
Episode 5197: Economy Shifts As Iran War Continues ...
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Stephen K. Bannon
This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on these people. I got a free shot at all these networks lying about the people. The people have had a belly full of it. I know you don't like hearing that. I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it. It's going to happen. And where do people like that go to share the big lie? MAGA MEDIA I wish in my soul I w that any of these people had a conscience. Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose?
Dr. Bradley Thayer
If that answer is to save my
Stephen K. Bannon
country, this country will be saved. War ROOM here's your host, Stephen K. Ban. I want to make sure I welcome it is Saturday 7th March in the year of our Lord 2026. Hour two I got Dr. Thayer. I want to make sure everybody takes advantage over this weekend on this special that we have from Tax Network USA. Call 866-513-5516. That's 866-513-5516. Make sure you check it out. Today you get a free discovery call. You call that number. That number set up just for the Warren posse. There's any confusion about what you think you owe. Maybe you got a letter from the irs, anything. This is the tax service that will give you a free discovery call. Normally costs hundreds if not thousands of dollars to find out kind of what's the bid and the ask what does the IRS say you owe? What do you think you owe? And they'll walk you through it. And after you hear the discovery call, they walk you through it. If you're so inclined, you sign them up and they can get right into it with the irs. They've saved or solved billions of dollars of tax issues for people and they can solve yours. There's nothing in your tale of woe that they have not heard before many times and negotiated many times. So go check it out today. Tax Network usa. Cameron Kinsey over there, formerly in the White House, she was a terrific staffer with Johnny McEntee and the team over there in the first Trump administration and she did a terrific job. And now she's over Text network got this for the Warren posse. Dr. Thayer, I want to pull the camera back for a second to ask you on this Saturday morning, given everything we got going on militarily, you've seen the methodical way that the CENTCOM is going down this target set to make sure what President Trump calls unconditional surrender. He has now been a little more precise and says when they don't have the ability militarily to either project power on their own people or project power against their neighbors, that's what he thinks is unconditional surrender when they don't have the ability to do it anymore. But the concern a lot of people have is with the Russians supposedly giving targeting information. You got the CCP out there, this is now going. There have been certain missiles launched towards Turkey and Cyprus, Azerbaijan, I think up and near the Caspian Sea also the Gulf is being hit. You have people concerned. Is this metastasizing into even forming up with Gaza in the Ukraine as a broader part of the kinetic part of the third World War? Sir,
Dr. Bradley Thayer
great to join you. It might be my concern would be this, that when he talks about unconditional surrender and Caroline Levitt yesterday on Friday said that when the President determines that a Iran no longer poses that threat, that's when under unconditional surrender will take place. But my concern is.
Stephen K. Bannon
Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on right there, hang on right there, hang on right there. I want to be very precise. When Caroline came out and said that poses that threat, define that threat, because the President said it and then Caroline said it, I think we can use that as a benchmark. When he said no longer, they no longer can have that threat, what does she mean by that?
Dr. Bradley Thayer
Well, there's an element of ambiguity there. I think what she's saying is this. My interpretation is this, when they no longer have the military capabilities to harm their neighbors or to harm their people, that's when unconditional surrender will take place. And she envisioned the campaign lasting four to six weeks in her statements on Friday. So my concern is this, that you take a war against the theocracy, which is a limited war now, and we're turning it into a potentially into a total war against the Persian people, which is a different type of war. So the war against the theocracy is, has great support in Iran among the Persian people and among the ethnic minorities that live in Iran, principally the Azeris, who are about 16% of the population, and the Kurds, which are about 10% of the population. So you can see there that about one out of every four people living in Iran is either Azeri or Kurdish. If we say unconditional warfare against Iran so that they no longer have the ability to harm their neighbors or to harm the population, my fear is that this turns this into a nationalist element begins to surface and the Persian people will begin to unite around the Theocracy, which is what we don't want, about six out of every 10 people living in Iran is Persian. And so that's a concern. The air campaign, the military campaign more broadly does seem to be on track to attritting Iran's air forces. Of course.
Stephen K. Bannon
Hang on, I want to go through. You laid out five elements the other day, five elements of this campaign. I want to do an update. And I agree with you 100%. If the Persian people, this turns into a nationalistic, that it's about the nation of Persia, these people will dig in, even some people potentially allies of ours. And that's why it's a very thin line.
Commercial Announcer
And especially on some of these bombing
Stephen K. Bannon
campaigns that CENTCOM as the execution department of policy is really under pressure here. And that's why maybe not having all diminutions that we originally thought we were gonna have cause we're giving them to Ukraine. They've been in Gaza. You know, some of the, some of these precision instruments, when you're talking about I'm going to have to use gravity bombs. Well, even with some precision guidance on gravity bombs, they're still generally, it's generally gravity. And that puts any more pressure on centcom. And you're right, you don't want to segue in to have a fight with the Persian people as a nationalist entity, then these folks could dig in. I mean, it's 90 million people, 6 or so what, 55 million Persians, some of whom hate the regime. A lot of them that are underneath are Zoroastrians. Right. They hate it. But if it has to be, you know, it's an ancient and proud people. So if it doesn't, you know, if you turn it to that, you could have a long, tough fight in your hand. Now, you laid out five elements the other day of how you grade the military campaign from centcom. Let's go through that and see what your grade is today, certainly.
Dr. Bradley Thayer
Well, the underlying point is that this is attritional warfare, right? This is like Muhammad Ali fighting Joe Frazier. We're pounding on the Iranian and so. But we need to recognize Iran really in this campaign. There's five. It's a five front war. The first front really is the missile front. Ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, the UAV drone campaign. And here there does seem to be progress in a trading that is grinding down due to their own launches as well as what Israel and the United States have been able to destroy. Second is the air war. And the air war seems to be very successful from our perspective. The corridors have been Cut into Iran, the shoulders have been widened and there has been successful destruction of enemy air defenses. So they do seem to be suppressed, although there's always the possibility, of course, that they're lying in wait and they ambush American bombers or American aircraft or allied aircraft. The third front really is the naval war, straight up Hormuz, as well as more broadly. And here we have some concern, of course, Steve, as you stressed in the last few days on War Room, that Iran is using a variety of measures to intimidate, which is to coerce through the threat of attacks, actual attacks, and the threat of more attacks to come, naval traffic, civilian traffic in the Gulf and in the Strait. Then we have the ground front. Fourthly, the ground front would be purportedly led by the Kurds, potentially with backing from the US Intelligence community, from Israel's intelligence community, and potentially other actors as well, to serve as the boots on the ground, to serve as a ground force that would be able to seize and hold territory within Iran that might be used as bastions or that might be used to project additional attacks, ground attacks against Iran. And then the fifth and final would be this. The front is also the fifth front is proxies the fact that the war is expanding. And this is shown most clearly in Lebanon, where you have a proxy war between Hezbollah and Israel. Although with Iran's strong support for terrorism, we can see that proxy attacks occur. For example, the attack in Austin, Texas, that we've had, that we might see other attacks and sustained attacks due to the fact that there are Iranian sleeper cells operating in the United States. So when we think about the war, the kinetic aspect of the war, right. Leaving aside the economic aspect of it, leaving aside the political aspect of it, we see those five fronts going on simultaneously today. And there's variation in success. The US has been very successful in sinking Iran's navy and keeping Hormuz open. We can see that the Fifth Fleet, though, is going to be tasked with a very great responsibility to ensure that civilian traffic is able to transit the Strait. The missile campaign, again, as a result of Iranian launches and Israeli US Strikes, has been successful at destroying any fixed launcher, but also finding what they call the tels, the transporter erector launcher, vehicles that would actually carry ballistic missiles. But that's an ongoing campaign, and it's quite reasonable to suspect that Iran is husbanding some ballistic missiles. They launched a lot at the outset of the war. And then you see a fall off because of the success of the air campaign, but also because of Iran's desire strategically to keep some of those ballistic missiles and their TELs in reserve so that they can be launched to lengthen the war, to draw out the war. And for Israel and the United States never to be sure that we've been able to destroy all of their ballistic missiles. Likewise, the air war, their air defenses seem to be greatly weakened as a result of the cyber actions that we've likely taken in conjunction with Israel and the kinetic actions that we've taken with Israel. But we always worry about essentially a surface to air missile, an ambush of an aircraft, the ground war. Steve, we worry about that a lot because of the possibility. If you're using Kurds, that's going to cause a Persian nationalist reaction. If you're using Kurds to break down the door on the ground and to seize a chunk of Iran, the Persian people are going to react to that, I would suspect vociferously. And that's going to feed support for the regime. And that's not an outcome that we want. And then of course, the proxy front will be ongoing. As long as this war is right, we will always be worried about a terrorist attack in the United States on American soil or against US Military targets abroad or against allies of towards.
Stephen K. Bannon
Do you think as CENTCOM goes down, what I refer to as the punch list or the target set, however you want to describe it, and you can answer this after the break, I'm pretty sure we're going to keep you for a short period of time in the next segment, as CENTCOM goes through systematically this punch list in those five categories or at least three of the categories of war to make sure that we've degraded and or destroyed because President Trump now saying there's no need for combat troops because we're going to so destroy what they've got as they do that is one of the concerns how this is metastasizing on Persian versus Arab, Muslim versus Muslim as this metastasizes into the, into the Gulf. The Financial Times of London, the Wall Street Journal, of course, obviously Bloomberg, they're very focused on something they should be focused on and that's oil assets being
Commercial Announcer
taken offline in the Gulf.
Stephen K. Bannon
Whether that is the tanker fleet, whether it is refineries, desalination plants, all of the gas fields, all of it. We're gonna take a short commercial break. We're gonna return to Saturday Morning in the Warm in just a moment.
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Stephen K. Bannon
War room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.
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Dr. Bradley Thayer.
Stephen K. Bannon
Thank you for giving us time on a Saturday morning, Persian versus Arab. Because to me this is the most fascinating part of this so far is that and this is a big, big time military campaign, folks ought to understand that. And since as you guys know, I was a young naval officer over there in the North Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf, it amazes Me, you know, 47 years later, the types of power, naval power we can project that we couldn't project back then. So as a former naval officer, it's awe inspiring what's happening. That being said, what really? And Dr. Thayer, you were just in Australia, if we'd asked you at the time, I think all of us have been stunned to see Persian versus Arab, Shia versus Sunni, this kind of outright attacks
Commercial Announcer
in the Gulf on oil assets,
Stephen K. Bannon
desalination plants, and quite frankly, I think the Saudis and other people punching back. Your thoughts about that, is that the new center of gravity in this war?
Dr. Bradley Thayer
I think it's a key element of the war. I think what the Iran has done, it has escalated the war horizontally by attacking the Gulf sheikdoms in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan and many other states as well. Their effort is to undermine support for the US There's a logic for what they're doing, a military logic, strategic logic for what they're doing. They want to inflict pain on the Arab states. And then by so doing, of course, that also reveals the cleavages the tensions that exist between Sunni and Shia Arabs, Iranians, largely Shia, and between Persians and Arabs. So Iran's efforts to hurt the US to draw out the campaign and inflict pain on the Arabs is to a degree self defeating because it generating, at least at the elite level, support. Another issue which needs to be addressed is that by attacking Azerbaijan, remember, 16% of the population of Iran is Azeri. So by attacking Azerbaijan, you're opening up a window for Azerbaijan to reach out to essentially their population, the diaspora population in Iran, likewise for the Kurds. So by Iran escalating and again there's a logic to do that, they're also complicating their strategic situation. They're adding to their enemies and they're adding to the might arranged against them. Their calculus must be, at least with the Arabs, that there'll be a revolt, that at the mass level in the Gulf sheikdoms, the people don't support the US and they don't support this war and they don't support essentially their governments. That's. There's a logic there, but whether that's going to obtain.
Stephen K. Bannon
Well, part of the logic, part of the logic is they see, they see this as the Israeli Anglo, the Israeli American demons going after, going after, going after Muslims.
Commercial Announcer
Go ahead.
Dr. Bradley Thayer
Right. Saddam Hussein attacked Israel, right. As a way to draw in the, in Desert Storm, desert shield in 91, Sadd attacked Israel as a way to essentially break up the coalition as well as attacking Saudi as well as attacking the Gulf sheikdoms, Bahrain very famously. So again, there's that military logic there. But whether that's going to be successful or not is certainly very difficult to see.
Stephen K. Bannon
You're following the war very closely. Where do people go on your Twitter feed? You're also working on a huge book that we'll talk about that hopefully comes out this spring, if not early summer. That I think puts us all in perspective. But where do people go to get your constant updates on this war and particularly your thoughts on are we segueing into the kinetic part of the third World War and uniting all these fights in a massive kind of World War I type fiasco? Right.
Dr. Bradley Thayer
Brad Thayer at X and Bradley Thayer, Getter and Truth. And so, Steve, you know, the major caveat is let's not turn this into a national conflict, not turn it into a war against the Persians, which is going to greatly complicate the, the conflict.
Commercial Announcer
Amen.
Stephen K. Bannon
That's why centcom, the airmen, soldiers, naval officers, the crews of those ships, I mean they're on, they're on the Razor's Edge right now. Thank you sir. Appreciate you.
Dr. Bradley Thayer
Thank you. Steve.
Stephen K. Bannon
The centcom, that's what we really try to do. As many CENTCOM briefings as possible. That's cutting edge. I want to since they had this dhs, we didn't get a lot of time to get into it because so many other things going. But the senator Mark Wayne Mullen. I want to get Sheila Matthews on here. He has been and obviously you're very supportive of the President, Sheila and Abel Child is I think Abel Child, you're coming. You're having your 25th anniversary gala this week. Want to make sure everybody knows about that. You're very supportive, full maga. But there's some issues. You've been out constantly saying, hey, we're missing the point on this mental illness thing. We're not getting into the psychiatrist records. This is a huge industry for big pharma. We don't have our arms around it. Senator Markway Mullens does have some legislation out there that you're saying, hey, I think this thing needs a mid course guidance. Can you walk us through what's this legislation? What's the fundamental problems with it and what do you think we need to do to kind of rectify it now that he's going over to dhs?
Sheila Matthews
Well, Able Child works with everybody and we're looking at Senator Mullins a co sponsor of the BHIT act, which is the Behavioral Health Information Technology Act. What it is, it's a big electronic network where they collect all our consumer mental health documents and they pass them around to behavioral health vendors and doctors. And there's a flaw in this bill. What the flaw is is it does not collect the data associated with the violence that the psychiatric drugs have. So what we're excited about is that he is the co sponsor of bill. So maybe he missed it, maybe he missed that loophole. So we need to put a patch on it. So we need to open that system up and he's the guy to do it now that he's got this big job and he doesn't need a bill to push through. He can look at this flaw and say, you know what? We need to collect the data from the psychiatrists that are associated with these mass shooters. So it protects the consumer. There's a consumer loophole here. This bill is that he co sponsored is more protective of the behavioral health in the drug companies. So Able Child wants to but it
Stephen K. Bannon
seems like it seems like this is the fight that you've had. It seems like every this don't understand. It seems like everything we have is to protect the psychiatry, the industry of the psychiatrist because they're kind of the physician, the attending physician that prescribes this. And this is how big pharma makes so much money. I mean, is everything that we have here, is it just like you said? Hey, Mae overlooked it. It sounds like this is not a, this is not a bug. This is actually the way the system works.
Sheila Matthews
Well, these bills are crafted by the behavioral health industry and they're pushed onto senators and congressmen. And the voice of the consumer is often lost in there. They go to the senators. We have a great idea. We're going to do this whole new database. And it was bipartisan. So we're often, always cautious of that because we have to make sure that the consumer is protected. It took us two years to get the Tennessee bill passed to test for the therapeutic levels for psychiatric drugs in mass shooters. This bill that he sponsored has a loophole. So able child's been chasing this data. So you're absolutely right. This is a flaw in this bill. And he's going to be the homeland security head. And we have mass shootings that become unsolved. And you know, as consumers, we need this protection. We need this data. It's a data vacuum for the consumer. We need it patched up. And, you know, we're willing to work with him. We're aware of this flaw and we are going to stand on the mountain shout about this flaw because it protects the, it protects the psychiatrist, it protects these records. And we're forever fighting to get these records released to the public. And the consumers want to go to movie theaters and malls. They don't want to be shot up by psychiatric patients that are on these dangerous black box suicide warning drugs.
Stephen K. Bannon
We got to bounce. But does it drive you crazy? Every time we have a mass shooting, they all come on TV for a couple of days and say no. Police are really looking for a motive when the first thing you hear is that they were under psychiatric care and taking these drugs. But they always, for three and four days until it fades from public view, say we're really the authorities are investigating for why they did this.
Sheila Matthews
Yeah, Abled child's frustrated. But you know what? The consumer's frustrated and they know it. And you look on the Internet on X and they're all talking about it. So it's out of the box. We need the consumer's voice in there. And I believe Abel Child provides that bipartisan. We work with both Democrats and Republicans, and I do favor working with the Trump administration, you know, he's doing a lot of good things.
Stephen K. Bannon
You know, Sheila, we gotta bounce. Where do people go to get all the information if they wanna support you at the gala? Where do people go?
Sheila Matthews
Ablechild25.com, we're gonna be closing out tickets shortly. We are overwhelmed with the receipts response and please sign our petition on ablechild.org and so we get our voice in there with federal hearings on this issue and this flaw. So I'll be tracking this flaw.
Stephen K. Bannon
STEVE yeah, Great job in Tennessee. We got to model everything after Tennessee. Great job there. Sheila, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate you.
Philip Patrick
Thank you.
Stephen K. Bannon
Philip Patrick's going to join us next. Of course, this, what is it, major military operation and or war, whatever you want to call it, this conflict in the Middle east is driving turbulence in capital markets all over the world. So Philip Patrick is going to be here. We're going to walk through about gold, also commodity markets, what it means for commodities, particularly oil, the hydrocarbons over there, and how that impacts the gold and bond market and equity market. If you want medical freedom all family pharmacy, this is what we love. This the sponsor they've created, hey, an online pharmacy. They have registered physicians, pharmacists. You go online with them. All family pharmacy.com Bannon10 you get 10% off. Plus they're passing savings in overhead because they don't have the huge infrastructure of the pharmacy business. You don't have medical freedom until you're able to get the the medications you want, when you want them. That's what our family pharmacy does. They have all these physicians, all these pharmacists on staff to hook up right now. AllFamilyPharmacy.com ban and 10 get 10 off short commercial break Philip Patrick joins us.
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Stephen K. Bannon
War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Ban. Welcome back. We've got Philip Patrick joins us. Philip, let's walk through.
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Why?
Stephen K. Bannon
Just generally because I want to get into the specifics of this war and what it's causing and the turbulence in capital markets and commodity markets. But first off, why has gold been a because we're here for the for a discussion that we've kind of come full circle about. Remember, one of the rushes to gold over the last couple of years is at Philip Patrick, we partnered with Birch Gold to talk about the end of the dollar empire. Now, that was not about specifically about gold as a hedge, but gold as a financial asset, which became as the dollar was essentially the purchase power of the dollar was destroyed by the elites that run this country. Right. And particularly the massive overspending that when the purchasing power dropped, that the world would go to particularly central banks and others would go to buying gold and gold would have a floor and then it would become a financial asset, as it has. Right. Much like the 19th century. But classically, gold has been a hedge against times of financial turbulence. It's been a safe harbor. And you definitely have financial turbulence. Now, I use the term geopolitical risk and I tell people that's just a fancy schmancy term for war or the rumors of war, when it gets down to it. And now we're in it. You know, we're in a conflict that is in the conflict, as our theory of the case is, the center of gravity of the conflict is not the military conflict. Part of it is Tehran in Persia itself, which is being pounded to degradate their ability to have weapon systems that actually can attack their neighbors of the United States. Also, to have A command structure that's still run by radical Islam. However, the other part is what's different than all these other wars? It's Muslim versus Muslim that's metastasized, that's shifted over to the Persian Gulf. And whether you like to admit it or not, until we are up to more full capacity still, much of the world, obviously Europe in Asia, run on Persian Gulf oil and gas. And so gold has been a traditional hedge. What does that mean and what does it mean, particularly in a time like this? Well, we're in a shooting war, in a massive shooting war that is, quite frankly, even now. Forget Iraq in Afghanistan. It's bigger than the Gulf War, sir.
Philip Patrick
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to unpack there. Certainly even prior to this, as you mentioned, we had the perfect storm for gold. We've printed the dollar into oblivion. We've made it a much less attractive store of wealth. We've talked about how we broke the trust, specifically Biden, through sanctions and weaponization of currency, which made the dollar far less attractive. People have to understand gold has been the standard for international currency throughout all of. Because ultimately for most of human history, countries didn't trust each other and sort of Post World War II, this belief was born that the world had transitioned and we moved away from gold towards government debt and specifically US Government debt. But I think clearly that illusion has been shattered. First of all, the dollar as a store of wealth isn't what it was. It's lost 28% of its buying power since the pandemic. It is an unattractive, much less attractive store of wealth than it was. Secondly, broadly, the trust has been broken. So I think what we're seeing now is the world is reverting back to sound money, what has always been the standard. Now, obviously a war in Iran adds another dimension and more instability. And you're correct in your assessment. Look, the Iranians can't wager a military war or can't win a military war against the United States. So the best way to do this is to morph this into an economic. I think it's why they're hitting the Gulf states currently, to create uncertainty and chaos. And I think it's going to be a very effective strategy. Obviously, oil prices increasing on the back of it significantly. If the war is long drawn out and protracted, that's going to increase even more. And that puts pressure on things domestically. Ultimately, we said this a lot. Under Biden, oil is the most inflationary commodity. Oil prices go up, put pressure on pricing across the board, Domestically at a time heading into the midterms when we really don't need it. So the Iranians are smart and I think they're going to continue to play a smart game. So we'll have to see how this pans out. But economically this is problematic.
Stephen K. Bannon
When you see, when you on the, we've had Eric Bolling on now, he used to be a trader of oil and gas futures. All of it in the pits for about a dozen years. When you're talking to traders, when you talk particularly in people in the commodities market and people in, in the gold market, what are you hearing today?
Philip Patrick
Listen, predictions are that. What I'm hearing is this is the perfect storm we're seeing now for precious metals. Right? The world is turning into chaos. Sadly, the silver lining is it bodes well for investors in precious metals. Predictions now are increasing dramatically. Ubs, JP Morgan, bank of America have scrambled to up predictions now on precious metals. They're projecting 6,300 now for gold by the end of the year. We're trading in the 5100 range. So significant upside from where we sit. This ultimately strengthens the long term fundamentals and I think the longer the duration, the better it is for precious metals, the more strain it puts on the dollar and government debt.
Stephen K. Bannon
When you say there is this flight to quality with the dollar, the dollar has strengthened since it started so people are fleeing certain assets. It's not the end of the BRICS movement, but clearly some of the money market folks have said, hey, given I don't understand what's going on, maybe I get more into dollars, obviously gold too. But the strength of the dollar, you've seen that in the last week or so because a lot of people said hey, I think gold could be exploded. It could get to the 6,000 or 6,500. Remember, we don't forecast the price of gold here. What we want to do is get you the information and get you into like into the dollar empire and you take, you know, take your phone and text Bannon B A N N Owen at 989-898. You get the ultimate guide for investing. Totally free, no obligations. All the information from Birch Gold in the war room on this topic are always free because we want a smart investor in a smart, in a smart, a smart consumer. But what was this about the strength in the gold over the last couple
Philip Patrick
of days the gold strengthened. You make an interesting point though. Initially saw the dollar strengthen and it has done and it's good news. People ultimately move to cash and it shows that for liquidity, people still want dollars. What was interesting though is historically during times like this, investors run to government debt and yields decline. But the opposite happened. Yields actually increased on the debt. And what that suggests is people are less worried about collapse, more worried about inflation. I think particularly the impact of higher energy costs on top of today's already elevated price levels. So as much as the dollar did strengthen, which was good news, yields on debt increased, which is bad news for the government. So sort of a mixed bag there. In terms of precious metals though, like I said, I think demand will still increase broadly for metals. It's still being driven by central banks. De dollarization is still happening very actively. I think we're 38 year lows now for central banks around the world holding, holding dollars for reserves. So that trend I think will continue long term. Nothing is linear, right? Nothing. The dollar is not going to go like that. There'll be peaks and troughs. But I think long term the trend, at least at this point is not changing.
Stephen K. Bannon
You were the first to bring up, this is years ago, in fact, this is the beginning of the. About a year or so. I think after we were working with you guys, you had this blinding insight that really not just turbocharged gold at the time, but really had such a massive geopolitical impact. When people in this, in the beginning of the Ukrainian war, I guess we might have been into it for the first year when the people that were so gung ho that were driving the Ukrainians to put more people in and more of their resources in really fight it, they came with this idea of first freezing the Russians assets and then essentially stealing the Russian people's assets, dollar denominated assets that were in essentially basically European banks. And you came on, he said, hey, this is a game changer. It's one of the reasons people have had a problem with the Swift system. They've had a problem with the. Because the Americans can actually weaponize the dollar. But we've never done this to the Nazis, we didn't do this to Imperial Japan, we didn't do this to the Bolsheviks. This is a game changer. And you saw the shift in the kind of the sentiment to gold, particularly among central banks, because they realized, hey, maybe we can't be so dollar denominated. We just had in the last 24, 48 hours the same situation in the UAE where the UAE has warned the Persians and 99.99% of people didn't understand this because they said, hey, I thought the Arabs and the Iranians and the Persians were kind of at a war with each other. And the Iranians were always saying they were threatening them militarily, and they had all these proxy groups in there. And so this thing's never really. It's been in. The Abraham Accords showed that UAE and others were prepared to work with the Israelis. The bigger problem was Tehran. And then it comes up that Dubai is the. I call it Tortuga. To the pirates in the Caribbean in the 18th, 17th and 18th century, Dubai is like the pirate's den. And you had all the resources and all their cash wasn't in. Wasn't in Switzerland, it was in Dubai. And now UAE is threatening to say, hey, look, not only might we freeze it, we might take it. How is that? Tell me how that's a game changer in this war. It reflects what happened with the Russians, but it's also going to be another indication of countries throughout the world and central banks that, hey, maybe I just can't be keeping my cash sitting around.
Philip Patrick
Maybe I have to go.
Stephen K. Bannon
Go to gold, sir.
Philip Patrick
This was the point that I was making earlier, right? For all of human history, gold was the standard because trust didn't exist broadly between nations. And like I said, this sort of post World War II U.S. led order meant that the world broadly trusted each other. And when the trust broke down, America was there to police it. So we saw this transition, but that illusion has clearly been shattered. The world world now is turning to blocks, and I think asset seizures, things like that, have ultimately escalated the inevitability. I'd love to sort of take credit for some genius foresight when it came to the Russia thing, but ultimately it's common sense, right? If you want to incentivize the world to hold your currency and trade in it, you can't do things like seize people's assets and threaten to give them to a country that they're currently at war at to fight against against them. That's not only a message to the country you're sanctioning, but it's a message to every other country around the world that may want to do things that don't align with your moral compass. It's that simple. And the more it happens, the more the world will revert to gold.
Stephen K. Bannon
Philip, can you just hang on? I realize it's a Saturday, but just hang on through the commercial break because I want people to immerse them. Avail themselves of the opportunity that you have to immerse themselves in information here and become wiser. I think you'll become financially more and more stable. If you do this. But if not, you'll still learn how the world works. Birchgold.com, the End of the Dollar Empire if you go there today, all of the installments are free online, but you also if you want a hard copy. And the hard copy we did in conjunction with our partners over at Birch Gold is just nothing short of, I think, magnificent. The Patriots edition of the End of the Dollar Empire. It's seven, all seven free installments and kind of reads right through like a book. And remember, it's being taught now in graduate schools. I thought it was undergraduate economics and finance classes actually being taught now in graduate level. Why? Because we try to make this accessible, keep it sophisticated, but make sure that you didn't have to have a degree in economics to understand it. Birchgold.com promo code Bannon the End of the Dollar Empire Philip Patrick on the other side, War in the rumors of war in the war room this morning.
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Stephen K. Bannon
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Stephen K. Bannon
Here's your host, Stephen K. Band. Okay, I just want to make sure everybody to think about this. Crypto was supposed to be digital gold, correct Philip, and it was going to have all these attributes of gold. One things for the audience to understand that history has kind of proven the last couple years is that particularly as the central bank stepped in from throughout the world, particularly the Chinese Communist Party. Right. But the central banks have stepped in and doubled and tripled on their gold reserves. Is that gold has been very liquid. I think in the past there were some issues. Well, if I got physical gold, it's not like owning a stock on the New York Stock Exchange. I can't call my broker and cross a trade. But just the depth of purchasing in the gold market gave you liquidity. If you wanted to offload your gold or sell it, you weren't looking at taking a 25% discount or something like this because of recent statistics. And crypto was supposed to be the same way. I think what we found, one I want you to talk about, it turned out it didn't move with gold. It turned out to be instead of countercyclical with the cycle. And I believe more importantly, and this is why you saw a lot of the tech Bros very early on when President Trump won. Remember these guys all climbed on board and they want not just regulation, they also wanted the US Government to step in with these kind of these reserves to essentially add liquidity to the market. And now we understand, particularly specifically now that we're in the shooting war and crypto's been all over the place. There's just not one, it's not countercyclical. Number two, there's a liquidity issue. And so it turns out it's actually not only not digital gold, it's kind of anti digital gold, is it not, sir?
Philip Patrick
It's a good way to put it. And I think not having the American taxpayer be the backstop for that is very, very important. With the benefit of hindsight, it's clear to see what would have happened. On top of that, the digital gold story just doesn't hold up anymore. And honestly it hasn't for quite while a while. Gold is a safe haven asset. It performs incredibly well during times of stagflation. Things like higher inflation, weaker growth, monetary instability, dollar decline, they all drive gold up. But what it is is defensive, boring. It's essentially insurance for a portfolio. Bitcoin has not behaved that way at all. Right? When liquidity has been abundant, when rates are low, speculative appetite is high, Bitcoin absolutely soars and people can do incredibly well. When liquidity tightens and when real rates rise, sentiment turns from risk on to risk off, the thing can absolutely plummet, right, drop 50, 60% as we've been seeing so gold is on the opposite end of the spectrum to that. You're not going to buy gold and it's worth double, triple, quadruple two weeks from now. But by that same token, it doesn't drop in half in a week. So when it comes to risk profile, I'd put it on the opposite end of the spec spectrum. And as you rightly point out, you know, gold has thousands of years of history. And what we've learned over those years is how it performs in relation to other assets. So we understand very well. It's defensive and it's countercyclical. It does very well when things are struggling. Bitcoin seems to be the reverse, right? And in climates like this, when people are looking for safe havens, they're looking for wealth preservation. Bitcoin just doesn't achieve that. So I've always viewed it as a speculative asset and I still do today. So as some sort of support for the US dollar, definitely not.
Stephen K. Bannon
I also want people to note that both Philip and myself came out of investment banking. We are not gold bugs. In fact, in the 80s and 90s, when I really left Harvard and went to work for Goldman Sachs, I had my own firm. It was really John Maynard Keynes, I think it was, that said, it was a historic relic, a barbaric relic. This has only been really this focus on the crushing of the US dollar over the last couple of years because the US dollar is still the backbone of the system as you're seeing right now in this war. The reason we partner with Birchgold is that I never talk. It's not the price, it's the process and it's learning. This was a great learning experience for you to understand how the world works. Even if you never invested or you never did anything. It's just to have another error in the quiver that the reason you're the smartest, most powerful political audience in the world and have really bent the arc of history is that you use your agency and you're engaged. And we've done this on geopolitics, we've done it obviously on politics itself, on culture. One of the most important things we do in the show is to talk to a blue collar and a middle class audience on things I think are more sophisticated than CNBC or forget Fox Business, that's just cheerleading. Or almost like Bloomberg TV where we really try to get people in here and break down what's going on. Because we say if you don't understand that, you're not going to understand how the world works. And that's why the partnership with Birch gold and all the work we've put in together the Birch Gold team and the worm team to do it. But Philip, I want people if you go to birchgold.com promo code ban and you get access to all the information but most importantly, get access to Philip, Patrick, the team. And I've had so many people come to me and say, hey, in my relationship with Birch gold has changed my life because I got in a golden 1500 bucks and it's over 5000 a day. But it's really the learning experience I want. We got about a minute. Philip. Where do people go? How do they get access to you and your team?
Philip Patrick
It's really simple. It's birchgold.com Bannon again. Birchgold.com Bannon get the end of the dollar empire reports access to guides on how and why to invest in precious metals in today's climate. And as you rightly point out, you know, your viewers, your listeners, they have a real desire to learn. So the feedback we've been getting from this has been fantastic. And whether people are ultimately buy or not read the information that's going to be the most important part of this. So birchgold.com forward/bannon or text Bannon to 989898, ask for the information and do whatever they want from there.
Stephen K. Bannon
No obligation, totally free. Also, if you go, you can get access to the printed edition, the patriots edition of the of the end of the dollar amount empire. Also, we're coming out. Philip and I have finally, Philip made some smart tweaks over the last 48 hours and we'll be out with the eighth free edition, the eighth installment as we rev this thing up again. Philip, Patrick, thank you. Thank you for taking your time away on a Saturday. Appreciate you, sir.
Philip Patrick
Thank you for having me. Steve.
Stephen K. Bannon
Okay, I'm going to be up on social media with Grace and Mo. Elizabeth, everybody, everybody. Plus, remember, tomorrow morning at 10:00am Eastern Standard Time, we're going to have our seven day a week. We're doing our Sunday show tomorrow to get you up to speed on everything you need to know on is this the beginning, the kinetic part of World War iii? Where did I hear that before? Oh, that's right. The guys in the war room. Have a great Saturday. We'll see you back here Tomorrow morning at 10:00am Eastern Standard Time and you will be back in the war room. You know, you still need help from the boss. We need help from the boss.
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Date: March 7, 2026
Host: Stephen K. Bannon
Guests: Dr. Bradley Thayer, Sheila Matthews, Philip Patrick
This episode focuses on the ongoing Iran war’s evolution, how it’s reshaping both the geopolitical and economic landscape, and the underlying risks to American interests. Stephen K. Bannon and his guests analyze the shifting military strategy, the complexities of regional alliances, the dangers of unintended escalation, and the profound effects on global markets—especially gold and oil. The discussion also delves into domestic policy with a critique of mental health legislation and the pharmaceutical industry’s influence.
Shift from Limited to National Conflict:
"If we say unconditional warfare against Iran so that they no longer have the ability to harm their neighbors or to harm the population, my fear is that this turns this into ... a nationalist element begins to surface and the Persian people will begin to unite around the Theocracy, which is what we don't want..."
— Dr. Bradley Thayer [04:14]
Five-Front War Breakdown:
"The US has been very successful in sinking Iran's navy and keeping Hormuz open… The Fifth Fleet, though, is going to be tasked with a very great responsibility to ensure that civilian traffic is able to transit the Strait.”
— Dr. Bradley Thayer [10:32]
Potential for Nationalist Backlash:
“If it has to be, you know, it’s an ancient and proud people. So if you turn it to that, you could have a long, tough fight in your hand.”
— Stephen K. Bannon [06:41]
"This is attritional warfare, right? This is like Muhammad Ali fighting Joe Frazier. We're pounding on the Iranian and so…"
— Dr. Bradley Thayer [07:55]
Horizontal Escalation:
"Iran has escalated the war horizontally by attacking the Gulf sheikdoms ... Their effort is to undermine support for the US ... They want to inflict pain on the Arab states."
— Dr. Bradley Thayer [17:35]
Azerbaijani & Kurdish Complications:
Historical Parallel:
Legislation Critique:
"This bill ... does not collect the data associated with the violence that psychiatric drugs have… we are going to stand on the mountain shout about this flaw because ... it protects the psychiatrist, it protects these records."
— Sheila Matthews [24:18]
Big Pharma & Psychiatry Lobby:
"It seems like everything we have is to protect the ... industry of the psychiatrist because they're kind of the physician ... that prescribes this. And this is how big pharma makes so much money."
— Stephen K. Bannon [23:45]
Gold as a Safe Haven Amid War:
“We’ve printed the dollar into oblivion … gold has been the standard for international currency throughout all of [history] … we broke the trust … the world is reverting back to sound money...”
— Philip Patrick [33:12]
Oil Price Volatility:
“Oil is the most inflationary commodity ... oil prices go up, put pressure on pricing across the board, Domestically at a time heading into the midterms when we really don’t need it.”
— Philip Patrick [34:28]
Central Bank Moves:
Dollar Paradox:
“The dollar did strengthen... but historically during times like this, investors run to government debt and yields decline. But ... yields actually increased on the debt ... suggesting ... people are more worried about inflation.”
— Philip Patrick [37:43]
Asset Seizure as Game Changer:
“If you want to incentivize the world to hold your currency and trade in it, you can’t ... seize people’s assets and threaten to give them to a country ... at war... The more it happens, the more the world will revert to gold.”
— Philip Patrick [41:43]
“Gold is a safe haven asset ... bitcoin has not behaved that way at all ... bitcoin seems to be the reverse.”
— Philip Patrick [47:46]
“It turns out (crypto is) actually not only not digital gold, it’s kind of anti digital-gold, is it not?”
— Stephen K. Bannon [47:46]
On Unconditional Surrender and National Unity in Iran:
“If the Persian people, this turns into a nationalistic, that it's about the nation of Persia, these people will dig in, even some people potentially allies of ours. And that's why it's a very thin line.”
— Stephen K. Bannon [06:16]
On the Five-Front War Approach:
“When we think about the war, the kinetic aspect ... we see those five fronts going on simultaneously today. And there's variation in success.”
— Dr. Bradley Thayer [09:25]
On Asset Seizure as a Driving Force Toward Gold:
"If you want to incentivize the world to hold your currency ... you can’t do things like seize people’s assets ..."
— Philip Patrick [41:46]
On Bitcoin Not Being Digital Gold:
“It’s a good way to put it ... the digital gold story just doesn’t hold up anymore. … gold is a safe haven asset. It performs incredibly well during times of stagflation ... Bitcoin has not behaved that way at all ... it can absolutely plummet.”
— Philip Patrick [47:46]
The conversation is urgent, combative, and skeptical of establishment narratives. Bannon and his guests blend military, economic, and political analysis with warnings: the Iran conflict could spiral into a broader regional or even world war; U.S. policymakers must tread carefully to avoid uniting the Iranian population against U.S. interests; and the current environment is pushing the world order toward de-dollarization and renewed reliance on gold.
Throughout, the participants emphasize the need for vigilance on both military fronts and in domestic policy, criticizing pharma and psychiatric interests for legislative failures and underscoring the necessity for consumers and investors to educate themselves on how the world—and markets—really work.