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WarRoom Battleground EP 714: The Politicization Of The intelligence Community
WarRoom Battleground EP 714: The Politicization Of The intelligence Community ...
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- [00:00]
Steve Bannon
Where do we really stand with what President Trump inherited? As you see the economic battlefield in.
- [00:06]
E.J. Antoni
Front of us, it feels like less a battlefield than a minefield, frankly, what President Trump has inherited. I mean, it is difficult, Steve, I think, to get across to people just how bad the economy is, because what the economy actually looks like today and what people's lived experiences is just simply not matching up with what the data say. There's just too many problems again with the data going back to what we, we were just talking about, right. There are things wrong with the data themselves. And this, I think, is why President Trump won such a great victory in November, right where you had him winning the popular vote, every swing state, a huge electoral majority. It's because the media was not successful in telling people, don't believe your lying eyes and don't believe your empty wallets. Everything's fine. So we are staring down the barrel of more inflation, courtesy of the Fed's interest rate cuts last year and relatively relatively loose monetary policy. Let's not forget the monthly, if we look at the monthly inflation reports, the annual inflation rate that comes in every month, that has gotten worse each month since the Fed started cutting interest rates. So clearly we have more inflation coming down the pike that the President will have to deal with. We have all of the messes internationally that the President is already dealing with, especially in places like the Ukraine. We have a banking crisis which still really hasn't gone away. The Fed just papered over it with things like emerg emergency lending programs. But that is still very real. We have a commercial real estate sector that is in absolute turmoil. The housing market is a disaster. We just got pending home sales numbers this morning that were down to a record low. Pending home sales today are about 30% below where they were in 2001, not 2021, 2001. So here we are essentially a quarter century later and the housing market is 30% less activity today than it did back. That's a disaster. Even before you factor in things like population growth, for example. So again, what this President has been handed is an absolute dumpster fire, frankly, of an economy. Things are terrible. The deficit is exploding. It's the worst start ever to a fiscal year in terms of that deficit. Started in October, ran through January, the worst four month start ever to a fiscal year. And at the same time, you have a Treasury Secretary and Scott Bessant who is a master of sovereign debt markets, and he's going to need, I think, every ounce of his mastery and expertise to really unwind the disaster and the mess that he was left by Janet Yellen in terms of rebalancing the Treasury's portfolio, in terms of trying to get the yield down on the 10 year treasury note, trying to get the interest payments down on the debt, those interest payments are already over $1.2 trillion a year. I mean, Steve, if you give me an hour, I could fill it, I'm sure with all of the negative aspects of this economy that President Trump has inherited and that he's going to have to deal with.
- [03:17]
Steve Bannon
And on top, the only one you missed, we had a record trade deficit in the month of December. This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on these people's not going to 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.
- [03:46]
Roger Kimball
And where do people like that go.
- [03:48]
Steve Bannon
To share the big lie? MAGA MEDIA I wish in my soul.
- [03:53]
E.J. Antoni
I wish that any of these people had a conscience.
- [03:56]
Steve Bannon
Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.
- [04:06]
Captain Jim Fennell
War ROOM here's your host, Stephen k. Band.
- [04:14]
Steve Bannon
Thursday 27th February in year overlord 2025, another historic day in Washington D.C. i wanted to play that again to remind everyone of exactly where this stands and how bad this economy is and what President Trump's trying to do on spending, on investment, on all of the taxes to try to sort this mess out right there. E.J. antoni, one of the smartest guys around, great economists talking about sovereign debt. We had Sir Keer earlier in the day and I think England's, they've already had a sovereign debt crisis once. That's what turfed out Liz. Trust it also I think crushed Ricky Sunak who never figured out how to turn the economy around. It's getting worse I think now with England. This is why this whole discussion of the French coming over here and who's in a financial crisis, they just lost. Macron's lost control of actually the government. He's still the president, but he's lost control of their assembly which most of the power lies particularly on the finance part of it, economic part of it. Germany just had an election alternative for Deutschland. One of the reasons they're coming is that it's the mass immigration, but it's also what it's done to wages over there and how it's, how the economy's upside down because they've deindustrialized Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal. I think you got six or seven countries in Europe right now could have sovereign debt crises. I've actually talked to Nigel. I don't think you're going to wait the next four years to have an election. I think that the IMF steps in and I don't think we're too far away in England for the IMF actually potentially stepping in. And once that happens, that triggers a, that triggers a number of things. I think it could trigger an election, earlier election where Nigel Farage, having taken over the Tory party, which he's in the process of doing, will run and become the next prime minister. This thing's a mess. And then in the massive trade deficit, President Trump on Tuesday is 25% tariffs on Mexico, 25% tariffs on Canada. Mexico is giving a punch list of what they have to do, but they kind of run out of time. Peter Navarro is actually, I think, I don't know if he's quoted. I think he actually went on TV and talked about the Five Eyes program of getting Canada out of there. So there's so much happening geostrategically, geo economically. I want to get in one of the steadiest of the steady Eddies, Captain Jim Fennell, to discuss all this. And I want to talk about this, basically this degeneracy and it looks like the intelligence community. I'll get to that in a second. When Peter Navarre is talking about Five Eyes, explain to our audience and Sir Keir was here today, Starmer. Right. And they're one of our oldest allies and they're the linchpin of the Five Eye program. What is Five Eyes? What does it do? Why is it beneficial to the United States? And why would Dr. Peter Navarro, who's the trade and manufacturing guy, actually bring that up in a TV interview about Canada, who I would argue punching much above their weight, has been one of our steadiest allies in the history of this country. Sir.
- [07:41]
Captain Jim Fennell
Well, Steve, the Five EYES program is an intelligence sharing agreement. Many times it's mischaracterized as an alliance. The Chinese Communist Party tries to characterize it that way frequently. But it is an intelligence sharing agreement that goes back decades and it's between the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. And we share classified information across many different areas, but primarily in space based signals intelligence arena. That's the primary area, not just signals intelligence also. But that's a Sharing agreement. The agreement is based upon our shared interests, shared history, shared collective outlooks and that we have mutual security interests. And so when Dr. Navarro talks about, hey, we may have to kick Canada out of the five eyes, people should sit up and take notice. We had similar discussions about New Zealand back 20, 30 years ago when the New Zealand government said they wouldn't allow US nuclear ships, anything nuclear powered or nuclear weapon ships into New Zealand. There was a lot of people in America that talked about kicking the Kiwis out. We didn't do that. Now we're talking about Canada. And it's largely because of issues of trust with the Canadian government that's in leadership right now, Justin Trudeau's leadership, and the fact that they had open borders and the fact that they are taking a kind of a, almost a hostile attitude towards the United States when it comes to our relationship and the fact that the Chinese have so much influence there, as we saw with the Huawei CEO case in the last couple of years. So I don't think we're going to actually do that, but I think the issue is that serious for us that we're trying to get a signal across to Ottawa and to the Canadians that, hey, you need to wake up here. We're not going to just allow you to put our national security interests at risk and we're going to use every tool in the kit bag, if you will, to get reciprocated generosity and to make sure that our interests and our national security is guaranteed.
- [09:48]
Steve Bannon
Captain, when there are many people, including guys on the right, that more, you know, the Tucker Carlson's others that are questioning a lot of this about the intelligence community today. And as we work these efforts to break the deep state here in the United States is the five eyes lead to kind of a formation of a deep state where these intelligence services become more powerful than the, the governments are democratically elected, quote, unquote, they moving out. You have, you have Liberals one day and you have Liberals in Australia today, but they're coming up for election shortly. They may be tossed out. Trudeau's a progressive, he may be tossed out. So you're going to have conservatives or people closer to our part of the spectrum, although not populist nationalists, but that you have this permanent bureaucracy, a permanent administration of intelligence, and particularly the most secret of all, the signal intelligence and the ability to work in unison. And we see this from the Russia, the Russia situation in Crossfire Hurricane that that was done between direct contact of the intelligence services, MI6 and the CIA. MI6 and guys like Brennan, Hayden, all of them is this Five Eyes, although an agreement for mutual protection lead to something creating a monster that can't be controlled by any one government in any one nation. Sir.
- [11:16]
Captain Jim Fennell
I don't think Five Eyes in itself is the problem. The problem is the politicization of the intelligence community across these various governments. And so to that extent, an arrangement like Five Eyes leads to that ability to do these things. And so I think we have to have a really serious look. And the new Director of National Intelligence and Director of CIA, they have to come in and they have to come in with a hose and they have to sweep out what's going on inside the ic. I mean, the politicization of intelligence was anathema. When I was in my 29 years in the service, that was not allowed. No one did that. It was impossible that these things were being abused like this. And you never. No one talked about politics. By the time that I retired In January of 2015, it was starting to lean that way during the Obama years, in the last couple of years. But it was something that was just not done. And it was a huge, huge red line that people didn't cross. And the people that were in leadership you trusted, the collection capability were sanct. We were not spying on Americans and we were not providing that information. And in the last 10 years, it appears that it has really gone out of control. And so this cannot be allowed to continue. And this current event that happened here this last couple of days with the public announcements about the illegal chat rooms at the National Security Agency on Intel Link with is a. It's basically an intelligence sharing community chat room, but it's called Intel Link and it's on behind the door. It's at the TSSCI level. Supposed to be for the discussion of very serious classified information. I had Intel Link when I was in the Navy, and we shared information about what was going on in current operations or current collection issues about our adversaries. And now we find out from this relief release from Chris Ruffo and the City Journal that this information is now delving into some really weird stuff that would never have been allowed or even conceived of. And what I'm really concerned of is that this, what we've just discovered is the tip of an iceberg, that it's the right cancer.
- [13:35]
Steve Bannon
Let's go through this.
- [13:36]
Captain Jim Fennell
Number one.
- [13:38]
Steve Bannon
Yep. Before I get back into that, because that's one of the reasons I want to have you on today. But when you talk politicization, you left in 2015. You were in Naval Intelligence. Although you were in the Pacific Command. Did you ever work in joint, you know, on Joint Intelligence, that you would actually see the politicization because some people say 2015. Wow. That it was already embedded at that time because that's when they're starting to cook up. It was in early 16 that they started Crossfire Hurricane. So it had to be going there. Was that because you were siloed in the Navy, you didn't see it or you really can make the case it really wasn't that bad then I was in.
- [14:20]
Captain Jim Fennell
Well, just throughout my whole career. I was in a Joint Intelligence Center Pacific early in my career, the Intelligence Center Pacific back in the late 80s, which is the first joint intelligence center in the Pacific Command. And then throughout my tours at the Office of Naval intelligence in Washington D.C. where I was part of a groups that followed China amongst all the major IC partners. So I was linked up with every person at the highest levels of intelligence regarding what was going on with China, from the CIA to DIA to every individual intelligence agency. And there was plenty of sharing there. In my time in the Pacific Fleet and my last assignment as the Director of Intelligence for the US Pacific Fleet, I was directly involved with operations and activities that involve the joint world, the IC back in D.C. what was going on out in the forward embassies and inside the IC intelligence community. Even though it's not its own organization, the various representatives of the IC are linked up and share a lot of information on a daily minute by minute basis at each one of my command opportunities with Pacific fleet with 7 fleet with CTF 70 on board the Kitty Hawk, where we had watch floors that were connected to the national intelligence community at the highest levels directly back to, you know, the Fort at Fort Meade, the National Security Agency and other agencies. So I'm confident to say that that was not existing like that by the time I retired. And what's happened over the last 10 years has really been a dramatic transformation. And this idea that. And as I think the RUFO report that came out today, it said it started about 10 years ago. Employee resource groups were meeting to talk about pride and other things. And they would meet here and there, almost like a potluck, a culture, food and speech. Then it started to get more. Instead of just one day a month, it was one week a month and then it was a whole month. You could be hired as a mathematician, a staff officer or a systems engineer, but you would spend your time going to these events and having meetings all day about your individual peer group. They Got themselves into positions to help craft policy, started pushing the idea that if you want to get promoted, you have to participate in these events. And then everything became pride. You would go to a training session and it would be about privilege and how to be a better ally. And then someone would give a class on how to talk gender neutral to people. You always had analysts, you had analysts that didn't want to report what they were supposed to be doing because they were going to have to report on somebody's dead name. They were having this crisis of conscience about reporting on the adversary's actual name because they thought it would dead name them. And they didn't want to go to disrespect that person. This was like a cult that was hell bent on pushing gender ideology. That's insane what I read there. And that that's happening and we cannot allow that to go on. You have a job when you're in the service, when you're in the ic and you swear an oath to the Constitution to defend this nation. And if your job is to report out signals intelligence or imagery intelligence or electronic intelligence or whatever it is, if you're a collector, you cannot allow your personal beliefs to come in and influence your responsibility. And that appears to what has happened by the revelation of these chat logs. And so I'm very concerned that the system is out of control, running out of control. And what I'm even more concerned about is in the last two days I'm talking with my colleagues in the community and a lot of people are very upset that this has come out. And they're more concerned that the chat logs were released to a reporter than they are about the actual content of what's happening. And sure, we need to make sure that how this was revealed was done through appropriate procedures, but that's not the real problem. So shooting the messenger because he revealed corruption and cancer inside the system is not more important than, than the fact of what's actually going on and that we had. Clearly these weren't just low level analysts doing this on their own. There were supervisors up and down the chain that somehow approved of what was going on. Approved for these days off, approved for people not coming to work, but could be in these chat rooms to talk about these things instead of doing what they were supposed to do, which is to tell and report on what our adversaries are doing so that policymakers and decision makers in the field and back in D.C. could make decisions on how to defend this nation.
- [19:08]
Steve Bannon
I want to make sure, because we've talked about the depravity and degeneracy of what was in these chat rooms. We've had. We've had a number of people on that have. In fact, when Terry Schilling came on, it was almost uncomfortable for the audience when they read what was being talked about. But you're saying the Rufo now, in yourself, are actually asserting that there was almost a cult that took over either part of or is trying to take over the intelligence community and make sure that everything was seen through the prism of lgbtq, Sir?
- [19:41]
Captain Jim Fennell
Well, I think the latter part, yeah, I think there's an ideological worldview that these folks had to call it a cult, like some religious cult. I don't know if it was that organized. Maybe it was. I don't know that much about it, but from what I've seen, it's very clear that people that had an opposing worldview to the traditional view that, hey, we're Americans, and we serve as Americans inside the military, inside the ic, and we don't take our personal religious views, sexual views, any of that stuff, and let it influence our mission and our job. That changed. Something changed in the last decade where people were now saying, that's my most important aspect of what I do. And it influenced their ability to actually function in their job. And the fact that it was allowed to go on and that, you know, if nobody saw it, I find that hard to believe. But let's just say if those people that were in supervisory positions didn't know about this, then what does that say about our system of not knowing what their personnel are doing? That's not good. If they did know about it and they promoted it, then you have to ask yourself, why were they promoting that? What was the reason? And that is, to me, the evidence to the politicization of the ic that we allowed people to put this in and divide us and create these little cliques. Then we gave these cliques space to communicate to each other, and then the cliques took over, and then they took over policy, and they then started addressing promotions and control, the system, system. And anybody that didn't conform or comply with that, they were the bad ones. They were the racist, they were the homophobes. They were. Whatever they. Labels they put on them. So we went. We flipped the system upside down.
- [21:29]
Steve Bannon
How is it you're totally. David, I know you're in a bunch of groups. Keep going. Keep going.
- [21:39]
Captain Jim Fennell
Yeah, I was just going to say, well, all this is churning. You have. The PRC is on the agenda. The PRC is on the march. The PRC is becoming more and more aggressive. They're expanding their operations. Their threats around Taiwan, their threats to Australia. Right. That we're seeing this week with their task force down there operating off of Sydney and towards Tasmania. We see them operating drones around Japan this week. All kinds of activities that are very clearly worrisome that the Indo PACOM commander, you know, a couple of weeks ago put out a warning and said, hey, I see the Chinese rehearsing for an invasion, not exercising rehearsing. We just had the Secretary of the Navy's hearing today, but he bipartisan was like, we're very concerned about where the Chinese Navy is and where we are. And so we have clear present danger threats to our nation. And we rely upon as a nation an intelligence community that is on the job and is watching the threat. And if we have to worry about a cancer inside of our ic, there's only one solution. You have to cut the cancer out.
- [22:52]
Steve Bannon
To cut the cancer out. I mean, you're dialed in at the highest levels, even though you're retired, of people, particularly people that are supportive of the, the intelligence community in the great war against the ccp. How could those people, how could the people, you know, they're more concerned about the actual turning over of, of this, of this, I guess, intelligence chat room, the actual thing itself versus what it shows about this kind of cult or this group that was essentially had an opposing worldview and everything had to be through that prism. How could people at the senior levels be more concerned about the turning over in the process of turning it over versus what the content was, sir?
- [23:35]
Captain Jim Fennell
Well, a lot of these people are my former shipmates and friends and I've been shocked in the last two days about the reaction. And on one hand they have a point, which is to say if you take something out of a TSSCI system, J WIX or intel link that these, these systems that most people don't know, if you take something out of them and you release them like Snowden did to a reporter or something, and you're an employee that does that after you've signed disclosure agreements that you would not do that on penalty of a penalty, that's not good. So we have to make sure that this was done the right way. However, if the person that did this felt that there was no other alternative and that if they went through the appropriate whistleblower protocols that they would be terminated, then we have to ask ourselves, well then why did they feel that uncomfortable that they couldn't go through the system? And I don't know any of those answers, I'm not making a judgment of how it happened or anything. I don't think we know yet. And I think that the director of National Intelligence and her team are investigating that. So I think my point is that my colleagues quickly assumed that the problem was, well, we had an illegal whistle person releasing information that wasn't formally designated as a whistleblower. That's the problem. That's troublesome to me because it demonstrates an attitude of, you know, we will not condemn bad activity for political reasons. Oh, if we condemn this, that means we must be for Trump and therefore we don't want to be for Trump. So we're not going to say that. So let's twist this around and blame the blame the messenger. And this is called politicization. It's pure and simple. And we have to stop it. There's no room for it. I'll give you an example. When I was a lieutenant on a.
- [25:25]
Steve Bannon
Watch for Captain Fennell. Hang on for one sec. Hang on one second. I'm gonna hold you through the break. I'm gonna get to that. I want that example. Short commercial break Roger Kimball is also going to join us, one of the top public intellectuals of the MAGA movement. You heard the 34 minute analysis by E.J. and Tony on the morning edition of War Room. I think it's the single best summary of where we are as an economy. If you hear that, it all send chills down your spine. Now more than ever, I think you need to have the information of why gold has been a hedge against times of financial turbulence and economic turbulence for, I don't know, 5,000 years. Even in the age of artificial intelligence and digitization of Wall Street. Birchgold.com Bannon the End of the Dollar Empire the sixth free installment. You can get all five. The sixth free installment. Modern monetary theory, the idea that broke the world. Another radical idea came at a France. This one was embraced in the world's capitals, particularly Washington, D.C. and on Wall street with the lords of easy money. Or you can take your phone out. Bannon at 989-898. That's B A N N O N at 989-898. Get the free brochure. Investing in Gold in the era of Trump, the ultimate guide. All free from Birch Gold. They want to make sure you understand what's happening in the world. Short commercial break Captain for now, Roger Kimball next. Have you seen the news from economists forecasting a depression? I'm not talking recession. I mean depression by the year 2030. We're in a perfect storm as Social Security and Medicare hit a breaking point with the largest generation hitting retirement. A smaller workforce means a smaller tax base. Pair that with our growing national debt and rising cost of living and you got a problem. And I mean a big problem. So what are you going to do now to protect your family for the future? Gold is a safe haven in hard economic times. And Birch Gold makes it easy to diversify a portion of your savings into physical gold. Birch Gold will help you transition an existing IRA or 401k into an IRA in gold. And it doesn't cost you a penny out of pocket. Protect your future and protect it today. Text Bannon Bannon to 989-898. Get your free info kit on Gold and a copy of the Ultimate Gold Guide for the Trump Era. That's the Ultimate Gold Guide for Gold in the Trump Era with Forward by Donald J. Trump Jr. There's no obligation. This is only information. Birch Gold has earned the trust of countless Americans looking to safeguard their savings. You can count on them too. Text my name Bannon to number 989898. Remember, the ultimate guide for Investing in Gold in the Trump Era. Forward by Don junior Birch Gold do it today. I've been telling you about a very serious threat to your home equity home title fraud. One document, a fake notary stamp and about 40 bucks and your title is out of your name and into someone else's and the scammer who took it will take out loans or even worse, sell your home behind your back. You have to protect yourself. The best way is home title lock's million dollar triple lock protection. Now this service gives you 24. 7 monitoring urgent alerts of any changes. And if fraud happens, their US based restoration team will spend up to $1 million to fix the fraud and restore your title. Go to hometitlelock.com use my promo code Steve25 to save 25% and get a free title history report to make sure you're not already a victim. And make sure you check out the million dollar triple lock protection details when you get there. That's hometitlelock.com promo code steve25 hometitlelock.com Promo code steve25 do it today. And let me remind you, this service is 24. 7 monitoring urgent alerts of any changes. And if fraud does happen, their US based restoration team will spend up to $1 million to fix the fraud and restore your title. Do it today. What if he had the brightest mind in the war room delivering critical financial research every month? Steve Bannon here. War Room listeners know Jim Rickards. I love this guy. He's our wise man. A former CIA, Pentagon and White House advisor with an unmatched grasp of geopolitics and capital markets. Jim predicted Trump's Electoral College victory exactly 312 to 226, down to the actual number itself. Now he's issuing a dire warning about April 11, a moment that could define Trump's presidency and your financial future. His latest book, Money GPT exposes how AI is setting the stage for financial chaos. Bank runs at lightning speeds, algorithm driven crashes and even threats to national security. Right now, War Room members get a free copy of MoneyGPT when they sign up for Strategic Intelligence. This is Jim's flagship financial newsletter, Strategic Intelligence. I read it. You should read it. Time is running out. Go to rickardswarroom.com that's all one word. Rickards war Room records with an S. Go now and claim your free book. That's rickardswarroom.com do it today.
- [31:22]
Captain Jim Fennell
War Room.
- [31:23]
Steve Bannon
Here's your host, Stephen K. Band. Okay, Patriot mobile. In patriot mobile.com/bannon, you get a free month of service. This is excellent service from a company, support your values run by Glenn Surrey and the team. Also, if we can get it up tomorrow in Tarrant county, think out in the grapevine. I will be there with Jack Bosobic, Amanda Milius and others to kind of have an evening of maga. I'll be giving a keynote address. They're still, they're sold out for the main event but they're adding seats for general admission. We're going to meet and greet and all that. Want everybody to do that. Patriotmobile.com One of the things we can do is also you can, it's call the number 972. What is it? Patriot Mobile 972 Patriot P A T R I O T to talk about the, the free month of service and what it means to be on the Patriot Mobile as a carrier. They kind of lay on top of the backbone of all the major carriers. So you get great service. House, it's the War Room's favorite cell phone service. Plus Glenn sorry and the team are fantastic and what they've done in the state of Texas is unbelievable. Taj Gill. Taj, I know you find interesting when you see all these meetings with world heads, you know, Sir Carl Kerr Starmer. Today the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom coming in, President Trump trying to stop the kinetic part of the third world war and bring peace. I think Trump's going To get nominated. I mean, a real nomination, anybody can get nominated, but a real nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize for what he's doing. I know as a warrior that spent a better part of your professional life in various bad neighborhoods in the Middle east, you've got to really appreciate that, don't you, sir? That you got a guy like Trump that's finally there and people respect. So they can stand down. We can start to beat our swords into plowshares.
- [33:21]
Taj Gill
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Maybe we can actually start winning these. He's going to end these wars. But the wars under the other presidents, we weren't allowed to win because they didn't want the wars to end because the wars are just for profit and money. So that's incredible that Trump is going to stop the wars, and then if there is a war under Trump, I guarantee he will actually allow us to win it. And the war now is on the southern border, and we're gonna win that, and we'll see about these cartels. But winning, winning, winning all the way around, every day is like Christmas under Trump. It's incredible. But, yeah, let's wrap these wars up in the Middle east and Israel and then stop what's going on in Ukraine and Russia. I think we need to build relations with Russia.
- [34:10]
Steve Bannon
Amen. Do you? Do you? Do you. Is that the. You spend how many tours as a seal and then how many contractor tours.
- [34:17]
Taj Gill
Sir, over there, four tours is a seal, and then about 13, 14 as a contractor or something like that.
- [34:28]
Steve Bannon
So 18 tours altogether in the Middle East. Are those environs?
- [34:34]
Taj Gill
Yeah, yeah. In the war zones? Yep. Yeah.
- [34:39]
Steve Bannon
Talk to me about, talk to me about. Is that the attitude of a lot of the. The enlisted men that these. You weren't allowed to win your. Your one hand at least tied behind your back, and this was all. There was some reason that that was. And you guys come to the conclusion is the forever wars, sir?
- [34:57]
Taj Gill
Yeah, yeah. I mean, when. When we're in it, especially in the early 2000s, even up to like, 2010, 2012, I didn't. I didn't personally realize that I didn't understand the politics and all that stuff. I think Benghazi woke me up. And then I started opening up my mind to be able to understand this stuff, But I was actually, this morning, I was talking to another enlisted SEAL that I used to work with, and he's been in and out of the combat zones forever, and he said the same thing. He's like, dude. He's like, I feel like we went over there for Nothing. He's like, all our friends got killed for nothing. We weren't allowed to win. And I think that that's especially now, that's the consensus, you know, when we're in it, we didn't understand it. We're just like, yeah, let's go, let's go kill these guys. Let's go fight. Let's go fight for America. Let's get payback for 9, 11. But this day and age, I think with all this stuff coming out, especially now with all this stuff with Dojun, it's hard not to see the writing on the wall that these wars are literally just money makers and they're just revenue machines. That's why look, we just wrapped up Afghanistan and with this terrible pullout where we left like losers and then immediately they sparked up Ukraine. And that's just for money. They're all money making operations because we've offshored all our industrial to China and everywhere else. It's definitely the consensus amongst my friends and my old teammates is that these wars were forever wars and that there were not allowed to win them. I mean, look, the last time we're actually able to do an unconditional surrender was Germany, World War II with Vietnam, we didn't. I think that's when the military industrial complex figured out that this is a big money making operation that would just keep the wars going. Just keep them going, keep them going. And then USAID and State Department is over there undermining us. They're actually working with the enemy, funding them through these NGOs. And then the military and the CIA are on the other side. And it's crazy the way it happens.
- [37:11]
Steve Bannon
Talk to me. You came back and decided to do something else radically different. You want to start a coffee company and now it's one of the premier coffee companies. Every time I give a warpath to somebody, I'd say it's the champagne of coffee. You don't need cream, you don't need sugar. And virtually every person, one or two not, but virtually every person, we serve it in the war room nonstop. And when we're on the road, love it. So talk to me about the coffee and how to. I want to make sure every war room person, we got 7,000 now, five star reviews. I want to make sure the hundreds of thousands and millions that listen to this show or watch it every week get the opportunity. So tell us about it and where do they go?
- [37:51]
Taj Gill
Yeah, well, when I was in the Philippines, I got accustomed to having the best gear and working around top notch guys. So I. I tried to carry that over to the civilian world. And with the coffee, I didn't want to just have any random coffee that tastes like crap that you have to put milk and sugar in. I had an amazing cup of coffee in the Middle east several years ago, and I was trying to replicate that, and that's what we've done. I actually created this coffee that's we use premium beans, and we roast it on a perforated drum. And the way it tastes, it's smooth, even the dark roast. And so it's not bitter, it's not acidic, and you can drink it black. That was the goal. And even the espresso that we've launched, you can drink the espresso black. You don't need to put milk and sugar in the espresso. It's because it's premium and it's healthier to drink it that way. Drinking it black is the way to drink it. The milk and sugar is just literally there to cover up the taste of burnt coffee. And most probably 9 out of 10 roasters, they burn their coffee. Some do it intentionally because they use cheap beans from all over the place to mask the taste, and some don't know what they're doing. But burnt coffee needs milk and sugar. Properly roasted coffee, you can drink it black. So the website is Warpath Coffee, and we're running 20% off for the War Room Posse promo code War Room. And the website is Warpath Coffee. And like you said, Steve, we've got 7,000 five star reviews, and it's growing, and it's. It. No matter how much we roast, it just sells out and sells out. It's crazy. It's just growing. People love the product. We're not. We're not marketing a junk product or crappy product. We're marketing a premium product.
- [39:46]
Steve Bannon
Yeah. No, I'm so proud of this because I'm a coffee aficionado, and it's just been so the time and care you did for do the dark roast is amazing. But everybody know just. They absolutely love it. One more time where they go right now to read the reviews and see the great product offering you got, sir.
- [40:04]
Taj Gill
Yeah. Warpath Coffee is the website. And then use promo code War Room. And that's for the. The War Room Posse promo code War Room. And you'll get 20% off your order. And then we have free shipping on $70 and over. So promo code War Room. Warpath Coffee. And try it. And we're constantly dropping new, new blends. And then we actually. We just dropped These Trump mugs victory 47 for Trump.
- [40:34]
Steve Bannon
Get those, put in a promo code worm, we get a 20% discount. Brother. Thank you so much. Tejil thank you, Steve, for the insights into the forever war as President Trump tries to wrap them up of everything President Trump's doing the verticals. We had Ube Chandihar, who is Rick Grinnell's right hand, on the Kennedy center in the show last night, on the show in studio with us, I spent a lot of time with Ambassador Grinnell, talked to him about the Kennedy center at cpac. Spent a lot of time with Grinnell, particularly the night that we had the International Dinner, which he was the focus speaker, hosted by the War Room. Roger Kimball joined us. Roger, why is of everything President Trump's doing, why is this one of the most important things to take active charge of the Kennedy center, sir?
- [41:20]
Roger Kimball
Well, I think that the Kennedy center has been taken over by the left. It's become a playpen for the left. The president himself mentioned the presence of drag shows for divas or some such last summer. That's not really what counts as edifying American culture. It seems to me that this great country has been done a lot about culture, and unfortunately, the academic left has taken over the heights of culture and has perverted it. And of course, the Kennedy senator is a very distinguished part.
- [42:09]
Steve Bannon
But how did that happen? Correct me wrong. Before the war and Even in the 1950s, the conservative and it seemed like the conservative movement and people that were I was a kid growing up, one, it seemed like it was apolitical, but two, it seemed like the conservatives had as much involvement, particularly high culture, particularly theater, music, opera, art, all of it. When did, when did we, when did we surrender? Did we consciously surrender it? Was it taken? I mean, how did that, how did we end in this situation? You got these progressives that run the deal, right?
- [42:44]
Roger Kimball
Well, if I could indulge in a brief moment of self. Advertisement A lot of the story is told in my book the Long March, how the Cultural revolution of the 1960s changed America. I don't talk about the Kennedy center, as I recall, but I do talk about the way in which our culture writ large was taken over by the passions of this. I hesitate to use the word utopian because some people think of the word utopian as a good thing. But utopian can mean both the good place and no place. And for the kind of passions that stood behind the utopian movements of, for example, the French Revolution or the Communist revolution or the cultural revolution of the 1960s, utopianism was a Very bad thing. That's how it happened. And, you know, you see this everywhere. You see this in our universities, you see it in our schools, the primary schools. You see it in our cultural institutions like museums, symphony orchestras and so on, where the toxin of what we now call DEI used to be called affirmative action. It's the same kind of thing, but it undercuts and undermines a commitment to merit, to the idea that some things are nobler than others, some things are deeper than others, some things are better than others. And the attack on merit, on quality, on excellence, has been remorseless. And just to shift gears a teeny bit, I think you and I were corresponding about a government, a quasi government entity, or at least a government funded entity called the National Endowment for Democracy.
- [45:02]
Steve Bannon
I want to pivot to this, but I want to use the pivot is that one of the groups of institutions on the right, the National Review, used to be at the forefront of defending the culture and high culture. And now they kind of lost that fight, but now they've kind of flipped this, this article the other day in the National Review, which used to be the conservatives, I think one of the biggest journal before New Criterion and others that you started at the forefront of these cultural wars that came out. The other America's enemies are rooting for the death of the National Endowment for Democracy. And this probably this article is the most anti Trump, anti maga, anti populist nationalist article I've seen in a long time. Can you take. We got about five minutes. I want you to break this down. So shocking is that they've been at the forefront defending the culture and now they're doing this, right?
- [45:50]
Roger Kimball
Yeah, it's not just National Review. And I'm sure that whoever wrote this article, I doubt that it was really Peter Roskin, who's the chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy. But it was a very disingenuous article of a piece with the article that was written for the Wall Street Journal a couple of months ago by William Galston, a left wing progressive Democrat who worked for Bill Clinton and Al Gore and so on, also attempting to defend the National Endowment for Democracy, which, remember, was started by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. 83. I think it was supposed to project soft power of the United States and help promote democracy and freedom and so on. It's not doing that anymore. It's been totally inverted. And this article was quite extraordinary. He begins by saying things like, I was following Donald Trump's election. I was pleased. I was honored to be chosen as the chairman of Ned. Now, that suggests to me that Trump had something to do with his appointment, which is completely untrue. He says, oh, well, our enemies abroad, China and Russia and so on. They applaud the fact that funding has been cut off for this agency. But it's not just people abroad. It's also, he says, the people who. People here at home who question the value of Americans supporting those who seek freedom, which is completely disingenuous. He also says that he insinuates that the NED is somehow advancing President Trump's America first agenda, which is completely wrong. The National Endowment for Democracy on their border, people like Victoria Nuland, her husband Bob Kagan is part of that. Michael McFaul at the Hoover Institution, and Appelbaum. And it goes on and on and on. This is the war party, the forever war party. And while the National Endowment for Democracy did some good in the 1980s when the enemy was the Soviet Union, it has been completely inverted, like so many things in our culture, and it's now been weaponized against us, against ordinary Americans. It's part of the global censorship network that J.D. vance talked about in his splendid speech in Munich. You know, they funded. They give thousands of grants every year, and you can't tell what they've given the money to. We'll say things like, russia and its neighbors for democracy development. What does that mean? Where is this money actually going? We know some of the things.
- [48:49]
Steve Bannon
We have Tage Gill on here, who's a warrior, frontline. I saw what he and his listed guys say. Forever wars. And we lost all of them. And they just want to. Most people think that's a guy just screaming over his lunchbox. Do you think what you've seen the National Endowment for Democracies and all of this, that there's something there and that actually some of the institutions the United States funded by taxpayers.
- [49:11]
Roger Kimball
Yes.
- [49:12]
Steve Bannon
To actually, you know, bring peace was in back of this.
- [49:16]
Roger Kimball
He's completely right. We're not allowed to win wars anymore. That's one thing. But it's also the financial interests in keeping something like the war in Ukraine going. They're huge. It's gigantic. They do not want President Trump to make peace there. What Trump is about, he's not pro Putin. That is a complete misnomer. And he's not pro Zelensky. He's pro peace. A million people or more have died in that war. What he wants, what President Trump wants to do is bring that to an end. And that can be brought to an end by negotiation. This is something that people have been talking about at least since 2014 when this first start. I mean it has a prehistory, of course, but it really got going in its current incarnation, you might say, in 2014. And the people who want to keep it going are in many instances the same people who are profiting from this war, this forever war. So I agree with you, Roger.
- [50:33]
Steve Bannon
We've got to bounce. Where do people get your writings? New criteria. In all the journals and magazines you're back of and particularly to your writings like the Long March. Where do they go?
- [50:41]
Roger Kimball
Well, that's a book. That's. You just go to Amazon, you can get that. The Long March. Write a column for American greatness. I write a column for the Spectator world. I write often for the London Telegraph, the New Criterion and other places. Yes.
- [51:04]
Steve Bannon
Do you have social media? What's your social media?
- [51:07]
Roger Kimball
Oh, yeah, it's just my name, Roger Kimball. That's. There it is.
- [51:14]
Steve Bannon
X will be happy when Roger Kimball is chairman or vice chairman of the Kennedy Center. That's what we're working on. Of his stature and intellect. Brother, thank you so much. Appreciate you, Steve.
- [51:25]
Roger Kimball
Great, thanks.
- [51:26]
Steve Bannon
The right stuff will take us out of a Tom Wolf's masterpiece and another masterpiece by Philip Kaufman, the director. Incredible film, incredible music. The music won the Academy Award against the Academy Awards this week. Weekend. It's going to be Sunday. I'll make sure I miss that. Cuz I can't watch these films today cuz they're not really classics. Back at 10am tomorrow morning, Eastern standard time. We'll be on the road with the war room. We'll see you then. Health isn't just a personal issue. It's a family issue, a community issue. We're living in unpredictable times. Supply chains can break down, hospitals can get overwhelmed. And let's not even start on the natural disasters. These aren't hypotheticals. They're happening. You see it here in the war room and we all know it. The question is simply, are you ready? That's where Jace comes in. This isn't just a kit. This is a Jace case. It's a lifeline. It's a personal supply of prescribed emergency medications that puts the power back in your hands. Whether it's an unexpected illness or a global disruption of supply chains, you can act fast and protect yourself and your loved ones. This February, show them you care in a way that really matters. Be prepared. Get the Jace case today so you'll have the right meds on hand the moment you need them. Visit jacemedical.com and use the code Bannon B A N N O N at checkout for a discount on your order. That's jacemedical.com promo code Bannon. Get the Jace case and do it today.
- [53:29]
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- [54:05]
Steve Bannon
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