Episode 4733: Remembering Abbey Gate; Open Up Opportunities For Americans

Summary

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Bannon's War Room – Episode 4733: Remembering Abbey Gate; Open Up Opportunities For Americans

Date: August 26, 2025
Host: Steve Bannon
Guests: Pete Hegseth, Trita Parsi, Brandon Weikart, others

Episode Overview

This episode marks the fourth anniversary of the Abbey Gate bombing during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, where 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans lost their lives. Bannon uses the occasion to reflect on lessons not learned from America’s wars of the 21st century, the lack of accountability among political and military leaders, and the enduring costs for the American volunteer force. The episode also delves into U.S. immigration and visa policy debates, the impact of foreign students on American universities, and critiques of current and past military interventions—especially the ongoing issues with U.S. foreign involvement in Ukraine and the Middle East.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. Remembering the Abbey Gate Fallen

• Tribute and Roll Call
  • [01:27-05:36] A solemn reading commemorates each of the 13 U.S. service members killed in the Abbey Gate bombing, reflecting on their lives, families, and sacrifices.
  • Notable quote:

    “She was full of light, armed with valor and bravery… who at the young age of 18 decided to raise her hand to serve our country.” (Memorial Narrator on Sgt. Joanne Rosario Picardo, 01:28)

  • Emphasis on the tragedy and individual humanity of those lost.

2. Lack of Accountability for Afghanistan and Iraq Wars

• Ongoing Investigation
  • [00:00-01:02] Pete Hegseth opens by discussing a comprehensive Pentagon investigation led by Sean Parnell, aiming for truth and accountability in the Afghanistan withdrawal.
  • Bannon expresses skepticism Iover the length and seriousness of the process:

    "So they're taking their time to do it. Okay, that's good. It seems a little long, but if that's what it takes, that's what it takes." (Steve Bannon, 06:51)

• Systemic Critique
  • [05:36-12:30] Bannon questions whether actual lessons have been learned regarding interventionist nation-building wars (Afghanistan, Iraq) as opposed to legitimate counterterrorism efforts.
  • He criticizes persistent media presence and lack of consequences for architects of these wars:

    “You see the same proponents of this failed strategy just non stop on television and never held accountable.” (Steve Bannon, 06:08)

  • Calls for an annual day of commemoration (August 26) for the modern wars and stresses that all these were volunteer soldiers, not draftees.

3. The Volunteer Force: Sacrifice and Disillusionment

• [19:57-24:00] Bannon laments what awaits returning service members: homelessness, PTSD, lack of job opportunities, and an overwhelmed VA system.
  • Notable quote:

    "You served your country in a foreign land, some godforsaken hellhole and what's your deal when you come back? Oh, homelessness and a VA that doesn't work and suicide, PTSD and no job." (Steve Bannon, 26:10)

4. Visa Programs, Immigration, and American Opportunity

• Foreign Students and H1B Visas Debate
  • [17:56-25:00] Panelists discuss the presence of 600,000 Chinese students in U.S. universities, critiquing the economic and security rationale for their continued acceptance.
  • Bannon rails against the H1B visa program, stating it's designed to undercut American workers:

    "The H1B visa is to take the job of those 13 young people that died in defense of their country at Abbey Gate." (Steve Bannon, 24:51)

  • Critique that current programs benefit elite institutions and foreign interests rather than ordinary Americans; argument to eliminate or severely restrict foreign student and H1B visas until broader systemic issues are addressed.
  • Notable quote:

    "All the visa programs are scams. Let me repeat this. All of them." (Steve Bannon, 24:56)

  • Bannon's solution: drastically cut visa programs, prioritize American talent, and attach an "exit visa" to all foreign student diplomas.

5. Broader Military Strategy and the NDAA

• [12:30-15:00, 25:12-28:13] Bannon critiques the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), its obligatory nature, and disconnect from articulated U.S. strategy of hemispheric defense.
  • Points out the costs and inefficiencies in authorizing massive defense budgets not matched by updated strategic rationales.

6. Current and Prospective Conflicts Abroad

• Ukraine War
  • [29:36-35:40] Bannon argues the U.S. and European approach to Ukraine is unsustainable, pointing to massive casualties, economic burdens on U.S. taxpayers, and lack of European responsibility.
  • Quotes casualty numbers: “Now we know from sources…1.7 million Ukrainians dead and wounded. This is why 625,000 this year…they’re getting crushed.” (Steve Bannon, 32:10)
• Persian/Iran War Prospects & Israel’s Role
  • [35:40-43:18] Conversation with Trita Parsi about the likelihood of renewed conflict with Iran, Israel’s motivation, and U.S. vulnerabilities:
    • Parsi:

      “The Israelis now are under their own pressure to finish it and do so before the Iranians rebuild their air defense systems…they will try everything in their power again to drag the US into that war.” (Trita Parsi, 37:20)

    • Discusses how prolonging or shifting warfronts may serve the political survival of leaders like Netanyahu.
    • The concern that U.S. military resources are depleted is echoed by Brandon Weikart:

      “We have not restored our own stockpiles…especially now with Ukraine still going on and this thing with Venezuela popping off soon.” (Brandon Weikart, 50:43)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On accountability and memory:

  “Accountability goes a long way to honoring the dead in section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery to show them that your life had some meaning.” (Steve Bannon, 29:36)

• On the futility of regime change:

  “You get into a regime change war in Persia, you're going to be there for 30 years.” (Steve Bannon, 52:45)

• On U.S. global engagement:

  “We should be trying to get out of the Middle East as fast as possible and worry about our own hemisphere.” (Brandon Weikart, 51:31)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00-01:02 | Hegseth introduces Afghanistan investigation and demand for accountability | | 01:27-05:36 | Memorial roll call for Abbey Gate’s fallen | | 05:36-12:30 | Bannon’s reassessment of Afghan/Iraq wars, failures, and media complicity | | 17:56-25:11 | Panel on foreign students, visa policy, and consequences for Americans | | 25:12-28:13 | Bannon’s solution to visa/immigration issues—"full stop, boom"—push to restrict opportunities to Americans | | 29:36-35:40 | U.S./NATO support to Ukraine, European free-riding, and American taxpayers shouldering the cost | | 35:40-43:18 | Middle East: Israeli aims, dangers of being pulled into Iran conflict (with Trita Parsi) | | 46:37-51:39 | Prospects and triggers of renewed conflict with Iran (Parsi and Weikart) |

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Conclusion

Bannon and guests used the Abbey Gate anniversary as a platform to challenge official and media narratives on U.S. interventions and to advocate for renewed emphasis on accountability, American opportunity, and a strategic retrenchment from avoidable foreign entanglements. The show is skeptical about military and government leadership, harshly critical of immigration and visa systems, and unapologetically nationalist in economic and defense orientation. The warnings about future wars—especially regime-change crusades in the Middle East—are direct, strident, and unvarnished.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Pete Hegseth]

On behalf of this beautiful group, on behalf of these families, on behalf of your loved ones who fought for our nation, America deserves answers as far as what happened in Afghanistan. The military needs to answer for what happened in Afghanistan. So upon the President's direction, immediately we initiated an investigation which showed that there needed an even deeper dive. So Sean Parnell, our Pentagon spokesman, who himself is an Afghanistan veteran, is leading this effort. It's a top priority for us. We're getting access to all documents necessary, why decisions were made, why they weren't made, why certain form force protection measures were ignored. Again, there's never been accountability for this. It's something that Joe Biden allowed to happen that never should have happened. Anybody who any objective observer knows that's not how you leave a country. And certainly these families know better than anyone else. These families deserve answers. We're going to be honest about it. We're going to get to the bottom of it. Sean Parnell, an Afghanistan vet, is leading it and we're doing it on behalf of the American people. So I would anticipate middle of 20, 26, that's how thorough of a review we're doing, hopefully a little bit sooner, but we're going into everything to get.

[Unidentified Speaker 1]

An understanding of very special proclamation done and completed. Okay. Oh, that's a good one. That's our good one. We rate them. I don't put them under the auto pen. I don't say, here, have the auto.

[Memorial Narrator]

State Marine Corps Sergeant Joanne Rosario Picardo was part of the Marines Female Engagement Team. She was a native of Lawrence, Massachusetts, a 2014 graduate of Lawrence High School and attended Bridgewater State University. She was full of light, armed with valor and bravery, who at the young age of 18 decided to raise her hand to serve our country as a member of the United States Marine Corps. Corporal Galt Umberto Sanchez, United States Marine Corps, was a native of Logan's Fort, Indiana. 2017 graduate of Logan's Fort High School. He bravely answered the call to serve his nation. He was honored to be putting on the Marine uniform and serve his country. Staff Sergeant Ryan Noss, US army motivated young man who loved his country. From Knoxville, Tennessee. He joined the army shortly after graduating high school. He was part of the 8th PsyOps group and was looking forward to moving to D.C. upon his return home. Staff Sergeant Darren Taylor Hoover, United States Marine Corps, known as Taylor, former high school football player from Midville, Utah. He spent his entire adult life as a Marine. For the last 11 years, his father said his son did what he loved, was leading his men and was with them to the end. He loved the United States and proved it by his service. Sergeant Nicole Gee, United States Marine Corps she was a Marines Marine, loved helping people and she did it until the end. She's a native of Sacramento, California. Lance Corporal Dylan Varala, United States Marine Corps, from Rancho Cucamonga. Graduate of Los Osos High School. Had only been in Afghanistan two weeks. Planned to study engineering in college after his military service. His mom said he was kind, loving and giving to every single person. He would give anything for anybody. Lance Corporal Kareem Nakawi Graduated from Norco high school in 2019. He loved what he was doing. He always wanted to be a Marine. David Lee Espinosa, United States Marine Corps, Laredo, Texas. Graduated from Lyndon B. Johnson High School. Grew up in Rio Bravo. Corporal Hunter Lopez, United States Marine Corps, from Riverside, California. His parents are Riverside Sheriff's deputies, Captain Herman Lopez and Deputy Alicia Lopez. He was a brave and selfless soldier who answered the call of duty. Riley McCollum, United States Marine Corps, graduated in 2019 from Jackson Hole High School. Was going to be a father in three weeks and was a newlywed. He joined the Marines the day he turned Lance Corporal Jared Schmidt, United States Marine Corps, from St. Charles County, Missouri, graduated high school in 2019. He became a Marine in 2020. He had always dreamed about being a Marine, and he was on his first deployment. Corporal Dagan William Tyler Page Graduated from Miller South High School in Omaha, Nebraska. Joined the Marines in 2019. He loved the brotherhood of the Marines, his parents said he was a genuinely happy guy that you could always count on. And Navy Corpsman Maxton Soviak from Berlin Heights, Ohio, graduated in 2017 from Edison High School. He was excited about the opportunities the Navy would offer him and planned on making the Navy a career.

[Steve Bannon]

Okay, Tuesday the 26th of August in the year of our Lord 2025. That is four years ago today. The Abbey Gate bombing. 170 Afghans and 13 honored dead. I believe that that commemoration there was from the first anniversary when Mo read out the names and the citations. The question I think before so we're going to talk today. We got a Cabinet meeting in the 11 o' clock hour. We've got a lot to go through between now and then. So much happening. But I think it's a good time for reassessment. I believe I heard General Milley actually speaking and criticizing the President last week on a different topic. But the question goes, what have we learned from Abygate? What have we really learned and what lessons do we take away from the disastrous adventure in Afghanistan and the disastrous adventure in Iraq and not the global war on terror? That's very different, these two wars of nation building and wars of choice. Because the Afghan situation with the Taliban and what we do with the Taliban was really solved or could have been totally solved in the first, I don't know, hundred days or six months. Have we really learned any lessons? And the reason I ask this is you see the same proponents of this failed strategy just non stop on television and never held accountable. I would actually propose that 26 August be set aside as a day of commemoration for the wars of the 21st century, particularly the young generation that volunteered to fight. Remember, all of these were volunteers. Unlike World War II and World War I, where there were principally draftees, these were volunteers. And Vietnam, I might add, these were volunteers, people that volunteered to defend their country or what they thought at the time was defending their country. And of course, they were sent all over Hell's Half acre to these wars of choice that now we know because of the manipulation of information and really, quite frankly, internal propaganda, that these were unnecessary and people were lied to over and over again. Afghanistan being only slightly worse than Iraq. You know, 20 years after our adventure in Afghanistan started, the Washington Post did a series called the Afghan Papers. And it was every bit as damning as the Pentagon Papers. Now it got very little play because the progressive left is now the biggest proponent of the deep state. They control the deep state. So unlike in previous eras where there was a fight against the deep state, there was no fight until the MAGA movement came along with the twin goals of deconstructing the administrative state, but taking on and destroying the deep state. And my question today, and Pete Hegseth just laid out, they're doing an investigation. Sean Parnell, who is a friend of the show and a guy we think so highly of, Sean Parnell runs comms over at the Pentagon. And Sean has got an amazing book about his time as a junior officer in those wars and really kind of rose to prominence because of that. Sean is doing an investigation and Pete said it'll come out sometime in 2026. So they're taking their time to do it. Okay, that's good. It seems a little long, but if that's what it takes, that's what it takes. But we have to hold these people accountable. I don't know what we're waiting on General Milley for, because I think he can be held accountable very, very quickly. But the people that in The Biden regime. And you see him on TV all the time. You see Jake Sullivan, Tony Blinken in this crowd. It's like in Susan Rice. Plus the architects of the Iraq war. I mean, you see Nicole Wallace and Dana Perino, these people, you know, either on Fox or msnbc, they're on all the time. They were the mouthpieces for what was clearly we were lied to about Iraq to get into that war. The wars of the, you know, the phoniness of the weapons of mass destruction and the real reasons we were there and lost so many lives and blood and treasure. And I don't know, Brown University says that it's approximately $9 trillion those wars cost us of wasted capital and that's just a fraction of the wasted lives. What is it combined, 8,000 Kias. And I think that's just the uniformed services doesn't include the contractors. You know, we went to the contractor model. Look at Taj Gil, Taj guild was what, 16 combat tours. And I don't know, half of those are as a SEAL and half as a contractor because we went to a different model to make sure that know we couldn't afford the health care, we couldn't afford the retirement. So we went to kind of got it off the balance sheet. But they're still American warriors. And we have to look at this. It's a good day to think about this, to think about Afghanistan, to think about everything. You recall, remember, for those of you who have been with the show for years, remember we did it live over those couple of days. In fact, you know, Rob Sig and talk to park and Rob, we went live on a Sunday night, had a live special on a Sunday evening in the middle of this thing because of the disaster that was building up on this retreat really wasn't a retreat. It was just a mad scramble disgracefully out of Afghanistan. And it's obviously so central to what's happening going forward, going forward. And we're going to talk about that today. These different wars in Ukraine, the wars in the Middle east, this potential war they're trying to drive us to in Persia that we're not going to take debate on. We got off the hook last time when President Trump had total obliteration, the total obliteration campaign that ended the their nuclear enrichment program. But we always have to be on watch here. And quite frankly, this goes to the NDAA and the budget and the deficits. You have now the National Defense Authorization act that's going to lock us into over a trillion dollar defense bill and My question is it doesn't coincide whatsoever with President Trump's stated strategy of hemispheric defense. And I would love to see the White House and the net and the National Security Council come out. Basically, you're supposed to do this report every year. It'll be out, I think in November, December. But I'd like to see it for this budget cycle as we run up to the end of the fiscal year. And particularly the must, the must approve ndaa, which I ask, why do we have to approve that? Why is it, why is it a must pass bill? And people say, oh, Steve, you're talking about our national security. Well, hang on for a second. Those authorizations you're supposed to authorize, I think most of these departments at least every five or ten years. I don't believe the EPA has been authorized since its incept inception. I don't think the Justice Department has been reauthorized for, I don't know, 40 or 50 years. If we're going to play by the rules, and I believe we should play by the rules, and I think we should go through authorizations, reauthorizations of these departments. I think we need to get back to that. I think we, because then you can start asking basic question about what in the hell are we doing? What does this exist? What's its task and what's its purpose before we talk about funding it and the NDAA that they're targeting, this must pass NDAA which just an authorization bill, you still do the appropriation, still all that, but they do this to lock it in because then they say the number's a trillion dollars and you got to spend a trillion dollars. And they've got it kind of out in big sections. But the NDAA does not tie back to the strategy that President Trump, I think, has been pretty articulate laying out, which is a hemispheric defense, that to come back and have a hemispheric defense, it's not that you're retreating from the world, but you're, you're, you're taking a smarter view of it that we have. We don't need to be engaged all over the planet, and particularly on the Eurasian landmass. We can actually do this quite much smarter in expeditionary forces. Well, Steve, what's an expeditionary force? Well, let me give you two examples. An expeditionary force was that massive bombing and naval campaign, because, remember, it's 30 Tomahawk missiles that took out the Iranian, took out the Persian nuclear enrichment program. Right. Total obliteration, according to our Commander in Chief. Also you have 4,000 Marines right now and sailors heading towards been associated been attached to southcom to head to basically the Caribbean and an amphibious Marine Expeditionary Force to do direct interdiction with the cartels. You know who's taking that seriously? Maduro, who has now ordered up 15,000 troops to go to the Venezuelan border. Anyway, short Commercial break Minstrel Boy from Black Hawk down will take us out this morning. We'll be back in the warm in just a moment.

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[Steve Bannon]

Kill America's voice family.

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[Memorial Narrator]

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[Steve Bannon]

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[Steve Bannon]

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[Steve Bannon]

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[Unidentified Speaker 2]

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[Steve Bannon]

Steve Bannon, Charlie Kirk, Jack Posobi and so many more.

[Pete Hegseth]

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[Steve Bannon]

Sign up for free and be part of the newfound Lindy Somic who is from the Saginaw Ojibwe Nation and she's going to deliver our land acknowledgement today. Lindy.

[Lindy Somic]

Boozhoo Lindy, Samik Ninja Kaz Amikdotum, Saginaw Chapoa Dojoba, Anishinaabe, Kwei Endow. Good morning, DNC members, friends and relatives. Let's talk about the land for a second. The DNC acknowledges and honors the Dakota Oyate, the Dakota people who are the original stewards of the lands and waters of Minneapolis. The Dakota cared for the lands, lakes and the Wakatanka, the Great river, the Mississippi river. For thousands of years before colonization. This land was not claimed or traded. It's a part of a history of broken treaties and promises. And in many ways we still live in a system built to suppress indigenous peoples cultural and spiritual history.

[Unidentified Speaker 1]

We're going to get along good with China. I hear so many stories about we're not going to allow this students. We're going to allow their students to come in.

[Steve Bannon]

We're going to allow.

[Unidentified Speaker 1]

It's very important. 600,000 students. It's very important.

[Unidentified Speaker 3]

With all due respect, how is allowing 600,000 students from the communist country of China putting America first?

[Unidentified Speaker 2]

Well, the president's point of view is that what would happen if you didn't have those 600,000 students is that you'd empty them from the top. All the students would go up to better schools. Schools and the bottom 15% of universities and colleges would go out of business in America. So his view is he's taking a rational, economic view, which is classic Donald Trump looking at higher education and saying, but why are you helping modify that?

[Unidentified Speaker 3]

That just helps Harvard and UCLA and UCAL Berkeley and y' all helping those schools.

[Steve Bannon]

Why?

[Unidentified Speaker 3]

They're like, you know, basically factories of anti American propaganda and now they're getting a big influx of cash because of the Chinese students. I mean, I know President Trump has always been very pro Chinese student. I just don't understand it for the life of me. Those are 600,000 spots that American kids won't get.

[Unidentified Speaker 2]

Well, I tell you what, I'm involved. I'm involved in changing the H1B program, right? We're going to change that program because that's terrible, right? We're going to change the green card. You know, we give green cards. The average American makes $75,000 a year and the average green card recipient $66,000. So we're taking the bottom quartile. Like, why are we doing that? That's why Donald Trump is going to change it. That's the gold card that's coming and that's. We're going to start picking the best people. To come into this country. It's time for that to change.

[Unidentified Speaker 3]

I think we are American engineering students need to be given the first role at every job. And I think they're brilliant when given half a chance.

[Steve Bannon]

I mean, there's so much there to unpack. Let's go Back to, as Mo informs me, there's 40,000. I think there's 40,000 suicides, documented suicides on top of the casualties of the PTSD of the volunteer force. Think about the sacrifice of this, of these two generations now that have fought this war or fought these wars and are still being looked at to go into harm's way in the future. Huge fight over in Europe right now about the security guarantees. We told you repeatedly that the Europeans wouldn't step up to the plate. Right. They don't really have armies. The reason is that they've been putting their money into social programs for decades and decades and decades as the same people that came up with the wars of choice in Iraq and Afghanistan essentially underwrote the European elites to get political pressure off them from having to make those tough decisions between guns and butter. This is why this NDA right now. I'll get more into this later this week. And we shouldn't pass it. We shouldn't pass it. You want to stop the madness of spending, just go to the heart of it. And I am far from being a dove or a isolationist, but I'm a realist. Right there. Howard's talking. There's 55 million, there's 55 million immigrants in the country on different visas. And I don't want Howard Ludnick, who's a sales guy, you're not going to sell me on this. You're not going to sell us on this. Don't sit there and say, first off, the response to the 600,000 Chinese was kind of mind bendingly ridiculous. Can you imagine this guy as Secretary of the Treasury? Remember that was Elmo's, that was Elon's. That was Elon's boy. He wanted that guy to be Secretary of Treasury. Of course, we pushed our own contributor, Scott Besant. Why? Because Scott's a safe pair of hands and will look you in the eye and into the camera and tell you what's going on and not try to spin you. And do we agree with thousand percent what's happened at Treasury? No, but Scott Bessant is a honest broker and going to tell you what's going on with Lutnick. Grab your wallet because you're always being sold something. Right. He comes across as A as a bond salesman. Bond salesman. Bond salesman from a bucket shop. The response in the 600,000 is ridiculous. Particularly the New York Times has a incredible article up. The New York Times. I'll put that up after the show. New York Times has an amazing article of investigative reporting of how, wait for it. The Chinese Communist Party has infiltrated into New York City and has a major role in local elections in New York City. Hello. What did Miles Guo tell you? What we've been telling you for years and years and years and years. The mail in ballots nationwide are because of the CCP. The 55 million foreign born people here on these visas. And I am not anti immigration. I am anti insane policies against American citizens, full stop. And I don't think the solution here is a gold card where we're selling American citizenship for $5 million. Here's what I think we ought to do. And not have Howard Lutnick work around the edges on the H1B visas. It's simple. The H1B visa program is a total scam. The H1B visa is to take the job of those 13 young people that died in defense of their country at Abbey Gate in Kabul, Afghanistan on the 26th of August of 2021. It was to take their job when they got home. Well, Steve, how you say that? So cruel how you say it? Because that's the purpose of it. Look at the scandal they just had at Walmart where some guy's getting $30,000 a day to scam the H1B visa program. All the visa programs are scams. Let me repeat this. All of them. You want to take care of your affordability issues in your, in your cities with your homes and have family formation happening earlier because kids can buy homes and get a partner and get married and have a couple of three kids. Right. And rejuvenate this country. Want to do that and have people buy into the system because now they're, now they have a stake. What I, what I call when I talk about home title lock that, that title. Every dream you've had is in that home, right? What about doing that? Let's take the test, take the 55 million and say, hey, this very simple. We're going to cut out half of it. Oh, you can't do that. Be terrible. Yeah, the Wall street guys are going to sit. There's going to be awful, not going to be awful for American citizens.

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[Steve Bannon]

How about instead of having there should be no foreign students here for the moment. I'm not saying in perpetuity. But for the moment, until we get our hands around this, eliminate the H1B visas immediately, don't work around their edges and make it. It's all a scam. It's all to drive down wages. It's not to get the Einstein's here, come on, if you're going to come back and try to pitch it, talk to us like adults and talk to us on adults. On the bottom, I don't know, 10% that we're going to take. You know they're going to take all the, all the kids are immediately going to go to Harvard. Well, hey, isn't that a benefit in the bottom 10% of the schools then they got to figure it out. They got to figure it out. That's not what will happen. And any foreign student that does come here ought to have an exit visa stapled to his or her diploma to leave immediately. Give them 30 days. We're either going to make this about the American citizen and make the centerpiece the American family and American citizens that populate that family, or we're not. And that's why I think the 26th of August as we go forward and you think about those 13 kids and you think about what they were told and what their parents were told and what they sacrificed and what's the deal that they had waiting for them when they came back. What's the deal? You served your country in a foreign land, some godforsaken hellhole and what's your deal when you come back? Oh, homelessness and a VA that doesn't work and suicide, PTSD and no job. We have 12 million tech workers, qualified people that did everything they were supposed to do from their little kids. Not guys like me and other people that kind of, hey, mailed it in on occasion in you know, grade school and high school and college. I'm talking about the people that grinded and had these technical degrees. Right. I went to a land grant university school that had a big engineering program. They started off because everybody showed up, they all wanted to be engineers and they had five hour calculus at 8 o' clock in the morning on those cold winter mornings to kind of weed out who the ribbon clerks were and who the serious people were. And they weeded them out fast. Well, it's the people that stuck with the program that now are unemployed or underemployed, not getting paid for what their real value is. We're going to lose this country unless we address this. And yes, some economic interests that now are in control of this country are not going to like it? They're not. They're going to sit there and go, no. If I can get people cheaper and I can get them to work 100 hours a week and live 10 to a condo in Silicon Valley.

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Short break.

[Steve Bannon]

We're going to turn to wars and the rumor of war. Next in the war room.

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[Steve Bannon]

Here in the war room.

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[Steve Bannon]

Today, War Room, here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon. Okay, welcome. Welcome back. As we commemorate as we always do, the Abbey gate disaster and 13 heroes. They gave their life in defense of their country and what the reality is of this country that they were going to come back to. Because that's the generation we're stealing from. Yeah, we're stealing from it. We've allowed corporate interest and corporate interest, that is not all the time American to kind of set the rules of the game here. It's time that's got to be stopped. And we don't need changes on the margin to the visas. We don't need right now. There's such a scam. It's so complicated. It just. Let's be simple, full stop, boom. Start shipping people out of here and open up those opportunities for Americans. I keep giving the challenge. Show me one. You got millions of these H1B visa holders. Show me one. Give me one. One that has an educational and or experience level that cannot be replaced by an American for the billet they're in. I put this challenge out and somebody in Silicon Valley did contact me one time, and they came up with one that was potential. Some guy coming out of France that has some very particular thing. But then when you spent 10 minutes with it, you realize, new, new, new, new, new. There was a very specialized thing, but it's totally. He's totally replacing an American that can fit into that billet. Well, it's not a lot we can do about Afghanistan or Iraq, except for accountability, which we have not had. And accountability goes a long way to honoring the dead in section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery to show them that your life had some meaning. And we will hold people accountable. That got us into these debacles. And we will not honor them and give them prestige and big jobs and put them on TV all the time and give them honorary degrees and just let them go on like nothing happened. No, if you do that, you're not going to have a country. What we can do for we the living and for these young kids coming up is make sure that this does not happen again. And that is why we've been so adamant about Ukraine from the very eve of the war. And, yes, we have been 1000% correct on Ukraine from the beginning, full stop. Every aspect of it. We told you what was going to happen. We told you how it was going to happen. We told you who was going to be asked to pay for it. All of it. And we are where we are. And you had that. President Trump exposed it last week when he had them all here. Right. And all went back. All went back. What are they doing? You know, they, they got, you know, they're not going to put penny troops. Nobody's going to meet the line of contact. They're not going to put up any real money. Today. They're talking about a big deal. Zelensky's working on a billion dollars a month from the Europeans. A billion dollars a month. They consider that a big deal. Was it $350 billion we put into this fiasco, including paying for their teachers and nurses pension funds. You got a pension? How's that pension? How you sitting on that good pension? Is that pension working out for you? How's that going? Young people in your 20s and 30s, how's that pension? Pension good. You come from that pension plan, you're going to work hard and get that pension. No, you don't have a pension. Not going to have a pension. They got them in Ukraine, though. On your money. Europeans, big shots, the European elites, What they're doing is they're going to pump a billion dollars a month to buy American arms, that's where. A billion dollars a month. And look, the Russians, I don't know, they're fighting the war the same way they fought it in World War II, just grind it out. And their casual rates, they could care less. And now we know from sources, right, that and President Trump has been implying this the entire time, is 1.7 million Ukrainians dead and wounded. This is why 625,000 this year. You notice you don't see a lot of. Remember back in the beginning when MSNBC and CNN were at the front line and they were giving you footage and they were giving you war. You know, they were being war correspondents, thought everyone was Edward R. Murrow, right? You don't see any of that anymore. You haven't seen that in 2025. You know why? Because they're getting crushed. They're getting crushed. 625, 000 people dead. And the Ukrainians are livid about it. That's why there's no elections and that's why this thing's totally sorted. Zelensky is going to go, I don't know, to the Gulf Emirates or UAE or somewhere and hide out. The way we can avoid this is not to be sucked into any more of them. And this, this audience had a heroic effort during the first part of this Persian War. And that was we went absolutely nuts. And you worked the phones and let people know, no, we're not going to get sucked in here to a regime change war. We've already done that in Iraq, already did that in Afghanistan. You saw how it worked out. Not going to do that. And President Trump came up with a solution. An expeditionary force of submarines with Tomahawk missiles. And of course, the amazing strategic bombing we have, and I quote him, total obliteration of their nuclear enhancement program of which as I said on the show over and over again, there was no urgency to it. That was a total and complete lie of Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. A bald faced lie to keep him in power. But that we stopped the regime change as much as they wanted. Of course, now Netanyahu is giving an interview saying, hey, there's guys over there saying we want a regime to change.

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[Steve Bannon]

I don't know what they're thinking, dude, we can cut tape and play it nonstop for hours of you arguing for that and pushing for it nonstop. Well, it's coming and we got to get in front of it and we got to stop it. I've got two great guests. Trita Parsi joins me, works with my brother Kurt Mills and the team. Trita, you've had aand I haven't had a chance to get you up because we had so many live things with the White House. But you've got an amazing piece. I think it's up in foreign policy, the coming Iranian war in mid September and how we can avoid it. Walk me through. First of all, people are going to say, well, hang on, what is Trito talking about? What abandon talking about? These guys are anti Israel. They're isolationist, they're pacifists. That war is over. President Trump named it the 12 Day War. It's done. Why are these, why are you guys trying to be troublemakers and bring this back up?

[Trita Parsi]

Sir, thanks for having me on, Steve, and thank you for all the efforts you did to make sure that that war was stopped. Look, the calculation in all of this was not centered on the nuclear program. So Trump saying that it was obliterated does not satisfy what the Israelis were looking for. As you pointed out, they wanted a regime change, but they wanted more than that. The ultimate objective. They had three objectives. The first one was to finally get the US into a war with Iran. They had tried for 20 years in that sense. At least partially this succeeded. They wanted to have regime collapse. They were quite successful in the beginning, but rather quickly the Iranians managed to replace all of the generals, etc. That had been killed by the Israelis in the first 24 hours of the war. And then they start firing back. And the Israelis took a lot of hits. Important thing was to degrade Iran to the point in which Israel would turn Iran into the next Syria or Lebanon, a country that the Israelis can bomb at will with impunity without US Involvement. That did not succeed. But having started this, the Israelis now are under their own pressure to finish it and do so before the Iranians rebuild their air defense systems, et cetera, et cetera. And as a result, I do think that it's quite likely that before December at least, the Israelis will strike again and will try everything in their power again to drag the US into that war. And ultimately, it is about domination in the Middle East. And we have to ask ourselves, is the Middle east that important to the United States any longer? And if it isn't, does it really matter to us who is the top dog in the Middle East? Is that our fight or not?

[Steve Bannon]

Let me go back. When you say under pressure, they've got, they're plateful. I mean, the interesting thing I find when you look at Israel and study it today is the idf. I mean, the Actual people that have to fight these wars are. There's a huge schism between the politicians, the politicians in Netanyahu's government and the IDF about exactly what the plan is in the first order business, which is let's get this thing sorted in Gaza, right? And particularly taking on the dead enders, I don't know, the 20,000 Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood combatants that are still dug in there. And also, and then post that, how do you occupy it or what do you do with it? That is overwhelming. Today there's going to be another set of huge demonstrations in Israel as the, as the country's kind of torn apart about its direction. How can they possibly be considering another front when they're still, you know, you're still, they're still dealing with Hezbollah, they're still working on the northern front. But this thing in Gaza is so overwhelming that even the idf, which kind of has this legendary reputation, has been at this for what, two years with no solution.

[Trita Parsi]

Sir, I think that's a great point, but here's the missing piece of that, Steve. The equation changes dramatically if the United States is paying for that war. You're quite right. Faced with all of these challenges and clear divisions in Israel about what to do with Gaza, why would they want another front? Well, if someone else is paying for that war, then that's a very different question. And this is what the Israelis have been seeking to do to try to make sure that they drag the US into that war. Moreover, I think we should also be clear precisely because this is so divisive, divisive inside of Israel right now, the question of Gaza Iran is actually a political benefit for Netanyahu. There was quite strong support for his war with Iran inside of Israeli society, even amongst those who are dead set against Netanyahu. So he didn't get necessarily a long standing jump bump in the polls because of it, but he did get a reprieve in the sense that the population, by and large, were support of it. So precisely because Gaza has become such an infested problem for them domestically, shifting towards Iran actually makes political sense for Netanyahu.

[Steve Bannon]

What is the case of the opposition? I mean, they're at war regardless and they still haven't had a commission. We still don't know how October 7th happened. I think there's all kind of unsettling questions you have to ask about how that even came about. But since they haven't done that, what is the opposition saying about Netanyahu inside the country? I mean, what is their, what better idea do they have than what he's got is that, hey, we got to clear this out. I know we have the hostages. I'm trying to negotiate, but we got to take care of this because it's a ticking time bomb inside the country. What's the opposition to Netanyahu say right now?

[Trita Parsi]

There's a variety of voices, but what you hear from the Israeli military is that there are no military objectives in Gaza at this point. This is just a slaughter that is taking place while completely destroying Israel standing internationally. There are no major military objectives to be gained. Rather, this is something that Netanyahu wants to keep going because once the war ends, he's going to be facing tremendous amount of political problems at home, including a potential prison sentence. This is also where Iran comes in. If he manages to create some other form of a forever war with Iran in the midst of all of this, then perhaps he doesn't need Gaza because he has another war that will keep him in office. So you hear this from a lot of different areas inside of Israeli society. It's not as if that is a highly contended argument. It's the question is how do you get out of this situation in which Netanyahu manages to just stay in power by continuing these wars?

[Steve Bannon]

What about the Dead enders? You do have a couple of brigades at least of Hamas fighters that have not been eradicated. When you say strategic, I mean Gaza City's an objective, right? And it's, it's, it's not like, it's not like in Ukraine where it's a moving front. But isn't it like Fallujah that you're down to the Dead Enders right now and you know, as that's what made Fallujah so awful, at some point in time, if you want to take care of it, somebody's got to go in and somebody's got to go door to door and kick in that door. Sir, we got 30 seconds here. I'm going to hold you through it. But isn't that one of the rubs of it that they've got to go in and get the Muslim Brotherhood fighters out?

[Trita Parsi]

Well, the bottom line is after two years of doing all of this and destroying all of Gaza, they have not managed to do this if, if they actually still exist. And we frankly don't know quite yet whether that is the case or not. But to just continuing in this manner doesn't look as if it is aimed at targeting Hamas. It looks as if increasingly, and they're saying it publicly, it looks like an annexation of Gaza, which is a completely different proposition.

[Steve Bannon]

Hang on for a second. Trito, appreciate you being on this morning. We're going to take a short commercial break. We're going to come back to the wars and rumors of war on the war room.

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[Steve Bannon]

Do IT today. Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon. Wars and the rumor of wars, that always adds to instability and kind of chaos. That's why gold's been a hedge for financial stability for 5000 years of man's recorded history. Make sure you go today to birchgold.com Bannon Endothedollar Empire. Seven free installments starting guess what? All the way back, even before the Abbey Gate fiasco, to walk you through the to make sure you could understand the structure of international finance, the structure of capital markets and how gold, physical gold, plays into that. Make sure that you understand it's not the price of gold, the daily price of gold. It is the pattern recognition of the forces that drive the value of gold. This is what we're trying to do with Birch Gold to explain to you they've been great parts partners. Birchgold.com Bannon ended the dollar empire. Seven free installments. We're working on eight and nine coming out of Brazil, out of the Rio reset. And we're going to have a print edition of this because now it's being taught in college, being it's an additional reading to college courses in finance. And we make it accessible to you, regardless of your education level or your math skills or any of it. Very proud of this. Trina. What's going to be the trigger? If you say this is going to happen sometime this fall, what is going to be the trigger? And it's going to be done for, for political reasons, domestic political reasons. What do you believe the trigger event will be that we should be on the outlook for?

[Trita Parsi]

Sir, I don't think it necessarily will be a trigger. It will be whether the Israelis reach readiness to do this, meaning that they have replenished their stockpile of interceptors. There's a political opening in Washington for them to push this through. There could be triggers. For instance, there may be a snapback decision at the un The Europeans may trigger this next week, which would snap back all of the previous UN sanctions on Iran. That could potentially be a political lubricant. But I would say that that is a secondary factor. The most important thing is that the Israelis are ready themselves for the second round. I think one thing to keep in mind that is very important is the second round is not likely to be similar to the first round. In the first round, the Israelis took the Iranians by surprise. They did spectacular intelligence job inside of Iran and had plenty of people inside of it. They may be able to pull that off again. But more importantly, the Iranians were playing the long game. They thought it was going to be a long war. Instead, Trump essentially ended it after 12 days for the second war. I think the Iranians are going to try to strike at Israel as hard and as fast as possible to dispel them of the notion that Iran can be turned into Syria or Lebanon. That this mowing the grass strategy simply will not work. That means that the pressure on the United States to get into that war is going to be much, much greater than it was last time around. I fear.

[Steve Bannon]

This is what this is. My anger about this first one. First off, the sense of urgency was totally and completely made up. That's a bald faced lie, number one. Number two, Netanyahu started something that, that not only couldn't he finish, they didn't even conceptually have the ability to finish. Like taking out the upgrade program. Listen, it wasn't just the bombers, the strategic bombers coming. We did 1970s and 1980s technology in Tomahawk missiles, cruise missiles from Navy submarines, 30 of them, to take out the landing. So you needed, you know, these guys had no ability whatsoever. What their big cause of belly was about the nuclear enrichment program. They did not have a modicum of ability to do that and therefore should never start the war. If they didn't have, they were going to depend upon the Americans from the beginning and Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham, when they sit up there, they're lying. That's a fact. Number two, the more disturbing fact for the Israeli people is they didn't have the ability to stop the incoming. We were drawn in as combatant immediately. We sent the Aegis cruisers to the Eastern Mediterranean. We gave all these air assets. I think we used 25% of our THAAD, you know, missiles in defense. And I'm telling you, and I think this is why President Trump struck as quickly as he did and didn't give it two weeks. Tel Aviv was getting hammered, hammered in those last couple of days before President Trump stopped the 12 day war. I don't know if anything's fundamentally changed on that. We'll have to see. Let me get Brandon Weikart in here. Brandon, we've had you on about Ukraine, but you wrote a brilliant book, the Shadow War, about this. I guess this, the animosity that, that the Iranians, the Persians have had with the United States. Do you agree with, you agree with Trita that we're going to be heading towards another potential conflict that could be a regime change type of conflict? Go ahead.

[Brandon Weikart]

Well, we're definitely, yeah, we're definitely headed toward a conflict. And Trita, that was an excellent article you wrote. I 100% agree with what he's saying about the timeline. I don't know from our end if we would want to do regime change, but I do think the risk is very high that we're going to get pulled into whatever the Israelis are getting ready to initiate. The point about the stockpiles is very key here, though. As you know, I was on with your show last time we were speaking about depleted stockpiles. We have not restored our own stockpiles. And so, so I don't know if it will be September ish if the conflict could begin because I'm not convinced Israel has been able to replenish their own supplies because we haven't been able to replenish our supplies, especially now with Ukraine still going on and this thing with Venezuela pop popping off soon. So I'm not convinced yet. September, but definitely toward December, I would say Trita is absolutely on the money. I just want to remind audiences, though, we should not support any regime change war in the Middle East. In fact, we should be trying to get out of the Middle east as fast as possible and worry about our own hemisphere. The problem is, though, we do need to remember the Iranian regime is not our friend. And so we're in a bit of a bind here because you've got the Zionists on one side trying to do this mowing the grass strategy, which is.

[Steve Bannon]

Not going to work.

[Brandon Weikart]

And then you've also got Islamists on the other, which we can, we can't rely on as able partners. Which is why I argue we hand off the region to the, to the Arabs and the Israelis and let them figure it out and get us out of there and stop giving the aid that we're giving to everybody because we don't have any more aid to give. So that's my, that's my view on this.

[Steve Bannon]

Can you guys hang on for a second? We're going to take a, we're going to take a short commercial break at the top of the hour. And I think President Trump, I believe the Cabinet meeting will start a little late so we can get into this. No, but Brandon, the question is we have to make sure that we can make a compelling argument that we can't get it. This is a regime change war, which the last one was. This was on that Friday morning when Fox News is sitting there and they're glazing President Trump and they're glazing Netanyahu. And you got Lindsey Graham, you got Tom Cotton. It's the greatest military strike in human history. And the Persians are going to collapse in the next six hours. No, no, they want to suck us in. It's a comment. Not just the Israelis. The Israelis, the Netanyahu part, I'm not so sure. The people oppose Netanyahu, want to get into a big regime change war with the Persians. But the Netanyahu, for political reasons, keep himself politically alive. Definitely. But don't blame it all on him. He's got these guys here in the United States. They're every bit and as bad or maybe even worse because they will look you in the eye as an American citizen and they will lie to you. You get into a regime change war in Persia, you're going to be there for 30 years.

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Short break.

[Steve Bannon]

Back in the Warman moment.

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[Steve Bannon]

Steve Bannon here.

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[Steve Bannon]

I love this guy.

[Commercial Announcer]

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[Steve Bannon]

You should read it.

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[Steve Bannon]

Com. Do it today.