WarRoom Battleground EP 685: Deep State Gearing Up; The Process Of The Incoming Trump Administration

Summary

Summary of WarRoom Battleground EP 685: "Deep State Gearing Up; The Process Of The Incoming Trump Administration"

Release Date: January 13, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 685 of Bannon's War Room, host Stephen K. Bannon and his panel delve deep into the imminent challenges facing the incoming Trump administration. The discussion centers around the anticipated resistance from the deep state, the strategic processes behind cabinet confirmations, and the broader implications for national and international politics.

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1. The Deep State and Resistance to Trump's Agenda

Timestamp: [00:03 - 05:27]

The episode opens with Steve Bannon expressing frustration with the media and entrenched bureaucratic opposition. He characterizes the current situation as a "primal scream of a dying regime," emphasizing the severity of the impending battles against established institutions.

Key Highlights:

• Poll Insights: Rob Bluey introduces a concerning poll from the Daily Signal, revealing that 50% of federal employees anticipate resisting President Trump's directives.

  Notable Quote:
  Rob Bluey (03:32): "We guys have a poll up that says, I think it's 50% of the administrative state. 50% say that they're going to basically form a resistance to President Trump."

• Historical Context: David Drucker provides historical context, comparing the current resistance to past administrations. He notes that unlike previous leaders who enjoyed more neutral or supportive stances from federal employees, Trump faces unprecedented opposition.

  Notable Quote:
  David Drucker (04:34): "Nearly half of federal government managers are planning to do exactly what they did during the first term, and that is resist Trump at every turn."

• Implications for Policy Implementation: The panel discusses how this resistance could hinder the swift execution of Trump's policy agenda, especially in critical areas like border security and economic reforms.

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2. Cabinet Confirmations and Executive Orders

Timestamp: [05:27 - 17:04]

The conversation shifts to the logistical and political hurdles involved in solidifying Trump's administration. Bannon outlines the ambitious plan for 25 to 50 executive orders on Trump's first day, targeting key issues such as the national debt, immigration, and border security.

Key Highlights:

• Urgency in Confirmations: Rob Bluey emphasizes the need for rapid confirmation of cabinet members to ensure that executive orders are effectively implemented.

  Notable Quote:
  Rob Bluey (07:06): "Unless we force these committees to vote later in the week or over the weekend, it can't go to the floor."

• Senate Dynamics: David Drucker discusses the crucial role of the Republican senators in expediting the confirmation process, contrasting it with the Democratic approach during the Biden administration.

  Notable Quote:
  David Drucker (04:34): "Donald Trump needs to have the team that he has nominated so he can do that."

• Potential Delays: The panel warns of possible delays due to procedural hurdles and Democratic resistance, which could impede the timely implementation of Trump's strategic initiatives.

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3. California’s Political and Administrative Challenges

Timestamp: [10:13 - 21:45]

Ben Harnwell provides an in-depth analysis of California's political landscape, highlighting the dominance of the environmental lobby and its impact on infrastructure and water management policies.

Key Highlights:

• Environmental Industrial Complex: Harnwell critiques the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) as a tool that has been weaponized to block critical infrastructural projects.

  Notable Quote:
  Ben Harnwell (12:51): "The most powerful political lobby in California is not the tech lobby. It's the environmental lobby, the environmental industrial complex."

• Water Infrastructure Crisis: He underscores the state's lack of adequate water storage despite significant rainfall, attributing the failure to diverted funds and bureaucratic inefficiencies.

  Notable Quote:
  Ben Harnwell (17:56): "We have the ability to have water free to the residents of the state... but there's so much money on the line."

• Long-Term Structural Issues: Harnwell argues that without dismantling these entrenched bureaucratic structures, California will continue to grapple with infrastructural deficits and inefficiencies.

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4. International Affairs: The Ukraine War and Trump's Potential Role

Timestamp: [21:45 - 34:08]

The panel shifts focus to international relations, particularly the ongoing Ukraine war, and speculates on how Trump's administration might navigate this complex conflict.

Key Highlights:

• Strategic Decisions: Dave Walsh analyzes potential strategies Trump might employ, such as pressuring Ukraine to lower the age of conscription, which could have profound moral and geopolitical implications.

  Notable Quote:
  Dave Walsh (25:30): "If he withdraws the United States, leaves Ukraine out to dry, that is a signaling, a massive perception of weakness."

• Influence of Thought Leaders: The discussion references opinions from prominent figures like Robert Kagan, who predict that Trump's handling of the Ukraine conflict could define his administration's legacy.

  Notable Quote:
  Steve Bannon (27:00): "They're trying to stick him with the problem they created."

• Potential Escalation vs. De-escalation: The panel debates whether Trump's approach will lead to escalation or a strategic withdrawal, drawing parallels to historical conflicts like Vietnam and Iraq.

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5. Economic Policies and National Debt

Timestamp: [34:08 - 37:18]

Steve Bannon briefly addresses the pressing issue of the national debt and deficits, emphasizing the administration's commitment to economic reforms through diversification and deregulation.

Key Highlights:

• Economic Reforms: Bannon underscores the importance of shifting savings into tangible assets like gold to safeguard against economic instability.

  Notable Quote:
  Steve Bannon (27:00): "The strategy remains the same for you. You got to diversify, diversify your savings."

• Bond Market Concerns: The discussion touches upon the rising bond prices and their implications for Trump's economic policies, including tariffs and energy dominance.

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Conclusion

Episode 685 of Bannon's War Room presents a comprehensive examination of the multifaceted challenges awaiting the incoming Trump administration. From institutional resistance within the federal bureaucracy to intricate political dynamics in states like California, the panel provides insightful analysis and strategic foresight. As cabinet confirmations loom and international tensions persist, the episode underscores the critical importance of swift and decisive action to ensure the successful implementation of Trump's agenda.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Rob Bluey (03:32): "We guys have a poll up that says, I think it's 50% of the administrative state. 50% say that they're going to basically form a resistance to President Trump."

• David Drucker (04:34): "Nearly half of federal government managers are planning to do exactly what they did during the first term, and that is resist Trump at every turn."

• Steve Bannon (00:44): "President Trump will come at those for a couple things. Number one, be executive orders, right? There's going to be 100, probably, I don't know, 25 to 50 on day one of next Monday."

• Ben Harnwell (12:51): "The most powerful political lobby in California is not the tech lobby. It's the environmental lobby, the environmental industrial complex."

• Dave Walsh (25:30): "If he withdraws the United States, leaves Ukraine out to dry, that is a signaling, a massive perception of weakness."

• Steve Bannon (27:00): "They're trying to stick him with the problem they created."

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from the episode, providing a comprehensive overview for those who haven't listened to the full podcast.

Transcript

[Steve Bannon]

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

[Rob Bluey]

Reasons I got a free shot. All these networks lying about the people, the people have had a belly full of it.

[Steve Bannon]

I know you don't like hearing that. I know you try to do everything.

[Rob Bluey]

In the world to stop that, but.

[Steve Bannon]

You'Re not going to stop it. It's going to happen.

[Josh Pettit]

And where do people like that go.

[Rob Bluey]

To share the big lie?

[Ben Harnwell]

MAGA MEDIA I wish in my soul.

[Josh Pettit]

I wish that any of these people had a conscience.

[Steve Bannon]

Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose?

[Rob Bluey]

If that answer is to save my.

[Steve Bannon]

Country, this country will be saved.

[Rob Bluey]

War Room here's your host, Stephen K. Band. Okay, Monday the 13th of January, year of the Lord 2025. Thank you for being here for the second hour of our late afternoon, early evening edition of the War Room. Tomorrow, Days of Thunder. The preamble starts with the confirmation. Remember, we told you these ways that President Trump will get his hands around the kinetic part of the Third World War, the debt and deficit crisis that is a true existential crisis for us. And of course, immigration, deportations, border security, those three big lines of work. President Trump will come at those for a couple things. Number one, be executive orders, right? There's going to be 100, probably, I don't know, 25 to 50 on day one of next Monday. There's already laid out in the president's calendar the schedule after the inauguration, after the lunch, after the parade, what he's saying up there a little bit after, he's reviewing the troops in the inauguration parade at the White House. President Trump back in for his first day since he left on the 20th of January, 2021. I guess he did go by and see Biden. So I take that back. President Trump has signed executive orders, but you also have to get his team in place. And the team in place is going to be these confirmation hearings. There's going to be some fireworks. I think we have 13 cabinet officials, cabinet members in 14 hearings. Pam Bondi's already going to get two. I think hers is Wednesday, Thursday or Thursday, Friday. She got two days. Everybody else got one. And of course, all the big names, Scott Besant, Russ Vogt, of course, Pete Heggs is the one that's going to light off tomorrow morning. We're going to start at 10:00 hour up with Pete, even beforehand, I think a real America's voice. They're going to be at this kind of rally or show of support among junior officers who are veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Captain Maureen Bannon, I think, will be part of that. So a lot going on on Days of Thunder. Want to welcome Rob Bluey, head of the Daily Signal, a major news site. Rob was at Heritage for years, where I knew him, where he. I guess this started there and you spun it off. You've got. I always go to Daily Signal early in the morning to see what you guys are talking about. I was kind of shocked today. And we're the leaders in the deconstruction of the administrative state. We're huge supporters of DOGE to do it. Rob, you had a piece there, and we keep saying the administrative state and deep state are not there. They're not going to follow President Trump's orders. There's going to be some resistance. But you guys have a poll up that says, I think it's 50% of the administrative state. 50% say that they're going to basically form a resistance to President Trump.

[David Drucker]

Walk me through that, Steve, God bless you for making your audience and conservatives aware more broadly of this problem. You have warned that we shouldn't fall into a false sense of complacency. The legacy media has been telling us for weeks now, everyone's bending a knee to Trump and writing big checks to Trump, and the resistance isn't there, and we should not expect anything like what we saw in 2017. Well, this poll should disprove all of that, and that's because, as you just pinpointed, nearly half of federal government managers are planning to do exactly what they did during the first term, and that is resist Trump at every turn. In fact, if you look specifically at at the number of federal employees who voted for Kamala Harris, two thirds of them have said that they will outright ignore directives from the president or do things that they can in their power to resist him from carrying out his agenda. This is the reality of what is going on in Washington, D.C. right now, a week before President Trump takes office.

[Rob Bluey]

So this is why. This is why the confirmations, we kept saying, guys, you got to bring those forward and you got to flood the zone because he needs the cabinet heads. But you still got, you know, none of the second or third tier people. You do have the 3,000 when you send in day one. But those executive orders, Rob, that he's going to sign in this ceremony next week, and let's say there's 50, and they're all in different aspects, a lot dealing with, you know, the securing the border and deportations, some dealing with trade and tariffs, some dealing with these wars and many other things like the woke nature. Signing an executive order in the Oval Office is ceremonial and it's obviously it codifies it, but. But you have to force it through the system. The shocking thing about your poll is you say right out of the box, Trump is like in Saigon in 1966, the enemy. You don't know where they are, who they are, but you know they're out there and you know they're embedded. Sir.

[David Drucker]

Yeah. There are 3 million federal employees. I mean, it's a massive bureaucracy. And over. This is a problem that is decades in the making. I mean, if you go back probably even 100 years to Woodrow Wilson's administration, I mean, you have had a situation where Democrats have just done a much better job of burrowing into these agen and they stay there. Republicans leave office, whether it's George W. Bush or Donald Trump. And usually people leave. And in the case of Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, people stay. And they stay for a purpose. They stay to enact their agenda, not the President's agenda. This is why we are big advocates, that the president should have the executive authority and the ability to fire these individuals who don't follow his directives. And so to your point about Senate confirmations, I think that it's imperative on the 53 Republican senators to move with urgency to get these cabinet secretaries in place and then moved with urgency to get their deputies in place, because they're oftentimes the ones who are gonna be on the front lines while the secretaries are out there testifying and, you know, doing other things that come with those official duties. You have a situation now where, yes, this week is packed with confirmation hearings, but I'm not confident that President Trump is going to start day one with his team in place. I mean, he may have a few people in place, maybe a Marco Rubio, maybe Pete Hagseth gets confirmed. If you look at what happened with Biden, though, Democrats moved with urgency to make sure he had everybody in place that he needed on day one, January 20, 2021, to carry out the executive orders and make sure that they were actually enforced. And Donald Trump needs to have that same sense of urgency. And I hope that Republicans in the Senate give him the team that he has nominated so he can do that.

[Rob Bluey]

Rob, once again, you bring up a brilliant point. Just the process, folks. They go to the committee of jurisdiction to actually have the confirmation hearing. Okay. And we're going to cover that wall to wall. Right. Once they got, then the committee has to Vote. So what Rob's saying is that, hey, if you look at these things happening this week, unless we force these committees to vote later in the week or over the weekend, it can't go to the floor. And the Democrats are going to try to slow everything down, use every technique, use floor speeches, all of it. But you've got to get floor to actually have a vote of the entire Senate, who is the human resources department, really of the government. So there's two big functions is advice and consent on nominees and its treaties. That's really what they were set up in the Constitution to do. So if you just look at the timing, we could be and they could kick the committee vote into next week and then drag out the Trump could be a week, 10 days, two weeks to get some of these key, these key people in there. How do we, what's your recommendation to the audience of what we have to do to make sure we expedite that?

[David Drucker]

ROB luie well, Steve, you've had some committee chairman like, I'll give kudos to Mike Lee, who is running the Energy Committee, who has said he is not going to let the Democrats stonewall him and pull out these procedural hurdles. You have other Republicans who I think are more deferential to the process and the system and making sure that all the paperwork is in. And we know that in some cases, these FBI background checks can take a long time. And I'm sure that they're working, these government employees are working with all urgency to get them done. I say that sarcastically, but you know, Steve, it's so critical, and here's why, because we have already heard that it's going to be 18 months to two years that Trump's going to be able, you know, that's his window basically, to make sure that he accomplishes the legislative and the executive priorities that he wants to put in place. At that point, Democrats, you know, we'll start to gum up the works. We'll have another election to think about. And so everything that he can do starting on day one and throughout those first 100 days will be important. And then you look at the steps you outlined, the 25 to 50 executive orders, you actually need people in place to carry out those actions. So in some cases, he'll have people who go on a landing team or will step in, in acting roles until the secretary is confirmed. But, you know, that's limited in their capacity. We even had Democrats and those on the left use lawfare to challenge actions by individuals who were in an acting capacity in the first term. And so you have all sorts of potential impediments that will be standing in his way. And so I hope that Republican senators, and there are 53 of them, we have to remember he can lose up to three of them. I hope that they will recognize, just as Democrats did four years ago, that the president deserves his team. And by the way, we should also remember, Steve, the Democrats moved in lockstep four years ago. Not a single Democrat senator opposed a single Biden nominee. This is unheard of that you have Republicans who are now saying that they might not vote for some of these people, even though the American people have given Donald Trump a mandate. I mean, it's incredibly frustrating that Republicans tend to be this firing squad against their own.

[Rob Bluey]

Rob, I want to have you back on the next couple of days talk about the deconstruction administrative state, how Doge can help that and how that ties into this poll that you guys have that says that 50% are going to be resistance to the president's, basically remember the chief executive officer of the government, the commander in chief and also the chief magistrate, the chief law enforcement officer. Rob, tell us about Daily Signal. Give us a minute or so on Daily Signal. How do people get to it? What do they do with it, et cetera.

[David Drucker]

Sure, Steve. And one final point on the poll. The good news that I think coming out of the poll is that 54% of Americans, so a majority of Americans, say that Trump should have the authority to fire them if they don't comply. So hopefully the American people will still be on Donald Trump's side. Daily signal. Visit daily signal.com, sign up there for our email newsletter. Steve we are newly independent from the Heritage Foundation. We got our start under Heritage 10 years ago. We are going to be intently focused on covering Congress, newly credentialed, so our team has credentials, will be out there for the inauguration and roaming the halls of Congress, covering the conference, confirmation hearings, doing all those things. So we look forward to sharing that good message with all of your viewers and listeners.

[Rob Bluey]

Well, we're going to pick up some of your confirmation coverage over the next couple days. Rob Blewy, your personal social media. Where do folks go?

[David Drucker]

Yeah, absolutely. Robert Bluey on X and the other platforms as well. Check me out there. And again, thank you to all of the War Room Army. We appreciate your loyal support and it's going to be busy year ahead, Steve, and we're going to need to all be on the top of our game.

[Rob Bluey]

All hands on deck. Thank you very much, brother. Appreciate you. Rob Bloyd daily signal. Make it part of your daily diet, your media diet, to get up to speed on everything. Josh Pettit, I just want make sure you understand this is not simply a problem in the federal government. Josh Pettit, who's one of the great thinkers in the game of golf about the history of it, the architecture of it, also knows California politics in a very sophisticated way. Josh and I wanted to get you on here. We started the morning show about Gavin Newsom, his complaints about the president, where actually Erik Prince was on about a recall petition about Gavin Newsom and he actually recommended Elon Musk as a guy. They actually run for governor against Newsom, replace it. And you've been very good as one of my guides out there. And you're saying, and I lived there for 20 years, but I didn't even know the depth of the problem. You're saying, hey, look, all that's good, it's gotta be taken care of. But don't think that solves the problem. The problem you have in Sacramento and throughout the state is probably worse than you've got with the administrative and deep state in Washington, D.C. explain to the audience exactly what you're talking about.

[Ben Harnwell]

Sure. Well, if not worse, it's on the level. And you know, first of all, going back to the morning show, which I caught bits of the San Francisco disaster of 1906 was first caused by an earthquake, which then led to the city burning down, which then led to the 1907 financial panic. J.P. morgan got involved, tried to pull resources, and then the rest is history. But to your question, I'm seeing all these people and I love me some Erik Prince, huge Erik Prince fan. And there's a lot of sentiment out there. People are talking about recall efforts and we got to get rid of these incompetent executives at the state level and at the local level. In the case of LA with Karen Bass, that's all well and good. I like the sentiment. I love the motivation that will not solve the underlying issues here. It'll help maybe around the margins, but it's not going to solve for the structural underlying issues that have compounded for decades and that are now manifesting themselves. What we're seeing is not simply a manifestation of incompetence, just a little inside baseball and California politics. The most powerful political lobby in California is not the tech lobby. It's not the labor lobby, even though historically Sacramento and San Francisco were labor towns. It's not the more recent LGBT woke lobby. It's the environmental lobby, the environmental industrial complex. Has taken over California politics over the last three or four decades, and they run the deal. And until we address that and dismantle that brick by brick, the California administrative state, just like we have to do in dc, we're not going to get much progress coming out of executives. Even if you get a guy like Elon in there who, you know, that. Whatever. That's interesting. You and I may have some philosophical disagreements with Elon, but I think we did admit he's probably a phenomenal executive and a brilliant engineer, and he could probably solve certain things, but he would be he or any other executive that goes in there. Suppose we do recall Newsom. They are going to be fought tooth and nail every step of the way by the environmental industrial complex, which consists of the politicians in both state houses, a network of attorneys, lobbyists, consultants, NGOs, and they really make up this bureaucratic, technocratic class. And that's where the power in California resides in this scenario, most particularly at the California State Water Resource Control Board, the Department of Water Resources, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the California Coastal Commission in certain zones, they're very, very powerful. Until you dismantle these agencies, we're not going to solve these problems with the infrastructure deficits that we're seeing. We have not this. The population of the state of California has doubled in the last 40 years, and we have not increased our water storage capacity during that timeframe at all. There's been tons and tons of money, billions of dollars allocated to the water infrastructure, and it's always gotten diverted away. Ten years ago, the California voters passed Prop 1, which is this boondoggle bond initiative, and it was sold to the public. As for water infrastructure, storage capacity, conveyance systems, all these things, 95% of that money was diverted away. And it went all of these NGO groups that run these habitat restoration projects, and they get extremely wealthy in the process. And then they have their 501C3s that they run their operations out of, but then adjacent to that, they have their 501c4 operations that are political arms, they're PACs. And then they install their own bureaucrats, their own politicians, and they keep the money cycling going. It's just this recurring. These environmentalists, I consider myself an environmentalist, but the environmental lobby, they came to too well, and they did really well indeed.

[Rob Bluey]

Hang on for a second because I'm going to have you back on tomorrow to get to this thing is amazing. You're the first guy that's actually, I think, exposed it for us because we know the biopharmaceutical industrial complex, the military industrial complex, the kind of tech, you know, the techno feudalism industrial complex. One of the issues here, didn't something like 2 trillion gallons of rain fall. They've had two amazing wet years. I know this is a property owner in California. They've had two amazingly, I guess, wet winters the last couple. And they're saying, oh well, that grew the thing. Weren't they supposed to store that water? Isn't there some big debate or crisis over they were supposed to have this storage capacity but somehow the bond issue didn't pay for it, so the water just ran off. So they've had these incredibly wet winters, but there's nothing to show for it. And they still sitting there fighting over the Colorado River.

[Ben Harnwell]

Sir, you're hitting the signal, Bannon. That's exactly right.

[Rob Bluey]

Yeah.

[Ben Harnwell]

We've had two back to back years of record rainfall that had followed a couple of year drought stretch. The reality is we live in a Mediterranean climate here. We're always cycling in and out of drought years and El Nino years or clumps of years. And again, we don't have the water infrastructure to be able to store the water that can be utilized for the 36 or 38 million people that live here. And furthermore, we have the ability to do it. There's plenty of water. California, we have the ability to have water free to the residents of the state. We could have water too cheap to meter. Decades ago we used to think, I think thinking forward technologically we'd have energy too cheap to meter and regulations largely have gotten in the way of that. In California we could have water too cheap to meter, but there's so much money on the line. All these water districts, every time there's a drought cycle, they 1 1/2 or double 2x their water rates and then the water rates never come down when we go out of the drought cycles. And they're always claiming that they're going to use the money for more infrastructure. But guess what always happens is the infrastructure projects that get proposed, they always get shot, blocked by the environment. They always go in and sue. There's a body of law, it's not a law, but it's a body of law called CEQA. California Environmental Quality Act. That was passed in 1970, actually signed by Ronald Reagan, governor at the time. And that has been weaponized. That is their tool of choice. That and the Endangered Species Acts for other reasons I won't go into, which is passed at the federal level. And they weaponize ceqa and they use it to dismantle any project the environmentalists don't want, which is most of them. And then the few projects they do allow built, their donors are developers that they let get by. But anything they don't want built, including these water infrastructure, the storage capacity, reservoirs, conveyance systems, they always get nixed, they get sued, they get dragged out for years and decades and they never happen. Much like we've seen with this debacle of this high speed rail project that's been going on for years, if not a couple of decades now. It's gotten nowhere. Wasted billions of dollars. The waste, the corruption, the graft. It would make Tammany hall blush.

[Rob Bluey]

We got a bounce. This is fascinating, Josh. Where do they go on your social media to get you? Because I want to break this down so people understand we're really up against in California.

[Ben Harnwell]

Well, as a golf course architect, I inadvertently found myself in the middle of all of these water projects going to meetings in Sacramento because I spend half of my time trying to mitigate against this water issue for my clients. And so over the last 10 years, I've learned the way the system works inside and out. And so, you know, as a golf course architect, that's my line of country. But I've seen behind the curtain and I've seen the way the apparatus in Sacramento works and I've connected the dots with all these different things so you can find me. I run a museum, a historical institution for the greatest golf course architect that ever lived named Alistair McKenzie. And that's the McKenzie Institute on Instagram or Dr. McKenzie on Twitter. I don't really do personal social media.

[Rob Bluey]

Okay, brother, let's go there. And we're going to have you back on. This is amazing, this deconstruction of the administrative state in California, what we're really up against. Josh Pettit, thank you very much. Appreciate you having you on.

[Ben Harnwell]

It's great to see you, Steve. Thank you, sir.

[Rob Bluey]

Ben Harnwell is with us. Ben, I don't have time to play this about the populism in Europe. We're going to do that tomorrow. But I've got to get your two cents here. Earlier in the day, we had this situation. You have been adamant about this because you've really been at the forefront of the story for us in Europe out of Rome about the Ukraine war. And we are, we're sitting there telling President Trump and just saying, hey, watch out. You see what the color revolution people are doing, led by Robert Kagan. They want you to step in and take ownership of the war. Give us your assessment given what you've heard Walt say, you've heard Seb Gorka say, but you're also seeing the buried leads in some of these newspaper reports. What do you got for us?

[Dave Walsh]

Yes, Steve, basically my analysis on this going to the Mike Waltz comments saying that President Trump, when he assumes power on the 20th, should pressure Zelensky into lowering the Ukrainian age of consent to 18. I think it's 25 at the moment. The problem with this is that let's say Zelenskyy doesn't want to do that because he knows how unpopular it is right now and he also knows he has a minimal democratic mandate. But if Zelenskyy were to do this, were to comply, and hundreds of thousands of extra kids are, as a consequence of that, massacred at six months down the line, it's no longer the case that President Trump doesn't have a moral stake in this war. He absolutely would have one. Which then obviously frames the question in these terms, is he going to give Moscow what Moscow wants or is he going to continue to fight on behalf of Zelensky and follow through on what the Biden administration has been doing and from there. And I know you said you mentioned that this is very similar now to Vietnam style escalation. The question is, I would pose like this, looking at Donald Trump knowing something of his psychology. I would say for him, his only kryptonite is the perception of weakness, of signaling weakness. If you get to six months and he's morally browbeat in Ukraine into lowering the age to 18, he would, it's not a case that he would, you know, that he, that he will then be, that he will own the war, though of course he will. The question is that if he withdraws the United States, leaves Ukraine out to dry, that is a signaling, a massive perception of weakness. Stephen. There's no getting around that. If he does that, if he stays in for six months and then gives Putin everything he wants, the only way to avoid this, you know, something we've been saying on the show again and again, the only way, there's no upside for this for Trump whatsoever, if he stays in for six months, if he stays in for three months, he's going to start owning the disaster that Biden has left him. Only people won't blame Biden, they will blame him. The only way out of this is if in the first 24 hours Donald Trump does exactly what he promised he would do in the campaign. J.D. vance. Right. He said, frankly, I don't care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other? Where is that now? That dynamic that we were hoping for from this administration, it does not seem to be sustained. Looking at General Kellogg's contributions to the debate. He doesn't seem to be sustained by looking at Dr. Gorka's contributions to the debate.

[Rob Bluey]

But Robert Kagan is very clear. Robert Kagan is sitting there going. It's going to be Trump's biggest strategic defeat. President Trump has nothing to do. Hang on, Ben, for a second. We're gonna go to a break. David Drucker's gonna join us. We've got the great Dave Walsh. All of it in the second half of this. President Trump has no owner right now. With a week to go before the. Before the inauguration, President Trump has no ownership. In fact, President Trump has been the one beacon of decency and common sense in this entire debate. Number one, if the election had not been stolen from him in 2020, there wouldn't have been a war. You wouldn't have a million dead or wounded Ukrainians. You wouldn't have 750,000 dead or wounded Russian troops. Wouldn't remember this war, the Third World War. This early part of it is much deadlier than the early parts of World War II. Much deadlier. Catastrophic. President Trump warned against that. He took a hard stand against that. He had no involvement in it. And what you're seeing here now is this kind of creeping incrementalism with potential escalation. This is Vietnam, this is Iraq, this is Afghanistan, over and over and over again. President Trump has no ownership of this at all. And that's what they're trying to stick him with. They're trying to stick him with the problem they created. Short break. Johnny Khan takes us out.

[Steve Bannon]

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[G]

War room.

[Rob Bluey]

Here's your host, Stephen K. Band. Ben, we're gonna have to continue this to we got a lot more to do but I want to make sure everybody goes to Ben's social media up on getter. He's putting this up all the time because is our head of international out of Rome. He's at the forefront of what's going on, particularly in the European media. And they're licking their chops right now. They're anticipating that President Trump is actually going to come in and he realized there's been a lot of rhetoric about this Ukraine war, but they've kind of NATO, Brussels, Davos and remember Davos starts and with Noor bin Laden, we're going to have full coverage of Davos on the same day that the inauguration is Davos kicks off. So we'll be going back and forth between the inauguration actually the days of thunder that start right after that when President Trump starts signing the executive orders, goes over to the White House, Norah bin Laden. But that entire crowd is licking their chops. And don't take it from me. I'll put back up on social media this evening. I'll put on the Robert Kagan piece in the Atlantic which lays it out. They see this as oh, if Trump doesn't go forward with their plan, it's a major strategic, strategic defeat and he's going to own it. The only way you own it is if you step into it. It's not your conflict. You had nothing to do with this. He fought it tooth and nail. Ben Harnwell, where do people go to stay up to speed with everything you're putting up on social media?

[Dave Walsh]

Get us Steve under Arnwell my profile. I'll just finish with this observation. Let's wheel out the Professor John M. Line here that he said 10 years ago about Ukraine being walked down the primrose path to its own destruction. Donald Trump now is standing at the beginning of the same primrose path and the people around him are holding him by the hand and they're urging him to walk down the same primrose path he still has. He's got how many days, eight days, seven days? He can still say no. He can still changes and simply do. All he has to do is do exactly what he promised in the election campaign. It's in his hands. Steve, we'll continue to explore this tomorrow.

[Rob Bluey]

Professor Mersheimer also said was the one that gave us that kind of phrase we're going to fight. The west will fight until the last dead Ukrainian. This is what Waltz and we look we're big fans of Waltz. We're obviously big fans of Seb. He was a contributor here. We used to do the Wednesday show with him all the time and his show so this is all Mershamber playing out, not just the primrose path to fight this to the last dead Ukrainian. That's why the parents over there the reason it's still 26 years old and the war, you know, Mike said well I don't think most Americans know it. Everybody in the war in posse understands because we talked about it for two years. The reason the Ukrainians couldn't get through any of their legislature is that the parents said no way. We don't want our kids killed. They've never really had any big volunteers in the 18, 19, 20 year old except a couple of performer things you used to see on CNN and msnbc. Ben Harnwell, thank you so much, sir. See you tomorrow.

[Dave Walsh]

Thanks, Steve.

[Rob Bluey]

God bless tomorrow's show. We're going to be dipping in and out of the confirmation hearings, particularly Pete Hegseth national security, the national security part of it, the Defense SecDef Defense Department is going to start on the show that precedes us, the morning show here in Rural America's Voice before the War Room where I think we're going to catch up with this rally that's going to go on from officers who are actually serving the field in Iraq and Afghanistan. And then there's going to be a big turnout at the hearing tomorrow. Captain Mo Bannon will be part of that. So we'll and we're going to be going back and forth from our contributors breaking news to what's happening at the confirmation hearings tomorrow. David Drucker joins us. David, amazing piece because it's so given everything we're talking about here the last week and this week to know that people are thinking downrange everywhere because I say, hey look, everything we've got in the field of action now Hakeem Jeffries and these guys are looking to raise $2 billion to flip a handful of seats to take control of the House. The first order of business they're going to have is the impeachment of Donald Trump, and we're going to be right back to the beginning of all this and guys like Zuckerberg and all these guys are down with their million dollar checks as supplicants today will go through this entire flip. You've got a great piece up in the Dispatch that says, hey, people are thinking about this and they are actually getting ahead of it Downra. Walk me through your piece about the midterms.

[Josh Pettit]

So I was taking a look at the evolving political operation, or I should say the emerging political operation in the incoming Trump White House. And what I found fascinating, Steve, was that as expected, the political operation led by informally or formally led by Donald Trump, but his deputy, Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, James Blair, deputy chief of staff for political Legislative affairs, Matthew Brasso, the political director on the outside who was helped with Wiles and managing the 2024 campaign, all of them are going to be focused on the legislative agenda with narrow majorities in the House and Senate. The House obviously, very narrow. The Senate, Even though it's 53 seats, that doesn't give you a lot of wiggle room. So they're going to be focused on getting that reconciliation bill through with the tax implications, border implications, energy implications. And that's to be expected. But you're also going to see, and this is what I thought was so interesting and what I featured in the piece was a deep focus on the 2026 midterm elections. The White House political operation wants to vet the candidates that Republicans are recruiting for the House and Senate and even for some of these governor's mansions, they want to vet their campaign teams. And I think in a way Trump is able to do this. It's not unheard of that White Houses are involved in this. But I think we're going to see a much deeper involvement from this White House political operation, in part because Trump's endorsement is so coveted in Republican primaries. And what the Trump operation has figured out is because they want our endorsement, it gives us a lot of influence and they plan to use it.

[Rob Bluey]

I want to go because one, this is inextricably linked, as you said, with what's happening here is your sense, because I heard the Senate was pretty adamant last week in the meeting saying, hey, look, we got to do two bills. We got to get this border energy bill out there, maybe throwing some defense. That has to happen now. We can have it to you in six to eight weeks. Speaker Johnson, the team is saying, no, we want to go with one big one. We can have it the end of April, May, people Say maybe Memorial Day. Do you have a sense of where the political team's coming down on that in respect to 2026, of either holding what we've got now or potentially increasing this?

[Josh Pettit]

I think this is still a moving target, Steve. I think we know that Senate Republicans prefer the two bill strategy. I think House Republicans, because the majority is less than a handful of seats, I mean, it fluctuates and at the moment it may be just one or two seats. I don't think they want to have to go through this twice. And I think that's what's motivating their desire to stick with one bill, cram it full of everything we can possibly get in there. Let's just do it once because we don't know if we can do it twice. And of course, the Senate is more complicated and somewhat deliberative body. And so they're thinking it will be easier from a policy perspective for us to get the various votes we need if we can actually break it up into two different bills. But I think ultimately it's gonna be about where the President is. That's an obvious answer to give you, except as you know, with Trump, he is either one cagey or two unsure of what he wants. I think he's trying to let the House and Senate and fight it out and then whatever works, he'll say, I'm for that.

[Rob Bluey]

Let the best idea win. I want to go back. You know, if you. The war impossible is very involved in a lot of these reapportionments, realignments, the fights in Florida, the fight in North Carolina, the fight in Missouri, Tennessee, all of it. When you look at how we pulled this off in 2024, a lot of that tied back to that are the political team of Susie and Chris, et cetera. Are they going to work on these things things too early on to make sure that we got a better sense of where some of these potential pickups are going and also make sure we don't lose what we got. Because I know New York's tight, California is tight. I imagine North Carolina is going to be a major battlefield, particularly since we lost a lot of down ticket, given how Trump did at the presidential level. Is there a sense that we've got to get involved in those fights too as a predicate to getting ready for the midterm?

[Josh Pettit]

I think we're going to find out more about that as things go along. I mean, just for your viewers understanding, reapportionment doesn't come along again until the end of the decade. Right. So Our boundaries are set, and you're going to see the NRCC on the House side, NRSC on the Senate side, heavily involved in trying to defend these majorities and hopefully, from their perspective, expand the majorities. I think that they're going to have to defer to Trump and his team more than we have seen from congressional committees interacting with presidents in the past, at least initially. A lot of this, Steve, is gonna have to do with the incoming president's political position as we approach election day 2026.

[Rob Bluey]

Right.

[Josh Pettit]

If he's in a really good position, he's gonna have a lot of juice. If his approval ratings are suffering, if people feel like he hasn't dealt with inflation and the border things they really elected him to do, then he's gonna have less juice and Republicans will start to separate from him. But initially, he probably has more political capital within his own party to begin a presidential term. As much of that as I have seen since Barack Obama 2008.

[Rob Bluey]

Yeah, no, it's pretty amazing. That's why it's so important to get this stuff done and get it done quickly. By the way, there's all kinds of analysis out in 2030. If we do the. Even without this whole controversy of which I was involved in in 17, about, do you count illegal aliens or not? Even without that, I think it's 10 electoral votes and a bunch of seats. A bunch of seats going to go to Texas and Florida. So 2030 looks great. I just hope we don't lose any more lawsuits that we have to fight any of this in 2026. Because you agree, David, you do this every day. Hakeem Jeffries is going to raise an incredible amount of money, and it's on one third. You give me the seats, even one majority, and I can impeach Donald Trump. Your thoughts, sir?

[Josh Pettit]

I don't know that he will run on that, at least. In fact, I would predict he will never run on that. But. But, Steve, when you're in the minority, it's much easier to unify and it's much easier to raise resources because everybody can imagine that their money and their volunteer efforts, it's got that it's going to go to exactly what they want it to go, you want it to go to. You don't have to deal with the details and come on and satisfy everybody's individual asks until after you win the majority. That's when things get complicated.

[Rob Bluey]

Amazing, amazing piece over there. And I like the fact that people are already thinking downrange, because everything, it's all inextricably. Linked for how we do in the midterm. If you want to stop the Trump movement, you want to stop Trump's presidency, just lose the house in the midterm and man, it will be a whole different calculation. David, where do people go to get your social media? Where do they get you over the dispatch all your reports?

[Josh Pettit]

Appreciate that. Www.the dispatch.com or I'm on X with my byline avidmdrucker.

[Rob Bluey]

Thank you brother. Appreciate great, great piece and grace and mo. Push it out to everybody. I want everybody to read this because.

[Steve Bannon]

This is what's happening.

[Rob Bluey]

You know, we got the confirmation hearing start tomorrow but it's, it's inextricably linked with this process and we tell guys, hey, there's no, there's no ultimate victory. This is all a give and take and already they're starting to plan and particularly Hakeem Jeffries, these guys are starting to plan already and this is what they're going to try to do to choplock President Trump. I want to get Dave Walsh on here. Dave, we have said from the beginning and you're seeing it now in the bond market, you know we had EJ and Tony, you're starting to see, you know, get near 5% on the, on the 10 year. This kind of, the bond vigilantes are not totally in revolt now but you see these bond prices going up, particularly in the uk the gilt is kind of on fire. The whole predicate of President Trump's economic plan is not tariffs. That's a central piece, right? It's not taxes, that's a central piece. It's not deconstructing the administration, deregulation. These are all component important pieces. The substrate that he is built upon is the, is full spectrum energy dominance, that his theory of the case is an industrial power. You have to have cheap, plentiful and ready energy all the time. Your sense as we get up to the 50, it looks like executive orders of the hundred that may be signed next Monday. What's your sense of where we stand in that most key component, the full spectrum energy dominance, brother?

[G]

Well, I think his position on tariffs is a sophisticated business like one it's about but recognition that it's probably going to be impossible with a four seat majority to dismantle the Biden IRA legislatively which would be the easiest path forward. And since that can't really be done, the next step to squash it is to go after tariffs on China who import 88% of the thin film PV, solar, all of the lithium ion batteries Essentially all of them into this country. Inverters for battery storage, for solar voltaic, for utility scale solar farms. Imposing hefty duties on them will be a counterbalance to the inability to unwind the Biden ira, which I think he recognizes legislatively is going to be very hard, a very, very long putt. We need to do something about this. We've had the last five years. I look back at the last five years of new generation capacity additions in this country. 91% of them have been solar, wind and battery storage. Only 9% of new generation act added in this country in the last five years has been baseload. Nuclear plant volume or hold it gas combustion.

[Rob Bluey]

Hold it. Full stop, full stop, full stop. Give me that again. Because you have taught us that the solar, wind, solar and wind are ephemeral. You're saying of the 100% capacity added, only 9% was in what we call real cheap, plentiful, ready to go energy 24, 7. And the 91% has gone to all these kind of sidebar projects.

[G]

Conventional, traditional, baseload, meaning 24 hour a day power plants have only consisted of 9% of national new capacity power generation additions in the last five years. And it's worse than that on a net basis because we've shuttered about 22 net megawatts of coal, gas and nuclear along the way. So the net increase across five years in actual energy capability of the electrical System is only 2.9% cumulative across five years, not per year where we're now projecting 3 to 5% per year growth in electricity need. So we are woefully, woefully short of electrification in the country. And these policies must be turned around, if not legislatively, then by duties and then by chasing after utilities who have glommed onto the asset churn opportunity present by lots of renewables, wind, solar, battery storage, did a guaranteed 10 to 12% rate of return guaranteed to them by public service commissions and proceed with this because it's too, it's easy money for them. That's the bigger problem is getting utilities off of this who are major PAC donors and to on a bipartisan basis getting them weaned off of this being wedded to part time 24% of the time electricity sources that are ruining the country's electrification.

[Rob Bluey]

Listen, with everything I'm hearing about AI and how the stock market's predicated upon AI, that even now it's going down to second and third tranche companies and we're going to Davos next week kind of for the first anniversary of the, of the AI and their whole, the whole Davos World Economic Forum is all about artificial intelligence putting out with the increased necessity of power for AI. How big an air pocket is this going to give us that President Trump's going to have to deal with?

[G]

It's huge. The privileged Viv Money center bank invited me to talk to 10 hedge funds about three weeks ago on Wall street about why the boom in GE Vernova, what's going on? Well, guess what? In the last nine months there have been 10 times the number of heavy frame heavy duty gas turbines ordered in this country. Ten times more than the last five years per year this year. So suddenly there's an absolute boom going on in the way of folks understanding and recognizing they must have these units running to back up this horrendous part time energy system we've built out now that I just explained. So there's a boom underway in this space. They want to know why that is. Well, you look at the, look at what's happened the last five years. Look at the electrification shortage. Yeah. Partly driven by AI in data centers, but I think that's partly a politically correct way that Fink and our Morgan Stanley chair have used to explain that this part time electricity does nothing for pulp and paper, cement making, aluminum making, steel making, car assembly, all of that. Also heavily dependent on baseload constant duty electricity. We're woefully, woefully short of that. So there's recognition in now, utilities ordering gas turbines, betting on the administration change which has now occurred and looking forward to hopefully more baseload investment that they'll be making hopefully.

[Rob Bluey]

Real quickly the EOs that you're anticipating and hope that the President's on top of in the first couple of days of next week. What do you, what are the one or two big ones that you hope to see?

[G]

Well, he's going to, I'm almost certain he's going to restate his bulk electricity grant grid kibosh against procurement of bulk electricity grid components from hostile nations. Most specifically China being a hostile nation, can't supply power transformers and can't supply solar, wind, battery storage inverters. Critical components to the bulk electricity grid cannot come from hostile nations. That was a keynote of the last administration. I think he's going to do that again. That's huge. I do think that the duties are going to be not pervasively applied at 25% but targeted to those nations who are hurting us. China has basically taken over 70% of the power generation equipment market in this country from a 1% market share position 10 years ago. We've got to get in the way of what they're supplying is part time energy devices that basically ruin US electrification and minimize it. So he's got to get in the way of that. With duties target targeted at China. That won't be an EO but that'll be an action of commerce with duties targeting that kind of equipment coming from hostile nations. That is equipment based on part time electrification as opposed to baseload full time electrification.

[Rob Bluey]

Dave, social media where do people keep over? You've been amazing, you've been very prescient and people listen to you in high office. Where do people go to get your social media?

[G]

Well you can find me on Getter, TrueSocial and X @ Dave Walsh Energy. Thank you Steve.

[Rob Bluey]

Dave, thank you so much. I think you're going through times of turbulence. You know we're going to go through times of turbulence. Birchgold.com get the end of the Dollar Empire the next free installment. Modern monetary theory, the idea that broke the world. You need to know the intellectual construct of how we got into this. This was the lords of easy money on Wall street pushed this. Nobody thought it through except of course the war room and people like Scott Besson and Peter Navarro who now happen to be in the this new administration. If you want to get immediate access just take your phone and text Bannon at 989-898. You do that you get, you can get all the free information for IRAs 401ks what I call the instrumentality of how you get involved in precious metals. But talk to Philip Pack and the team. They're prepared to get a one on one relationship with you and walk you through everything. Gold's been a hedge I don't know for 5,000 years. I think you might need a hedge going forward. Never know. Bond market looked like it may be a little bit in revolt. We're going to be back tomorrow 10:00am Eastern Standard Time. It is going to be wild. Tomorrow we start the Days of Thunder preamble with the confirmation hearing of Pete Hexseth and the rest of Cabinet. We'll see you tomorrow at 10am Eastern Standard Time.

[Steve Bannon]

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[Rob Bluey]

Check it out.