Episode 5068: NEOCON's Fight For Relevance In Trump 2.0

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: Bannon’s War Room
Episode: 5068 — NEOCON's Fight For Relevance In Trump 2.0
Date: January 14th, 2026
Host(s): Natalie Winters (with Stephen K. Bannon, Jim Rickards, Mike Benz, Sam Faddis)
Theme:
An in-depth critique of neoconservative influence as the Trump movement approaches a return to power, with discussions on the prospect of US intervention in Iran, the role of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in foreign and domestic policy, the ideological battle over “America First,” and the divide between legacy neocons and MAGA Republicans. The episode provides insider analysis on the ongoing civil strife within the GOP, foreign entanglements, immigration policy, and the machinery behind global regime change.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Looming US-Israeli Attack on Iran (00:01–02:24)

• Stephen K. Bannon introduces the episode with an audio clip of the Israel Defense and Security Forum chairman confidently predicting the imminent collapse of Iran’s regime, stating, “There will be no Iranian regime...this is going to change entirely the future of Israel.” (00:01)
• Bannon frames this as a US-led, Israeli-assisted operation spurred both by Iranian aggression and by support for anti-regime demonstrators inside Iran.
• The “golden age of Israel and the Jewish people” is promised if this succeeds.

2. Neoconservatism vs. America First (02:24–15:00)

• Natalie Winters launches into a direct challenge to neoconservatism and interventionist foreign policy, arguing there is “absolutely nothing, America first, about us getting involved in Iran from a kinetic perspective.” (03:03)
• Asserts that advocating for making Iran great again is “globalist” and “a lie”—“The only difference is, you don’t have to go overseas...the loudest [calls for ‘death to America’]...just go right to Washington, D.C. and you call it what it is, the enemy within.” (05:46)
• Critiques the “original sin” of the neocon crowd: assuming US and Israeli interests are always 100% aligned—“Just because something is good for Israel does not mean that it’s good for the United States.” (09:51)
• Memorable quote: “If you get to the heart of it...intervention is the disease, not the cure.” (06:50)
• Emphasizes that MAGA’s essence is to get “our house in order” before meddling abroad, and lambastes neocons as having already lost the ideological war in 2016: “Don’t flatter yourself, it’s not a civil war because you’re not even a worthy opponent.” (08:53)
• Blames bipartisan establishment, especially Democrats, for eroding border security and using “comprehensive immigration reform” as a stalling tactic: “They want more training [for ICE]; it’s to throw sand in the wheels, right? It’s to get in the way of everything.” (12:30)
• Soundbite: “I voted for mass deportations, not mass regime change in every country except the United States.” (07:30)

3. ICE, Border Security, and Democrat Strategies (11:59–15:00)

• Democrats are pushing for new restrictions and reforms on DHS/ICE, positioning this as a public safety move.
• Winters skewers what she calls their hypocrisy and projected self-interest—“It’s quite rich, all these Democrat freaks complaining...about how our ICE agents are not competent and they’re being hired for the wrong reasons. I’m pretty sure that’s the party of DEI now complaining.” (13:51)
• Notable quote: “Suddenly we need comprehensive reform of the only agency that’s capable of carrying out mass deportations. And when they say comprehensive reform, they mean turning them into a welcome committee down at the border like they did under Obama.” (14:23)

4. National Endowment for Democracy (NED): Funding, Influence, and Espionage (19:05–28:08)

• Mike Benz delivers an exposé on the NED, characterizing it as “the most prolific, aggressive, corrupt spear tip of what you might call the deep state, the blob, Permanent Washington, Blackrock, the CIA...” (19:23)
• Outlines the agency’s origins as a CIA front, its role in color revolutions/regime change, and its present function as a “global social media censorship coordinator.”
• Discusses historic (1984, 1993) and current efforts to defund NED—“Twice in US history [the House] voted to defund the NED...Then secret backchannel deals were made through the Senate to kill the amendment.” (19:17)
• NED’s impact on online censorship, particularly after Trump’s 2016 victory: “We had a free and open Internet in this country from basically 1991 until 2016. And then suddenly the walls all closed in...” (24:11)
• Claims coordination between the NED, US intelligence agencies, and Big Tech to manage discourse and suppress populist movements: “They were already in the business of social media influence for CIA rental riot operations. Now they had to do the censorship counterinsurgency play.” (25:48)
• Cites EU Digital Services Act and NED’s behind-the-scenes role in driving censorship and Big Tech compliance (i.e., fines on Elon Musk/X).
• Memorable moment: “This is as close to treason as you can argue in a civil case—using a foreign country’s censorship laws, coordinating with them—when Mike Benz uses the word treason...” (28:08)

5. NGO Transparency, Weaponized Lawfare, and “Dark Money” (31:53–43:38)

• Mike Benz elaborates on the systemic connections between Democratic-aligned NGOs, the State Department, USAID, and legacy intelligence ties—particularly the Ford Foundation’s decades-long collaboration with the CIA. (35:35)
• Pushes for radical transparency: “All those internal communications, all of the quarterly reports, annual reports, email communications, should be public as a matter of course.” (36:51)
• Connects Democratic “dark money” (e.g., Arabella Partners) to both international and domestic influence efforts and describes strategic adaptation or retrenchment of these networks in response to MAGA-era scrutiny.
• Reveals NED’s structure: split into four arms (two Republican, two Democrat) that ensure everyone in the “swamp gets their cut”—“The IRI is like the CIA wing of the Republican Party...Then on the Democrat side you have the NDI, the NED’s DNC branch.” (41:30)

6. Protests and Crackdown in Iran: Human Rights Catastrophe (46:30–51:27)

• Sam Faddis provides an eyewitness-style update on Iran’s violent crackdown on mass protests:
  • Security forces (including IRGC and Basij) “began to confront them violently in the street. And at some point...that shifted to simply opening fire indiscriminately en masse.” (46:40)
  • Regime is now “disappearing” bodies to prevent public mourning and cover up the extent of the atrocities.
  • Even if the killings stop, “it’s because they don’t need to kill any more people. They have crushed the protest, would be my opinion.” (48:53)
• On US options and Israeli interests:
  • Military caution comes from fear of Iranian reprisal.
  • “You can wall them off and accept they’re going to continue to exist, or you can hit them hard enough to change things.” (49:23)
  • Faddis: “It’s not as simple as just bombing a few sites...It’s going to take a heck of a lot more than that to get rid of them.” (51:18)

7. Final Thoughts: The MAGA-Neocon Schism (51:52–end)

• Natalie Winters closes by reaffirming that the MAGA/Trump movement decisively defeated the neocon worldview, both ideologically and electorally, in 2016:
  • “I already getting some news that I ruffled some feathers by saying that being at civil war with the neocons, that they’re the ones flattering themselves. Well, I stand by it 100%.” (51:52)
  • “MAGA is not about doing the bidding of other countries in the name of democracy and human rights.”
  • “You know what I care about? Democracy and human rights here in the United States where we still don’t have free and fair elections and there’s still censorship going on.” (52:44)
  • “If we started it, we get to define it. How about that?” (52:59)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Bannon (00:01): “There will be no Iranian regime. And this is going to change entirely...the future of Israel.”
• Winters (03:03): “There is absolutely nothing America first about us getting involved in Iran from a kinetic perspective.”
• Winters (05:46): “You don’t have to go overseas...the loudest [calls for ‘death to America’], you just go right to Washington, D.C. and call it what it is, the enemy within.”
• Winters (09:51): “Just because something is good for Israel does not mean that it’s good for the United States. That’s not a radical thing to say...it’s the frickin' truth.”
• Benz (19:23): “[NED is] the most prolific, aggressive, corrupt spear tip of what you might call the deep state, the blob, Permanent Washington, Blackrock, the CIA...”
• Benz (24:11): “We had a free and open Internet in this country from basically 1991 until 2016. And then suddenly the walls all closed in...”
• Benz (41:30): “The IRI is like the CIA wing of the Republican Party...Then on the Democrat side you have the NDI, the NED’s DNC branch.”
• Faddis (46:40): “[Iran’s regime] just began to mow folks down. And even when they were running away...they were pursued and they were killed in the street.”
• Winters (51:52): “I stand by it 100%...MAGA is not about doing the bidding of other countries in the name of democracy and human rights...If we started it, we get to define it.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:01–02:24: Bannon on Iran’s regime collapse and US-Israeli strikes.
• 02:24–15:00: Winters on “America First,” neoconservatism, and regime change vs. domestic priorities.
• 11:59–15:00: ICE/border debate, Democrats’ policies, and “comprehensive reform.”
• 19:05–28:08: Benz on NED origins/operations; NED & internet censorship after 2016.
• 31:53–43:38: Benz on “dark money,” NGO influence, and government transparency.
• 46:30–51:27: Faddis on Iran’s human rights crisis and US/Israeli strategies.
• 51:52–end: Winters’ closing on the neocon-MAGA divide.

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Summary

The episode presents a thorough critique of neoconservatism and advocates for a populist, non-interventionist foreign policy as central to the Trump/MAGA movement. From the prospect of a US-led attack on Iran and Israeli interests, to the shadowy mechanics of the National Endowment for Democracy, through the ongoing battle over US border security and Democrat “comprehensive” reforms, the show frames these developments in high-stakes, ideological terms. The hosts and guests argue passionately that the “deep state” and neocon legacy operate in open opposition to the will of MAGA Republicans, with foreign interventionist policies and voter suppression at home representing a continued threat to “America First.” Ultimately, the War Room distinguishes itself as the self-styled ideological vanguard of MAGA, intent on defining—and policing—the boundaries of the movement as it prepares for a potential second Trump presidency.

Transcript

[Stephen K. Bannon]

That another fight with Iran and Hezbollah and possibly the Houthis is imminent. And today I can say something we couldn't have said a month ago. This regime is going down. There will be no Iranian regime. And this is going to change entirely, entirely the future of Israel. What happened? Can you describe us? It will be an American attack, It will be an Israeli American attack. So I think it's going to be an American led attack with the assistance of Israel. Iranians, even before the demonstrations, they started rearming again. They wanted revenge, they want to attack us. They want to shoot massive amounts of ballistic missiles on us. And Israel prepared for a preemptive attack. But as Israel was preparing for a preemptive attack that might have happened even today, the demonstration started and a clear message for President Trump. We are not going to let you shoot these demonstrators. We are going to defend them. And indeed, I think that we'll see in the very near future a massive American attack with the help of Israel and with the demonstrators. I think this regime stands no chance and they will fall. And I can tell you, as I said, the bigger the wind will be, the greater the golden age of Israel and the Jewish people will.

[Jim Rickards]

This is the primal scream of a dying regime, pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on these people. Christians 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.

[Mike Benz]

You'Re not going to stop it. It's going to happen. And where do people like that go.

[Jim Rickards]

To share the big line?

[Mike Benz]

MAGA media. I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.

[Jim Rickards]

Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? If that answer is to save my.

[Mike Benz]

Country, this country will be saved. War room, here's your host, Stephen K. Ban.

[Natalie Winters]

You're in the war room. It's Wednesday, January 14th in the year of our Lord 2026. It's Natalie Winters hosting today. We've got a packed show. I think we're going to have Mike Benz for most of it. He'll be joining us in B block. But we got some, some breaking news, some news of the day to go through. I want to start with that clip that we played that is essentially the chairman of the Israel Defense and Security Forum predicting, I guess more than predicting, saying that there will be a U. S led strike on the Iranian regime, giving some details. So I thought it was quite instrumental and important for Us, the war room, the real maga, OG maga, nada, neocon maga to come on here and say that there is absolutely nothing, America first, about us getting involved in Iran from a kinetic perspective, saying make Iran great again is globalist. And saying that making Iran great again is making America great again is a hoax. It is a lie. And I know that the, I would say most resounding and salient argument that you hear coming from even our side of the football that went to invade Iran, that seems like what the new goal line benchmark has become is because, oh, well, they say death to America. But here's the fundamental point about the Trump administration and why President Trump won. There are a lot of people who say death to America. The only difference is that you don't have to go overseas, you don't have to go hundreds or thousands of miles away to hear that. The loudest, I would posit, you just go right to Washington, D.C. and you call it what it is, the enemy within. And just remember how apoplectic and how the legacy media melted down when President Trump dared to use that term. Because it's those people who really want death to America. I mean, just look at their policies. Whether it's demographic change, the economic reality, there's a hardship here that is intentional. They get off on destroying your life. Right? That's the sick, twisted way that our elites work. And frankly, if you get to the heart of it, I think if we've learned anything from the last 20 years, from the last 40 years, it's not that intervention is the cure, it's actually the disease. And especially when we're getting involved in so many countries at the same time. Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party is busy conducting international affairs, global trade through the lens of how can we actually benefit the Chinese people and the Chinese economy, right? How can we extract resources? How can we extract rare earths, critical minerals, defense treaties, bases, ports, not how can we spread transgenderism? This whole color revolution idea, this whole concept of regime change that we've been pushing abroad, it's very cheap talk and frankly, it's a very low IQ justification as to why we need to get involved in trillion dollar costly invasions of every country abroad. And, you know, I don't know about you guys, but I voted for mass deportations and not mass regime change in every country except the United States. Frankly, I voted for regime change here in the United States. And frankly, I think actually going after mass deportations with the level of commitment that we have seen us meddling in the foreign affairs of Other countries is a much safer bet. Not just because it's what Americans actually voted for, but I actually think we would see better results if we threw one tenth of the resources that we've been putting into every other corner of the globe historically and right now. Right. What if we told people, oh, instead of regime change, what we're going to give you is we're just going to focus on the criminals, not the whole regime. And we're just going to, you know, focus on some, some of the economic crimes. Because that's essentially what they've watered down mass deportations to. Right. If you look at the numbers, and I don't know, I think the concept of America first is that you get our house in order, your house in order first, before you start chasing demons in every other corner of the earth, let alone at the same time. It's quite interesting, right, this whole concept of a civil war, right, that's apparently what we're in, whether it's over Israel, whether it's over the deportation. So I think that one, maybe the H1B maybe, I don't know, Vivek thinks he won, but considering he got off Twitter, I think maybe we won that one. But I would just humbly say to the Mark Levins, the Ben Shapiro's, the neocon know it alls of the world, don't flatter yourself, it's not a civil war because you're not even a worthy opponent. And do you know how I know that? Because we already won the ideological battle that was back in 2016. The American people do not want continued foreign intervention in every single country. And sure, these neocons love to tell us that every single thing that Israel wants also is uniquely and directly and 100% and precisely aligned with what the United States wants. But what they miss, frankly, the original sin of that crowd of people is that there can be overlap of interests, but it's not 100%. Just because something is good for Israel does not mean that it's good for the United States. That's not a radical thing to say. That's not an anti Semitic thing to say. It's the frickin truth. And us getting involved in Iran from a kinetic perspective when there are a hundred other ways that we could get involved or not, frankly, that's what I would do. We certainly don't need to impede what's happening there, right? We already won this so called civil war. Frankly, I think what we need more is some sort of exorcism of these people from the party because Their ideas are so horrible and they are like Moloch. They want the sacrifice of American children in every battlefield except our own. These are people who are perverting the idea of securing the southern border and not focusing on foreign entanglements abroad and to let's secure the southern border so. So we have the political cover and excuse to get involved abroad. I don't know about you, but that's not MAGA to me. You know all these people who are like the least American I've ever seen. Apparently I've been told by what Ilhan Omar that Somalians built this country. I know the 1619 project was pretty woke, but I don't think that even they said that. But these are the people who are now telling us what it means to be America. It's in the same way that Muslims tell us, you know, well, Islam means peace. No it doesn't. It means submission in neocon ideology and getting involved in these foreign wars, whether it's Iran or wherever. It doesn't mean democracy and it doesn't mean freedom. And here in the war room, we're smart enough to see through that. It means death. And it doesn't just mean death in the countries we're invading. It means death here at home. And it means distracted resources, wasted resources, and a distraction of what really matters, which is the enemy within. If our variable for the type of people that we are going after are those who say death to America, then I'd start in Washington D.C. and frankly, I'd start in the Democrat party. You don't need to go all the way overseas to the ayatollahs to hear that being uttered. Speaking of that, there's a great Politico article, some breaking news up talking about how Democrats are basically, they don't want to fund ice. The real buried lead is that they're trying to figure out a way to euphemistically spin the fact that they hate this country and that they actually think that our borders should just completely dissipate. And here's a quote. Democrats are demanding new rules for DHS agents, such as forcing them to use body cameras, refrain from wearing masks, and to go through more extensive training. I would say they should apply those rules or policies to their own shock troops. The protesters. Maybe they could stop wearing masks. Frankly, they probably need better training, at least from a defensive driving perspective. But there's some really interesting quotes that I want to hone in on. You guys know we like to stay ahead of the curve here in the war room. But the messaging on this is going to be really important. We have a clip. If we have time, we'll play it. But basically all the Democrat leadership contributed to this article saying, quote, more importantly, we need to look out for the American people. Right now they are terrorizing people on the streets of this country. There's a culture of violence that happening that does need to be addressed. That's in reference to ICE agents. And I would say to those asinine Democrats, if you guys care about terrorism and violence and keeping our streets safe, then maybe I would stop defending the importation and let alone letting criminal twice thrice quadruple convicted rapists, gang members and criminals stay in this country in the name of human rights and saying that diversity is our strength. But I guess they only care about terrorism and crime if it has to do with ICE agents whose I believe, other kind of modus operandi and sole focus is actually preventing that from happening. And here's the real tell, and this is put money on it. This is what you're going to keep hearing. They're opposing new DHS funding, quote, because unless there are meaningful and significant reforms to immigration enforcement practices. Now, for those of you who have watched this show for a while or tuned in to any form of politics for a while, you know that the number one term that you hear anytime, anytime it comes to anything related to immigration on both sides of the aisle is comprehensive immigration reform. Remember, remember that one, the Gang of Eight amnesty?

[Sam Faddis]

Right.

[Natalie Winters]

It just sort of, I don't know, maybe evolves every few years, but that's always the core of it. And now they've pivoted instead of comprehensive immigration reform because they know they're not going to get a lot on that front. Now it's comprehensive reform of ICE and these agents. And by the way, the only reason that they're throwing out, they want more training. It's to throw sand in the wheels, right? It's to get in the way of everything that's going on and to make it so we don't have the manpower to carry this out. I would also just add that it's quite rich, all these Democrat freaks complaining to Politico about how our ICE agents are not competent and they're being hired for the wrong reasons. I'm pretty sure that that's the party of DEI now complaining and projecting that they think ICE is doing the very same thing, not just that they pushed for, but that they tried to legally mandate and enforce and shove down your throat in this country for. But now all of a sudden, now they think there's something wrong with hiring unqualified people. I don't know about you, but I think I'm old enough to remember the apoplexy over how if you dared to say, well, we can't hire unqualified people, that you are somehow racist. And by the way, I would also add that I'm so glad there's this newfound respect for law enforcement and Border Patrol and ICE agents and dhs, et cetera, from Democrats. Well, then I don't know about you guys. Have you heard anything from them condemning the wild and rogue Secret Service agent who was basically doxing the Vice President's location and advance details to James o'? Keefe? He did wonderful work on that video. Maybe that's where we need reform. Yeah, so funny. Did you ever hear any of these members of Congress complaining about how much reform we need after Butler and Secret Service agents selection? No. I guess it's only when it's convenient, right? Because now suddenly we need comprehensive reform of the only agency that's capable of carrying out mass deportations. And when they say comprehensive reform, they mean turn them into a welcome committee down at the border like they did under Obama, and handcuff them so they have basically no power to do anything and throw sand in the gears, make it so they can't even enforce President Trump's agenda. But I don't know, maybe we're too busy doing mass regime change abroad to focus on the real issues here at home. And you want to know what the enemy within is? It's the people who said those quotes I just read to you. We've got a packed show, like I said. I think we got Mike Benz joining us, maybe Sam Faddis. Later in the hour, some breaking news with the National Endowment for Democracy, which we're going to get into after this break.

[Jim Rickards]

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[Natalie Winters]

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[Sam Faddis]

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[Natalie Winters]

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[Jim Rickards]

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[Mike Benz]

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[Sam Faddis]

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[Mike Benz]

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[Natalie Winters]

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[Mike Benz]

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[Natalie Winters]

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[Progressive Guest]

We must, we must reform ICE. But it looks at this stage, folks, ICE is beyond reform. ICE is totally out of control. And this week I intend to introduce a bill to abolish ICE. We need to make ICE go away. 2003 Before 2003, without ICE, various federal agencies were able to take care of business and we can do this without ice, but we do not need the murderers. We do not need this paramilitary organizations members on our street.

[Natalie Winters]

Actually, I think we need to make that guy go away. I would probably support deporting him. I'm sure if you look into the background there, there's probably some sort of visa fraud. But I digress. We've got serious matters to get to that is we got Mike Benz joining us. Mike, you know how we do it here in the war room when you're on, I'm going to let you take it away. I know you're working on some new stuff when it comes to funding the National Endowment for Democracies. Everything going on there. So fill us in.

[Mike Benz]

Well, this is one of the most important days potentially in modern American history. If the amendment to defund the National Endowment for Democracy can pass. I say one of because the House has indeed twice in US history voted to defund the National Endowment for democracy. Once in 1984 and once in 1993. Both times the House overwhelmingly voted to defund it. And then secret back channel deals were made through the Senate to kill the amendment. So it didn't appear in the final bill. But this will at least set us up for that fight with the Senate if this does indeed go through. And the reason this is so important is because the National Endowment for Democracy is the most prolific, aggressive, corrupt spear tip of what you might call the deep state, the blob, Permanent Washington blackrock, the CIA. Whatever face you want to put on it, I guarantee you it is a face one of many in the funhouse mirrors of what Ned Wares for folks who have not followed this issue as closely, the national down for Democracy was set up in 1983 in large part by the CIA itself. CIA Director Bill Casey at the time and the Reagan administration were stressed out that the CIA's powers had been cut back in the late 1970s after the church Committee hearings. And they felt like the CIA couldn't do, wasn't authorized to do the kind of dirty black ops that it used to have the power to do before the late 1970s. And so given that there was a Democrat control over the House of Representatives at the time, they didn't feel that they could legislatively undo it. And so they used a cheeky little maneuver to create a new agency funded by the Executive Branch. Well, agency, whatever you want to call it, it's technically an ngo, but it's fully funded by the US government. It reports to the US Government and it has a variety of very interesting secret agreements with the US Government. Its founders bragged that it was set up to fund the organizations that the CIA can no longer directly fund or that it would be too scandalous if the CIA gave them the money. And so Ned basically confessed to being the CIA's bagman. And it was the, the, the CIA director is who actually back channeled the deal. In 1984, just one year after it was created, the House voted by about a 50 vote majority to defund Ned because they said it was too close to the CIA and already been caught doing CIA dirty work as an outside ngo, completely unauthorized and with no bookkeeping effectively. And then the CIA director, Bill Casey then worked out a deal with the Democrat Senator Bill Proxmire to have the Senate kill the House defunding. And today Ned is probably the number one global social media censorship coordinator. So when you take the fact that it was set up by the CIA, its own founders confess that it runs, it operates for the CIA, that it has this cloak and dagger relationship where there's no transparency about it because they signed a secret agreement to classify all grants that it gives out and that it's the number one global coordinator of the censorship industrial complex. That's a pretty bad combination. We used to call that Operation Mockingbird, but that seems quite quaint and pale in comparison to what we're talking about here. So the idea that there's now at least a bill to defund this. Now I think a large part of this was because the Senate Appropriations Committee under Susan Collins, Republican, you know, with friends like this, who needs enemies.

[Progressive Guest]

Put.

[Mike Benz]

In the, in the draft bill a few about a week ago or so, full funding for the national down for democracy, which the Trump omb, the Office of Management and Budget wanted to zero out to zero last year. And so what you have right now is this never Trump Republican wing of the GOP under Susan Collins and however many friends she and you know, and her colleagues can muster against the Trump White House running into each other. And what we're, what, what this vote will prove is really where we are going into the 2026 midterms in terms of how many Trump Republicans there are in Congress versus how many of the kind of deep permanent swamp Republicans there are. And this is about as pure a metric for determining that as anything I've ever seen.

[Natalie Winters]

And just walk us through a little bit. I mean you're so good at the vast apparatus of all these organizations, but when you say that this could be a, not one of the most important days in history, obviously that attributes A lot of significance to this body. Just walk, walk us through why, why that is the case.

[Mike Benz]

Well, everything that since Trump first ran for office, we had a free and open Internet in this country from basically 1991 until 2016. And then suddenly the walls all closed in and everything from every angle. You know, it started with Russian disinformation and anything that you did to, you know, challenge any aspect of the Blob, whether it's immigration, war policy, war funding, supporting Trump against Hillary Clinton, it seemed like basically everything started to be censored all at once. And it was shadowy forces from all different parts of our society. It came from certain government agencies, it came from certain private corporations, it came from certain university centers, it came from certain international NGOs, it came from certain foreign regulatory authorities. Well, who's coordinating all of them was one of the big questions that haunted many of the people who could feel that something was doing this, something was coordinating this, but couldn't name what it is. And I'm here to tell you once again, it's the National Endowment for Democracy. That's what it was in 2016 when Russiagate got started, when Hillary Clinton hatched her plan to frame Trump as a Russian agent and the CIA and the FBI and the ODNI and the Obama White House went along with it and poured gasoline all over it and set up a special prosecutor. As soon as Trump stepped into office in 2017, the National Demo for democracy began working on the problem of Russian disinformation online. Don't you know Trump is an illegitimate president, don't you know? And Russian disinformation and bot farms and fake accounts are everywhere. It's fake news, spreading fake accounts. Well, the national down for democracy using its then 40 plus year pastiche of network connections in civil society, in NGO world, in the US Government, in foreign governments, in the corporate affairs worlds, and within the social media companies who they had worked with to help overthrow foreign governments. Like during, like they did during the Arab Spring. The national down for democracy together with Twitter and Facebook, same thing as they did in the Crimea revolution, same thing as they did in dozens of countries. They were already in the business of social media influence for CIA rental riot operations. Now they had to do the censorship, counterinsurgency play, but they already had all the network connections and so they were first movers in space. And because they had the backing of the US Government and every embassy in the region and basically every aspect of the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department or USAID that hated Trump but didn't want to get caught being duplicitous at their desk could outsource the dirty ops to a NED Grant. And that's what happened. I'll give you a great example. Elon Musk got fined $140 million X did for not for basically defying the EU Digital Censorship Act's requirements to allow them to police narratives that are available to users on X. Well, the National Endowment for Democracy was one of the main one of the significant forces behind the EU Digital Censorship Act. I just posted on my X feed a planning coordinating zoom call they all had about this about how to use the the EU Digital Censorship act to put huge fines on X in order to force them to give the old jobs back to the trust and safety team that Elon fired. I mean this is I don't this is as close to treason as you can argue in a civil case using a foreign country censorship laws, coordinating with.

[Natalie Winters]

Them when when Mike Benz uses the word treason and you also know that that's time for me to say we gotta go to break, but hang through more Mike Benz after the short commercial break.

[Jim Rickards]

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[Mike Benz]

Here's your host, Stephen K. Band.

[Natalie Winters]

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[Mike Benz]

Let me touch on that first and then I'll connect it to ned. So first, this is unsurprising when I read that reporting from Gabe Kaminsky that that is consistent with sort of what I expected. There is a bipartisan unspoken social contract, if you will. It was violated in the past through things like Arctic Frost and the mass investigation of right wing NGOs if you will, right wing nonprofits like the Heritage foundation and the Conservative Institute, Conservative Partnership Institute and the like by the FBI. It was obviously there's the famous Lois Lerner IRS scandal targeting the Tea Party affiliated nonprofits. But given that that's kind of a Nuclear weapon if the other party takes power. I had been watching with some eagerness to see how exactly the second Trump administration would navigate that. The fact is, is the political left does have a much vaster NGO ecosystem than the right, but the rights are still a significant and very, very powerful pillar of everything from thought leadership to funding to all manner of kind of the political soup that goes into running an administration and putting out a campaign. Even though these things are not supposed to operate like that. They not only do on both sides, but they. Neither party is particularly shy about, about the blurring the lines there. But the fact is, is what I read in that reporting to me is also kind of the logic that gets into the lawfare issue. I don't know whether the reticence to pull the trigger on prosecutions of very high profile, outright criminal actors in the Democrat Party is because of a fear of retribution by Democrats that if you go hard on them, they'll go hard on you when they get into power. But then it's like, okay, then what do you do about the fact that they weapon, weaponized and completely abused that power and destroyed countless lives there? And I think this, you know, the reason Democrats were shy to pull the trigger until Trump announced his run for office was because they didn't want to set in motion a tit for tat, you know, endless. You know, every election means everybody else goes from the other party goes to jail, like what plays out in so many other countries. The problem is they did it. And it's the same thing with the NGO fraud ops. And you know, the fact that it took Lindsay Harrington to try to bring charges against Comey when it was out and out, smoking gun proof of perjury, to bring charges against Letitia James when it was out and out, smoking gun proof of mortgage fraud, and the fact that it's, there's, besides that there's really been no Justice Department prosecutions, I suspect that there's been something similar as an analogy for what's happening in terms of taking on the, the foundations. I don't know what the exact thought process is, but I do think there's still a way to achieve a substantial amount of, of the victory without using the criminal justice system. And that is through a mass transparency effort. See, Unlike many Republican NGOs, Democrat and aligned NGOs have a much more robust relationship with the US State Department, USAID and with other US government funded grantees, as well as through the Department of Labor and the Department of Energy and Department of Education. I mean, you name it There is this US Government cloak and dagger NGO relationship which is allowed to operate under a shroud of secrecy because these grants and activities, so called, promote US Interests. For example, all of the grants that all the activities that the Open Society foundation has participated in with various local US Embassies, with USAID and the like, or for that matter, with our intelligence services. I believe that one of the best ways to try to get reform here is, is through sunlight, not necessarily direct criminal action. Especially, you know, you don't want to just go on a fishing expedition just because you don't like the other party. But the fact is, if you use secrecy as a sword to do dirty work abroad, you can no longer hold up that sword as a shield if you're doing dirty work at home, if you're doing campaign or political work at home, or you're supporting various politically infused issues and the like. And so I believe that that whole shroud of secrecy around liberal, these liberal international NGOs and their relationship with state CIA, USAID has to be completely unclassified to the extent that it's classified and has to be completely made public to the extent that it's, quote, sbu, sensitive but unclassified, meaning it can't be declassified because it's not classified in the first place, but it can't be made public. Well, I believe that if you operate at home, you lose that ability to do that work abroad. So, and you really don't have that on this side. You don't have like heritage getting $100 million grants to influence some election in Kosovo like you do with liberal NGOs that operate here. I mean, take the Ford foundation, for example. The Ford foundation was working with the CIA since the 1940s. The 1940s, late 1940s. And the Ford foundation is still around as a basically Democrat party surrogate. Its relationship is now largely with the State Department and USAID and the like. But when exactly did its relationship with the CIA, which it had for 30 years, go away? But the point is, is I believe that all those internal communications, all of the quarterly reports, annual reports, email communications, should be public as a matter of course, rather than sort of being treated as a kind of covert operation because we want to swing an election in Kosovo and the Ford foundation network is passing through grants to help us here. Does that make sense?

[Natalie Winters]

Yeah, I guess. My question, and maybe it will help us better understand too, this apparatus that you're talking about, though in some cases it sound like they don't totally have to rebrand, right? They're still getting their money. The grants may be a little less now that USAID has been shut down. But how have they sort of morphed their strategy in these past few months in response to whether it's the rhetoric or some of the actions and we'll give credit where credit is due that the Trump administration has done or is it just kind of some same old tactics just kind of, you know, waiting the Trump administration out?

[Mike Benz]

Well, it's been really interesting to watch it because one of the most prolific, notorious and powerful of these dark money nonprofits on the liberal side was Arabella Partners. And Arabella has Wound down probably should have been a bigger headline than I think many people now now remember to be. But Arabella Partners had this partnership network of hundreds of NGOs. It was just a dark money fund that would disguise payments all throughout the ecosystem. And it seemed like two weeks after the Trump administration designated antifa an international terrorist classification for many of their cells in Switzerland and I believe Spain and one or two other countries, Arabella just I don't know if those two things are related, but I do think that it's interesting that I mean that's something on par with the Open Society foundation itself kind of, you know, closing up. And I don't know if there were investigations that set that off. I don't know if it was fear of investigations. It's hard for me to not imagine the latter was the case. But on the just to circle back to the National Download for Democracy as these these votes are being tallied as we speak, it's interesting to observe that I don't know how this vote is going to go. It's the problem with shutting down the National Endowment for Democracy is not Democrats, even though the National Endowment for Democracy is overwhelmingly Democrat. It's it was spent the past 10 years doing political CIA adjacent black ops to kill Trumpism as a movement and kill basically every Trump aligned government on planet Earth. And yet at the same time you will see, mark my words, a robust amount of Republicans number of Republicans on the floor today who will vote to fund the national down for Democracy. Now part of this is because they were very clever with the way they structured this. When the CIA and the Reagan National Security Council first put this together, they made sure to make sure everybody in the swamp got their cut. So they set up the national down for democracy with four branches, two political cores and then two other cores that almost correspond to it. So the four cores are something called the NDI, the IRI CPay and the Solidarity center the IRI is the international Republican Institute. That's the, you can think of it like the CIA wing of Republicans of the Republican Party. It's the internationalist branch of the RNC that, you know, our intelligence agencies basically do favors for to create markets for our oil companies, our agriculture companies, our tech companies, our retailers, our, you know, you name it. Basically, you know, International Debt Collector Service Intelligence Agency, you know, Confessions of an Economic Hitman type thing. That's basically the way it's, it's always operated, you know, from, from the days of Bush and before. But then on the Democrat side you have something called the ndi, which is the National Democratic Institute, which is the NEDS DNC branch. And so you have right there, the National Democrat for Democracy is equally funding Republicans and Democrats now. Its leadership reflects that. By the way, on the IRI board.

[Natalie Winters]

You had Mike, I hate to do this and the audience is going to kill me, but still have to get to Sam Fatis and I'm going to have you back the next time I host. But in the meantime, if people want to follow you, read all of this, stay up to date with all of this. It's so critical. I feel horrible cutting you off. But where can they go to that?

[Mike Benz]

Follow me on X at Mike Ben Cyber, also on YouTube and Rumble.

[Natalie Winters]

Thank you, Mike. I like how, you know when I do that, it means we have no time. So you do that very quickly. Thank you. Thank you to Mike. And like I said, we got Sam Fatis with us after the break. Just wanted to get an update on everything going down in Iran. We will be right back after this short break. To the end.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Just watch and see it's all started Everything's begun and you are over.

[Natalie Winters]

This were taken down the CCP Spread the word all through Hong Kong we will fight till they're all gone we rejoice.

[Jim Rickards]

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[Mike Benz]

War Room here's your host, Stephen K. Ban.

[Natalie Winters]

Criminals can forge your signature on one document, use a fake notary stamp, pay a small fee with your county and boom. Your home title has been transferred out of your name. They can take out loans using your equity or even sell your property. So let me ask you, when was the last time you checked your home title? Probably never. And that's what scammers are counting on. That's why you should use Home Title lock. Use promo code stick steveometitleck.com to make sure your title is still in your name, where you'll also get a free title history report plus a free 14 day trial of their million dollar triple lock protection 24. 7 monitoring of your title. Urgent alerts to any changes in a fraud should happen. They'll spend up to $1 million to fix it. Hometitleock.com now use promo code Steve welcome back to the War room. We got Sam Fatis. Sam, we've only got a few minutes left, but I wanted to bring you on to give us your assessment of the latest. With everything going on in Iran, I will stop talking and let you roll until. Until we got a bounce.

[Sam Faddis]

Well, look, there have been protests all across Iran now for weeks. These are not minor, these are major. They have clearly been a threat to the regime that is legitimate. That's real. Starting four or five days ago now, I'm losing track of time, the regime began to confront them violently in the street. And at some point over the last few days, four days probably at this point, that shifted to simply opening fire indiscriminately en masse against people in the street. So that doesn't mean police officers were authorized to use lethal force when they were compelled to. It means regime forces, which includes IRGC and what they call the besiege, which are essentially their thugs to keep people in line, went out in the street and just began to mow folks down. And even when they were running away and trying to flee, they were pursued and they were killed in the street. And even when they were wounded and dragged off to the hospital, in some cases they were hunted down in the hospital and executed in the hospital. And then these bodies have been dumped in collection sites all across the country and families are now reduced to Going and picking through hundreds of corpses in each location trying to find their. They're largely their kids who were executed. And then on top of that, what the regime has done is impose essentially a prohibition on funerals and public burials, which is obviously designed to sort of. Essentially, this is all about disappearing people, right? So you don't want to have events at which people can show up in large numbers and mourn and pay their respects. You want these bodies to just be put in the ground and go away and for everyone to be everyone to shut up and pretend that it didn't happen. So that is the state of play. I understand the president has now said that the killings have stopped. I can't confirm that. I assume he has good information to rely upon. I would just say if the killings have stopped, it's because they don't need to kill any more people. They have crushed the protest, would be my opinion.

[Natalie Winters]

And just give us the latest on our side of the fence, where you think we stand with our kind of, you know, coas, our potential options, what we could do there and your thoughts on getting involved kinetically.

[Sam Faddis]

Well, the best understanding I have is that there was some delay in the military options because Iran had made it crystal clear that if they were hit, they were going to retaliate against our forces in the Middle East. And the military was saying we need more time to get prepared to withstand that and counter that. I don't know where we stand on whether we're going to proceed with. With these attacks. I mean, what I can tell you from long experience working against the ayatollahs is they don't really under. They don't care. They understand, but they don't care about discussion or they're not seeking accommodation, they're not seeking coexistence. So you can isolate them, wall them off and sort of accept that they're going to continue to exist, or you can hit them hard enough to change things. But discussion with them is. Is pointless. In, in my estimation, they. Their worldview is such that they do not seek accommodation. They not interested in getting along with us again, you can wall them off and say we'll accept that they've sort of been walled off from the rest of the world, or we can do what is required to take them down. Obviously, if we start talking about kinetic action, everybody, including me, is going to be concerned about how far that goes. God knows we do not want troops on the ground inside Iran.

[Natalie Winters]

We've got about a minute left, but we opened the show with a clip of one of the, I think the chairman of the Israel Defense and Security Forum saying that it sounds like the cake is already baked, that, you know, America is going to get involved with Israel and strike Iran and that the regime will be gone. How does Israel play into this? Or what do they want from us?

[Sam Faddis]

Well, the Israelis want the ayatollahs gone and they would love for us to hit them hard enough to do that. I mean, look, I no love for the ayatollahs. I worked against them for years and they're monsters. It's not as simple as just bombing a few sites in Iran and the regime will topple. They've been bombed many times. They're still in power. It's going to take, it's going to take a heck of a lot more than that to get rid of them.

[Natalie Winters]

Sam Favas, if people want to follow you, stay up to date with everything that you're working on. The sub stack, the magazine. Where can they go to do all that?

[Sam Faddis]

Yeah, the best place to find us is at Substack and magazine and magazine, substack.com and then we're all over the net. But that'll get you there.

[Natalie Winters]

Thank you, sir, for joining us. We appreciate it.

[Sam Faddis]

Thank you.

[Natalie Winters]

Warren Posse. Thank you guys for hanging with me today. I already getting some news that I ruffled some feathers by saying that being at civil war with the neocons, that they're the ones flattering themselves. Well, I stand by it 100%. In fact, I don't. Even when Steve says pray for your enemies, I don't even really consider them as part of that because we beat them in 2016. We won that. We won against them on the ideological front. We beat them at the ballot box. We're way past the Bush Republican days. And anyone who's trying to pull you back into that, it's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Maybe Invasion of the Ballot Snatchers is what we can can use in this context. MAGA is not about doing the bidding of other countries in the name of democracy and human rights. You know what I care about? Democracy and human rights here in the United States where we still don't have free and fair elections and there's still censorship going on. So maybe focus on that then. Maybe. Maybe. Although still I would say no, we can focus elsewhere, but that's not America First. And you know, here, the one room, we are the home of America First. We, if we started it, we get to define it. How about that? I hope you guys have a good one and I will See you soon.

[Jim Rickards]

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