathering input and listening to people.

02:11:28.140 I always tell this to people about President Trump, and a lot of the establishment media

02:11:32.920 people I tell it to, they laugh at me whenever I say it, but I think that they're wrong, because

02:11:37.480 they don't know Trump like I do.

02:11:39.520 Trump's best quality, hands down, is he's an incredible listener.

02:11:43.920 Big time.

02:11:44.600 Right?

02:11:44.900 He's an incredible listener.

02:11:46.420 Big time.

02:11:46.680 Big time.

02:11:46.700 He builds in feedback channels, so that way he can make decisions better, so that way he

02:11:52.080 listens.

02:11:53.720 It's the best quality that he has.

02:11:56.040 The meetings, when he's having these meetings, he doesn't say a lot.

02:11:59.460 He lets you argue or point out.

02:12:01.600 He kind of weighs and measures the combatants there about the idea.

02:12:04.920 He wants the best idea to win.

02:12:06.720 Yes.

02:12:07.100 So he's a listener, which a lot of chairmen see us.

02:12:09.120 And he encourages other people, and he'll ask you questions back as well, and he asks

02:12:13.620 great questions back in response.

02:12:15.180 So I think that getting the members of Congress, the accurate intelligence that Tulsi Gabbard

02:12:21.360 and Director Ratcliffe both have, that's a good step, right?

02:12:26.200 These are good steps.

02:12:27.660 And then maybe the members of Congress can go talk to him about it, and so on and so forth.

02:12:31.060 The more people weighing in, the better.

02:12:32.220 And he wants a broad, look, Charlie Kirk was at the White House a lot on Thursday, right?

02:12:38.560 On Wednesday and Thursday.

02:12:40.300 Matt Gaeth just said he just talked to the president today.

02:12:42.720 He's taking input.

02:12:44.000 He's taking input from the MAGA right.

02:12:45.600 He's always looking for input.

02:12:47.480 I want to go back to Thayer.

02:12:48.640 One thing.

02:12:49.900 Are you saying that we can only, this is a regional conflict between the Israelis and the

02:12:55.140 Persians, right, our third turn in the barrel over there, but that we must view every action

02:13:02.180 we take in the broader context of the great power struggle with our mortal enemy, the Chinese

02:13:08.720 Communist Party, sir?

02:13:10.820 Right.

02:13:11.180 So this event, this regional war, which could escalate, of course, to bring in others or

02:13:18.140 escalate vertically as well, has to be seen in the context of the defining event of the

02:13:24.280 21st century, which is the battle between the CCP and the United States.

02:13:28.940 So we need to see, obviously, how this regional conflict is going to be impacting that.

02:13:36.100 And there are lots of ways.

02:13:37.240 Matt Boyle was great earlier in the show at really identifying those, as was General Flynn,

02:13:42.980 right?

02:13:43.260 There are a lot of, Xi Jinping is dancing in the street, right?

02:13:46.320 If we get involved in this, he's going to be dancing in the streets.

02:13:48.980 If we get sucked into this war in a way which causes us to lose the focus, lose the center,

02:13:59.000 as Jim Fennell stresses time and again, Captain Jim Fennell, the great Captain Jim Fennell stresses,

02:14:05.440 the CCP is the main thing.

02:14:07.700 And we need to be...

02:14:08.580 Keep the main thing the main thing.

02:14:09.640 Keep the main thing the main thing and focus on that.

02:14:12.380 And we cannot lose focus on that.

02:14:15.060 Yes, you can chew gum and walk at the same time.

02:14:19.280 That's certainly the case.

02:14:21.280 But this is a cold war with the CCP.

02:14:26.040 And regional wars, right, are, as Weinberger identified, Reagan's defense secretary, Cap Weinberger,

02:14:34.900 identified in 84, right?

02:14:36.940 There are principles that have to define how we react to regional conflicts.

02:14:41.660 And we need to keep those in mind.

02:14:45.880 No, because remember, a regional war, a regional war between the ancient and falling apart

02:14:51.280 Austria-Hungary Empire and the Serbian nationalists that were allies to Russia,

02:14:56.300 they took a regional war that had an assassination on the end of June.

02:15:02.520 And five weeks later, all the great powers are at each other's throats.

02:15:05.740 And we have the kickoff to really something that's never ended.

02:15:09.560 The First World War led to the Second World War that led to the Cold War that then led to the Great War on Terror.

02:15:16.300 And here we are now in another great power struggle in the 21st century.

02:15:19.520 And so you've got to watch these regional wars, particularly one, as Matt Gaetje said,

02:15:24.180 you could have 20 million...

02:15:25.580 I mean, this makes Syria look like a Sunday afternoon church picnic.

02:15:30.600 I mean, this has 92 million people.

02:15:33.600 It's an ancient civilization.

02:15:34.980 You start spreading...

02:15:36.200 Where they're going to go, they ain't marching through Syria.

02:15:39.220 They're going to go to UAE.

02:15:41.000 They're going to go to Saudi Arabia.

02:15:42.280 I mean, they're going to put pressures on where all the oil resources are right there in the Gulf.

02:15:47.500 So dare I say, Steve, that the vast majority of people that are advocating that President Trump

02:15:53.340 should get the United States involved in this conflict between the Israelis and the Iranians,

02:15:59.840 most of them are globalists who don't like President Trump's tariffs.

02:16:04.980 When I was in Greece earlier this year and I interviewed the prime minister,

02:16:08.900 it was right in the aftermath of Liberation Day.

02:16:11.280 And one of the things I said in the panels I did over there was that Liberation Day,

02:16:15.960 that moment from President Trump, was like his version of Ronald Reagan's evil empire speech

02:16:21.280 and calling out the Soviet Union.

02:16:23.720 And it was only a few years later that, of course, we finally won.

02:16:26.860 But the globalists kept removing those lines from his speech in the evil empire speech.

02:16:32.240 All the time.

02:16:32.820 Right?

02:16:33.120 So I think that the globalists that are trying to entangle us in this war in Iran,

02:16:38.220 and again, the president's going to make his decision.

02:16:40.420 I'm not trying to influence him one way or the other,

02:16:42.560 and I fully support the president, whatever he goes with.

02:16:47.240 And I think that most of the America First movement will agree with that.

02:16:51.280 But that being said, the globalists who have been trying to entangle us in another war in the Middle East

02:16:56.760 do not like the tariffs, and they want China to not be the focus.

02:17:01.260 They like the status quo of the second Cold War that we're 40 years into, 30 years into.

02:17:07.040 They don't want to see the United States win it or, frankly, China win it.

02:17:10.900 They just like the status quo.

02:17:12.300 They don't like the tariffs.

02:17:13.220 They don't like anybody pushing back against it.

02:17:15.420 And I think that that is a big part of what's driving them right now.

02:17:18.460 You, Gates, and Thayer are going next level.

02:17:20.740 I mean, this is like high order of magnitude.

02:17:23.100 That's where I had to be here on Saturday night.

02:17:24.240 I tell you.

02:17:25.260 Hey, Brad, you've got a couple minutes.

02:17:28.680 If you were there in the Oval able to address the president after the meeting

02:17:33.620 when he's getting his papers ready to go up to the residence, you've got three minutes, sir.

02:17:37.800 What do you tell the president of the United States?

02:17:41.040 You know, I agree.

02:17:42.040 Boyle there just said, you know, it's the globalists, and we all know that's true,

02:17:45.660 and that's kind of high-level thinking.

02:17:47.400 But, Mr. President, the most powerful force on this earth is the American people,

02:17:51.720 and you got them.

02:17:53.040 You got them on your side.

02:17:54.780 And they're particularly located here in MAGA, right?

02:17:58.580 And so people in the past, I differ just a hair with Matt in that I think most of the people

02:18:04.520 that are for this are well-meaning, but they just have no idea what this war involves and will entail.

02:18:10.680 They don't know the history of Iraq and Afghanistan and $8 trillion.

02:18:13.980 But now the MAGA crew, if me or Matt or Gates, Gates just connected some beautiful dots.

02:18:21.760 But you've got to be very sophisticated to understand those dots.

02:18:25.700 But basically, he said, Israel has a different agenda than the United States does.

02:18:30.860 And we stopped them at certain points, and we've got to get back in the process.

02:18:34.060 And so, Mr. President, I would not let anyone hijack your agenda.

02:18:40.940 Your tuition has been correct from the get-go.

02:18:44.060 No foreign entanglements.

02:18:46.160 It'll slow down your economics.

02:18:47.680 It'll slow down your trade.

02:18:49.200 It'll slow down the energy policy.

02:18:51.520 It'll bring your entire agenda, the big, beautiful bill.

02:18:54.340 No one even is looking at it.

02:18:55.660 We're not improving it, making it better, pushing it forward.

02:18:59.380 The bond market is all going to collapse if we spend more trillions on this war.

02:19:04.620 We will get entangled.

02:19:06.200 Once you attack, once we bomb, this is Iran's homeland.

02:19:11.840 They have egos like everyone else has egos, and they have to save face.

02:19:16.380 If we bomb them, end of story, we're at war.

02:19:21.640 They will respond.

02:19:22.640 They will have to respond, and our boys are sitting right off the coast, and we will lose

02:19:28.720 young boys.

02:19:29.820 I know from your comments on Ukraine and Russia, that is your number one concern.

02:19:35.020 You've said, why am I doing this?

02:19:36.840 I don't have to do this.

02:19:38.060 Why am I doing this?

02:19:38.960 I'm doing this because I hate the loss of life, because you're a good man.

02:19:42.360 That's why you're doing it.

02:19:43.700 Same thing applies here.

02:19:44.880 Your agenda in 10 years.

02:19:46.960 If everything went great here, nothing happens.

02:19:49.860 It's a non-story, right?

02:19:50.920 If we achieve peace, and you just keep growing the economy, and that's your agenda, that's

02:19:55.240 good news.

02:19:55.940 But if this thing blows up, that's your agenda.

02:19:58.740 Trump too, the agenda got blown up because we got sucked into a war that the American people

02:20:04.100 do not want.

02:20:04.960 Go ask the American people, how many boys are you willing to sacrifice for this war and

02:20:09.820 this foreign entanglement?

02:20:10.860 And I think the answer is zero.

02:20:12.640 So hold your course.

02:20:14.140 I'm hoping and praying that's what you do.

02:20:17.620 Inform the American people.

02:20:18.960 There's all this technical lingo.

02:20:20.660 The CIA is dropping bombs on you by the day.

02:20:23.860 Oh, we got new intelligence of this process going on.

02:20:27.220 Really?

02:20:28.360 Well, please explain to that real slope.

02:20:30.120 Why did it just come now?

02:20:31.960 Right?

02:20:32.140 And what process are you talking about?

02:20:34.000 Right?

02:20:34.200 Draw me a simple eighth grade chart.

02:20:36.500 Where in the nuclear enrichment process are you talking about?

02:20:40.360 Right?

02:20:40.480 I got to take out Fordow.

02:20:41.860 Why?

02:20:42.880 Right?

02:20:43.200 Why?

02:20:43.500 Do they have nuclear weapons ready to go?

02:20:46.420 Because that Fordow thing's earlier in the process.

02:20:49.180 And then please explain it to the American people because your fans, your mega crew, it

02:20:54.440 follows every word you say.

02:20:56.080 And they are smart people.

02:20:57.440 The American people.

02:20:58.740 I trust them.

02:20:59.560 You trust them.

02:21:00.500 The war room loves them.

02:21:02.040 And they love you back.

02:21:03.380 And so, Mr. President, keep us out of war and keep us on your full agenda, which is A+.

02:21:09.780 Dave, hang on for a second.

02:21:12.440 Matt Bull, hang on for a second.

02:21:14.040 Dr. Thayer, hang on for a second.

02:21:15.360 We got one more segment.

02:21:16.480 I want to thank Real America's Voice that allowed us to be here three hours.

02:21:21.280 The party is on, as they said in World War II.

02:21:24.380 Who's hosting the party, I think, is the question.

02:21:26.980 Is it going to be Israel?

02:21:28.540 Or is it going to be the United States of America?

02:21:30.700 President Trump is wrestling with that issue at the White House, even as we speak.

02:21:35.220 Short commercial break.

02:21:36.280 Back in the warm in just a moment.

02:21:39.980 War room.

02:21:41.140 Here's your host, Stephen K. Mann.

02:21:45.100 Okay, Matt, as I said, the party is on.

02:21:48.400 It's who's going to host the party.

02:21:49.860 President Trump answered that question, did he not?

02:21:51.700 Right when I said that, Matt, Gates, read what happened.

02:21:56.880 You want me to read it?

02:21:58.360 Okay, so yeah, President Trump just announced on True Social.

02:22:01.060 He says, quote, we have completed our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites

02:22:05.880 in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.

02:22:10.080 All planes are now outside of Iran airspace.

02:22:12.880 A full payload of bombs was dropped on the primary site, Fordow.

02:22:16.940 All planes are now safely on their way home.

02:22:19.540 Congratulations to our great American warriors.

02:22:22.640 There is not another military in the world that could have done this.

02:22:25.980 Now is the time for peace.

02:22:27.740 Thank you for your attention to this matter.

02:22:29.420 That's the end of the quote from President Trump.

02:22:31.020 So yes, the United States has, this evening, attacked Iran.

02:22:35.180 So we were getting signals.

02:22:36.340 Make signals.

02:22:36.820 They called the lid.

02:22:38.360 They called the briefing with the Senate and the House leaders next week.

02:22:43.100 That was kind of a smokescreen, if you will.

02:22:46.560 But then they went and did this.

02:22:47.960 And I would imagine that we're going to hear from the president and others soon.

02:22:51.920 It will be a briefing.

02:22:53.460 It will be a bomb damage assessment.

02:22:54.880 Here's what, read that again slowly.

02:22:57.360 Folks, we're going to stick around through this hour.

02:22:59.920 We're going to take a break at the top of the hour.

02:23:01.940 We're going to stick around.

02:23:03.140 And I think Eric Prince is going to join us, as we've just learned, that the United States of America has become a combatant in the, what I call the Persian War,

02:23:13.440 with an assault on the, on all the nuclear facilities, including Fordo.

02:23:17.700 But it doesn't look like it was a concentrated, let's continue to hit bomb after bomb after bomb and take it out.

02:23:24.580 Correct?

02:23:25.480 He says, quote, I'm going to just say what the president says.

02:23:28.180 He says, quote, we have completed our very successful attack on three nuclear sites in Iran.

02:23:34.300 By the way, three nuclear sites is bigger than what we were talking about before.

02:23:37.080 Right, right, right.

02:23:37.900 But that means the Israelis had not taken down the first two, which they said they had, were pretty far down the path.

02:23:42.880 So, but anyway, the president says, we have completed our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordo, Natanz, and Asfahan.

02:23:53.480 All planes are now outside of Iran airspace.

02:23:57.220 A full payload of bombs was dropped on the primary site, Fordo.

02:24:02.040 All planes are now safely on their way home.

02:24:05.020 Congratulations to our great American warriors.

02:24:07.300 There is not another military in the world that could have done this.

02:24:10.000 Then he says, in all caps, now is the time for peace, exclamation point.

02:24:14.320 Then he says, thank you for your attention to this matter.

02:24:17.380 So the fact is, is that while the president is going to push for peace, we'll have to see if there will be any Iranian response, what the response will look like, what the next stages of this are.

02:24:29.220 Obviously, it's the middle of the night in Iran.

02:24:30.980 So I don't even know what time it is there.

02:24:34.760 I'd have to check.

02:24:35.520 I've been checking that all day.

02:24:37.220 I keep Googling what time is it in Iran.

02:24:38.600 It's getting closer to dawn, right?

02:24:40.580 It's like 4 a.m.

02:24:41.140 4 a.m.

02:24:41.620 It's getting closer to dawn there.

02:24:42.680 Yeah, it's about 3.30 right now in Iran.

02:24:47.140 So the point is that – so we'll see the response from the Iranians in response to this and what they do next.

02:24:54.720 Dr. Bradley Thayer, you said, hey, if we get there even on a tactical – limited tactical attack, this will suck us in as a combatant in a shooting war.

02:25:04.320 Do you still – now that the president has done it, what are your thoughts?

02:25:07.940 Well, it's clear he's focusing on the counterproliferation, right?

02:25:11.620 He's focusing on the nuclear aspect, not the regime change.

02:25:15.920 To me, that's clear in that truth, which is very important.

02:25:21.000 So as I read the statement of U.S. interests, it was to stop the Iranian nuclear program at this time, to arrest it and prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons,

02:25:35.740 not to advance regime change.

02:25:38.080 So that's positive, I think, if he's identified that clearly.

02:25:42.400 That's a clearly defined mission, and it's one that it seems that has been accomplished.

02:25:48.920 We'll have to see, obviously, about the assessment, but that's important.

02:25:54.320 Matt's point about retaliation I think also deserves to be noted.

02:25:58.900 But, again, this takes place in the context of the Cold War with the Chinese Communist Party, and everything has got to be seen through that light.

02:26:07.860 We can't allow China to win this war.

02:26:10.260 We can't allow the CCP to win this war.

02:26:12.500 Our interests have to come to the fore and be triumphant here.

02:26:18.020 So, again, that layering of the Cold War has to be – is a very important lens to see all of these events, Steve.

02:26:25.240 So just to reiterate, Matt, I'll tell you one more time.

02:26:31.180 Can we read the president?

02:26:32.100 It's only true socials come out.

02:26:33.380 There's no other – we just reported that Marco Rubio and others, the preferred path, was trying to get a negotiated deal.

02:26:39.800 As we've said at the top of the show this morning and this evening, one of the issues President Trump has had is nobody to negotiate with.

02:26:46.880 They've had a very tough time having the Ayatollah get back to anybody.

02:26:50.880 Steve Wyckoff has said, hey, we're trying to negotiate with somebody.

02:26:53.420 We can't – we've got a couple of minutes to break.

02:26:55.620 Can you take your time and just read – because we essentially went to war tonight.

02:26:59.840 Again, this is what the president says, quote, we have completed our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.

02:27:11.200 All planes are now outside of Iran airspace.

02:27:13.900 A full payload of bombs – and he puts bombs in all caps – was dropped on the primary site, Fordow.

02:27:21.280 All planes are safely on their way home.

02:27:24.200 Congratulations to our great American warriors.

02:27:27.780 There is not another military in the world that could have done this.

02:27:31.700 Now is the time for peace.

02:27:33.520 Thank you for your attention to this matter.

02:27:35.320 So, Steve, if the president is saying this, this means that when we've been live here on this show, this has been happening.

02:27:41.660 So we were – we kind of had some good instincts here because we were – we were literally thinking –

02:27:46.320 That's why we went live.

02:27:46.580 That's why we went live.

02:27:47.340 Yeah, we were literally thinking this was going to happen.

02:27:49.180 Then they started sending out some mixed signals that maybe it wasn't.

02:27:52.000 Well, as I said earlier, President Trump doesn't do – pitch from – doesn't wind up.

02:27:56.120 Although he's wound up with it.

02:27:56.960 He pitches from the stretch.

02:27:58.380 He wants to make sure that – it's like Suleiman.

02:28:00.860 Okay.

02:28:01.540 We're going to leave you with the right stuff.

02:28:03.560 We're going to take a couple-minute break at the top of the hour.

02:28:05.860 We're coming back.

02:28:06.500 We're trying to get Eric Prince, maybe Jason Miller.

02:28:08.620 Matt Bull is going to stick around.

02:28:10.140 Dr. Thayer, where do people go for your social media and all your content, sir?

02:28:15.900 Bradley Thayer, Truth, and then Getter and Brad Thayer on X.

02:28:19.640 And Godspeed, obviously, to the military, Steve, tonight.

02:28:23.700 Yes.

02:28:24.360 There's a lot, obviously, that has to come out of that.

02:28:26.400 But let's hope that everyone is essentially – all of our combatants, all of our servicemen and women are safe.

02:28:35.800 Godspeed.

02:28:37.000 Tonight.

02:28:38.380 And it sounds like –

02:28:39.320 Thanks, Steve.

02:28:39.660 Thanks very much.

02:28:40.920 To our airmen.

02:28:41.860 Thank you, brother.

02:28:43.680 Guam, Diego Garcia.

02:28:44.960 Don't know where these hits came from.

02:28:46.580 Obviously, B2s.

02:28:47.780 Short commercial break.

02:28:49.420 Charlie Kirk's going to join us.

02:28:50.860 Hopefully, Jason Miller's going to join us.

02:28:52.740 Eric Prince, Boyle's going to stick around.

02:28:56.660 All next in the War Room.

02:28:58.340 We'll be right back.

02:29:28.340 There's a bunch of bars in the War Room.

02:29:30.260 We'll be right back.

02:29:39.000 We'll be right back.

02:29:40.120 Bye-bye.

02:29:40.140 Bye.

02:29:40.500 Bye-bye.

02:29:41.040 Bye-bye.

02:29:44.900 Bye-bye.

02:29:45.040 Happy birthday.

02:29:46.700 Bye-bye.

02:29:46.960 Bye-bye.

02:29:47.140 Bye-bye.

02:29:49.460 Bye-bye.

02:29:50.260 Bye.

02:29:51.320 Bye-bye.

02:29:52.300 Bye-bye.

02:29:54.080 Bye-bye.

02:29:54.840 Bye-bye.

02:29:55.180 Bye-bye.

02:29:55.680 Bye-bye.

02:29:56.720 Bye-bye.

Bannon's War Room - June 22, 2025

WarRoom Special Coverage： The Israel-Iran War

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