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Bannon`s War Room
Episode 5458: The Factory Floor Is The Front Line: Justin Fulcher On America’s New Arms Race
Episode 5458: The Factory Floor Is The Front Line: Justin Fulcher On America’s New Arms Race...
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- [00:03]
Stephen K. Bannon
This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on these people. Reasons I got a free shot. All these networks lying about the people, the people have had a belly full of it. I know you don't like hearing that. I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it. It's going to happen. And where do people like that go to share the big lie? MAGA MEDIA I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience. Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved. War Room here's your host, Stephen K. Ban.
- [00:53]
Natalie Winters
Here in the War Room, it's Natalie Winters hosting today, Friday, June 19th in the year of our Lord 2026. 6. We've got a bit of a special show for you today. I'm honored to be able to do this for you guys. I know there's been so much with Iran, so much it's hard to follow. So I wanted to sort of take a step back, bring on not just a new guest, but focus on something that I think this audience should both be very interested in, but also very, very passionate and I think find a lot of hope in, which is where I think we have found the kind of new American fighting spirit, which is in the kind of defense tech movement, this new movement to really re industrialize the defense industrial base and actually make American national security. Our weapons systems, our procurement, take your pick. Really actually efficient and actually capable of defending this country. And I'm honored to have on, I think it's fair to say, one of the leaders of this movement, Justin Fulcher, who was one of the founders of doge. You were there since day one, frankly, a little even before. You also were at basically the highest levels of the Pentagon. You were a senior advisor to Secretary Hegseth for a while there, through some of the craziest times. You saw a lot, you learned a lot. Before we get into everything, I was kind of talking about the really interesting stuff that I think the audience is really going to enjoy hearing about. Give us just a little bit about your background, how you ended up in two very powerful and kind of unique worlds.
- [02:21]
Justin Fulcher
Well, I've had somewhat of a unique career. I started out as a tech entrepreneur and built a telehealth company that helped bring health care to millions of people's lives across the globe. That took me all across Asia to places like Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, and that gave me really a front row seat to how these different countries think about national power, economic development and long term strategy. More recently, as you mentioned, I had the opportunity to serve as a senior advisor to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon. I was able to work on issues around readiness, technology, and really revitalizing the defense industrial base. Before that, I was an early member of doge, where, you know, government reform efforts were a huge priority. But honestly, I think these jobs matter a little bit less than the lessons learned, which, you know, over the past decade or so, I've spent years watching how different countries operate, how they compete on national scale. And ultimately that's what I've become obsessed with. You know, why do some societies retain that ability to build, execute and win and while others slowly lose it?
- [03:26]
Natalie Winters
Well, I think you're selling yourself short. I remember reading all the legacy media meltdown about the DOGE cuts, how, you know, you guys were all destroying the government. But if you really looked at the numbers, it really was mainly the VA where they were really getting just the number of personnel actually down. Those were the cuts that actually were able to materialize through their legal stuff. And that was, of course, the, at least one of the DOGE kind of efforts that you directly led. We're going to, we're going to get into that, but I want to focus first on what you sort of saw when you were at the Pentagon that made you realize now I know you're focusing more in the kind of the defense space, but what the current state, the state of affairs are with our defense industrial base, you know, the weapons shortages, our stockpiles, and how you kind of came to the conclusion, and we've seen it with what the Trump administration is doing that, you know, that's in need of some serious reform, picking up the pace, making it more up to par with the challenges that this country is facing.
- [04:20]
Stephen K. Bannon
Right.
- [04:21]
Justin Fulcher
And I think, you know, one of the most stark things I witnessed after President Trump took office was the real disconnect between military power on paper, but the back end industrial might that actually supports that. And I think, you know, it's, it's obvious that America has the absolute best warfighters, the best military in the world, the best innovators, and overall incredible capabilities. But one of the things that we stopped doing as a country was really focusing on producing those wartime quantities of weapons, munitions and other critical systems and all that matters. Because when you think about deterrence and reestablishing American power on the world stage, it's not Just about what does the arsenal look like on day one of a conflict? But really, how much can you produce on day 30, day 180 or even year two or three of a conflict? And I think what really worried me the most was not that America lost its ability to innovate. I think ultimately we lead the world in that, bar none. But what concerned me is that we are becoming really a country that can invent brilliant things, but struggled to produce them at scale. And that's a dangerous place for a great power to be.
- [05:33]
Natalie Winters
Talk about some of those timeline deficits. How did a country as powerful, as innovative as ours get in a position where even the most rudimentary things we either can't produce ourselves or it takes way too long that's even acceptable?
- [05:49]
Justin Fulcher
Yeah, I think as in many things, it happened slowly and then very suddenly. After the Cold War, America convinced itself that industrial capacity and might was not that important. We believed in just in time, supply chains, globalization, efficiency, and we prioritize, you know, quarterly market cycles over actually having a resilient defense industrial base. And that worked in a world where the US was frankly, an uncontested superpower and our adversaries weren't actively trying to undermine and sabotage the global supply chain and our supply chain. But China took a very different approach there. China understood that factories are powerful, shipyards are power, energy is power. Minerals, manufacturing depth, all of those are core aspects of national power. Meanwhile, in previous administrations, we let the entire industrial ecosystem atrophy, which was terrible. You know, we, we put machine tools, casting, forging energetics, all of those critical capabilities aside, and you know, we really made skilled trade, something that were low class and not, not important, which today that couldn't be further from the truth. When you think about the tragedy and how we outsource so much of the physical foundation that really undermined American industrial power, it's encouraging to see what Secretary Hegseth and Deputy Secretary Feinberg have done to take that arsenal of freedom and really actualize that and implement that moving forward.
- [07:22]
Natalie Winters
In trying to understand whether it's the military industrial complex, however you want to classify it. I know you saw that firsthand, both running Doge DoD, but also being Secretary Hexas, essentially number two. But what exactly is it that causes that? Is it the consolidation of all of these companies into one? These defense primes, they just become accepting of really low standards. What actually is the animating factor or the driver behind that really serious existential problem?
- [07:54]
Justin Fulcher
Well, I think the monopsony structure created these cartel like incentives which you know, in Defense World, there's this famous story of this concept called the Last Supper. And so imagine this, the Cold War ends, the Soviet Union collapses, America is the uncontested superpower. And Washington, and frankly, the Pentagon looks at the defense industry and basically says, look, we don't need a defense industrial base this large anymore. And so the CEOs of the major defense companies were invited by the Secretary of Defense at the time to a dinner at the Pentagon. And the message was clear, budgets are going down, consolidation is going to happen, and a lot of companies at this table aren't going to exist over the next few years. And so that was the beginning of a very different era. These companies merged, a bunch of competitors and competition vanished. And what at the time was a very broad and deep defense industrial base got hollowed out. And so the incentives changed here. And when only a few of the largest defense primes can actually compete for a lot of these big programs, and the government knows it can't afford to lose that, the system stops acting like a market driven economy and a market driven system because there's less pressure, there's less need to innovate, and there's less need to deliver quickly at scale. And so I think, you know, ultimately the answer is pro competition, pro adaptation, pro production. And we need the primes, but we also need to open the gates to these new builders, defense tech startups, drone companies, machine shops, software firms, all of these companies solving the hard problems.
- [09:33]
Natalie Winters
I think we've seen a lot of this sort of come to the front forefront with regard to what's going on in Iran, even in Ukraine, right? These articles talking about the depletion or just at least a concerning rate, not that it's necessarily at a five alarm fire position right now, but with some of our weapons, ammunition, munitions, all those kinds of things. I want to get granular though. Take the Tomahawk for example. Right. There's been a lot of discussion about that in the context of what's going on in Iran. Walk us through, like actually put us in the room, everything that you can, how that actually like gets made, why there are so many delays, because the time it takes to make things that are, you know, shot off in seconds or minutes, it's really quite staggering.
- [10:20]
Justin Fulcher
Right? And I think, you know, the Tomahawk problem is a perfect example of that difference between, you know, operational needs and operational speed versus kind of industrial capacity and might and the speed of that. Because as you said, a commander can launch a Tomahawk in seconds or minutes, but Replacing that missile is not just a matter of like pushing a button like an Amazon order. It can take years to replenish those stockpiles. And so when you look at like what actually makes and compose a Tomahawk, you need rocket motors, guidance systems, energetics, all of these different suppliers. And if there's delays in any parts of that supply chain, it compounds, and it can take something that, you know, maybe historically with a robust defense industrial base would take something like, you know, weeks to months to produce, it can end up causing these like multi year delays. And so when you think about the Tomahawk issue, I really think that's a warning light that's flashing for the entire defense industry. And you know, thankfully, you know, President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have heeded that warning and are massively investing to really solve that problem. But also the second and third order effects that come from that.
- [11:30]
Natalie Winters
The numbers really are staggering. I'm curious, you know, these don't just exist in a vacuum, really only matter so much though as it's compared to our existential threat, which is of course the Chinese Communist Party and their ability to build, which they certainly outpace us. But the actual numbers, when you really get into it, are quite concerning. Can you sort of compare contrast, how we stack up against China when it comes to the manufacturing of these kinds of items?
- [11:56]
Justin Fulcher
Well, in some instances that contrast is pretty brutal. China, for example, isn't just building a navy, they're building really the entire industrial system behind that to try to dominate shipping. We writ large. If you think about China and commercial shipbuilding, they commanded over 50% of the entire market share over the past couple years. And when you think about comparing that to the United States, which was producing roughly a fraction of a percent compared to China. And there's a very powerful example of a Chinese state owned shipbuilding company, CSSC, which in one year, year alone produce more ships than the entire U.S. shipping industry has since World War II. I mean, the numbers are absolutely staggering. But you know, that doesn't mean that China would automatically win a war here. The US still has enormous, enormous advantages from our allies, our innovation, of course, our men and women in uniform and everybody who supports them. And so while the industrial gap is real, there's a ton of work that's going into actually addressing some of those core challenges.
- [13:08]
Natalie Winters
Do you think that lag in production capabilities, China's ability to sort of take over and really outpace us in some fields is almost by design. That's what the Chinese Communist Party has wanted for a very long time.
- [13:19]
Justin Fulcher
Oh, 100%. I mean, China has absolutely methodically attacked the supply chain. They've done specific things around rare earths, some of the refining and other components like drone motors, actuators and others to really create a global chokehold on these products. And they're doing this in a systematic and very methodical way.
- [13:41]
Natalie Winters
I'm curious, just preview. We got about a minute before we have to jump to break. One of those areas where the Chinese seem to really be honing in on is the cheap drones. Obviously America dominates in these super cool, really expensive, expensive, interesting looking things. I've seen some of them, they're quite cool. But these cheap drones you have also seen obviously in Iran and Ukraine have really become sort of the new thing in at least kinetic conflict. Just real quick, before we bounce, give us kind of the landscape there. What is that evolution of the battlefield? What is that looking like?
- [14:15]
Justin Fulcher
Well, Ukraine changed that mental model and China has long known this, which is why with DJI and other companies there, they've really subsidized the consumer drone market, which gave them an advantage. Now drone dominance at the Pentagon is really addressing that and moving out quickly. DIU is doing a great job, Owen west over there. But ultimately China has taken a strategic approach here and the US is playing a bit of catch up, but moving very quickly.
- [14:39]
Natalie Winters
Hang with us through the break. I know. I believe you helped author that drone dominance initiative and now here you are talking about on worms. So we're honored to have someone who has been behind the scenes on a lot of these very important reforms here in the war room on Juneteenth. How about that? We'll be right back after this short break.
- [15:00]
Stephen K. Bannon
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- [16:44]
Natalie Winters
One thing you can control right now that doesn't cost you anything out of pocket is diversifying your retirement savings. Birch Gold Group will help you convert an old 401k from a previous employer or an IRA into a physical IRA in gold. You know, something that's a hedge against inflation. And listen to this. Right now, Birch Gold is going to give you a special America 251 ounce silver round for every $10,000 you purchase by July 10th. Ten years ago an ounce of gold is about $1200. Today it's around 4, 500 dollars. So tax ban into 989898 to take advantage of free America 250 silver with qualifying purchase before July 10th.
- [17:15]
Stephen K. Bannon
War room here's your host, Stephen K. Band.
- [17:22]
Natalie Winters
Welcome back to the War Room. Continuing our our insider deep dive into all things Pentagon, defense tech, national security and and China. The Real threat. I think War is one of the few shows in D.C. that is totally comfortable with calling the Chinese Communist Party out as their existential threat, which is true. You can fact check me on that all you like. It is true. We were just sort of talking about that. Justin, who of course was one of the founders of doge. You are a senior adviser to Secretary of War Hegseth. We're picking your brain about all the things that the posse needs to know so they can understand what the kind of evolving national security approach, not just of the Trump administration is, but what it should be. We were talking about drones, how that sort of this new, I think, kind of arrow in the quiver of modern warfare, whether it's Ukraine, Iran. Talk to us a little bit more about that asymmetry and that drone initiative that you spearheaded at the Pentagon, where we stand with that and why that is so important for the United States to maintain our military advantage.
- [18:22]
Justin Fulcher
I think drones have really in many ways changed the model of warfare. In many ways, the bottom line is that you need systems that you can lose. You need drones that are cheap, attritable, replaceable, at massive scale. And you need the ability to buy thousands, tens of thousands, millions of these over the course of a year. And if drones cost so much that you're afraid to lose them, like the historic model, then they're not truly attritable. And that's why efforts being undertaken at DIU and in R and E over at the Pentagon really matter. And the original goal with all of these initiatives like drone dominance was how can we rapidly catch up, but not only just catch up, but overmatch with the CCP in terms of our drone capabilities, because ultimately we can't fight last year's war or last decade's war if we don't rapidly iterate and rapidly field some of these new capabilities, because the battlefield's changing every single week. And until we address that underlying procurement system, we couldn't actually get after some
- [19:31]
Natalie Winters
of the core issues, sort of converging this with what I want to talk about next, which is the procurement, these channels, the processes. I know you were really, I think, one of the leaders on this when you were at the Pentagon, but changing how that system works, I'm curious, what exactly, you know, kind of what is procurement? What were the changes that needed to be made, what were the changes that were made, and what are these sort of novel things that the administration is doing? Things like, you know, OSC come to mind or Mountain Pass, the sort of interesting fusion of public and private capital to fix these very critical gaps.
- [20:09]
Justin Fulcher
Right. So procurement is essentially how the government buys things. And so it's not as simple as just going on Amazon or an online store and pushing a button and buying. Now, in many cases, for example, buying software which you may be able to just go online and subscribe to almost instantaneously, could actually take years. And so one of the first things Secretary Hagsett did was this concept of software acquisition reform, which took on average from three years to three months to really field some of this new software. But the same thing is applied to things like drones and other weapons systems. And Secretary Hegseth boldly laid out in this war fighting acquisition strategy, which outlined numerous changes to how that gets done, because ultimately we can have the best technology, but if it takes us three or five years to buy, to test and to field those technologies, it doesn't really matter if they can't be integrated. And you mentioned the Office of Strategic Capital osc, as it's called in the Pentagon. And I think this is A good innovative new example of how you can take some of this procurement reform and really get creative. And Deputy Secretary Feinberg and of course OSC lead David Lorch have done a great job in terms of using creative financing structures, offtake agreements, and even doing very favorable debt to some of these companies that allow really the defense industrial base to get revitalized and to invest in some of these core resilient strategic capabilities.
- [21:48]
Natalie Winters
Similarly to the software issue or this idea that you can have all this wonderful technology, but if you can't actually have it in your hands, then it doesn't really matter. I think rare earths and the shortages there come to mind. Right. We can want to build all these wonderful systems, but if you can't actually build them, whether it's because of shortage of human capital or in this case, you know, whatever, rare earth, critical minerals, that's a big thing. We've covered that extensively on the show. We've seen how it's been used against President Trump in negotiations, certainly by the Chinese Communist Party. Can you talk us through, first of all, why these things are so important and how the Trump administration slash the Pentagon together have worked to rectify some of these shortages. And if that shortage is not fixed, how, I mean, how much of a doomsday scenario something like that would be for the United States?
- [22:37]
Justin Fulcher
Well, rare earths are really the things that power all of our modern everyday life, from the chips that go in our smartphones, to know our trucks that we drive, to really everything that powers modern life. But as far as the military is concerned, they're in things like magnets, which move things, steer things, guide things, sense things, and really power all of our modern communication. And so when you think about whether it's drone motors or missile guidance or really any of those kind of core military capabilities, they rely on magnets and some of these rare earths processing capabilities. But the key issue isn't just mining here, it's really processing and getting those into the supply chain as quickly as possible. Now, President Trump and the Pentagon took the lead, and one of the first deals that they did was this deal of Mountain Pass in California, which really for the first time ever, brought magnet processing and creation back to the United States. Which is incredible because over the past decade, China has taken an extremely strategic approach in terms of actually trying to put a chokehold on this global supply chain, but more importantly, to try to dominate this area, to maintain leverage over the United States. And so we're not at a complete nightmare scenario because President Trump's leadership has really pushed this to the forefront. But it's not just about digging rocks out of the ground. It's a lot more than that when you think about it. It's the nightmare scenario is if we stop pursuing this issue at the speed that we are and really invest in the processing and refining and those sorts
- [24:20]
Natalie Winters
of capabilities and just give us some of the numbers, like the percentages on what that monopoly, the Chinese monopoly actually looks like, both on the raw material side, but also the refinement side.
- [24:32]
Justin Fulcher
For the past decade, China has taken a strategic approach to really capture nearly 90% of the entire global supply chain. Japan, Australia are in secondary places there, with the US Lagging behind. But what's fascinating about this entire scenario here is that the US invented so many innovative capabilities to do this quickly. And God has blessed the United States tremendously with some, some of the most incredible resources right here in our country. And so, you know, ultimately it's, it's, how can we get back to doing what America does best, which is building things here, making things here, and really taking the resources that we've been blessed with and putting them into our supply chain.
- [25:14]
Natalie Winters
We're going to get into China. We'll probably do that the next break because I want to dedicate a lot of time to that. I know you're a very close follower and I can only imagine having been inside the Pentagon, all the things you must know, but this idea of sort of reinvigorating, reindustrializing the American defense space. I'm sure the Chinese Communist Party does not like that. They would like it to be very stagnant. But I think one of the key drivers of that is this kind of defense tech movement. I think maybe when our audience hears that, even for myself, when I first heard sort of sounds reeks of Silicon Valley investors, this shady stuff, that it's just all about profit. I think the American people are probably scarred from seeing their tax dollars subsidize these companies where, you know, the consultants and the CEOs. The C suite gets the upside, but then the taxpayers are left with lessened and weak national security systems that don't work or delays and they're robbed, basically. So what is this defense tech movement? And why do you think our audience should find some hope in it for the future of American defense?
- [26:22]
Justin Fulcher
I think you're right. When many Americans hear defense tech, they probably think of Silicon Valley selling overpriced software to the Pentagon. But I think really the more interesting story that's happening in defense tech is that the tech industry is really becoming physical again and building real physical products. And if you look at El Segundo, or the Gundo culture as it's colloquially known, you have founders building drones, rockets, satellites, sensors, all these incredible capabilities and really getting back to hard old school manufacturing, but applying new techniques. That's a completely different model than what happens in Silicon Valley. This isn't just about building some other consumer app or something that's more vapid. It's about building things that America needs to survive and win. Frankly, I think what is so different about Silicon Valley and El Segundo, for example, is that many of these founders aren't embarrassed to say that they're building for America. There's a patriotic capitalism here that really just underscores all of the different things happening across the industry. And a lot of these founders want to solve real problems, rebuild the defense industrial base and get back to having America win again on the global stage.
- [27:40]
Natalie Winters
I want to ask you after the break because I think our audience, which is full of people who I'm sure would like love to work in this movement, in these factories, these are the people whose jobs were either, you know, outsourced to China. I'm sure we still got a lot of welders and wonderful people like that in the war room posse. But it seems like such a different approach to actually involving the people who are working the factory floor in the company as opposed to just extracting what they can from it or from them treating their employees horribly. You know, I think that's something we harp on a lot about the war room, which I think a lot of maybe our left wing listeners do, certainly to Steve might kind of scratch their heads at and not get. But I think that's something that's really cool and makes this whole new movement very kind of, you know, maga America first coded. We got to take a break. We got to pay the bills. But we will be back after the short break with more Justin Fulcher, more of a deep dive into the Chinese Communist Party, all things defense tech and some good news for American national security, which I guess is bad news for the prc. We'll be right back.
- [28:42]
Stephen K. Bannon
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- [30:08]
Natalie Winters
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- [31:17]
Stephen K. Bannon
ROOM here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.
- [31:23]
Natalie Winters
We're still in the war room where we are chatting with Justin Fulcher, one of the founders of Doge. You know, we're taking so long talking about your. Your other hat that you wear, which is a former senior advisor to Secretary Hegseth, that I think we're gonna have to do another special on, on your time in Doge. What you found out about confronting the deep state face to face or whatever. Face to whatever, I don't know. But I want to pick up where, where we left off, which is talking about this movement probably best described as like re industrializing America. It's so new, Google or your phone still autocorrects it to industrial. They should get on that. But talk to us a little bit about, you know, what that that movement is. And like we were talking before the break, the kind of like almost glorification and just like gratitude shown to the factory worker, which is something that, you know, all of our elites and our betters I think have just totally looked down on and scorned for so long.
- [32:21]
Justin Fulcher
So reindustrialize as a movement is pretty straightforward. It's about how can we start building things in America again. And just a few days ago in Detroit, there was a re industrialized summit. Hats off to all the folks behind that and early supporters of this movement like Josh Steinman and Mike Slaw. But ultimately it's been a huge effort underway for the past few years to make manufacturing cool again. When you think about what the old model said about manufacturing, it was something that it was almost as if manufacturing was dirty, boring and low status, which for all of us we know couldn't be further from the truth. This new re industrialized movement is about really making building things cool again and really honoring this, that historic builder class, which if you look back and coming up on, you know, America 250America was founded by builders and was sustained by builders and continues to be supported by builders. So this new model is. Manufacturing is all about national power. And it's a tool of national power. And it's about making that front and center here in America again.
- [33:28]
Natalie Winters
I think the desecration of that, it's sort of like an even more maligned and nefarious version. You know, you see these statues getting torn down, America's culture just being erased. It's like that is our core as a country. For decades, that's what it's been about. And I think that the erasure of that is not just about crippling our defense base. Obviously China loves that, but it's more to the point. There's a cultural aspect to it as well. And I think that is what is so cool, appealing and frankly exciting about this reindustrialized movement. It has that same sort of Trump energy of wanting people to get involved because it's so inspired by human agency. We always talk about that here in the war room of people being able to do things or just talk about it, build it right. Action, action, action. That is the strap line of the war room. I'm sure the Chinese Communist Party does not like this idea of re industrializing. There's anything else you want to talk about when it comes to these companies, you know, any really interesting companies or stuff like that, they think the audience should be looking out for. Feel free, but I want to pivot. I can't believe we're already more than halfway through the show. But that is, I think, what undergirds a lot of this new philosophy, which is that the Chinese Communist Party is our existential threat. It's not climate change, it's not whatever. It's not some of this, you know, woke stuff we've seen. Do you think I'm crazy for saying that? You know, do you think China really is our existence threat?
- [34:57]
Justin Fulcher
Absolutely. China is by far our number one adversary and our top existential threat. But ultimately I think the threat is the CCP strategy there. But there are a tremendous amount of companies and new defense tech and innovation happening all across the country. That gives me a lot of hope. And there's a whole bunch of models of companies like, like Hadrian, for example, which make even welders the heroes again and give them equity in the company and making manufacturing cool. That being said, I mean, the PRC is by far the top adversary and it's a whole of society competitor. But what does that actually mean? It means that the CCP uses espionage, cyber operations, it's military, economic warfare, political influence, lawfare, and all of these gray zone tactics to really come after the United States and her allies. And so I'm not saying this because we should panic, but rather more can and should be done to take this threat extremely seriously. America has enormous advantages, absolutely enormous advantages. But ultimately we have to start acting like we're in a real competition across every single domain, not just one or two areas.
- [36:16]
Natalie Winters
Yeah, I mean, it's a whole of society approach to respond to a whole of society approach coming from them. Right. They were the ones that declared the people's war on us first and, you know, probably released a bioweapon. But that was this morning's topic. I digress on that. But I'm curious what you think that actual flashpoint of potential kinetic conflict. We know the Chinese, I know the book of unrestricted warfare is somewhere around here. Usually Steve would always hold it up. If I could find it, I would do the same. But that they would obviously prefer to not go there. You know, the prevailing consensus being that Taiwan is probably the first kinetic flashpoint. What do you think that that would actually look like?
- [36:58]
Justin Fulcher
Well, I think many Americans and you know, many scholars may think that and have this image that China invading Taiwan will be some large scale D day style invasion. I mean that's certainly possible, but I would say it probably wouldn't be the first move. The more likely scenario would probably be below the threshold of full war, for example, blockades, quarantines, cyber attacks, even cutting and severing undersea communication cables, lawfare, drone harassment, all of these sorts of things that just really slowly undermine Taiwan and her allies. And so I believe that China will probably try to create a scenario with Taiwan where they're slowly strangled and the United States is then forced to decide whether or not she will need to escalate. And that's why deterrence, when we think about that from the American perspective, I believe should be a lot broader than just aircraft carriers and missiles. But really it's really going beyond that to a whole of government approach around resilient communications, cyber defense, cable protection, stockpiles, all of that. Because it's not just about how we can win the first battle. We certainly can and we definitely would. But it's really about how can we sustain a defense long enough that China cannot achieve their objectives there and more importantly won't even attempt to try it.
- [38:28]
Natalie Winters
Talking about these gray zone tactics, where have we seen those both already applied in the United States. We only have, you know, God knows how many military age Chinese males in this country. We can't even keep count. Thank you Joe Biden. But also the vulnerabilities that we have that could, you know, expose us to even more.
- [38:49]
Justin Fulcher
Well, I think as you mentioned, you know, under the previous administration, we've had thousands of Chinese military aged males enter the United States and we have no idea who they are or what they're doing here. And you know, this isn't about ethnicity. I mean, it's really about the CCP's threat and use of their access, influence and all of these, you know, unrestricted warfare efforts to undermine the United States. And the CCP has had an absolutely long history of using students, researchers, business networks and all of those different tools of unrestricted warfare to actually put pressure on these overseas Chinese communities and their operatives to advance the causes of the Chinese Communist party in the U.S. and so, you know, gray zone warfare means that the battlefield is not necessarily kinetic. It goes beyond that. And it can be right here at home in our ports, in our universities. And, you know, whenever you see some of these, you know, factories explode or fuel port disruptions, it really begs the question, are these really accidents or is there perhaps something more sinister and sabotage going on there?
- [40:01]
Natalie Winters
Some of these kind of doomsday scenarios we've seen depicted, they almost seem like they're out of science fiction movies. I'm curious. We, I think, covered it on War Room. I remember, I think I talked about it from, from the White House. But the threat, I think everybody next to me is looking at me like, what is this girl talking about? But that is the threat of an EMP attack. What exactly is that? And, you know, why is it something that we should be concerned about? You know, not like you said, not concerned, we all need to, you know, hunker down, but that it's something that needs to be seriously, you know, discussed.
- [40:40]
Justin Fulcher
Well, huge credit to you for leading on, highlighting these issues for many years and really the entire aspects of unrestricted warfare, you've done great reporting on that. When it comes to EMP attacks and potential for attacks, a lot of times people think about EMPs as they're associated with nuclear weapons, and that's electromagnetic pulse that's emitted after some sort of explosion. And EMP's, those pulses can actually disable and destroy electronics like modern communication, smartphones, and these sorts of everyday tools that power our lives. Now, EMPs are really an interesting potential threat, especially with new delivery mechanisms that don't have to be a result of a nuclear explosion, but perhaps drones or other saboteurs by the ccp. So I think ultimately, you know, there's a lot of things that we need to be doing a lot more of. And you know, this. The Trump administration has done amazing work to get behind, you know, drones and drone defense. But ultimately this is a huge threat that it really reshapes how we think about warfare.
- [41:53]
Natalie Winters
In talking about the Chinese Communist Party, you obviously follow the dynamics that there quite closely. There's been a lot of movement, right, that people have been tracking, whether it's with Xi Jinping and his generals, the Central Military Commission. And a lot of people have tried to kind of discern or take away some sort of insight on what that could look like, whether with regard to Taiwan their posture towards the United States. Can you sort of walk us through those changes that have people intrigued, but also then your assessment of what that actually means for the fate of Taiwan, the United States states, their kinetic movements.
- [42:27]
Justin Fulcher
Well, since Xi Jinping has come into power over the past decade, he's taken a systematic approach to really consolidating power and unifying central control in a level not seen since Mao Zedong and the founding of the CCP and Communist China. I think these purges, a lot of people, you know, think about it, it could be a sign of strength, but it could also reveal weaknesses inside the system. For example, corruption among the People's Liberation army, distrust, huge amounts of factionalism that are occurring all over key aspects of the Chinese Communist Party leadership. And I think, you know, ultimately these purges especially have accelerated in the past couple years where you've had more than 100 key military leaders, even as senior as the Central Military Commission itself, be purged. And so there's real dysfunction here. But that being said, Americans shouldn't necessarily take too much comfort from that because as we've seen throughout history, authoritarian systems can become extremely brittle and dangerous both at the same time. And so a leader who distrusts his own military may become more cautious or he may become more desperate and want to lash out irrationally externally.
- [43:49]
Natalie Winters
Justin, if you hang with us through one more break, we appreciate your time. One of the leaders, not just of the defense tech movement, but I think in the anti China space to former founder, one of the co founders of DOGE and a senior advisor to Secretary Hegseth. We will be right back after this short break.
- [44:07]
Stephen K. Bannon
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- [46:08]
Stephen K. Bannon
War room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Ban.
- [46:14]
Natalie Winters
You are back in the war room sitting down with one of the founders of Doge. You were what, like you were one of the first people there? So we'll have to have you on again to do a, a deep dive into everything that you saw there. Probably the closest anyone in this audience has ever come to the deep state bureaucrats. We'll talk a little bit about it, but I have one last question I want to ask you on the China front, which is in relation to, you know, Belt and Road, I think that gets most of the attention for China's, you know, quest for geopolitical hegemony, expansionism. What exactly is that is the real push for that to get access to ports, infrastructure, rare earths, critical minerals, all that. And, you know, take Panama, for example. What Secretary Hecseth is doing down there. What are some examples of how the Trump administration has been pushing back on that stranglehold?
- [47:10]
Justin Fulcher
I think, as you mentioned, the Belt and Road initiative is really China's geopolitical operating system for how they systematically and methodically go after key strategic infrastructure all over the globe. So what does that look like? That looks like, you know, subsidizing and supporting their state owned entities, going out to buy strategic ports, strategic, you know, telecom networks, industrial parks, energy projects to really create as much as they can, an attempt at, you know, global control of key strategic Terrain. And so, you know, Panama is a perfect example of why Americans really can start thinking a lot more in terms of strategic terrain. So, early on in the Trump administration, I had the opportunity to go visit Panama with Secretary Hegseth and the team, and the team did amazing work securing absolutely critical key agreements and MOUs to help maintain American strategic control of the canal and not allow that to fall in to PRC and CCP hands. And so the same is true all over the world in critical ports, undersea cables, mineral corridors, and all these logistics hubs. And President Trump has made that a priority, not just at the Department of War, but across the entire US Government to really get after how America can relearn making strategic geography a top priority.
- [48:43]
Natalie Winters
Couldn't agree more. I want to pivot. We've got a few minutes left. I want to start with just overall broad assessment. What do you think the legacy of DOGE is?
- [48:56]
Justin Fulcher
I think, you know, unfortunately, DOGE didn't solve completely the core problem that it was trying to do, which I think everyone serious can admit that. But it did expose something that Washington had spent years hiding in plain sight, which is the federal government often cannot tell you what people are doing, what programs actually work, where some of these dollars go, and whether or not when you spend billions of dollars, do better outcomes actually come as a result. And that's not a small inefficiency here. What DOGE exposed successfully were massive inefficiencies and huge scale of waste, fraud, and abuse that was happening across the federal government. And so, you know, I don't think the legacy of DOGE should be something like, you know, nostalgia or just funny memes. I think it should be. And it was the beginning of a more serious effort that the Trump administration has picked up, which is rolling out how can we make government more measurable, more accountable, and more mission driven?
- [49:58]
Natalie Winters
Talk to us a little bit about what you said saw at the VA there. I mean, I don't think anybody who's interfaced with the stuff going on there, I'm sure this audience has horror stories, nightmare stories, but what the systems you saw there that perpetuated that incompetence and just that lag. How is that allowed to exist? How does it exist? And what'd you cut, more importantly?
- [50:22]
Justin Fulcher
Well, I think, you know, the VA is an interesting example because you have an organization with which, when President Trump came back into the Oval Office and Secretary Collins at the VA Inherited was a VA that had nearly 500,000 employees, which, to put that into context, is larger than the entire US Active duty Army. So an incredibly large organization spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year, of course, for an incredibly important and noble mission, which is taking care of our veterans and giving them all the benefits that they deserve. Absolutely. And they've earned. That being said, I can't tell you how many times I've interacted with veterans, and almost none of them have, you know, any sort of perfect experience with the va. Now, you know, Secretary Collins has done a lot to address some of those, but when you look at an organization that size, you had thousands of people that were involved in touching these different processes that in some cases could have been automated, could have been really streamlined to make it a lot easier for veterans to get access to the health care they need to the benefits, processing their claims and all of that. But, you know, ultimately we encountered a deep state bureaucracy in many cases that were completely absorbed with focusing on the process in many cases rather than outcomes.
- [51:47]
Natalie Winters
So talk to us a little bit about just the sheer scale of the organization. How did it, or the department, rather, how did it. How did it get so big? And how can you have actual substantive measures to sort of assess. Actually, you know what, we're going to put a pin in that. I was just looking at the time. We don't have enough time to get into that, which means you got to come back. So I'm sure people are really intrigued, very interested if people. People want to stay up to date with your writings. Everything you've got going on, follow you on. On X on Getter. Who knows? Where can they go to do that?
- [52:23]
Justin Fulcher
On X. Ustinfolcher and then also justinfolcher.com awesome.
- [52:28]
Natalie Winters
Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. I know the audience is going to be really amped up around people who actually do things. You know, there's so much talk here in Washington, D.C. about how we're going to take on the Chinese Communist Party. We're so tough. I'm still waiting on the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party to, like, do anything. Thank you for the, you know, 80th press release in a row telling us that China is our existential threat. Yeah, we know. Thank you. But it's wonderful to see so many patriotic Americans, mainly young men. I know. I don't know if we're allowed to say that. No girl bosses, but really working hard to make sure that this country is safe. It's inspiring. Make sure you check him out. And I think Ben Harnwell is taking over the 6pm so make sure you go and watch his show. As always, thank you for hanging with me. Natalie Winters out.
- [53:29]
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